Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast

This is the tactics page for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Vampire Coast.

Why Play the Vampire Coast

Do I really need to explain? This trailer should do all the explaining for me!. OK, fine!

• You love vampires, but want something a bit different from the gothic style normally associated with them.
• Because you don't find it weird at all CA added a naval themed faction in a game with no naval battles.
• Cause you loved Pirates of the Caribbean but really wanted the bad guys to win.
• You pirated the game and find playing as pirates, even undead ones, fitting.

Pros

• Range, Range and yet more Range: You are one of the 3 gunpowder factions currently in game, and of the 3, you lean the most heavily into them. You have a gun for every type of occasion! Cheap guns, long range guns, multi shot guns, flying guns, guns on monsters, artillery, GUNS FOR EVERYONE!
• Monsters: And lots of cool ones that can fill a variety of roles. You can bring sturdier crabs to help with the frontline, stealthy flankers, cheap sacrificial monsters, ones that are great from range and up close, you have a monster for every occasion.
• Cheap Frontline: Zombies don't really ask for paychecks, even zombies who are actually sentient enough to talk! Because of this, you can usually bring a crap load of them and drown the enemy in bodies, then use their bodies to fill up your ranks again when the battle is over.
  • Bonus for the fact that Zombie Deckhands with polearms are slightly more killy than regular zombies and get Anti-Large, making them one of the better expendable meatshields.
• Aquatic: Pretty much everything has it, you're a pirate faction after all. This means you have an army that doesn't need to worry about swampy maps or ones with a lot of water because you ignore all the penalties and get some benefits in water too.
• Magic: You have Lore of Vampires, which is already one of the best lores in the entire game, and can carry you throughout most games just fine. Honestly you don't need to look at their other lores because of just how goddamn strong this one is.
• Harassment: You got extremely good harassing troops in fell bats and doggies, meaning going for skirmishers and artillery is something a skilled player can do really well.
• Armour Piercing: Almost your entire roster deals AP damage, both ranged and in melee. Big armoured units and monsters are no challenge to you.

Cons

• Weakness to Ranged: While you love to sit back and shoot the enemies to pieces, you REALLY hate it when the enemy is capable of shooting back. Downside of gunpowder is then they don't have much range, so if the enemy shoots first you are at a disadvantage. Combine this with the fact that your units either have low armour, low model count, or both, and NOTHING in your army has a missile block chance, and missiles can be devastating. Ironically, archer spam is one of the better ways to fight this gunpowder army.
• Immobility: You don't have it as bad as the Dwarfs, but you're pretty slow. No cav or inexpensive monsters and a reliance of guns and artillery means you will not be moving much in your average game.
• Weak Frontline: There's a reason your frontline is so cheap, and it's that they are garbage in a fight. They get decimated by most tier-one infantry and are meant to hold, not to kill. Even Depth Guard aren't really that cost effective after all the nerfs that went their way, so expect your guns and monsters to carry.
• Everyone Needs to do their Job: Unlike more beginner-friendly and more so then the empire, VC units heavily rely on every unit fighting against its opproiat matchup, or else everyone dies. There are strong synergy but if that gun bunker cracks it's all over. Need Deckheands and Prmithiens need hold the enemy and absorb the damage, Your frage blender troops need to kill what's caught in the holding line, and your guns need to kill threats like other guns and monsters before they kill your bunker. A lot of Micro decisions and unforging a job can't be done because they all got Pit of Shades.

Universal traits

• Undead: Almost any unit you have is undead. Who would have guessed. There are just two exceptions: The Sartosan Pirates and Sartosan Free Company that are exclusive to Aranessa Saltspite.
• Aquatic: Being the only truly maritime faction means that every unit is Aquatic; they fight better in watery areas, such as puddles and swamps.
• Loyalty: Your Lords aside from Legendary ones have the same Loyalty mechanic as Dark Elves and Skaven do, so be cautious when disbanding units and picking targets.
• Pirate Fleet: Your Legendary Lords work like the Horde Factions of the game do; meaning that you can accumulate Population Surplus on your LL armies and build certain buildings directly on your army, essentially making them a mobile city with 10 slots. This can be used in a variety of ways, but essentially allow your main army to act much more independently than other factions armies do because they aren't as reliant on the settlements and territory your faction holds.
• Infamy: Maxing out your Infamy is your main campaign goal, this is achieved by killing enemy armies, razing and sacking settlements and stomping the competition (other Pirate Factions and the rogue pirate armies that roam the seas). In addition to that, increasing Infamy and beating the miniboss armies that come your way, Infamy also gives you Verses of the Lost Sea Shanty, powerful buffs for your entire army. Some technologies also cost Infamy.
• Pirate Coves: you can set up small outposts in enemy settlements after successfully attacking them or with heroes. Said outposts can either spread vampiric corruption or siphon money out of the enemy's coffers into yours.

