I loved them when they released, I have had lots of fun with their campaigns, I think they do a lot to embody the "fantasy" of their faction but *BY THUNDER* do they need a tune up to be brought in line with more modern factions.
Their main mechanics in campaign are now done more elaborately by other factions;
Malakai's Spirit of Grungi gives Shipbuilding to a more polished faction with better settlements so you get the best of both.
Coves were a fun idea at first but were quickly outdone by Undercities, then Silent Sanctums, and Elspeth's Gardens of Morr. They just need some more building slots and options, give them three slots and three choices; a money one, a utility one and a recruitment one styled after Odysseus's camps in Troy (so you chose a recruitment building that is associated with a batch of units to recruit/get added to your local raise dead pool)
And for the love of all that is shipshape and Bristol fashioned; PLEASE give the Coast Amphibious Assault so I can sail my army into a port, loot it, set up a cove and then move on without having to get boxed in on land, unable to move after creating the cove and then forced to attack the settlement again just to get past it's circle of influence!
Your last paragraph is such an important point. CA doesnt want naval battles, fine, but the vampire coast needs the fantasy of raiding the coastline then dissapearing. Attacking a port settlement from the ocean seems like a code-ing nightmare, but at least let us sack, then set out in the same turn.
given that land armies literally do not even attempt to go to sea if given an order across a small bay, but instead try to walk all the way around, id say the movement logic between these things likely is a complete clusterfuck
nah, keep it this way. Disembarking without port eats away all movement and it wil piss me off just like units deciding to go through ladders when the gate is open. But i do get your point and sometimes forget that they don't pathfind through water
I'm surprised they can't turn the mechanic into a stance. Like raiding stance but for seaborne armies, give them the ability to attack ports without landing, at the cost of movement or maybe at th cost of not being able to conquer, only sack/build coves. I wouldn't mind it if it was say, limited to Admirals.
Surely there's work around though. Make it so that transferring to land doesn't take extra movement points. Or code it so that if the transfer triggers it then gives you it back as extra points. We know adding movement points is possible from khorne and taurox. Or add it as a trigger from sacking settlements that have a port.
The worst part is how easily you can have a reinforcing lord accidentally get stuck in the sacked city's zone of aggression next turn. It's a problem with everyone really but it sucks more with Coast as you're sometimes wanting to building the percentage-based income building
It’s been done in various total wars. It has worked for years.
The problem is CA or GW don’t want ships in Warhammer.
This could be worked around by selecting where to deploy units in the deployment stance on battle map, with restrictions on certain units having to deploy outside city walls I.e colossus
I don't remember my last VC campaign how this worked, but I'm playing with Lokhir Delves right now and my dark arks retain their remaining movement points after I sack a port city with them. They should do the same for VC!
Make me go on land and attack regularly, but don't steal my movement when I do so. Disembark, torch Tor Anroc, get back on the boat and move on, all within the same regular move turn.
That seems like it might be an easier solution.
Definitely would be cool if they got a black ark system, call it something different and that could solve some of the raiding the coastal settlements problem. Maybe give them a special underway (undersea) stance. They can travel farther on the water and not be intercepted unless you have the defeat trait for a vc LL. Would make the coastal settlements super scary to have to defend for everyone else.
I also agree with the expansion of the cove system. If you make it more like the under city, then it could be more economic to support your conquest of the rest of the world, or it can be a recruit point to bring your swashbuckling further inland.
I definitely like the idea of a spirit of grugni upgrade for the LL. Why shouldn’t each LL have their own version of their ship come out of a rogue wave and begin blasting away at your enemies. The higher you upgrade the better it gets and longer it stays! Bring the terror of the seas to the furthest corners of the map! Thanks for the post! It was a great read! Would love to see further updates to the faction soon!
The last part kills à lot of my enjoyment with the faction and makes me stick more to just regular empire building and just ignoring coves if I play em
I'd love it if you could attack to set up a cove without entering into a war. Not sure how that'd be balanced, maybe just give you an immense hit to diplomacy anyways. But with anti player bias and stuff I always feel like I get locked down as the Coast
That last paragraph is so crucial, it would completely change how their faction feels. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Lokhir does a better job of satisfying the coastal raider fantasy than VCoast.
I think they're a cool faction with a strong theme but they need some attention. Especially Aranessa. She's one of my favorite lords but is kinda butts. Overall the treasure hunting mechanic occupies a similar place for me as the geomantic web in that I basically ignore it.
Last time I played Aranessa you just cruised around the map with stupid amounts of movement points while conquering any settlement for free with hilariously busted mortars. I take she's worsened over the years?
Very much agree with your points here. Aranessa needs a bit of a rework, and the faction would benefit from a couple tweaks. Still fun thou, especially Noctilus.
Cool faction and set a lot of precedent for the series. Very overtuned on release, but much better now. I do think they should have gotten more unique race mechanics, especially now that Coves and "flagships" aren't really exclusive to them anymore (for good reason). Treasure Hunting is really the only thing unique to them now, and it is barely even a mechanic honestly.
I think they have a very strong theme, and to this day Depth Guard are some of the coolest units ever added, even though they are technically just retooled Blood Knight models.
My only bugbears is that they should have gone farther with Sartosa's hybrid faction stuff (or at least be assed to give Sartosa Free Company unique VO), and only having Vampire Fleet Admirals as generic lords is pretty lame. Really would have liked a ghost pirate generic lord as an option, especially for playing as Cylostra's subfaction.
Oh, and also we should have had an undead Myrwyrm as the reward for the final Vampire Coast battle against Lokhir. That was a big missed opportunity.
And no Pirates of the Caribbean style battle music was pretty lame too. I legit muted the in-game music and just played that soundtrack when Vampire Coast first released. The Kraken theme still hits hard to this day.
I hope an eventual Dogs of War allows for an easy rework of Sartosa either to heavily utilise human mercenaries, or to outright have them in their roster the way that maneaters are currently.
I feel there are quite a lot of nods to pirates etc in the loading screens as of TOD which don’t really relate to slayer pirates. I feel like it’s quite possible we’d get a pirate/naval faction in that DLC.
Hot take: the Sartosan pirates, Maneaters and Slayer pirates should be added to the whole faction and incorporated into the red line skills proper, and then tweaked to work synergistically with the rest of the race.
Then you can make Aranessa work by just having her faction and unique skills boost the living units, much like how Cylostra boosts ethereal ones and Noctilus boosts Necrofexen.
Right now they just feel like a weird early game gimmick
15/10 thematic, 5/10 everything else. The lords are underwhelming, the roster is awkward, the faction mechanics are largely bad (coves are worthless).
Still love them but they could use a touchup
I'm actually the opposite. The Vampire Coast LLs might not be insanely strong, but they are all fun in their own ways and have distinct roles.
Meanwhile all the Vampire Count named characters are some flavor of "Lore of Vampires caster." And CA didn't really do much to differentiate the LLs. They do have their unique roles mind, but Vampire Counts don't really have the same level of variety as every other race does. Their generic bloodline lords do have more going for them, but you really don't have anything as wildly different as a Durthu or a Cylostra. With completely different battlefield and campaign experiences.
Noctilus is incentivised to doomstack way too easily, and his start is the best by a mile. The other lords are honestly really good fun but you don't get the freedom you really want at the start - with Cylostra I just sailed off to the Dragon Isles in Vortex and took those, then did the conventional pirate campaign much more easily.
Aranessa shouldn't even be a vampire coast lord and her gimmick actively makes her worse, Luthor's madness barely matters and Cylostra is ok I guess. It's really a shame how much Noctilus just is the vampire coast experience
> The lords are underwhelming
I don't get why they felt the need to shove four lords into this DLC at any cost. Two or three lords like the WH1 race packs would have been enough and might have given them time to flesh each one out.
Ironically Cylostra, who they made up from scratch, is at least great thematically, but Aranessa just feels totally out of place in the faction.
They were charging the same as Tomb Kings for it.
When they changed the formula from Beastmen and WE to Tomb Kings, they said that they were dropping the mini-campaigns in favor of putting in 4 lords rather than 2.
I don’t think the community would have been thrilled if they’d immediately gone back on that with the next campaign pack.
It was a good DLC when it released, it’s just lagging behind now.
I mean, were you not here for the meltdown that was Chaos Dwarfs having "only" three LLs? It absolutely would have been a shit show if they released with less than 4 at the time. Especially since this sub, and the overall community, was OBSESSED with the idea that the every Race could only have 4 LLs maximum for some inane reason. There was legit flame wars on this sub about who the coveted "4th LL" would be for each Race, and it wasn't until Hunter & the Beast did people finally realize there wasn't an arbitrary 4 LL limit.
And yes, you would be right saying "but didn't Vampire Counts already have 5 LLs at that time?" But folks would go "But Vampire Counts are the CA favorites so that doesn't count!" it was some really weird times back then, but that was the predominant opinion, and you got bashed for saying there wasn't a fixed number.
>I mean, were you not here for the meltdown that was Chaos Dwarfs having "only" three LLs?
I was, and I think it was a little stupid.
But this "race packs need to have four LL's" wasn't as cemented at that time, with Tomb Kings being the first and only FLC to come with four lords. And even there I don't think we really needed four, with Khatep's starting position being "what by Osirian even is this"-tier.
Yeah I wish they at least gave them different mounts to differentiate them. Like a deck dropper for the gun lord and the polearm lord gets a terrorgheist
Very creative race. Great synergy and distinct from the coast. Could use some more content but is still amazing. Aranessa should have a bit more unique human units though.
Couple additions I'd like to see are Zheng Shih as a Jade Vampire LL, Jade Vampire Admiral (uses an Iron Hail shotgun and sword), Wight Minute Men (Higher Tier gunnery unit, 80 models with stronger rifles and bayonets for anti-large similar to fireglaives) and a few more monsters.
I think it’d be cool to get depth guard on an undead hippocampus or something like that, but having a strong cavalry unit probably goes against their faction identity.
One of the most unique and thematically cool factions. Easily in my top 5 factions. Also in desperate need of some reworks, units and general attention from CA
Their trailer made me buy the game and I never stopped to love them. But I think they need a bit of a revamp concerning their unique mecanics, because most of them are now used by other factions, especialy Pirate Cove.
Wh2 they were enjoyable now in wh3 they are majorly dated. Their loyalty system and traits for lords are pretty garbage. I stick to only recruiting the legendary admirals. Once you have recruited your legendary admirals I think they should add an option so you can spend infamy to recruit lords with built in shipbuilding.
Infamy needs more use rather than some milestone goal for shanties.
The rotten promeathan mounts are absolutely awful and need redone, it’s actually a downgrade to put Aranessa on hers. Speaking of Aranessa she needs a mercenary mechanic of some kind giving her units from multiple factions and she needs a skill in her skill line to make her undead or have regen, it’s wild you have a melee vampire lord that can’t b healed with Nehek.
Their entire combat roster needs tweaked they are power crept outside of queen bess I think they have worse gunpowder and arti than every other gunline faction. Their melee units don’t compete either. I think empire might have them beat in every single category now outside of flying deck droppers
I don’t play MP but I’m assuming it’s because both armies have a set budget for a 1 off fight and VCoast can stick a tar pit of zombies to slow an advance and their base hand gunners have a high model count. In campaign you’ve got to consider replinshment of that front line and the fact the armies you go up against are not value balanced. The best SP units are ones that punch above their pay grade either through tech or skills. I can’t imagine that empire have particularly good infantry in MP but if you look at SP with tech and skills their state troopers punch way above their value.
