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Surrender and serve me in life, or die and be my slaves in death.
– Vlad von Carstein
Vampire Counts
The Vampire Counts are the de facto rulers of the imperial province of Sylvania, with expansionist aims throughout the Old World and in particular the Empire. Vlad von Carstein, the founder of the von Carstein vampire dynasty, legitimately obtained control of those lands by marrying the only daughter of the old Elector Count of Sylvania; after more than two centuries of rule by him and his wife, however, it became clear to everyone that Vlad was more than just a man, and shortly thereafter the various Vampire Wars began between the Empire and the undead ruled Sylvania. . Five centuries later, Mannfred von Carstein - the last of Vlad's original lieutenants - attempts once again to overwhelm the human kingdoms of the Old World and sit on the throne of the Empire which he regards as rightfully his.
The Vampire Counts leverage fear and a large arsenal of powerful spells and monstrous creatures, producing an army devoid of any form of shooting, but with a bit of everything in it and that can easily adapt to the opponent.
Strategy in the campaign
Special Unit Rules:
- Nonmorti:
All Vampire Counts units and characters are Undead, which means they treat the loss of Leadership differently from other races. When an undead unit's Leadership drops near 0, instead of routing the unit begins to take spontaneous damage over time, which continues until the Leadership is recovered or the unit dies. At the extremely negative Discipline threshold whereby a unit would normally suffer an unrecoverable rout, the unit instead takes damage at a rate that will almost certainly kill it in moments.
In addition to this, all units of the Vampire Counts Cause Fear in battle, and on the campaign map suffer Attrition whenever they are not in a region where Vampiric Corruption is not the overriding condition of the three (the other two are Normality and Corruption. Chaotic).
Army Mode:
- Marcia
- Ambush
- Assault
- Channeling
Recruitment Mode:
- Local
- Regiments of Renown (DLC)
- Summoning the Dead:
With this modality it is possible to recruit immediately (as soon as the order is given) and in any Province some units. The units available for this recruitment depend on the battles that were previously fought in the Province where you are stationed with the Army; the more casualties during the campaign, the more units and the higher tier they will be.
Settlement conquest mode:
- Occupies (Regions habitable by continental humans and Vampire Counts only)
- Occupy and Plunder (Regions habitable by Continental Humans and Vampire Counts only)
- Raid
- Raze to the ground
Home
The other factions of Vampire Counts are few, small and all very close to you, so you should focus on incorporating them right away. It is unlikely that you will be able to make a peaceful confederation with anyone, but if you have the possibility, do so immediately, as long-term diplomatic relations do not need to be particularly concerned.
Once this is done, you will find yourself with two main threats: the Dwarves to the south and east, and various human factions (Empire, Kislev and Border Princes) to the north and west; Beastmen may also appear in the regions around you. You have little to gain from a war against the Dwarves, but given the networks of global diplomatic relations that will likely arise and the inherent dislikes of your two races, don't assume that you won't be attacked sooner or later anyway. For this reason it is a good idea to keep some forces near your capital, ready to repel a raid and possibly counterattack on the border territories. It is possible that sooner or later the Orcs will exterminate and replace the Dwarves; your attitudes towards them shouldn't be too different.
Instead, what you have to do is push yourself west, calmly and gradually giving the vampiric Corruption time to spread and consolidate. It doesn't matter who you fight first, just be careful not to open too many fronts at once, and not to go too far north too quickly.
Storm of Chaos
Given your starting position and the direction in which you can expand, your territories are likely to be relatively close to the Desolation of Chaos. When Archaon begins its descent, therefore, you will have to be ready to defend yourself from numerous armies (for this reason it is important that your territories are well consolidated and defended, even before many).
During the Chaos Storm, you should forget all other hostilities, because by passing the edge from Kislev the Warriors of Chaos will come quickly to you, and you will have to do a lot of the dirty work.
Age of Peace
It is probable that once the Warriors of Chaos retreat, a considerable plain of ruins looms before you. In this phase of the game you will always face the same opponents as before, with the probable addition of Bretonnia, who often tries to expand and conquer any razed territories of the Empire. If your original core of territories is still solid and you don't have a second front to the south with Dwarves or Orcs, by now you should have the infrastructure and armies you need to easily complete the campaign.
