Samedi Clan Newsletter
Volume II, Issue II
October 2005
In this issue:
I. Introduction: Return of the Living Dead
II. Lifestyles: Could I Have Inferior Thanatosis?
III. Focus on Samedi: Genina, the Red Poet
V. Focus on Thanatosis: Card Design Contest
VI. Practical Deckbuilding: Tournament-Winning Samedi
VII. Theoretical Deckbuilding: Zombie Bling-Bling
VIII. Parting Words
I. Introduction: Return of the Living Dead
Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack
1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don't need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.
--From the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
This new issue of the Samedi newsletter celebrates the release of a new
Samedi vampire: Genina, the Red Poet, who as a Group 3 vampire can rub
elbows with the current Group 2 Samedi and any Group 4 Samedi that
might appear in the next set.
And it's not long, not long at all before Legacies of Blood hits the
streets. I anticipate six new Samedi, ideally including one or two with
(pot THN), and a new selection of Thanatosis cards, hopefully not all
combat oriented. Rot and roll!
II. Lifestyles: Could I Have Inferior Thanatosis?
Thank you very much for your eye-opening article about Inferior
Thanatosis. Ever since I read about the plight of vampires suffering
from that condition, I've been worried that I might have it. I sure
show a lot of the symptoms. At first, when I noticed I can play
Infection and Putrefaction I wasn't too concerned, since I heard that
vampires without Inferior Thanatosis can play them too. But then I
noticed I can also play The Withering, and I haven't heard of anyone
without Inferior Thanatosis doing that. Could I have caught it from
some Infernal Familiar? Or am I just a hypochondriac? Sincerely,
Can't See the Forestal for the Trees
Stop worrying, CStFftT! I referred your case to the research team of
Jest and Netchurch. Getting the two of them to work together is darn
difficult, since they just don't hang out in the same groups, but for
once Dr. Jest's Malkavian Dementia was helpful. After much careful
study, the good doctors determined that you do not have Inferior
Thanatosis, although they caution against dabbling in any Infernal
Pacts.
III. Focus on Samedi: Genina, the Red Poet
Genina, The Red Poet
Clan: Samedi
Capacity: 8
Group: 3
aus cel for CHI OBF THN
Independent, Red List: If a blood hunt is successfully called on
Genina, she goes to torpor instead of being burned. Genina gets +1
stealth on diablerie actions and on undirected actions.
Praise to Legba and LSJ for Genina, the first new Samedi since
Bloodlines. She's being released as a promo card, to be found in
Scrye issue #89. Later on down the road she might find her way into
tournament prize kits, but there's no guarantees. As the Alastors
will tell you, Genina's a hard woman to track down.
First appearing in the Kindred Most Wanted supplement to the Vampire
RPG, Genina was a young-seeming vampire with a taste for diablerie who
found a place on the Red List after escaping an astonishing number of
Blood Hunts. I've heard it said that White Wolf canon saw her
apprehended at last by Echo, who we know from the Kindred Most Wanted
set. Can anyone confirm or deny this with a rulebook or fiction
reference?
Genina seems reasonably costed for her 8 capacity, with 9 points of
disciplines and +1 stealth on undirected actions balanced by the Red
List trait. Her diablerie specials give her a little extra flavor, and
make her the Red List minion most likely to benefit from the Rebirth
card. If the +1 stealth on diablerie isn't enough to sneak it
through, have her play Daring the Dawn...you can only end up in torpor
once, after all.
Her disciplines line up well enough with other Samedi: (cel for OBF
THN) matches Jorge de La Muerte's spread, and (aus for OBF THN)
matches Reg Driscoll's. Her oddball CHI gives her another cluster of
playmates: she shares (aus for CHI OBF) with fellow Red Lister and
current trick deck favorite Mata Hari, and (aus cel for CHI OBF) with
Spider Killer, who also has a stealth bonus.
Vampires combining Chimestry and Obfuscate were around in Group 2, but
few decks used both disciplines. This is partially because the
extremely efficient spread of Group 2 Chimestry weenies and midcaps
discouraged the use of big lugs like Ankla Hotep, Spider-Killer and
Ivan Krenyenko, despite their useful built-in powers. But with the
appearance of Tatiana Stepanova (7-cap obf CHI), Mata Hari (7-cap OBF
CHI), Alexis Sorokin (8-cap OBF CHI) and now Genina, there's a strong
selection of vampires for a deck that uses nasty Chimestry actions like
Sensory Deprivation, Edged Illusion and Reality along with cheap,
efficient Obfuscate stealth. Chimestry has some very nice stealth cards
including some that double as combat defense, but nothing that says,
"You don't block this," the way Forgotten Labyrinth and Elder
Intervention do. And since Chimestry decks are often short on blood,
free cards like Lost in Crowds and Faceless Night have their place too,
especially in decks that can't protect a Path of Paradox.
