Characters / The End Times: Vermintide

Characters for the games The End Times: Vermintide and Vermintide II

The Ubersreik Five ^note Or Four. Doesn't matter...

See The End Times: Vermintide: Player Characters.

Allies

Franz Lohner

Innkeeper

Rested? Healed? Good, because I got another job for you. And it won’t keep.

Voiced by: David Shaw Parker

As cheerful as can be managed, Franz is doing what he can to aid and coordinate what little is left of Ubersreik's inhabitants. He's not afraid to call on smugglers and other underground elements to help keep supplies flowing if that's what it takes.

---

• All There in the Manual: According to "A Guide to Ubersreik", Lohner worked as a very successful mercenary in his youth, and made enough money from it while he still had his health to buy the Red Moon Inn and retire to being an innkeep.
• Crazy-Prepared: He would have to be, with him being able to quickly hire a Grey wizard to keep a Perception Filter spell cast over his inn during a sudden Skaven invasion.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: In one lore post, none other than the goddess Lileath appears in the Keep to instruct him on how to avert the End Times. He definitely does not gape helplessly and pour himself a large brandy.
• The Heart: Lohner tries to get the Ubersreik Five to bond and open up, reasoning that it makes them a more effective unit. He's been semi-successful at it too, if the "Franz Lohner's Chronicle" blog posts are any indication.
• Mission Briefing: Lets the party know what is up and why they are needed to go to a particular place and do a particular thing, speaking over loading screens about the specifics.
• Mission Control: In the sequel's "Treacherous Adventure" quest line, he substitutes for Olesya while she's in the field, using a Crystal Ball to watch and communicate with the Ubersreik Five from afar.
• Mysterious Past: There's a considerable level of mystery surrounding who or what Lohner is. He's without a doubt more than "just an innkeeper", as evident by his myriad of connections with many powerful figures, Emperor Karl Franz implied to be one of them. According to "A Guide to Ubersreik", Lohner worked as a very successful mercenary in his youth, and Waylaid shows him with a Grudgebringer shield. Talking to Lohner in the Keep in 2 may also have him refer to a "beaut of a sword" that he once owned, which could very well be the Grudgebringer, after which the mercenary band was named, thus directly implying him to be none other than Morgan Bernhardt himself. Additionally, the way he quite suspiciously denies knowing who the "other chap" in the "Old Comrades" ravaged art is indirectly implies it was him in his youth, when he was a nobleman warrior and trusted ally of Countess Gertrun of Middenheim. The Lohner's Chronicle post "Obsession" more or less confirms him as Morgan Bernhardt, with him referencing an old elven friend named Elrod, who was an allied Wood Elf commander in Dark Omen. "Deathly Whispers" has him imply he's done a lot of mysterious things in his time - some of which would probably make members of the Ubersreik Five quite mad at him - and he claims to know exactly why the infamously insane Elector Count Marius Leitdorf went mad, yet another matter that few in-universe can answer.
• Quest Giver: He gathers intelligence and comes up with critical objectives that the party needs to meet to stem the Vermintide. In the sequel, he shares the role with Olesya, pairing his network of agents with her magical scrying.
• Refuge in Audacity: He admits in one of his Chronicle posts that not only does he steal several of the things he sells to the Ubersreik Five (or Four, doesn't matter), but that Kruber's hats in particular have been stolen from none other than Emperor Karl Franz himself.
• Retired Badass: The Waylaid DLC has him in possession of a Grudgebringer shield; heavily suggesting that he's a former Grudgebringer and has fought the skaven before. It also has you first find him alone in a room full of dead Stormvermin. The "A Guide to Ubersreik" does indeed confirm he was once part of the Grudgebringers.
• Secret-Keeper: It appears most of the party trust him with their darkest secrets, including Bardin and even Kerillian. When he gets loose lips and shares a few tidbits about Bardin with the others, Bardin threatens to reveal his history in retribution.
• Shipper on Deck: In a few Lohner's Chronicle posts, the spymaster openly speculates that Kerillian and Kruber have a thing for one another, writing about it in his journal. Kerillian threatens him into stopping his speculation in "A Close Call" when she figures it out, and while he does stop on pain of mutilation, the affair doesn't seem to have actually changed his mind about the pairing. Said speculation took the form of prose poetry, much to Sienna's amusement. As of "Message From Okri", he's back at it despite said threats.
• The Spymaster: Implied but never stated that his profession extends beyond being the simple owner of an inn. Given his strategic acumen, network of informants across the city and the Reikland more generally, and connections with a Grey Wizard who does him significant magical favors, it is unlikely he was "only" ever an innkeeper.

Olesya Pimenova

Carriage Driver

Ah, there you are! Get on board.

Voiced by: Nicolette McKenzie

A sour and impatient older lady with a moderate eastern european accent. She frequently chides the crew for being slow or late as soon as she sees them.

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: Group and keep banter in 2 implies that Olesya has an eye for Kruber, which weirds him out greatly due to their stark difference in age and personality, not helped by the fact that he's already pining for Kerillian. The other members are aware of this and will relentlessly tease him when given the chance.
  Bardin: Olesya should know the gatekeeper's exact location, but instead she used her power to look at Kruber's morning routine. *laughs*
  Kerillian: We need this lifting platform to go down just like Olesya needs Kruber.
• The Archmage: In the second game she runs rings around at least two Chaos Sorcerer Lords and a Grey Seer, always finding the weak spots in their best laid plans.
• Ascended Extra: In the second game she reveals she is a formidable wizard herself, and serves as your primary mission-giver and source of intelligence.
• Card Sharp: Apparently unwinds with the main characters from time to time and is well known for being a master at gambling. Kruber suspects that she cheats... which for an unsanctioned Grey wizard, is both entirely plausible and would be nearly impossible to catch her in the act of (and further imply she is certainly unsanctioned, as the Grey Order has no tolerance at all toward the use of illusion magic for personal profit).
• Casting a Shadow: As a Grey Wizard, her magical arts relate to darkness, deceit and confusion.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the first game she tended to tell the main characters they needed to hurry up, or that they were late. In the second she enjoys taking pot-shots at them in between missions, often commenting on how graceless and thuggish their actions are. The ones she told them to do.
• Doomed Hometown: She's a Kislevite and Kislev has already fallen. She seems to be taking it in stride.
• Eyepatch of Power: And with some vicious-looking scars stemming from that eye that can be easily seen despite the eyepatch, too.
• Getaway Driver: Fullfils this role for the group in 1, transporting them all over and around Ubersreik with a carriage. Downplayed in 2, where she doesn't drive them place to place, but instead conjures up Bridges of Shadow to get the party in and out of Helmgart and its periphery at a snap.
• Grumpy Old Man: Gender-inverted, Olesya rarely ever says a kind word and spent most of the first game complaining about the heroes taking too long. She's a bit more sociable in the second game, however.
• Handicapped Badass: Is missing an eye and one leg that she replaced with a pegleg.
• Hellish Horse: Downplayed in a Dark Is Not Evil way by a pair of Spectral Horses that pull her wagon. They are not real creatures, but rather manifest Grey Magic that is cast by her. They come in extremely handy to swiftly cart the party about.
• Husky Russkie: Olesya's accent implies that she's from Kislev, Warhammer's Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Russia. Downplayed, as she's never seen fighting and her Grey Magic specializes in illusions and stealth. She definitely has the thick-skinned, unfazeable personality this trope implies however. The second game confirms that she's Kislevite.
• Master of Illusion: Is revealed to be a self-taught practitioner of shadow magic in the Waylaid DLC, to Saltzpyre's great shock, and in the second game uses her abilities to keep the heroes' base safe, along with spying on and sabotaging the enemy forces.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: She's just barely taller than Bardin.
• Mission Control: In the sequel, she openly uses her magic to watch the Ubersreik Five on their missions and communicate with them from afar. Lampshaded in the prologue when Markus is startled to start hearing her voice in his head.
• Not So Above It All: Despite her grumping over the Ubersreik Five's shortcomings, she's not above pranking them for her own amusement, like by stealing the eagle feathers from Kerillian's arrows and sneaking them into Kruber's hat.
• Perception Filter: As a Grey Wizard, Olesya is a master at this, as her magic basically makes the Red Moon Inn and Taal's Horn Keep invisible to enemy forces until it fails. She apparently casts this on herself as well, as her carriage is usually out in the open and more often than not surrounded by ratmen, who don't even seem to acknowledge her presence.
• Quest Giver: She takes over this role from Lohner in the sequel, assigning critical objectives to the Ubersreik Five based on her own magical scrying and Lohner's intelligence briefings.
• Signature Team Transport: Olesya's wagon gets them safely to and from mission sites among the Skaven-infested streets.
• Sore Loser: Fluff text from Fortunes of War's unlockable portrait frames imply she's this, with Olesya becoming increasingly upset the harder difficulties conquered. If the players managed to beat the map on Cataclysm, she becomes so mad she's practically delirious and fuming, almost to the point of passing out.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: A positive version — she uses magic to spy on the invasion force, gathering intelligence for the heroes' missions. When she has to go into the field, she loans Lohner a Crystal Ball so he can watch the Ubersreik Five.
• Swapped Roles: Takes over from Lohner as the primary mission-giver, while Lohner takes over Olesya's role of support and logistics.
• Troll: Admits that she really enjoys annoying Bödvarr. He reacts as you'd expect. Just as Planned. In "Dark Omens" the party may speculate that she makes her teleportation spells disorienting on purpose.
• Thinking Up Portals: Conjures the Bridge of Shadows in the second game, allowing the group to teleport instantly to a mission and then out again upon completion at predesignated points.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Downplayed. Saltzpyre hates her since he's a witch-hunter and she is an unsanctioned witch, but is willing to work with her because she gets results. She doesn't acknowledge his dislike for her at all.

Christoph Engel

Grey Wizard

---

• Casting a Shadow: Because the Ulgu ("Grey") magic is concerned with shadows, disorienting and confusing with the lack of light, in a classic Dark Is Not Evil manner.
• Continuity Cameo: Christoph Engel originally appeared in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as the only (acknowledged) wizard with a permanent residence in Ubersreik.
• King Incognito: According to A Guide to Ubersreik, Engel tends to dress as a simple traveler or beggar when he leaves his tower. Since almost no one knows his face and he is a master of Ulgu, this is fairly effective at preserving his mystique and allowing him to interact with others without them knowing it was him.
• Mage Tower: His residence, though no obvious doors exist to get into it from the street level. This is intentional, as a Grey Wizard he prefers cleverly hidden entrances over obvious ones.
• Master of Illusion: He's casting a spell that's causing a Perception Filter over the Red Moon Inn. As you walk through it, you'll even encounter a Lotus-Eater Machine room tied to your character's personal eccentricities, different for each character (though the party realizes that this isn't exactly out of character for the Grey Wizard and isn't fooled).
• The Voice: Despite going to his tower, the party never actually meets him face-to-face, hearing only his voice booming out to them through magic. This is part of what gives credence to the notion that he might simply be an illusion by Olesya to cast suspicion off her for her unsanctioned magic.
• Walking Spoiler: Isn't mentioned in most of the missions. His interest in the arcane helps drive parts of the Castle Drachenfels and Karak Azgaraz content however, as he knows of magical artifacts that could help the resistance... or at the very least should be kept out of the skaven's paws. It's also suggested by the a developer blog post for II that Christoph Engel could be nothing but a guise for Olesya, which was later confirmed in Lohner's journal.

Antagonists

Antagonists (Vermintide)

Grey Seer Rasknitt

Leader of Clan Fester

The tide! The tide! Drown-tide!

Voiced by: Andreas Rylander

When Clan Fester was inflicted with the Brood Blight, their breeders became sterile, and the desperate clan sought means to undo this affliction, for they were under the threat of extinction. The Grey Seer named Rasknitt would approach the clan and offer them the cure for the plague, but to give them this, he demanded the conquering of the man-thing city of Ubersreik...

