The Mannfred Appreciation Thread

[Beastmaster]

I just think Zombies and skeletons make the perfect ship crew. No food problems, can row and pull sails around the clock without tiring, don’t fear to climb the mast in the worst storm, can not drown, do not get sick. Not prone to mutiny or alcoholism. All the usual problems are just not an issue for them. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Beastmaster

[Evangelist of Cinders]

24 minutes ago, Beastmaster said:

I just think Zombies and skeletons make the perfect ship crew. No food problems, can row and pull sails around the clock without tiring, don’t fear to climb the mast in the worst storm, can not drown, do not get sick. Not prone to mutiny or alcoholism. All the usual problems are just not an issue for them. 

Vampire pirates as a serious thing always bothered me, with the thralls.How the hell will they navigate during sunlight, vampire lord gets up everynight to discover the ship is way off course and gulls ate some of the crew. I'd love to see a bit of Terry Prachett style influence on the theme for an army, though.

 

Manfred is a interesting character up until end times his final betrayal could of been better motivated or written and still be in character; haven't read much in AoS, I miss his zombie horse

[sandlemad]

18 hours ago, shinros said:

Personally don't get the interest in Vlad he is a poor dracula rip off and he has a one dimensional wife who is insane.  When I read the vampire wars and further fiction (liber necris, RPG.) I've found mannfred to be the far more interesting vampire.

Actually all of the three mortarch's are my favourite death characters.

Folks are interested in Vlad cos he's the archtype of the old order: he'll drain your blood but he represents order and stability, he drove out the bandits, protected the peasants, was 'respectable' and bore himself with a certain noblesse oblige. He was better than the previous counts of Sylvania and frankly many other empire nobles. Still a monster but with that 'cool dad' energy. Also as much as Isabella herself is pretty much a one-note cruel vampire lady, their relationship was always portrayed as earnest and was one of the few big love stories in WHFB.

That being said I like Mannfred and think he gains a lot simply by contrast with Vlad. Initially (i.e. in 6th ed, Liber Necris, etc) he's the nastier, more cunning, more magically adept, more realpolitik-focused dude compared to his at least mildly noble father figure, scheming and assassinating in a way that Vlad wouldn't. While Vlad represented a sort of break from the legacy of Nagash and had his eyes set firmly on the imperial throne, Mannfred both drew more from Nehekaran lore and aimed bigger. He was portrayed as ultimately a bigger threat than Vlad, which was part of that whole 6th/7th ed. buildup of various threats (Mannfred, Archaon, Grimgor, Malekith's latest plans). The Empire was able to defeat Vlad, barely, but oh no, now they have to deal with the guy who learned from all his father-in-blood's mistakes.

That changed somewhat when he became more of a Starscream-analogue but that only heightened the contrast: Vlad is the grizzled, charismatic, semi-honourable old veteran, whereas Mannfred is the seething, scheming, sarcastic ne'er-do-well. To my mind both of them were more distinct for the comparison.

17 hours ago, Evangelist of Cinders said:

Vampire pirates as a serious thing always bothered me, with the thralls.How the hell will they navigate during sunlight, vampire lord gets up everynight to discover the ship is way off course and gulls ate some of the crew. I'd love to see a bit of Terry Prachett style influence on the theme for an army, though.

Easy: where they sail they are accompanied by thick sorcerous fog, straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It blots out the sun sufficiently for the vampire captain to direct his crew from the helm, as long as he's got his huge pirate hat.

Edited July 7, 2020 by sandlemad

[shinros]

3 hours ago, sandlemad said:

Folks are interested in Vlad cos he's the archtype of the old order: he'll drain your blood but he represents order and stability, he drove out the bandits, protected the peasants, was 'respectable' and bore himself with a certain noblesse oblige. He was better than the previous counts of Sylvania and frankly many other empire nobles. Still a monster but with that 'cool dad' energy. Also as much as Isabella herself is pretty much a one-note cruel vampire lady, their relationship was always portrayed as earnest and was one of the few big love stories in WHFB.

That being said I like Mannfred and think he gains a lot simply by contrast with Vlad. Initially (i.e. in 6th ed, Liber Necris, etc) he's the nastier, more cunning, more magically adept, more realpolitik-focused dude compared to his at least mildly noble father figure, scheming and assassinating in a way that Vlad wouldn't. While Vlad represented a sort of break from the legacy of Nagash and had his eyes set firmly on the imperial throne, Mannfred both drew more from Nehekaran lore and aimed bigger. He was portrayed as ultimately a bigger threat than Vlad, which was part of that whole 6th/7th ed. buildup of various threats (Mannfred, Archaon, Grimgor, Malekith's latest plans). The Empire was able to defeat Vlad, barely, but oh no, now they have to deal with the guy who learned from all his father-in-blood's mistakes.

