Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon Question

[Takaloy]

Hey guys, I'm thinking about getting a vampire lord on zombie dragon. First of all, I was wondering if any sets come with it (?) and secondly what are your opinions on the model? (play / power level / usefulness wise ... planning to use him as a general to avoid getting sniped in one turn as he's got a reasonably high wound count)

 

 

follow up question: I see that Prince Vhordrai has a separate model, is it just the dragon pose being different or they're actually different models? (possibly would want to play Vhordrai someday ... maybe should work the other way around to pretend Vhordrai to work as a normal Vampire Lord...?)

[Bohemond]

I have no personal experience with the dragon gameplay-wise, yet. But the FEC starter set has one zombie dragon/terrorgheist, a vampire lord to ride it too. That’s how I got mine, I split the box with a friend. 

 

It is to my understanding that Prince Vhordrai is simply one of the two heads that come with the set. 

[Dracothjay]

FEC starter set can come with the VLoZD, yes.

as for the VLoZD and how he plays, he’s a beast. Good save, kitted out right he’s hard to kill and he hits hard on th charge. I use him aggressively, but take into account once he’s on the table, all opponents shooting will aim at him.

pronce vhodrai is a beefed up version of the VLoZD, with some cool abilities and slightly more damage on the charge. I’m still yet to use him, but he’s a powerhouse.

advice I can give is yes, field VLoZD in your army. Just don’t commit him into battle alone. He’s best served with some supporting units. He will do the heavy lifting, but a bit of support should see him through and deleting units.

[Bradifer]

VLOZD has been one of Death's best units for a while.

The new Legions of Nagash book make have shifted things around but he's still solid.

Especially good when dire wolves charge up with him and wrap up the enemies for a turn or two while the VLOZD gets way less damage thrown at him.

Then he can heal off some of the damage that was done and proceed to slash through opposing forces.

Kindof a dicey monster, sometimes he shreds and sometimes you miss a lot.

[kenshin620]

It also may be useful to have magnets on hand in case you want a ghoul king. Or pawn off the ghoul king if you're not planning on having flesh eaters.

[themortalgod]

One thing to bare in mind is that Prince Vhordrai doesn't have the Vampire Lord keyword, which means he doesn't get the +1 attack to all melee weapons in LoB. (Which, unfortunately, means that in a LoB army he is outclassed by the cheaper VLoZD) . Doubly so once you consider the potential of a VLoZD armed with an Orb of Enchantment.

[Silverline]

3 hours ago, themortalgod said:

One thing to bare in mind is that Prince Vhordrai doesn't have the Vampire Lord keyword, which means he doesn't get the +1 attack to all melee weapons in LoB. (Which, unfortunately, means that in a LoB army he is outclassed by the cheaper VLoZD) . Doubly so once you consider the potential of a VLoZD armed with an Orb of Enchantment.

Not quite - Vhordrai has an extra attack over the lord using the lance in the first place, and an extra point of Rend to boot. The LoB bonus doesn't affect the mount, which has the same melee profile but a somewhat superior breath weapon for the Prince. 

Vhordrai also wins out on both his signature spell and command ability,  but as you say, cannot take an artefact, and he is more expensive. 

I don't see him being outclassed by his cheaper version, but the question must be asked;

[Honk]

So maybe just grab the FEC starter box, build the ghouls as zombies the flayers as vargheist and then an VLoZD...just buy two and your 1500 point army is almost done 2vlozd 6vargheist 40zombies(20,10,10)...

 

building a modular zombiedragon / terrorgheist is a bit tricky because the wings and backbone are „inverted“, but nobody gave me any trouble for declaring my VLoZD to be a GKoTG ...

 

strategic wise with the above mentioned army, you could go for legion of night, drop a shambling zombie horde (yes, skellis would be better) and ambush in the vargheist with the lord...or things like that.

money wise the FEC starter box is solid, if you plan using the vargheist too...

[flowerpot_chimp]

6 hours ago, Silverline said:

The LoB bonus doesn't affect the mount, which has the same melee profile but a somewhat superior breath weapon for the Prince. 

Unless this has been FAQ'd I think it's pretty clear that the mount does get the bonus? Happy to be proved wrong if this is untrue. 

Mount rules say "In all such cases, any command traits or magical artefacts can only be used to affect attacks made by the hero, and have no effect on attacks made by their mount unless specifically stated otherwise".

The "Favoured Retainers" rules which gives the bonus attacks to "all melee weapons used by [...]" is a Battle Trait, not command or artefact.

Either way, Legion of Blood is very good for the VLoZD. -1 to hit command trait and reroll saves of 1 artefact can make them quite a bit more survivable than the Prince. 

[Jgregs]

The flesh eater court start collecting box is a great way to start a legion of blood army. Just build the VLOZD, the 3 varghiests and you can easily convert the 10 ghouls into fell bats if you get some tyranid gargoyle wings off of eBay. 

[Silverline]

2 hours ago, flowerpot_chimp said:

Unless this has been FAQ'd I think it's pretty clear that the mount does get the bonus? Happy to be proved wrong if this is untrue. 

Mount rules say "In all such cases, any command traits or magical artefacts can only be used to affect attacks made by the hero, and have no effect on attacks made by their mount unless specifically stated otherwise".

The "Favoured Retainers" rules which gives the bonus attacks to "all melee weapons used by [...]" is a Battle Trait, not command or artefact.

Either way, Legion of Blood is very good for the VLoZD. -1 to hit command trait and reroll saves of 1 artefact can make them quite a bit more survivable than the Prince. 

Huh, I missed that very specific wording. I'd be curious to see what the FAQ'd answer to that is, because while I feel RAI includes Battle Traits in with the mount rules, RAW does not. Excellent catch!

[flowerpot_chimp]

In the FAQ for the GH2017 they changed the wording on the mount rules which as printed IIRC said "command abilities or magical artefacts" to "command traits or magical artefacts", so I can only assume the very specific wording is intentional. If they were trying to remove all mount-buffing then they would have included all 3 there (and spells!) as the VLoZD can give his mount rerolls via his command ability. 

[AverageBoss]

19 minutes ago, flowerpot_chimp said:

In the FAQ for the GH2017 they changed the wording on the mount rules which as printed IIRC said "command abilities or magical artefacts" to "command traits or magical artefacts", so I can only assume the very specific wording is intentional. If they were trying to remove all mount-buffing then they would have included all 3 there (and spells!) as the VLoZD can give his mount rerolls via his command ability. 

And if a Vampire Lord is your general, he can also add to all 3 attacks of the VLoZD.

Also worth noting, it only restricts the traits and artifacts effecting hero mounts. Lord of Nagashizzar will not give an extra attack to a Wight Kings horse, but it will to Black Knight horses for example.

[pikachoux]

Wow the VLoZD is now a killing machine with +1 attacks on each weapons and the re-roll to hit. I think i will start using it instead of Arkan. My opponents wont be happy.