---

• Big Bad: The Warlord of Clan Fester and the Skaven attacking Ubersreik in the first game and Helmgart in the second.
• Big Dumb Body: Starts his boss fight on top of his personal Stormfiend, Deathrattler.
• Disney Villain Death: When the Screaming Bell's supports are destroyed, the pillar holding it collapses and he falls into a deep pit, which finally overcomes his shield. Even though the narrator explicitly states that he died, the DLC mission "Waylaid" reveals that he survived the fall.
• Decapitated Army: After his death, the rest of the Skaven, without a leader, began to tear themselves apart in a bid to take his place or fled in search of easier pickings.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: In the second game, once his health reaches zero, he floats into the air and explodes in a small burst of sorcerous energy.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Olesya reveals in the second game that Rasknitt was never the true leader of Clan Fester, and was only the leader of the invasion force during the events of the first game. After Clan Fester's Warlord was slain, Rasknitt returned, pinned the failure of Ubersreik on said Warlord and took over, transitioning to being a Dragon Ascendant as a result.
• Evil Gloating: Throughout the final level of I, he constantly mocks the heroes that their attempts to stop him are futile.
• Evil Sorcerer: He's a Grey Seer, a powerful Skaven sorcerer.
• Expy: Of another ambitious Grey Seer, Thanquol, one of the antagonists of the Gotrek & Felix series. Rasknitt is uncharacteristically lucky and hard for the protagonists to kill, coming back from certain death and getting away from the consequences of his actions by pinning the blame of defeat on someone else, in this case the previous warlord of Clan Fester. In the finale of II, he returns one last time with his own personal, Ace Custom Rat Ogre named Deathrattler, who draws parallels to the many, many commissioned rat ogres named Boneripper that Thanquol is fond of using.
• Final Boss: He's faced head-on at the end of the Skittergate level in II, alongside his personal Stormfiend, Deathrattler.
• Flunky Boss: Spawns the most mooks to back him up of all the bosses, on top of having a second boss as his pet. Said boss is generally considered to be a greater threat than Rasknitt himself.
• Gatling Good: He commands a heavily modified Stormfiend named Deathrattler in the second game that dual wields Ratling Guns.
• Killed Off for Real: In the sequel, when a player deals the final blow to him, he'll rise up off the ground and then explode into a fine black slurry, confirming beyond the shadow of a doubt that Rasknitt is finally dead for good.
• Large Ham: He spends all of the mission spouting out gloriously grandiose insults and boasts. And laughing. Laughing a lot.
• Laughing Mad: He tends to laugh maniacally.
• No-Sell: In the first game, Rasknitt cannot be harmed due to him drawing on Morrslieb to power a force field should the players attempt to attack him through ranged weapons.
• Out-Gambitted: By Olesya and Lohner throughout the sequel. This time it finally gets him killed.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Grovels to Ribspreader, especially when the Skittergate disastrously fails to operate again.
• Shock and Awe: His primary means of attack, besides getting others to do it for him is to throw waves of green warp lightning at you in various forms.
• The Starscream: He boasts that he will overthrow the Council of Thirteen. Unsurprising, seeing that all Skaven suffer from Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
• Squishy Wizard: While he still has the obligatory boss health pool, Rasknitt is, rather pathetically, easily staggered. Indeed, just spamming light attacks on him will lock him into a Cycle of Hurting until his uninterruptible teleport, allowing a team that knows he only teleports into the four corners of the arena he's fought in to camp around and take turns beating him into a pulp.
• Superpower Meltdown: Loses control of his magic at the end of his boss fight, teleporting around the arena randomly while eletrocuting himself until he collapses in a heap and is rendered helpless.
• This Cannot Be!: Has three of them in rapid succession when he sees the Skittergate has been sabotaged by the same five from Ubersreik, when his pet Stormfiend is killed, and finally when he himself is killed.
• Title Drop: In the sequel, among his many attack callouts is an announcement that summons a horde of Skaven from multiple directions to protect him.
  Drown in Vermintide! (Crazed laughter)
  The tide! The tide! DROWN-DIE!
  UNLEASH, THE VERMINTIDE!
• Walking Spoiler: Considering literally every other trope description of them is blanked out.
• White Hair, Black Heart: White fur, actually, but the same principle applies to Grey Seers like him; light-colored fur and horns are what marks out a Skaven as a natural wizard to be trained by the Horned Rat's priesthood.

Krench

Clan Fester Chieftain

A chieftain of Clan Fester that has struck... some kind of deal to make his clan more powerful. As II clearly shows, it was an alliance with the Nurgle-worshipping Rotblood army.

---

• Badass Abnormal: It's clear from all of the green Warp energy kicking up from all of his attacks that he is no simple Chieftain.
• Boss Remix: The fight with him is set to an awesome remix of the Stormvermin soundtrack.
• Dragon Ascendant: Of sorts — after Rasknitt is killed, Krench takes over as the Warlord for Clan Fester, but he never actually makes an appearance on this. The again, considering Rasknitt's survival, it is likely that he is merely just a Dragon taking orders from Rasknitt in secret.
• Flunky Boss: As is natural for Skaven, he's quickly accompanied by more clanrats/slaves, and periodically summons Stormvermins to his aid.
• Foreshadowing: Krench's green clothing, as well as parts of the room he's in resembling the symbol of Nurgle◊, foreshadowed how Nurgle-worshippers were a new enemy faction within Vermintide II.
• King Mook: He's a beefed-up Stormvermin.
• Large and in Charge: As an important chieftain of his Clan, Krench is bar none the biggest non-Ogre Skaven in the first game, towering over even Saltzpyre by a good margin.
• Trash Talk: A lot throughout his fight. Notably, the heroes that are played will occasionally respond back to him.
• You Are Too Late: The heroes of Ubersreik arrive to only learn the deal Clan Fester was inching toward has already been struck.

Antagonists (Vermintide II)

Bödvarr Ribspreader

Chaos Champion

The ones I seek come to me! Stealers of slaves, torchers of loot, defilers of Lords... You'll suffer for it all!

A Chaos Lord^note The characters only ever refer to him as "Champion", but the achievements and Okri's book call him a Lord, fitting the tabletop's classification, and he's shown to have authority over Burblespue and Nurgloth, both of whom are explicitly Sorcerer Lords, who would outrank a mere Exalted Hero. Fluff-wise "Chaos Champion" is a broad category that encompasses a lot of types, including Lords, but is usually presumed to refer to Exalted Heroes in the absence of other details.who leads the Nurgle-worshipping Rotblood Tribe of Norsca, Bödvarr Ribspreader has made an alliance with Clan Fester for the purpose of attacking Helmgart.

---

• Big Bad Ensemble: The main antagonist of the Rotbloods in Vermintide II, working alongside Rasknitt.
• Dirty Coward: Despite boasting that he can kill the heroes by himself, as soon as he starts losing he calls his minions to aid him. The heroes usually taunt him about this when it happens.
  Kerillian: Like a rat, he talks brave but hides behind minions.
• Flunky Boss: Despite his boasts of facing the heroes "alone", he'll call his minions to his aid at certain health thresholds.
• Gladiator Games: Fights the heroes in an arena in his war camp.
• Ground Pound: This is his breakout move that he does when mobbed by players, whereupon he will slam the hilt of his axe into the ground to create a shockwave that damages and tosses everybody backwards.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His habit of calling in backup tends to backfire on him more than it helps, as he takes time calling them in, time during which he is entirely vulnerable. Bödvarr tends to lose as much, if not more of his health during these intermission speeches than he does while actually fighting, and would be far more likely to win if he didn't waste time calling in reinforcements.
• It's Personal: The Ubersreik Five repeatedly defy and humiliate him in Act 3, and by the time they face him directly, he's put a lot of effort into trying to hunt them down. He opens his fight with a rant about how he'll make them pay for everything they've done.
• Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: He makes a big show of bragging that he'll singlehandedly kill all the heroes in the Arena, but starts calling for backup as soon as they put a dent in his health.
  Bödvarr: Hack me down if you can! I need no aid against Southlander weaklings! [...] Who else wants to try these Southlings?
• King Mook: Bödvarr is a larger Chaos Warrior with more health and some new moves.
• Large and in Charge: The largest and tallest Rotblood in the game. He makes standard Chaos Warriors look small.◊
• Mascot Mook: Bödvarr is featured prominently in promotional art and on the game's cover.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Practically a requirement for Chaos Champion names. In this particular case, "Ribspreader" refers to a particularly gruesome form of execution/sacrifice practiced by Norscans.
• Summon to Hand: Can throw his axe at his enemies and can summon it back to his hand.
• Super-Strength: He can punt any of the heroes dozens of feet with his strikes, not to mention his abilities to accelerate his own 400+ kg^note Bödvarr is a bulky man around nine feet tall; volumetrically scaling up from a 100 kg, six foot man yields a weight of 337 kg. He's also wearing full plate armor, which historically tended towards 1/5 to 1/4 of the user's bodyweight. armored bulk with ease and swing around a hilariously oversized axe (though he does so pretty slowly, more like a sledgehammer than a proper weapon).
• This Is Unforgivable!: During his fight, he swears that he will make the heroes pay for freeing his slaves, burning his supplies and preventing him from harnessing the power of Ghûlmagak's monolith.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: One of his typical moves for dealing with ranged players is to chuck his axe at them, before summoning it back into his hands. Justified in that the axe itself is enchanted with foul magic to allow him a degree of control over its trajectory.
• Tin Tyrant: Large and in Charge and covered in 24-Hour Armor blessed by Grandfather Nurgle.
• Villainous Breakdown: He doesn't take all of the ruin caused by the heroes lightly at all.
  Bödvarr Ribspreader: My slaves. My spoils of war. Lord Ghûlmagak. You will pay for them all!

Burblespue Halescourge

Chaos Sorcerer Lord

A Sorcerer Lord of the Rotblood Tribe, Burblespue Halescourge was involved in the making of the pact with Clan Fester. His existence is first alluded to in the original game's DLCs after he steals a number of dangerous books from Franz Lohner.

---

• Affably Evil: As customary of a Nurgle worshipper, he's very polite and calls the group his esteemed guests and gives them greetings at the start of the boss battle.
• The Dragon: To Bödvarr.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He's present in the Prologue when the Skittergate malfunctions, alongside Rasknitt and Bödvarr.
• The Faceless: Like Blightstormers, he wears a helmet that completely conceals his head, albeit with extra Spikes of Villainy.
• Fat Bastard: He's as morbidly obese as the rest of his Nurglite sorcerer brethren. Lohner even calls him this in one of his mission briefings.
• The Ghost: His name is first mentioned in the Death on the Reik DLC of the first game, and the heroes correctly deduce him to be a Norscan, but only meet him in Vermintide II.
• It's Personal: He stole Lohner's book collection, so Lohner really wants to see him dead.
• King Mook: Halescourge is an enhanced Blightstormer.
• Large and in Charge: On top of being very wide, he's a good foot and then some taller than common Blightstormers, albeit not as tall as Bödvarr.
• Plaguemaster: Naturally, as a Chaos Sorcerer of Nurgle. The Heroes interrupt him at a ritual that would drown Helmgart in a deadly plague mist, and he wields pestilent swarms and waves of pus in his boss fight. Fortunately, infections aren't part of the gameplay, so they only cause Damage Over Time.
• Teleport Spam: Also like his sorcerer brethren, he is fond of teleporting.

Skarrik Spinemanglr

Skaven Warlord

A ferocious Skaven Warlord hailing from Clan Pestilens who took Chieftain Krench's place as lord of Clan Fester after his death at Stromdorf. Noted for not being particularly bright.

