I met Loynster (TO for Filth-Tober Fest and many others and host of the talkNuffle podcast) at the wonderful Backbreaker Tournament in London earlier this year. Between him and a few of the other attendees who were also regulars at Loynster's events, they convinced me to return to London and give this one a go, and I was not disappointed. The venue (Rule Zero games bar) was every bit as good as I'd been told: the place looked like far more like your standard trendy London bar than most games bars I've ever seen (which I mean as a compliment!), with a good drinks selection, delicious food and a great atmosphere. The tournament it self happened in the in the basement area (Sub Zero) which featured its own dedicated bar and plenty of space for all 20+ of us to play Blood Bowl without getting in each other's way. The prizes were also top-notch, with every award including a proper full-size trophy along with a Blood Bowl product (mostly the newer stuff like Vamp team, Pitch, Gutter Bowl etc).
There were a few familiar faces among the attendees, too - mostly folks from the DBL/ECBBL set that I have met in various tournaments - which is always nice. The one thing there wasn't, though, was a vampire team. Other than mine, of course...
The Roster
Filth-Tober Fest offered a very generous roster package: 1200k and 56 SPP with a max stack of 2 on any number of players. Practically, this translated to 9 primary skills including 1 stack, or 8 primary skills for 2 or more stacks. Close enough to the Pitch Invasion rules that I took essentially the same roster here, but with minor modifications:
Player | Skills |
|---|---|
Vargheist | Juggernaut |
Thrower | Block, Dodge |
Thrower | Leader |
Blitzer | Strip Ball |
Runner | Dodge |
Runner | Pro |
Thrall | Kick |
Thrall | Block |
5x Thrall | |
4x RR | |
The extra 50k, plus the 10k from the Coach, went to a 4th reroll for a total of 5 with leader, an absurd number for most teams but just about enough for these bloodthirsty turnover machines. To maximise the number of skills, I dropped block from a Runner and instead skilled up two thralls, Kick to maximise the Vamps' defensive power and Block to have another safe block on the LoS.
One twist of this ruleset were the Special Play cards. These are not the GW Special Plays, but instead they are a list of 6 tasks to be completed in-game. In every game, each coach would pick one in secret to complete during that match, and reveal it to their opponent before the game began. Each play could only be selected once, and was lost if not completed. The plays available to choose from were:
- Win a game by 2 or more Touchdowns
- Score a touchdown in the first 4 turns of EITHER half
- Stall for one turn before scoring a TD (as per the rules found on page 64 of the BB2020 rulebook)
- Cause 2 or more casualties in one game
- Remove a player from the pitch by fouling (KO or injury)
- At the start of the game nominate one player on your opponents team - score this by removing that player from the pitch (KO or injury)
These plays were the first tiebreaker, but to be perfectly honest I kind of forgot about that and just did them because they were there.
So anyway, onto the Blood Bowl!
The Games
Round 1 - Jose, Black Orcs
Round 1 was about as kind a draw as I could have had. Notoriously slow and bad at ball-handling, Black Orcs are a hard enough team to run at the best of times, but if you manage to put the ball behind a wall of green you can at least protect it as you try to make your way downfield. With Vampires, of course, that wall of green might as well be tissue paper as they Hypno through and smash your ST2 ball carrier for 2 (or 3) dice whenever they choose. Jose, a newcomer to tournaments (but definitely not to Blood Bowl!), had taken Fungus the Loon, which made my choice of Special Play card fairly straightforward: remove Fungus by KO or injury. Jose opts to kick, and does not field Fungus in defence. A reasonable enough choice, although his roster is fairly thin on players, risking a forced turn 8 Fungus deployment if I manage the full stall.
