It can't be undersold just how strong being able to get wind of death with only 3 skill points is. It allows the Blood Dragon vampire lord to splash his magic tree and then pursue another skill tree with very little loss in momentum (often being able to have wind of death quite literally out of the coffin). You don't even need to take the lore passive with him, since wind of death is so expensive that you're unlikely to get a ton of value from a passive that benefits from multiple casts. Hell, he even makes a pretty good emergency garrison lord (Assuming you've got lord recruit rank +3 or more), pop him out when someone is about to attack a settlement, raise a bunch of dead and maybe some regiments of renown and you can just *have* wind of death as part of your emergency defense force. Often standard vampire lords or vlad have to grab a necromancer hero if they want to focus their own points on the other trees, but the blood dragon can bring passable magical power on his own for pretty cheap while freeing up room in his army for a wight king, vampire or banshee to add more muscle to the line-up.
This the more aggressive version of the generic Vampire Lord. And his damage and combat capabilities are Glorious !!! Frenzy, anti-infantry AND anti-large damage, Red Fury, Hunger and Heart Piercing on the Zombie Dragon are absolutely insane !!! Plus he takes the VIPs of Vampire Counts roster- Grave Guard and Blood Knights and makes them very affordable and stackable. I think that he is actually the only Lord in the game who can have bonuses vs Infantry and Large at the same time. Its a shame that he can't stack his Heart Piercing with Honour or Death- I wish there was a Lord who could actually do both ...😮 Blood Dragon Lord is a very decent caster with access to healing, summons, buffs/debuffs and the blob-erasing spell. He can literally do it all and do it very well . This was an excellent review- thank you for your hard work .
Well the Red Duke can stack those two, he just loses the bonus vs. infantry (but that's because he rocks a 35% missile block shield on all mounts but dragon). Thanks as always. I'm going to draft a Mathhammer video about armor and attack rolls because interest seems high enough, and I'm fulfilling my aspiration of bringing info together under one roof/ one Playlist for some of these mechanics. More investigation needed on the new Charge Bonus stuff re: multi-entity chariots in the near future.
I think the Grave sentinels line is the better line, despite his massive offensive bonus. 1. You're going to bring other spellcasters anyway to compensate for his weaker spellcasting. This also means possibly bringing a lore of death vampire to help with SEM&Duelling. 2. 20% missile resist+10%physical resist+10% Ward save in melee is huge on a zombie dragon with The Hunger. Helping with the part of "flying around and absolutely crushing enemy infantry like a dragon-sized blender". But the main thing is that With ordo draconis you really don't want to bring Black knights anyway, but want to focus on Blood knights and Graveguard. And both of these can bring vs Large to the table, helping with big monsters and cav at least. Blood dragons = Cheap but still elite army.
Well, the nice thing is that with multiple bloodline lords you can change it up a little. Even without an explicit bonus, their melee attack is so high by default they should smack around large targets anyway.
@tobiasaberg8659 Generally, I find going the cavalry route is better for a more supporting Lord who is likely to be reinforcing others, while the Grave Guard line is better for a Lord who is at the center of a push, who is often going to be tbe "main" lord. The cavalry line means that he and his posse, including maybe a unit or two of discount blood knights, can get into the fight that much faster and actually help, while the blood dragon himself can be used as a semi-disposable missile you fling at whatever the scariest thing at. If he dies to a surround/getting forgotten about afterwards, oh well, he'll be back soon, but he's definitely taking whatever he gets in on with him. The Grave Guard line version ends up being better at hanging out around his army, taking the brunt of damage from things, and generally holding things down in the main vampire count death blob. Both are pretty good ways to go.
I've referenced different roles for lords in the past So I'll toss one out for this guy as well: This is your hammer. You want him to be using your better troops as either an infantry lord (the graveguard line wherein you grind your enemies to nothing) or a Cavalry lord (where you bury your enemies in black knights) with your bloodknights acting as your silver bullet for exceptionally bricky targets. And Much like the strigoi anything he winds up brawling with is going to be in for one hell of a fight; between his raw damage output, healing and potential for a straight up 30% damage resist without items this guy might not have the raw berserker fury of the strigoi but he makes up for that in staying power. As such I'd give him good odds against anything that isn't a legendary melee lord. And as to his one deficiency of spell casting? You got necromancers and vampires for that so he can continue to be the biggest jock on the battlefield.
