Crypt Horror Show vs Empire Total War Warhammer Battle 202

Hey what's up guys it's Oakley and we're replaying a 1v1 here in the Northern Wastes. And I'm going to be playing obviously as the Vampire Counts here, deploying moving forward and this is going to be with my Crypt Horror Show build. So it's an interesting build that I've found through repeated testing does fair pretty well. You can see it here in front of you and the way I like to set it up is zombies spread out across the map just to intercept enemies on whatever approach they're taking. I have Skeleton Spearmen on either flank supporting. I have my Black Coach in the center because it's anti-infantry, can charge and bust through the middle. I have Crypt Ghouls in the center. Also in the center my Graveguard with Graveguard with Great Weapons also in the center. And then I have my, whoever my general is, backed up by a Banshee and then Crypt Horrors two pairs on either flank. My opponent is going for a pretty standard Empire build that you'll see nowadays. You have basically Gunners, Crossbowmen, Halberds and then Demigryph Knights with a Steam Tank which is very very strong sturdy build. And so my idea with my build is the second you see something like this for the Empire what you should probably do is chase the heavy wings off of the battlefield. So the way I'm going to be doing that is by bringing in my Black Coach and my heroes immediately. You can see I pulled in my Banshee, I pulled in my Lord, I pulled in the Black Coach, I pulled in the Crypt Horrors, I have Skeleton Spearmen. All of that is fast, nimble, quick and it hits hard. So I want to be able to force this wing back. In the meantime I'm going to be slowly creeping forward with my Zombies. I'm going to be staying out of range of mostly his guns and what not and I have to be wary of his Demigryph Knights. Now the reason I'm bringing my Wizard up here is because he can cast spells that will strip away the health of single targets or especially units like these Demigryph Knights. So this is how you force a flank and obviously you don't want to charge an Empire Halberd line head on and you don't want to charge the gun line head on. So just by pushing the flank super hard with spell casters and heroes and elite units like this it's really forcing him back. So here you go, casting a direct damage spell against this, the Fate of Juna. That's forcing him to pull back. My Banshee is charging in after him because she does not take much damage. It's an Ethereal unit so for the most part she's going to be doing pretty well. She's going to be used to tie up the Demigryph Knights. I'm going to charge in with my Black Coach, popping some abilities plus 34 melee attack plus 60 melee defense. Just popping buffs and this is all forcing his units back. Now I've got them committed. I'm going to commit my Lord and just the sheer amount of pressure I've put off has forced his guys to turn around. I'm now going to cast a Vortex spell just trying to disrupt his main line and look at everything he's forced to pull back to deal with my guys. Now is when the Crypt Horrors get into it. They're going to be charging Karl Frantz, they're going to be charging his all kinds of units. The Demigryph Knights continue to be pulled out of position and now I'm going to get these Crypt Horrors into the mix against the Steam Tank and against the Halberds. These Crypt Horrors are key to this build. It's why it's called the Crypt Horrors Show because Crypt Horrors are cheap. It's what Indie Pride tipped me off to as being some of the most cost effective monsters in the game. And so the key with this build is you want to get them where the enemy does not want you. And that's obviously flanking super hard, that's why you put them on both flanks. So now I've baited him to charge after me. I raise zombies, raise the dead, just in the midst of his charge with my Lord and that is going to catch his Halberds and his Gunners. So now the whole idea with this is pin down your opponent. I'm going to come in with my hero, start tackling the Steam Tank. I have my buffed Black Coach here, still with strong binding, going to be going after the Demigryph Knights. He did pop Stand Your Ground and I have my Banshee here, still not having taken much damage, tearing it up. And then finally I get my Skeleton Spearman. All of this is delaying my opponent's push. In the center you want to disrupt, disrupt, disrupt, cast these zombie spells, cast the Vortex Spells. Now that it's disrupted, that's when you charge in with your zombies. Pin units like this so they can't pull out. So yes, he's going to tear my zombies a new one, but look at what's shambling its way through the gaps in his forces. Your heavy hitters. So this is where you pull in with your Graveguard and whatnot. And look at this, always bring the Crypt Horrors where your enemy least wants them. And again, that's the advantage of Crypt Horrors, they hit hard, they're cheap, and now my hero is going to