TOW 1.0 - Vampire Counts

[Sception]

The Army:  The Vampire Counts of the Old World are the classic Warhammer Fantasy Undead in all their dark glory, an eclectic mix of undead horror staples - necromancers and wights, skeletons and zombies, ghosts and ghouls, all shambling to war under the banners of Vampiric Lords and Ladies whose names and legacies are written in great bloody gashes across the history of the old world.  The armies of the Vampire Counts are typically comprised of slow but implacable undead infantry - individually weak but more than capable of grinding their foes down in terrible battles of attrition while the necromancers behind the lines raise their fallen back to the battle and the vampires and wight lords in the front more than make up for whatever offensive power is lacking in their troops.  It's not all slow meat grinders, though, as the Vampire Counts also boast effective cavalry options in the efficient black knights and terrifying blood knights.  Blood knights in particular are among the most potent heavy cavalry in the game, and that's before a nearby necromancer starts raising fallen blood knights back to their saddles.  The army also has effective fast chaff units in dire wolves and fell bats, and can field potent monsters in the varghulf, terrorgheist, and monstrous Zombie Dragon, along with more esoteric niche options like banshees, spirit hosts, corpse carts, and black coaches.  You'd be surprised how long a single ethereal spirit host base can hold up an entire enemy unit, even one with characters attached, so long as they don't have access to magical weapons.  

The magic of the undead is worth calling out, as it has been a particular strength of the faction in past editions.  You'll want necromancers for their ability to heal your units, and you have further options to augment or enhance your available spellcasting with corpse carts or even a towering mortis engine.  However, while you have solid magical options the Old World's Vampire counts can't quite manage top tier arcane power on the level of high elves, slaan, tzeentch daemons, or Tomb Kings Mortuary Cults.  Magic will always be part of your game, but will never be the cornerstone of it.

What the army doesn't have ready access to is ranged options.  Banshees and terrorgheists can leverage their lethal shrieks, undead spellcasters can loose their magic missiles, but dealing with enemy chaff before their able to hamper your battle line's advance or cut off your heavy cavalry's charge arcs can be a challenge.  You also must be careful in how you balance your top level hero options.  You only get one Vampire Count, Ghoul King, or Necromancer Lord per 1,000 points, and must weigh the combat power of a fully kitted out Vampire Count or Ghoul King against the arcane strength of a level 4 Necromancer Lord.  You can try to split the difference with a Vampire Lord or Ghoul King raised to level 3, but even a level 3 spellcaster can struggle against an enemy level 4, and that spellcasting power will cost you armor options and eat into your character's pool of vampiric powers.

Furthermore, while there's plenty of variety already present in the Grand Army, the Vampire Counts' status as a Legacy faction means they won't be seeing an Arcane Journal to further supplement their options any time soon, at least not an official one.

 

The Lore:  Where the Tomb Kings are an eternal and unchanging curse upon the living, the Vampire Counts are more like a spreading plague.  Not only can vampires infect normal humans, spreading their vile bloodline from one to another like a literal disease, each is also by its very nature a beacon of necromantic power, stirring nearby dead to life and ensnaring ghostly spirits by their mere presence alone.  A single vampire left unnoticed can become an entire army of the undead within a week, and only by luck, valour, and tremendous sacrifice have the mortal races of the Old World held the threat of the Vampire Counts in check.  In just the last few centuries Brettonia and the Empire alike have both faced multiple Vampiric outbreaks - Merovech of Mousillon's betrayal and the return of the Red Duke in Brettonia, Walach Harkon's Blood Dragons and the legendary Von Carstein wars in the Empire.  While those threats were defeated, the memory of their horror still relatively fresh, the nations of the Old World are at this time especially vigilant against the threat of the vampire.  Witch hunters and crusading paladins alike are well versed in the signs of the vampire, and exterminate any they find.  Unfortunately, these inquisitors ensnare more than a few innocents in their zealous fervor, but better a handful of innocents be burned than let a single vampire go free, potentially dooming thousands.

Even so, the threat of the Vampire Counts persists.  Neferata, the Queen of Mysteries, still presides over her Silver Pinnacle, and though many of her Lahmian agents have been caught up in the purges more still have managed to stay hidden.  Across the sea Luthor Harkon reigns as Pirate King over Lustria's Vampire Coast, his maritime empire extending all the way to the shores of Tilea and Sartossa.  Walach Harkon's dread banner is rumored to fly once more over an isolated keep in the Boarder Princes.  In the wild outskirts and forgotten corners of the Old World, mad Ghoul Kings lead tribes of their cannibal kin in their bloody feasts, and dream of one day restoring the dark glory of old Strigos.  In the ruins of Sylvania, commoners whisper of black coaches carting sealed coffins through the night, and wonder whether the Von Carsteins are truly gone forever.  While not as physically powerful or hypnotically imposing as vampires, rogue necromancers such as Dieter Hellsnicht are still more than capable of raising an army of the dead and launching a new war of undead conquest.

