Storyline Events Discussion

Now that the Anarchs and Alastors storyline event is over and we have a brief break before the upcoming Rise of the Imperator, it might be helpful to digest the latest events and do a little post-game analysis: #1. Anarchs and Alastors 1A. Based on the final standings, it looks like there were only 35 events run for the last storyline. IIRC, Millennium Cultist had about 70-80 events, the first Infernal Plague had 82, Return of Nergal had 50 or 60+, and even the much older Eye of Hazimel storyline had over 100 entries. So why was there so little interest in the Anarchs and Alastors event? Some possible contributory factors might have been the Limited Format, a slight rescheduling of the dates for the event, or maybe people heavily preferred the clan-focused format? 1B. What did people think about the actual rules/format for Anarchs and Alastors? I thought it was fun, but I definitely prefer the traditional 75% clan, constructed events. 5 rounds was agonizingly long, even with Limited! I liked the Auction Format, but I did feel that it was significantly easier to go the Anarchs route vs the Alastors one. 1C. The Anarchs were victorious (16 wins) with the Sabbat close behind (12). What sort of resolution would you like? I personally think the reward card should be for the winning faction (Anarchs). While I do like the concept of the "key minion," I think this should be better represented in the story epilogue rather than as additional (crypt) reward cards: - One of the complaints about the Return of Nergal storyline was that the events heavily favored Nergal because he was guaranteed a seat at the finals (and hence it was unsurprising that he won by such a significant margin). Similarly, in Anarchs and Alastors, the key minion is inherently biased towards the fixed vampires available in the auction. Thus it is no big surprise that two of the most common "key minions" (Yazid and Lucinde) were among those who had been pre- selected for the event. - Another complaint made during the event was that the Camarilla was inherently at a significant disadvantage because until mid- November (when Keepers of Tradition was officially released) there were no viable Camarilla sets to use in this Limited format. Thus, Lucinde/Jaroslav/Tatiana didn't have significant support, so the results were naturally biased in favor of Germaine and Yazid. - The "key minion" concept was nascent and there were no firm rules governing the selection. (i.e. the winner could choose a "key minion" that wasn't even in anyone's deck!). - Thematically, the significant majority of Yazid's appearances were on behalf of the Anarchs faction (4 out of 6). I think some of the Assamite fans would be mad if Advanced Yazid was an Independent Anarch though! #2. Rise of the Imperator So what would people like to see for Rise of the Imperator? Here are some of my thoughts: 2A. Logically it would only make sense for a handful of clans to actually secure the Imperator position. The six Camarilla clans (Brujah, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue) obviously. And there are enough Assamites and Gangrel that one of them could plausibly hold the position as well. Longshots would include Followers of Set, Lasombra (antitribu of course), Gargoyles, Samedi, and maybe Ravnos, but in all those cases it would be extremely hard to achieve that thematic result (i.e. lots of Lasombra wins featuring Giangaleazzo). It also seems hard to fit in what sort of "victory" would result if the Imbued or the Laibon win. If a Sabbat clan wins, maybe they are able to sabotage the entire process? Seems a bit far-fetched to think that they could pull another "Marcus Vitel"-style infiltration at such a high level though. What do you think the non-Camarilla clans should get if they win? 2B. I do like the "key minion" concept but if it continues it might make sense to require your "key minion" to actually be in your crypt (and to be of your clan, if there is the 75% rule). 2C. Assuming that there's still a 75% clan requirement, Recalled to the Founder should remain on the banned list. I also think Condemn the Sins of the Father should be added as well since everyone is required to follow the clan restrictions and Condemn would otherwise be an auto- include in any Assamite/Quietus decks and give them an unfair advantage. Perhaps Consanguinous Condemnation (but at least you have to pass a referendum to get it done and it's not like it's been a significant card in past storylines). And the Trophy mechanic is still too janky to bother worrying about Trophy: Clan Respect. Any other thoughts about what should (or should not be) banned? Obviously the ultimate decisions lie in the hands of the storyline team (Ben Swainbank), LSJ, and/or White Wolf. But I figure it doesn't hurt to open some discussion on the issues, to give them some potentially useful ideas!

Just my few cents... I really liked the concept of Auction in this storyline and I enjoyed this event as a whole. The main trouble I got with it was the length. We cut it down to I believe 3 rounds, and it was still long enough. Running five rounds would be really uncomfortable. I like the drafts, and we were drafting 3rd edition (great for drafting) and KoT (new, also pretty good edition) - however this means that the anarch/alastor angle was a bit unused most of the time. And I think that when draft is the format, it will always be the same, ignoring the fluff of the tournament. Because "My 11cap vampire on my fourth turn goes Alastor, finds bangnagh, on the 5th round tries to rush someone, gets foiled by one maneuver and on the next round I am dead, because all my predators minions were bleeding me for one..." is more common in draft. The other format I like is clan based decks - and I think storyline events are great opportunities to try it!

> 1B. What did people think about the actual rules/format for Anarchs > and Alastors? Terrible. Limited Draft worked against the auction format. The Alastor and Anarch angle was pretty much completely ignored. Not only that, but drafting from certain sets was more powerful. We drafted from 3rd and Lords, and those who drafted from 3rd had a key advantage. The whole format of this event was one of the reasons why I struggled to get players who would normally jump to play in storylines. Seriously, people were bidding more for cards that they would want to own rather than ones they would want to use. > I thought it was fun, but I definitely prefer the traditional 75% > clan, constructed events. 5 rounds was agonizingly long, even with > Limited! I liked the Auction Format, but I did feel that it was > significantly easier to go the Anarchs route vs the Alastors one. 5 rounds was ridiculous. It was almost a shortened League event that was sold as a Storyline. We ended up only playing 4 rounds because we just couldn't fit the 5th in. > 1C. The Anarchs were victorious (16 wins) with the Sabbat close behind > (12). What sort of resolution would you like? With our event, there was no clear winner because nobody played Anarch stuff (with the exception of a couple Revolts), nobody played Alastor stuff (with the exception of a couple attempted Alastor votes), and people were playing just assorted decks thanks to the format. Oh, and draft text SUCKS DOGS BALLS. > the auction. Thus it is no big surprise that two of the most common > "key minions" (Yazid and Lucinde) were among those who had been pre- > selected for the event. There was no key vampires in ours because people just generally didn't care about them, or didn't influence them out. > #2. Rise of the Imperator > > So what would people like to see for Rise of the Imperator? Here are > some of my thoughts: Back to traditional Storyline event format. No more drafting. No more league styled events. Just a normal tournament format but with 75% and maybe a couple special rules. > Obviously the ultimate decisions lie in the hands of the storyline > team (Ben Swainbank), LSJ, and/or White Wolf. But I figure it doesn't > hurt to open some discussion on the issues, to give them some > potentially useful ideas! I don't know anyone who played in my event who actually liked the last one. It was incredibly disappointing, ill thought out and actually I felt like I wasted my day playing. The only good thing that came out of it was that we had some lads up from Sydney and had a BBQ for lunch which was pretty cool. The cards part of the day just sucked. --> J grail_pbem "at" hotmail.com http://www.geocities.com/grail_j

[ quoted text not captured ] Totally agreed. Same here in Italy - the event moslty was either totally ignored (the league-auction system+limited draft was a failure in this respect) or played but disliked (as happened in my city). I second the old format (just with one event= to come back, with some nice original cards to be gained, not crappy ones as we got with A&A storyline. best Emiliano, NC Italy www.italybynight.org

> #1. Anarchs and Alastors > > > 1A. Based on the final standings, it looks like there were only 35 > events run for the last storyline. IIRC, Millennium Cultist had about > 70-80 events, the first Infernal Plague had 82, Return of Nergal had > 50 or 60+, and even the much older Eye of Hazimel storyline had over > 100 entries. So why was there so little interest in the Anarchs and > Alastors event? > > Some possible contributory factors might have been the Limited > Format, a slight rescheduling of the dates for the event, or maybe > people heavily preferred the clan-focused format? I think it was primarily the limited format. > > 1B. What did people think about the actual rules/format for Anarchs > and Alastors? > > I thought it was fun, but I definitely prefer the traditional 75% > clan, constructed events. 5 rounds was agonizingly long, even with > Limited! I liked the Auction Format, but I did feel that it was > significantly easier to go the Anarchs route vs the Alastors one. I liked it. we played the 5 rounds over several game nights, which worked fine. Auctions were ok. Timing of the event was shocking. Alastoring was never going to pay off, since no one was going to have any boosters with Cam-friendly cards in them. It should have been held early 2009, i think. or should have been anarchs vs the black hand, or something. > 1C. The Anarchs were victorious (16 wins) with the Sabbat close behind > (12). What sort of resolution would you like? a new promo card that supports anarchs and/or sabbat. like "+2 stealth if the acting minion is anarch, +1 stealth if sabbat". Only not stealth at all. something interesting. > Similarly, in Anarchs and Alastors, the key > minion is inherently biased towards the fixed vampires available in > the auction. Thus it is no big surprise that two of the most common > "key minions" (Yazid and Lucinde) were among those who had been pre- > selected for the event. mine wasn't. yeah, but the whole 'key minion' thing is never going to work, as the results will be too thinly spread. unless they _wanted_ it to be some of the auction vamps.... > - Another complaint made during the event was that the Camarilla > was inherently at a significant disadvantage because until mid- > November (when Keepers of Tradition was officially released) there > were no viable Camarilla sets to use in this Limited format. Thus, > Lucinde/Jaroslav/Tatiana didn't have significant support, so the > results were naturally biased in favor of Germaine and Yazid. totally agreed. > - The "key minion" concept was nascent and there were no firm > rules governing the selection. (i.e. the winner could choose a "key > minion" that wasn't even in anyone's deck!). that was kind of silly. should at least have had to be a vampire in the winning player's crypt at some point. > - Thematically, the significant majority of Yazid's appearances > were on behalf of the Anarchs faction (4 out of 6). I think some of > the Assamite fans would be mad if Advanced Yazid was an Independent > Anarch though! tough shit, they should have played harder for the sabbat if they wanted a say in it ;) an advanced Yazid that was independent (and not black hand), but with anarch as merged text would be cool (so merged he'd be anarch and black hand...neat!) or just a merged ability that lets him play cards as if he was an anarch... > > > #2. Rise of the Imperator > > So what would people like to see for Rise of the Imperator? Here are > some of my thoughts: > > > 2A. Logically it would only make sense for a handful of clans to > actually secure the Imperator position. The six Camarilla clans > (Brujah, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue) > obviously. And there are enough Assamites and Gangrel that one of them > could plausibly hold the position as well. Longshots would include > Followers of Set, Lasombra (antitribu of course), Gargoyles, Samedi, > and maybe Ravnos, but in all those cases it would be extremely hard to > achieve that thematic result (i.e. lots of Lasombra wins featuring > Giangaleazzo). i'd like to see new Cam Assamite vampires. that can become Imperators. and if some non-cam clan wins, give them some card that screws with titles or something. or is their own clan-equivalent title, but can be beated up by imperators, or something. it'll be fine. > 2B. I do like the "key minion" concept but if it continues it might > make sense to require your "key minion" to actually be in your crypt > (and to be of your clan, if there is the 75% rule). agreed. > 2C. Assuming that there's still a 75% clan requirement, Recalled to > the Founder should remain on the banned list. I also think Condemn the why? won't it also screw you yourself. unless you're playing a star vamp deck. in which case you need all the help against weenie decks you can get. has anyone even tried seeing what happens? it's not like you can just drop Recalled onto the table turn 1. > Sins of the Father should be added as well since everyone is required > to follow the clan restrictions and Condemn would otherwise be an auto- > include in any Assamite/Quietus decks and give them an unfair > advantage. Quietus decks need all the help they can get. Assamites win by not using quietus, so that doesn't matter. also, these cards are theoretically balanced in regular play. >50% of the time i see mono-clan decks anyway...and yet these cards aren't exactly being stuffed into every deck. which you'd think they would be if it were that great an advantage... > Any other > thoughts about what should (or should not be) banned? don't ban anything. well, other than the current general banned list. -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email) "In *my* Assamite deck, this would pwn you in teh FAEC, so shut up." "Thats only cos u've never sene mi Gionavvi PUNCHnMUCNH u asshat." - James Coupe

