Undead Faction

So, I’m home and bored and decided to look at the Undead enemy faction that many people have wanted to add to the game.

I’m going with the assumption that Sofia is the faction leader and thus there are no vampires invovled and pact-sworn fighting with the undead are either mind-controlled by Sofia or their leaders have made a deal with her.

Undead Special Rule

  • Immune to poison and bleeding damage

Troops

Zombie - Common fodder with a hand weapon

Skeleton (think the ones at the end of Tower of Treachery) - Either a big weapon or a shield and a hand weapon

Elites

Wights - Of various types. I don’t know for sure how high FatShark want to set the Ü5 power level so I will not pick choices directly but just refer to the different kinds of Wights that are available in the lore.

Berserkers

Ghouls - In addition to normal damage they also inflict poison damage on heroes. This type of enemy is alive and thus receptible to poison and bleed damage.

Specials

Necromancer Apprentice - Comes in a few versions depending on what spell they are using against the players. There are a ton of different necromantic spells that can be used to base Necromancer Apprentices on, I’ve just picked three from the army book to keep it managable and presented as examples below.

These apprentices are also living and as such vulnerable to poison and bleed. And if one would like a special mechanic maybe there’s a kind of “explosion” upon a necromancer apprientice’s death that deals damage to nearby undead enemies to represent how the magic that holds the undead together is weakened.

“Summoner” (Raise Dead) - Will find a spot to stand chanting in a place and from there summon, maybe, 3 zombies and 1 skeleton per 5 seconds to attack the heroes.

“Curser” (Curse of Years) - Similar to the leech but teleports/runs away after having cast a spell that reduces THP gain and Stamina recovery for, maybe, 5 seconds.

“Bolter” (Gaze of Nagash) - Straight damage spell which builds upon around the necromancer apprentice before its hurled at a hero. Possibly it might even knock down a hero if one wants to make the spell more dangerous.

Spirits - The idea is that they teleport close to the player, has a cooldown where they shriek before they make a charge to disable a hero in a similar matter to the Gutter Runner. Lorewise they are immune to non-magical damage but I would think that one would have to mak a short cut in order to make them defeatable by standard weapons.

Dire Wolves - If the hound mechanics from Darktide are possible in Vermintide this enemy might be added. My idea is that it would be faster and more lean version of the Packmaster, and grab hold of a hero’s arm and start to drag them away.

Monsters

There are severla possibilities depending on how powerful the Ü5 are supposed to be but I will also make another reference to the WFRP supplement “Night’s Dark Masters”. One page 128, “Greater Necromancy”, there’s a part about raising creatures other hand humnas into undeath, as well as combining creatures into new necromantic horrors.

In the example in the book there is one giant spider and an ogre which are combined into a new undead horror to be unleashed on the world. Thus this might also be an option for monsters for the undead faction.

6 Likes

I like the idea a lot.

Skeletons should be fodder like zombies, but if a higher tier. Think slaves/clan rats and cultists/marauders and ungor/goes

As for Elites, it makes a bit more sense for it to be Graveguards as they’re close to Stormvermin’s tier.

As for Specials I think they could also use a Cairn Wraith and Fell Bats for extra meat.

And as for monsters, Crypt Horror probably best fits alongside the same tier as Rat Ogres and Trolls. However if they can have more than one monster, a Vargheist would be cool, the game’s first flying Monster whose movesets would be reminiscent of the Barrioth from Monster Hunter.

3 Likes

I would love it!

1 Like

Honestly undead with no vampires wouldnt be the same.
But if they had them as a new faction i hope they would give the skeletons some flesh and blood so that they dont turn out unsatisfying to kill.

A Vampire would be a Lord akin to Bodvart and Burblespue, wouldn’t make sense as specials or elites.

First of all, love this idea. Undead faction yes!

Only thing with vampires is I don’t think they would ever lead undead in service to chaos. AFAIK (and let me know if I’m missing anything, would love to learn) the only vampire sorcerer that served under chaos was Isabella, who got resurrected by Nurgle in the End Times, but she lead a host of demons, not undead. Some blood-knights fell to Khorne in the End Times as well (I think). Those could work as elite warriors, but they explicitly weren’t magic users. Khorne would never let wizards into his club-house.

In general vampires are fundamentally opposed to chaos. Chaos want to blow everything up, vampires want to rule the world, living or dead. Demons hate fighting undead (no souls to chomp on), vampires get no value from fighting demons (no bodies to resurrect).

I think the rationale with Sofia was that she was mind-controlling the pact-sworn? And in the most recent dev-blog they said they were excited by the possibilities that friendly minions would bring to the table, in terms of enemies fighting enemies. Would be awesome to see Sofia, or heck even a vampire, as an enemy of both Chaos and the players, using undead and mind-controlled pact-sworn! This could be an awesome mission condition that would fit seamlessly with the existing gameplay. These pact-sworn are being puppeteered by a dark wizard, and undead may show up to reinforce them!

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That was her being possessed by a GUO. Not really her in control.

But for Vt2, sadly we did get confirmation that the engine couldn’t support a full new faction. So maybe for a future game, but in which case I’d rather see them go away from the U5 and the Skaven and instead do a Dreadfleet tide, that way you have all the Undead and Chaos Dwarves

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The AI for this enemy would be a NIGHTMARE but id love to see a duelist/fighter type elite. For the undead i could see a blood knight (blood dragon?) One of those. An enemy that is not tanky or hyper agressive but is actually a skilled fighter.

As i said the AI would be a nightmare to do for FS but i think it would be fun

Ah dang, and that wasn’t just in the scope of a mission I take it? Like, no fourth faction period, even if only 2-3 ever show up at once in any given mission?

Can’t find it back. It was from Aqshy iirc

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A dedicated vampire warrior enemy could be cool, but like I think that someone mentioned its going to be a Lord boss as opposed to a normal enemy like Chaos Warrior or something like that. Given how powerful they are likely to be.

My grasp on the vampire lore in Warhammer isn’t the best but Blood Knight and Blood Dragon may or may not be different things or be roughly the same thing between different editions of the table top miniature game. I’m very unsure about this.

Someone more versed in the matter of vampires in Warhammer will need to clear things up regarding this subject.

EDITED: A look over at the articles for a second time seems to confirm that the two names are different but connected and its partially a carry over between editions of the miniature games. Namely that at first Warhammer had bloodlines of vampires, similar I would think to VtM’s vampire Clans but Games Workshop removed the bloodline aspect in a later edition.

Blood Dragon are descendants of Aborash, who was the consort of Neferata. He is the martial type of Vampires.

Blood Knight in theory aren’t always related to Blood Dragon, but they usually are. The Von Carstein for example have a Blood Dragon order. Drachenhof templars

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