Like a plague, the horror of the Vampire counts rises until it is burnt out.  But while the threat to the Old World has for the moment been contained, there's no telling when or where the next outbreak will appear.

 

The Models:  The Vampire Counts model range saw a dramatic overhaul in the 7th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  This was late enough that these models still hold up fairly well today, and thanks to the faction's rebirth as the Soulblight Gravelords in Age of Sigmar, many of those old models are still available.  The AoS range saw a further significant overhaul late in that game's second edition, with new plastic skeleton warriors, zombies, dire wolves, fell bats, and blood knights which all look great in Old World Vampire Count armies - though admittedly the new skeleton warriors can be a bit of a pain to rank up, so if you have access to the older Vampire Counts skeletons you might prefer those.  With much of the Soulblight Gravelords range readily available (though good luck getting your hands on Black Knights for anything less than double the msrp), while most of the Tomb Kings models are presently sold out with no word on when they'll be back in stock, at the time of posting it's actually much easier to collect a first party army of the Legacy undead faction for the Old World than it is to collect the 'fully supported' Tomb Kings.  And the army you'd end up with would arguably be made up of better looking models.

And that's just first party options.  As always, if your regular gaming events are conducted a home, club, or independent venue instead of at official warhammer stores or events then you also have a wide range of third party and 3d print options to choose from - often at lower prices.

In terms of painting, there's a lot of variety between rusting metals, tattered cloth, spectral ghosts, decayed flesh, and dusty bones to keep things interesting, and most of that can be pretty easily painted with contrast, washes, or drybrushing.  With so much going on, you'll have to take care that your overall army still has something of a cohesive look to it - in this way painting a Vampire Count army is almost the opposite experience from painting Tomb Kings.

 

Sample List:  Below is a sample 2000 point Vampire Counts army.  It's not made to be a competitive tournament list, but rather to highlight the faction's iconic units and play style, giving you a sense of how the Vampire Counts work more broadly.  It features the typical battle line of undead melee infantry - a hoard of cheap zombies and a regiment of semi-elite grave guard, bolstered by powerful melee heroes in the front ranks - including the army's Vampire Count general - and supported by a master necromancer bunkered in a smaller unit of skeletons behind.  The army also features faster flanking elements in a unit of powerful Blood Knights and a monstrous Terrorgheist, a corpse cart and a wailing banshee as additional support pieces, and dire wolves, fell bats, and a spectral spirit host as chaff, charge redirectors, and in the spirit host's case a resilient tar pit.  These smaller units are critical in attempting to control the table space available to enemy chaff, limit the charge arcs of enemy hammer units, and distract & disrupt their ranged units, so that your own battle line anvils and flanking hammers can get to where they need to be intact.

Spoiler

++ Characters [727 pts] ++
Master Necromancer [180 pts]
(Hand weapon, Level 4 Wizard, On foot, Earthing Rod, Spell Familiar, Necromancy)

Vampire Count [390 pts]
(Hand weapon, No armour, Level 2 Wizard, General, On foot, Biting Blade, Crown Of The Damned, Lore Familiar, Dark Acolyte, Supernatural Horror, Beguile, Illusion)

Wight Lord [67 pts]
(Hand weapon, Heavy armour, Shield, Battle Standard Bearer, On foot)

Tomb Banshee [90 pts]
(Hand weapon)

++ Core Units [503 pts] ++
19 Grave Guard [246 pts]
(Great weapons (replace shields), Heavy armour, Shield, Seneschal, Standard bearer, Musician)

25 Zombies [85 pts]
(Hand weapon, Standard bearer, Musician)

5 Dire Wolves [46 pts]
(Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons), Doom Wolf)

5 Dire Wolves [46 pts]
(Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons), Doom Wolf)

14 Skeleton Warriors [80 pts]
(Hand weapons, Light armour, Shield, Skeleton Champion, Musician)

++ Special Units [322 pts] ++
3 Fell Bats [45 pts]
(Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons))

