Epic Vladimir Tacticum

[quindraco]

Note: I made some attempt at generic advice, but this will need updating as new releases come out. I have a secondary post below for updates, since this post is already max length.

Epic Vladimir's Rules:

1. Feat: Blood Legacy
   
   • Epic Vladimir's feat applies only to friendly faction non-character warrior models, and it works on 4-6 of them. This means it's in your best interest to bring a lot of them, to guarantee you have viable feat targets left when feat turn comes.
   • His feat is also every stat, but only stats. This means his feat targets get more accurate with ranged and melee attacks but not magic attacks, and do more damage with melee attacks but not ranged or magic. You will get the most bang for your buck, then, if you feat models specialising in melee.
   • SPD is hands down the most important stat on any model's card, and that gets raised by the feat as well. Remember, this game rewards taking something good and buffing it into incredibly good, so you will typically get the most out of his feat by bringing a model that's really fast to begin with and/or has speed shenanigans, like pathfinder or acrobatic.
   • While this feat is obviously excellent for assassination, do not be afraid to attrition with it. If the enemy has parked something you really want dead somewhere (s)he thinks it safe from reprisal, you might be able to get an advantage your enemy will never recover from by feating early and wiping out the something. Your feat targets will usually live through your enemy's reprisal turn, which means you just killed something for free, and material advantages matter, as do territory advantages.
2. Spell: Transference
   
   • This spell is critical to epic Vladimir's success, and should typically be put up turn 1. It allows your friendly faction warrior models to spend Vladimir's focus to boost melee attack and damage! You don't need it in effect turn 1, so it's ok to spend focus on it, but you want it up in later turns so you can pay only 1 to keep it going and hand out the rest.
   • More so than any other ability he has, this encourages a melee-centric army, since the spell does absolutely nothing for ranged or magic.
   • Remember, charge attacks are already boosted damage, and impact attacks can never be boosted. The primary uses for this spell are boosting attack rolls to guarantee you hit and boosting damage on additional swings from a model like a manhunter or Fenris.
   • This uses the Fury mechanic of dynamic spending - focus is spent directly from Vladimir, not allocated up front, which means you can decide on the fly where and when to spend it, and focus is conserved if you accidentally kill something earlier than expected. It's incredibly efficient, and basically turns your army into a Hordes battlegroup.
3. Spell: Hand of Fate
   
   • This friendly faction model/unit upkeep buffs absolutely any attack type. It very roughly simulates +2 to attack and damage and +10% to crit rate (meaning 50% crit rate when boosting to hit, 60% for Drago). Get this up turn 1 and keep it up.
4. Spell: Wind Blast
   
   • This spell does two things - it guarantees your enemy will not stand still inside it for the aiming bonus, since the penalty for doing so is larger than the bonus, and much more importantly, it gets rid of cloud effects. Use this to open up LOS for attack vectors.
5. Spell: Razor Wind
   
   • Never forget Vlad has this, because he hasn't got a gun. You will generally never cast this, because Vlad has no business being within the spell's range of the enemy on purpose, but if the enemy has just failed an assassination run, remember that Vlad can Hand of Fate himself and then sling a fully boosted Razor Wind at the enemy - this can win you the game by itself.
6. Spell: Martial Paragon
   
   • This spell is mutually exclusive with Transference or Hand of Fate on Vlad, so you should always be assessing which of the three you really want on him. Its most significant benefit is parry, allowing you to charge through lanes the enemy thought were clogged and escape from assassins who ran into position. The additional accuracy is nice, but against many targets you will prefer Hand of Fate because it raises damage output as well, so you will need to pay careful attention to what you plan on fighting.
7. Spell: Assail
   
   • This upkeep makes a warjack faster. As should be clear by now to you, epic Vlad wants infantry, not warjacks, but like all warcasters will take at least one. While you should feel free to stop paying for Assail if you need it for Transference, turn 1 there's no good reason not to put it up, since it lets your warjack trample farther than it can run, and lets it get to the action faster.
   • If you can afford the points, the single best warjack for this spell is Behemoth, since he can trample and shoot and doesn't ship with charging or running for free, so all of Assail's benefits apply. However, Drago (who runs and charges for free base) is so absurdly efficient under Vlad that you should feel very comfortable only taking him and slapping Assail on him for the speed benefits alone.
8. Special Ability: Might of Kings
   
