“There were large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that a man who had done such things was worth much.”
— Laonikos Chalkokondyles: The Histories
Pseudo-seasonal update today - Vlad the Impaler and the Wallachian Infantry.
Vlad was actually the very first figure I ever designed and playtested - though he's gone through some major revisions from the character I first passed. The old Fear Aura was much more complicated with more modifiers than you'd ever find on an official card, he was a dual-classed Warlord/Darklord rather than a Champion/Darklord (a change I'll explain later), he had a 'Harsh Example' power allowing you to execute one of your men for a temporary stat boosting aura, which was cut due to never being used, and Fanatical Demagoguery used to change the personality of Uniques rather than squads, just like Parmenio - he was designed before the Death Knights came out, and it took me about five seconds to realise I'd created someone who could give Major Q9 bonding and decide it was a bad idea.
I think whipping up the masses feels more like demagoguery anyway....
This year, while looking over Warlord Games for figures for historical customs (I love history, and I hope to be able to put a lot more historical figures up here in future), I stumbled across
these guys - and, knowing I already had Vlad, giving him some Wallachian troops to command was just too tempting to pass up (it's also what encouraged me to give Vlad a round of reworking). I changed Vlad's secondary class from Warlord to Champion (I was happy to give up Roman bonding, but not bonding with the Wolves of Badru - Vlad plus Wolves is a fun and thematic little army, even if it's not too strong) and gave them Champion of Evil Bonding off @
IshMEL 's
Sevestra Thune, a fun little character I picked up last year, since I reckoned that Sir Hawthorne could use another, more thematic bonding option and these guys would fit perfectly. I also reworked the initial concept of Harsh Example into a fairly different power and gave it to them, allowing them to hit pretty hard for a 4-man bonding squad, but at the cost of having to execute your own men - and, after a little testing and some painting of the Wallachians, I had a fun and thematic little faction.
Custom Set Ten: Vlad, Son of the Dragon