> - Another complaint made during the event was that the Camarilla > was inherently at a significant disadvantage because until mid- > November (when Keepers of Tradition was officially released) there > were no viable Camarilla sets to use in this Limited format. Thus, > Lucinde/Jaroslav/Tatiana didn't have significant support, so the > results were naturally biased in favor of Germaine and Yazid. The Storyline was popular in Bath, and we managed to draw all the players together over three weeks. Week 1 was initial draft and round 1, then two rounds each subsequent week. We did have a few players that missed a game, but I sent out the boosters to them so they could include the right number of cards for next time. Also I had some Jyhad boosters, which combined with Lords of the Night and 3rd/Sword of Caine meant that the Camarilla were well represented. Indeed, I think that the Anarchs were lacking generally, because we didn't have the relevant boosters. > - The "key minion" concept was nascent and there were no firm > rules governing the selection. (i.e. the winner could choose a "key > minion" that wasn't even in anyone's deck!). That could have been tightened up, I asked players to selection minions that they at least played! Sam

I really liked the draft and the bidding aspect for certain cards. Drafts are nice since you get to use draft effects AS WELL AS cards that almost no one ever uses in their decks. Makes the games really interesting. Plus you find out new uses for old wallpaper. Petri ran a 3 week storyline so that each week had two games, with the exception of the first which only had one game in addition to the initial draft and deckbuilding. Teemu ran his storyline in one go. I thnk the lack of interest internationally was due to: -players had to *gasp* purchase some boosters for it which meant investing money to the game they love -it being a draft players could not use favourite cheesy deck or at least its bare bones -five games might take quite some time to play even though at least the initial games should be over pretty quickly Cheers, Janne / Lönkka New live crap from my recent anniversary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQOxFXDx99s

> an advanced Yazid that was independent (and not black hand), but with > anarch as merged text would be cool (so merged he'd be anarch and black > hand...neat!) > > or just a merged ability that lets him play cards as if he was an anarch... It would be most stupid thing. In vtm lore he was always sabbat, and should stay sabbat. An advanced SABBAT version will be welcome. NO ANARCH CRAP. IF ANARCH WANT ADVANCED VAMPIRE GO CREATE TOBY ADVANCED.

On Dec 29, 8:50 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > an advanced Yazid that was independent (and not black hand), but with > > anarch as merged text would be cool (so merged he'd be anarch and black > > hand...neat!) > > > or just a merged ability that lets him play cards as if he was an anarch... > > It would be most stupid thing. In vtm lore he was always sabbat, and > should stay sabbat. An advanced SABBAT version will be welcome. Totally. It's not like the entire point of a storyline tournament is to influence the story or anything. -witness1

[ quoted text not captured ] Have you even thought that Yazid might actually manipulate anarchs to achive SABBAT goals ? He could as well have anti-anarch special. It would be so much better than advanced anarch crap. you see ?

On Dec 29, 12:17 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > On 29 Gru, 15:37, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > On Dec 29, 8:50 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > > > an advanced Yazid that was independent (and not black hand), but with > > > > anarch as merged text would be cool (so merged he'd be anarch and black > > > > hand...neat!) > > > > > or just a merged ability that lets him play cards as if he was an anarch... > > > > It would be most stupid thing. In vtm lore he was always sabbat, and > > > should stay sabbat. An advanced SABBAT version will be welcome. > > > Totally. It's not like the entire point of a storyline tournament is > > to influence the story or anything. > > > -witness1 > > Have you even thought that Yazid might actually manipulate anarchs to > achive SABBAT goals ? For purposes of the card game that makes him an independent anarch for the duration of his infiltration. > He could as well have anti-anarch special. It > would be so much better than advanced anarch crap. > > you see ? Better is in the eye of the beholder. The purpose of a storyline is at least in part specifically to let the winners have a say whose "better" influences what actually happens. Yazid-as-anarch won a whole bunch of storylines; an advanced anarch Yazid is an appropriate result. -witness1

My two cents from this corner of the world (Portugal). On 29 Dez, 03:59, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > #1. Anarchs and Alastors > > 1A. Based on the final standings, it looks like there were only 35 > events run for the last storyline. IIRC, Millennium Cultist had about > 70-80 events, the first Infernal Plague had 82, Return of Nergal had > 50 or 60+, and even the much older Eye of Hazimel storyline had over > 100 entries. So why was there so little interest in the Anarchs and > Alastors event? The material came late, my local retailer had problems to get us the material, i had to buy it in the internet along with several players, once they got the kits they didn't show any interest in doing the Storyline, thou i might try to run it in the future if i get my hands on other kits and if i have enough players interested in doing it so. > 1B. What did people think about the actual rules/format for Anarchs > and Alastors? > > I thought it was fun, but I definitely prefer the traditional 75% > clan, constructed events. 5 rounds was agonizingly long, even with > Limited! I liked the Auction Format, but I did feel that it was > significantly easier to go the Anarchs route vs the Alastors one. I agree 5 rounds is too much, but it was a specific tournment, the problem is that some players didn't had the time to spend two days in it and if people started with a pre-made 40 library cards/8 vampires, with would be more easy to accomplish. > 1C. The Anarchs were victorious (16 wins) with the Sabbat close behind > (12). What sort of resolution would you like? I believe that the right timming for this event should be after the KoT release, it doesn't make much sence to have (Camarilla) Alastors so weak, since you had the oportunity to play with TR, a huge boost in the anarch game. If KoT came before this storyline, it would probably be more attractive to all players. Hope the next storyline brings up more interest among players. Cheers Ricardo Marta Prince of Lisbon, Portugal

On Dec 28, 7:59 pm, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Now that the Anarchs and Alastors storyline event is over and we have > a brief break before the upcoming Rise of the Imperator, it might be > helpful to digest the latest events and do a little post-game > analysis: > > #1. Anarchs and Alastors > > 1A. Based on the final standings, it looks like there were only 35 > events run for the last storyline. IIRC, Millennium Cultist had about > 70-80 events, the first Infernal Plague had 82, Return of Nergal had > 50 or 60+, and even the much older Eye of Hazimel storyline had over > 100 entries. So why was there so little interest in the Anarchs and > Alastors event? Locals don't like draft, but they can be forced to. The most hugest problem was the length of the event. Either you had to have the exact same players show up over multiple sessions, which pretty much meant for us that you would never have more than 4 people play in an event and that we would never bother even trying to run one or you needed to squeeze everything into one day, which was utterly exhausting and we only did three rounds. After the one day thing, I was curious as to what it would be like to have an event run like a league, but you need more than one person interested in order to play. Speaking of leagues, the only league that has ever worked here was the Prophecies league. It worked because each play group could play it as part of the normal get togethers and because it involved constructed decks so players could come or go. Still, it wasn't the most fantastic thing ever. Our winner stopped playing for a while to give the others a chance to catch up, which they never did. The rules were often horrendously unpleasant and the whole thing lasted so long that there was no enthusiasm for it around the midpoint. On the flip side, people really like the idea of championing a clan - in my mind, the 75% rule is what justifies storyline events. Only a tiny amount of the player base is likely into variant play or wants to see events created just to get unique promos. > 1B. What did people think about the actual rules/format for Anarchs > and Alastors? > > I thought it was fun, but I definitely prefer the traditional 75% > clan, constructed events. 5 rounds was agonizingly long, even with > Limited! I liked the Auction Format, but I did feel that it was > significantly easier to go the Anarchs route vs the Alastors one. The people who did play it enjoyed it. I thought the best thing about it was the multiple rounds of draft. Drafts bore me these days. By having a deck evolve between rounds, you avoided the "well, did my best to make this deck, could someone else play it for me now?" feeling that I have toward draft. I didn't think the auction worked well. Sure, it added something, but much like the pool auction for the infernal event, there's too much chance of people doing things that don't make sense. All of the storyline events that require people to think about the rules need to be played a minimum of 3 times locally (people aren't interested in planning ahead), and there was no way this sort of event would ever get played more than twice with all of the logistical headaches. > 1C. The Anarchs were victorious (16 wins) with the Sabbat close behind > (12). What sort of resolution would you like? Does it matter? We can pretend that we have influence in these events, but really, I don't see that anything I've ever done in any of the events has ever made a difference. > - The "key minion" concept was nascent and there were no firm > rules governing the selection. (i.e. the winner could choose a "key > minion" that wasn't even in anyone's deck!). Could, but why would someone? The key minion thing was actually quite amusing. We could have had Order of Hermes Cabal be the key minion for our event. > 2B. I do like the "key minion" concept but if it continues it might > make sense to require your "key minion" to actually be in your crypt > (and to be of your clan, if there is the 75% rule). Um, no. Key minion should be whatever minion you think was your key minion since the whole concept of key minion is so nebulous to begin with. In constructed play, people should find it rather easy to make Rock Cat or whatever their key minions, which is perfectly fine. Of course, in constructed play without rules to encourage the play of particular minions, the chance's of any key minion being key for more than about 2 people are negligible. There was an inevitability to the key minion for the A&A event being one of the auction cards. Key minion in constructed should require something like what was done in Montreal and then it's just going to be one out of a list provided by the event designer.

On Dec 29, 5:26 am, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Terrible. Limited Draft worked against the auction format. I don't know that that was the case--I don't think the A/A draft game was perfect, but that it was a draft certainly appealed to a lot of people and the auction mechanic worked fine with the drafting. > The Alastor and Anarch angle was pretty much completely ignored. Well, really, how was it supposed to have been implimented? One of the main sets available for the event was TR, so Anarchs showed up. The Alastor angle showed up a lot in the auction cards. So there tended to be both Anarch and Alastor cards in play. Other than that there wasn't really anything to be done with them, was there? > Not only > that, but drafting from certain sets was more powerful. We drafted > from 3rd and Lords, and those who drafted from 3rd had a key > advantage. Well, sure. But that is always how Draft works. We just got Box A and Box B (Twilight and KMW) and everyone had a roughly even amount of both, so everyone was in the same boat, pack wise. > 5 rounds was ridiculous. It was almost a shortened League event that > was sold as a Storyline. We ended up only playing 4 rounds because we > just couldn't fit the 5th in. That I'll agree with. Well, not necessarily "ridiculous" but certainly "too long". 3 rounds would have been fine-- long enough to get the feel for your deck and benefit from the auction mechanic, short enough to play in one sitting. > With our event, there was no clear winner because nobody played Anarch > stuff (with the exception of a couple Revolts), Well, if you weren't drafting Twilight, then there wasn't going to be much Anarch stuff around. > nobody played Alastor > stuff (with the exception of a couple attempted Alastor votes), and > people were playing just assorted decks thanks to the format. Oh, and > draft text SUCKS DOGS BALLS. You could have avoided this by drafting Twilight. And I'm unsure why draft text sucks dog balls. I find it quite helpful when playing draft. I mean, like, if you just don't like draft, then playing a draft torunament is going to seem less than fun. But the whole event was a draft event, so going into it not liking draft and then being surprised that you didn't like the draft format seems a bit silly. > I don't know anyone who played in my event who actually liked the last > one. It was incredibly disappointing, ill thought out and actually I > felt like I wasted my day playing. The only good thing that came out > of it was that we had some lads up from Sydney and had a BBQ for lunch > which was pretty cool. The cards part of the day just sucked. See, I think you just don't like draft (I could be wrong--maybe you love draft :-), but at it's base this event was just a slightly complicated draft tournament. Yeah, there was window dressing, which was easy to ignore if you wanted to, but even then, the auction aspect struck me as fun and something I'd like to see in another event (even a constructed one). But indications are that you just don't like draft, so unsurprisingly, you didn't like the draft tournament. -Peter

