Queen Neferata

The very first fucking vampire in a setting where vampires are still cool. A militant feminist leading a network of spies and medieval Shadowrunners, and the head of one of the Vampire Count bloodlines. She's been in a lot of positions (pun not intended) then found she preferred to run things behind the scenes.

Despite being a rare case of a female major character in the setting, her character and personality include many negative stereotype about women (man-hating militant feminist; check. crazy cat lady; partially. Alpha bitch; check. Vamp; figuratively and literally so that's a big check. Materialistic; check... you see what I'm getting at). Geedubs also seems to forget that she would be the strongest Vampire, as they get stronger with age and she's the first. Fortunately, they give the books about her to a guy called Josh Reynolds and he DOES her justice.

Although in Warhammer 40k she'd be a planetary governor with a skin condition, in Warhammer Fantasy she's one of the most powerful and evil beings outside the Warp.

The Legend

During the war against Nagash, there was a young princess of Lahmia in the Egypt analogue of the Warhammer setting, Nehekhara. While her cousin wore pants, rode horses, shot arrows, and prayed to the penis snake god, Neferata spent her time doing all of jack shit while her father lead the forces of good neutral against Nagash. After her pappy died, she was put in charge of the kingdom (getting a ladyboner for ordering random servants to make out for her amusement in the process) while her brother took command of the forces of Nehekhara and made a deal with Arkhan The Black to become necromancer bros by looting Nagash's house (they both kept their fingers crossed of course, palming a dagger with the other hand). Her brother (named Lamashizzar, thank copy/paste commands for that making it to this page spelled correctly) won the backstabbing competition and took Nagash's books home, with a crippled and dying Arkhan to give cliffnotes along the way. Since Neferata was already a fucking level 2 Wizard, he threw the books at her and told her to get to work as he took over the job of ordering cooks to suck face with stablehands.

Now it's well known that in order to be based on Egypt, you have to be obsessed with immortality. But she took that to new levels. Instead of taking notes and translating shit for Lahmia to gain an army of Level 1 Mages she started experimenting, and actually managed to improve on Nagash's techniques. She swapped Nagash's ability to become a self-sufficient lich for eternal youth powered with fresh blood (post-retcon she had a little help on that from an imprisoned Arkhan...'Never a Self-Made Woman' eh, GW? At least we have Khalida). After the people around her used the rare skill of common sense and realized she wasn't aging and was going through more servants than most, she realized she'd need some meatshields that weren't Strength 3 spearmen. She picked the captain of the guard and all around badass Abhorash (leader of the Blood Dragon bloodline), her high priest W'soran/Melkhior (first Necrarch), her younger brother Ushoran (who started the Strigoi bloodline), and eight others. According to Vlad von Carstein her husband Vashanesh was one of them, and it's possible that he himself is Vashanesh, but all other Bloodlines say such a person never existed but it turns out they were full of it or fell victim to GW's retcons as Vlad is revealed to be Vashanesh. Everyone (except Abhorash, who was a NOFUNALLOWED kinda guy) got ultra into vampirism and swapped out the Nehekharan religion for worshiping Nagash. Neferata kept studying Nagash's books and improving her magic until she figured out how to make more (albeit weaker) vampires through a ritual which saved time and kept the youngbloods (no pun intended) in their place. She became a cougar and stuck to drinking blood from shotas but pretending it was wine. The first vampires mutated over time and became fucking godlike, and when they got some adrenaline in them they underwent quick transformations into a more feral state with fangs and ultra sharp fingernails and such.(Basically the opposite of Elvira Mistress of the dark.)

The other Nehekharan kingdoms began to get suspicious, particularly good ol' cousin Khalida (who had became a Ranger/Paladin dedicated to the asp goddess (guess where this story is going. Just guess). To silence her Neferata accused HER of being a vampire first (note that this was after Malekith had used a similar strategy, although arguably Neferata's way was a bit more successful since it didn't involve trying to use a god of justice and rulership to prove your lie is the truth). Khalida called her out on the fact that a grave accusation of treason and heresy with no proof against an equal meant all of jack and shit where Jack was known to have left town that very morning, and challenged Neferata to a duel to the death for HONOR. Even though Khalida was a mortal badass fighting a fucking VAMPIRE DEMIGODDESS, Khalida put Neferata into single digit HP before she got to -1 herself. Neferata was forced to drink from Khalida on the spot (so at this point in front of the assembled nobles of Khemri and Lahmia, a fight to the death turned into an impromptu makeout session as one lay dying as far as they knew), and tried to turn her into a vampire in the process. Khalida, faced with the incestuous advances of her bisexual cousin, called out for the cock snake god to save her soul from damnation. Asaph (the aforementioned snake goddess) sent poison through Khalida's veins, purging the vampire heresy.

