Noblesse Oblige CLAN VENTRUE NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2004 CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Fiction 3. Dignitas 4. Prince Murphy speaks 5. Tribunes at work 6. Exit 7. Who’s to blame for this issue 8. Card text reference Introduction Evening all, I hope you enjoyed the last newsletter, and found at least some of it vaguely useful. I’m a poltergeist.... As was rightfully pointed out by a few folk, I screwed up on how many Group 1’s had Potence in last issue’s chat on out of clan disciplines. There are actually three, so the same concept applies, but with Group 1 firmly attached. Serves me right for writing supposedly accurate stuff at silly hours of the night. Well it is a vampire game. As a positive point of thought, feedback means people are reading this newsletter. There’s a few of us now (including me). I’m drunk, one person mentioned beer and the other vodka – there’s a pattern developing here. But we are the bluest of the blue, we should be drinking port and brandy, preferably someone else’s. I mean, the rich get rich by using everybody else and hoarding their cash. I guess we have to understand the common touch, even if we don’t always approve – so beer and vodka, good for Russian Ventrue. We should always remember that, as has oft been quoted “the peasants are revolting”. In truth, without feedback, cock-ups go astray, and sometimes we write rubbish, so bring it on! Anyway Clan Ventrue don’t make mistakes, not never ever, we’re far too clever and intelligent for that kind of nonsense. It’s always someone else’s fault, probably Clan Brujah, they make lots of mistakes.. often. What these newsletters should be about is a really good forum, so we can play good games, have a laugh, and then fight like hell in tournaments. At the end of the day we are messing about in someone else’s world (mind), playing cards. So let’s get serious! In light of my spelling and general typos, I recommend engaging your Mk1 Typo filter, and that at some point, we all kitty up and get these letters translated into English. Actually (another serious bit), is there anyone out there who would be willing to translate these newsletters into other languages, French, German and Spanish being obvious ones. If so please contact me, and we can arrange something. Maybe as well, someone could translate feedback and ideas for the newsletter as well. A few of the guys giving me feedback suggested that August’s newsletter was (far) too long. Is that a general opinion ? Conclave Health and Safety Warning This newsletter is best read whilst listening to the volatile ravings of Margaret Thatcher, George Bush and Idi Amin. If these luminaries are your heroes, then you’re reading the right newsletter. If the sound makes you puke you’re obviously not a true blue blooded Ventrue, so go chat with the Malks, Nosers, Ravnos or Anarchs. Don’t forget though, pump up the volume, then roll up one of your trouser legs, otherwise we won’t let you in. Zeig Heil (I mean God save the King). Considering that the Tremere embraced Heinrich Himmler, maybe I’m being a bit unfair. I mean, there is no global world domination group lead by money/power mad people is there? No that’s just fantasy. In defence, one top secret Nosferatu report does claim that Thatcher and the Bush twins are Ventrue ghouls. When asked if this was true, the PR department of the Directorate had this to say “We are of course, always willing to answer any and all questions asked, however, as you are already aware, Clan Ventrue does not comment on individual questions about its members and their assets”. Fiction The Tremere are nice, honourable, trustworthy types. Dignitas – the dictats of the Directorate This month, the CIA of the vampire world are digging further in to what their clan are up to, what they’re famous for, and how to maximise this. Along with the Lasombra and Toreador, we are well known as political animals. So when we look at clan specific cards for the Ventrue, needless to say, most are based in politics and I’ll look at these first. As I mentioned in August’s issue, I believe Ventrue Headquarters is a superb card for 1 pool. The ability to have three votes at your disposal each round, means even if you don’t want to use political actions, you have a powerful block of votes available for negotiating with other players. Some level of table control or negotiation is key, especially is you actually want to gain VPs. Too often it’s easy to gain 1 VP, but your deck doesn’t have the staying power to continue marching onward towards total victory. If the HQ comes out early, sometimes you can dominate votes