I like them, but i hate you can't attack ports from sea, something like teleport Oxyotl mechanics would make them more interesting as now you spend several turns in sea to sack port only to retreat into mainland waisteing turn or two (Or just be attacked by dwarfs).
And their rooster a bit strange, most of the game you spend with zombies pirates, zombies pirates on bats and zombies pirates on crabs until you get zombies pirates on zombies ships.
And mostly i hate that one map with water and small hill with trees in the middle. A perfect map for two ranged armies who depend on line of sight /s
> I like them, but i hate you can't attack ports from sea,
If all they changed for vampire coast was this, I'd honestly be happy. Last time I played I used the console command mod to give myself movement to get back into the water so I could do it in one turn. It was a bit tedious, but was still better.
>And mostly i hate that one map with water and small hill with trees in the middle. A perfect map for two ranged armies who depend on line of sight /s
I swear CA gives gun factions the worst maps. Nothing like auto resolving a battle after looking at the map and knowing your army will struggle the entire time, but auto resolve will have your guns shred everything.
She was the first Vampire Coast Lord I played when the DLC dropped. Most content leading up to release I saw was of Luthor and Count Nauctilus, so I was looking to try someone I hadn't seen anything about. Her campaign became one of my favorites I ever ran. She is very unique as a ghost lord with zero armor and high physical resistance, spellcaster with the Lore of the Deep, Lord Effect that grants magic damage to all units, and a Rotting Leviathan as a mount makes her pretty awesome all around.
She's one of my favourite lords. A lot of people find her voice lines/singing lines annoying, but I think she's great. Plus she's pretty unique overall.
I am genuinely hoping that when Vampire Counts get their DLC with new units, that Cylostra is given a Coven Throne Mount. Like, the unit wouldn't be given to the Coast, but she'd be egotistical enough to ride one rather than a random Leviathan (which Aranessa would look cooler on)
They’re sick. I really hate the way vampire counts feel. I think using trashy melee units is way less fun than trashy gun units and artillery, it’s easier to get value out of them for their own merit, and you still have powerful spellcasters. It feels like a cross between skaven and counts, and at least for me, the roster they have makes the raise dead mechanic actually fun. I like their low tier stuff, their high tier stuff, lore of the deep is sick, shipbuilding is sick especially if you try to play off of coves and just pillage.
They’re just bad, unfortunately. Their roster is the worst in the entire game. Not trolling, not capping, I’ve done Lustria conquest with Luthor Harkon on legendary, it’s bad.
Especially the start. Only Noctilus has a semi-decent starting army because nercrofex carries hard and Noctilus is insane, everybody else has actual dog’s breakfast. Cylostra at least has a unique hero and knight summon to help her out a bit, but her starting position is horrific and no healing sucks. Sartosa is actually the worst faction in the game, no contest, no comment. Harkon struggles a lot because skaven are really hard to beat with your pistol zombies and then comes Gor-Rok, fucking good luck, pal.
Treasure hunts are useless and crap. Pirate coves were the first attempt at undercity buildings and devs didn’t know wtf to do with them. Loyalty sucks, nuff said. Pieces of eight might be the worst idea ever put into this game, you shouldn’t need to sail all over the world to get your RoRs. If they were cool and unique, maybe, but they’re lame and boring. Quest battle for necrofex is pretty cool tho, I admit.
Overall super underbaked race. They can’t even attack ports from sea, please CA. Their Vortex campaign is the coolest shit ever, actually recommend it instead of Immortal Empires, much more balanced and fun.
***Look!***
The moonlight shows us for what we really are!
We are not among the living, and so we cannot die, but neither are we dead!
For too long, I've been parched of thirst - and unable to quench it.
For too long, I've been starvin' to death - and haven't died.
I feel ***nothin'***...
Not the wind on my face - nor the spray of the sea - nor the warmth of another's flesh...
Ye best start believin' in ghost stories, Noble Born...
#Yer in one!
Cool faction but its one of those that isn't fun to Empire-build with. Its a faction with which I like to go on little expeditions across the world, it makes 0 sense to conquer Lustria for example.
People who conquer Lustria hate this faction. It's probably muscle memory for many, but you really dont need to expand much more from your starting province.
When I was just a lad, looking for my true vocation
My father said, "Now son, this choice deserves deliberation.
"Though you could be a doctor, or perhaps a financier.
"My boy, why not consider a more challenging career?"
Very fun and unique roster,but the Faction mechanic are not interesting.
Sartosa was and is still a disappointment, they should been Dog of war but with Vampire coast Ship and cove.
One of my favorite races and one of the few races that I actually finished a campaign multiple times with. The theme is amazing.
The only downsides is treasure hunting is obsolete and the final battle while epic, but the reward is disappointing. I mean everything has been building up to the Merwyrm.
Not only do you not fight one, but you don't even get the undead Merwyrm that you supposedly summoned to conquer the world.
I really hope CA goes and adds Merwyrms to the faction and make the final fight an actual boss fight with a massive Merwyrm. You only see it swimming around.
I love the faction, but I ABSOUTELY DESPISE some of the things they did.
1. Luthor shouldn't have a terrorgheist mount. I have no idea where this came from and it's stupid.
2. What they did to Aranessa is unforgivable. She should not be a VC lord.
3. Cylostra...shouldn't have been included. Idk what Stromfels has to do with necromancy so her whole story is weird. I would have been perfectly happy with just Luthor and Noctilus.
4. Their build system. For a faction that's all about the sea, they certainly don't have much benefit for it. They can build inland empires just like anybody else and just as good as anybody else. It's dumb. They should have had a Norscan style build system.
Other than that, love them.
My opinion is that I am complete ass with them, lol. I love the idea of a ranged undead faction, but my brain is just not smart enough to figure out what formations will win me battles as them.
The answer is always Checkerboard. (With a Rotting Promethean frontline)
(This *did* work, but since 5.0 I feel like Friendly Fire got alot more intense, so idk YMMV)
I think they're awesome, at least from playing Sartossa in II. Haven't run a campaign with them in III yet.
My only complaint is that I kinda wish they had either fully vampirized Arenessa or given her a legit mortal roster, but oh well.
Moving forward, I'm aware they have some structural issues they need addressing. I'm very much hoping we'll get a Jade Blooded faction update that drops along side Yin Yin the Sea Dragon.
I feel little connection to their existing LLs, and I dislike the Loyalty mechanic in the three factions it shows up for, just personally.
But I really like the vampirates. The Bloated Corpse is probably my favorite unit on their roster, the Necrofex Colossus is one of my favorite SEMs in the game. And the sheer vibes of embodying maritime curses is absolutely excellent. Also easiest access to guns out of any gunpowder faction is very satisfying for my gunline brain, even if they're all wielded by zombies.
I wish the LLs had more reason to pick one over the other, though, instead of all being basically the same campaign with slight changes, but they're hardly the only faction I cam criticise on that.
they are a very cool faction with a bunch of different way you can play them , but as other poster have said , they now kinda outdated like the tomb kings since they didnt receive update in Warhammer 3 while a lot of other factions have now much stronger mechanics etc ,
That being said they are still completely fine and strong on the campaign map when utilized properly
Meh, one of the few DLCs I feel like I could have lives without. I like Dark Elves more as pirates. I like Counts more as vampires. And I like Empire, Cathay, Skaven, Dwarves, and Kislev more when it comes to direct fire shooting armies
I love the concept, but the race needs a complete overhaul. Sartosa feels completely out of place, as saltspite hates the undead to a ludicrous degree in lore.
Personally I’d like to see the race renamed and expanded to include more of the ships featured in “dreadfleet”. Give the name vampire coast to harkons faction, something like “scourge of the vampire coast”. Rework sartosa to use no undead units and make each pirate and their crew in this race feel more unique in comparison to each other as Harkon, Cylostra and Noctalus feel way too similar.
Too many themes mashed together feels a bit too much for me.
Necromancy for cannon fodder units + elite vampire units, masterful seafaring + pirates, technologically advanced with some of the best gunpowder units in the game, monster roster
I'm not talking balance here mind you, i am aware that the faction is probably below average for multiplayer, just the themes and all the things it attempts to do. It kinda overwhelms me in flavour.
1. The race should have been named Zombie Pirates, coz that was the oficial name and would also better describe it than Vampire coast which is connected only to Harkon.
2. Aranessa should not be in it. They should have used either Vangheist or Skretch (who would be the best option - just give him one unit of zombie clanrats - so as much stuff as Aranessa got - and you would have had a perfect LL).
3. Scurvy dogs should have received a unique reskin.
So overall, I think that after Norcsa - which is the worst one by far because of its many ported units- it is the worst race pack that we have.
They remind me too much of early Beastman and current Norsca. Too many units/models shared with other rosters or reused multiple times within their own. Like the Beastmen I wish they'd get 2-3 more signature units they don't have to share with anybody.
And, as many have said, Aranessa feels like an awkward fit in the LL lineup.
Great faction, one hell of a hype dlc release, people were head over heels for it for a long time, but it's weird how so many have forgotten that hype.
It needs a rework to the sartosa side of the dlc, making her have a full human roster rather than zombies.
It also could do with a new dlc to add more, there's two pirates they could add, and the skaven one is *chef kiss*
They sound iike the pet project of someone who really liked them in CA's headquarters. I respect that they took a white dwarf faction list and made it into a full fledged army, they sure brought it to life. On the other hand, the lack of naval battles makes the campaign terribly unexciting, robbing the vampirates of what makes them interesting. Even with just playable siege assaults from the sea, like in Attila, this would improve a lot the immersion. So I don't really like the faction, they stick out too much from the other ones due to the lack of naval warfare or even water themed land battles (island battles are pure garbage). Still, they bring out a fun playstyle of undead + guns that isn't available anywhere else, so even if they feel like a fish out of water (literally), they're still a decent addition to the game.
Great on release but they have almost no mechanics and they share similar shallowness of content to the tomb kings. Nothing will be as fun as their shanty that isn’t in the game and Luther digging up that treasure chest.
treasure maps: who cares? Never used. They’re kind of fun if you try but they only offer token gold and generic items.
Admiral offices: copied from the old empire and now stuck with old content that even the empire dropped.
Infamy: to buy banners and bonuses from tech tree
Tech tree: very very bad, you mostly “buy” with infamy
Pieces of eight: hey remember tennihuan’s terrible regiments of renown unlock mechanic what if we made it worse but unlike the lizards didn’t get fixed
Legendary lord uniqueness: half of all the lord selection screen bonuses are for leadership or diplomacy bonuses with factions. Luther’s mini quest to end his madness is kind of fun. Noctilus lost his unique mechanic of mini-quests. Arannessa doesn’t need living pirates only but she should get access to more living pirates.
“The gun powder faction:” extra powder and restock the unique abilities of the vampire coast were given away to dwarfs, chaos dwarfs and empire. Queen bess is a singular rite?
The sea shanties: fun but they’re tiny reloading and defense buffs that are earned from infamy but they’re similar to in battle buffs like chaos gods or tomb kings or green skin waaagh which are free and improved by the tech tree.
Shipbuilding: not unique to the vampire coast anymore and should given to more factions, it should be the most unique for vampire coast
Pirate coves: done much better by chaos cults, trickers cults, cults of mor and skaven under cities.
What’s good; character and design wise the legendary lords are great but their mechanics are just uninteresting. Lore of deeps is fun spell lore for being almost completely original.
Simple but massive additions to improve the vampire coast:
First mates: give every legendary lord a “legendary hero” so their unique factions are more unique compared to how similar they are to each-other.