Corpse Cart [130 pts]
(Warped Tintinnabulation, Hand weapons)

3 Spirit Hosts [147 pts]
(Hand weapons)

++ Rare Units [446 pts] ++
5 Blood Knights [241 pts]
(Hand weapons, Lances, Iron-Shod Hooves, Full Plate Armour, Shield, Barding, Kastellan, Standard bearer, Musician)

Terrorgheist [205 pts]
(Filth-encrusted talons, Rancid Maw, Calloused Hide (light armor))

---
Created with "Old World Builder"

[https://old-world-builder.com]

Again, this is just one way of running Vampire Counts - one built in the style of classic Vampire Count and Warhammer Undead armies of old.  There are many alternatives you could try instead, for example going heavy into ethereal units with multiple ghostly heroes and units of spirit hosts, or powerful fast offense army with multiple units of blood knights and one or even two zombie dragons, or a ghoul king led list with skirmishing ghoul infantry, monstrous infantry horrors, and greater access to a terrorgheists & hard hitting but difficult to control vargheists.  One list that's seen recent tournament success is leadership bomb +screams, with two master necromancers on mortis engines, two Banshees, and two Terrorgheists, combing leadership penalties from Necromancy spells and reserve move from Hellish Vigour, allowing all 6 flying and screaming units to move up, focus their voices on a debuffed unit to scream it off the table, and then move back out of range or behind terrain.  And this is still early days - there's likely still more creative lists waiting to be devised.

......

Brief introduction to the faction done, the floor's open for any and all Vamp Count conversation.  Who's running Vampire armies in the old world?  What units have you fielded, and how have they performed on the table?  What do you think of our pdf rules, do they hold up well enough to the official factions?  Any hobby or painting tips, or particular 3rd party model sources to recommend?

Edited May 4 by Sception

[JerekKruger]

So I've resurrected (rather in theme given the faction) an idea for an army I had in 6th edition*, namely Bretonnian Vampire Counts (i.e. covered from Bretonnian minis). My thinking at the moment is as follows: 

Characters will become Vampire Characters (Blood Dragon themed)

Damsels Will become Necromancers (fallen Damsels?)

Grail Knights will become Blood Knights (red grail).

Knights of the Realm will become Black Knights. 

Knights of the Realm on Foot will become Grave Guard (this is the big one for me, as this was the area 6th edition Brets were lacking).

Peasants will become Skeletons. 

Zombies included as they are (AoS minis).

Various creatures like Dire Wolves, Bats etc. included as they are. 

I think, will enough use of the Warhammer Skulls pack, bus and pieces of existing undead minis and some suitable paint work, this can be made to look good. Thoughts? Suggestions?

*I don't claim this idea was even vaguely original.

[Sception]

Undeadified Brettonian armies were one of the more common themed Vampire Counts armies back in the old Warhammer Fantasy days, and they always look great.  In particular, you'll have an easier and probably cheaper time converting Black Knights out of Brettonian Knights + skeleton parts than you'd have trying to find the official models, they've been out of stock from GW and going for double or more MSRP from scalpers for years now.

I think this should work out fairly well for you.  On the larger end, converting a suitably brettonian rider for a zombie dragon may present a bit more difficulty, and might converting a mortis engine if you want one of those and aren't content to just put a damsel on the regular model.

Pegasus Knights make for pretty good Vargheist stand ins, though I'm not sure you'd want to run Vargheists anyway - fast + flying + frenzy is a bit of a tricky combination, though if you can manage to keep them on target they do hit pretty hard.

The two main disappointments of Brettonian Vamp Counts are 1: no good archer equivalent, and a brettonian themed army feels like it's missing something without them, and 2: no lance formation for your knights.  Brettonian knights still look good in normal ranks, but they lose a lot of their brettonian feel.

...

All in all I say go for it!  It's a good hobby project with a strong tradition, and between Merovech of Mousillon and the Red Duke you've got plenty of in game lore to draw on.

[Sception]

That Old World Charm podcast reveiwed the Vampire Counts pdf this week:

https://oldworldcharm.podbean.com/e/that-old-world-charm-episode-15-vampire-counts-are-busted/

They rate the army very highly.  I'm not sure I agree with all of their takes (still listening through it myself), but some solid discussion to consider.

....

One thing they heavily emphasize is stacking auras from the mortis engine & such.  In general these sorts of rules do not stack with themselves in Games Workshop games, and while the rules as written do seem to have these effects stacking right now, I expect that will be fixed sooner rather then later, and would recommend that you take that into account before rushing out to buy your second (or third!) Mortis Engine.  They rate vamp count spellcasting power much higher than I do seemingly entirely based on stacking mortis engine auras, and I just don't think you can build around that and expect it to stay that way.

