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This is an idea I came up with. Why do all vampires have to be evil? I mean what if one could master it's hunger for blood, say feed on cattle and then serve the empire as a sort of "super soldier". Here we go


Empire Vampire:

M-6
WS-6
BS-4
S-5
T-4
W-2
I-6
A-4
LD-7

Equipment: hand weapon

Special rules: undead, vampiric

Magic: Lv 1 wizard generates spells from any one lore in the rule book.

Options: May be upgraded to a Lv 2 wizard for 35 points
May be armed with one of the following:
Additional hand weapon-3 points
Great weapon-8 points
May take a shield-2 points
May take heavy armour-4 points

May take a mount: barded warhorse- 10 points
Griffon (don't know the points)
Empire fire dragon (same)

May take up to 50 points of vampiric powers

May take up to 50 points of magic items from the Empire rule book

Let me know what you think

This may be true for Bretts as well, a mousilon duke turned vampire. Might work if opponent allows you to.

... Yeah... nah

Thats in terms of the empire getting one. Well if I can get a cannon of some sort then sure .

In terms of stats and and stuff its all just a standard vampire hero so nothing wrong there. It makes sense the magic items would come from the empire rule book but I'm not so sure about the vampiric powers. I'd be tempted to leave them out entirely, or change them a little. Seeing as I can imagine an empire vampire raising some zombies up in front of him, maybe limit the available powers he can take. Could use the last rulebook where they were divided up into groups like the martialle and the beastille etc, then just choose which ones it can take.

Also he probably shouldn't be able to generate powers from any lore. Normally they are limited to the lore of death or vampires so again I'd choose what the can use here. Fluff wise I dont think they would have lore of vampires seeing as how necromancy is frowned upon and then they wouldn't have lore of light & life, just cause...

One thing to reason for their control over their blood hunger could be that they'd drunk the blood of a dragon and lost it altogether. The side affect of this though is that it would probably have to be a vampire lord stat line. Or you could do it that a vial of dragon blood was given freely to them by the empire? Dont know how that works on a fluff side from them though.

and in the sun light it can sparkle, it falls in love with the queen and they have a half blood prince kid, whilst this is going on other vampires and the skaven (sworn enemies of the empire vampires) are trying to kill the vampire and its half blood prince.

BaconUprising wrote:
This is an idea I came up with. Why do all vampires have to be evil? I mean what if one could master it's hunger for blood, say feed on cattle and then serve the empire as a sort of "super soldier".

There's no fluff reason why they can't. But there's a balance reason(s). And the Empire book (and all books) are kind of like, these are our official troops. A vampire is never going to be VIEWED as non-evil by the army of warrior priests and witch hunters. They are undead. Undead are about the most unnatural things to humans no matter if they are drinking wine with their pinkies out or not. Turning a human into a rat ogre or beastman might make them super soldiers too, but they'd be killed on sight.

But for a campaign or something, sure. Why not. He's not going to have access to any of those super mounts for the reasons I stated above.

The approach is backwards. Vampires wouldn't serve in the empire, the empire (or part of it) would be enthralled by a vampire.

Why are vampires always evil? Because it is their nature. They aren't misunderstood, they are the unliving embodyment of evil. In older fluff, those who are pure who receive the blood kiss don't turn into vampires, but rather die. Only those who already have evil in them can become vampires.

@HawaiiMatt: exactly so. In every bit of vampiric literature I've ever read, vampires can fight against their hunger and maintain a bit of their humanity.
...but the Warhammer vampires are the worst at it. They're really going back to the Old World legends with these guys: sure, they look like men. But they are monsters, through and through.

@rahxephon: one vampire ever in all of Warhammer managed to completely free himself from The Hunger. By killing a dragon in single combat, and drinking the titanic carcass dry.
It's a legend. A backdrop for our games to occur in front of. The second we make it commonplace, we lose it's awesomeness and credibility.

