Where to next?

coming up to a new year, which like most years, means new army! but which army?..

lets forget about lizos for now - as i seem to have done so - given that they will probably live on my shelves once they are fully done lol.
not to mention i am very wary of starting armies with a non-hardbook army book.
with the lizos, i ended up getting someone elses army for a bargain, and have done so again with empire. problem is with both, i bought em as both a favour, and a good deal, rather than an army ive been moistening over the thought of collecting.
vampire counts, on the other hand, is an army id love to collect. sploosh.
it does mean buying an army from scratch, but hey, its not all bargains all the time with warhammer eh?

now by my calculations, i still need 2x boxes of greatswords, 1x demis, 1x outriders, and a couple character clams to finish the empire list. despite getting 2400+ pts of empire already at an outrageous price, its still a fair whack to shell out though, plus movement trays, mag sheets, etc etc.
vc on the other hand, completely from scratch.
movement trays, mag sheets, a garden of moor, starter set - mainly for the ghouls and hounds, everything else will be a zombie/zombie unit filler or fell bats, corpse cart and skellies included - couple boxes of gg, couple horrors, more zombies and some gargoyle wings. oh and half a dozen character clams. so lots more, i guess. in fact, roughly twice as much.

to recap, here are the two lists, competing for my hobby $$:

VC:
vlord, red fury, asf, 4++, ahw
necro, l4, scroll

vamp, l2, forbidden lore: beasts, ha&s
wight king, ahw, ii
banshee
banshee

 5 hounds,
 5 hounds,
20 zombies, m&s
20 zombies, m&s
20 zombies, m&s
31 ghouls, ghast

6 crypt horrors
35 gg, fc, banner of the barrows
2 fell bats
2 fell bats

vs EMP:

gote, fpa & s, barded warhorse, fear sword, stubborn hat, 4++
l4, light, scroll

cote, bsb, fpa, enchanted s, dawnstone
wp, gw, ii, opal amulet
wp, barded warhorse, charmed shield
whunter, potion of speed, brace of pistols

37 hals, fc
det 5 archers
10 icks, fc, steel standard

3 dgk, muso
32 greatswords, fc, gleaming pennant
det 5 archers
6 outriders, m
cannon
cannon

so lets compare. now this is all subject to change after some playtesting, but here are my current thoughts:

-both armies are fairly small, with a lean towards deathstar. vc in particular are packing a 1000ish pt unit of graveguard, once you add vlord and wk in there. greatswords are a big sink too, with a whunter and wp in there, but not nearly as bad ptswise. way more easy pts to pick up in the empire though, imo.
-both have tricks, and opportunities for magical spam. vc do better in the chaff dept, particularly with the new crumble, and the movement of hounds and bats vs archer det movement. dont really consider outriders chaff, more of a shootin' unit.
-speaking of, one thing the emp wins hands down, is in the shootin' dept. sure theres a couple screams on the vc side - which will be overlooked when they're hidden in units till the last minute, i guarantee you - not really the vc's fault there, but it makes me think twice about some matchups, particularly gregs tks. how would my vc fare there? only one way to find out eh lol. and at least the vc list is pretty much cannon proof, bar the horrors that is. just need my daemon saves.
-magic? starting to compare apples and oranges here, although both lists are a bit lacklustre without a bit of magical support. although the vc would be in a tight spot if they didnt get a big magic phase after getting into combat and not doing so well. 3 channels apiece, farily comparable casting costs, although the vc have the benefit of a second lore. the idea there, if not immediately obvious, is a preference of wildform and savage beasts on the l2, although most of the beast spells overall are fairly useful for this list. imagine for a second, my vlord with 9 s8 asf attacks with red fury. he would solo anything without a ward, believe. or throwing a mountain chimera in the mix for maximum lolz. light is light, we all know how horrible that can be on an empire list, not to mention the better bound spells for wps.
the vamp lore is pretty mean tho, easily attainable for a l4, and the lore attribute is much more useful than the light one. pretty obvious combos too, bubble van hels for horrors and ghouls, while gg get hellish vigour. mmm.
- and what about the stouching? the biffo? well, ive seen how quickly a horde of anything undead can disappear after a bad combat. likewise with greatswords i guess, anything s4+ and you are about to lose their combat effectiveness, and off they go a-hidin'. grave guard should be big enough to deal with a bad combat or two, but with the vlord in there, i should be generating enough res to stop massive crumbles. wk goes with him to take up challenges once the unit champ is dead lol, and another 4 kb attacks cant hurt.
vc are pretty simple, three combat blocks, a bunker or two, chaff, and characters. empire have two big combat blocks, a bunker, a little chaff, but a fair bit of shooting and character shenanigans.
horrors im not 100% sold on, same with a unit of 3 dgk, but cant really find anything suitable for their points and combat output. i guess the main difference between the two lists in this regard, is i can raise up to ten dudes (or 16 zombies) per unit, per casting of invok, of which i have two casters. empire? no getting units back unless i go life, and im not going to. for now anyway

so what i think ill do is first tonight after work, is go get some modular movement trays and mag sheets. then once the lizo are painted, ill hit greg up for the empire. ill have a sort through and you'll probably start to see my proxied shame, as i playtest this list. if there are issues or faults i need to address in the vc list, or if i dont like the list after all - hah! - then i can switch back to empire first while i sort it. if not, then the spending shall commence! either way, i get a new army, and a new painting mission.
and thats where we are going next. just needed to justify myself to someone lolol