[ intelliganism ]

Samedi newsletter - January, 2009.

        -= Table of contents =-

 1 -- Word from the editors desk
 2 -- Hunk of the Month: Rafaele Giovanni
 3 -- Card of the Month: Houngan
 4 -- Deck of the Month: As it was written
 5 -- Hats off



===== 1 - Word from the editors desk =====


Yay! New Year and a lot of stuff to look forward to. My birthday is just around the
corner, a new Thor trade paperback is out soon and I'll get around to visit IKEA for
some furniture (been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for a year... does a number on
your back. The whole things a long story :P). And this is just for january!

My new years resolution was that I need to have more fun, drink more booze, be less
healthy and take it slower with work. That way no one will be disapointed if I break
my new years res except myself.

Over and out.

/alex fnurp
http://intelliganism.blogg.se - VTES Strategic Nonsense!



===== 2 - Hunk of the Month: Rafaele Giovanni =====

Rafaele Giovanni
Clan: Giovanni (group 2)
Capacity: 6
Disciplines: NEC cel obf
Independent: Raphael may bleed your predator as a (D) action. +1 bleed.

Last newsletter I covered some strong points about sharing the Giovanni family treasure
with the Samedi so here is another gentleman that got good synergy with Samedi.

I'd like to start off with that Keystone Kine looks good to use with Rafaele. You get
to choose any effect on the card and since he can go backwards it sets you up for some ally gibbing as a
defence from the basic necromancy version of the card. Carlton Van Wyk boring you out of your mind and stripping away your stealth? Blow him up! Another anarchism idea is to do a Cry Wolf + Khazar's Diary slam
dunk, spice it with Gear Up as you wish. Lets hold the anarchism ideas for the future and continue.

Rafaele's got inferior celerity, something he shares with 3 Samedi brethren (4, if you want to count
Jack Dawson twice) and even though I really hate inferior celerity there is some interesting cards to use.
Distraction is an underplayed card but works really good with Sudario Refraction and Shambling Hordes.
Allowing you to filter through your library, sculpt your hand into perfection and dump zombie fodder into
the graveyard! Liquidation is much better at the job, but Distraction is situationaly better - For example
when ther cards in your hand really bad and you want to cycle them out in a fast manner which Liquidation cant really help out with. Another card from the inferior celerity department that I like for its card efficient combat-defence ways is Resist Earth's Grasp. For one blood you get a maneuver away from all the close combat nastiness and a press against if the opponent is in a pressy mood.

Also; Vultures buffet isnt that shabby to use at inferior obfuscate. Turn an unused zombie into the
graveyard into one blood and an untaped hunter.


===== 3 - Card of the Month: Houngan =====

Houngan
Type: Master
Requires: Samedi
Cost: 1 pool
Unique master.
Put this card on a ready Samedi you control. During your untap phase, this Samedi gains 1 blood from the blood bank, and he or she may tap to gain an additional blood. Any other Samedi may move this card to himself or herself as a +1 stealth action.


If you like, this is the hunting ground for Samedi as far as card printed goes. It got some benefits over
the other hunting grounds; It only costs one pool and you can gain additional blood if you want to, just
by simply flipping the vampire sideways. The drawback is that you cant give blood to other vampires and
it takes an action if you'd ever want it to which kind of suck (and you'd probably be better off with a
simple hunt-action in that case...). The last itching thing is that other Samedis can steal it from you,
but the likeliness of that happening is pretty slim - When did you see two samedi decks at the same table?
Or even one? :)

I was tossing around the idea of handing this card to an embraced samedi, attach two blood dolls/vessels
to it to have an everlasting stream of poolgain just sitting by your side doing its thing throughout the
game. The setup is pretty steep and there is few benefits of going the embrace-route with the Samedi so
far. But its something at least I'm going to have in the back of the mind for any upcoming bloodline related sets!

Overal this card is truly ace and should be a no-brainer inclusion into any deck featuring the clan.



===== 4 - Deck of the Month: As it was written =====

Allrighty, I wanted to pencil down a quick idea I had - Using Jorge De La Muerte's
sabbat trait. By turning him into black hand he gains access to Guarded Rubrics, sweet
to run with Hag's Wrinkles if you share it via Heidelberg. The wrinkles doubles up as
stealth for the mighty obfuscate weenies Jorge got by his side. Bloating via Vessels
and Reunion Kamut to gain resources and turn the dudes sideways - hopefully to oust
your prey with your bleed toys. The single Remover in the deck is there to do trixy
stuff with (tapping a blocker, tapping Enkil Cog etc).

