OFFICIAL VEKN BAALI NEWSLETTER VOL. 1 NO. 2 FEBRUARY 2002
THE DANCE OF CORRUPTION
Editor: David Anderson-Dávila
In this issue:
1. Introduction to the Dance
2. Fiction
3. Card of the Month - Psychomachia
4. Strategy - "Fatties" Redux With Setite Enticement, and How To Build
A Baali Crypt
5. Deck of the Month - Baali Power Bleed
6. Conclusion
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1. Introduction to the Dance
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Bloodlines is a great expansion set for V:TES. With 12 new Bloodlines
and 11 new disciplines (counting the pseudo-discipline Flight) the set
promises to bring plenty of new strategies to the table. While Final
Nights was definitely a boon to the game, Bloodlines is the first set
since Ancient Hearts that is composed of all new cards. There is just
so much to explore in the set, so many new combinations to try, that I
really look forward to the next several months as we all figure out
what these new vampires and disciplines can do.
There are five Baali vampires in Bloodlines, including:
Sargon
5 cap, dai obf pre cel
Independent. Whenever Sargon successfully performs an action, you get
the Edge. +1 strength. Infernal.
Mary the Black
7, DAI obf PRE cel pot
Independent. Once each round, Mary may burn a blood to make the damage
from her hand strikes aggravated for the current round. Infernal.
Giotto Verducci
7, DAI OBF pre for pot
Independent. During any other Methuselah's discard phase, you may
discard a card from your hand (and draw a new one). Vampires must burn
a blood to attempt to block Giotto. Infernal.
High Priest Angra Mainyu
8, DAI OBF PRE dem ser
Independent. While Angra is ready, your prey's hand size is 1 card
smaller. You may burn the Edge to give Angra +1 stealth on a non-bleed
action. Infernal.
Huitzilopochtli
10, DAI OBF PRE AUS DOM POT
Independent. During your master phase, you may pay a pool to gain a
Master Phase Action if Huitzilopochtli is ready. +1 bleed. Infernal.
Stats:
Average capacity = 7.4
DAI OBF PRE -- AUS CEL DEM DOM FOR POT SER
inf 1 2 2 - 2 1 - 1 2 1
SUP 4 3 3 1 - - 1 - 1 -
The Baali vampires are larger than most other Bloodlines vampires -
only the True Brujah have a higher average capacity at 8.0, and the
Harbingers of Skulls tie for second at 7.4. This presents a small
problem. It will take longer to influence your Baali into play, so you
will have to account for that when building your decks. On the other
hand, each of the Baali comes complete with a very nice special
ability to compensate for their cost.
The Baali vampires have a really nice discipline spread as well. Four
of the five Baali have Daimoinon at superior. Even though neither of
the Baali 7 caps has all three in-clan disciplines at superior, both
have DAI and extra disciplines that help to round them out. Potence
and Celerity are the most common non-clan disciplines, and combined
with Concordance (Concordance is stackable!) makes for some fearsome
combat potential. Giotto, with his Potence and Fortitude, looks to mix
well with both the Gargoyles and the Blood Brothers. Angra goes well
with both the Setites and the Malkavian Antitribu. Huitzilopochtli can
do just about everything and mixes well with a very long list of clans
indeed.
In this month's strategy section I talk about how to build a Baali
crypt. In upcoming newsletters I'll talk more about what Daimoinon
brings to the game.
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2. Fiction
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Fall From Grace - Chapter 2
"Nemo repente fuit turpissimus." ('No one ever became thoroughly bad
in one step.')
Juvenal (A.D. 60-130?), Satires, 2, 83
Every night since they turned me into a monster I have awakened with
hatred in my heart. I want nothing more than to exact my revenge upon
them for destroying my life, stealing me from my husband and daughter,
discarding me like trash when they were done having their fun with me.
So I hunt them, and when I find them, I make them pay.
Until a few months ago I didn't have a chance of finding them. I had
been moving from city to city, searching for any sign that would lead
me to them. I didn't know a lot about my kind, but I knew enough to
find those that were like me. And sometimes the ones I found were
willing to help me.
