Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Heinrich Kemmler - Vampire Counts Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts
Hello everyone. In this guide I will cover:
- Victory conditions, faction and climate;
- Starting location;
- Diplomacy and outposts;
- Mechanics of the race and faction;
- Province edicts and army stances;
- Buildings and research;
- Lords and skills;
- Army compositions;
And give you my final notes on the specific faction. Hope you enjoy it.
If you wish to watch the video, it also supports me:
https://youtu.be/3ol6mGXi9Z8
If you prefer to read, well, here we go:
VICTORY CONDITION:
Short victory:
- Destroy the faction of Argwylon;
- Control 3 specific provinces, Bastonne, Forest of Chalons, and Carcassone
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements
The reward is +15% replenishment rate, great to ensure your armies are fully replenished to continue on your conquests faster.
A fairly straigthforward campaign, should be completed fast without too many issues.
Long victory:
- Achieve the short victory;
- Occupy, loot, raze, or sack 75 different settlements
- Control all the provinces of the Empire
- Destroy the faction of Reikland
The reward is +35 winds of magic power reserve capacity, excellent buff for the Vampire counts overall since they have great spells that completely turn the tide of a battle.
This is a much better position that Mannfred's to pursue the long victory, and it should be done accordingly while still giving you enough room to take care of the initial bretonnia and wood elf enemies, as well as allowing you to take care of any endgame scenarios.
Heinrich is the Lichemaster, and he enjoys the benefits of:
+30 Diplomatic relations with Warriors of Chaos, Daemons of Chaos, Beastmen and Norsca;
Experience for Necromancers +25%;
Immune to Chaos undivided and chaos wastes attrition (!)
Raise dead cost -10%;
All of these benefits make him a great change from Mannfred; you will most likely be an ally to Chaos against the forces of order.
Climate is good, mountains being suitable and the no attrition from Chaos make him a better Vampire Counts lord to try to go for domination, even though it is still a difficult campaign to attempt it. For the most part, keep to the Old World for the time being, and only later decide if you wish to conquer the whole world.
STARTING POSITION:
- Your starting province is a 3 settlement province, but quite difficult to defend. Particularly, it is split up across the mountains and you cannot easily have one army covering it.
- In addition, you are surrounded by potential enemies and your eventual allies will take sometime to reach out to assist (namely Warriors of Chaos and Norsca). You will have to endure the majority of the fights alone for the time being.
- Typical expansion is to try and control most of Bretonnia, and go for Athel Loren. This is already a difficult task. Later you should aim for the Empire, but be wary of any counterattacks from the High Elves across the sea too.
DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:
Diplomatically, you are part of the evil tide, and you do have good relations with Chaos. Your best bets for friends early on are the Beastmen, Norsca, and Festus.
Enemies will be everyone from the Order Tide. Dwarfs, Empire, Bretonnia, High Elves, and the Wood Elves too.
Outpost potential is mainly with Chaos or Norsca. Try to secure some of their missile troops if you can, or their single entities.
MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:
Raise the dead is your top means of recruitment. There are specific regions that have an icon showing they have better options for raising the dead, and you always have battle markers that further enhance this to amazing levels. Stand on top of the battlefield, and watch them raise!
Blood Kisses are about getting the Bloodline Lords. You can acquire more Blood Kisses by assassinating characters, defeating Legendary Lords, and obtaining Vassals, for the most part. The Bloodline lords each grant significant benefits that stay throughout your campaign, so which ones you obtain first is quite an important strategic option. In addition, they all have unique skill lines that will allow you to have different army compositions if you like that (I sure do).
You require Vampiric corruption to not take attrition. This implies that you should always be corrupting where you are going to attack, perhaps leading with some heroes to gain an advantage there.
Finally, should you lose entire units in the battle, the Dead Rise again mechanic can bring back units to life. This allows you to avoid having to raise or recruit more troops, and to maintain your momentum.
PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:
Edicts:
Control +4; vampiric corruption +1;
Growth +20; construction cost -10%;
Income from all buildings +5%;
Recruit rank +1; local recruitment capacity +1;
A good varied bunch and efficient, although recruit rank and capacity may be underpowered given how the raise dead mechanic works.