Reunion Kamut is an outstanding card by the way! Since theres no age restrictions on the effect of the card like there is on similar ones, for example Govern the Unaligned. But since the Cadetted vampire is black hand only when he or she is *controlled* you can only use Reunion Kamut on Roger Farnsworth in this current crypt - Hence the extra copies of him and some Effective Managements to smooth things out a little. At least in theory.

Since this decklist sits at a light 75 cards theres plenty of room for more candy to fill the basket with and tailor make it as the need comes. Wake with evenings freshness + Delaying tactics package, combat protection/assaultiness and so on.

Deck Name : As it was written
Author : A.Gyhlesten

Crypt (12 vampires) Capacity min: 1 max: 7 average: 4.41667
------------------------------------------------------------

4x Jorge De La Muerte     7  OBF THN cel for nec   Samedi:2
1x Josef                  4  ani obf obt           !Nosferatu:2
3x Roger Farnsworth       4  OBF aus               !Malkavian:3
1x Tock                   4  obf pot pre           !Nosferatu:3
1x Lena Rowe              3  aus obf pre           Pander:2
1x Max Lowell             3  cel obf               !Gangrel:2
1x Shannon Price, the     3  ani obf               !Nosferatu:2
1x Yorik                  3  dem obf               !Malkavian:2
1x Basil                  1  obf                   Pander:2


Library (75 cards)
------------------------------------------------------------

Action [10]
  1x Conceal
  2x Psychic Veil
  7x Reunion Kamut

Action Modifier [26]
  1x Art of Memory, The
  3x Cloak the Gathering
  2x Faceless Night
  5x Freak Drive
  4x Hag's Wrinkles
  2x Into Thin Air
  4x Lost in Crowds
  4x Spying Mission
  1x Veil the Legions

Action Modifier/Combat [3]
  3x Swallowed by the Night

Ally [3]
  3x Reanimated Corpse
  2x Marijava Thuggee

Equipment [8]
  3x Camera Phone
  3x Guarded Rubrics
  1x Heart of Nizchetus
  1x Ivory Bow

Master [21]
  7x Cadet
  1x Drop Point Network
  2x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
  1x Hungry Coyote, The
  2x Information Highway
  1x Remover
  5x Vessel
  2x Effective Management

Retainer [2]
  1x J. S. Simmons, Esq.
  1x Tasha Morgan

Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder.


===== 5 - Hats off =====

For once I've had the next months issue allready planed out and it will be a bit bigger because of this.
I'll present an old-school smash hit Samedi deck that is really, really good and something I consider
taking with me to the next tournament in Oslo. I have an old, unupdated version laying about and I belive
its time to dust it off and see how it can be freshen up a bit.

Thanks for reading and have fun at the tables!

Alex dech tech number 22: Play Remover in your deck and tap all Encil cogs at sight. Mohahaha. Who would have thought that card could have a use? (It taps minions though, so heh, I guess it always had one...just not a deck to be played in).



So a year has passed and think there has been a lot of stuff going on in the tournament scene and around kitchen tables this year. New cards, new combos and so on.

What was your favourite innovation of 2008?

This year has seen a lot of tweaks on historicaly strong decks, a new card here and a new card there. For me one of the coolest innovations has to be Ambulance in the AAA (Anson, Anneke, Alexandra) deck. Put Ambulance and Aching Beauty together in the same deck and you leave your opponent to make more decisions, which is really good - The more decisions your opponents need to do the more likely they are to take the wrong ones!

What card (crypt and/or library) had the biggest impact on deck construction overall this year?

For the crypt part, I got to say that Anarch Convert has made anarchism both easier and sexier (hello Laurie! When the new Shroudfilms coming out?). Its a simple yet perfect design and I give a salute to LSJ for this masterpiece.

As for the library part - This is still something I have a problem deciding. I have no idea.

What was your favourite play, game event (or something along those lines) in 2008?

Mine is defenitly when someone backousts my friend Martin because he gets so pissed off he's *this* close to throw the table through nearest window. I've seen this happen twice and its an explosion of motions well worth to
pay for to see :) You can feel the frustration hang in the air when it happens.

What are you looking forward to this year? Any wishes?

That theres a new imbued set.

Kidding! Kidding!

Or am I?

What I do look forward to though is a new bloodline set! That would totaly rock my world to bits.

Yours truly
/alex fnurp

One take on making combat-decks more effective at ousting is spending less slots within the deck on actual combat cards, which is kind of ironic. But the philosophy is simple: By making your combat module tighter you get more wiggle room to add cards that actually oust someone.

