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Not to be confused with the Vampire Coast geographical area.

"From dark place I came, and to darker places still I travel, dear heart. Wyrm-midden and filth my crib; man-flesh and dead-thing my down. To the coast of far away land I sailed, to delve in dusty place. Not for glimmer, nor spark, but for Lizard-wyrd parchment and age-crusted name. Secrets and lies, from the birth of time, so all that is hidden be mine, my dear. Slime-thing lovers call sailors to salty death in my name. With a touch, he rises once more, brine-blood vigour her delight. Her kiss is clammy little death. Her song calls men from every land, and my servants walk the land of swamp, doing death for all time."

—Arch Grand Commodore Luthor Harkon[3a]
Vampire Coast Crest

The crest of the Vampire Coast Zombie Pirate faction of the Vampire Fleet Admiral Luthor Harkon as seen in Total War: Warhammer II.

The Zombie Pirates of the Vampire Coast are one of the largest, most persistent threats faced by the Lizardmen empire of Lustria. The Vampire Fleet Admiral and Vampire Lord Luthor Harkon has plagued the eastern regions of that continent for centuries, and his sacking of the temple-city of Axotl has made the eradication of his realm on the Vampire Coast of utmost importance to the Slann mage-priests.[3b]

In the PC game Total War: Warhammer II by Creative Assembly, a DLC was released called Curse of the Vampire Coast. The DLC added 4 playable Zombie Pirates factions which, other than Luthor Harkon, are not directly linked geographically to the Vampire Coast region of Lustria but are collectively known as the "Vampire Coast." They are, in fact, actually all Zombie Pirate factions.[4]

History[]

Luthor Harkon Fleet1

The Zombie Pirates of the Vampire Coast.

In 876 IC, the Vampire Fleet Admiral Luthor Harkon arrived on the shores of Lustria and used his dark necromantic arts to raise the corpses of drowned seamen. He established his own empire of the unliving, which came to be known as the "Vampire Coast."[3a]

By 930 IC, the Slann lord Xltep of Itxa tired of the presence of the unnatural occupants of the Vampire Coast as Harkon attempted to expand his realm into the Lustrian interior. The mage-priest ordered his cohorts to march against the Undead and comprehensively defeated Luthor Harkon's horde at the Battle of the Eclipse.[3a]

Gunnery Wight Concept Art 1

Vampire Coast Zombie Pirate Gunnery Wight concept art for Total War: Warhammer II.

Decades later, in 1011 IC, Harkon thirsted for vengeance against the Lizardmen and so orchestrated a dread enchantment to draw vessels sailing the Great Ocean off-course with its siren-wail to be shipwrecked on the Vampire Coast. Over the course of several centuries, he amassed a sizeable horde of Undead warriors by reanimating the corpses of his victims.[3a]

In 1127 IC, Harkon dispatched his Undead warriors aboard the decaying hulks of shipwrecked vessels. These so-called "Zombie Pirates of the Vampire Coast" struck fear into already superstitious mariners across the oceans of the Known World and brought yet more victims back to join Harkon's armies.[3a]

Total War Zombie Pirate Gunnery Concept Art 1

Vampire Coast Zombie Pirate Gunnery Mob concept art for Total War: Warhammer II.

In 1351 IC, Harkon mobilised a vast horde of Zombie Pirates and marched out of the fetid swamps of the Vampire Coast. The host was enveloped by a dank, stinking mist that seemed to creep along as the Undead advanced. Despite heroic rear-guard actions by desperate Skink sentinels, the horde fell upon the temple-city of Axlotl, slaughtered its defenders, and cast it down so completely that it is said that no stone now stands upon another. Though the Skink Priests evacuated the most precious of artefacts, Harkon returned to his lair with countless items of arcane power.[3a]

With the coming of the other mortal races to Lustria, Harkon has hatched a new scheme, no matter the consequences of invasion. He has dispatched emissaries to the more black-hearted mortal invaders, messengers bearing gifts -- gilded, ebony skulls -- containing the power to call forth Harkon's Undead servants. With these allies the invaders further Harkon's power with every battle.[3b]

Capabilities[]

Zombie Pirates

Zombie Pirates attacking one of the reptilian beasts of Lustria.

