First, gotta say a huge thanks to Christer and CJ for making all of this run smoothly as it has and giving us the chance to play with the new toys.

...

Oh boy, here comes the rant. But I SWEAR it's brief. And with no ill will towards anyone personally, it's all in jest, about a game of toys and dice.

It's been more than a year since my overly favourable review of the new trait and the new roster's prospects. It didn't exactly make waves, and the few who read or heard of it probably dismissed it instantly. Which is fair, who the heck am I?

Since then, I've occasionally tried (and repeatedly failed) to put forward that thesis in a variety of ways. Mostly by trolling.

Comparing winrates, as an argument one way or the other, really doesn't work, because the BB16 winrates include the record from some monster teams with 6 vamps and twice as many statups and a truckload of rerolls... that you can't really compare to a bunch of 1-5 games low TV teams, the majority of which are probaly coached by people that didn't play a lot of Vampires before.

When the roster grabbed a big TT tournament in England, commentators blamed the overly favourable ruleset, or the sending off of extra players rule that apparently made one of the 6 out of 6 wins possible. They're still obviously rubbish, it's just that when something is rubbish and you give it too many buffs... it becomes unbeatable. Is that how it works?

Anyway, early when C opened we saw some fantastic rookie vamp plays from Strider84, and also Mazylis has been running them with an impressive record. My Khemris got spanked by Dutchlife's vamps in one of the Minors. I've now slowly played my way through the first 14 matches of a rookie vamp team, and this is what they look like after:

https://fumbbl.com/p/team?id=1041029

A few scattered first impressions

1) 2+ Gaze is MASSIVE

2) new pro is nice but of limited scope compared to before (only during the player's activation)

3) no turnovers and not disappearing from the pitch is good, losing block and dodge when angry and alone is bad (thanks FAQs)

4) I don't think I ever used journeymen, which is a thing that happened quite often to battered and strapped for cash BB16 vamp teams

5) the new cash system is probably the cause of (4) as you very quickly start filling the bench anytime you want, even firing MNGs when it suits you

6) random Gs are nice on thralls but it's probably worth to wait for 6spps and go for random S, and build guard and MB thrall, or maybe not

7) because of 4 and 5, I rarely ended much lower on numbers than my opponents, and only ever lost one vampire

8) you probably want some DP/wrestle/frenzy at some point because mighty blow isn't too viable anymore

9) the team is still a nightmare puzzle of positioning and turn ordering, which was also the main appeal before

10) 3-4 vamps works fine (same as before as far as normal, non-perpetual runs were concerned)

How does the team looks after it has been redrafted?

Assuming that the last match doesn't kill any of the vamps or the one good thrall, the plan is to keep those 5, and keep the apo and the 3 rerolls, plus 8 rookie thralls, and that should add up to 1250k +100k for the 5 agent fees. Which is kind of a nice team already. In second season they should be able to grab 1-2 extra skills right off the bat (heh, bats) if they don't die in game 1, and replenish the bench with the first winnings.

Are they OP? No. But are they still a nice puzzle to solve, fun and challenging to just the right level? Yes. Will they defy established wisdom even further, when somebody better than me starts playing them seriously? Absolutely.

BB would be sadder and flatter without them. Try them sometime.