Curevei wrote: ... > The most hugest problem was the length of the event. Either you had > to have the exact same players show up over multiple sessions, which > pretty much meant for us that you would never have more than 4 people > play in an event and that we would never bother even trying to run one > or you needed to squeeze everything into one day, which was utterly > exhausting and we only did three rounds. After the one day thing, I > was curious as to what it would be like to have an event run like a > league, but you need more than one person interested in order to play. > maybe we did it 'wrong', but we allowed players to come and go, and we played it out over 3 game sessions. If a player missed a game, we just gave them a booster to add to their deck (and if they missed the first game, we just gave them a bunch of boosters to build a deck out of). Worked out quite well, we thought. If anything, I think if the event was run like this it could be run for MORE rounds. I think we would have been quite happy playing 7 rounds over 4 game nights. night 1 is initial draft plus game 1, night 2 is 2 games, night 3 is 2 games, etc. We play weekly, and it gave us lots of time to think about our decks between sessions and make tweaks etc. Enthusiasm was quite high. I must admit, I personally bid on a few cards because I wanted to own them, not because of their league/tournament utility. Not too sure how that sort of thing could be worked around...maybe not include rare cards in the bidding card pool? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 29, 2:34 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > 5 rounds was ridiculous. It was almost a shortened League event that > > was sold as a Storyline. We ended up only playing 4 rounds because we > > just couldn't fit the 5th in. > > That I'll agree with. Well, not necessarily "ridiculous" but certainly > "too long". 3 rounds would have been fine-- > long enough to get the feel for your deck and benefit from the auction > mechanic, short enough to play > in one sitting. We did 5 rounds (no final) in one sitting. I got hit by gaming fatigue by round 3 and by the end, I was ready to claw my eyes out! Five rounds was soooo painful! I still wince thinking about it! > > nobody played Alastor > > stuff (with the exception of a couple attempted Alastor votes), and > > people were playing just assorted decks thanks to the format. Oh, and > > draft text SUCKS DOGS BALLS. > > You could have avoided this by drafting Twilight. And I'm unsure why > draft text sucks dog balls. I find it quite > helpful when playing draft. I mean, like, if you just don't like > draft, then playing a draft torunament is going to > seem less than fun. But the whole event was a draft event, so going > into it not liking draft and then being surprised > that you didn't like the draft format seems a bit silly. I love draft, but I dislike draft text. But then again, I'm from the old school of draft players, where trying to make a functional deck with hard-to-use cards is part of the challenge! Draft text just makes it too easy. > > I don't know anyone who played in my event who actually liked the last > > one. It was incredibly disappointing, ill thought out and actually I > > felt like I wasted my day playing. The only good thing that came out > > of it was that we had some lads up from Sydney and had a BBQ for lunch > > which was pretty cool. The cards part of the day just sucked. > > See, I think you just don't like draft (I could be wrong--maybe you > love draft :-), but at it's base > this event was just a slightly complicated draft tournament. Yeah, > there was window dressing, > which was easy to ignore if you wanted to, but even then, the auction > aspect struck me as > fun and something I'd like to see in another event (even a constructed > one). But indications are that > you just don't like draft, so unsurprisingly, you didn't like the > draft tournament. Yes, I thought the auction aspect was pretty well done. Or at least much better than the Infernal Plague auction. Though there were still plenty of OMG moments when people were like "You bid how much for Card X???" or "You let someone else win Card Y for 0 pool???"

On Dec 29, 5:15 am, Salem <kella...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > 2C. Assuming that there's still a 75% clan requirement, Recalled to > > the Founder should remain on the banned list. I also think Condemn the > > why? won't it also screw you yourself. unless you're playing a star vamp > deck. in which case you need all the help against weenie decks you can > get. has anyone even tried seeing what happens? it's not like you can > just drop Recalled onto the table turn 1. Yes, except that you won't be screwed because you design your deck around Recalled to the Founder so it won't affect you. The 75% clan requirement imposes an artificial restriction that makes you much more vulnerable to Recalled to the Founder (and other such effects). If anything, forcing everyone to plan around Recalled to the Founder would severely limit deck creativity, which would detract from a lot of the enjoyment of such an event. > > Sins of the Father should be added as well since everyone is required > > to follow the clan restrictions and Condemn would otherwise be an auto- > > include in any Assamite/Quietus decks and give them an unfair > > advantage. > > Quietus decks need all the help they can get. Assamites win by not using > quietus, so that doesn't matter. Before Kindred Most Wanted and Lords of the Night, I would agree that Quietus needed the help. Now, I strongly disagree: - Loss lets the Assamite do stealth bleed - Selective Silence is golden for offensive combat decks and also defense - Blood Awakening combos well with Black Sunrise and Market Square for an intercept deck. Or use it with Deed the Heart's Desire and Elder Impersonation for a "you can't block" deck. - Strike at the True Flesh provides free stackable damage. Ah, the good ole days of stackable Pulled Fangs. - And Retain the Quick Blood helps significantly with blood management (and works on Celerity too). > also, these cards are theoretically balanced in regular play. >50% of > the time i see mono-clan decks anyway...and yet these cards aren't > exactly being stuffed into every deck. which you'd think they would be > if it were that great an advantage... I agree that Condemn is balanced in regular play. It has a potentially strong effect but you can't guarantee what sort of decks (and clan compositions) other people will play (high opportunity cost). But in a storyline where everyone is required to have minimum 75% clan crypts, you know for certain that the card will be able to almost certainly have an overpowering effect (minimal risk). Similarly, if everyone was required to play 75% Malkavian decks, allowing Malkavian Dementia would be unbalancing. The card is balanced in normal play, because you can't guarantee you'll see a Malkavian. But if you *know* people will be required to play Malkavian, then the power of the card increases dramatically in that particular circumstance/environment.

[ quoted text not captured ] Well maybe Toby is manipulating the Anarchs to achieve Camarilla goals? Or Malkavian goals? Or since he's Malkavian, maybe he's trying to promote a Laibon agenda? Um, isn't a bit hypocritical to just pass the buck to Toby? Maybe there are Toby fans out there who would be upset if Advanced Toby is an Anarch (just like how you're adamantly opposed to Advanced Yazid being Anarch). And who knows? Maybe Toby has a backstory that also strongly contradicts the possibility of him becoming an Anarch (the Anarchs killed his father! And his girlfriend! And kicked his dog!)?

On Dec 30, 6:34 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Dec 29, 5:26 am, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > Terrible. Limited Draft worked against the auction format. > > I don't know that that was the case--I don't think the A/A draft game > was perfect, > but that it was a draft certainly appealed to a lot of people and the > auction mechanic > worked fine with the drafting. It definetly worked against the auction IMO, and IME. The cards that were up for auction, bar a couple obvious ones just didn't fit into decks that people were building becuase draft is so restrictive. Nobody wants to play the 10cap, because with virtually no untap or wake, you get them out, they do 1 action and then you get bled by the weenies and midcaps. As nobody is influencing out the 10caps, there's nobody to call the Alastors etc etc, and it's a flow on effect. > Well, really, how was it supposed to have been implimented? One of the > main sets available > for the event was TR, so Anarchs showed up. The Alastor angle showed > up a lot in the > auction cards. So there tended to be both Anarch and Alastor cards in > play. Other than that > there wasn't really anything to be done with them, was there? There could have been rules in play to encourage people going the Anarch angle... for example, half the players could have been given extra Anarch cards and the other half Alastor cards. And then there could have been cards to bid on. The fact that there were very few cards of either to bid on meant that you might have only a couple in a deck, and thus they just don't show up or are ignored. There were plenty of ways it could have been done, the way it was is probably just about the worst it could have been IMO. > That I'll agree with. Well, not necessarily "ridiculous" but certainly > "too long". easily ridiculous. Especially when you've got Draft on top of that, and then bidding, and then manipulating decks. It was just hideously too long. We had a number of games go to time as well - it was just a very poor concept. This should have been a league ala Prophecies rather than a storyline. > Well, if you weren't drafting Twilight, then there wasn't going to be > much Anarch stuff around. that's a problem with the event format, they should have provided more anarch stuff instead of trying to use it to push sales of Twilight. > You could have avoided this by drafting Twilight. And I'm unsure why > draft text sucks dog balls. I find it quite > helpful when playing draft. I was playing Assamites with potence. Settites were owning me in combat because ser gets far too much of a legup in the draft text. Spell of Life is FUCKING BROKEN and should never be allowed in draft with the draft text that it has. Seriously, draft text is lame, it's a cop out and it also makes the cards look ugly. I mean, like, if you just don't like > draft, then playing a draft torunament is going to > seem less than fun. But the whole event was a draft event, so going > into it not liking draft and then being surprised > that you didn't like the draft format seems a bit silly. I don't mind playing draft, but I doubt I'll ever play a draft tournament again for VTES as long as draft text is in place. The game becomes more like magic with uber cards, and luck playing more than a fair share in the outcome. There is no balance in the draft text and I doubt that it has ever been play-tested for. > See, I think you just don't like draft (I could be wrong--maybe you > love draft :-), but at it's base > this event was just a slightly complicated draft tournament. Yeah, > there was window dressing, > which was easy to ignore if you wanted to, but even then, the auction > aspect struck me as > fun and something I'd like to see in another event (even a constructed > one). But indications are that > you just don't like draft, so unsurprisingly, you didn't like the > draft tournament. It was more than a generic draft tournament with window dressing. It was an inane experiment in annoying players and wasting time. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 29, 5:58 pm, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I love draft, but I dislike draft text. But then again, I'm from the > old school of draft players, where trying to make a functional deck > with hard-to-use cards is part of the challenge! Draft text just makes > it too easy. I used to be interested in draft. I wouldn't say that draft text is the only reason I'm not any longer, but it doesn't help. It's more than just making drafting easier, it's that draft text has made drafting more generic. The concept of putting draft text on cards is reasonable since there were plenty of people not into drafting that may be more interested if they didn't have to be good at drafting to make a functional deck. Also, sealed play is helped quite a bit. I don't recall ever doing a sealed booster event for any CCG prior to doing one with KoT. The result was amusingly decks much like V:TES draft decks of old. The problem is that there's not a great deal of science put into the draftferiors. Cards that require common disciplines get draftferiors that require other common disciplines or no disciplines, and so forth. That a card with a draftferior can very well be perfectly playable without means it requires no thought to draft such cards. Conversely, a card that would have been ignored in the past is scooped up because it's so easy to play. For instance, where one drafter may be trying something clever, like taking all of the Protean cards, the other drafters are drafting the Protean cards mainly for the Celerity or Obfuscate versions because there's nothing better in the packs. All of the drafting converges. Disciplines, clans, and whatnot can't be "cut" like they could in the past (to a degree), leaving the skilled drafter with fewer tools for winning the draft portion of the draft. Then, look at many of the effects you get from draft text. I used to rarely draft stealth bleed in the days of Sabbat War. Now, I get stuck with it all of the time because of how often draft text is either plus bleed or plus stealth. Maybe the crop of current best drafters looks beyond such and they have a better drafting strategy, but given my decreased interest in drafting, I'm not going to put the work in to figure out how to outdraft the person who picks up easy bleed and easy stealth, especially as I don't want my opponents getting such quality cards. Once upon a time, yes, it could be said that drafts caused me to play differently from constructed; now, I play the same stealth bleed games I've been playing for the last 12 years. The draft version of Spell of Life is absurd, absurd that the card has a draft version at all, but other than encouraging errata to have it removed from tournament play, I don't feel a compelling need to harp on it.

>Well maybe Toby is manipulating the Anarchs to achieve Camarilla >goals? Or Malkavian goals? Or since he's Malkavian, maybe he's trying >to promote a Laibon agenda? > >Um, isn't a bit hypocritical to just pass the buck to Toby? Maybe >there are Toby fans out there who would be upset if Advanced Toby is >an Anarch (just like how you're adamantly opposed to Advanced Yazid >being Anarch). And who knows? Maybe Toby has a backstory that also >strongly contradicts the possibility of him becoming an Anarch (the >Anarchs killed his father! And his girlfriend! And kicked his dog!)? Toby is 5 cap Nosferatu with ani obf pre who give anarchs +1 bleed [for one blood]. Nobody would be upset with advanced baron version. Anarch Yazid will enrage fair dose of players, including ME. And before you tell: >Before Kindred Most Wanted and Lords of the Night, I would agree that >Quietus needed the help. Now, I strongly disagree <crap> Play with quietus deck. Reach the TWDA. Last deck full of quietus minions had: 1x Loss 2xFoul Blood There is also 6x CrimethInc. with another deck with minions possessing superior quietus There is one with 9x Loss - poor man's govern ... So you're wrong. Quietus still is subpar.

