Official V:EKN Clan Salubri Newsletter Vol.3 No.2 April 2004 Of interest to Scholars and Slanderers Editor: Patrick van der Reest In this issue: 1. Introduction 2. Miscellanea et Demonica 3. The Dwinding Few 4. The Powers of the Righteous 5. The Hosts of Heaven 6. Conclusion --------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION --------------------------------------- On the verge of Gehenna the Salubri have managed to hang on, as they always have. The Great Jyhad still rages, and Heaven is as far away as ever… but hope remains. --------------------------------------- 2. MISCELLANEA ET DEMONICA - --------------------------------------- This month's focus is on minion acquisition for the Salubri. The most obvious way to acquire minions is through influencing, spending your pool to bring vampires under your sway. Although this sounds simple, and is generally the most feasible way, the scarce trait all Salubri share makes this a prohibitively expensive operation. What, then? Temporary minion acquisition comes through Spirit Marionette (in superior Obeah), and this, too, is generally well understood. You take an action at +1 stealth, grab an untapped vampire of your prey's, and bleed him with his own guy or gal. If you're lucky and he has fortitude (or you're sneaky and you gave him the appropriate master: discipline card), you can increase the fun by playing Daring the Dawn (or Day Operation), having him visit torpor once the (non unblockable) bleed resolves. It's all great fun, but sadly it rarely succeeds more than once or so, because smart preys tap out every turn after to avoid such unpleasantness. The above strategy can be enhanced in several ways. One, by using Fame to inflict an extra 3 pool damage when the poor sod take a dirtnap. Make sure to order it right, so he first goes back to his original owner, then hits torpor for the pool damage. Two, by using Precognisant Mobility (or outferior Panacea) to untap your prey's vampires. This, of course, means that you take two actions to bleed your prey once, but since PM (using superior Auspex) can untap an older vampire, a lowly 3-cap like Zoe or Isabel de Leon can do the job. As an alternative, pack some freakdrives and do it all with Matthias, but be prepared to see him haemorrhage blood at a prodigious rate. Three, and this option I have yet to see, would make use of Graverobbing to gather the recently Daring the Dawn'ed unit into your fold. Since Spirit Marionette in the outferior is a dominate bleed action at +1 bleed, this combines well into a aus/dom/for resp. aus/for/obe crypt. Various !Ventrue spring to mind (Billy <5> with AUS dom for, Charice <6> and Marlene <6> with AUS DOM for). Since your prey will likely tap out, then spend his or her untap ability trying to block the Spirit Marionette, it is likely that the Graverobbing, albeit at zero stealth, will be unblocked. Permanent minion acquisition can be arranged through generating lots of pool using your minions as a resource to be harvested. Minion Tap – Renewed Vigor is the classic way for the Salubri, although Unburdening the Bestial Soul offers a surprising alternative. See below under the Powers of the Righteous. A deck using Matthias and Harbingers could make use of various fortitude damage prevention, Vitae Block and Telepathic Tracking (or Trap in a non-S:CE environment) to torporize minions, diablerize them (surviving the blood hunt through Cardinal Benediction vote support), then use Daemonic Possession to bring them back into the Jyhad on your side. If you don't care for the vote support angle you can always use (regular) Possession to bring back your burned vampire. Since Daemonic Possession only requires inferior necromancy to be effective, Matthias is just right for the deck. Soul Stealing can be added as an icing on the cake, if you so desire, although Taste of Vitae is probably easier. Enterprising deck builders may want to try out a version of the above using Matthias, the Eye of Hazimel, and small dom/nec or AUS/nec vampires for retrieval and bleed bounce duties. Giovanni are an obvious choice, since they can use Matthias' newly-acquired potence in a pinch, but Le Dinh Tho is a neat choice as well. Matthias with Depravity and the Eye, using Anesthetic Touch, Disarm and Decapitate, is almost impossible to escape from. Especially since Freak Drive will allow him to be a doughty multi-rusher. --------------------------------------- 3. THE DWINDLING FEW --------------------------------------- Gisela Harden, the Winnower Clan: Harbinger of Skulls (group 2) Capacity: 7 Disciplines: aus dem FOR NEC Sabbat Priscus: Gisela can burn a vampire in your prey's uncontrolled region as a (D) action that costs X blood, where X is the amount of blood on that vampire; any blood on that vampire is returned to your prey's pool. Gisela is not an obvious choice to add to a Salubri deck. Her special ability is great in combination with Daemonic Possession, and she combines well enough with Matthias, who has the superior Auspex for the ubiquitous bleed bounce, and standing intercept as well. Between Spectral Divination, Call of the Hungry Dead and Repulsion Matthias should have enough stealth to sneak through and grab the vampire from your victim's ashheap. --------------------------------------- 4. THE POWERS OF THE RIGHTEOUS --------------------------------------- Unburdening the Bestial Soul Cardtype: Action [ani] +1 stealth action. Move 1 or more blood from this vampire to any other vampire. [obe] As [ani] above, and untap this acting vampire. [OBE] (D) Put this card on an ally or a younger vampire. The minion with this card cannot take actions, block or play reaction cards. During this minion's untap phase, this card is burned unless this acting vampire burns two blood. This card has two main uses, of which one is rarely used. The most obvious is to lock