Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast (section)

==Unit Roster==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Luthor Harkon]] (The Awakened) ''': [[Meme|The worst Vampire you'll ever hear of, but will still do so nonetheless]]. Ol' Arch Commodore Luthor commands the main part of the Vampire Coast and ironically spends most of his time trying to hold onto his little fiefdom in northeast Lustria. The Lizardmen hate your guts with your innate diplomatic malus against them but with clever planning you can easily ally with the Skaven down south and exterminate the lizards. You are the premier Vampire Coast faction but you'll spend more time fighting on land than at sea which is... odd. This is mostly due to the fact you're hemmed in at sea from both north and east by another two Vampire Coast main factions, and you do not want to have to fight them that early...
*:Luthor on the battlefield is a hybrid combat lord who has no Lores of Magic to command at the beginning of the game, which is unusual for an vampire lord. This is due to his fractured mind that schizophrenically switches from personality to personality, changing his battlefield stats and abilities at a whim. One minute you're ripping through a hapless unit of Saurus Warriors as the Mad and the next you're running away in terror as his Coward personality takes over. Later on in the campaign you will be able to unlock the Lore of Deeps for him, which will improve his usefulness. Also notable in multiplayer for being your only mobile lord pick with his Terrorgheist mount.

*'''[[Count Noctilus]] ([[Dreadfleet]])''': The arch-nemesis of Captain Roth returns to wreak terror across the Great Ocean. Starting smack in the middle of the seas in the Galleon's Graveyard, your starting position is nearly unassailable and is the perfect lair for you to strike out at targets of opportunity. Noctilus is the true star of the Vampire Coast for one very simple reason - he buffs and makes the best unit the roster cheaper, the mighty Necrofex Colossi. Despite your promising prospects in the lategame, it can get a little difficult to find suitable targets early on without bringing down the full might of their alliances down on you.

*:Count Noctilus is the grand admiral that leads from the front with his Anti-Large AP pike and is arguably a contender for the cheesiest doomstack army as Noctilus himself can mount a Necrofex Colossus to lead nineteen other Colossi in an unstoppable tide of cannonball rape. Oh, did we mention he also has access to the Lore of Vampires and Shadow? No? Well he does, to add to his already insane bevy of options for himself and his army. If you're not building or planning to build Necrofex for Noctilus, you're doing it wrong.

*'''[[Aranessa Saltspite]]''': Aranessa holds the dubious honour of being the only Vampire Coast LL with no access to spellcasting (but makes up for it with a really, really great backstory). She herself is a bit in an odd niche, being a rather flimsy single-target damage dealer that has a ton of trick up her sleeve. What makes her particularly interesing is her netting ability that keeps any unit you choose from going anywhere. In combat she is... alright. Nothing all that groundbreaking and she will get her ass handed to her by almost any dedicated combat lord.
*:Aranessa leads the '''[[Pirates of Sartosa]]''', located on not-Sicily in the city of the same name. She has unique access to the only two mortal units of the Vampire Coast roster which gives her an edge over the other VC factions in the early game. She plays largely the most like a true pirate faction; hitting targets of opportunity, establishing pirate covens and raiding the coastline of Ulthuan.

*'''[[Cylostra Direfin]]''': Clyostra is currently the only ethereal lord in the game. Does it make her as tough as Cairn Wraiths or Hexwraiths? You wish. She's your standard caster LL, with good access to the Lore of the Deeps. She holds up fairly well in combat, and can even take a Rotting Leviathan as mount. However, she comes with some cool boons that make her a force in her own right. She starts with a cursed Bretonnian Paladin that has the stats of a regular Paladin except that he is Ethereal and pretty much unstoppable early on. She can also summon Ethereal Grail Knights. Yes, you read that right. Summoned. Ethereal. Fucking. Grail Knights.
*:Unfortunately, her faction has by far the hardest start of any of the Vampire Coast Factions. She leads '''The Drowned''' on the small peninsula in the isthmus of Lustria, smacked in the middle between Morathi and Lord Mazdamundi. Unlike the other three VC factions, your initial situation is rather peculiar and you have to build a resonably good basis in Lustria before you can even think of raiding your enemies.
===Lords===
*'''[[Vampire Fleet Admiral]]''': There is no sexism in undeath, you can either get a halberd wielding dude Admiral or a Cutlass and Pistol wielding lady Admiral. They make up for being the sole generic Lord option for your faction by being pretty good on their own; even more so if you put them on a rotting Promethean. Combined with their extremely potent spellcasting with options from the three best Lores in the game they make for terrifying opponents.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Vampire Fleet Captain]] (Vampires, Deep, Death)''': In contrast to your other heroes, the vampire captain is obtained by normal expansion, meaning you can easily field plenty of them. While they are alright in melee, they are best used to get more access to the Lore of Vampires to assist your Lords (especially the Legendary Lords that lack spellcasting ability). In the campaign, they have the unique ability to create pirate coves as a hero action. The ability is quite expensive, and the price goes up for each cove you have, but it can be extremely useful to get a cove in a port without having to siege the settlement.- can choose ap anti-large or ranged hybrid. I generally recommend the anti large because the ranged output is quite weak but personal preference. Can mount a giant crab which I always recommend.