After this the Nehekharans realize things were dangerously close to becoming Twilight, so they gathered an army and laid siege to Lahmia. Some Lahmian civilians rebelled against the Lahmians, others gathered to Abhorash and fought against the Egyptians Nehekharans. The city fell, despite major losses on the side of good neutral. Of Neferata's Eleven, only seven survived plus Abhorash who took his surviving warriors into the wastes and Neferata who disappeared. Nagash came back, either through his own willpower or through the vampires conducting a ritual and Arkhan came back with him. The vampires retook Lahmia, raised the first Vampire Counts army, and fought against the living Nehekharans. They lost badly, and spent the entire third turn blaming each other and fighting like Orks. They went their own ways, founding different bloodlines (meaning the ones that got away but weren't named are your blank check for an OC DONOTSTEAL bloodline if you feel so inclined (keeping in mind one of them at some point either is, or is the vampire-father/mother of, Vlad VonCarstein)). When Nagash cursed the vampires with weaknesses to the sun, running water (like all old people), garlic, and other random things Neferata and her minions caught the curse too despite not being there.

Then a fuckton of time passed. During that time, Neferata became a lesbian (unconfirmed, but likely) or a bisexual (unconfirmed but more likely). She also became a feminist (understandable, since she wanted to be in charge, and every society she lived in ranged from patriarchal to misogynist) and a misandrist, espousing the belief that men are blood farms without thoughts or emotions unless they're effeminate and enjoy Sex and the City (it's confirmed she's got a low opinion of most men in the fluff and the reason there are very few male Lahmian vampires). When a group of Dwarfs investigating her allies douchebaggery uncovered her lesbian love den, she had her minions slaughter them all and turn them into zombies before gathering an invasion force and making their Dwarf Fortress her new love-den. The undead Dwarfs rebuilt the mines, crafted with Granite and menacing with spikes of Onyx, into an Egyptian-style palace. Because Dwarfs are racist fucks who can't tell any group of a race apart from any other group, this means all Dwarfs put all vampires in the Book of Grudges. Nowadays the zombies are soaked in perfume and drum while skeletons do the skeleton dance (2spooky!) with ghouls being confined to the sewers (now used for garbage disposal). She bathes in blood (because nobody has ever made vampires do that before!) of young men, then heads off to the war room (same as the other rooms, but this one has maps!) an organizes her femvamps and shotavamps to spy on the civilizations of the world (every single one of them) and manipulate them into getting into wars with each other (Skaven also do this, but more capably), or rooting out rival bloodlines and wiping them out (the VonCarsteins also do this, but less capably).

Queen Neferata has one goal: make the world into Lahmian vampires and their mortal cattle or pampered pets. Meanwhile, her cousin Khalida (who's such a badass not even Settra wants to fuck with her) is a Tomb King Queen and wants to purge the world of vampires and their homoerotic heresy.

Neferata's cat is a sexy Cathayan concubine shape shifter who's in love with her.

Lahmians

The bloodline of Neferata, most of them are female and all of them are found in the upper stations of society. While the wandering necromancer is a Necrarch, the homeless beggar or bandit is a Strigoi, the noble knights and warriors of the world getting into fights and doing awesome shit being murderhobos are Blood Dragons, and while the VonCarsteins are nouveau riche pricks in crumbling manors surrounded by stinking corpses and emaciated thralls, Lahmians are a cut above. They've got style. Skilled middle class priests and merchants, aristocrats of fantastic breeding living in the city and attending every party, hookers, and artists.

One of Neferata's favorite tricks is to turn a woman into a cat, get a merchant or a nobleman to take her in, then have her turn back into a woman and fuck his brains out like it's an erotic manga so he'll establish her as his wife and thus put one more Lahmian spy in the world. As a result of Neferata's manipulations most of the Sisters of Sigmar organization that survived Mordheim are now Lahmian vampires. The poets and playwrights of the world are often Lahmian vampires. Brothel owners are often Lahmian vampires. Upper class escorts are often Lahmian vampires. Noblewoman are often Lahmian vampires. Nuns are often Lahmian vampires. That gay guy who does your wife's hair is a Lahmian vampire. Your wife is a Lahmian vampire. As long as you do what they say, everything will be alright. We promise.

On the Tabletop

Queen Neferata used to have a model in the game, but she suffered from Alarielle the Everqueen syndrome and had a badass model you wanted to use for fluff reasons, but it was pretty crap on the field and thus was unlikely to ever be used. So GW removed it, leaving the von Carsteins as the only models in Vampire Counts until the latter part of 8th edition. The original model came with a cat, referencing the aforementioned story about felinid vampires.

With the addition of Nagash's campaign, Neferata makes a triumphant return to the field as a mounted model with an on-foot option (although GW makes her share a kit with Mannfred von Carstein and Arkhan the Black, the thrill of her return far outshines the insult).

Since bloodlines are gone, Lahmians are represented by gearing out your Lord and Hero vampires with Beguile and similar abilities as well as ample spellcasting. Use skeletons, ghosts, and similar minions that can be handwaved as unwanted hauntings or the bones of ancestors when the Witch Hunters come calling. Feel free to use proxies of living models from any faction you want as servants to a mortal lover/manipulated army but statted as zombies, ghouls, skeletons, or whatever. Finally, Coven Thrones. The only two bloodlines that should be using Coven Thrones are von Carsteins and Lahmians, and you better not let those lower class fuckers put more on the tabletop then you or Neferata will want to have a private chat with you...

Lahmian armies will do very well against low LD armies, and poorly against armies like High Elves with 9's across the board in Leadership.

Gallery

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  Neferata's original model.

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  Neferata's new model.

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  This is what she looks like while casting.

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  This is what she looks like a minute later in melee.

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  What Neferata wears on weekends.