Tweaking the Vamps (yet again)

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
we've seen the vampire team, and it's still too damn good.
Cervidal has proposed the "cOFAB" and it has gained support. Personally, I'm not so thrilled. As I've stated elsewhere, I don't like having a an erratic yet devastating effect apply to the teams core players.
I like my teams a little more "vanilla", as it were.

In my league, we have a lot of experience with different vamp teams, and I've observed 2 things:
1) It can really be a turn-off that all of your key players can not rely on the services of an apothecary.
2) A few vampires represent a lot of power. The matches that become downright "unfair", are the ones where the vampires manage to regenerate a lot, making you fight 8 vampires rather than 5.

This got me thinking:
Why is it that the vamps have regeneration?
Sure, they are undead, but it is not like the team has a necromancer standing by. And you can't just explain it with "toughness", 'cause hard nails like Ogres don't have regeneration.

So - this is the team I'd like to see:
0-1 180K vamp lord 6549 gaze G,A,S
0-4 140K vamps 6448 gaze G,A,S
0-12 40K thralls 6337 - G
Apoth as normal (and no silly special rules regarding the vamplord).

Back to basics
This could work.
Martin

[roysorlie]

Hey!

I agree with you for the most part, the team you suggested is a balanced one. But unlike skels, zombies and mummies, who need to be ressurected by a necromancer, Vampires were never created by necromancers. It's an innate skill, vampires regenerate. What could be cool, would be to severely hamper them if it was very sunny for instance..

At any rate, vamps, like trolls regenerate as an effect of their uniqe physiology, not as a result of unholy magic as such.

[Ithilkir]

Your league must run a LOT of games to test all your house rules

[Relborn]

leave out that Vampire lord Plasmoid .... can't see team roosters with them anymore ...

[McDeth]

Drop the Vamps to AG3, and it'll be ok

[Dave]

agree with the last one.

However, I loke the 'OFAB' fluss (or cofab for that matter)

My brother is really good at failing these rolls.

Under the old rules he's had vampires that were using the crowd as snacks for games on end

[Mestari]

So - this is the team I'd like to see:
0-1 180K vamp lord 6549 gaze G,A,S
0-4 140K vamps 6448 gaze G,A,S
0-12 40K thralls 6337 - G
Apoth as normal (and no silly special rules regarding the vamplord).
This could work.

Five ST4+ AG4+ players with decent AV and MA, backed up by an apothecary? G,A,S access?
Sorry, but even though I can't claim to have any playtest data to back these claims up, this team seems too powerful.

Vamps need to be controlled somehow - either remove AG, Lord etc. and make them less like vampires, or use the solution that offers vamp-like vamps equipped with a neg-skill. Cofab springs to mind as a good solution.

[MickeX]

I'd prefer a vanilla team too. And an underbalanced one, halflings and gobbos just aren't enough!

But the origin of Regen for Vampires must be the thing about doing nasty things to their hearts being the only way to kill them. Fluffwise, it'd be hard to take that away from them.

I've tried out this old suggestion a few times, and I think it's fun to play, both with and against. Remember, before the experimental teams were published, this roster with variations was bashed pretty hard for being grossly overpowered...

0-1 Vampire Lord 200K 6 5 4 9 Reg, Hyp Gaze (G, A)
0-2 Dregs 70k 5 3 3 8 Sure Hands (G, P)
0-15 Thralls 50k 5 3 2 8 (G)
Re-rolls 70.000
No apothecary
No big guys

An explanation with some fluff suggestions may be found at the old vampire thread at
viewtopic.php?t=2784&start=0

[GalakStarscraper]

Sorry guys ... I'll stay out of it for the most part, but my league is really enjoying the COFAB rules so far with 3 vampire teams in the league at this point.

I realize that Martin thinks that 2+ nega rolls on the Vampires is bad BB, but no one in my league (40 coaches) agrees with that.

Testing continues, but COFAB is a great fix in our opinion.

Galak

[Colin]

Of course, I would have to agree with Galak since I play one of said vamp teams in his league. I like COFAB, it isn't as bad a plasmoid makes it out to be, but a failed roll does seem to pop up at the most unfortunate times. Of course these can be rerolled. I won a game but that was vs. halflings and was no walk in the park (2-1). COFAB is the way to go, it does keep the ST?AG 4 vamps in check and the you have the more rolls you will be failing.

[Dave]

Nice

I'll propose it as well, see how it works here (the new team definitely IS overpowered, found that out quite fast!)

[Kolja_TBBF]

A problem with vamp teams that I would like to see addressed is the number of players on the field with 'hypno gaze'. How can you mount a screen, cage or any defense against that?

Step 1, declare 'move' action with vamp A, send him in to hypno a critical cage guy (if he fails, reroll or try with next vamp). Step 2, once the opposing player that is holding the cage or screen loses his tackle zone, declare blitz with vamp B or whoever, zip in and pop ball out. Piece of cake. You can try with all of your vamps each turn and THEN send in the blitzer!

Maybe I just haven't playtested them enough but it seems like what every vamp player should do every turn. A vamp with 'hypno gaze' is basically a stronger wardancer in game terms - a superior ball extractor. BUT where a wardancer can fail the leap that gets him 'in' and that IT, a vamp can just stop after failing hypno gaze and a different vamp can then try and all players on the team benefits.

Seems like its not really your gameplay against the vamps that matters, its just how well the vamps coach plays and how his hypno rolls and OFAB or COFAB rolls go...

OK, I'll be honest, I haven't tried a vamp team under the current rules but this was a big problem under the old 3rd edition vamps. Isn't this a problem with you guys in your playtesting?

Kolja

[Colin]

Well, in my experience HG does help, but it isn't the game breaker you make it out to be. You don't start out with many vamps because of the cost and they seem to fail their COFAB roll at the most inopportune times, like when you want to blitz. Plus the fact that the whole team isn't very fast (all MA6), theyare at a disadvantage vs. sppeedy teams. I could maybe see the situation you're discribing with the OFAB as in BBmag4, the more vamps you have, the more likely there will be enough of them around to mount that kind of attack. With COFAB, the more vamps you have, the more chance of failing rolls each turn so the greater likelyhood of thralls being injured and reducing the effectiveness of the team.

[GalakStarscraper]

Kolja,

I've played against 3 different COFAB Vampire teams at this point, and they all had the same issue.

I played Vampires under 3rd edition for 2 season and the play was the same run the Vamps in to destory the offense/defense with HGaze and then run through.

BUT with COFAB, what I'm seeing is coaches NOT even trying to activate their vampires if they don't need to. IE the risk of failing the COFAB roll is not worth it compared to running the Vampire in for the HGaze roll.

As a result the Vampires get used a lot lot less during the turn and the HGaze is incredibly reduced in its effectiveness.

COFAB is solving a LOT of the problems with this team in my opinion. More testing is going to happen, but so far from a coach that know Vampires very well, I am VERY pleased by the results so far.

Let's put it this way, I'm playtesting Halflings against rookie Vampire teams so far and they are having to work for it to win. The only game we've had so far in the league against an actual team: Dwarves ... the Vamps lost.

Galak

[Ghost of Pariah]

I have some questions about COFAB from my game with Thads.

How does the COFAB vamp pick between thralls who are the same distance away?
Does a failed COFAB vamp who dodges to get to a thrall and fails go to the reserves box or does he stay on the pitch?

And I still say that a "dead" result on a bitten thrall should make him a zombie.