Any vampire coaches out there?

[Carnis]

After winning a small local league twice in a row with my norse, I decided to cut the others some slack and picked myself a fresh team of vampires. First game was drawn against rookie amazons. I got off with a 14man squad against a 11man squad, fielding helmut wulff, the chainsaw and confident I could pull off a 2-1er with wulff's chainsawing + 2 vampires comping to SPP-grandeur. I fielded an untraditional 2 vampire, 11 thrall 1 chainsaw +3 rerolls (no apoth). Opponent had full positionals, 3 RRs and apoth.

I received first & fielded helmut. Helmut kicked back twice (despite using 2 RRs) in the first three rounds, second one being a CAS. I lost the CAS 7-1 to the rookie amazons (3 of which on the first 3 turns of the game, 2 of which caused by helmut's chainsaw kicking back&my vampire blood lusting), and lost the game 0-3. Almost 0-4. My only chance at a TD was at 3-0 when my thrall picked up the ball, threw a longbomb when I was 6men down. Unfortunately, the amazon coach rolled 5x 4+ dodges and blitzed my to-be-hero thrall. During the game he also killed two and MNGd one of my thralls. Winnings were 10k, of course!

Next game is up against dwarves, with about 8 games below their belt. I'm fielding W Chaney + thralls probably. I'm currently at:

2x Vampire
9x Thrall (one a journeyman).
3x RR
Edit: 140k in the bank

Considering buying 2 thralls + apoth...

Only have about 5 games left in the season (not a very game-intensive league, another reason why my norse dominated it so easily for so long).

What are some of your favourite vampire builds? I suspect a lot will say block+dodge, but shouldn't the vampires specialize somehow? I'm inclined to go towards fielding 4 vampires, 1 free spot for a star, 11 thralls + apoth. And use the apoth as a "12th" thrall, healing kills only or end of first round badly hurts. What's the feeling about pro? I'm not likely to be a contender for the play-offs this round, but having played in the last 3 finals I feel its enough if I'm competetive in the next season.

[Grumbledook]

The team has no skills, loading up on core skills does the business, esepecially with ST4 AG4.

Don't waste your time with Pro early on.

How did you manage to start the team with only 2 vampires and 3 rerolls? I like loading up with 5 rerolls to start the team off.

[Carnis]

I chose to field only 2 vampires to get helmut against the all-dodge amazons, my starting value was 870. I don't really consider having 5x70k rerolls a very good trade-off versus inducements like wilhelm chaney/helmut/bribes and so on ultimately one can always take extra training for +30k. I'd like to have a few Dirty player thralls, and obviously tons of block&wrestle. Thing is, I'd really like to have the pros in the team (helps with blocking, dodging-to a lesser extent, blood lusting hugely and hypnotic gazing).. And probably would prefer having a MB blitzer-vampire in the mix as well.

[Grumbledook]

Suppose if you are reroll light then Pro gets more value, though I much prefer rerolls over pro.

Also hiring stars will put some level of reliance on them, which can lead to them stealing SPP.

Against other starting teams, I'm happy enough facing them with 5rr and 2 vamps. I'd leave getting the stars (though wilhelm is very good) when facing teams that are already past the starting phase.

[Macavite]

What are some of your favourite vampire builds? I suspect a lot will say block+dodge, but shouldn't the vampires specialize somehow? I'm inclined to go towards fielding 4 vampires, 1 free spot for a star, 11 thralls + apoth. And use the apoth as a "12th" thrall, healing kills only or end of first round badly hurts. What's the feeling about pro? I'm not likely to be a contender for the play-offs this round, but having played in the last 3 finals I feel its enough if I'm competetive in the next season.

I'm running a early league Vamp team. About 12 games under their belts, and overall a winning record.

Four vamps is about right, five might be OK, after you get Pro on the ones you have. I went five early and am finding I have troubles keeping enough thralls around when I field all five.

That said, Pro isn't my first skill choice. For vamps I'm going Block as the must have first skill. After that I'm getting Pro, Tackle for the take-down vamps and Dodge, Pro for the ball carriers. I find Pro is nice to have for the Blood Lust reroll, but just as handy at re-rolling block results that only give you the push result. On some rough statistics I calculated that having Pro gives me about a 12 percent better chance at taking someone down (on a two die block). Generally I find Pro great at any piece that rolls non-critical dice. It's not a skill for protecting against turnovers, but bloodlusts and blocking often fall into the "Man I'd like to reroll that, but it's not a turnover so I'm not spending a team reroll on it."

