(Serious) Vampires - tactics and skill progression

Mad Jackal · Post by **Mad Jackal** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:43 pm

The important point that must be considered (which does not appear to have been mentioned) is that team re-rolls and Leader Re-rolls may only be used 1 per turn.

Pro may be used once per Vampire per turn. (For each that takes it.)

I have had 3 vamps on the pitch at the same time for over 20 games now and I can tell you that the number of times multiple Vampires have lusted in the same turn is surprisingly HIGH, and very detrimental to not only that drive, but winning that game, and the future of your team. I've cut through 4 thralls in 3 turns before not counting opponent injuries, twice.

Per the skills, I would have taken Pro on the Vamp. +AV on the thrall, and Pass.
But a leader thrall , a +1 move thrall , and a dodging vamp are not the end of the world skill choices. The dodging vamp I would say was the weakest pick of them all. (Unless there is a huge shortage of tackle in the league

And teams like Goblins who carry secret weapons and trolls, and the halflings with trees and the chef Really are hard to play with this team. (In my opinion.)

Moogul · Post by **Moogul** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:07 am

The dodging vamp I would say was the weakest pick of them all. (Unless there is a huge shortage of tackle in the league

Currently there are no tackle players in the league as far as I know - we've got no dwarf teams currently, and I don't know anyone who's picked it up yet. My Dark elves are going to go for tackle on the next 2 line elves who skillup most likely, but it's certainly *very* rarely. Dodge on the vamp means he can get through with the ball very easily, and makes him harder to take down. I could have gone with block, but I like the versatiliy of having one block and one dodge vamp. As pointed out, I'll often have to use my Team re-roll for the turn on a bloodlust, so having that dodge means I can still reroll the dodge and not waste the team reroll. It means that I can kick short and go for a TD when defending by bursting through the line with that vamp, then using the other vamp to blitz a hole and provide some backup. Whilst Pro is definately a strong vamp skill, and one that I'm aiming for, I prefer block and dodge for now. Whilst pro can do something on my team as well as a normal re-roll, so can dodge, and it also does something on my opponents turn.

I still maintain that a +av thrall would be almost close to useless. Thralls aren't generally targets, people are going to try and foul the vamps most often, and having +av on a thrall with no other skills doesnt give me anything useful. Once he goes up again I can see it being better, but even then it wont be great, and it'll be a fair time before the thrall gets to 16spps. Having a 6338 thrall on the pitch just means that they choose to foul the other thrall they knocked down, and not him. I don't need a disincentive to attack on someone they wouldnt target anyway. With 12 players in the team, I'm not really bothered about general wear and tear, and the league is very bash-light (it's all elves mostly) anyway, so I'm not too bothered with being grinded down to low pitch turnouts.

As said, I did consider Pass on the Thrall, but again the problem here is the weakness of the Thrall. I guess people will wonder why I complain about thrall squishyness but don't take +av, but again it comes down to the combinations. If I had a pass thrall who then rolled a 10, I'd get him +AV, but AV on it's own isnt great, whereas Pass is. My next double will be pass, but for now Leader gives me more options - being unpredicatable is nice, rather than having an obvious 'thrower'. Anyway, I guess we'll see how my choices pan out in my next game (which might not be for a while as I'm away next weekend, grrr).

fen · Post by **fen** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:23 am

Each +AV on a thrall almost effectively doubles his lifespan. Considering the fact that developed and skilled Thralls are the lifeblood of the vampire team, every +AV you can possibly grab for them is key.

It's not about avoiding having them getting fouled, it's about reducing the chances of them leaving the pitch from the inevitable blocks they'll take. Every extra point there results in a reduced chance that Mighty Blow will wipe them out.

6338 is the statline of a human lineman, and they have a reasonable lifespan, especially compared to thralls.

Heck, I'd take +AV, +AV for 6339 if the dice was that kind. It's not about the individual thrall, it's about how the team functions as a whole.

And the team is "All about the Thralls!" (tm)

Moogul · Post by **Moogul** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 1:30 am

Whilst thralls are very important to the team, a Thrall can be easily replaced. I'd have to completely disagree with +av 'effectively doubling' his lifespan. A succesful armour roll goes from 15/36 to 10/26. A significant increase, but not amazing. The chance of that av coming into play is very, very slim, whereas even the threat of a faster thrall can affect the way a game is played.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd never take +AV on a skill-less lineman of any kind. It's like getting theft insurance on your Volkswagen when any carthief would go for the BMW anyway...

Mad Jackal · Post by **Mad Jackal** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:03 am

Moogul, you ahve thye benifit of knowing the players and the league I won't fault you for that.