Unit Roster

Lords

• Luthor Harkon (The Awakened) : 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.

• 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 cheaper the best unit the roster, 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 coast line 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. Etheral. 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.

• 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)
• Mournghul Haunter:
• 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 bonusses 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 downsight? 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 covens. 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):

Infantry

• 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.
• 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.
• Deck Gunners: 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.
• 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.
• Sartosan Pirates: Mixing it up are non-undead infantry with a pair of cutlasses for some early game DPS. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.
• Sartosan Free Company: Exactly the same as what the Empire has, except 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.
• Syreens: 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 most army compositions.

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 Droppers (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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Rotting Prometheans: 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.
• 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.
• Fell Bats: 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 Dogs: They differ very little from Chaos Wardogs or Vampire Counts Wolves. Fast, flimsy,
• 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

• Mortars: 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 archrs.
• Carronades: 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 consent evasive micro) but struggles to hit fast-moving skirmish targets.

General Battle Strategies

• Beastmen:
• Bretonnia: Going against Bretonnians is a difficult one. Their Knights will run circles around you and there is little you can do about it. Prepare to get flanked a lot and your artillery being pretty much worthless. That being said: Their Peasants are no match for your melee troops, even Deckhands hold up okay-ish against them. While the Knights are their biggest advantage, their flying cavalry is no match against permanent gunfire and you got some decent flying options of your own against them. The few times Terrorgheists can shine in your roster is neutralizing big flying threats like Royal Hippogryph Knights and Louen Leoncoeur. Their Knights have also no real answer to your big monsters. Hold your ground, force your opponents into chokepoints and you'll out on top.
• Dark Elves: Depends very strongly on what you're going up against. The big challenge here is to not play into the Dark Elves strengths and lock them into prolonged encounters where they are in no way equipped to hold out for long. Rely on your ranged options to whittle their terrifying melee line down and shut down their fast units wherever you can, be it with your monsters, Mournghuls or just Deckhands.
• Dwarfs: This is without question your worst match up. Your bombers are going to do diddly dick to even the cheapest dwarf infantry, you have no chance at breaking the frontlines in an infantry grind even with Depth Guard, your monsters will die fast to slayers and guns and they do artillery boxes way better than you. What your cannons lack in quality compared to Dawi they make up for in numbers, so if you bring a crap ton of them you may be able to shoot out the artillery on the other side. After that, just shoot and hope you can shatter them before they reach the frontline. Use bats to mess up gyrocopters and just pray to stormfels you got enough artillery to take away their biggest advantage.
• Empire:
• Greenskins:
• High Elves:
• Lizardmen: You're one of the few factions to have monsters that can savely engage their big Dinosaurs and come out on top, just by the merit of being absurdly tanky alone. Lizardmen are very slow and have a lot of trouble getting to your lines without being shredded to pieces in the process. While Saurus will utterly demolish Deckhands, the LMs poor ranged Arsenal works in your favor. Deck Gunners and Carronades snipe the big monsters from a comfortable distance. Just be careful to not be outmanveured by Cold Ones.
• Norsca:
• Skaven:
• Tomb Kings:
• Vampire Coast:
• Vampire Counts:
• Warriors of Chaos:
• Wood Elves:

Total War: Warhammer Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Magic Banner Immortal Empires
Total War: Warhammer	The Empire Dwarfs Greenskins Vampire Counts Bretonnia Warriors of Chaos Beastmen Wood Elves Norsca
Total War: Warhammer 2	High Elves Dark Elves Lizardmen Skaven Tomb Kings Vampire Coast
Total War: Warhammer 3	Kislev Khorne Tzeentch Nurgle Slaanesh Grand Cathay Ogre Kingdoms Daemons of Chaos Chaos Dwarfs