"But always for a price," I thought, shivering at the memory of the
well-dressed man in the dimly lit bar.
The information that led me to the old warehouse, where one of my
creators was in the process of conducting a big drug deal, cost me
favors I had no idea how to repay, but it was worth it. I didn't
really have a plan other than to wait for him to come out and then
kill him. It was a simple plan. It was a stupid plan. I was counting
on him being alone, but nothing is ever that simple.
Rico, one of the monsters that introduced me to this ever dark world
of living hell, came out of the warehouse with a couple of flunkies.
They were newly turned, not much older than I was, and I was sure they
were heavily armed. That smug bastard looked right at me even though I
had cloaked myself in shadows. He muttered something to his bodyguards
as I stepped out of the alleyway, with death on my face.
I was halfway to Rico when one of his bodyguards stepped in my way,
brandishing a huge pistol in my face. He had the look of a killer, and
I was sure he would not hesitate to shoot. Just as he went to pull the
trigger, I felt a surge of power, heat beyond fire, swelling up inside
me. "Get out of my way, you insect!," I screamed at the punk as a
nimbus of reddish-orange flames surrounded me. The punk stopped dead
in his tracks, slack-jawed and pistol wavering, unable to keep me from
exacting my revenge on Rico.
Rico's eyes widened in surprise and fear and I felt great joy as I
punched him hard, reached in and pulled his black heart from his
chest. As he crumpled to his knees before me he whimpered softly, "Why
me?"
"As if you don't know, fucker," I said, laughing as his heart burned
to ash in my grip.
I turned to face the others and saw they were still staring at me,
uncertain what to do. I could tell they wanted to run and decided to
speed them on their way with a message. "You mess with me and this
will happen to you," I said as a I melted into the shadows.
One down, five to go.
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3. Card of the Month
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Psychomachia
Daimoinon/Presence, Action Modifier, 1 blood
Only usable when an ally or younger vampire is attempting to block.
[pre]: Cancel the current action and untap this acting vampire. The
blocking minion is not tapped.
[dai]: The block fails. The blocking minion cannot attempt to block
this action again.
[DAI]: As [dai] above, and the blocking minion takes 1 damage (damage
not preventable).
Psychomachia is the Daimoinon equivalent to Necromancy's Call of the
Hungry Dead. It is slightly inferior due to the "ally or younger
vampire" clause, but for 1 blood any minion with inferior Daimoinon
can cause a block to fail, period. CotHD, on the other hand, while
free at inferior does not guarantee a failed block attempt since it
only gives the blocking minion -1 intercept. Only by playing CotHD at
superior and burning 1 blood can a vampire with Necromancy cause the
block attempt to fail.
You might be asking yourself why you would use this card. The Baali
have Obfuscate so you can just stealth the bleeds through, right?
Wrong. The last thing you want is for your prey to bounce your
stealthed bleeds to your grand-prey. Psychomachia, in combination with
cards like Blackmail, Condemnation:[Betrayed, Doomed, Languid] (played
at outferior to tap your prey), Mind Numb, and Faceless Nights can
help you to push key bleeds through to help oust your prey. Just like
CotHD, Psychomachia lets you bleed more responsibly and will make it
harder for your prey to use your bleeds to oust his prey.
Here's how you use it...
Bleed your prey. If your prey tries to block, play Psychomachia to
cause the block to fail. If your prey bounces your non-stealthed bleed
then play Change of Target after assuring your grand-prey she should
block. Better yet, lay some smack talk down and convince your
grand-prey to take the bleed for 1 as long as she isn't within
striking distance of your prey (might as well make your job easier in
the long run, huh?). If your prey can't bounce your bleed, then bump
the bleed with Sense the Sin. Simple, right?
You can spice this up quite a bit as well. For example, consider
playing Faceless Nights at superior if your prey tries to block your
bleed. This will usually end up tapping on of his blocking minions and
then when he bounces your stealthed bleed to your grand-prey, drop a
Spying Mission on her for later.
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4. Strategy
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This month's strategy section comes in two parts. In the first I
return to a concept I introduced in last month's newsletter. In the
second part I talk about how to build decks using the Baali.