I went back to an old Baal's bloody talon-idea I had in a text file to brush it up some and present it. In essence its a Pursuit + Weighted Walking stick combat deck that splashes Quietus for that extra salt in the wounds. The deck is quite simple, but got zero defence in order to make it tighter so the Waste Management Operation recycling can get going so you can sculpture your hand faster within the game. The 61st card (for good luck and eternal fortune) should probably be a Frontal Assault. Anyhow heres the decklist:

Deck Name : Cel/Qui simple combat Version 0.7
Author :  A.Gyhlesten

Crypt (12 vampires) Capacity min: 3 max: 5 average: 4
------------------------------------------------------------

2x Jimmy Dunn             4  CEL POT for       Pander:2
2x Parmenides             4  CEL qui           Assamite:2
2x Scarlet Carson O'T     4  CEL pro           !Gangrel:3
2x Victor Tolliver        4  CEL pot           !Brujah:2
2x Sarah Brando           3  CEL               !Brujah:2
2x Abd al-Rashid          5  CEL QUI obf       Assamite:2

Library (60 cards)
------------------------------------------------------------

Action [12]
  8x Bum's Rush
  4x Loss

Combat [30]
  5x Baal's Bloody Talons
  3x Concealed Weapon
  6x Pursuit
  4x Sideslip
  2x Taste of Death
  4x Taste of Vitae
  6x Weighted Walking Stick

Equipment [5]
  2x .44 Magnum
  2x Garrote
  1x Sword of Judgment

Master [13]
  2x Blood Doll
  2x Fame
  4x Quietus
  3x Vessel
  2x Waste Management Operation

Maby there is a different version with another discipline than Quietus that would be more effective, but I havent really found a good discipline pairing with Celerity with a support discipline quite like Quietus that got a nice crypt selection attached to it. More than open for suggestions though, in case I've missed something amazing (which I usualy do!).

Nikolaj Wendt posted a really interesting tidbit on the newsgroup, he compared Rafael and Mistress point by point and found out that Rafael was really the underdog compared to his fellow (new) Inner Circle member - This has developed into quite a neat little debate that I hope will continue forward. Hey, who knows, maby even LSJ will step in and enlighten us? Or he might just sit on the sidelines laughing his pants off ;)

All christmas presents are bought and wrapped up - Just need to buy one last surprise for my girl friend so she gets something fun to open up on christmas, I gave her a new PC some weeks ago and called that one a christmas present but thats pretty lame.

Have a nice christmas now guys :)

A while back I posted a list of cards I wanted to be reprinted and of course I skipped a few cards that I deemed wasnt that important to reprint for several reasons. One of those cards I skipped was the Puppeteer:



Printed in Final Nights, but has not been recycled since then. The card is good for keeping weenie hordes under check but theres several glaring things about the ally that doesnt make it fly all the time:

1 - The weenie/ally you want to steal needs to be untapped. Since most of the weenie decks turns their dudes sideways and plunge into their prey (or the table in general) you wont really get to toy around as much as you want to. Allys usually
are to expensive to have sitting around doing nothing - or they serve a specific purpose and does that each turn ie Procurer - so to grab one of those are equally rare. This gives the puppeteer sort of a corner case feeling.

2 - The action to take over allies has no default stealth. A minor thing really, you could build the deck in a way to circle around this problem, but paired up with point 1 above you start scratching your head and wonder if its worth it.

3 - No inherent bleed. So when you got no target for the puppeteer to snatch up it sits pretty much idle and looks pretty on your side of the table.

If the puppeteer allowed you to untap a vampire of capacity X and fiddle around with it the cost of the card obviously needs to be raised. Or even giving it 1 bleed would have this effect. I'm not too certain this card will ever see print again and I dont really think it would be nessecary to do that. But, I'm headlining this card since the effect it brings to the game is interesting and its my hope to see something similar to the Puppeteer in a future expansion.

Hmm, now that I think about it. How about a corruption counter-adding ally for the Setites? Or a political ally for the Ventrue  that is actually political (that can call certain votes, tap for votes or something)? And more changelings! :)

In the world of Magic the Gathering you have some deck archetypes, I might have
forgotten some of them but heres the ones I can define at least:

- Control
- Combo
- Aggro/Beatdown
- Prison

All of these can be found in Vampire: The Eternal struggle. All except the last one.
Which happens to be my favourite archetype in the Classic format. I actually think that
Prison-type decks are only playable in the classic format overall since the design team
for Magic has begun to shun away from the types of cards that enables the archetype.
They have done so because generally that type of deck is very boring to play against.

