A new Vampire team roster

[Long_Bomb]

I appreciate a lot of experienced coached like the challenge posed by some of the more difficult teams and I am all for some teams just not being as good as others. I do however feel the Vampire team is a little bit of a 'pain in the neck' to play (please forgive the bad pun).

I have never liked the nega-trait rule and 'Blood Lust' does take away a lot of the joy of playing Vampires for many. After seeing the new cards for the Vampire team in team manager game I like the idea of a vampire team with positional thralls (throwers and blockers) and just one or two vampires to lead the team. I also like the idea that the vampire player only reaches his full potential after he has caused a casualty and you can choose to damage your own players in order to get that boost.

[Digger Goreman]

I think that failng a bloodlust not causing a turnover if the vamp does not bite should be a step in the right direction....

[Pitch Invader]

What if Blood Lust was more like this:

Blood Lust: A Player with Blood Lust finds it difficult to resist the temptation to feed on the living. If a player with Blood Lust begins his turn within the tackle zone of a friendly living (not vampire) player then they must roll to resist the temptation to feed. Roll a d6: a result of a 4+ means the vampire has resisted the temptation and may continue their turn as normal. A result of 1-3 means they bite one of the friendly living players in their tackle zones (if there are more than one the vampire player may chose which one to bite). Roll an injury roll right away for a bitten player. Any result of Knock Out or Casualty places the bitten player in the knock out box. This does not constitute a turn over. A Vampire who succumbs to Blood Lust may do no further actions this turn.

In simple terms, this would mean the vampire player would not have to worry about turn overs because of Blood Lust. It also means they can avoid blood lust if they keep their thralls away from their vampires. This would make play challenging however as they player would have to limit the contact of thralls and vampires, not lending assists or canceling out opponent assists fairly often. To balance the benefits of not causing turn overs, the roll is increased in likeliness from 1 in 6 to 3 in 6. It also ends the actions of the vampire, kind of like a one-turn Take Root.

This would make the vampire team easier to play, but still awkward because of limiting the use of assists and the problems of crowded plays like cage breaking and scrums.

[Shteve0]

Count Hypnogazed players as friendly and you're on

[Darkson]

We may add a house rule that vampires can raise dead thralls as zombies.

[purdindas]

I wouldn't change much if anything to be honest. Vamps are awesome!

[Itchen Masack]

Personally i like the challenge of Vamps and that they add another dimension to the game that actually requires some thinking. Sure it can all go wrong, but in the right hands, and given reasonable dice, they can be unstoppable.

I dont want them to be changed into just another stnadard team, we already have enough teams that generally get played the same way as each other.

[Itchen Masack]

Or maybe, now that i think about it, a slight change to bloodlust that it could be used as an unassisted foul on a prone un-undead opponent?

[Lychanthrope]

I've played a good Vampire coach only once, but what he did with the team was nothing short of amazing. Bloodlust seldom even slowed him down. He actually used it to his advantage twice. I'm not sure I'd change much. Plasmoid's NTBB Rules only adds Thickskull to the thralls, for free.

[duttydave]

Thralls get AV8 and cost 50K

[Long_Bomb]

I should really have split this into two threads. One for a Thrall Thrower like the Team Manager game has. The other for a suggested alternative to the current blood lust rules.

[dines]

It's a really tough team until vamps get block and dodge, then they can actually play pretty neat bb against most races even though you most likely end the game with very few players on your side.

To help them a bit early on I'd cut the reroll price by 10k, but that should be enough to boost them a bit early on. Plasmoids thick skull idea might also work, but don't really get the fluff on that one.

Giving them thrall positions would change the feel of the team for me. Why would you want an ag3 thrower when you can have up to 6 ag4 vamps?

[garion]

Vamps are fine. Heck I would still play with them if they were LRB4 and you could kill your own thralls, back then I thought when you kill your own thrall you should get a Vampire added to the roster though

[odinsgrandson]

I've played a good Vampire coach only once, but what he did with the team was nothing short of amazing. Bloodlust seldom even slowed him down. He actually used it to his advantage twice. I'm not sure I'd change much. Plasmoid's NTBB Rules only adds Thickskull to the thralls, for free.

I'm with you on this. I've been playing Vamps for a while now, and I often stomp most of my opponents (my wife has beaten my vamps, but the local game store hasn't taken them down yet- even with some top tier teams like pro-elves).

Vamps are a terrific team. They don't play normal, but they're really good. Any changes that would encourage you to take more vampires would put them way over the top.

[Chris]

I should really have split this into two threads. One for a Thrall Thrower like the Team Manager game has. The other for a suggested alternative to the current blood lust rules.

Be careful when you make a team that you don't start with the players you would wish to develop. Players have to go somewhere. So Orc blockers start with half what they need, they have str 4 but not block. Etc