Post: #1

I've just started this thread, so that for those that have been interested in contributing their thoughts and feedback on my Bloodlines Project, have someplace to make general comments and where non-specific beastiary discussions can take place.

This will also stop the project from spilling over into othe Bloodline threads etc, which admittedly it has had a tendency to to, and that is my fault. It is not alway as easy to distinguish between how I want GW to make the new VC book, and how I intend to make the Bloodlines project. Ideally, they'd be the same offcourse, but that's just a foolish dream and we all know it.

Currently, I'm considering adding forcing opponents to re-roll any successful to-Wound roll vs. Vampires, as long as they don't have magic attacks of some kind or Flaming attacks. It is quite a fluffy rule, but I don't think it is complicated and hard to use. It would also be hugely beneficial to Vampire Thralls, which would help bring them more into the game.

I should perhaps note that the list will most likely contain more Vampire Heroes, and they will have a bit more of a close combat focus than the current ones. The reasons being:

-Vampires have a limited ability to heal themselves through draining their enemies of blood if they kill them 8a maximum of 1 wound each close combat phase).

-Vampires get +1 attack (necrarchs remain as today as far as attacks go, and the Strigoi get the Extra Attacks built-in, as tey can't choose any weapns etc).

-you will be able to buy more vampires, one being that you only get 1 Lord in your army, and the rest of the 25% Lord section may be spendt on Heroes instead.

-Vampires will not automatically start as wizards (Necrarchs is the exception), but they all have the option, even the Blood dragons.

Post: #2

Uziel, can you get all this stuff put up in the User's project?

And do a bit of cleanup to link certain things?

Biggest thing I'm worried about with rerolling to wound vampires is you'll have:
High WS. Most hit on a 4+ or worse.
Reroll to wound. Even something decently strong (S5) has only a 44% chance of actually wounding. Even a cannonball has only a 69% chance of wounding.
AS 2+
WS4+ (or regen)
Healing.

One problem with current vampire characters is that they're T4, and in infantry, so normally having a 3+ AS and no ward save. Have access to regen as a power will go a long way to making them tougher. You don't normally waste a Ward Save on a vampire, but in 7th, you could fit a Dread Knight vampire in an infantry unit no problem, so you could easily have a 1+AS/5+WS w. Infinite Hatred to make a nasty close combat character. If you can get something close to that again, you'll have fixed the issue I think.

Run some math on that reroll hits to wound from regular attacks... it's really darn good.

It also wouldn't solve the issue of fighting characters or anything, which the vampire would be just as weak against.

Having the ability to have a decent AS/WS for an expensive character is the important part I think.

Post: #3

I will make a "proper" Army List, and post it all in one place, once I get further along with the Beastiary Section etc, and once the Army special rules and Vampiric Powers are completed. For the time being, it is easier to keep it seperated.


As far as the re-roll issue goes, I think enemy characters should have a chance (although for some armies such as The empire (humans), it should not be an even chance mind you) of defeating Vampires in Challenges.

I think that an "ordinary" trooper with a great weapon, wounding a Vampire 44% of the time is fine to be honest, especially as you can potentially have 9 (10 with a champion) Great Weapon attacks comming against you. I think this represents the natural invulerabilites of a Vampire pretty well. The same goes for a cannonball having 69% chance of wounding, as only a direct hit to the head or hart would really kill him in any case.
For gaming purposes, the re-roll rule will open up a new tactical element to vampires (at least to a much larger degree), allowing them to go alone, without being so easily sniped by a Bolt Thrower, a small squad of "archers" or even a Cannon, as long as the attacks are not magical or have the flamming attaks special rule.

As far as having 2+ armour (or even 1+ in the case of the mounted Blood Dragons with shields etc), this will not be available to most of the bloodlines, in fact most will have litte or no armour as far as armour options go. Even the Von Carsteins will probably get Heavy armour and a barded steed at the most (3+).
I know there are magical items available for all that mitigates this, but since the Vampiric Powers/Magic items total have been reduced (for the Lord at least), this will help somewhat. Also, a Blood Dragon will already have pre-paind the cost for a Full Plate, so buying a magical set of armour will be a (somewhat) waste of points.

If someone spends all their points on a super defensive Vampire, he (or or she) won't really be able to contribute anything near their own cost to the battle. If the main thing as far as your tactics with your Vampire Lord is that he doesn't die and the army crumbles, then that's an awful lot of points spent to ensure that this doesn't happen in the first place, and thus it should be really hard for your enemy to kill him. He might however massacre your less than adequate army instead...

