Introduction: With summer here people are more inclined to do outdoor-activities and only the diehards are to be found. In other words - activity is waning. Well, the number of events stay the same, but there are fewer players to be seen and it'll probably stay this way until september. Having played some with the cards from the Anarch Set I'm still a bit bewildered. So much to do, but what to do? I did try out the midcap Toreador-voters outlined in my last newsletter, but in the end it turned out that the Daughters of Cacophony were better suited for that stunt being able to push votes with Madrigal and thus potentially gaining two blood each when calling Anarch Salon. I've also tried a celerity/fortitude gunner based on Diversion, but with little success. New Toreador cards: Michael Luther [Anarchs:U/PAB] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Toreador Group: 3 Capacity: 4 Discipline: aus pre Camarilla: You may tap Michael during a referendum to change the votes of a Camarilla vampire to votes of your choice. When Michael enters combat, you may draw 1 card. Discard down to your hand size afterward. If you're playing with this one you're either voting or you're being VERY paranoid. At four cap with only two inferior disciplines he's next to useless unless you plan for some voting ugliness. He begs to be combined with Firebrand if you're making an Anarch voter. Christopher Houghton [Anarchs:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Toreador Group: 3 Capacity: 10 Discipline: pot AUS CEL DOM PRE PRO Camarilla: Once each combat, Christopher may burn 1 blood before range is determined to strike with first strike that round. During your untap, choose a ready minion. Until your next untap, he gets +2 intercept when attempting to block that minion. This one's a monster. Give him a Flak Jacket and his disciplines make him close to impossible to torporize while he on the other hand is able to deal out all kinds of nastiness in combat. Carnivale [Anarchs:R] Cardtype: Master Unique master. Put this card on a ready Toreador. You may burn this card to give this Toreador +1 stealth for the current action. I really don't know about this one. I'm probably much too fond of my Master Phase Actions to include this card, especially when there are several Toreador with obfuscate and we have access to Toreador Grand Ball. New cards for use with Toreador: Scarlet Carson O'Toole [Anarchs:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Gangrel antitribu Group: 3 Capacity: 4 Discipline: pro CEL Sabbat. Want cheap superior Celerity for your guns? Maldavis [Anarchs:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Caitiff Group: 3 Capacity: 4 Discipline: for pre AUS Camarilla: Any ready primogen can burn 1 blood from Maldavis as a +1 stealth (D) action. Maldavis gets -1 bleed when bleeding a Methuselah who controls a ready primogen. As close to a perfect capacity four Toreador as you can get. Add basic fortitude and this one can afford blocking as well as bouncing in difference from Isabel de Leon. Tegyrius, Vizier [Anarchs:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Assamite Level: Advanced Group: 2 Capacity: 9 Discipline: AUS CEL FOR PRE QUI Advanced, Camarilla: While Tegyrius is ready, each Camarilla Assamite may burn 1 blood to gain 1 vote once each referendum. (Blood Cursed) [MERGED ICON] Assamite Justicar. With superior presence Tegyrius may very well team up more or less with any Toreador or !Toreador. Merged he makes a fantastic companion to Madame Guil. Aranthebes, The Immortal [Anarchs:R] Cardtype: Action Cost: 1 pool +1 stealth action. Unique. Put this card into play. You may tap Aranthebes to give a minion controlled by your predator -1 stealth for the current action. While Aranthebes is untapped, vampires with a capacity less than 5 get -1 bleed when bleeding you. Any vampire with a capacity above 4 can move Aranthebes to your library as a (D) action. Shuffle afterward. Toreador belong to the blockers, and this card doesn't make life any harder. You decide how long you want to defend this card, and when you let it go it's still a bleed or damaging vote you didn't receive. To top it out it goes back into your library for future use. Drum of Xipe Totec [Anarchs:R] Cardtype: Equipment Cost: 2 pool Unique equipment. The vampire with this equipment has superior Celerity [CEL]. This vampire gets one optional maneuver each combat. For your multidiscipline Toreador-deck. Should probably end up on one of your celerity-less supportvampires. Magazine [Anarchs:R] Cardtype: Combat Only usable