   • This punishes the enemy severely for attempting to nickel and dime Vlad to death - a canny opponent will usually attempt to kill Vlad or not attack him in the first place, which adds to his overall durability. Even when attempting to kill him all at once, he'll get harder to hit as the assassination happens, which can either protect him or force your opponent to employ a knockdown or stationary effect prior to the run, which makes your enemy easier to predict.
   • This ability is turned off by friendly fire. If you must take AOEs, make absolutely sure they won't drift onto Vlad.
   • This ability is NOT turned off by collateral damage. If you're sure it won't lose you the game - and it will if you're going second against a serious gunline - it's ok to slam something into Vlad turn 1 to get the first of the three MoK buffs. You can shake off or (more likely) sacrifice action turn 2 to stand up, and then you're SPD 7 for the rest of the game.
9. Special Ability: Blood Trials
   
   • This is what really guarantees your opponent will go big or go home when it comes time to assassinate Vlad. You'll only very rarely actually manage to get your hands on the focus it generates - instead, constantly remind your opponent it exists, and watch her/him suddenly decide to stop swinging at you.
10. Special Ability: Defensive Strike
    
    • Unless you have Hand of Fate or Martial Paragon up, do not count on this actually hitting your target. If you're worried about an inbound melee assassin, get one of those spells up beforehand. Remember, it only fires once per turn, so only use it when it really matters if you're being charged by multiple models.
11. Weapon Loadout
    
    • Vlad has a magical reach weapon that gets weapon master against undead. This is all he has, with no guns. Try to avoid using it, and instead focus on supporting your army.

Summary:

1. Avoid mercenaries. Every single one of eVlad's buffs specifies friendly Faction unless it's range SELF. Valachev (or another Ranking Officer, if we ever have any) can fix this, but your enemy will know it and gun for him, so be careful.
2. Focus on melee - both Transference and Blood Legacy encourage it.
3. Keep your characters to a minimum - they can use Transference and Hand of Fate, but can't be feated. If you do use a Ranking Officer, remember that unnamed members of a character unit are not themselves characters, meaning you can feat Nyss Hunters who aren't Cylena, for example.
4. Keep your models to a minimum - Transference is 1-6 focus, 1-7 with Silys in play to pay for it. Blood Legacy is 4-6 models. The more you bring, the harder it is to support them. eVlad does not scale up well to large armies. For this reason, I recommend focusing on solos.
5. Do take a unit for Hand of Fate, though - it gets better the more attacks you make with it. You don't need to take something with a crit effect, but if you do, it'll be even better.

Specific synergistic models as of this writeup:

1. The Drakhun is the single best feat target you can take - of everything in Khador, if your army is down to one model and you're feating, you want it to be him. He pairs well with Fenris, since anything charging one can be forced to deal with the other.
2. Kayazy Assassins make excellent targets for all of eVlad's buffs, especially since with all three they can charge a foot through enemy lines to deliver 4-5 (you feated the underboss, right?) attacks that will virtually never miss and hit like a truck. You can and will take out an enemy heavy warjack with this. Since they lack pathfinder, you might consider ignoring my advice above and taking Saxon Orrick for pathfinder.
3. Manhunters are excellent targets for Transference and the feat. If you take them, take Yuri and get them into a forest.
4. Kayazy Eliminators are also incredible under him.
5. The Great Bears can't be feated, but Backswing can use Transference for the second swing.
6. Drago. I can't emphasize this enough. Hand of Fate stacks with his affinity, and more importantly you can hand him 1 focus with Assail or 0 without and he'll still do incredibly well for you. eVlad needs a jack that can run well on empty.

Epic Vlad can also be used to "fix" models with "problems" that might prevent you from taking them normally. He can buff Doom Reavers despite their spell immmunity due to Transference being on himself, he can get Iron Fang Uhlan base P+S back up to IFP levels with his feat, and his Iron Fang Pikemen (both flavors) are absurdly accurate under him. If you own any Khador melee unit that you feel should get more table time but for some reason you never field it, eVlad is a great excuse.

[Natetehaggresar]

I'd like to add that I always take either Winter Guard Rifle Corp. with Joe, or Nyss with valachev with his. With HoF either unit is a strong caster kill threat. Also they are both excellent at removing chaff infantry from charge lanes you would like other models to move through, or sniping out valuable enemy infantry that likes to hang around in the back like gun mages or choir.

A lot of models you want to take can ignore, or clear some intervening infantry while they move, but digging a feated drakun deep into enemy lines can be game changing.

