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After recently purchasing the army book for the vampire counts and reading it thoroughly it seems to me that every campaign they've ever waged they have lost and every infinitely powerful undead vampire lord is either dead or hiding. Has anyone else noticed this?

Well, any bad army needs to be defeated if it does something like pull a Vlad and come within a hairs distance of putting a Vampire on the throne of the Empire. Vlad did some serious damage and nearly 'won'.

Other vampires really haven't been all that active on the global stage though. Neferata is sitting in her Silver Pinnacle wishing she was back in Lahmia, Abhorash is sitting on his mountain top gloating that he's the best, Zacharias is experimenting with zombies, etc.

In the past they did some pretty big things, and any time they are defeated it's buy huge, sometimes combined forces that take extremely heavy losses when getting the vampires out of their lodgings.

Yep all evil armies get defeated eventually, otherwise there wouldn't be any point.

I know they all get defeated, obviously. But it's full of 2 paragraph stories about (this is a generalization here) a vampire who tries to capture a town but ends up dying. I mean surely they can capture a town without the universe being unbalanced? Every single vampire counts playable characters dead or are rumoured to be dead, that's just a tad extreme in my opinion, I mean read the warriors of chaos army book, yeah they often loose but at least they have some intact characters and Ideas .

Well, they hold one of the biggest provences in the empire, which is nestled between the dwarven kingdom... And all the order side can do is say, "meh, we can't kill them so no point waging war on their lands". Unless of course they are hunting a leader after a particularly effective undead campaign. Also the Carsteins are in a constant struggle vs skaven for warpstone, and invariably have to kill any Chaos/Orc warband that rampages through their countryside...So they are an enemy of their enemy's enemies... Yet have no real allies. The fact that they can hold territories at all (blood keep/silver pinnicle/sylvania etc) is impressive, but the fact that they are at the heart of the civilized western world is doubly so IMO.

I happen to like the fluff, as the motives of vampires are longer term and more grandiose... So it makes sense to me that they would be overly cautious during campaign, and want to return to their unholy ground in case they are brought to the sword... If things go bad just wait 50 years, and try again vs new people. And most importantly, they are arguably the most powerful characters in the game, in terms of combat/leadership/magic...

The vampire count fluff is also full of vampire lords getting beaten in melee by normal humans.

GW also cant write non-generic plot and all their campaigns that supposedly advance the storyline have rigged outcomes.

It would have been interesting if a vampire lord had taken over sylvania and demonstrated that undead legions were an effective force to field against chaos while having a neutral stance with the empire, rather than simply "hurp durp i will invade the empire and lose yet again because SIGMARRRRRRRR".

Never thought of the long term ideal for them actually, I suppose I get it a bit more now. But Question get's my point

That may change for the EU guys.

VC are currently ahead in the Scourge of Magic campaign, which supposedly has some impact on upcoming fluff.

spamandchips wrote:After recently purchasing the army book for the vampire counts and reading it thoroughly it seems to me that every campaign they've ever waged they have lost and every infinitely powerful undead vampire lord is either dead or hiding. Has anyone else noticed this?

I've read through the orcs book and the WoC book, and it's always the same ordeal. Big push, defeat, do it again years later and see what happens. WoC have there "final battle" coming up, but just about every evil army has something like that going on in both fantasy and 40k.

I personally like VC because of how detailed their fluff is. Certainly with the newest book it's been simplified. I had a chance to pick up the one before the current on at a local half priced book stores, and in that one it actually goes in to the individual types of vampires (Blood dragons, strigoi, necrarchs, Lahmians, and carsteins), and you even get about 4 pages of fluff for each.

Archaon will slaughter sooo many things it wont even be funny.

But yes my friend just started vc and its not like ok WoC a couple hundred guys go out to kill etc and then eventually loose after killing 3 armies.

Vc is like ok so um ya Van Helsong showed up and ya thats that :( they do need better fluff.

Think of it this way. Everyone dies, and in the end that's just more troops for the VC.

The fluff for VC really does not show a succesfull run for most vampires, but Vlad has come as close as any enemy of the Empire to toppling the throne. I am interested to see how the VC can change the fluff based on the result of the Storm of Magic.

Just wait Archaon will get in there and sit on the throne himself

But ya vc meh not the best fluff still.

But ya most of the characters are dead or hiding which is sad maybe for a huge plan ... anyone think of that?

Thunderfrog wrote:That may change for the EU guys.

VC are currently ahead in the Scourge of Magic campaign, which supposedly has some impact on upcoming fluff.

I can already predict how it ends...chaos is finally beaten back by SIGMARRRRR/THE EMPERURRRRR while the empire/imperium suffers heavy casualties. Thats essentially how all of GW's campaigns end. Throw in a few SCs doing a heroic sacrifice.