Strategy part 1 - How do you make "fatties" more effective? - Redux
In last month's newsletter I wrote about a simple deck-building
concept that I use to help make large vampires easier to play. I
stated that if your crypt capacity is 5.5 or higher then you should
included roughly 25-30 cards in a 90 card deck that are devoted to
increasing the "action opportunites" available to your large minions.
This means several untap sources (Wakes, 2nd Tradition, Eternal
Vigilance, Read the Winds, Homunculus, Rutor's Hand, Metro Undergroun,
etc.) supplemented by your choice of defense cards. Your defense can
be simple bleed bounce or intercept, but don't forget that actions
like Mind Numb (easy for the Baali and Setites to pull off) can be
used to slow your predator down as well.
Since last month's newsletter, I have had the opportunity to field
test my theory on how to make large capacity vampires more effective.
My experience shows that having untap and some sort of defense in a
deck that uses large vampires really works. The deck that I chose to
experiment with was a Setite Enticement deck. Here's the deck:
Deck Name: Setite Enticement 01
Created By: David Anderson-Dávila
Description: Stealth bleed plus Enticement. Defense is a problem, and
the crypt is large, so use a lot of defense cards. Defense includes
Ecstasy, Banner of Neutrality...
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 17, Max: 28, Avg: 5.75)
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2 Hesha Ruhadze ani obf pre SER 6, Followers of Set
2 Danny Larkshill obf obt pot PRE SER 7, Followers of Set
3 Qufur am-Heru cel OBF PRE SER tha 7, Followers of Set
1 Celine Chevalier obf ser 3, Followers of Set
1 Nepata obf pre ser 4, Followers of Set
1 Dedefra nec obf SER 5, Followers of Set
1 Sir Marriot D'Urban aus obf PRE ser 5, Followers of Set
1 Count Ormonde dom OBF pre ser 5, Followers of Set
Library: (82 cards)
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Master (16 cards)
1 Anarch Troublemaker
3 Blood Doll
2 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Giant's Blood
1 Minion Tap
4 Obfuscate
1 Opium Den
2 Serpentis
1 Temple Hunting Ground
Action (26 cards)
2 Blackmail
4 Embrace, The
3 Enchant Kindred
5 Enticement
1 Form of Corruption
9 Night Moves
2 Temptation
Action Modifier (20 cards)
2 Aire of Elation
2 Change of Target
5 Cloak the Gathering
3 Forgotten Labyrinth
5 Lost in Crowds
3 Spying Mission
Reaction (13 cards)
2 Banner of Neutrality
4 Ecstasy
7 Wake with Evening's Freshness
Combat (4 cards)
4 Majesty
Retainer (3 cards)
1 J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1 Priestess of Sekhmet
1 Tasha Morgan
This deck is really a good example to use since the Setites have so
much trouble with defense. This deck's Action Opportunites Module (or
Defense Module, if you prefer) consists of 20 cards, including 7
Wakes, 6 bleed reducers, 4 combat/untaps (i.e., Majesty) and 3
steal/borrow minion cards. If you want to include the Embraces, then
the total number of cards in this deck's AOM bumps up to 24.
The first time I played this deck I swept a four player table. My prey
was an Assamite bruise & bleed deck, my grand-prey was an Assamite
rush deck, and my predator was a Dominate-based bruise & bleed deck.
Even though my predator was able to consistently bleed for 3/4 (he
used Conditioning on just about every bleed), I was able to untap and
block or reduce his bleeds just enough to matter. I have some doubts
about Banner of Neutrality, but at least you can stack them with
Ecstasy. I found that with so many untaps I was able to tap out every
single turn without too much concern, and that's the whole point when
you are playing with large minions. Once I created two Embraces the
whole table balance really shifted. The number of actions that I could
take increased enough to let me quickly oust my prey. I was then able
to steal a minion from my new prey, and started borrowing my
predator's minions to use as extra bleeders. At that point the game
went quickly - I had enough pool to ignore my predator's bleeds and
ran forward to quickly oust the other two remaining players.