I will say though that if your league mates learn anything it will be that taking the thralls down is the key.

A vamp team forced to field all his vamps late in the game with few thralls will find the game very, very hard to win. Soon vamps will be cut off from thier thralls or the thralls will be pitifully out of position.
Until your league mates learn that, you're fine as you are... IF 3 vamps only have 4 thralls to choose from to bite , the playbook is seriously limmited.

And if you like Leader for 30k on a thrall, you should consider 20k Pro on a vamp for your 3rd vamp but I'll stop beating you with that.

Re-buying thralls is not really an issue with vamp teams I'll grant you that. But buying vampires is, and every 40k spent on a new thrall is not buying a vampire. And considering that the Vampire team needs a bench the most, playing with journeyman thralls (and 11 men to start the match) is no way to long term plan.

fen · Post by **fen** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 8:36 am

Mad Jackal wrote:I will say though that if your league mates learn anything it will be that taking the thralls down is the key.

That's the truth of it.

Moogul · Post by **Moogul** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:59 pm

Mad Jackal wrote:And if you like Leader for 30k on a thrall, you should consider 20k Pro on a vamp for your 3rd vamp but I'll stop beating you with that.

Don't worry, I'm planning on getting pro first for that vamp already. It's all numbers really. Fielding only 2 vamps, the chances of getting 2 bloodlusts in one turn is 1/36 - ok, that's not *that* rare, but with 16 turns in a match it's going to happen in around 47% of matches. And that's just for it happening in ONE turn. I can live with that, especially since the first bloodlust should be rerolled fine allowing me to get the important action out of the way.

However, now I have 3 vamps and the option of fielding all three vamps on the pitch at once, the chances of having 2 or more failed bloodlust rolls in the same turn goes up drastically. Hence having pro on the third vamp makes more sense. It also means I can do an important action (eg. blitz, pickup the ball, pass, run for the end zone) with one of my skilled vamps (eg use the 'block' vamp for blitzing, the 'dodge' vamp for running) with the safety of reroll backup. If I have to spend a reroll on that action, the third vamp (the 'backup' vamp) can then use pro to hopefully get a decent action out of him. As it is though, the first vamp I am almost always going to use a reroll on, so pro is less useful with only 2 vamps. That's my opinion though.

Going back to the AV thrall issue, I can see where everyone is going, but I still disagree. You have to understand, if I was given the option (for some mysterious reason) of having all my thralls get +av, or all of them getting +ma, I'd go for the AV. Having higher AV across the board makes a huge difference, and is the main thing Orcs have going for them - they're so much harder to remove from the pitch that you just can't wear them down the way they can wear you down. However, having just one thrall with +av when all the rest still carry armour 7, makes a tiny tiny difference. It's very, very rare that that armour will come into play. The chance of that armour making a difference on an armour roll is 5/36 (the chance of rolling

, and that's only on turns when that thrall has to make an armour roll. On one thrall, it's going to come up maybe once a match.

With +MA however, I can impact the game merely by having the thrall in play. It suddenly makes my opponents have to play around a movement 7 player on an otherwise movement 6 team. I can get further for assists, I can catch runners better (again this comes down to knowing the league, which I can't fault you for not knowing, but at the moment the fastest players in the league are MA 7 (Elf Blitzers), with the majority at 6. This'll change once the Pro Elf player gets some catchers, and I think we have a skaven team joining at some point, but going from 6 to 7 movement is a big issue relative to the rest of the pack), and I can also score better - MA 7 means 2 turns to get from my half to the endzone, WITHOUT going for it, and having a square left over. Just the threat of that MA 7 guy needs to be taken into account when my opponent sets up to kick. On one player, the MA 7 just seems to make a much bigger difference at this stage of the league.

Lastly, Fen said:

developed and skilled Thralls are the lifeblood of the vampire team

I'd completely agree (pun and all), and this to me, is another strike against +AV. Sure, it makes them last longer so they might pick up more skills, but it takes increasingly longer and longer to skillup, and to me until you get that 2nd skillup you've 'wasted' an improvement roll. If I had me a pass, sure hands thrall, or a dodge, catch thrall or somesuch, I'd want the +av, but at the moment it's protecting nothing. Ok, If I a thrall dies I have to spend 40k, but a fresh 40k thrall will get his first skillup before a +av thrall gets his second. To my mind, that's stunting your development, not increasing it.

Edit: ps. All though I might be coming across very argumentative, I do appreciate all the feedback and advice everyone is giving. I'm just quite a contrary guy.