OFFICIAL VEKN. CLAN VENTRUE NEWSLETTER Vol.II No. 1 Sep. 2000 Rolling of our gold plated presses this issue - INTRODUCTION. CLAN FOCUS 'Have you noticed how kind fate is to the strong?' Anon Sep 2000 FORTITUDE 'Harvey Kietel or Steve McQueen?' AGITATION 'A starting point' MONTHLY DECK 'Corporate Power' ______________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION. Greetings and salutations from the 11th floor of the Ventrue Headquarters. It is my aim in this and future newsletters to provide half-decent articles on strategy, decks, weirdness and our great game in general. I'll try and chuck in 'something for everyone' in most issues and stick to the great Clan Ventrue as much as possible. I have got a lot of ideas / opinions ready to be torn apart so bring it on! Anyone interested can mail me with articles, fiction, abuse, nekkid ladeez pictures, decks etc. If I like it i'll put it in, if not it will go straight in the bin - hey that rhymes. ______________________________________________________ CLAN FOCUS 'Have you noticed how kind fate is to the strong?' The Ventrue have been there accumulating resources since the beginning. The Jyhad/V:TES spread of personalities was particularly benevolent toward the suited ones. Superb mid point vampires (Sir Walter, Emerson and Tim Crowley) and very useful support / back-room boys (Gideon, Roland Loussarian etc.) made it possible for a new player to build an above average deck with common votes / push, prevention, Majesty etc. One of the problems facing a group of *new* players was (and still is! Bwahahaha) how to deal with 'layers' of defence. When you consider that in the original set Immortal Grapple was rare and Majesty was common, you can begin to see the problem. Add to this the ability to prevent any damage that did get through and the Ventrue discipline spread already becomes powerful, even at this early stage. Add to the above a slice of rarity, a pinch of trading (a subject close to my dead heart and one for a future publication) and a bouquet-garnet of experience and before you know it you had a steamroller, capable of taking out tables with frightening regularity. Dark Sovereigns was also kind to our clan. A massive boost to the clan came with the addition of the terrible two, duo dirt, femme to femme, double trouble that is Queen Anne and Arika, lets just think about Arika for a second.. mmmmm Arika (a whole future edition to be dedicated to the queen of sleaze). Ancient Hearts also included another weenie in the shape of Itzahk (jetpack, shitstack, dirtrack, car jack - take your pick) Levine for those weenie vote / bleed decks we all love to despise as well as oddballs Bindusara, esteemed historian and Nakova, lover of Golconda. These two whilst not fitting the classic mould are still useful in a few other decks, most notably is Bindusara's collaboration with the secretive Tremere in the Dawn Op. / Weather Control / Skin of Night deck. It's not bad but has to plough through the opposing vamps to get to the pool or your prey just stops blocking - not good. If you ask me, the most effective Ventrue deck existed in the months precluding the 7/7 ruling and was (give or take a few arch-enemies) pretty unstoppable. It used a hell of a lot of rares and revolved around ToRIII, Day Op. Fame, Hostile Takeover and masses of Fortitude with Pulled Fangs. Horrific. I saw a lot of incarnations using different bias but basically they cut a swathe through everything and ruled the roost for a gloriously broken time. [Interestingly and in direct contradiction to my own earlier point, these early to mid (Gold era if you like) Ventrue decks did not use a lot of S:CE. I only put a few in my version on a suggestion from Matt Green. No point there just interesting.] In these more tempered days, I believe both the budding and experienced Ventrue Methusalah has to be more creative. This is no bad thing, the 7/7 rulings changed the Ventrue but don't despair sleaze fans they still mix it up with the best of them in the Arena of filth and cold counter produce. ________________________________________________________ FORTITUDE: The thinking man's discipline. The Ventrue have in my opinion, one of the most powerful/useful disciplines in abundance. It also happens to be my favourite, which is nice. Fortitude is a versatile and reassuring discipline. Obviously it affords prevention from harm and piece of mind with a wide variety of damage prevention cards, my chosen two would have to be Superior Mettle and Resilience - Celerity is a rare discipline to see in