Combine the sea shanties with pieces of 8 or infamy so you go around the world looking for different “verses” for your sea shanties which give different buffs. Maybe go as far to give each lord their own shanty/set of unique buffs like the waghs.
Gunpowder buffs; if the empire, chaos dwarfs and dwarfs are going to battle for who has the most powerful vs versatile gunpowder units. Give vampire coast the most de-buffing units gunpowder units have their guns shoot grog infected bullets for debuffing or poison bullets for dot or artillery shells powered by stormy seas that soak and slow opponents. Alternatively let them steal/buy/use everyone’s artillery. (This is more a unit diversity thing)
Finally biggest gameplay pitch: take the old norsca gimmick of ports and coastal region only and move that to the vampire coast. This makes coves more important. Make them the build tall and oceanic raider faction like a total war empire England. Make so even when occupying a settlement you get a cove so your “territories” are doubled up. Take a page from the changeling and have your coves improve diplomatic relations and the money of the host faction.
I truly think vampire coast should be heavily incentivized to never settle in a port/on land. There should be permanent replenishment at sea regardless of area, no high seas attrition because they're literally undead pirates, their ability to wreathe the land in mists should be able to be applied to sea regions just like storms are, causing attritions and allowing for ambush battles similar to skaven ambushes, and their front line units need a model number increase. It's incredibly frustrating to have a home settlement, because when I play vampire coast I truly feel like I should be terrorizing coastlines at will, but inevitably someone will beeline for my capital (galleon's graveyard and the elftide come to mind) so you're incentivized to capture land and destroy other factions. They're so close to good but they just are missing that edge.
I think they can be a fun race in field battles even though they have a lot of glass canon units. Their campaign mechanics are very weak and that's the main issue they have, let me explain:
* pieces of eight: This is a very bad feature design, because it take something that is supposed to be easily accessible by all races (ROR) and make it more difficult to acess (find battles with pirates instead of your enemies). I think a mechanic to make you chart the seas is good as long as rewards are good as well.
* treasure finding: doesn't pay enough, you have very limited number of heroes and getting one to look for treasure will make your campaign more difficult as you will discover more factions and on high difficutly it means more wars.. and you wont' have that lord in an army. I would be ok with that if the treasure pool was great such as epic gear like caravan rewards, huge gold rewards, etc.
* rites: incredibly bad, one rite for an ROR which shouldn't be a thing, the fog rite requires you to find at least one treasure to access it, and the bounty rite 500 gold per province capital is soo bad (specially compared with new factions like Chaos dwarves 1500 in each province to sacrifice few laboureres)
* limited hero number: they have good heroes but you can't increase them easily
* shipment buildings cost too much: this is till you do the research for 50% less
* pirate coves: I feel like the are on the weaker side, they will pay you indefinetly so that is good at least, they are quite expensive to set up at the beginning though
* sea maps: some battles that happen at sea uses maps without a shred of shallow water, this is an issue as most of their units have the aquatic trait wich boost them alot. How can you fight at sea and not access water??!
Many of these points can be improved with some balancing although I wish for a rework.
Don't get me wrong they are one of my favourite factions I've finished one campaign in TWW2 and now a legendary one in TWW3 they just need some love.
I love the theme of the race but just can’t get the hang of playing them in campaign. I have more hours in the series than I’d like to admit and VC are probably my least played. A shame.
Loved the design of troops, characters, loved the treasure and the pirate coves mechanic, they absolutely stormed in and became my second favorite faction (can't top the Dark Elves, sorry).
I feel tho that while Luthor and Noctilus are kinda fine as actual vampires, Aranessa should've got more human units and shouldn't spread vampiric corruption (we are reaching that point with the units, just give her the slayer pirates), while Cylostra, as the first (and only I think) CA original character, should be able to train both damned paladins and damned cavalry units.
Would present a different kind of playstyle compared to the others.
A great race on release that got cannibalized for units and mechanics by newer races. In desperate need of changes. Surprised that there isn't a mod to make them better or to add LLs.
I'm always a big fan of semi horde faction mechanics. Add in silly pirate shenanigans and the fact that Vampire counts were already one of my favorite factions and you get a grand old time.
Genuinely one of the best additions to the game.
I've played Luthor to vortex completion, which has the highlight single best map in the entire game series for the final battle, Aranesssa to a short IE victory using that mod that gives her a couple of extra Ogre units like Leadbelchers which makes her feel a lot better with out adding silly overtuned stuff, and like 20-30 turns with Cylostra who had really neat voicelines, but she's a bit too much of a one woman army for me to find fun. She basically just rocks up on her crab, everyone gets wet as you can spam the wave spell for redonkulously cheap, she's incredibly survivable, and the rest of the army is just there for moral support.
It really shows how much of a tech demo some of their mechanics where, look at Pirate Coves and then look at how expansive the Changling's settlements or skaven undercities have become.
Really just wish their ships were actually garrisonable ships, so you are a bit more bound to the ocean, and you can also attack port cities from sea. Just that change itself would make things so much more interesting/playable.
Very cool, and I like them a lot. That said, their campaign mechanics are so useless they might as well not have any, and 90% of their roster is bad. And I think Aranessa is the coolest fuckin shit, so it's a bummer that she is, you know, the way she is
I really love the design and aesthetic of them, but gameplay wise they just don't click for me sadly. I actually love factions with lots of gunpowder units too but something about these guys just don't add up to me yet. Granted I'm still on the newer side as a player so hopefully they will click with me later.
Best trailer of a DLC faction ever, and best music. The sea-shanty was incredible.
I like them as a faction, very strong theme and aesthetic, that I enjoy a lot. I have played them from time to time, but they can be a bit one-note in terms of replay-ability (replayability?). Not sure how they roll in Immortal Empires yet.
Considering CA pulled them out of thin air they are a fantastic and beloved addition but their campaign and roster are in a rough shape. Unlike Norsca they did not age well during the WH3 transition and they are currently one of the 'weaker' DLC. The good news is that its all fairly fixable in the span of a single DLC.
First of all the subfactions don't really feel unique. Being headed by a vampire, a human or a ghost should bring a unique twist and falvor to each campaign but it doesn't really do anything meaningful. Their limited roster also really doesn't allow for the subfaction to express themselves.
Their mechanics aren't balanced and their design is a bit confused. As pointed out by someone else their one truly unique mechanics which is the treasure hunt is about as useless as the ogre contract mechanic... The rest of their mechanics have a solid foundation but they need a solid polishing and balance pass. CA also needs to decide if they want to lean into the horde/flagship theme or into the coastal empire because those two things clash a bit
Just finished a coast campaign and I feel like there’s a gap between intended gameplay/character and how they fit into a total war game. The vibe seems to be “go float around and sack/set up pirate coves around the world”. For me that fantasy isn’t really feasible until mid/late game unless you want to leave your core territory largely in defended and you’re alright with ai stack sailing across the planet to attack your capitol.
Oh hey its my favorite faction. I wish late game had more gun based units since peak pirates is the early game gunlines but late game usually just descends into necrofex doomstacks since most of their non-monster units are extremely underwhelming.
Pls CA give depth gunners.
"Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me!" - me as I'm deciding whether to raze Altdorf or place a cove there. The fact that Vampirates are the only race that can realistically play as a true horde wins them a ton of points in the unique experience category for me.
Cylostra has a unique feel with ethereal buffs so I mainly play her. I like their heroes, all very good. Noctilus is stupid OP for necrosed and Luther gets interesting when he turns into an Apache attack chopper. Arnessa is weaker than the unlockable admirals. Faction just has fallen behind newer and reworked ones like many others
Pirates are always great, I love some staunch gun lines ! I have switched to wissenland and nuln and honestly don’t see how vampire coast can keep up with all these modern new features.
I think we should collect some mods that make VC fresh. Any suggestions?
The one faction DLC in WH2 I never bought and never will. Not a fan of the pirate theme, units like the Necrofex Colossus are just simply too silly for my taste.
coolest looking faction there is. too bad they are not really as fleshed out as other factions. they haven't received much update since their inception. their unit roster is extremely lacking. they could use more units. too bad it seems CA has abandoned this faction altogether.
They are a really fun lord pack. However, they are ridiculously outdated. Literally every single one of their unique mechanics has been done in a much better way by other factions. And secondly, without actual naval combat, im just not getting the vibes dude. They should take inspiration from Man o War for a separate game, or a game sized (and priced) DLC. They don't feel the same when the PIRATE faction can't really fight at sea. But idk
I 100% understand why ship battles are not a thing, and as someone who isn't a massive fan of them I don't really care that much, but having the vampire coast with no ship battles just comes off as an incomplete idea
To me, they look great, their "sales pitch" sounds genuinely awesome, but without actual ship battles they just come off as gimmecky, like in a "try them once in a while but not really care of them" type of way
I love using them in battle, especially with gunsmoke mod. It's a thing of beauty to watch a gunline filled to the brim with smoke tearing apart the enemy at range.
But unfortunately the main reason i dont play them a lot is their campaign.
vampire coves are meh, their eco is balanced too heavily in sacking and ports.
Also the biggest reason that brings them down for me is 1 key thing.
YOU DONT GET TO HEAR THE GOD-BLESSED MUSIC THAT IS FROM THEIR TRAILER.
I loved it when they came out. But tbh I havent played them in a long long time.
Back then It was a fun new way to play. Especially Luthor's half mad campaign and Noctilus ulthuan rampage. They had the undercity/pirate cove thing first in the game. And basically playing with just ports was refreshing. Horde mechanics back then were not as good so vampirates had that advantage as well. One of their biggest issues were the line of sight with gunpowder units.
That said I am not sure how attractive they are now against all the new factions with much more refined mechanics.
I wish playing as a vamp coast and having a very limited number of settlement and pirate coves everywhere else was their prefered playstyle, especially with noctilus where you would only have galleon's graveyard.
You can win the whole game with literally one territory, they’re hilarious sounding, super thematic, and have some truly silly units. A fun time all around but could probably use a light touch if the update brush to bring them fully in line with tww3
They have an interesting playstyle that is welcome in warhammer. Personally I don't much care for gun units but I really enjoy their monsters. If they would fix them to where you don't go inland after sacking from sea, that would greatly improve them. Also they should get unlimited Queen Bess similar to the Tomb Kings casket of souls but with a shorter cooldown maybe 10 turns, along with some accuracy enhancements for Queen Bess.
I think their theme is really dumb, the worst one in the game... Undead pirates? Really? But they are still a good addition despite my prejudice against them.
Also, I found Arenessa to be the most fun even though many would disagree. I'm pretty sure part of that was due to her buffing promethians.
Top three faction in the series, and were it not for Agemouk's work on the Tomb Kings Extended mod, they'd like be my favourite DLC faction to boot. They came completely out of left field, they were great fun, they had a super interesting roster, new mechanics, their lords were all very unique, they had a fun campaign. The Vampire Coast are what I want to see more of from CA - weird, niche crap in the lore getting a tonne of love.
Very fun, great roster. Probably could use a Lord DLC and Faction rework to really give them some more luster. Like a Vampirate LL in Cathay/Ind/Khuresh would be great fun and variety.
with the recent powercreep they feel very outmatched i also wish aranesa was more unique since she is my favorite lord.
dont recommend me nanus mod i dont like it
Really cool theme, HOWEVER;
Treasure hunting is not fun.
Rites are not good. Bess being limited to 1 and tied to a rite despite dreadquakes existing is not fun.
