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Black Knights (Lances & Barding) Vampire CountsVampire Counts Shock Cavalry

Black Knights (Lances & Barding)

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 (Lances & Barding)

Unit Name

Black Knights (Lances & Barding)

Main Unit Key

wh_main_vmp_cav_black_knights_3

Land Unit Key

wh_main_vmp_cav_black_knights_3

Naval Unit Key

wh_main_shp_transport

Land Unit Group

Shock Cavalry

Naval Unit Group

Shock Cavalry

Soldiers

60

Caste

Melee Cavalry

Category

Cavalry

Class

Shock Cavalry

Custom Battle Cost

1100

Recruitment Cost

1100

Upkeep Cost

275

Melee Attack

24

Weapon Strength (Weapon Damage)

42

├ Melee Weapon

wh_main_vmp_wightblade_lance

├ Melee Damage Base

30

├ Melee Damage Ap

12

├ Armour Piercing

No

├ Bonus vs Cavalry

0

├ Bonus vs Elephants

0

└ Bonus vs Infantry

0

Charge Bonus

58

Melee Defence

22

├ Base Defence

22

├ Shield

wh_missile_block_30_wood

└ Shield Defence

0

Armour

140

├ Armour

wh_main_vmp_heavy_plate_barding

├ Armour Defence

110

└ 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_barded_skeletal_steed

├ Mount Entity

wh_main_vmp_cav_skeletal_steed_barded

├ Mount Speed

73

└ 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
    Armoured units can block damage from any source apart from Armour-Piercing damage.
  • 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 (Lances & Barding) Lv. 0 Mausoleum
Mausoleum
(wh_main_vmp_cemetary_3)
Level 2
Garrison Buildings
Black Knights (Lances & Barding) x 3 Castle Drakenhof (Accursed City)
Castle Drakenhof (Accursed City)
(wh_main_special_settlement_castle_drakenhof_4_vmp)
Level 4
Castle Drakenhof (Dark Castle)
Castle Drakenhof (Dark Castle)
(wh_main_special_settlement_castle_drakenhof_5_vmp)
Level 5
Black Knights (Lances & Barding) x 1 Grave Guard Watchtower
Grave Guard Watchtower
(wh_main_vmp_garrison_2)
Level 1