---

• Assassination Attempt: His banter reveals that he thinks Rasknitt, the figurehead of the attack on Helmgart and sworn enemy of the Five, somehow hired the heroes to assassinate him as part of a scheme and vows to slay both them and Rasknitt later.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The big guy to Rasknitt.
• The Dragon: To Rasknitt, though technically Skarrik outranks him.
• Dual Wielding: His secondary weapons are two short swords.
• Dumb Muscle: It's mentioned several times that he's a complete idiot but he's enormous, heavily-armored, and carries a very large weapon.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He's present in the Prologue when the Skittergate malfunctions, alongside Rasknitt and Bödvarr.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: His voice is positively gravely, far more than any other Skaven character. The only ones more guttural than him are the Rat Ogres.
• Expy: His overall appearance, rack of skulls and aggressive dual-wielding fighting style is very reminiscent of Queek Headtaker.
• Flunky Boss: Like his predecessor, he summons a lot of minions.
• King Mook: Just as Krench was before him, he is a bigger and souped-up Stormvermin.
• Large and in Charge: The largest Skaven in the game who isn't a Rat Ogre or Stormfiend. He's bigger than a Chaos Warrior◊.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: His back is adorned with skulls.
• Spin Attack: Very fond of doing these, and with his polearm it sweeps across a large chunk of the arena.
• Trash Talk: Also like his predecessor.
• Unwitting Pawn: Lohner notes he's too dumb to come up with any of the plans he's carrying out, and Rasknitt seems to be the brains of the operation.
• Villainous Valour: Gotta give the rodent his due, he's impressively brave for a Skaven. Despite them cutting through his entire warren of warriors to get to him, Skarrik jumps down to fight the party directly when he is in a pretty decent position to run away, as most Skaven Warlords would if they could. He doesn't fight alone but then no boss in the game does.

Nurgloth the Eternal

Chaos Sorcerer Lord

A Rotblood Chaos Sorcerer Lord who took up residence in Castle Drachenfels in the second game and tries to summon a daemon there.

---

• Arc Villain: Of the Return to Castle Drachenfels DLC.
• Crosshair Aware: One of his attacks has him in the center of his arena and summoning concentric rings of explosions that the heroes need to dodge to avoid damage. Each ring also conveniently shows which area will not explode and is safe to stand on.
• Dragon Their Feet: He's a Chaos Sorcerer Lord from the same tribe as Burblespue so presumably was under Bödvarr's authority yet took no part in the battles around Helmgart and the Skittergate, possibly ignoring them in his interest in the Castle Drachenfels.
• Evil Gloating: In contrast to Burblespue Halescourge who is at least Affably Evil, about 80% of Nurgloth's voice lines have him taunt the heroes.
• Fat Bastard: Is as bloated as any other Chaos Sorcerer in the game.
• Flies Equals Evil: Can summon a swarm of flies to stun the players.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: A large bell is mounted to the shaft of his scythe, punctuating his boss fight with harsh peals.
• Fusion Dance: He states that he and his summoned daemon have become one rather than the more common Demonic Possession.
• Guide Dang It!: He has the Berserker armor type, rather than the expected Monster armor type of prior Sorcerer Lord Burblespue. This makes heavy attacks from many typical anti-boss weapons deal reduced damage to him. On the other hand, it also means he's highly vulnerable to shotgun-type weapons that other bosses strongly resist.
• Power Floats: Thanks to the daemon's power, he flies as his main method of locomotion, in addition to the usual Chaos Sorcerer Teleport Spam.
• Sinister Scythe: Wields a scythe, which is a favored weapon for Nurglites.
• Unwitting Pawn: Developments in the Chaos Wastes missions rather imply that his plot in Castle Drachenfels may have been manipulated by Be'lakor to draw the Ubersreik Five there as part of a separate plan.

Sofia Fuegonasus

Necromancer

Twin sister of Sienna Fuegonasus, Sofia turned to the dark arts and was believed to have perished years ago. However, she's since resurfaced as a powerful necromancer aligned to the Pactsworn.

---

• Arc Villain: Of the Trail of Treachery DLC.
• Back from the Dead: According to Lohner, Sienna incinerated her when her necromantic predilections came to light, but necromancers have a bad habit of not staying dead.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Players can pull this on Sofia by defeating her as Sienna while using her Necromancer career.
• Cain and Abel: There's no love lost between the two sisters. Sienna killed her once already for preying on helpless peasants, and they're both prepared to put the other down.
• Dem Bones: When her Well of Souls is damaged, she adds unique spectral skeleton enemies to the masses already attacking the Ubersriek Five.
• Deliberate Under-Performance: If Sienna is to be believed, Sofia has a habit of deliberately setting herself up for failure, since she treats being hunted by her adversaries as some kind of game, and gets off on the thrill of being chased and foiled instead of empty victory. By doing so, it means she can run away to brew up another scheme later and experience the same sensation again whenever she wants it.
  Sienna: I'm starting to think Sofia doesn't want to win. She just enjoys the game.
• Disney Villain Death: After the Well of Souls is destroyed, Sofia's ritual structure collapses into the tower, and Sofia goes down with it as she swears revenge. Sienna will scoff that, with no dead body to be seen, she'll likely come back to cause trouble in the future.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Subverted. The heroes find Skaven and Rotbloods guarding her lair, but soon realize that they're her mind-controlled pawns, not allies.
• Evil Twin: She's Sienna's twin sister, but with a talent for Black Magic and the villainous drive to use it against the Empire.
• Foil: She and Sienna are both addicted to their magic, but where Sienna at least uses her power to fight Chaos, Sofia just wants to revel in her necromancy at everyone's expense.
• For the Evulz: She doesn't seem to have any long-term plan behind her scheme to raise an undead army. Sienna muses that Sofia doesn't even care about victory, only "the game".
• Mind Control: The Pactsworn guarding Sofia in Olesya's tower are under her magical control. She's not too happy with the quality of the help this gets her:
  Sofia: The spell said mindless servants, not clueless servants!
• Necromancer: Wields Black Magic and commands the spirits of the dead, and intends to ignite a plague of undeath in the region — A dangerous prospect, considering how many dead bodies are lying around the countryside by that point in the story. In her boss battle, she summons waves of skeletons (which use the animations of shield-bearing marauders and warhammer-wielding maulers) in conjunction with a sweeping beam that rapidly saps health as skeletal hands claw at the player.
• Never Found the Body: Despite her ritual structure going down with her on it, a party member may note that her body is nowhere to be found.
• Outside-Context Problem: Unlike the major antagonists thus far, Sofia has no direct relationship with either the Skaven clans or the Norscan Rotblood tribes. While members of both do make up the bulk of enemy forces encountered in her lair, it's made apparent that Sofia has turned them into her thralls via magic, and her endgoal seems to just be turning the surrounding populace into undead minions for some nebulous purposes, rather than directly contributing to the Chaos invasion effort in any capacity.
• Terms of Endangerment: Like Sienna, she calls the party "darlings". But unlike her sister, she has far more malevolent feelings towards them.
• The Unfought: Much like Rasknitt in the first game, she's not fought by the party directly, instead simply falling into a hole with her magical artifact (in her case, a Well of Souls) as it breaks apart.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Whereas Sienna is a Fiery Redhead pyromancer, Sofia is a villainous, white-haired necromancer.

Clan Fester (Skaven)

As a Whole

• Antagonist Title: They are the eponymous vermintide. Even in 2 and its expansions where the Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen join the fray, the game is still named after the Skaven and they remain the most prominent antagonists.
• Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Skaven have high, chittering voices, echoing the squeaks of real rats.
• Elite Army: Fester seems to be a testing ground for Skaven weapons and are the beneficiaries of all the Great Clans, and as a result their special units are more formidable than average for their race. Their Warpfire Thrower and Ratling Gun units use prototypes that can be wielded by a single blackrat and work semi-reliably, whereas the normal versions required multiple (admittedly much weaker) clanrats to crew and had a roughly 1/6 chance of killing teammates or the crew every time they're used. All of their Packmasters have Things-Catchers, marking them as Master Moulders. Their Stormvermin all have 3/4 plate backed by mail, whereas most art and models show Stormvermin slightly less protected. Their Rat Ogres are bigger than average ones, which are about the size (with the same movement/strength/toughness) of a large brown bear. Their assassins are all Gutter Runners, who are the elites compared to the mook Night Runners, and all of them are equipped with Weeping Blades and smoke bombs, while these were expensive upgrades for them on the tabletop.
  • In general they also have a much higher ratio of specials and elites to Cannon Fodder than just about any other Skaven army seen in the fiction, comprising respectively 3-5% and 5-10% of their forces. End Times: Thanquol gives detailed orders of battle for the Skaven forces attacking ultra-important targets like Karak Eight Peaks and Nuln, and seldom does an army of tens of thousands have more than a couple dozen weapons teams present.^note An example for the battle of Itza on pages 162 to 165. This army consisted of four wizards (a Plaguelord, a Verminlord, and 2 Plague Priests), five non-wizard heroes/lords (3 Warlords, 1 Warlock Engineer, 1 Chieftain), two Stormfiends, three Plagueclaw Catapults, three claws (Skaven company or battalion equivalents) of Poisoned Wind Globadiers, tens of thousands of melee infantry (a whopping 5 legions of Skavenslaves plus 14 claws of Plague Monks, 10 claws of Clanrats, 4 claws of Plague Censer Bearers, 3 claws of Stormvermin, 3 claws of Rat Ogres, 2 claws of Giant Rats, and a single Master Moulder), and only twelve weapons teams (2 Warpfire Throwers, 2 Poisoned Wind Mortars, 6 Warplock Jezzails, 2 Ratling Guns). Fester brought far more than that to attack (the relatively small) Ubersreik alone, even assuming Gameplay and Story Segregation that deflates their in-game numbers two, five, or even ten fold.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The books repeatedly emphasize that the Skaven are cowards who will break and run after fewer losses than comparable human forces.^note This is reflected in their stats in the tabletop, RPG, and Total War series by giving most Skaven low morale/leadership rankings (most Skaven, including Stormvermin, are Leadership 5, putting them on par with Bretonnian men-at-arms and two or three tiers below Imperial State Troops; meanwhile skavenslaves at Leadership 2 are the easiest to rout infantry in the entire game). But in Vermintide the lowliest skavenslave will still charge with zombie-like persistence even after you've killed a thousand of his comrades, only fleeing in scripted sequences at the very end of certain missions.
  • On the tabletop, Skaven heavy weapons are notoriously unreliable and have a high chance of misfiring and killing their users, which is commented upon constantly in Skaven-related army books, RPG supplements, and novels.^note For one example of how the tabletop game models this, take the Ratling Gun from Skaven 7e. You can choose to have it fire 1D6, 2D6, or 3D6 shots. If at any point you roll the same number twice, the gun misfires, and either fails to shoot, spins wildly and most likely shoots into allied lines, or flat-out explodes and kills the crew. So if you chose to fire on the "middle" setting of 2D6 every time, every turn would carry a 17% chance of one of the aforementioned misfires. The Warpfire Thrower is similar. Since it uses artillery dice, it has a 17% (1/6) chance of rolling a misfire every time it's used, and two of its misfires result in it exploding and likely taking a lot of allies with it (the third result simply makes it fail to shoot). This is not modeled in Vermintide, making units like Ratling Gunners much more dangerous. They're also large and unwieldy enough to require multiple Skaven to deploy and operate, while the ones in game are used by single rats. The first game's lore book handwaves this by stating that Clan Fester is deploying high tech prototypes.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Given how sadistically careless Skaven tend to be, it's completely possible for a Ratling Gun, Globadier, Warpfire Thrower or even a Stormfiend to utterly annihilate a horde of slaves/clanrats/Norscans for you, doing some of the work for you at worst or giving you an opening to escape at best.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • If the tolling of bells and the war cries of hundreds of Skaven doesn't come out of nowhere, then you can anticipate a horde ambush if you hear the angry chittering and babbling of Skaven lying in wait around you before they charge for the kills after a few seconds.
  • Each special moves with a unique sound effect that alerts the players to their presence and can even give away their location.
• Villain Team-Up: Despite much of the leadership of the in-game Skaven faction being attributed to Clan Fester, their organization as a whole is actually a confederation of Fester and Clans Eshin (Gutter Runners), Moulder (Packmasters and Rat Ogres), Skryre (Ratling Gunners, Warpfire Throwers and Poisoned Wind Globadiers), and Pestilens (Plague Monks). These representatives of other, more major, clans are seconded to Clan Fester as part of a mercenary arrangement that benefits those clans.
• We Have Reserves: Their leadership is entirely unconcerned about sending thousands of them into the meat grinder to conquer Ubersreik and later Helmgart, and their special units happily mow other Skaven down with friendly fire for a chance at the Ubersreik Five.
• You Dirty Rat!: A whole race of them.

