Vampire teams: too powerful?

[GalakStarscraper]

If you HG the guy with the ball, does he drop the ball? It specifically says he becomes stupid for the turn and cannot catch or pick up the ball... but i didn't understand if it means they drop it too, or just cant pick it up.

They do not drop the ball.

Galak

[Darkson]

I played friendly match against vampire team with my Khemry, he had 3 rerolls 4 vampires and 10 thralls. Game ended with 3 vampires on the ground, rest of his team were in KO or injured. 6 casualities and 5 KO's. No cas to my players

That sounds like my Vampire team in the MBBL.

[atropabelladonna]

I played friendly match against vampire team with my Khemry, he had 3 rerolls 4 vampires and 10 thralls. Game ended with 3 vampires on the ground, rest of his team were in KO or injured. 6 casualities and 5 KO's. No cas to my players

That sounds like my Vampire team in the MBBL.

I had a few games like that. I lost 6-0 to a skaven team and he also got 3 cas to my 0.

I started with 2 vamps, 10 thralls and 4 rerolls. My team finally got its second win in 9 attempts. It is 2 wins, 2 ties and 5 losses. I have 12 TD's for, 21 against. I am also -8 for casulties.

I have 3 vamps now, and some of the thralls finally have block (one even got +1 MV & +1 AG). That starts to make a big difference.

I feel my team is competitive now. It sucked pretty hard in the first few games.

[Trob]

I played friendly match against vampire team with my Khemry, he had 3 rerolls 4 vampires and 10 thralls. Game ended with 3 vampires on the ground, rest of his team were in KO or injured. 6 casualities and 5 KO's. No cas to my players . Maybe I will try to play them next league to test myself.

Yep. This is almost exactly what happened with my experienced (TR 160) Vampires against a new Khemri team (4 mummies of course), except I managed to squeak out a 1-0 win before he decimated most of my Thralls.

I'm expecting my vamps to shine this season however since their TR is getting to be 180+ & I think this is where a vamp team can effectively compete. Certainly not easy though with all the failed OFAB

cheers

[Trob]

On another note:

I definitely (so far anyways) think the Vamp team is underpowered in comparison to other teams. I know that it has been said that this is deliberate - that they were never meant to be a competitive team, more of a fun team. However, I haven't heard anything in the Warhammer Vampire Counts army background to lead me to believe that they should be so ineffective. Any thoughts on why Vamps shouldn't become a competitive team?

my suggestion would be to bring back the old Vampire Lord positional player with a twist:

Vampire Lord : 6 4 4 8 Hypnotic Gaze, Regenerate

(i.e. no OFAB for that one player)

regards.

[Ravage]

woops, i just created this as a new thread in the genral forum.... didnt even realize this thread was here. Here's a repost and I'll go kill the other thread.

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I've noticed a lot of people complain about playing as the vamp team (myself included sometimes ) and thought I'd try to look into why the team doesnt perform as well as many feel they should/could.

Looking at the stats on fumbbl, the vampires have the 4th-to-worst record... their win percentages are 34/17/49 for W/T/L... just barely better than only halflings, goblins, and ogres, and that's WITH the currently broken way the vamps work on fumbbl since the client allows vamps to score during a lust without needing to bite a thrall. The way I understand it, flings/gobbos/ogres are all supposed to fit in the "joke" category, or what's commonly referred to as "Tier 3". I thought vamps were supposed to be on "Tier 2" but that doesnt seem to be the case. But why?

Certainly much of the statistics can be blamed on the coaches. Most people dont use HG as much as they should, many don't protect their vampires, there's a laundry list of things people can be doing "wrong". But I think the current roster, and the current ruleset, are working against the team.

First of all, the thralls are nearly worthless. Sure, they're 40k, but they're vanilla 6/3/3/7 with only Gen access. No coach wants to stack up on these guys. But then you have the vamps, who are great players but are also expensive as anything. Not to mention have Blood Lust. Not only are your opponents beating your thralls into oblivion, but your own teammates are burning through your 70k rerolls trying to avoid Lusting, and every once in a while coming over to snack on your poor thralls as well.

OK, so maybe a coach could choose to stack the roster with vamps... no intelligent coach wants to do this thanks to the Rule of 11, since it only speeds up the self-destruction process. Very soon you're either removing vamps from the pitch and suffering early TO's, or you continue to devour your thralls.

I don't think vamps should be an easy team to play. Nor do I think they should be right up there with the best teams in the game. But I think that something should be done to help bring this team up to at least "Tier 2" status instead of the "joke" team it currently is.

I have a small handful of ideas which could or could not work, but wanted to see what other coaches thought.... #1, cheapen the team's RR's. Seriously, I think 70k is an injustice to this team. #2, help out the thralls. Give them AG access or SOMETHING, even if it means raising their costs. #3, tweak Blood Lust. Make the vamp roll armor before injury.

I am in no way saying do all three of these things... but i think any one could help the team. Especially #3: I think the root of many vamp team problems is the self-mutilation where if there was less chance of injury, the team could compete better. Say when a vamp bites a thrall, said thrall is stunned automatically. Roll for armor, if it breaks then roll injury and stun/ko/cas the player. If not, leave the thrall stunned and he flips at the end of the turn so he can be stood up and used next turn. Yes, it's adding more dice rolls. But it would keep the team on a more even keel IMO.

