OFFICIAL VEKN HARBINGER OF SKULLS NEWSLETTER, Issue 3, February 2003 What's in this issue? I Introduction II What's been happening? III Fiction: IV Strategy: 'pure' HoS decks vs. Supporting cast. V Strategy: Supporting Cast options VI Featured Card: Blood of the Sabbat VII Featured Deck: Nobody Expects the Lazarene Inquisition! VIII Featured Vampire: Agaitas IX Guest Deck(s): Shambling Martyrs ----------- Introduction Hello and welcome to the third installment of the Harbinger of Skulls (HoS) newsletter. With the blessings of Yoritomo Jiriki I have stepped in to write up some more for these sinister Sabbat Skulls. I won't go into my background here - someday soon it should be up at The Lasombra's Who's Who pages, or you can just grab my e-mail address off a Google post and bend my ear. This newsletter is all about getting up to speed to the current situation for the HoS, and tries to focus on 'pure' HoS decks. So you'll get a lot of links in this issue. So... ----------- What's been happening? Well, lots. The last newsletter for our favorite macabre crew dates back to March 2002 (you can go back and read them at http://www.thelasombra.com/newsletter.htm), almost a whole year. During that time, there's naturally been some discussion on the HoS on the newsgroup, of which http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=51ecf271.0210301559.76677d42%40posting.google.com may be the best example. Also, Orpheus and Arpeges have taken up a crusade for the necromancy using clan, and you can find their website at http://necrobones.free.fr. I would like to examine three things in a bit more detail: - Decks (and tournament winning ones too!) Plenty of decks have been posted on the HoS - I refer you to: Harbinger Inquisition by James O'rance: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=180986e3.0211101024.6479ea30%40posting.google.com Harbinger of Garou by Talonz: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=76d1d5ef.0301251121.34c53cff%40posting.google.com Slaughterhouse Nightclub by Mark Allen: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=JEFx9.192239%24%25h2.71076%40news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com Harbinger & !Ventrue by Daniel Eriksson: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3dbbdd9e%241%40news.wineasy.se Nagaraja & Harbinger deck from Nagaraja newsletter: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3cff5212%240%2427488%247a628cd7%40news.club-internet.fr Somewhat more interestingly, some tournaments have been won using (partial) HoS decks. These are: Storyline Hazimel winning deck: The Hungry dead by Jim Morrison: http://www.geocities.com/vtesresults/eyeofhazimel/decks/charlottetown.html Erik Torstensson's TWDeck deck featuring a few harbingers: http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k2umea Aris Galamatis' TWDeck mixed it up with Salubri: http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k3bloodsiegegreece So, what can we say about these decks? Erik's deck is actually a Turbo Baron deck, which has been discussed extensively (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=nl&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=turbo+baron&meta=group%3Drec.games.trading-cards.jyhad), and uses Harbingers as agents of convenience. I will ignore that deck for the moment. The two other decks actually use The Slaughterhouse (5 and 9 copies), which may indicate that losing those slots to other master cards either did not matter, or they did the users a service. Both decks include the very useful Erebus Mask. Both decks include a bit of blood gain on the minions: Aris' deck has a solid Salubri bloodgain core in the Renewed Vigors he packs, Jim's deck hosts a few Rapid Healing/Restoration. Both use some Spectral Divination, 6-8 of the great 'you don't block' Call of the Hungry Dead, a Day operation, and fortitude damage prevention. They are very different decks in the end, though. Aris' deck exploits irresponsible bleeding with misdirections, bloats through the Salubri, has passive combat, and uses Pulses of the Canaille for his own bleeding. Jim's deck avoids getting bled by blocking/intercept, Eternal Vigilance and Protected Resources, and then proceeds to ruin his opponent's day by use of combat equipment. Yes, he packs a few Concealed Weapons, but only 2. Both decks use the 'natural strengths' of the HoS - auspex for big and controlled intercept / deflection, fortitude for staying alive, and necromancy almost purely for stealth (and a touch of versatile intercept in the form of Spectral Divination). I personally find it very nice to see that, based on that core, two