Having risen from all manner of watery graves, every member of a Zombie Pirates army can move over marshes, rivers, lakes, or any other water features without any issue and will benefit from soft cover while in such terrain.[2a]

The pirates of the Vampire Coast carry a large assortment of blackpowder weapons, ranging from pistols to Great Cannons -- not a normal sight in the retinues of more traditionally minded (and less clinically insane) Vampire Counts. Though Zombies are not normally known for their ability to shoot straight (or at all), Harkon long ago wove an enchantment that allows them to do just that. However, even the misused magics of the Slann have a hard time making soggy and waterlogged black powder weapons discharge with any reliability.[2a]

Lore of the Deep[]

Jim-russell-tw-wh3-dlc-cst-lore-of-the-deep-spells-pre-viz

Lore of the Deep spell concept art created for Total War: Warhammer II.

The Lore of the Deep is a lore of magic that can only be used by some Vampires. No matter how far away, none can escape the Kiss of the Deep, nor breathe again with lungs full of seawater.[4]

Spells[]

  • Tidecall - The sea is summoned, and a great tide coalesces upon the battlefield to drench all those that oppose the caster.[4]
  • Spiteful Shot - Sheer, undiluted spite increases the range of Undead ranged troops further.[4]
  • Denizens of the Deep - Some things should never rise above the waves or be seen by mortal eyes.[4]
  • Fog of the Damned - They'll never know how many we are in this fog...Attack![4]
  • Vangheist's Revenge - Every mariner has heard the tale of Vangheist, and now his restless spirit is summoned on board the Shadewraith to deliver a devastating broadside to enemy ships.[4]
  • Kraken's Pull - Few have the strength to break free once the Kraken has them within its horrid, tentacled grasp.[4]

Miniatures[]

The Vampire Fleet Captain of Sartosa and the pirate of Sartosa below were official miniatures created for the Citadel Collectors Range, and available exclusively via mail order.[18a] The rest of the following miniatures were made through conversions of more standard Warhammer miniatures.

Forces of the Zombie Pirates[]

Total War Vampire Coast Ship Render 1

A Vampire Coast Zombie Pirates ship as rendered for Total War: Warhammer II.

Leaders[]

  • Vampire Fleet Admiral - The Vampires that lead the ranks of Undead mariners typically have centuries of experience. As long-living admirals, they can become a warship's heart and soul -- being Undead, however, those are two things they themselves lack.
  • Vampire Fleet Captain - Harkon's captains or "shipwights" are all carefully turned Vampires created from the mariners that he captures. Given the arch grand commodore's whimsical nature, they tend to be bloodthirsty souls whose grasp on rational thought is a little less than solid.[2c]
  • Syreens - Tales speak of the Syreens that lure mariners to their doom on the rocks along the Vampire Coast. These wretched creatures are much akin to the Banshees of the Old World and are as feared on dry land as they are on the seas.[2c]
  • Gunnery Wight - Some men are so adept in the use of their weaponry during their lifetimes, however, that the Winds of Magic imprint those skills upon them so they may also manifest after death. The rifle-wielding Gunnery Wights are examples of this phenomenon, carefully animated from the corpses of high-ranking marksmen and artillerymen to be as obsessed with blackpowder in death as they were in life.[4]
  • Mourngul Haunter - When bodily death overtakes the stranded and desperate, such is their anguish and malice that it lingers on, and the most destructive Winds of Magic are drawn to coil around their spirits to taint and saturate them. With their cadavers becoming warped and twisted into inhuman proportions, they transform into something neither ghost nor revenant -- a monstrous, razor-thin shadow of cold, dead flesh and frostbite-cracked bone, with a gaping maw of needle-teeth and a cavernous stomach that hangs open like a dreadful wound. [4]

Infantry[]

