Faction Thread 2: Vampire Counts

[Casuir]

Nobody will be stealing anything from any game.

[DrZoidberg]

I'm writing the unit descriptions for the Vampire counts and doing some research. There are distinct blood lines of vampires which all are completely different and above all they don't fight or even get along together, (except for the Blood Dragons occasionally). And they all count as Vampire Count armies.

I think we should decide which of the blood lines to make a faction for and stick to it. We've got the Von Carsteins, Nechrarchs, Blood Dragons, Strigoi and Lhamians.

All of them use the same kind of units.

Nechrarchs aren't really into empire building, they just want to kill everything living, so they aren't very suitable for a faction.

The Strigoi are insane creatures living in gutters and deep forrest with ghoul followers. Not really empire builders either.

Blood Dragons are only into it for the fighting. No empire either.

Next we've got Lhamians and Von Carsteins who both very much are into empire building and both would be very suitable for factions. Also they have living human subjects which makes them all the more suitable for the MTW2 engine. But Lhamians are from Khemri and will have quite a similar look to them as the Tomb Kings. We really don't need two factions that look the same.

I suggest that we only use the Von Carsteins as the vampire faction and have the Blood Dragons as an expensive mercenary unit that they can occasionally reqruit.

If we want the Lhamian vampire faction I suggest puting them in some future release, or replacing the Tomb Kings with them all together, and have the Tomb Kings as horde, (but that's allready been voted down ).

[Bwian]

The Lhamians also do not fit on the map. There has been much juggling and thought about the map and what parts we can fit onto it, and Lhamian territory does not fit.

Additionally...there is no need to worry about whether a faction has human subjects ... it's not an issue.

Lastly ... as has already been stated ... the Tomb Kings are in. They are also STAYING in. They have a unique look, make an attractive spectacle, and offer some interesting challenges. They also have a significant proportion of their units complete and in game, and with what I know can be done with skeleton/animation routines, we can also do all the exotic units they need too.

On the faction front, I think you have pretty much covered the essentials there.

[DrZoidberg]

The Lhamians also do not fit on the map. There has been much juggling and thought about the map and what parts we can fit onto it, and Lhamian territory does not fit.

Lhamian vampires do not live in Lhamia any longer. They where expeled and queen Nefarata and her court resetled in Silver Pinnacle in the Worlds Edge mountains. She has built herself a palace and from there she sends out spies and vampire agents to infiltrate the courts of the Old World plotting her return. She has a vast army of Zombies that she uses for protection and all her generals are hot chicks. It's all on pages 6 and 7 in the Vampire Counts army book.

Unless the Worlds Edge mountains have been bumped from the map which would be a shame :) I maintain that they would work great as a seperate faction. If we want and need them that is. Just because we can use something doesn't mean we should. Off-course.

But I got the message. Lhamians will have to wait and the von Carsteins are included.

I've got a question. Shouldn't we have vampires as units? They're not in the army list now, but I think they should be. We can have them as super elite and one of those units with only 20 men in them. Since we are including the Blood Dragons units, it makes no sense not to include the regular von Carstein blood line vampires. In Warhammer Battle the vampires thralls do plenty of fighting. Not only the vampire lords.

Another unit which are central to the vampire counts are the necromancers that's been omitted. Could it be possible to make then use some sort of invisible cannon and make the projectile fired to be a huge skull or something. It's pretty much what they do.

[Jargon]

If you wanted to unify the vampires into a single faction, could you turn the bloodlines into traits? So, if they are 'born' from a faction leader, they have 100% chance of getting that trait, and if they are randomly spawned, they have equal chance of becoming one of the 4-5 clans ? Each could come with anti-traits of the other clans, preventing multiple bloodlines from appearing on one character. This way you would have a Kingdom comprised of multiuple vampire families, although i'm not sure if this makes sense Lore-wise.

Otherwise, the Von Carsteins do sound like the natural choice for the Vampire faction from what you ahve described.

[Bwian]

The Lords would be the general units. I don't really see them as a 'unit' in their own right, since they would be far too few in number to actually form up a large unit. It would also be the only way we can have a unque model for the Vampire leaders. to show up against the rank and file.

As far as the magic goes, I am also nervous about making units of magic throwing warriors. There is a minimum unit size, and this would be a problem. There would be a handful of Necromancers at most in a an army...more would look wrong. If I can find a way to mess about with things to get around this, then I will.

I managed to fool RTW into letting me use a human skeleton in an elephant unit ( with invisible riders due to the lack of a saddle bone ) and this worked well for me. It greatly reduced the size of the unit. There were some issues...and I could not make the archers on the back fire ... but it's an avenue I can explore for magic firing units.

Having a massed rank of these is out though... just looks silly and unrealistic.

[DrZoidberg]

The Lords would be the general units. I don't really see them as a 'unit' in their own right, since they would be far too few in number to actually form up a large unit. It would also be the only way we can have a unque model for the Vampire leaders. to show up against the rank and file.

As far as the magic goes, I am also nervous about making units of magic throwing warriors. There is a minimum unit size, and this would be a problem. There would be a handful of Necromancers at most in a an army...more would look wrong. If I can find a way to mess about with things to get around this, then I will.

I managed to fool RTW into letting me use a human skeleton in an elephant unit ( with invisible riders due to the lack of a saddle bone ) and this worked well for me. It greatly reduced the size of the unit. There were some issues...and I could not make the archers on the back fire ... but it's an avenue I can explore for magic firing units.

Having a massed rank of these is out though... just looks silly and unrealistic.

Maybe I'm totaly wrong here, but isn't Vampire Thralls just plain vampires, but belonging to the bottom rungs of vampire society. But they're not core units so we could drop them without losing the WH feel. My only real beef here, (and it is minor) is that it would be nice with a vampire faction where we've actually got some vampire units in battles we can play with.