Skavenslaves

The lowest of the low in the Skaven hierarchy, Skavenslaves perform the most menial and/or dangerous tasks, and constantly face the threat of being devoured by their kin. In battle, they are deployed for meat grinder tactics, swarming the enemy in sheer numbers, and therefore lack armour and decent weapons.

---

• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Have no regard for their own safety and will ferociously attack the heroes thanks to having nothing to lose.
• Bald of Evil: Owing to their poor health, terrible living conditions and constant torment, Skavenslaves are mostly furless and have their pink and naked flesh exposed.
• Cannon Fodder: The Skaven's natural Lack of Empathy leads them to care not for the lives of others, and in the case of the Skavenslaves, their life is less valuable than even that of Clanrats. A messy death is considered the inevitable result of sending them into battle, and their superiors care not a whit.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Their primary threat is this. Their attacks don't hit very hard, but when you're getting stabbed from twenty different directions, their weak arms don't matter.
• Dirty Coward: More cowardly than the normal Clanrats, and Skavenslaves will not charge the heroes head-on when only one to three of them remain as they know they don't stand a chance.
• Expy: Of the Horde attack from Left 4 Dead.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: The tolling of a bell is used in the sequel to alert the heroes to an incoming horde.
• The Goomba: The weakest enemy encountered in the game, they are really only dangerous when sent in hordes, which they are... often.
• Musical Spoiler: Via Source Music, as they blare a horn (or toll a bell in the sequel) to signal their attack.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: They cannot sustain even incidental damage, but since they are sent in large hordes, they can easily overwhelm a party who over-relies on slow-hitting, high-damage weaponry without the quick-hitting, low-damage weaponry needed to thin their numbers.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Their suicidal attacks are born less of a belief in the possibility of victory than a keen understanding of the suffering they will endure if they do not make the attempt. Skavenslaves attack with the ferocity of wretches with nothing to lose, and die in droves doing it.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Their typical armament, as they have to make do with cast off and scavenged weaponry.
• Zerg Rush: Even moreso than the Clanrats. They appear in huge hordes whenever the horn sounds, much akin to the horde in Left 4 Dead. However, they're even weaker than regular Clanrats.

Clanrats

The Clanrats make up the bulk of the Skaven army and are among the lowest ranking in the vile clan hierarchy. Slightly shorter than your average man, the common Clanrat's matted fur is filthy and patched, with wounds and boils covering parts of their body. They are clothed in rags and scrap armour, carrying worn down swords, knives, maces, flails, spears, and torches.

---

• Combat Pragmatist: Very very prone to ambushing the players from high areas, flanking them, attacking from behind, etc.
• Dirty Coward: Occasionally they will try to run or cower in fear instead of fighting when caught alone.
• Mooks: The run-of-the-mill enemies, they're weak but attack in large numbers.
• Musical Spoiler: Via Source Music in the first game, as they blare a horn to signal their attack. In the second game, tolling of bells signals their attack instead.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: In the second game, a few of them carry shields, making them marginally harder to take down from the front.
• Zerg Rush: Tend to appear in numbers.

Stormvermin

Wearing heavy armour, red cloth and a crest adorned helmet, the Stormvermin are among the fighting elite of the Skaven clans. Well trained in the use of halberds, they are tough challenge in one on one combat. Stormvermin will mix up stabs, swings, blocks and parries, to always keep the players on their toes. Facing a lone Stormvermin can be quite a challenge, but taking on a whole Patrol is borderline suicidal. Using their tactical training, the Stormvermin Patrol will quickly surround individual heroes and with just a few well placed blows bring the player to their knees. If the Patrol is engaged, the players must work together and be constantly aware of their surroundings if they are to survive.

---

• Adaptational Badass: In the tabletop game (and in other adaptations such as Total War), Stormvermin are near-identical to Imperial halberdiers or swordsmen, their only notable advantage being moderately better armor.^note Their weapons and combat stats are the same aside from Stormvermin being faster [movement 5 and initiative 5 versus the State Troops' movement 4 and initiative 3] and State Troops having better morale [leadership 7 versus the Stormvermins' leadership 5]. As for armor, Storvermin have an armor save of 5+, versus State Troops at 6+; noticeably better, but not enormously so. This is reflected in their point value on the tabletop; Stormvermin are worth about two Clanrats and only slightly more than a State Troop.^note From Skaven 7e and Empire 8e: Clanrats are 4 points (5 if given a spear and shield), Imperial spearmen and halberdiers are 6 (swordsmen are 7), and Storvermin are 7 (8 with a shield). In Vermintide on the other hand, the Stormvermins' heavy plate armor, health, and high damage make each one easily equivalent to many Clanrats.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Their head is unarmoured and vulnerable to all attacks.
• Beef Gate: The Stormvermin Patrols, which consist of 4-6 of them on the lower difficulties, and 20-30 on the higher. This makes them a huge threat to any player who happens to be careless, or unprepared for the set difficulty. The game info even suggests that you avoid the patrol.
• Elite Mook: Much stronger and tougher than their Clanrat brethren due to their training and proper armour.
• Evil Wears Black: Due to the Stormvermin being recruited exclusively from those Skaven born with black fur.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Has armor on their body to prevent damage from being dealt there. One must use an Armor-Piercing Attack or hit their head to damage them.
• Knock Back: Is able to push the player back with its halberd, often following it up with a strong over-hand strike.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Vermintide 2 introduces a sword and shield variant of the stormvermin. Their shields are thick metal pieces that'd make a dwarf grumble in annoyance, as opposed to the shoddy wooden shields Clanrats use, so they can't be destroyed. A handful of attacks, however, can still go right through them (like handgun bullets).
• Mook Lieutenant: They can occasionally be found commanding and leading lesser Skaven, rather than deployed in patrolling squads.
• No-Sell: Due to being armored, their body armor makes most non-charged attacks all but useless. Attack their head, use a Charged Attack, or an armor-piercing weapon to damage them.
• Patrolling Mook: Stormvermin Patrols will patrol an area, allowing the heroes to hide from them. Thankfully, they make a very distinctive "Yah! Hee!" sound when they're around.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: They are marked by bright red cloth over their armor, which in turn protects their black fur. This communicates to onlookers that they are not to be trifled with.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: The second game introduce Stormvermin Swordsmen who fight with shield and sword, who deal less damage but are harder to take down. Flanking or staggering are your best bets.
• Wolfpack Boss: Alerting and fighting an entire patrol can become like this, as they're made of at least six Elite Mooks that can surround and deal very heavy damage to an unprepared team. This becomes exaggerated on the highest difficulty, where they consist of 20-30 Elite Mooks who can kill you in two or three hits.

Poison Wind Globadier

Wearing their signature robes and gas mask and carrying a heavy rebreathing apparatus, the Poison Wind Globadiers have actually strapped a ticking time bomb on their backs, since the container is filled with highly combustible warp-gas. These hired elite soldiers can be heard from quite a distance, clanking and wheezing their way into battle, whilst preparing their globes with deadly green gas to be flung at their enemy.

---

• Action Bomb: When its gas tank is damaged, it'll try to blow up on a hero to bring them down with it.
• Deadly Gas: Throws spheres containing deadly Warpstone gas that deal damage over time in an Area of Effect.
• Expy: Has a constant damage Herd-Hitting Attack like the Spitter from Left 4 Dead 2. It also has some qualities of the Boomer, being able to cause an Interface Screw with its ability as well as the ability to explode.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Wears a gas mask to protect itself from its own deadly gas.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: A dark yellow/orange light comes from the optics of their gas mask, and when they're about to self destruct they'll turn red.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Its gas hits a wide area, forcing the heroes to move apart.
• Long-Range Fighter: Their sole attack is to chuck a sphere full of a gas at their targets, having no way to actually attack other than to either back off and flee or activate their self destruct.
• Never My Fault: 'Accidentally' gassing a bunch of other Skaven to death has Globadiers completely deflect all blame from themselves for it.
  I didn't throw that.
  Fool-slaves! Got in the way!
  HRRRGH, Idiots! Go die somewhere else!
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Alerts the heroes via Vader Breath sound thanks to his rebreather, and the hissing and groaning sounds of the machine containing their warp-gas.
• Taking You with Me: If the gas tank is damaged enough, it will attempt to charge to the nearest hero and explode into a huge cloud of gas and shrapnel.
• Team Killer: That gas doesn't differentiate between heroes and other Skaven. The Globadiers don't care.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Rely exclusively on their gas grenades for offense.
• Vader Breath: His rebreather is clearly audible, and is usually the sign the party will have that he is about.

Gutter Runner

For a Gutter Runner, stealth is everything. Always moving in the shadows, the Gutter Runner wear a black cloak to blend in with their surroundings and make as little noise as possible. Equipped with Warpstone Rat Claws that glow a sickening shade of green, the Gutter Runner will expertly leap at its enemy, using its weight and momentum to knock the player onto their back. Left prone and vulnerable, the Gutter Runner will then proceed to hack into the hero’s torso, forcing the rest of the players to rush to the aid of their comrade.

---

• Deadly Lunge: Their preferred method of attack is to leap onto their target unexpectedly and start stabbing.
• Devious Daggers: They dual-wield warpstone-enhanced punch daggers and rely on attacking from stealth.
• Expy: Of the Hunter from Left 4 Dead. They're a fast but fragile unit that incapacitates players (particularly those that split from the party) while doing high damage per second. Runners are a lot quieter about preparing to pounce, but give themselves away with their constant skittering.
• Fragile Speedster: They don't have much health, but are incredibly fast, can come from many different angles thanks to their impressive leaps, and can deal very high damage with their attacks. This occasionally works against them, as their high-speed leaps can slam them right into a wall if they miss their target and kill them on impact, or send them flying off a cliff. Even if you don't kill one with the first hit, their nonexistent resistance to being staggered will usually allow you to finish them off before they can either get away or pounce.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Someone should really tell Clan Eshin that warpstone blades glow...
• Invisibility Cloak: They gain a temporary one when it uses a smoke bomb.
• McNinja: Being a ninja-rat from a Fantasy Counter Part Culture version of renaissance Europe. As a side note, their clan learned its stealth skills from the Warhammer equivalents of China, Japan, and India.
• Never Split the Party: Their purpose is to enforce this in gameplay - an incapacitated hero can only be saved by another hero, so straying away from the party will quickly get you downed by the nearest Gutter Runner.
• No Body Left Behind: They explode into goop on death, adding more paranoia that it may still be around, cloaked. Averted in 2, where they leave bodies like other rats and have a distinctive death-wheeze when you kill them.
• Personal Space Invader: They jump onto a hero to incapacitate them, then starts tearing their nipples out.
• Smoke Out: If attacked and not killed when they're pinned down by a hero, they will throw a smoke bomb to temporarily turn themselves invisible.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: They're very fond of doing this, particularly when being shot since they're trying to dodge laterally.
• With Catlike Tread: Surprisingly for an assassin-type enemy, Gutter Runners are not the least bit sneaky, with the heroes all remarking on how loudly they scarper around in addition to their highly-audible chatter. Their presence can be anticipated simply by keeping an ear out for their loud voice lines. On the other hand, the whispers also don't let you know which direction the rat bastard is coming from, since they're only audible before they actually start leaping at you.
  "Always sneaking, stabbing..."

Packmaster

Packmasters are Clan Moulder troops tasked with driving packs of ravening beasts into battle, using whips and intimidation to spur their charges into a frenzy of teeth and claws. However, the Packmasters hired by Clan Fester in their assault on Ubersreik are predominantly equipped with things-catchers, a pole arm designed to incapacitate opponents by strangulation.