In short for those that doesnt know: The prison deck tries to lock down the opponent,
making him unable to play in one way or another - Thus making you win. One of the best
known Prison decks are Stax which made the opponent sacrefice permanents in his untap
and then tap the rest of his side of the table. Another one is Mindslaver, which
centered around the card Mindslaver which makes you play your opponents turn and then
recycle it forever until you win somehow.

But, I feel that vampire can afford to push the Prison enabling cards a bit since its a
multiplayer game and people are not as vulnerable to lockdown as you are in a duel game.
Worst comes to worst, you can get help crosstable.

In general there hasnt been that many tools for this kind of deck, the only two that I
can think of is The Louvre, Paris and Pentex(TM) Subversion. Louvre is really
complicated to use since you need the prince of Paris and even then you get to tap
only one minion *plus* you need to protect it so it doesnt backfire. Pentex is an awesome
card overall, but since its unique and got a high cost attach for how easy it goes
away its not a card to build a whole deck around, but rather to use as a support card.
So at least theres one decent card to add to the future Prison.

Mind Numb acts as a lockdown card too, but I want the engine for the deck to be of a
permanent nature. A card that got printed in Keepers of Tradition is a step in the right direction though,
enter Nocturn Theater:

Nocturn Theater
Type: Master
Cost: 2 pool
Master: unique location.
During your untap phase, you may tap this card and a ready vampire you control to tap
a minion controlled by your prey. Any titled vampire may burn this card as a (D)
action.

Its not even close to the final piece of the puzzle since its during your own untap
phase you tap people, but its still a card you would throw in as a piece of the prison.

Will there be more in the future? Would we want it?

Top Hat Times #4
Samedi newsletter - December, 2008.


        -= Table of contents =-

 1 -- Word from the editors desk
 2 -- Hunk of the Month: Vittorio Giovanni
 3 -- Card of the Month: Old Friends
 4 -- Deck of the Month: Trix are for Kids
 5 -- Hats off

===== 1 - Word from the editors desk =====

Hello there,

Sadly the Samedi presence in the Keepers of Tradition set was exactly zero. No new fresh
air in the crypt selection sadly, except for some from other clans you might want to
play with alongside the Samedi (or the other way around?). But some fine new cards to
toy around with none the less. This months special future among the library cards from
the latest set got me thinking a lot for example :)

Hope you find something that catches your interest inside!

/alex


===== 2 - Hunk of the month: Vittorio Giovanni =====


Vittorio Giovanni
Clan: Giovanni (group 2)
Capacity: 5
Disciplines: dom for nec pot
Independent


This guy was one of my favourite Giovannis for a long time, mostly because of his
illustration on the card - I never really played him in any deck to speak of, but for me
hes a neat little guy. I belive the only deck I played him in that almost worked was
a bruise'n'bleed deck with dominate and disarm+prevent combat package, I dismantled the
deck after a test drive though so he never really got a lot of table time as my
underling.

Why I featured him in this newsletter is because he's a perfect fit as a support vampire
in a Samedi deck that wants to splash into dominate. He can deflect, govern bleed,
freak drive and gain advantage of any fortitude-combat package you might have in the
deck. His lack of obfuscate can be patched up via cloak the gatherings and Veil the
Legion from his friends.

With some showing of the Giovanni family in the crypt you also gain access to strong
clan-restricted cards. Sudario Refraction in particular lets you setup a lot of your
game on the go and lets you cheat on copies of certain cards because its so easy to
piece together combo parts with the card. More on this in the Deck of the
Month-section :)

By investing 5 pool into Vittorio Giovanni you get a decent amount of bang for you buck,
the downside about him that I find a tad annoying is that he got inferior necromancy
and that is not too hot usually.


===== 3 - Card of the Month: Old Friends =====

Old Friends
Type: Action Modifier
Requires: Obfuscate
Cost: 1 blood
Do not replace until your untap phase.
[obf] +1 bleed. You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed.
[OBF] Only usable during a referendum. This vampire gains 2 votes.

This card was printed as a common in Keepers of Tradition and its a mighty fine card
in my opinion. A great addition to the Samedi's weaponry. A bleed modifier at basic
obfuscate is nice, the traditional Samedi bleed-deck with computers and bleed retainers
on top of the old group 2 vampires +bleed effects printed on them together with this
card should make your bleeds get more oomph at the cost of a hand size. The replace
at next untap-limitation hurts the cards playability to a degree since you really
want your card flow to be good when you play a stealth-bleeder to ensure you're sitting
with the goods to deliver on hand.

