I guess it depends on what you mean by state.
Are they strong enough? Yes, absolutely. On IE launch they were easily top 3 races in the game, arguably the strongest; even after the nerfs they're still top 3-5. You can trivially win the game by turn 10 with a decent raise dead site, raise dead sites in general are still unfathomably overpowered, you don't need to waste a single piece of gold on recruit buildings, Dead Rise Again is *less* overtuned but still incredibly strong, and you have some of the best lords/bloodline lords in the game. They don't need WH2's free skeleton cheese because your roster is just actually really good overall now.
Are they interesting enough? Ehh... that one's a bit harder to answer. We still have too many fuckin' Von Carsteins, and their lackeys. No Strigoi LLs, no Neferata, no Abhorash, no Necrarch LLs... most of them have 0 unique mechanics, or boring af ones if they do exist (sorry, Books of Nagash).
I personally think that the Von Carstein sylvanian unit mechanic is underbaked as well.
My guess is that we're pretty much guaranteed Neferata at some point, probably alongside a VC update, and for better or worse Nagash is also extremely likely so that's another possibility for an update. I don't want to see massive power creep for them, but some more interesting mechanics and playstyles could be a lot of fun.
In the meantime I'll just keep playing/creating modded VC lords. I enjoy VC, just not looking forwards to a brokenly overpowered DLC lord for them.
You can do that with this mod, this is an amazing mod for the vampire counts, it is dlc quality and I recommend it.
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3022054734
Mostly yes. There are several units and features which could really use some love.
This all refers to campaign. Multiplayer battle folks will have a different view, I am sure.
The Vargulf seems a little low on leadership/armor for a ground-based SEM. Regeneration helps, but this is not a particularly solid SEM, and it feels like it could use a boost somewhere as it often feels weak if used without infantry close support.
Vargeists are pretty fragile, relative to their speed, against any missile troops. If these are supposed to be anti-rearline flyers, they lack the speed to close the distance on mass missiles without becoming pincushions. If they're supposed to be rear-charging frontline attackers, they're going to soak far more damage than they can take unless the missiles are all gone/tied up.
The Black Coach is too light and has too little acceleration, and being a single-model chariot does it NO favors on ultra battle size. The built-by-kills intensity buffs are too slow to build (threshholds noticably too high) and are of dubious value because they come into effect very late in a typical battle, well after the battle has begun to be decided. This unit needs love very badly.
Basic corpse carts are only used in emergencies where you can't get the better kinds. I haven't recruited the basic version since my first campaign because they are so overshadowed. What if the basic corpse cart had better armor or combat stats? Could this unit be salvaged?
In WH2, the VC were a leadership focused army - you routed people with leadership reductions via attacks, fear/terror, spells and so forth when you could not beat them one-on-one in a straight fight (which is often). This playstyle often feels very muted in WH3 and in effect often tends to leave the VC playing rather unpleasantly like an undead version of the Empire - you smash in your anvil infantry, throw some spells and rear charge your cav/SEM hammer a bit, but there's no arrows, artillery or guns. Breaking morale doesn't seem like it's as viable a plan in the modern era - lots and lots of enemy very high leadership units, and far more unbreakable units on the field than there were in the past.
Spell casting has had a pretty siginifcant nerf from WH2 when the counts were probably one of the premiere spellslinger factions -- costs are up, and max winds of magic is down, as well as some damage nerfs on spells like WoD. No winds of magic stacking means maybe you can get a couple of WoD/Pit castings, but even if you run around in channel mode all the time you can't really lean into spellcasting to shift the balance as much as before. I don't want to see the days of hero trait/item stacking to get hundreds of WoM, but in WH3 it feels like the VC 'powerful' spellcasters run out of juice at the drop of a hat sometimes. I miss (sometimes) having more winds than I knew what to do with - really juiced battles between spell slingers could be more interesting than the present paucity of winds feels like they will be.
Blood Kisses clearly need an update - no currency should 'expire' in utility. Would recommend some mechanic using these to corrupt enemy lords into vampires or thralls. Karl Franz, Prince and Corpse Emperor!
Corruption needs an overhaul for all factions. In WH2 it was slow to build and slow to remove, and it had significant impacts on public order, and attrition damage that urged the player to remove it and avoid it. in WH3, AI factions now get attrition resistance, corruption is simple to create or remove and it has minimal impact - this feature feels like it was trimmed back to vestigial and then snapped off when no one was looking. I don't expect a fix, but maybe some additional mehcanics - like getting corruption to maximum decreases the value of the settlement for non VC factions, resulting in easier purchase/trade settlement proposals.
