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So I'm just thinking of some differant themes for vampire armies and alot of them are pretty simple either being based off of a specific faction or location. This is what I've got

Brettonian Voodoo: A witch doctor themed necromancer etc.

Undead Knights (either Brettonian or Empire): Pretty self explanatory and popular

Undead Empire: Again self explanetory

Khemrian army: I have never seen this where someone made a VC army with a Khemrian theme.

Undead Pirates: Coast of Lustria or one of the pirates of the Old World

Barrow Kings: A vampire who has summoned the forces burried in a Barrow

It's Alive!!!: this is an army with a Frankenstein theme where the vampire has created alot of evil expiraments

The bestial: A Strigoi or othe vampire who has gone bestial and leads Dire Wolves or Ghouls etc

Anyone think of any other themes?

Personally, I like the undead brettonian knights / empire themes. I think they'd have a lot of flavor and would have scads of conversion opportunities (including at least one Black Knight with no arms or legs!).

As for the Khemri idea, there's actually a hook to tie that into the fluff. I can't remember the specifics, and I'm way too lazy to go upstairs for the army book, but Queen Khalida was actually killed in a sexy duel with a Lahmian vampire (Neferata? Who knows) and only the intervention of the Asp Goddess kept her from becoming a vampire herself. So there you go.


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Also: Vampire Dwarves. I would LOVE to see an army of dwarven ghouls.

I started an Undead Pirates army once, off the back of the Lustrian campaign. Didn't get very far as my ambitions outstripped my ability. Maybe if I ever am tempted to try fantasy again.

Basic formula for zombie pirates is Empire Millitia and standard zombie boxes. Combine the two and you're well on your way.

@Strelka: My vampire army is kind of a mix between some of the themes above, basically an Imperial General lost his faith in Sigmar after seeing most of his army destroyed by an Ork army that's a warband of Gorbad Ironclaws Waaagh. While imprisoned by his Ork captors a voice in the dark offered him the power to rebuild the Empire and get vengence on those who betrayed him (this was during the time of the 3 Emperors so there where no reinforcments and in my fluff I never actually say who the Vampire was ), after he agrees he then spends hundreds of years traveling the world manipulating races (The northern tribes), building his forces (including taking a dwarven stronghold), making allies (trading mined warpstone from his fortress to Clan Moulder in return for mutant creatures and beasts) and gathering artifacts to wage his war against the living. There is alot more to it then that but I don't feel like putting it all here

There is actually alot of reasoning as to why there could be Khemrian vampires since they originally come from Khemri, heck it could be that a Tomb Prince was seduced into the Vampire cult and when Nagash fell he was forced to flee. Now he wants to return and claim his kingdom.

As for Vampire Dwarves the Silver Pinnacle that Neferata resides in was a Dwarven structure, and in the Vampire Wars omnibus there is a Dwarf Hold that is sacked by the undead and a Dwarf swears vengence and begins hunting down the Vampires. Actuall a guy converted a Dwarf to represent his Wight King that turned out pretty well.

@CadianXV: I miss the old Lustria book, I wasen't able to buy it before they stopped making it because afterall the Lizardmen are my main Fantasy army and the zombie pirate models where awesome. I absolutly hate the normal zombie models, if GW made the units to look like the ones that came with the Corpse Cart then that would be great but untill they do I will never buy any

Got another one

A female vampire who arrives in Lustria and takes controle of an Amazon tribe

Either way, paint 1 vamp with glitter. Just for the heresy of it.

aerethan wrote:Either way, paint 1 vamp with glitter. Just for the heresy of it.

Yes. A thousand times yes.

uh, ok?

I really dislike the basic skeleton and wight models.
They don't look like raised ancient army, they look like a raised army with all new bat-themed gear.
I don't know, maybe a 1,000 years ago, giant bat wing armor was all the rage.


I think I'm going to steal the Frankenstein idea for my Stragoi army; using a Frankenstein model for one of my Vargulfs.


-Matt

I like the barrow idea- that's what I'm doing with my mantic undead when I get round to them. I want to go for a boggy, desolate look to the bases too.

Da Boss wrote:I like the barrow idea- that's what I'm doing with my mantic undead when I get round to them. I want to go for a boggy, desolate look to the bases too.

A few years ago I wrote some fluff to use a Tomb King army as a Barrow Kings army. The fluff was that a Khemrian general (before Nagash or even Sigmar and all that) traveled north and conqured an area of the badlands in the name of his king, he was left to govern the region and created a city in the shadow of a mountain and an army to defend it using the local tribes improving on their weapons, armor and training. The city flourished untill the mountain (later called Red Cloud mountain) erupted entombing the city and it's inhabitants in ash, when Nagash unleashed his spell it awoke the General and his armies who began restoring their undead city.

