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Vampire Strategy Guide

Summary

Being capable of a wide variety of roles, Vampires are among the best players in the game. Except for one unique drawback: Bloodlust. This forces a Vampire coach to prioritize and carefully position players to ensure that your players get to where they need to. Unfortunately this can result in the Vampires biting and injuring their own Thralls.

However, Vampires also come with the unique ability of Hypnotic Gaze which can disable skills and tackle zones on opponent players, letting the Vampires and Thralls easily break open a cage or run past a well honed formation with ease.

Strengths:

• Hypnotic Gaze
• Vampires have some of the best stats in the game
• Thralls are cheap
• Vargheist with Frenzy and Claw
• Regeneration and Apothecary

Weaknesses:

• Bloodlust
• Thralls are fragile
• Few starting skills

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Bloodlust:

Bloodlust is rolled right at the start of a player's activation. It's a 2+ roll for Runner and Thrower. It's 3+ for the Blitzer and Vargheist, although it improves back to a 2+ when they're Blocking or Blitzing

If passed, the player can continue as normal

If failed, the player wants to bite a Thrall at the end of their activation, after they've moved or performed their Action. Chosing to bite means the activation finishes as normal. The Thrall will suffer an Injury roll on 2D6. The results of this will be:

• 21 in 36, or 58.3% = Stunned
• 9 in 36, or 25% = Knocked Out
• 6 in 36, or 16.6% = Badly Hurt

KO + BH is 15 in 36, or 41.6% chance of the Thrall leaving the field. Choosing NOT to bite, or being unable to, can therefore save a Thrall. However, it causes:

• A turnover
• Your player loses their skills and tacklezones (effectively Gazing themselves)
• Your player drops the ball, and is not able to score
• Your player also can't Pass or Hand Over the ball to allow someone else to score

These issues combined with Bites needing to happen at the end of the player's activation, means if you want to score with a Vampire, you'll want a Thrall available in the endzone to snack on. Without one, you'll have to pass Bloodlust, so having a reroll or the Pro skill will help mitigate this risk

It can often be better to skip the bite and take the turnover if your thirsty vampire is the last significant activation you need to do in a turn. So generally you'll want to move Thralls before moving Vampires, and always consider their relative positions

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Hypnotic Gaze:

This is an Agility test, so 2+ for the Vampires, modified by opponents marking you (not counting the target). Failing the test means nothing happens, and your activation ends.

Passing the test means the activation still ends, but the target will have their tacklezones and skills switched off. Block and Dodge go, making followup hits better. Sidestep and Stand Firm go, making crowd surfing easier. All skills go, aside from a few passive ones like Regeneration, Foul Apperance, Disturbing Presence etc.

The classic Vampire strike on a cage is to Gaze one or more of the cage corners, then walk in with STR4 and hit the ball carrier. Gazing the carrier first can also make them easier to knock down

To Gaze, you must first nominate your Gaze target, then roll Bloodlust, then the player can move and do the Gaze. This sequence means you can't change your mind about the Gaze target if the Bloodlust was failed, for example to an opponent who is near a Thrall. You can however change to just a Move action, aborting the Gaze

A player who is Gazed cannot catch the ball. This means if opponent's only available players in range to score are recievers in your half, if you Gaze them they can't be given the ball and then move - they must activate first (to clear the Gaze) and then get into the endzone, and then can catch the ball. This may sound subtle, but it can mean the difference between needing an easy Handover or a difficult Pass

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Vargheist vs Blitzers:

Both of these have Bloodlust 3+, which improves to a 2+ if they're Blocking or Blitzing. Can only do 1x Blitz per turn, so you may want to limit the number of Bloodlust 3+ players on the team

If you activate a 3+ Bloodlust player, don't reroll it, and bite Thralls, it will send a Thrall off the pitch 13.8% of the time, or once per 7.2 activations (A 2+ Bloodlust activation is half of this, or once per 14.4 activations) The risk of damaging your own team is very real

Vargheist has STR5, Claw, Frenzy, Loner so is more of a threat

Blitzers have STR4, Gaze, Juggernaut so are more reliable. Blitzer will be the last choice to use for Gazing, due to the 3+ Bloodlust roll.