I disagree with the advice to focus just on high value models. The name of eVlad's game in my opinion is threat saturation. With his feat almost any model becomes capable of killing a caster, or dealing serious damage to a heavy. Taking a mix of expensive high threat models like the drakun, and uhlans, with more average priced models like Kayazy and WGRC is important.

[quindraco]

I'd like to add that I always take either Winter Guard Rifle Corp. with Joe, or Nyss with valachev with his. With HoF either unit is a strong caster kill threat. Also they are both excellent at removing chaff infantry from charge lanes you would like other models to move through, or sniping out valuable enemy infantry that likes to hang around in the back like gun mages or choir.

A lot of models you want to take can ignore, or clear some intervening infantry while they move, but digging a feated drakun deep into enemy lines can be game changing.

I disagree with the advice to focus just on high value models. The name of eVlad's game in my opinion is threat saturation. With his feat almost any model becomes capable of killing a caster, or dealing serious damage to a heavy. Taking a mix of expensive high threat models like the drakun, and uhlans, with more average priced models like Kayazy and WGRC is important.

I recommended the Kayazy, sir, and always include them in my lists. However, I would never take both the Kayazies and the WGRC - eVlad's too busy to buff both.

Hand of Fate does make everything better. If you're willing to commit to losing other benefits, you can justify just about anything under eVlad, since it's like a poor man's Signs and Portents. Unlike with pVlad, the HoF target can safely leave eVlad's control area, so there's less incentive to form a gunline. If you have a favorite unit you can't do without, by all means, take it.

[quindraco]

UPDATE POST:

UPDATE: Blood Legacy raises CMD, which has two significant effects if you pick a unit commander as a feat target - the unit can now spread out extra-wide (although on the turn after feating that will reset) and any unit with LD 9+ now effectively has the Stone Heart rule (automatically pass all command checks). This means there's slightly less synergy with an already Fearless unit, but the spreading out effect is much more significant if you're feating for attrition, since you can more easily deliver your attacks into a spread-out enemy.

[mcpolle]

Draxos: Can we plz get this stickied???

Nice when someone makes a nice write up, and good info for noobs.

Polle

[The Buoyancy of Water]

Great write up!

One thing about the feat that I think you glossed over is the boost to CMD. This has proved very useful to me several times. Increasing CMD range lets models who were previously out of CMD become a serious threat (especially if they were feated on too) from an unexpected angle. Also, it gets a lot of our units to CMD 12 when put on the unit leader, meaning you can ignore terror etc for a turn with the whole unit. Very handy at times!!

Cheers,
Dave

[hamicron]

Nice write up Quindraco! I'm a big fan of EVlad and this is a good summary of what makes him awesome.

I'm one of the rare breed that feels that other than being impressively focus efficient Drago actually offer's very little to EVlad. As a second Jack he's brilliant but he doesn't do anything to cover the primary weaknesses of an EVlad list, which are a tendency towards a low model count and reliance on melee.

The jacks I always look to are the Behemoth, Spriggan or Devastator (and probably the Demolisher when it eventually comes out). The Behemoth and Spriggan both sport ranged attacks to help disrupt massed infantry and affect units guarded by Polarity Shields or similar abilities that deny the possibilty of a charge. The Spriggan and especially the Behemoth are capable of wrecking any targets that have trampled through your front lines into the rear and need to be dealt with asap. The Devastator can stand up to a beating and clear out high defence infantry exceptionally well. For me these jacks can all create different problems to the rest of an EVlad list which makes it more difficult for the opponent to counter you.

Obviously in all of these cases I also bring along the Koldun Lord for his early turns Power Boosting. So for some the investment will just be too high but I like having some options other than just axe to face!

[Jake the Dog]

What does everyone think of using other Man-o-War, solo and Units, under him?

[scout's honor]

What does everyone think of using other Man-o-War, solo and Units, under him?

I don't know what everyone thinks, but I'm guessing it's that they're really too slow for an eVlad list. Their low SPD is an issue in most lists, but it really affects their usefulness with eVlad. I do take Demo Corps with him occasionally, but then only with a list that assumes I won't be feating them and whatever I do feat will sufficiently occupy my opponent that the DC get left alone for two rounds.

[Ganso]

My main recommendation to people playing Vlad_2 is to always plan for a 4 man feat turn and count your lucky starts if you ever get a fifth or a six

Feated grunts are surprisingly lethal to a lot of things, including the most burly of Heavies, Molik Karn, Bronzeback, Avatar are all on my "Yea, I've killed them with Kayazy" list.