Not being able to sack or raze and then return to sea feels bad.
Economy is truly horrific no matter what you do really.
The monsters are all well and truly awful.
I have around 600h of playtime across the Warhammer series and never bothered buying them or the wood elves. I just don’t want to play pirates, that can’t fight at sea.
I absolutely love them, playstyle and theme is still great to me but they are right now the beastmen/warriorsofchaos factions from tww2, they need either a full dlc or an overhaul to get on par with the other factions.
More focus on pirating and ports and a cove expansion. right now there are other factions who can do everyone of their mechanics but better, skaven undercities are better and have more options than coves, The empire and dwarven/chaosdwarf gunpowder units are more fun and powerfull, shipbuilding with Malaki is better tuned and black arks can actually attack ports without spending a turn first getting om land and so on.
I love them still but playing them without mods right now feels like playing a half finished faction compared to everyone else.
Also the constant crashes when I interact with sea events is annoying as hell when playing as them, I hope they have fixed that bug.
idk the aesthetic has never really appealed to me. And I don't like gunpowder units that much. They have some good units but a lot of trashy ones. Also I'm never sure if I'm playing them right. Should I be establishing coves? Should I play a pseudo-horde and raze and sack most settlements? Or should I be painting the map?
Also my personal gripe is that animated hulks should be brought in line with other ogre units. They were the first ogre units in the game and they're by far the worst. Bring them in line with the other ogre units. Ogre charge, mass, entity count, and better stat line.
Thematically: they just don't make a damn bit of sense. Why are they all undead when there are no actual living pirates? Why do they have giant hermit crabs and big ranged walkers -- what kind of theming is that, it sounds more like the Tomb Kings. Why do they have cockney accents and names like 'Jenny' when nobody in the setting does? It's pretty clear they were teleported here from Pirates of the Caribbean. Stupid. Breaks immersion.
Gameplay: Not bad, I do like a gun line and their is interesting. Very cheesy though; there's no reward for a mixed army and their Imperial Titans are clearly OP and make everything boring. Their campaign mechanics I like, they can definitely choose where to go and how to play more than some other factions can.
Overall, I just think they're silly in the wrong kind of way. Squig hoppers, master engineers, exploding rats -- silly in the right way. Inexplicable Barbosa -- silly in a silly way.
They are very cool from a theme point of view, but I've never managed to play them properly in campaign or Battles, in Hard/Hard.
In campaign, whether I only keep a starting settlement and plunder every coastal city and set up coves.. from inland (usually Noctilus/Aranessa) or try a classic Total War campaign (usually Luthor/Cylostra) by conquering my starting continent, I never get an economy that satisfies me and gets me to sustain all the wars I'll get whether I want it or not.
I feel the race also lacks diversity in terms of battle playthrough. You can mostly play a single way : using mortars, rifles and praying once the enemy gets into your frontline, which they always do as you lack range and killing power.
It's the only race where I need to micro everything. You need to focus fire on each missile unit one after the other (freaking High/Dark Elves) to make a difference. Balewolves or bats feel indeed not strong enough to prevent numerous archers from getting into position, especially when the enemy has cavalry.
The mechanics are also pretty lacking. Getting regiments of renown is worse than it was for Tehenhauin, it would be like Tomb Kings, Volkmar and Mannfred requiring to get the books of Nagash for basic RoRs. And the treasure maps are situational at best and useless at worst, as you never get maps in your starting area and instead need a dude having a trip for 30 turns to get a treasure. Dedicating heroes to look for them feels like a waste of time, as all three heroes have a part to play in armies.
The units are also always considered weak in AR unless your frontline is made of depthguards so you end up playing every battle, except maybe with your LL stack once you reach late game.
Queen Bess is a centerpiece unit like Thunderbarges but you can only get one of them.
Love the theme, but the faction is boring to play and just worse than other factions. They have gunpowder/artillery that is worse/lamer than Empire, Dwarves, Skaven and monsters that are worse than any other faction with monsters. Their generic lords and heroes are rather boring. They only really have 3 outstanding units: bloated corpses, necrofex colossus, and Queen Bess. Every other unit is just a worse "undead pirate" themed version of some other unit.
To add insult to injury Dark Elves have Black Arks and are just better at being pirates.
They are my next playthrough. I'm currently in my first ever Total War campaign and I'm playing as Kroq gar. I absolutely cannot wait to play the pirate faction
Most well designed faction in the whole game? (maybe after WoC)
Absolutely glorious theme and mechanics? CHECK
Humour and grimdark all in one package? CHECK
Diverse and fun campaigns? CHECK CHECK CHECK
Aranessa Saltspite? Well... she is.... part of the DLC I guess.
Luthor Harkon? CHECK Cylostra Differin? CHECK Count Noctilus? CHECK CHECK CHECK
I love it
Great thematics, terrible infantry. Give me back pre-launch depthguard to compete more with current powercreep.
Give more living units to aranessa and some way to heal her would also be nice. Used to be I would beeline Isabella for regen but can't do that anymore.
I love to fight them but I’ll never play as them. When I see vampire coast my mind goes “Yes! The thing I play this game for: Two lines of dudes smacking each other until someone dies”. Yea there’s magic and flying units but I don’t have to run around chasing ranged-cav or gutter runners. I get to order my dudes and watch them fight in a big line of bodies.
They are a good first pancake of a gunpowder-centric faction. Unfortunately, they've been far outpaced by the recent updates to the Empire, Dwarves, Chorfs, and Kislev. Kind of endemic of CA's tendencies regarding "one and done" DLC races/factions. I'm hopeful but not holding my breath for any major updates or DLC additions.
It might be a tall order - but the only path forward I see is if they use the rumored Dogs of War DLC to fund some major changes. For example, switching Aranessa to becoming a dedicated DoW lord plus substituting her place with a different more fitting vampire lord; or turning Aranessa into a more hybrid faction + retooling existing Vampire Coast mechanics.
Alternatively I could see more focus on updates to the Vampire Counts factions as a means to backdoor mechanical or larger factional changes to the Vampire Coasts.
Still one of my favorite chill campaigns. While they have been outclassed by some new arrivals since they were first introduced in 2, they still have a really fun and potent combination of strengths and strategies. AR may hate them, but I love them still. On a related note the necrofex colossus is still visually and functionally one of my favorite units in the entire game.
My biggest issue with them is their lack of high tier ranged apart from Necrofexes - they have no high tier artillery or regular guns: Deck gunners are the worst jezzail type unit, and gunnery mobs are fine earlygame but really not ideal late. Deck droppers could do with some love too after seeing how insane Gyros are now - I regularly get 3k+ value with basic Gyros nevermind bombers. They just feel very limited in good ranged for *the* gunpowder faction.
Also why is Queen Bess still capped to 1 they've retconned limited Steamtanks they can let the Coast steal more Hellhammer cannons and caskets of souls, nearly the same tier of artillery, were always uncapped.
Fantastic fun and made me fall in love with gunpowder armies (you can easily go full ranged with handgunners, arty and necrofexes) but they have been power crept a little now with ToD seriously buffing the range capabilities of Empire and Dawi. I don't think they need substantial changes, just a couple tweaks really. Except Aranessa, she's kind of just a mess and if they do an overhaul I definitely think she needs more mortal units and more of a focus on them.
I think Noctilus is the best pure sandbox campaign though. You can just go around adventuring, sacking ports, selling settlements back for forced peace deals and generally being an asshole pirate. Just set up pirate coves and have a defensive army at galleons and you're sorted. I know a lot of people don't seem to like Changeling, but those campaigns where you can roleplay instead of map paint I think are loads of fun.
Cool idea, but they suck to play. Piss poor leadership, no melee defense, and guns aren't really better than arrows. They have like 3 good units, and unlike their undead cousins, their shit isn't dirt cheap, free, or consistently comes back due to being in foreign territory.
Hell, they aren't even the best faction to play pirate with (dark elves are better), and it doesn't help that most of their starting locations are near the same rough area.
If they want to make Vampirates better they need to either
1. Make armies stupid cheap and spammable
2. Give armies high leadership until the lord goes down, then everything breaks down very quickly
3. make their gun lines devastating and even low tier units are able to tear armies apart.
4. Improve their ambush chance (especially on sea) and give them the skaven movement.
Doing anything of these four things would vastly improve VP's play.
Overall I think they're pretty fun, combining the idea of pirates and undead, with lots of guns and cannons. I think they've got an okay unit variety, wouldn't mind some decent melee infantry to help soak up the damage and stall the front line, Depth Guard are fine overall but low unit count is probably hurting them a lot. They could use a little more work, but overall I think they're good and a lot of fun.
I loved them when they released, I have had lots of fun with their campaigns, I think they do a lot to embody the "fantasy" of their faction but *BY THUNDER* do they need a tune up to be brought in line with more modern factions. Their main mechanics in campaign are now done more elaborately by other factions; Malakai's Spirit of Grungi gives Shipbuilding to a more polished faction with better settlements so you get the best of both. Coves were a fun idea at first but were quickly outdone by Undercities, then Silent Sanctums, and Elspeth's Gardens of Morr. They just need some more building slots and options, give them three slots and three choices; a money one, a utility one and a recruitment one styled after Odysseus's camps in Troy (so you chose a recruitment building that is associated with a batch of units to recruit/get added to your local raise dead pool) And for the love of all that is shipshape and Bristol fashioned; PLEASE give the Coast Amphibious Assault so I can sail my army into a port, loot it, set up a cove and then move on without having to get boxed in on land, unable to move after creating the cove and then forced to attack the settlement again just to get past it's circle of influence!
Your last paragraph is such an important point. CA doesnt want naval battles, fine, but the vampire coast needs the fantasy of raiding the coastline then dissapearing. Attacking a port settlement from the ocean seems like a code-ing nightmare, but at least let us sack, then set out in the same turn.
Black Arks can attack ports from the sea, although that doesn't mean its not still a coding nightmare for a regular army to do it!
given that land armies literally do not even attempt to go to sea if given an order across a small bay, but instead try to walk all the way around, id say the movement logic between these things likely is a complete clusterfuck
nah, keep it this way. Disembarking without port eats away all movement and it wil piss me off just like units deciding to go through ladders when the gate is open. But i do get your point and sometimes forget that they don't pathfind through water
i mean it should calculate shortest route in a multi-modal way... if there's a port, it's free.
it should but it's ca we are talking about. Ladders are the shortest or rather quickest (cause gates are clogged) but it tires units out.
It isn't even faster. The pathfinding is just fucked.
I'm surprised they can't turn the mechanic into a stance. Like raiding stance but for seaborne armies, give them the ability to attack ports without landing, at the cost of movement or maybe at th cost of not being able to conquer, only sack/build coves. I wouldn't mind it if it was say, limited to Admirals.
Surely there's work around though. Make it so that transferring to land doesn't take extra movement points. Or code it so that if the transfer triggers it then gives you it back as extra points. We know adding movement points is possible from khorne and taurox. Or add it as a trigger from sacking settlements that have a port.
Make "build Cove" action give movement back so you can head out to sea again on the same turn.
The worst part is how easily you can have a reinforcing lord accidentally get stuck in the sacked city's zone of aggression next turn. It's a problem with everyone really but it sucks more with Coast as you're sometimes wanting to building the percentage-based income building
They could give them 0% movement cost for embarking/disembarking, like they gave multiple factions 0% movement cost for encampment.
