VC: Analyzing my current 2500 list

Long reads require a beautiful vampire chick.

Before anything else, I'll throw up the army list so we can go over everything piece by piece.  My current rendition of VC is pretty much the same of what I ran in the past.  I still have an all-powerful Vampire Lord, but I've changed a couple of components around the rest of the army to fit a more aggressive playstyle.  Probably the biggest change here is the fact that I dropped a Terrorgheist for a greater selection of units and magic support.

2497
13 drops

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 548
Lore of Vampires
Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Dark Knight, Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, 4+ Ward

HEROES:
Lv.1 Vampire BSB = 245
Lore of Vampires
Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile
Dark Knight, Nightshroud, Gem

Lv.1 Necromancer = 100
Lore of Vampires
Cursed Book

CORE:
33x Skeleton Warriors, FC = 195
30x Ghouls, Ghast = 310
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
11x Black Knights, FC, BoSwiftness = 331
5x Hexwraiths = 150
3x Vargeists = 138
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Terrorgheist = 225

First, let's take a look at my Vampire Lord.  He runs Lore of Vampires obviously, and comes with the standard kit of Quickblood and Red Fury.  I always run my Vampire Lords with Beguile because the chance to make someone re-roll successful hits against you is just too good to pass up on.  This combined with your 1+ save, 2++ vs. fire and 4+ ward, you're extremely tanky while still capable of putting out ludicrous amounts of damage yourself,  With 13 deploys, you should be able to drop your characters last, placing your VL and supporting Vampire away from enemy characters so you're not forced to fight them.  If you do, I have strong faith in my lord's ability to take them down because of..

The Vampire.  I chose the Vampire over the Wight King BSB that I regularly take for 3 main reasons:  You can take another Invocation of Nehek that can be used close to your general, you are S5/S7 on the charge, and you can take vampiric powers.  The extra IoN gives me sustainability on my unit once I enter combat and allows me to heal up any characters that take damage.  S7 on the charge is just huge for me these days because there's a lot of T5 out there that I want to force damage through.  While the Wight King's main advantages over the Vampire is the extra wound and T5, he lacks the raw killing potential that the Vampire delivers.  Over a sustained fight, you need to be able to pile on those additional wounds, especially if the WK can't KB stuff like monstrous infantry.  In terms of durability, I'm already sporting the Nightshroud and 1+ AS, but the -1 Ld aura plus Beguile tests at -4 for both Lord and Vampire is remarkably good.  The Nightshroud's ability just can't be underestimated:  It is seriously one of the best defensive items in the game, rendering most magical weapons and GWs ineffective vs. your vampires in combat.  Not only that, but it strips away ASF and allows Quickblood to do its thing.

When you deploy these guys in a bus, you want to put them on the edges, away from any characters that you might face.  The first rank of 5 should look something like this:  VL V CH BK BK.  The VL on the edge means that hopefully, the least amount of attacks will be going towards your lord on a unit of similar size.  Since the last model swinging will also be in BtB with your Nightshroud, the Lord will reap all the advantages and additional protection that the NS will provide.  In addition, you will have 2 instances to apply your -4 Beguile, and hopefully that will be enough to push the damage through the unit instead of into characters.  Should you absolutely need to fight enemy characters (such as a challenge), the character fighting your VL will also be in BtB with the Nightshroud, and lose ASF in his fight as well.  Let's just say I got money on our guy.