very different types of decks are possible. Of the two, I think Aris' deck would actually be fairly robust for novice players (not for total beginners, though). I invite both Jim and Aris to give comments on my review of their decks and possible additional tips which they care to share, which I will include in the next letter, if I get any. - Card Prices In the wide range of cards VTES has, there are a few cards that are 'tailored' for use by the HoS. The VTES in LA site hosts a nice searchable database of card prices such as found on Ebay. You can find this at http://vtesinla.org/db_prices.asp, and I've looked at a bunch of cards which you might one day wish to purchase. Note that I always recommend trading and borrowing before buying (to new players)- you'll meet more people this way, and get a better feel for which cards are considered 'hot' and why that's so. Without further ado: -Lazarene Inquisitor: Avg. $2.80 -Erebus Mask: avg. $2.34 -Blood of the Sabbat: avg. $ 3.65 -Freak Drive: avg. $ 7.62, but falling with the CE release -Kiss of Ra: avg. $2.09 -Martyr's resilience: avg. $3.17 -My enemy's enemy: avg. $5.76 -Eagle's sight: avg. $2.25 Many of these cards will already be present in the collection of players, so no big outlay is needed to get into the HoS state of mind. Exceptions are Lazarene Inquisitor, of which you might want up to about 4 if you're going to build a deck featuring it. Erebus mask you shouldn't need more than 2 of, Freak drives are becoming much more common with CE, Martyr's Resilience only becomes truly interesting in decks built around it, so think about 4-6 of them. - CE - what's it brought us? The Camarilla Edition brought us a whole host of new vampires, a few new library cards, and the return of concealed weapon. For the library the most eye-catching cards from a HoS viewpoint are Baltimore Purge and Special Report. Concealed Weapon adds to every clan's arsenal (with the exception of the Disguised-Weapon using obfuscate clans) with the ability to pull out a sub-range of weapons without having to waste the equip action. Since the HoS are generally of a high capacity, actions are scarce, and anything that will save on them is precious. While Freak Drive helps with this problem, it costs blood, and will take up slots. So Concealed weapon is good - if you're going to use it. And, maybe, you are. One of the tournament winning decks uses a few, which is logical, considering the amount of weapons it packs. Why would you be using weapons? Well, given the three clan disciplines, there's really not too much available to scare opposing decks during combat. Torment the Soul (nec) is a card that requires a lot of setup and is easily foiled. The other options might be to combine a Dawn operation with Skin of Night, or to use Trap in combination with the damage prevention options of fortitude - that's about it. If you're going to be doing a lot of blocking - and it's likely you are - it's great that you're built like a brick wall, but it would be nice if all those minions you intercept bounce off with more than a tiny scratch - and that's where weapons come in. A few .44 magnums (Mark V, Sniper Rifle) are always a significant factor in combat. You can save on damage prevention cards if you include a few deer rifles, or you could combine Stakes and Lucky Blows. Items such as Ivory Bows or Disguised flamethrowers might be even nicer, for the HoS it's a shame they're out of reach of Concealed Weapon. Baltimore Purge is also an interesting addition to the HoS arsenal. Why? Well, Baltimore purge hits younger vampires than yours - HoS are fairly high-capacity, as mentioned earlier. But, interestingly, the HoS have the ability to crawl out of torpor or regain blood there more easily with their fortitude, and can combine other actions with rescuing due to Freak Drive. Auspex should guard your torporized minion while it's napping, and necromancy has such gems such as Posession and Daemonic Posession. Heck, you could even try to start using Death Pact and some of the fortitude unblockable modifiers. You will most likely want to include some Lasombra cannonfodder if you decide to go this route - or a few clan impersonations. If you start using Baltimore purge another CE card may aid you: Gregory Winter. Last, and probably least, we get Special Report. With Aus and For, you have a clan that's made for blocking and surviving all day long. If you're REALLY, REALLY focused on blocking, and all the Aus, media outlets, sports bikes and guardian angels are not enough for you, here's one more card to block with. It's an untap from a strange source, and has a