That changed somewhat when he became more of a Starscream-analogue but that only heightened the contrast: Vlad is the grizzled, charismatic, semi-honourable old veteran, whereas Mannfred is the seething, scheming, sarcastic ne'er-do-well. To my mind both of them were more distinct for the comparison.

Easy: where they sail they are accompanied by thick sorcerous fog, straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It blots out the sun sufficiently for the vampire captain to direct his crew from the helm, as long as he's got his huge pirate hat.

See here's the thing, the whole of the first paragraph largely is a misconception because of End times in my opinion that series was largely rushed and poorly written. 

The whole protection of peasants thing was a front to push off attention as he prepared for his war. This is shown clearly in the vampire wars novel. Soon as he revealed he was a vampire he was putting peasants in cages, he also began slaughtering/eating the nobles who swore fealty to him at a party. Then he turned them into zombies. When the vampire wars started his get also started devouring peasants within Sylvania, it was basically chaos for them. In the end times he was only helping people out so once they all die he could rule the ashes, but all the other characters are wise enough to see he is a monster playing tricks. Especially Sigmar. 

In the warhammer RPG it's made quite clear that Mannfred was the one who made the "modern" day Sylvania, instead of putting peasants in cages he turned them into cultists, they see vampires as gods essentially. They basically gave their blood freely through a tax, also as you said he drew more on the Nehekeran lore and aimed bigger than his vampiric father. Also he doesn't turn any random warrior he likes into a vampire, why? Because vampires like to betray one another. It happened to Vlad several times in the novel until Mannfred took a smarter route as you said. He tries to learn from mistakes, it's why he is bald. Literally. 

Vlad is not an honourable figure in my opinion, that's a facade he uses to lure people in, then he reveals how monstrous he is, also let's not get into his an insane wife. It's why I was never invested in his story during the end times. Vlad is not a cool dad, that misconception came along because of end times, and it's telling when someone who has only read end times pops up stating how honourable he is. 

In the end times it's outright revealed that many of the vampires don't even like Vlad or Mannfred because they are tired of the plans for world domination. Again this is just my observation/opinion after reading the books. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by shinros

[El Syf]

End Times also turned Settra into the ultimate Badass with that one quote/meme. I certainly never remember anyone really caring about him before that.

I must confess I actually liked the end times novels (not the lore books that accompanied the rules books) and from the moment Manfred realizes he and Arkhan have returned Nagash to life rather than just harnessing his powers it was on the cards he was going to try and do something.

[shinros]

9 minutes ago, El Syf said:

End Times also turned Settra into the ultimate Badass with that one quote/meme. I certainly never remember anyone really caring about him before that.

I must confess I actually liked the end times novels (not the lore books that accompanied the rules books) and from the moment Manfred realizes he and Arkhan have returned Nagash to life rather than just harnessing his powers it was on the cards he was going to try and do something.

The start of the End times with Mannfred and Arkhan was pretty great in my opinion, but when it comes to Settra no one cared about him until the meme/quote as you said. If people loved Settra so much TK wouldn't be one of the worst selling armies next to Bretonnia even after they were updated. Don't get more wrong there were some small parts that were good but by large End times was rushed, hell the writers even forgot about characters. 

Also personally I have a huge distaste over memes, largely 40k has done that. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by shinros

[sandlemad]

Tbh even as a facade, that's good enough as a character. WHFB had a long history and there's always been room for reinterpretations and outright changes, to the point where I don't think 'misconception' is even a useful way of looking at it because ultimately there's no RL Vlad Von Carstein, just many characters sharing the same name and a handful of other features written by different authors with different focuses . I liked Reynolds' and Wraight's take on Vlad, just as I like and can appreciate both the menacing threat of 6th/7th ed. Mannfred and the Starscream-with-fangs Mannfred of End Times and AoS.

Same with Settra really, if it took the Settra of the End Times novels and (I suspect more importantly) Total Warhammer II to make people sit up and take notice of how cool he was, well, that's no less legitimate than folks who were grabbed by his background in the 6th edition TK book or the more exaggerated background in the 8th edition book. Shame it was too late for him to appear in new stuff.

