Blitzing Thrall development:
- Normal: Wrestle, Tackle / Strip Ball, Fend / Dauntless / Pro
- Doubles: Dodge / Guard
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
As your Vampires are likely to have Block, you want someone who can get the ball carrier down more easily. You can either develop a LOS build into a Blitzer or develop one from the ground up with the role specifically in mind. There is some overlap in the two builds so you can be a bit flexible. Sure a Thrall isn’t as strong as a Vampire, though you can use Guard and Hypnotic Gaze to eliminate assists and get the block in your favour. So start with Wrestle to negate Block and then Tackle to negate Dodge. I would then probably take Strip Ball assuming you don’t have it anywhere else. It is easily redundant against Sure Hands players, though not everyone will have it. Beyond that Fend, Pro or Dauntless for the same reasons as before.
Doubles and stat increases follow the same logic as the previous build as well.
Kicker Thrall development:
Kick is a great skill and with Hypnotic Gaze and the ability of Vampires you can take good advantage of it. The trouble you have though is that you have no skills to start with on the team, so you might want to get some Thralls with Wrestle before considering a Kick player. You certainly can take Kick on the first one though and taking Kick as the first skill makes sense. Block next to keep him on his feet more and Fend again for more protection. A Kick player typically doesn’t get many SPP but further progression look to the usual utility skills and pick what will help you the most against the opponents you have the most difficulty.
For doubles I would favour Dodge over Guard for protection purposes as you won’t usually have a back up Kick skill if they get injured. A strength increase on a kicker isn’t exactly great synergy compared to anyone else on the team but I still wouldn’t pass it up. An agility increase makes them more mobile and gives you more ball handling options, I would prefer that to a strength increase on this one player. Movement again is going to come in useful, the extra armour doesn’t make a massive difference and will come into play less often, though I won’t chastise you if you took it.
Fouling Thrall Development:
With Thralls being so cheap they are great for fouling with as you will usually take out a player worth more team value than the Thrall. You can use Hypnotic Gaze to move tackle zones which are preventing your offensive assists as well to help with gang fouling. If you foul a lot with them, they won’t get many SPP due to being sent off a lot and you don’t really want many skills as it just increases their team value. That is no good if it is sat in the stadium dungeon for most of the match. Dirty Player is the one skill you would want though, hopefully it will just come into play adding to the injury, though sometimes it can make the difference on the armour roll as well. If you do get more skills they lose some of their fouling appeal, but take Block then Fend to make them more versatile and save them for a back up fouler.
Doubles you can take Sneaky Git, though if you are gang fouling well you should be going through the armour at which point it isn’t any help. Sure Feet is an option to get them more range to get to the foul target, or stick with the old faithful Dodge for the usual benefits. Stat increase will start to push the team value up even more to the point you really don’t want to be fouling with them. Perhaps you could later in the match or if you have a Bribe available, taking stat increases follow the same logic as all the other Thrall builds though.
Vampire Thrall Summary:
As I mentioned you can’t operate a successful Vampire team without your Thralls performing. Neglect them and you may stuggle and the team could suffer. That being said they usually on the whole won’t develop a great deal, but you should try and get at least one or two skills on a good selection of them. This shouldn’t be too hard with MVPs and completions to Vampires, Thralls are also more than capable at scoring touchdowns when you need them. Your opposing coach may neglect to cover them as well as Vampires if you have both in scoring range. Take opportunities when you see them, after all there are plenty of other teams who rely on AG3 and cope very well.
If you get some really well developed which isn’t impossible, then consider some alternative builds. A second double and you can get Side Step which could make them a good marker and then make Pass Block a possible option. Learn to use your Thralls well and suddenly the opponent has to worry about more than just the Vampires!
I haven’t played Vampires yet, but your last couple of articles convinced me to do so. I already ordered some Reaper Minis that fit.
Anyway, I thought of a ‘Blood serving Thrall’ build, that is mainly there to be placed for the case that a crucial Bloodlust roll fails and you want to save up that reroll, but the suiteable skills like Thick Skull or Jump Up are only available on doubles, so I guess it isn’t worth the TV increase, since the Thrall would probably leave the pitch anyway at some time if he gets bitten all the time.