Edited May 1 by Sception

[JerekKruger]

9 hours ago, Sception said:

Undeadified Brettonian armies were one of the more common themed Vampire Counts armies back in the old Warhammer Fantasy days, and they always look great.  In particular, you'll have an easier and probably cheaper time converting Black Knights out of Brettonian Knights + skeleton parts than you'd have trying to find the official models, they've been out of stock from GW and going for double or more MSRP from scalpers for years now.

Which is annoying, as I kinda like Black Knights horses for non-Blood Knight can in this army.

9 hours ago, Sception said:

I think this should work out fairly well for you.  On the larger end, converting a suitably brettonian rider for a zombie dragon may present a bit more difficulty, and might converting a mortis engine if you want one of those and aren't content to just put a damsel on the regular model.

So the easiest choice is zombifying Ionus Cryptborn's dragon (I've seen it done a couple of times and it looks good).

More thematically, perhaps trying to make a zombified Hippogryph from Karl Franz's mini plus a suitable horse rear end might be cool. Obviously Hippogryphs don't have breath attacks, but who says zombified ones can't 😄

9 hours ago, Sception said:

The two main disappointments of Brettonian Vamp Counts are 1: no good archer equivalent, and a brettonian themed army feels like it's missing something without them, and 2: no lance formation for your knights.  Brettonian knights still look good in normal ranks, but they lose a lot of their brettonian feel.

Yeah, the loss of archers is a shame. I guess you can argue that undead archers lose their ability to use bows (but somehow Tomb Kings retain it though).

Having Bretonnian Blood Knights in lance formation would look amazing, but it's not the end of the world that they can't.

9 hours ago, Sception said:

All in all I say go for it!  It's a good hobby project with a strong tradition, and between Merovech of Mousillon and the Red Duke you've got plenty of in game lore to draw on.

Yup, my thinking is a Blood Dragon who sets himself up in Mousillon and declares himself Duke. Obviously this gives good lore reasons to fight Bretonnians, but he's also a Blood Dragon so he'll likely want to go on expeditions to fight suitable foes as well.

Not the most original idea, but it works well in the lore.

The one thing I'm debating is how to handle heraldry for the Blood Knights. The non-Blood Knights will be painted in standard Bret style heraldry, but faded and worn due to being dead, but I wonder whether the Blood Knights should have a unified heraldry with their lord, or if they should retain individual heraldry. My concern is if I do retain individual heraldry they end up looking too much like Bretonnians and not be obviously undead enough.

[JerekKruger]

8 hours ago, Sception said:

That Old World Charm podcast reveiwed the Vampire Counts pdf this week:

https://oldworldcharm.podbean.com/e/that-old-world-charm-episode-15-vampire-counts-are-busted/

They rate the army very highly.  I'm not sure I agree with all of their takes (still listening through it myself), but some solid discussion to consider.

....

One thing they heavily emphasize is stacking auras from the mortis engine & such.  In general these sorts of rules do not stack with themselves in Games Workshop games, and while the rules as written do seem to have these effects stacking right now, I expect that will be fixed sooner rather then later, and would recommend that you take that into account before rushing out to buy your second (or third!) Mortis Engine.  They rate vamp count spellcasting power much higher than I do seemingly entirely based on stacking mortis engine auras, and I just don't think you can build around that and expect it to stay that way.

Just listened to it myself. I think the truly broken way to run the army is not one that appeals to me, or works with my theme (double Mortis Engine).

Resurrecting Blood Knights does make them much more appealing than Chaos and Grail Knights though (the two other super elite normal cavalry) as it goes a fair way to mitigating their main weakness (ultimately they are only one wound, and you can lose a lot of points and combat effectiveness to bad luck).

[Sception]

5 hours ago, JerekKruger said:

Yeah, the loss of archers is a shame. I guess you can argue that undead archers lose their ability to use bows (but somehow Tomb Kings retain it though).

Having Bretonnian Blood Knights in lance formation would look amazing, but it's not the end of the world that they can't.

Tomb kings may be the solution.  Allies generally aren't allowed in tournament games, but Tomb Kings are allies for Vamp Counts, and their archers - regular, skirmished, and even mounted to use for mounted yoemen - are all core, so if you're just looking to add some bows for aesthetic value in regular games that could work for you.