Famille Sanglante - Vampires for Fantastic Battles

History

The north is an unburnished and desolate land that calls to those seeking safety from the responsibility of their actions. Murderers, agnostics, fraudsters and even worse seek to lose themselves in the wide wastes of the north. They try to leave their identities behind and begin a new, safer, life in the uncharted north. For some this is easy. One murderer is usually indistinct from another. One thief the same as the hundreds of other cutpurses and cat burglars. Not so for Ardent sant Gusté who came to the north from the city states to the east. Ardent was fleeing his comfortable home in the city of Treste not because of gambling debts or an enforced infidelity but because he was une Fantôme de sang or a vampire.

Ardent sant Gusté was not only a vampire, and a long-lived one at that, but had been, before his rapid fall, the head of a coven of vampires. Life in the city state of Treste had been easy on Ardent and his ‘family’. They had political power, connections and, they thought, the protection of the other city elders. What caused his downfall there is still of much debate but the end result was the elimination of all of his family and their chattel but almost the elimination of Ardent sant Gusté himself. With no-one to help him and no resources, Ardent fled his pursuers and made for the north. Only there, he thought, would he be able to hide and rebuild his strength.

This took time. Weakened and alone, Ardent had to carefully pick him moments to feed. As well, the wilds of the north didn’t present the wealth of possible thralls and supplicants that he had in Treste. Meagre though his options were he soon built up his family and his provender of thralls and staked out a remote and ruined castle as his fortress. Ardent and his family are now stronger than he was at any point in Treste. The protections that the city offered came at the price of his discretion. In the north he was under no such considerations and the only limit on the size of his flock was his ability to feed them. And so he expanded his family, his empire, until he was drained and incapable of doing more.

The Famille Sanglante (PDF link) is now a sprawling Vampiric empire. It might not trouble the human Empire to the south or any of the Dwarven kingdoms but in the north it is almost unassailable.

Commanders

Ardent sant Gusté - Pater Incardine
The north has provided much for Ardent sant Gusté but the task of rebuilding his family has taken an immense toll on him. Withered and desiccated, Ardent is bedridden and unable to bear himself into battle. When needed he is carried aloft on a palanquin borne by members of his family and his more devout thralls. To protect him the youngest and strongest of his family form a wall of steel around him. The sounds, and smells, of battle will create an immense thirst for blood and viscera in him as he is borne forward into combat. This manifests as rippling skeins of energy that whip across the battlefield attempting to exsanguinate all who oppose him.

The Broken Lady
The Broken Lady was one of the first that Ardent brought into the family. A sorcerer by trade she was captured by superstitious villagers and forced to confess to a series of crimes that had plagued the village. None of them were a result of her actions but that didn’t stop the village from torturing her and leaving her body a shattered wreck. Ardent found her begging for coins and sensed, not only the magical power within her, but also the vast well of hate and spite that her ordeal had built up in her. Her transformation to a vampire fixed most of her physical ailments but nothing could remove the scars on her psyche. The Lady’s ascent gave her the power to take her revenge and in a single night she killed half of the village and turned the rest in thralls.

The Lady is the pre-eminent magician in the Family. She has added to her sorcerous powers with the power of the necromancer. Her aims are to not only fill the battlefield with crawling undead but also to re-animate the corpses of vast beasts such as dragons and manticores to add them to the Family’s martial power.

The Wind of Death - Le Meurtrier
None who take the path of the vampire are left untouched by it but Carloman has been transformed more than most. His skin is a sallow grey and hairless. His head is wreathed in a ring of small horns. His most obvious transfiguration is the vast set of bat wings that have sprouted from his back. The wings not only allow him to fly but also give him a frightening appearance on the battlefield. Unlike his brothers and sisters in the Famille de bataille, Carloman has taken on the roll of Le Meurtrier. He uses his wings to scour the battlefield for enemy commanders and then swoops down to split them with his fearsome axe severing the opposing armies command most literally.

Famille de bataille

A family as large as the Famille Sanglante has many different roles for its members. There are those that run the household, those that maintain the thralls, the politicians who seek alliance and engender betrayal and those that take to the field of battle. The Famille de bataille is the subset of Ardent’s ‘sons and daughters’ who lead his armies when they take to the fields to protect or conquer.

Most of the Famille de bataille are the troops that form ranks and march to war. Other, older and wiser family members are chosen as commanders who help Ardent lead his army to victory. When welcomed into the family with the Baiser du Fantôme de sang (Kiss of the Vampire) the new member is given a name by Ardent. Many are the members of the family and, sadly, few are the names that Ardent is fond of. So it is left to new family member to earn themselves a ‘nom de famille’ to help them distinguish themselves.

Lothair the North Wind

The winds from the south bring warm weather, rain and the promise of spring. The northerly winds are more sinister bringing winter, chills and bad omens. Lothair is the most senior of the Famille de bataille and his presence at the head of an army always bodes poorly for those he opposes. Like the cold wind, he is dour and prone to unexpected outbursts. He is a meticulous planner but tends to follow his own plans for longer than he aught. His ability to react to the actions of an opposing army are limited and it often falls to subordinates to take command of a local situation to try to save the day or react to a propitious change in circumstances.