Most of the other races do nothing but hurp and durp as usual. The lizardman fluff is even worse than the VC one...

>Arch enemies of chaos because they fethed up the old ones plans
>Hide in the jungle, meditate, and do basically jack gak
>Meanwhile everyone screws them over on a regular basis by raiding their temples

In the end I won't think it will matter.

Unless GW really changes up its philosophy on fluff then the Warhammer/40k world/universe will remain stagnant. Its easier to write in small examples of fluff than it is to do a full blown invasion - and keep the fluff going over several army books or even an entire addition (although it would be cool if they effectively pulled it off).

VC are a lot like Chaos Space Marines in terms of fluff.
Both have executed large and nearly successful attempts at trying to take over, failed, and are now stuck in a seemingly eternal state of "I never win" syndrome.

Question wrote:

Thunderfrog wrote:That may change for the EU guys.

VC are currently ahead in the Scourge of Magic campaign, which supposedly has some impact on upcoming fluff.

I can already predict how it ends...chaos is finally beaten back by SIGMARRRRR/THE EMPERURRRRR while the empire/imperium suffers heavy casualties. Thats essentially how all of GW's campaigns end. Throw in a few SCs doing a heroic sacrifice.

Most of the other races do nothing but hurp and durp as usual. The lizardman fluff is even worse than the VC one...

>Arch enemies of chaos because they fethed up the old ones plans
>Hide in the jungle, meditate, and do basically jack gak
>Meanwhile everyone screws them over on a regular basis by raiding their temples

I lol'd hard.

Seriously?

Firstly, the Lizard's didn't screw up. When Chaos came, the Old Ones themselves just left. There was nothing the Lizardmen could do from either stopping chaos from entering the world or keeping the Old Ones there.

Second, not sure where it's located, but Kroq-Gar launched a successful campaign against the "warm-bloods", somewhere either in the Southlands or Albion. Mazamundi also goes around a lot and is very active for a slaan. The other Slaan meditate because they're still trying to determine the will of the Old Ones, which is pretty hard when they're gone and the world they created essentially got f**ked up and they just left without another word.

Finally, the Dark Elves make raids everywhere, and if you read the books the other races like the Norse and the Empire make such terrible progress that it's not even funny. Almost all of the raids aren't even temples anyway, it's just to get a foothold in Lustria. Sure, there've been some successes, but that's only fair. Sure, the Dark Elves and Clan Pestilins win now and then, but how boring would it be if they lost all the time?

archaon WILL probably sit on the throne and in mid evil-laugh grimgore will headbutt him into oblivion again :p !!

Cryonicleech wrote:

Question wrote:

Thunderfrog wrote:That may change for the EU guys.

VC are currently ahead in the Scourge of Magic campaign, which supposedly has some impact on upcoming fluff.

I can already predict how it ends...chaos is finally beaten back by SIGMARRRRR/THE EMPERURRRRR while the empire/imperium suffers heavy casualties. Thats essentially how all of GW's campaigns end. Throw in a few SCs doing a heroic sacrifice.

Most of the other races do nothing but hurp and durp as usual. The lizardman fluff is even worse than the VC one...

>Arch enemies of chaos because they fethed up the old ones plans
>Hide in the jungle, meditate, and do basically jack gak
>Meanwhile everyone screws them over on a regular basis by raiding their temples

I lol'd hard.

Seriously?

Firstly, the Lizard's didn't screw up. When Chaos came, the Old Ones themselves just left. There was nothing the Lizardmen could do from either stopping chaos from entering the world or keeping the Old Ones there.

Second, not sure where it's located, but Kroq-Gar launched a successful campaign against the "warm-bloods", somewhere either in the Southlands or Albion. Mazamundi also goes around a lot and is very active for a slaan. The other Slaan meditate because they're still trying to determine the will of the Old Ones, which is pretty hard when they're gone and the world they created essentially got f**ked up and they just left without another word.

Finally, the Dark Elves make raids everywhere, and if you read the books the other races like the Norse and the Empire make such terrible progress that it's not even funny. Almost all of the raids aren't even temples anyway, it's just to get a foothold in Lustria. Sure, there've been some successes, but that's only fair. Sure, the Dark Elves and Clan Pestilins win now and then, but how boring would it be if they lost all the time?

>Read the lizardman book
>Don't see them doing anything useful even though they used to be servants of the old ones

1. I'll have to re-read the book, then.

2. Fair enough. =/

At least it's not Failaddon worthy... yet

Yea everyone raids the temple cities and roams freely around the jungles, thats why in "Temple of the Serpent" (the only LM related novel AFAIK) they call lustria the green hell.

