By Michael Eichler
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Story Time – Runako’s Move
Minion Call – A discussion of cards
Deck – And agony shall be all you feel
Deck – One claw please… To Go
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Runako’s Move
Phillip was apprehensive as he walked down the silent hallway with Jerome. “Why am I being
called into Caldwell’s presence? I did as he asked.” Thoughts of a possible set-up flashed
through his mind. Being handed over to Caceras made him feel a flush like the time prior to his
embrace when his Da’ made him sweat out his punishment for wrecking the family car. He had
finally received the beating of his life. The doors to Caldwell’s room stood before him as Jerome
knocked on the door and quietly backed away into the shadows.
“Enter.”
Phillip felt weak as he reached for the door, when abruptly they swung open on it’s own accord.
“Damn it! I don’t recall saying stand outside my door until next winter. I said Enter!”
Phillip felt himself propelled forward and entered the room. Caldwell was standing in front of the
window that overlooked the city while Maldavis/Runako lounged on one of the leather chairs by
Caldwell’s desk.
“Reporting as you ordered, my Archbishop”, Phillip announced after the doors closed behind him.
“I hear news that Caceras’ most prolific and profitable club is a smoking ruin”, stated Caldwell as
he turned to face both Phillip and Maldavis/Runako. A flash of a grin appeared and just as quickly
disappeared. “Did anyone witness your small excursion?”
“I was interrupted by one of Caceras’ packs. I recognized the pack leader as Juan.”
“Juan! Ahh yes, Juan is one of Caceras’ childer, a rather disruptive but dependable childe. I take
it you managed to somehow lead them all to their final death?”
“I managed to show one to her final death, I believe the Nossie and Juan’s enforcer reached the
outside during my escape and of Juan, I know nothing.”
“So you were identified”, Caldwell stated flatly.
“Yes, ma’lord.”
Caldwell violently threw his arm toward Phillip, a glob of darkness projected across the room from
his outstretched hand. Seeing the sudden movement, Phillip moved to evade the assault and failed.
The darkness hit and causing Phillip to spin around as a second glob of darkness came seemingly
from the floor and smashed into his lowered face. The impact pitched Phillip backward across the
room.
“Ma’lord”, interrupted Maldavis/Runako, as Phillip landed and across the bar, “I know the pack in
question. If the Nossie and the enforcer escaped, then it will just be a small matter for my pack to
remove any lingering witnesses. Thereby keeping Caceras in the proverbial dark.” Caldwell glared
at Maldavis.
“You do want to keep Caceras in the dark, do you not? I know where the Juan and his licks are staying
at and…”
“Maldavis, you presume too much!”, Caldwell snapped, “Do you think I fear Caceras that I need to keep
him from knowing it is I who assaults him?”
“I would never presume to know your mind or your business, I only suggest and offer my capabilities of
removing possible witnesses to young Phillip’s art of arson”, Maldavis/Runako stated with a lavish bow.
“Up, you fool. And you, Phillip come here.”
Phillip stood after checking for any broken body parts that required attention. Finding none, he slowly
stood and moved toward both
Caldwell and Maldavis/Runako.
“Maldavis, you and your pack are mine to command,” stated Caldwell, “If you ever forget that, I will be
finding a new pack leader for your team. For now I will send you and your pack to remove the two licks
that escaped my young Phillip’s masterful work. As for you, my young Toreador, I have another small
task for you to accomplish tonight.” “Sir?”, asked Phillip.
“One of your clansmen is arriving tonight upon my request. I wish you to meet him and escort him back to me.”
“Yes sir”, answered Phillip, “If I may inquire, ma’lord, what is his expected arrival time and name?”
“Jerome has all the necessary information you require. You may leave now”, responded Caldwell.
“Yes sir”, was all Phillip said as he quickly left the room to search out Jerome.
Caldwell, ignoring Phillip, turned to discuss other issues with
Maldavis/Runako.
