OFFICIAL VEKN GANGREL-ANTITRIBU NEWSLETTER VOLUME 7 NUMBER 6 JUNE 2004 *************** In this Gehenna-centred issue ..... FICTION: The House of the McNabs Chapter 3; Signs and Portents [more transcribed d20 CoC fun from Legbiter Hall]. GEHENNA AND THE GANGREL ANTITRIBU [card review] YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CITY GANGREL [a tourney-winning deck from Ben Peal]. *************** FICTION: The House of the McNabs Chapter 3; Signs and Portents. Pitkerro Mearns lay to the North of Dundee, on a heather slope overlooking the river Tay. From Dr Jack Jefferson's office above the main entrance there was a splendid prospect of the city, with the dramatic curve of the Bridge sweeping across the water to the misty hills of Fife. On the evening before Colum's golfing trip Jack had been leaning on the stone window frame and taking in the view, when he noticed a figure toiling up the road which passed the Sanatorium. A strikingly-blonde figure, dressed for hiking, but leading a little heavily-laden one-pony cart. Something about the figure and the cart struck Jack as odd; so, putting on his jacket, he went downstairs and out into the grounds. Walking down to the gate he was in time to see the stranger disappearing up the road to the West. Briefly he thought about following, but then remembered his workload and turned with a sigh back to the Sanatorium. The sun was setting and the towers of the central building were casting long shadows over its lawns, like fingers creeping stealthily eastwards. Jack decided to take a turn around the structure before resuming work. Once upon a time this would have been an occasion for a Turkish cigarette, but now that he had given up Jack had nothing to occupy his hands, so he absent-mindedly counted the windows on the ground floor as he went. The old house was square, with curved towers at each corner, and the walls were regularly pierced by high narrow windows, six on each side, with a door in the centre of each wall. "29, 30" said Jack to himself, as he turned to enter the main door again; and then checked, and retraced his steps. Somehow, Pitkerro Mearns had acquired an extra wall. There could be no doubt of which wall was the extra one. On that side the house was cold, and the door was locked. In the window to the right of that door there was a strange greenish light, and as Jack bent to look he saw a face looking out at him, big-eyed and expressionless. It flattened its nose on the pane, hissed out the words "Two Days!", and was gone. Back in his office, the telephone was ringing. It was Shona. "Jack! I've found the Church of the Scriptural Revelation!" "The, er, what?" "The place where the missing stones are supposed to have ended up, according to the antiquarian literature! Anyway, they aren't there, and the caretaker is dead! Sometime in the last couple of days, the police are saying, and they're talking about murder!" "I'll be right over!" "It's at the foot of castle hill. I'll wait in the lounge bar of the Cat and Serpent." As Jack made his way into town the blonde hiker was leading his pony cart in the opposite direction. Reaching the House of the McNabs, he waited till he was joined by some other figures; and as dusk fell, they entered the driveway. *************** GEHENNA AND THE GANGREL ANTITRIBU i bought three boxes of Gehenna boosters and, as i have come to expect, completed the set about 10 packs into the third box. In this article i want to discuss the most obviously !Gangrel-relevant cards in the new set. Five Gehenna cards pertain specifically to our clan; they are Crusade: Dublin; Crusade: Dublin [Gehenna:R] Cardtype: Political Action Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any Sabbat vampire at +1 stealth. Successful referendum means the acting vampire is declared Archbishop of Dublin. This could lead to a contested title. If this vampire is Gangrel antitribu, he or she untaps during your next discard phase. and the following four vampires: Célèste Lamontagne [Gehenna:U] Vampire Gangrel antitribu Group: 4 Capacity: 5 Discipline: for ANI PRO Sabbat: Célèste can strike to end combat against a werewolf opponent. She gets +1 intercept when attempting to block a Camarilla vampire whose controller has at least one Gehenna card in play. Spider [Gehenna:U] Vampire Gangrel antitribu Group: 4 Capacity: 6 Discipline: ani for CEL PRO Sabbat: Spider can steal a weapon as a strike. If Spider is blocked and the blocking minion is still ready at the end of the action, Spider burns 1 blood. Una [Gehenna:U] Vampire Gangrel antitribu Group: 3 Capacity: 9 Discipline: dem ANI FOR PRE PRO Sabbat Archbishop of Dublin: Cards that require Fortitude [for] cost Una 1 less blood to play. Hartmut Stover [Gehenna:U] Vampire Gangrel antitribu Group: 3 Capacity: 10 Discipline: dom for CEL OBF PRO Sabbat Archbishop of Berlin: Any