As only a bleed push-card Old Friends is pretty poor but with the superior obfuscate
that gives votes this card is going to be sweet to try out Samedi voting with. Anarch
voting should be totaly doable now, similar to the Daugthers of Cacaphony variants that
is (was?) very popular - Samedi have not had the traditional voting power that the
daughters has but this card introduced something along those lines. Again, a card that
you dont replace in the same turn to get you going and going is pretty handicapping
for a vote deck too.

I'll explore this territory of Samedi deck building in the months to come for sure.


===== 4 - Deck of the month: Trix are for Kids =====

Back 2004 Tobias op den Brouw won a tournament with a deck he called "Even Samedi
are better with Dominate" and this months deck is a variant on that concept.

I want to cut down the deck size by at least 10 more cards to get more chances to
setup a good hand via Sudario Refraction recyclying, but the basic idea is to put out
a psychic veil and bleed some with your dorks and then pick up cards with Sudario to
basicly do the same thing next turn until you win ;)

Combat defence status: Zero =P

Crypt:
3 Vittorio Giovanni nec for pot dom 5
3 Baron dom FOR NEC OBF THN 9
2 George Frederick FOR nec obf THN 6
2 Jorge De La Muerte cel for nec OBF THN 7
1 Lithrac for thn OBF 5
1 Reg Driscoll aus for pre OBF THN 8

Library: - 80 cards

Master: - 12
5 Minion Tap
1 Blood Doll
4 Dominate
1 Giant's Blood
1 Barrens, the

Action: - 17
6 Govern of the Unaligned
5 Sudario Refraction

3 Psychic Veil
3 Restoration

Action Modifier: - 28
4 Cloak the Gathering
4 Veil the Legion
7 Freak Drive
4 Lost in Crowds
4 Spying Mission
3 Conditioning
2 Swallowed by the night

Ally: - 7
1 Brigitte Gebauer (Wraith)
1 Leonardo, Mortician
5 Reanimated Corpse

Equipment: - 3
1 Seal of Veddartha
1 Camera Phone
1 Heart of Nizchetus   

Reaction: - 13
7 Deflection
3 Wake with evening's Freshness
3 On the Qui Vive


===== 5 - Hats off =====

This newsletter came out as thin as the one last month. Oh, well. Can't White Wolf
pay me to do this so I can sit on my butt infront of the computer all day? ;)

If you have any deck lists or other material that you want included please mail me at
kitzuneninja (at) hotmail (dot) com and I'll slide it right in!

Thank you and good night.

/alex
http://intelliganism.blogg.se - Vtes Strategic Nonsense

A new kid on the block straight from the KoT expansion, the Ankou, got my inner
cogs working a lot. Here is his stats:

The Ankou [KoT:V]
Cardtype:       Vampire
Clan:   Malkavian
Group:  5
Capacity:       10
Discipline:     AUS DEM OBF
Camarilla: When any vampire successfully hunts while the Ankou is ready
and untapped, the Ankou may burn that vampire as a (D) action that turn
(even on another Methuselah's turn).

I've seen some discussion about him on the newsgroup, but I had a more wicked
idea for a deck featuring him and Saulot - Saulot goes and Spirit Marionette someone
then empty the poor soul via Heidelberg Castle so you practically set up a gib-victim.
There's lots of benefits of pairing Saulot and Ankou up since you get access to
Magic of the Smith to get further use of the Heidelberg Castle (sharing some important
piece of equipment between the two, like a helicopter). Another one is
that Ankou's high capacity lets you do a Renewed Vigor and Minion tap engine for
pool gain.

Another fun idea to bake into the concept is Infernal Familiar on saulot, an idea I
saw Pullen suggest on the newsgroup - This way Saulot gains access to obfuscate
stealth if needed and when you transfer a familiar with enoug counters to burn a
marionetted victim its fun times :) That Ankou can freak drive while carrying the
familiar is just icing on the cake.

Going to get a bit unpractical to get all this into a single deck, but the ideas
are flowing!

Because Psyche! (and Coordinated Attacks) are "magic" -- they are combat cards
that are played at the end of combat. Not quite in combat and not quite after.
- LSJ

Doesnt get mightier than this to be honest :)

Hello there :)

When I was trying to catch up some on the Vtes community I stumbled up on these questions regarding timing on psyche on the usenet and LSJ's answer got me thinking a bunch on how complex the game really is. It sure is handy to have LSJ around answering rules questions that is on the border of being far to complicated to resolve without his brain, but I think it could be a lot easier sometimes if there was a proper tool to use to help out. Combat in Vtes is one of the biggest tasks to explain to someone new in the game.