Otherwise we're in full agreement. If we can't make something in the Warhammer world work well in the MTW2 engine, we should drop it.

[Casuir]

Vampire thrall are single characters, theres no actual unit of vampires in the tabletop game, core or otherwise. The very most you could do without making stuff up is include them as officers but given the amount of unit models to be made that would be low priority.

[Meneldil]

Lhamian vampires do not live in Lhamia any longer. They where expeled and queen Nefarata and her court resetled in Silver Pinnacle in the Worlds Edge mountains. She has built herself a palace and from there she sends out spies and vampire agents to infiltrate the courts of the Old World plotting her return. She has a vast army of Zombies that she uses for protection and all her generals are hot chicks. It's all on pages 6 and 7 in the Vampire Counts army book.

Hence why they should be in IMO :D They could just have the same unit as the other Vampire faction (Von Carstein ?), but with female generals.

[Casuir]

Which would require their own culture, which are in short supply.

[Meneldil]

Which would require their own culture, which are in short supply.

Aren't generals (both on the campaign and battle maps) defined by their factions and not culture ? Or do they have to share a single model for each culture ?

If that's so, well, that would be a shame, a female-oriented faction would have been trully great IMO. Let's hope CA allow us to mod more culture in a futur patch.

[Raz]

Edit - *cough, cough*

[alexader]

Did anyone said something about Mordheim? I think that is a place that fits to a vampire city because it is ''cursed'' city so it is intersted to be(for the von carsteins right?).What do you think?......

[Krazysigmarite]

Mordheim was destroyed by a two-tailed comet during the Imperial Civil War after it became corrupted in many different ways. Most citizens in the Empire saw this as Sigmar smiting the city for its sins. Mordheim no longer exists and is not in anyone's memory, as the city's ruins were utterly razed and destroyed by Magnus the Pious's armies after the victorious Great War against Chaos. After the destruction of the ruins, Mordheim was removed from all Imperial history. 'Modern' Empire citizens would have never heard of Mordheim.

The city/province you are thinking of is Sylvania, the cursed lands where the Von Carsteins first made their rise. Castle Drakwald is the specific center of terror and shun.

[alexader]

the campaign that game workshop had realesed with the name mordheim city of the damned says that many warbands go their to search for treasures and for wyrdstone and in the city have been found many undead and stranger creatures wandering the streets.I think mordheim still exist and it's very common to be an undead city,it's only my opinion and Bwian decides (but many shops that i go and play say that mordheim still exist because GW tells)

[Abokasee]

I'm writing the unit descriptions for the Vampire counts and doing some research. There are distinct blood lines of vampires which all are completely different and above all they don't fight or even get along together, (except for the Blood Dragons occasionally). And they all count as Vampire Count armies.

I think we should decide which of the blood lines to make a faction for and stick to it. We've got the Von Carsteins, Nechrarchs, Blood Dragons, Strigoi and Lhamians.

All of them use the same kind of units.

Nechrarchs aren't really into empire building, they just want to kill everything living, so they aren't very suitable for a faction.

The Strigoi are insane creatures living in gutters and deep forrest with ghoul followers. Not really empire builders either.

Blood Dragons are only into it for the fighting. No empire either.

Next we've got Lhamians and Von Carsteins who both very much are into empire building and both would be very suitable for factions. Also they have living human subjects which makes them all the more suitable for the MTW2 engine. But Lhamians are from Khemri and will have quite a similar look to them as the Tomb Kings. We really don't need two factions that look the same.

I suggest that we only use the Von Carsteins as the vampire faction and have the Blood Dragons as an expensive mercenary unit that they can occasionally reqruit.

If we want the Lhamian vampire faction I suggest puting them in some future release, or replacing the Tomb Kings with them all together, and have the Tomb Kings as horde, (but that's allready been voted down ).

Blood Dragons could be mercanaries as well as the occansion rebel war band here and there

Nechrachs could start off as some seriously nasty rebels in a certain terriortory, and then become a emergenant faction some point in the game (I wouldn't see why a large number of Nechrah lords would attemp to make a empire)

Strigoi will have to be seriously nasty rebels and just that, rebels

Lhamians we could have the units have some simularities, but not the same as tomb kings

[Born in lust for blood]

Um isnt the Lahmian faction suppose to seduce other humans into marring them and then taking over? So you could have a trait "pale wife or odd wife" or something and that will reduce the general's loyalty so that he would rebel against the faction. It is very common for Empire and Bretonian generals to bring home damsels of "undescribed pale beauty" and then go wrong.
I would suggest that you let the Wights go and introduce the Black Knights. They are far more tied to the Vampire counts theme. Also the idea of grouped necromancers isnt that bad. If you look at warmaster(the epic version of warhammer) there is a necromancer unit.

[Casuir]

Which is still a single character

[Born in lust for blood]

No not really. There are 12 of them in each unit. Concentrated. I think....

[DrZoidberg]

No not really. There are 12 of them in each unit. Concentrated. I think....

There are 20 men units in MTW2 so I think it's totaly doable. The problem is that there's a roof on how many models there can be in the game in total. Next problem is that we haven't found a way to make any form of wizardry look cool or be useful of the battlefield. This coupled to that we don't even know what kind of magic they should be able to do. Using the WH spell lists is naturally out of the question.

To sum it up. Wizards are not priority units, they will require more work than all other units and on top of that there still is problems that need to be solved before we could even begin to implement them.

But this doesn't stop small groups of Vampires or Bloor Dragons in the game. That would be smashing.

[Casuir]

No not really. There are 12 of them in each unit. Concentrated. I think....

No theres not, the army list entry is for a necromancer. Singular. Nor are there any minatures for a unit. I dont know where you're getting this info from, please source it.