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

=== Named Characters ===

'''Mannfred von Carstein''' - and look, if you're here from Total War or End Times or Age of Sigmar you're already queuing up the memes and I'm not here for it, all right? This is Mannfred like he used to be, as God and Jervis Johnson intended: suave, sexy, still has hair. He's a brooding Gothic overlord who hasn't decided to teabag the entire world and wonder why he got his balls ripped off. 

He's also a bloody good spellcaster: a level 4 wizard who casts one spell without needing to throw dice at it, generates more dice for himself as he kills things (and with a Vampire Lord statline, albeit with -1 WS/BS, that's good for one or two extras per turn in the midgame), packs a 3+ ward save with no drawbacks and has some of the best whole-army support powers his Bloodline can offer. Takes up three character slots, costs as much as three characters, but absolutely does three characters' worth of work. 

As a bonus, he's not classified as a Vampire Lord, so in a 3000+ point game you can absolutely bring him and a regular Lord on a Zombie Dragon and just let them go to town, safe in the knowledge that they won't break the army when they inevitably get shot off the back.

You're going to want a unit of Dire Wolves or Black Knights to hide him in though, because he has to ride a horse and he'll often be standing still in the early game to get Call Winds going, which makes him an obvious target.

'''Zacharias the Everliving'''

On the one hand, he's a powerhouse spellcaster: free Dispel Scroll every turn, level 4 wizard with all the Necromancy spells automatically, all the rest of it.

On the other hand, he costs just over 1000 points, eats all your character slots in a 2000 point game, and he's on a Zombie Dragon. The Zombie Dragon is a flying deathtrap for a Vampire Lord: it makes them into a Large Target, it attracts every cannonball, flying rock, oversized crossbow bolt and entire Skaven army around, and it virtually guarantees that you'll either spend half the game trying to hide it and wasting its potential or you'll take a risk and lose your (extremely expensive) General the moment you try and do something.

'''Vlad and Isabella von Carstein'''

Annual 2002.