Left Panel
menu
HomeHome / Total War: WARHAMMER / Vampire Counts / Units / Black Knights
Black Knights Vampire CountsVampire Counts Melee Cavalry

Black Knights

Atop their skeletal steeds, Black Knights destroy enemy battle lines with powerful cavalry charges.

In the times before the Empire, there were few domesticated horses, and horsemen were exceedingly rare. In most tribes, a steed was a symbol of wealth and status. So it was often that only a Chieftain and his closest warriors would ride mounted into battle, the wealthiest of their number clad in crude iron plate and carrying stout shields. When these early Knights died, their horses were ritually killed and buried in the barrows alongside their masters, to carry them in the afterlife. Many centuries later, the Vampire Counts are known to summon forth the gruesome remains of those ancient Knights in order to bolster the masses of lesser Undead minions under their control. As a Vampire stalks through barrows and mausoleums, Dark Magic swirls invisibly around him like a cloak, probing and penetrating the cracked and overgrown porticos of each resting place and saturating the bones of the armoured corpses within. A thousand years of dust shifts and dissipates as the parchment-dry cadavers twitch and sit upright. In a morbid mockery of their old lives, these Black Knights stir into motion, tearing themselves free of thorny creepers and thick cobwebs, cold fingers clamping around the hilts of age-blackened blades. Alongside them, the skeletal remains of their steeds jerk to Unlife, twisted by magic into hellish mockeries of the noble beasts they once were.

Black Knights

Unit Name

Black Knights

Main Unit Key

wh_main_vmp_cav_black_knights_0

Land Unit Key

wh_main_vmp_cav_black_knights_0

Naval Unit Key

wh_main_shp_transport

Land Unit Group

Cavalry

Naval Unit Group

Cavalry

Soldiers

60

Caste

Melee Cavalry

Category

Cavalry

Class

Melee Cavalry

Custom Battle Cost

700

Recruitment Cost

700

Upkeep Cost

175

Melee Attack

24

Weapon Strength (Weapon Damage)

38

├ Melee Weapon

wh_main_vmp_wightblade_black_knight

├ Melee Damage Base

30

├ Melee Damage Ap

8

├ Armour Piercing

No

├ Bonus vs Cavalry

0

├ Bonus vs Elephants

0

└ Bonus vs Infantry

0

Charge Bonus

26

Melee Defence

28

├ Base Defence

28

├ Shield

wh_missile_block_30_wood

└ Shield Defence

0

Armour

110

├ Armour

wh_main_vmp_heavy_plate_mounted

├ Armour Defence

80

└ Shield Armour

30

Health

108

├ Man Entity

wh_main_cavalry_rider_standard_blood

├ Man Speed

33

├ Man Health

8

├ Bonus Hit Points

92

├ Mount

wh_main_vmp_mnt_skeletal_steed

├ Mount Entity

wh_main_vmp_cav_skeletal_steed

├ Mount Speed

76

└ Mount Health

8

Leadership (Base Morale)

50

Abilities

  • Crumbling
    The dead do not rest easily in the Old World. Those summoned by Vampires and Necromancers no longer have mortal concerns - they serve only their master's will.
  • Disintegrating
    The Dark Magic binding has failed. Both flesh and necromantic energy slough off the subjects leaving naught but dust.

Attributes

  • Causes Fear
    This unit frightens all enemy units, reducing their leadership when nearby. It is also immune to fear. Fear penalties do not stack.
  • Hide (forest)
    This unit can hide in forests until enemy units get too close.
  • Undead
    The unit is Undead (does not rout, immune to terror, becomes unstable when attrition when moving through territory not owned by the Undead.

Strengths & Weaknesses

  • Armoured & Shielded
    Armoured units can block damage from any source apart from Shields have a chance of blocking arrows, bolts, rifle shots and similar small arms fire - but only in a forward facing arc.
  • Anti-Infantry
    Anti-infantry units have an advantage against targets that are smaller than a horse. This advantage can be a damage bonus against small targets, superior weight used to smash through lighter enemies, or an explosive attack from range that effects a large area.
Requires Buildings
Black Knights Lv. 0 Mausoleum
Mausoleum
(wh_main_vmp_cemetary_3)
Level 2
Garrison Buildings
Black Knights x 2 Drakenhof (Shady Township)
Drakenhof (Shady Township)
(wh_main_special_settlement_castle_drakenhof_3_vmp)
Level 3
Grave Guard Watchtower
Grave Guard Watchtower
(wh_main_vmp_garrison_2)
Level 1