I'm not gonna get into Vampire Counts...

[Morr]

By your own logic though, they were cheap for what they had comparitively. Now everything else costs less whilst they cost more so they are now really expensive and losing ivocation is massive, ( i do agree it makes sense though). skeleton with spear + nehek suposedly = Ghoul + nehek. Now skeleton + nehek (dunno if they get spears basic or not) = Ghoul? Unless they have some new rules or way better stat line they simply are not worth the points IMHO. Leaving Ghouls as they were would have been at least understandable but increasing the points cost and taking away nehek will mean that skelies will be a far stronger choice.

I will deliver my verdict tomorrow if I get a chance to pick up the VC book.

[BrokenWing]

Vampire Counts badly needed a codex. I'm actually pretty happy that they are addressing books of need, rather than other ones. I play Chaos, take it from me, we don't need a new book for awhile. Wood Elves and Brets do, but I'm not sure they know what to do about Brets just yet.

[Baragash]

Popularity, not need

Local GW sold out it's allocation in less than 3 hours this morning. Just read my copy (cos I advanced ordered it) and apart from another FU to TKs (healing characters, joins the Stonehorn rule from OK) I'm happy to see that each unit doesn't have rules coming out of the wazoo. I haven't read the spells yet, so I don't really have an opinion on balance etc

EDIT: Hexwraiths in Special *sighs* cos that's not about money

[SonsOfStalingrad]

Hexwraiths are looking sexy. I fully intend to have a unit of those. And I have never used cavalry. I basically Vanhels'd my way across the table.
Heck, seeing as our core is now only 'Zombies' 'Skellies' 'Wolves' and 'Ghouls', we've suddenly gone from "Ghouls and Grave Guard" as our only viable army type to "Skellies and oh holy crap look at all the specials!"

Defo some hexwraiths for me. Tempted to do two lots of them. And maybe black knights. A mounted Vampire Counts army is entirely possible.
Of course, if you don't want to go that way, we have vargheists and crypt horrors, both of which are some fairly affordable MONSTROUS Infantry, making the Vanhel's march tactic still a viable one.
The fact skellies cost 5 and can have a spear for free makes them much more useful than before - and I already favoured them.

our spells.. wow.
Lore Attribute is that when a spell is successfully cast, the caster or friendly model within 12" recovers a single Wound!
That makes up for miscasts a bit and can really keep you in the game longer.

Invocation... works within 6 inches on a 6+, 12 inches on a 12+ and 18 inches on a 18+. However, it now works on ALL units within range rather than ONE target. When combined with the attribute, it means your general has a bit of survivability to his own unit as standard plus any supporting units.

Vanhel's does BOTH it's old effects at once rather than one or the other, can be boosted to work on ALL units in range rather than just one.

Hellish Vigour - re-roll wounds on one unit, can be boosted to all. When combined with a cast of vanhel's, suddenly zombies sound a bit tempting again. They just might hurt something.

Gaze of nagash is your basic magic missile.

Raise Dead... Oh wow. Raises zombies like it did before. Can be boosted to raise skellies instead.

Curse of Years... same as before from what i can see.

Wind of Death - oooh, a magical vortex remains in play spell. You can dictate where it goes by a random amount determined by artillery dice. If it misfires it goes over the caster instead, then begins SCATTERING. A second misfire kills the spell. Can be upped in strength and changed from small template to large.

Did I mention a vampire lord or master necromancer can both go up to level 4? And there's lots of ways to improve our casting results?
And that you don't NEED a Vampire? That's right, we can play a Necromantic list if we feel that inclined to do so!

GW did a -lot- right with this army book. I haven't worked anything out yet, but at a casual glance... It's fixed some of what was wrong with our ranks.
Very impressed.

[Pox]

much fun indeed. Where Tomb kings is all about synergies between heroes/lords and their units giving them innate abilties (such as using Kings WS, hierophants 6+ regen, hatred from a necrotect etc.) Vamps is ALL about the spells, and unit synergy (bat swarms to make things get always strike last, corpse carts to give your units always strike first etc.) A very different style of play.

Will want to use a bucket ton of zombies and skellies though and that is something don't want to paint up just yet, so might have to wait until i have finished the tomb kings and guard.

[SonsOfStalingrad]

Dire wolves having a vanguard move makes them great shock troops - having some black knights or hexwraiths supported by bat swarms hit directly after the dire wolves leads to the being able to do alright without character support.
Having cheap necromancers around is very useful for if you run a combat type general, too, due to the changes to your general dying.