Finally got my book and so have been writing up my list looking at 2400 points.

Vampire Lord- Lv 4, Red Fury, Quickblood, Heavy Armour, Shield, Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Preservation.

Wight King- BSB, Great Weapon, Nightshroud
Tomb Banshee
Tomb Banshee
Cairn Wraith
Cairn Wraith
Cairn Wraith
Necromancer- Lv 1, Vampire

50 Zombies- Std
50 Zombies- Std
50 Zombies- Std
20 Zombies
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves

35 Grave Guard- Std, Champ, Banner of the Barrows
Spirit Host

Black Coach

2399

Thoughts- Vamp Lord and Wight King go in the GG who go horde formation and just smash through enemy units raising back any casualties they take.
Ethereals all fly around getting in the way and holding up anything with low combat res. 60 point model that can take a 300 point monster out of the game is pretty awesome. Banshees can scream at people

Zombies just shuffle up and bog enemies in combat

Not sure about the Black Coach but it looks on paper to be very tough. What else can be ethereal and have 3+ armour, 4+ ward and T6? Will need to be careful about what I charge with it though.

Would like to add lots of stuff but lack of points.
Units of 3 vargheists would add some nice punch I think.
Mortis Engine looks amazing although I doubt my ability to assemble and paint one.
Blood Knights and Black knights are a bit too expensive if I have the GG horde.
Some fell bats would be good and they are only cheap.
I don't realy like the models for the hexwraiths and have heard mixed reviews f their effectiveness.

As to characters I am not sure about the levels of magic. Can the Vamp lord go it alone? Is a level 1 necromance better than maybe swapping the wight king to a second vampire?
What's a good set up for the wight king? I am a bit worried by his lack of defence.

How many wraiths and banshees is too many? As I have 10 wraith models and 6 or more banshees

Thanks for any advice or comments very appreciated.

I would drop the black coach and try and find a few extra points for a mortis engine. At winter carnage on the weekend 2 of the VC players had mortis engines in there list and everyone who came up against them was in awe of it. The ability to clear chaff at the beginning of the movement phase before charges are declared is golden.

The mortis engine is interesting. Doing D6 S6 hits to all enemies up to 18" away could be very amazing vs some armies. MSU high elves for example you could take out halkf the army.
However if you are trying to be in range of your enemies to zap them than you would struggle to be in range of your friends to give them regen. Also I am not sure if they would synergise very well with my list.
The Grave Guard have parry so regen is wasted. Regen on Zombies isn't rather silly.
This could be a lot more amazing if I had a ghoul army. Then would definitely take one.
Also potentially blowing up and killing your own troops is not really cool. Flaming attacks could drop those 5 wounds pretty quick.
I am not sure I'd like to see one in action.

Personally the Mortis Engine works well in combination with Crypt Horrors. Taking one just to buff ghouls isn't probably worth the effort.

I would drop the wolf units and take 3 units of 2 fell bats for chaff deployment drops and redirectors. Essential in any VC list, imo.

Are you grave guard going to be HW&SH or GW?

Am very inclined to stick some fell bats in. Pity they cost so much, hopefully can find some cheap ones on ebay.

I bought the mantic armoured revenants which can only be equipped sword and shield but am tempted to just play them as great weapons.
Theoretically
30 Horde GW with BoB-20.1 hits,16.75 dead enemies- Pretty rude.
30 Horde S+S with BoB- 20.1 hits, 10.05 wounds, 8.38 dead enemies.
So about half as effective against T4 opponents.

It's less impressive if I just go 5 wide though then i am looking at
GW- 9 attacks, 6 hits, 5 dead
HW/S- 9 attacks, 6 hits, 3 wounds, 2 dead.
In this case saving more undead lives could be worth it with the shield.

If in horde formation though my mages and BSB will find it harder to be in range of stuff for all the spells, then again not much else in the army is really worth buffing and invocation on 12+ isn't too challenging for a level 4.

Am thinking drop the Grave Guard to 30 and add in 2 units of Fell Bats

Dire wolves are in there to make up minimum core

The problem is that with your Undead initiative being what it is, that penalty from Great Weapons will rarely come into play.

It's not as severe as the difference Tomb Guard face (only light armour by default so you often won't get a save even with a shield) but it's hard to justify the shields at the cost of the difference in killyness. The banner compounds this even further.

+1 to preachers comments bats 2x3 mandatory imo

I have run dual mortis with Crypts they rock - only issue is decent shooting and your in defense mode.

Note raising back will be hard opponents will always shut down the lvl 4 so d6+1 is not great and GG drop like flies (abate they hit hard). You need another necro potentially

Trakta

I guess as long as you are happy with only having one combat unit it's ok?

Experience says that Coach can't be killed until it gets to combat, and it attracts a huge amount of attention (good). Once it is in combat alone, it dies to combat res.

While it is true GG have crappy initiative- Nightshroud makes enemies in base contact strike last so 3/5 of the enemy unit would be striking after me if using hw/s which could be handy? I do agree though, the GW looks better value overall, just have to stick to WYSIWYG.

I managed to fit in the second Necro- just

Vampire Lord- Lv 4, Red Fury, Quickblood, Heavy Armour, Shield, Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Preservation.

Wight King- Great Weapon, Nightshroud
Tomb Banshee
Cairn Wraith
Cairn Wraith
Cairn Wraith
Cairn Wraith
Necromancer- Lv 1, Vampire
Necromancer- Lv 1, Vampire

49 Zombies- Std
49 Zombies- Std
49 Zombies- Std
20 Zombies- Std
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves

35 Grave Guard- Full Command, Banner of the Barrows
Spirit Host
2 Fell Bats
3 Vargheists- Vargoyle
2400

Swapped the coach for the vargheists giving me a second unit which can hit stuff.
One combat unit is okay as i have a lot of rubbish stuff to hold up other enemy units. Plus the wraiths can always join into a zombie unit and make them pretty scary if need be.