Introduction:
Our local playgroup has seen a rapid increase in intercept,
so I thought it might be a good idea to try to overcome that
obstacle for the stealth-poor Toreador.
Card-combination:
Scorn of Adonis and Bribes. A beautiful card-combination
for a small-cap Toreador-deck that wants to vote without
waiting for all those big vampires to hit the table.
People with votes will notice the two pool difference
in how they decide. You might even get through the
occasional Voter Captivation without any permanent votes.
Vampire-combination:
Kallista - Master Sculptor, Marcellus and Andreas -
Bard of Crete. Whenever you want to tweak your
ordinary gun/celerity -deck with all Toreador these
beauties will give your opposition a nasty surprise.
With basic Protean they can retaliate a blocked
action by sending a vampire into torpor with
Wolf Claws or Claws of the Dead. They can also gain
an extra stealth with Earth Control or become
outright unblockable with Horrific Countenance. If
you're doing the latter just be sure you can afford
the four point blood-cost.
Slow bloating:
A low cap vampire with Faithful servant is a good
blocker and bleeder as they can be used as an infinite
blood doll when they're torporized. As this is sure
to become an overobvious target your blocking melee-
weapon-deck can make good use of the seldom used
The Deadliest Sin. Even without weapons you'll be
running a celerity-combat dealing out three damage
with each strike.
Deck building:
One common concept for the Toreador is to build a deck
with guns and more celerity-cards than what's good for
anyone. As our playgroup is very intercept-heavy I found
out that my favourite gun-deck turned out to be a mix
of Gangrel Antitribu and Assamites with not one single
Toreador in it. There is a possibility to build one
around the princes Klaus van der Veken and Francois
Villon if you want the tradition-cards. It'll most
likely turn out being an Assamite/Prince deck rather
than a Toreador-deck.
Another way to use Toreadors is to vote. Usually you
will be able to hurt your prey at the same time as you
fill up your blood and pool with the help of titles,
vote-gaining cards and Voter Captivation.
I've made a deck that actually doesn't hurt anyone at
all, or at least that's what you want your environment
to believe. Interestingly enough it's a lot faster than
one might think as your prey will pretty much be left
doing whatever he or she desires. We're still debating
if the Flamethrowers should be exchanged for Assault
Rifles. If you think that you'll get a majority of all
votes with this deck then don't switch. Unblockable
diablerie-actions will fill your vampires with blood
if you torporize your opposition with aggravated
damage instead of emptying them with massive amounts
of standard damage. If your playgroup usually plays a lot
of titled vampires your blood (and pool) -economy won't
shine and you might need to cut your opposition down
to size without taking one point of damage for every
vampire you torporize.
Deckname: The moving game
Crypt
Anneke Tor 10 Justicar AUS, CEL, PRE, dom
+1 bleed. May attempt to block any vampire.
Francois Villon 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 Tor 9 Prince PRE, CEL, tha, aus, obf
May cancel effect of one of preys
hunting grounds.
Anson 4 Tor 8 Prince PRE, CEL, dom, aus
Two masteractions when ready
Dorian Strack Tor 4 AUS, cel
Colin Flynn Tor 3 aus, cel
Isabel de Leon Tor 3 AUS
Delilah Easton Tor 2 pre
Dieter Kleist Tor 2 aus
Library 90 cards
Masters 26
Fortitude 4
Blood Doll 5
Life Boon 4
Toreador Grand Ball 5
Zillah's Valley 4
Powerbase Montreal
London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper
KRCG News Radio
The Rack
Library 64
Actions 7
The Third Tradition: Progeny 5
The Fifth Tradition: Hospitality 2
Political actions 9
Consanginious Boon 5
Kindred Restructure 3
Kindred Segregation
Action modifiers 18
Voter Captivation 6
Bribes 2
Bewitching Oration 4
Awe
Freak Drive 5
Reactions 24
Forced Awakening 7
The Second Tradition: Domain 7
Telepathic Misdirection 7
Obedience 3
26 master-cards may seem a lot, but with Anson ready it's
actually not much of a problem. Besides, during the
middle-game you can happily afford to spend a turn or
two hunting while discarding unwanted master-cards as
you're just waiting for someone to be ousted.
Table-tactics have been my major problem while testing
this deck. It is no longer a surprise. 90 cards is just
fine though. You'll be eating through your library with
a shocking speed.
Tactics:
During most of the game you should just leave your prey
undisturbed. The sooner an ousting gets close the better.
During the start-game just get one prince (preferably Anson)
and one weenie on the table. Zilla's Valley will help greatly
if you get it early. Actually you should try playing any
master-card except Toreador Grand Ball during the start-game,
unless you desperately need to move a raving rush-deck to
the other side of the table. If you get a Fortitude dicipline-
card out early on you're a happy person.
If you dare to play with Alexandra instead of one of
the vampires above the second Toreador needed for a
second or third copy of Toerador Grand Ball may be
the one already used, and thus you would only lose
one vampire to act with.
If the tapped vampire happens to be Isabel de Leon or
Dorian Strack you can happily wake and redirect bleeds
with them as they won't be forced to hunt when empty
anyway.
In the middle-game you'll build new weenies, equip, vote
and bloat until someone is about to be ousted. By now you
should have at least one of your princes running several
unblockable actions per turn due to your Freak Drives. If
you still get Zillas Valleys on your hand you can either
just discard the card or use it an an expensive replacement
for Effective Management to speed up your influencing.
Stack several Blood Dolls primarily on a prince that has
fortutude as you'll very often be able to take more
than one potentially bloating action each turn.
It's also during the middle-game that you'll be able to
get your first victorypoints. Whenever someone is ousted
you can play a Life Boon either to just keep them alive
or to set them up with a healthy pool. When it's your
turn again you have the option to switch seating-order
to your liking. If you want a resqued Metuselah as your
prey, don't forget that you can demand one pool from them
during each of their untap-phases.
During the end-game it's time preparing for a long and
tedious combat as your minions don't bleed too well. By
now it should be rather clear if you want to wall up
and handle anything that moves with your Flamethrowers,
or if you have enough vampires to just swarm over the
remaining resistance.
The second time you show up with this deck in the same
playgroup people will show you more interest than what
you can handle. It's about as popular as a deck filled
with Anarchist Uprising.
Countertactics:
This deck will be killed by any determined rush-deck. A
stealth-bleeder might do well by loosing a bleed-action
and remove the Toreador Grand Ball instead. This deck
will be a lot easier to handle when it's key-actions are
no longer unblockable.
I'm not 100% certain if Hostile Takeover might turn out
to be the most hilarious way for a Ventrue Voter to
kill this deck. You might end up hunting a prey with an
unblockable voter that he built himself. However,
it should be a rare occasion when someone playing this
deck can't afford overbidding you. Beware, you might
end up buying a big prince just to see yourself moved
in front of a bleeding swarm of weenies.
In a vote-heavy environment you'll most likely get
friends from everyone against a deck that tries to
move people around and thus disrupting any previous
planning.
Sten During