Advice appreciated! Death at 500 pts escalation

[Teletomas]

 

Hello all,

So, I'm up for 500 escalation tourney at my local gw (500, 1000, 1500). First scenario and battlefield is 4 squares with 1 point giving objective markers in the middle of each (so quite close to starting position). Points for killing units 1, heroes 3, generals 5.  1 Battleline + 1 hero required, apart from that anything goes except for war machines.

This is not Deaths sweet spot: Not a lot to choose from as most of our units are actually not that cheap -considering hordes need numbers to function properly, again keeping us with few pressure points on battlefield. I wanted to run a mostly soul blight list. But ouch, but even less options at that point level..(whereas one of the Khorne fans plaing the tourney has a 1 Bloodsecrator, 10x  Blood Warriors, 10x reavers and a Khorgorath at 460 points. Yikes!)

I'm thinking I have to go flat out kill at 500 points and take on major punchy unit and 1 or 2 zombie units for instance. If not I have to go flat out zombies, but to pack a punch, like all horde armies, they have to have size to them, which would probably mean taking 2x30 zombies and a vampire lord with wings for instance... But I just don't want to move 60 zombies a turn...

Or 1 unit of Blood knights, 1 vampire lord and 10 zombies. But only the Blood Knights pack a punch (on the charge), and if they get stuck in combat opponent can swarm them or ignore them while reaping points.

Another -kind of ridiculous -possibility at 500 points would be taking the vampire lord on zombie dragon with shadow cloak and fury and 10 zombies.

My thinking is: I'd start first turn with taking the two objectives closest to me with the zombies and vlozd respectively. Ideally opponent would be forced to stay together because of vlozd picking them off one by one if he/she spaced them to far apart, and seeing that I get 2 points every turn, and he 1 by doing the waiting game at maximum 1 objective, this would leave opponent with only the option of attacking me and going for it if he wants to win. As opponent would close come storming, I'd use the shadow cloak (or just regular movement) to take opponents objective marker furthest away, leaving him in same position as before with one possible point a turn. If he alternatively breaks up his blob of units, zombie dragon starts picking them off. 

This plan has a lot of downsides, and not a lot of flexibility at 500 pts. Do any of you have any experience at 500 pts Death. I seem to remember @TerrorPenguin (how do I include people in posts?) posted something about running a 500 point escalation tourney?

Help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[TerrorPenguin]

Yeah, I've done this. I think I used a proto-legion of death. E.g. Wight King with Standard; 30 skeletons and black knights.

To be honest I don't think it's well balanced below 1000 - unless you're using Hinterlands or something because as you say, yuo could take vlozd with cloak of mist and shadows and red mist. I'd be tempted to say no allegiance abilities or artefacts below 1000 points.

[Teletomas]

1 hour ago, TerrorPenguin said:

Yeah, I've done this. I think I used a proto-legion of death. E.g. Wight King with Standard; 30 skeletons and black knights.

To be honest I don't think it's well balanced below 1000 - unless you're using Hinterlands or something because as you say, yuo could take vlozd with cloak of mist and shadows and red mist. I'd be tempted to say no allegiance abilities or artefacts below 1000 points.

Ah yeah the skeleton way. I was looking at that too, but I'm a bit wary of battle line being skeletons. They seem to need more dedication and bigger numbers as well as the necromancer and or wights (thinking further into the 1000 points where you need more battle lines and more skellies would be better, since I already would have the wight) But at least its viable at the lower points.

Yes, seems very unbalanced at 500 points. 1000 less so, but still not so balanced. I can see other armies more easily making list at these levels.

Hmm

Heroes and hordes.