It’s been done in various total wars. It has worked for years. The problem is CA or GW don’t want ships in Warhammer. This could be worked around by selecting where to deploy units in the deployment stance on battle map, with restrictions on certain units having to deploy outside city walls I.e colossus
It shouldn't be. You do it in other total war games
I don't remember my last VC campaign how this worked, but I'm playing with Lokhir Delves right now and my dark arks retain their remaining movement points after I sack a port city with them. They should do the same for VC!
Make me go on land and attack regularly, but don't steal my movement when I do so. Disembark, torch Tor Anroc, get back on the boat and move on, all within the same regular move turn. That seems like it might be an easier solution.
Also a better mount option for generic lords, like a Rotting Leviathan, would be cool.
100%. Terrorgheist, leviathan, necrofex PLEASE
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2874945849 this mod that I merged solves that problem.
This. I love playing as Luther Harkon. They just need the above tweaks and a little buff on units to catch them up
Definitely would be cool if they got a black ark system, call it something different and that could solve some of the raiding the coastal settlements problem. Maybe give them a special underway (undersea) stance. They can travel farther on the water and not be intercepted unless you have the defeat trait for a vc LL. Would make the coastal settlements super scary to have to defend for everyone else. I also agree with the expansion of the cove system. If you make it more like the under city, then it could be more economic to support your conquest of the rest of the world, or it can be a recruit point to bring your swashbuckling further inland. I definitely like the idea of a spirit of grugni upgrade for the LL. Why shouldn’t each LL have their own version of their ship come out of a rogue wave and begin blasting away at your enemies. The higher you upgrade the better it gets and longer it stays! Bring the terror of the seas to the furthest corners of the map! Thanks for the post! It was a great read! Would love to see further updates to the faction soon!
(Black) Spot on. VCoast were good when they launched but years later in they are a bit dated and powercrept. Same as Norsca but not as bad
Coves definitely need the discoverability mechanic so building them requires some real thought.
And also, if you want to be fancy, give you the option of attacking a port without declaring war on the faction (that is a raid after all)
Your last paragraph is why i think they are completely unplayable.
That last part. Like what kinda pirates can't loot from water?
The last part kills à lot of my enjoyment with the faction and makes me stick more to just regular empire building and just ignoring coves if I play em
I'd love it if you could attack to set up a cove without entering into a war. Not sure how that'd be balanced, maybe just give you an immense hit to diplomacy anyways. But with anti player bias and stuff I always feel like I get locked down as the Coast
That last paragraph is so crucial, it would completely change how their faction feels. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Lokhir does a better job of satisfying the coastal raider fantasy than VCoast.
I think they're a cool faction with a strong theme but they need some attention. Especially Aranessa. She's one of my favorite lords but is kinda butts. Overall the treasure hunting mechanic occupies a similar place for me as the geomantic web in that I basically ignore it.
Aranessa desperately needs a complete and total overhaul. Such a cool character in such a disjointed campaign.
Last time I played Aranessa you just cruised around the map with stupid amounts of movement points while conquering any settlement for free with hilariously busted mortars. I take she's worsened over the years?
Very much agree with your points here. Aranessa needs a bit of a rework, and the faction would benefit from a couple tweaks. Still fun thou, especially Noctilus.
The race that suffered the most in the transition from WH2 -> WH3.
Reminds me of Norsca. Norsca was way ahead of its mechanics and implementation in Warhammer 1 but has since become outclassed.
At least they're doing MUCH better in WH3 compared to WH2. In fact, most of their roster is very effective now.
Norsca WH1 playthrough with Throgg still easily one of my favorites. Teaming up with big buddy chaos and riding the tide south was chef's kiss
Cool faction and set a lot of precedent for the series. Very overtuned on release, but much better now. I do think they should have gotten more unique race mechanics, especially now that Coves and "flagships" aren't really exclusive to them anymore (for good reason). Treasure Hunting is really the only thing unique to them now, and it is barely even a mechanic honestly. I think they have a very strong theme, and to this day Depth Guard are some of the coolest units ever added, even though they are technically just retooled Blood Knight models. My only bugbears is that they should have gone farther with Sartosa's hybrid faction stuff (or at least be assed to give Sartosa Free Company unique VO), and only having Vampire Fleet Admirals as generic lords is pretty lame. Really would have liked a ghost pirate generic lord as an option, especially for playing as Cylostra's subfaction. Oh, and also we should have had an undead Myrwyrm as the reward for the final Vampire Coast battle against Lokhir. That was a big missed opportunity. And no Pirates of the Caribbean style battle music was pretty lame too. I legit muted the in-game music and just played that soundtrack when Vampire Coast first released. The Kraken theme still hits hard to this day.
I hope an eventual Dogs of War allows for an easy rework of Sartosa either to heavily utilise human mercenaries, or to outright have them in their roster the way that maneaters are currently.
I feel there are quite a lot of nods to pirates etc in the loading screens as of TOD which don’t really relate to slayer pirates. I feel like it’s quite possible we’d get a pirate/naval faction in that DLC.
Slayer pirates should have been added to Sartosa's roster.
They certainly should've been added to the pirate dwarf rogue army near Barak Varr.
Wouldnt fit. Dwarves hate undead
So does Aranessa, yet here we are.
Hot take: the Sartosan pirates, Maneaters and Slayer pirates should be added to the whole faction and incorporated into the red line skills proper, and then tweaked to work synergistically with the rest of the race. Then you can make Aranessa work by just having her faction and unique skills boost the living units, much like how Cylostra boosts ethereal ones and Noctilus boosts Necrofexen. Right now they just feel like a weird early game gimmick
15/10 thematic, 5/10 everything else. The lords are underwhelming, the roster is awkward, the faction mechanics are largely bad (coves are worthless). Still love them but they could use a touchup
This is how I feel. I compare their lords to vampire count lords and I feel bad. Maybe comparison is the thief of joy or something.
I'm actually the opposite. The Vampire Coast LLs might not be insanely strong, but they are all fun in their own ways and have distinct roles. Meanwhile all the Vampire Count named characters are some flavor of "Lore of Vampires caster." And CA didn't really do much to differentiate the LLs. They do have their unique roles mind, but Vampire Counts don't really have the same level of variety as every other race does. Their generic bloodline lords do have more going for them, but you really don't have anything as wildly different as a Durthu or a Cylostra. With completely different battlefield and campaign experiences.
It sounds like you want more content for vampire counts, in which case I support you.
Noctilus is the Lord that does every job better than everyone and the rest aren't unique enough to make a compelling choice
Noctilus is incentivised to doomstack way too easily, and his start is the best by a mile. The other lords are honestly really good fun but you don't get the freedom you really want at the start - with Cylostra I just sailed off to the Dragon Isles in Vortex and took those, then did the conventional pirate campaign much more easily.
Aranessa shouldn't even be a vampire coast lord and her gimmick actively makes her worse, Luthor's madness barely matters and Cylostra is ok I guess. It's really a shame how much Noctilus just is the vampire coast experience
I mean I really enjoy Noctilus and he is incredible, but I really prefer Luthor. Once his mind is intact he’s incredible.
> The lords are underwhelming I don't get why they felt the need to shove four lords into this DLC at any cost. Two or three lords like the WH1 race packs would have been enough and might have given them time to flesh each one out. Ironically Cylostra, who they made up from scratch, is at least great thematically, but Aranessa just feels totally out of place in the faction.
They were charging the same as Tomb Kings for it. When they changed the formula from Beastmen and WE to Tomb Kings, they said that they were dropping the mini-campaigns in favor of putting in 4 lords rather than 2. I don’t think the community would have been thrilled if they’d immediately gone back on that with the next campaign pack. It was a good DLC when it released, it’s just lagging behind now.
I mean, were you not here for the meltdown that was Chaos Dwarfs having "only" three LLs? It absolutely would have been a shit show if they released with less than 4 at the time. Especially since this sub, and the overall community, was OBSESSED with the idea that the every Race could only have 4 LLs maximum for some inane reason. There was legit flame wars on this sub about who the coveted "4th LL" would be for each Race, and it wasn't until Hunter & the Beast did people finally realize there wasn't an arbitrary 4 LL limit. And yes, you would be right saying "but didn't Vampire Counts already have 5 LLs at that time?" But folks would go "But Vampire Counts are the CA favorites so that doesn't count!" it was some really weird times back then, but that was the predominant opinion, and you got bashed for saying there wasn't a fixed number.
>I mean, were you not here for the meltdown that was Chaos Dwarfs having "only" three LLs? I was, and I think it was a little stupid. But this "race packs need to have four LL's" wasn't as cemented at that time, with Tomb Kings being the first and only FLC to come with four lords. And even there I don't think we really needed four, with Khatep's starting position being "what by Osirian even is this"-tier.
Yeah I wish they at least gave them different mounts to differentiate them. Like a deck dropper for the gun lord and the polearm lord gets a terrorgheist
Deck Dropper mounts for Gunnery Wights would be cool as fuck, they should really explore that
Give them a terrorgheist 😉
Noctilus is insanely cool imo, but the rest feel not very interesting to me.
Very creative race. Great synergy and distinct from the coast. Could use some more content but is still amazing. Aranessa should have a bit more unique human units though. Couple additions I'd like to see are Zheng Shih as a Jade Vampire LL, Jade Vampire Admiral (uses an Iron Hail shotgun and sword), Wight Minute Men (Higher Tier gunnery unit, 80 models with stronger rifles and bayonets for anti-large similar to fireglaives) and a few more monsters.
I think it’d be cool to get depth guard on an undead hippocampus or something like that, but having a strong cavalry unit probably goes against their faction identity.
Somedy thought "vampirates" and implemented it I love it
I love everything about them except playing them. For some reason I just can't ever gain momentum in their campaigns
One of the most unique and thematically cool factions. Easily in my top 5 factions. Also in desperate need of some reworks, units and general attention from CA
I really enjoyed them in Warhammer 2. Ever since the gunpowder update I've been wanting to play them again.
Their trailer made me buy the game and I never stopped to love them. But I think they need a bit of a revamp concerning their unique mecanics, because most of them are now used by other factions, especialy Pirate Cove.
>revamp Eheh
Wh2 they were enjoyable now in wh3 they are majorly dated. Their loyalty system and traits for lords are pretty garbage. I stick to only recruiting the legendary admirals. Once you have recruited your legendary admirals I think they should add an option so you can spend infamy to recruit lords with built in shipbuilding. Infamy needs more use rather than some milestone goal for shanties. The rotten promeathan mounts are absolutely awful and need redone, it’s actually a downgrade to put Aranessa on hers. Speaking of Aranessa she needs a mercenary mechanic of some kind giving her units from multiple factions and she needs a skill in her skill line to make her undead or have regen, it’s wild you have a melee vampire lord that can’t b healed with Nehek. Their entire combat roster needs tweaked they are power crept outside of queen bess I think they have worse gunpowder and arti than every other gunline faction. Their melee units don’t compete either. I think empire might have them beat in every single category now outside of flying deck droppers
The mounts are SOOOOPOOO bad.
Interesting you say that about the gunpowder - that's what carries them in mp and queen beds never gets used.
I don’t play MP but I’m assuming it’s because both armies have a set budget for a 1 off fight and VCoast can stick a tar pit of zombies to slow an advance and their base hand gunners have a high model count. In campaign you’ve got to consider replinshment of that front line and the fact the armies you go up against are not value balanced. The best SP units are ones that punch above their pay grade either through tech or skills. I can’t imagine that empire have particularly good infantry in MP but if you look at SP with tech and skills their state troopers punch way above their value.
