Advice on play style for starting Vampires

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Jimmy Fantastic
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by Jimmy Fantastic »

Yeah that is usually the best defence with all teams. 3-3-5 with your best 5 guys protected. Usually in a straight line but it doesn't much matter as long as they are screened.

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by 20phoenix »

J_Bone wrote:I take it this is what you meant from what you described? Seems like a good set-up... My only concern is that it would be too easy for a bashy team to cage up on one side of it or for fast teams to zip past it. Then again, the last one I put up essentially has 8 safeties so the opponent would be able to march right up to it uncontested.
Since bash teams are slow though and you' kicking to one side of their formation they would only be able to get at most half their team to form a cage/screen, not enough to protect the ball from a vampire team. Mostly they will form up the cage inside their half and wait for the team to coe back together before advancing.

The reason I make the small tweak Jimmy pointed out (3-3-5 is a traditional set up) is that if a bash team takes down a corner of that screen and marks you up heavily there is always two thralls you can reposition without having to make any actions.

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J_Bone
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by J_Bone »

Yeah, I can totally see the logic in it there... Thanks for the help. I was really suffering on defense. These tips should really help. I still worry about offense as in the last game it was blitzes on my offense that ended up in me getting swamped but I'm not really sure how to deal with that. Ideally, I think I should be kicking close to the line and positioning my Vampires to blitz / hypno through but if my opponent rolls a 10 this leaves me pretty stuffed if I load up heavily on one side such as I did in my last match

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by mattgslater »

The_Provocateur is one of the world's best Vampire coaches and he runs an asymmetric 3-3-5 (I call it the "boat"), with the linemen lined up on the left-hand side and the 3-5 formation skewed 2 squares to the right. That way he can use Kick to put the ball away from the other side's offensive line, near the halfway line. This is sometimes very hard to counter, especially on a Blitz! or Perfect Defence result. He kicks my buttocks with it sometimes in the NBFL: I nuke all the Thralls he puts up but can't always get the ball out of blitzing range if the gazes work.

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J_Bone
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by J_Bone »

Ok... That sounds interesting and very doable with my team build. I am having trouble picturing it in my head though. Is it like the sketch beneath?

Image

I can imagine this being great on a blitz but does it not open you up to a bit more of a battering early on in the drive?

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by Joemanji »

Not really. If you have Kick your opponent has to use lots of players to counter the threat of being Gazed. So it follows he has fewer players to bully you with.

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J_Bone
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by J_Bone »

Yeah... I can see that now. And if they run guys up to tag you in your current square it wouldn't be hard to free up a whole bunch of your back lines with just a gaze here and a dodge there to go after the ball and screen off. That's nice. Definitely going in the playbook! (I have actually started a playbook. How cool am I? 8) )

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J_Bone
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by J_Bone »

Against the Orcs that I'll be facing next game that could prove to be a nightmare!

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by mrb3 »

To all the vampire experts around...

What is the optimum amount of vampires and rerolls ?

Would 8 rerolls for 6 vampires be sufficient or is it suicidal ?

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Jimmy Fantastic
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by Jimmy Fantastic »

I would max out at 4/5 Vamps and 3/4 rr. A lot would depend on format though.
8 RR is crazy, 5 is the absolute limit in crp i think, 6 Vamps is doable but hard to protect them to any degree.

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by 20phoenix »

Jimmy Fantastic wrote:I would max out at 4/5 Vamps and 3/4 rr. A lot would depend on format though.
8 RR is crazy, 5 is the absolute limit in crp i think, 6 Vamps is doable but hard to protect them to any degree.
6 vamps on the pitch is protection in itself as your opponent has to respect your ability to walk through his lines so requires a lot of players to protect the ball effectively.

As jimmy says 5 rerolls is the most you should ever need and in well developed teams i would drop that to 4 (I'm currently playing with 4 and a leader thrall but hes niggled so I havent dropped the reroll yet). There isnt a right answer to the optimum number of vamps imo. Its whatever you feel comfortable with within your own playstyle. I prefer 6 because I like to aggressively hunt the ball but thats not everyones cup of tea. Just slowly introduce vamps as your existing vamps blodge up and see how you get on. If you see results beginning to tail off or you're struggling drop back down again.

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by mrb3 »

Mind you, I never played vampires... so, sorry for the newbie question...

But, how do you prevent casual chaos with 6 bloodlusters on the field and only 5 rerolls ? I mean, statistically, one will fail his bloodlust roll per game turn and some of the rerolls will sometimes already be used on other important actions.

Do you cautiously activate vampires often leaving them standing still ?
Do you go all in and shamelessly bite the thralls as needed ?

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J_Bone
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by J_Bone »

Had a friendly the other night against a particularly bashy Amazon team (about 6 instances of block, 2 guard and a wrestle)... Ended up suffering massive losses and finished 2-0 down with 1 Vampire and 3 Thralls on the pitch. Some bad luck in there but I really need to work on the basics of avoiding contact!

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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by mattgslater »

T_Prov tends to run 5 Vamps and 4 RR. Can't tell you if that's optimal, but 6 Vamps means you have to expose one and you only have 5 Thralls to lose.

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What is Nuffle's view? Through a window, two-by-three. He peers through snake eyes.
What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
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Re: Advice on play style for starting Vampires

Post by 20phoenix »

When you play 6 vamps you run with a max thrall roster. Position thralls before you move vamps so that they can bite if they fail lust. Rerolls aren't for lust unless it is a vital move like scoring/TD saving blitz or sack. Not moving every vamp every turn is big as well for saving lust rolls. If you position well you can leave vamps standing in the same place for a few turns. My defensive setup with 6 vamps protects two thralls behind a line of 6 vamps strung across the width of the pitch. This allows me to pressure the ball straight from the off whichever side I kick to and have movable thralls to provide food. If the balls not accessible I can just blitz with one vamp and maintain a very defensive formation.

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