In the rulebook's section 6.4.1 (Combat Sequence) there is three steps:

• Determine Range. Use maneuvers to set the range to close or long.
• Strike. Announce and resolve strikes.
• Press. Use presses to continue into another round or to end combat.

But theres far more steps that has to be done before, after and inbetween each of these three steps that it can get rather confusing if you are allowed to play a certain card  in a certain "Window" or not. It gets clearer after you have played for a while but its one of these roadbumps that can turn off new people getting into the game. And its rather challanging to explain when and how to play, for an example, immortal grapple correctly. The Psyche vs. Chango Remains question that I linked to above is equally confusing: So Psyche can only be played at the end of combat, do you have to play it after the combat or is it a step inside the combat itself this mysterious "end of combat"? Easy for veterans by now, but imagine a playgroup grabbing a bunch of Vtes starters and confronting a problem like this and when looking in the rules they see very little help.

I've learned out this game to around 25 people but I've had to cut the sessisions up and help out along the way as we palyed the game to make it really work out, I found this to be the best way for me to teach how the game ticks. But I have no doubt there is better ways to learn out how to play the game, even though the complexity will make it a troublesome task every now and then. The game is so deep that when you are stuck and love the game, the complexity is easily appreciatable but the road to that point might make it lose a lot of potential players.

Whats your thought on this?

I love to read theories on gaming in general, but articles on Magic the Gathering in particular. That games have a really good force of strong writers under its wings that theories and put the theories into actual practice and make them work. I love it! Sadly theres a very thin amount of stuff for Vampire in this regard comparing the two Richard Garfield games on the interweb archives, but they are there and some are really good. Writing a piece like "Who is the Beatdown" like Mikael J did for Magic is almost impossible at the moment for Vampire. Or is it?

Not really. In all good games there will be certain mechanics that you can point on and see what you can theorise around and then put it into practic, For instance, this little gem regarding combat decks can be read on the UK Vtes forum. Read it! You wont be dissapointed.

Anywho, I'd like to write about something I've thought about for qutie some time, this dates like 2 years back when I had the game on hold still but kept my brain active by reading game theories and it is perhaps the most important part of the whole game as I see it: Who is the actionman?

This is my main point:  To win you need to use your (or someone elses) minion phase - The more actions going your way, the more likely you will be winning the game. Really no revolutionary stuff to be honest, but its at least fun for me to poke around in it and get this writing-itch out of my fingers.

- The more actions compared to your opponents you take, the better. Weenies are a great example of a deck archetype taking a lot of actions. For example the Toreador antitribu deck is strong because it can take a lot of relevant actions during its own turn due to all the babies, +6 actions gives a lot of bang for your minion phase-buck. This is also why Fortitude as a discipline is such an important discipline for high capacity vampires and cards that simulate the Freak Drive-effect. This is really a topic in and on itself so I'll just leave it at this for now and get back to it later in another blog :)

- The more actions your opponents does in your favour, the better. When you are out of actions and you pass your turn, you have a 0 in your action column. The cheat is when you can convince your fellow players to use *THEIR* minion phase and limited actions to do as you want them to, so you get a plus in your action column. Theres various examples for this, like during a Vote and you wheel and deal to make your prey take some damage from that Kine Resources Contested that someone just called or convincing a combat deck to take someone standing in your way out of the equation. An interesting note is the above point about taking a lot of actions will probably lead to negative results on this point ("yeah, I know I have 9 weenies on the table and look really dangerous, but would you be a dear and jump with your War Ghoul over here please?"). This is also a topic for another blog, quite obviously.

- The less actions you need to take, the better. Quite self explaining really. The question of should I use Govern the Unaligned or Scouting mission all boils down to this - Of course you should use the one that gets you more juice for the action. Whats not qutie as obvious is that Wall-decks thrive in this category; There is two cards that really lets you cheat your opponents out of their actions to oust their prey and those are Eagle's Sight and Falcon's Eye. When you block with these you took "an action" in a non-standard way to look at it, but so did your opponent and his action failed but yours succeeded.