---

• The Beastmaster: What they're originally intended to be in the lore. These versions "tame" a different type of beasts, however- said beasts being the heroes. The website acknowledges that this is unusual, and speculates as to why Clan Fester would pay the extra warpstone tokens to employ Clan Moulder's agents in this manner; the implications are disturbing... and the tutorial level for 2 shows exactly why Clan Fester insisted upon this change, as they need a source of fresh man-thing slaves for their plans, leading to them eventually managing to capture all the heroes.
• Expy: Of the Jockey from Left 4 Dead 2, by incapacitating heroes and dragging them around against their will, often into more trouble.
• It's Personal: All five of the heroes seem to loathe Packmasters in particular with a seething passion. They have nothing but scathing choice words to announce their arrival, and cheer the most triumphantly when a Packmaster is slain. Given the Packmaster's M.O. and the fate of those successfully sold to their masters, it's quite justified.
• Improbable Weapon User: Their weapon is a spiked neck clamp that it uses to strangle and damage heroes while dragging them around.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Your character loses all collision when grabbed by a Packmaster, letting them pull you through otherwise-impassable walls of Skavenslaves or Clanrats.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Packmasters are the only Special in the game marked as the Monster enemy type rather than Armored or Infantry. Mechanically speaking, this change in their base stats means they're resistant to shotgun/scatter shot weaponry so that you can't just blow them away so easily. Metamorphically speaking, they're also the vilest, cruelest and most morally monstrous of all Skaven thanks to their M.O and what typically happens to their victims.
• Never Split the Party: Another enforcer of this, as an incapacitated hero can only be saved by another party member.
• The Quiet One: The sequel has them most of their voicelines, leaving only the chittering of bones they wear as the only hint that they're near. When they actually capture someone, every player in the game can hear their distinctly quiet and wheezy laughter as the victim gets dragged away.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Wears a skull necklace and also has skulls on its weapons. This actually works against him as they clatter loudly, giving away his position.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: They’re by far the most hated of the rats the heroes face, with Kerillian in particular lamenting them as 'cruel among a cruel kin'. Whoever is caught by a Packmaster as isn’t killed soon after can look forward to captivity and slavery, being eaten alive as rations, and/or sold off for inhumane science experiments - their hatred of Packmasters is well-founded.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Makes a bone rattling sound that the heroes can identify thanks to his skulls moving about. Also tends to rapidly say "catch" in the repetitive manner of the Skaven.
• Torture Technician: Their modus operandi is to grab heroes with a strangling device and drag them around as they slowly choke to death, before hanging the hero and leaving them to die.
• What a Drag: They grab heroes with their Things-Catcher and drag them around. However, it's not the dragging but rather the choking and the spikes that hurts more.

Ratling Gunner

The Ratling Gun is a six-barreled monstrosity of a gun, powered by warp steam and operated with a hand crank. This fearsome weapon of unparalleled rate of fire is normally operated by a Clan Skryre weapons team, but the version deployed in Ubersreik seems to be of a lighter, experimental type, capable of being moved and fired by a single large Skaven.

---

• Achilles' Heel: They are even more vulnerable to headshots than their brethren since they have to stand still while firing, allowing anyone he's not focusing on to take him down with a single headshot from a crossbow or gun.
• Adaptational Badass: Your standard Ratling Gun is a hefty weapon that requires two operators to use, one to carry and feed ammo into the gun and someone else to aim and fire it, with the shoddy and sometimes deliberately dangerous design of the weapon meaning that at best the weapon can jam up while firing and at worst straight up explode and kill its user. Ratling Guns in Vermintide are much more mobile and reliable due to their experimental design, with one strong and armored rat being able to carry the ammo supply on his back and wield the gun without anyones help to rain down a hailstorm of bullets on people, the only caveat being that the sheer weight of it all makes them slow and lumbering targets if caught out of position.
• Armored But Frail: They have half the health of other specials, but compensate with full-body armor like Stormvermin. Beating them up in melee will thus take a while unless you've got crits or are aiming for the head, but ranged attacks will pierce right through them.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Its head is unarmoured and vulnerable to all attacks.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted, the Ratling Gun may have a deep reserve of ammunition, but not inexhaustible. The weapon must periodically cease fire to allow the wielder to change belts or clear jams, and it is at this moment the party has the best opportunity to displace and strike.
• Gatling Good: Carries an even more experimental Ratling Gun that can be handled by a single Skaven, and uses it to riddle your heroes with warpstone bullets.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Since it is a high-priority target, it is equipped with substantial armor so it can keep firing despite the return fire that it might attract. Only its head is clear, requiring the party to aim for that or hit them with armor-piercing attacks. This is no longer the case in 2, where unarmored versions sometimes appear, especially on lower difficulties.
• Laughing Mad: The only audible noise they make other than angry hissing is maniacal laughter as they let loose a hailstorm of bullets into their target.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Of all the specials, Ratlings are generally the most potent at actually killing their own troops, with the indiscriminate rain of bullets being relatively simple to steer into a crowd of slaves or a monster if you have the space and a shield to protect yourself. It’s entirely possible for most of a horde to be culled or a chunk of monster HP to be chewed up by a sole Ratling Gun being tricked, but doing so takes some practice and suitable terrain.
• Mighty Glacier: Is very slow-moving thanks to its heavy gun. However, once that gun spins up, it's going to deliver A LOT of damage.
• More Dakka: The Ratling Gunner receives a hefty boost to its fire rate in Vermintide 2, as well as a near-instant spooling time that practically lets them open fire the instant they see a player.
• Steampunk: The Ratling Gun is driven by warpstone-heated steam, and the sound of the steam engine building pressure can alert the party that a Ratling Gunner is moving into attack position.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: A gatling gun spinning up is the cue that he'll be firing a hail of bullets.
• Team Killer: Skaven do not have allies, only mortal rivals of temporary convenience. Thus, if any other Skaven gets in the way of the gunfire, well, "better him than I". There is even a challenge in Vermintide 2 that requires the player to have a Ratling Gunner kill a certain amount of other mooks for them.

Warpfire Thrower

The Warpfire Thrower is whispered of in many quarters – chiefly for the horrors it has wrought in the cramped confines of dwarfen holds. Though little more than a vat of unstable warp-fuel and an ignition source, it is a weapon to be feared, as many charred skeletons would perhaps attest, could they speak of it. With the smouldering projector aimed, the simple flip of a switch births roiling clouds of warpfire that scours all from the gunner’s path.

Though the Warpfire Thrower is frequently seen wielded by weapon teams of two skaven, particularly deranged gunners have been known to take the field without the aid of a fuel-bearer. Eager to earn favour with their masters, such ratmen readily trade the additional burden for the chance to deny another skaven a share of the glory.

---

• Angrish: They're even more unhinged than usual for a Skaven, the bulk of their dialogue being barely-intelligible threats and absolutely livid war-cries.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Their flames will push you back out of them to prevent you from getting caught in a Cycle of Hurting. Zig-zagged, though, since if you run out of ammunition this effect also prevents you from simply powering through the flames to introduce the fire rat to your melee weapon. If you get trapped into a corner or are standing on a cliff at the time, well, you're either bathing in flames or falling off the cliff.
• Armored But Frail: They have half the health of other specials, but compensate with full-body armor like Stormvermin. Similar to Ratlings, attacking them up in melee will take a while to kill them without the aid of crits or aiming for the head, but ranged attacks will pierce right through them.
• Attack Its Weak Point: A very large and noticeable Warpstone crystal is in a holder above their back. Shooting it with a powerful enough ranged attack will cause it to explode, killing the fire rat instantly. Banging on the crystal with a melee weapon also causes the fire rat to explode, however, which deposits the flame patch right under your feet, so give it a second thought before bumrushing one at close range.
• Blown Across the Room: Ironically, the actual flames aren't particularly dangerous to a hero, but the sheer force of the weapon's pushback can easily keep you pinned and be left at the mercy of the horde, or leave you dangling off a cliff.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: They use a Warpfire Thrower, which operates as a flamethrower but ejects much more devastating warpstone-fueled fire.
• Flamethrower Backfire: Their warpstone fuel source explodes when struck, killing the thrower instantly and leaving a fire surface behind.
• Knockback: Their fire drives as much pressure as heat; anything not fixed in place will be blown back by the flames.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: It frequently laughs and says "burn the surface dwellers" to alert heroes that it's around.
• Team Killer: Like the Ratling Gunners, Warpfire Throwers could roast any hapless mook that strays into their cone of fire.
• Technicolor Fire: Their flame burns bright green, presumably due to the warpstone powder mixed into its fuel.

Plague Monk

Dedicated to the spread of corruption and decay, the Plague Monks are zealots of Clan Pestilens, whose sole purpose is the spread of disease in the name of the Great Horned One. Recognizable through their soiled garments and putrid stench, these vile beings are a revolting attack on the senses for even their fellow Skaven.

---

• The Berserker: They charge straight at the heroes with neither fear nor pain and lay into them with a rapid series of savage blows, only stopping briefly when knocked back or permanently when killed.
• Elite Mook: Bigger and tougher then most Skaven, save for Stormvermin and Rat Ogres.
• Feel No Pain: Very little of it at any rate, their sensitivity to harm dulled and diluted by the many sicknesses they have willingly endured.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Their attacks cannot be interrupted and they're extremely difficult to stagger, so you can't prevent them from hitting you by keeping them off-balance. Hope you learned to block!
• The Pig-Pen: Even by Skaven standards, and that is saying something.
• Plague Master: Members of a religious order of plaguemasters, though at least they don't have the power to spread disease.
• Religious Bruiser: When not yet alerted to the player, they can be seen forming little prayer circles together. Presumably holding hands is a great way to exchange germs.
• Screaming Warrior: They deliver shrill screams as they run at and lay into a hero.
• Warrior Monk: Every bit as much zealots as they are warriors.

Rat Ogre

About twice the size of a regular human, the Rat Ogre is the result of horrendous surgical and crossbreeding experiments (mainly, but not limited to, between Skaven and Ogres). A feral, primal nearly unstoppable killing machine, the Rat Ogre has the strength and size to cause the ground to shake as it charges. Should our heroes fail to move and be caught in the charge, they’ll find themselves on the receiving end of the Rat Ogre's claws.

---

• Bioweapon Beast: These are bred by Clan Moulder, who run a strong trade in selling or renting them to other Skaven clans as heavy muscle that will obey without question or fear. Their high price means they they're mostly reserved as bodyguards to high-ranking Skaven or employed as "linebreaker" units on the battlefield.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Has more health than any other enemy in the game, deals very heavy damage, usually requiring a team to take down.
• Covered in Scars: Has multiple incisions across its body, easily seen by their heavy stitches and contrast with its patchy fur, as a result of the many vivisection-like surgeries it has been forced to endure to make it what it is.
• Dumb Muscle: Rat ogres are exceptionally strong, but not particularly bright, relying on simply direct aggression to see them through. This can be exploited as it manifests in-game as a kind of target fixation, such that one member of the party can lead it into a crossfire as it ignores the three other, potentially more dangerous, targets.
• Expy: Of the Tank from Left 4 Dead. Huge amounts of health, fast moving, high attacking power with knockback, often requiring a team to take down.
• Grapple Move: Can grab and throw players away for a good amount of damage.
• Hybrid Monster: Rat ogres are created by cross-breeding rats and other species (mainly ogres as the name implies) through surgical and magical means.
• Knock Back: Several of its abilities cause this, even if guarded.
• Lightning Bruiser: Fast, painful, and has a lot of health.
• Mighty Roar: It does one to signal its entrance.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Alerts the party with a Mighty Roar when it appears.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Has very muscular arms and torso, even moreso than its legs, giving it a similar but less exaggerated build to Left 4 Dead's Tank.

Sack Rat

Among the Clawpacks of warrior vermin assaulting Ubersreik, there are reportedly Skaven agents carrying large sacks and seemingly acting independently from the invading force. They scour the town for valuables, most likely on orders from an enterprising chieftain or warlord, pouncing on the opportunity to expand their influence.

