Official VEKN Ventrue Antitribu Newsletter - March 2007 Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Crypt card: Owain Evans, the Wanderer 3. Special feature: Out-of-clan discipline - Celerity 4. Library card: Forced March 5. Deck: Kiss my Tongue! 1. Introduction Welcome to the Ventrue Antitribu newsletter. It's the first clan newsletter I've ever written, so bare with me if it reads weird. I don't like writing or reading VTES fiction so you won't be getting any of that here... instead I'm going to focus on cards in the game, and provide a deck using some of them. I hope you like it. 2. Crypt card: Owain Evans, the Wanderer Owain Evans, The Wanderer [BH:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Ventrue antitribu Group: 3 Capacity: 8 Discipline: cel pre AUS DOM FOR Sabbat: During any Methuselah's untap phase, if Owain is ready, you may move a blood from the blood bank to a vampire that Methuselah controls. Owain Evans is a truly fantastic vampire that belongs in nearly every Ventrue Antitribu crypt (note I said nearly; he doesn't belong in a dedicated vote deck, but I think that this clan is not very good at that strategy, a concept I might discuss in a future newsletter). He is group 3, so fits alongside every crypt you can (currently) assemble. He costs 8, which is a pretty good number; can be brought out on the second turn (depending on where you are in table order), can be accelerated via Zillah's Valley, can Crocodile Tongue 7 caps and under. He has all in-clan disciplines at superior, which is really nice (even some of the fatties, like Kyle Strathcona, don't). He has out-of-clan celerity (which is great, a subject of the next part of the newsletter) and presence (kinda cool, fits alongside Vanessa, Edward Neally, and Kyle, who has it at super). But the REALLY good thing about this vampire is his special. Owain has a built-in hunting ground! Think about that for a second... a hunting ground costs TWO pool and a master phase action... Owain brings along one for NOTHING (well he costs eight and has no title, but I believe his special more than makes up for that). And it's actually BETTER than a hunting ground. Why? Because you can do it to anyone! Does your grandprey have a vampire with a fame and no blood who looks like he is about to hunt and get blocked and binned? Help him out with a blood! Grandpredator is considering rushing your predator's main vampire but is scared of losing too much blood in the process? Encourage him by giving him a hand! Thinking about Mind Raping one of your prey's vampires so you can Heidelberg the blood off him? Make sure he's nice and juicy by fattening him up a little in your prey's turn! (which is when he doesn't get to use him of course). Predator just bled you with Raphael Catarari? Gee thanks, why don't you "help out your new buddy, Raphael" by giving the freaky little guy a blood so he doesn't untap and bleed you next turn. You can make deals, win friends and influence people, extort favours, adjust table balance, all with this one vampire, who gives any of your vampires a blood every turn also. You will be amazed at the grovelling and whining people will sometimes do to get a blood, especially if they have a "star vampire" who is getting low. Combine him with a hunting ground, put some blood dolls and perfectionists on your vampires (which we're going to do later in this newsletter when I talk about a deck I've built) and away you go. This vampire has one of the best specials of any Ventrue Antitribu (probably the best one actually, with the exception of the mighty Quentin, whose mere presence on the table can crush the hearts of vote decks without even having any cards in your hand). 3. Special feature: Out-of-clan discipline - Celerity In addition to discussing specific cards, my newsletters will also discuss an aspect or strategy applicable to the Ventrue Antitribu. This month I'm going to talk about the most common out-of-clan disciplines for them, Celerity. There are six Ventrue Antis with Celerity, nudging out Potence, Thaumaturgy and Obtenebration (all at five) for most out-of-clan discipline. However that is counting basic and advanced Dylan as two separate vampires. If you don't, then it is tied with Potence, Thaumaturgy and Obten for most common (Protean also has five but that's also counting Dylan twice). Now I believe Obtenebration and Protean are actually more useful disciplines overall for the Ventrue Anti than Celerity, because it gives them pretty easy access to something they are sorely lacking, stealth (the new influx of Ventrue Antis with Obfuscate in group 4 might stir things up a little, certainly a topic for a future newsletter). It also provides Combat Ends which can be useful for them. Also, Celerity is a discipline that really ramps up in power when you have it at superior. Psyche, Acrobatics, Pursuit, Infernal Pursuit all give you great options at super but are quite lame at inferior (and there are currently no Ventrue Antis with CEL). However this clan can make use of this good discipline at basic. Flash gives you great flexibility at basic, since it offers you a manuever (to short or long) OR a press (to continue or end). This lets for example Joseph O'Grady to track people down to close range and press to repeatedly beat on them with his +1 strength... or lets Quentin run away from Grapplers and use his Obten to End Combat. Quicken Sight combos well with Auspex to give you +1 intercept and a manuever (Spirit's Touch offers you the same at AUS, but there are some good Ventrue Antis like Joseph O'Grady who have Auspex at basic and can thus make good use of this card). On the subject of multi-discipline cards, Forced March is great at basic OR at superior (which is why I'm about to talk a lot about it and use it in a deck). 