Yes, the vampires in the fifth game are quite decent. They create a lot of problems for the opponent. Try combining vampires with the cloning spell – it really helps. Moreover, you can clone clones as well. I sometimes have 5 cloned stacks of vampires on the battlefield, and retaliation reduces the opponent's chances of eliminating them.

But you'll have 5 clones, and the enemy hero will cast Meteor Shower or Holy Word, and all your clones will be gone. As for creating problems for the opponent, yes, they do create problems, and even big ones, but only for neutral creatures. When you fight a real opponent (an enemy hero), they don't bring much benefit. And other units don't help much either; at least there used to be a lot of skeletons. I'll explain my opinion (where it comes from) now. Yesterday, I played against my friend on one computer; I was Necropolis, and he was Dwarves. My hero was level 25, and his was level 24. In the battle, I won, even though his army was much stronger (defense, attack, plus rune magic). My army was of no use (even though it was larger in number), but I won only thanks to the Phoenix (my respects to this creature and this spell:cool:). In this battle, the Vampires were killed almost immediately, and I had 150 of them. The only thing they did in this battle was kill about 20 bears, 1 Jarl, and 10 warriors. :(