I would definitely say that the defensive cards in this deck gave me
the time I needed to set up my offense. Since then the deck has
continued to perform very well and very reliably, but I intend to
continue my testing of this concept (the Baali deck of the month
utilizes the concept, for example) and urge any of you who have had
success with it to write to me to let me know.
[Editor's Note: You really should put both Sargon and Jazz Wentworth
in the crypt for this deck. Being able to use Enticement multiple
times in a turn is a very nice thing indeed...]
Strategy part 2 - How To Build A Baali Crypt
One question that you may have asked since seeing the Bloodlines cards
is how do you create a Bloodlines "clan" deck? Since most Bloodlines
only have 5 vampires this may seem difficult. One possibility is to
simply double up on all of the Bloodlines vampires and then add a
couple of filler vampires with closely matching disciplines. This
works for just about every one of the Bloodlines, except for the
scarce ones. For example, you can make a great Ahrimanes deck by
putting two of each of the Ahrimanes in your crypt and adding Bear Paw
and Jost Werner.
The Baali, unfortunately, need a little bit more help than that. Sure,
you can go ahead an use an all Baali crypt, but the maintenance cost
to untap them each turn will be prohibitive. And if you intend to
build a deck that counts on playing with all of its vampires tapped
every turn, then I would suggest that you re-read the rules of the
game. The Baali are light on Auspex (specifically AUS) so you can
forget about that whole Wake with Eagle's Sight to stop your prey's
actions nonsense.
So, given that it will be difficult to play a deck with a crypt
composed almost completely of Baali, here is a partial list of your
options:
1. Pick two Baali vampires and put two copies of each in your crypt.
Then just add eight non-Baali vampires that support what you want to
do with the deck. For example, Mary the Black and Giotto Verducci both
have Potence as a non-clan discipline, so you could mix them with the
Nosferatu/Nosferatu Antitribu since they share both Obfuscate and
Potence as disciplines. Alternately, you could go with the Potence and
Presence angle and just use Brujah/Brujah Antitribu. With a ratio of
4/12 you will more than likely end up with at least one Baali in your
opening draw, and paying for a single Baali to untap each turn really
isn't that bad, is it?
2. Pick one Baali vampire and put four copies in your crypt.
Huitzilopochtli and Mary the Black are the prime candidates here.
Mary, because she can form the core of a really interesting combat
deck, and Huitzo because he is the man and can do anything.
3. Try building a Baali intercept deck using Concordance. Let your
Baali burn a blood to untap at the end of your turn instead of paying
a pool to do it for them at the beginning of your turn. You will want
to use the intercept locations, cards like Elder Intervention or Pack
Tactics, and Sense the Sin. In fact, you definitely want to mix the
Baali with some Setites so the snakes can put Corruption on key
vampires to let you use Sense the Sin to get +2 intercept.
4. Screw the cost of being Infernal and use all of the Baali anyway.
Keep in mind that if you do this, you MUST build a deck that can gain
enough pool to let you untap your Baali minions. At least some of
them, anyway. Some of the time. It seems like using Huitzilopochtli as
a blood siphon in a vote and bloat deck (i.e., Minion Tap and Voter
Captivation) would work very nicely indeed.
One thing to keep in mind about the Baali and their Infernal
disability - you DO NOT have to bother untapping them. In fact, there
are a few weird things you could try to get around having to pay to
untap these guys each turn. For example, you could use vampires with
AUS (Zoe, Isabel de Leon, etc.) to play Precognizant Mobility to untap
your Baali. You could also give them Thaumaturgy and let them get a
Rutor's Hand. If you are using both the Baali and the Salubri
Antitribu (stranger things could happen), then you could use Blessing
of the Name to untap your Baali. I won't mention the crazy Clan
Impersonation angle that takes advantage of Patronage or Alexandra's
special ability...
Time will tell how big a liability being Infernal turns out to be.
