OFFICIAL VEKN GANGREL ANTITRIBU NEWSLETTER VOLUME 4 NUMBER 12 DECEMBER 2001 IN THIS ISSUE ...... EDITORIAL: Bloodlines, or ancient hearts done PROPERLY FICTION: The Worst Time of Year for a Journey DECK: Rafastio Ghouls A-go-go EDITORIAL: Bloodlines, or Ancient Hearts done PROPERLY i'm one card short of a full Bloodlines set as i write these words but i'm already very, VERY impressed with Scott's work on this set. Great ideas which will take a long time fully to explore, terrific artwork and the typically-laconic rules-sheet is both a model of clarity and very funny. Here i just want to point out that i think Scott may actually have pulled off the INTENTIONS of the Ancient Hearts set which were [i think] to make big vampires, allies and other permanents more competitive against weenie swarms. Additionally, i think he may have effectively rebalanced the non-camarilla vampires with the camarilla princes through the judicious introduction of cards that resemble the second and fifth traditions but aren't them. FICTION: The Worst Time of Year for a Journey Talaq pulled the leather coat closer around his frame and looked up and down the windswept street. A mortal hurried by, and as he waited for her to get out of sight he reflected upon how BORING it is to be immortal. All one's friends long dead, all the news the same endless repetitions of past follies, the only beings with whom one has ANYTHING in common certain warped and ancient vampires. Monsters like Legbiter, who thinks he can buy me, but quite honestly i would hang around the old viper for free, just for the sake of a decent conversation - that's how pathetic a tart i've become. He hawks and spits after the mortal as she turns the corner, and then rapidly crosses the road and pushes open a dingy door. A flight of steps, mouldily carpeted and smelling strongly of cat's piss leads up into the gathering gloom. Several flights later he finds the right landing and traces out the number of the appointed flat. A sluttish-looking female in a threadbare dressing gown opens the door. "You're early". Ignoring her words, Talaq enters the flat and hangs his coat on the back of a kitchen chair. "Go into the bedroom, shut the door and shut up". The woman seems about to snap back but something about the Immortal's purposeful bearing prevents her from doing so, and she obeys. As Talaq makes his preparations another figure emerges from the gloom below and circles the block of flats. By the Beard of the Prophet, i hope this isn't another of Number One's "diversions". i've NEVER liked whacking women. Ah well, if there's a chance it's going to inconvenience the Infidel Legbiter it'll be worth it i suppose. Making sure she is unobserved, Fatima begins to climb towards the flat window. Ah, better than expected - opposition! Silently she removes the previously-sabotaged window pane and climbs in. Readying her gun she waits for Talaq to show himself. But it isn't Talaq who comes out of the kitchen. There's a whirring and a buzzing and round the corner comes a little child's robot, in the form of Santa Claus. "Bomb" is the thought that springs into Fatima's mind, as she empties the clip through the chipboard wall that separates the kitchen from her hiding place, simultaneously back-somersaulting out of the window. As she does so the last rays of the evening sun bathe her and her sanity cracks. Burning, screaming and falling for what seems like an eternity she eventually hits the earth and then worms her way into a storm drain where, after much scrabbling in the dark, she finds a place to lie up, a charred foetus gibbering slightly to itself. The woman in the flat is also screaming as Talaq cautiously looks out of the window and lights a cigarette. Then he gathers up his coat, and as the woman's screams subside into sobs he leaves the flat, and descends the stairs once more. Forgotten, the robot rams again and again into a pedal bin, reciting its tinny mantra until its batteries run out: "Hohoho, aren't we jolly? .... Hohoho, aren't we jolly? .... Hohoho, aren't we jolly? .... Hohoho.... aren't ....we... jolly? .... Ho...ho......ho................" DECK NAME: Rafastio Ghouls A-go-go [allies swarm/combat deck] CREATED BY: Legbiter COMMENTS AND HOW THE DECK PLAYS: The deck i'm featuring this month had its first outing at our pub game on Wednesday the 5th of December at the Northcote Hotel, when we were [in order of play]: Me, playing this deck obviously, bleeding Matt whose second name i can't remember but it's not Green, playing weird Setite intercept shit [and actually getting it to work, for a nice change!], bleeding Mark Baxter, playing a Toreador vote/bleed deck, bleeding Rob Treasure, playing an Assamite + aus and for deck [Nose of the Hound, anyone?], bleeding John Keech, playing a Tremere intercept/combat deck. i've had my beady eyes on the Rafastio ghouls for a bit now, always had a thing about misty-eyed women in dressing gowns doncha know, especially if they bleed for anything and have some kind of combat angle. So i built a swarm-bleed with combat bolt-on deck around these allies and some others, including Shadow Court Satyr with Sadie there to recruit him, which is why this deck is in the !Gangrel NL and not the Tremere or !Tremere letter where it probably would fit better, really. If i had more SCS's i would probably replace Sadie and Thelonius or Richard Tauber with 2 copies of the cheapest !Gangrel with thaumaturgy, Luther or Pieter or somebody, how the hell should i know? O wait, i'm the official NL person so i should know, but i don't, sorry. i guess the point and trick of this deck is that allies CAN recruit allies. Even Jake Washington