More exotic is Genina's mix of Chimestry and Thanatosis. Believe it
or not, I've actually used this combination before. Immortal Grapple
is the holy grail of Samedi who want to lay waste to opponents with the
Withering, and one common way to give a Samedi the necessary Potence to
play it is to equip (using Hag's Wrinkles!) with the Hand of
Conrad...or, more to the point, with the Eye of Hazimel. I've had
George Fredrick multirushing with the Eye of Hazimel, thumping people
with Trap, free Fists of Death, Immortal Grapple, the Withering, and
free Apparitions. Not the most sensible deck in the world, but
delightfully brutal. Genina fits that crypt perfectly, and the heavy
combat focus effectively eliminates the downside of her Red List trait.
For those of you skeptical about building a CHI POT THN deck around the
Red Poet, consider how useful her aus cel CHI OBF and +1 stealth on
undirected actions would make her in Mass Reality decks. She can put
Mass Reality into play at stealth, defend it with aus intercept, put
powerful weapons into play with Disguised Weapon (or Hag's Wrinkles!)
and get additional strikes with them using cel. Mix some aus cel obf
weenies like Zoe into the crypt and you're ready for action.
IV. Focus on Thanatosis: Card Design Contest
Thanatosis consists of one action modifier and a heap of combat cards.
That makes it the most specialized discipline in the game. Even
Sanguinis has actions, modifiers, and reactions. I expect Legacies of
Blood will give the discipline a wider scope, but it's months away. So
here's your chance to out-design the designers. Before we see what the
great minds at Whitewolf have come up with, post your own Thanatosis
card ideas to the alt.games.trading-cards.jyhad newsgroup. Whoever
comes up with the niftiest card idea will receive the respect and
admiration of our peers, which along with a dollar will buy you a
dollar's worth of gum.
As you design your new Thanatosis cards, keep some basic guidelines in
mind. Make the cards fit thematically with the Thanatosis discipline as
described in the RPG: it's basically the power to mortify living
tissues and empower the decay of one's own dead body. Create something
unique, but not so unprecedented that players must struggle to
understand its use. Balance its power against existing cards as best
you can. Finally, make the inferior power useful while giving the
superior greater power or additional options.
Here's my submission:
Rise from Ashes
Reaction
Thanatosis/Fortitude
Usable by a vampire in torpor.
[for] Playable when a vampire attempts to rescue this vampire from
torpor.
The action costs two less blood.
[thn] Playable when a vampire attempts to diablerize this vampire. The
diablerie fails. Move this vampire to your ready region.
[THN] As above, and a new combat begins between this vampire and the
vampire
that attempted diablerie.
I like this card because it gives Thanatosis an angle no other
discipline has. It's thematically consistent, and it has obvious
synergy with Ashes to Ashes, Genina's special and various Fortitude
torpor toys. Still, it's not a perfect defense: common cards like
Graverobbing and Gregory Winter bypass it, and since it's a reaction,
it requires an untapped vampire. If playtesters didn't find this
version overpowered, I'd ask them to test it with the text, "Usable by
a tapped vampire. Usable by a vampire in torpor."
V. Practical Deckbuilding: Tournament-Winning Samedi
The Lasombra has two tournament-winning Samedi clan decks archived on
his website. The first is Tobias op den Brouw's "Even Samedi Are Better
With Dominate" from the 20-player Path of Death and the Soul Utrecht
tournament on February 7th, 2004. The second, Frédéric Gingras's
unnamed winner from the 16-player Absimillard's Army: Montréal
tournament on September 19, 2004, is either derived from Tobias's or a
remarkable example of parallel design. The crypts are identical, and
the libraries have a similar focus on solid stealth-bleed backed up
with zombie muscle. However, Frédéric's deck includes Seal of
Veddharta and The Unmasking, excellent cards from the Gehenna set that
Tobias didn't have access to when he built his version. Frédéric also
answers the ancient question "What can zombies do against guns?" by
including a combat defense module built on Concealed Weapon and Flash
Grenade. He pays a price for these improvements, however: less stealth,
less bounce and fewer bleed actions in the deck.
I present not one but two versions of those worthy gentlemen's decks.
The first is really just an update of Frédéric's deck, adding a key
KMW card and a few of my favorite tricks.