Question wrote:

Cryonicleech wrote:

Question wrote:

Thunderfrog wrote:That may change for the EU guys.

VC are currently ahead in the Scourge of Magic campaign, which supposedly has some impact on upcoming fluff.

I can already predict how it ends...chaos is finally beaten back by SIGMARRRRR/THE EMPERURRRRR while the empire/imperium suffers heavy casualties. Thats essentially how all of GW's campaigns end. Throw in a few SCs doing a heroic sacrifice.

Most of the other races do nothing but hurp and durp as usual. The lizardman fluff is even worse than the VC one...

>Arch enemies of chaos because they fethed up the old ones plans
>Hide in the jungle, meditate, and do basically jack gak
>Meanwhile everyone screws them over on a regular basis by raiding their temples

I lol'd hard.

Seriously?

Firstly, the Lizard's didn't screw up. When Chaos came, the Old Ones themselves just left. There was nothing the Lizardmen could do from either stopping chaos from entering the world or keeping the Old Ones there.

Second, not sure where it's located, but Kroq-Gar launched a successful campaign against the "warm-bloods", somewhere either in the Southlands or Albion. Mazamundi also goes around a lot and is very active for a slaan. The other Slaan meditate because they're still trying to determine the will of the Old Ones, which is pretty hard when they're gone and the world they created essentially got f**ked up and they just left without another word.

Finally, the Dark Elves make raids everywhere, and if you read the books the other races like the Norse and the Empire make such terrible progress that it's not even funny. Almost all of the raids aren't even temples anyway, it's just to get a foothold in Lustria. Sure, there've been some successes, but that's only fair. Sure, the Dark Elves and Clan Pestilins win now and then, but how boring would it be if they lost all the time?

>Read the lizardman book
>Don't see them doing anything useful even though they used to be servants of the old ones

Actually he is 100% on the money with the lizard fluff

Also Vampires do win sometimes, haven't you heard of the Vampire Coast?

Of course Vampires suck, that's how they survive

Haha, I see what you did thar Kroothawk.

Read vampire wars its a great read one of the best fluff books out there imo. If nagash (the father of the undead) can destroy the will of man VC have no hope. Don't get me wrong they will try and countless people will die but in the warhammer world they will always get thier butts spanked by the heroes of man kind. Also VC hate man more then anyother race so neutrality is out.
Compared to the fluff for some races, lizards, wood elves, even skaven the VC have some of the best stuff.

You've have to remember too, if the bad guys just curb stopped the empire and all of the "good" guys then we wouldn't have warhammer anymore, it would be vampirehammer or whoever did the most stomping with the biggest boot. Besides the empire is afraid of the VC, so at least they recognize the threat they pose.

To say that VC suck because they never conquered the Empire is to forget that nobody else has conquered the Empire, either. Except, possibly Skaven, but the Empire will burn you at the stake if you say that, and anyway the Skaven don't own it anymore, do they?

But Orks haven't conquered it. Beastmen haven't conquered it. Chaos hasn't conquered it, despite launching many massive incursions from the north (Failbaddon's Black Crusades, anyone?).

So yeah, the Vamps haven't beaten the Empire. Yeah, they die in the fluff, and all their SCs are dead or presumed dead. That's because: A) Vlad is the most famous SC for the VC. He started it, and he's the standard that all vamps are measured by. Not including him would lead to riots is the streets, as VC players bitch about no longer being able to field Isabella.

Come on, we all know that's why we really take Vlad in an army...

B) They tried to create a bunch of new, non-Von Carstein characters last time around, and either nobody liked them or their models were @$$. Or both. A laser-like focus on Von Carsteins (to the virtual exclusion of all else) in the fluff means you are stuck with pulling Von Carstein SCs from the fluff, and they are all dead or in hiding.

Personally, I would love a few non-Von Carstein SCs in the book, but then again, I never really field SCs (though I want a new Isabella model!). I would love for the focus to be on "vampires" and not just "Von Carsteins"... at least we still have bloodline powers, even if they aren't called "Lahmian, Blood Dragon, Strigoi, etc".

Oh, and Storm of Magic will change absolutley nothing in the fluff world. At least, nothing important. Sure, sure the VCs might snag a village or two along the border, maybe eat an Ork warband nobody has ever heard of before... But nothing will happen that will change the actual face of the Warhammer world. GW has said as much. They don't want to impact the game world, so that people who have painted up armies from a particular city/nation/whatever don't have the fluff pulled out from under them when that city gets burnt. I read that in an old issue of White Dwarf, from back around the time that everyone was complaining about how the Storm of Chaos ended (much like how they complained about the non-endings to 3rd Armageddon and 13th Black Crusade). And no, I'm not going back through all of my issues to find the exact quote.