Editing Walach Harkon


[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]] [[Category: Vampire Counts]]
[[File:Walach_Harkon.jpg|thumb|Fear him and his mighty pimp cup of DOOM!]]
'''Walach Harkon''' the Grandmaster of the Order of the [[Blood Dragon]] was a [[Vampire Count]] special character introduced way back in the 5th edition of [[Warhammer Fantasy]]. He takes his name both from Walachia, the province of Eastern Europe Vlad Tepes (the real-life Dracula) ruled over, and the Gaelic name Harkon meaning dark red (quite appropriate for a bloodsucker). According to his background, he was the first vampire sired by [[Abhorash]] after he himself was turned into a vampire by the [[Lahmian]] Queen [[Neferata]]. In addition to being an all-around martial badass, who rode into battle wielding the infamous Crimson blade and a chalice filled with the blood of his strongest opponents, he was also well known for being cousins with a certain batshit crazy vampire Pirate Captain by the name of [[Luthor Harkon]].

==The Legend==
Originally he was known as Walak of the Harkoni tribe and lived with his cousin Lutr in [[Tomb Kings|Nehekara]] back before the OG necromancer [[Nagash]] turned the place into a miserable wasteland. One day he and his cousin happened to catch the attention of the vampire [[Abhorash]] who was so impressed with the pair's raw martial skill that he turned them into vampires and started to train them personally. After the two cousins completed their training Abhorash decided that not putting their skills to use was a waste and so he went and gave them jobs in the city of Lahmia; Lutr was given command of the city's harbor guard and Walak was made master of the palace guard. Eventually the city would come under siege by an alliance of Nehekaran royalty following the revelation of Neferata and her court’s nature as vampires. Despite fighting a determined defence, the city fell and the surviving Vampires fled to Nagashizzar, where they joined Nagash's hosts as army commanders when he tried to exact revenge on Nehekhara and reconquer the kingdoms.

This invasion failed, however, and most of the Vampires except Nagash’s loyal agent [[W'soran]] fled to escape the Great Necromancer's wrath. Although they succeeded in not getting killed by the angry necromancer, the vampires did not manage to escape getting a curse placed on them that made them weak to sunlight, one which they still suffer from to this day. One year later, King [[Alcadizzar]], armed with a warpstone blade forged by the [[Skaven]], killed Nagash and successfully stopped him before he could perform a super undead resurrection spell and destroy the world. Unfortunately the cost of this victory was [[Alcadizzar]] dying from the power of the blade and Nehekara being turned into a wasteland. While this was happening and W'soran was making his escape with many of the works of Nagash, Abhorash and his followers were busy wandering aimlessly until another vampire [[Ushoran]] went and made himself king of his own little Vampire Kingdom called [[Marshes of Madness| Strygos]]. Wanting to make a sort of Vampire Utopia there, Ushoran invited many other vampires from all the different lineages to live in his land as his subjects. With Nehekhara now wrecked, and with no better alternatives in sight, Abhorash and company promptly accepted his offer and did their best to be productive citizens of the kingdom.

For roughly eight centuries, things went pretty swell, but then Neferata finally caught wind of what Ushoran had done and decided to throw a bitch fit over the revelation that there was a vampire kingdom she was not in charge of out there. In response to this slight, in -200 IC or thereabouts, she convinced a bunch of asshole barbarian humans to attack the kingdom and while Walak and the other vampires managed to chase them off the distraction allowed a horde of [[Orc|Orcs]] to flank the exhausted defenders and they promptly proceeded to wreck the place. Following this disaster, the surviving inhabitants of the kingdom both human and undead were left adrift and without purpose, until one day a major event happened that would change the course of Abhorash’s bloodline.

In 253 IC while traveling through the [[Worlds Edge Mountains]], Abhorash accidentally stumbled across the lair of an ancient red dragon who took exception to the invasion of his territory. Not one to back down from a fight Abhorash engaged the beast in solo combat and after a fierce fight, he slew it and drank its blood. To his astonishment, Abhorash discovered that after this last drink he no longer felt the need to consume blood anymore. Understandably, Abhorash immediately raced to tell the rest of the bloodline of his transformation and once he did so he charged them with seeking out and defeating the most worthy opponents they could find so that one day they would be skilled enough to face a dragon and be cured like he was. His lineage agreed to this and afterward, they changed their names and went their own separate ways.

In the newly renamed Walach Harkon's case, after many centuries of travel in 1887 IC his meandering path took him to a place called the Blood Keep, a bastion of [[the Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)| The Empire]] which guarded the area around the pass into [[Bretonnia]] and was manned by an order of knights. Feeling the need for a good fight after so long without one Walach knocked on the front gate and challenged the entire order to combat. Stupidly the Knights accepted the challenge and Walach promptly proceeded to kill their Grandmaster with his Crimson blade and beat the rest of the knights senseless before turning the stronger members of the Order into Vampires and the weaker ones into Wights. From that day, seven centuries ago till [[the End Times]], Walach Harkon was the undisputed Grandmaster of the newly renamed Order of the Blood Dragons, arguably the most feared cavalry in the Old World. To celebrate his new job, Walach had the Blood Dragons promptly turn on the people they had once defended. They fed on passing travellers and the people who lived near the Blood Keep, turned the local women into vampire brides who would bathe in blood to maintain their looks, and just generally made nuisances of themselves.

