How to battle Dwarves as Vampire Counts

[DanOramA]

So I have been playing the Vampire Counts campaign and I just got the Dwarf crisis. It did not matter what units I have, they just burn through them, literally anyway. Since I do not have ranged or siege units; How do I battle the Dwarves?

[Kirbymonic]

Use bats/flying units to take out their arty, should always be the first thing you do. Use cav to take out ranged units. Your inf will never be better than their crisis inf but your magic > Dwarf magic, so use that to your advantage,

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by DanOramA:

So I have been playing the Vampire Counts campaign and I just got the Dwarf crisis. It did not matter what units I have, they just burn through them, literally anyway. Since I do not have ranged or siege units; How do I battle the Dwarves?

Lords, magic and superiority in numbers. They can't shoot if they are stuck in melee with something and your lords/heroes should be high level and powerful at this stage of the game. Bring 2 or even 3 stacks when fighting against 1 Dwarf stack and just swarm them.

[DanOramA]

My campaign is pretty much screwed at this point then because I spent too much time warmongering with the other factions that when the crisis started they swooped in and took majority of my starting castles...

Btw. Since I play as Vlad I have Isabella as a legendary hero. And considering that she buffs embedded heroes, is it better to have more than 1 of each hero? Like 2 or 3 Wights or vampires?

[joe83]

Originally posted by DanOramA:

Btw. Since I play as Vlad I have Isabella as a legendary hero. And considering that she buffs embedded heroes, is it better to have more than 1 of each hero? Like 2 or 3 Wights or vampires?

Well, all-hero stacks are the strongest armies in the game. And vampire ones are one of the best.
You dont need full hero stacks, but having multiple vampires in armies is a must.
Especially if you go for one common trait - like all Disciplined to make them almost unbreakable with super high Melee attack/Dread Incarnate to lover enemy leadership (not so good vs Dawi, but still decent) or Lore Keeper to have obscene amounts of winds of magic.

Full hero stacks can take 4 enemy armies at once and often end the battle at maximum health.

So yes, multiple heroes of all types (Vampires get the highest priority, after them wight kings-banshees and necromancers.) are what makes Vampire Counts strong.
And as many Bloodline lords you can get - Lahmian are the best, after them Carstein ones

Against Dawi, best tactic is to shut their ranged asap - lord and heroes to make them blob and mass nuking them with Pit of Shades, Pendulums a Winds of Death. Plus summoning zombies/skellies right on top of enemy arty/gun units (anything to stop them from shooting).

[Avallac]

You can destroy half a dwarf army or more with just magic poke flying around and casting things like wind of death on their line. The magic missle can kill all their artillery easily in a couple shots while being far enough away your mage should still be able to dodge no problem. Cav or flying to kill ranged units, AP monsters flank behind and slam their infantry, use only greatsword infantry against theirs. Quite easy.

[pascal.difolco]

Dawi are quite hard counter to VC, you need to build an army around Heroes/SEM and magic, dwarves will annihilate slow undead infantry, and cavalry unless you micro it

[Aluminum Elite Master]

My thoughts:

VC should outnumber Dwarfs. If you bring the same number of units, it's going to be difficult much of the time. Try to avoid facing the whole crisis at once: let them spread out a bit first.

VC can stack heroes. Wights, vampires, etc., can be bunched up in one stack to do pretty decent damage since you can use necromantic spells to buff/heal them.

Use any and all spells/abilities to raise zombies. Zombies can soak up the Dawi ranged/arty fire, which is a big deal because their ranged firepower is pretty strong.

Other than spirit leaching their heroes/LL, don't bother trying to damage them with spells. They resist spells more than other factions do, so spirit leach their heroes and LLs, but beyond that, save the magic for buffing and healing your own army in battle.

Use Raise Dead to replenish. Merge damaged units, raise dead, and fight them again and again. Against a crisis, attrition is a good way to go at first.

Lastly, don't fight fair. Ambush stance, vampiric corruption, and agent actions against their stacks on the campaign map all can help whittle them down before they even end up in battle with you.

[StrangestEcho]

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

Other than spirit leaching their heroes/LL, don't bother trying to damage them with spells. They resist spells more than other factions do, so spirit leach their heroes and LLs, but beyond that, save the magic for buffing and healing your own army in battle.

They don't get that much magic resist. Wind of Death is absolutely still worth using when the opportunity arises.