Food for my thoughts! G'night :)

While a lot of people have stuff against Direct Intervention and point at it wanting a ban I actually dont mind it that much. I really dont want to go more indepth at this since its pretty much a dead horse for me at the moment. Something I'd love to get checked though is Wash - I was and still am an avid Sudden Reversal player. I remember one of my older decks I playtested that had 7 sudden reversals in it. A stealth bleading deck and I put them in there to prevent people from gaining more pool via blood doll/minion tap and it was quite clear that a sudden reversed minion tap was pretty much game over for my poor prey.

See, masters are powerfull cards as they should be since you only get one per turn (normaly). So swingy effects like minion tap, giants blood, frontal assault and so on is to be expected. Some masters are even game winning ones (Smiling Jack and Fame comes to mind), probably the only way the deck can oust with some moderate speed.

To me, Sudden Reversal was overall fair - You trade your master phase vs. someone elses master phase. You sacreficed the option to play a good master on your own turn to foil someone else. Wash on the other hand is totaly unfair in this regard. This is what I think should get looked at. Maby even put a "only played once per game" clause on the card for this particular reason. I'd love to see the test notes on the card or the reasoning behind the implention of it.

At the moment it seems a bit underplayed though. Why? Is it because people want to play something that benefit themselves first and foremost? Well, I really dont get whats better than not letting your prey earn X amount of pool from blood dolls/powerbases/vessels/etc if youre playing a stealth bleeder (heck, no one likes seeing their prey gaining pool since it sets you further away from your goal of ousting eventually) - there is no master card currently in the game that deals as much long term pool damage as a Sudden reversal effect does in theory. Washing away a Smiling Jack practicaly says: "Sorry Wall-deck, you cant win this game. Hope to dig up your second Smiling Jack before the time runs out?". Thats pretty strong.

My guess is that we will only see more Washes getting played at tournament tables in the upcoming season of 2009 and it is my opinion that the card should have been overlooked one extra time before being sent off to the printers.

Perhaps I'm only crazy? :)

Top Hat Times #3
Samedi newsletter - November, 2008.


        -= Table of contents =-

 1 -- Word from the editors desk
 2 -- Hunk of the month: Tangin
 3 -- The Tuning: Withering
 4 -- Hats off


===== 1 - Word from the editors desk =====

Colder, shorter days are drawing near. Winter jacket has left the wardrobe.
Pretty much all there is to say about November around here. New month and a new
installment of this here newsletter.

Since a lot of Keepers of Tradition spoilers has found its way to the internet
everyone is talking about how to break cards and together with the debates about
what cards should be banned or toned down etc this is the bulk of the vampire
communities topics at the moment - I fine time to play Vampire in! :)

I'm not much for banning cards at the moment since the worst of the lot is allready
banned and I dont feel there is enough power in the cards people most often cite
as game breaking to warant bans. I'm much much more interested in tuning some
cards that are low on the power scale UP instead, which I'm starting with in
this month's newsletter. That and more within, hope you enjoy your stay.

/A.Gyhlesten  - this here editor

===== 2 - Hunk of the month: Tangin =====

There seems that we wont get a new recruit for the bloodline in the upcoming set
which is a bit saddening, but nothing surprising. Would have been neat to see
a camarilla loyal Samedi in one way or another introduced in the set, but alas
the chance was missed :)

But the bloodline still got plenty of fine ladies and gentlemen in the ranks to
put up a good fight and the vampire I'd like to focus on right now is Tangin from
Legacy of Blood:

Tanging
Group 4, 7 Cap, Samedi
THAN, OBF, pot, nec, ani
Independent
Ability: Tangin cannot strike except to dodge or end combat when in combat
with a Salubri. She may inflict 1 damage on any non-Salubri minion or retainer
 as a (D) action.

7 points of discipliens attached to a 7 cap is quite good and the discipline
spread is awesome to be honest, especially when one consider the anarch
options wiht all them disciplines. Its a bit of a shame that the inferior disciplines
are quite weak at the...well inferior. Carrion crows biting for 1 isnt going to
scare anyones pants off, necromancys versatility is lost with only basic necromancy
and the shambling hordes made from it arent as potent for their cost.

Her drawback wont normaly hurt your game. The positive effect of being able to plink
away at stuff on the table is a really good one. Sniping a Mr. Winthrop is always
a lot of fun and sending an empty vampire to torpor is equally giggle worthy.

Overall I feel that this vampire got a lot of untapped potential. A well balanced
vampire that there might be a place in a deck somewhere as a backup.