Also from what the authors have said themselves about writing the End Times novels, they had a tough brief as the studio changed things on the fly, something which hasn't changed with the introduction of AoS, as all the various name changes in Soul Wars go to show. 

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, shinros said:

See here's the thing, the whole of the first paragraph largely is a misconception because of End times in my opinion that series was largely rushed and poorly written. 

I only read the vampire trilogy (didn't dig in to the end times thing) but Vlad has always been a soft spot to me. He was the first vampire lord of Sylvania  and even if it had that type of facade going on, the whole concept was awesome.

I liked Mannfred and Konrad too btw.

[Mwatts25]

11 hours ago, shinros said:

The start of the End times with Mannfred and Arkhan was pretty great in my opinion, but when it comes to Settra no one cared about him until the meme/quote as you said. If people loved Settra so much TK wouldn't be one of the worst selling armies next to Bretonnia even after they were updated. Don't get more wrong there were some small parts that were good but by large End times was rushed, hell the writers even forgot about characters. 

Also personally I have a huge distaste over memes, largely 40k has done that. 

You really should get your facts straight.

the sales for TK and brets weren’t down because of a lack of interest, they were down because of the ridiculous price point gw was putting on them, which led people to buying alternative minis from other companies, like tms, fireforge, etc. Gw saw this, and in a fit of pique, canned the lines

[shinros]

18 minutes ago, Mwatts25 said:

You really should get your facts straight.

the sales for TK and brets weren’t down because of a lack of interest, they were down because of the ridiculous price point gw was putting on them, which led people to buying alternative minis from other companies, like tms, fireforge, etc. Gw saw this, and in a fit of pique, canned the lines

Bruh, it's well known TK was one of the poorest selling armies for fantasy. Vampire counts outstripped them by miles. People prefer gothic vampires and skeletons over Egyptian skeletons that were sucky to play. No one cared about Settra until end times. Because whenever he is mentioned you hear only the meme. Believe what you want mate. 

Same thing with Bretonnia, Empire was far more popular than them. I even think an update wouldn't help them since TK models gathered dust on the shelves despite being updated first over vampire counts. In general fantasy sold poorly so they moved to AOS. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by shinros

[Mwatts25]

1 minute ago, shinros said:

Bruh, it's well known TK was one of the poorest selling armies for fantasy. Vampire counts outstripped them by miles. People prefer gothic vampires and skeletons over Egyptian skeletons that were sucky to play. No one cared about Settra until end times. Because whenever he is mentioned you hear only the meme. Believe what you want mate. 

Same thing with Bretonnia, Empire was far more popular than them. I even think an update wouldn't help them since TK models gathered dust on the shelves. 

Im not saying the sales weren’t bad, im saying they were bad because of gw’s marketing. With both Tk and brets, they were charging ridiculous prices for their unit boxes. 3 pegasus riders for 50 USD, vs 8 pistoliers on horseback for 40 USD. Tk had boxes of 3 ubshati golem guys similarly priced vs much larger unit counts in vampire counts equivalents too. These price point differences led to go to other vendors for higher quantities of cheaper units. All gw saw was dwindling sales, when in actuality they were losing sales to other companies. If the popularity for the armies wasnt high, the pricepoint on ebay wouldnt be as high as it is now on ebay.

[shinros]

3 minutes ago, Mwatts25 said:

Im not saying the sales weren’t bad, im saying they were bad because of gw’s marketing. With both Tk and brets, they were charging ridiculous prices for their unit boxes. 3 pegasus riders for 50 USD, vs 8 pistoliers on horseback for 40 USD. Tk had boxes of 3 ubshati golem guys similarly priced vs much larger unit counts in vampire counts equivalents too. These price point differences led to go to other vendors for higher quantities of cheaper units. All gw saw was dwindling sales, when in actuality they were losing sales to other companies. If the popularity for the armies wasnt high, the pricepoint on ebay wouldnt be as high as it is now on ebay.

Maybe the price point is so high on ebay at the current moment because the models aren't even in production anymore? Ever consider that? Funny enough the common complaint among fantasy players when it came to TK was the fact they aren't even fun to play. When I read their army book I got the distinct feeling the writer actually hated the army himself.

If an army is not fun to play people aren't going to drop money on already expensive models. Vampire Counts were basically TK +2. Anyway this topic is about mannfred, this is going to be my last post on the subject. 

