Vampire Teams?

datalorex · Post by **datalorex** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:32 am

Players rarely even mention Vampire teams. Does anyone have a Vampire team that they use? And if so, do you win with them? Any interesting stories? And how do you develop them?

sgtspiff · Post by **sgtspiff** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 9:18 am

Grumbledook has the highest ranking Vampire team on NAF. Maybe he has something to say.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:27 am

also top of my league at the moment with them

i recommend starting off with only a couple of vamps and at least 5 rerolls

ignore pro as a skill choice, there are much better options and you have 5 rerolls!

you don't need to field more than 3 vamps in a drive (4 at a push) its just making you do too many bloodlust rolls and you will run out of thralls

for tournaments I take 3 vamps and again 4 or 5 rerolls (depends how much you have to spend)

if there is a turn where you think you don't have to use a vamp (or any for that matter) then don't worry about leaving them where they are

also learn how to use the brilliant weapon that is hypnotic gaze, it tears open holes, frees up players and makes caging very differcult, especially when you have another st4 player to run in and hit the ball carrier

any other questions just shout

Nethrag · Post by **Nethrag** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:56 am

I play against vamps in our local league (just had our recent top of the table clash). He uses 4 vamps and to be honest does get through quite a few of the thralls. However with 4 vamps on the pitch there are some really crazy plays that you can pull off. For example in our last game I had a longbeard next to the vamp with the ball deep into the vamp endzone. and every other vamp surrounded by atleast two players. One blitzes free and goes to stand in the end zone, another leaps over my guys, dodges away and hypnogazes a longbeard next to another vamp. The one with the ball dodges away and throws a long pass (still only a 4+) to the vamp in the one remaining tackle zone who catches it, dodges away and hands it off to the one standing in the endzone. 4 S4 and Ag4 players with hypnotic gaze mean that they're nothing that they can't do. However because of bloodlust they can also stuff up the most simple things and its quite hard to get your team up above 11 players as the vamps take a toll on your thralls.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:59 am

i don't find having players a problem, i've usually had 13 players for every match after the first one

one game I had 10 players to start with due to the batter i took off some skaven the game before, though any team will tend to struggle taking 9 cas in a row with none of them being badly hurt ;]

Nethrag · Post by **Nethrag** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:18 am

Ok, that's your (probably more experienced) experience. We're playing LRB5.0 in a VERY bashy orientated league and on top of anything else that the opposition manage to kill you've got your (4) vamps failing a bloodlust 10 times a game on average (4 x 16 x 1/6). He is having to play with about 2-3 journeyman thralls in his team at the minute due to dead players. Not a huge problem as they just get stuck on the los to take the next beating but hes certainly found it hard to get up to above 11 on your roster with the amount of cas caused. This is a team he's taken over from the last league too (with most other teams starting from scratch) so he's played quite a few games.

sgtspiff · Post by **sgtspiff** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:20 pm

After some serious maths (in my case) I get this.

I don't use any decimals in percentage calculations.
Per Vampire;
17% chance of failing Bloodlust each turn
10% chance of failing Bloodlust with Pro skill each turn
3% chance of failing Bloodlust when using a team re-roll

If one Vampire on the pitch;
2,7 failed bloodlust per match
1,6 failed bloodlust per match with pro skill
0,5 failed bloodlust per match with 3 re-rolls used

If two Vampires on the pitch;
5,4 failed bloodlust per match
3,2 failed bloodlust per match with pro skill
1 failed bloodlust per match with 5 re-roll used

If three Vampires on the pitch;
8 failed bloodlust per match
4,6 failed bloodlust per match with pro skill
1,3 failed bloodlust per match with 8 re-rolls used

If four Vampires on the pitch;
10,7 failed bloodlust per match
6,2 failed bloodlust per match with pro skill
1,8 failed bloodlust per match with 11 re-rolls used

If five Vampires on the pitch;
13,3 failed bloodlust per match
7,7 failed bloodlust per match with pro skill
2,3 failed bloodlust per match with 13 re-rolls used

If six Vampires on the pitch;
16 failed bloodlust per match
9,3 failed bloodlust per match with pro skill
2,7 failed bloodlust per match with 16 re-rolls used

This is just statistics.

wesleytj · Post by **wesleytj** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:01 pm

Short answer. They suck.

Nethrag · Post by **Nethrag** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:19 pm

yeah - my ten times for four vamp was obv without using any team rerolls to negate them. It's not what I'd want to be forced to use my rerolls on though as its not like they come with block or anything and they generally are making a lot of rolls (IMO).