This turned out not to be such a good idea on their part though for Walach's actions were eventually uncovered. In response, the Witch Hunter Gunther van Hel gathered an entire Imperial army together and launched a massive siege on the Order's headquarters in an attempt to destroy them (the siege would last either 3 years or 20 years depending on the source). Although the Imperials eventually managed to break into the fortress in 1946 IC and kill Harkon's vampire wife Aurora and his favorite Vampire “son” Mikael, they failed to get the rest of the Blood Knights and Harkon who managed to escape. In the wake of this event, most of the original Blood knights were scattered and ended up traveling around [[the Old World]] fighting duels with random folks and acting as mercenaries.

Meanwhile, Walach would gather together a small company of new blood knights and, under the banner of his favorite fallen "son" Mikael, they would continue on their self-appointed mission to seek out the strongest possible opponents they could find. Eventually, this would lead to them being recruited by the psychopathic vampire [[Konrad von Carstein]] to help out in the Second Vampire War against the Empire where they would serve as elite shock cavalry. During the War, the Blood Knights proved how badass they were to the greater world by killing a whole bunch of Imperials and their allies, with Walach earning the ire of the [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dwarfs]] at the battle of Nachthafen by killing King Barrin of Zhufbar and draining his blood. All told it was a pretty fun time for the Blood Knights but unfortunately, Konrad proved himself a total idiot by constantly belittling and putting down his necromancers and so when they inevitably betrayed him at the Battle of Grim Moor during the spring of 2121 IC, and Konrad fried his brain by trying to control his huge zombie army all by himself, the Blood Dragons wisely decided that they had enough of this shit and left him to die.

A few years after this, enough time passed that Walach and his accompanying blood knights decided that things had probably died down enough in the Empire that they could head back to the Order’s home without issue and so they did. They rebuilt their fortress, manned the walls with new wight guards, and then settled down to an un-life full of carousing with their new undead waifus and venturing out to fight any and all worthy opponents they could get their hands on, though this time the Blood Dragons tried to tone down the whole slaughter of innocents thing and act more like honorable (if bloodthirsty) knights so as to not draw as much attention to themselves.

==The End Times==
Things continued like this for a few centuries until the [[the End Times]] rolled around and a newly resurrected Nagash started recruiting many of the world's most powerful undead lords as his generals. Harkon and his now thoroughly insane cousin Luthor heard of this and decided to join up (Luthor cause he was bored and Walach cause he saw an opportunity for glory in battle) thus becoming two of Nagash's [[Mortarch|Mortarchs]]. Now with a sweet new title, Walach was assigned to help [[Vlad von Carstein]] prevent the mystical Auric Bastion erected by the wizard [[Balthazar Gelt]] near the Empire's border with [[Kislev]] from falling to the [[Chaos]] hordes trying to force their way past it. Under the command of Vlad von Carstein, Walach fought at the Battle of Alderfen. Here a [[Nurgle]] force breached the bastion and started butchering the Imperial forces beyond it. All looked lost until the surprise undead counter charge, led by Harkon and some of his knights, halted the Chaos advance. However, in his zeal, Harkon and his knights made a major blunder and kept pursuing the Chaos forces through the breach which caused them to be trapped behind the bastion when the walls were finally resealed.

It wasn't until the Battle of Heffengen that Harkon would resurface. After the total collapse of the Bastion, Vlad von Carstein sought an alliance with the Empire and to this end planned to fight alongside the Imperial forces at Heffengen to hold back the Chaos hordes led by [[Crom the Conqueror]]. Just as Vlad was about to reveal himself and be recognized by [[Karl Franz|Emperor Franz]] as a hero and ally Harkon and his knights unexpectedly charged onto the battlefield from the Chaos lines and started slaughtering the Imperials. Turns out that while trapped behind the Bastion, Harkon and his Blood Dragons realized that if everything was under Nagash's control there would be no more living blood to drink and so had fallen to temptation and pledged themselves to the blood god [[Khorne]] (who apparently thought the Blood Dragons were stab-happy enough to overlook their undead state...[[derp|or the fact they can use Necromancy]]). This clusterfuck then proceeded to reach its peak when Harkon, riding an undead dragon, engaged in an aerial duel with Karl Franz, defeating him and casting him low.

Following the seeming death of the Emperor, the Imperial forces retreated and the battle was lost. Because of this the Empire refused to accept the undead as potential allies ruining Vlad's plan. Infuriated by this development Vlad swore Walak's action would not go unpunished and attacked the Blood Dragon forces in retaliation. When Harkon and his mount then dove from the sky to try and pin von Carstein to the ground, Vlad used his superior magical abilities to wrest control of the dragon from Harkon and then had the beast rip its former master in two, finally destroying the infamous Blood Dragon once and for all.

