L A Z A R E N E I N Q U I S I T O R The Harbingers of Skulls Quarterly Newsletter Summer 2008 (vol. 2 no. 1) 0. Editor’s Note I. Tips for Beginners II. What’s New III. Featured Cards IV. Featured Decks 0. Editor’s Note: A Day Late and a Dollar Short The Winter 2008 number of this newsletter was almost finished back in January, but I procrastinated because, among other things, I didn’t have a deck that I felt worthy of inclusion. Not that I make great decks, but I do want each newsletter to have a deck that is (a) playable and (b) hasn’t been seen before, at least not by me. Time passed, and in March I updated and edited what I had, thinking it could at least the Spring 2008 number... but still no deck. It’s summer now, and finally I have a couple of deck ideas, thanks mostly to our featured library card, Keystone Kine. I’m deleting most of what I had written about Lords of the Night (no longer new enough to be news) and instead I’ll say a little about that expansion and the more recent Twilight Rebellion, focusing specifically on how a few Harbinger-specific strategies have been enhanced. Head’s up, I’m going to ‘publish’ this after just one proofreading so that it won’t languish another whole season, so I apologize in advance for any errors. I. Tips for Beginners: Bleed Defense The rulebook defines a bleed as “an action that attempts to burn another player’s pool.” It’s important for a new player to understand that, although this definition does not go both ways – not every action that would result in another player burning pool is a “bleed”. Only a cardless action to bleed, or an action card that says “bleed”, is a bleed action. Bleeding is one of the few actions a minion may attempt without an action card. It is the single most basic action in the game, and is the primary offensive strategy for a plurality, if not a majority, of decks. That makes it, for most decks, the most important thing to defend against. The ways to defend against bleed fall into a handful of categories: bloat, block, bounce, reduce, prevent and punish. BLOCK Blocking an action is probably the most straightforward way to defend against it. When an action is blocked the announced intention of that action never happens, so when you block a bleed you do not get bled (your pool that the bleed action was attempting to burn does not burn). pros - Blocking is a defense against all kinds of actions, not just bleeds. - In general, you do not need a card to attempt to block. - If you want combat, combat follows a successful block. - There are a few cards that can only be played after a successful block. - You can also block some of your prey’s actions, using your defensive capacity for offense. cons - Avoiding combat after blocking is difficult. - You need enough untapped minions (or ways to allow your tapped minions to block as if untapped). A minion who successfully blocks becomes tapped. - You need your block attempts to succeed. The acting minion is likely to have stealth, so you will need intercept. The acting minion may have other ways to make one or more of your minions ineligible to block, or to continue their action as if unblocked. - There are some cards that punish a blocker, for example by making them burn blood or by making their controller burn pool. - Your predator’s strategy may include the expectation that you will block, or at least attempt to block. In that case, by blocking you will help your predator’s deck to function. BOUNCE To bounce a bleed is to change the target of that bleed from yourself to some other Methuselah, usually your own prey. pros - Bouncing a bleed turns your predator’s offense into your own. This alone is enough for bounce to be considered the strongest method of bleed defense. cons - Bounce is only a defense against bleed actions. - In general, you must have an appropriate reaction card and an untapped minion who can play that card. - Bouncing is impossible when there are only two players left in the game. - Bouncing a bleed includes declaring, implicitly or explicitly, that you will not attempt to block it, so if your bounce is canceled you are left unable to block. (If your bounce takes effect but then the bleed is later bounced back to you, you do get a new opportunity to attempt to block.) - Most bounce cards have a cost in blood (or conviction) and/or tapping. There is an event, Narrow Minds, that increases the cost of any bounce card by one blood or life (vampires have blood, other minions have life). - The best, unrestricted bounce effects are limited to the disciplines Dominate (basic or superior) and Auspex (only superior). REDUCE You can defend yourself against a bleed by reducing the amount of pool that the successful action