It had become a bit of a meme in the Blood Bowl Community that each and every single rumour engine was Vampires, every next release was Vampires and every half whispered rumour was Vampires – But today it’s actually happened, the Vampire Team for Blood Bowl is up for pre order!

In this post we’ll be checking out the kit along with the team rules and seeing what the models look like built up!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us an early free review copy to check out! If you would like to support the site then why not order your bloodthirsty Blood Bowl team though our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We have also filmed a full unboxing of the kit which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So put away your garlic and get back in your coffin as we check out the Drakfang Thirsters, the latest team for Blood Bowl!

Blood Bowl Vampire Team Unboxing and Review

It seems it has been a while since the last Blood Bowl team was released – while we have had releases for Dungeon Bowl and an Alliance team, it was last year when the Amazon team was released, but the wait has been worth it for the latest and greatest undead team, the Vampires!

Like with all other Blood Bowl kits, the box contains two identical frames that build up a total of 14 models, plus balls and tokens! What’s really nice about this kit is that it gives you your full quota of all the positionals except for the Vargheist (Who is also up for pre order today separately from Forge World), meaning that you wont really need more than 1 box in order to get a decent team together!

Like usual, we also get a transfer sheet with iconography, positional names and numbers in order to make identifying which player is which much easier.

Sadly, due to time constraints on this one I didn’t manage to get the models painted in time for the review (I’ll be working on these and updating the post as soon as I have photos!) but I did manage to build up the entire team so that I could have a proper look at how they look in the flesh. From the initial images on Warhammer Community, I was a little worried about how easy it would be to tell the models apart from each other on the pitch, but having built them they are easy to tell apart with the first image above showing a Blitzer, a Runner and a Thrower – they are distinct enough to eyeball

A particular shout out has to go to the linemen, with clever use of parts you can get 8 different looking players, and there’s some really nice details such as the Thrall holding a bat, and one that bears a really close resemblance to Richard O Brian as Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show! The models are dripping in classic horror movie vibes too and I’m really looking forward to getting some paint on them.

The balls and tokens are fun too with a very ornate coffin as a turn marker and some fun balls such as one getting carried by a pair of bats, and another being an infant Varghiest that has been put in a straight jacket!

Spike! magazine issue 16 is also up for pre order today, but if you just want the rules to use the team then they are also included within the instruction manual.

The Vampires as you would expect are expensive, but very good with amazing agility and Regeneration and Hypnotic Gaze on all 3 vamps – They do have a bit of a downside however with their Bloodlust – essentially this makes you roll on their stat (2+ on most, 3+ on the Blitzer and Varghiest) with a plus one if you block or blitz, make the roll and everything is ok, but fail and your player has to sink their teeth into a Thrall, causing an injury on them as they suck their blood – fail to do so and you suffer a turnover.

Most of the time this is going to be on a 2+, but Blood Bowl being the fickle game that it is, you’ll want to make sure you have ample Thralls within chomping distance!

Speaking of Thralls, if you manage to kill an opposing player during a game then you get to add them to your roster as a brand new Thrall! But at 40k each, Thralls are also really affordable to add to your team – with the entire box clocking in at just under 1m gold, giving you the numbers if you want them (Though i’d probably save some for free ones from deaths and take a couple of rerolls at 60k each

The Blood Bowl Vampire team was a joy to put together and look like they are going to be great fun to use on the tabletop!

The Drakfang Thirsters are up for pre order today and are released Saturday 30th September

Games Workshop provided Sprues and Brews with a free copy for review purposes.