Maybe I'm just out of my head. Anyone else have any thoughts?

[GalakStarscraper]

I thought vamps were supposed to be on "Tier 2" but that doesnt seem to be the case. ..... Anyone else have any thoughts?

They are Tier 2 ... its just that on FUMBBL so many people start playing the team ... do poorly with it because they don't know how to play the team and stop playing it that the FUMBBL stats get skewed really badly.

Better stats ... compare teams between TR 200 and 249 in FUMBBL

The following table tracks games played at these ranges ... I have sorted them in order by winning % and games played by teams in this TR range of 200 to 249.

Code: Select all

Skaven      - 54% -  8942
Elf         - 53% -  2373
Wood Elf    - 51% - 10767
Chaos Dwarf - 51% -  5309
Lizardmen   - 50% -  3037
High Elf    - 49% -  5783
Dark Elf    - 48% - 11748
Undead      - 47% -  5300
Dwarf       - 46% -  5003
Vampire     - 46% -   603
Amazon      - 44% -  3315
Orc         - 43% - 16662
Human       - 43% -  7890
Khemri      - 43% -  2266
Chaos       - 42% - 13252
Norse       - 42% -  2933
Necromantic - 41% -  2567
Nurgle      - 40% -  2084
Goblin      - 34% -   394
Ogre        - 33% -   709
Halfling    - 32% -   440

As you will clearly see Vampires are just fine when played by a serious player.

Galak

[Wightlord]

Played 8 games in total with vamps and have 5-1-3 record. I think they are tougher to play, but in a way thats good as it encourages "crazy" plays and the Vamps when they run well can make almost anything work.

Once you Pro up the Vampires become quite useable.

[grotuk]

Is the same with Vampires and Ogres, i think. The people see a lot of potentinal on those teams so they start to play with them. Then, the realize that they are too hard to play with and you must have a good sense of humour and a great tactical knowledge to play with both teams. But, for a experienced player both teams are not too bad, i mean, is hard to win your league, but you can be on the top places.

But the worst for both teams are a lot of novelty players who think they are top teams and they are not as tasty as they look... so soon they start to say that they are crap.

In the other hand, the leagues with a player who plays pretty well with one of them... in their league almost everybody starts to complais about the overpowered they are.

Just my 2 cents

[Darkson]

Played 8 games in total with vamps and have 5-1-3 record.

Impressive! Which special rule for Vamps have I missed?

[Gus]

my Vamps are 5/1/2 on FUMBBL... it's a tough team to play but very interesting and satisfying when you succeed in doing things with them.

of course, more than other teams, it can be ruined when on a bad day.

[Skummy]

I have 3 active Vamp teams on fumbbl - all with winning records. The Vamps are oddly competitive against Elf and 3 ST skill teams, but don't fare too well at all against any team with 3+ Mighty Blow. Pro's very helpful in small doses, but if all the Vamps take it early, they just don't have the skills to compete. I see a lot fo coaches on fumbbl try to start it the wrong way around with lots of vamps and one or two rerolls. That invariably leads to frustration and lots of pain.

[Mad Jackal]

I started with 11 thralls and 6 re-rolls, so I can't comment on my vamps yet.



I had two really good practice matches with them vs starting humans (concentrating on spp distribution)

I lost the first game 2-1 and the second in a rougher go 2-0.

I think I had a -1 ag thrall and a -1 move thrall after that match. (Perfect Vamp escorts.)


Then I started the season (reset roster) and half way through the first match (vs different starting humans) I've got 2 dead thralls and a -1 st thrall. It is not looking good for this team already. Apoth failed to heal the first death.

But I'm in it for the long haul, I'll see how close I am to a vamp after thsi match, but I may just buy some thralls to replace.

My real goal is to build thralls with skills before my vampires come in and soak all the spp.

If I did it again I might consider 1 vamp and losing a re-roll, but I doubt it.

I have learned that while 6 3 3 7 for 40k isn't too bad .. Putting 3 of them on the line repeatedly SUCKs. :d

[Ravage]

yes but galak there are what? 33 vamp teams *at* TR200 or higher? Is that really a fair sampling?

I'm not saying vamps are a BAD team... far from it. I love playing my vamp team on fumbbl even if i do have a pretty bad record with them I just think they're right on the cusp of tier2/tier3 and could use a little something to really define them as something that is NOT a "joke team".

[Skummy]

I don't know about that... When the dice are kind, they're pretty much unstoppable. And they easily get a ST 4 Blodge player with a 4 AG. That's very difficult for a lot of teams to stop.

They're a lot weaker than I originally thought when I heard Cerdival's suggestion for 'em. One thing that's annoying about them is that you never acutally want to field 6 Vampires at once. They may be the one team in BB that you don't want to max your positionals on. Perhaps that's the one area they could use help?

"Master Vampire: The vampire on the roster with the most SPP's is considered the "Master Vampire" and loses the OFAB negatrait. Only one vampire can be a master per team at any given time. If two or more Vampires are tied, no Vampire is master."