would make you burn. Vampires and imbued have a default bleed of 1 and other minions have their default bleed stated on their card. Any + bleed effects are added to the default amount, and any - bleed effects or bleed reductions are deducted; if the result is 0 or less, no pool is burned. Note that a bleed for 0 (or less) that is not blocked or canceled (or otherwise made to fail) IS a successful action but NOT a successful bleed. pros - An unsuccessful bleed does not give that Methuselah the edge. - Most bleed reduction cards have little or no blood cost and do not tap the reacting minion. - Bleed reduction doesn’t lead to unwanted combat. - There are currently no cards or effects that punish you for reducing a bleed. cons - Reduce is only a defense against bleed actions. - In general, you must have an appropriate reaction card and an untapped minion who can play that card. - Though not as scarce as bounce, bleed reduction does have a limited distribution. PREVENT You can protect yourself against your predator’s bleed actions proactively by preventing those actions from ever taking place. One way to do this by either eliminating your predator’s minions, usually via combat. Another possibility is locking them down, either by making them unable to take actions at all (there are some Chimerstry cards that do this, as does the master card Pentex Subverion) or by forcing them to take actions other than bleeding you. pros - Having a powerless predator is usually a great position to be in. - Many of the ways you can neuter your predator can also be used against your prey. cons - Hurting you predator often lets your grandpredator get an easy oust. - When you use offensive capacity for defense, you’re diverting resources that could (and probably should) be hurting your prey. PUNISH There are ways to punish a minion that bleeds you, for example by inflicting damage on that minion. pros - The threat of punishment may discourage your predator from attempting some actions against you. cons - Hurting you predator often lets your grandpredator get an easy oust. - Usually a punishment-based defense requires cards that have a significant opportunity cost, meaning they are only playable in specific circumstances that may not arise very often. - Most punish cards and effects only work after a successful action against you, so you have to be able to withstand the results of that action. (One important exception, Archon Investigation, punishes an attempt to bleed for more than 3 by outright burning of the acting minion. It does, however, cost 3 pool.) - Though not as scarce as bounce, bleed-punishing effects do have limited distribution. BLOAT To bloat is to increase your own pool. pros - Having more than enough pool works against all offensive strategies except Brinksmanship. - Excess pool can also be invested in your other goals, for example by getting out more minions. cons - Bloating fast enough to offset losses to an aggressive bleeding predator is very difficult. - Rather than attacking your pool, your predator may first disable your bloating mechanism. If bloating was your only defense, you are then helpless. - Bloating too successfully can make all other players turn against you. COMBINATION STRATEGIES There is also the possibility of causing a bleed action to fail without actually blocking it, but this effect is not widely available. The only really viable example of it is use by the Imbued of the card Champion. ~Champion~ Cardtype: Power Virtue: Defense [REACTION] [2 CONVICTION] Only usable when a monster controlled by another Methuselah is taking a (D) action against you or against an imbued controlled by any player. The action fails and the acting monster enters combat with this imbued instead. Even this most-effective example is usually used in combination with a block-based defense, with Champion as ‘plan B’ for when blocking fails. Other combination defenses are viable, but when you are using any combination of bleed defenses you need to be careful not to undermine yourself. For example, reducing a bleed before you bounce it is counter-productive. Punish and prevent can combine well, but you need to check the circumstances that allow you to play your punishment cards. Remember that a bleed that resolves (i.e. the bleed action is not blocked, canceled or caused to fail) for 0 or less is not a successful bleed but it is a successful (D) action. . ~Ecstasy~ Cardtype: Reaction Discipline: Serpentis [ser] Reduce a bleed against you by 1. [SER] As above, and if the bleed resolves for 0 (or less), the acting minion burns 1 blood or life (after resolving the action). ~Shemti~ Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Follower of Set Group: 5 Capacity: 