Advice wanted for ramp up campaign

[Elmir]

Hey folks

We are starting a ramp up campaign, starting with 500p and working up to 1750p through 250p  increments. 

Only tricky thing: no swapping out of units and you have to play at reduced points if you want to build up to bigger units/monsters. Only once during the campaign can your general be swapped out.  Also, once you assign points to the summoning pool, they are permanently allotted. 

I'm starting of with 2 units of 10 zombies, 2 Morghast Archai and a vampire lord (morghasts would get the command abiltiy). This comes down to 480p.  I was thinking of adding 10 zombies to each unit (bringing them up to 20 each) for the next 250p and throwing 140p in the summoning pool to have some flexibility for the matched play scenarios.  So it'll be a generic death army. 

Any input on what to build up to and good combo's after GHB17?

[Malakree]

With death you could save the points for summoning and not actually put them in your list !

[Elmir]

They  removed that cheesing by making summoning points permanent though... If you ever assign (for instance) 140 points for summoning, you HAVE to keep assigning 140p in each of your future lists. 

[Malakree]

So the two things to note is that having "massive" units is beneficial with the GHB2. Not only do you get a discount for the final one they also automatically hold objectives (20+ models in unit) over none massive units (19 or less).

You could also start out as a generic army and by adding points from a specific faction, say soulblight, get to the point where you are actually a soulblight army. That would limit your early list somewhat, depending on when you wanted to transition. So 200 points from the first 500 would mean that you could go allegiance at 1k. Another question is are you buying models or units, ie. could you later combine the units of 10 zombies to get 1 unit of 20.

On the zombies front I really do think you would be better with 1 unit of 30 (and 10) than 2 of 20. It brings the massive rule into play and also triggers the "Dragged Down and Torn Apart" more frequently for higher value. Hysterically on this front your first action of every game could be to have the zombies merge into one unit (shambling horde). That way you could field 1 reasonably sized unit while still getting all your battleline.

Consider if you want to switch into an allegiance, as opposed to GA, later on if it's allowed (check with organiser). Plan ahead, but not to far, maybe taking units in a different order will smooth out the pain of saving for big beasties. 

Most importantly though, take units you want to have when you finish. It's no good ending up with a bunch of crypt horrors that you don't use for a Flesh Eater Courts army you never want to play. It doesn't matter how terrible your army is, if you're having fun (and maybe your opponent to!) then you're playing the game right!

[Elmir]

 Well, I do have a fairly large FEC at my disposal already. I used to  mostly play FEC until I decided to branch out into "generic death". 

I already have (ready and painted):

20 skellies with swords
10 dire wolves 
Arkhan the black
3 cairn wraiths
3 spirit hosts
GKoZD
GKoTG
6 crypt horrors (with 6 extra ones assembled waited to be painted)
3 crypt flayers
40 crypt ghouls
Crypt haunter courtier
Crypt flayer courtier
2 Varghulf courtiers
Crypt ghast courtier
10 black knitghts
1 necromancer on foot
1 necromancer on horseback. 

Unpainted/unassembled:

4 morghasts in the box. 
10 vampire blood knights (well... Caledor Dragon Princes). 
15 crypts horrors/Crypt flayers/Vargheists
10 extra skellies
Wight king with black axe.

Point definitely taken about the zombie flexibilty of 30+10 > 20+20. Any fun combo's with these models would be fun. 

[Malakree]

Personally if I wasn't currently doing an IJ army I would be super tempted to an army of 2 blocks of zombies, with a corpse cart backing them up it's a hillarious stat line for basically nothing.

For you I would definitely see if you could set up way to get your unpainted stuff painted, assuming that you wanted to get your a large chunk painted  and try out the new Soulblight Allegiance.
 

Spoiler

 

If you don't mind building them that way, two units of Vargheists and a you could start out with a Flying VL, that's 460 points. It's quite a small elite army but at that points size the mobility and potential damage output should be really noticable. Then going up to 750 and 100 you have enough spare points to add in 2 units of Blood Knights.

That gets you a huge portion of your unpainted models done and means you would be running soulblight up to that level. It should give you a feel for the army and let you know whether you want to do more with it!

At either any points jump you could add 2 units of skeles/zombies to swap into generic death. which would then leave you about 130 points to carry over to the next points increase. You could also switch to Necromantic bloodline and go for summoning the Morghasts if that was a preference. At 1000 points you have 200 points for allies, enough space to include the 10 skeles+Wight King. You would then have the choice to add in more Vargheists, or another 50 points of allies.

 

Seriously though you have a bunch of stuff you could use to start with and then build up to later. Hell Arkhan the Black is 320 points with 2 zambies at 120 you end up with 60 points carried over with the ability to expand any route you wanted. Ask yourself what units/army you've always wanted to try and then build towards them!