across the table, and prevent other Methusalah’s from getting in early KRCs (Kine Resources Contested), giving themselves titles, etc. What a great card! Similarly Ventrue Directorate Assembly gives us more votes, actually 1 per ready Ventrue per referendum. Now that’s potentially a whole load of votes, but……. it costs 2 pool and can be burned as a D action. So if you are going to use the Assembly, you’d better be prepared to defend it, including some intercept. Maybe this is o.k. if you are playing with quite a few Princes and Justicars, so you can pack a few extra Second Tradition, and as we saw in the last issue, there are now plenty of Ventrue with Auspex. The argument is, if I can use one Voter Captivation to gain 2 pool, I’ve paid for the card, after that anything else is a bonus. So maybe this is a good card if you are playing vote heavy with intercept and superior Presence. Paragon is a new card in our armoury. It’s only really useful if you put it on an 8+ capacity Venture. As it costs nothing, and has a built in Camarilla Exemplary, it’s a reasonable card. Whether you would use a master card slot for it is a different matter. It’s probably worth including if you are playing a serious politics deck, and you’re in a vote heavy or competition environment, where you don’t know how many people you’ll face, or the general vote level. Like all the other Camarilla clans, we have a Ventrue Justicar political card. Becoming a Justicar opens all sorts of new doors, and I propose to take a look at what the various Camarilla titles bring, in a future issue. Having three permanent votes is a good place to start, as well as the ability to use Second Tradition etc. “In this referendum, each Ventrue gets 1 extra vote” (all Ventrue should have more votes free of charge, it’s only right and proper), so we should be able to bring this in fairly easily. Bow kneel and …… If you are choosing to play one or more Praxis Seizure, then make sure they are Berlin, Cairo or Geneva, as a Ventrue who becomes Prince of these sprawls gains 1 capacity. Just make sure that do don’t contest with yourself. Having three different choices means you can gain the bonuses from all three, most clans don’t have this much choice. Bizarrely I’ve just been studying the Feng Shui of Geneva, and the song “Money, Money, Money” springs to mind, so why do I live in Liverpool. Obviously because it’s such a great place, how come I missed that bit? As well as making political gains, we have a few cards specifically to help spoil everybody else’s party. Elder Kindred Network is used when another Methusalah dares to play in our pool – lower class swineherd! One way to use this card, would be to play a Ventrue vote monster deck using Anarch Revolt as part of its attack strategy. Anarch Revolt can be voted off, and is likely to make you the target of the whole table, who will combine votes often to be rid of the revolting anarchs. If you can accumulate a good amount of permanent votes, and pack a good few vote defence cards (e.g. Pulled Strings, Dread Gaze etc), you can smash people with Elder Kindred Network. Most people using this card only turn out one. I think you need to be careful with this card, because you can easily give another Methusalah an easy kill, but also you can re-stabilise the table by a well timed bomb drop with the Network. Good time to vote yourself across the table then! As a point of note, try combining First Tradition: The Masquerade with the Anarch Revolt deck. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who other nasty tricks for this card (or any others for that matter). Powerbase: Berlin doesn’t cost anything and gives us much needed Intercept This is only against political actions, but is still useful. So that’s its plus points done. It takes a master phase action to put it in play, and then another per point of Intercept – bargain then (NOT!), and can be stolen in a referendum. So if you’re playing this card, you need to be vote defence heavy. Manorr not like this crud (card I meant). Maybe it can be justified if you have a Parthenon on the go, and some titled vampires for vote defence. Not for me though. Oh, my god, we have a card with a political title, that isn’t anything to do with politics. Is that good or bad? Brilliant in my view. Our Political Ally is a favorite card of mine. He costs 2 pool, and pool outlay is always serious stuff, not to be taken lightly; neither is taking an action at only one stealth, which is easily blocked by any old Tom, Dick or Harry. If you do get him in play, he’s extremely vulnerable. One Bum’s Rush and that’s him gone. So you need to protect him, with Obedience