Deck Name: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and
Became
Mixed-Up Zombies (Director Ray Dennis Steckler, 1963)
Created by: Tobias op den Brouw, Frédéric Gingras, Emmit Svenson
Crypt (12 vampires) Capacity min: 3 max: 9 average: 6.67
------------------------------------------------------------
4x Baron, The 9 FOR NEC OBF THN dom 2 votes Samedi:2
2x Jorge De La Muerte 7 OBF THN cel for nec Samedi:2
2x George Frederick 6 FOR THN nec obf Samedi:2
2x Catherine du Bois 5 DOM for obf pre Ventrue:3
1x Isabel Giovanni 5 DOM NEC pot Giovanni:2
1x Rudolfo Giovanni 3 NEC Giovanni:2
Library (90 cards)
------------------------------------------------------------
Action (10)
5x Govern the Unaligned
5x Restoration
Action Modifier (22)
4x Cloak the Gathering
3x Conditioning
2x Faceless Night
6x Freak Drive
3x Lost in Crowds
2x Mask of 1,000 Faces
2x Spying Mission
Action Modifier/Combat (2)
2x Swallowed by the Night
Ally (14)
14x Shambling Hordes
Combat (7)
7x Concealed Weapon
Equipment (9)
7x Flash Grenade
1x Laptop Computer
1x Seal of Veddartha
Event (3)
1x FBI Special Affairs Division
2x Unmasking, The
Master (15)
4x Blood Doll
1x Charisma
2x Dominate
3x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
2x Jake Washington (Hunter)
1x Perfectionist
1x Secure Haven
Reaction (8)
5x Deflection
3x Wake with Evening's Freshness
Most of the Shambling Horde decks you see are Giovanni, and with good
reason: they have plentiful NEC, lots of Dominate and toys like the
Path of Bone and Acquired Ventrue Assets to defray the cost of zombies.
However, the capacity Giovanni spend on Potence is essentially wasted
in a Shambling Hordes deck. Looking at the Samedi, we see they come
with Fortitude and Obfuscate, better support disciplines when
recruiting Hordes. Obfuscate stealth is generally less expensive and
more effective than Necromancy stealth, allowing you to spend your
blood on minions instead of on avoiding getting blocked. Fortitude
gives access to Restoration, a great way to fill up after recruiting,
and Freak Drive, the all-time ace of muli-action decks. Add the
bleeding and bouncing power of the Baron's dom, plus a few Giovanni
supporters, and you have a strong, flexible deck, although it does lean
rather heavily on the Baron, and what you're not spending on Potence,
you're spending on Thanatosis.
The second deck is a more whimsical interpretation of the original. The
deck revolves around the Baron's awesome disciplines: FOR, NEC, OBF
and dom. Since there's equipment that grants FOR, NEC, OBF and DOM,
why not use it to create another "Baron" or two?
Deck Name: BYOB (Build Your Own Baron)
Created by: Tobias op den Brouw, Frédéric Gingras, Emmit Svenson
Crypt (12 vampires) Capacity min: 3 max: 9 average: 6.67
------------------------------------------------------------
4x Baron, The 9 FOR NEC OBF THN dom 2 votes Samedi:2
2x Jorge De La Muerte 7 OBF THN cel for nec Samedi:2
2x George Frederick 6 FOR THN nec obf Samedi:2
2x Catherine du Bois 5 DOM for obf pre Ventrue:3
1x Isabel Giovanni 5 DOM NEC pot Giovanni:2
1x Rudolfo Giovanni 3 NEC Giovanni:2
Library (90 cards)
------------------------------------------------------------
Action (10)
5x Computer Hacking
Action Modifier (22)
6x Cloak the Gathering
3x Conditioning
2x Faceless Night
5x Hag's Wrinkles
3x Lost in Crowds
2x Mask of 1,000 Faces
2x Spying Mission
Ally (14)
15x Shambling Hordes
Combat (7)
7x Concealed Weapon
Equipment (9)
1x Changeling Skin Mask
5x Cooler
7x Flash Grenade
3x Laptop Computer
1x Sargon Fragment
1x Seal of Veddartha
Event (3)
1x FBI Special Affairs Division
2x Unmasking, The
Master (15)
4x Blood Doll
1x Charisma
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
2x Jake Washington (Hunter)
1x Nod
1x Perfectionist
1x Secure Haven
1x Tower of London
Reaction (8)
5x Deflection
3x Wake with Evening's Freshness
VIII. Theoretical Deckbuilding: Zombie Bling-Bling
A few months back, a new turbo deck archetype slouched to
alt.games.trading-cards.jyahd to be born amidst appreciative murmurs
and a few appalled wails. The deck revolves around the recently
released !Gangrel Una, whose special allows her to play Fortitude cards
for the cost of one less blood. The concept is simple: influence out
Una, then have her equip and recruit until she is covered with enough
permanent bleed and combat cards to tear through the table. This is
possible because Una plays Freak Drive for free.