Brief addition to the video: On a zombie dragon the bonus vs. infantry of 20 is lost. It remains on the Barded Nightmare and the Hellsteed. All other stats seem to be applying.
Ahh, hadn't thought about the uninhabitable climate side of it... thanks. And I'm going to do a Red Duke video, the prep work is mostly done, though people are asking for DLC unit coverage so I'll slip some in after.
Definitely my favourite these days, he makes some of the best units affordable and wrecks house in melee, can nehek himself and cast a wind of death when the opportunity arises. You can generate winds with your necro and a death vampire using life leeching. Or just give him a black periapt, it is very broken…
Some crazy damage from this guy, and it's hard to justify giving him more melee attack from danse macabre, items or skill points because he starts at 100 Vs infantry on level 1 😂
Well other units might want it, but if you have a Necromancer that's ok too. I mean, you want him to buff the doomstacks nicely as well. Our frequent tabletop expert referred to the blood knight blob as a Death Star in tabletop I think. Sounds about right.
Quick question- do Blood Dragon's stat buffing skills affect the Zombie Dragon? Meaning, when he is on the Zombie Dragon with Frenzy and Strength of Steel researched- does he get + 10 MA (54 total) and 10% damage (552 total) from Frenzy and does his Armor and AP damage go up to 90 and 400 , respectively? I suppose that he should also get + 22 bonus vs. Large. Same question for defensive buffs- 20% missile resist, 10% physical resist, etc.
Believe it or not I have to punt on this question because I've rarely tried to use them in campaign. I've opted into the 6.0.2 beta so I'll try to do a fresh campaign tonight and level a Blood Dragon that far to resolve that question. Everyone else please feel free to chime in :) That's what comments are for. Thanks for asking, I find myself very impressed and pleased with this bloodline lord.
@@kirillrivkin4842 Took the morning to finish leveling to 18 to get a zombie dragon since the campaign wasn't being compliant. But, here's what I found in the process: All the stats from the first line (like Bonus vs. Large 22) apply, but on the zombie dragon the bonus vs. infantry was lost. I missed that.
I'd rate them second, behind Lahmians. More blood kisses = more everything. They're also the best overall fighters due to their debuffing and perfect vigor. Blood dragons are vastly superior damage dealers in every possible way, and have better support for units you'll be recruiting later, but Lahmian Vampire Lord is a stronger early game swing and become invincible later. They're the two best options, but I'd say Lahmian Vampire Lord offers superior momentum when it matters most, while Blood Dragon Vampire Lords work better as your second pickup.
@AnemoneMeer I agree. In a straight fight, the Blood Dragon is probably the best, but that's probably the least important part about getting a Bloodline lord. The Necrarch's perks are solid before you ever recruit the Lord, Divination on the Strigoi helps massively in filling out all those hungry, empty equipment slots you end up with as Counts, and, indeed probably top of the list, the Lahmian helps you diplomatically, rapidly accelerates your acquisition of bloodlines, AND is a solid combatant on top of that. The Blood Dragon's main value can generally be replaced by cramming another stack of skeletons into that blob of armies over there. But what the Lahmian provides is acceleration to a faction mechanic, as well as things that are a bit more difficult to quantify, but are nonetheless good.
Oh of course. Aside from graduating from a course this morning and some other distractions, I also wanted the dust to settle slightly with the patch hotfix, but Total War Warhammer Stats seems fully updated. Blood Dragon was just my next scheduled video. I'll start with new DLC units soon. The new Black Orcs with shields might be a good place to start?
Isnt the red Dude just a beefed up Blood Dragon Lord? I mean if you have the buildings or the possibilty to build them they are pretty cool. I prefer the other Bloodlines though.