Lastly, we have the humble Necromancer.  Sure, he gives me yet another IoN to cast around if he so desires, but he carries the awesome Cursed Book.  I don't know about you guys, but I think this is one of the best magic items in the game.  For an average of 2 dice, he can cast a lot of spells that a Lv.1 Necro would normally struggle with.  He has a 33% chance to cast a great spell on one dice, and I think that's a great price to pay for some of the best combat-swingy spells in the game.  All of them are hexes that can be cast in combat, and some of them are Remains in Play.  To make it even better, a lot of them have greater range than your other spells, allowing you to stay back a little further and still be a threat on the battlefield.  I absolutely love this item and I think it's a great way to improve your magic flexibility while keeping your LoV spam strong.  Good players can often play fine without a scroll in their army, so give this handy little thing a go for a couple of games and see where it gets you.  I promise you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Alright, now we enter the bulk of the army and you'll see some set staples here.  I always take some kind of chaff and that's why we'll see 3x Dire Wolves and 3x Spirit Hosts.  Personally, I think VC have some of the best drops in the game for cheap and effective chaff.  Spirit Hosts might be one of the most annoying things ever since they can kill other cheap chaff, work as redirectors, and offer static combat res if your opponent is already tied up.  They can tie naked knights up all day, and being Ethereal means they can get places other units cannot.  In short, they're probably one of the best units in the entire book and everyone should have 3x for chaffing purposes.  Later in the game once your forces hit combat, make sure to run them behind enemy units and rear charge them for a static +2 combat res.  If they can't reform and all their characters with magical weapons are already fighting in the front, then it sucks to be them.  The same would apply to your Hexwraiths.

Speaking of Hexwraiths, I always like running one unit whenever I play VC.  Their applications are truly outrageous and they can do so many things its unreal.  I only like taking one unit of them because if you take too many, you risk drawing a bad matchup in the form of heavy magic missiles, magic shooting, or something else that can just wipe them off the board.  They're relatively expensive, and you can only heal a single one per IoN, so you gotta be smart about how you use them.  For me, they're excellent chaff killers since they can pass through enemy (and friendly!) units and deal good damage.  They can kill chaff, hunt warmachines, threaten any unit that won't beat them in combat res naturally, provide Terror tests, strip Regen, and offer static combat res in later parts of the game.  You just need to make sure you keep these guys away from magic attacks and within range of your general.  Since I'm running a relatively fast army, I don't really have an issue with that.

My Skeleton Warriors are there to be a bunker of my Necromancer, and the Ghouls in 6x5 allow me to fight on a semi-decent level.  The 2 poison attacks each really help once I push these guys up and tie up something nasty.  I always like some Ghouls in my army because they threaten a lot of the big beasties out there with high T.  Apply enough wounds either through luck, or with Vanhels and Ghouls become really threatening to some armies.  My Black Knights form my VL's armored bunker and BoSwiftness helps me get to where I want to be.  The Vargheists are just there to keep pace with my army and hunt down anything that threatens to block me or can threaten my flanks.  Since they're not the toughest things in the world and they have Frenzy, then tend to fly out to kill chaff and enemy warmachines.  Their plentiful attacks at S5 can really make short work out of most light units, and the fact that they're vampires allow me to reach out to other areas of the map I wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Finally, we have the lone Terrorgheist.  I've ran two TGs for the longest time, but as new armies come out and high S, D6 wound shooting becomes more and more accessible, things can get really bad, really fast.  Multiple Terrorgheists, Ethereal units and scream-lists are purely a meta thing I feel because there are some armies that just don't care they're on the board.  When you're playing something like Wood Elves, or Daemons of Chaos, investing in multiple units of Hexwraiths is just a bad idea.  You're essentially giving them points because you WILL lose them.  If you don't lose them, you know you've probably played them too conservatively, and thus they're not making back their points.  The same philosophy holds true for Terrorgheists because while they're god damn amazing, cannons just erase them from the board.  Unlike the Hexwraith unit that costs 150 in your list, these things are 225 per pop and each one lost is a huge chunk of your points.  Hexwraiths are also easier to hide and keep out of range.  Terrors need to be within 8" of something to scream, and if they're not screaming, they're not making their points back.  For this reason, I've reduced the number down to 1 and used the points to buff up other areas of my army.  Losing one is bad enough in a poor matchup, but losing two before you can get any use out of them is disastrous.

That's it from me, good night folks.