Blood Lust (...or, Stop For a Bite)

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 11:52 pm

Out of interest, how are the better coaches using the team? With thralls as ball-carriers and a few vamps as blockers/blitzers? Or do they try to do everything (or as much as possible) with the vamps themselves? Also, are they more commonly used as a passing or running team?

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 1:05 am

Nazgit wrote:Out of interest, how are the better coaches using the team? With thralls as ball-carriers and a few vamps as blockers/blitzers? Or do they try to do everything (or as much as possible) with the vamps themselves? Also, are they more commonly used as a passing or running team?

My Strigoi All-Stars in FUMBBL have a good record (though it would be a bit worse if I had played teams with equal TR). The link to the team is right below this message.

They normally do everything with vamps, which is fine because it's them you want to develop anyway. One vamp picks up the ball, passes/hands off to a blodge vamp, who runs it in with the protection of 2-3 thralls or vamps. The rest of the team ties up opponents.

Against elves I use more of a real cage.

This normally works very well - it's hard to get a 2D block against the ball carrier. They need a player with Sure Hands though, against Strip Ball.

I suspect COFAB is not really harsh enough, but I'm not sure. I'd prefer a solution which sticks to vanilla BB, not this slapstick concept. Maybe a combo of things like no RRs at all, no apo, expensive Thralls, 0-4 vampires, -1 on all FF rolls.

MickeX

Xtreme · Post by **Xtreme** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 1:18 am

I haven't palyed a Vamp team with COFAB but I would think you would want your Vamps to have the ball and make sure you have thralls blocking nearby, preferably in front of the vamp. Then move the other Vamps around with a Thrall clsoe by. But I could be totally wrong since I haven't actually tried any of this out.

Colin · Post by **Colin** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 2:04 am

My experience with vamps is that the vamps are usually the ones collecting the SPPs and the first skill given is pro, once they get that they tend to do a little better, but it is always advisable to have a thrall or two nearby your vamos as it''s not hard to fail pro roll.

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 2:12 pm

Why on earth would AH think a TR100 game (with stars

) where a 180k player dies in the 1st turn is going to be balanced?

Why does he think a BB newbie (what half a dozen games with Orcs?) is going to be able to adjust to Vampires? With COFAB anyone could tell you they are going to be tactically demanding.

Blood Lust is a daft overreaction based on one half of a daft "play test".

There is very little wrong with COFAB (maybe making an Av roll is enough of an uplift)

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 4:13 pm

Nazgit wrote:Out of interest, how are the better coaches using the team? With thralls as ball-carriers and a few vamps as blockers/blitzers? Or do they try to do everything (or as much as possible) with the vamps themselves? Also, are they more commonly used as a passing or running team?

I'm a decent coach, not a great one. My team is 3-1-1 over the first few games. http://fumbbl.com/teams/Praise+Cerdival.html "Praise Cerdival" may not look too impressive, but it's lost 3 thralls so far. A 4 AG thrall got killed by a vampire early in my one loss.

Early impressions are that rerolls are more important than ever with this team. HG is amazing for breaking cages early on, but probably will decrease in effectiveness as people get guard. Offence is much tougher going than defence with this team, and the hardest thing to remember is to put a sacrificial thrall downfield on defence to keep up with a potential breakaway vampire.

I'm planning on devleoping 2 specialized offensive vamps, 2 defensive vamps and 2 general vamps. The plan is to never have more than 4 on the field at one time. Pro, Block, Guard is going to be a popular skill progression to help the thralls do more of the heavy lifting.

El Condor · Post by **El Condor** » Sun Oct 19, 2003 11:44 pm

The whole article was set up in such a manner to give us an insight how they handle new concepts like new rules in a playtest match. The Bloodlust-concept is experimental and let us hope it stays like that. I can't imagine that it's really going to replace OFAB after just one test-match (and they tested iBloodlust only for a half). The goal of the Vampire-team has always been to place them below balanced teams like Orcs, Humans etc, but above Halfling and Goblin says the article. Further in the text mister Hall states that OFAB is too much of a self-destruct to make the Vampires a viable team (even one with a "lacking" characteristic) at this time. Weren't they meant to differ a little from the rest? Challenging and fun to play? I think the OFAB is a good balance for having 6 vampires and a vampire lord in ones team. The possibillity of having 6 players with ST 4 and AG 4 is a grand luxury and the team has also an (expensive but worth the cost) vampire lord at it's disposal, so I wouldn't be bothered at all with OFAB because I it's makes the team a lot more fun and challenging to play and if you give your vamps (like some stated before) "pro" for their first skill you can keep your boys and girls a lot better in hand.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 1:26 am

my vamps are won 3 drawn 2 lost none

I use the thralls to do most the work as its important to get a good base of skills throughout the team (important regardless of race)

Started the team with 5 rerolls and its easy enough to get a completion doing a quick pass to a vampire every now and again

thats not to say i don't use the vampires as they do need skills too ;]
I use them mostly for making holes to get the thralls through and am doing fine with just the 2 at the moment

you can watch the replays of my matches with them (if you have javawebstart installed) the team link is here:

http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team& ... m_id=23143

Indigo · Post by **Indigo** » Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:56 am

I hadn't seen this thread when I posted my suggestion for the Bloodlust Physical ability - can a mod cut and paste it into this thread, it seems more fitting.

