Official VEKN Nosferatu Newsletter for May, 2007. So again, a long time between newsletters, but eh, what are you gonna do? This time around, the Nosferatu (well, the Nosferatu Antitribu, really, but as usually, I like to pretend they are more or less the same clan) have a couple of new vampires and wacky clan specific card coming out of the most recent expansion, Sword of Caine. Sword of Caine is a nice, lean, small expansion with a bunch of cool new stuff for Black Hand vampires which the !Nosferatu can actually get some good mileage due to their solid selection of Black Hand members. Sword of Cain also opens up the gate to Group 5 vampires which, at this point in time, is kind of a hinderance for most of the Sword of Caine vampires due to the small number narrow crypt selection for G4/5, but presumably more G5 vampires will show up soon. The one exception to the vampires being G5 is, notably, Nails the 5 capacity !Nos Black Hand vampire. It is unclear why he alone got to stay in G4, but that is only a total bonus for the Nosferatu as a whole. Nails (5) POT, ani, obf, pro. G4. Black Hand. Nails is a fantastc vampire in pretty much any context. He adds an additional solid midcap with POT to the Nosferatu arsenal for POT/obf or POT/ani strategies. He is yet another solid, reasonably sized Pot/Pro vampire (and the smallest with POT/pro) for a Rush/Burn strategy--team him up with Soldat for a BH angle or Icarus and Shahid to mix some Obuscate into the plan. Being G4, he can hang out in the same crypt as Tarbaby Jack and Teresita for some sort of Pot/Obf/Ani Black Hand strategy. All that, and he has a cool picture. A very welcome addition to the clan. Lubomira Hradock. (3) OBF. G5. Black Hand. If Lubomira successfully bleeds a Methuselah who controls a ready titled vampire, she does not untap as normal during her next untap phase. A weird little vampire who is notable for being the smallest vampire in the game with OBF. She is likely to show up on a regular basis as a sideline just to hand out stealth with Cloak and/or Veil the Leigons in an otherwise not Obfuscate heavy deck; she can fit nicely in a theoretical weenie Obf Sabbat/Black Hand deck (use a lot of Cadet to turn an army of tiny Obf vampires Black Hand and Bloodwork at Stealth a lot). Her disdvantage is not insignificant, but as she doesnıt have serious bleeding disciplines in the first place, not likely to be a huge problem--in a Black Hand deck, she can be the Census Taker, errand runner, and stealth hander outer; she can also circumvent the disadvantage with heavy use of Spying Mission. As playing a Spying Mission makes a bleed unsuccessful, she wonıt have to worry about not untapping as long as she keeps stacking up the Spying Missions and eventually bleeds your prey for 11. Pretty utilitarian and waiting for more G5 vampires to unlock her full potential. Vermin Channel: Nosferatu Antitribu, 1 blood. +3 stealth action. (D) Bleed. A weird card for the !Nosferatu to have. I mean, they already have all the stealth in the world as a delivery system but not much in the way of a payload. They already could bleed for 1 at +3 or +6 stealth with Night Moves. So where does this card fit in to a !Nosferatu strategy? Well, likely the best option is to team it up with a good bleed discipline for card efficient bleeding. Building a strategy around Joseph, Tarbaby, and Julio for Vermin Channel/Conditioning bleeds is going to be expensive blood wise, but pretty card efficient (bleeds of 3 at +3 stealth for 2 blood and 2 cards). Tock, Raphael, and Lukas can do the same thing, albiet less effectively, with Aire of Elation (although Raphael at least gets +1 bleed to make up the disparity). Combining Vermin Channel and Spying Mission could also possibly pay off as a bleed strategy as well. Not likely to be a staple card in the long run, but certainly has some possibilities. Bonus Deck! Nails is just so solid a vampire with so many destructive possibilities available to him, I figured Iıd present a deck that might make good use of him. ³The Burninator, MK II!² Crypt: 2x Icarus, The Manchurian (7) POT, OBF, pro 2x Shahid (7) POT, OBF, pro 2x Nails (5) POT, obf, pro 2x Tabith Fisk (4) pot, pro 2x Alessandro Garcia (4) pot, pro 2x Bill Butler (3) pot, pro 3x Haven Uncovered 3x Blood Doll 3x Fame 2x Dreams of the Sphinx 1x Perfectionist 8x Bumıs Rush 2x Rumble 12x Immortal Grapple 12x Torn Signpost 6x Undead Strength 8x Flesh of Marble 8x Claws of the Dead 6x Quick Meld 6x Swallowed by the Night 4x Spying Mission 6x Taste of Vitae A clearly kind of silly Rush deck that is going to get in a fight and hit you for a lot of aggrivated damage. Totally foiled by heavy Fortitude, but should do ok in most other combat situations--it can prevent most non aggrivated damage with Flesh of Marble, foils most other combat with Immortal Grapple, has a good number of manuvers, can stealth Rush, and even can get a bit of bleed bonus with Spying Missions. Very blood intensive, but some Tastes and a Perfectionist help out. Icarus gets to look at your preyıs hand if you bleed with him, which is certainly helpful in a combat deck, and Shahid can cycle your hand pretty significantly in a pinch. I considered trying to fit Black Annis in, but even with her perma-rush and +1 strength, a 9 is kinda rough for a non multi acting Rush deck, although if I focused on her and the other 3 Nosferatu, I could fit in Drawing out the Beast for *really* trumpy combat. All in all, probably not super effective, but likely pretty entertaining. -Peter D Bakija You can check out all of my old Nosferatu Newsletters at: http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html Peter D Bakija pdb6@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html