Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Hey all.
I've so far only dared to play SP, I'm still trying to find a nation I really like. Right now I'm digging LA Ulm, and I'm getting better at jump-starting my blood-economy - but once I've got the Counts, how can I use them for combat?

I understand about spamming Raise Skeletons, and using Summon Lammashtas in suicide runs, but shouldn't it be possible to outfit my Counts with cheap gear and get them to mix it up on the front lines?

I have a few big questions, I guess (but any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!):

• Is it worth hanging on to their innate Life Drain attack, or will they get more mileage out of a Fire Brand?
  
• If they're going to be thugs, is it okay to slap encumbering armor on them, or should I find cheap Protection somewhere else?
  
• Is it potentially worth it to give Skull Staffs to a few, have them cast Soul Vortex, and then fly in to mix it up?
  
• And, even with five or six thugged out Counts, will I still need some mortal troops to back them up? Or will they ever be able to handle reasonable enemy opposition by themselves?

Alternatively, am I barking up the wrong tree entirely? Should I have my Counts focus on blood-hunting and build up massive demon armies instead?

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

The one item that I would give them is a amulet of magic resistance. There's just so many ways to banish or destroy undead. And I think its risky to put a bunch of stuff on undead units. :D

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

I think that the life drain stays no matter what equipment you give them. Also, undead have 0 encumbrance, so you can put whatever armor you like on them without worries. They still get casting enc. though, so don't forget about that. AMA are a good investment, as are any brands, Charcoal,Vine, GG, or Eye shields. When I was playing around with them I actually gave them Jade Armor for the quickening, but since I was playing against Ry'leh they got paralyzed and killed fast, doesn't mean the armor's bad though. Horror Helms could also be useful, since any innate death magic increases the fear effect.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

I'm not actually familiar with the vampire counts, but to my knowledge no undead gains encumbrance from armor. So you can put whatever you want on them encumbrance-wise. It will just make them move slower (if they fly this doesn't matter, if you want them casting spells they still gain additional encumbrance for spellcasting from heavy armor so you want to avoid it).

Also generally speaking I don't think it would be worth it to give them a skull staff to cast soul vortex. If you want to give them the ability to cast soul vortex, you would be better off using the +d hat. But that is probably a bit too expensive for what they're worth.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Counts can work well getting buffed as communion slaves. You just need a few other mages with Astral & other buffing paths.

Even with just Astral you can give them personal luck and MR. Their own death can give them Soul Vortex.

Just have the masters retreat (or attack if they're also Counts) after buffing the slaves.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Do counts get Astral? If they don't, then I dunno if Ulm gets anyone with combo S and E paths for the matrices.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Counts have blood. They can use Sabbath Slave, which works with Communion.
Give them a couple slaves to cast & reduce fatigue. Maybe have one cast Reinvigoration after buffing.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

LA Ulm gets 1s1e on 25% of their forge priests.

As to thugging out the counts...

Well I've had great success using them as raiders (for out of dominion) giving them horror helmet and golden shield, the combo of awe and fear means they don't get hit much, and as the chaff surrounds them they eventually rout due to the fear effect.

Granted, you don't want these counts going up against anything 'tough', but for clearing PD they work very well. Now, depending on the PD you stick on an appropriate armor (if they need missle def, fire/elec res, or just as much prot as you can give them). Fire/Frost brands are nice for the AoE damage, but swords of quickness, or the one that gives luck (forget the name at the moment...) are also options. Chi boots are actually not a bad cheap footwear, as they give +4 def and an extra attack, but boots of quickness are probably better if you can afford them/forge them (10W to forge, and Ulm has no natural W mages).

Miscellaneous slots can be whatever you need boosted, or just whatever you can forge cheaply.

If you are going to use the counts offensively out of your dominion you want to be a little more careful with the potential equipment, or be fairly certain your army is going to win (so the gear drops to other commanders). Using them in your dominion is a no brainer, but better to couple them with a real army if you have any gear you don't want to lose on them.