Could you actually get vampire elves / dwarfs / orks fluff wise ? I mean some of those converted to be zombies would be awesome especially a unit of ork boys with zombie arms and legs and what not .
But whats the fluff on vampirism in the WHFB universe can it only be contracted by humans ?.

It kind of depends, to become a Vampire you have to be bitten by one and drink their blood. And Nagash actually developed necromancy (which led to vampirism) in WHFB from what magic he learned from a captured Delf Sorceress. So technicly it's possible that Orcs, Dwarves and Elves could become vampires, I doubt an Orc would become a vampire because no vampire would turn an Orc into one. Look at how they treat Strigoi who are vamps that devolved into bestial creatures, they woulden't turn an Orc since it's already so bestial and low.

Now as far as Elves and Dark Elves I could see a Dark Elf willingly trying to become one to increase his power and I could see an Elf being turned as an act of torture from the Vampire that turned them. Dwarves could be turned the same way, say a vampire destroys a dwarf hold and a Dwarf hunts him down for revenge. After defeating the dwarf the vampire turns him into what he hates most just for the fun of it, on the other hand would be harder just because they would rather kill themselves then be turned.

The Vampire codex even says (when talking about Necromancy) that humans are really the only race that dabble with the art and it's most often Necromancers that become vamps. High Elves and Dark Elves have such long life spans that they don't really fear death, the same is said for dwarfs but their anti magic (besides runes) nature keeps them from it as well. Skaven are too preoccupied with their schemes and such and Orcs care only for war, the same things can be applied to the Lizardmen.


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But Orcs, Dwarves and Elves being turned into Wight Kings is a whole differant story and probably alot more common. I think a Wight King Orc would be cool, there are Ork skulls and such.

aerethan wrote:Either way, paint 1 vamp with glitter. Just for the heresy of it.

I think this thought needs one of these, admission does not absolve guilt.

Anyway since not every discussion of Vampires has to refer to Twilight (I'm pretty sure that's what it is) I suggest we get back to vampire themes that have to do with WHFB


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Especially since saying "paint one in glitter" isn't even a theme for an army.

Aye, true that.

I'd actually suggest an combo of your choices above. Mix the Bretonnian Voodoo one, with the pirates and do a army based around a themed New Orleans style port town on the Vampire coast.

That way you could mix Empre, Bretonnian and Undead plastics for the army. While going for a Voodoo themed Necromancer in charge.
Maybe throw in some Amazons who are with a Vampire count, not the Lord. Make out the Necromancer is more powerful than normal with their spirit allies. A bit like Dr Facilier.



Hell going on that idea, you could have the Ghouls represent 'Shades' from the other side, come to serve the Necromancer.

I'd see a lot of potential with that army, and you can tie it all in via a swamp/jungle theme to the bases.

Dr. Facillier is based off of Baron Samedi who is the Loa of death, he's known for wearing a top hat, glasses, smoking a cigar and having a skull painted face.

My army is actually a mix between some of those I said above. Like I said my Lord was once an Empire general, during his travels he came across various individuals which he recruited to his service that include.

A shaman in the Southlands (WHFB Africa, Africa being where voodoo originated) who venerated death and controlled spirits so he took him as his disciple and manservant (he's my Necromancer and has a voodoo theme). He was first seen with his master in Brettonia and no one knew his name and started calling him Louis La Mort which translates to Louis The Dead from french (I'm a little rusty so I don't know if it should be La or Le, I can't remember if mort is feminine )

He also aquired a dragons egg while in Cathay which he had the beast masters of Clan Moulder mutate in exchange for warpstone. The dragon is more like a Hellsteed then a zombie dragon in that its still alive but its musculature is exposed and it has alot of skaven enhancments to keep it going, this covers the whole frankenstein bit.

I'm modeling a female vampire who was once a Damsel of The Lady untill my Lord turned her (made from a mix of Deldar and daemonettes). Another vampire who was entombed in Khemri for a couple hundred years untill he was accidentally released by tomb robbers, he's now mostly a walking skeleton that will be my spell caster (just gonna use GS to mummify a normal skeleton, give it fangs and such). And my Wight King banner bearer is going to be the Generals former captain (made using the helmited skull from the Empire Greatswords with a skeleton torso, greatsword arms and legs.)


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Ok I remember now, in french La Mort just means "dead" while Le Mort means "The Dead" so he's Louis Le Mort

I'm going to build a carneval themed army. Maimly because of the convertion oppotunities, and because I love the renaissance.
Skeletons juggling skulls, harlequin necromancers, firebreathing banshees, zombies with masks, decorated corpsecarts, dancing zombie bear, and so on.

