Back to Secret League

Undead Pirate Teams

Player Pics


Player Icons
Zombies

Skeleton Pirates

Syreen

Zombie Ogre

Vampire Lord


Background
Undead Pirate teams of are a rag tag bunch of no hopers led by Vampire Lords, who are also the captains of their ship. The Vampire Lords are driven insane from their time left at sea and prolonged periods in which they have no access to blood, which doesn’t give them much hope of ever achieving any success worthy mention. In fact the only player ever to move on to greatness was Sinnedbad a Skeletal Pirate who wielded a sword and a set of skills never seen before on a lowly Skeleton. Now all Skeleton Pirates carry a sword hoping one day to emulate their idol.

Rationale
This team was based almost entirely on Warhammer Chronicles - 'Zombie Pirates of Vampire Coast' army book.

The Linemen pick was zombies, no special skills or rule changes were required here. Then I added Skeleton Pirates. Instead of just allowing 0-16 zombies and skeletons like normal Undead I wanted these skeletons to be more thematic. sticking with the standard Skeleton stat line was a no brainer and I added the skill stab and Jump Up for a few reasons - first of all Sinbad the Undead Skeleton Star player is clearly a pirate so it made sense to have a team featuring a positional player along the same lines as him, it adds to his backgound and you could say that he used to play in Undead pirate teams before becoming a star player. This fluff adds to the teams character and the Stab skill makes them a little more unique.

Next up is the Syreens, again based on a troop choice in the zombie pirates army book. Syreens have the ability to turn ethereal, they also have the ability to hypnotise their foe, and finally they have traits similar to disturbing presence and foul appearance. So their skill set was fairly straight forward. Hypno Gaze speaks for its self really, as does FA and DP. Leap and Very Long Legs were added to represent their ability to travel through objects without penalty in warhammer which is because they turn ethereal. The stat lines represents their weakness, they are not very tough if hit, but they are tricky to hit which again backs up their A access, and also FA.

Zombie Ogres were added next, these were taken to both mirror the human pirate list and also because Zombie Ogres are represented in Warhammer Quest, and of course to add to the flavour of the list. I lowered their Ma and Ag by 1 and removed the ability to throw team mate, on the basis they are now zombies so far less agile and slower, on the flip side they gain regenerate. This adds some much needed St to the list which is otherwise very weak and quite slow too.

Finally I added the vampire lord. Again this was based on the Zombie Pirates list. These vampires are driven crazy by their blood lust at sea because they cannot quench this thirst. So instead of giving them Bloodlust like other vampires I went for Wild Animal to represent their insanity and lack of control, there are also no players in the team they can feed on. It also helped make the list unique, having an Ag4 player with GAS access with WA. The stat line was straight forward as Vampire Lords have featured in Bloodbowl in earlier versions of the game and were quite important part of the vampire team in LRB4. Though a stat line of 6 5 4 8 is obviously amazing, the Loner skill and Wild Animal obviously mitigate this somewhat, especially weakening their high agility. Because this player has such good stats it was important again to make the rest of the roster a little weaker. The low Av of the team, low movement and unreliability of having 3 players with nega-traits means the team would not be too powerful, while still maintaining some powerful players and a unique play style.

Season 2 Changes
400 games played. 44% win percentage which is tier 1.5. No change needed. Roster is performing as expected.

Season 3 Changes
279 games played. 39% win percentage which is lower than I would like. I felt for some time the team needed more Ma, so changed the Syreen stat line to make them slightly faster and tougher, but at the cost of losing Regen so they are still affordable. It is also not a big stretch fluff wise for them to lose Regen as the are a bit different to typical undead creatures.

Season 4 Changes
Another 700 games played and the team is still struggling at 42%, at this point I felt comfortable removing Loner from the Vampire Lord, giving their key player a little more reliability.

Team roster design, fluff and rationale by Garion and adjustments agreed with theh CIBBL team.
Icons by Cowhead
Pictures by Knut Rockie, coloured by Garion and Harvestmouse