heinz
Joined: Mar 24, 2004
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 Posted:
Feb 28, 2006 - 13:57 |
 
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Warning, lengthy post.
So I've fallen in love with this race, and after reading the short tactical introduction in the userguide i thought "Ha, I can do better". So here are my thoughts. An introduction to this fun race. Not so much a play book as some general advice as seen from my perspective. Comments and suggested improvements are more than welcome. I might end up trimming it for next GLN 
cheers says heinz
| Quote: | heinz' guide to vampires
Vampires were actually the last of the lrb-races i tried to play, and what a mistake that was! The combination of dreamlike stats on positionals and the unique hypnotic gaze gives the team a great variety in play style and excellent opportunities to surprise even the tightest packed cage offense. That said let me stress that Vampires will give you some of the most frustrating moments of your bb coaching career. Bloodlust is not just arguably the worst negatrait around, it’s also glued to all your key players. There are ways to minimise your frustration when “vamping” as I’ll get back to, but at the end of the day vampires were build to be a challenge to play, and they certainly are.
Resist your lust from tr100 - building a new vampire team
First thing to control, when you start a vampire crew is your urge to frontload with to many vampires. Their uber skills will quickly vain when you run out of rr in turn 2 and subsequently run out of thralls. I’m not gonna propose one starting setup as the ultimate package, but I prefer to start with only 2 vamps and buy the rr while they’re cheap. Others prefer 3 vamps from the start, but more than that, I’d only recommend for very short-term play. Even for 5-6 game tourneys I think I’d choose the extra rr over vamp #4.
So...you’re good to go, you’ve bought your players, you’ve stashed up on fan factor (yes, you will need the money) and rr (even more). To the field, counts and countesses of the dark!
Base moves on the dancefloor
Player positioning is the key to succesfull bb play with any race. Because of Bloodlust this is even more vital for vamps than most other races in the LRB. First basic advice is not to act with a vampire before you’ve got a thrall in position next to where you want to end your vamp-action. This will allow maximum mobility for your vamp even if and when Bloodlust fails. Second advice is: Always have a backup plan. Since your vampires are the natural stars of the team, you will often end up relying on their skills in decisive situations, while Bloodlust makes them unreliable. Especially when it comes to ball handling and passing game, you always have to know’ what general course to take if/when your ball carrying vamp fails his Bloodlust and is unable to do anything but move/bite.
Thralls are often viewed as mere los- and vampfodder - try to use this to your advantage. In my experience people tend to underestimate thralls causing them to forget to leave a deep cover in defense, if the endzone is “only” threatened by a single thrall positioned near on of the sidelines. And whenever possible use thralls rather than vamps for your important blitzes and ball control. A vamp with guard can still assist with tacklezones even after a failed Bloodlust, while your blitz action is lost for the turn, if a blitzing vamp gets hungry.
And now to the fun part: Hypnotic Gaze is the skill that makes all the frustrations worthwhile. If used with a bit of thought a gazing vamp can make the game turn to your advantage in a single move action. In offence you can gaze a whole in the thickest wall of dwarfs; in defense no cage is safe from your evil eyes. Again you need to have backup plans, since you need a 2+ (bloodlust) 3+ (gaze roll in no tz) just to make one gaze work, and chances are, you’re already out of rr for the turn. So eventually your gaze-based game plan will always be a bit all-or-nothing, but when it succeeds...oh the joy of imagining the long face of your opponent. And remember that hypnotic gaze can also be used in less decisive moments: Gaze the Beast of Nurgle to get two covered thralls free, remove the tz from that stand firm, guard blitzer...use your imagination and surprise your opponent.
And a last word on in game tactics: It’s my experience that most people (at least on fumbbl) aren’t used to playing vs. Vampires, giving you the advantage of knowing your opponents strengths and weaknesses better than he does yours.
