HARBINGERS OF SKULLS NEWSLETTER November 2006 CONTENTS 0 About the Newsletter I Tips for Beginners: How Many Master Cards? II Card: Crematorium (possible spoiler) III Deck: Zombies in the Tower of London IV Next Newsletter ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER There's been a few-month hiatus here Harbingers of Skulls Newsletter headquarters. The author was without a computer from May to October. Also, there's been a scarcity of VTES games in my town, so I wasn't building and testing any new decks featuring our favorite clan. I didn't want to put out yet another newsletter without a Group 4 HoS deck to feature, but more than that I did want to use the release of a new promo card to motivate me to getback in publication. This month I add a new regular feature to the Newsletter, Tips for Beginners. TIPS FOR BEGINNERS Using too many Master cards is a common beginner's mistake. It may be that when you have a small number of cards, a disproportionate number of your Master cards look like they make sense in your deck because Masters are more generally useable (have fewer requirements) than minion cards. But having a hand full of Masters is usually a crippling blow to your game! How many Master cards should there be in a deck? I've heard people say 18-20, 15, 12 or 13... If you look at White Wolf's preconstructed starter decks, you see numbers from a low of 6 to high of 18; the mean, median and mode are all 12. (Keep in mind that the precons have 77-card libraries, while most people usually play 90-card libraries.) If you look thru the decklists of tournament-winning decks, you'll see all kinds of numbers, but commonly in the 15-20 range. Clearly, there is no magic number. Loosely speaking, having a Master in your hand at the beginning of your turn is a good thing, while Masters in your hand are otherwise dead weight. Since you only play one Master per turn, you should have them in your deck in proportion to the number of non-Masters you expect to use on and between your turns. For example, if you expect to play about six cards between one of your Master phases and the next, then you want a 1:6 ratio of Master to non-Master cards in your deck. Some deck styles are more card-intensive than others (combat decks especially tend to use a lot of cards each turn), so this ratio will vary significantly from deck to deck. Use the ratio to determine a hypothetical 'ideal' number of Masters for your deck First choose the Masters that make your strategy work. (If you are very new to the game, you might need to consult section 1.6.2 of the rulebook or the list of card texts at http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=cardlist.html regarding the terminology and specific cards referred to in the discussion below.) Don't forget that most decks will rely on Masters for pool and blood management, for example using Blood Dolls and Hunting Grounds or Archetypes (Perfectionist is especially popular). Some combat decks will need Fame, Tension in the Ranks and/or Frontal Assault to attach pool loss or gain to their combat; some political decks will need Minion Tap to cash in on their Voter Captivation. Then choose a few Masters that fill the gaps in your strategy. For example, if you don't have much defense against bleeds you might want Major Boon, Archon Investigation and/or Dummy Corporation; if you fear being forced into combat you might want Secure Haven or Secret Passage. Now compare the number of Masters you have chosen to the ideal number. If you are below the ideal, you could bring the total up by using some generically helpful cards like Dreams of the Sphinx, Giant's Blood or Elder Library, or by using cards that interfere with other Methuselah's play, like Wash, Sudden Reversal or Direct Intervention. Alternatively you could add a few Investment cards (e.g. Short Term Investment, Secret Horde). Be sparing with them! If you are using Investment cards you should keep the number of Masters in your deck below the ideal number, because you need Master Phase Actions to cash in the investments. If you are above the ideal by more that one or two, you must either bring the number down or find a way to cycle the Master cards more quickly that one per turn. There are two basic ways to accomplish this: either play more than one each turn, or discard them. If you want to play more than one Master per turn, you need more Master Phase Actions. The Parthenon can give you an additional MPA. Rumors of Gehenna, if successful, lets you raise any set of methuselah's base number of MPAs from one to two. Certain vampires can get you more MPAs too. Anson raises your base number of MPAs to two; Huitzilopochtli lets you buy one addition MPA for one pool; Sarasine lets you burn the edge for an additional MPA; Cybele gives you an additional MPA if she is untapped; Synesios lets you buy back a MPA if you used it on an Out-of-Turn Master. Another important source of MPAs is Trifles. If the first Master you play is a Trifle you gain one more MPA. It's probably safe to be over the ideal number for your deck if most of that overage is in Trifles. For example, if you're too high on Masters your deck might play better if you replace a Hunting Ground with two or three copies of Life in the City. Watch out, though - except for the new card Wash (an Out-of-Turn Trifle), Trifles and Out-of-Turn Masters are not compatible, as playing an O-o-T puts you in