Soul Vortex sounds nice, but the cost to get it on a count is too high, unless you have tons of death gems and just empower to D3 (45 gems), so long as you don't commit that count outside of your dominion you won't lose him, the cost of the death raising helmet is 25d (I think) and it doesn't offer much protection, the skull staff means no shield so I don't think that's a good idea.

The other thing to realize is that even at 33 blood slaves they are pretty cheap once your blood economy is humming along, so you can afford to even lose a few if you need to put them in harms way out of your dominion, just don't suicide any gear you can't afford to easilly replace.

LAUlm can forge with a 40% reduction if you give a hammer to a forge priest, so sticking a few 5gem items (3gems with the discount) isn't such a bad loss if it improves their overall effectiveness.

But to recap, the counts fly, are stealthy, regenerate (10%), have 30 hitpoints, and decent attack/def. Their protection is ZERO, which is a huge hole if you do nothing about it, so giving them some armor or etherealness is needed unless you just want them to jump in spam some death spells and then retreat.

Really they make ideal raiders with a small amount of const4 gear, as they can sneak if you need them to, or just jump around to any province within 3 of where they just were.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

If you give them a black heart they make great assasins. Since they'll throw thralls every turn, you'll take over the province the turn you assasinate the last commander. Ofc, this won't work if there's PD, but few players can afford to put PD on every single province.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

they NEED some sort of armour with protection zero, other than that dress for the occaission, a good sheild help but isn't vital aslong as you make use of that flight and kill archers/crossbowmen fast.

also you asked about putting some mortal troops with them, i say no just reserach blood rite, it's a blood spell (duh) which you're counts can cast with no boosters, for 22 blood slaves it gives you 8+ vampires (vampire units not counts) yeah you may want to spend slaves on counts and such but once you have a few counts out you can make good use of this, by late game you should have hordes of immortal vampire legions and vampire counts blood hunting all over your dominion, no need for cash because you are summoning immortal troops and mages (vampires of the leader and unit variety).

also good to add is that none of the vampires have an upkeep cost - again a reason why you don't need cash, blood slaves should replace both cash and resources for you if you put enough drive into the vamps,

and the best thing is you WILL have an endless horde of troops, because no matter how many die (so long as they die in you're dominion) they will all respawn at you're capital ready to be dispatched against the next enemy force to wander into you're dominion.

Perhaps you're dominion will be feared as much as ermors, just turn taxes up sky high - scorched earth style, and you won't be at any loss (though it makes blood hunting harder but still you're troops respawn themselves after death so the enemy will just keep getting weaker whilst you get stronger or at the very least stay exactly the same)

The only sad part is ulm isn't amazing early on (except the crossbowmen - love them) but once a few counts are out and yuo have a decent blood economy it does look up and only gets better :D

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Almost all players can afford 1 PD on every province. And that's all you need.
You might snatch a province or two this way against a new player, but you'll only get one shot at it.
And if he's got no PD, you can take it with scouts.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

For a Soul Vortex you could always give the count a death gem or two, surely?

The mention of communion slaves gave me an idea. It may be sub-optimal, but Vampire Counts should make pretty good slaves. They can regenerate some of the damage due to extreme fatigue, and when they burst due to overcasting they just reappear at your capital.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

or you could make them communion slaves to get buffs on them quicker, have one master who can use some cool self buffs and all the buffs he casts are transfered to the rest of the communion (you're counts) without exhausting lots of fatigue and gems for aoe/battlefield wide spells.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

It could be arguable that Ulm doesn't have the same need for D gems since they don't have such a need for thugs/SCs that you usually use D gems for.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

The key thing to remember about vampires is that their only really good trait is their Immortality.

Sure, they have decent stats, regen, and an AP lifedrain attack, but they fail in the armor and defenses area and the "kill masses of dudes" area.

This means that you actually have an incentive to Empower them. Empower one vampire with Nature 1 for 50 gems and every army will have an immortal who casts Mass Protection or Wooden Warriors (though a dot of Earth is even better for Marble Warriors and Army of Lead). Give a vampire some Astral and just Magic Duel him all the time. He may lose, but he won't die.