@DukeRustfield: agreed. The undead are not popular with living animals.

@BaconUprising: it's not broken or anything. It just doesn't really fit very well, thematically.
Now, this fits the Bretonnian tone perfectly. Hell, it could even be a "Virtue" (Vice?). Gets tougher and stronger, but people don't like him and he's got The Hunger.

Now, for the Empire, I think it'd be cool to go with a special Gor-character: he mutated/is slowly mutating, and the process is driving him further into the woods and further into madness, but somehow he's holding on, keeping his new form a secret while fighting the enemies of the Empire. Maybe he's a Huntsman-style character, or a knight. He's tough and tricky, but lowers friendly Leadership around him, because he's creepy.

I understand the bretonnian idea. That would be pretty cool. People claim that a vampire could never serve the empire however, the empire have before aligned themselves with daemons, embodiments of the extremes of humanities emotions and so foul in appearance they drive people mad. I think that these are far worse than vampires. I feel relatively confident that empire soldiers could stomach an undead creature near them if it had mastered its hunger and killed their enemies for them. As for what it could survive on, I was thinking that these vampires could be a new breed who had learnt to survive on the blood of cattle. Kind of like a new bloodline.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw points cost?

1. The Empire teamed up with daemons?

2. There is a huge difference between a commander saying "damn, we're going to lose this war, and the city will fall. This calls for drastic measures..." and the rank-and-file grunt of a superstitious and death-obsessed society saying, "you know, that guy over there is creepy and has fangs and is inhumanly strong, but whatever, he's on my side".

3. The whole blood-thing is symbolic. The blood of mankind is what nourishes vampires, not because it has the perfect blend of vitamins and minerals, but because vampires are inherently evil, predatory monsters.
Not to say that a vampire could never serve a noble cause. But it's not like he's gotten himself under control, so now he's a good guy, The-End. It's a constant battle between his humanity and the Beast within him.
Also, the image of a vampire drinking from a cow or a pig is beyond silly in the Warhammer world. You've got to make this dark, man! These are the end times! Surely the Empire or Bretonnia would be willing to put their criminals and madmen to good use, in order to keep their new ally happy. I bet they'd even go as far as to arrest people for less and less serious crimes (if not wholly fabricated ones), if the cells started to look a little empty.

As for cost, he's a Vampire Hero, basically copied and pasted from the Vampire Counts book, right? So he costs that much, plus some arbitrary amount (something like 30pts?) because he offers something that the Empire doesn't have.

I based my Vampire army on the Ulrika books, specifically the third book. It uses Ostermark mercenaries under the employ of sylvania so i use empire troops in place of skeletons/wights. This also lets me use them for my Empire army with Ulrika standing in as Karl Franz on foot (close enough to a vamp lord's combat ability in an Empire list) with great success.

I don't think Empire needs an actual close combat/mage hybrid like a vampire is because their playstyle uses synergies with all their units to win instead of powerful characters doing all the heavy lifting. Not that you can't try that out in a game or two, it might be fun.

The fact he had 2 wounds only made me say it was like, whatevs. If you made him like a real VC vampire, it wouldn't belong because it would break balance, like stated above by brother.

Some armies have mega hybrid caster/fighters, vc, woc, doc, ogres, but it's a huge factor in their overall game balance. If O&G had a super shaman of punchfacing, it would change their dynamic a lot.

BaconUprising wrote:
Why do all vampires have to be evil?

Probably because dark magic runs in their veins and is the only reason they exist. Dark Magic is particularly known for being corrupting. They're not the person they used to be, not truly.

Just for the record, it's fine to make alternative fluff and stories. Even going against the grain.

But it would be difficult to find a hippie Orc tribe that co-exists with wood elves or Lizardman army working with DoC to bring chaos into the world. Or vegan Ogres. It's kind of against their very core.

Bend it, don't break it.

 Nitros14 wrote:

BaconUprising wrote:
Why do all vampires have to be evil?