*'''[[Mournghul|Mournghul Haunter]]''': The Mournghul Haunter is your best (arguably your only) melee hero. Although it doesn't bring nearly the utility that the other two can provide, the Haunter is still useful as a beatstick. Deceptively fast with vanguard deployment and stalk, as well as sporting a very high melee defense stat and regeneration, the Haunter works best to intercept and hold enemy lords/heroes while the rest of the army gets in position to finish them off. His chilling aura debuff is great for keeping his target locked in combat, and his regeneration allows him to stay in the fight even against tougher foes. Just don't send him in unsupported; he doesn't do enough damage to win most fights on his own. Also take in mind that while he's a hero, he's got a much larger model, meaning about 12 infantry models can attack him at once, versus the 4-5 normal foot heroes tank. Absolutely hilarious in a nineteen model doomstack.

*'''[[Gunnery Wight]]''': By far the best support hero you have on offer, despite his outlook being very deceiving. Sharing the statline, combat role and unit profile of a Dwarfen Master Engineer (and most of their passives), Gunnery Wights are best utilized as your backline artillery support unit. The Black Powder mechanic gives you tremendous bonuses when your units have a lot of ammo left and Gunnery Wights most crucial ability is theirs to replenish ammunition to any ranged unit you have on the field, as well as giving some nice passive bonuses for ranged units and some AoE grenade abilities to keep faster units away from your precious cannons. So, do they have a downside? Quite frankly, in the campaign, you will never have enough of them, since the only way to increase your hero cap isn't though teching up or expanding - but exclusively through your pirate coves. Random events occasionally can give you one for free, but this is just a very small remedy for the problem that the supply is short and the demand very, very high.

*'''[[Damned Bretonnian Paladin]]''' (Cylostra Direfin only): An ethereal Bretonnian paladin unique to Cylostria Direfin's army. Don't kid yourself, this guy is nowhere near as powerful as the [[Green Knight|other ghostly paladin]], but he is a welcome addition to an army in need of fast moving heroes. He's a decent duelist hero with enough melee power to make up for Cylostria's subpar fighting abilities (until she gets her rotting leviathan mount).

===Infantry===
*'''[[Zombie Pirate Deckhand|Zombie Deckhand Mob]] (Regular, Polearms)''': Your fodder. They have next to no offensive capabilities but make up for it by being undead and having a tremendous body count of 160 models on large settings. Sure they won't kill much, but that's not their job, they perform the job of a meatshield really well and are cheap. Try to avoid the dual-sword variety; the added defenses of the polearm type make them a better meatshield and they have actual ap which is rare for chaff, and if you want damage (for whatever reason) the pistol gunnery mob is almost as good in melee and brings a shooting attack. Still raise dead mostly gives the regular so only use them if you must. otherwise you almost always want polearms.
**'''The Tide of Skjold''' (RoR): Upgraded sword-zombies with frenzy and perfect vigor while above 50% morale. Again, dealing damage isn't really what you want these guys for, bit if you have a little extra money in the budget go for it.

*'''[[Zombie Pirate Gunner|Zombie Gunnery Mob]] (Pistols, Bombs, Handguns, Handcannons)''': The mainstay of your armies until the late game. These are the guys your Deckhands are supposed to keep the enemies away from. Their weapons are generally a bit below average as far as missile damage is concerned - until you realize that you have 120 of them in a single unit and good range on top of that. They are excellent missile infantry for their cost and the bread and butter of your faction. They come in four varieties. The Pistol Variant has low range but can handle itself well enough in melee. Bombers inflict fire damage at the cost of range (and being somewhat finicky to use). Handguns are basically a big blob of Imperial Handgunners and work pretty much the same, large Range, Armour Piercing. Handcannons on the other hand work a bit more like shotguns. They have a shorter range than Handguns, but blast anything that comes into their range and work the best up close, where their low accuracy doesn't hold them back as much. Always turn skirmish mode off for them. They're too slow to get away from melee combat anyway and work good enough as fodder if someone manages to catch them.