Jean the Posthumous

Jean is so named because his life only truly began after his ascent to family status. The name is a warm joke shared between confreres or a slight depending on Jean’s mood or the person making the comment. He is fickle in other things as well but none will critique his skill with the sword, his riding skill or his command of the Scarlet Lancers.

Perhaps it is a result of his ‘humble’ beginnings but Jean, and the Lancers, are haughty and imperious. Even to their fellow vampires. This would be a critical failing in the highly politicized nature of a vampire hierarchy but Jean has so far been successful on the battlefield which has made him safe from criticism.

Danton the Ill Conceived

Danton was in utero when his mother was served to one of the family. The vitreous fluid that normally turns a human into a Fantôme de sang is always present in a vampire’s bite. So while his mother was being slowly drained, that liquide vitré de sang bathed Danton and was enough to transform him. The grisly story of his subsequent birth is best left unsaid but Ardent was impressed by the young Danton’s energy and desire to live that he tasked his mages and sorcerers to use whatever resources and rituals to bring Danton to full growth.

Whether from his unlikely birth, or the magics that grew him, Danton has a distaste for the living that is extreme even for a vampire. No enemy troops survive a battle against Danton and his companies. He urges his troops forward and ignores any requests to try to take prisoners in his desire to paint a red swath through the battlefield.

Troops

Ardent sant Gusté was never a believer in the capabilities of the ethereal undead that are typically seen in vampire armies. Even prior to fleeing from the city state of Treste he was more likely to want to field his fellow vampires or human thralls. Banshees, spirits and ghosts are bloodless killers and Ardent needs to see the battlefield awash in blood. As his power grew in the north and his access to both vampires and thralls expanded, he became more sure of his decision. The odd spirit may haunt the edge of his battlefields but Ardent will never use them. Not when there are troops that can supply the viscera and blood he desires.

Pater Incardine

Part shieldwall and part religious icon, the palanquin that bears Ardent to the battlefield often confuses those that see it. Devout thralls and mages carry the palanquin in a slow processional gait and the reverence his Family has for him causes Ardent’s troops to take a quiet reverential tone. The clash of arms and the scent of blood quickly changes that as Ardent’s screams and the terrifying grasp of his magically effused hunger quickly send his troops into a violent rage.

Scarlet Lancers
Lead by Jean the Posthumous, the Lancers are the cream of the Family’s troops. Well equipped, riding the best war horses and forged in 100 battles, the Lancers are often the rock on which opposing armies are broken. They have the heft and clash of heavy cavalry married with the dripping horror of feasting vampires. It takes a stout heart to stand against them and an even stronger arm to succeed.

Garde de sang
Many members of the Famille Sanglante seek to prove themselves on the field of battle and the elite foot troops of the Garde de sang are where they initially serve. Heavily armoured and with great shields the Garde de sang are the frontline troops of the family. Well, after the zombies and ghouls. Family members who prove themselves as part of the Garde de sang are often transferred to the Scarlet Lancers or into a command position.

Thralls
The structure of any vampire group is a pyramid with the Vampire Lord at the top and a vast herd of thralls at the bottom. Well, before the zombies and ghouls. Thralls are enthusiastic defenders of their masters and are often fielded in numbers that surpass the Garde de sang

Zombies
The family’s necromantic casters spend the weeks before a battle ensuring that the army takes to the field behind a vast line of revived corpses. They are not effective troops but they can be counted on to wear down the enemy.

Ghouls
One doesn’t summon ghouls, they just simply are. At least when you are the head of a vampire family. The stench of blood and viscera that envelops a vampire community draws in ghouls in droves. When battle comes it takes little to convince the ghouls to join the battle and search for fresh meat.

Winged Horror
Nothing causes The Broken Lady more joy than finding the remains of a noble creature and turning it into a rotting parody of its former self. Her greatest joy is finding the corpse of a great drake or dragon and bringing it back to life to serve as a steed for one of the Famille de bataille. Her spells twist the body of the once noble dragon and turn it into a poison-spitting horror.

Notes

Almost all of the 10mm fantasy miniatures available are created to fit one of the many Warmaster army lists. The Forest Dragon Vampire Army has units that match the Warmaster Vampire Counts force but don’t leave you with a lot of options if you don’t want to field skeletons. Don’t get me wrong, I like skeletal undead as much as the next person but the Warmaster Vampire Counts army is based on the old WFB Vampire Count force and it has always struck me as an odd list.

Happily I am not playing Warmaster and so I can just make up a list that I think is fun. The Forest Dragon Chivalric Knights force has two units that can be used to help flesh out a more vampire-centric army. The Household Guard would make good vampires on foot and the Knight Retainers make good thralls.

The Pater Incardine model is meant to be represented by the Honoured Martyr which is the figure that inspired this entire list.

All of the Forest Dragon miniatures come with options for bare shields and banners so you can print them out without the obvious Brettonian imagery which makes it easier to turn them into something else. 

There are quite a few Expendable companies in this list which means that at 1000 points the army has a breakpoint of four. It will start to get a bit tense once an opponent has worked their way through the thralls and zombies. Hopefully by that point they will be worn down and easy prey for the vampires.