V:EKN Official Toreador Newsletter
May 2003

Introduction:

The part of the gamingcommunity that takes part in the newsgroup and
other online forums quite expectedly have turned into an anarch-frenzy.
While more or less wild speculations on the new cards are circulating
and complaints are voiced over changes or feared changes to old cards
the qualifiers to the continental championships are proceeding at a
steady rate.


The Anarch set - speculations:

 From what we know about the set, what impact does it have on clan
Toreador?

We know that votemodifiers will be replaced immediately which will
make it a good idea to include different modifiers in your deck as
you'll have a chance to draw into one and use it.

We've seen one card that makes an Anarch with minimum capacity 5
a Baron. We could assume that the other five Fee Stakes are similar
to each other - pretty much the same way Praxis Seizure 
are similar to each other.

We've seen one card that untaps a vampire after he/she succesfully
becomes an Anarch.

Those cards together with Toreador Grand Ball more or less automatically
gives one of your midcap untitled Toreador a title in one single turn
to go with future unblockable votes if cards are in your hand.

All in all it looks like a Voter Captivation / Blood Doll type of deck
with more vampires rather than a Voter Captivation / Minion Tap with
very large vampires. It would be tempting to combine this with the
card Anarch Salon instead of Consanguineous Boon as you're likely to
have four or five vampires available with one locked down by the
Toreador Grand Ball.


We know that we'll receive at least two new vampires even though we
know nothing more about them - at least those of us who don't follow
the RPG-universe are rather clueless.

Searching the net I see that Joaquin Murietta is embraced by
Christopher Houghton, and in VTES Joaquin is cap 9 so let's guess that
Christopher Houghton is a high capacity vampire.
Searching for Michael Luther I find nothing more than that he's the main
character in one of the World of Darkness novels. Apparently he has
had a childe, so at least his being a cap 2 vampire seems too low.

The reason I write "at least" is that I'd be very surprised if the two
preconstructed decks "Barons" and "Gangs" are going to be monoclan and
as White Wolf up to now have tried to keep the number of vampires in
each sect the same and they have stated that each deck will include two
vampires that are starterdeck only it seems likely that there will be
a discrepancy in the number of vampires per clan and sect available
in the boosters. There are three "invisible" slots available and the
Tremere already have three vampires listed with all other Camarilla
clans at two each. Only three slots? Yup. Prints of a Nosferatu named
Sundown are circulating so that clan is up to three vampires as well.
However, three slots are not enough to give the remaining Camarilla
clans three vampires each, so we'll have to wait for the answer.


A helping vampire for gun-decks is Juggler. Basic obfuscate and superior
celerity paired with a built in maneouver and a built in Acrobatics at
long range just cannot be bad for anyone who is planning to do nasty
stuff at long range with the help of Disguised Weapon. At capacity 7
he's also fairly cheap as obf/CEL gunners go. He just might turn into
a new favourite in a new Assault Rifle deck together with Fatima,
Joaquin Murietta and other low-cost, non-titled vampires with obf/CEL.


Slightly speculative deck:

A voter following the outlines described above. We want to build our
backbone of the deck around vampires with a capacity of five or six.
Add four small ones to feed the Toreador Grand Ball.
A small package for becoming Anarch and grabbing a title. Twelve
damaging votes and six bloating ones. Enough votemodifiers to push
through some votes even without titles and blood-regain to top it out.
Combat is quite basic escape with Majesty, some wakes and bounces.
Masters are almost purely for unblockability and bloating.

Crypt                           12
Adrianne                        1
Felicia Mostrom                 1
Kallista, Master Sculptor       1
Makarios, The Seducer           1
Radeyah                         1
Ramiel DuPre                    2
Sigrid Bekker                   1
Colin Flynn                     1
Delilah Easton                  1
Dieter Kleist                   1
Isabel de Leon                  1

[I don't dare to put in any of the two named Toreador from the
checklist before I know what they actually look like, and besides this
is a group 1 and 2 crypt anyway and all really new vampires shown this
far have been group 3, but it might turn out that a group 2 and 3 crypt
may eventually be a better choice.]

Library                         90
Masters                         16
Toreador Grand Ball             5
Blood Doll                      8
Society Hunting Ground          1
Club Zombie                     1
Galaric's Legacy                1

[We're planning to bloat so bleed-defence is bounce and vote-defence
is gaining more pool than we lose if our titles aren't enough]

Actions                         10
Go Anarch                       4
Fee Stake: Boston               1
Fee Stake: Corte                1
Fee Stake: Los Angeles          1
Fee Stake: New York             1
Fee Stake: Perth                1
Fee Stake: Seattle              1

Action Modifiers                22
Awe                             6
Bewitching Oration              6
Voter Captivation               10

[Taking a calculated risk here. Without titles we'll risk seeing very
few votes go through]

Poltitcal Actions               18
Anarch Salon                    6
Kine Resources Contested        8
Conservative Agitation          4

Combat                          10
Majesty                         10

Reaction                        14
Wake with Evenings Freshness    8
Telepathic Misdirection         6


Well, this was a try at building a deck using some of the few new cards
that we currently know something about in a rather large amount.


At the time for the next newsletter we'll know a lot more, giving us a
better opportunity to groan, grin and gasp.


		Sten During