There a fun team to play against and with though as like I said the potential for daring plays coming off is quite high thanks to the great stat line and skill access, its just that they'll frustrate your plans a lot too.

fen · Post by **fen** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:25 pm

Less discussion about the Vampires. They're not the important part of the team.

It's All About The Thralls!

Nethrag · Post by **Nethrag** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:42 pm

The only good thing about thralls is that with correct positioning of them you can still hypnogaze an opponent after failing your bloodlust roll! lol

sgtspiff · Post by **sgtspiff** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 2:05 pm

How many reserve Thralls would be a good amount? 1,2,3,4 or five?

If you have 2 vampires you would need at least 1 reserve to keep 11 players on the pitch (without all the other CAS, and of course using re-rolls).

fen · Post by **fen** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:11 pm

Ok, now I have a bit more time I'd like to extend and expand on my favourite 'catch phrase' regarding Vampires.

While the vampire player is a superb tactical piece, having many unique development paths and Hypno Gaze. It's always the Thralls that do the grunt work in the league team. (Tournaments I can't comment on)

A lot of success with the team is knowing how to use a 6337 Gen piece effectively, especially in the face of superior opposing players.

The way I learnt to play the Vampire team was by really handicapping myself when I started. My initial line up was 12 Thralls, 7 Rerolls and 1 FF 1 AC 1 CL. I forced myself to play with nothing but Thralls until I'd bought an Apoth, 2 more CL's 2 More ACs and saved up for that first Vampire.

So I had to get comfortable playing with nothing but "Hobgoblins" for a long while. I learnt a lot about positional advantage, fouling, chain pushing, assists and when to pass. I couldn't afford to make mistakes, because my players weren't good enough to recover.

Then each vampire gradually joined the team and I got used to playing with 1 Vampire on pitch, then 2 and then 3. I did buy a 4th Vampire in the end, but only to allow me to rotate 2 vampires/have a reserve vampire and put 4 on the pitch when I was facing a 2-3 turn drive. Often though I think I might have been better served with 13 Thralls 3 Vampires.

Still I found I was doing most of the grunt work with the Thralls, I used the Vampires to open up spaces for the Thralls to do their thing. Rather than have a bunch of useless mooks supporting a pile of overskilled superstar prima-donnas I had a solid line of veterans supported by rookie prima-donnas. It worked much better imo.

Of course, some people want Vampires and want them now. But even then I'd never recommend starting with more than two and I'd say the shouldn't go above three unless they can promise themselves they won't get tempted to pile all 4 on the pitch at the start of a half.

Still I'd do it that way again next time I play Vampires in a long term league. Because it's all about the Thralls. And imo, understanding that reduces your reliance on the Vampires, and thus reduces the amount of Blood Lust rolls you're making. The Thralls are the life blood of the team in more ways than just the obvious pun.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:17 pm

I think 7 rerolls is overkill on ANY team

The fun of the vamp team is having the vamps, starting with none is kinda boring ;]

I do agree that you should use the thralls more so than the vamps, though they are fragile and do tend to get killed (i've had a very high turnover on mine)

Did get kinda lucky with my skill rolls getting +ST on a thrall and a vamp, unfortunatly I've found myself players down in a fair few matches, or been against leaping strip ballers.

This has led me to not getting the thralls skilled up as much as I would advocate.

Having a couple of vamps makes the team so much better on defence, even one would. I also didn't bother buying an apoth for ages, though that was LRB4 so I couldn't use it on the vamps.

If you have a couple of good vamps, it should make protecting the ball holding thrall a bit easier, thus skilling them up better. Failing to get a pass off to a vamp to get MVP'd guys their first skill more often than not is also a pain!

fen · Post by **fen** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:43 pm

Grumbledook wrote:I think 7 rerolls is overkill on ANY team

Not when all your guys are that bad it's not. You can always drop a reroll once enough Vampires are on the roster. It's the same difference to drop a reroll as it is to pick one up after generation (a loss of 70K).

I've just seen too many Vampire teams with overskilled vampires and skillless/loner thralls. I only play Vamps in the very long term leagues, and then I use the longest game plan. Which is always start with as many rerolls as possible and skill up the weakest section of the team. Hopefully some of them roll +AV or doubles and become decent in their own right then.

Also, I don't like the Vampires as much as I like the Thralls.