before range is determined. Put this card on a gun on this minion and put an ammo card from your hand on this card. When using this gun, you may use the effect of the ammo card as if it were played from your hand. I don't know how much use this card is actually going to see, but Toreador are among the classic gunners and should see as much use of it as any other celerity-based clan. On different playstyles: During our weekly games we see a LOT of combat, and as a result those players who are less succesful at those games often show up at our tournaments with something different. For obvious reasons I don't have any stastistically valid experience from regular non-tournament play in other places, so you're sitting on the answer to wether this is typical or not. That is, if a setting is leaning towards one playstyle during non-tournament games and if several players abandon that style during the tournaments in such a way that you can actually correlate between their success, or lack thereof, between tournaments and what they bring to the sanctioned battles. It's also quite clear that albeit bleeding is more prominent during tournaments now than a year ago we're still not seeing a full circle. In difference from two years ago all bleeders have some kind of package dedicated to handle combat in one way or another. Ok, all succesful bleeders anyway :) Hunting as a strategy - one reason for going Anarch: The Anarchs set definitely makes hunting as your main way of getting blood into a viable strategy. Earlier you could reliably help all sabbat with The Hungry Coyote and any vampire with Inbase Discotek and Aarons Feeding Razor. Now any Anarch also adds Hospital Food and The Anarch Free Press to the latter two. Unlicenced Taxicab and Sunset Strip, Hollywood are two more cards adding attraction to the idea of creating a "superhunter" that goes hunting for five blood each hunt-action. A number of vampires have a built-in huntbonus on top of this. Secure Haven, Highway Haven and Secret Passage are other cards that makes targeting your bloodmachine harder, because it will certainly draw attention as we are looking at a vampire that with the help of Blood Dolls would rather likely bring home 4 pool per round (assuming you added a Hunting Ground to the equation but for one reason or another had two "huntingbonus-cards" fail to enter play) even when you're decked. A totally different reason for adding a number of the cards that enhance hunting is to avoid having to use your vampire every second turn and hunting the other fifty percent due to each action for some reason costing on average one blood. Hunting being a cardless action that is not hampered by being limited to once per turn also makes this strategy attractive when combined with effects that allow your vampire to untap and act again. An example of an "insane" setup is using Nu, The Pillar for hunting only, but in the long run the only part being insane would be the poolgain each turn. Hunting as a strategy also means that you're likely to have a slow deck, so the question is how to make the most of a comparatively reliable bloodmanagement of high quality. Your normal goal is to oust your prey late in the game and your predator during the finishing duel. Some say that you're not putting any pressure on your prey with this kind of deck, but in reality the mere existence of a monstrous bloater as a predator is enough pressure to slow down most decks. You're playing the only deck on the table that never ceases to bring out new vampires. A hunting/gunning toreadorish Anarch deck-core Crypt 3 Helena 1 Joaquin Murietta 1 Suzanne Kadim 1 Library 50 Master 21 Society Huntiug Ground 1 Club Zombie 1 Seattle Committee 1 Blood Doll 8 Secure Haven 1 Secret Passage 3 Hospital Food 1 Sunset Strip, Hollywood 1 The Anarch Free Press 1 Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt 1 Creepshow Casino 1 Anarch Railroad 1 Action 6 Go Anarch 4 Sanguine Instruction 2 Action Modifier 3 Forgotten Labyrinth 3 Equipment 8 Aarons Feeding Razor 1 Unlicenced Taxicab 2 [Ranged weapons] 5 Reaction 5 Eagles's Sight 5 Combat 5 Disguised Weapon 5 You may prefer different untitled vampires and if so 3 Forgotten Labyrinth and maybe all weaponssupport could be exchanged for 13 Strike: Combat Ends With a core like this you're likely to see several of your vampires hitting the table as there's simply no other good use for the pool you make. That means that after a very slow start you'll probably get your ousts by bleeding for one point of damage with five or even six vampires each turn. Sten During