On 29 Dez, 03:59, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Now that the Anarchs and Alastors storyline event is over and we have > a brief break before the upcoming Rise of the Imperator, it might be > helpful to digest the latest events and do a little post-game > analysis: > > #1. Anarchs and Alastors > > 1A. Based on the final standings, it looks like there were only 35 > events run for the last storyline. IIRC, Millennium Cultist had about > 70-80 events, the first Infernal Plague had 82, Return of Nergal had > 50 or 60+, and even the much older Eye of Hazimel storyline had over > 100 entries. So why was there so little interest in the Anarchs and > Alastors event? In Lisbon we tryed to get the kits in time. The Lisbon Domain found that it is easier to buy privately from vtes.de then to have the WW pyramid work like it should. We waited 3 months for the card through normal means. We got tired of waiting and bought the kits online on the webstore of the European Coordinator. Got them in a week. Too late to do the Storyline. So what we do is give the special promos to people that come to our Con I never asked things or contacted the European Coordinator, because WW nominated a National Coordinator. Being one of the guys that organises most of the VtES events in Portugal in the last 5 years, to this day, I'm in this before this chain of command that only makes things harder for us, the people that actually do things. So it begs the question: Who Coordinates Storylines (and everything else) here? National guy, or Continental Guy? Now about this subject: It was very expensive tournament and people were saving for KoT. Therefore the need to make it early. The rules were not that briliant and getting the chance to choose a faction and a minion that you didn´'t have, really sucked. It was a very big event. Dividing it in 2 days was a bad option. Many people couldn't make it for 2 days. Pushing it into one day was also a bad option. Since our event would have people from all over Portugal, outsiders would have to stay over the night. Not cheap. Cheers, Brum

Personally I didn't attend the one run here because i was not the least bit interested in the format <echia...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:b30a3849-b4cd-49be...@w39g2000prb.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <da047209-e75f-478b...@s9g2000prm.googlegroups.com>, J <gra...@hotmail.com> wrote: > It definetly worked against the auction IMO, and IME. The cards that > were up for auction, bar a couple obvious ones just didn't fit into > decks that people were building becuase draft is so restrictive. Ah, see, we used Twilight and KMW, so the Anarch/Alastor cards worked fine (heck, I bid a lot of pool in the first or second round to get Lucinde on the ground that I was building a deck to use Alastor/Red List tech, and getting her early was important for the rest of the event. Granted, my deck ended up sucking a lot. But the effort was there :-) If you weren't using sets that had Anarch and Red List stuff in them, then yeah, a lot of the auction cards were unlikely to help. Which is why I'd like to see a similar auction mechanic (i.e. a pack of special cards to auction during the tournament) used in a constructed event. > easily ridiculous. Especially when you've got Draft on top of that, > and then bidding, and then manipulating decks. It was just hideously > too long. We had a number of games go to time as well - it was just a > very poor concept. This should have been a league ala Prophecies > rather than a storyline. We played over two weeks, so it wasn't horrible, but still, too long. I think a bunch of people ran the event over multiple sessions. But still, I'd have rather the whole thing been planned as 3 rounds for pure practicality reasons. > that's a problem with the event format, they should have provided more > anarch stuff instead of trying to use it to push sales of Twilight. Well, ya know it was the most recent set. Seemed perfectly reasonable to me. But ok. > I was playing Assamites with potence. Settites were owning me in > combat because ser gets far too much of a legup in the draft text. > Spell of Life is FUCKING BROKEN and should never be allowed in draft > with the draft text that it has. Seriously, draft text is lame, it's > a cop out and it also makes the cards look ugly. Yeah, Spell of Life in draft is ridiculously busted. I don't think there is any question about that. Which would make me think "Why run a draft event with LotN boosters when you don't need to?" Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" -Gaff

In article <9e97487f-981c-4072...@k1g2000prb.googlegroups.com>, Curevei <Cur...@aol.com> wrote: > It's more than just making drafting easier, it's that draft text has > made drafting more generic. The concept of putting draft text on > cards is reasonable since there were plenty of people not into > drafting that may be more interested if they didn't have to be good at > drafting to make a functional deck. Yeah, I'm pretty ok with this. I've played a lot of Draft events in VTES over the years, and while I have never been all that good at it (except for the LotN draft this last summer at Origins where I built a ridiculously effective Spell of Life deck, swept both preliminary tables, and only lost the final 'cause the whole table essentially spite whacked me...), and one of the problems has always been the vast number of different cards doing different things. And, yeah, Draftferiors certainly make it easier to make decks that you can actually play. Which likely makes it harder for people who are really good at drafting to maximize their goodness ('cause the cards they were going to totally school us with for their discipline use lose them out due to the much more generic draftferior text), but does help the much larger group of people who aren't super good at drafting be able to make decks that are relatively playable. Which strikes me as a reasonable trade off, but one that I can certainly see disagreement with. > The problem is that there's not a great deal of science put into the > draftferiors. Yeah, I'll certainly agree that draftferior texts seem to be fairly haphazard. And Spell of Life is certainly completely ba-roken in draft. So I agree that the concept could use some refinement, but I think the basic idea is solid. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 30 2008, 4:43 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > >Well maybe Toby is manipulating the Anarchs to achieve Camarilla > >goals? Or Malkavian goals? Or since he's Malkavian, maybe he's trying > >to promote a Laibon agenda? > > >Um, isn't a bit hypocritical to just pass the buck to Toby? Maybe > >there are Toby fans out there who would be upset if Advanced Toby is > >an Anarch (just like how you're adamantly opposed to Advanced Yazid > >being Anarch). And who knows? Maybe Toby has a backstory that also > >strongly contradicts the possibility of him becoming an Anarch (the > >Anarchs killed his father! And his girlfriend! And kicked his dog!)? > > Toby is 5 cap Nosferatu with ani obf pre who give anarchs +1 bleed > [for one blood]. Nobody would be upset with advanced baron version. My mistake. Toby...Tony...Toby...Tony... But the point remains. Why would Advanced Toby have to be Anarch? Why can't he simply be manipulating the Anarchs to achieve Camarilla (or sinister Nosferatu) goals? Just to prove you wrong - sure, *I* will be upset with an Advanced Baron version. So now you can't say *nobody* would be. ;-) > Anarch Yazid will enrage fair dose of players, including ME. And an Advanced Sabbat Yazid would also enrage a fair dose of players, especially those that put in the effort to win a storyline with an Anarch Yazid deck. I wasn't very pleased when Lambach got such a lame death. And I hated it when Helena went Infernal. But I got over it. That's the nature of storylines - stuff happens and it's not always the way you want or expect. And if an Advanced Anarch Yazid comes out (and the results strongly support an Advanced Anarch vs an Advanced Sabbat version) I'm sure people will eventually get over it as well. That's why I was suggesting that: #1. The key minion should come from your deck/clan and why having "fixed" crypt cards for a storyline can be problematic. When you have such fixed cards, a lot of random people can mess around with your favorite established characters. In a constructed storyline where the key minion is from your deck, it's less of a problem since it's mainly going to be fans of that character or clan who will be using that vampire. #2. The "key minion" for Anarchs and Alastors should be represented in the epilogue fiction and NOT as Advanced vampires. An Advanced Anarch Yazid will apparently piss off some of the die-hard Assamite fans. But an Advanced Sabbat Yazid would be a slap in the face to all of the winners who intentionally played an Anarchs Yazid deck. It would be like having the results of your storyline deck being twisted to the exact opposite of your intent. So that is why it might be better to *not* have an Advanced Yazid (or Lucinde or Toby) as a result of this particular storyline event. > >Before Kindred Most Wanted and Lords of the Night, I would agree that > >Quietus needed the help. Now, I strongly disagree <crap> > > Play with quietus deck. Reach the TWDA. > Last deck full of quietus minions had: 1x Loss 2xFoul Blood > > There is also 6x CrimethInc. with another deck with minions possessing > superior quietus > > There is one with 9x Loss - poor man's govern ... > > So you're wrong. Quietus still is subpar. Just about every discipline is subpar when you compare it to Dominate. Man, people were complaining about the lack of ousting power before Loss was printed, and they're still complaining even after Loss. Sorry they didn't simply reprint Govern, Deflection, Voter Cap, Freak Drive, Immortal Grapple, and Earth Meld as Quietus versions, but I'm guessing even then people would still be unhappy....

[ quoted text not captured ] I would get over quietus if celeriity would have freak drive [could be with cappacity restriction, or slightly worse than freak drive] or way to untap directly in combat. THEN, quietus will be viable [mainly it's about Retain the Quick Blood to help Quietus/Celerity blood management].

On Jan 1, 7:02 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > I would get over quietus if celeriity would have freak drive [could be > with cappacity restriction, or slightly worse than freak drive] or way > to untap directly in combat. THEN, quietus will be viable [mainly it's > about Retain the Quick Blood to help Quietus/Celerity blood > management]. Not a big fan of CrimethInc? (Ironically enough, an Advanced Anarch Yazid would really be able to have fun with CrimethInc). Sorry, but I don't want to see every discipline have their own version of Freak Drive. And the existence of Retain the Quick Blood, the Path of Blood, Sajid, and Izhim means a Quietus Freak Drive would be severely overpowered. Similarly, a Chimerstry Freak Drive would be bad because of Fatuus Mastery, Path of Paradox, Gabrin, and Karavalanisha Vrana. I really don't want to see any more solitaire Una-style decks.... Um...speaking of untap and multiple actions, have you been paying attention to the past several sets? Helicopter gives you a permanent untap effect (and the Assamites have OBF to get the first action through). Or if you want the untap for combat, then have you tried Monster? Also, the Assamites are the only clan with *two* Black Hand Seraphs in a given grouping and are tied with the most Black Hand members in a given grouping (tied with !Gangrel) so they can abuse the hell out of Seraph's Second and Tattoo Signal. Have you ever gotten Djuhah and Izhim out each with a Tattoo Signal? So no, I don't think things are quite as dire for the Assamites as you make them out to be. Hey, at least Celerity's been getting some really good cards the past several sets. Resist Earth's Grasp is amazing! Maneuver *and* press at inferior is great for combat decks. And superior offers a nice stealth option if you don't want to focus on Obfuscate (or you're playing with Viziers). Fleetness gives you built-in stealth for bleeding with permanents. Or a stealthed Ambush so you aren't easily blocked by a disposable weenie. And superior Torrent is just plain wicked! Much better than what Obtenebration (Shadow Body) or Chimerstry (Mirror Image) offers and is great for bleed or politics. Sure, it's expensive but you'll get all the blood back with Retain the Quick Blood.

On Dec 29 2008, 5:26 am, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > 1B. What did people think about the actual rules/format for Anarchs > > and Alastors? > > Terrible. Limited Draft worked against the auction format. The > Alastor and Anarch angle was pretty much completely ignored. Not only > that, but drafting from certain sets was more powerful. We drafted > from 3rd and Lords, and those who drafted from 3rd had a key > advantage. The whole format of this event was one of the reasons why > I struggled to get players who would normally jump to play in > storylines. Seriously, people were bidding more for cards that they > would want to own rather than ones they would want to use. > If the anarch angle was ignored, you must not have been drafting Twilight Rebellion at all. Any minion with Dominate + Steely Tenacity + An Anarch Manifesto is solid gold awesome in draft. It's decent in contruxted, now that i think about it. . . We drafted whatever the players felt like buying at our storyline, and their wants changed as the rounds progressed. I originally wanted more Keepers (we ran a late SL), but after drafting some OBF/DOM doods and enough anarch tech to choke an emu i bought a few more packs of TR instead. One guy got Jaroslav for a song at the end of an auction round and his deck went from anarch-edged to alastor-edged, so he wanted more keepers. We traded some packs in the end. The guy who bought a pack of Nights of Reckoning was roundly rebuked for it ("poisoning the draft pool" was uttered), and all of the useful cards from that pack were hate-drafted before it got back to him. He played Pedro in round one anyway, but not being able to recur life at all and not having the conviction to save Pedro sort of limited his usefulness. But aside from that, allowing whatever you wanted seemed to be okay. > > I thought it was fun, but I definitely prefer the traditional 75% > > clan, constructed events. 5 rounds was agonizingly long, even with > > Limited! I liked the Auction Format, but I did feel that it was > > significantly easier to go the Anarchs route vs the Alastors one. > > 5 rounds was ridiculous. It was almost a shortened League event that > was sold as a Storyline. We ended up only playing 4 rounds because we > just couldn't fit the 5th in. > 5 rounds, unfortunately, WAS ridiculous. We had 6 methuselahs show up to play, and we decided that instead of not letting people participate in auctions by sitting out rounds, we'd play two three-player tables per round. We were trying to do the full storyline in a day (10-10) and playing 5 6-player tables was just out of the question. Three- player tables generally suck, so as much fun as i had drafting, the play was mediocre at best. > > 1C. The Anarchs were victorious (16 wins) with the Sabbat close behind > > (12). What sort of resolution would you like? > > With our event, there was no clear winner because nobody played Anarch > stuff (with the exception of a couple Revolts), nobody played Alastor > stuff (with the exception of a couple attempted Alastor votes), and > people were playing just assorted decks thanks to the format. Oh, and > draft text SUCKS DOGS BALLS. > I'm not sure how i feel about draft text. It is pretty significant for cards like Anarch Manifesto and the G-M Museum, since there isn't any way to make an anarch short of Convert in TR, and without those draft texts the entire set would be pretty much invalidated for draft (or at least action and blood intensive to go 'narch the hard way). However, the freakin' draft text on Guard Dogs kept me from sweeping one of my tables, so that was unwelcome. . . > > the auction. Thus it is no big surprise that two of the most common > > "key minions" (Yazid and Lucinde) were among those who had been pre- > > selected for the event. > > There was no key vampires in ours because people just generally didn't > care about them, or didn't influence them out. > Preston Varrick and Titus Camille ftw. > > #2. Rise of the Imperator > > > So what would people like to see for Rise of the Imperator? Here are > > some of my thoughts: > > Back to traditional Storyline event format. No more drafting. No > more league styled events. Just a normal tournament format but with > 75% and maybe a couple special rules. > Yes, please. > > Obviously the ultimate decisions lie in the hands of the storyline > > team (Ben Swainbank), LSJ, and/or White Wolf. But I figure it doesn't > > hurt to open some discussion on the issues, to give them some > > potentially useful ideas! > > I don't know anyone who played in my event who actually liked the last > one. It was incredibly disappointing, ill thought out and actually I > felt like I wasted my day playing. The only good thing that came out > of it was that we had some lads up from Sydney and had a BBQ for lunch > which was pretty cool. The cards part of the day just sucked. > > --> J > grail_pbem "at" hotmail.comhttp://www.geocities.com/grail_j