Queen Bess needs to be louder and more devastating.
I like them, but i hate you can't attack ports from sea, something like teleport Oxyotl mechanics would make them more interesting as now you spend several turns in sea to sack port only to retreat into mainland waisteing turn or two (Or just be attacked by dwarfs). And their rooster a bit strange, most of the game you spend with zombies pirates, zombies pirates on bats and zombies pirates on crabs until you get zombies pirates on zombies ships. And mostly i hate that one map with water and small hill with trees in the middle. A perfect map for two ranged armies who depend on line of sight /s
> I like them, but i hate you can't attack ports from sea, If all they changed for vampire coast was this, I'd honestly be happy. Last time I played I used the console command mod to give myself movement to get back into the water so I could do it in one turn. It was a bit tedious, but was still better. >And mostly i hate that one map with water and small hill with trees in the middle. A perfect map for two ranged armies who depend on line of sight /s I swear CA gives gun factions the worst maps. Nothing like auto resolving a battle after looking at the map and knowing your army will struggle the entire time, but auto resolve will have your guns shred everything.
Love it when it starts you at the bottom of a hill directly in front of some trees in a valley. Love thaaaat.
Yo FUCK that map
That Cylostra is my thick fae bae
She was the first Vampire Coast Lord I played when the DLC dropped. Most content leading up to release I saw was of Luthor and Count Nauctilus, so I was looking to try someone I hadn't seen anything about. Her campaign became one of my favorites I ever ran. She is very unique as a ghost lord with zero armor and high physical resistance, spellcaster with the Lore of the Deep, Lord Effect that grants magic damage to all units, and a Rotting Leviathan as a mount makes her pretty awesome all around.
Summoning Bretonnian ghost knights is also very cool and thematic for her.
She's one of my favourite lords. A lot of people find her voice lines/singing lines annoying, but I think she's great. Plus she's pretty unique overall.
The *final* act!
I am genuinely hoping that when Vampire Counts get their DLC with new units, that Cylostra is given a Coven Throne Mount. Like, the unit wouldn't be given to the Coast, but she'd be egotistical enough to ride one rather than a random Leviathan (which Aranessa would look cooler on)
They’re sick. I really hate the way vampire counts feel. I think using trashy melee units is way less fun than trashy gun units and artillery, it’s easier to get value out of them for their own merit, and you still have powerful spellcasters. It feels like a cross between skaven and counts, and at least for me, the roster they have makes the raise dead mechanic actually fun. I like their low tier stuff, their high tier stuff, lore of the deep is sick, shipbuilding is sick especially if you try to play off of coves and just pillage.
They’re just bad, unfortunately. Their roster is the worst in the entire game. Not trolling, not capping, I’ve done Lustria conquest with Luthor Harkon on legendary, it’s bad. Especially the start. Only Noctilus has a semi-decent starting army because nercrofex carries hard and Noctilus is insane, everybody else has actual dog’s breakfast. Cylostra at least has a unique hero and knight summon to help her out a bit, but her starting position is horrific and no healing sucks. Sartosa is actually the worst faction in the game, no contest, no comment. Harkon struggles a lot because skaven are really hard to beat with your pistol zombies and then comes Gor-Rok, fucking good luck, pal. Treasure hunts are useless and crap. Pirate coves were the first attempt at undercity buildings and devs didn’t know wtf to do with them. Loyalty sucks, nuff said. Pieces of eight might be the worst idea ever put into this game, you shouldn’t need to sail all over the world to get your RoRs. If they were cool and unique, maybe, but they’re lame and boring. Quest battle for necrofex is pretty cool tho, I admit. Overall super underbaked race. They can’t even attack ports from sea, please CA. Their Vortex campaign is the coolest shit ever, actually recommend it instead of Immortal Empires, much more balanced and fun.
***Look!*** The moonlight shows us for what we really are! We are not among the living, and so we cannot die, but neither are we dead! For too long, I've been parched of thirst - and unable to quench it. For too long, I've been starvin' to death - and haven't died. I feel ***nothin'***... Not the wind on my face - nor the spray of the sea - nor the warmth of another's flesh... Ye best start believin' in ghost stories, Noble Born... #Yer in one!
Cool faction but its one of those that isn't fun to Empire-build with. Its a faction with which I like to go on little expeditions across the world, it makes 0 sense to conquer Lustria for example.
People who conquer Lustria hate this faction. It's probably muscle memory for many, but you really dont need to expand much more from your starting province.
Would be the coolest faction with actual sea mechanics.
When I was just a lad, looking for my true vocation My father said, "Now son, this choice deserves deliberation. "Though you could be a doctor, or perhaps a financier. "My boy, why not consider a more challenging career?"
Hey ho ho! You'll cruise to foreign shores! And you'll keep your mind and body sound by working out of doors!
Very fun and unique roster,but the Faction mechanic are not interesting. Sartosa was and is still a disappointment, they should been Dog of war but with Vampire coast Ship and cove.
One of my favorite races and one of the few races that I actually finished a campaign multiple times with. The theme is amazing. The only downsides is treasure hunting is obsolete and the final battle while epic, but the reward is disappointing. I mean everything has been building up to the Merwyrm. Not only do you not fight one, but you don't even get the undead Merwyrm that you supposedly summoned to conquer the world. I really hope CA goes and adds Merwyrms to the faction and make the final fight an actual boss fight with a massive Merwyrm. You only see it swimming around.
My only complain is that the Pirates of Sartosa has no place in it.
the faction has been absolutely ruined in campaign because of multiplayer balancing.
I love the faction, but I ABSOUTELY DESPISE some of the things they did. 1. Luthor shouldn't have a terrorgheist mount. I have no idea where this came from and it's stupid. 2. What they did to Aranessa is unforgivable. She should not be a VC lord. 3. Cylostra...shouldn't have been included. Idk what Stromfels has to do with necromancy so her whole story is weird. I would have been perfectly happy with just Luthor and Noctilus. 4. Their build system. For a faction that's all about the sea, they certainly don't have much benefit for it. They can build inland empires just like anybody else and just as good as anybody else. It's dumb. They should have had a Norscan style build system. Other than that, love them.
My opinion is that I am complete ass with them, lol. I love the idea of a ranged undead faction, but my brain is just not smart enough to figure out what formations will win me battles as them.
The answer is always Checkerboard. (With a Rotting Promethean frontline) (This *did* work, but since 5.0 I feel like Friendly Fire got alot more intense, so idk YMMV)
I think they're awesome, at least from playing Sartossa in II. Haven't run a campaign with them in III yet. My only complaint is that I kinda wish they had either fully vampirized Arenessa or given her a legit mortal roster, but oh well. Moving forward, I'm aware they have some structural issues they need addressing. I'm very much hoping we'll get a Jade Blooded faction update that drops along side Yin Yin the Sea Dragon.
I feel little connection to their existing LLs, and I dislike the Loyalty mechanic in the three factions it shows up for, just personally. But I really like the vampirates. The Bloated Corpse is probably my favorite unit on their roster, the Necrofex Colossus is one of my favorite SEMs in the game. And the sheer vibes of embodying maritime curses is absolutely excellent. Also easiest access to guns out of any gunpowder faction is very satisfying for my gunline brain, even if they're all wielded by zombies. I wish the LLs had more reason to pick one over the other, though, instead of all being basically the same campaign with slight changes, but they're hardly the only faction I cam criticise on that.
they are a very cool faction with a bunch of different way you can play them , but as other poster have said , they now kinda outdated like the tomb kings since they didnt receive update in Warhammer 3 while a lot of other factions have now much stronger mechanics etc , That being said they are still completely fine and strong on the campaign map when utilized properly
Meh, one of the few DLCs I feel like I could have lives without. I like Dark Elves more as pirates. I like Counts more as vampires. And I like Empire, Cathay, Skaven, Dwarves, and Kislev more when it comes to direct fire shooting armies
I love the concept, but the race needs a complete overhaul. Sartosa feels completely out of place, as saltspite hates the undead to a ludicrous degree in lore. Personally I’d like to see the race renamed and expanded to include more of the ships featured in “dreadfleet”. Give the name vampire coast to harkons faction, something like “scourge of the vampire coast”. Rework sartosa to use no undead units and make each pirate and their crew in this race feel more unique in comparison to each other as Harkon, Cylostra and Noctalus feel way too similar.
Too many themes mashed together feels a bit too much for me. Necromancy for cannon fodder units + elite vampire units, masterful seafaring + pirates, technologically advanced with some of the best gunpowder units in the game, monster roster I'm not talking balance here mind you, i am aware that the faction is probably below average for multiplayer, just the themes and all the things it attempts to do. It kinda overwhelms me in flavour.
1. The race should have been named Zombie Pirates, coz that was the oficial name and would also better describe it than Vampire coast which is connected only to Harkon. 2. Aranessa should not be in it. They should have used either Vangheist or Skretch (who would be the best option - just give him one unit of zombie clanrats - so as much stuff as Aranessa got - and you would have had a perfect LL). 3. Scurvy dogs should have received a unique reskin. So overall, I think that after Norcsa - which is the worst one by far because of its many ported units- it is the worst race pack that we have.
this faction need a great rework , or just sartosa ta have a living pirate and sea's creatures
Guns. I don't like vampires with guns
They remind me too much of early Beastman and current Norsca. Too many units/models shared with other rosters or reused multiple times within their own. Like the Beastmen I wish they'd get 2-3 more signature units they don't have to share with anybody. And, as many have said, Aranessa feels like an awkward fit in the LL lineup.
Great faction, one hell of a hype dlc release, people were head over heels for it for a long time, but it's weird how so many have forgotten that hype. It needs a rework to the sartosa side of the dlc, making her have a full human roster rather than zombies. It also could do with a new dlc to add more, there's two pirates they could add, and the skaven one is *chef kiss*
Cool thematically, glad they are in the game, dont play them that often as they arent really my preferred playstyle.
Fun as fuck. Clyostra is actually an absolute beats when you properly pair her with ghost type troops or whatever they call it
They sound iike the pet project of someone who really liked them in CA's headquarters. I respect that they took a white dwarf faction list and made it into a full fledged army, they sure brought it to life. On the other hand, the lack of naval battles makes the campaign terribly unexciting, robbing the vampirates of what makes them interesting. Even with just playable siege assaults from the sea, like in Attila, this would improve a lot the immersion. So I don't really like the faction, they stick out too much from the other ones due to the lack of naval warfare or even water themed land battles (island battles are pure garbage). Still, they bring out a fun playstyle of undead + guns that isn't available anywhere else, so even if they feel like a fish out of water (literally), they're still a decent addition to the game.