Probably because dark magic runs in their veins and is the only reason they exist. Dark Magic is particularly known for being corrupting. They're not the person they used to be, not truly.

of course they are not they are effectively monsters. So are dragons and griffons (who are mutated by chaos energy). I just think if the need was dire enough and a va,pore wasn't like to go all emo on them and slaughter them all they would use him.

There's a big difference between being Evil, and being part of an Evil cause. Especially in Warhammer.

I think an Empire Vampire would need:

Cannot be the Army's general.

A regiment he wishes to join must pass a fear test or flee.

If he does sucessfully join a regiment, The unit can not benefiet from his leadership.

I see a lot of people here saying its unfluffy for the Empire to have a Vampire unit because Vampires are inherently evil. Can I ask those people what they think of the Genevieve series of stories? You know, since it contains a Vampire who helped Empire to kill another vampire (Drachenfels).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevi%C3%A8ve_Dieudonn%C3%A9

@snurl: I agree that he can't be the General. I don't like the "Ld test or run" thing, though. You're basically giving him Terror, but only against models he wants to fight alongside. And it can take effect before the game begins.

How about: any unit he joins cannot use the General's Ld, and any units within 6" of him are at a -1Ld?

I'm basically thinking about the Virtue of the Ideal, here.

@DarthOvious: was the vampire in question a Good Guy, or was he just getting rid of some Evil competition?

Moreover, there's a big difference between a small group cooperating with the enemy in an isolated event, for a special purpose, and the entire population of the Empire saying "well, I guess vampires are cool, as long as they don't mess with me".

Most importantly, though? It just doesn't fit the feel of the Empire as well as it would Bretonnia. There the ones who are in contact with Sylvannia the most. They have vampire-knights right there in their lore. Let them have the vampire character!

I agree upon reflection that Bretonnia would be far more appropriate

The troops fighting alongside of the creature would fear it. Being a superstitious lot, I think the fear test to join a unit is solid. Maybe even go further and on a 1-3 they flee, on a 4-6 they fight it as if attacked.?

Warpsolution wrote:

@DarthOvious: was the vampire in question a Good Guy, or was he just getting rid of some Evil competition?

Moreover, there's a big difference between a small group cooperating with the enemy in an isolated event, for a special purpose, and the entire population of the Empire saying "well, I guess vampires are cool, as long as they don't mess with me".

Most importantly, though? It just doesn't fit the feel of the Empire as well as it would Bretonnia. There the ones who are in contact with Sylvannia the most. They have vampire-knights right there in their lore. Let them have the vampire character!

Genevieve was considered good in the books. She didn't kill humans for their blood but she did feed off them to stay alive but also with their permission. Her lover was a human as well.

Fair enough. But at that point, I'd bring to light the fact that she is an exceedingly rare example of her kind. I mean, that's what makes her interesting. If every Empire general ever had the option of fielding a Hero-level vampire who only drank blood to stay alive and had a human lover, all the theatrical awesomeness would get sucked out of the character-concept in a hurry.

Warpsolution wrote:
Fair enough. But at that point, I'd bring to light the fact that she is an exceedingly rare example of her kind. I mean, that's what makes her interesting. If every Empire general ever had the option of fielding a Hero-level vampire who only drank blood to stay alive and had a human lover, all the theatrical awesomeness would get sucked out of the character-concept in a hurry.

True, I was just pointing out that there was a series of Black Library novels with a somewhat good Vampire in it. I wouldn't say she was goodie two shoes but she certainly isn't evil either.

Novels aren't restricted by rule books. In fact they'd be pretty hard to write. So yeah, it wouldn't be hard to envision a BL book with a vegetarian Ogre--he would be a very funny character. But it would be really odd to imagine an army of one in game.

Shhhhhh, can you hear that? It's every witch hunter and warrior priest within a hundred miles sharpening stakes.