[ quoted text not captured ] If by "most stupid", you mean "most awesome" then yeah, i can agree with you. Anarch Yazid ADV would be suh-weet. Steely Tenacity all the way! He'd be even better as a merged Baron. Ooooo, Baron of Instabul.... -Merlin

On 2 Sty, 04:58, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jan 1, 7:02 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > I would get over quietus if celeriity would have freak drive [could be > > with cappacity restriction, or slightly worse than freak drive] or way > > to untap directly in combat. THEN, quietus will be viable [mainly it's > > about Retain the Quick Blood to help Quietus/Celerity blood > > management]. > > Not a big fan of CrimethInc? (Ironically enough, an Advanced Anarch > Yazid would really be able to have fun with CrimethInc). No, i hate anarchs with passion. Despite Steely Tenacity and CrimethInc. Why LSJ screwed quietus giving it quite good ANARCH cards ? > Sorry, but I don't want to see every discipline have their own version > of Freak Drive. And the existence of Retain the Quick Blood, the Path > of Blood, Sajid, and Izhim means a Quietus Freak Drive would be > severely overpowered. Similarly, a Chimerstry Freak Drive would be bad > because of Fatuus Mastery, Path of Paradox, Gabrin, and Karavalanisha > Vrana. I really don't want to see any more solitaire Una-style > decks.... Celerity freak drive would be: -more in line with VtM background -not really game breaking Ravnos already have freak drive, and celerity freak drive would solve (!)toreador/(!)brujah/!gangrel/(!)assamite problems. Beside, neither Mitru nor Miller are really as good as Una. And Assamites sucks anyway, and need setup action to 'not pay for celerity' > Um...speaking of untap and multiple actions, have you been paying > attention to the past several sets? Helicopter gives you a permanent > untap effect (and the Assamites have OBF to get the first action > through). Or if you want the untap for combat, then have you tried > Monster? Also, the Assamites are the only clan with *two* Black Hand > Seraphs in a given grouping and are tied with the most Black Hand > members in a given grouping (tied with !Gangrel) so they can abuse the > hell out of Seraph's Second and Tattoo Signal. Have you ever gotten > Djuhah and Izhim out each with a Tattoo Signal? So no, I don't think > things are quite as dire for the Assamites as you make them out to be. yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. Yep, i played with them. Helicopter cost 3 pool and slow you down, with some sort of untap it's feasible. Or with Alastor/Repo Man. Monster is good for Nizzam. Joe and Izhim also are quite good, but nothing great. Two tattoo signal is quite good, but after 16 pool investment, with crap discipline synergy, with only OBF as worthwile discipline ... slow and not so powefull. i won few games with such deck but still. > Hey, at least Celerity's been getting some really good cards the past > several sets. Resist Earth's Grasp is amazing! Maneuver *and* press at > inferior is great for combat decks. And superior offers a nice stealth > option if you don't want to focus on Obfuscate (or you're playing with > Viziers). Fleetness gives you built-in stealth for bleeding with > permanents. Or a stealthed Ambush so you aren't easily blocked by a > disposable weenie. And superior Torrent is just plain wicked! Much > better than what Obtenebration (Shadow Body) or Chimerstry (Mirror > Image) offers and is great for bleed or politics. Sure, it's expensive > but you'll get all the blood back with Retain the Quick Blood. Resist is good i have to agree, but both fleetness and torrent sucks TBH. To get the blood back you need to waste a turn, slot, and delivery system [stealth, block fails].

[ quoted text not captured ] No, think his advanced should be the Archbishop of Istanbul. Special when merged should be able to play cards as a Baron...... Creation Rites, Death start cannon, wooooohoooooooo!

On Jan 2, 9:45 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > No, i hate anarchs with passion. Sure. But the option is there. Quietus is has really good Anarchy options. That you don't want to use them doesn't mean that they are bad. > Celerity freak drive would be: > -more in line with VtM background > -not really game breaking Celerity gets Flurry of Action (which is a pretty good card in and of itself) and half of Forced March (that a bunch of Assamites can use). It doesn't need more untapping. > Ravnos already have freak drive, and celerity freak drive would solve > (!)toreador/(!)brujah/!gangrel/(!)assamite problems. The Toreador and Brujah (anti or not) don't have problems. The ! Gangrel have problems, but they aren't problems that would be solved by a celerity Freak Drive (especially since just as many !Gangrel have fortitude as not). The Assamites do just fine now. > yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI > [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. You are *really* overstating the "Quietus is useless" angle here. Loss, in and of itself, makes the Assamites really scary. Add in easy to use ranged aggrivated damage, a really good free untap reaction, and an intercept/block fails card, and Quietus has become quite handy. Yeah, a whole lot of Quietus cards are really janky, not generally useful combat cards. But the cards that it gets that are good are really good. Even if the only combat cards the Assamites ever use are Flash and Taste of Death, that is good enough hit back or opportunistic combat for most situations. Add in Selective Silence, and you don't even need celerity. Trying to use the Assamites as a pure combat deck is generally going to fail, yes. But if you maximize the newer Quietus cards, and relegate Assamite combat to scary hitback and opportunistic killing, they can be really effective. Even without Anarch tech. -Peter

On 2 Sty, 16:02, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 2, 9:45 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > No, i hate anarchs with passion. > > Sure. But the option is there. Quietus is has really good Anarchy > options. That you don't want to use them doesn't mean that they are > bad. Why it's not normal useful discipline ? Something like vicissitude in terms of powers ? right now it's worst discipline for non-anarch minion. > > Celerity freak drive would be: > > -more in line with VtM background > > -not really game breaking > > Celerity gets Flurry of Action (which is a pretty good card in and of > itself) and half of Forced March (that a bunch of Assamites can use). > It doesn't need more untapping. forced march require fortitude. flurry of action require bleeding and is not compatiblile with loss. > > Ravnos already have freak drive, and celerity freak drive would solve > > (!)toreador/(!)brujah/!gangrel/(!)assamite problems. > > The Toreador and Brujah (anti or not) don't have problems. The ! > Gangrel have problems, but they aren't problems that would be solved > by a celerity Freak Drive (especially since just as many !Gangrel have > fortitude as not). The Assamites do just fine now. the assamites do fine as death star. ANARCH. or weenie art scam spam. both of them does not use quietus. only one of them even use celerity [splash] so yeah, big/medium cap assamites still need a help. If you can see this or not. !Brujah and !Toreadors still have problems. Especially big/medium caps without fortitude. It's speaks for itself. > > yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI > > [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. > > You are *really* overstating the "Quietus is useless" angle here. > Loss, in and of itself, makes the Assamites really scary. Add in easy > to use ranged aggrivated damage, a really good free untap reaction, > and an intercept/block fails card, and Quietus has become quite handy. > Yeah, a whole lot of Quietus cards are really janky, not generally > useful combat cards. But the cards that it gets that are good are > really good. Even if the only combat cards the Assamites ever use are > Flash and Taste of Death, that is good enough hit back or > opportunistic combat for most situations. Add in Selective Silence, > and you don't even need celerity. poor man's vicissitude. > Trying to use the Assamites as a pure combat deck is generally going > to fail, yes. But if you maximize the newer Quietus cards, and > relegate Assamite combat to scary hitback and opportunistic killing, > they can be really effective. Even without Anarch tech. > > -Peter yeah, CEL [mostly combat] QUI [mostly combat] sucks for combat. About right ... :/

On Jan 2, 10:17 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > Why it's not normal useful discipline ? 'Cause that is unfortunately how it was designed. When the bulk of the Quietus cards were originally printed in Ancient Hearts, they were designed under a faulty set of principals (that being really good at long range aggrivated combat was good enough to build a clan around; that and IIRC, Ancient Hearts was designed at the point when aggrivated damage burned folks much more easily than currently). I don't know how long you have been playing this game, but *all* the Independent clans sucked for a really long time. The Giovanni had dominate, so they weren't that bad (as dominate plus the limited stealth they had access too made them, by default, playable), but they didn't actually get particularly interesting till Shambling Hordes and Call the Hungry Dead came out in Final Nights. The Settites had, at the very least, the ability to bleed the heck out of someone with presence and obfuscate, so they could play from the get go, although still they suffered from a complete lack of defense. The Ravnos were unimpressive, but they had fortitude, so they could be tricky, but like the Giovanni, didn't get anything really good till Week of Nightmares came out in Final Nights. The Assamites have been catching up for a while, and they are starting to be pretty good with the cards from Lords of the Night specifically, but both Black Hand and Anarch tech are also particularly kind to the Assamites. > forced march require fortitude. Yes, which is why I pointed out that a good chunk of Assamites can play it anyway. > flurry of action require bleeding and is not compatiblile with loss. True. But it is compatable with all sorts of other stuff if you want to make it work. > the assamites do fine as death star. ANARCH. The Assamites do just fine without Anarch tech as well. I have a pretty solid weenie Assamite breed/boon deck (they get one of the best breed cards in the game in Web of Knives Recruit) that uses no Anarch tech at all. Obfuscate/Quietus makes a very respectable toolbox S+B deck (Loss/Stealth for offense; Black Sunrise, light intercept, bleed deduction for defense; opportunistic ranged agg combat for picking off the weak). Tariq makes for very effective, winning multi rush decks. Black Hand Assamite decks are totally effective as Black Hand fills in a lot of holes (untap, intercept). Big Assamites have a lot of dominate. I think you aren't trying hard enough. > poor man's vicissitude. Vicissitude doesn't give you a gold, free untap reaction. Or +2 bleed. Or the ability to set range. Or block fails tech. Yes. The old half of Quietus (i.e. the stuff that came out in Ancient Hearts) mostly blows. But the is true for *all* the Independent disciplines (Mummify? Really?). Quietus just got a bunch of *really* good cards in the last few expansions. That make up for a lot of previous deficit. > yeah, CEL [mostly combat] QUI [mostly combat] sucks for combat. About > right ... :/ Celerity/quietus combat is questionable. Yes. 'Cause you play a lot of cards, spend a lot of blood, and then get foiled by Majesty. And even if you play Psyche, you go through a lot more cards and a lot more blood, and get foiled by Majesty again. Correct. The people who originally designed Quietus didn't realize that this was actually a problem, presumably, so most of the early Quietus cards blow. So use Quietus for what it is good at now--powerful bleeds, good defense, strong two card combat (Selective Silence+Taste of Death) and go from there. -Peter