be casting direct damage against Demigryph Knights, Spirit Leech. That's why you have to kind of abuse the Spirit Leech with your Vampire. It's also one of the reasons why, oh my god, they destroyed my Crypt Horrors with that Rear Charge, but what it did do is I broke a lot of his infantry and I pulled these Demigryphs into the center where I could deal a lot of direct damage, and I have more Crypt Horrors. So plenty of quality units to go around. But one of the reasons why I put my Wizard on a Steed instead of a Flying Mount is because Flying Mounts can get into positions where you can't land them and they can get isolated. Whereas a Steed like this, still very nimble, very mobile, can get around, but is not susceptible to the same type of cheese. Crypt Horrors now going to be going after his Demigryph Knights, and they are pretty good counters to the Demis. If you're going to throw anything against a Demigryph Knight, you might as well put these Crypt Horrors in here. That's why it's called the Crypt Horrors Show. And even if you don't get that many kills, the point is just to delay, delay, delay, pin these guys, and then this is where actually, kind of one of the cruxes is, the Crypt Horrors disrupt, they charge into the mix, they pull key units out of position, and then the Grave Guard are really kind of the meat of your army. You have to bring Grave Guards, presumably you would bring as many as possible with Great Weapons, and they're going to be the ones who come in, hit the enemy in the rear, once they're pinned, and with the Great Weapons, that's where you tear into the unprotected rear. So if we can put this on slow motion, pop from what you can see, that pretty Empire force that you saw before has been completely shattered. Each individual component is now being torn apart, bite-sized, and this Vampire build brings a lot of troops to the battlefield. And look at this, all of my Grave Guard with Great Weapon units are pretty much at full strength coming into the last crucial part of this fight. On the other hand, these Halberds have been rear-charged, they've been attacked by Zombies, they've been getting tired, and the key units that would otherwise be reinforcing the main line are drawn away fighting some of your more sustainable heroes. The Black Coach, for instance, the Banshee, who's still alive, looks like my Black Coach did go down. Ideally, what you should be doing is micromanaging the Black Coach, and it should really be ping-ponging. It is anti-infantry, it should not stay in steady combat like this, it should be going around. And commit your flanking Skeleton Spearmen against the Steam Tank. Yes, you're not going to get many kills, but it's all, I mean, you're wasting the potential of a Steam Tank against a cheap-ass, you know, 350 gold unit. So that's a win in my book. So, so far, I would say that the Empire is very, very powerful online, we're starting to see some builds coalesce for the different factions, and the Demis are, I would say, probably in need of some nerfing, and it is something you're going to be seeing in almost every game for the Empire, bringing Demi-Gryph Knights, bringing Halberds, bringing Gunners, and bringing a Steam Tank. It's really hard to defeat head-on, you cannot defeat the Halberds, and the Demi-Gryph Knights shred anything you push on the flanks. And so I think an appropriate build with the Greenskins, or sorry, with the Vampire Guns, is this build. The reason it counters it, is because you bring so many numbers, and the, just quality of the Crypt Hordes, is what lets you to crack that Empire's defensive bubble. The second you blow up that bubble, just because of the cost-efficientness of these Crypt Hordes that you can wrap around the enemy, get into lines, use Zombies to tie up any forces, it allows you to actually defeat this build. So if you're running into the enemy forces online, I definitely recommend this one. I will have probably a link to a separate video where I'll be discussing this build that I'm using a bit more in-depth, how to build it, how to use it in different situations, and then I also have these little Crypt Hordes as well, or sorry, Crypt Ghouls in the mix. Overall, here you can see I am wrapping up, digesting these little Empire parts, and I'm starting to crumble a little bit. So yes, I was saying I was doing really well, but the Demi-Gryph Knights have run away and escaped. In this position, the enemy Heroes are still alive, and they're fighting against Zombies, so I would expect them to win out in this engagement. My own Hero is in the distance fighting against the Empire troops, so this is kind of a funny situation where both Heroes are dealing with enemy units. My own Lord does win, I have more Zombies to throw into the mix, but I am myself really really down to low, half health, and what I'm scared about is actually the Steam Tank. I'm starting to get critical binding on my Crypt Hordes, and my Graveguards are committed to beating the Steam