Vampire team Balance Ideas

[plasmoid]

Indeed.
For some of the junk he pulled towards the end he belongs under the proverbial bus.

[Daht]

Vamps are a good 2nd tier team as is. Like the pact and slann teams they can be devastatingly good or bad and are very dice/luck dependant.

I wouldn't want to muck with statlines or skills, but lowering rerolls to 60k would help tv bloat some, or an adjustment to bleeding thralls (the cas only being badly hurt was good, but pushing it farther might be a -1 or 2 to the inj roll or cas = ko)

[voyagers_uk]

I was indeed just pulling Tom's leg, my opinions of his/Ian's work are well documented,but I will remember to add a smiley or an abbreviation if it is unclear in future...

[kurtlemalin]

***************** E D I T *************

Just a personnal idea. You re free to correct the syntax and so on if needed

Vampire 's companion:

Chosen for their beauty or talents, vampires' companions take advantages of the little blood quantity
they can drink to increase their vitality, agility or keeping on beeing totally delirious...

0-4 Vampire's companion : 6/3/3/8 Pro 55k - G - S/A/P
(they are still considered as thrall)

Thix class looks really well implemented in the background of this team, with pro
Pro is proposed for 2 reasons:
-this skill is marginal enouph at low level,brings some variety, and it s not so usefull than dodge or block for increasing the cost to 70K.
-It looks like a way to "boost" the vamp companion compared to a human lineman, however the word boost is more than an euphemism...

Enjoy, or not

olivier, and sorry again for my bad english!

[gandresch]

Vampires are good as they are.
A nice thing to have would be an inducement, which gives you 3 blood bottles for 100k. That's a fluffy thing to have

[kurtlemalin]

blood bottles, why not, but they ever exist!! --> the thralls lol.
Nice idea for 100k.

It s true that with a little bit more experience, it seems that 60k rerolls should be enough to balance a little bit this team.

[the.tok]

I like the blood bottle idea
Make it a reroll for bloodlust roll, and allow one to be rostered could be fun too.

Could be a skill for thralls too maybe?

Like:

Blood bottle :
This Thrall has learned an effective way to stay alive in his team. When a vampire tries to feed from him, make an AG roll. If he succeeds, he manages to hand over a bottle to the Vampire before the bite and no injury roll occurs. Otherwise, the injury is rolled as normal.

Might be too powerful, but I can imagine the thrall trying desperatly to hand the bottle to a frenzied Vampire

[kurtlemalin]

Just another idea for a possible LRB 7.0 or update (who knows ?)

The first vampire who is choosen for a vampire team is a VAMPIRE LORD .
Vampire Lord doesn't suffer from Off for a Bite. IF he is destroyed, choose another Lord Vampire (this skills will take effect for the next match).

I don't like tiers team, i enjoy balance!

[Digger Goreman]

Balance is an extraordinary and elusive trait in a gw game.... The company paradigm thrived/thrives on imbalance (makes increased sales)... and, if I understand the oral history so far, BB was to be an intro into miniatures that became something more (and hated for that) by the company.... Not sure how and why, but by 3rd edition you had a huge schism between teams, ones that could nearly score at will (elves) and do necessary things on a 2+, and teams that were nigh indestructible (dwarves)... with some teams in the middle struggling pitifully between the two.... The schism of score-a-lot, or kill-'em-a-lot, remains and has never been addressed... even if it can be....

Jervis tried to redo the game (4th edition) and it was so poorly received (I think because of extreme imbalance) that it was quickly scrapped.... My memory fails to recall any details....

I'm not sure this is when the BBRC was founded, but at a time unreckoned they took on a process of review, test and review.... I recall these as the more golden years of hope for the game... but the process was marred by the need of 3 out of 5 votes for a change... three members were partisan elves... one member was a direct friend of another... and Jervis Johnson had both King's Privilege and veto rights that he wielded without strong reasoning.... That the BBRC came up with LRB6 is a tribute to the diplomacies wielded by the two "weaker sisters" who in effect saved the game as much as possible.... Not that they are god-like beings or anything.... We still have a ridiculous amount of spamalot teams (add to that khornies now) and lizardmen were approved.... So balance just isn't expectable.... Still, amazingly (since I recently read it was a Jervis want to honor his dad), Johnson bottled lightning with the Necro team.... To say it has potential at the beginning (and, honestly, not much more!) is an understatement.... It threads between the timmy teams of elves and dwarves and is defined by what it can't have at the beginning... and ridiculous costs that keep it in check.... Quite the challenge... but I digress....