Well, my fledglings, Hag's Wrinkles has always been free, and there's
more good gear to get with it now than ever. We've never seen Samedi
decks that do what the Una deck does for three reasons. One, nobody
thought of it before. That's partially because of reason two: when
Hag's Wrinkles came out, its use was effectively restricted to once per
vampire per turn by the old No Repeat Actions rule. Now that multiple
equip actions are possible, decks with enormous amounts of Hag's
Wrinkles become possible. But the scarcity of Hag's Wrinkles makes
constructing such decks unreasonably difficult. I imagine there are
many tournament players who have accumulated the fifty or more Freak
Drives they need to build an Una deck, but I doubt there's a single
player who's accumulated half that many Hag's Wrinkles.
The big advantage of a Hag's Wrinkles turbo deck is crypt diversity.
Instead of the mandatory nine Unas, you can choose a selection of
Samedi for your team. George Fredrick, the youngest vampire with THN,
is a good choice, as is Reg Driscoll with his bleed bonus and equipping
special, but you can also include copies of Lithrac, Jorge de la Muerte
and the Baron and have the option to bring out additional vampires as
the game progresses.
One disadvantage is that Hag's Wrinkles only untaps you if an equip
action is successful. A key feature of the Una deck is that it laughs
at blockers: unless Una is torporized, she untaps and keeps on going.
Superior Hag's Wrinkles does give you a little extra stealth, but
you're still vulnerable to something as simple as the Second Tradition.
Mixing a few Freak Drives in with your Hag's Wrinkles mitigates this,
and a few additional stealth cards probably won't jam your hand.
The other disadvantage is that Hag's Wrinkles only works on equip
actions. The Una deck ends up with retainers, rushes opponents, gets
discipline permableed and Eternal Vigilance, and most importantly,
clears excess Freak Drives out of your hand by hunting. Again, a few
Freak Drives gives you some flexibility to take other actions, but it's
wise to recognize this limitation and not expect to unload your whole
library on your opponents on your first turn.
With these caveats in mind, let's turn to an example of a Thanatosis
turbo equipment deck. It is completely untested, I'm afraid, as I lack
the requisite Hag's Wrinkles. I'm hoping that one or more of my loyal
readers will try it out on deckbot and report back here with their
findings.
Deck Name: Zombie Bling-Bling
Created By: Emmit Svenson
Description: Try to take 20+ equip actions the first turn you have a
minion out. Use your newly superpowered minion to bleed and block.
Expect hand jam. Equipping with the Blood Tears is better than hunting
for two.
Crypt: (13 cards, Min: 12, Max: 33, Avg: 6)
-------------------------------------------
2 Lithrac for thn OBF 5 Samedi
3 George Frederick nec obf FOR THN 6 Samedi
1 Jorge De La Muerte cel for nec OBF THN 7 Samedi
1 Jack Dawson cel nec qui thn FOR OBF 8 Samedi
3 Reg Driscoll aus for pre OBF THN 8 Samedi
1 Baron dom FOR NEC OBF THN 9 Samedi
1 Basil obf 1 Pander
1 March Halcyon for 1 Pander
Library: (70 cards)
-------------------
Master (3 cards)
1 Nod
2 Blood Doll
Action Modifier (35 cards)
7 Freak Drive
20 Hag`s Wrinkles
4 Cloak the Gathering
4 Lost in Crowds
Reaction (4 cards)
4 Wake with Evening`s Freshness
Equipment (28 cards)
1 Aaron`s Feeding Razor
8 Blood Tears of Kephran
3 Cooler
2 IR Goggles
1 Ivory Bow
1 Laptop Computer
1 Flaming Candle
2 Flak Jacket
1 Leather Jacket
1 Palatial Estate
1 Phased Motion Detector
1 Pier 13, Port of Baltimore
1 Seal of Veddartha
1 Signet of King Saul, The
1 Sport Bike
1 Soul Gem of Etrius
1 Bloodstone
IX. Parting Words
Thanks for reading this issue of the Samedi Newsletter. I hope you
found it educational, entertaining, or both. I'd love to hear what
you have to say about the Samedi. Please post your questions and
comments to the alt.games.trading-cards.jyhad newsgroup.
Emmit Svenson