Tank. I've got a lot of stuff wailing on it, he's trying to escape, and I don't think he will. Should get the last couple shots here. Oh my god, it is taking out so many of my guys. More Crypt Hordes waiting for the Zombies, just trying to take this guy out, and this is why, boom, this is why in addition to the strong Demi-Gryph Knights, why you see the Steam Tank as well. Just the resilience and the steadfastness of this Empire build is really hard to overcome. So anyways, I've got all my units here, the enemy only has really Demi-Gryph Knights remaining. Demi-Gryph Knights and Heroes. So the Heroes are still in the center, still fighting it out with my Zombies, and he's starting to have some key units come back. Halberds, slowly piecemeal, are going to be coming back. Myself, I only really have my Lord, and so I've pulled him back to the middle of my army, hoping to have good binding units with my forces, and what I have to do here is my Crypt Hordes are on a timer. They're getting critical binding on one of them, and so if I don't commit them, they're just going to die, so what I'm doing is I'm telling them to charge after the Demis. The Demis are just super powerful, with so much health, so much armor, it's really hard to kill them when they're in your grasp. They're very slippery, and look at this, they're tied up against Crypt Hordes, still not going down. My other units, my Skeletons, are kind of shambling around, and they cannot catch up with these Demi-Gryphs. Meanwhile, he can cycle charge almost without repercussion, and this is going to be knocking out my Crypt Hordes. Red Fury I apply to them to give them more armor piercing and charge bonus and vigor, but I have to deal with other matters as well. The enemy heroes are tying down my main blob, and this is the main blob with Spears that should really be going after the Demi-Gryphs, so my opponent is making a kind of last-minute comeback with some key, key units. Just one single Demi-Gryph Knight unit left. The rest of his infantry is pretty much done, but I'm starting to fall prey to binding problems. I still have good binding in here, but these Lords are going to tank it out for a while. Let's see. Great Wizard routing, but Karl Franz in the center. Shaken, but still in the fight, and now he's going to be turning his attention against — oh god, and look what's coming in the distance. Just a brutal charge coming to the rescue of Karl Franz, and I keep trying to pin these guys down. My Graveguards and Skeletons, all these units with great weapons and whatnot, trying to look at this, hold these Demi-Gryph Knights, but they're just waltzing on out of here, seemingly impervious to anything I might throw at them. I'm hacking at them constantly, but it is not doing anything. These zombies are kind of walking really weird. And then they come back, and so I am kind of in a rough state right now. He's targeting key units, Crypt Wars are going down, and look at this. I have six Crypt Wars here, which are crumbling, I have three here, which are critical binding, and so I'm kind of on a timer here, and if those guys fall, what do I have left? I have Graveguards. Graveguard and Skeleton Spearmen, which are crumbling, so without that, I have nothing really to prevent the charge damage from the Demi-Gryph Knights, so he may actually finish me off, especially with my Wizard. I'm trying to wait for more mana to come in, more Winds of Magic, so I can try and cast spells like Spirit Leech, but it is a while off. He's going to try and eliminate my General here. If he can do that, then you will get complete collapse of my force, so I'm desperately trying to get out of here. Crypt Wars on their last leg, zombie on their last leg. I decided to just cast some buffs in this general vicinity. Oh no, I think that was Coral France, what did he cast? Oh no, did I cast Spirit Leech on these guys? Oh, I missed it. Okay, I missed what that spell was, so I'm not sure, but yeah, it looks like the mana went down, so that was definitely my spell. I wasn't going to wait for Spirit Leech, it was just not going to be there in time, so what I cast was a buff to, I believe, some of the damage for my guys, but the Critical Binding, the Crumbling is so hard to deal with here at the end, and the Demi-Gryph Knights are just too fast. I can't get there, and now let's watch these Crypt Wars debilitated, and I'm not quite sure how you're supposed to recover from Critical Binding here at the end. I wish there was a cheaper spell to get them back. I had heard somewhere that the Vampire Counts do regain health, but that it does drain the Winds of Magic, so I'm not quite sure how those mechanics work. I'll have to dive into that. If you guys know, I'd be more than happy to find out, or to learn what you have to say. Other than that, I mean, yeah, I got nothing left. This is what's holding my army together. Two Crypt Horror forces that are down at their last bleeding edges of HP left. There's a Bright Wizard