Introduction:
Now we've run through the storylinetournaments. I'm looking
forward to see if they'll impact playstyle or not. There
seems to be a slight trend here to try clanbased decks rather
than disciplinebased ones, but it's too early to say for certain.
We've held one tournament during the current month and the
roses turned out victorious - more on that later.
General Bloodlines observation:
The fortitude discipline continues to invade the decks and
crypts are featuring more midcap vampires than earlier. Players
try to influence out more vampires in order not to become
hampered by the inability to use Bloodlines specific cards
if they control none of those vampires. With that threat they
seem to be afraid of getting stuck with a large vampire
of the wrong type and spending too much time influencing
up the one that can make use of the new disciplines.
Combat has become fierce indeed, and diablerie is the rule
rather than the exception. I've even seen cards like The
Deadliest Sin and Crimson Fury come to good use and I'm
just waiting for players to start packing The Sixth Tradition:
Destruction in their decks.
General Camarilla observation:
As what's in the future always seem to interest us more than
what's already here people are starting to guess at what will
show up with the coming Camarilla Release. The interest has
already made an impact on pricing for the old Camarilla sets.
Bloodlines didn't do anything about the balance between the
Camarilla clans and the rest. It's still a lot easier to
create a competitive high capacity Camarilla deck compared to
creating one based on Sabbat or independents. The Salubri
was a great addition for the anti Ventrues as they got access
to a Fifth Tradition: Hospitality like effect, but the other
clans without princes and justicars have still to fight the
ever increasing effectiveness of pooldestruction.
Discipline of the month:
Fortitude. Has to be combined with Anson as the discipline is
absent in the clan, but the roses should adapt to the current
trend as well, and it does add a lot of fun value.
Card combination of the month:
Toreador Grand Ball. A mastercard that requires two ready
Toreador. One is tapped and won't untap during the untap-phase,
but the other becomes unblockable as long as he or she doesn't
bleed. The card costs one pool and can be burned by any minion
as a D-action.
Freak Drive. An action modifier that requires fortitude. At
the inferior level it allows you to untap if you succesfully
performed an action, and at superior it allows you to untap
even if the action was blocked. The cost is one blood.
The combination is to give one of your, preferably high cap
prince/justicar, Toreador fortitude and make that vampire
the benefitor of a Toreador Grand Ball. You will only need
inferior fortitude as all your non-bleed actions will be
unblockable.
It requires a lot of moving parts, but when you're there you
can make up for several lost turns in one go. The combination
is a dream for a toolbox deck that doesn't plan to bleed too
often.
Vampire of the month:
Anson, an 8 cap prince who gives you two masterphase actions
instead of one.
An absolute must in a deck that wants the combination above
to kick in. Not only does he enable you to get the combo
working - he also makes Blood Dolls with large vampires a
viable option. To top it out he can add abuse to his environment
by using the combination to Grave Rob at inferior as an
unblockable action - and resque the stolen vampire from torpor
afterwards.
Deck of the month:
Having played Bloodlines the last three months I decided to
give the roses a go at a tournament again. The deck brought
me a win and a good lesson to go with it. Table politics is
everything when you field a slow deck, and at the four player
tables it crashed in my hands, but with five players there
was time enough to make deals while building up.
I do admit that I didn't expect to see it win, but, well...
The deck is a variant of an earlier attempt I made to create
a loop of unblockable actions - it met with debatable
success, so adding some firepower to it has created a strange
thing that either dies quickly or becomes an unstoppable
juggernaut. The absurd amount of mastercards was my way
of proving a point - it can be done, but I'm quite aware
that you can trim away at least five or so and still have
a neatly flowing masterheavy deck dependent only on Anson's
wellbeing.
Deckname: Mastering the unblockable loop
Crypt
Anneke Tor 10 Justicar AUS, CEL, PRE, dom
+1 bleed. May attempt to block a
vampire after other have failed or
declined to do so.
Francois Villon Tor 10 Prince CEL, AUS, PRE, chi, obf, pot
+1 bleed. May steel two blood from a younger
Anson 4 Tor 8 Prince PRE, CEL, aus, dom
While ready you get 2 master phase actions.
Fatima al-Faqadi Ass 8 CEL, OBF, QUI, aus, for
Once per combat before range may equip with
a weapon from hand. Pay as normal.
Felicia Mostrom Tor 5 AUS, CEL, pre
Dorian Strack Tor 4 AUS, cel
Colin Flynn Tor 3 aus, cel
Isabel de Leon Tor 3 AUS
Dieter Kleist Tor 2 aus
Library 90 cards
Masters 31
Fortitude 5
Blood Doll 8
Aching Beauty 2
Toreador Grand Ball 4
The Parthenon 3
Society Hunting Ground 1
Powerbase: Montreal 1
Information Highway 1
The Rack 1
Elysium: The Palace of Versailles 1
KRCG News Radio 1
Art Museum 1
Club Zombie 1
London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper 1
Actions 9
Graverobbing 2
Entrancement 1
The Third Tradition: Progeny 1
The Fifth Tradition: Hospitality 5
Political Actions 5
Parity Shift 3
Anathema 2
Action modifiers 6
Freak Drive 6
Reactions 18
The Second Tradition: Domain 8
Forced Awakening 3
Telepathic Misdirection 5
My Enemy's Enemy 1
Eagle's Sight 1
Equipment 9
Assault Rifle 5
Pier 13, Port of Baltimore 1
Palatial Estate 1
Sport Bike 1
IR Goggles 1
Retainers 4
J.S. Simmons, Esq. 1
Tasha Morgan 1
Resplendent Protector 1
Mr. Winthrop 1
Combat 8
Pursuit 3
Side Strike 3
Taste of Vitae 2
Tactics:
During the start-game you give your prayers to whatever entity
you prefer to ensure that a Toreador Grand Ball comes out
quickly, preferably together with a Fortitude skill card.
Start smoothtalking, equip and stay comparatively passive
until you have influenced up your third vampire.
Shortly before the first player is ousted you MUST have your
bloating-machine working or this deck will die.
The middle-game, if you make it here, should be a continious
orgy of building punctuated only by an ousting Parity Shift
or bleed. By now you'll be regarded as the main threat to
the table and it doesn't matter if you're down to one pool
left, because you are indeed the main threat to the table.
The end-game will most likely be a match against the clock
as the remaining players by now ought to be of little or
no concern.
This deck is slow, horribly so, but one single turn will
see it make up for two or more lost ones, and that turn
will also lose you your allies. There's simply no way
that anyone will forgive an unblockable vampire with
three or four Blood Dolls that equips, reqruits and plays
Fifth Tradition during one turn. If you manage to get two
of these monsters out you may also have vote-lock, and by
that time it's the duty of the table to take you out by
whatever means available.
Countertactics:
Waiting for this deck to fall over itself actually works
pretty well. Rushing it with ranged strikes and maneouvers
works reasonably well as well, but best of all is to point
out that there can be nothing good about anything equipped
with an Assault Rifle that has Fortitude and is unblockable
as long as it's not bleeding. Convincing your fellow players
shouldn't be too hard.