He also chooses to place 3 goblins on the line - unorthodox, but with a Vargheist roaming around maybe not the worst choice. Still, Nuffle approves, and all 3 goblins are still on the pitch after the LoS blocks. Varg blitzes a Blorc but again does little. What he does achieve though is to bring all the Blorcs over to the left flank, allowing my vamps to comfortably advance down the right. I go for the stall, and Jose's first attempt to send goblins to stop my thrower is cut short by a fumbled TTM that bounces on 3 of his players and knocks out the goblin. His second attempt is more successful, and he manages to dodge away a Blorc, rush twice and get the pow on my dodge runner, popping the ball which goes bouncing through occupied squares and into the only square within 3 that is in two tackle zones. Ugh. Fortunately, through a combination of bashing, ball roulette and hypno, I manage to clear the tackle zones, pick up and score on my 8. Unfortunately for both of us, Jose's KOs do not return, and he is forced to deploy Fungus, who kills one of my Thralls outright before being ejected, making it impossible for me to achieve my Special Play... only he rolls the 6, and the ref pardons the Fanatic and allows him to play again! Saved!
Start of his drive now, and Nuffle turns against him hard. A Blitz result means I can try to take Fungus down right off the bat. I do waste some time on a pointless hypnogaze (which, in retrospect, I realise RAW cannot be done in a Blitz!) then go for the blitz but miscalculate and end up on uphill dice with the Varg, which yields 4 pushes and leaves me in an awkward position. Jose has the last stroke of good luck he'll have all game where for 2 turns Fungus appears to be almost laser-guided towards my Leader thrower, hitting him repeatedly until he KOs the poor thing. But even without him, it is trivial for the vamps to retrieve the ball and score. Fungus ends up knocking himself out, saving me the effort (Argue the Call succeeds again - clearly the Ref had a favourite!), and another blitz in my favour puts an end to any hopes Jose had of scoring, the game ending in a 2-0 to the Vamps.
Final Score: 2-0 win, Special Play Completed
Round 2 - Tyler_swaft, Amazons
The first of two Amazon games of the day, these ladies came complete with everyone's favourite Skink star players, Dribl and Drull. This is a roster that I have played against a couple times before (latest vs. Hekdar last weekend) and have played with, so I know it well. Faced with a team full of AV8 and with two stunties, I choose causing 2 casualties as my Special Play, as does my opponent (wisely, as it would turn out). Weather is pouring rain which should be good for me, my opponent Dom chooses to kick and away we go!
Very quickly it becomes apparent that this is not going to be an easy game. Vamps seem unable to do any damage whatsoever to the Zons, knocking them down plenty but never doing anything more than a stun. Same goes for D&D, who I make a point of gunning for, hitting them several times but achieving nothing. My vamps seem perfectly capable of killing Thralls however, and Dribl seems to have packed stakes instead of a knife because he stabs 2 Vampires into the dugouts, including a non-regenned CAS on my leader. With the game going ugly for the vamps pretty early, I score quickly to get the vamps on their favoured defensive role. Having lost a couple vamps to Dribl's stab, though, I have just enough Hypno to get in the cage but not to get rid of Sure Hands on the carrier, and after the "Go Turn" turns sour with 3 rerolls burnt to achieve nothing but KOs on my own team, the Amazons score the equaliser on turn 8.
Second half, and I'm back up to 4 vamps and the Varg, which I figure still gives me a chance, especially as I roll a Blitz again. Although I am able to get the ball thanks to the Blitz, the Zons quickly recover it and begin their march downfield. I manage to pop the ball a few times, but it is always quickly recovered despite the rain by the Sure Hands thrower, who my Vamps are now focusing on almost exclusively. Finally, the thrower goes down for the fourth or fifth time, and this time she does not get back up. Dom is low on rerolls due to an incredible 5 double skulls in one game, and is now forced to pick up on a 4+ with a normal Zon. He fails once, but gets it the second time, and rushes it in for the 2-1 on his 8th. I attempt a 1-turner, but I simply do not have the players or the rerolls to achieve it so it is more wishful thinking than anything else. I do, just about, complete my Special Play though, so that's something! Dom was a true gentleman in victory and bought me a much-needed beer after that rollercoaster of a game.
Final Score: 1-2 loss, Special Play Completed
Round 3 - Grim_Jim, Amazons
Still smarting from the loss against the previous Zons, I am not best pleased to see the exact same roster for my round 3. Well, not exactly the same - where Dom had gone for Guard blockers, my new opponent Jim had chosen Block, and had gone with two Wrestle blitzers instead of one. Positional choices were the same, though, and those little bastards Dribl and Drull were there as well. This time I choose the stalling Special Play, win the kick-off and elect to kick for the first time in this tournament.
