Treatise on ye Vampyre
Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2003 6:33 pm
I think that it is fair to say that most people find the experimental vampire team from BBmag4 too powerful. It has been suggested that the best way to balance the team is to give the vampires a severe negative trait.
In my opinion, this may very well be a working solution, but it is not the best solution.
It ought to be possible to create a balanced vampire team, with a more vanilla feel both on paper and on the pitch.
My starting point is that the vampires stats should still resemble those put forward by JJ, and that it takes at least a handful of vampires to make a "vampire" team. Other than that, I'm open to some tweaking.
As for the choice between a thrall and necromantic theme, I prefer a necromantic theme purely for the sake of balance (though I do see it as an added bonus that this reflects the vampires portrayed in the warhammer world).
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In my league we've had 5 different vampire line-ups, each playing at least 40 games, and that has taught us a thing or two:
1) The first teams had a lord, OFAB vamps (GEN only) and 6227 thralls.
The lord with ST4 AG5 block and dodge proved extremely potent.
OFAB often "rigged" games, so we removed it and reduced the number of vampires.
To keep the team remotely balanced we invented the puny thralls. Only problem being that their stats didn't look human at all. This, (and the armylist) got us thinking of zombies.
2) the team evolved into vamps, zombies and 2 ghouls (to replace the lord)
Still, this team was mighty hard to beat unless the opponent managed to outnumber the vamps by dealing out some damage.
The best solution would probably have been to make the vampires less powerful, but we concluded that their support was too durable, and decided to make the team more fragile.
3) So the next version was vamps, skeletons and 4 ghouls - with G+AG on the vamps because BB2K had removed the one problem AG-skill (diving tackle) and reduced the power of the Gaze.
This is how we discovered that MA is extremely potent on the vampire team. Every time a tackle zone is removed with a gaze, there is a hole for someone to run through, which makes MA the key attribute.
This version of team was very powerful.
Now - where to go from there?
------------------------
We went back to step 2 and reconsidered.
The obvious solution was to make the vampires less powerful, so that it wasn't necessary to clear the team of "linemen" in order to have a fighting chance against a vampire team.
*We decided to stick with the zombies as the linemen. Not only they have low MA, but their low AG also means that the opponent can focus on the vampires, and needn't worry about a zombie dodging into the endzone and catching the ball.
*No OFAB had also worked well for us. This made the team a normal "vanilla" team, and ensured that matches wouldn't be rigged by high/low off-pitch rolls. The number of vampires was then reduced to 4 to match the "OFAB average".
*Even with less vampires and zombies for linemen, the team needed to be brought down a notch.
But how to weaken the vampires while retaining their vampire feel?
Vampires are both agile and lethal - and that is why they have ST4, AG4, ST-skills and AG-skills. But this does seem like "overexplaining". If every BB player had to be as powerful as the background material made it look, then gutter runners would have ST3, wardancers would have even more skills, etc.
In this respect, game balance takes top priority.
Similarly, removing ST skill access and AG4 will still leave the impression of a deadly (ST4) and agile (AG skills) player. Throwing around ST4 with access to skills like leap and dodge will make the vampire unique and dangerous.
*Especially the cut in AG is important. With their AG4 and gaze (and access to dodge) the vampires are better at dodging than elves! They are virtually able to break through any line with just a few decent rolls. The AG also supplies the team with a good passing game and a very stable running game. This one change will have a huge impact on the team, and will make it a lot more reasonable to play against.
*Finally - the vampire lord. Many coaches don't even like the concept of a vampire lord playing Blood Bowl - it feels like a dwarven king on the dwarf roster. On the other hand, a "boss" vampire in the pack does have the advantage of landing the team at 5 vampires, rather than 4 (too few) or 6 (probably too many).
So, I've changed the lords name to "alpha vampire" (the strong dominant leader of the pack) - and reduced his strength to 4, because a ST5 player who gets block and dodge is simply over the top. Instead, the "lord" has been made strong and resilient, explaining why he has emerged on top of the vampires fierce pecking order.
So - the final team looks like this - and it is headed for its first 4 playtest games later this month:
0-1 160K alpha vampire 6439 Regeneration, Gaze, thick skull; G+AG+ST
0-4 130K vampire 6438 Regeneration, Gaze; G+AG
0-12 30K zombies 4328 Regeneration; G
Rerolls 70K, no apothecary
Martin
In my opinion, this may very well be a working solution, but it is not the best solution.