---

• Expy: Of the Fallen Survivor from Left 4 Dead 2, they are Metal Slimes that quickly run away from players but give good loot and supplies when killed.
• Metal Slime: Very prone to fleeing once attacked, but drops some nice goodies when killed.
• Non-Action Guy: Doesn't try to attack the heroes thanks to having no weaponry, instead attempting to escape.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Sack Rats in normal mode are just pure bait for players to try and give chase to them, however in the Chaos Wastes and when the area is cursed by Tzeentch to have enemies sometimes mutate into strong enemies upon being killed, they're a walking death sentence to any player with an itchy trigger finger. Normal Clanrats might morph into some Stormvermin, and some Plague Monks into Ratling Guns... Sack Rats can mutate into two Rat Ogres.
• Schmuck Bait: Any experienced Vermintide player can clearly remember a time that a failure to kill one of these quickly led to themselves or their entire team to grab the Idiot Ball tightly. The main threat of these rats is causing otherwise competent teams to ignore self-preservation to fruitlessly chase after a Sack Rat, hoping earn some supplies or loot dice, which usually just causes a Total Party Kill as the team tries to recklessly rush through the hordes in front of them.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Will often say "mine" when unalerted, also as they do their best to avoid the heroes.

Stormfiend

The Stormfiend is a hideous combination of bio-engineering and sadistic techno-magic and is among the most powerful monsters of the Skaven army. Enhanced versions of the already ferocious Rat Ogres, Stormfiends are smarter, deadlier and harder to kill. With the help of a brain-creature hardwired to their backs, these abominations are now able to utilize complex weapons. The combination of brute force, bullet-resistant metal armor and flamethrower-like Warpfire Projectors mounted on each arm make these war-beasts capable of annihilating entire regiments on their own.

---

• Adaptational Wimp: While warpfire thrower-equipped Stormfiends do exist in lore, they are more typically armed with three Ratling Cannons instead. For a more accurate representation of what a "common" Stormfiend should be like, look at Rasknitt's pet Deathrattler, but add another Ratling Gun on top of its head. Of course, like normal Rat Ogres, they're also much larger and tougher than their canonical counterparts to compensate.
• Artificial Stupidity: The Stormfiend is by far and away the dumbest Monster in the game due to the way its AI handles obstacles. In wide-open areas, the Stormfiend will prioritize getting to high ground, where it has a larger field of view and thus a wider angle from which it could stand and hose players down with its warpfire throwers, but throw in tall obstacles or ledges, and the creature will constantly fumble around trying to climb on top of anything and everything it sees, and leaving its back completely exposed. Failing this, it will usually stand its ground to shoot from afar, as its combat package makes it less aggressive about getting up in the players' grill to hit them.
• Attack Its Weak Point: There's a small deformed "brain-creature" stitched to its back that tells it what to do. The Stormfiend is well-armored, the brain-creature is most certainly not.
• Genius Bruiser: Unlike the feral, animalistic Rat Ogre, the Stormfiend is controlled by a shriveled up creature stitched onto its back, granting it enough intelligence to use the dual-mounted Warpfire throwers mounted on its arms.
• Kill It with Fire: It has two souped-up warpfire throwers on its arms, with flames that linger on the floor, unlike normal flamerats.
• Logical Weakness: The shriveled rat-thing on its back is acting as the brain for the Stormfiend, and it accordingly acts as a soft weak point for the otherwise armored brute. That being said, the brain-creature has a working pair of eyes and the Stormfiend is very quick to attack anyone striking the brain-creature, so it's rather hard to take advantage of this flaw in melee.
• Mighty Glacier: It's big and relatively slow, but it hits hard, is thickly-armored and doesn't have to move when it can scorch your ass from afar.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": The small rat can be heard laughing when the Stormfiend opens up with its flamethrowers. The wee bastard is also heard cackling in the distance as warning that you're about to fight one.

Rotblood Tribe (Warriors of Chaos)

As a Whole

• All There in the Script: The boss character Naglfahr is an Exalted Chaos Champion; while this is never stated in-game, his entity name in the game files is "chaos_exalted_champion_norsca" (it can also be inferred from his size and the fact that he uses the same character model as Bödvarr, just without the helmet).
• Always Chaotic Evil: The human enemies in the second game, and each of them is rotten to the core.
• Barbarian Tribe: Especially notable with the Marauders, although their sorcerers and armored Chaos Warriors break from the mold somewhat.
• Corpse Land: In contrast to their Skaven allies, who leave little behind them but rubble and bones, the Rotbloods revel in violence and leave the dead scattered everywhere among flesh-growths, with bodies tied to walls and tortured, huge piles of gore and corpses, and groups of people hung by nooses being common sights.
• Elite Mooks: Their melee units compared to the Skaven. Basic Marauders have longer reach and are twice as tough as Clanrats (as in double health, cleave resistance, and stagger resistance). A similar difference exists between Cultists and Skavenslaves. When it comes to the elite units, things start to break down somewhat, but despite being mostly unarmored, their Maulers generally take longer to bring down and have a more dangerous moveset than halberd-wielding Stormvermin, and Chaos Warriors are even hardier than that with heavy full-body armor to boot. Thankfully, they're also less numerous than their Skaven counterparts.
• Evil Is Bigger: Fitting the usual depiction of Northmen, even basic Marauders are tall and bulky, to say nothing of the Chaos Warriors.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The Northlanders all have varying levels of deep, booming voices, directly contrasting the high-pitched chittering of their Skaven allies.
• Lip Losses: Most of them have decayed or missing lips due to the diseases infesting them, from lowly fanatics all the way up to Bödvarr Ribspreader.
• The Pig-Pen: Fitting, seeing as they're followers of Nurgle, the Chaos God of diseases and plague.
• We Have Reserves: Just as with the Skaven, they have no qualms about how many of their number die. Which is good, because their forces consist almost entirely of unarmored men and megafauna with melee weapons in a setting where early guns exist, and unlike the Skaven they don't have many specials to balance it out. Bödvarr claims to have an "endless horde" to throw at the Reikland, though by "War Camp" even he admits that the Ubersreik Five has put quite a dent in it (part of why his main base is understaffed). The Chaos Wastes expansion reveals that their home is in the Wastes themselves rather than southern Norsca or the Eastern Steppe like most Norscan and Kurgan tribes, which means that conventional demographic limits do not apply to them.
• The Worf Effect: A generic Rotblood Exalted Chaos Champion who uses the same model as Bödvarr is killed in seconds by Warrior Priest Saltzpyre in the latter's debut trailer. A second shows up leading a small army towards the Ubersik Five at the end of the same trailer, with the latter being unconcerned.

Nurgle Cultist

• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Their minds are as rotted as their bodies, leaving them unable to think much beyond the most direct focus of their fever-dream like rage.
• Bandage Mummy: They're often wrapped in filthy bandages over their gangrenous peeling skin, giving them a leper-like appearance.
• Made of Plasticine: For some infected individuals, Nurgle's blessings only serve to make them more resilient for having endured them. However, these are not those individuals, but the many more who succumbed to Nurgle's diseases and become severely weakened by them. As a result, their bodies come apart under even modest force.
• Musical Spoiler: Via Source Music; a Norscan horn is blown to signal them to attack.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: Many of Nurgle's more blessed will often swell with his blessings. However, these are not so "blessed", their infections consuming their bodies instead of strengthening them, resulting in them having an almost skeletal appearance.
• Plague Zombie: Those Norscans too weak to resist Nurgle's decay or corrupted Imperial citizens are used as the Rotbloods's main fodder. The only difference between them and actual zombies is that they're not undead.
• Zerg Rush: The Cultists are used in this capacity as a slightly stronger version of Skavenslaves.

Chaos Marauders

Barbaric tribesmen from the frozen north, Marauders are natural-born fighters, tempered by a life of hardship, who despise the soft-bellied Empire and its notions of laws and discipline. Theirs is an existence where only the strong survive, where worth is proved upon the field of battle, not by cowering behind walls of stone and steel.

Marauders come to the fight in a storm of axes, sword and clubs, praises to the Dark Gods howling from their lips. Such a sight is born from the darkest of legends, an assault fit to chill the heart of even the bravest soul and sweep away the strongest defense.

They come in four variants: The common Raiders (one-handed weapons) and Bulwarks (shields), as well as Elites in the form of Savages (dual-wielding axes) and Maulers (great axes).

---

General Tropes

• Ax-Crazy: "Unhinged" might be an understated way to describe Norscan warriors, who fight to the death confident that their gods will preserve the souls of those who kill and die in their name.
• Barbarian Tribe: On the "chaotic destructive horde" end of the spectrum.
• Had to Be Sharp: Being from the Grim Up North where the raw magic of Chaos blows freely from the polar Warp Gate, the environment of Norsca tends to reward those willing to be savage and ruthless as a matter of survival.
• Religious Bruiser: When they are not yet alerted to the party, one of their Artificial Atmospheric Actions is holding their weapons and intoning prayers to the Dark Gods to witness them. Being alerted to the party will often cause them to yell out prayers and benedictions to Nurgle before attacking.
• Screaming Warrior: Their Berserkers in particular scream incoherently as they lunge into the enemy with their dual hand axes, but all of them indulge in battle cries or incoherent yelling — sometimes even outside of combat.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: The Bulwarks, making them harder to attack from the front unless staggered.

---

Maulers

• Cool Helmet: They wear full-faced, metal helmets with chainmail masks, which makes attacking their head a worse prospect than attacking their body, with only a few weapons being able to cause damage to their head. In-game, their helmet is considered Super Armor, which is the same level as a Chaos Warrior's body; their helmets are really good, but they don't have any armor elsewhere.
• Giant Mook: Chaos Maulers are taller than the rest of the marauder variants, wielding two-handed axes and slightly more armored. They are essentially weaker versions of Chaos Warriors.
• Super-Toughness: Despite being entirely unarmored, Maulers have twice the health of Stormvermin, and roughly two thirds that of a Chaos Warrior. Combined with their highly resilient helmets, this makes them harder to burst down than the fully-armored Stormvermin and often will require several hits to take down, and their hefty bodies will stop most cleaving swings cold just like armored enemies.

---

Savages

• The Berserker: Savages somehow manage to be even angrier than common marauders, charging forwards and swinging away with reckless abandon and a complete disregard for pain and danger.
• Cosmetically Different Sides: Uniquely among the Chaos unit list, Savages have the exact same health and damage value as their Skaven counterpart, the Plague Monk.

Chaos Warriors

Imbued with the power of Chaos and encased in armour forged in infernal flames, the Chaos Warriors are living weapons equal in strength to several battle-hardened mortal men. Having shed the concerns of petty mortality, the Chaos Warrior dons the mantle of war in the name of the Chaos Gods' ruinous powers, replacing comfort and love for power and immortality. Transcending beyond such primitive needs as food and rest, their nourishment becomes carnage, their language violence. They walk the face of the Old World as instruments for their blasphemous god’s will, with the lifeblood of the slain staining their armour.

---

• 24-Hour Armor: Chaos Warriors need no sleep, nor food and drink, nor even a chamber pot. Their armor is bonded to them and they have no wish to remove it.
• Adaptational Wimp: While about as tough as you'd expect them to be, Chaos Warriors are much dumber and slower than they normally are, making their attacks very easy to dodge out of the way of.
• Annoying Arrows: Chaos Warriors have the "Super Armor" armor type, making them highly resistant to all ranged attacks, including those that would normally blow straight through armor like Handguns.
• The Computer Shall Taunt You: Chaos Warriors are very dismissive of the Ubersreik Five, and have a lot of lines that taunt the heroes when the Chaos Warriors are aware of them. It also indicates which member the Warrior is currently targeting; e.g. insults against Bardin mean the Warrior will focus on killing the Dwarf. Notably, epithets focusing on the Empire target Kruber, while Chaos Warriors taunting Saltzpyre will focus on his faith and profession.
• Elite Mook: They're this for the Rotbloods as heavily armored and strong warriors.
• Evil Sounds Deep: They have extremely low gravelly voices.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Chaos Warriors are infamous for their heavy armor, and the ones the party will encounter are no exception. There is no part of them that is not armored, just parts that are less armored than others. Taking them down effectively requires coordinated attacks or piercing weapons.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: They are "super armored" enemies, which means in addition to non-armor-piercing weapon attacks, most ranged attacks will do nearly nothing to them, though critical hits and ranged gunpowder weapons will fare better.
• Mighty Glacier: Rusted giants that move at a walking pace, but they are the most heavily armored enemies in the game bar none (their head is just slightly less protected) and getting hit by one is likely to take most or all of your health on higher difficulties.
• Mook Lieutenant: They can occasionally be found leading patrols of Norscan Marauders. This makes sense, as lore-wise Chaos Warriors are usually the chiefs of entire tribes, hence their rarity and prowess.
• Smash Mook: They are lumbering and slow, but a single attack from their gigantic axes will knock you into next week. Even blocking their overhead swings is likely to drain all of your stamina.

