Are Terrorgheists Lame Or Is It Just Me?

[eatonpye]

It seems like vargheists are way more bang for the buck. Cheaper. Shorter to recruit. They win a LOT of melee. They are pretty good at disentangling from melee and taking off. Terrorgheists, on the other hand, get trapped on the ground easily, their breath attack does pretty much nothing, and they don't seem to kill many figures.

Is there really a reason to recruit these units?

[jonoliveira12]

Terrorgheists are stronger than Vargheists.
The issue is if they are strong enough for their price point, and I would argue that it depends on how you use them.

Terrogheists are more of an anti-artillery flyer, that can also do a huge charge on the backlines of any unit engaged in Melee.

They, however, and Manticores, are far outshone by the new Dragons, Phoenixes and other big flying monsters that have showed up since their release.

[Wyvern]

Vargheists get torn apart by more heavily armored and damage oriented troops, and any cheap missiles. This tends to matter less vs AI but can still present a problem.

Terrorgheists are anti-large specialists, theyre best used killing other monsters and cav, and their damage output vs a unit of infantry, especially soft squishy infantry is far worse than vargheists(who do something like 12x100 damage where terrorgheist does 1x420.

On the flip side the vargheists bleed models and thus lose DPS, which a terrorgheist does not. TG also recovers hp via regen, and if you aim the breath attack correctly(long range from the flank vs infantry/cav, directly above vs single entities) you can dish out immense amounts of damage, plus use its effects to help break enemy leadership quickly.

[Tricks]

For a race who has no ranged units, I always thought VC's monster roster was pretty meh. Terrorgheist, yeah, it's there. Nothing special. I agree that Vargheists seem to do better but they're also not amazing. Vargulf, again... it's fine. Crypt Horrors just seem to die too fast.

Compared to say, Norsca or Chaos with mammoths/fimir and dragon ogres respectively, they don't have the most amazing monsters. I have much better luck just relying on the old death blob + necromancer on a corpse cart + mortis engine while spamming heals combo. The only reason to bring the monsters is so you can siege immediately.

[RadCon One]

Originally posted by Tricks:

For a race who has no ranged units, I always thought VC's monster roster was pretty meh. Terrorgheist, yeah, it's there. Nothing special. I agree that Vargheists seem to do better but they're also not amazing. Vargulf, again... it's fine. Crypt Horrors just seem to die too fast.

Compared to say, Norsca or Chaos with mammoths/fimir and dragon ogres respectively, they don't have the most amazing monsters. I have much better luck just relying on the old death blob + necromancer on a corpse cart + mortis engine while spamming heals combo. The only reason to bring the monsters is so you can siege immediately.

Vampires were also one of the first 4 factions, so the power creep has started to leave them in the dirt. Their monsters were actually good when WH1 first released.

[jonoliveira12]

Terrorgheists are also useful for killing enemy Lords on Flying Mounts.

Specially if your own Lord is a Master Necromancer, and all you can aspire to is a Cart mount.

[Masshiron]

The main use I have had with Terrorgheists is in siege battles. They can snipe artillery and can escape bad fights much more easily than Vargheists can. In my experience, when I commit Vargheists to a ground fight, I'm usually unable to get them out of it before the enemy routs; if one entity gets stuck, they rest all fly back down again. Since Terrorgheists are single entity units with a higher mass, it's a lot less of a problem, though they still can't really escape anything larger than infantry.

That Terrorgheists are single entities is also useful in that they maintain their full damage output no matter how much damage they take, where Vargheists lose entities and therefore lose offensive power as they fight. Really though, the tactical difference between them in a Vampire army is basically the same. Having one or the other should not affect your game plan at all as long as you are still strong with heroes and magic.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Marumara:

The main use I have had with Terrorgheists is in siege battles. They can snipe artillery and can escape bad fights much more easily than Vargheists can. In my experience, when I commit Vargheists to a ground fight, I'm usually unable to get them out of it before the enemy routs; if one entity gets stuck, they rest all fly back down again. Since Terrorgheists are single entity units with a higher mass, it's a lot less of a problem, though they still can't really escape anything larger than infantry.

That Terrorgheists are single entities is also useful in that they maintain their full damage output no matter how much damage they take, where Vargheists lose entities and therefore lose offensive power as they fight. Really though, the tactical difference between them in a Vampire army is basically the same. Having one or the other should not affect your game plan at all as long as you are still strong with heroes and magic.

It also depends heavily on your finances.
Have a lot of money for upkeep? Terrorgheists.
Cannot really afford that much in upkeep? Vargheists.

[eatonpye]

I have had much better luck withdrawing vargheists from ground attacks, but I usually either do it immediately, or hit the enemy from several sides at once- most of them just melt, and then even if they aren't routing, it's easy to disengage. The Terrorgheists, on the other hand, are very slow to take off, and can't disentangle from cavalry at all.

I did manage to get some damage done with the breath attack in a siege, where they could kind of shoot along the top of a wall. That seemed pretty effective. They also disengage from melee on top of wall much better.