tournaments, so Superior Mettle gets around press problems and big hit decks. Resilience is adaptable and perfectly suited to deal with pointy claws and mid level opportunist punchers. I for one certainly feel 'safer' when my minions have Fortitude in abundance and coupled with other defensive countermeasures, a good crypt can be made *very* difficult to rub out. I have conducted a little clandestine survey of my own. In the last five (five player) games that I have played in, 39 of 88 vampires activated had either for or FOR without skillcards. Again no particular point here just curious that almost half had Fortitude, can't recall if all 'used' Fortitude but I would have expected the count to be lower. Admittedly this is a relatively small census and I would be interested to know if anyone has explored this theory further? Anyway, beyond prevention, Fortitude also has some excellent 'support' cards available to the discerning kindred. A lot of these are rare because they offer specialised effects and possibilities but even one or two of these cards in a Ventrue commons library can make a lot of difference. A whole game plan can be formulated around one or two unblockable actions with Daring the Dawn or Day Op. If you have the facilities to rescue or disposables to use, bide your time and scout your preys defence capabilities and when you are sure, hit hard with a huge bleed or a Dramatic Upheaval (still believe it to be the single most powerful and accessible vote). Kiss of Ra is an 'essential' Fortitude push card from the Ancient Hearts set, I cannot think of another card in the game that has a similar one-shot effect. The ability to take down any (non-Fortitude) kindred is extremely potent. >>>>>Interesting Kindred fact. Of 330 vampires revealed to us thus far, 92 have Fortitude in either incarnation. This leaves 238 vulnerable to being deep throated by Ra. If my percentages serve me correctly, approximately 72% of Vampires take a dirt dive after Kiss of Ra. That is not bad odds to play and definitely worth a card slot. Even (as Mr. Grau suggested) discarding it can sometimes be a superb tactic to strike fear into your prey. Force of Will is an odd one, I have never been able to quite find that perfect use for it. Myself and Mr. Green have long debated this one and come to the (obvious?) conclusion that the first action should not be wasted as many FoW decks tend to do. Hmmmmm any great Force of Will decks / ideas out there? If disciplines were people, Fortitude would be Harvey Kietel or perhaps Steve McQueen. Solid, useful, resourceful, dependable and good in a fight. Hmmm. I think Harvey Kietel would make an excellent member of clan Ventrue. *Note to self. Make sure Archon 'acquires' Harvey Kietel (do not damage him too much), last seen at the Guns and Ammo convention with a classy whore on his arm. I digress.onward. _______________________________________________________ AGITATION 'A starting point' Love it or loathe it agitation is a huge part of the game. The best deck and/or player can be reduced to mushy crud by a few well placed deals. Agitation skill is an intangible, individual phenomenon that flows from your personality (yes Master Yoda). It can mean the difference between 1 - 2 VP or a table sweep - seriously, I think it is that important. Possibly more than any other one clan the Ventrue require the use of timely agitation to make them truly formidable. With careful words and skilful deals a player can buy time to stockpile resources, votes and bleed until the right time. A full frontal assault with a Ventrue deck usually ends in your swift demise, instead the most common (and successful) tactic is to pick your targets, make your deals and slime your way to victory. In my opinion, the single most important factor to forming solid agitation skills is to find your own balance. I know, I know this sounds like a line from The Karate Kid part 8 but it's true. If you maximise your strengths and decide what 'type' of player you are, your game can only improve. Play as much as possible, experiment with a lot of deck styles and types and find your groove. 