Bhugosian Crump hated the Toreador. Granted, most Nosferatu did, but he had a particular loathing for them. An artist in his own right, he found their pretention to bore a hole in his complete lack of soul. While he recorded the informational bits he gathered on a recent subterfuge mission to the local Prince's grand ball, he paused to look out over his own work: a massive network of twisted and jagged metal filling an entire sub-sewer chamber. Crump looked over at his favorite part of the sculpture, a hanging chior of motorized animal corpses that periodicallywould belch out a verse of "I like New York in June...", and thought "Now _that_ is art..." Basic Nosferatu strategies: Of all the clans portrayed in Jyhad/VTES, the Nosferatu are one of the most intriguing due to their freakishness, but sadly, difficult to play, due to their inherent discipline combination. A long standing Critisizim of the Nosferatu as a clan is the lack of successful "Archtype" decks that revolve around them. Most other clans have some sort of effective deck that is easily built around their basic discplines, such as the Malkavian Stealth and Bleed deck or the Brujah Bum's Rush deck. The Nosferatu's disciplines, at first glance, seem to be kind of difficult to combine into an effective deck design. The Nosferatu's basic disciplines are: Potence: The basic combat discipline with many powerful cards like Immortal Grapple, Torn Signpost, and Disarm. Sadly, without some sort of back up discipline (like the Brujah's Celerity) it can be difficult to truly be effective in combat due to lack of manuvers and additional strikes. Obfuscate: Stealth is very useful, but what are the Nosferatu going to do with it? Without Dominate, stealth bleeding is a tedious affair, and without Presence, stealth voting is difficult to pull off. Animalism: A true catchall discipline with many different angles, but consequently fairly unfocused. It has lots of retainers, but they are slow to use. It has some combat, but the Nosferatu could just rely on their Potence instead. It has some good Intercept, but it isn't as effective as Auspex. The sad reality about the Nosferatu (and their Antitribu bretheren) is that a straight forward deck built on their basic disciplines will never be as effective as a similar deck built by another clan. The generic Nosferatu Potence combat deck simply won't be as good at fighting as the Brujah, a Nosferatu S+B deck will never be able to compete with the Malkavians, and Animalism based intercept will never be as successful as Auspex. This does not mean that the Nosferatu are useless--quite to the contrary. The Nosferatu can be the basis of very powerful decks, it just takes cleverness and focus on specific card combinations and vampires, rather than their basic disciplines. The Nosferatu are best employed in decks revolving around specific card combos or specific vampires, rather than trying to use them in generic strategy decks. For instance, many of the larger Nosferatu have, in addition to their regular disciplines, Fortitude. By focusing on these vampires in a Potence and Fortitude combat deck, you can easily compete with the Brujah toe to toe. Add in the very powerful combination of Drawing out the Beast and Immortal Grapple, and you have a very viscious and nearly unbeatable combat ability. Another possiblity comes from picking a few specific Animalism cards as the basis for your deck, and building around them, rather than just throwing some in because you have the discipline. Utilizing Cats Guidance, Rat's Warning, and Raven Spy as the core of an untapping intercept deck can be very effective, especially when matched with Aid from Bats and The Spawning Pool. If weapons are your speed, Tiberius and Calebos can be the focus of a Celerity and Obfuscate Blurred, Disguised Weapon deck (just be sure to pack plenty of Minion Taps to pay for the guns...). All in all, the Nosferatu will never be as easy to build effective decks out of as most other clans, but still, with a bit of imagination and moxie, can be used as the basis for many excellent and winning designs. Good Nosferatu strategies include Pot/For/Ani Bum's Rush, Ani/Obf Intercept and Bleed, Obf stealth vote, Obf/Cel guns, and the ever popular Pot/For/Ani/Dom Bruise and Bleed decks, so give them a try! Peter D Bakija PDB6@aol.com "They mostly come at night. Mostly." -Newt