Chaos Sorcerer of Nurgle

Chaos Sorcerers draw upon the full fury of the Winds of Magic. Unlike the tutored wizards of the Empire, whose rituals and rites offer protection against the ravages of Chaos, Sorcerers trust to their wits and the fluxsome favour of the Dark Gods to endure the ravages of raw magic. Few are entirely successful, and certainly none are successful forever. Magic is the stuff of Chaos itself, and those who wield it without safeguards are destined to warp, body and soul, beneath its baleful power.

Gameplay-wise, they come in two varieties. These being the Lifeleech and the Blightstormer. Lifeleeches will magically grab a hero and start draining their life, leaving them completely helpless. Blightstormers, however, conjure plague tornadoes that sweep up and damage everything in their way.

---

• Blow You Away: Blightstormers conjure plague winds into tornadoes that chase the players around. They cause damage over time for a little bit if they catch you (assuming they don't throw you out of the map).
• Expy: Lifeleeches are functionally identical to Smokers from Left 4 Dead, firing a projectile that immobilises its target, drags them over to it, and then does slow damage over time until they fall. Ironically, despite their Nurgle origins, they're arguably less gross than their inspiration.
• Fat Bastard: Are immensely obese to the point of being rotund, a classic trait of Nurgle worshippers. As servants of the Plague Lord, they owe some of their bulk to being bloated with disease and decay.
• Flashy Teleportation: They teleport with a distinctive noise, puff of smoke, and motion blur, which can give players a chance to get the drop on them and give some indication of which direction they went.
• Instant Runes: A large symbol forms on the ground where a Blightstormer is preparing to cast, giving players a chance to get out of the way.
• In the Hood: Lifeleeches wear a pointed hood.
• Large Ham: The Blightstormers, with emphasis on large. If you happen to hear any of their lines, particularly while casting, nine times out of ten, they'll be screamed as loudly as possible.
  Blightstormer: Vortex wind of Father Fly! I cast on you, now die! DIE! DIE!
• Life Drinker: As the name implies, Lifeleeches will drain the health of whoever they grab. Downplayed in that they aren't immortal, and are in fact quite squishy.
• No Body Left Behind: Sorcerers will disintegrate into glowing green ash upon killing them, dropping only their Spell Book or Magic Staff.
• Ring Out: A very real threat when you're sucked into a blightstorm out in the open near a Bottomless Pit, as it can fling you outside of the map to your doom and causing everything you're carrying on you to be permanently lost. Better hope one doesn't hit you when you're a Grimoire holder.
• Squishy Wizard: Neither variant could stand up to a lot of punishment, and are usually killed in one solid hit from a melee weapon, or a ranged weapon shot.
• Technicolor Magic: Their magic has the Sickly Green Glow of Chaos. This is especially useful with Blightstormers — they favour stealthy long-range attacks, but the ribbons of magic reveal both their location and the target area, and their windstorms are also green.
• Teleport Spam: Both varieties of Sorcerer will teleport if damaged and not killed, but Leeches will do so especially often. Lifeleechers will try to teleport closer to and behind players, while Blightstormers will move away from the party but still within line of sight to them.
• Unskilled, but Strong: As opposed to the trained wizards of the Empire, the Chaos Sorcerers use magic with reckless abandon. Lampshaded by Sienna when killing a Blightstormer.
  Sienna: All talent no training, that Blightstormer!
• Vader Breath: The sound cue of a nearby Blightstormer is his raspy breathing coming out of his metal mask.

Bile Troll

Trolls are known for their indiscriminate appetites and raw physical might. Bile Trolls, their being forever altered by the warping might of the Dark Gods, are even more ferocious. Though Trolls are dim-witted in the extreme, it is a foolish soul who underestimates such an opponent. Should a blade penetrate its tough – almost-rocky – hide, the Troll’s formidable regenerative abilities will knit the wound together in a matter of moments. Worse, the attacker will now find himself in easy range of beady-eyed retribution. A fortunate soul will be content only with a pulverizing blow fit to shake the hillside. The unlucky perishes in a flood of seething, acidic vomit that scours flesh from bone.

---

• Acid Attack: Its vomit deals Damage Over Time, drains Stamina, and slows anyone who crosses the puddle.
• Body Horror: As ugly as normal trolls are, normal trolls don't have gaping maws, extra eyes, and whipping tentacles appearing randomly across their bodies.
• Breath Weapon: Like all trolls, they weaponize the digestive acid in their bellies by vomiting it up on their foes. It can blind as well as slow, and the sticky spot remains festering on the ground for several seconds.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: A significant part of its power compared to the other bosses simply comes from the fact that it takes a lot of killing before going down, thanks to its Healing Factor, and requires multiple party members to focus their attention on it during its downed phase or it'll take even longer to kill.
• Dumb Muscle: Like all trolls, not very bright but very tough and strong, sharing an issue with tunnel vision with the Skaven Rat Ogre.
• Healing Factor: After sustaining damage, the troll will collapse, heave heavily for several seconds, and regain a large portion of its health. However, if the party can redouble their efforts to damage the troll during this time they can mitigate the recovery. On higher difficulties, the Troll will passively heal itself when not damaged for a few seconds.
• Interface Screw: If a character is struck directly by the troll's vomit, it blots out the player's screen for a few seconds.
• Tragic Monster: Oddly enough they are this. While some trolls turn to Chaos of their own accord, the game's Bile Trolls are explicitly normal trolls infected by the Rotbloods against their will. On the mission to stop this happening Victor remarks that even trolls don't deserve what's been done to them.
• Our Trolls Are Different: Trolls in the setting in general are already strong, tough, and disgusting. That is before you add the warping effects of wild Chaos magic that mutates them into these forms.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Moves and attacks slowly and inaccurately, but hits hard when it connects. Its bile slowing and covering over a player's vision especially makes them vulnerable for its otherwise-impractical attacks.

Chaos Spawn

To be blessed by one’s god should be the ultimate dream of any fanatic, but for anyone who looks upon a Chaos Spawn, these boons look like something from the deepest darkest pits of a nightmare. Having received too many gifts from their Dark Gods, these warriors have succumbed to madness and mutation. Through anguished wails of pain and terror, their fragile human shells are shed and replaced by a creature that can only be described as a horrifying monstrosity. Making no physical sense, these abominable creatures embody Chaos itself.

---

• And I Must Scream: Each Chaos Spawn was once a proud Chaos Warrior who could not handle the the burden of the mutations and other "gifts" imposed on them. They have since mutated into an incomprehensible mound of flesh, driven by a hunger made worse by the fact that they are frequently starved before being unleashed into battle to increase their savagery.
• Body Horror: The physical embodiment, representative of the undirected mutating influence of Chaos.
• Combat Tentacles: Long tapered arms of twisted muscle jutting from arbitrary locations on their body that they use to swat, grasp, slam, and grapple the party should they get into range.
• Confusion Fu: The Chaos Spawn mostly fights in a similar manner to the Rat Ogre, but has a much more erratic AI, making it significantly harder to deal with. It doesn't have the tunnel vision of the Rat Ogre or Troll and will frequently switch targets at random intervals, causing significantly more damage to the party.
• Creepy Asymmetry: They are twisted beyond all measure, a mass of mismatched legs, pink flesh, and tentacles with only a jagged maw as a discernible feature.
• Grapple Move: They have an entirely unblockable grab attack that will deal significant damage and, if the spawn is low on health, heal it for a significant amount. Luckily, it remains vulnerable during this entire animation, and can be staggered out of it to save the victim, provided one an attack powerful enough to do so.
• I'm a Humanitarian: If they manage to grab a character they will bite them repeatedly to heal themselves before slamming them into the nearby terrain.
• Was Once a Man: Each Chaos Spawn was once a proud Chaos Warrior before turning into something else entirely.

Beastmen

The faction as a whole

• Always Chaotic Evil: Why, of course. In fact, they are so chaotically-evil that they will often butt heads with even other Chaos-aligned factions that are remotely organized in any way, such as the Skaven. They only "cooperate" with the Warriors of Chaos, who generally consider them barely-sapient cannon fodder.
• Artifact Mook: Buying Winds of Magic retroactively places them in maps set in and around Ubersreik, Helmgart, Ussingen, and Bogenhafen, even though chronologically they were not encountered until Maisberg and the Chaos Wastes, well after the former four adventures, with the characters treating their introduction in "Dark Omens" as a surprise.
• Beast Man: Humanoids with hooves, horns and heads of ungulates and the fangs and claws of predatory animals.
• Blood Knight: All Beastmen exist to slaughter enemies in glorious combat, in the name of their Chaotic patrons.
• Downloadable Content: The Beastmen are available to fight in the DLC Winds of Magic for Vermintide 2. The Chaos Wastes DLC added them to the titular mode without charge, even if Winds of Magic isn't owned.
• The Dreaded: Kerillian of all people drops her snarky act when they first appear in Dark Omens, recognizing them for the threat they are. Given the Arch-Enemy relationship her people have with them, it tracks.
• It Can Think: Although most men consider the Beastmen to be nothing more than animals acting on instinct alone, they are actually quite cunning. Some, such as Khazrak the One-Eye, are even capable of planning complex battle strategies.
• It's Personal: Except for Bardin (who still hates them), the heroes seem to despise the Beastmen more than the Skaven or Norscans, each for their own reasons. Kruber hates them because, as a Farm Boy in the Empire, he knows how much of a persistent threat they are to rural communities near the forests (in fact his first kill was a Tuskgor as a kid), and he sees their savage religion and customs as a perversion of Taal worship. Kerillian hates them because they're traditionally the Arch-Enemy of the Wood Elves (both Asrai and Eonir) and because their very existence spreads Chaos corruption, reducing beautiful nature to hellscapes and causing magical pestilence (including "sickness in the hearts of newborns"). Sienna hates them for perverting the Winds of Magic, which she as a wizard has a connection to. And Saltzpyre hates them both for being as pure an embodiment of Chaos as possible outside of daemons (the Beastmen are called the "Children of Chaos" for a reason) and for their existence owing in part to the weakness in the heart of the Empire (many parents are unable to mercy kill their mutated children and instead dump them in the forests, where they grow into Beastmen, perpetuating the cycle).
  Sienna: You sure you're on our side, Markus? After all, Taal's worship's only a stone throw away from these beasties.
  Kruber: That ain't funny. They're as different as a witch and a wizard. Taal's all about the cycle of life, the purity of the hunt. Beastmen? Ain't no purity in them. Just corruption.
• Mooks: Generally, they die in droves when facing a disciplined, organized army and thus only prey on weaker forces... or five (or four) heroes traipsing through their territory.
• Story and Gameplay Segregation: Per the lore, the Beastmen have an irrational and deep-seated hatred for anything that's remotely orderly, organized, or structured, and especially the color red. This often puts them at bitter odds with even other Chaos-aligned factions, including the Skaven. This isn't reflected in-game, however, where they're content with playing second fiddle to the ratmen. The game itself clearly presents them as opposed to the Skaven in "Dark Omens", when you come across Skaven corpses in their territory (including a rat ogre body that must be interacted with to trigger a scripted ambush), only to have them as cooperating with the rats in every subsequent mission.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The unnamed warherd in "Dark Omens" is not linked to the Pactsworn threat in any way and is fully dealt with at the end of that one mission. The Beastmen tribes encountered in the Chaos Wastes similarly just exist to be cannon fodder, and unlike the Rotbloods and Skaven (each of whom got a handwave as to why they're there) the Wastes are always crawling with Beastmen, so there's no need to justify their presence.
• Womb Horror: One of the ways Beastmen are created is when a mutation occurs in the womb of a normal human female. The Beastman featured prominently in the trailer was born this way.