They're kinda... bland, but good. Basically just a fightier vampire lord. He can work as a general purpose beatstick or missile at the head of a crapstack or supporting cavstack, or be the core of a cluster of armies with the Grave Guard boost to put some girth on your autoresolve steamroller. He's pretty much better than a normal vampire lord in every way that matters, since your vamp probably wants a Necromancer stooge to handle most spellcasting anyways, and he can pick up an early wind of death if that's your fetish. But, he's kinda not better in ways that really lend themselves to interesting strategies and plays, which is saying something for a faction where mass zombies and afk for 15 minutes is occasionally a viable strategy. Again, about the most elaborate thing you can do is give him a posse of vampire cowboys to get to the fight ASAP when reinforcing, which, y'know, the Von Carstein can also kinda do with one million free bats. My opinion of the generic Blood Dragon is proably a bit tainted, since I usually play with Recruit Defeated Legendary Lords on, and the Red Duke is just one of these, but better, and also tends to have tragic accidents early into campaigns, so, the tone of my opinion is probably at odds with the content, to the disservice of the unit. He's not my favorite of the bloodline lords, but I can say, if he were generically available I'd never recruit a vanilla vampire lord again, and it would make taking some of the other bloodline lords a much, much harder argument, which is hardly a condemnation of his abilities, and I have had them pull off crazy fast lord snipes and wizard executions before. This is probably the most boring "generic" lord I'd say fills a "best in slot" role for a faction, which is a strange mix of features for any unit to have, let alone one that can butcher Belakor in like, 20 seconds with buffs and gear.
It can't be undersold just how strong being able to get wind of death with only 3 skill points is. It allows the Blood Dragon vampire lord to splash his magic tree and then pursue another skill tree with very little loss in momentum (often being able to have wind of death quite literally out of the coffin). You don't even need to take the lore passive with him, since wind of death is so expensive that you're unlikely to get a ton of value from a passive that benefits from multiple casts. Hell, he even makes a pretty good emergency garrison lord (Assuming you've got lord recruit rank +3 or more), pop him out when someone is about to attack a settlement, raise a bunch of dead and maybe some regiments of renown and you can just *have* wind of death as part of your emergency defense force.
Often standard vampire lords or vlad have to grab a necromancer hero if they want to focus their own points on the other trees, but the blood dragon can bring passable magical power on his own for pretty cheap while freeing up room in his army for a wight king, vampire or banshee to add more muscle to the line-up.
Wise words I feel. Sometimes you really need that skilled garrison boosting lord to salvage a garrison from what would otherwise be a bitter loss.
This the more aggressive version of the generic Vampire Lord. And his damage and combat capabilities are Glorious !!! Frenzy, anti-infantry AND anti-large damage, Red Fury, Hunger and Heart Piercing on the Zombie Dragon are absolutely insane !!! Plus he takes the VIPs of Vampire Counts roster- Grave Guard and Blood Knights and makes them very affordable and stackable. I think that he is actually the only Lord in the game who can have bonuses vs Infantry and Large at the same time. Its a shame that he can't stack his Heart Piercing with Honour or Death- I wish there was a Lord who could actually do both ...😮 Blood Dragon Lord is a very decent caster with access to healing, summons, buffs/debuffs and the blob-erasing spell. He can literally do it all and do it very well . This was an excellent review- thank you for your hard work .
Well the Red Duke can stack those two, he just loses the bonus vs. infantry (but that's because he rocks a 35% missile block shield on all mounts but dragon). Thanks as always. I'm going to draft a Mathhammer video about armor and attack rolls because interest seems high enough, and I'm fulfilling my aspiration of bringing info together under one roof/ one Playlist for some of these mechanics. More investigation needed on the new Charge Bonus stuff re: multi-entity chariots in the near future.
3:40 was foul; lined the cinematic wind of death up just to completely hide it behind the text box :(
Ahh darn it. I was trying to get a good angle but oh well.
I think the Grave sentinels line is the better line, despite his massive offensive bonus.
1. You're going to bring other spellcasters anyway to compensate for his weaker spellcasting. This also means possibly bringing a lore of death vampire to help with SEM&Duelling.
2. 20% missile resist+10%physical resist+10% Ward save in melee is huge on a zombie dragon with The Hunger. Helping with the part of "flying around and absolutely crushing enemy infantry like a dragon-sized blender".
But the main thing is that With ordo draconis you really don't want to bring Black knights anyway, but want to focus on Blood knights and Graveguard. And both of these can bring vs Large to the table, helping with big monsters and cav at least. Blood dragons = Cheap but still elite army.