[Brokengamer]

Have your main higher quality army and make a necromancer Lord and necromancer hero + zombie meat shield army to help out. Summon zombies and let them get tired out against zombies so you lose a few zombie units who care. Have a couple Crypt Horrors and some Varghulfs in each army as well. Attack flanks with Ghouls. Summon units into their flanks. Nuke em with spells and effects(lowering Leadership etc.). Main Army+ Zombie Army+ Zombie Army will be like 10000 units + Summons. There are so many Skills,Tech and Buildings that Zombies tough. Use Diplomacy to your advantage currently as Undead I have Dwarven vassals give away some of those red cities to dwarves or empire to get them on the hook.

[Talilover]

Imo the way vamps play is your army is just there to distract/ buy time for your lord to do all the work, though I guess dwarfs are probably the worst faction overall to try and blob against.

Can use one of the faster units like direwolves or hexwraiths (if you're feeling fancy) to wipe out arty and running down any units you get to route (dwarfs being dwarfs tho you probably won't see this too much, make it count when it does happen). Can use a lord with raise dead to cause some grouping up/ ammo soaking before using WOD on them while you keep your actual army out it until any dangerous arty pieces or ranged units are taken care of, after that back to the blob.

Mortis engines are also great to stick in a blob, but you have to be careful about ranged units picking it off. You should also have a necromancer in each army (optional corpse cart for it's buff/ ranged vulnerability trade off) to make the most out of your blob.

[[MadTs] Phyrys]

If, as a VC, your dwarven opponent have a single unit who's not bogged down by summons, flanked by cav or retching their lungs out from a spell, you're playing VC wrong.

You're slow, they're slower. You don't have to be as organized as they are. Everyone always covered the few main points you need to do, I can still tell that bats or dogs are insane to escort routing enemies to the edges of the map.

If you don't feel like outnumbering and is more of a micro guy, get blood dragons. They're fast, they don't die this quickly, they do a good charge and they can rez themselves if you blinked and a free irondrake unit shot at them. Maul their frontlane with crypt horrors in your tarpit, force them to hold the line with everything they have. If you're really confident, you can bog down their ranged, plonk a Mortis, try to avoid lords and probably slayers and grind them out like a budget Nurgle would do.

On the subject of magic, make sure you always fight with a good stockpile of winds. Fetch some wind raising items, move in conjuring mode, do anything you can to have the maximum of the thing you can use and the stunties can't.

You have Vampire lore ? Spam the ♥♥♥♥ out of raise death on their backlane, don't even overcast it (and remember to disable guard stance on your zombies). Spam it 'till you can't do it anymore, at which point you should have won. There's a blob ? Wind of Death. Your aerial or cavalry is doing a move ? Danse Macabre to not be shoot at too much. You can't disengage your monsters from their lords ? Curse of years, but you did something wrong to begin with.

You have death lore ? Fate of Bjurna their slayers. Spirit leech their lords. Xereus their blobs (even if your guys are collateral damage, your lord certainly have at least the basic and trusty Nehek, so you can heal and they can't), Soulblight every day anything you want to die quickly, 'cause even if dwarves have 35% spell resist on average, they have 0% debuff resist and the debuff it gives is insane. No one likes not doing damage and having its absolute armor turned into "merely" heavy armor. I advise against Doom and Darkness : -16 commandment is very good, but dwarves aren't beastmen or orcs.

You have shadows lore ? There's two schools : you can either spam the pendulum, but I frankly prefer spamming debuffs. The withering rends armor as much as Soulblight, Enfeebling sunders melee defence, Okkam Mindrazor makes your armor piercing skyrocket. Suddently, your heavy weapons crypt guards are Khorne chosen and those ironbreakers are dwarven warriors. You'll make them sweat, and if you managed to flank them a little, you'll maul them. Hammerers will crumble like wet paper even from the front.

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by Kirbymonic:

Use bats/flying units to take out their arty, should always be the first thing you do. Use cav to take out ranged units. Your inf will never be better than their crisis inf but your magic > Dwarf magic, so use that to your advantage,

Unless you triggered an event that gives +20WS neither bats nor dire wolfs will be any effective against dawi. Too much armour.

At least dogs can be used once they start fleeing, for a very high casuality output and to make sure they won't regroup. Bats, are more of a annoyance, but they can't trade well. On 1v1 they'll lose against their ranged, they need to go 2v1 and yet they would still take too long and take too much damage in return.

You need AP units or very high WS, such as vargheists. Eitherway, you can get the missiles stuck with raise of death, then send your own troops to engage.

