Gilbert pushed the trolley down the aisles of the supermarket slowly, casually tossing his water pistol in his hand. He glanced to his left and saw the fruit section looming up in front of him. Looking carefully up and down the aisle to make sure no-one was watching him, he moved swiftly over to the apples. Ripping off a plastic bag from the roll on the shelf, he started quickly to pile a few Granny Smiths into the bag. Having filled his bag, he placed it into the silver dish of the weighing scales, noting the price and the weight of apples he had. He pushed his trolley back into the aisle, glancing quickly about himself to make sure, again, that no-one was watching him. Walking up the aisle, he reached down a couple of packets of chocolate biscuits, dropping them into the front of his basket. Turning round the corner he picked up a 4 pint bottle of milk from the refrigerated cabinet. He made a mental note to pick up some Cornflakes as well. Shortly after picking up the milk, he walked further down the cabinet and came to the margarine. He deliberated with himself as to whether to purchase the low fat margarine or the low salt margarine. After much thought, he took one of each. He walked down another aisle, looking the same as all the others. He threw several tins of tripe into his trolley, and a cat litter. A couple of small squeaky toys and a flea collar quickly followed. He picked up some flea powder for dogs as well. At the end of the aisle, he picked up a magazine. Quickly, he flicked through it until he reached the television section. Reading through the satellite television listings, he paused to note the latest plot developments in Beverly Hills 90210. "Oh," he exclaimed, "she is going to kill him! And I so liked her too." He threw the magazine roughly into his trolley, this latest development seeming to trouble him. Walking down another aisle of the labyrinthine supermarket, he picked up a couple of packets of Cornflakes. He seemed dismayed as he noticed that the offer on the Wallace and Gromit free toys had run out. He pushed his way threw a small tangle of trolleys at the drinks section, picking up a couple of bottles of lemonade, two bottles of vodka and a six pack of beer. Moving swiftly toward the bakery and delicatessen, he reached a stick of French bread down into his trolley. Taking a ticket from the counter, he waited for his turn at the delicatessen. 200 grammes of ham, a small tub of coleslaw and a couple of scotch eggs. He loaded all of his goods up onto the conveyor belt, allowing the young girl behind the till to pass it all passed the barcode reader. A few swift taps on the control panel, a weighing of his apples and a loading of all his goods into carrier bags later and he was reaching into his pocket. Taking out his wallet, he handed over the money required and waited patiently for the girl to count out his change. Putting a couple of bags on each arm, he walked out of the shop. "My," he said, "I do like the convenience of 24 hour shopping at Asda when I'm on holiday in England." *** This month, a swift perusal of the cards available to the Malkavians for one of their more fun hobbies - bleeding. - Bonding: 0 Blood A fun little action modifier with which you can wreak havoc. In most circumstances, you need to have an increase bleed card AND an increase stealth card. Bonding does away with the need for both, allowing you to get +1 bleed and +1 stealth if you have Dominate at superior. If you don't have Dominate at superior, why not? Though the +1 stealth can't be used on a non-bleed action, the likelihood of doing many actions which aren't bleed actions in a Malkavian bleed deck is slim. It isn't like you're working on Bruise and Bleed most of the time. Definitely my preferred choice for a bleed modifier, especially if my deck wants a little bleed based kick but that isn't the main focus of it. - Command of the Beast: 0 blood An interesting modifier. Unlike other action modifiers which enhance your bleeding capability, this card allows you to play another action modifier after you have played this card. A useful ability, it has to be said, but will that extra +1 bleed REALLY be worth it? Would it not be better to have two separate bleeds going and have a better bleed card played at superior on both of them? If you're working round only one vampire doing bleeds, this could be useful but, of course, the tactic of relying around one vampire is always risky. - Conditioning: 1 blood Now, this card allows for some kick ass bleeding potential. You trade one of your blood for an additional three of their pool, assuming you get the action through, of course. Very useful, of course, but are you going to be able to afford it? You might not want to "waste" your actions on hunting, would find an Asylum Hunting Ground very slow to act, can't reclaim blood in combat using Taste of Vitae or many other blood gaining tactics. Bolstering your use of hunting actions with Aaron's Feeding Razor and Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt are always possibilities, but do you want to risk it? Perhaps a card best used in moderation to beef up your deck, rather than being the mainstay of your deck. - Dominate Kine: 2 blood Now, this is what you call expensive. At inferior, it's simply +1 bleed with +1 stealth. Why not simply use superior Dominate and use Bonding if you have to? Well, why not use *both*. This way, you can get lots (comparatively) of stealth from Dominate if you want it, meaning less of your deck has to rely around Obfuscate for stealth. But this card is almost always worth including for its superior. For a Cardiff tournament, I had my deck list in front of me. I didn't have any slots left in the deck. I didn't want to take out any of the bleed that was in the deck but I did want some way to deal with my opponents' locations. Simple, I though, add Arson. But I wasn't willing to remove any of the bleeding power from the deck. Comments from friends ran like "Well, you can't have everything in the deck." Hehe, they'd obviously forgotten the power of Dominate Kine. Bleed and *steal* locations, not simply burn them. And with Malkavians, you often have lots of stealth so the action may be more or less guaranteed. And wouldn't it just be wonderful to not only stop them from intercepting your actions using London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper but to also start intercepting theirs with it?