Well, the nice thing is that with multiple bloodline lords you can change it up a little. Even without an explicit bonus, their melee attack is so high by default they should smack around large targets anyway.
@tobiasaberg8659
Generally, I find going the cavalry route is better for a more supporting Lord who is likely to be reinforcing others, while the Grave Guard line is better for a Lord who is at the center of a push, who is often going to be tbe "main" lord.
The cavalry line means that he and his posse, including maybe a unit or two of discount blood knights, can get into the fight that much faster and actually help, while the blood dragon himself can be used as a semi-disposable missile you fling at whatever the scariest thing at. If he dies to a surround/getting forgotten about afterwards, oh well, he'll be back soon, but he's definitely taking whatever he gets in on with him.
The Grave Guard line version ends up being better at hanging out around his army, taking the brunt of damage from things, and generally holding things down in the main vampire count death blob.
Both are pretty good ways to go.
Nice one mate, keep em coming 👍
Red Duke will be next because I can reuse some things in the video editor, then I'll branch out to units again.
I've referenced different roles for lords in the past So I'll toss one out for this guy as well: This is your hammer. You want him to be using your better troops as either an infantry lord (the graveguard line wherein you grind your enemies to nothing) or a Cavalry lord (where you bury your enemies in black knights) with your bloodknights acting as your silver bullet for exceptionally bricky targets.
And Much like the strigoi anything he winds up brawling with is going to be in for one hell of a fight; between his raw damage output, healing and potential for a straight up 30% damage resist without items this guy might not have the raw berserker fury of the strigoi but he makes up for that in staying power. As such I'd give him good odds against anything that isn't a legendary melee lord.
And as to his one deficiency of spell casting? You got necromancers and vampires for that so he can continue to be the biggest jock on the battlefield.
I agree, given the strengths of the faction he's extremely solid in every circumstance, up to "oh my dark gods" level.
Brief addition to the video: On a zombie dragon the bonus vs. infantry of 20 is lost. It remains on the Barded Nightmare and the Hellsteed. All other stats seem to be applying.
In red territory the reduction time is helpful. And the Red Duke can choose both skills lines
Ahh, hadn't thought about the uninhabitable climate side of it... thanks. And I'm going to do a Red Duke video, the prep work is mostly done, though people are asking for DLC unit coverage so I'll slip some in after.
Love giving these guys a legion of grave guard to command in campaigns.
Yeah, cost is the main shackle on grave guard spam normally. Knocking that down opens some really steely options.
Definitely my favourite these days, he makes some of the best units affordable and wrecks house in melee, can nehek himself and cast a wind of death when the opportunity arises. You can generate winds with your necro and a death vampire using life leeching. Or just give him a black periapt, it is very broken…
A necro and a periapt and you're good ^^;
Some crazy damage from this guy, and it's hard to justify giving him more melee attack from danse macabre, items or skill points because he starts at 100 Vs infantry on level 1 😂
Well other units might want it, but if you have a Necromancer that's ok too. I mean, you want him to buff the doomstacks nicely as well. Our frequent tabletop expert referred to the blood knight blob as a Death Star in tabletop I think. Sounds about right.
Quick question- do Blood Dragon's stat buffing skills affect the Zombie Dragon? Meaning, when he is on the Zombie Dragon with Frenzy and Strength of Steel researched- does he get + 10 MA (54 total) and 10% damage (552 total) from Frenzy and does his Armor and AP damage go up to 90 and 400 , respectively? I suppose that he should also get + 22 bonus vs. Large. Same question for defensive buffs- 20% missile resist, 10% physical resist, etc.
Believe it or not I have to punt on this question because I've rarely tried to use them in campaign. I've opted into the 6.0.2 beta so I'll try to do a fresh campaign tonight and level a Blood Dragon that far to resolve that question. Everyone else please feel free to chime in :) That's what comments are for. Thanks for asking, I find myself very impressed and pleased with this bloodline lord.
@OffToBattle thanks for checking it out
@@kirillrivkin4842 Took the morning to finish leveling to 18 to get a zombie dragon since the campaign wasn't being compliant. But, here's what I found in the process: All the stats from the first line (like Bonus vs. Large 22) apply, but on the zombie dragon the bonus vs. infantry was lost. I missed that.
