The Rogue Trader Bestiary Part 4: Vampires & Zombies

On to the next entry, and this time it's a double act, Vampires and Zombies, as the two are fairly inextricably linked. I may have gone a bit overboard here, and done an entire warband, rather than just an example of each entry...

Here, our intrepid guardsman can be seen understandably running away from a small army of his former comrades, summoned by a (currently hidden) Vampire!

More after the cut...




Vampires and Zombies are a couple of the few 'classic' fantasy archetypes that made it through to Rogue Trader from WFB3 (or AD&D!) pretty much unchanged. Sadly they were never really exploited to their full extent, so they never really got much further than the bestiary and a couple of the random scenario sections in the main RT rulebook.

Personally I think it's a bit of a shame, Space Vampires and their minions could have made a good little faction as a 'hidden infiltrator' of Imperial Space, but in the end they were pretty much usurped by Genestealer Cultists as the go-to bad guys for that sort of thing.

Anyway, this is what the rulebook has to say about them:

And also the Zombie entry:

So on to the Vampire, and just which one of the many Citadel models they've made over the years to go with? I know what you're thinking, this fella:

And yes, that was my first thought too. I *know* I've got two of him knocking around somewhere in the leadpile, as I bought him twice on eBay so I could do one based for WFB and one for 40k.

Could I find either of them? Could I buggery! I spent the best part of a day searching before admitting defeat and going through the undead leadpile to find something suitable.

In the end, I decided on this fella, and here he is scaring the Guardsman again:

and a few more shots:

 Front View

Side View

 Rear View

He's a late 90's/early 00's WFB Necrarch Vampire that I've had knocking around for a long time, modified to be armed with a biomechanical Bolter taken from one of the Zoats I converted and painted up a while ago.

In my background for him, it's actually a bio-weapon (similar to a needler) that fires vials of his own blood, if hit and an armour save is failed, the target then becomes one of the Vampire's Thralls and under his control in-game from then on.

I mentioned earlier that I went a bit overboard, and here's one of the reasons why. The model was one that came as a pair, with foot and mounted variants, so I decided to utilise the mounted version as well. Here he is as a passenger on a zombie-controlled RT motorcycle:

So, that's the Vampire dealt with, now, how about some zombies?

Again, with the going overboard, rather than just the one example, I went and did an entire unit/warbands worth of them!

As the Vampire was going to be in hiding in Port Imperiale, I thought I'd make his zombie defenders up as members of the Jamakeer Guard. After all, where's the best place to pick up recently dead bodies than a battlefield!

These are all just converted plastics I've had knocking around, mainly Imperial Guard and Zombies mashed up, but with an Admech in there and a Squat for good measure.

Here's a few more shots:

And that's another two entries now done, on to the next one!


Links to the Bestiary So Far: 

• Astral Hound
• Astral Spectre
• Enslaver
• Psychneuein
• Vampires
• Warp Entity
• Zombie
• Ambull
• Bouncers
• Carnivorous Sand Clam
• Catachan Devil
• Catachan Face Eater
• Crawlers
• Crotalid
• Cthellean Cudbear
• Dinosaur
• Ferro-Beast
• Genestealer
• Giant Insectoid
• Giant Spider
• Grox
• Gyrinx
• Horse
• Lashworm
• Mimic
• Ptera-Squirrel
• Razorwing
• Rippy-Fish
• Swarm
• Sunworm