a position where you can't use your Trifle to generate the extra MPA. The other option is discarding, or finding some other way to get rid of Master cards without actually playing them. The simplest bet for increasing your ability to discard is The Barrens; if you're going to count on its help, put in two or three copies. Some vampires will help you cycle cards. Ulugh Beg gives you an additional Discard Phase Action, as does Cagliostro; Black Horse Tanner lets you put a card you draw at the bottom of your library and draw a new one; Giotto Verducci lets you discard during other Methuselah's discard phases; Nehemiah lets you move one or two cards from your hand to the bottom of your library; and there's Babalawo Alafin. Babalawo Alafin Clan: Harbinger of Skulls Group: 4 Capacity: 7 Discipline: ani AUS FOR NEC Laibon: During your untap phase, if Alafin is ready, you may discard two cards (draw afterward). If the two cards are the same, each other Methuselah's hand size is one card smaller until his or her next untap phase. There's also equipment that can help you cycle cards fatser, for example Heart of Nizchetus or Lear Jet, and combat cards like Read Intentions or Infernal Pursuit. A few things almost require you to have excess Master cards available to discard: Brothers Grimm Unique master. Put this card into play. During your untap phase, put 1 counter on this card from the blood bank. When this card has 5 counters on it, it is burned and you gain 5 pool. Any Methuselah can use a master phase action and discard a master card from his or her hand to take control of the Brothers Grimm. You may cancel that (and keep the Brothers Grimm) by discarding a master card from your hand. Pariah Clan: Abomination Group: 2 Capacity: 6 Discipline: pot pre OBF PRO Independent: During your master phase, discard a master card or tap Pariah. Pariah cannot take undirected actions other than hunting. He can enter combat with any minion as a (D) action. +1 strength. Scarce. Sterile. What about Masters in a Harbingers of Skulls deck? One of the distinctive features of our clan is The Slaughterhouse. The Slaughterhouse Clan: Harbinger of Skulls Cost: 1 pool Burn Option Master: location. Tap to burn two cards from the top of your prey's library. Although having even one Slaughterhouse in play can be beneficial if you have some way to know what the top cards of your prey's library are (Scrying of Secrets?), usually the goal is to control many of them. As you play them you can gradually deplete your original prey's library, then later in the game after getting each oust you rapidly eliminate the new prey's library. This means that you may put ten or fifteen copies into your deck. Then you have to either use very few other Master cards, or else find a way to accommodate a total of twenty or more. CARD OF THE MONTH The Harbingers of Skulls were treated to one of the new promo cards! Crematorium Clan: Harbinger of Skulls Cost: 1 pool Master: unique location. Tap during your untap phase to burn a vampire in torpor with no blood. This is a nice addition to our inventory of clan cards, both thematically and functionally. Compare it to the only other Master with the same function. Vulnerability Cost: 1 pool Master. Burn a vampire in torpor For the same pool cost, we get a permanent! Also, there's a timing benefit over Vulnerability - Crematorium can get rid of someone with Fame before you pay the pool. I would argue that the drawback, that the target vampire must have no blood, is not severe. If we're sending kindred into torpor, it's probably that some Shambling Hordes beat them bloodless. Anyway, it's when they're empty that vampires aren't worth diablerizing; now we have a way to clean them up without wasting an action. Finally, this card will fit well into an Imbued/Lazarene deck like the one I hope to feature in next month's Newsletter, since the Imbued aren't capable of diablerie. DECK OF THE MONTH When I look at this decklist, I admit it looks pretty sketchy... it requires too many actions, for example... and doesn't everybody know that the Tower of London sucks? But it has been very fun and fairly successful almost every time I've played it. Zombies in the Tower of London, Wraiths on the Streets of Birmingham Crypt (12) 4x Rudolfo Giovanni 3 Gio [NEC] 2x Regina Giovanni 10 Gio [DOM NEC POT aus for] 2 votes; allies & retainers cost 1 less 2x Egotha 7 HoS [AUS FOR NEC obf] 2x Gisella 7 HoS [FOR NEC aus dem] 2x Agaitas 6 HoS [AUS NEC for] Library (90) Master (14) 5x Blood Doll 4x Memories of Mortality 2x Tower of London 1x Charisma 1x Crematorium 1x Fame Allies & Retainers (13) 6x Shambling Hordes 2x Vagabond Mystic 1x Brigitte Gebauer 1x Felix Hessian 1x Puppeteer 2x Masquer Equipment (9) 4x Meat Hook 2x Flak Jacket 2x Leather Jacket 1x Erebus Mask Action (8) 8x Summon Soul Action Modifier (9) 6x Shroud Mastery 3x Call of the Hungry Dead Reaction (12) 4x Forced Awakening 3x Enhanced Senses 3x Precognition 2x Eagle's Sight Combat (20) 5x Fake Out 3x Lucky Blow 3x Martyr's Resilience 3x Spiritual Intervention 2x Rolling with the Punches 2x Skin of Steel 2x Superior Mettle Combination (5) 3x Spiritual Divination 2x Breath of Thanatos NEXT NEWSLETTER Next month we look at the 3rd Edition. It has no Harbingers of Skulls vampires, nor clan cards, but as a Sabbat-based expansion it must have something to offer us. The featured deck will be Imbuebabalawopalooza.