can recruit allies. Usually they don't, because most allies are [a] crap, and [b] clan-specific - Rafastio Ghoul and to a lesser extent Talaq being the shining exceptions [Akhenaten doesn't fit in this deck because he can't do thaumaturgy stuff]. So i was aiming for surprise and an exponenial growth kinda thing, eventually a vampire-less active region that could still win the game, and actually all that ALMOST happened. But what REALLY happened was: Going first wasn't the best since it meant i wasn't going to get minion advantage right at the start. Never mind, Creepshow casino and two vamps on my second turn, one of whom becomes Charismatic. Aisha to the left of me, Justine Elder of Dallas to the right ... hmmm .... let's try out the intercept, bring out my first Ghoul. Sure enough, despite Creepshow tappage i get blocked to my right and beaten up rather by a walk of flame, but in the meantime i've stolen two blood. Get some more minions out, regroup and over the next few turns bring out a string of Rafastio ghouls, 2 or 3 anyway. Some more of my actions get blocked and i manage to torporize Justine. i'm not being bled for much because John is trying to fight off Rob, and i'm Tributing OK so the swarm aspect is going just fine. i get shut down rather by an Edge Vitiation and Sadie acquires an extortion card when she is on no blood .... i fail to read the Vitiation card and don't realise it is burnable until near the end of the game. Arguably, as we'll see, a crucial piece of serendipity. Apart from Rob [to whom i've spoken about the concept before, on the phone] nobody has read my deck yet, they mostly think it's some rather feeble dom/tha bleed'n'biff shit, though John is BEGINNING to see what it's meant to do. i'm in something of a doldrums of the table because Rob is kicking the unliving shit out of Mark, or John whenever he thinks Mark has subsided a bit, but then up pops Mark for some more big ol' bleeds and a bit more kicking. Matt has got tooled up nicely and is steaming through Mark and there isn't [i wrongly believe] much i can do about it, so i kill John a bit more, and vice-versa. Now Mark is on 3 pool and John is on no minions, and Mark goes for the kill on Rob who is on 2-ish pool. Rob wakes and erases all Mark's minions. Matt erases Mark and now looks AWFULLY strong. Rob gets through John but isn't on a lot of pool and walls up while i burn through Matt and Rob kills all his minions, excellent use of Psyche! and Al-Ragheadi's special. No collusion here BTW, Rob needs me because i keep Rob alive against the Setite stealth-bleeds by offering Marciana's intercept ability whenever he needs it [curious how she can keep on providing Juicy Tips whilst in her coffin, but hey]. Additionally, Rob has seen me drop Rotshreck and Burst of Sunlight and knows that to kill me he will have to be able to devote his Undivided Attention to me. Now it's the endgame, both of us on 1 VP and low pool and with dangerously-depleted libraries. Rob has a .44, Heidelberg and the Market square, plus three vampires. i have Sadie, Talaq, 3-4 Rafastio Ghouls and the Shadow Court Satyr with Burst of Sunlight on him. That one bleed on the SCS has Rob REALLY worried. Really tense play because Rob never knows when i am going to pull the Burst/Rotshreck trick [i get Fatima with a Burst [at the cost of a ghoul] and someone else with an Arabic name, call him Al-Ragheadi, with the full combo], but eventually i get Rob since although he has famed Sadie [and i'm on 2 pool] his only attack cards are [a] Ambush [but she's not tapped], and [b] Clandestine Contract [and he only has 1 pool]. Completely rivetting game, a candidate for the Best Ever as defined by Matthew Green a while back in a thread about agitation etiquette, both Rob and i agree about that and compliment each other on our nasty, NASTY decks. i made a lot of mistakes but the most serious of these actually contributed to my winning, because in effect i used Matt as a bulldozer to get to Rob - i didn't mean it to happen that way, but the fact that it did has taught me a new lesson about this Great Game. DECKLIST: Here's the deck as i played it and apart from the comments above i've noted some other points where i think improvements could be made, and i've suggested what they might be. CRYPT [12 vampires]: Dr John Casey 3 tha Blythe Candelaria 3 THA Sarah Cobbler 4 THA Heinrick Schlempt 2 tha Brooke 3 tha Magdalena Schaeffer 2 THA Roreca Quaid 2 tha Sadie 2 [cute gangrel-anti, likes BAAAD faeries] Thelonius 4 tha Jing Wei 3 tha Richard Tauber 4 tha Marcianna Giovanni, Investigator [cute cat and special] LIBRARY [90 cards, and you'll need 'em]. MASTERS [18] Charisma x 2 Creepshow Casino x 2 [replace one by a haven uncovered] Jake Washington (Hunter) x 2 [replace one by a haven uncovered] Memories of Mortality x 4 Rotschreck x 2 Tribute to the Master x 6 [maybe reduce to 4, add 1 Elder Library and 1 Barrens or DoTS] ACTIONS [10] Bum's Rush x 7 [reduce to 5; add one trap and 1 computer hacking] Rave x 3 [replace by 2 computer hacking and 1 Clapped-Out Old Hippy, really he's called Mystic Vagabond i think] ALLIES [19] Nephandus (Mage) x 2 Rafastio Ghoul x 11 Shadow Court Satyr (Changeling) Succubus x 2 [bit pricey, discard if you can't get Charisma onto a !Tremere] Talaq the Immortal x 3 [only need 1 really, if i had 2 more Rafastio Ghouls i'ld put them in] COMBAT [43] Burst of Sunlight x 5 Fake Out x 9 Theft of Vitae x 24 Trap x 5 ************** Alright, that's it for another year. Have a great Christmas, and see you all in the new year for more vampy card-flopping fun! In fact i'll see some of you on Sunday for the Portsmouth tourney. Huzzah!