I don't want to see Infinate hatred on anything but a Strigoi, this is to make them stand out. Kind of tired seeing the Red Fury/Infinate Hatred/magic wepon combination, especially on a lvl 3 spell caster too boot. From a fluff perspective, I think a Vampire having these powers (traits) would be quite insane and probably too mentally unbalanced to be a spell caster in the first place, yet it is more or less the "standard" vampire Lord being used. It fits on someone like Konrad, but even he is not a spell caster. Not a big fan of those kinds of unfluffy solutions, as they tend to be used all too often. I could maybe see it in a special character, but even then this special character would have to be truly well written etc to sell this whole package to me..

The Blood Dragons have a +1 to hit in a challenge (thus typically hitting on a 2+), while the Strigoi Lord starts off with 6 armour piercing S5 attacks, at ws 7, and can technically go as high as 9 attacks on the charge! He also has Infinate Hatred available.. You can certainly have fighter Vampires that can go toe to toe against anything but greater demons (as I guess we will not get especially powerfull weapons as far as dealing damage goes in the 8.ed VC book) if you wish, so they should be able to deal with nearly all characters as well, even if the re-roll didn't work because the enemy character had a magical/flaming weapon.

I do agree with you that the re-roll is quite good (especially for the T 5 Lord & General), but increasing AS and WS is not the way I'd choose to go on the grounds that it doesn't fit the fluff of the various Bloodlines, nor the idea that I wan't to introduce the individual weaknesses of the Bloodlins to actually reduce the points of the Vampire Lord type characters a bit as well. Having some weaknesses (such as a Necrarch's lower WS and Attacks), means that his cost can be reduced. It does seem to me that the cost of characters have gone a bit down sine 8.ed came out in general as well, probably since they arguably don't have such a great impact any more (wizards the possible exception).

Thank you for your feedback again Grish.

Post: #4

Added the Bloodthirst and Immortal rule to the Army special rules section.

Post: #5

Updated/Changed the Varghulf, the Lahmian Handmaidens, the VVon Carstein Vampire Brood as well as the Bloodline Vampires themselves, to accomodate the Immortal special rule.

Post: #6

Ghouls slightly updated.

Ghouls are now alowed to benefit from the General's Inspiring Presence, but not the BSB's Hold your Ground special rule.

The Strigoi will however get a comparable rule to the BSB re-roll, but only for the purposes of controlling ghouls though. The Strigoi have a slightly reduced LD score (cause of their deranged minds etc), so while it still grants Ghouls in a Strigoy force a good buff, their lower LD score prevents them from becomming too good as a main battle line unit. Even with steadfast, we're talking LD 8...

Post: #7

Von Carstein Vampiures "finished", including their point cost etc.

Post: #8

added the "Immune to Poison" to all Undead in the army (the same rule found on the Ogre Slaughtermaser/Butcher.

note that this rule does NOT affect Vampires of any kind, nor Crypt Ghouls...

Post: #9

Tweaked the Quickblood power, and added the Widow's Web power.

Post: #10

Love your progress so far cant wait to see your necrarch experiments rules.

Post: #11

(11-06-2011 10:25 PM)Rolemodeld Wrote:  Love your progress so far cant wait to see your necrarch experiments rules.

Thank you. All comments, feeback, constructive critismism and other help are most welcome.

As far as the necrarch "experiments" go, I haven't actually started on them yet, but I have some ideas, some of which I have already pitched in the Necrarch Experiments section here on the forum, relating to the Official Carpe Noctum Bloodline projects. I think I will call my experiments "Shambling Horrors" though, not wanting to steal the "Experiments" name used here on Carpe Noctem for the site's Official Bloodline list.

Post: #12

Posted the "finished" Blood Dragon Vampire Character stats and rules.

Post: #13

Strigoi Vampire posted.

Post: #14

Lahmian Vampire updated and ready for playtesting.

Post: #15

- The Necrarch Vampire is "done" and posted.

- Some of the Vampiric Powers have had their point cost fixed in the Vampiric Powers list for the project.

-The Blood Dragons got the Dreadknight power for their 3'rd choice, but it does not resemble the Dreadknight power of 7. ed..

-Changed the Master of Puppets power of the Necrarchs a bit. How effective it is now depends on the Necrarch's Wizard lvl, not the rank bonus of the zombie horde.