built in 1-pool-for-1-intercept effect. It just might be better than getting bled for 7. Then again, you just might want to pack another forced awakening or telepathic misdirection and leave the special reporting to clans that have no other good access to intercept. CE also brought us a host of new vampires. The expansion to the total pool of vampires gives us a bunch of vampires with (partially) overlapping disciplines: aus and nec: 20 vampires at http://www11.brinkster.com/tobiasopdenbrou/showvamps.asp?ID1=aus&ID2=nec&showby=Cap aus and for: 68 vampires at http://www11.brinkster.com/tobiasopdenbrou/showvamps.asp?ID1=aus&ID2=for&showby=Cap nec and for: 13 vampires at http://www11.brinkster.com/tobiasopdenbrou/showvamps.asp?ID1=nec&ID2=for&showby=Cap aus, nec and for: 7 vampires at http://www11.brinkster.com/tobiasopdenbrou/showvamps.asp?ID1=aus&ID2=nec&ID3=for&showby=Cap The aforementioned 7's most common "out-of-clan" discipline? Dominate, on the combination of Unre and Regina Giovanni. Together with the influx of CE Tremere, this makes a HoS/Giovanni/Tremere/Nagaraja crypt possible. In fact, such a crypt is likely to be better off without Unre, but if you're looking to add DOM (and/or) THA to the HoS, this is now certainly an option. Have a look at: Valois Sang, AUS DOM nec tha, 6, Tremere Lille Haake, AUS DOM nec pre THA, 9, Tremere Primogen Oliver Thrace, AUS DOM nec obf pot THA, 9, Tremere, No opposing S:CE, burn a Thau card for +1 bleed. But we'll leave the rest of this avenue of though open for Giovanni and Tremere to explore. A final mention is for the Nosferatu and Nosferatu antitribu: they get necromancers in the shape of Tammy Walenski and Julio Martinez. ---------------- Fiction: The cold is basically all I remember. Oh, sure, I could tell you about all kinds on interesting, tantalizing, mesmerizing, whatever-ends-in-ing fragments of sight, sound, and smell, musty darkness, cold wet snow, souls twisting in upon themselves, demons forcing themselves... GRUAAGHHHH! ENOUGH! I know I am no longer what I was. Formerly, I could always pretend to be a noble and suave predator. Someone who was able to give at least a small measure of pleasure. That all ended with the Necromancers. What you see before you is just my former shell. I died my second death, and now something else animates me. The fact that you're talking to me means you're lucky and I've forced my co-occupant to the side for a moment. So keep your luck going. Run. Run, if you don't want to feel the cold of the grave in ways you've never felt it - and never, ever, deal with a necromancer. -------------- Strategy: 'Pure' HoS vs. additions from the Usual Suspects: !Ventrue, Salubri or !Salubri. The HoS have a problem: A small selection of vampires with their disciplines, and a high average capacity. An obvious solution is to look to outside help, or use the disadvantes as advanteges. The high capacity lends itself to bloat decks, and the HoS ally easily with the bloodline that are currently the best bloaters in VTES: the Salubri. In the form of the amazing Matthias, they even get a vampire that has all three HoS disciplines. The other option for high-capacity Sabbat folk: the political route, with cardinal benedictions, and lo and behold, there we have the !Ventrue to spice things up for the HoS. The !Salubri... well... let's face it... unless you're looking for Blissful agony tricks, or weapon mayhem, they're worth nothing, other than providing some smallcaps. But maybe we can return to them some later date. But what if you want to play a 'pure' HoS deck? For instance, during a Storyline tournament, where at least 75% of your crypt has to be of the same clan (ususally 9 out of 12 vampires)? Well, you could do what Jim Morrison did and double up on at least 5 HoS, or you could pick 2 or 3 HoS and really focus on them. I'm going to go with the Storyline definition of 'pure' from now on: >75% in-clan minions. Why? Well, almost every deck can benefit from a little cross-pollination with other clans, even if only to fill out the crypt with a few weenies, and that's exactly what the HoS need to do. Also, this keeps the very strong '9 HoS and 3 Matthias' option available for so-called 'pure' HoS decks. The trouble with picking 5 HoS is that your capacity will go way way up - Jim's deck has an average capacity of 7.17. Also, the larger HoS bring different advantages to the table, that don't fully complement each other, nor do you get much directly in the way of votes (other than Gisela, a great vampire). So what are the two most likely alternatives? Well, the way I see it, there's 3 really great HoS: