Feast of Blades '13

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

August White Dwarf Part 1: Vampire Counts



When it comes to White Dwarf i only ever buy the magazine in a store and only when it has information pertinent to me. So when I saw a combo edition including Vampire Counts, which is my fantasy army, and the new Sisters Dex I felt inclined to buy it while trying out 2500 point game at my local FLGS. Since both parts are pertinent to my gaming I'll split it by square and round bases....






Ok so a VC update took the cover art for this months White Dwarf, which does seem wierd when there was an entire codex (front part of one atleast) in the back of the issue....hmmm....






Inside the update it gave some cool, new terrain rules for using new undead terrain....pretty cool but most will probably never use these rules for any petinent game anyway...It also included a new unit and replaced an old unit with new rules...






I'll get my nerd rage out now with the unit that got replaced...Cairn Wriaths...wtf GDubs, wtf...






Ok so Gdubs took the Rare choice Cairn Wraiths and split it into two different hero choices. So instead of it being a skirmishing unit that can include 3-10 Wraiths for 50 points a pop with the 25 point option of upgrading one to a tomb banshee you can now take individual tomb banshees and Cairn Wraiths as Hero choices for 60 points per Cairn Wraith and 95 points per tomb banshee....So why nerd rage?






Well for one thing there was a signifigant points increase. Wraiths now cost 10 points more which I can understand since the only change to either unit besides force org and individuality was a new rule to allow the wraiths to subsitute thier attacks for one attack that wounds automatically with no saves allowed if hit which does make the Wraiths decent monster hunters since they are ethereal....Yet for no new abilities or even stat increases a 20 point increase for banshees...Why?






Now for those who really don't know much about VC's you need vampires for your army to work, they are its life blood. Vampires are also hero choices...Most players won't have the point allowences to allow these models into thier armies anymore as well as since now they are individuals with very little for themselves to attach to, other than spirit hosts from what I can tell, they can do very little for your army....They were one of my favorite units in my army and now I feel that I have to need to take the banshee tax to run them....meh moan gripe moan...






What is now cool for really small games that you intend on losing you can have a grim reaper leading your undead army....cool beans






What replaced their Rare slot was probably one of the cool new toys for the army...






The Terrorgheist is a 6 wound monstrocity that is based on what I can tell the same size based as the orc giant spider base......aracnosomething....anyway its part of Gdubs new thing of giving every army so new giant 70 dollar kit....now the model looks fairly cool and it does give you the option of running it as a zombiedragon with lord or a terrorgheist with a possible ghoul king mount....now one thing I think GDubs dropped the ball on was making the ghoul king its own entry as a choice instead of just making it a Vampire Lord with Ghoulkin....the whole option to use the 225 point super bat as a mount for an expensive lord highly unusable outside of 3000+ point games.






OK so the Terrorghiest has M6 WS 3 S5 T6 W6 I3 A4 LD4....It has death shriek which is effectively the same shooting attack as a banshee except it comepares 2D6 + Wounds over enemy leadership to figure out the enemy dead which is a neat trick to thin ranks before an assault...typical thunderstop for a monster.... It has fly, large target as is typical as well as a cool 6+ regeneration but as is usual no real save other than that but relies on high toughness and high wounds...... it also has the option of getting poisoned attaks for 10 points as well as essentially blowing up into a thousand angry bats when dieing causing 3D6 S2 attacks against all models in B2B....now I can see myself fitting this beast into larger point games around 3000 points...2500? Probably not....It is still a beast none the less and I would love one for fun now and then.....






All in all cool update...I am not a fan of the new banshee models and the wraiths look kind of wierd....one of them has a cool skull face yet I can see better cairn wraith options out there....look for Part 2 delving into the new sisters teaser (since it really is not a codex lacking points and force org slots, yet all the units and special rules are there from what I can tell, yet no weapons profiles)...more on this later

2 comments:

  1. I may have missed something but my reading of the article is that you may use these rules alongside a Warhammer Vampire Counts force. It does not state that it replaces the existing rules. So I think you could use both rules.

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  2. The new Banshee and Wraith are not a replacement of, but an addition to the rules.

    In the WD article, it even says, "Feel free to use these, or the unit rules from the army book, or mix and match to your hearts content!" pg 20

    And the Cairn Wraith Hero choice does have Chill Grasp, which is a new ability.

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