Unbeatable Vlad?

[Altyv]

Had my entire fielded army hacking away at him, as he was the last one standing. Vlad didn't even break a sweat. Have had the same problem with ''lesser'' vampire lords, with insane regeneration, and thus unbeatable. Is it supposed to be this way?
(PS: Won the fight eventually against Vlad and Isabella, with most of my armies wiped. But none of them were wounded, and full HP immediately and go on the counter attack...that is just bs)

[LoneWolf]

They are a nightmare on the field at the same time.

I've found casting flaming swords on ranked units of handgunners helps.

Vlad is tougher to deal with this way as he tends to dive into melee where he's a pain to hit due to his size compared to Isabella on her mount.

[A.Pot]

This is why you bring fire mages or lots of armor piercing units.

[Fryskar]

You had probably >2k men watching and 5 fighting, as there's a limit how many can engage an entity of each size.
Throwing weak melees at them is not the solution. Even elite melees fare fairly poor.
Shoot him or mob him with lords/heroes, if killing off his army is not enough.

[DarkFenix]

Originally posted by Fryskar:

You had probably >2k men watching and 5 fighting, as there's a limit how many can engage an entity of each size.
Throwing weak melees at them is not the solution. Even elite melees fare fairly poor.
Shoot him or mob him with lords/heroes, if killing off his army is not enough.

This. No point trying to swarm Vlad and hoping for the best. Single him out and shoot him down, or gang up on him with a whole bunch of heroes, and either way try to have something inflicting fire damage.

My last time dealing with him I had Franz distract him briefly while I got other melee units clear, then had 6 units of handgunners annihilate Vlad in a matter of seconds.

[Denveldon]

When you are playing empire the best solution for vlad is to tank him with a lord or hero and shoot him down with handgunners. Dont swarm him with infantry, he eats them for breakfast.

If you are lucky you got a amethyst mage and spirit leach, but a fire mage wont help you aside from buffs, cause vlad doesnt have the normal regeneration which includes -20% fire resitance.

[Altyv]

Thnx for all the tips fellas. I did have a range of soldiers with percing weapons and handgunners. Thy were pretty exhausted and near death by the time i only had Vlad left... Franz was beaten, and most of my heroes(no mages) were in a bad shape, not fit for a fight. I guess thats why i struggled so much. Vlad i still one tough sob. Made me lose all my confidence ;(

[cråck]

dont let vlad going to melee he will regen more life then your melee units can deal, kite him with the unit he aggro and shoot him with range units

you can " sacrifice " a unit to tank him for the time you deal with major threts, i daubt you have them yet but flagelants are great for this purpose as they are unbreakable

if you dont have range units then hard hitting cav ( reiksguard, grall knights, bears) or monster infantry (trolls) seemed for me the best option

you can "easly" 1v1 him playing as dwarfs using ungrim or a units of slayers, but i daubt any other nearby lord can actually fight him, maybe an empire priest lord can tank him as he starts with 60mdef and has some nice buffs

[Saint Jimmy]

this. i experienced this too. it got me to try playing as vampires. that was a year ago. never played other than vampires since. this game has incredible replayability value.

as a vlad player, i second what others had said about AP range units. baiting them into focus fire is the best way to kill anything hard to kill. vlad, grimgor, archaeon, the likes.

[Mgr. Lee]

I did it simple, put a spell on him to slow him down or immobilise him and then shoot with big cannons. It works :D

[chickabumpbump]

or auto resolve lol

[Ashardalon]

hes a small target
your entire army cant attack him
all the chaff got in the way of your dps, preventing them from outpacing the regen

[Falaris]

Vladibella is probably one of the harder enemies to face now, and you need to actually use strategy to beat him. It can be done, but some factions struggle more than others.

Helman Ghorst can be an even worse problem, but.. a very, very specific problem for very, very specific factions.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Being surrounded by weak units is basically the ideal scenario for vampires. It just feeds their combat regen, blocks ranged attacks and since space is limited only a few of the models will be able to attack the vampire.

A more feasible approach to vampires early game is kiting them and attacking with ranged units (Against vampire counts i often put some ranged unit aside not allowing them to fire at will for this very situation).

Late game you have more options. Stuff like fire damage and other debuffs is also a good idea.

[titanopteryx]

Vlad has a regen type called The Hunger which is active when he's engaged in melee. Attacking him in melee makes him heal. Fire attacks reduce his healing rate to half. If you read the description of flaming attacks it says it does that and also will cause damage if the target is weak to fire, but I don't remember seeing that vlad had a weakness to fire. But fire attacks always cut healing in half.

[Formous]

Vlad is one of the single most powerful lords, and Vampire lords are often the best of the best. The man is a true monster as befits the Dracula of the series. Add Isabella and other vampires, and he is a force to reckon. Legend also saw him with 90 percent ward save just from the AI using him. The key to vlad is to keep him far from the battle, and to massacre his army. He is vulnerable to crumbling. And that means Army losses. How you achieve that is the battle. You can make use of cav to squash the frontline, or to bully vlad and buy time for the battle of attrition.