2 steps forward, 1,5 back - vampire team development
And if you thought your frustrations ended with vampires unable to do anything you plan with them, you can think again. Bloodlust and the fragile nature of thralls combined with relative low av on the vampires make progressing your team a long journey. Nothing yells “foul me” like a prone ag4 st4, av8 player, and your consumption of new Thrall meat accelerate as you finally have saved money enough to buy that extra vamp you’ve been wanting to buy during the last 5 games. As a consolation Thrall meat has a pretty low price and new vamps skill up easily. Here are a few guidelines to suggest how you could spend your money and skill rolls:
RR are essential to control those Bloodlust rolls - later on pro will help a bit, but still to risky to rely on in tight situations. So after purchasing an apo get to 5 or 6 rr before anything else. For a team that’s gonna last I would only buy my third vampire after 5 rr and the fourth after rr number 6. Meanwhile you probably also have to stock up on thralls just to be able to field 11 (preferably more) for each game. So to sum up : Hold the Vampire-purchase untill you’re on top of evrything else with the team development, and remember that even 2 vampires can create a whole lotta mayhem for your opponent.
In line with this you actually need to distribute some spp for your thralls. Get block, then tackle on 1 preferably 2 early on, making you able to deal with pesky blodgers. 1 strip ball/block is also neat. Now you have some decent blitzers without negatraits! Finally a sure hands thrall is of more help, than you’d think. With him you can pick up, get ball control and hand off without having to worry about Bloodlust rolls. Doubles on the thralls are well spend (as always) on guard, one dauntless (big guy hunter) and perhaps pass/accurate for your sure hands guy (relieves essential tasks from vamps again).
The vamps more or less skill up themselves, and the question will often be when to take the pro skill that saves you rerolls and makes the vamp moderately more reliable. You’ll find different views on this, but my standard development of a vampire would be block (survival and blitzing skill), guard (support the blitzer-thrall), pro. Ofcourse with vamp #4-6 I’d probably start playing with other combinations. Vampires need doubles less than any other player with the unique SAG-access on a normal skill, but stand firm is always good, jump up with av8 also nice, while I’d avoid frenzy in most cases, since the guy is unpredictable enough as it is. +ag is a blessing, almost better than +st for a Vampire, since it improves the hypno-gaze skill significantly (besides all the normal benifits of ag5).
Try these at home
Those are my thoughts on Vampires for now. I encourage every BB-fan to give this race a shot. It’s frustrating, challenging, difficult to develop to uber-DE/HE-level...but good old fashioned fun above all. |
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#fumbbl_academy - the old school alternative | #bloodlust - FUMBBL's first Vampire chat |
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JanMattys
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
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| Posted:
Feb 28, 2006 - 14:01 |
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You forgot the most important trick:
Vampires are rarely a successful team, and often a disappointing one. Don't coach them if you are all about winning, and not all about fun. Sometimes you will pull out wonderful wins, but most of the times you will lose one or more players in the process. Just learn to laugh at your own tragedies just like when you play a stunty team. Otherwise, stick to Orcs. |
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Mezir
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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| Posted:
Feb 28, 2006 - 14:11 |
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| heinz wrote: | Warning, lengthy post.
So I've fallen in love with this race, and after reading the short tactical introduction in the userguide i thought "Ha, I can do better". |
I'm going to assume that you've already edited the relevant wiki page...  |
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Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day; set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. |
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Curro
Joined: Jun 07, 2005
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Feb 28, 2006 - 14:19 |
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Uhmmm.. interesting guide. Only played two matches with Vampires so I didn´t get the point. Maybe with this guide I´ll give them another try.
Good job Heinz. |
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PurpleChest
Joined: Oct 25, 2003
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useful stuff dude.
The AG5 Hypno gaze bonus was a new nugget of strategic gold to me. All is good advice though. |
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RC
Joined: Sep 22, 2005
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Feb 28, 2006 - 14:33 |
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Ag 5 menas that you can hypno when standing in another players tackle zone, great stuff! |
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"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." |
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Uber
Joined: Mar 22, 2004
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| Posted:
Feb 28, 2006 - 15:04 |
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If you really plan on starting a vamp team, the best starting lineup is certainly 11 thralls, 6 rr + apo. The point is that it's extremely difficult to maintain 11 players on the roster, increase you number of vampires and save for re-rolls at the same time. If you start with all of this, you don't have to worry about re-rolls for a while and you basically can start saving for vamps from game 1. You may have to buy a few thralls in between, but the process will be much more straightforward.