On 2 Sty, 20:06, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 2, 10:17 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > Why it's not normal useful discipline ? > > 'Cause that is unfortunately how it was designed. When the bulk of the > Quietus cards were originally printed in Ancient Hearts, they were > designed under a faulty set of principals (that being really good at > long range aggrivated combat was good enough to build a clan around; > that and IIRC, Ancient Hearts was designed at the point when > aggrivated damage burned folks much more easily than currently). I > don't know how long you have been playing this game, but *all* the > Independent clans sucked for a really long time. 10 years. >The Giovanni had > dominate, so they weren't that bad (as dominate plus the limited > stealth they had access too made them, by default, playable), but they > didn't actually get particularly interesting till Shambling Hordes and > Call the Hungry Dead came out in Final Nights. The Settites had, at > the very least, the ability to bleed the heck out of someone with > presence and obfuscate, so they could play from the get go, although > still they suffered from a complete lack of defense. The Ravnos were > unimpressive, but they had fortitude, so they could be tricky, but > like the Giovanni, didn't get anything really good till Week of > Nightmares came out in Final Nights. The Assamites have been catching > up for a while, and they are starting to be pretty good with the cards > from Lords of the Night specifically, but both Black Hand and Anarch > tech are also particularly kind to the Assamites. LotN give assamites HL:L. Good card for weenie deck. LotN give quietus Loss. Good card for bleed deck. So assamites as weenies could be good. Assamite bleed could be sub- par, but playable. Assamite in clan disciplines still sucks. > > forced march require fortitude. > > Yes, which is why I pointed out that a good chunk of Assamites can > play it anyway. yeah, you must use fortitude/dominate/superior auspex to make deck competetive. > > flurry of action require bleeding and is not compatiblile with loss. > > True. But it is compatable with all sorts of other stuff if you want > to make it work. Bleed retainers/equipment moved using heidelberg castle and alamut. yeah. > > the assamites do fine as death star. ANARCH. > > The Assamites do just fine without Anarch tech as well. I have a > pretty solid weenie Assamite breed/boon deck (they get one of the best > breed cards in the game in Web of Knives Recruit) that uses no Anarch > tech at all. Obfuscate/Quietus makes a very respectable toolbox S+B > deck (Loss/Stealth for offense; Black Sunrise, light intercept, bleed > deduction for defense; opportunistic ranged agg combat for picking off > the weak). Tariq makes for very effective, winning multi rush decks. > Black Hand Assamite decks are totally effective as Black Hand fills in > a lot of holes (untap, intercept). Big Assamites have a lot of > dominate. I think you aren't trying hard enough. Like, you won any tournament with it ? tariq usually does not use quietus either. As mentioned above, he use FOR/AUS/OBF and CEL. Everything with dominate is better. I dont understand why someone could make use it as argument. Black hand, while still subpar, is playable, and could won table or two. WoKR is one of the few cards not touched by Scourge of Enochians. Still, card for weenie deck. > > poor man's vicissitude. > > Vicissitude doesn't give you a gold, free untap reaction. Or +2 bleed. > Or the ability to set range. Or block fails tech. Yes. The old half of > Quietus (i.e. the stuff that came out in Ancient Hearts) mostly blows. > But the is true for *all* the Independent disciplines (Mummify? > Really?). Quietus just got a bunch of *really* good cards in the last > few expansions. That make up for a lot of previous deficit. Free untap reaction is not so much better than wake. On the qui vive, eyes of argus, sense the savage make it only mediocre card. yeah, +2 bleed as an action, requiring superior discipline and cost a blood. Free +1 bleed or +1 stealth is better. Block fail stuff work only against younger vampire. set range + agg ? chiropteran marauder is better than selective silence, and breath of the dragon is much better than taste of vitae ... Sensory Deprivation ? Beside, atm necromancy, chimestry, serpentis are all way better than quietus. LSJ had 2 dedicated expansions to fix the quietus problem. > > yeah, CEL [mostly combat] QUI [mostly combat] sucks for combat. About > > right ... :/ > > Celerity/quietus combat is questionable. Yes. 'Cause you play a lot of > cards, spend a lot of blood, and then get foiled by Majesty. And even > if you play Psyche, you go through a lot more cards and a lot more > blood, and get foiled by Majesty again. Correct. The people who > originally designed Quietus didn't realize that this was actually a > problem, presumably, so most of the early Quietus cards blow. So use > Quietus for what it is good at now--powerful bleeds, good defense, > strong two card combat (Selective Silence+Taste of Death) and go from > there. > > -Peter Chiropteran Marauder + Breath of the Dragon Aids form Bats + Carrion Crows Torn Signpost + Pursuit All of them are stronger and more flexible than SS+ToD. Good Defense ? I missed something ? Political Defense - nothing Bleed Defense - nothing [wake does not count] Combat Defense - set range for one blood ? first strike ? both are rather weak for combat defense. Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. And no bleed modifiers. Check Presence, or Dominate, or Dementation, or Serpentis [yeah, serpentis have better bleed!] ... Good combat ? even serpentis have better combat ... Why still quietus is not good in any area ? I might feel biased. But i'm not.

On Jan 2, 3:58 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > 10 years. Then you remember when *all* the Independent clans sucked for a long time. The only thing that made the Giovanni worth playing was Dominate. The only thing that made the Settites worth playing was S+B. They have gotten some good cards in recent history. The Assamites just got good cards too. > LotN give assamites HL:L. Good card for weenie deck. > LotN give quietus Loss. Good card for bleed deck. LotN gave the Assamites all sorts of good cards. As did KMW (Black Sunrise, Selective Silence). > So assamites as weenies could be good. Assamite bleed could be sub- > par, but playable. > Assamite in clan disciplines still sucks. Celerity is a strong discipline. Obfuscate is a strong discipline. Quietus is much, much better than it used to be. > yeah, you must use fortitude/dominate/superior auspex to make deck > competetive. How is that different from any other clan that doesn't have fortitude/ dominate/auspex? How do you make the Nosferatu competitive most of the time? By using fortitude or dominate or auspex. How do you make the Settites competitive most of the time? The same way. That being said, try using Quietus for things that Quietus is good for now. It is really pretty good. > Like, you won any tournament with it ? tariq usually does not use > quietus either. As mentioned above, he use FOR/AUS/OBF and CEL. Yeah, I'm kind of at a loss now as to what your point is. If your point is "the Assamites suck", then, well, that isn't true. The Assamites have a *lot* of tools at their disposal (including fortitude, dominate, auspex, Black Hand and Anarch tech). If your point is "Quietus sucks", well, it used to suck, yes. But it is much better than it used to be. By a million miles. And if you give it a try, you might find that it is actually worth using. > Everything with dominate is better. I dont understand why someone > could make use it as argument. I don't understand this statement at all. > Black hand, while still subpar, is playable, and could won table or > two. How is Black Hand sub par? G4/5 Assamites have 5 BH vampires to choose from. BH gives you a lot of good options, including free untap and trifle contracts. You can make some pretty good BH Assamite decks. > Sensory Deprivation ? Beside, atm necromancy, chimestry, serpentis are > all way better than quietus. Chimeristry and Necromancy started out better than Quietus. I don't know that Serpentis was better than Quietus originally (Serpentis really sucked a lot for a long time), and while it got some really good cards recently, I don't think they are any better than the cards that Quietus got. > Chiropteran Marauder + Breath of the Dragon > Aids form Bats + Carrion Crows > Torn Signpost + Pursuit > > All of them are stronger and more flexible than SS+ToD. And yet none of them also come with +2 bleed. > Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. Conviniently, superior Quietus is really easy to come by. > Why still quietus is not good in any area ? It is a single discipline that currently gives you: -Good bleed -Ranged aggrivated damage -Free untap -Intercept -Block denial -Range setting Which isn't bad for a single discipline. -Peter

On 2 Sty, 22:50, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 2, 3:58 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > 10 years. > > Then you remember when *all* the Independent clans sucked for a long > time. The only thing that made the Giovanni worth playing was > Dominate. The only thing that made the Settites worth playing was S+B. > They have gotten some good cards in recent history. The Assamites just > got good cards too. yeah, good times :) > > LotN give assamites HL:L. Good card for weenie deck. > > LotN give quietus Loss. Good card for bleed deck. > > LotN gave the Assamites all sorts of good cards. As did KMW (Black > Sunrise, Selective Silence). And BBT when LSJ finaly fix melee weapons vs guns issue. > > So assamites as weenies could be good. Assamite bleed could be sub- > > par, but playable. > > Assamite in clan disciplines still sucks. > > Celerity is a strong discipline. Obfuscate is a strong discipline. > Quietus is much, much better than it used to be. Celerity is only strong at superior, inferior does not offer much really. Still quite strong. Obfuscate ... best delivery discipline, nuff said. Quietus. Yeah, much better than it used to be, but still weakest 'main' discipline. And lack synergy with CEL/OBF ;> And held by only one clan [it's rarely out of clan discipline for other vamps] > > yeah, you must use fortitude/dominate/superior auspex to make deck > > competetive. > > How is that different from any other clan that doesn't have fortitude/ > dominate/auspex? How do you make the Nosferatu competitive most of the > time? By using fortitude or dominate or auspex. How do you make the > Settites competitive most of the time? The same way. Now animalism is better than before and they have warsaw station. yeah, not strongest, but way better than before. Setites have great clan cards [ethernal of sirius, mokole blood, opium den, vote push] and SER is actually good [snake drive, nice combat and synergy with ambulans/protean and of course temptation] And i would love to get rid of mandatory AUS/FOR/DOM ... > That being said, try using Quietus for things that Quietus is good for > now. It is really pretty good. > > > Like, you won any tournament with it ? tariq usually does not use > > quietus either. As mentioned above, he use FOR/AUS/OBF and CEL. > > Yeah, I'm kind of at a loss now as to what your point is. If your > point is "the Assamites suck", then, well, that isn't true. The > Assamites have a *lot* of tools at their disposal (including > fortitude, dominate, auspex, Black Hand and Anarch tech). If your > point is "Quietus sucks", well, it used to suck, yes. But it is much > better than it used to be. By a million miles. And if you give it a > try, you might find that it is actually worth using. Assamites have great clan card, so-so vampires. And i often use quietus :> > > Everything with dominate is better. I dont understand why someone > > could make use it as argument. > > I don't understand this statement at all. this is good deck, but it lack something ... maybe add bounce ? > > Black hand, while still subpar, is playable, and could won table or > > two. > > How is Black Hand sub par? G4/5 Assamites have 5 BH vampires to choose > from. BH gives you a lot of good options, including free untap and > trifle contracts. You can make some pretty good BH Assamite decks. Vamps do not have OOC discipline synergy, are big and have problems with gaining blood. And combat *is* difficult. > > Sensory Deprivation ? Beside, atm necromancy, chimestry, serpentis are > > all way better than quietus. > > Chimeristry and Necromancy started out better than Quietus. I don't > know that Serpentis was better than Quietus originally (Serpentis > really sucked a lot for a long time), and while it got some really > good cards recently, I don't think they are any better than the cards > that Quietus got. There are, for NEC its Shambling Hordes For CHI its Sensory Deprivation/Occlusion/Mirror Image ... yeah, not so good. But better than quietus. For SER i listed it above. > > Chiropteran Marauder + Breath of the Dragon > > Aids form Bats + Carrion Crows > > Torn Signpost + Pursuit > > > All of them are stronger and more flexible than SS+ToD. > > And yet none of them also come with +2 bleed. Animalism have either +1 bleed action or eneter combat [recent card, nice] Celerity are worse than quietus outside combat [and flurry of action doesnt change it] Pot is good mainly combat discipline. Vicissitude have +1 bleed mod [great card][better than loss] > > Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. > > Conviniently, superior Quietus is really easy to come by. It's more difficult to have superior quietus mid cap deck than say PRE/ DEM/DOM mid cap decks. Yeah, it could use assamite tools, but is not so great. > > Why still quietus is not good in any area ? > > It is a single discipline that currently gives you: > > -Good bleed > -Ranged aggrivated damage > -Free untap > -Intercept > -Block denial > -Range setting > > Which isn't bad for a single discipline. > > -Peter VIC do it better. PRO do it better [yeah, ranged pro agg sucks, but other than that it's better] This intercept cost 1 blood. And it's only one card.