Caceras leaned back in his chair as the screams resonated out of the veiled darkness to echo
throughout the empty chamber.
“Don’t let him slip away before he tells us who is the individual burning my enterprises and reputation
at my expense”, spoke Caceras. “He shall not perish before giving everything we desire”, whispered
a voice from the darkness.
“After Juan tells all he knows, you may do as you wish with him. I never want to see him again”, growled
Caceras.
“By your command”, whispered the darkness.
Joseph reentered the safe house raging. Doors torn from hinges, bookcases broken into pieces with
books scattered across the room, the couch broken in two, and other pieces of furniture crushed into
firewood laid testament to the Brujah’s earlier rage.
Clance appeared at the top of the stairs, “Are we done venting?” Joseph stopped his destructive
demolition and looked up to watch as Clance descended the steps.
“No, I am not”, hissed Joseph, “Why?”
“No reason, I was wondering if you felt it was time to report in? I for one don’t feel like letting Caceras
finding out we were unable to prevent the destruction of the Night Eyes. Reporting it and letting Juan
take the blame for it’s failure is in our best interests”,
responded Clance.
“You mean you haven’t done that already? Where the hell have you been for the last forty minutes,
renting a tux?” Joseph shot back.
“I stayed to watch the inferno that was the Night Eyes to see if our illustrious leader would make his exit”,
Clance calmly answered, “while someone else felt it was imperative to destroy inanimate objects rather
than chase down our target.”
“You bastard!”, roared Joseph as he launched himself toward Clance. To his surprise, Clance
disappeared as his hands grabbed at him. Suddenly Clance’s arms closed around him from behind and
squeezed with the strength of a vice. Joseph struggled but Clance’s lock held. “I think it is time for us to
report and then go out looking for our young friend who has placed us in an undesirable situation”, whispered
Clance.
Joseph’s growling grew with strength as he tested himself again and again against Clance’s hold to no avail.
Suddenly, the pressure was removed and Joseph was thrown up the stairs and through the wall into the
safe house’s bathroom.
Clance’s head separated from the rest of his body quickly followed. Joseph, upon seeing the head, threw
himself out through the hole in the wall and landed before Runako.
“Hello Joseph, I see you’ve decided to test the warranties of some of the furniture tonight”, Runako joked.
Before Joseph could respond, Runako slashed his hands forward and severed Joseph’s head with a cleaver.
“Handy little things. Owners must like stir-fry”, Runako said with a smile.
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Minion Call – A discussion of cards
From previous newsletters, we have discussed the cards, ‘Arms of the Abyss’, ‘Call the Lamprey’,
‘Entombment’ , ‘Eyes of the Night’,‘Shade’, ‘Shadow Body’, ‘Shadow Play’, and ‘Shadow Step’.
This month we look at ‘Shroud of Night’ and ‘Summon the Abyss’. Anyone finding uses for these
cards that I have missed, please drop me a line explaining what you do and if possible a deck design.
I will include your suggestions and deck in the next newsletter.
Shroud of Night
Action Modifier Card with no blood cost
Normal Capability: +1 Stealth, only usable for non-bleeding
action
Superior Capability: +1 Stealth
With most uses of the Lasombra darkness for cover a price is
usually attached in the form of blood expenditure. Methuselah’s using the Shroud of Night gain free
use of darkness’ protection to accomplish most of their goals toward global domination. This card is second
of two cards that provide the Lasombra with the needed stealth to help ensure a minion’s action is completed.
In comparison, this card resembles Obfuscate’s Faceless Night and Forgotten Labyrinth combined.
Advantage Of The Card. The blood cost for stealth is zero. This means it is more in line with a
Political deck as the additional stealth that might be necessary to counter “a casual intercept” of +1
that your predator or prey might possess could be all that is needed to make the vote reach the floor.
