Official VEKN Nosferatu Newsletter for March, 2002 Just to keep up the good press, I'll mention again in this month's newsletter that the Nosferatu are one step closer towards world domination, what with me winning the North East Quallifier tournament with my "The Nosferatu Hate You! (version 6.0)" deck. Yaa me! http://www.geocities.com/bakija6/nosferatuhateyou.html On the non pure vanity newsletter side, this month I'll finish up my look at the "outferior" abilities of the various new Bloodlines cards in the Nosferatu's basic disciplines. I already examined the cards that provide animalism abilities, and frankly, those are the ones that have the most to offer the Nosferatu in terms of new abilities. The outferior potence cards are, for the most part, not really worth thinking about, and the obfuscate abilities are slightly more effective than the potence ones, but generally underwhelming. As with last time, I'm completely ignoring the non outferior versions of these cards, and looking at them only in terms of their use in a straight Nosferatu deck. Sure, Compression is useful as a potence strike in a mixed Nosferatu/Samedi deck, but there will never be a situation where you would use it just for the potence ability (i.e. in a deck without any Samedi in it), as Pushing the Limit is simply better. Cards with potence outferior abilities: Where some disciplines got new potentially useful abilities with their outferior cards (animalism, dominate, auspex, fortitude, etc) that could justify using one of the new bloodlines card specifically for its outferior version, potence really didn't. It would have been nice to have seen some sort of interesting card for potence in this set (maybe a Rush type card like Nose of the Hound or something), but sadly, it was not to be. That's ok. Potence is still really good :-) -Basilisk's Touch: 2 blood. +1 strength for the remainder of combat. * This card is simply less effective than Fists of Death. -Compress: 2 blood. Strike: Strength +2 damage. * Again, just plain worse than Pushing the Limit. -Confligration: 1 blood. Strike: 2R damage. * This card is identical to inferior Sacrement of Carnage, so theoretically, if you had a crypt of all vampires with inferior potence, and really wanted to bulk up on cards allowing you to do 2R damage, *and* you didn't have enough Sacrements, then, well, this card is just as good. -Earth Swords: Strike: 1R damage. * Just worse than Thrown Gate. -Lapse: 2 blood. +2 strength this round. ** At last! An outferior potence ability that is not simply duplicated or outclassed by a better card! If you are playing, again, with all inferior potence vampires, and really want to stack up hand damage, this is your card! Ok, it isn't real useful, but at least it has possibilities. -Vengance of Samiel: 1 blood. Strike with hand or melee weapon at +1 damage. * Yup. Another ability that is just worse than another card, in this case, Undead Strength. As you can see, potence didn't really make out that well in Bloodlines. Don't get me wrong here--these cards are all useful and interesting for their non outferior functions, and the outferior potence makes them useable in, say, a Nosferatu/Samedi or Nosferatu/True Brujah deck, but for just their potence outferiors? Not so good. Cards with obfuscate outferior abilities: In this corner, as opposed to the potence outferiors, obfuscate gets some new or varied abilities in their arsenal, some of which might be useful for the Nosferatu. -Clotho's Gift: 1 blood. Move the top vampire off your crypt to your uncontrolled reigon. ** For the Nosferatu proper, this card is simply worse than Kindred Intelligence. For the anti-Nosferatu or in a mixed clan Nosferatu deck, however, this is a new ability that could be potentially useful. Maybe a weenie horde obf deck or something. -Condemnation: Doomed: Tap a younger vampire at +1 stealth. ** Not a bad card, all things being equal. It parallels Blackmail in terms of ability, but trades only being able to tap a younger vampire for inherrent +1 stealth. While I'm hard pressed to think of any incredibly useful situations for this card, at least it is a card that has an effect that the Nosferatu can't get somewhere else, better. -Domain of Evernight: +1 stealth. *** A perfectly useful +1 stealth card. Assuming no access to superior obfuscate, you might as well include these with any number of other +1 stealth cards, as it is always better to have different action modifiers to play. -Dust to Dust: Press, only useable to end combat. ** At inferior, identical to a few other cards available to the Nosferatu (Vanish in Minds Eye and Quick Exit). No reason to use this card over either of the others for just the inferior version, but then no reason not to if you don't have superior obfuscate. -Fear of the Void Below: 1 blood: Manuver. Only one may be played per combat. ** A mostly unrestricted manuver for obfuscate, which they didn't have before, and as such, certainly useful somewhere. Sure, Behind You is mostly just better, but it can only be played on the first round--FotVB helps the Nosferatu play Well Aimed Car, which is always entertaining. Again, not real high on the list of "I must include this card in my deck!", but I can see it having possibilities for the Nosferatu who like combat. -Hag's Wrinkles: +2 stealth for an equip action. ** And again, a unique ability. +2 stealth at inferior obfusctate. Sure, it is limited to equipping, and for weapons, you are probably just better off with Disguised Weapon, but perhaps in a deck of all weeenie obf vampires who want to get lots and lots of Laptops, this is your card. All in all, of all the outferior discipline cards, it looks like the Nosferatu made out best with the animalism cards, which certainly beef up their intercept capabilities and give interesting combat possibilities to an animalism heavy Nosferatu deck. The obfuscate outferiors provide a few new options for kooky Nosferatu decks. The potence cards are kind of disapointing, but again, that's ok, as we can still kill you with our old cards. Peter D Bakija PDB6@aol.com http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 "These streets are filled with danger and madness! MADNESS!" -Zim.