I find a flock of vargheists to be more effective artillery killers because you can hold one or two back to hit rescue units in the rear before they can engage your arty killers from behind. Two or three vargheists on an artillery unit will shatter it in a few seconds, then off they go to the next victim- usually I use them to kill the arty first, then go back and hit the wall defenders from behind, or ranged units waiting behind the wall.

It's true their effectiveness falls off eventually, but by then their main job is done and just the fact that they are attacking engaged units from the rear makes them get a lot done in a hurry.

I think maybe the terrorgheists would be more effective paired with a vargheist or two, who can rescue them if they get stuck on the ground.

[wrought82]

terrorgheists are antilarge, like, ridiculously so. they must be the only unit in the game that has more antilarge than melee attack. even with that they cant beat moondragons that cost the same without 10-15% numerical advantage, but VC just seems in general to have weaker units than anyone else. i think the unbreakable but falling apart is actually costed as positive when its clearly a negative.

terrorgheist can however beat vargheist with a similar advantage even when doubling the number of vargheists to make up for cost

so different roles; terrorgheist can fly in an occupy a center of non armor pierce thanks to their high armor and low unit count and they can tear apart monsters/cavalry
Vargheists are damage dealers with mediocre armor pierce, they can move in packs and snipe units - preferably low armored ones.

And ofc with supply lines/ambush/LS terrorgheists have the advantage of bringing more power pr slot

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by wrought82:

terrorgheists are antilarge, like, ridiculously so. they must be the only unit in the game that has more antilarge than melee attack. even with that they cant beat moondragons that cost the same without 10-15% numerical advantage, but VC just seems in general to have weaker units than anyone else. i think the unbreakable but falling apart is actually costed as positive when its clearly a negative.

Being practically unbreakable while taking some minute damage when broken is a massive advantage in the vast majority of cases.

Theres also other factors that need to be considered into a units cost which sometimes just dont matter in 1 v 1/matter very little.

Without magical support, any normal dragon will constantly lose hp and become more and more vulnerable as a game progresses, whereas with its regen, a terrorgheist can keep going strong. Over the course of a really long game your terrorgheist can have the equivalent of ~10k hp.

Normal dragon breath doesnt come with debuffs, terrorgheist breath has additional LD debuffs packed on to make it better for instilling routs. Terrorgheist has poison to even the odds, but 1 v 1 vs a dragon the fire damage actually offsets that edge, giving it significantly more damage output.

When breaths come into play, a terrorgheists lack of missile resist+fire weakness hurt it vs a dragon, while a dragon gets 25% resistance.

On the flip side the dragons inferior armor doesnt really matter when such a duel is all about AP damage.

[Leto]

vargheists still have one of the most satisfying charge animation
and just for that they're better

[wrought82]

the minute damage is a boon however staying in combat means the unit is far more likely to break where in campaign crumbling is a huge disadvantage and in a single battle losing the unit after a few more swings is an equally bad disadvantage vs running away and usually coming back after a little. For undead morale to be a boon it should be just the slow damage and breaking should mean a 2-500% increase of that not the immediate falling apart it is now.

Your other comments are fair-ish, terrorgheists dont have regen tho and while poison is neat its not an efficient way to apply it.

[Falaris]

Vargheists are damage dealers, but they can't take damage. If you want to damage, say, archers, they're fantastic. Against good infantry, though, the trade becomes ugly.

Vargheists
MA: 42,
MD:: 26
Armor 10

Terrorgheists:
MA: 26
MD: 42
Armor 80

Terrorgheists are strong defensively, and are anti-large, and are best against mounted lords, monsters, that sort of thing. They are best used charge cycling, where their low melee attack won't matter so much. Their poison attack and regeneration are a nice force multiplier as well.

[Harmania]

Originally posted by Tricks:

For a race who has no ranged units, I always thought VC's monster roster was pretty meh. Terrorgheist, yeah, it's there. Nothing special. I agree that Vargheists seem to do better but they're also not amazing. Vargulf, again... it's fine. Crypt Horrors just seem to die too fast.

Compared to say, Norsca or Chaos with mammoths/fimir and dragon ogres respectively, they don't have the most amazing monsters. I have much better luck just relying on the old death blob + necromancer on a corpse cart + mortis engine while spamming heals combo. The only reason to bring the monsters is so you can siege immediately.

Originally, VC's roster was really strong, especially before dragons got reworked to have breath attacks. The piles of fodder, strong monsters, and massive quantities of regen and revive effects made them really beastly. Having a subpar roster outside of their vampires, and elite monsters was their main balancing factor. Once we got stuff like Norsca, and dragon breath attacks, VC started to suffer. Then, following Foundation, when everything power-creeped, and TWW2... they're pretty weak now. But at the same time, they have absurd generic lords through the Bloodline mechanic. I feel like they should have really strong lords and heroes, more than anything else.

That's just me though.

[parent child bowl]

I almost exclusively use one Terrorgheist for routing the enemy. Their only role for me is causing high mobility terror.