being my card of choice. Now the nice bit, he has 3 bleed, therefore his first bleed pays for him. After this anything he does is a bonus. If he manages even one more bleed he is a star, he might even intercept a Rush sacrificing himself but saving the ass of one of your high-cap vamps. Good card, pity he’s Unique. Again like most other clans, we have our Hunting Ground. I think HG is invaluable, anything that’s helps to keep your blood pumping is such a bonus. Hunting takes an action for 1 blood, and is only at one stealth (and Assamites love to spoil your hunting trips as well). Hunting Ground gives you this each round – nuff said! Island of Yiaros is a strange card. Very straightforward, it gives titled Ventrue innate combat damage – quite a lot actually. It’s our own Torn Signpost, and that has to be good. But it’s 2 pool and a master slot, so only useful if you’re playing aggressive combat, or want to dissuade someone from rushing Arika or our other high-caps. Even Immortal Grapplers have to think carefully about having a go at a minion with 3+ Strength and Fortitude. This is a powerful card if used correctly. And last but certainly not least, Hostile Takeover. Oh my, what a nasty card, and we like being nasty! This has to be by far the most popular Ventrue master (outside of HG which is compulsory IMO). Along with Golconda, this card allows us to batter our prey’s pool and doesn’t require an action – yippee!!!!! It costs 1 pool, big deal. Admittedly it isn’t exactly going to crush weenie hordes, but when against large-cap vamps, it really is a cruel card. Handily it can target any vampire, and therefore gives you a degree of table control, and the more of that you, the better. Good plan all round. Prince Murphy Speaks In honour of Rob’s Agitations, I thought I’d continue the tradition and tap into the strategic and tactical brain of Prince Murphy. Although he borrows heavily from Sun Tzu and Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, he still has some useful thangs to say. Each issue will feature a few of his precious pearls of wisdom. So off we go .. • “If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush” – beware of over extending yourself towards your prey, especially those with bleed bounce, and whilst leaving your ass exposed to your predator • “If your ambush is properly set, the enemy won't walk into it” – you have all the cards ready to go, your hand is a beaut, but you failed to think of why your prey is going to leave himself untapped, might have his own votes or may not block you when you require him to. • “The enemy diversion you're ignoring is their main attack” – for example, in a moment of stupidity you accept the bleed for one from Tansu Bekkir, having failed to remember that he already has a Spying Mission in play, or some stupid weenie Toreador blocks Queen Anne. Big deal, its runs to range and shoots you with its pop gun, you prevent and yawn. Then Joaquin Murietta with a .44 Magnum uses Fast Reaction to enter the fray, he blazes away with his 2 extra additional strikes, but you can’t play a strike, so you soak some damage, then he Blurs, hmmm!, bit of a problem developing, then he presses from the Fast Reaction, repeat ad nauseum, then he Psyches etc. Get the picture. What we are saying here, is never take anyone or anything for granted or take your eye of the ball. • “The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: when they're ready; when you're not” - Ain’t that the truth, try bleed for 4 in round 1 or 2, when you don’t even have a minion in play. Been there before, I bet you have. When Stanislava pops over to bleed for fourteen, inevitably you have Mr.Winthrop in your hand, only Gideon untapped, KRGC tapped, and have not seen a bleed bounce card for seven rounds. For those of you who don’t know, Murphy’s mortal life was as a grunt in the army. He is really like the Unknown Grunt, so he isn’t just a soldier, he is Soldier. Think of him a bit like a Totem for all grunts. He was embraced into Clan Ventrue for his straight forward speak, mainly to provide novelty speeches at Ventrue conventions. After a short time, certain slightly more open-minded pragmatic clan members realised that he actually spoke a whole load of sense. From then on his prestige and status within the clan rose rapidly. He is now as well read as the tales of Alexander the Great, Julius Ceaser, and Ernst Rommel. Tribunes at work - Deck of the Month The Divine Right of Kings Crypt: 2x Arika: Ventrue 11. Camarilla Inner Circle. If she’s ready during Prey’s untap, Prey loses 1 Pool or burns each location, +2 Bleed. PRE, DOM, FOR, OBF, cel, aus 2x Marcus