Agaitas, Gisela, and Egottha. Three nice specials that will mess with your prey's head, and a Priscus at 7 cap to boot! An obvious Crypt option would be to go 3-3-3 on these, leaving room for some little ones (Juan Cali, Rudolfo Giovanni, Isabel de Leon), or Matthias. The first option has an average capacity of 5.75, not too high to have to take extreme measures in your library to adapt. In the three core vampires, you have no missing disciplines, only two of them have one disicipline at inferior. A solid use of your discipline cards in that library. If you do go this route, which I would recommend, some additional cards are a good help: Information highway will get these slightly heavy vampires faster, and makes buying new vampires slightly less painful in terms of speed loss. A few Effective Management will guarantee that besides at least 2 differing vampires you get a slightly broader selection. Zillah's valley is unfortunately useless, and the Tomb of Ramses III has not been on my mind since it was changed. Out of 30 test draws, 2 out of the 3 were present 28 times. An alternative I want to explore this issue is to focus heavily on 2 out of the 3 core HoS. In this case, Egottha and Gisela. We include 4 of each, and add 1 Agaitas to reach the magical number 9. Why this distribution? Well, including 4 copies of 2 vampires makes it fairly likely you'll see both in the opening draw (out of 30 test draws it happened 22 times), which will allow a 'combo' of 2 vampires or abilities. For tournament play, or any deck based on a combo, reliability is one of the major things to strive for. Adding a few Effective Management and maybe even a Recruitment may be wise if you're really smarting for a vampire. Why these two? One example could be that Cardinal Benediction will function on Egottha, and Gisela brings 3 votes to the table on her own. Together with telepathic vote counting, that could be the start of a vote deck, especially if some !Ventrue (or Ventrue in the form of their HQ, even) support were brought along. In that deck, however, including Agaitas and just adding a skill card may be even more wise. No, the reason for using 4 Egottha and 4 Gisela in the deck that I am proposing is for a specific combination: Blood of the Sabbat and Lazarene Inquisitor. (As an aside: why not just go with 6 copies of both? In this case, because: 1. That means having only 2 minions ever during the game 2. That means never having a small expendable minion that you could influence out quick) Blood of the Sabbat is this issue's feature card, and the featured deck uses it. -------------------- Blood of the Sabbat Action; 1 blood Requires a ready Archbishop, Priscus or Cardinal. +1 stealth action. Put this card on a Sabbat vampire other than the acting vampire. The vampire with this card gains 1 blood after each successful directed action he or she performs. A vampire may have only one Blood of the Sabbat. (Sabbat War Rare) What's good about Blood of the Sabbat? Well, in this case, it's not a political action - so no need to devote vote power to it. It makes any succesful directed action into an automatic hunt as well. And Gisela can distribute it to both Egottha and Agaitas. What's good about it for the HoS? Well, they can make actions (almost) unblockable with their fortitude, and this will then recoup some of the losses of coming out of torpor. Also, pro-active HoS might want to Freak Drive a lot, and every Freak Drive will cost a blood - nicely offset by the gain coming out of the Blood of the Sabbat. Now, given NRA (No Repeat Actions), this means that to make this interesting, the HoS should have multiple (D)irected actions to do each turn to make this viable. One of those can obviously be bleeding, especially with a little Pulse tacked on to the HoS. But what could the other one be? Well, how about adding Lazarene Inquisitor to the HoS in question? In that case, (s)he can can Inquisit (burning off 2 blood from a vampire and gaining a blood), Freak Drive (minus one blood), and then bleed for 3. This leads us nicely into this issue's featured deck: ------------------ Deck Name: Nobody expects the lazerene inquisition! Created By: Tobias Description: Designed to take advantage of blood of the sabbat + freak drive + lazarene inquisitor Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 15, Max: 28, Avg: 5,93) ---------------------------------------------- 4 Gisela Harden aus dem FOR NEC 7, Harbingers of Skulls, Priscus 4 Egothha AUS FOR NEC obf 7, Harbingers of Skulls 1 Agaitas AUS for NEC 6, Harbinger of Skulls 1 Rudolfo Giovanni NEC 3, Giovanni 2 Juan Cali aus for 3, Ventrue