-Made Begule available for Necrarch as well, as it is not neccessarily strictly a "look-based" power. It does however requice concentration and a certain mindset, so the Strigoi may still not select it.

Only one power remains, and that is the general only Von Carstein power. I hope I can finish this tomorrow, so that I can start with the Special and Rare section of the army.

Next up is the "Barrow Riders", a CORE option medium Cavalry unit (based on the existing Wight Cavalry/black Knights models of today).

Post: #16

Unfortunatly, I haven't had the time to do much over the lst 3-4 days, as I've been working on finishing the second floor of the house. I've had some time to think a bit though, and here are some of my thoughts:

-Fist off, I'm considering naming the whole project "Bloodline Lagacies", to seperate it from the site's official Bloodline project.

-Updated the "Army special" rules in the workshop section a bit, specifying that all Vampires in the army must be from the same Bloodlineetc.

-I've been working on specific bloodline specific army rules, but this is not finished yet. These mainly deal with a small number of unit "limitations", primarily not strickt limitations, rather that in some armies a typical Core choice may become Speacial instead, and/or vice-versa. Actual limitations will be mostly found in the Rare section, but each Bloodline will have new Rare options available specifically for them as well to compensate.

-Considering adding a few special bloodline related rules to various units, such as one unit of Ghouls being able to get the Scout special rule in a strigoi army (at + Xpts/model). ust one example.. Basically rules to encourage the use of certain units aabove others in the different Bloodline armies, but still not imposing the kind of harsh limitations of the 6.ed Bloodline lists.

-Barrow Knights soon finished. This will be a Medium Cavalry, something not often found in present day warhammer. These will be based on the current Black Knight models (Spears, Skeletal Steeds with no barding etc). These will be S3 Wights. A Special choice, but available as Core in a Blood Dragon army.

Time to hit the sack...

Post: #17

Surely you mean 'Bloodline Legacies?'

Post: #18

(11-14-2011 11:43 AM)spineyrequiem Wrote:  Surely you mean 'Bloodline Legacies?'

Hehe. Offcourse I do. It was a bit late here and I missed the typo.

Post: #19

Barrow Knights & Grave Guard (including Drakenhof Guard posted).

Post: #20

Changed the Spirit Host into a Rare option.

So far, here is an overview of the army list:

Lords:

Vampire Lord (or Count alternative for the Von Carsteins). All have new rules.

Heroes:

Vampire Thrall -all have new rules.
Wight King (will be modified somewhat)
Cairn Wraith
Banshee
Lahmian Handmaiden (Lahmia Only)
Necromancer

Core:

Skeleton Warriors -with new rules
Zombie horde -with new rules
Crypt Ghouls -with new rules
Corpse Cart -with new rules

Special:

Dire Wolves (Core in a Von Carstein army) -with new rules
Fell Bats -with new rules
Barrow Riders (Core in a Blood Dragons army)
Grave Guard -with new rules and more variations than before (depending on bloodline)

Rare:

Black Coach -with new rules (not posted yet)
Varghulf -with new rules. Von Carstein, Strigoi and Necrarch only.
Spirit Host -with new rules
Terrorgheist (not Lahmia)

In addition to this, there will be 1-2 special or rare choices available to each of the bloodlines. So far, these are the options I'm considering:

Ghoul Court (Strigoi)

Shambling Horrors (Necrarch)

Mostrous infantry zombies (Necrarch, but only if this is something GW releases models for in 8.ed)

Warrior Hermits (Blood Dragons)

Blood Knights (Blood Dragons). These will have updated rules etc to go with the lest as a whole.

Vampire Brood (Von Carstein)

Possible non-steed, Zombie Dragon, for the Necrarchs and Von Carsteins

Considering some form of Bolt Thrower or skull chukka option for Von Carstein and Lahmia army lists...

Vampire Champions (Von carstein only). Toying with the idea of letting the Von Carsteins have the option of replacing their normal unit champion choice with that of a Vampire (still can't be brought back with IoN though).

Pretty sure GW comes out with a proper heavy cavalry unit (barded steeds), and this will offcourse go into the list as well...




Some might notice that the Bat Swarms are gone, but they can still be used by the Von Carsteins with a certain Vampiric Power. They now have the ambush special rule as well.

This is the overview so far at least. Note that I do aim to include whatever units that comes along in the 8.ed book as well, so there wil be plenty of options for diverse armies, even within the framework of bloodlines.