It ought to be possible to create a balanced vampire team, with a more vanilla feel both on paper and on the pitch.
My starting point is that the vampires stats should still resemble those put forward by JJ, and that it takes at least a handful of vampires to make a "vampire" team. Other than that, I'm open to some tweaking.
As for the choice between a thrall and necromantic theme, I prefer a necromantic theme purely for the sake of balance (though I do see it as an added bonus that this reflects the vampires portrayed in the warhammer world).
-----------
In my league we've had 5 different vampire line-ups, each playing at least 40 games, and that has taught us a thing or two:
1) The first teams had a lord, OFAB vamps (GEN only) and 6227 thralls.
The lord with ST4 AG5 block and dodge proved extremely potent.
OFAB often "rigged" games, so we removed it and reduced the number of vampires.
To keep the team remotely balanced we invented the puny thralls. Only problem being that their stats didn't look human at all. This, (and the armylist) got us thinking of zombies.
2) the team evolved into vamps, zombies and 2 ghouls (to replace the lord)
Still, this team was mighty hard to beat unless the opponent managed to outnumber the vamps by dealing out some damage.
The best solution would probably have been to make the vampires less powerful, but we concluded that their support was too durable, and decided to make the team more fragile.
3) So the next version was vamps, skeletons and 4 ghouls - with G+AG on the vamps because BB2K had removed the one problem AG-skill (diving tackle) and reduced the power of the Gaze.
This is how we discovered that MA is extremely potent on the vampire team. Every time a tackle zone is removed with a gaze, there is a hole for someone to run through, which makes MA the key attribute.
This version of team was very powerful.
Now - where to go from there?
------------------------
We went back to step 2 and reconsidered.
The obvious solution was to make the vampires less powerful, so that it wasn't necessary to clear the team of "linemen" in order to have a fighting chance against a vampire team.
*We decided to stick with the zombies as the linemen. Not only they have low MA, but their low AG also means that the opponent can focus on the vampires, and needn't worry about a zombie dodging into the endzone and catching the ball.
*No OFAB had also worked well for us. This made the team a normal "vanilla" team, and ensured that matches wouldn't be rigged by high/low off-pitch rolls. The number of vampires was then reduced to 4 to match the "OFAB average".
*Even with less vampires and zombies for linemen, the team needed to be brought down a notch.
But how to weaken the vampires while retaining their vampire feel?
Vampires are both agile and lethal - and that is why they have ST4, AG4, ST-skills and AG-skills. But this does seem like "overexplaining". If every BB player had to be as powerful as the background material made it look, then gutter runners would have ST3, wardancers would have even more skills, etc.
In this respect, game balance takes top priority.
Similarly, removing ST skill access and AG4 will still leave the impression of a deadly (ST4) and agile (AG skills) player. Throwing around ST4 with access to skills like leap and dodge will make the vampire unique and dangerous.
*Especially the cut in AG is important. With their AG4 and gaze (and access to dodge) the vampires are better at dodging than elves! They are virtually able to break through any line with just a few decent rolls. The AG also supplies the team with a good passing game and a very stable running game. This one change will have a huge impact on the team, and will make it a lot more reasonable to play against.
*Finally - the vampire lord. Many coaches don't even like the concept of a vampire lord playing Blood Bowl - it feels like a dwarven king on the dwarf roster. On the other hand, a "boss" vampire in the pack does have the advantage of landing the team at 5 vampires, rather than 4 (too few) or 6 (probably too many).
So, I've changed the lords name to "alpha vampire" (the strong dominant leader of the pack) - and reduced his strength to 4, because a ST5 player who gets block and dodge is simply over the top. Instead, the "lord" has been made strong and resilient, explaining why he has emerged on top of the vampires fierce pecking order.
So - the final team looks like this - and it is headed for its first 4 playtest games later this month:
0-1 160K alpha vampire 6439 Regeneration, Gaze, thick skull; G+AG+ST
0-4 130K vampire 6438 Regeneration, Gaze; G+AG
0-12 30K zombies 4328 Regeneration; G
Rerolls 70K, no apothecary
Martin