It's worth to note that if you already have a decent target for Hand of Fate, then the Doomreavers are a great choice to include for Feat targets MAT 10 POW 16 Berserker Weapon Masters with Reach is like having a Pocket Butcher ready to go

Also, remember that Vlad_2 thrives in the melee game, so please take precautions to secure a charge if your meta is terrain heavy, i.e., invest in Saxon Orick.

[Hoc Est Bellum]

Whilst this will probably raise some eyebrows, I'd recommend people at least give the Demo Corps a shot. 12" charge threat, with MAT10 POW17 attacks... either one WM or two non... It really only takes one or two to leave a hell of a dent in anything, and then DEF14 ARM19 with 8 boxes is at least a bit annoying to deal with.

[The Buoyancy of Water]

Whilst this will probably raise some eyebrows, I'd recommend people at least give the Demo Corps a shot. 12" charge threat, with MAT10 POW17 attacks... either one WM or two non... It really only takes one or two to leave a hell of a dent in anything, and then DEF14 ARM19 with 8 boxes is at least a bit annoying to deal with.

I did this while waiting for my doom reavers to arrive and can agree that it works very well indeed

[wargolem]

Couple of questions:

1) The wording on Blood Trials does not indicate a limit of 3 blood tokens, but I have heard several times that you can only get three of them. Why is this and is there a ruling someone can point me to?

2) I have also seen where a non PG non Infernal answered a question in 2010 about Blood trials that says that feedback type spells do not generate a blood token. Since the enemy attack hitting your jack causes the feedback why would this not trigger blood trials? I can see where collateral damage and continuous effects would not, but damage that only happens as the result of an enemy attack would seem in my humble opinion to trigger it.

3) Thanks for the write up and excellent post as always D

[Saekyn]

Couple of questions:

1) The wording on Blood Trials does not indicate a limit of 3 blood tokens, but I have heard several times that you can only get three of them. Why is this and is there a ruling someone can point me to?

2) I have also seen where a non PG non Infernal answered a question in 2010 about Blood trials that says that feedback type spells do not generate a blood token. Since the enemy attack hitting your jack causes the feedback why would this not trigger blood trials? I can see where collateral damage and continuous effects would not, but damage that only happens as the result of an enemy attack would seem in my humble opinion to trigger it.

3) Thanks for the write up and excellent post as always D

1) I'm no official, but the wording on blood trials isn't even ambiguous; it never even mentions a limit, so I would imagine that there is none. Perhaps the people you've heard from were thinking of e.Butcher's feat?

2) That's actually a tricky question. Again, I'm no official, but it seems that as an enemy hitting your jack is causing damage to you, you'd gain a token. On the other hand, I can see where their argument comes from, that the spell/effect of Feedback is causing the damage, not actually the attack. I think I'd still rule with the former explanation, though, were it up to me.

[quindraco]

Couple of questions:

1) The wording on Blood Trials does not indicate a limit of 3 blood tokens, but I have heard several times that you can only get three of them. Why is this and is there a ruling someone can point me to?

2) I have also seen where a non PG non Infernal answered a question in 2010 about Blood trials that says that feedback type spells do not generate a blood token. Since the enemy attack hitting your jack causes the feedback why would this not trigger blood trials? I can see where collateral damage and continuous effects would not, but damage that only happens as the result of an enemy attack would seem in my humble opinion to trigger it.

3) Thanks for the write up and excellent post as always D

1) Blood Trials has no limit; for example, if eVlad was snipered by a full Widowmaker team, he'd come out with 4 blood tokens. Limits are always explicitly listed in rules, and Blood Trials has no listed limit.
2) Blood Trials triggers on attack damage. Unfortunately, what is and is not an attack is NOT well defined in the rules. I recommend posting in the rules forum for specific questions, including Feedback. I can confirm that collateral and continuous damage is never from an attack and does not provide tokens.

[wargolem]

thanks. 10 chars

[Ector]

I think the write-up should emphasize that eVlad has NO ways to defend his army (and himself) against ranged attacks and spells - Wind Blast will only force some shooters to lose the aiming bonus, at best.
This should be always kept in mind when creating an army. Even if you aren't facing Cygnar, the opponent is likely to have some firepower or spells, so if you're taking Uhlans, make sure there are a lot of them That's why Kayazy is the best unit for eVlad - they have Stealth. Unfortunately, this also greatly limits the value of Drago: DEF 11/ARM 18 jack can be crippled by ranged attacks before it reaches the enemy lines. I am waiting for Demolisher to use it with eVlad.