The game starts unhelpfully again with his first turn blitz on a Vampire resulting in a removal (thankfully, only a KO). Dribl once again stabs and KOs a Vampire (I swear to Nuffle I've never seen stab do as much as it did this tournament!) and pretty soon my team is looking mighty thin. But thin or no, Vamps are still a threat, and I manage to cause enough fear that Jim scores somewhat early, allowing me to comfortably equalise on my 8th. I also manage to KO one of his Blockers, who would not be coming back for the rest of the game - a very big help!
Second half, and I'm happily back up to 11, including most of my Vamps. This lets me play the game a bit more calmly, carefully setting up my push up the flank for a corner stall. It is at this point though that I realise that I have made a big mistake with my Special Play, as according to the rules, the only situation that counts as stalling is if a player is able to score during their turn without rolling any dice, something that is literally impossible for a Vampire due to Bloodlust. I therefore take the hard decision to hand over to a Thrall, who stands petrified 3 squares away from the End Zone for a turn to qualify, before running it in on turn 5. We unfortunately had to call the game here due to timing, so Jim was denied the chance to equalise, though at this point his team was somewhat diminished (Drull had finally been removed, if only by the ref) and my Vamps were still mostly fresh so it would have been a challenge. I thought I'd pay Dom's kindness forward and offered Jim a beer, which he gladly took, and off we went for the final round.
Final Score: 2-1 win, Special Play Completed
Round 4 - EyeballPaul, Lizards
Going into round 4 on a 2-0-1 wasn't what I'd hoped for, but it did put me on table 2, as only one player had gone 3-0-0 and only 2 were on 2-1-0 at this point, so 2nd place was definitely on the table. Seeing lizards on the other side of the table did make that somewhat problematic, though - my prior game with bgmcclean had illustrated some of the problems Vamps can face when confronted with Lizards and this game would be no different. Paul remarked on our similar setups - both using our NAF trophies and WC coins as markers, and a NAFC 2023 dice cup paired with a Thrud mat. As I would find out, he was also fond of verbalising his thoughts about the game, narrating his train of thought and his planned actions, much as I tend to do. Always good to meet a kindred spirit!
Of the special plays that were left, I figured winning by 2 TDs was not going to happen, and removal by foul was likely to mess with my play style too much, so I opted for the "score in the first 4 turns of either half" play, which I know Vamps can do comfortably. Paul won the toss and elected to kick as expected, and I immediately set about creating myself a safe channel on the right flank for the vamps to advance, while leaving some Thralls on the left side to give him something to think about. Between the Thralls drawing attention and the Krox having a small tantrum I got enough of an opening to set up a safe 4-turn stall in the right corner, scoring as late as possible while still completing my Special Play. I only lost 2 players in the process, so I could set up a full 11 for the second drive.
Second drive and the Sauri start throwing their weight around while the Skinks stay back and safe out of Hypno range. Instead of pushing back towards them, I pounce on an isolated Saurus, leaving him a opening on the right flank but getting a good hit onto the Saurus whose armour holds despite the Claw. This is followed by a big gang foul that similarly fails to get through, and now I've basically compromised my position for nothing. Next turn is mostly used to reposition, and I have a decent opening on the ball the turn after that that the Vamps completely fumble, once again deciding to roll all the ones at once and letting the Skinks set up shop near my end zone unimpeded. A last-ditch attempt at an attack on the skink fails and he scores the equaliser on his 8.
Second half, 1-1 and Lizards to start - not great! It gets worse as we go, as my team starts slowly but surely disintegrating while I am unable to get any hits to stick despite numerous Claw blocks and Skink knockdowns. There comes a turn, though, where he leaves his carrier 3 squares away from my Varg. 3 hypnos later and the big bat is bursting through the now useless cage, dropping the skink and sending the ball to the ground. A Thrall tries and fails to retrieve it, but the ball ends up in enough tackle zones that the pickup is difficult for the Lizards, who also try and fail, leaving it just within reach of my Leader thrower. A lone Thrall runs like a bat out of hell (ha) towards the end zone, just barely making it in time for the thrower to pick up the ball, launch it downfield and have it caught for the miraculous 2-1.