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5. Deck of the Month
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Deck Name: Baali - Power Bleed
Created By: David Anderson-Dávila
Description: Feb 2002 Baali Newsletter Deck
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 14, Max: 30, Avg: 6.00)
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2 Mary the Black cel DAI obf pot PRE 7, Baali
2 High Priest Angra Mainyu DAI dem OBF PRE ser 8, Baali
2 Giotto Verducci DAI for OBF pot pre 7, Baali
2 Qufur am-Heru cel OBF PRE SER tha 7, Followers of Set
1 Celine Chevalier obf ser 3, Followers of Set
1 Nepata obf pre ser 4, Followers of Set
1 Hadrian Garrick obf pre 4, Followers of Set
1 Dan Murdock aus obf 3, Caitiff
Library: (84 cards)
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Master (13 cards)
1 Anarch Troublemaker
3 Blood Doll
1 Brainwash
1 Giant's Blood
1 Major Boon
1 Minion Tap
1 Opium Den
1 Slave Auction
2 Sudden Reversal
1 Temple Hunting Ground
Action (16 cards)
2 Condemnation: Doomed
4 Enchant Kindred
2 Enticement
2 Mind Numb
6 Social Charm
Action Modifier (25 cards)
2 Change of Target
4 Cloak the Gathering
3 Elder Impersonation
5 Faceless Night
3 Marked Path
5 Psychomachia
3 Spying Mission
Reaction (7 cards)
7 Wake with Evening's Freshness
Combat (8 cards)
3 Conflagration
5 Majesty
Retainer (2 cards)
2 D'habi Revenant
Equipment (6 cards)
3 Blood Tears of Kephran
2 Leather Jacket
1 Palatial Estate
Combo (7 cards)
7 Sense the Sin
The deck of the month is a relatively straight-forward stealth bleed
deck. Since the Baali share disciplines with the Followers of Set, the
crypt is a mix of the two. This deck is the corollary to my Giovanni
Power Bleed deck. Use Psychomachia and Elder Impersonation to foil
blockers. Play Change of Target or Spying Mission if your bleeds are
bounced. The vampires in the crypt are large, so I used a lot of
defense, including Sense the Sin for light intercept. The deck has a
lot of defensive cards in it to help keep it alive - Major Boon,
casual intercept (Sense the Sin), combat and combat defense
(Conflagration and Majesty) and plenty of Wakes. The deck moves
forward fairly quickly, and has a lot of pool gain built in to offset
the maintenance cost (pay 1 pool during untap to untap) of the Baali.
This deck did exceptionally well during playtesting. The first time I
played it I swept a five player table, even though I had an Assamite
rush combat predator. I brought out Mary the Black, Nepata, and
Hadrian Garrick. I paid 1 pool to untap Mary the Black every turn of
the game and it proved to be no problem. Even though this kept me from
bringing out a fourth minion, it did not seem to matter. I was
generally able to pay for Mary's infernal maintenance fee by bleeding
with Social Charm at superior.
The best moment of the game turned out to be the very situation the
deck was designed to defeat. Mary the Black had hired a D'habi
Revenant on the previous turn and I used her to bleed my prey for 2. I
had a Sense the Sin in hand and my prey was sitting on 4 pool. My
prey, playing Blood Brothers, decided that he wanted to try to block
the bleed. I played Faceless Night for +1 stealth. He replied by
playing Gestalt for +3 intercept. I then played Psychomachia to cause
his block to fail, and dropped Sense the Sin on the bleed for the
oust.
You could tweak this deck slightly to give it a different focus. If
you let the Setites place Corruptions on your prey's vampires, then
they will get -1 intercept against you when you bleed with Sense the
Sin. While this has interesting implications (stealing minions is
nifty), it may just involve a few too many moving parts to work that
well. If any of you feel so inclined, give it a try and write to tell
me how it worked.
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6. Conclusion
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So, two whole months with the Bloodlines cards in hand has left me
feeling rather impressed. The set as a whole introduces so many
interesting cards and combinations to the game that I must admit to
feeling somewhat overwhelmed. If you're anything like me, you've
probably created about 10 new decks by now!
Next month we'll explore the highly corrupt and bribery-ridden world
of Baali politics.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please send them to me at
dmd1966@yahoo.com.
David Anderson-Dávila