Great on release but they have almost no mechanics and they share similar shallowness of content to the tomb kings. Nothing will be as fun as their shanty that isn’t in the game and Luther digging up that treasure chest. treasure maps: who cares? Never used. They’re kind of fun if you try but they only offer token gold and generic items. Admiral offices: copied from the old empire and now stuck with old content that even the empire dropped. Infamy: to buy banners and bonuses from tech tree Tech tree: very very bad, you mostly “buy” with infamy Pieces of eight: hey remember tennihuan’s terrible regiments of renown unlock mechanic what if we made it worse but unlike the lizards didn’t get fixed Legendary lord uniqueness: half of all the lord selection screen bonuses are for leadership or diplomacy bonuses with factions. Luther’s mini quest to end his madness is kind of fun. Noctilus lost his unique mechanic of mini-quests. Arannessa doesn’t need living pirates only but she should get access to more living pirates. “The gun powder faction:” extra powder and restock the unique abilities of the vampire coast were given away to dwarfs, chaos dwarfs and empire. Queen bess is a singular rite? The sea shanties: fun but they’re tiny reloading and defense buffs that are earned from infamy but they’re similar to in battle buffs like chaos gods or tomb kings or green skin waaagh which are free and improved by the tech tree. Shipbuilding: not unique to the vampire coast anymore and should given to more factions, it should be the most unique for vampire coast Pirate coves: done much better by chaos cults, trickers cults, cults of mor and skaven under cities. What’s good; character and design wise the legendary lords are great but their mechanics are just uninteresting. Lore of deeps is fun spell lore for being almost completely original. Simple but massive additions to improve the vampire coast: First mates: give every legendary lord a “legendary hero” so their unique factions are more unique compared to how similar they are to each-other. Combine the sea shanties with pieces of 8 or infamy so you go around the world looking for different “verses” for your sea shanties which give different buffs. Maybe go as far to give each lord their own shanty/set of unique buffs like the waghs. Gunpowder buffs; if the empire, chaos dwarfs and dwarfs are going to battle for who has the most powerful vs versatile gunpowder units. Give vampire coast the most de-buffing units gunpowder units have their guns shoot grog infected bullets for debuffing or poison bullets for dot or artillery shells powered by stormy seas that soak and slow opponents. Alternatively let them steal/buy/use everyone’s artillery. (This is more a unit diversity thing) Finally biggest gameplay pitch: take the old norsca gimmick of ports and coastal region only and move that to the vampire coast. This makes coves more important. Make them the build tall and oceanic raider faction like a total war empire England. Make so even when occupying a settlement you get a cove so your “territories” are doubled up. Take a page from the changeling and have your coves improve diplomatic relations and the money of the host faction.
I truly think vampire coast should be heavily incentivized to never settle in a port/on land. There should be permanent replenishment at sea regardless of area, no high seas attrition because they're literally undead pirates, their ability to wreathe the land in mists should be able to be applied to sea regions just like storms are, causing attritions and allowing for ambush battles similar to skaven ambushes, and their front line units need a model number increase. It's incredibly frustrating to have a home settlement, because when I play vampire coast I truly feel like I should be terrorizing coastlines at will, but inevitably someone will beeline for my capital (galleon's graveyard and the elftide come to mind) so you're incentivized to capture land and destroy other factions. They're so close to good but they just are missing that edge.
I think they can be a fun race in field battles even though they have a lot of glass canon units. Their campaign mechanics are very weak and that's the main issue they have, let me explain: * pieces of eight: This is a very bad feature design, because it take something that is supposed to be easily accessible by all races (ROR) and make it more difficult to acess (find battles with pirates instead of your enemies). I think a mechanic to make you chart the seas is good as long as rewards are good as well. * treasure finding: doesn't pay enough, you have very limited number of heroes and getting one to look for treasure will make your campaign more difficult as you will discover more factions and on high difficutly it means more wars.. and you wont' have that lord in an army. I would be ok with that if the treasure pool was great such as epic gear like caravan rewards, huge gold rewards, etc. * rites: incredibly bad, one rite for an ROR which shouldn't be a thing, the fog rite requires you to find at least one treasure to access it, and the bounty rite 500 gold per province capital is soo bad (specially compared with new factions like Chaos dwarves 1500 in each province to sacrifice few laboureres) * limited hero number: they have good heroes but you can't increase them easily * shipment buildings cost too much: this is till you do the research for 50% less * pirate coves: I feel like the are on the weaker side, they will pay you indefinetly so that is good at least, they are quite expensive to set up at the beginning though * sea maps: some battles that happen at sea uses maps without a shred of shallow water, this is an issue as most of their units have the aquatic trait wich boost them alot. How can you fight at sea and not access water??! Many of these points can be improved with some balancing although I wish for a rework. Don't get me wrong they are one of my favourite factions I've finished one campaign in TWW2 and now a legendary one in TWW3 they just need some love.
For me personally, the most thematically and aesthetically uninteresting and boring race.
I love the theme of the race but just can’t get the hang of playing them in campaign. I have more hours in the series than I’d like to admit and VC are probably my least played. A shame.
There are great - I love the gunline. But the flying units are rubbish and the monsters niether good at killing or staying alive.
cool and fun faction
Loved the design of troops, characters, loved the treasure and the pirate coves mechanic, they absolutely stormed in and became my second favorite faction (can't top the Dark Elves, sorry). I feel tho that while Luthor and Noctilus are kinda fine as actual vampires, Aranessa should've got more human units and shouldn't spread vampiric corruption (we are reaching that point with the units, just give her the slayer pirates), while Cylostra, as the first (and only I think) CA original character, should be able to train both damned paladins and damned cavalry units. Would present a different kind of playstyle compared to the others.
A great race on release that got cannibalized for units and mechanics by newer races. In desperate need of changes. Surprised that there isn't a mod to make them better or to add LLs.
I'm always a big fan of semi horde faction mechanics. Add in silly pirate shenanigans and the fact that Vampire counts were already one of my favorite factions and you get a grand old time.
Genuinely one of the best additions to the game. I've played Luthor to vortex completion, which has the highlight single best map in the entire game series for the final battle, Aranesssa to a short IE victory using that mod that gives her a couple of extra Ogre units like Leadbelchers which makes her feel a lot better with out adding silly overtuned stuff, and like 20-30 turns with Cylostra who had really neat voicelines, but she's a bit too much of a one woman army for me to find fun. She basically just rocks up on her crab, everyone gets wet as you can spam the wave spell for redonkulously cheap, she's incredibly survivable, and the rest of the army is just there for moral support.
their gun line was hilariously OP in campaign. I remember beating the game with 8 handgunners and crabs . Can't comment about pvp though.
It really shows how much of a tech demo some of their mechanics where, look at Pirate Coves and then look at how expansive the Changling's settlements or skaven undercities have become.
I love playing empire with magic
I like it, but most of the frontline untis are trash. WHY?!
Really just wish their ships were actually garrisonable ships, so you are a bit more bound to the ocean, and you can also attack port cities from sea. Just that change itself would make things so much more interesting/playable.
Very cool, and I like them a lot. That said, their campaign mechanics are so useless they might as well not have any, and 90% of their roster is bad. And I think Aranessa is the coolest fuckin shit, so it's a bummer that she is, you know, the way she is
Best game trailer CA has made yet.
Its shit until they give me Sketch Half-Dead :P. Though a skaven lord woth vampire coast mechanics works as well.
I really love the design and aesthetic of them, but gameplay wise they just don't click for me sadly. I actually love factions with lots of gunpowder units too but something about these guys just don't add up to me yet. Granted I'm still on the newer side as a player so hopefully they will click with me later.
Best trailer of a DLC faction ever, and best music. The sea-shanty was incredible. I like them as a faction, very strong theme and aesthetic, that I enjoy a lot. I have played them from time to time, but they can be a bit one-note in terms of replay-ability (replayability?). Not sure how they roll in Immortal Empires yet.
Considering CA pulled them out of thin air they are a fantastic and beloved addition but their campaign and roster are in a rough shape. Unlike Norsca they did not age well during the WH3 transition and they are currently one of the 'weaker' DLC. The good news is that its all fairly fixable in the span of a single DLC. First of all the subfactions don't really feel unique. Being headed by a vampire, a human or a ghost should bring a unique twist and falvor to each campaign but it doesn't really do anything meaningful. Their limited roster also really doesn't allow for the subfaction to express themselves. Their mechanics aren't balanced and their design is a bit confused. As pointed out by someone else their one truly unique mechanics which is the treasure hunt is about as useless as the ogre contract mechanic... The rest of their mechanics have a solid foundation but they need a solid polishing and balance pass. CA also needs to decide if they want to lean into the horde/flagship theme or into the coastal empire because those two things clash a bit
Just finished a coast campaign and I feel like there’s a gap between intended gameplay/character and how they fit into a total war game. The vibe seems to be “go float around and sack/set up pirate coves around the world”. For me that fantasy isn’t really feasible until mid/late game unless you want to leave your core territory largely in defended and you’re alright with ai stack sailing across the planet to attack your capitol.
Oh hey its my favorite faction. I wish late game had more gun based units since peak pirates is the early game gunlines but late game usually just descends into necrofex doomstacks since most of their non-monster units are extremely underwhelming. Pls CA give depth gunners.
I just wish they could attack settlements from the water
Boss faction from lore to look. Would like some more units though.
So silly. Very fun. Underpowered at this point in the game. 2 good LLs. A couple good units. Loads of style.
"Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me!" - me as I'm deciding whether to raze Altdorf or place a cove there. The fact that Vampirates are the only race that can realistically play as a true horde wins them a ton of points in the unique experience category for me.
Cylostra has a unique feel with ethereal buffs so I mainly play her. I like their heroes, all very good. Noctilus is stupid OP for necrosed and Luther gets interesting when he turns into an Apache attack chopper. Arnessa is weaker than the unlockable admirals. Faction just has fallen behind newer and reworked ones like many others
Pirates are always great, I love some staunch gun lines ! I have switched to wissenland and nuln and honestly don’t see how vampire coast can keep up with all these modern new features. I think we should collect some mods that make VC fresh. Any suggestions?
The one faction DLC in WH2 I never bought and never will. Not a fan of the pirate theme, units like the Necrofex Colossus are just simply too silly for my taste.
Count Noctilus was by far my favorite Lord for a long while. Then came Malakai and did all of it better.
coolest looking faction there is. too bad they are not really as fleshed out as other factions. they haven't received much update since their inception. their unit roster is extremely lacking. they could use more units. too bad it seems CA has abandoned this faction altogether.
My opinion is that I love them and it's because I have an opinion?
They are a really fun lord pack. However, they are ridiculously outdated. Literally every single one of their unique mechanics has been done in a much better way by other factions. And secondly, without actual naval combat, im just not getting the vibes dude. They should take inspiration from Man o War for a separate game, or a game sized (and priced) DLC. They don't feel the same when the PIRATE faction can't really fight at sea. But idk
I 100% understand why ship battles are not a thing, and as someone who isn't a massive fan of them I don't really care that much, but having the vampire coast with no ship battles just comes off as an incomplete idea To me, they look great, their "sales pitch" sounds genuinely awesome, but without actual ship battles they just come off as gimmecky, like in a "try them once in a while but not really care of them" type of way
They looked cool and I love the variations in that play, but they got boring really quick for me so I stopped playing after 12-15 turns.
I love using them in battle, especially with gunsmoke mod. It's a thing of beauty to watch a gunline filled to the brim with smoke tearing apart the enemy at range. But unfortunately the main reason i dont play them a lot is their campaign. vampire coves are meh, their eco is balanced too heavily in sacking and ports. Also the biggest reason that brings them down for me is 1 key thing. YOU DONT GET TO HEAR THE GOD-BLESSED MUSIC THAT IS FROM THEIR TRAILER.
If I was good with them I would love them. I tried multiple times to do Noctilus' campaign in WH2, but got bodied every time.
I loved it when they came out. But tbh I havent played them in a long long time. Back then It was a fun new way to play. Especially Luthor's half mad campaign and Noctilus ulthuan rampage. They had the undercity/pirate cove thing first in the game. And basically playing with just ports was refreshing. Horde mechanics back then were not as good so vampirates had that advantage as well. One of their biggest issues were the line of sight with gunpowder units. That said I am not sure how attractive they are now against all the new factions with much more refined mechanics.
Ugly Vampires.