Battle tactics
Strengths:
- The entire army causes fear and is immune to psychology
- No unit can ever escape, and it will fight until it is annihilated
- Large number of flying options
- Many monstrous units
- Magic and Skill capable of regenerating units
Weaknesses:
- Total absence of any form of shooting
- The Crumbling rule is a double-edged sword
- Not many heavily armored options
Use the Vampire Counts
Vampire Counts allow many tactics, but the most adaptable and balanced is to employ a few expendable units (zombies or skeletons) to bog down the enemy, and then direct the various types of units in elite melee at their ideal opponents. Many of the Vampire Counts' high tier units discreetly penetrate armor, so it's just a matter of keeping cavalry, monstrous infantry and monsters away from those who specialize against large units, and rather send us Cairn Guards or Cairn Shadows. . Corpse Chariots and Mortis Machines (contained in the DLC “The Grim and the Tomb”) can help as forms of passive support, to be placed behind your infantry lines.
In all this the flying units play a separate role, and have the task of counterbalancing your total absence of fire, going to block or disperse enemy units at a distance as soon as possible, to prevent them from doing too much damage. Vampire Bats will easily get the better of a few pieces of artillery, and some Vargheists can rout most marksman units if caught off guard and unsupported by other enemy fighters. Spirits of Terror and Zombie Dragons, on the other hand, suffer a lot on the ground against large masses of enemies, on the other hand they are perfect for hunting down weaker enemy fliers or to act as bodyguards for your Flying Mages.
Finally, Magic is a fundamental pivot of the army, to be used without hesitation to damage or weaken enemy characters and units, facilitate the loss of Discipline in enemies and regenerate or create troops. All Army Lords have access to Vampire Lore, which may be enough; taking a second Wizard with you can sometimes be handy.
Confronting the Vampire Counts
The prerogative of all Vampire Counts units to never escape helps them to create a formation that remains compact to the end, without small momentary escapes, but it can also be an enchantment to pile up, making them easily encircled or susceptible to artillery and Spells that cause area damage. On the contrary, if the units of the Vampire Counts are scattered and spaced too far, the more isolated ones can be targeted until they are completely annihilated (thanks to the Crumbling) and be knocked out once and for all.
The pivot around which an army of Vampire Counts revolves, ultimately, is Discipline - ironically even more so than for living factions -, because most regeneration abilities and spells stop working when a unit is in Crumbling. . Killing their general causes even more damage than is normally seen, both for this reason and because it knocks out even their best support wizard in most cases. Whenever possible, therefore, you should always aim to eliminate the Vampire Counts Lord as soon as possible, even at the cost of sacrificing some units or Heroes or placing yourself in an apparently disadvantageous tactical position.
Everything else comes quite by itself. Since Vampire Counts are completely shot-free, making the most of long-range shooters (and protecting them with some ground units from quicker or flying threats) often yields a noticeable advantage as the minutes pass, and may be the only solution. against overwhelming numbers of monstrous infantry and monsters.
Better units
- Vampire bats
An unrivaled option to destroy or at least keep occupying isolated enemy war machines and shooters; they are not capable of fighting any decent unit, but for what they cost they do their job well.
- Burial Guards
A great heavy infantry, both in the sword and shield variant as well as in the big weapon variant. If you want to set up human-sized forces that also harm the enemy as well as buffer him, this is basically the only alternative available.
- Horrors of the Crypts
Monstrous infantry very effective both as a support unit (by virtue of Poison Attacks) and as a breakthrough unit. While unable, like most monstrous infantry, to withstand prolonged combat against specialized units of overwhelming numerical superiority, Regeneration allows the Horrors of the Crypt to perform a series of engagements and disengages and greatly facilitates the work of a Magician to keep them alive.
- Shadows of the Mounds
Generally underestimated unit, but which if used in small quantities and well managed can block for a long time and even seriously damage many infantry and armored cavalry, especially by hitting them in an isolated position on the battlefield. Despite having a basically mediocre profile, in fact, the Shadows have a good 80% resistance to all non-magical damage, which makes them almost invulnerable in most melee, unless they are destroyed by the loss of Discipline. (usually happens when they are surrounded or totally overwhelmed in number). However, you must be very careful with units with magic damage and enemy Mages.
- Varghulf
Powerful, resistant, massive and relatively fast monster, also equipped with Regeneration. Fantastic middle ground between a monstrous infantry and hyper-expensive monsters, very versatile and that is unlikely to pay off in terms of casualties in the opposing army.
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