I plan on having a rematch (though at this point its a rematch of a rematch of a rematch) with the vamp guy. He didn't have fun not being able to catch my asrai so I intend to crush him utterly. I did this in my last game before this one too at a tournament, some people never learn.

My question is. Do you think a unit of 40 (including characters) of eternal guard is worth it. I would like to take a highborn so they fill out my troop allotment however against vamps a lack of magic would be foolish. Of course I would like to have the rhymers harp in the unit and a bsb, I would probably also want the razor banner for his grave guard. Things get real expensive.

Is this kind of thing viable? I imagine he will again run a unit of 40 ghouls and 40 grave guard. Seems to be his staple units.

Sadly I've never played against undead, so my thoughts might not hold much weight. That unit plus a spellsinger is already 1000pts, doesn't leave you much wiggle room. Still, if you're looking at crushing him instead of out-running him, then I think it's a must against units of that size. I've had units of 10 eternals weather amazing amounts of damage and strike back with nasty results, I almost shudder to think what 40 of them will be like in 8th.

The main problem with trying to out-attrition Vampire Counts is that they are much better at it than we are. Eternal guard win through static combat resolution which is pretty useless against things that are unbreakable. You need to kill his units, more importantly you need to kill the characters that are usually just behind the units letting them use their WS. Eternal guard aren't going to work here and you'll end up being ground down without doing anything in return.

40 eternal guard would be good against other things but IMO not VC.

Cheers for the input guys.

You do have a point about the attrition. Though I believe the chars can't give their WS to the units any more. Even so casting their regrowth equivalent will be a pain.

I was just trying to thing of something I haven't used yet and that it really. The biggest pain now is that when the general dies the army crumbles for a turn then the next guy with a wizard level takes over and they stop. Very annoying when you aim to assassinate. In the tournement game I had he moved his general on the second turn to cast a spell at my eagle which brought him just between 2 units. He got hard cover but a hail of doom and 20 glade guard arrows later and his army was crumbling away. Not going to be as easy.

My main combat unit in that army was 6 treekin that chewed through 40 ghouls and 5 black knights. Now he takes a banner of flame on his ghouls...

I might scrap the idea for a drycha list. Just throw hoards of dryads at the ghouls, treekin and a treeman at the grave guard. Should be fun at the very least bringing units in randomly from woods :p

A thing to note with the Eternals is they would be boosted by Life magic. Last game he took 2 lvl 1's and a lvl 2 so my lvl 4 should have the advantage on casting and dispelling.

Quick list idea:

Spellweaver lvl4 rhymers
BSB silvered steel, dragon bane
10 dryads
9 dryads
38 Eternals FC razorbanner
20 Glade guard Flame banner musician
2 eagles

I guess I haven't played against the 8th edition VC, sounds like they've changed things up quite a bit. I suppose it doesn't hurt anything to try, its definitely the best way to learn.

When 8th first came out and everyone was whining about the WE book being ruined I entered a tournament with pretty much the list that everyone said would not work. I took wardancers, I took 2 level 2 wizards instead of a level 4, I took a lord on a stag, small units (8 dryads, 10 glade guard, 5 wardancers), heck I even took waywatchers! No treekin. I nearly won that tournament and I took the same army in the next local league and did very well.

My point is, if I had listened to people on the internet instead of trying it out I might have quit the army instead of finding that they are actually quite good in 8th edition and while the tactics may have changed they can be quite competitive in the hands of a competent general. If you do try out that list I'd be interested to hear how it goes!