**'''The Black Spot''' (RoR): Handgunners with polearms, giving them decent melee defense and anti-large damage. Strictly better than the normal handgunners and the normal polearm mobs, but you are paying extra for a unit that can only do one of those two roles at once.
*'''[[Deck Gunner]]s''': Serious firepower for the lategame. They share a lot of similarities with Skaven Weapon teams. They offer tremendous firepower in exchange for a low unit count, but their high damage, AP and Shieldbreaking missiles make short work of nearly anything that get thrown in their general vicinity. also great range.
**'''Shadewraith Gunners''' (RoR): [[awesome|Ethereal deck gunners with magic attacks]]. The only downside (if you can call it that) is that they trade Shieldbreaking for a leadership debuff for whatever they're shooting at, so they work best blasting an enemy that's pinned in melee to maximize your fear effects.

*'''[[Depth Guard]] (Axes, Polearms)''': Sadly, not as great as they used to be. These are your elite line breakers, low model count, but insane melee capabilities and regenerating on top of that. Depth Guard with Polearms in particular make mincemeat of all Cavalry that is stupid or unfortunate enough to just look at them wrong. As always ap is so important that the polearm version outperforms the axe variant against almost everything you would actually care about. Still expensive and fragile but very effective especially with campaign skill buffs and magic support. You can pull off a frontline of polearms even if you want to.
In immortal empires these boys have finally got a worthy buff, adding ACTUAL ANTI-INFANTRY bonuses to their axes making them capable of shredding some of the better infantry in the game. More importantly, they had their health regen in melee doubled and can outheal damage taken when fighting fodder or when their formation is positioned so only a few models are actively taking damage.
**'''The Bloody Reaver Deck Guard''' (RoR): Polearm depthguard with the ability to temporarily gain 44% physical resistance, making them the best heavy tanking infantry you've got.

*'''[[Sartosan Pirates]]''': Mixing it up are non-undead infantry with a pair of cutlasses for some early game DPS and movement speed. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well. They have perfect vigor while the leadership is high, but the ability is much more noticeable on the free company.

*'''Sartosan Free Company''': Like the Empire free company but better because these ones have perfect vigor as long as their leadership is above half. Only Aranessa can recruit these guys that must have huge balls or mushy brains to be seen siding with the undead. Due to the Vampire Coast's preference for gunlines that can also hold their ground, these guys often ironically perform your foot skirmishing role as they have considerably more speed. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.

*'''[[Syreen]]s''': Damned spirits of the deep shanking unfortunate living sailors since forever. Ethereal infantry with decent melee stats, their ability to shrug off normal frontline damage is not to be denied but they will die to a single breath or vortex. Tricky to use effectively and for the most part avoided in army compositions. That said, they can be effective against factions that don't have easy access to spells or magic damage, like dwarfs.
===Monsters, Flying Units & Cavalry===
*'''[[Bloated Corpse]]''': A one-use suicide unit that walks up to enemies and then blows up that is in general a mixed bag. On the one hand exchanging a cheap ass disposable unit that you often can get instantly with Raise Dead to delete a unit of Chaos Knights or Black Orcs is satisfying and useful in a pinch. On the other hand they can also delete your guys and enemy ranged forces will focus fire them into premature detonation if you let them.

*'''[[Deck Dropper]]s (Pistols, Handguns, Bombs)''': These are basically flying Gunnery Mobs with the glaring weakness that their unit count is miniscule and the survivability really bad. They can have a niche as skirmish units to distract fat flying monsters like Dragons or Terradon Riders, but their use outside of this niche is fairly limited and a unit of Gunnery Zombies does their job a lot better at this than they do. If you really want to use them, the bombers are the best choice; the low range and awkward shooting arc are both solved by the superior speed and height of the deck droppers.
**'''Saltlord Scuttlers''' (RoR): The best deck-droppers by far and often the only ones worth taking. Their bombs sunder enemy armour, making them a great surgical tool for swooping in and weakening a specific enemy.

*'''[[Animated Hulk|Animated Husks]]''': Fat blobs with Frenzy. That's basically it. They are your beefy Monstrous Infantry, and provide you with much needed early AP damage, but their usefulness tanks once dedicated Infantry killers or units with bonuses against large arrive on the scene.

*'''[[Maneaters]]''': That's right, Aranessa can recruit ogres at tier 3 ports on the Immortal Empires campaign map. This makes sense because they have [[Hats|Pirate Hats]]. While mobile monstrous infantry is a welcome addition to the coast's sluggish roster, she unfortunately only gets vanilla Maneaters, not ogre pistols, ironfist, or great weapon variants. Hopefully she'll get pistol Maneaters in a future patch, they would work well with the pirate + gunpowder themes of the Vampire Coast. Until then, you'll just have to settle for allying with Skragg and hiring ogres from him instead.