vampire voting against a referendum called by Hartmut burns 1 blood when the results are tallied. You may burn the Edge during your discard phase to gain 1 pool. First, some general remarks. From the clan point of view the most important effect of the new set is to provide another group 3 country gangrel [Una]. This means we now have enough vampires to make "Highlander"* crypts for BOTH the country and city factions. Good! Additionally, as Scott and Steve revealed in their designers' chat session [transcript on the WW web site, http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/chat/20040518.html], we will soon [Kindred Most Wanted expansion, February 05] have a starter deck for the !Gangrel. Doubleplus good. The set also sees the emergence of group 4. Group 4 and 3/4 decks are, at least for the moment, going to be rather different from group 1/2 and 2/3 decks, because they either have to focus on smaller numbers of individual vampires, or they have to be cross-clan decks. This is entirely appropriate thematically [the game is entering an age when vampires are going extinct and their society is breaking down], and it also provides a very important and creativity-promoting constraint for deck-building. i like this constraint so much that personally i rather hope group 4 will be kept small, and that if it's ever felt the game needs a whole bunch of new vampires then they are provided as a small group 5 and a large group 6; but a lot will obviously depend upon the post-Gehenna fate of supernatural-beastiekind in any post-Storyteller RPGs. Now, some specific points about the individual cards. Crusade Dublin is very much an Order-The-Fries,-Earthling card. The Design Team WANT you to play a !Gangrel political deck. And they are right, as is so often the case. The Design Team is Your Friend. Hartmut and Una are going to be the City and country factions' stock-in-trade voters. Hartmut is obviously ASTONISHINGLY good [stealthy bleed to gain edge, freak drive, vote, burn edge for pool if it was not needed for vote-pushing], but in my judgement Una is actually better. Una is a VERY interesting vampire, making it possible to build TWO Highlander vampire decks that have previously been impossible: the first being the Country Gangrel Highlander deck, and the second being the pro-PRE Highlander deck for unblockable votage, massive pool gain and near-untouchability in combat. And i didn't even need to mention the free freak drives and skins of steel. Célèste Lamontagne was discussed in a previous newsletter, so enough about her. Spider is i think the weakest of the new !Gangrel vampires. That disability of his is VERY serious, because he is not strong enough to have a high likelihood of torporising blocking minions in a single combat. His one saving grace is Psyche! at superior [reminding ourselves that it is only at the end of the ACTION, not combat, that the burn-blood text kicks in].. A Psychic Spider deck with claws and crows and things does have possibilities, i suppose. *"There can Only Be One", with a tip of the hat to the stating-the-obvious newsletter. **************** YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CITY GANGREL Ben Peal very kindly sent me the deck with which he recently won a tournament in Boston. And without further ado, we proudly present: Your Friendly Neighborhood City Gangrel Created by Ben Peal Comments: A tourney-winning City Gangrel-antitribu deck. Storyline legal. CRYPT 1 x Zachary (7): PRO OBF CEL pre for 1 x Pieter (6): PRO OBF tha for 1 x Darrell Boyce, Consul (6): PRO OBF CEL 1 x Harry Reese (6): PRO FOR obf cel 1 x Skryta Zyleta (5): CEL pro obf pot 1 x Maria Stone (5): FOR pro obf cel 1 x Wren (4): pro obf cel 1 x Max Lowell (3): obf cel 1 x Sadie (2): pro 1 x Daliyah (4): PRO obf 1 x Chandler Hungerford (3): PRO 1 x Huang, Blood Cultist (1): pro LIBRARY 1 x Campground Hunting Ground 1 x Twisted Forest 2 x Shadow Court Satyr (Changeling) 1 x The Barrens 1 x KRCG News Radio 1 x The Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper 1 x Pentex (tm) Loves You! 5 x Blood Doll 1 x Direct Intervention 2 x Sudden Reversal 4 x Protean 1 x Creep Show 1 x Rebel 1 x Curmudgeon 4 x Neighborhood Watch Commander 1 x J.S. Simmons, Esq. 1 x Mr. Winthrop 3 x Sport Bike 1 x Laptop Computer 2 x Atonement 1 x Aranthebes, The Immortal 12 x Forced Awakening 2 x Poison Pill 12 x Earth Meld 10 x Form of Mist 3 x Lost in Crowds 3 x Cloak the Gathering 3 x Swallowed by the Night 2 x Spying Mission 2 x Faceless Night 1 x Forgotten Labyrinth 2 x Flash 2 x Rooftop Shadow *********** And that's it for June! Late due to work, which also meant i had to miss the Paris tourney ;-( Never mind, should get back on schedule for the July issue, which will include some of my new Gehenna decks! See you then! Address for correspondence: james"dot"mcclellan"at"port"dot"ac"dot"uk