Vitel: Ventrue 10. Camarilla Prince. Burn a retainer as a +1 Stealth action. PRE, OBT, OBF, FOR, DOM 2x Queen Anne: Ventrue 10. Camarilla Prince. +1 Bleed, +1 additional Bleed vs Tremere. PRE, DOM, FOR, aus, obf 2x Lucinde Alastor: Ventrue 10. Camarilla Justicar. Enter combat with non-Camarilla vampire. PRE, DOM, FOR, obf, tha, pot 2x Catherine du Bois: Ventrue 6. Camarilla. DOM, pre, obf, for 1x Ranjan Rishi: Ventrue 5. Camarilla. Ranjan gets +1 bleed when bleeding a Methuselah who controls a ready Brujah. PRE, DOM, for 1x Diana Vick: Ventrue 3. Camarilla. pre, dom Library: 90 cards 3x Blood Doll 3x Minion Tap 2x Creepshow Casino 1x Elysium: Palace of Versailles 1x Ventrue Headquarters 1x Uptown Hunting Ground 1x Hostile Takeover 5x Anarch Revolt 1x Zillah’s Valley 1x Metro Underground 1x Govern the Unaligned 4x Freak Drive 2x Cloak the Gathering 2x Lost in Crowds 2x Faceless Night 2x Forgotten Labyrinth 1x Parity Shift 7x Kine Resources Contested 5x Conservative Agitation 1x Masquerade Enforcement 1x Kindred Restructure 1x Reins of Power 1x Ancient Influence 1x Protect Thine Own 2x First Tradition: The Masquerade 5x Voter Captivation 3x Awe 2x Elder Kindred Network 2x Dread Gaze 4x Obedience 5x 2nd Tradition 4x Wake with Evening’s Freshness 6x Deflect 7x Majesty Because of the general high cost of the crypt, it is important to make the most out of your dudes. 4x Freak Drive, 5x Second Tradition, 4x WWEF and 7x Majesty should allow you plenty of actions, and the ability to block Obedience, and Deflect. The inclusion of Diana Vick and Ranjan Rishi are primarily defensive. With Catherine, this gives us enough vampires to get one in play by round 2, all of whom can use Deflection and Majesty. Having a few smaller folk around can often be useful against weenie decks, or to protect your big people against rampant Rush. Arika and Anne’s inherent +bleed is very useful, but not critical to the deck’s success. The amount of votes available may seem over the top, but are the key to victory. Firstly, if you play Anarch Revolt, if can be voted off, so good vote defence is vital. Secondly, you can shut down or greatly aid other votes, giving you some table control and negotiating power. Thirdly, for the deck to function, you must win your own vote actions, and win them well enough to gain pool and blood from Voter Captivation. If you can’t win your votes, your own Anarch Revolts can easily give the table to someone else. Remember that the Revolts help combat decks get through their prey’s pool and seriously help stealth-bleed decks. In fact for a methusalah with a S/B predator and a couple of Anarchs in play, unless they have great bleed defence, or can bloat like mad, they will probably go all out defensive or madly smash their predator up. So we need to be careful about when to play the Anarch Revolts and how many to put in play. So the Anarch Revolts will destabilise the table, and your KRCs and Conservative Agitations with Reins of Power and Ancient Influence, should trash your prey and grand-prey. Protect Thine Own and Hostile Takeover also give you some table control, though you must be careful otherwise the whole table will gang up and kill you off, blocking everything you do, and refusing any deals. Gambit Accepted is another master well worth considering, but with this and AnarchR in play, you really are going to have a huge target painted on your forehead. Masquerade Enforcement should be used when you feel that you won’t be bringing out any more vampires into play. A nasty variant on this could be used with Banishment, and we could consider replacing 1-2 cards with it: maybe 1x KRC/CA, and 1x Dread Gaze. Lastly we have to be careful of being too focused, and could possible include 1x Govern the Unaligned for 1x KRC. One thing I can guarantee, is that this deck will make you very unpopular amongst most players, and mayhap very popular with a few. By the way, has anyone ever played in a game with 2+ Anarch Revolt decks up and going at the same time? If so, what the hell happened? Exit Thanks to Marlow for a really enjoyable tournament at Leicester last weekend, even if I did get battered all ways. I would be moist hippy to receive comment, criticism, articles, reviews, fiction, decks etc from anyone who wishes to contribute towards this newsletter. It would be very interesting to all of us, to see how Ventrue players win, and to see angles they have used to have carved up particular style of deck. If you choose to send me a deck, then by all means include any information about why your deck was put together, strategies, card combinations, crypt choice, and so on. For those of you into