Educate me on the Undead warbands

For better or worse.. the Vampire Counts army in Warhammer has always been an appealing one for me due to all the conversion possibilities. I love the variety, but this always leads me conflicted with the bloodlines as I like pretty much all of them.

Seems like in Mordheim, its no different.. my first Undead list will be a simple one since I'll be using the standard list presented in the rulebook. Easily, it screams Strigoi to me.. backed by his loyal Strigany.

However.. I want to eventually branch out so that I can use skeletons and Wights. The models are some of my favorites. The Undead lists that I've run into that allow me to use these models are the Restless Dead and the Blood Dragon list. Anyone have experience with either of these lists? I wouldn't mind trying out the Blood Dragon list as it would allow me to create an armor-clad Vampire (one of my favorite Warhammer images).. but not sure if the list ends up being too beardy. What do you guys think?

personally, I don't find the blood dragon list terribly beardy at all. At first glance, it looks like a bit much starting with 6 heroes, 3 of which are really strong, but then you realize that to actually start with all 6 characters, you're spending 330gc before you even equip them, and they don't have a single henchmen option that can gain experience, which is a hugggge kick in the pants. I wouldn't have a problem playing against it.

Great! I'm glad to hear. I was just going to go with the Restless Dead list as an excuse to use Wights and Skeletons, but that list seems potentially more powerful than the Blood Dragon one.

As a side note.. any Strigoi lists out there?

I haven't had any experience with the alternative undead lists. But from a modelling point of view, you could use skeletons (and skeleton models) in the zombie slot on the standard undead list. Stat and ability wise, they are pretty much exactly the same (I think in Warhammer, the skellies may have a slightly better initiative; but just consider yours as clumsy skellies).

gorenut wrote:

Great! I'm glad to hear. I was just going to go with the Restless Dead list as an excuse to use Wights and Skeletons, but that list seems potentially more powerful than the Blood Dragon one.

As a side note.. any Strigoi lists out there?

the original undead list can pretty much be considered a strigoi list at this point. Of course strigoi didn't even exist yet when the mordheim rule book was written, but you can definitely retcon them in. You'd probably need to get your group mates to let you forgo wysiwyg for the vampire since you don't want him to actually fight unarmed, but it works out pretty well with all the ghouls and such.

whiskeytango wrote:

gorenut wrote:

Great! I'm glad to hear. I was just going to go with the Restless Dead list as an excuse to use Wights and Skeletons, but that list seems potentially more powerful than the Blood Dragon one.

As a side note.. any Strigoi lists out there?

the original undead list can pretty much be considered a strigoi list at this point. Of course strigoi didn't even exist yet when the mordheim rule book was written, but you can definitely retcon them in. You'd probably need to get your group mates to let you forgo wysiwyg for the vampire since you don't want him to actually fight unarmed, but it works out pretty well with all the ghouls and such.

Yup, as far as how I've equipped my vampire, he has 2 swords to count as his claws. I figure this represents extra attacks and his quick ability to parry very well.

ah. I'd exchange one of those for something else. Maybe an axe to represent how his claws can rend through most substances easily. Having two swords offers no benefit other than an extra attack. You don't get to parry twice or re-roll a parry or anything like that.

whiskeytango wrote:

ah. I'd exchange one of those for something else. Maybe an axe to represent how his claws can rend through most substances easily. Having two swords offers no benefit other than an extra attack. You don't get to parry twice or re-roll a parry or anything like that.

Oh, so giving him an axe and sword confers parry, extra attack, and armor penetrating to all his attacks?

I know there is a sticky up there about dual wielding, but I've yet to been able to get into that yet... just spending time soaking up resources in other parts of the forum.

duel wielding gives +1 attack
Sword allows you to parry.
- two swords gives you duel wielding but still only parry one time but can re roll the parry (unless the rules were changed)... you can not parry 2+ times a round no matter the equipment combo.
Axe allows that attack but no others to give a -1 AS to the defender. effectivly the same as if you had strength 4. with strength 4 and axe you negate 2 armor (-2 AS).

Brahm Tazoul made a fan-based Strigoi list. Not on the web anywhere, but PM me your email address and I can send it to you.