Speaking of skills, I'm finding Fend terrible useful on the thralls. In order to effectively use the Vamps, you want to first more a thrall wherever they're going. In order to do that, those thralls need to be free to move. Having Fend means there's always a thrall free to move over where you want to next move a vamp.

I use my apoc just to prevent against losing vamps. Vamps are so expensive, and quickly gain skills, so I'd hate to lose them. The thralls, they're cheap and easily replaced.

Finally, on defence I'm really enjoying using my vamps as free safeties in the back; not even activating them until the other teams breaks the thrall front line. A vamp that isn't moving isn't snacking on his team mates. As well, a couple vamps with block and tackle just sitting 6 back from the LOS really makes the elves and skaven less likely to try to sneak recievers through.

[Carnis]

Speaking of skills, I'm finding Fend terrible useful on the thralls. In order to effectively use the Vamps, you want to first more a thrall wherever they're going. In order to do that, those thralls need to be free to move. Having Fend means there's always a thrall free to move over where you want to next move a vamp.

Finally, on defence I'm really enjoying using my vamps as free safeties in the back; not even activating them until the other teams breaks the thrall front line. A vamp that isn't moving isn't snacking on his team mates. As well, a couple vamps with block and tackle just sitting 6 back from the LOS really makes the elves and skaven less likely to try to sneak recievers through.

Sounds about right. I wonder though, why fend? Wrestle seems IDEAL for the thralls. Having 7 wrestling thralls means there's bound to be opposing blockers out every turn/every 2nd turn. Also wrestle leaves your assist free on the counterblock 35/36 times, barring sidestep/SF.

Ze plan is forming like this currently:
Games 2-4 rely on Chaney/2 vamps. Slowly build back up to 11 thralls + apoth.
Get two pro-vampires.
Buy 2 rook vampires.
Wrestle ze thralls.

My plan for the thralls is the same as my rotters in my Nurgle team:
Wrestle/Dirty player on first 2.
Wrestle/Kick one.
Wrestle/Tackle one.
Wrestle/Frenzy one
Wrestle/Fend if none of the above have died.

SPP, I'll try to spread evenly, though I suspect the vamps will do majority of the scoring..
V-Builds:
Pro/Block/Dodge
Pro/Dodge/Block
MB/Block/Pro I'm not going to take Piling on although I love it.. It's just wrong with Bloodlust + MA6/ST4.
Pro/Block/* Frenzy or Tackle?

If I ever get to this stage I'll consider buying a 5th rook vamp.

[Macavite]

Speaking of skills, I'm finding Fend terrible useful on the thralls. In order to effectively use the Vamps, you want to first more a thrall wherever they're going. In order to do that, those thralls need to be free to move. Having Fend means there's always a thrall free to move over where you want to next move a vamp.

Sounds about right. I wonder though, why fend? Wrestle seems IDEAL for the thralls. Having 7 wrestling thralls means there's bound to be opposing blockers out every turn/every 2nd turn. Also wrestle leaves your assist free on the counterblock 35/36 times, barring sidestep/SF.

I was bringing up fend not as a skill instead of block or wrestle, but in addition to. The main reason is I play the vamps as a finesse/passing team. Let us say I've got everyone caged up behind the line, my team is all together, but wants to break down a sideline. I could try to move a vamp there first, but if i fail a Blood Lust I'll not be moving that vamp anywhere. So I move a thrall there first, then if the vamp gets there blood lust free he's got support, and if he's feeling hungry, well, he still gets to move there, he just snacks on the thrall. Being able to move that thrall there means the thrall has to be free, I'm not going to rely on AG3 dodges. Fend means I always have thralls free.

Basically I see the thralls there just as support pieces for the vampires. It's not called a Thrall team after all The vamps pass, catch, run, score and do all the important hits. The thralls are there for food, marking people and assisting on big blocks.

Yeah, the vamps do the majority of the scoring. My 5 vamps have 16 touchdowns, while the 11 thralls have 4 TD's. The team looks like this:

6 Rerolls (I could probably have been ok with 5, but having paid for 6 I feel obligated to use them)
Vamp: MA+, Pass (the quarterback, I love having a Str 4 quarterback)
Vamp: Block, Pro
2 Vamps: Block
1 Rookie Vamp (I probably should have put off buying him until I had pro on more vamps)
Thrall: +MA, Pass (his role is kick off retrieval, passing to the QB above, so the QB doesn't need to move on the kickoff)
3 Thralls: Fend (my LOS)
Thrall: Thick Skull (designated food: eat this guy, he'll stay on the pitch more often)
Thrall: Kick (because Kick is awesome)
5 rookie Thralls

[Smeborg]

It looks a bit lonely out there - just 3 Vampire coaches???