Antitribu Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (17 cards) 1 Barrens, The 4 Blood Doll 3 Effective Management 1 KRCG News Radio 3 Lazarene Inquisitor 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 2 Smiling Jack, The Anarch 2 Sudden Reversal Action (12 cards) 3 Blood of the Sabbat 3 Pulse of the Canaille 4 Restoration 2 Revelations Action Modifier (15 cards) 4 Call of the Hungry Dead 8 Freak Drive 3 Kiss of Ra, The Reaction (27 cards) 6 Eagle's Sight 5 Enhanced Senses 5 Forced Awakening 3 Precognition 4 Spirit's Touch 4 Telepathic Misdirection Combat (11 cards) 11 Skin of Steel Equipment (3 cards) 1 Erebus Mask 1 Ivory Bow 1 Disguised Flamethrower Combo (5 cards) 5 Spectral Divination Note that you could make some tweaks to this deck, depending on your liking(s) and metagame. It's possible to bump up the number of Blood of the Sabbat/Lazarene inquisitor a bit, if you want to be more pro-active. Instead of the current vampire distribution, you could drop an Egottha, add an Agaitas, replace the Effective Managements with Fortitude Masters, and swap out a Juan Cali for an Isabel de Leon. Add a touch more intercept and wakes if you want to play the Smiling Jack angle more. You can select media outlets to taste: if you care about bleeds for 3 being deflected, you could always give your grandprey the intercept he might need. Spectral Divination can be increased or decreased at the cost (or benefit) of Call of the Hungry dead. Egottha was specifically selected to work with the Freak Drives to overload your prey's untaps and defense. This deck plays to a number of strengths mentioned in this issue: Good intercept and damage prevention, and slight weapon use to make combat somewhat more scary for opponents. Kiss of Ra to scare blockers (you'll never know whether you'll get Kissed or Called). --------------- Featured Vampire: Agaitas Agaitas, The Scholar of Antiquities AUS for NEC, 6, HoS, Group 2 Sabbat Whenever you play a card, you may draw its replacement from your prey's library instead of your own. Put the card drawn face-up in front of you. It is still considered to be in your hand, to be played or discarded as normal. Agaitas can be the vampire that means you'll never run out of cards during a game, or at least your prey will run out of them before you do. Of course, you'll have to make sure you can make use of, or discard the cards you get at least. A number of decks have been suggested that feature Agaitas and Ian, for instance Salubri Combat and Ian: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=c4ec918b.0302031008.6b95cdd3%40posting.google.com Deck destruction (including Agaitas) has already been discussed in the very first HoS newsletter. But many people have already found or mentioned that deck destruction does not oust or win Tables. Selective deck destruction/card grabbing, however, is a whole other matter. Mentioned sometimes is Harbinger/!Nos deck destruction/grabbing (look at the deck with the Courier or Steam tunnels, grab what you like), and I know of at least one player who adds Marlene, the infernalist, because she makes more stolen cards playable. Paradoxical. With Tiberius, The Scandalmonger, you can always know what you're going to grab - nice to nick blood dolls and other utility cards from your prey. There's also dementations' Patterns in the Chaos, and hey, Gisela has dementation! But if you're looking in-clan, then the most 'serious' option is Scrying of Secrets. A card used by posted decks, such as DaveZ's library sniper: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4c6f3f3e.0204031048.3f0ec894%40posting.google.com or Jeroen Rombout's deckhacking: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=88Y18.79699%24rt4.5596%40afrodite.telenet-ops.be ------------- Guest decks: This issue we have a bunch of guest decks, by Arpeges, Martin Cubberly and Killer Shrike. Rather than me making all the comments, I will leave it up to the readers to give comments, if they think these decks need them. Deck Name: Bonedancers Created By: Arpeges Description: Shambling / Martyr's resilience Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 26, Max: 34, Avg: 7,33) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Agaitas AUS for NEC 6, Harbingers of Skulls 3 Egothha AUS FOR NEC obf 7, Harbingers of Skulls 3 Gisela Harden aus dem FOR NEC 7, Harbingers of Skulls, Priscus 2 Unre AUS dom FOR NEC ser thn 9, Harbingers of Skulls, Bishop 2 Anisa Marianna Lopez aus FOR NEC QUI 8, Harbingers of Skulls Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (17 cards) 6 Blood Doll 2 Charisma 2 Fragment of the Book of Nod 1 Giant's Blood 2 Hungry