a vampire down as with Sensory Deprivation. The victim can no longer intercept or bounce bleeds, and it cannot take actions, either. On the downside, you'll have to burn some blood off your own acting vampire each turn, or the effect will disappear. Luckily for the Salubri, there are answers to that. Renewed Vigor looks good, but you need two vampires with Obeah for that, and the scarce cost usually makes that not such a good idea. Better invest in some Restoration and/or Life in the City. The second one is the animalism ‘outferior' (slightly improved in inferior Obeah). Although rarely understood as such, there is nothing in the rules to prevent you from moving the blood to a vampire in your uncontrolled area. ************** [Archivist's note: This is completely wrong. You cannot target uncontrolled cards without explicit card text. Unburdening the Bestial Soul lacks such text.] ************** I can see possibilities for decks using Salubri to refill the animalism guys (to avoid the scarce cost you'd run into trying to do it all with Obeah). Omaya (7 cap !Gangrel, ANI AUS FOR pro, prevent 1 damage each combat) springs to mind, but there are a lot of interesting Gangrel, Ravnos and Tzimisce available for the job. --------------------------------------- 5. THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN - Decks featuring the Salubri --------------------------------------- This month two decks for your perusal. First, the Great Beast deck I promised in the last newsletter. To cope with the high cost of infernalism, it uses a fair amount of reaction cards so the Great Beast can pound twice per turn, as it were. Renewed Vigor combines neatly with Daring the Dawn (outferior RV) as well as Minion Tap (superior RV), and hopefully that will generate enough pool to stay alive as well as crack some skulls. Spirit Marionette can be used in all three modes by this deck, so Huitzi, Matthias and Billy can bleed some when the opportunity arises. So can the Great Beast, of course (inferior Obeah). The same goes for Sense the Sin, which doubles as intercept as well as bleed modifier. Between Vitae Block, the Great Beast's free damage prevention and Anesthetic Touch damage prevention is not a great necessity, but the Freak Drives could be replaced by some fortitude combat cards such as Unflinching Persistence; Lessons in the Steel is another interesting option for those card slots. Deck Name: Call the Third Eye Created By: Patrick van der Reest Description: Call the Great Beast deck using AUS, DAI, for and OBE. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 19, Max: 40, Avg: 7.75) ---------------------------------------------- 6 Huitzilopochtli AUS DAI DOM OBF PRE POT 10, Baali:2 3 Matthias AUS FOR nec OBE 7, Salubri:2 1 Maldavis for pre AUS 4, Caitiff:3 1 Isabel de Leon AUS 3, Toreador:2 1 Billy AUS dom for 5, Ventrue Antitribu:2 Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (17 cards) 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 5 Fortitude 1 Giant's Blood 1 Golconda: Inner Peace 7 Minion Tap 2 Path of Evil Revelations Action (18 cards) 6 Call the Great Beast 6 Renewed Vigor 6 Spirit Marionette Action Modifier (12 cards) 4 Daring the Dawn 4 Freak Drive 4 Repulsion Reaction (19 cards) 3 Eagle's Sight 8 Forced Awakening 3 Melange 5 Telepathic Misdirection Combat (18 cards) 5 Anesthetic Touch 4 Conflagration 4 Telepathic Tracking 5 Vitae Block Combo (6 cards) 6 Sense the Sin The second deck uses the combo I mentioned above for Unburdening the Bestial Soul. Influence your highest-capacity Gangrel up and use UtBS and Gather down to the rest. Refill with Renewed Vigor from Matthias, but be careful not to bring him up until you can afford both a big Gangrel and him. If necessary, transfer back from the uncontrolled area to your pool. The Auspex is in the library to tweak the capacity of the vampire playing Gather and to allow superior Read the Winds. I realize that Ingrid Rossler is probably superior to Torvus in this crypt, but she's Camarilla, and that just doesn't gel. Deck Name: Gather the Unaligned Created By: Patrick van der Reest Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 25, Max: 39, Avg: 7.83) ---------------------------------------------- 1 Bothwell ani for 3, Gangrel:3 1 Dr. Allan Woodstock PRO ani aus for 5, Gangrel:3 1 Antonino FOR ani pre pro 6, Gangrel:3 1 Danielle Diron chi for ANI PRO 7, Gangrel:3, 1 vote 3 Matthias AUS FOR nec OBE 7, Salubri:2 2 Nadima ani aus FOR PRO SER 8, Gangrel:3 1 Torvus Bloodbeard pot ANI FOR OBF PRO 9, Gangrel:3 1 Xaviar ANI aus cel FOR pot PRO 10, Gangrel:3, 2 Votes 1 Zayyat aus qui tha ANI FOR PRO 10, Gangrel:3, 2 votes Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (17 cards) 3 Auspex 1 Barrens, The 4 Blood Doll 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Ecoterrorists 3 Effective Management 1 Giant's Blood 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 1 Sight Beyond Sight 1 Zoo Hunting Ground Action (20 cards) 2 Army of Rats 4 Gather 7 Renewed Vigor 3 Tier of Souls 4 Unburdening the Bestial Soul Action Modifier (4 cards) 4 Freak Drive Reaction (21 cards) 4 Cats' Guidance 3 Eagle's Sight 6 Forced Awakening 4 Read the Winds 4 Telepathic Misdirection Combat (24 cards) 4 Carrion Crows 3 Lessons in the Steel 4 Rolling with the Punches 5 Taste of Vitae 4 Unflinching Persistence 4 Vitae Block Retainer (4 cards) 1 Mr. Winthrop 3 Raven Spy --------------------------------------- 6. CONCLUSION --------------------------------------- Next month we'll know more about the upcoming Gehenna set and what it brings to the Martyrs. Although dreams about BL 2.0 are still alive, I expect that we'll have to wait a bit longer for direct support for the Bloodlines. As always, feel free to send comments and ideas. Thanks to you all for reading, and have a good night. Patrick van der Reest Columbus, OH (USA)