9 Discipline: vic OBF POT PRE SER Independent: Shemti has 1 vote (titled). While he is ready and untapped, any minion successfully performing a (D) action against you takes 1 damage (after resolving the action). ~The Crocodile Temple~ Cardtype: Master Clan: Follower of Set Master: unique location. You may tap this card at the end of a successful (D) action against you to inflict 1 damage on the acting minion (after resolving the action). ~Dummy Corporation~ Cardtype: Master Master: unique location. You may burn this card when you are being bled to reduce the bleed amount by 2. II. What’s New: Resume of Recent Expansions Shambling Hordes decks, although weakened by the recent banning of Memories of Mortality, have gotten some wonderful new options. Disciplineless combat cards are the most obvious development for the Hordes. ~Shoulder Drop~ Cardtype: Combat Grapple. Play when you successfully inflict damage from a hand strike. After strike resolution, if this minion is still ready, the opposing minion takes 1 additional damage. The opposing minion cannot press this round. A minion may play only one Shoulder Drop each strike. ~Target Hand~ Cardtype: Combat Aim. Play when choosing a strike. The opposing minion may discard two combat cards [COMBAT] to cancel this card. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she gets -1 strength this action, and you may destroy a weapon he or she has. A minion may play only one aim each strike. ~Target Head~ Cardtype: Combat Aim. Play when choosing a strike. The strike does +2 damage. The opposing minion may discard a combat card [COMBAT] to cancel this card. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she cannot use any additional strikes or presses this round, and you may set the range for the next round. A minion may play only one aim each strike. ~Target Vitals~ Cardtype: Combat Aim. Play when choosing a strike. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she takes an additional 2 damage from this strike, and he or she cannot press this round. The opposing minion may discard two combat cards [COMBAT] to cancel this card. A minion may play only one aim each strike. If your vampires will also be making hand strikes, Shoulder Drop is a no-brainer since it stacks with the strike card (if any, like Dead Hand for example, or even Lucky Blow) and with the Aim card you choose. How to choose an Aim? I think Vitals is the default choice – it’s uncommon (the others are rare), Hand doesn’t add damage and Head is easier to cancel. If your metagame has a lot of Cel/Pot, you may prefer to include Head, while Hand (with Fake Out to get to close) is great if you see a lot of guns. All three interact well with Trap: Head and Vitals by denying your opponent the chance to Press to end, and Hand by giving them -1 strength. These cards make the Shamblers even stronger in combat, but of course they can make any minion stronger in combat. “Hands for one” may be becoming a thing of the past. But there’s a new cards that makes zombies more durable, too. ~Bestow Vigor~ Cardtype: Action Cost: 1 blood Discipline: Fortitude +1 stealth action. [for] Play on a vampire you control and untap this acting vampire. The minion with this card may play combat cards that require Fortitude as a vampire with basic Fortitude. Burn this card at the end of your next turn. [FOR] As above, but play on an ally you control. Notice it sticks around for two turns. Basic Fortitude is not exactly a versatile combat discipline (imagine if Shamblers could play Unflinching Persistence at superior!), but Soak is pretty sweet for an ally, and Rolling with the Punches is another good choice as it’s versatile for your vampires, letting them prevent 1 damage (of any kind) for free or all strike damage in a round for a blood. There is a school of thought that holds that Shambling Hordes must be kamikaze minions and that keeping them alive is a mistake. It is true that a Shambler is going to be more helpful in your ash heap, where it’s good fodder for a fresh one, than it is starting a turn with one life, maybe even two life. It’s also true that rapid zombie recycling has been the basis of effective decks, especially for Giovanni with the Path of Blood to reduce the recruitment cost. But it is patently false that a Shambler kept alive with three or four life (and thus 3 or 4 strength) is worse than a dead one. The question is, is protecting them from damage worth the resources it requires? I think Martyr’s Resilience can be worthwhile, partly because it is also usable cross-table. I think Bestow Vigor is going to prove worthwhile, at least in decks where you think Fortitude damage prevention will be useful to your vampires, too. It looks promising