  • Zombie Pirate Deckhands Mob - Festooned with all manner of rusty and corroded weaponry, Zombie Pirates make up the bulk of Harkon's and the other Zombie Pirate leaders' damned followers. Unlike most reanimated vassals, some vicious spark of personality resides deep within the rotten souls of the deckhands, making them all the more formidable in combat.[2d]
  • Zombie Pirate Gunnery Mob - Though their weapons are rusted and sodden, many of Harkon's Undead pirates cling to the guns they held so dearly in life. Wielding a shabby collection of blackpowder weapons long past their best, the Zombies of the Gunnery Mob still gain a small spark of the satisfaction they enjoyed in life through the random discharge of noisy, indiscriminate firepower.[2d]
  • Bloated Corpse - Some cadavers lurch from the sea swollen with noxious gases and liquefying tissues seeping from rotten and tattered skin. It is preferable by far to fight such a creature at a distance, for when slain, their tortured forms disintegrate in a poisonous shower of decomposing internal organs and diseased fluids.[2e]
  • Animated Hulks - Not all mariners are of Human stature and girth. Indeed, many Ogres take passage aboard ocean-going vessels in search of money or food. Thus, not all of Harkon's eternal indentured servants are man-sized, though for some reason the reanimation process often yields more unpredictable results.[2g]
  • Deck Gunners - Dead or alive, all pirates love guns, and the bigger they are, the better. Though the barrels be corroded and the aim of the gunners be poor, the sheer power and range of Harkon's swivel gunners command respect from his foes.[2g]
  • Depth Guard - The Depth Guard are the elite, Vampiric infantry of the Zombie Pirate armies of the Vampire Coast. Blood Knight warriors one and all, they are hand-picked by their masters and given the Blood Kiss, rather than being simply raised from the drowned rabble. Clad in eldritch plate armour, they are an unstoppable force on the field of battle, unrelenting in their advance.[4]

Warbeasts[]

  • Scurvy Dogs - Many pirate settlements are filthy dives of scum and villainy, infested with all manner of vermin and wild dogs, many of which are pitied by drunken pirates and brought aboard ship as affectionate, if somewhat noisome pets. Many such dogs serve their masters beyond the death of both. These dogs are less affectionate and much more noisome.[2e]
  • Razortooth Rats - Most rats abandon a sinking ship, but the cadaverous rodents that scuttle about the bilges of Harkon's fleet and those of the other Zombie Pirate admirals are more than content to forsake their vessel even before it has foundered. Razortooth Rats are driven by an undying hunger for the flesh of the living.[2f]
  • Deck Droppers - Fell Bats hang from the topmost spars high in the rigging of Harkon's and the other Zombie Pirate fleets and lie dormant until the coppery tang of blood fills the air. When battle rages, the bats dive among the combatants and carry a vicious (though somewhat disoriented) Zombie Pirate in their sharp talons.[2f]
  • Rotting Leviathan - There are many great and wondrous creatures in the seas of the Old World. From the Sea Dragons and Kraken of the Great Ocean, to the crab-like Prometheans of the Lustrian coastline, the sea's bounty is truly as varied as that of land-going life. Not that Harkon cares much about either. He waits until they're dead and infinitely more controllable.[2h]
  • Mournguls - Considered neither living nor dead, it is notoriously difficult to subjugate these ghastly spectres, but some who undergo the twisted transformation are forced into enslavement by those with the right necromantic knowledge. When the Winds surge and arcane storms scream across the world, powerful binding scrolls can be fashioned to exert control over the walking nightmares, making it possible to create small bands of lesser Mournguls to do one's bidding .[4]
  • Necrofex Colossus - The unhallowed form of the Necrofex Colossus is one of the most terrifying anathemas known to arcane lore. Varying in composition, they always hold true to the same basic form -- a monstrous humanoid shape akin to a giant, fashioned upon a frame of galley-torn timber, iron, or bone, onto which the "flesh" and musculature of the dead has been bound and shaped, with scores of corpses used in their creation.[4]

Artillery[]

  • Carronade - Many of the ships in the Vampire Coast fleets carry small-bore, short-barreled cannons, known as carronades or smashers. Though their power pales by comparison to that of Imperial Great Cannon, it can still wipe out whole files of foes in a single shot.[2g]
  • Mortar - Mortars are short, heavy weapons, designed to lob a hollow, explosive shell high into the air so that it drops onto its target. While a solid cannonball may plough through several victims, a mortar shell explodes with tremendous force, scattering razor-sharp shrapnel over a wide area and scything through whole ranks of enemy warriors.[4]
  • Queen Bess - This enormous and oft-repaired monstrosity is Harkon's pride and joy. The exact heritage of Queen Bess is uncertain but, from the reports that have reached the Imperial Engineers School of Nuln, it is likely to have begun life as nothing less than a Hell-Hammer Cannon! It has since been much "refined" and "improved" by Harkon (in one of his more than usually lucid moments) and reduced in size somewhat. Even so, the Queen Bess remains one of the most powerful pieces of blackpowder artillery ever to grace the shores of Lustria.[2h]

Notable Zombie Pirate Captains[]

Relics of the Zombie Pirates[]

Below is a list of relic loot seized and used by the fleets of the Zombie Pirates.[2a]

Videos[]

Sources[]

Gallery[]

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