'Test' yourself in fun games and find what you enjoy. Personally I love the deal making and agitation part of the great game above all else, so a lot of my decks lean toward table manipulation and balance. If you excel at combat, play with the Succubus Club and put the brown-pant fear into the table. Go for it - shout people down, make/break deals, demonstrate your power and laud it up when you cram your fist down a vamps throat and use their shrivelled giblets as a skipping rope. Playing a deck that you enjoy playing with will get you better results than a boring heap of crap that forces you to go through the motions.. All psychological games with yourself, but they work ! TRUST ME (said using Superior DOM so you must comply) One of the most insightful threads on the group lately, courtesy of Mr Jim 'Legbiter' McLellen centred around Q ships with huge cannons and birds with broken wings who were in fact War Ghouls, twitch, twitch. This (grossly summarised) discussed the variety of surprise 'lay low and then pounce' tactics. I have often seen players come back from the brink, albeit an engineered or genuine brink, to win by switching tactics mid game. One of the most effective and easy to execute agitation tactics is to remain unpredictable, play one way until you are ready to kick ass then switch. The other players will be surprised and unsettled when their philanthropic semi-ally turns into a VP hungry, powercard heavy madman. The second point I would like to make this month on agitation concerns disciplines. Many times in both tournaments and fun play I have seen players ignoring the tools that are given them by the game itself. Simple assessment of your environment will glean a lot of information that you can use. If you look at all the disciplines a player has access to (here I assume a good knowledge of the available cards) you can *see* if they have the capacity to intercept, stealth, S:CE etc. etc. Also don't forget that just because you know that they cannot intercept, your other opponents may not be so astute. SO LET THEM KNOW! "Ally X feel free to call your Banishments or Kine Resources Contested because neither your crippled pred or sad act prey can block you" Following on from this - 'Reading the table' is a tad more advanced so I'll save that for a future periodical, but the above is hopefully some basic agitation pointers for the uninitiated. To be continued...... _____________________________________________________ 'Corporate Power' Created by: Rob T Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 13, Max: 34, Avg: 6.00] 2 Emerson Bridges (Ventrue, 8, DO FO po PR, Prince) 1 Luccia Paciola (Ventrue, 6, DO fo pr) 1 Nakova (Ventrue, 6, FO po, Prim) 1 Natasha Volfchek (Ventrue, 9, ce do FO po PR, Prim) 1 Ranjan Rishi (Ventrue, 5, DO fo PR) 1 Rufina Soledad (Ventrue, 2, fo) 1 Sir Walter Nash (Ventrue, 7, DO FO PR, Prince) 1 Suhailah (Ventrue, 9, FO OB po se, Prince) 1 Uriah Winter (Caitiff, 1, fo po) 1 Vanessa (Ventrue Antitribu, 6, au DO FO pr) 1 Vittorio Giovanni (Giovanni, 5, do fo ne po) Library: (90 cards) (20 masters) 1 Banishment 2 Blood Doll 2 Conditioning 1 Conservative Agitation 2 Daring the Dawn 3 Deflection 1 Direct Intervention 4 Disarm 1 Dramatic Upheaval 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Elysium: The Arboretum 2 Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, The 3 Freak Drive 1 Giant's Blood 3 Govern the Unaligned 1 Grave Robbing 1 Hand of Conrad 3 Hidden Strength 2 Hostile Takeover 1 Humanitas 6 Immortal Grapple 1 Kiss of Ra, The 1 Legendary Vampire 1 Masochism 2 Minion Tap 1 Mr. Winthrop 2 Parity Shift 3 Potence 1 Praxis Seizure: Berlin 1 Praxis Seizure: Venice 4 Pushing the Limit 1 Rack, The 4 Resilience 2 Restoration 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 4 Second Tradition: Domain 2 Skin of Rock 3 Skin of Steel 1 Sudden Reversal 4 Superior Mettle 2 Unflinching Persistence 2 Ventrue Headquarters 2 Ventrue Justicar 3 Wake with Evening's Freshness A good example of a quasi-toolbox deck. Tried to take a different tack from the norm and put a version of the old 'prevent/pulled fangs' kick back in their tail. For my money there are not enough pool attacking cards or intercept in there. Not sure what I would take out to make room. I have put it together but have not played it yet. Anyone with any opinions?? Enough prevention? Reproduced with the superb Elder Library Deck Builder. __________________________________________________ In next month's issue hitting your screens after my Honeymoon in the Maldives : More agitation prattle / critique. Next month's deck? Not decided yet possibly the esteemed Mr Wil Lee's Suhailah deck. If he eventually transcribes it!! lazy bugger or an Arika focus month? -Any comments welcome, either post or mail me. -Any points, questions, decks, ideas etc. you want showcased/discussed send them on in. Rob.Treasure@btinternet.com \!!!!!!!/_ l oo G J l vv --- I have come here to kick ass and / \ chew gum and I'm all out of gum.