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by DanOramA:

My campaign is pretty much screwed at this point then because I spent too much time warmongering with the other factions that when the crisis started they swooped in and took majority of my starting castles...

Btw. Since I play as Vlad I have Isabella as a legendary hero. And considering that she buffs embedded heroes, is it better to have more than 1 of each hero? Like 2 or 3 Wights or vampires?

That's pretty dumb.

Let's cover the basics.

You'll want one necromancer per each front that you NEED master of death. For Vlad 1 is more than enough, to be placed on the center.

Bashes are... The worst heroes to be used on the battlefield, no AP damage, low stats, no armour, low hp... They're sort of fast, but not as fast a cavalry, they're slippery, but don't have mass to push... Kinda ♥♥♥♥ hero.

Vampires are decent in melee, but they shine with their magic. They meant to be used to add a new lore of magic, or to reinforce a lord that cannot cast well. Such as Blood Dragon (no arcane conduit) or Strigoi (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ caster ever), like said previously they're the only way to add lore of death and shadows to most lords, which can value gold. (They're also good heroes to be placed on the wings due their very high mobility, thus helping you to win the wings battles, and then get access to the enemy's rear on the center.)
Even with the isabella bonuses, they would still be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in melee. Bring one extra grave guard instead, heck I'd pick one zombie, much cheaper. Cost MATTERS.

Witch kings they're the best body guards for your necromancer lords, corpse carts and whatnot that requires protection, they can also be used to hunt the enemy lords, mages, squishy ranged heroes/lords, and to deal against single entities...
Well happens that Vlad is basically one of the strongest lords in melee in the entire game...
Why would you bother with a Witch King, if Vlad can do the same job, while also providing much more? Why? Why? Why?

In short, Vlad + Isabella does not need more than 1 vamp and 1 necro. Heck you could do without any of them just fine.
Each sorcerer hero can give +5 extra magic reserve through the skill tree, and +20 from gear... Meaning each sorcerer can increase your magical reserve by +25, plus 1 arcane conduit. (Although 3 arcan e conduits = 1 WoM every 5 seconds, 4 arcane conduits still gives 1 every 5s, so... If you're looking for efficiency you'll pick either a necro or a vamp.)

[DecayWolf]

Geez, most advices here are either cheese or to expend billions.
Don't need any of that ♥♥♥♥.

Ideally bring some units with AP, get them inside an aura of healing, such unholy lodestone, or The reliquiary of Binding or Master of Death. With just that they'll out trade the dawi.

Any unit that can deal damage can also sort of solo the dawi, if you give them enough time and pick the right targets.
For example, 2 varghests can start by cleaning all the missiles with ease, once they're dealt with, you can sent them to pick the borders where there's fewer units grouped together, they'll keep killing each and everyone of them. Against big blobs make sure to get them out when needed and keep cycle charging, also curse of years is a good idea when diving inside a blob.

Like wise a crypt horror that is not being shot or being hunted by slayers, when aided by just zombies, they can pretty much clean the entire dawi army by themselves.

Cairn wraiths can kill very easily left and right.... Hex wraiths pretty much the same, but the extra mobility is ideal to start on the enemy missiles first.

Grave guards GW aided by an healing aura can solo the dawi armies.

Etc.

Beating Dawi WITHOUT cheese, it's really not complicated, in fact is quite easy.
Doesn't require heroes, doesn't require fortunes of money either.

[Talilover]

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

Originally posted by Kirbymonic:

Use bats/flying units to take out their arty, should always be the first thing you do. Use cav to take out ranged units. Your inf will never be better than their crisis inf but your magic > Dwarf magic, so use that to your advantage,

Unless you triggered an event that gives +20WS neither bats nor dire wolfs will be any effective against dawi. Too much armour.

At least dogs can be used once they start fleeing, for a very high casuality output and to make sure they won't regroup. Bats, are more of a annoyance, but they can't trade well. On 1v1 they'll lose against their ranged, they need to go 2v1 and yet they would still take too long and take too much damage in return.

You need AP units or very high WS, such as vargheists. Eitherway, you can get the missiles stuck with raise of death, then send your own troops to engage.

A dire wolf or bat unit can absolutely mulch an unguarded arty crew, even if they're dwarves (only exception being the goblin hewer "arty" piece) the fact they have armor doesn't change the fact it's like 24 entities with garbage melee stats lol, if you meant dealing with quarrelers or thunderers then yeah probably not happening without some buffs (think the Carstein bloodline lords buff bats a fair bit)