In his eternal quest for dominance, Nagash has mustered undead servants to fill the ranks of his vast armies. The Soulblight Gravelords are among his most powerful allies, contributing terrible bloodthirst, midnight sorcery, and subtle influence to his endless campaign against the living. These accursed vampires command hordes of unliving thralls in service to the Great Necromancer.
Undead nobles all, vampires were first wrought within the Mortal Realms by Nagash’s hand. The God of Undeath awoke in the depths of Shyish, buried beneath a cairn of grave-sand. True to form, his first act once released was to raise undead lackeys in a bid to conquer the underworlds in his name. Armies need commanders, so he reached into the aether and retrieved the souls of powerful deathly deputies. Among these Mortarchs were the first vampires – Mannfred von Carstein, Neferata, and Ushoran.
These mostly-loyal lieutenants began imparting their blood kiss upon mortals, transforming them into vampires – eternal creatures blessed with quicksilver speed, supernatural strength, and magical prowess. Like all things born of necromancy, however, the power and immortality of the Soulblight curse comes with a terrible cost. It lurks within every vampire, inflicting a bestial hunger for blood that threatens to overwhelm whatever scraps of humanity they still cling to.
Regardless of whether they indulge this hunger and become savage, gore-slicked nightmares or impose upon themselves courtly traditions and vows of self-restraint, all vampires are drawn to conquer and subjugate the living, using their innate necromantic powers to raise mighty undead armies and carve out great empires. While capable of independent thought and often involved in endless internecine scheming, the Soulblight Gravelord’s overriding need for domination ultimately plays into the hands of their tyrannical master.
Overview
Neferata and Mannfred serve Nagash directly, ruling the Legion of Blood and Legion of Night, respectively. Despite their outward subservience, they are both resolute schemers who always have an eye on the other’s territory.
Mannfred is a master tactician, raising armies of elite warriors that he commands with guile, even as he secretly pursues esoteric necromantic studies in an attempt to free himself from his servitude. His rival, Neferata, puts on grand displays of military prowess with her Nulahmian vampires while simultaneously turning her court into a breeding ground for conspiracy and plotting, spinning a hundred intricate plans and counter-plans to maintain her unassailable position.
Other vampires fall into one of the numerous dynasties that have taken root in the Mortal Realms, each a complex web of relationships ruled by the most powerful of their kind. Their vast armies are raised with foul necromancy, implacable Deathrattle Skeletons and Black Knights plundered from long-dead kingdoms. Necromancers in their service reinforce these ranks with hordes of Deadwalker Zombies, freshly turned undead utilised as chattel troops to smother the living under their rotting weight.
Each dynasty is shaped by the realms in which they make their lairs, as well as the vampires that have sired them. Chief among these dark broods are the Vyrkos, Avengorii, and the Kastelai. Ruled by a family of lycanthropic vampires, the Vyrkos hunt their foes under a choir of howls, commanding great packs of Dire Wolves to run down their prey. The Avengorii are a court of nightmarish horrors, their twisted forms a result of giving themselves over wholly to the Soulblight curse. From the Crimson Keep of the Kastelai dynasty comes Prince Vhodrai and his acolytes of war, imperious Blood Knights who arrogantly trample lesser foes underfoot as they hone their martial skill.
Bolstered by necromantic power, the Soulblight Gravelords are relentless in their pursuit of conquest and threaten to one day outnumber the living.
Battle Traits
The vampiric masters of the Soulblight Gravelords employ the dark magic of necromancy to rouse The Unquiet Dead that litter the battlefields of the Mortal Realms. The Rising Dead burst out of cairns, graveyards, mausoleums, and burial grounds to serve their masters, while the vampire lords raise Endless Legions time and time again to overwhelm their foes.
Even damaged units of skeletons, zombies, and wights can be restored with a Deathly Invocation from a callous leader, and the Soulblight aristocracy aren’t any easier to kill – they ruthlessly cut through enemies before feasting on their blood to satisfy The Hunger.
Battle Formations
With near-limitless undead minions at their command, the Soulblight Gravelords can engage in battle in a number of ways suited to their proclivities. The Deathmarch is a relentless horde of skeletons raised to subjugate in a Tide of Bone and Blades that crushes all before it with morbid momentum.