You can also use the Fallen (from the Relics of the Crusade list), which is essentially a Ghoul warband with a Ghoulish Vampire at the lead. Veeeeeeery strong, but if your group approves, it would fit the Strigoi bill very much in my limited knowledge.

from the rule book, in the "parry" description in the close combat section:

"If your model is armed with a buckler and a sword, you may re-roll any failed parries once. A model armed with two swords can still only roll once."

but other than that, pervavita is right. You won't get the -1 AS on all your attacks unless you're armed with two axes. However, once again, according to the rule book the user may choose which one the "main" weapon being used is. So say you have 2 base attacks, and are armed with a sword and an axe giving you an additional 1 attack, you can choose to say that your axe is your main weapon, which would mean you'd make the two base attacks with the axe (with those attacks having the armor save bonus), and the additional one with the sword.

sorry for the double post

StyrofoamKing wrote:

Brahm Tazoul made a fan-based Strigoi list. Not on the web anywhere, but PM me your email address and I can send it to you.

You can also use the Fallen (from the Relics of the Crusade list), which is essentially a Ghoul warband with a Ghoulish Vampire at the lead. Veeeeeeery strong, but if your group approves, it would fit the Strigoi bill very much in my limited knowledge.

i wouldn't mind seeing that strigoi list as well. I respect the effort that went into relics, but i've never really been too taken with it or its warbands.

Weren't there rules for exchanging the dire wolves for some wights once? Some kind of skeleton, with S4 and T4 that was allowed to run, and caused critical hits on 5+. Only 1 attack, needed equipment to work, and still cost 50gc IIRC. A decent alternative the dire wolf IMO.

Ahh, ok.. that makes sense. I don't think I want to take advantage of dual-wielding that much as I've already read enough complaints about it being over-powered. I'll just stick to 2 swords for now.

Well, you're really taking of advantage of the best part of having two weapons just by having them. The best part isn't really the utility of having two different weapons, but of gaining the extra attack. It also isn't "over-powered" per se, its just that its statistically better than most of the other options, especially at creation. Once strong man becomes available, two-handed weapons are a viable option, as is a hand weapon and a shield if you also have gromil or chaos armor. I get what you're saying though.

Regarding the Strigoi List: rather than emailing them out one by one, I've sent a message to Tom Bell (Brahm) for permission to repost his old Sylvannia stuff. I doubt he'll say no, but I thought it courteous to ask first. Will post on this thread when I have them up.

Thanks for all the input so far. Another question.. would you guys say it'd be worth equipping skeletons with armor and shield?

that would be the absolute late thing on list. If I had all my heroes with all the equipment i wanted for them, my warband size maxed out, all my henchmen had the weapons i wanted them to have, and i had GC just piling up, then sure, I'd start armoring up the henchmen too, but certainly not at creation. If you have your henchmen in groups of more than one, equipping them well can get super expensive since you have to equip every member of a group the same way

gorenut wrote:

Thanks for all the input so far. Another question.. would you guys say it'd be worth equipping skeletons with armor and shield?

Absolutely not, expendable henchmen shouldn't be given 25gc of equipment. Give them a club and have them do stuff with that and their free dagger.

I don't think I have any of the old Sylvania stuff, so I would enjoy seeing it.

Ahhh.. ok.. so pretty much its best to just model a bunch of naked skeletons...

Shame. I'll most likely end up just putting a variety of stuff and paying the points for them, strictly from a modeling standpoint.

like i said earlier, i don't know how strict your group is on wysiwyg, but every group i've ever been in has played that your model can have any armor on it that you want for aesthetic purposes without the character its representing actually having to be equipped with that armor. However, if a character is equipped with certain armor, that does have to modeled on. Its nice that way so you don't have to give up playing with a model you really like just because it has some armor on it. It would be a shame to have to play with the crappy tomb kings skeletons when the much cooler looking vampire counts ones are available

"Group" is obviously very lenient since its just me and my girlfriend for the time being. Friend and cousin may jump in too. I just like trying to model my figures to represent what they're using. I guess I'm just setting up my own stringent standards that I don't expect others to follow. Just me being OCD with my models

Now I just need to get my hands on some of those Heresy Ghouls to finish up my warband.

I was originally going to either do Black Orcs or Dark Elves next.. but that Avatars of War Minotaur is making me really considering Beastmen.

gorenut - my Mordheim 'group' is me and my wife so you are in good company

That said - I'm almost as OCD with my models, although Mrs 5pointer wouldn't mind a jot if my warbands weren't WYSIWYG.

And as far as Avatars of War goes - do it! And use the Beastman hero from that range as well, it is an awesome model!

Okay, loaded the Strigoi band on the Styroheim site. Will add the rest of Brahm's scenarios and rules soonish.

https://sites.google.com/site/styroheim/sylvania