V:EKN Official Toreador Clan Newsletter July 2002 Introduction: I've had the pleasure of spending a splendid holiday in the UK, mainly Scotland while the prewievs of the new Camarilla set were announced. The Watford qualifier was great fun even though it turned out to be the second time in a row that I brought a fighting deck to a bleed-decks tournament in England. I think we'll just have to reevaluate our opinion about the combat-mad english players... The new Camarilla set: Having had the fortune of being without information about the upcoming edition until mid-july I could take in a large lump of news in one go rather than watch it trickle in. What do we have this far, and how will it impact on the Toreador? Crypt groupings. No mixing of the new vampires with those released in the first two editions, and that goes for Marianna Gilbert as well. The following Toreador vampires are still mixable though: Dark Sovereigns Alexandra Inner Circle cap 11. Francois Villon Prince cap 10. Klaus van der Veken Prince cap 9. Sigrid Bekker cap 6. Ancient Hearts Isabel de Leon cap 3. Makarios, The Seducer cap 8. Marcellus Prince cap 8. Radeyah cap 6. Final Nights Victoria Ash Primogen cap 6 That's a total of nine vampires. We have at least 24 toreador available assuming that not a single Toreador from the old sets are reprinted. Changed cards. We know that at least Majesty and Concealed Weapon are changed. The former now costs a blood which makes hunting more dangerous. For large Toreador it's usually used at the superior level at which the change is of little importance. The latter no longer requires a discipline and can only bring up weapons that deals out normal damage and no more than two points of it based on the weapon and costs at most two pool. This is absolutely fantastic for the normal gun-deck even though you'll have to find space for those extra five Concealed Weapon. New look. Attributes seems to be placed the same no matter what kind of card it is. I personally think this is a great change even though I find it somewhat illogical that a vampires capacity is not represented by the skull-symbol introduced to represent pool-cost. It will take a while to get used to the new colouring, but for the new players the new look makes a lot more sense than the old one. It's the mixing of cards that will create most confusion, but we'll simply have to live with it. New No-Repeat-Action rule. Actually it's a matter of introducing the NRA to the base-rules. If it should replace the current one, which is a horror to explain to a new player, it will probably cause some problems. Humanitas, Catacombs, Aarons Feeding Razor, The Hungry Coyote, Depravity and The Hunt Club would see more use, or should we call it abuse? Vampiric gunfighting combination: Jacko. Brujah Antitribu with a built optional additional strike that doesn't count against his allowed maximum. Capacity 8 with CEL POT PRE obt. Joaquin Murietta. Toreador with a built in optional additional strike. At long range gun-strikes yields an additional one point of damage. Capacity 9 with CEL AUS qui pre obf. These two vampires combined with the new version of Concealed Weapon, that requires no discipline, make good use of the .44 Magnum. As the vampires are comparatively expensive you will probably want to combine some Pursuit, for the extra maneouver at inferior and the additional strike at superior, and several Side Strike, for the dodge at inferior and the additional strike at superior. Psyche and Taste of Vitae should round up your combat To make the combination even more appealing both vampires have presence to help your bleeding, and they are both of high enough capacity for use with Zillas Valley in order to speed up their appearence. Conclusion: All in all I'm quite happy with the changes. It should attract new players as it has been a year since the last release of a set that was remotely playable by a new player. In reality the last set that was truly playable by itself was Sabbat War, and those who started playing at that time are no longer new to the game. It will play havoc with the Camarilla decks I'm used to play, and if the rumours about the changes to cards are true, then playing decks based around princes and justicars from the first two editions might become difficult to say the least, but it seems a price well worth paying. Sten During