@OffToBattle thank you for your time and your help. I guess giving him permanent bonuses vs Infantry and vs Large would be too much.
technically the red duck is a LL version of them
He should be... well, I'm covering him in his video (it's processing as I write this comment) and CA's cuteness about it is what it is.
@ thank, also, do you know if he has a unique trait in campaign ? I never confederated him yet
I'd rank them as the best of the bloodline options. Drastically reducing the upkeep cost of blood dragons and grave guard is just too good.
Yeah, it's quite powerful, I clearly haven't abused that option enough.
I'd rate them second, behind Lahmians. More blood kisses = more everything. They're also the best overall fighters due to their debuffing and perfect vigor. Blood dragons are vastly superior damage dealers in every possible way, and have better support for units you'll be recruiting later, but Lahmian Vampire Lord is a stronger early game swing and become invincible later.
They're the two best options, but I'd say Lahmian Vampire Lord offers superior momentum when it matters most, while Blood Dragon Vampire Lords work better as your second pickup.
@AnemoneMeer
I agree.
In a straight fight, the Blood Dragon is probably the best, but that's probably the least important part about getting a Bloodline lord.
The Necrarch's perks are solid before you ever recruit the Lord, Divination on the Strigoi helps massively in filling out all those hungry, empty equipment slots you end up with as Counts, and, indeed probably top of the list, the Lahmian helps you diplomatically, rapidly accelerates your acquisition of bloodlines, AND is a solid combatant on top of that.
The Blood Dragon's main value can generally be replaced by cramming another stack of skeletons into that blob of armies over there.
But what the Lahmian provides is acceleration to a faction mechanic, as well as things that are a bit more difficult to quantify, but are nonetheless good.
Will you do the new DLC units?
Oh of course. Aside from graduating from a course this morning and some other distractions, I also wanted the dust to settle slightly with the patch hotfix, but Total War Warhammer Stats seems fully updated. Blood Dragon was just my next scheduled video. I'll start with new DLC units soon. The new Black Orcs with shields might be a good place to start?
@@OffToBattleabsolutely !!! Such a cool looking unit😅
Isnt the red Dude just a beefed up Blood Dragon Lord? I mean if you have the buildings or the possibilty to build them they are pretty cool. I prefer the other Bloodlines though.
Well by the time you read this my Red Duke video will be up. He's basically what you said, but even better. You'll see why.
They're kinda... bland, but good. Basically just a fightier vampire lord. He can work as a general purpose beatstick or missile at the head of a crapstack or supporting cavstack, or be the core of a cluster of armies with the Grave Guard boost to put some girth on your autoresolve steamroller. He's pretty much better than a normal vampire lord in every way that matters, since your vamp probably wants a Necromancer stooge to handle most spellcasting anyways, and he can pick up an early wind of death if that's your fetish. But, he's kinda not better in ways that really lend themselves to interesting strategies and plays, which is saying something for a faction where mass zombies and afk for 15 minutes is occasionally a viable strategy. Again, about the most elaborate thing you can do is give him a posse of vampire cowboys to get to the fight ASAP when reinforcing, which, y'know, the Von Carstein can also kinda do with one million free bats.
My opinion of the generic Blood Dragon is proably a bit tainted, since I usually play with Recruit Defeated Legendary Lords on, and the Red Duke is just one of these, but better, and also tends to have tragic accidents early into campaigns, so, the tone of my opinion is probably at odds with the content, to the disservice of the unit.
He's not my favorite of the bloodline lords, but I can say, if he were generically available I'd never recruit a vanilla vampire lord again, and it would make taking some of the other bloodline lords a much, much harder argument, which is hardly a condemnation of his abilities, and I have had them pull off crazy fast lord snipes and wizard executions before.
This is probably the most boring "generic" lord I'd say fills a "best in slot" role for a faction, which is a strange mix of features for any unit to have, let alone one that can butcher Belakor in like, 20 seconds with buffs and gear.
Idk he has a sexy red armor so he ain't that boring I guess!
Fascinating he's so useful and powerful but just needs to be a bit sexier.
Oh I like the armor. The suit (of armor) makes the man, at times.
@@Uragan00829
Oh yeah, he absolutely has the style down over the vanilla Vampire Lord, too.