in a Gangrel / Garou deck, and even more so in a HoS / Hordes deck. Of course, you do need dead minions in your ash heap to play your Shambling Hordes. Here’s a very interesting alternative to feeding one Shambler the corpse of the previous one. ~Underbridge Stray~ Cardtype: Ally Cost: 1 blood Discipline: Animalism Animal with 1 life. 0 strength, 0 bleed. [ani] The Stray may burn 1 life to give a minion you control a press. During a (D) action directed at you, you may burn the Stray to untap a ready minion you control (not usable if the Stray is blocking). [ANI] As above, but the Stray has 2 life and 1 strength. Give a zombie a press! Untap an Auspex bouncer! Have a stray in your ash heap! Underbridge Stray + Shambling Hordes is a match made in hell. Except for one thing... Animalism and Necromancy don’t show up together very often. There are some possibilities, though, including the delightful Babalawo Alafin with his [ani AUS FOR NEC] and extra- discard special. For an odd crypt, consider teaming him with Ravnos Anjalika Underwood [aus chi for ANI] and maybe Chavi Orazcko [nec ANI CHI FOR]. Slaughterhouse decks have gotten a few new toys, too. The first, already discussed last newsletter as a preview card, is the Aus/Nec dual-discipline Trochomancy (meaning divination by reading wheel tracks), which converts your prey’s ash heap into your own + bleed. Necromancy bleed got another nice boost, at least for Anarchs, in Keystone Kine, which we’ll look at in the next section. The Slaughterhouse + Brinksmanship combination has long been more a theoretical possibility than a real strategy. (Brinksmanship forces people to attempt to withdraw when they run out of cards, and ousts them when their withdrawal attemp fails.) Anarchy was helpful, too, in theory, with Border Skirmish accellerating the depletion of other players’ libraries. The new Anarch multi-acting card CrimethInc may just be the straw that breaks that camel’s back and turns Brinkskirmish into a viable deck. ~CrimethInc.~ Cardtype: Action Modifier Discipline: Protean/Quietus/Thaumaturgy Requires an anarch. Play after resolving a successful action that requires an anarch or makes this vampire an anarch. [pro] Untap this anarch. [qui] Untap another ready anarch. [tha] Put this card in play. During your minion phase, you may burn a pool to untap a ready anarch you control. Play Border Skirmish then CrimethInc at [pro]. C untaps you immediately to take whatever other action you want, then BS untaps you at the end of the turn. Under the Madness Network, Anarch Malkavians with Protean could burn five cards from each players library, plus bleed your prey five times, in each round of the table! (Just be careful not to deck yourself!) Harbingers of Skulls don’t have anything as fancy as a Madness Network, but a few Slaughterhouses will be just right to be sure the Brinksmanship ousts people in the right order. And although we don’t have any Protean, we do have Anisa Marianna Lopez with [aus FOR NEC QUI], who could back up some Assamites... or maybe put her with Cornelius Ottavio to do the Slaughterhouses and the Madness Network together... let’s see, I think you’d need other Malks with Quietus... or maybe Protean... hmmmm... One final new card to look at, and to look out for if you’re playing with Slaughterhouses. ~Can't Take it with You~ Cardtype: Political Action Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Each Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location or retainer card he or she controls. Vote strategies that depend on what other people are playing aren’t very effective, so cards like this don’t get seen a lot. Still, CtiwY is so potentially devastating that a vote deck without equipment, locations or retainers may want to pack one or two of these. So unless you’re playing Eagle’s Sight, make sure you pack a few Delaying Tactics or Poison Pill or Direct Intervention. III. Featured Cards: Keystone Kine; Honorine Ateba & Agru Kabera ~Keystone Kine~ Cardtype: Action Discipline: Celerity/Necromancy/Obfuscate Requires an anarch. [cel] and/or [nec] and/or [obf] (D) Bleed. If using [cel], he or she gains 1 blood. If using [nec], the bleed is at +1 bleed. If using [obf]you may burn an ally controlled by your prey whose cost is not greater than the bleed amount. There are several really interesting threefers in Twilight Rebellion. CrimethInc may be the most powerful, but I think Keystone Kine is the most interesting. For one thing, it can be played at any one, two or three of the disciplines, making it completely new tech. The [cel/ nec] combination, bleed at +1 and gain a blood if successful, is primo. Necromancy stealth or ‘block fails’ usually costs a blood anyway. The [obf] function is a nice bonus; it’ll kill a lot of the game’s best allies if you’re bleeding for three. Note that you do not need to name the ally you intend to burn when announcing the action, so that ally is not considered a target of the action. Still, if the ally is Red List, Keystone Kine is a (D) action (it’s a bleed!) so the kill does let you retrieve a Trophy. Who plays Keystone Kine the best? The most obvious is Rafaele Giovanni with his [cel obf NEC] and +1 bleed. Looking at higher capacity vampires, Pochtli also has all three relevant disciplines, as do Jorge De La Muerte and Jack Dawson, and Dmitri Borodi; Seterpenre does, too, if you use his special to put a Celerity master on him. Sutekh, Mugur Sabau and Luna Giovanni are all titled and probaly too hard to make into anarchs to consider. Without Obfuscate it’s still a really nice card, and as such can be played by Mina Grotius, the lone G3 Harbinger of Skulls. Her discipline spread of [cel FOR NEC] suggests Forced March and, since we’re looking at an anarch deck, Diversion. With that in mind, our two featured Vampires stand out as obvious pals for Mina. ~Agru Kabera~ Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Ishtarri Group: 4 Capacity: 6 Discipline: cel nec pre FOR Laibon: +1 bleed. ~Honorine Ateba~ Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Ishtarri Group: 4 Capacity: 6 Discipline: cel nec FOR PRE Laibon. What is there to say about them that isn’t obvious? Not much, so I’ll say a few obvious things. Sweet Agru bleeds for 3 and gains a blood with just the KK card alone. He, or Honorine, can use Uncontrolled Impulse for +2 bleed on the first action of the turn (Mina can get her extra stealth from the Erebus Mask). Agru and Honorine can also Gear Up to get a turn’s worth of +1 stealth which, with Forced March and Freak Drive, they can use on several more actions, or like Mina they can Gear Up at [nec] to pull a card from your ash heap. They can all use Friend of Mine to reduce a bleed or for +1 intercept. They make a very functional trio of anarchs. IV. Featured Decks: Keystone Force; Informed Zombie Agitation Time to playtest and refine these decks would be another threat to the timely publication of the newsletter, so consider these as sketches of possible deckists. Keystone Force This is bleed deck that uses in-turn untap to get some permanents and be able to block. I don’t like to mix old- and new-style cards. If that weren’t an issue I’d find room for a couple of Changeling Skin Mask to empower the third discipline on Keystone Kine in case there are allies about, and for their emergency intercept. You could replace the hand strikes with guns and Concealed Weapon, but I went with hand strikes to avoid adding yet another moving part. 5x Anarch Convert 2x Mina Grotius 6 HoS [cel FOR NEC] burn a blood for +1 bleed 2x Agru Kabera 6 Ish [cel nec pre FOR] +1 bleed 1x Honorine Ateba 6 Ish [cel nec FOR PRE] 1x Kenyatta 4 Ish [cel for pre] 1x Fahd al-Zawba’a 4 Tor [cel for pre] 5x Vessel 4x Perfectionist 1x Anarch Railroad 1x Maabara 1x Powerbase: Los Angeles 1x Rumor Mill 1x Narrow Minds 1x Erebus Mask 1x Sargon Fragment 1@ J.S. Simmons, Tasha Morgan, Jackie Therman, Mr. Winthrop 8x Keystone Kine 4x Divine Sign 4x Gear Up 8x Forced March 4x Call of the Hungry Dead 3x Power of One 3x Uncontrolled Impulse 3x Freak Drive 4x Spectral Divination 4x Friend of Mine 3x Wake with Evening’s Freshness 2x Delaying Tactics 1x Forced Vigilance 1x Power of All 9x Diversion 4x Lam Into 3x Dead Hand 2x Target Vitals Informed Zombie Agitation This is a hybrid deck, recruit and vote. Hopefully, multi-acting will let everything run. Don’t be shy about discarding some Informants to seed your ash heap, but (unless The Unmasking is in play – you don’t want to get blocked by your Informants) do put one in play whenever it’s an opportune moment. 5x Anarch Convert 2x Mina Grotius 6 HoS [cel FOR NEC] burn a blood for +1 bleed 2x Honorine Ateba 6 Ish [cel nec FOR PRE] 1x Agru Kabera 6 Ish [cel nec pre FOR] +1 bleed 1x Shasa Abu Badr 5 Ish [cel for PRE] 1x Kenyatta 4 Ish [cel for pre] 4x Perfectionist 1x Fame 1@ Celerity, Necromancy 1x Crematorium 1x Powerbase: Los Angeles 1x Archon Investigation 1x FBI Special Affairs Division 9x Shambling Hordes 5x Informant 1x Gregory Winters 1x Carlton Van Wyck 1@ Fee Stake: Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle 6x Kine Resources Contested 4x Reckless Agitation 1x Precision 1x Enchant Kindred 1x Keystone Kine 1x Gear Up 7x Forced March 5x Freak Drive 3x Voter Captivation 3x Uncontrolled Impulse 3x Call of the Hungry Dead 2x Bewitching Oration 3x Scalpel Tongue 4x Friend of Mine 5x Trap 4x Fake Out 2x Shoulder Drop 2x Target Vitals 2x Diversion