Also, going with thralls only doesn't necessarily mean losing. Those guys will stand up to elves pretty well in the beginning, especially those of the 2 rr variety. The key to this is patience. You have to wait for them to waste their re-roll and then move in at the most opportune time. With 6 re-rolls, you can afford riskier plays, even with thralls. The re-roll is your safety net.
When the vamps come in at a later stage, the possibilities grow even further. By using hypnotic gaze to remove tackle zones, you get an effect similar to having more than one blitz. I've always been a big play/big reward type of coach and vampires definitely take the cake when it comes to that. Between the failures, you'll get some plays that make it incredibly worth it. You be in it for the fun of making those big plays and when you fail, you just get right back at it and move along. Build you vamps and never look back.
Uber |
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Recovering FUMBBL addict. |
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heinz
Joined: Mar 24, 2004
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| Posted:
Feb 28, 2006 - 15:13 |
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Thx for the input, Uber, you have a valid point regarding starting lineup. To me kicking a vamp team off without a single vamp is just to colorless. But the field-11-problem is certainly a great barrier through the first stages. |
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#fumbbl_academy - the old school alternative | #bloodlust - FUMBBL's first Vampire chat |
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Meech
Joined: Sep 15, 2005
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| Posted:
Feb 28, 2006 - 15:15 |
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Heinz, you have me convinced, I am playing VAMPS!!!! |
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Putting the FU in fumbbl since 9/2005 |
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GinTonic
Joined: Feb 23, 2006
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Feb 28, 2006 - 15:21 |
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Excellent strategy guide, thanks heinz, thanks uber
Made me crave to play one of these bloodsucker teams. |
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DonKosak
Joined: Apr 06, 2004
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Feb 28, 2006 - 21:03 |
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Great post - even though I would never dare to coach vamps myself. Good job! I'm looking forward to smash your vamps  |
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GalakStarscraper
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Mar 01, 2006 - 05:53 |
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I love coaching Vampires .. and in a league like FUMBBL ... I actually agree with Uber that his all Thrall roster is the best way to start. If you have a league without the long range like FUMBBL ... I'd stay more with heinz suggestion of only starting with 2 Vampires.
One other point I've found from playing Vampires ... don't get greedy on the pitch. I only field 3 Vampires vs ST 3 teams and 4 Vampires vs ST 4+ teams. Even though I have 5 Vampires on my roster. I've found that once you get good with Hypnotic Gaze (and have picked up Pro to re-roll it) ... those are usually enough to make stuff happen on the pitch. More than that and you start asking to munch on your own team.
Right now I have 3 Vampires with Block/Pro, 1 with Pro, and 1 rookie Vamp along with 4 Re-Rolls. With a Thrall with Leader ... I normally only bite 2 Thralls max per a game.
Galak |
Last edited by GalakStarscraper on %b %01, %2006 - %15:%Mar; edited 1 time in total |
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GinTonic
Joined: Feb 23, 2006
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Mar 01, 2006 - 06:19 |
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just played with 105/85 thralls vs 105/82 game thralls, both 1 game
result: 3 kills, 1 SI.
Never saw this before, my team was gored after one game
Well, sometimes sh*t happens...
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mobo
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Mar 01, 2006 - 09:37 |
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Thumbs up. Sounds like they are a real challenge |
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SideshowBob
Joined: Aug 02, 2003
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Mar 01, 2006 - 09:46 |
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Nice guide.
I have just played 10-15 games with vamps but I think I have a nice little tip:
Don't kick niggled thralls, you can at least save one or two on the rooster. These will of course do LOS duty and will be the primary targets for your thirsty vamps. |
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