Introduction:
Saturday third of November saw a small tournament at
Boras gaming-convention. We were only nine players
so the competition wasn't too fierce. Fun though was
watching another two Toreador decks apart from mine
during the event. The contesting wasn't as fun though...
I had a good time minionbashing when I wasn't
spending my time taking back pool from a contest to
be at one table and being overrun by a max-cap-2
Computer Hacking swarm with Fake Out, Lucky Blow
and Taste of Vitae at another. You really don't want
to it's first prey when your deck is based on expensive
princes.
Two of the preliminary rounds saw all three
Toreadors seated at the same table and all
made it to the final round together with an
unhappy Ventrue Voter and an equally unhappy
medium stealth Malkavian bleeder.
Expensive guns eventually paid off and I have
learned the importance of waiting with bleeds
as I got to play a total of four Aire of Elation
during the entire tournament but each of those
times I ousted my prey.
When the obvious doen't work:
Having played more or less nothing but Toreador
the last six months I have seen our playgroup
getting used to what to expect from the clan.
I've been trying to build decks based on the
obvious cards for the clan, but the problem is
that people learn that when certain cards are
allowed into play the entire table suffers. So,
what is it that the Toreadors normally cannot
do?
Discipline of the month:
Obfuscate. Howe many times haven't you played a
Toreador being able to block and, and, and...
slink away from the combat hoping that the dreaded
Immortal Grapple won't show up?
One solution to this dilemma has been guns and
the Toreador-specific solution to make sure you
get those has been Toreador Grand Ball, but that
master-card locks one of your vampires. However,
there are two Toreador Princes with basic
Obfuscate, which leads us to
Vampires of the month:
Francois Villon and Klaus van der Veken.
The first is a ten cap prince with Celerity,
Auspex and Presence all at superior. Add
basic Obfuscate and his ability to steal
two blood from a younger vampire as a +1
stealth D-action as well as a built in
+1 bleed, and you have a combat-blocker
with very good bleed-capacity.
The second vampire is a nine cap prince
with Presence and Celerity at superior,
Auspex and Obfuscate at basic and the
ability to cancel the effect of one of
your preys hunting grounds.
With these two gentlemen as backbone in
your deck you can play all those nice
tradition-cards as well as doing all
the usual Toreadorish things - and you
can use the
Cards of the month:
Disguised Weapon. With basic Obfuscate you
can bring out your gun in the beginning of
combat, and unless someone plays Direct
Intervention when you announce Disguised
Weapon there's nothing they can do when
you show them the gun you have chosen.
Mask of a 1000 faces. With basic Obfuscate
you can replace your small helpless vampire
when it has been blocked with your big, mean
gunwielding combatmonster. And the best of
all - after you have gunned your opposition
into oblivion your small vampire can take
the same action that was blocked again.
Deck of the month:
I just wanted to do evil things with other
vampires, and the below is a modified version
of the tournament winning deck from One
Night in Gothenburg. As things were the tables
got vote-heavy and for some reason the other
players didn't want princes equipped with
Assault Rifles to attain the status of Archon,
and as my frustration grew due to certain
blocking of all my vampires EXCEPT my
gunmonsters I started longing for a card that
could force my opponents into the fights I
wanted.
Deckname: Firepower version 1.1
Crypt
Francois Villon 3 Tor 10 Prince CEL, AUS, PRE, chi, obf, pot
+1 bleed. May steel two blood from a younger
vampire as a +1 stealth D-action.
Klaus van der Veken 3 Tor 9 Prince PRE, CEL, tha, aus, obf
May cancel effect of one of preys
hunting grounds.
Felicia Mostrom Tor 5 AUS, CEL, pre
Dorian Strack Tor 4 AUS, cel
Marianna Gilbert Tor 4 PRE, cel
Colin Flynn Tor 3 aus, cel
Isabel de Leon Tor 3 AUS
Delilah Easton Tor 2 pre
Library 90 cards
Masters 20
Blood Doll 8
Auspex 4
Sudden Reversal 2
Powerbase Montreal
London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper
KRCG News Radio
The Rack
Society Hunting Ground
Art Museum
Library 70
Actions 17
The Third Tradition: Progeny 5
The Fifth Tradition: Hospitality 4
Pulse of the Canaille 4
Enchant Kindred 4
Action modifiers 9
Aire of Elation 5
Mask of a 1000 faces 4
Reactions 20
Forced Awakening 6
The Second Tradition: Domain 7
Telepathic Misdirection 7
Equipment 8
Assault Rifle 5
IR Goggles
Sport Bike
Pier 13, Port of Baltimore
Retainers 1
MR. Winthrop
Combat 15
Disguised Weapon 6
Blur 6
Taste of Vitae 3
Tactics:
During the start-game pay for princedom until you
need a blocker. Go bleed or equip with your small
vampires until you're either sure that you will
get away with 1 stealth or you have a gun and
a Disguised Weapon on hand.
In the middle-game you'll build new weenies, equip, kill
and bleed. The Second Traditions will bring your gunners
into combat and you can use your small vampires to
bounce bleeds while waiting for a killer-bleed.
Be careful here. You'll probably be rather low on pool
after bringing out your first gun so a couple of
defensive rounds might be in order.
During the end-game your pool-economy should be working
again, and you should basically only have to care about
which of your two remaining opponents needs most of
your bashing.
Countertactics:
Kiss of Ra, Peace Treaty and weenie bleed works fine
against this deck.
Sten During