Coyote, The 1 Information Highway 1 Jake Washington (Hunter) 1 Lazarene Inquisitor 1 Legendary Vampire Action (2 cards) 2 Restoration Action Modifier (14 cards) 5 Call of the Hungry Dead 7 Freak Drive 2 Kiss of Ra, The Reaction (12 cards) 3 Forced Awakening 5 Telepathic Misdirection 4 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (21 cards) 4 Lucky Blow 3 Martyr's Resilience 4 Pulled Fangs 5 Spiritual Intervention 5 Superior Mettle Ally (18 cards) 18 Shambling Hordes Equipment (1 cards) 1 Erebus Mask Combo (5 cards) 5 Spectral Divination And deck number 2 Deck Name: Daylight Savings... Created By: Martin Cubberly Description: Get the Harbingers to do the unblockable bleeding, and the Salubri to rescue and refill them. Dish out Pulse of the Canailles to make the bleeds really sting. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 20, Max: 29, Avg: 6.25) 2 Agaitas AUS for NEC 6, Harbingers of Skulls 1 Anisa Marianna Lopez aus FOR NEC QUI 8, Harbingers of Skulls 2 Blanche Hill aus FOR OBE 6, Salubri 2 Egothha AUS FOR NEC obf 7, Harbingers of Skulls 1 Gisela Harden aus dem FOR NEC 7, Harbingers of Skulls, Priscus 1 Juan Cali aus for 3, Ventrue Antitribu 2 Matthias AUS FOR nec OBE 7, Salubri 1 Miriam Benyona AUS for obe 5, Salubri Library: (90 cards) Master (13 cards) 3 Blood Doll 1 Creepshow Casino 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 2 Humanitas 5 Minion Tap 1 Sudden Reversal Minion (77 cards) 4 Anesthetic Touch 5 Call of the Hungry Dead 2 Catacombs 7 Daring the Dawn 3 Day Operation 6 Force of Will 4 Freak Drive 5 Pulse of the Canaille 4 Rapid Healing 7 Renewed Vigor 3 Resilience 1 Revelations 1 Sanguine Instruction 3 Skin of Steel 4 Spectral Divination 2 Spiritual Intervention 2 Summon Soul 3 Superior Mettle 5 Telepathic Misdirection 6 Wake with Evening's Freshness And deck number three Deck Name: The Daring Will of Unre v1 Created By: Killer Shrike Description: Description: FOR/AUS deck headed up by Unre and supported by Mattias. Get a Pulse of Cannaille (and a Laptop if you can manage it) on Unre, Egotha or even Dominique. If Mattias is not in play, tap to use Renewed Vigor at outferior, then Force of Will + (if necessary) Daring the Dawn/Day Op. If Matthias is in play (via The Stranger Among Us if necessary) and you have a Renewed Vigor in hand, then tap to do something else, like hunting or whatever, then Force of Will etc. Mattias Renews at lesser to pull them out of torpor. The Freak Drives are primarily for Mattias. For defense, Misdirect bleeds, Roll w/ Punches in combat. Even without the Force of Will combo, you can bleed directly quite handily, once a couple of Pulses are on the table. There are a few Conditionings in the deck as well for some suprise bleed (Unre, and the 2 !Ventrue can play them). A deflector prey would be inconvenient. Might want to take out Billy and add Le Dihn Tho just for his special, to find out if your prey has any deflection and handstrip 1 of them if they do. Votey decks are difficult for this deck to deal with as well. For pool, Minion Tap/Renewed Vigor. This deck has a rocky early game, but if it gets started it will scare people, a lot. Thus, its best to make that first big hit count for a lot. Bam, bleed for a ton all in one round and hopefully get the first oust. Then start steamrolling before everyone jumps on you. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 24, Max: 34, Avg: 7.17) 3 Unre AUS dom FOR NEC ser thn 9, Harbingers of Skulls, Bishop 3 Matthias AUS FOR nec OBE 7, Salubri 2 Egothha AUS FOR NEC obf 7, Harbingers of Skulls 2 Dominique ani AUS dom FOR vic 7, Ventrue Antitribu 2 Billy AUS dom for 5, Ventrue Antitribu Library: (90 cards) Master (15 cards) 1 Lazarene Inquisitor 5 Minion Tap 6 Slaughterhouse, The 3 Stranger Among Us, The Action (28 cards) 8 Force of Will 4 Pulse of the Canaille 10 Renewed Vigor 4 Restoration 2 Whispers from the Dead Action Modifier (19 cards) 4 Call of the Hungry Dead 3 Conditioning 4 Daring the Dawn 4 Day Operation 4 Freak Drive Reaction (16 cards) 8 Telepathic Misdirection 8 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (8 cards) 8 Rolling with the Punches Equipment (4 cards) 1 Erebus Mask 2 Laptop Computer 1 Palatial Estate ----------- Well, that's it for this installment of the newsletter. No promises as to when the next one is due, but the more feedback you give, items you send in (cards for review, vampires, decks, fiction), etc., the sooner a new one will appear. Don't forget that all newsletters appear on http://www.Thelasombra.com, and the HoS letters are archived at http://www.geocities.com/harbingersofskulls/ Later! Tobias Deventer