Before greedy w'nkers became a stock traded company, they had a very fluff driven story-to-game mechanism that people loved and certain creatures were expected to be the jokes of the armies cum blood bowl races.... The "third tier teams" were composed of real under-performers and/or mated with races that had fragile power (great stats backed down by bonehead, really stupid, wild animal).... So, yeah, imbalance became a "feature" instead of a "flaw".... Into this world of "tier-ness", the Vamps were conceived to be a team with an expected win ratio right between 33% and 55% (or something like that to put them at 45%, I think).... So, yeah, you gots to remember three things: 1) with gw's recent smackdown on BB IP, nothing is going to change unless they say so... or the spirit of Wallace manifests in the quisling naf..., 2) Vamps were designed to be difficult/weak/less than tier 1..., and 3) balance is something that granny never intended and not a trademark of her game company... (also (4?), those who could effect a change in the past like having an environment of weaker, "challenging" teams)....

I'm with you on two fronts: I feel the pain of the starting vamp team.... My Necropolis Nightcrawlers (2 Vamps and 9 thralls) had four MNGs in it's first game (against Goblins) in which the damned Trolls were smarter and had fists of fire! Combined with my dice of ice I took four casualties (including the MVP thrall), lost the game handedly (always down players), but did skill up a vamp with a TD, two casualties and a completion... 6+4 for improved Ma.... But, yeah, four journeymen (next game) is no picnic.... The second front of agreement is in balancing ALL teams.... I have no fear of leveling the tiers (and even less fear it will ever be accurately done... see the first paragraph).... One of my friends (gobbo player expert for over 20 years) tried a 4-Troll goblin team against a plethora of Tier 1 teams and lost consistently (too much stupidity).... But, again, in this hallowed hall of heterogeneity and disparate despair, nothing is scheduled to change....

Prophet in the wilderness mode off....

[Darkson]

If you ignore Digger's prattling rubbish (off topic, but woodies are an issue, not AG4, and drawfs are boring but definitely not to good), he does make a good point.

This game is not balanced, nor was it designed to be.

The vamp team is exactly where, in regards to win%, it is meant to be, so (even assuming the BBRC reformed) suggestions for improving the team won't gain much, if any, ground.
If you, and your league want to improve the vamp team, you can, it says so in the rule book, but getting official support is unlikely, if not impossible.
*Points to the house rules sub-forum*

[besters]

Having with Vampires just won a 6 game tournament with 6 wins and previously played 16 games in Cyanides Naggaroth league going 11 wins 2 draws and 3 defeats I would say that it would be very easy to move Vampires into a tier 0 (better than tier 1) situation.

Bloodlust makes them a hard team to play, but they do have strength 4 agility 4 and Hypnotic Gaze to compensate.

They are a challenge to play, but isn't that the idea?

[kurtlemalin]

Hello,

Thanks for your posts. Well , i see only one solution : to bribe Jervis for making a LRB 7 with one of my ideas ! Where does he live ? (joke)

I don't like unbalanced games, but i love blood bowl game!!

For besters: nice !! Perhaps i will need more training!! Are you an advanced player?

[Digger Goreman]

If you ignore Digger's prattling rubbish ...

Don't forget to also throw out your hubris-laden "khorne-cakes" of wisdom (from the Khorne-x threads) with that "rubbish"....

... he does make a good point.

As do you on the "bottom line" about quorn....

[I get a kick (the mental elation kind) whenever I don't get a kick (in the backside) from D....]

Hey! I broke even today!!!

[besters]

For besters: nice !! Perhaps i will need more training!! Are you an advanced player?

Experienced yes. Above average possibly, good, probably no. Very lucky with this team, yes.

[garion]

Read through this thread and I have to agree with DS Darkson and Galak. They are right where they are, I would like to see the vamps have P access as well though, just because they are meant to be these supreme players with a major negatrait. I dont think P access would tip the balance in terms of win percentage. But it would give them even more score for interesting builds.

Also I think the Head Coach should still be able to play as a Merc. Similar to how he was allowed to play as a freebooter in lrb4.

That was a lovely touch that has been removed for some daft reason.