Ungor

• Annoying Arrows: They are the main dispensers of this trope and the bane of many players' existence on harder difficulties for this very reason. While individually, each Ungor is relatively weak (unless pressed into melee range), and their shots can be easily dodged, their superior numbers often means heavy, unavoidable damage to players getting caught in the open, which can quickly be fatal if they're also being pressured by larger threats at the same time.
• Fauns and Satyrs: Their fuzzy legs and more human-like torsos give them a Satyr-like appearance.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: While they may wield bows, said bows aren't of a particularly high quality and the Ungors aren't disciplined enough to master them. As a result, they often miss their mark, usually only damaging players if they stand still or are distracted. Their main gameplay role seems to be to force players out of their comfort zone and adapt.

Gor

• Counter-Attack: When staggered, they will retaliate with a fierce headbutt.
• Dark Is Evil: They have noticeably dark fur, and are quite evil.
• Mooks: The main Cannon Fodder of the Beastmen faction, comparable to Marauders.

Bestigor

• Achilles' Heel: Shoving them or giving them a strong enough hit during their charge will cause them to stumble and become vulnerable.
• Elite Mooks: As their name implies they are the "best" of the Beastmen warherds as indicated by their imposing size, heavy armor, and gigantic horns.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: His special ability: he charges towards his foes knocking them over and anyone who happens to be in the way.
• Heavily Armored Mook: They wear armor consisting of metal steel plates likely looted from overrun foundries and crudely hammered into shape to fit over their frame.
• Leeroy Jenkins: They run into players headfirst — and can get knocked over by shoving or giving them a good strike into that oncoming head.

Standard Bearer/Wargor

• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: They wear armor over their bodies but not helmets, leaving their head vulnerable.
• Large and in Charge: The leaders of the Beastmen warherds, they tower over the common Gors and Ungors (but not the Minotaurs).
• Status Buff: Their totems can buff their allies, with invulnerability confirmed to be among said buffs.
• Story and Gameplay Segregation: In the lore, Wargors are one of the most powerful and feared Beastmen and act as leaders for entire Warherds. In-game you can end up killing dozens in a single mission. They're about as strong as they should be but far more common.

Minotaur

• Adaptational Badass: More so than any of the minibosses, all of whom already receive a hefty boost in strength compared to their depictions in the lore, other video games, and tabletop (where a squad of halberdiers would have decent odds of killing one). Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for instance directly states via the lore-accurate "Slaughter Margin" (see the 2e "Old World Bestiary" and "Realm of the Ice Queen") that a Minotaur is roughly equivalent in combat ability to a large polar bear, being slightly weaker but also faster and with the ability to use weapons. Heraldry of the Empire has an anecdote about an otherwise unremarkable Imperial halberdier slaying a Minotaur in single combat; this was considered highly impressive, but not impossible, even for a simple Red Shirt. Vermintide Minotaurs on the other hand are twelve feet tall and can absorb hits like no one's business. The team will likely have a harder time with a single Minotaur than hundreds of Gors or even a Chaos Champion (which as a Hero unit handily outstat Minotaurs in every other source). Minotaurs can also swing their massive axes multiple times a second, while in both the RPG and wargame they didn't attack much faster than a Gor.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: They are relentless attackers who will almost never stop swinging their axes.
• Bullfight Boss: Downplayed. While the Minotaur does occasionally perform a Foe-Tossing Charge, it doesn't do this as often as it would cleave at nearby players with its dual axes.
• Dual Wielding: The Minotaur sports two giant axes that it uses to cleave at its prey.
• Dumb Muscle: Minotaurs are so dull that they need help feeding themselves from other Beastmen, but they're terrifying whirlwinds of anger and muscle in combat.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Gigantic, vicious and man-eating humanoids with heads and hooves of bulls.
• Unblockable Attack: Downplayed. The damage from all its attacks can be fully blocked, but its headbutt deals hefty knockback.

Others

Cousin Okri

Supposedly Bardin Goreksson's Cousin, whose great exploits are mentioned by Bardin.

---

• The Ace: Half the time another hero kills a monster or performs an impressive kill streak, Bardin claims they're almost as good as Cousin Okri, or that he would've done it faster and/or better. A conversation in the Chaos Wastes has Kruber ask Bardin about who Grombrindal is (A mysterious, inexplicably immortal Dwarf hero who appears to aid Dwarfs in battle and disappears once it ends), and after Bardin tells him Grombrindal is not an ancestor god, Kruber asks if he's like Okri. Bardin considers this to be an apt comparison, though he requests that Kruber not tell anyone that Bardin said that.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Even Lohner refers to him as "Cousin Okri", so it's uncertain if he's an actual cousin of Bardin's or if it's more of a title.
• Expy: Of Ellis' buddy Keith, being an unseen friend of one of the player characters who gets mentioned a lot in unusual stories. The main difference is that while Keith is famous for getting into all sorts of self-destructive shenanigans and surviving, Okri is presented as more of a straight up badass.
• The Ghost: We never see him, but supposedly, he's keeping an eye on the Ubersreik Five. Lohner is supposedly in regular contact with him, and he even provides the daily and weekly challenges for the heroes to "keep them from being complacent".

Hedda (Spoilers)

Bardin's daughter, a capable warrior and engineer who's been missing for years. In the second game's Karak Azgaraz DLC, Lohner finally uncovers information about her whereabouts.

---

• Action Girl: She's revealed to have had an impressive career as a military engineer and independent warrior. Even when Bardin doesn't know this, when Be'lakor taunts him over her safety, he confidently retorts that she knows how to look after herself.
• Arch-Enemy: Her nemesis in the Chronicles of Hedda Bardinsdottir is Gangplank Git, a goblin pirate who stole both a precious family heirloom from her clan and a relic from the King of Karak Azgaraz. She undertakes a long, risky voyage to bring him down and quits her captaincy as soon as she succeeds.
• Badass Family: She picked up skills as a warrior from both her parents, to say nothing of Cousin Okri.
• Badass in Distress: She led a war party on an ambitious strike to reclaim Khazid Kro from the Skaven, but it went wrong, leaving her the Sole Survivor, barricaded in enemy territory. The Ubersreik Five play The Cavalry to get her out and complete her attack, but Lohner didn't even tell them about her presence beforehand in case she was already dead.
• The Captain: Her performance in the Barak Varr navy won her a captaincy of a Dwarf Monitor and then an independent command of her own submarine.
• Cultural Rebel: Downplayed, much like her father. She's respected among dwarfs and counts the King of Karak Azgaraz as a family friend, but is also a hothead who defied tradition to launch an attack without his approval — and she smiles entirely too much for the Longbeards' comfort.
• The Engineer: She served as an engineer in the dwarf navy of Barak Varr, a position that tests one's technical acumen and fighting prowess, and Bardin says she was brilliant at her craft even before that.
• Hero of Another Story: The "Chronicles of Hedda Bardinsdottir" lore posts reveal that she's had a storied career, including helping to sink the Dreadfleet of the vampire pirate Noctilus, winning command of her own ship, and pursuing grudge-debts on behalf of both her own clan and the King of Karak Azgaraz.
• Missing Child: Bardin had been looking for her for years by the time of the games, a failure that Be'lakor is happy to rub in his face. Lohner learns that she had been serving out of Barak Varr but cut off communication with her parents after becoming a nautilus captain. She and Bardin are reunited in the Karak Azgaraz quests.
• The Voice: She doesn't appear onscreen in the Karak Azgaraz quest line, first giving instructions through a speaking tube and later taking Lohner's place as Mission Control via magical communciation. Nonetheless, Bardin recognizes her voice as soon as he hears her.

Nameless Voice (Spoilers)

A mysterious and ominous disembodied voice that occasionally whispers to the Ubersreik Five during their trip to Castle Drachenfels in the second game, and the basement in the keep as they prepare to go to the Chaos Wastes. As it spoke to them while a daemon-summoning ritual was occurring and while the Ubersreik Five prepared to magically travel to a land of the Chaos gods, it can be inferred that the voice comes from a daemon — specifically, an ancient and powerful daemon prince known as Be'lakor, the Dark Master.

---

• All There in the Script: The file names for its lines all include "daemon_whispers", while the character's responses all include "archdaemon_response", suggesting that the voice belongs to a greater daemon.
• Canon Character All Along: In one journal entry, Lohner speculates that the voice is actually Be'lakor, the first Daemon Prince. Later proven true by the June 2022 update, which changes the subtitles to identify the voice as "Be'lakor the Dark Master".
• The Corruptor: It tries to tempt the Five into worshipping Chaos, and even asks Kruber how much money it would take for him to kill his comrades. As of yet it's been unsuccessful.
• Demon Lords and Archdevils: Identified in the game files as an "archdaemon", the Voice is eventually established to belong to a daemon prince — a mortal champion of the Chaos Gods rewarded with ascension to immortal daemonhood. In fact, Be'lakor is the first mortal to ever receive this privilege, and the most powerful of all daemons.
• The Dreaded: Whoever or whatever it was, it manages to scare all the heroes to the point they refuse to discuss their experience in the castle afterwards.
• Godhood Seeker: In the Chaos Wastes, you can find a temple dedicated to him, and he might outright admit that he intends to become a new Chaos God.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The voice has no direct hand in the plot beyond whispering eerie taunts and coyly implying that it is manipulating the party somehow. The June 2022 update reveals that the voice is actually Be'lakor the Dark Master, a major villain in the Warhammer world and a significantly more powerful antagonist than Rasknitt or the Pactsworn.
• Hannibal Lecture: It often taunts the heroes with their past regrets and failures.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Never does anything physically, since Be'lakor is prevented from taking a physical form due to royally annoying the Chaos Gods eons ago, but can still become a major foe in the Chaos Wastes sections. The Ubersreik Five are glad not to be facing him directly, since they admit he's on an entirely different power level.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: It never raises its voice, yet it's very clear it delights in psychologically tormenting the heroes.
• This Cannot Be!: If you purge his Temple of Shadows on a Chaos Wastes expedition, he goes from smug mockery to incredulous outrage at the setback, sometimes even speaking the trope name word for word.
• Trouble Follows You Home: The voice is first encountered in Castle Drachenfels during a daemonic ritual, but it later starts appearing within Taal's Horn Keep after a portal to the Chaos Wastes is installed in the basement. While it still can't do more than talk, its presence doesn't help the party's poor morale.
  "I must say, I prefer the decor in this keep of yours, Victor."
• Unreliable Narrator: It's not clear where the lies begin and end, nor how much of what it says is derived from reading the heroes' minds versus trying to gaslight them. It doesn't help that the voice liberally mixes things the player knows to be false (e.g. telling Saltzpyre that Sigmar is dead) with things that they know to be true, and uses half-truths when convenient (e.g. telling Kruber that the Lady in the Lake is manipulating him; she is (the voice even correctly identifies the Lady as the Elven God Lileath), but in service of a goal that would give him and possibly the rest of the Five a path to survival, which the voice leaves out).
• The Voice: The one speaking is never seen, and the voices come from all around a given hero, though only the one it's speaking to can hear it.

Constant Drachenfels

Sometimes called the Great Enchanter, Constant Drachenfels was the ancient sorcerer that built Castle Drachenfels. His was a legacy of evil across the ages. Though not around when the Ubersreik Five visit his presence still hangs over his old home.

---

• Poison Is Evil: One of the incidents Drachenfels is famous for is the Poison Feast, in which he invited the Emperor Carolus II and his family and courtiers to his castle to a feast, claiming he had repented of his evil, only to feed the royal party poison that left them paralyzed and forced to watch him torture the rest of the court to death before he left them to starve. This seems to have been mostly for his amusement. The Ubersreik Five can find the remains of this incident.
• Posthumous Character: Drachenfels died decades before the events of the game. Kerillian doesn't believe he's really dead and is sure he will return. Going by the End Times lore she's wrong about the first, right about the second.
• Shrouded in Myth: The exact nature of the Great Enchanter and his deeds seems to be a matter for debate in-universe. Saltzpyre even doubts he ever really existed.
• Time Abyss: While probably under a different name Drachenfels was alive as a primitive human tribal shaman when the Old Ones first arrived in the Warhammer world. This means that by the time of his death the only beings in the world that were older than him were the oldest of the dragons, dragon ogres and treemen.

---