The rest of the half is fairly uneventful - kick is deep, but not enough to be a problem, Skinks retrieve it easily and stay just on the edge of my reach. I figure I might as well try, fail a rush to get to the carrier, and Paul removes the Varg and another Vamp leaving me with barely any players to stop him from scoring. I set up for the 1 turn, James declines to use his perfect defence to stop it (Time was almost up on the round, and with the excitement I don't think he realised what was going on at the time!) and I come close to achieving it but misplace a key player in my haste, leaving me without a chance to get the critical final push. Mind you, still had to catch the ball and get a couple dodges in with no rerolls, but a man can dream!
Final Score: 2-2 draw, Special Play Completed
Tournament Record: 2-1-1, 4th Place Overall, Most TDs (passed down from overall winner)
More Thoughts on Vampires
In the previous tournament, I had only one game where the Vampires absolutely imploded. This time, almost every time I ended up with an overflowing dugout. Part of that was dice (Stab on AV 9 should only produce a removal about 10% of the time - this tournament it was more like 75%!) but it can't have been all down to that. A big part of it was also the nature of Vamp play: In order to fully use the Vamps, you need to, well, use the Vamps, but every time you do you risk removing a Thrall. Also, every time you Hypno you are necessarily ending your turn next to an opponent, which in bashy matchups means a good chance of getting punched, and AV9 is just not strong enough to survive that repeatedly, even with regen. In both tournaments, I have played Vampires like bitey elves, going for flair play and limiting contact except when I'm going in for the Hypnos, and one consequence of this is that knockdowns on opponent players don't happen all that often. This means that variance becomes very important, and sub-standard injury rolls can mean zero removals all game. In turn, this means that the opponent has plenty of players on the pitch, meaning they can usually force you to spend 3-4 Hypnos just to get to the ball, with all the risk of biting, burning RRs and getting punched that that entails, plus reducing the available Vampires left to retrieve the damn thing even if you do pop the ball.
This all has made me reconsider my approach. My rosters so far have been built fully for aggressive scoring and ball-sacking play, but with very little combat potential. But let's not forget that Vamps are packing a bunch of ST4 and a scary reliable Big Guy with Claw - they should be plenty capable of delivering the hurt when called for! I suspect a more consistent playstyle with Vamps would be to load up on Block, stick Mighty Blow on the Varg (potentially together with Block if allowed by the rules pack) and focus on strategic removal in the early game, using Hypno to turn off defensive skills like Guard, Block or Dodge and to ensure the Varg can deliver its Claw/MB combo reliably onto the opponent's key pieces. After a removal or two, it should be considerably harder for the opponent to defend the ball, allowing the Vamps to spend fewer resources freeing the ball so that extracting and protecting it becomes easier. This is all of course Theorybowl - will try to put it to the test on FUMBBL over the next couple weeks, and then bring a more murder-oriented Vamp roster to the table to see how they do.
I also have my doubts on Pro. It has long been a Vampire staple skill, and I think it still has its value, but even with this generous skill package I never really felt that I would have liked Pro instead of any of the other skills I took. Having a single Pro runner was useful as the dedicated Hypnogazer, but I can't help but think Dodge would have been a better skill - after all, how many times are you going to reroll a BL or a Hypno vs a dodge? On average, a single vamp will BL around 3 times assuming they are activated every turn, and a lot of those you will either need the action to succeed (at which point you use a team reroll instead) or you can afford to let it go. There are relatively few instances where rolls are important enough that Pro pulls its weight but not important enough that you wouldn't just go straight to a TRR. Next time I might try forgoing Pro completely in favour of Block/Dodge, and we'll see how that turns out.
All in all though, I remain convinced of the strength of these new Vamps. Even after having my team deleted, I was able to bring the game down to a couple 4+ pickups in game 2 and snatched a draw in game 4. The shenanigans potential that comes with Hypno is just bonkers, and they are just so much fun to play! I am just dying to bring them out onto the table again!
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