Other formations include convocations of spellcasters who draw on forbidden powers to enhance their Deathly Invocations. War parties composed primarily of vampire lords make great use of their spellcasting and combat prowess to bring ruin to their foes, while others prefer to utilise the unsubtle application of hundreds of Deadwalker Zombies in an effort to suffocate resistance.
Arcana and Incantations
Soulblight Gravelord wizards use the Lore of Undeath to harass their enemies and empower themselves. Vile Transference lets them siphon life energies from their foes, dealing mortal damage and healing the caster should they completely drain their enemy.
Other spells in this lore can immobilise an enemy by forcing them to relive great tragedies in the prison of their own mind and sap their strength by causing living tissue to waste away at an accelerated rate.
Unit Focus
There are many discrete dynasties united under the Banner of the Soulblight Gravelords, and the lupine Vyrkos dynasty is one of the most powerful – a savage clan composed of some of the greatest vampires to ever stalk the Mortal Realms.
Radukar the Beast is one such brute, a warlord who tried – and failed – to sacrifice the entire city of Ulfenkarn in a bid to ascend to necromantic godhood. In his final moments, his will to survive saw him transform into a towering monstrosity with dagger-length claws. His Call to the Hunt is inescapable and fills his minions with an insatiable urge to kill for their patriarch.
Radukar maintains his cunning and can call on the necromantic energy running through his cursed blood to conjure Armour of the Night around his bestial form, making him even harder to hit and wound.
Despite their wolf-like nature, the Vyrkos are tame pups compared to the monstrous Avengorii Dynasty. Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares, is ever-living proof of how far the Soulblight curse can twist their mortal form if left unchecked, her Impaling Talons inflicting grievous wounds on larger prey.
The Nightmare Miasma that surrounds her many-limbed form causes weapons to crumble in her foes' hands, and with The Queen’s Dictat she can stoke the ardour of her bestial brood, making them even more ferocious.
Those vampires who are not yet mighty lords and ladies with their own courts may join the ranks of the Blood Knights, becoming crimson chevaliers that run down their enemies from atop skeletal mounts clad with heavy barding.
These Riders of Ruin carve a path straight through INFANTRY units, leaving anything in their wake Trampled to Dust as they level their lances on worthier targets that may better satiate their twisted sense of chivalry.
Vampires who succumb to their most base urges may eventually become transformed into Vargheists, winged horrors that have lost all sense of self and live only to gorge themselves on flesh and blood.
Launching themselves high into the sky on powerful wings, their Death’s Descent allows them to then plunge back into the battle – ready to fight again and instilling fear in the hearts of their foes.
The Word from the Studio
Jimbo: “Endlessly the animated dead and the walking undead march onwards, a relentless tide that will eventually claim all before them at the behest of their imperious vampire masters and their manifold subordinates. Can your opponent hold back the tide of bones, decaying flesh and vampiric beings that you can raise in your army, or will they be slaughtered and raised to fight in the ranks of your warriors?
The Soulblight Gravelords excel in overwhelming their foes by reanimating chaff units through battle traits and spells, employing teeming throngs of minions to control the battlefield while elite units, such as heavy cavalry and terrifying Zombie Dragons, smash aside more formidable opponents.”
Spearhead Spotlight
The vampiric patriciates of the Soulblight Gravelords are unified by one thing – an undying love of the hunt. Beneath their veneer of nobility lies an unquenchable thirst, and when it is left unsatisfied for too long, they will muster a Bloodcrave Hunt to indulge their fell urges.
Vampire Lords like to ensure that the hunt isn’t a dreary affair where their prey is offed too soon – so to ensure better sport, they will keep their Vargheists at bay, only letting them Swoop Down in the third battle round. The lord keenly suffers The Hunger along with their noble Blood Knights and chiropteran pets, drinking deep of their enemies’ life essence after slaughtering them.
Deathrattle Skeletons make up the bulk of the Bloodcrave Hunt, shambling warriors imbued with a parody of life by the vampire’s necromantic powers. This Skeleton Legion cuts down its foes with ancient weapons, death magic replenishing their ranks even as they fall.
Next week, we’re entering the final lap for our Faction Focus articles, and the scales are tipping back in the favour of Order as the Seraphon make their debut. All part of the Great Plan.
