Wednesday 29 November 2017

Dem Bones part 2 – Vampire and Khemri in bloodbowl



Hi everyone and as time ticks on and I’m coming to the end of my team review series I thought I’d touch on the unusual teams of bloodbowl. Vampires and Khemri were born out of Games Workshop splitting the Undead faction way back in the late 90’s. Khemri were the Egyptian faction and vampires the Transylvanian factions and both have echo’s of this basis.

Both are harder than the previous selections to use and both require a little bit of patience and playing. Both of these are in the lower tiers and you’ll see why in a minute. Both however having played them in leagues fairly recently are fun and different teams to use.




Vampires

This team is probably the hardest use in Bloodbowl. That is a debate I think Ogre and Halfling players will dispute but they are difficult to use. This is because of two reasons and that is because of the two sets of players they have at their disposal.

Vampires are the main part of this team and you could argue they are one of the best players in the game. Strength 4 and Agility 4 puts them above almost every starting player but they also come with the fantastic skill hypnotic gaze. This basically turns an opposing player bone headed for a turn. This essentially means that they can allow another player to walk into a cage and hit the ball carrier.

So why am I saying that these players make the team one of the worst in bloodbowl? Bloodlust.

On a roll of 1 they have to finish their turn next to a thrall or they turnover and are removed to the reserves box. Whats more they then roll a straight injury roll on the player. This means that without rerolls they will bite injure a player on average 3 times a game. Per vampire. Fortunately they cant kill your own players they just get badly hurt.

So what you may think? Well a Thrall is a standard human lineman with av 7. So these guys go down easy which means often vampire teams will find themselves outnumbered on almost every drive. 
Whats more as the thralls are only ag 3 they will find themselves often isolated. Away from the vampires.

Another issue is that the teams starts with no skills like block or dodge meaning the chance of turning over early is higher per game. This leads to Vampires being a great challenge.

They play in a strange play often isolating a weak point in the defence and using hypnotic gaze and a blitz to get several players through the line. Each drive is a timebomb with thralls going down from blocks and bites the skill is to get a touchdown before your thralls disappear!

Mikes starting team
3 Vampires
9 Thralls
4 Rerolls

This is a team that requires a lot of rerolls! Get an apothecary followed by 2 more vampires. Final get another thrall. It’s important you have a lot of replacements! Id only play with 4 vampires on the drive at most and I wouldn’t get all 6. Don’t level your thralls just your vampires. If thralls do level up provide them with support skills such as guard/dodge (If you get a double) and kick. The vampires will get a lot of SPP quickly and so you need to decide how you want to build them. Ball carrier? Blitzer? Thrower? They can be built into anything. This is probably one of the players that will take a general skill over a double almost every time (They can take everything but passing as a double anyway!)

Khemri

Khemri are the most unagile team in bloodbowl with every positional being at most AG2 and at worst AG1. This totally changes the way you have to approach this team and as a coach this doesn’t neccesarily mean though they are horribly difficult to use.

The main event here is the tomb guardians you can have 4 strength 5 mv 4 Armour 9 guys sitting on the line. This team will outmuscle most sides even dwarf guard lines will struggle to out muscle that. They cant have general skills but they tend to level up quickly as you will be blocking almost every turn with each of them.

These blockers are supported by blitz-ra. These are skeletons with AV8 movement 6 and block. These serve as the teams blitzers and although limited in manouverability its movement is valuable to the team.

Throw-ras are the other teams player and this is a essential player. Your ag 2 and so will often need rerolls to pick the ball up which this player gives for free. He is also as quick as a blitz-ra. So the 4 positionals can be used as a quick element of the team.

Skeletons well there a bit rubbish but are odd being that they are linemen but there often just off the line supporting the tom guardians. Mv 5 and av 7 means these guys are overly usefull although there cheap have thick skull and regenerate and as such despite their frailty they are difficult to remove from the game.

This team plays strangely as it may feel like a good idea to get your guardians in on a brawl you need them near the ball. A cage of skeletons just isn’t good enough. As such the play of this team simply revolves around how you play with the big guys.

Often I will keep these guys off the line so they can support cages and keep them unengaged to try and cut off a enemy attack. 4 movement isn’t too bad as long as they are originally correctly placed. Unfortunatly the AG of  means these guys once engaged will need to blitz to get away but you can use this to your advantage.

This is a very tough team for a beginner but for experienced team this provides a stiff challenge but once you get used to them they are a very effective team.

Mikes Starter Team
4 Tomb Guardians
1 Blitz-ra
2 Trow-ra
4 Skeletons
3 Rerolls

Get the next Blitz-ra next a skeleton and then get those rerolls to 4. I’d say 13/14 players is enough for this team despite the low armour value. Skill your tomb guardians as much as possible and get them mighty blow Asap. Then well most of the strength skills will be usefull for them s its just a matter of choice. Throw-ra’s and Blitz-ras will be doing the scoring so level these guys as much as you can but also evenly. They are your mobile players after all. Thro-ra’s should start with block so they can double up as a blitzer then you can tailor them as you see fit. Don’t be scared to go for passing skills. Once they have accurate they have a legitimate passing game.


Thanks guys and gurls and speak soon

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