4. Library card: Forced March The library card I'm going to talk about here is Forced March, an action modifier card first printed in Kindred Most Wanted. It's not a "clan" card; Ventrue Antitribu only have a few of those and apart from Demonstration (which is awesome) and Kindred Manipulation (which is decent), they're totally crap (e.g. Political Antagonist), so I probably won't discuss them. Anyway here is Forced March. Forced March [KMW:C/PAn2, LoB:PI4] Cardtype: Action Modifier Discipline: Celerity & Fortitude A vampire can play only one Forced March each turn. [cel][for] Only usable when an action is successful. This vampire untaps. [CEL][FOR] +1 stealth, and at the end of the action, the acting vampire may burn 1 blood to untap if the action is successful. Forced March is all kinds of awesome. At basic, it's a freak drive... for free! At superior, it's +1 stealth (helpful for a clan with a notorious weakness about generating stealth) and a freak drive if the action is successful (but not a free one). However unlike freak drive, this can only be done once per turn. Of course, you can Forced March and later freak... A free freak drive is just so damn good. At superior it is pretty cool, especially since you get stealth *and* the option to untap, but annoyingly enough you can't untap if the action is unsuccessful (unlike freak drive at superior). Forced March is therefore useful for the many Ventrue Anti with Celerity. Mix it in with freak drives for multiple untap possibilities. 5. Deck: Kiss my Tongue! My deck for this newsletter is a Ventrue Antitribu powerbleed deck I've had for a while. I've taken it to two tournaments... the first it placed third at (in a pretty tough field), the other it bombed at (I was constantly being bled for 6 at stealth, sometimes by my predator, frequently by my grand predator, grand-grand-predator, etc., I just didn't have enough flick for an environment so bleed and flick heavy). The deck is based around using governs and scoutings to bring out minions early game, then later on to bleed. There is no real stealth in the deck; instead, it relies on a combination of seduction, crocodile tongue and kiss of ra. Obviously, Croc Tongue followed by Kiss of Ra is a brutal combo, stripping four blood off a blocker AND sending them to torpor, requiring an action and another two blood to get them out. This is easily worth the three blood, especially for a deck with blood gain from Hunting Ground, Perfectionists and Owain's mighty ability. Seduction also combos well with Crocodile Tongue, letting you isolate a vampire on little or no blood, who won't or can't pay the two, allowing the action through. And the advantage of bleeding at no stealth is that if/when bleeds are flicked, your new target has a good chance of being able to block the bleed. Change of Target helps for this also, and combos well with Crocodile Tongue (you're burning two blood to block my Scouting at Super? Cool ok. Um actually let's forget that whole thing... now I'll bleed you with Govern). Interesting point: Crocodile Tongue seriously hoses allies / imbued, especially Carlton. I see quite a few people using the simple defensive setup of Carlton and Unmasking. +2 intercept on a guy with a built-in dodge who isn't fazed by cards like Daring the Dawn. Highly annoying. Well, if Carlton tries to block, play Croc Tongue. Either Carlton incinerates right away, or they have to let the action through (if they can't / won't pay the two blood / life, NONE of their minions can block the action... although of course it's not unblockable, so if they choose to flick, it's a simple bleed at zero stealth). This deck has quite a strong and flexible defense. It has combat defense in the form of good prevent cards (nearly every vamp has super fortitude), bleed defense in the form of deflections and telepathic misdirections, and vote defense in the form of Demonstration and Quentin. In a vote-heavy environment (which my playgroup is not), you could add some Delaying Tactics or another Demonstration. Quentin, Owain and Joseph all have basic celerity. I included a few skill cards and some Forced Marches. The skillcards not only let them play Forced at super, it also increases their capacity, which is great for the Crocodile Tongues. Lazverinus and Joseph also have built in strength bonuses. While this is not a combat deck, it certainly doesn't hurt having that extra damage potential there. I have considered adding Flash to help this potential along. Interestingly enough, the first incarnation of this deck used Obtenebration as its out-of-clan discipline. It had one less copy each of Owain and Joseph, and two copies of Gustav Mallenhous. The Celerity skillcards were Obten skillcards, and the four Forced Marches were Tenebrous Forms. The Tenebrous Forms were pretty damn good actually, combo-ing well with the Croc Tongue / Kiss of Ra smackdown, and hosing allies / Imbued even further (newsflash: playing Tenebrous Form at super makes an action unblockable by allies, since there is no provision to burn life, only blood, muahaha). However I really couldn't stand Gustav's crappy inferior fortitude, and Tenebrous made my bleeds cost more and run at stealth, which is going away from the original idea of the deck, big bleeds that my prey has trouble blocking but my grandprey can block pretty easily if it is flicked to them. So I changed to Celerity. The Obten angle works good though, if you're curious to try it. Anyway here is the deck. The jackets could possibly be replaced with a Heart and/or a Bowl, I'm not sure. I find the chance of contesting those cards is quite high now-a-days. Deck Name : Kiss my tongue! Author : Leon Tranter Description : Ventrue Antitribu power bleed with Crocodile's Tongue and Kiss of Ra Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 4 max: 10 average: 7.92 ------------------------------------------------------------ 3x Lazverinus 10 AUS DOM FOR POT pro archbishop !Ventrue:2 3x Quentin 9 AUS DOM FOR cel obt bishop !Ventrue:2 2x Owain Evans 8 AUS DOM FOR cel pre !Ventrue:3 2x Ingrid Russo 4 DOM for !Ventrue:2 1x Blackhorse Tanner 7 AUS DOM FOR !Ventrue:3 1x Joseph O'Grady 7 DOM FOR aus cel !Ventrue:3 Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Action [14] 8x Govern the Unaligned 6x Scouting Mission Action Modifier [35] 4x Change of Target 4x Conditioning 8x Crocodile's Tongue 4x Forced March 4x Freak Drive 5x Kiss of Ra, The 6x Seduction Combat [10] 8x Rolling with the Punches 2x Skin of Steel Equipment [2] 2x Leather Jacket Master [15] 5x Blood Doll 3x Celerity 1x Corporate Hunting Ground 1x Demonstration 1x Dreams of the Sphinx 1x Grooming the Protégé 3x Perfectionist Reaction [14] 4x Deflection 2x On the Qui Vive 4x Telepathic Misdirection 4x Wake with Evening's Freshness Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Thu Mar 01 15:07:32 2007]