And I thought the sad blokes club of Nurgle coaches was small!

All the best.

[Macavite]

It looks a bit lonely out there - just 3 Vampire coaches???

And I thought the sad blokes club of Nurgle coaches was small!

All the best.

Actually, I'm a Nurgle coach too

One of the three-die-block guys is a vampire coach, a recent episode before last featured them. http://threedieblock.libsyn.com/index.p ... _id=569013 In the following episode he recanted on his statement that Pro isn't all that important.

[Grumbledook]

I won a league with vamps and I didn't take Pro once...

it is a waste of a skill until at least the 4th and even then doubt i'd bother most the time

[quozl]

I like blodge, side-step.

Wrestle, followed by fend on the thralls to keep them mobile.

I play like Macavite. High number of vamps (4 when developed), high number of re-rolls (5 or 6 on a developed team). I move the thralls first so I don't have to re-roll bloodlust. I seldom re-rol bloodlust, usually just accept the bite, unless it's late in the turn and Ive nothing else to do with the re-roll. I often find myself with 6 turns left and 5 re-rolls, or similar, so they become pretty disposable towards the end of a turn.

Vamps and thralls are good players with a re-roll every turn.

[Macavite]

I won a league with vamps and I didn't take Pro once...

it is a waste of a skill until at least the 4th and even then doubt i'd bother most the time

I'm a big fan of Pro, and I think it's because we're thinking of it differently. To me Pro is not an unreliable additional team reroll. I use my team rerolls for critical rolls that will end my turn if I screw them up, failing pick ups and passes and the like. I look at Pro for those (relatively rare) rolls that have a neutral result, not just 'success' or 'turnover!'. Vamps have two of those. I'd rather not eat a thrall if I can avoid it, but if I eat a thrall it's not the end of the world. Also, they throw a lot of 2d blocks, and those are the epitome of a roll that is rarely 'bad', but often 'meh'.

Looking just at Blood Lust, over the course of a game, my vamps will eat about 12 thralls. Of those, on average 2 will be a casualty and 3 will be KO'ed. Having Pro means only removing 3 thralls from the board instead of 5. However, I think that the place it really helps isn't the Blood Lust, it's the Blocking.

So, your average 2 die block will take down an opponent 55 percent of the time (assuming each dice is effective 2 out of 6 pips). Assuming one has block, the chance of it taking you down is small, a mere 3 percent. So, 2 die blocks are ineffective but not a turnover about 42 percent of the time. Having Pro means that of that 45 percent you get to reroll the block half of them and about 12 percent of the time (55 percent of this 22 percent) you get the opponent down.

2 die block (assuming I have block and they have dodge or block)
Effective 55 percent, Turnover 3 percent, Push 42 percent

2 die block with Block and Pro
Effective 67 percent, Turnover 3 percent, Push 29 percent

So even just looking at Pro as a blocking skill, it's increasing blocking effectiveness nearly as much as a full pip on the dice. If there was a skill that turned one of the two "push" arrows into an open star, would you take it? Throw in the ability to reroll blood lusts for times you aren't hitting, or rerolling critical rolls like dodging or catching when you already spent your team reroll earlier in the turn and I think it's a really valuable skill. Especially when you're looking at a piece that rolls as many dice as the Vamp.

[Carnis]

Don't forget about rerolling hypnotic gaze! Often the gaze is not a critical roll, but a turn-over free dodge-attempt.

edit: Economics wise, a pro-reroll on bloodlust costs 20k, works 41,5% of the time. Assume you're playing 4 vamps and activate each turn. 1 game = 64 activations = 10,5 bites => with pro one can prevent 4 bites in the game. That's 20k/bite prevented.

A reroll costs 70k, using them to prevent bites = 83% chance of success, 10,5 bites per game => 8 bites prevented, 10 rerolls spent = 5/half = 350k spent = ~60k value/bite prevented.

[grampyseer]

I've played with vamps a bit. I'm largely in agreement that block and dodge are the best skills for the vamps. Once you have a few with the "core skills" It would make sense to build some specialist types. (A frenzy, MB...A sure feet, sidestep...whatever)

I try not to re roll the blood lust, but instead save them for the hypno gaze rolls.

Vamps can be an incredible defensive team, if you can plan around using hypno gaze effectively.

For the thralls, I'm a big fan of wrestle.

[Carnis]

Such a huge outcry against pro only! .

I'll probably test Block/Pro vampires instead of Pro vampires or Blodge vampires then.