When blitzing, the Juggernaut skill allows you to turn a bothdown into a push, and also to cancel Fend, Stand Firm, and Wrestle skills

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2 turn scoring:

Vampires are pretty good at a 2-turn touchdown. If the opponent sets up in a compact formation, you can build a side-line cage or screen for a Runner 8 to 10 squares from the endzone, pick up with a Thrower, and move to within 6+3 squares of the Runner. Then next turn you move the Thrower in for a Short pass, and romp home with the ball. There won't be a Thrall in the end zone, so you'll need to pass Bloodlust

If the opponent sets up in a wide formation, you'll probably have to Blitz and Gaze a few players to get through. If they go wide it could open up a possibility to crowd surf their edge players, particularly with Frenzy

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1 turn scoring:

With Move-8 Runner, 1-turning becomes viable for the team. Pick up with a Thrower, pass it to the Runner. Use Blitzer with Juggernaut, or Vargheist with Frenzy, to do the first Blitz to get your pushes

Taking Juggernaut on the Vargheist or Frenzy on the Blitzer, as well as Sidestep, Sprint, Sure Feet and/or +Move on the Runner will all help make this easier. Again you'll need to pass Bloodlust to score

See https://fumbbl.com/help:OTT for more help on this

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Kicking:

If you get the choice at the start of the game, either: choose to kick the ball rather than receive. You want your full team available to defend the opponent's drive, as Thralls imploding is a real risk. But also you want to be actively hunting the turnover

Or: if you're confident in your ability to score fast, then receive first, run in a quick 2-turn score, then go to defending as above

If you've got the Kick skill, you have the option of kicking short or kicking long. If you kick short, you can hopefully steal the ball from a Blitz! event, or at least start cracking the cage open immediately. If you kick long, you can potentially send your Runner(s) hunting an open ball or an unsupported carrier. If you can outpace or tie up the back-pedalling opponents, and pass the Bloodlust, it's a score next turn

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Crowd surfing:

Vampires can be very effective playing on the sidelines, particularly with Frenzy. Gazing to switch off tacklezones allows plenty of entertaining options to strike through a screen and surf opponents into the crowd

Setting up for defense in a central, compact formation will help direct the opponent's drive towards the flanks

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Help my thralls keep dying:

Thralls are fragile, and are also a consumable for your own team. Once you start running out of them, it can accelerate as the opponent hunts down the remaining ones, your Vampires become incapacitated and the game falls to pieces. The risk of a Thrall-implosion is not just real, but also part of the rich tapestry of playing the team. They're not Tier-1 after all

A few things can help mitigate this collapse however:

• Don't take too many Bloodlust players on the roster. 4 is sensible at team creation. Add more if the team is well developed and/or you coach them cautiously
• Take plenty of Thralls on the roster, 8 or 9 would be good.
• Take 'enough' rerolls on the roster. This includes Leader on a Thrower
• The more Vampires you have, the more Thralls and the more rerolls you'll need
• Pro on the Vampires will help avoid Bloodlust

• Protect your Thralls. Don't leave them in contact if you can avoid it
• Don't roll Bloodlust. You can choose to simply not activate Vampires that you don't absolutely need to
• Don't fail Bloodlust. You can use rerolls or Pro on it. It's not the best use of a reroll, but it's better than having no Thralls and spare rerolls
• Don't bite Thralls. You can choose to take the turnover, rather than bite. It will be very situational, and you'll need to plan turns with bites and turnovers in mind. For example repositioning a Vampire as your last activation of the turn

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Play style:

Because Vampires can be effective at stealing the ball, and also can themselves score quickly, if it goes well it can lead to gameplay of quick drives and many touchdowns. Stalling with the ball can often just result in dead Thralls. The team is more effective defensively - as scoring on the opponent's drive can be an unsurmountable swing in the game. Gaze is not just for opening cages however, it is obviously very useful at pushing your drive forward too.

If it does not go well, you can find your Vampires spread out across the pitch in the wrong places, your Thralls mostly dead, and the game unsalvagable. It can be a swingy roster, often either winning big or losing big