In article <678a6e3b-a5be-41d9...@s1g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, acheronni...@gmail.com wrote: > Now animalism is better than before and they have warsaw station. > yeah, not strongest, but way better than before. > Setites have great clan cards [ethernal of sirius, mokole blood, opium > den, vote push] and SER is actually good [snake drive, nice combat and > synergy with ambulans/protean and of course temptation] You really think so? I find Serpentis to be really kind of lame in the grand scheme. It has a few very good new cards (Truth of 10K Lies, Eternal Mask), but for the most part, it isn't doing much that the Settites couldn't already do with Obfuscate or Presence. The whole Serpentis combat angle (Typhonic Beast) is almost good, but is generally *way* too much work to be worth the effort. At least Quietus provides the Assamites with some things they *can't* get reliably from Obf/Cel (i.e. bleed). > And i would love to get rid of mandatory AUS/FOR/DOM ... Well, ya know, that's the whole game, not just the Assamites. > There are, for NEC its Shambling Hordes But other than Shambling Hordes, what is Necromancy really doing for anyone? Providing less good stealth than Obfuscate? Giving some clever recursion? Before Shambling Hordes, Necromancy was mostly relegated to poor stealth as a delivery mechanism for the Giovanni's dominate and for fringe tricky decks (turbo whatever; funny ally recursion; whatever). Shambling Hordes is pretty much all that Necromancy has going for it, in terms of actually good strategies. > For CHI its Sensory Deprivation/Occlusion/Mirror Image ... yeah, not > so good. But better than quietus. Sensory Deprivation has been in Chimeristry since day one (and hasn't been reprinted since, apparently...), and is strong. But other than that, Chimeristry isn't a real powerhouse of a discipline either. Some stealth, some reasonably good intercept, a bit of bleed increase, and some complicated tricky stuff. But again, nothing real super fantastic. > It's more difficult to have superior quietus mid cap deck than say PRE/ > DEM/DOM mid cap decks. Well, yeah. Only one clan comes with Quietus. Lots of clans come with thos other disciplines. But if you are playing the clan with Quietus, getting QUI isn't difficult at all. If you wanna use QUI/CEL, use G2/3. If you wanna use QUI/OBF, use G4/5. The crypts are pretty good for either. > VIC do it better. PRO do it better Neither give you +2 bleed ever. Neither give you the ability to set range. Neither give you block fails tech (well, ok, you can pay 4 blood for that preposterous protean card). Which when combined with easy to use 2R aggrivated damage makes for a reasonably good box of tools to make the Assamites generally effective. Which they are. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Neither give you +2 bleed ever. Neither give you the ability to set > range. Neither give you block fails tech (well, ok, you can pay 4 blood > for that preposterous protean card). Which when combined with easy to > use 2R aggrivated damage makes for a reasonably good box of tools to > make the Assamites generally effective. Which they are. > > Peter D Bakija > p...@lightlink.comhttp://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html > Just take your face and slam it into a brick wall Peter. The result will be the same, but it'll just be quicker. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Jan 4, 7:04 am, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > Just take your face and slam it into a brick wall Peter. The result > will be the same, but it'll just be quicker. > > --> J > grail_pbem "at" hotmail.comhttp://www.geocities.com/grail_j I'm with ya, Pete. I've played Assamites almost exclusively since late 2004. It's a LOT better than it used to be, and folks holding on to their old prejudices should really take a new look at the discipline. If you think Assamites are all about combat and torporizing vampires and winning via combat, well, that's still not true. However, they have excellent clan-cards that afford many different strategies, and Quietus has gained significant utility in the last couple of sets in which it was represented. I'm not of the opinion it is a tier one discipline by any stretch, but it has crawled out of the basement, for sure.

On 4 Sty, 13:29, Wookie813 <veknpont...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jan 4, 7:04 am, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Just take your face and slam it into a brick wall Peter. The result > > will be the same, but it'll just be quicker. > > > --> J > > grail_pbem "at" hotmail.comhttp://www.geocities.com/grail_j True ;> > I'm with ya, Pete. I've played Assamites almost exclusively since late > 2004. It's a LOT better than it used to be, and folks holding on to > their old prejudices should really take a new look at the discipline. > > If you think Assamites are all about combat and torporizing vampires > and winning via combat, well, that's still not true. However, they > have excellent clan-cards that afford many different strategies, and > Quietus has gained significant utility in the last couple of sets in > which it was represented. I'm not prejudiced. They have great clan cards. Yoruba Shrine, HL: Leadership, WoKR, ALAMUT, Black Throne, Provision of Silsila, Market Square ... i can go further. Their combat is quite formidable [ as any combat with celerity could, with additional quietus touch ]. Winning by combat alone is not so vaible, but it's true for every combat. And voting [alamut/amaravati/barony/laibon assmites] or bleeding is now viable choice [not nearly the DEM Malks level, or DOM weenies but strong anyway]. > I'm not of the opinion it is a tier one discipline by any stretch, but > it has crawled out of the basement, for sure. It it definitely upgraded, but still lack something. It's downside could be managed by one card. Multi-acting utility for celerity or quietus [could cost even 3 blood, retain the quick blood is for something] or obfuscate [but it would be overpowered - it's already top tier discipline]. And then, when RtQB will be useful, many quietus cards will suddenly start looking viable. [like, all combat cards which have blood cost].

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: >You really think so? I find Serpentis to be really kind of lame in the >grand scheme. It has a few very good new cards (Truth of 10K Lies, >Eternal Mask), but for the most part, it isn't doing much that the >Settites couldn't already do with Obfuscate or Presence. The whole >Serpentis combat angle (Typhonic Beast) is almost good, but is generally >*way* too much work to be worth the effort. At least Quietus provides >the Assamites with some things they *can't* get reliably from Obf/Cel >(i.e. bleed). There's a lot of junk in Serpentis, but there's also good stuff too. I don't care for much of the combat - though I like the idea. The reason I don't like it is largely a lack of synergy on good vampires, although there's been a lot of minor Fortitude scattered round. However: - Temptation is still very good - Enticement is great in any environment where there's a lot of bounce (or reduce), and isn't that really most tournaments? Matt Green used to this great effect at the 2008 UK Nats. It doesn't need a lot of copies, but well-timed play = ow. - Ecstasy isn't bad at all. - Form of Corruption is still quite pokey. I mean, yeah, there's complete jank like Dismemberment of Osiris and stuff, and some of its other cards' problems are exacerbated by being duplicates of things other Setite disciplines can do (e.g. why go for expensive +bleed when you can play Presence?), but there's more to it than just Truth of Lesbianism and Eternal Mask. For my money, I'd like to see either: - a more combative strain of Setites in Group 6 (whenever that comes in the future) - a bloodline/minor clan/something with a bunch of Serpentis on it that isn't just Obf/Ser/Pre. (e.g. like Necromancy is on the Giovanni and the Harbingers, but they're very different clans) -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

On Jan 4, 8:23 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > - Temptation is still very good > - Enticement is great in any environment where there's a lot of bounce > (or reduce), and isn't that really most tournaments? Matt Green used > to this great effect at the 2008 UK Nats. It doesn't need a lot of > copies, but well-timed play = ow. > - Ecstasy isn't bad at all. > - Form of Corruption is still quite pokey. Yeah, all true. Although I find that whenever anyone plays Temptation or Form of Corruption, games tend to become quickly derailed as the person who is having their minions stolen move their focus to foiling the Settite (and not bleeding to avoid getting the edge), which kind of makes them less attractive to play. But yeah, those are pretty good in theory. -Peter

On Jan 4, 8:23 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > - a bloodline/minor clan/something with a bunch of Serpentis on it that > isn't just Obf/Ser/Pre. (e.g. like Necromancy is on the Giovanni and > the Harbingers, but they're very different clans) You know, the Serpents of the Light (a voudon-themed Sabbat Setite subsect) have always been pretty flavorful and not all that deeply explored. You could make them ser-obf-nec or ser-obf-tha and have a blast with them. Dedefra Advanced, here we come. ;) Jason

> Yeah, all true. Although I find that whenever anyone plays Temptation > or Form of Corruption, games tend to become quickly derailed as the > person who is having their minions stolen move their focus to foiling > the Settite (and not bleeding to avoid getting the edge), which kind > of makes them less attractive to play. But yeah, those are pretty good > in theory. FoC with Combat Settites is pretty groovy, it's like a poor man's graverob. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Jan 4, 1:23 pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > For my money, I'd like to see either: > > - a more combative strain of Setites in Group 6 (whenever that comes in > the future) Hasn't that already been the trend in Group 4/5, especially with the prevalence of Potence as an out-of-clan discipline? Bupe is just amazing with POT and +1 intercept. Clea and Shemti also have POT, while Cagliostro has inferior potence. Lots of nice Typhonic Beast (or other Potence) fun! The Setites have also traditionally had a fair amount of Thaumaturgy (in Groups 2 and 4). THA combat just got a major boost with Rego Motus and you could also throw in a few tricks with Treaty of Laibach and some Tremere.

[ quoted text not captured ] Unfortunately for you, it seems like Serpents of the Light will probably continue to be represented as Sabbat-aligned Setites rather than a separate clan (as seen with Ezekiel and Black Lotus). Similarly, Assamite Antitribu and Ravnos Antitribu have historically been printed as Assamites or Ravnos with Sabbat affiliation rather than as a separate clan.

On Jan 2, 7:06 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > yeah, CEL [mostly combat] QUI [mostly combat] sucks for combat. About > > right ... :/ > > Celerity/quietus combat is questionable. Yes. 'Cause you play a lot of > cards, spend a lot of blood, and then get foiled by Majesty. And even > if you play Psyche, you go through a lot more cards and a lot more > blood, and get foiled by Majesty again. Correct. The people who > originally designed Quietus didn't realize that this was actually a > problem, presumably, so most of the early Quietus cards blow. So use > Quietus for what it is good at now--powerful bleeds, good defense, > strong two card combat (Selective Silence+Taste of Death) and go from > there. It's really not that bad. For years, I have seen players get around the S:CE problem by relying on Zip Gun. Zip Gun provides the permanent maneuver. If they S:CE then you haven't wasted cards and you Psyche. If they don't S:CE then you use Taste of Death for your additional strike. Much more card and blood efficient, especially against S:CE.

On Jan 5, 9:04 am, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] And again, the argument comes down to anti S:CE. Qui has some seriously awesome prestrike stuff, Disease being a personal fave. But it is senseless throwing that in a deck, when it is foiled by Majesty, FoM, EM, et al. Qui has a larger proportion of red cards to non red than almost any other discipline, barring maybe Cel and Pot. Pot has IG. Something similar for Qui would be awesome. But as I have been asking for this for about 8 years now, and naught has occurred, i am becoming slightly despondent re this

> And again, the argument comes down to anti S:CE. Qui has some > seriously awesome prestrike stuff, Disease being a personal fave. But > it is senseless throwing that in a deck, when it is foiled by Majesty, > FoM, EM, et al. Qui has a larger proportion of red cards to non red > than almost any other discipline, barring maybe Cel and Pot. Pot has > IG. Something similar for Qui would be awesome. > > But as I have been asking for this for about 8 years now, and naught > has occurred, i am becoming slightly despondent re this There are 3 pretty cool Assamites that have Dementation as well, which gives access to Blessing of Chaos, and as the majority of S:CE that is seen is that of presence, this is a good way to kill that defense dead. [ quoted text not captured ]

"echia...@yahoo.com" <echia...@yahoo.com> wrote: >On Jan 4, 6:43 pm, Jadasc <jad...@gmail.com> wrote: >> You know, the Serpents of the Light (a voudon-themed Sabbat Setite >> subsect) have always been pretty flavorful and not all that deeply >> explored. You could make them ser-obf-nec or ser-obf-tha and have a >> blast with them. Dedefra Advanced, here we come. ;) > >Unfortunately for you, it seems like Serpents of the Light will >probably continue to be represented as Sabbat-aligned Setites rather >than a separate clan (as seen with Ezekiel and Black Lotus). That's not really a problem, though. The previous bullet point had suggested doing similar within the Setites. A cluster of Group 6 Serpents of the Light might be an interesting twist, and could be the mini-theme/affinity for that group. Instead of Independents with a few others tossed in, reverse the proportions. I'm not saying this will happen, but it could and it doesn't seem that outlandish. [ quoted text not captured ]

"echia...@yahoo.com" <echia...@yahoo.com> wrote: >On Jan 4, 1:23 pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> For my money, I'd like to see either: >> >> - a more combative strain of Setites in Group 6 (whenever that comes in >> the future) > >Hasn't that already been the trend in Group 4/5, especially with the >prevalence of Potence as an out-of-clan discipline? Bupe is just >amazing with POT and +1 intercept. Clea and Shemti also have POT, >while Cagliostro has inferior potence. Lots of nice Typhonic Beast (or >other Potence) fun! To an extent. But I think the problem with the implementation of Serpentis is that it sort of duplicates what's in the other disciplines - if you want increased thumping power, Potence is better at it, which detracts from what Serpentis is contributing. Example: if I play Cobra Fangs in a vampire-heavy meta, I'm probably better with Disarm. If I want extra damage, Skin of the Adder superior isn't contributing much. This is unlike, say, Pot/Cel where the amount of overlap between the cards is relatively low, and the spread of combat abilities is quite high. Serpentis has some presses and damage prevention (both found in Celerity), but very little else in combat support - maneuvers (Form of the Serpent is expensive) and additional strikes being the most glaring problem. There's a bit of uniqueness in Tongue of the Serpent, which is poor (and hasn't been reprinted since Final Nights as a result, I imagine), or Heart of Darkness, but is it enough to make it worthwhile? If you go into Obfuscate for Obf/Ser/Pot combat (Behind You! etc.), you're doing combat badly - expensive, more difficult card flow. Indeed, if you want the Potence 4/5 Followers, you're doing combat badly anyway - 6, 7, 8, 9 and the only untap discipline is Serpentis, which requires a successful action (stealth?) and isn't usable with the 6 cap. [ quoted text not captured ]