I started giving Vampires a go, and doing alright. The vampires because of their hypnotic gaze are tieing up the opposition, and the the thralls are scoring all the touchdownes, and getting all the spp. Is it wrong to turn them into efficent ball handlers? this is the way my thralls seems to be heading. It just seems wromg as its a vampire team and not the squishy gimp team!
I’m a firm believer in that if something is working then why not keep doing that until it stops working. Using the Thralls as ball carriers is something that I try to do to stop the Vampires hogging all the SPP.
I don’t really build any as a dedicated ball handler as that one Thrall may then start hogging them. Sometimes though against certain teams it can be useful to have and even if you do have one, if you manage the team well they don’t have to end up a SPP hog.
There is no right or wrong way to develop a team and as long as what you are doing is winning you most of your games, then I’m not about to tell you to stop! Some tactics I may argue are suboptimal, though this isn’t one of them.
With Vampire teams, I find I usually use whoever is conveninet to pick up the ball, mainly to spread the SPP. Thralls are a good choice, as they don’t require a thrall babysitter to follow them into the endzone in case they lose their craving for blood right before they score.
I’m an advocate of taking Sure Hands on a Thrall, mainly because re-rolls are so valuable to Vampire teams, moreso than most others. The more skills that allow you re-rolls on the team, the less you have to worry about failing Blood Lust with no backup re-roll.. Using a re-roll to pick the ball up can mean a failed Blood Lust later in the turn, or vice versa with a re-roll used on Blood Lust and a failed pickup leaving you vulnerable.
That’s not to say this should be your only person scoring, though. If you get through a turn without using a re-roll yet and are in a relatively safe position, you can hand off at no higher risk than the original pickup to allow you to spread the SPP.
I’ve been playing Vamps quite a bit recently up to around mid tv (1,500 or so) and have also played against high tv Vamps (2,000’ish) a couple of times. For the first Thrall that gets a double, I would always take Leader. Rerolls are so expensive and bloat your tv, so I find the Leader skill a really efficient way to counter this. Not only does it save you 140,000gp than buying a reroll after team creation, but you get both a leader reroll and a Thrall for the same tv as a normal reroll (from a tv perspective this is effectively a reroll plus a free Thrall).
Im also a big proponent of trying to skill up Thralls to get Wrestle. It not only helps to keep them on the pitch a lot longer, but it makes them a lot more reliable for blocking. Once the Vamps have 1 or 2 skills I really try to score with the unskilled Thralls if possible. Once they have Block/Wrestle I wouldn’t go out of my way to score with them though, as Vamps can make better use of the spp.
I have a min max vamp team with two vamps. Yeah, it is douchey, but it is just vamps and I got tired of playing Chaos/Nurgle every game. I was having fun playing down around 1100-1200 but then something happens, the thralls don’t die as often and you get some great big thralls.
Now I have a Block/Dodge/Leader/Guard/Fend and a STR/AG/Block/Frenzy/Tackle that are blowing the team up into the 1600s.
I’m not a fan of thick skull, but i imagine it could be useful the more Vamps you have on the pitch. For example if you field the full 6, I can see it possibly being a worthwhile doubles pick. Instead of 42% chance of suffering a KO or worse, it is reduced to 28%.
Sneaky Git doesn’t seem as a good suggestion, even for a fouling Thrall. It costs you more TV and doesn’t really improve the performance of the Thrall. Sure it does however makes you try to make more lonely fouls as a failed armour roll wont result in a sent off no more.
But yeah, I generally feel that Sneaky Git is a non-pick skill for all players that lack the Agility skill access. Certainly as you want to risk as little TV in fouling all together.
So if you would happen to get a second skill I would prefer Block and Dodge because they suddenly make this player more versatile. And it sure does mean that a new Thrall should pick op DP to step in as primary fouler.
I don’t have much experience with Vampires but I do appreciate having more capable Thralls on the field. You generally don’t want to spend all your TRR so making blocks with Thralls typically has a low priority, until they get Wrestle, which makes a whole different story.
I am a fan of Thick Skull on Thralls….
but for free using the NTBB rules. Vampires are considered Tier 3 just because any good coach will target Thralls, just as you Vampires will. So they do need some resemblance of toughness right of the bat. Otherwise you will be playing outnumbered through most of the drives and have no options left.