Editing Warhammer/Tactics/6th Edition/Vampire Counts (section)

===Unofficial Army List Variants: the Back of the Book===

Each Bloodline has its own wild and wacky theme force tucked away in a two page spread at the back of the book. All move units around between slots and adjust the numbers you're allowed to take, and three of them invite in units from other lists. 

Note that this section can be used only with the permission of your opponent, and even the book says they are in no way as balanced as the main list (one in particular just rips open the concepts of 'game balance' and 'good sense' and 'verisimilitude' and 'god I didn't want to think about that', be warned).

*'''Von Carstein''': Lose Master Necromancers and Ghouls, gain 0-2 Bat Swarms, 0-2 Black Coaches, Fell Bats in Core and Sylvanian Levy, aka Empire Free Company, Archers, Crossbowmen and 0-1 Huntsmen. A perennially popular theme force, with a lot of flexibility: Huntsmen are great march blockers and diverters, Crossbowmen add a good solid punch from a distance, Free Company aren't as mobile or tough as Ghouls but can bait, switch and throw down two attacks in melee well enough. Really benefits from a Battle Standard Bearer with all those living units around, and the best way to avoid rules headaches around Undead characters in living units is to not have them join and bring a Skellie bunker just to be sure.

*'''Necrarch''': Lose Master Necromancers and Ghouls, Dire Wolves move into Special, all Heroes can ride Winged Nightmares and unridden Zombie Dragons appear in Rare. Hot damn, it's a Vampire flying circus, and a perfect opportunity to use those Zombie Dragon models we should very much avoid otherwise. Lots of Terror, lots of mobility, lots of eggs in one basket probably.

*'''Lahmians''': Lose Master Necromancers, Ghouls and Zombies, gain Swains: Heroes from ANY OTHER WARHAMMER ARMIES BOOK, with all their usual options, including mounts, who gain Hatred of the enemy if the Lahmian General, the immortal object of their desire, turns out to be less immortal than planned. Clearly meant to be used with restraint and dignity, to bring in a Bretonnian or Empire hero, maybe an Elf if you wanted to get daring, a Dark Elf Sorceress if you wanted to summon the artfags. Clearly GOING to be used to snuggle-smuggle Skaven Warlock Engineers, Skink Priests on Stegadons, Beastmasters on Manticores and Exalted Champions of Chaos on big gnarly Daemon mounts (actually, those last two veer back around into sexy again, forget I said anything, carry on). Whatever you end up indulging in, the Swains had better be able to survive and contribute to the game on their own as there are all sorts of rules loopholes around putting them safely in any of your units and life's too short. 

*'''Blood Dragons''': Easier to list what you can take than what you can't, to be honest. Blood Dragon Vampires of any size. Wight Lords. Black Knights (must have barding), Grave Guard and Skeletons with hand weapons and bows at 10 points each as Core. Regular Skeletons as Special. Black Coach, Banshees, and Dogs of War... unless you want to go off the deep end and let your Black Knights use Lance Formation, and since this list is clearly derived from Bretonnia rather than the Empire I say go hog wild. Accept that you'll only be attempting one spell per turn; take those Black Knight lances with a Thrall in the front of each one; fill up on Skeleton Archers and bring a Banshee or two to deflect. Deal with enemy wizards by spitting them upon your lances. Game on.

*'''Strigoi''': Only Vampire characters. Core is Ghouls, 0-1 super-Ghouls with WS 4, S4 and Ld7 at 10 points each, 0-1 Bat Swarms, 0-1 Strigany (another set of Empire Free Company, this time as Warhammer gypsies because GW finally reached the 'uncritical racist tropes' level of White Wolf's garbage bags). Special is Skeletons, Dire Wolves, Fell Bats and 0-1 Spirit Host. Rare? Banshees and Dogs of War, no Black Coach for you! Another army where you won't be casting many spells, but in your defence you won't need to as the majority of your army isn't even Undead. Skeletons are there as a bunker option in case your vampires need to hide from shooting for a few turns, everything else is full feral. It's an interesting idea for a list, that'll be asking a lot of the Strigoi Thralls. You might as well go full Lore of Death with this one and not even bother with raising conventional Undead. This anon is a coward and would never play it, but you absolutely do you if you're coming in from a later edition and own the twelve kajillion Ghouls you'll need to fill a 2000 point army.

*'''Necromancer's Army''': Lose all Vampires, Ghouls, Bat Swarms and the Black Coach. Dire Wolves move into Special. Everything not a Necromancer gets a points break. Essentially, you're giving up on the combat potential and cool factor of the Vampire in favour of an absolute barrage of spells and combined arms play to compensate for your lack of really strong heroes.