Or to assist some Lasombra bent on performing Bum’s Rushes or Ambushes, thus raising the odds
of reaching their selected victim without undo interference.
Disadvantage Of The Card. It’s limitation of only being usable against Non-Bleeding Actions at
the normal or standard Discipline level. This disadvantage disappears when used at superior.
Overall, the card is a diamond in the rough. It’s free (no blood cost) and can be used to augment
any of your actions, except bleeds (unless at superior). Only drawback is it only goes up to +1 Stealth
augmentation. Not much, but it could mean the difference between success or failure
Summon the Abyss
Action Card with 3 blood cost
Normal Capability: (D) Each ready vampire controlled by your
prey burns 1 blood.
Superior Capability: As above, but this action is at +1 stealth.
This card could almost be considered a mismanaged card
(wallpaper, waste of paper, etc.) despite the card’s ability of burning 1 point of blood from each ready
vampire your prey has. There is no difference between the card’s capabilities between normal and
superior levels except +1 Stealth on the latter.
Advantage Of The Card. It’s ability to affect a large number of opposing minions at one time. In
being able to burn blood from each of your prey’s vampires at the right time, you could literally force your
prey’s offense to stall. This is especially true if you are trying to move through a weenie deck. This one
card can deny a weenie deck the ability to effectively perform a ‘Tribute to the Master’ and still force all
vampires to hunt.
Disadvantage Of The Card. The rather high cost to perform the action. While the card does have
the possibility to affect a large number of vampires, the affect is only 1 blood per vampire. For an expenditure
of 3 blood just to remove 1 from every vampire in your prey’s ready zone feels excessive. Obviously this
particular action is not one that can be repeated easily due to the cost of the card and the “not so great”
ability of Lasombra gaining blood back onto the minions. Overall, the card does have some potential
in a rather narrow area of usage (hurting a weenie prey deck). The cost of the card would have felt more
justified if the affect could be directed to either Predator or Prey. It would then be more likely to turn up in
many Lasombra decks just to deal with any weenie deck knocking on the back door. As it is now, the card
does not see much use in most Lasombra decks.
Possibilities With The Card. As it stands now, most Lasombra players are usually busy trying to work
through their prey’s blood pool (through politics or Dominate Cards) or beating their prey’s minions into torpor
(through Potence Cards), all the while guarding their meager resources from their predator. It could be possible
to use the card in conjunction with Fortitude to help offset the blood costs with Freak Drives and Restoration
(at Superior, of course) to allow a number of repeated uses of the card. This would, in effect be worse than
being Cryptic Mission’ed to death but with the use of only 1 card to do the damage. To assist the repeated
use of the card, help from Rudolpho Giovanni and Whispers from the Dead to recycle cards from the Ash
Heap, thus allowing multiple uses of the card per turn, could be utilized. Playtesting of this concept has not
been accomplished to my knowledge and whether or not it's effects would be devastating has not been determined.
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Deck – And agony shall be all you feel…
By Tim Eijpe
Masters:
1x Power Structure
1x Elisian Field
1x Political Hunting Ground
1x The Hungry Coyote
1x Giant's Blood
5x Blood doll
1x Rumor Mill
3x Obtenebration
2x Potence
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The Power Structure is in here for the vote defense. The rest speaks for itself.
Non-Disciplined:
5x WWEF
3x Forced Awakening
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With a couple of big vampires these are necessary, also because I do some intercepting.
Equipment & Such:
1x Mr Wintrop
1x Camarilla Vitae Slave
1x Hand Of Conrad
1x Ivory Bow
=====================4
Pretty standard for Lasombra
Dominate:
4x Deflection
5x Govern the Unaligned
3x Conditioning
4x Bonding
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Just enough bleed, and some defense against the big bleeds
Potence:
4x Torn Signpost
3x Undead Strength
2x Sacrament of Carnage
2x Disarm
=====================11
Short range, long range, more rounds and damage control
Obtenebration:
12 Arms of the Abyss
6x Eyes of the Night
4x Shadow Step
5x Entombment
5x Shadow Play
3x Shroud of Night
====================35
Stealth, combat and some intercept.