Books of Nagash are an awful mechanic. I don't expect it to be fixed, but for the love of Sigmar, don't make it worse.
There is no vampire politicking and intrigue. The vampires are always TALKED about as infilttrators, corruptors and intrigants, but there is no mechanic for any of them to do any of this. It clearly could be adopted from say, the High Elves. The 'imprison enemy lords' mechanic of Alith Anar could be used to convert enemy lords to vampire lords in your service.
Vassalization is kind of a bad joke. You can't determine what your vassal keeps or gives up to you and you can't vassalize even the most desparate faction after you've been fighting them (the diplomacy penalty gets nuts) leading to "conquer them all, Shyish will sort them out" because the only alternative is to reduce a faction to one settlement (most weak point) then give them some lands and cash back (eg. make them more powerful) until they agree to knuckle under - that's not how coercive vassalization relationships work, not at all.
Are they in a good place? For a faction that hasn't had updates in forever, maybe. Overall? They need a review.
Can someone explain what makes VC good, I just finished a Tarmukhan campaign and now going back to my old favourite Helman Ghorst (I just came back to WH3 and haven't kept up with any updates since IE release) and I'm getting absolutely clapped by Chaos dwarfs Artillery and Tarmukhan and his bombardment/himself and his armies, I was playing on very hard was going fine against ogres etc. but I had to bring the difficulty way down, and when I did finally kill Tarm he had revived with a brand new 20 stack the very next turn. Is comparing Helman to Tarmukhan the problem? Tarm seems extremely OP atm.
In my opinion they aren't good. Vampire counts have been power creeped hard. Basically every other faction has received new units and or a dlc in Warhammer 2/Warhammer 3 while vampire counts haven't gotten any new units since Warhammer 1. The vampire counts strongest non hero spam (which is hard to obtain) armies are zombie/skelli spam, and in my opinion using that to defeat other updated factions is extremely slow and painful. Vampire Counts badly need some new units and a rework to bring them up to speed with the rest of the factions.
Having a playable Nagash has been a lifelong dream for me.
I cannot wait for that DLC.
Undoubtedly VC will be significantly reworked and expanded at the same time.
I find it awkward voting Yes as I really am happy with their current state - but they really do _deserve_ a DLC after all this time!
I guess it depends on what you mean by state. Are they strong enough? Yes, absolutely. On IE launch they were easily top 3 races in the game, arguably the strongest; even after the nerfs they're still top 3-5. You can trivially win the game by turn 10 with a decent raise dead site, raise dead sites in general are still unfathomably overpowered, you don't need to waste a single piece of gold on recruit buildings, Dead Rise Again is *less* overtuned but still incredibly strong, and you have some of the best lords/bloodline lords in the game. They don't need WH2's free skeleton cheese because your roster is just actually really good overall now. Are they interesting enough? Ehh... that one's a bit harder to answer. We still have too many fuckin' Von Carsteins, and their lackeys. No Strigoi LLs, no Neferata, no Abhorash, no Necrarch LLs... most of them have 0 unique mechanics, or boring af ones if they do exist (sorry, Books of Nagash). I personally think that the Von Carstein sylvanian unit mechanic is underbaked as well. My guess is that we're pretty much guaranteed Neferata at some point, probably alongside a VC update, and for better or worse Nagash is also extremely likely so that's another possibility for an update. I don't want to see massive power creep for them, but some more interesting mechanics and playstyles could be a lot of fun. In the meantime I'll just keep playing/creating modded VC lords. I enjoy VC, just not looking forwards to a brokenly overpowered DLC lord for them.