My VC were a skeletal Spartan army. Didn't look too bad

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
Ok I remember now, in french La Mort just means "dead" while Le Mort means "The Dead" so he's Louis Le Mort

Why not Le Mort Louis then?

Eh it just dosen't roll off the tongue as well for me


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Oh and I'm trying to make my own Voodoo special character that fits more with the Hatian/New Orleans voodoo then african vodun like Louis and thankfully there are plenty of swamps in the Old World for him to be from but anyway there is this old voodoo legend about a witch doctor called Grandpa Gator who used his magic to controle gators.

So I was thinking about how I could transfer this into a WHFB Necromancer and I think in his rules I'm going to give him a bodyguard that's a undead River Troll. It will have its own version of crumbling where if the Necromancer dies then the Troll starts to fall apart, still trying to work out if the Troll should have regeneration. In my mind the regen would stop after the Troll dies, it would stop producing stomache acid to.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:The bestial: A Strigoi or othe vampire who has gone bestial and leads Dire Wolves or Ghouls etc

Counts-as werewolves?

I'm pretty sure that the Krudenwald feind is a werewolf something interesting is that when Bram Stroker wrote Dracula he took alot of inspiration from werewolf legends (hence Dracula controlling wolves, turning into a wolf and turning into a werewolf). And since Dracula became the archetype for most modern vampires it woulden't be a stretch that a Vampire of WHFB would turn into a werewolf creature.


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And the old VC codex had a picture of an undead army attacking a Empire city and in the middle of it all was a converted werewolf model.

Nurgle Zombies, lead by Necromancers (predominantly) and a falling apart Nurglite Cult Leader. Necromancers are mutants with minor magic talent, the Vampire's a partially demonic / more heavily mutated Chaos Cultist (probably the cult leader, possibly a Marauder who migrated from the North). Instead of raising dead they're using horrendously sick and mad citizens. Ghouls are either more savage mutants that're joining along, or actual Ghouls who're picking upon the dead after each battle / along the roads.


I saw a pretty decent OnG army made into Vampire Counts a few years ago in a WD. The gist of it was a Vampire bit into an Orc to start feeding, and the Orc decided he'd return the favor and bite him right on back!

Since I think a Vampire Lord can be Level 1, you could represent that with a focus on combat bloodlines and magical equipment instead of magical power - Necromancers could be taken as either curious Gobbos or the old Vampire's Necromancers that the Orc so "generous" spared in return for their services. Maybe have a token Gobbo Vampire, in the form of either a Shaman or Big / Warboss that had proven his worth. Wight King could be an uppity boss that the boss wanted to keep around, but didn't want that lil' ol' problem of "ambition" to remain with.

Gobbos and Orcs can form Skeletons and Zombies relatively easy, Wolves turn into Dire Wolves, the Boar Boyz became the Blood Knights, etcetera.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:converted werewolf model.

Did it look like this?

@minsc: I'm not sure the whole Chaos thing works in the way you put it since what you're saying is just representing a Chaos army with the Vamp codex instead a theme for a Vampire army.

@Platuan4th: Indeed that's it, I guess it wasen't as converted as I though

Going back to the dwarf and high elf vampires I don't think Dwarves could be Vampires as don't Dwarves have like magic resistant bodies. Surely if you are resistant to magic you couldn't be affected by someone who is in the form they are due to some magic among other things. High evles could work I think though.

I imagine Elves are immune to Vampirism akin to how they're immune to Daemonic Mutation (at least, to the degree other mortals are). Vampirism was found by messing around with Dark Elf magic as well, which leads more toward "If Elves could make Vamps, they'd have them already".

@Lysander the eternal: Except Dwarfs themselves aren't resistant to magic they just make runes, and nothing has ever said that the Blood Kiss is magical.

@Minsc: I'm sorry but that's just wrong, vampirism and necromancy are 2 differant things. Nagash took what he learned from the Dark Elf he captured and twisted it into Necromancy, he then used that knowledge to create the original Elixer of Life which didn't create vampires. Neferata tried to recreate the Elixer which is what made vampires and since the Elixir and the ways to make it is lost the only way new vampires can be created is trough the Blood Kiss.

Just because Necromancy originated from Dark Elf magic dosen't mean that Dark Elfves know Necromancy and even if they did that dosen't mean they would know how to make the Elixer of life. So saying "if they could they would have" dosen't work because there is no way that they could know how to do it and even if they did know how to do Necromancy that dosen't mean they are immune to becoming vampires because as I've said vampirism and Necromancy are not the same.

I would also love to see a pegasus lord and a manticore dreadlord face off in aerial combat.