Crypt Ghouls, like Skeletons and Zombies, do count towards the minimum core units you are required to take into battle. *
* Because Crypt Ghouls and Skellies are 8pts (minimum unit size of 10) and Zombies are 4pts (minimum unit size of 20) you can actually get away with only having to spend 160pts on core units in a 2000pts battle (if you really want to !)
Anyway, back to my beloved Crypties...
Crypt Ghouls are quite resilient and handy in combat. They will frequently be bested by good and elite rank and file enemies with armour saves, character leaders and standards but they will give a good account of themselves against most other units.
What stands out most about the ghouls is their toughness of 4. I find it quite surprising that it's not 3. Combine their toughness with immunity to break tests (like all undead) and you have a great, cheap blocking/holding unit.
Add 2 attacks and you have quite a good offensive combat unit aswell especially against lower initiative enemies. There's more...
Poisoned Attacks...
...are a nice little bonus for Crypt Ghouls. Remember, this means they ignore the need to roll to wound if they rolled a 6 to hit (the enemy still gets its armour/ward saves).
This means that against high toughness 5 creatures with, say an armour save of 5, you roughly triple your chances of causing an unsaved wound them (eg. Normally 1 in 18 becomes roughly 1/18 + 1/9 = 1/6)
Poison effectively makes opponents a little less tough. This is especially the case with higher toughness opponents that might otherwise be very difficult or impossible to wound.
Like I said, it's only a small bonus but every little bit can count in a Warhammer Battle.
Ghouls cannot benefit from a standard or musician which is a shame but in keeping with the models and their back ground (I don't expect there's much room to swing a standard in a crypt).
You can inlude a champion in the unit, called a Crypt Ghast. As usual they have the same profile but, in this case, 1 extra attack. I would recommend taking a champion.
How to use Crypt Ghouls on the battlefield.
Crypt ghouls really will be shot to pieces over the next few years by bow fire. Literally hundreds of thousands will probably die but it won't matter. They are cheap and can quite esily be reraised. They just don't have any armour so are very vulnerable.
Now, you can take a number of approaches when using ghouls...
1) don't worry about losses at all
2) take large units into battle
3) raise ghouls during the battle
If you're going with a magic heavy army I would advise that you take option 3 and also give a vampire the...
Vampiric Master power of Summon Ghouls (15 pts).
...this let's the Vampire raise the ghoul unit above it's starting size and gives him +1 to attempts to cast Invocation of Nehek.
If the Vampire is not in combat (which I assume means he can be in a rear rank*) and he has the helm of commandment (30 pts) then the ghouls can use his weapon skill in combat and he can continue to raise other ghouls in the same unit.
* even if I have got this wrong, the Vampire can always be an independent character or in a different unit to the side or rear of the ghoul unit which can use his weapon skill providing he is within 12"
I will probably always include at least one unit of ghouls in my armies simply because I love the models. Thankfully, ghouls are well worth their points as a combat unit against lesser foes and a decent blocking unit against stronger enemies - providing you deploy them in numbers and/or invest in some Vampire characters for support..
Now it's time to rattle some bones and unearth the pros and cons of skellies...
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