creating new card designs, I will certainly look at those as well. By all means send me Anarch based Ventrue stuff, but send it to the Anarch newsletter as well if you can. I will work out who’s doing what with the Anarch writer. Who’s to blame for this issue This month’s issue was written and compiled by David Knowles (manor2001@yahoo.com), Prince of Merseyside in the U.K. Reference card texts from White Wolf’s Site Each month I will put card texts relevant to the issue here. So this will change for every issue. Name: Uptown Hunting Ground Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Cost: 2 pool Master: unique location. {Hunting Ground} During your untap phase, you may move 1 blood from the blood bank to a ready vampire you control. A vampire can only gain 1 blood from Hunting Ground cards each turn. Name: Ventrue Directorate Assembly Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Cost: 2 pool Master. Put this card in play. Each ready Ventrue gets an additional vote during political actions. This card may be burned by any minion as a (D) action; Brujah get +1 stealth when attempting that action. Name: Powerbase: Berlin Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Master: unique location. You may use a master phase action to move 1 blood from the blood bank to this card. Any Ventrue you control may move 1 blood to this card as a +1 stealth action. You may tap this card and burn X blood from it to give a Ventrue {attempting to block a political action} +X intercept. Any vampire can call a referendum to steal this card for his or her controller as a +1 stealth political action. Name: Political Ally Cardtype: Ally Clan: Ventrue Cost: 2 pool Unique mortal with 1 life. 0 strength, 3 bleed. Name: Paragon Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Unique master. Put this card on a ready Ventrue who was moved into your ready region during your last influence phase. This vampire gets 1 additional vote in referendums called by younger vampires. A younger vampire who successfully blocks this vampire burns 1 blood (before combat begins, if any). Name: Island of Yiaros Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Cost: 2 pool Master: unique location. You may tap this card to give a vampire you control +X strength for one strike, where X is the number of votes the vampire has, not counting any votes he or she gets in the prisci sub-referendum (e.g., a prince gets +2 strength). Name: Elder Kindred Network Cardtype: Reaction Clan: Ventrue Only usable during a referendum before any votes are cast. This card has no effect if the referendum succeeds. If the referendum fails, the Methuselah calling the referendum burns 1 pool in the case of a tie and 1 additional pool for each vote difference. Name: Hostile Takeover Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Cost: 1 pool Master. Choose a vampire with a capacity less than 7. Each Methuselah bids pool for control of that vampire. The highest bid goes to the vampire's controller; the bidder then takes control of the vampire. If the controller wins, half the winning bid (rounded up) goes to the blood bank. Name: Ventrue Headquarters Cardtype: Master Clan: Ventrue Cost: 1 pool Master: unique location. During a referendum, you may tap this card to gain 3 votes. Name: Ventrue Justicar Ventrue Justicar Cardtype: Political Action Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any vampire at +1 stealth. Choose a ready Ventrue. Successful referendum means he or she is declared Ventrue Justicar. In this referendum, each Ventrue gets 1 extra vote. This could lead to a contested title. Name: Praxis Seizure: Berlin Cardtype: Political Action Capacity: [VENTRUE ICON] Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any {Camarilla} vampire at +1 stealth. Successful {referendum} means the acting vampire is declared Prince of Berlin. This could lead to a contested title. If the prince is Ventrue, his or her capacity increases by 1. Name: Praxis Seizure: Cairo Cardtype: Political Action Capacity: [VENTRUE ICON] Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any {Camarilla} vampire at +1 stealth. Successful {referendum} means the acting vampire is declared Prince of Cairo. This could lead to a contested title. If the prince is Ventrue, his or her capacity increases by 1. Name: Praxis Seizure: Geneva Cardtype: Political Action Capacity: [VENTRUE ICON] Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any {Camarilla} vampire at +1 stealth. Successful {referendum} means the acting vampire is declared Prince of Geneva. This could lead to a contested title. If the prince is Ventrue, his or her capacity increases by 1.