Throw down Sabbaths with the freedom of knowing you don't care if the fatigue will kill the Slaves. Hell Power up knowing that Horrors coming to call is not necessarily a bad thing.

Heck, with a single dot of Empowerment and a Sabbath/Communion you can just spread self-buffs through the Communion and let the vampires go to town. A single dot of a path and the effect of a Communion and you could get things like Invulnerability, Soul Vortex, Astral Shield, Fire Shield, Quicken Self, Mistform, or Personal Regeneration.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Even without empowering, you can use Ulm's other mages to get some of those buffs.
1/4 Black Priests have SE for reinvig through Summon Earthpower and Invulnerability
Any of your astral mages can do Personal Luck & Astral Shield.
You might get lucky and get Fire Shield out of a Second Tier. Phoenix Pyre?
1/4 Fortune Tellers have Nature for Personal Regen & Barkskin.
And of course a Sabbath Master Count can do Soul Vortex.

It's a hassle, since you have to retreat the masters once you're done buffing and then try to gather them again for the next battle.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

They're immortal, so you want to avoid losing gear, especially expensive gear like a skull hat. I'd probably go with giving them death gems (1 apiece if you can get a scout in the same province to resupply).

Unless of course you thug them out sufficiently that they don't get killed at all.

-Max

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

thugging them out is rather trivial at const4 and with the standard LAUlm paths (SFEAD), with hammers and forge bonus its also pretty cheap to toss them luck pendants or various shields.

Of course you will be much more effective if you know what you're fighting before you start just throwing them around. Counts with full kit (especially horror helm, luck, some chaff control shield...) can wipe out pretty much any PD, and most smaller armies, so you can use them offensively with little drawback, unless you blunder into a real army with them.

Useing them in support of one of your real armies is also quite workable, and then you don't even care as much if they die (in or out of dominion) as long as you figure to win, their gear will get picked up by your other commanders (well assuming you have enough slots on your other commanders...).

Putting all kinds of killer buffs on them just seems a tad wasteful when you could otherwise use your communion to acutally go about killing the enemy with all the possible path combinations LAulm can get with their diverse s? mages (though they are all low level magic, but some boosters and a big communion since blood and astral are on almost all your mages isn't hard to pull off).

Iron Blizard is just too cheap to spam the crap out of in a reverse communion, and throwing 30+ ap magic darts around the battlefield is going to do a number on just about any kind of army you are facing.

If you are facing SCs/thugs then you communion and spam paralyze, ...

The counts can handle the chaff control pretty well, and wouldn't be that useful against SCs/thugs other than to engage them and keep them still for your communion to tear down.

By the way, LAUlm really needs to set up a blood stone forger ASAP, you will not be disappointed with the results :)

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

I always forget that you can use gems to boost paths like that. I agree that that is a much better method.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Or give them a cheap bow (xbows work best, isn't Piercer one shot every 3 rounds?).

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

I think Piercer is a crossbow, so 2 rounds. Vision's Foe is an arbalest and fires every 3 rounds.

The masters shouldn't care about that, though, because if they're scripted to "fire" they won't cast on the in-between turns.

In other words, GENIUS! Why didn't I think of that!

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Ah right, I always get Piercer and Vision's Foe mixed up. And they do care about that, because with a regular crossbow, you are getting 24 rounds of missile fire before your buffing mage races into melee, but with an arbalest, you gain 36 rounds for your melee to win the fight, and avoid that fate. The extra 12 rounds is a huge buffer.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Check out my guide to Sauromatia, I talk a bit about vampires and much of it is applicable to the cheaper vampire counts.

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Very neat idea. Have you actually used it in MP or just in SP?

Re: Thugging Out Vampire Counts? (LA Ulm)
 

Personally, I'm not altogether fond of reverse or linebacker communions..... Though I do have a strategy for someone that I really should try one of these times. ;)

But, when I want a mage to deliver a couple of spells, and then stay out of trouble, a crossbow or arbalest is what I look for.