==On the Tabletop==
Sadly despite his awesome potential as a character Walach not only didn't get a model, he was barely mentioned in the fluff besides what was written above and only managed to get statted out way back in the very same edition he was introduced in and the Nights Dark Master supplement for the RPG (even End Times did not give him a new statline, the poor bastard). So yeah there are no official stats for him using the flying zombie dragon mount he used in his last battle and we don't know if Khorne granted him any sort of blessing.

If you wanted to do a homebrew version of End Times Walach you could modify a model of [[Zacharias The Everliving]] or some other Zombie Dragon rider and raise his default point cost to say 650 like most of the other Mortarch's or 795 to take into account the fact that the Dragon normally adds 245 points to its rider’s cost and his Pre End Times cost was 550 points. Then give him all three pieces of otherwise optional magic gear listed below and add the Frenzy rule to represent his new allegiance to Khorne. Given his already heavy armor, you wouldn't have to add any specific anti-magical Khorne-related gear to buff him. As for spells...well Khorne normally hates magic but given Walach would still have to be a Necromancer to control his Zombie Dragon you could conceivably justify him still having magic by giving him only the spells Ryze - The Grave Call and Akar'aran the Dark Riders. It wouldn't be too much of a contradiction for Walach to have summoning spells given Khorne is ok with people using magic to summon his demons. Alternatively, you could swap out the latter spell for Invocation of Nehek to heal your undead units on a 6+ roll, but a healing spell doesn't really match flavor-wise for a Khorne follower...even a Khorne worshipping vampire[[derp|...ugh.]]

Anyway, as previously stated his Zombie Dragon mount is normally listed as a 245 point monster unit with the followings stats from the 8th edition:

6 Movement, 4 Weapon Skill, 0 Ballistic skill, 6 Strength, 6 Toughness, 6 Wounds, an initiative of 2, 5 attack, leadership 4. As previously mentioned it's listed as a monster and comes with the following keywords: Fly, Large Target, Scaly Skin (5+), Terror, and Undead. As for Special abilities, its Pestilential Breath attack causes -3 to armor as well as causing an S2 penalty to anyone it hits. It also has Swarm of Flies (ew!) which causes -1 to To Hit rolls in melee and if you do decide to go with the Invocation spell you could use it to heal the dragon. Fair warning though while it can really wreck the day of any enemy heavy cavalries or rank and file, it will probably die to cannons or a Heroic Killing Blow. Still, a wonderful kick-ass model even if like most fun things, it will be a magnet for artillery and mass shooting.

If however, you wanted to play regular vanilla flavored Walach then feel free to use a modified generic Blood Dragon mini as a stand-in. According to the 5th edition of the Warhammer Fantasy game, Walach's is listed as a 550 point heavily armored named special character. His default mount is an undead barded Nightmare horse of the non-winged variety which has the following stats:

8 Movement, 2 Weapon Skill, 0 Ballistic skill (obviously since it's just a fancy undead horse), 3 Strength, 3 Toughness, 1 Wound, an initiative of 2, 1 attack, 3 leadership and since it's specifically mentioned as being barded it adds a +1 armor save roll. Were it on its own it would be considered a 16 point war beast but that's not important since its point cost is already included with Walach's. What is important is that it's undead and so you can use the invocation spell to heal it.

As for Walach himself, he's got:

6 movement, 9 Weapon Skill, 6 Ballistic Skill, 7 strength, 6 toughness, 4 wounds, 9 initiative, 5 attacks, and leadership of 10, and thanks to his heavy armor he has an armor save roll of 4+ (3+ when mounted). In addition to this, he's a Vampire Lord and thus considered a level 3 Necromancer that comes with 2 spells from the lore of undeath. Bloodline ability-wise he comes with the following traits: Doomrider, Strength of Steel, Might of Arms, and Red Fury (any modifiers for these are already included in the above statline).

In addition to the above regular non-End Times Walach can come equipped with the following magical items in exchange for an increased point cost:

For 75 points extra, you can get the Crimson Blade which has a special ability determined by an extra dice roll. On a roll of 1 to 3 his opponent loses 1 attack in addition to whatever damage he would normally take. On a roll of 4 to 5 his opponent loses 1" of movement and his opponent is considered separated from their unit if they fall below their former unit's movement speed. Lastly, on a roll of 6, the Crimson Blade beheads and thus outright kills the unit it was being used against.

For an extra 25 points, Walach gets his legendary Blood Chalice which he can use at the beginning of each undead turn to add one of the following abilities at a time: It can heal 1 wound point suffered in battle but does not raise his max wound stat above normal, it can raise his attack stat to 6 until the start of the next undead turn, or finally, it can transform his sword into a flaming weapon that deals two wounds instead of one and lasts until the start of the next undead turn.

Finally, for an extra 50 points Walach gets the Blood Dragon Standard, a magical Standard formerly wielded by the vampire Mikael that fills all undead creatures within a 12" radius of it with HATRED for any living creatures and allows the undead to reroll its To Hit roll for the first round of the first hand to hand combat action it fights against such beings. Subsequent attack rolls are rolled as normal.