Helman Ghorst

Helman Ghorst is a powerful Necromancer in the service of Mannfred von Carstein and a playable character in Total War: WARHAMMER via The Grim and The Grave DLC.

Literally WHO?

Many were confused on who the hell Helman was. He didn't have any significant bio nor models. Many veteran Warhammer gamers and lorefags scratched their heads over who he was until they managed to find him in the flavor text of the Corpse Cart (thus making him a case of Ascended Extra if one were to use TVTropes slang). But if those so called 'lorefags' were really 'lorefags' they should have known that Helman Ghorst was part of the campaign Sigmar's Blood, where he got an extended background from Phil Kelly.

Helman used to be in the past a pretty nice guy, youngest of the five brothers Ghorst and who lived in the village that would later on be known as Castle Templehof. He used to work, like his father, as a farrier and groom. He truly loved his brothers. One day however he experienced tragedy.

His family fell to the Plague of Blue Roses. He embraced them in order to die, yet the plague had no effect on him. This was what caused him to study the dark arts of necromancy and trying to get his brothers resurrected, yet the Witch Hunters smelled him out and he fled with the corpses of his family to Sylvania where he managed to meet Mannfred.

At first the vampire wanted to kill him for trespassing on his land, but he quickly discovered that offing Helman would be a waste, so he took in the young Ghorst as his disciple.

Now a mighty necromancer wielding the Liber Noctus and commanding his undead host from atop of the Brothers Ghorst Cart that is pulled by his deceased family.

Gameplay and Capabilities

Helman is quite useful in many ways and outperforms Heinrich Kemmler (poor dude can't catch a break). If he becomes the guy you pick up at the beginning of the Grand Campaign, then all armies get a bonus to unit replenishment and everyone in his army gets poison attacks. His other abilities is that instead of the raising zombies like Kemmler and other Necromancers, he can raise GRAVE GUARDS instead, and his Grand Campaign abilities that he can unlock allow him to increase the research rate of the Vampire Counts (which also stacks with his Neophyte trait, allowing to get double from him), can buy a trait that further decrease the costs of raising troops (and which stacks with the one trait all Vampire Counts characters have, which makes raising for him new regiments dirt cheap). And to make him even more useful than poor Heinrich, Helman can unlock at level 15 the Brothers Ghorst Corpse Cart (though sadly it cannot be upgraded to have a Balefire Brazier or Unholy Lodestone).

In conclusion, the only thing he's not as good as Kemmler is that he cannot give those extra +2 levels to your hero Necromancers.

However, his Corpse Cart makes him a very slow and easy target as he is unable to disengage with any speed or hide in a unit. Kemmler also brings Krell, a lord slaying summon. Kemmler's Tomb Blade also brings a permanent HP replenishment buff to units around him (basically the same as Ghorst's Corpse Cart) making actually a far superior lord in the updates since release to Ghorst.

Later patching added a sexy and significant +30% research bonus for playing Ghorst to help him play catch up...and then he was also given hilariously rather useless bonuses to corpse cart recruitment ranks and charge bonuses (only technically useful considering corpse carts are units that just stand in the back giving buffs).