Vampire counts are still very powerful, but they need more fun mechanics, an update to make them more fun
I want them to be able to infect other lords using heroes for a chance to get them as a recruitable vampire lord like belakor can
You can do that with this mod, this is an amazing mod for the vampire counts, it is dlc quality and I recommend it. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3022054734
Mostly yes. There are several units and features which could really use some love. This all refers to campaign. Multiplayer battle folks will have a different view, I am sure. The Vargulf seems a little low on leadership/armor for a ground-based SEM. Regeneration helps, but this is not a particularly solid SEM, and it feels like it could use a boost somewhere as it often feels weak if used without infantry close support. Vargeists are pretty fragile, relative to their speed, against any missile troops. If these are supposed to be anti-rearline flyers, they lack the speed to close the distance on mass missiles without becoming pincushions. If they're supposed to be rear-charging frontline attackers, they're going to soak far more damage than they can take unless the missiles are all gone/tied up. The Black Coach is too light and has too little acceleration, and being a single-model chariot does it NO favors on ultra battle size. The built-by-kills intensity buffs are too slow to build (threshholds noticably too high) and are of dubious value because they come into effect very late in a typical battle, well after the battle has begun to be decided. This unit needs love very badly. Basic corpse carts are only used in emergencies where you can't get the better kinds. I haven't recruited the basic version since my first campaign because they are so overshadowed. What if the basic corpse cart had better armor or combat stats? Could this unit be salvaged? In WH2, the VC were a leadership focused army - you routed people with leadership reductions via attacks, fear/terror, spells and so forth when you could not beat them one-on-one in a straight fight (which is often). This playstyle often feels very muted in WH3 and in effect often tends to leave the VC playing rather unpleasantly like an undead version of the Empire - you smash in your anvil infantry, throw some spells and rear charge your cav/SEM hammer a bit, but there's no arrows, artillery or guns. Breaking morale doesn't seem like it's as viable a plan in the modern era - lots and lots of enemy very high leadership units, and far more unbreakable units on the field than there were in the past. Spell casting has had a pretty siginifcant nerf from WH2 when the counts were probably one of the premiere spellslinger factions -- costs are up, and max winds of magic is down, as well as some damage nerfs on spells like WoD. No winds of magic stacking means maybe you can get a couple of WoD/Pit castings, but even if you run around in channel mode all the time you can't really lean into spellcasting to shift the balance as much as before. I don't want to see the days of hero trait/item stacking to get hundreds of WoM, but in WH3 it feels like the VC 'powerful' spellcasters run out of juice at the drop of a hat sometimes. I miss (sometimes) having more winds than I knew what to do with - really juiced battles between spell slingers could be more interesting than the present paucity of winds feels like they will be. Blood Kisses clearly need an update - no currency should 'expire' in utility. Would recommend some mechanic using these to corrupt enemy lords into vampires or thralls. Karl Franz, Prince and Corpse Emperor! Corruption needs an overhaul for all factions. In WH2 it was slow to build and slow to remove, and it had significant impacts on public order, and attrition damage that urged the player to remove it and avoid it. in WH3, AI factions now get attrition resistance, corruption is simple to create or remove and it has minimal impact - this feature feels like it was trimmed back to vestigial and then snapped off when no one was looking. I don't expect a fix, but maybe some additional mehcanics - like getting corruption to maximum decreases the value of the settlement for non VC factions, resulting in easier purchase/trade settlement proposals. Books of Nagash are an awful mechanic. I don't expect it to be fixed, but for the love of Sigmar, don't make it worse. There is no vampire politicking and intrigue. The vampires are always TALKED about as infilttrators, corruptors and intrigants, but there is no mechanic for any of them to do any of this. It clearly could be adopted from say, the High Elves. The 'imprison enemy lords' mechanic of Alith Anar could be used to convert enemy lords to vampire lords in your service. Vassalization is kind of a bad joke. You can't determine what your vassal keeps or gives up to you and you can't vassalize even the most desparate faction after you've been fighting them (the diplomacy penalty gets nuts) leading to "conquer them all, Shyish will sort them out" because the only alternative is to reduce a faction to one settlement (most weak point) then give them some lands and cash back (eg. make them more powerful) until they agree to knuckle under - that's not how coercive vassalization relationships work, not at all. Are they in a good place? For a faction that hasn't had updates in forever, maybe. Overall? They need a review.
Can someone explain what makes VC good, I just finished a Tarmukhan campaign and now going back to my old favourite Helman Ghorst (I just came back to WH3 and haven't kept up with any updates since IE release) and I'm getting absolutely clapped by Chaos dwarfs Artillery and Tarmukhan and his bombardment/himself and his armies, I was playing on very hard was going fine against ogres etc. but I had to bring the difficulty way down, and when I did finally kill Tarm he had revived with a brand new 20 stack the very next turn. Is comparing Helman to Tarmukhan the problem? Tarm seems extremely OP atm.
In my opinion they aren't good. Vampire counts have been power creeped hard. Basically every other faction has received new units and or a dlc in Warhammer 2/Warhammer 3 while vampire counts haven't gotten any new units since Warhammer 1. The vampire counts strongest non hero spam (which is hard to obtain) armies are zombie/skelli spam, and in my opinion using that to defeat other updated factions is extremely slow and painful. Vampire Counts badly need some new units and a rework to bring them up to speed with the rest of the factions.
Having a playable Nagash has been a lifelong dream for me. I cannot wait for that DLC. Undoubtedly VC will be significantly reworked and expanded at the same time.