[Mwatts25]

24 minutes ago, shinros said:

Maybe the price point is so high on ebay at the current moment because the models aren't even in production anymore? Ever consider that? Funny enough the common complaint among fantasy players when it came to TK was the fact they aren't even fun to play. When I read their army book I got the distinct feeling the writer actually hated the army himself.

If an army is not fun to play people aren't going to drop money on already expensive models. Vampire Counts were basically TK +2. Anyway this topic is about mannfred, this is going to be my last post on the subject. 

I understand you saying that that was your final post, and I understand that the topic is about Mannfred, you were the one who brought tomb kings and Bretonnia into the discussion. I was simply expanding on it by emphasising that the games Workshop sales numbers are not an accurate indicator of any factions popularity, especially given gw’s regular  trend of simultaneous price point increases and mini quantity reduction. Even the Empire and old chaos units are being phased out(Empire completely due to sigmarines, chaos is phasing out old and integrating new) also, the price point on ebay is partially affected by the oop situation, but that doesn’t explain similar minis from other manufacturers that are still in production having their price point increased, and the producers being temporarily sold out due to demand quite frequently.(again the manufacturers i am referring to are fireforge games, and the miniature solutions or TMS,  as well as a few others). As for Mannfred, he has multiple awesome minis throughout the editions, but lore-wise I truly cannot stand him, his actions in resurrecting  Nagash split the defences of the old world and hastened the endtimes irreparably, and in the end, he still ended up getting smacked to lackey status by Nagash.

[Clan's Cynic]

10 hours ago, shinros said:

Bruh, it's well known TK was one of the poorest selling armies for fantasy. Vampire counts outstripped them by miles. People prefer gothic vampires and skeletons over Egyptian skeletons that were sucky to play. No one cared about Settra until end times. Because whenever he is mentioned you hear only the meme. Believe what you want mate. 

Same thing with Bretonnia, Empire was far more popular than them. I even think an update wouldn't help them since TK models gathered dust on the shelves despite being updated first over vampire counts. In general fantasy sold poorly so they moved to AOS. 

Tomb Kings were pretty damn popular during 6th. I saw plenty of them. The problem was that 7th/8th turned them into a joke, by far the least balanced army where you were stuck playing an uphill battle. One needs only look at how popular the revamped Grey Knights line was during 5th compared to how an entire edition of them being all but unplayable has shrunk their playerbase dramatically.

Beastmen are another example, being regarded as the red-haired step child of GW for many years and whilst they're not a top played faction in AoS, they definitely have a good chunk of players.

On the other foot, there's also the Ossiarch Bonereapers who's reveal reaction - even on TGA - received a mixture of deflated "Meh" and outright laughter and compared to most other new army reveals the hype was non-existent, but as soon as the rule leaks came out and people saw how powerful they are (and still are) they exploded into one of the most popular armies. Funny that.. Whilst AoS definitely has a bigger chunk of narrative/"I bought it because it looks cool" players, power and playability is still a big factor in popularity. 

Bretonnia wasn't popular because they went over a decade without an update. How many Dark Eldar players did you see before the 5th edition revamp?  How many Sisters players were there even during the time of Codex: Witchunters? 

I do agree that the Warhammer fandom (especially 40k) has an utterly obnoxious obsession with memes to the point tripe like Emperor's Text To Speech Device is regularly recommended to newbies as a good introduction to lore. You can 't wander onto a discussion outside of dedicated forums without people shrieking LE HERESY BLAM and 4 DE EMPRAH memes, or spamming that one Astartes gif, nevermind Failbaddon.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[JackStreicher]

Also, one has to point out that Mannfred, as a man of fashion, wears the only, yet most stylish moustache. In fact the only moustache that looks good

-none 

[Tropical Ghost General]

Mannfred is my personal favourite in the Slyvania Families range

[Avatar Rage]

I appreciate the level of sheer spite that he holds. 

[JackThorne]

Liber Necris should be required reading for Death players.

[LoopyZebra]

I first got into the hobby in 2016 after playing Total War Warhammer. In Total War, I had played the Vampire Counts, and loved them (and Mannfred) dearly. I wore down the inevitable Chaos invasion with hordes of cheap zombies raised by my vampiric necromancers. 

When I went to the Games Workshop store I was bewildered at this Age of Sigmar thing but went with it. 

It is fair to say that Mannfred and Vampire Counts helped me to start Warhammer, even though I own no Mannfred models.

[Baron Klatz]

There's always time to get one and his amazing Mortarch mount.

Complete the circle of one-upping Chaos in the realms by showing them you don't make a boring throne out of skulls. You ride them into battle!