Not only that but the Wight King makes a good leader for a unit of Black Knights. The King can ride a skeletal steed, the same mount that the Black Knights use. This is a distinct advantage on battle grounds with difficult terrain or woods and forests because a skeletal steed suffers no movement penalty over such terrain. A Vampire cannot take a skeletal steed at all, the nearest alternative is a Nightmare (undead horse) which is impeded by difficult terrain.
However, if you do take a Wight King to lead a unit of Black Knight then you should ensure that the unit stays within 6 inches of a following unit with the Vampire rule. This will ensure that your Black Knights get to take their full march move. To do this I recommend you team your Black Knights up with a Varghulf or a Vampire on a flying hellsteed as an independent character maybe accompanied with Fell Bats for missile fire protection.
If you use a Wight King as a Black Knights hero leader then you should give his skeletal steed barding (for a mere +5 pts) and a lance (+12 pts). I chose a lance over a great weapon because of the +2 strength on the charge (rather than +1 for a great weapon used by a mounted model). Ideally, your Black Knight should be equipped to rout enemy units on the turn they charge and they need to be made powerful enough with magic items, standards and heroes to give them a good chance of doing this.
If you plan to use your Black Knights as a blocking unit to hold up the enemy or you feel that your Black Knights and Wight King are unlikely to be strong enough to rout the enemy immediately then consider equipping your Wight King with The Sword of Kings (25 pts). This weapon is excellent against all opponents because it will deliver a killing blow on a roll to wound of a 5+ (that's +1 to a usual Wight Blade roll). This will mean that you should, on average, manage to kill almost any 'human sized' opponent you face by the end of the second round of combat (if your opponent doesn't kill you first !)
The remaining magical item choices for a Wight King are quite limited really (he only has 50pts to spend). *
* I believe he was purposefully included as a 'suggested' Black Knights leader or a Battle Standard Bearer.
Note: remember that Battle Standard Bearers cannot take magical items other than banners.
There are some magic item combination possibilities though, here are my favourites...
The Gem of Blood
- this rebounds a wound before saves, killing blow, mulitple wounds (once only) on a roll of 2-6 ** (the enemy does not get an armour save).*** if you roll a 1 you're in big trouble - you get the original wound back (before saves) plus another wound with no armour save.
Combined with...
The Accursed Armour (heavy armour)
+1 toughness, -3 weapon skill and initiative.
This will turn your Wight King Battle Standard Bearer into something of a 'medieval' tank which deflects it's 1st wounding blow.
Another 'tank like' combination which also adds up to 50 pts is...
The Crown of the Damned
- 4+ ward save but subject to stupidity***and the...
Enchanted Shield (+2 armour save)
This combination gives you an armour save of 1+ (assuming you're on a barded skeletal steed with lance), a toughness of 5 and a ward save of 4. Not bad for a total of 157 pts.
***You won't have to worry about the stupidity much with a leadership of 9 or 10 (if you have a nearby Vampire Lord).
Wight King Summary
A Wight King makes a hardy Warhammer opponent and is a good use of your valuable points when selecting a Vampire Counts army to game with.
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