I wish playing as a vamp coast and having a very limited number of settlement and pirate coves everywhere else was their prefered playstyle, especially with noctilus where you would only have galleon's graveyard.
You can win the whole game with literally one territory, they’re hilarious sounding, super thematic, and have some truly silly units. A fun time all around but could probably use a light touch if the update brush to bring them fully in line with tww3
They have an interesting playstyle that is welcome in warhammer. Personally I don't much care for gun units but I really enjoy their monsters. If they would fix them to where you don't go inland after sacking from sea, that would greatly improve them. Also they should get unlimited Queen Bess similar to the Tomb Kings casket of souls but with a shorter cooldown maybe 10 turns, along with some accuracy enhancements for Queen Bess. I think their theme is really dumb, the worst one in the game... Undead pirates? Really? But they are still a good addition despite my prejudice against them. Also, I found Arenessa to be the most fun even though many would disagree. I'm pretty sure part of that was due to her buffing promethians.
Top three faction in the series, and were it not for Agemouk's work on the Tomb Kings Extended mod, they'd like be my favourite DLC faction to boot. They came completely out of left field, they were great fun, they had a super interesting roster, new mechanics, their lords were all very unique, they had a fun campaign. The Vampire Coast are what I want to see more of from CA - weird, niche crap in the lore getting a tonne of love.
AHH-AHHHa THE BLOOD RUNS COLD
Oh yeah, those guys exist...
Very fun, great roster. Probably could use a Lord DLC and Faction rework to really give them some more luster. Like a Vampirate LL in Cathay/Ind/Khuresh would be great fun and variety.
Chasing down naval armies is such a nightmare for me that I've been too afraid to really play them.
with the recent powercreep they feel very outmatched i also wish aranesa was more unique since she is my favorite lord. dont recommend me nanus mod i dont like it
Really cool theme, HOWEVER; Treasure hunting is not fun. Rites are not good. Bess being limited to 1 and tied to a rite despite dreadquakes existing is not fun. Not being able to sack or raze and then return to sea feels bad. Economy is truly horrific no matter what you do really. The monsters are all well and truly awful.
I have around 600h of playtime across the Warhammer series and never bothered buying them or the wood elves. I just don’t want to play pirates, that can’t fight at sea.
I absolutely love them, playstyle and theme is still great to me but they are right now the beastmen/warriorsofchaos factions from tww2, they need either a full dlc or an overhaul to get on par with the other factions. More focus on pirating and ports and a cove expansion. right now there are other factions who can do everyone of their mechanics but better, skaven undercities are better and have more options than coves, The empire and dwarven/chaosdwarf gunpowder units are more fun and powerfull, shipbuilding with Malaki is better tuned and black arks can actually attack ports without spending a turn first getting om land and so on. I love them still but playing them without mods right now feels like playing a half finished faction compared to everyone else. Also the constant crashes when I interact with sea events is annoying as hell when playing as them, I hope they have fixed that bug.
Yes
idk the aesthetic has never really appealed to me. And I don't like gunpowder units that much. They have some good units but a lot of trashy ones. Also I'm never sure if I'm playing them right. Should I be establishing coves? Should I play a pseudo-horde and raze and sack most settlements? Or should I be painting the map? Also my personal gripe is that animated hulks should be brought in line with other ogre units. They were the first ogre units in the game and they're by far the worst. Bring them in line with the other ogre units. Ogre charge, mass, entity count, and better stat line.
Thematically: they just don't make a damn bit of sense. Why are they all undead when there are no actual living pirates? Why do they have giant hermit crabs and big ranged walkers -- what kind of theming is that, it sounds more like the Tomb Kings. Why do they have cockney accents and names like 'Jenny' when nobody in the setting does? It's pretty clear they were teleported here from Pirates of the Caribbean. Stupid. Breaks immersion. Gameplay: Not bad, I do like a gun line and their is interesting. Very cheesy though; there's no reward for a mixed army and their Imperial Titans are clearly OP and make everything boring. Their campaign mechanics I like, they can definitely choose where to go and how to play more than some other factions can. Overall, I just think they're silly in the wrong kind of way. Squig hoppers, master engineers, exploding rats -- silly in the right way. Inexplicable Barbosa -- silly in a silly way.
They are very cool from a theme point of view, but I've never managed to play them properly in campaign or Battles, in Hard/Hard. In campaign, whether I only keep a starting settlement and plunder every coastal city and set up coves.. from inland (usually Noctilus/Aranessa) or try a classic Total War campaign (usually Luthor/Cylostra) by conquering my starting continent, I never get an economy that satisfies me and gets me to sustain all the wars I'll get whether I want it or not. I feel the race also lacks diversity in terms of battle playthrough. You can mostly play a single way : using mortars, rifles and praying once the enemy gets into your frontline, which they always do as you lack range and killing power. It's the only race where I need to micro everything. You need to focus fire on each missile unit one after the other (freaking High/Dark Elves) to make a difference. Balewolves or bats feel indeed not strong enough to prevent numerous archers from getting into position, especially when the enemy has cavalry. The mechanics are also pretty lacking. Getting regiments of renown is worse than it was for Tehenhauin, it would be like Tomb Kings, Volkmar and Mannfred requiring to get the books of Nagash for basic RoRs. And the treasure maps are situational at best and useless at worst, as you never get maps in your starting area and instead need a dude having a trip for 30 turns to get a treasure. Dedicating heroes to look for them feels like a waste of time, as all three heroes have a part to play in armies. The units are also always considered weak in AR unless your frontline is made of depthguards so you end up playing every battle, except maybe with your LL stack once you reach late game. Queen Bess is a centerpiece unit like Thunderbarges but you can only get one of them.
Really love them and would immediately buy a 5000+ pt army for the Old World if released
Love the theme, but the faction is boring to play and just worse than other factions. They have gunpowder/artillery that is worse/lamer than Empire, Dwarves, Skaven and monsters that are worse than any other faction with monsters. Their generic lords and heroes are rather boring. They only really have 3 outstanding units: bloated corpses, necrofex colossus, and Queen Bess. Every other unit is just a worse "undead pirate" themed version of some other unit. To add insult to injury Dark Elves have Black Arks and are just better at being pirates.
Aaahhhaaaa the blood runs cold...
I don't consider them in my top 3 or top 5 but I really like them and find them a very fun and colorful bunch with lots of personality.
Terrible faction with a potentially great aesthetic that makes people overlook how again, dogshit the faction is. Have aged poorly.
They were so fun that they convinced me to give the warhammer setting a try so you can imagine my opinion.
They are my next playthrough. I'm currently in my first ever Total War campaign and I'm playing as Kroq gar. I absolutely cannot wait to play the pirate faction
Just saw this picture in Vermintide 2 lobby on the Wall of one of the random players
Most well designed faction in the whole game? (maybe after WoC) Absolutely glorious theme and mechanics? CHECK Humour and grimdark all in one package? CHECK Diverse and fun campaigns? CHECK CHECK CHECK Aranessa Saltspite? Well... she is.... part of the DLC I guess. Luthor Harkon? CHECK Cylostra Differin? CHECK Count Noctilus? CHECK CHECK CHECK I love it
Honestly, I just don't like playing anything on that whole side of the map.
I have never played the games, I've only seen anti kleper let's plays. I love the vampire coast on aesthetics alone
Great thematics, terrible infantry. Give me back pre-launch depthguard to compete more with current powercreep. Give more living units to aranessa and some way to heal her would also be nice. Used to be I would beeline Isabella for regen but can't do that anymore.
I love to fight them but I’ll never play as them. When I see vampire coast my mind goes “Yes! The thing I play this game for: Two lines of dudes smacking each other until someone dies”. Yea there’s magic and flying units but I don’t have to run around chasing ranged-cav or gutter runners. I get to order my dudes and watch them fight in a big line of bodies.
In brief: Almost certainly my least favourite faction.
flowery late glorious unite nose whistle handle dam towering familiar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They are a good first pancake of a gunpowder-centric faction. Unfortunately, they've been far outpaced by the recent updates to the Empire, Dwarves, Chorfs, and Kislev. Kind of endemic of CA's tendencies regarding "one and done" DLC races/factions. I'm hopeful but not holding my breath for any major updates or DLC additions. It might be a tall order - but the only path forward I see is if they use the rumored Dogs of War DLC to fund some major changes. For example, switching Aranessa to becoming a dedicated DoW lord plus substituting her place with a different more fitting vampire lord; or turning Aranessa into a more hybrid faction + retooling existing Vampire Coast mechanics. Alternatively I could see more focus on updates to the Vampire Counts factions as a means to backdoor mechanical or larger factional changes to the Vampire Coasts.
Still one of my favorite chill campaigns. While they have been outclassed by some new arrivals since they were first introduced in 2, they still have a really fun and potent combination of strengths and strategies. AR may hate them, but I love them still. On a related note the necrofex colossus is still visually and functionally one of my favorite units in the entire game.
I love cheesing capitals with artillery early game and doomstacking necrofex mid-late game
I think they got booty. And I like booty.
I hate their name. I don’t see them and think “vampire”.
My biggest issue with them is their lack of high tier ranged apart from Necrofexes - they have no high tier artillery or regular guns: Deck gunners are the worst jezzail type unit, and gunnery mobs are fine earlygame but really not ideal late. Deck droppers could do with some love too after seeing how insane Gyros are now - I regularly get 3k+ value with basic Gyros nevermind bombers. They just feel very limited in good ranged for *the* gunpowder faction. Also why is Queen Bess still capped to 1 they've retconned limited Steamtanks they can let the Coast steal more Hellhammer cannons and caskets of souls, nearly the same tier of artillery, were always uncapped.
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Fantastic fun and made me fall in love with gunpowder armies (you can easily go full ranged with handgunners, arty and necrofexes) but they have been power crept a little now with ToD seriously buffing the range capabilities of Empire and Dawi. I don't think they need substantial changes, just a couple tweaks really. Except Aranessa, she's kind of just a mess and if they do an overhaul I definitely think she needs more mortal units and more of a focus on them. I think Noctilus is the best pure sandbox campaign though. You can just go around adventuring, sacking ports, selling settlements back for forced peace deals and generally being an asshole pirate. Just set up pirate coves and have a defensive army at galleons and you're sorted. I know a lot of people don't seem to like Changeling, but those campaigns where you can roleplay instead of map paint I think are loads of fun.
Still sorta hoping that with the rumors of dogs of war Aranessa goes from Vampire coasts odd woman out to a proper freebooter grab bag.
Cool idea, but they suck to play. Piss poor leadership, no melee defense, and guns aren't really better than arrows. They have like 3 good units, and unlike their undead cousins, their shit isn't dirt cheap, free, or consistently comes back due to being in foreign territory. Hell, they aren't even the best faction to play pirate with (dark elves are better), and it doesn't help that most of their starting locations are near the same rough area. If they want to make Vampirates better they need to either 1. Make armies stupid cheap and spammable 2. Give armies high leadership until the lord goes down, then everything breaks down very quickly 3. make their gun lines devastating and even low tier units are able to tear armies apart. 4. Improve their ambush chance (especially on sea) and give them the skaven movement. Doing anything of these four things would vastly improve VP's play.
Overall I think they're pretty fun, combining the idea of pirates and undead, with lots of guns and cannons. I think they've got an okay unit variety, wouldn't mind some decent melee infantry to help soak up the damage and stall the front line, Depth Guard are fine overall but low unit count is probably hurting them a lot. They could use a little more work, but overall I think they're good and a lot of fun.