I think COFAB is fine as it is, but if they REALLY want bloodlust in the game then I've made my suggestion.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Oct 21, 2003 12:41 pm

Nazgit wrote:Obviously, I haven’t playtested any of these skills. What do you reckon, is this heading in the right direction?

They are require book-keping, so are never going to get anywhere.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Tue Oct 21, 2003 12:46 pm

Nazgit wrote:With the vamp teams in question, is it a case of losing their first few games (with loads of cas) just so they can get to a stage where all their vamp players have Pro? I have tested the vamps in 6 or 7 games, and in 2 or 3 of those they have ended up taking 5 or 6 cas just from OFAB. Which clearly isn't workable.

By the way, what does the C in COFAB stand for?

That does seem rather high. Remember though you can buy an apoth. I think for a team of 4 vamps you will do a cas every game roughly to yourself, and a death every 5 (roughly 48 vamp actions in a game, 8 chances to get hungrey, ignore say one with rr's, 1 and a bit cas). I think bad luck shouldn't cloud the issue.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Tue Oct 21, 2003 2:32 pm

if you find you are getting lots of cas from ofab then you are over working the vampires

you probably have too many vampires on the pitch will mean you have to use more of them which means more ofab rolls to fail

you may also be making actions with vampires every turn even if they didn't need to

a single vampire can make a hole with hyp gaze and st4 to get the thralls through

i often leave a vampires in the back field for coverage and if i don't need to use him for anything then i will leave him there rather than risk the ofab failure

also you are probably reroll light which are great for rerolling the ofab roll (though i got a habit of rr another 1)

thralls are great players, exactly like hobgoblins are on chaos dwarf teams, they are under rated

also you can bite stunned thralls which helps not having to knock another player over and miss him next turn as well, the more players you can keep standing the better

also with keeping less vampires on the pitch means you can have more thralls to choose between biting and if necessary keep a freebooted thrall next to most of the vampires as the dedicated victim

the more vampires on the pitch means the less thralls and if they start getting knocked off the pitch then you are going to have to start bitiing into your skilled up thralls instead, this is not a good thing to be doing as you need skilled thralls as well as vampires to make the team successful

Tnouge Teid Trog · Post by **Tnouge Teid Trog** » Wed Oct 22, 2003 2:55 pm

I don't like having a vampire team where you can't put vampires on the field because the team will kill itself. Why name the team Vampires if you can't put as many vampires on the field as posible?

In an odd way I agree with the BB mags putting a newbie coach in control of this team. In most leagues the experienced coaches aren't the only ones trying out new teams, and it requires a decent coach for this team to not fall apart. I've posted my leagues modifiers to COFAB in this thread and in general too. Every team should be made to stay afloat for as long as it takes the player to learn that teams strategy. Chaos and halfling teams are capable of this, and so should vampire teams.

Grumbledook · Post by **Grumbledook** » Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:43 pm

you can put your vamps all on the field its just more of a risk to do so

given enough rerolls and pro i am sure its quite possible to have all 6 on the pitch

chuck in one thrall to bite and have 4 other thralls in there who have their uses then i think the team is totally workable with 6 on the pitch

the vampire team can stay afloat using cofab, i have not seen any problems with that regard

i would even say they do better than chaos and no one generally moans about them

as for not using all the vamps on the pitch the same can be said for chaos dwarf teams, they only have 6 chaos dwarfs and not all coaches will start with them, or even use all 6 on the field every drive because they want to field some more hobgoblins

bottom line as far as i can see it is that you can draw a comparison with the asepects of the team against other existing races and the playtesting shows that while the team is hard to get to grips with compared to other teams at the end of the day it so far seems to be suitable balanced

Post by **GalakStarscraper** » Wed Oct 22, 2003 5:29 pm

Tnouge Teid Trog wrote:Chaos and halfling teams are capable of this, and so should vampire teams.

In the last 3 months I've seen rookie Chaos AND Halfling teams forced to retire after 2 games each. It happens.

If a newbie coaches starts with two many Vamps and no enough rerolls, he's taking a big risk with the team that may cost him.

But I very much agree with Grumble. This team has its own very unique style of play which makes it a good add for the game. Its own strategies and everything.

The new Elf team uses a combo of High Elf and Wood Elf tactics ... not sure its really a "new" team in terms of strategy. The Vamps really are new and unique.

Galak