===== 3 - The Tuning: Withering =====

Theres some cards I just cant make any sense out of and I've looked more than
once at Withering and just feel how underpowered it is compared to how it could
have been with just the proper tuning. Lets take a look at the card:

ani - Strike: 1R damage.
than -    Strike: strength damage. Place this card on the opposing minion.
        The minion with this card has -1 strength. Burn this card during his
        or her controller's next discard phase.
THAN -    As above, and the minion with this card cannot play cards that require
        any Disciplines.


First of all - Why is the second discipline on the card animalism? Why oh why.
It just doesnt make any sense at all. But nevermind that, lets take a look on
the Thanatosis side of the card instead. In my opinion this card isnt worth
putting into any kind of deck, at all, since the effect essentially doesnt "do"
something and even when it doesnt really, you know, do something its not even
staying around for long.

So my suggestion for tuning this card slightly would first of all to up the
blood cost on the card to 1, so we can give it some meaningfull effect without
it beeing free and spammable :)

Allrighty, since something has withered you have to pay a price to undo the
damage the thanatosis maniac just did to you so my suggestion would be to that
in your untap you may pay 2 blood to remove the card. Disarm requires 3 blood,
but doesnt cost any blood (instead requiring you to have done more damage on
the opposing vampire) and have -2 strenght instead of one (at superior) so
I feel this is somewhat balanced in regard to the inferior thanatosis effect.

The superior though would be totaly uncool balance wise if it was kept the way
it is, so I'd probably change it to "This minion pay an extra blood to play
cards that require any Discipline" instead, just to give you an incentive to
get rid of the card for the blood cost.

These changes still wouldnt turn the card into something really that workable,
outside some wierd deck based around blood draining (Free states rant?) strategy.
The card needs something else, like a backup card to milk it out for its full
potential. Ho hum. :)

===== 4 - Hats off =====

This was all I had to offer you this month, may your hot chocolate be yummy! Live long and prosper.

/alex_fnurp

I've really put blogging in the back burner for a moment, mostly because I havent had the opportunity to think about V:tes for quite some time - But I've had a dozen or so articles I wanted to put up. They never found their way to the web though. Lazy ass swedes :P

I've scouted the newsgroup and the biggest blogs and forums though so I've been lurking within the community at least. I'm reading the NAC reports with envy. Saw something about a Imbued finalist that used Talbot's Chainsaw and that is just awesome. Angel of Berlin is a funtastic card to spam in a deck and the chainsaw is a great tool in the setup. I had an idea in the back of my head to use imbued + melee weaponry + Thomas Steed, the Angry + Angel of Berlin and call the deck Angry in Berlin. 'Cause I'm that cute. Remember to pack a copy or two of Monocle of Clarity too, since you can "Berlin" it out on the table ;)

The Keepers of Tradition set is coming closer and closer and hopefully one of my old school favourite cards may see reprint: Brujah Debate. Here is a decklist featuring this thrilling card in a deck made by Jozxyqk and I'm inclined to make a variant on it, but I belive my version will be more swarmish than Joz's. Maby there will be a fitting prince in the upcoming set to center the deck around?

Signing off!

Keepers of Traditions spoilers have started leaking out and I love it so far,
the Ventrue has been just as I predicted and hopefully the Malkavians that is
incoming will follow suit. I am still a little ticked off by the lack of Tremere
starters but I understand the reasoning behind it. Hoping there will be more
spoilers coming up soon. I love a good spoiler!

Theres a lot of stuff going on in Vtes-sweden at the moment, a tournament coming
up next weekend in Gothenburg and another one in Örebro later in the month.
Good going swedes! Whats up in Denmark? Newsgroup is silent but there is
bound to be stuff going on there too. I'm patiantly waiting for a tournament
in Oslo, maby there is one around the corner?

I'd like to give a big thumbs up for the trading community on sabbatinfrance.org's
forum, I'm really slow when it comes to actually dealing and wheeling online
so if you are waiting for a private message reply on that site - sorry. But,
the trading is really great and theres a lot of people hanging out there wishing
to do some fair swapping. I've noticed a remarkable interest in Ossian. Sure
hes handy and unfortunatly out of print, but it feels like everyone and their
mom is on the lookout for the furry fellow :P

Anyhow, I entered a pretty much up-to-date want list over here: http://www.sabbatinfrance.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=1723

The Warghoul/nocturn deck I had planned is starting to shape up and the overall
concept feels strong. The finishing touches and perhaps a test drive or two
would be in order for it, if I ever have the time to actually play.

Another card that I've been itching to take out of my binders and insert in a
deck is Slaughter houses. Man, I really dig those. Trochomany status - zero.

Anyway, off to bed for me. Catch you another time!