*'''[[Mourngul|Mournghuls]]''': These things are really nice and work best as a substitute for cavalry. Vanguard deployment means they can chase off enemy skirmishers quickly and they get regeneration as long as they are in melee. Sadly, their lack of armour makes them rather fragile, but they a solid unit throughout the midgame.
**'''Night Terrors''' (RoR): Mournguls with terror and rampage. Terror is nice, but rampage is hard to justify on such a fragile unit. And it's not like you don't have other units that cause terror.

*'''[[Rotting Promethean]]s''': If you need a point to not budge, these are your choice. They tank damage like crazy and dish out good AP damage on their own. They are not very fast, but their durability makes up for that.

*'''Rotting Promethean Gunners''': It's Rotting Prometheans with two Handcannoneers on top. Surprisingly durable, and the additional AP damage from its riders works wonders. The Gunners will keep firing even when they are melee and shred most foot units except the most elite ones (Think Phoenix Guard or Chosen) to pieces in quick order. Combine this with their obscene armour value of 120 and you got your dedicated frontline melee unit. these DO NOT benefit from campaign boosts which specify the regular version, which means they tend to be much less durable than the basic version. likely not worth the trade off in campaign.
**'''The Lamprey's Revenge''' (RoR): Rotten Promethean gunnery mobs with regeneration, just in case the normal variety wasn't tanky enough for you. With the right magic support this unit can hold the line against almost anything.

*'''[[Rotting Leviathan]]''': Your dedicated frontline melee monster, and a really good one to boot. It has everything you could ask for: Armour, AP damage, huge unit size and looks great on top of that. It's very slow and any opponent worth his two cents will use Anti-Large infantry or AP missiles against it; however, drawing fire away from your main force is again a quality in itself, don't you think?
*'''[[Necrofex Colossus]]''': The big things from the trailer. And wow, they are not messing around. Necrofexes can altogether replace your artillery by the time they become available. They fire 3 cannon balls with good accuracy over massive distances and can hold their ground really good in melee. Get them. There is no excuse. GET THEM.
**'''The Gallows Giant''' (RoR): A necrofex colossus that trades the three cannons for a [[awesome|goddamn flamethrower]], allowing it to torch swaths of enemy units all at once. It should be noted that the Gallows Giant is shorter range than other Necrofex Colossi, cementing it's role as a frontline brawler.

*'''[[Fell Bat]]s''': Your old friends from the Vampire Counts, it's exactly the same unit. Really fast, really squishy, really good at chasing off the enemy backline or annoying flying monsters.

*'''[[Scurvy Dog]]s''': They differ very little from Chaos Wardogs or Vampire Counts Wolves. Fast and flimsy, these undead pups are ideal for tying down opposing skirmishers or chasing routing units off the field.

*'''[[Terrorgheist|Deathshriek Terrorgheist]]''': Now there's a letdown one didn't expect, but this is more due to how amazing the other monsters in the Vampire Coast roster is. The Terrorgheist isn't really that spectacular, needs a lot of babysitting and can't hold itself up against Dragons and the like - you're better off skipping it, it performs too badly for its exorbitant price tag.
===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]s''': Inaccurate as hell, but will absolutely wreck infantry regiments if a proper shot lands. Due to the Extra Powder mechanic these guys are best employed dealing with elite infantry in the opening stages of a battle as the extra damage will definitely help. Good for splatting archers.

*'''[[Carronade]]s''': Great cannons hauled up from the deep and put into use under an undead crew. Flat arc-like nearly every other cannon in the game, excellent for mulching cavalry and monsters at range.

*'''[[Queen Bess]]''': Go home Hellcannons, the new FUCK HUEG howitzer on the block is here and boy is she a beauty. Has really bad reload speed but that won't matter when an entire unit crumbles in one shot from this mammoth of an artillery piece. Extra Powder gives even more cheese to this dripping-wet curd-maker, letting you select which units to make completely irrelevant from the very start of the battle. She works best to punish infantry blobs (especially if not given constant evasive micro) but struggles to hit fast-moving skirmish targets. Be careful in Multiplayer matches, this cannon is exceptionally vulnerable to getting sniped by opposing artillery and can very easily be gimped early in the battle if unattended. Protip: Combined with the Gunnery Wight passive abilities, Extra Powder and Spiteful Shot from the Lore of the Deep transforms her shots into pinpoint-accurate cruise missiles against infantry or anything that stands still.