Army stances:
Channeling takes 10% movement, allows replenishment in foreign territory and gives +15 winds of magic per turn;
Raiding cost 50% movement, gives you immunity to attrition;
Ambush costs 25% movement;
Forced march
One of the biggest issues for the Vampire counts is how they lack a stance that allows both replenishment and immunity to attrition. You have to choose, which makes them a rather poor faction to invade into uninhabitable terrain. Be wary in those places.
Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Heinrich Kemmler - Vampire Counts Overview, Guide And Second Thoughts(continuation)
BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:
Blackstone post has a landmark building that gives control, research rate, hero capacity for Necromancers, corruption, and it unlocks recruitment of Mortis Engines.
You require 7 military buildings, with only 2 being able to be fully built in minor settlements. You no longer require an armory as a secondary building, which is excellent.
Tier 3 units are decent, but cannot really build an army on its own that easily. Tier 4 and 5 are really important for your elite armies. Blood Knights, Mortis engines, Terrorgheists and Varghulfs, all are great to have for a good mid and lategame composition.
Growth is rather weak. It is very difficult to grow, so be mindful of it.
Infrastructure:
1 - Growth, hero recruitment (necromancer), local recruitment capacity. It is a rather expensive building, should be noted.
2 - Income and control;
3 - Corruption, and corruption in adjacent provinces.
It is a rather bland selection, but you may enjoy it since you have quite some clear choices.
Research is very useful, mostly divided into bonuses for infantry, monsters, ethereal units and crypt units, and Knights/chariots.
There are some good benefits for campaign too, so I encourage you study it to maximize what you wish in the campaign.
LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS (see screenshots as you read through):
Blue line allows quick replenishment and reduced upkeep. The last part of the line is not so inviting, although you may always wish to grab Lightning Strike, of course.
Heroes are among the best in the game. Two melee focused heroes, caster that can hold its own, a Necromancer that replenishes and is a nice support hero in battle... Two of them give you replenishment, which is excellent to ensure your armies are nearly always full.
Redline skill has good combinations, and it is easy to synergize those with the specific skills from all the Bloodline lords. The only issue is how every lord is a caster, so you may have to decide early what you wish to go for to ensure you have the skill points required for the build.
It is worth noting that most are divided into categories, allowing you to similarly upgrade low and high tier unis of the same type, like all infantry or all cavalry.
Kemmler has amazing upgrades for Cairn Wraiths and Hexwraiths. So of course an amry around that idea is a cool concept. Keep an eye out for those pesky magic damage dealers, and engage them with other units. Flying units are always a nice addition, or you can go all out and just have some fun with some Mortis engines (but really care for the magic weapon enemies).
Then I have some examples of the Bloodline lords and what you can aim to go for. Free bats and 40% reduced upkeep for Vargheists imply you can have a great army to assist or to sweep enemies, or even to help in sieges.
The Ghouls have an advantage in the crypt ghouls and horrors, nothing wrong with going with that flavor too.
Then I have some combinations for grave guard and blood knights, always helpful. And some combinations with only ethereal units, but careful with magic yielders.
Notice the overall reduced cost in redline skill points really. It is a great faction to spend very little while upgrading the entire army.
FINAL NOTES:
Kemmler is a nice change of pace from Mannfred, different enemies, different start, different allies even, this is what makes Kemmler so cool.
You are closer to Bretonnia and the Wood Elves, and it may give you quite a challenge in the beginning. Later, whatever happens with the Chaos factions is interesting, to make this campaign have some replay value, and it also depends on which endgame scenario you have set too.
Your army mostly consists of:
1 - Good infantry
2 - Great cavalry
3 - Great flying units
4 - Good chariots
5 - No missile units
6 - Relies on magic earlier on
Replenishment is good, but climate will of course cause some issues. Kemmler suffers a bit less, so it is a nice faction to try that domination victory win.
So, time to fight with Kemmler now?
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2965255254
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