V:EKN Official Toreador Newsletter August 2005 Introduction: August, and only a few days since my last newsletter. Having been lazy for the last year I thought I could as well shock you with an overdose of Toreadorishness. A few of us locals have gone into a deck building spree, and as happens the quality of the decks are of, erhum, cough, varying quality. I've made one attempt at Trophy hunting with such an abyssmal result that it will have to wait for several remodifications before I even want to mention the deck, but, well, there's a card I'd like to prove worthwhile to play, and, maybe, one decade I might even manage to do so. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to the basics: Combat, or more accurately guns and celerity combat. With Auspex, Celerity and good amount of princes clan Toreador is made for blocking and gunning down acting minions. Second Tradition makes them devastatingly so. Now, princes being rather large on average and the number of actions one can make with them correspondingly limited I personally prefer really big guns. Assault Rifle big to be more specific. With a pool cost of five it has been argued that the weapon is simply too expensive to use, but once again the Toreador has something going for them. Apart from titles in abundance they also have Presence in order to push votes through. The vote I'm thinking of here is Parity Shift. Shopping for five pool weapons should make your prey have more pool than you have. Sounds too good? Well, yes, it does. You simply can't equip, vote, block and use celerity combat all in one deck without ending up with a depressinlgy low amount of the cards you'd like to have, so this is where we have to decide what a deck should do. Earlier I'd advice you to stick with block, guns, celerity combat and a few Parity Shift hoping your titles are enough to get the vote through. Always, always pack Sideslip in your deck if you're planning to play the blocking game with big guns. Your opponent must declare strike first, and unless you've used the built in maneuver in the gun you can dodge instead of having something nasty happening to you, like aggravated damage or equipment destruction for example. Sometimes I actually refuse to go to long range if I have a Sideslip in my hand. If nothing nasty happens I can always shoot for four and prevent damage done to me in order to get the card out of my hand. One more thing. When you play with big guns you normally don't need as many celerity combat cards as you do if you, for example, play small vampires and Conceal out .44 Magnum. Where most vampires can handle taking two points of damage most of them will go straight to torpor from four points of damage, at least after the initial stage of the game. When you play this type of deck chances are that initial stage has already passed by the time you see your first gun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nasty tricks: What if your gunwielding wall actually doesn't block all that well? Is there a future in trying a more agressive stance? Like voting? Well, perhaps. A few cards have cycled into the game making votes a very, very nasty option. With the last expansion we also had the concept of Red List and Trophy. I have to assume it's been tried, and here's a list of cards to help you try as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cards of the Month: Cardname: Alastor Cardtype: Political Action Set: KMW, Gehenna Cardtext: Political Card -- Worth 1 Vote. Called by any justicar or Inner Circle member at +1 stealth. Choose a ready Camarilla vampire. If this referendum is successful, search your library for an equipment card and place this card and the equipment on the chosen vampire. Pay half the cost (round down) of the equipment. This vampire may enter combat with any vampire controlled by another Methuselah as a +1 stealth (D) action. This vampire cannot commit diablerie. A vampire may have only one Alastor. Ok, Assault Rifle for two pool is a lot better than paying five pool for them. Add the built in rush and you have a winner. Cardname: Red List Cardtype: Action Set: KMW Cardtext: Requires a ready, titled, non-Red List vampire. (D) Choose a ready ally or a ready younger vampire. The chosen minion become Red List. That minion may not attempt to block this action. Why settle for only one built in rush? If we're playing justicar or Inner Circle the "younger vampire" part should on average not pose a major problem. Cardname: Trumped-Up Charges Cardtype: Political Action Set: KMW Cardtext: Political Card -- Worth 1 Vote. Called by any titled non-Red List vampire at +1 stealth. Choose a ready non-Red List minion. If this referendum succeeds, put this card on that minion. This minion is now Red List. In this referendum, the chosen minion's controller gets 2 additional votes for every Red List minion in play. Any titled vampire may call a referendum to burn this card as a +1 stealth political action. Burn this card if the minion is no longer Red List. Well, we were going to vote anyway, weren't we? Cardname: Trophy: Domain Cardtype: Master Set: KMW Cardtext: Master. Trophy. The vampire with this card has +1 intercept. Once each action, this vampire can burn 1 blood to untap and attempt to block. If we're red-listing stuff we should have trophies for the fun of it. This specific trophy helps fixing the problem we have with a lack of blocking capacity. And the winner: Cardname: Anathema Cardtype: Political Action Set: KMW, CE, DS Cardtext: Political Card -- Worth 1 Vote. Called by any prince or justicar at +1 stealth. Choose a ready vampire. If the referendum is successful, put this card on that vampire. If the vampire with this card is reduced to zero blood in combat, he or she is burned, and the Methuselah controlling the opposing minion gains pool equal to the burned vampire's capacity. In order to get trophies we have to burn minions in combat or as D-actions. Clan Toreador isn't well known for its capacity to outright burn vampires in combat, and Diablerie could turn out a very risky venue even if we plan to vote. Anathema fixes all this and gives pool as an added benefit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deck of the Month: Name: Bea's twisted Toreador Description: This is a nasty piece of gunning trophy hunters my wife set about to create. It uses all cards mentioned above and centers around Madame Guil, Toreador Grand Ball and Freak Drive to keep the engine running. I've cleaned out one mistake in the crypt, but that's all. A group 4 had sneaked in, and I think Isabel should stay, so Sir Henry in and Fahd al-Zawba'a out. Sure, Sir Henry could have replaced Isabel instead to get one more vampire with Celerity and Fortitude. My wife doesn't play the way I do. She's highly aware of where her prey sits while I tend to be a bit more concerned with survival. That said we still share pretty much the same total tournament score with around 200 constructed games each and a little less than 40 to call game wins, so I guess that all things are kind of equal in the end. A heavy bleeder will go stampeeding right through this deck, and it does rely on one single vampire, but when I saw it in action I was fielding a Mata Hari deck as her prey with a rather obvious result. With some modifications this could very well be one really, really scary Trophy hunter. Anathema is a killer, and together with Alastor it becomes a monster, especially as the high number of repeated actions by means of Freak Drive and Forced March in combination with Toreador Grand Ball makes it all too likely that you'll watch a vampire go up in flames the same minion phase it's being targeted by Red List. If you try it, don't forget to gloat if you're able to Taste the blood from a vampire you burn. Crypt Cards Total: 12 Name Amount Madame Guil 5 Annabelle Triabell 2 Isabel de Leon 1 Michael Luther 1 Emerson Wilkershire III 1 Yvette, The Hopeless 1 Sir Henry Johnson 1 Library Cards Total: 90 Name Amount Master Total: 19 Art Museum 1 Blood Doll 5 Fame 1 Tension in the Ranks 1 Society Hunting Ground 1 Toreador Grand Ball 5 Trophy: Diablerie 1 Trophy: Hunting Ground 1 Trophy: Wealth 1 Trophy: Domain 2 Action Total: 4 Red List 4 Political Action Total: 13 Parity Shift 2 Alastor 4 Anathema 6 Trumped-Up Charges 1 Action Modifier Total: 21 Awe 5 Bewitching Oration 1 Voter Captivation 5 Forced March 4 Freak Drive 6 Combat Total: 17 Sideslip 5 Taste of Vitae 3 Psyche! 4 Pursuit 5 Reaction Total: 10 Second Tradition: Domain 6 Telepathic Misdirection 4 Equipment Total: 6 Assault Rifle 5 The Sargon Fragment 1 This concludes the august newsletter. As always, bring your decks along, and by all means, come visit us here in Gothenburg for some friendly combat. Sten During