Crypt:
2x Gratiano
1x Aaron
1x Michell
2x Aurora van Brande
1x Sela
1x Ignatio
1x Ramiro
1x Guido Lucciano
1x Alvaro
1x Antonio Delgado
Fairly large crypt, however right now there are no real bleed decks here.
Bleed for 2 a minion.
You could go with 2 minion taps and 3 blood dolls, depending on what kind of meta-game
is played per coterie.
Ehm, combo's....AotA and Entombment/Disarm/Potence for the combat??!?? The good thing
about this one is that it does not have real combo's, it's an all around deck, with AotA as the
backbone. Depending on the draw, it can be a Bruise & Bleed deck or an Intercept thingy, or it
can simply bide it's time 'till better chances. IG will stop it dead cold. Fast bleed/vote will also.
But this deck was designed for non-tournament competitive play. And luckily I own enough IG's
to make them hate the card.
Tim
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Deck – One claw please… To Go
Masters – 20 Cards
5x Blood Dolls
Legendary Vampire (2 pool cost)
The Parthenon (2 pool cost)
Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt (2 pool cost)
The Rack
Information Highway
Elysium: The Arboretum
The Hungry Coyote (2 pool cost)
Elysian Fields (2 pool cost)
Political Hunting Ground (2 pool cost)
6x Protean
Equipment – 2 Cards
2x Laptop Computer (1 pool cost)
Non-Disciplined – 6 Cards
2x Ritual of the Bitter Rose
4x Wake with Evening’s Freshness
Protean – 10 Cards
4x Earth Meld
6x Claws of the Dead (1 blood cost)
Dominate – 27 Cards
2x Graverobbing
6x Deflection
2x Kine Dominance (2 blood cost)
3x Conditioning (1 blood cost)
2x Foreshadowing Destruction
2x Bonding
2x Threats
4x Govern the Unaligned (1 blood cost)
4x Scouting Mission
Obtenebration – 25 Cards
2x Shade (1 blood cost)
5x Shadow Play (1 blood cost)
3x Shroud of Night
4x Entombment (2 blood cost)
3x Shadow Body (1 blood cost)
8x Arms of the Abyss
90 Card Library
Crypt – 13 Minions
Antonio Delgado - 9
2x Gratiano - 8
Ramiro - 4
Ignacio - 4
Luther - 6
Sela - 6
2x Guido Lucciano - 5
2x Aurora Van Brande - 6
2x Aaron Duggan - 2
Minimum pull costs on 4 separate minions => 17 pool
Maximum pull costs on 4 separate minions => 29 pool
The crypt is still rather on the high end for costs, but most of the decks are geared toward
combat or politics within my group.
The focus of the deck is bleed with combat avoidance (primary) and bleed with torporizing
combat (secondary). The Protean disciplines are intended to help expand upon discouraging
the block with reduced costs as I do not have a large quantity of Entombments. Minions Luther,
Sela and Aaron are the only vampires within the crypt who do not have the capability to anything
else except Hunt, Bleed or fight. All other minions possess the necessary disciplines to help cycle
cards through actions besides Bleed and Combat. The Rituals are there to provide the opportunity
to diablerize a fairly full vampire in torpor if Aaron or some other 4 point minion is on the table to fill
your vampires. The Graverobbings are also there to provide opportunities of stealing a minion with
blood who is in torpor. The combat combo is Claws or Entombment with Arms of the Abyss (AotA)
at superior. Otherwise, combat is designed more for escape than mayham.
Enjoy.
Mike
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Michael Eichler
Prince of Ramstein
Minion of Lasombra
Michael.Eichler@ramstein.af.mil
“Anticipate chaos and be prepared to work through it.”
Unknown