left, which my opponent did not pick up on. I'm going to send some Grave Guard with Great Weapons to try and assassinate him. Oh man, I'm trying to reform. I'm pulling back to the center, but here comes the enemy for another walloping. And watch this. I tried to cast a spell, I believe, to, yeah, Undeath Resurgent, plus 16 leadership. I was hoping that would sustain some of their Crumbling, but no, they're going to watch their buddies as they die out on the snow. So here they go, charging forward. I think they only have seconds to live, but they are going to get a couple hits off on the Demis. And again, slippery devils that they are are going to get out of here. And so I really hope CA does take another look at the Demigryph Knights. They are very, very hard to counter. So like I said, this build does marvels, but if those Demigryph Knights make it to the end, you're going to have trouble. The mana here, Winds of Magic, I don't know why I keep calling it mana. I've been watching too much Hearthstone. The Winds of Magic just gets so low that I don't have the damage spells to take care of these guys. And when the Greenskins don't have any range capacity, then what do you do in this scenario? I think there needs to be a way where you can resolve this late game Crumbling. I mean, at this point, I don't know why my Monstrous Infantry here is still Crumbling. I should have a way to buff it back up if they're within range of my Spellcaster, if they don't sustain damage within a certain amount of time. Because look at this, all my opponent has to do is wait it out. And my army is just dying like that, and there's nothing much I can do. Now, again, thankfully, the strength of this build is that it uses a lot of cost-effective units. My Cryptors, yes, ended up dying, but they put in a hell of a fight. And another good unit that doesn't have critical binding problems as much as other units is going to be the Graveguard. That is why you have this as the core of your force. So Zombies are going to be moving forward. They're going to be the ones to absorb the charge. My Graveguards are going to be looking on, timing it, and then now I'm going to charge forward. The enemy has exhausted its charge, but look at this, they're able to disengage so quickly! God, this battle was really down to the last couple moments. I do charge in with my Sorcerer. Von Karsten does get in, and he's going to maybe slow down one of these guys long enough for my Zombies and Graveguards. Yes, now we've surrounded him. So picking them off one by one, and we only got about like a dozen left to go, and somehow I am going through a critical binding phase, whereas my opponent with just this left, and they are not routing. It's crazy. There is still one Bright Wizard in the distance, so I'm going to try and refocus my army to go after him. My opponent senses that that's what I'm going to do, and so he's going to do a last charge to try and intercept me along the way. I did hold some Graveguards here, steady, to try and have more bracing, and all up and down the line he's charging me, but I think he's kind of exposed himself a bit too much. I'm going to be trying to cast a spell, and I finally pull off a pure victory, so geez, what an exhaustive fight to take down this Empire build. That's why I think the Empire is so resilient. My opponent had a pretty, I mean, strong build, and at the end of it, microing Demis is really not that hard, and they're just so cost effective. So yeah, definitely enjoyed this battle, definitely enjoyed the play with my opponent. If you do want to play with the Vampire Guts, I do recommend this Crypt Horror show. Like I said, I'll try and link to a video that I'll be making either prior to this video or in the future that explains kind of how the build works, do's and don'ts, but you kind of got a gist of it here. Let's end the replay and take a look at some of the stats. Stat line at the end, so the Banshee doing really well, Crypt Horror is doing okay, these guys more so than others, and the Grave Guard with great weapons here. These are the damage dealers. These last couple units here, great weapons and Crypt Horrors. This Black Coat should have been used more effectively, it should have been ping-ponging way more, but look at this, Karl Franz will take out units like none other. So you really have to have something to fight him, Spirit Leech or a Banshee or some other, you know, hero unit, but these, ah god, the Empire is just so resilient. Halberds with 197, most of that against zombies, and then these Demis, 28 on this one, this is the one that I Spirit Leeched, so pretty much, yeah, neutered this force. Steam Tank with only 40 kills, so you saw I countered it pretty well, but these last Demi Gryphs with 160, whew, getting a lot of kills. I think I lost most of my men actually to the final little bits when I was just crumbling there at the end. So anyways, hope you guys enjoyed, stay tuned for more. I'll see you in the next one, peace out.