Okay, this is a composite post to address several of the comments made by acheronnightstalker: > yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI > [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. Yep, i played with > them. I'm baffled by why you think Djuhah is so bad. He's definitely comparable to the other Seraphs. Similar discipline spread to Yazid Tamari (two superiors, three inferiors). Yazid costs an extra pool for which you get +1 bleed. Yazid does have the handy Dominate, but I have never seen him use Animalism. While Djuhah has Auspex and Presence, which are both quite useful. Kazimir has two superiors, two inferiors, and a special. I have never seen anyone use his Potence. Also comparable to Djuhah. Plus, Djuhah has amazing synergy with his clanmates (another Seraph and an additional three other Black Hand members). This is a level of synergy that the other non-Assamite Seraphs can't even get close to matching. And if you're worried about the lack of out-of-clan overlap, then it's a prevalent problem among most Black Hand members. The !Gangrel are a complete mess when it comes to disciplines. And none of the !Brujah, Lasombra, !Nosferatu, or !Ventrue Black Hand members share any out-of- clans with each other. > Free untap reaction is not so much better than wake. Yes it is. If you Wake and fail to block, you've wasted a card and remain tapped. If you untap with Black Sunrise and fail to block, at least you're still untapped so that you can block the next action. I know plenty of Tzimisce fans who would wet themselves if Vicissitude got a free untap card just like Black Sunrise. > And held by only one clan [it's rarely out of clan discipline for > other vamps] It's not that much rarer than most of the other Independent clan- specific disciplines. By my last count, there are 22 non-Assamites with Quietus, which is comparable to the 19 non-Ravnos with Chimerstry and the 25 non-Setites with Serpentis. (Necromancy isn't a good reference since the Harbingers, Nagaraja, and Samedi also have it as a clan discipline and it's been a common theme among Setites, Kiasyd, and Tremere (for obvious storyline reasons). So the Ravnos and Setites have it just as bad. > Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. And no > bleed modifiers. Check Presence, or Dominate, or Dementation, or > Serpentis [yeah, serpentis have better bleed!] ... As Peter has already indicated, the Assamites are significantly advantaged because they have easy access to cheap superior QUI. Let's see, we have a 3-cap, two 4-caps, a 5-cap, and four 6-caps. In comparison, let's look at Serpentis (with that "better bleed"). The smallest vampires with SER are three 5-caps, followed by five 6-caps. Similar story with Obtenebration. The smallest vampires with OBT are four 5-caps and five 6-caps. Furthermore, there are also two Quietus vampires who pay one less for Quietus cards (one of whom is a mere 4-cap). So yeah, Quietus does have it much better than Serpentis or Obtenebration, especially regarding the superior version. > yeah, you must use fortitude/dominate/superior auspex to make deck > competetive. And you can see that LSJ and the design team have been trying to rectify that. There's now disciplineless bounce like Lost in Translation and Aksinya Daclau. There are increasingly cards that hose bounce cards (Narrow Minds, Terra Incognita, Two Wrongs) and ones that counteract the traditional Auspex and Dominate defenses (False Resonance, Hide the Mind, Kduva's Mask, Soul Decoration, Perfect Clarity, Touch of Clarity). > Why it's not normal useful discipline ? Something like vicissitude in > terms of powers ? right now it's worst discipline for non-anarch > minion. Even your much-loved Vicissitude lacks multi-acting capacity, like the Freak Drive you so desperately want for Quietus. Protean has the awkward inferior Dual Form, but that's it. Once again, comparing Quietus to Protean or Vicissitude isn't appropriate because Protean and Vicissitude are the most versatile disciplines in the game. If we compare Serpentis or Necromancy or Potence or Thaumaturgy to either Protean/Vicissitude, you'll come to a similar conclusion. Just like how comparing most disciplines to Dominate will yield a similar one-sided perspective. And no, it's not the worst discipline for non-anarch minions. I think Smallpox and Unre win that award. Or maybe Jacques and Pedrag. But honestly, there are plenty of out-of-clans that are wasted on vampires (Animalism, Celerity, Chimerstry, Necromancy, Obtenebration, Thaumaturgy, and even Protean). I look at Eric Kressida's superior Protean and wonder what the heck I'm supposed to actually do with that! Obtenebration is pretty useless on Azaneal, Nehemiah, and Terrifisto. And lots of vampires have random Vicissitude which I have never seen used. > and Assamites sucks anyway, and need setup action to 'not pay for > celerity' > I'm not prejudiced. They have great clan cards. Yoruba Shrine, HL: > Leadership, WoKR, ALAMUT, Black Throne, Provision of Silsila, Market > Square ... i can go further. Their combat is quite formidable [ as any > combat with celerity could, with additional quietus touch ]. Winning > by combat alone is not so vaible, but it's true for every combat. And > voting [alamut/amaravati/barony/laibon assmites] or bleeding is now > viable choice [not nearly the DEM Malks level, or DOM weenies but > strong anyway]. So first you say that the Assamites suck. But then you admit that they have great clan cards and can make several viable decks. The Assamites have SEVERAL, SIGNIFICANT advantages over ALL the other clans. And I remain puzzled why you continue to stubbornly insist that they're oh-so-terrible. Looks like I'm gonna have to join Peter in slamming my own head against the wall. ::sighs::

On Jan 5, 8:31 am, Blooded Sand <sandm...@gmail.com> wrote: > And again, the argument comes down to anti S:CE. Qui has some > seriously awesome prestrike stuff, Disease being a personal fave. But > it is senseless throwing that in a deck, when it is foiled by Majesty, > FoM, EM, et al. Qui has a larger proportion of red cards to non red > than almost any other discipline, barring maybe Cel and Pot. Pot has > IG. Something similar for Qui would be awesome. > > But as I have been asking for this for about 8 years now, and naught > has occurred, i am becoming slightly despondent re this Yes, but apparently not all Assamite fans agree on this point. Take another look at Todd Bannister's article, Fighting S:CE, where he argues that an anti-S:CE card for Quietus is NOT needed: http://www.thepathofblood.com/Articles.aspx?selection=sce

On Jan 5, 10:16 am, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] True. The article is well written and quite interesting. I have gone that route, and it works, but it is still completely overshadowed by S:CE. A vamp needs to play one card to counter your chain of 3-5 cards. This is painful, to say the least. Psyche is not a good prevention of S:CE, it is a good reaction. Which is great for reactive decks, or decks built around it Not so good for acting rushers usually. There are exceptions, I know. having swept with Fatima last night i am well aware of this. That is a deck built around Psyche though.......

On 5 Sty, 10:07, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Okay, this is a composite post to address several of the comments made > by acheronnightstalker: > > > yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI > > [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. Yep, i played with > > them. > > I'm baffled by why you think Djuhah is so bad. He's definitely > comparable to the other Seraphs. > > Similar discipline spread to Yazid Tamari (two superiors, three > inferiors). Yazid costs an extra pool for which you get +1 bleed. > Yazid does have the handy Dominate, but I have never seen him use > Animalism. While Djuhah has Auspex and Presence, which are both quite > useful. He have 7(6) points in disciplines and seraph title. pretty low for 7 cap with no special considering he have QUI. > Kazimir has two superiors, two inferiors, and a special. I have never > seen anyone use his Potence. Also comparable to Djuhah. Kazimir is actually not really amazing. Why not compare to teresita - 3 in clan superiors and inferior FOR. And a special. > Plus, Djuhah has amazing synergy with his clanmates (another Seraph > and an additional three other Black Hand members). This is a level of > synergy that the other non-Assamite Seraphs can't even get close to > matching. Those vampires are pretty expensive, with no good pool gain options [if you want to oust anyone]. > And if you're worried about the lack of out-of-clan overlap, then it's > a prevalent problem among most Black Hand members. The !Gangrel are a > complete mess when it comes to disciplines. And none of the !Brujah, > Lasombra, !Nosferatu, or !Ventrue Black Hand members share any out-of- > clans with each other. Lasombra and !Nosferatu both have actually pretty good synergy [mostly in clan disciplines, few ooc]. Assamites are not bad either, second best BH clan IMO [in line with background][best BH are lasombra, probably dominate just change things]. > > Free untap reaction is not so much better than wake. > > Yes it is. If you Wake and fail to block, you've wasted a card and > remain tapped. If you untap with Black Sunrise and fail to block, at > least you're still untapped so that you can block the next action. I > know plenty of Tzimisce fans who would wet themselves if Vicissitude > got a free untap card just like Black Sunrise. Tzimisce have animalism ... Sense the Savage way ? And Titles [Ethernal Villigiance] > > And held by only one clan [it's rarely out of clan discipline for > > other vamps] > > It's not that much rarer than most of the other Independent clan- > specific disciplines. By my last count, there are 22 non-Assamites > with Quietus, which is comparable to the 19 non-Ravnos with Chimerstry > and the 25 non-Setites with Serpentis. (Necromancy isn't a good > reference since the Harbingers, Nagaraja, and Samedi also have it as a > clan discipline and it's been a common theme among Setites, Kiasyd, > and Tremere (for obvious storyline reasons). So the Ravnos and Setites > have it just as bad. Inferior QUI is just bad, but hey, inferior CHI and SER are not good either. > > Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. And no > > bleed modifiers. Check Presence, or Dominate, or Dementation, or > > Serpentis [yeah, serpentis have better bleed!] ... > > As Peter has already indicated, the Assamites are significantly > advantaged because they have easy access to cheap superior QUI. > > Let's see, we have a 3-cap, two 4-caps, a 5-cap, and four 6-caps. G2 - 3 cap/5 cap/6 cap G4 - 4 cap/4 cap/6 cap/6 cap G5 - 6 cap Not really cheap ... > In comparison, let's look at Serpentis (with that "better bleed"). The > smallest vampires with SER are three 5-caps, followed by five 6-caps. > > Similar story with Obtenebration. The smallest vampires with OBT are > four 5-caps and five 6-caps. > > Furthermore, there are also two Quietus vampires who pay one less for > Quietus cards (one of whom is a mere 4-cap). > > So yeah, Quietus does have it much better than Serpentis or > Obtenebration, especially regarding the superior version. Serpentis, you're rather right. 4/5 OBT - 5 cap/5 cap/ 5 cap/ 6 cap/ 6 cap - i'd call it better than quietus :> > > yeah, you must use fortitude/dominate/superior auspex to make deck > > competetive. > > And you can see that LSJ and the design team have been trying to > rectify that. > > There's now disciplineless bounce like Lost in Translation and Aksinya > Daclau. > > There are increasingly cards that hose bounce cards (Narrow Minds, > Terra Incognita, Two Wrongs) and ones that counteract the traditional > Auspex and Dominate defenses (False Resonance, Hide the Mind, Kduva's > Mask, Soul Decoration, Perfect Clarity, Touch of Clarity). I like LSJ work in this direction very much. > > Why it's not normal useful discipline ? Something like vicissitude in > > terms of powers ? right now it's worst discipline for non-anarch > > minion. > > Even your much-loved Vicissitude lacks multi-acting capacity, like the > Freak Drive you so desperately want for Quietus. Protean has the > awkward inferior Dual Form, but that's it. I do not want freak drive for Quietus. Read the thread. I want either celerity or generic big cap freak drive. > Once again, comparing Quietus to Protean or Vicissitude isn't > appropriate because Protean and Vicissitude are the most versatile > disciplines in the game. If we compare Serpentis or Necromancy or > Potence or Thaumaturgy to either Protean/Vicissitude, you'll come to a > similar conclusion. Just like how comparing most disciplines to > Dominate will yield a similar one-sided perspective. > > And no, it's not the worst discipline for non-anarch minions. I think > Smallpox and Unre win that award. Or maybe Jacques and Pedrag. But > honestly, there are plenty of out-of-clans that are wasted on vampires > (Animalism, Celerity, Chimerstry, Necromancy, Obtenebration, > Thaumaturgy, and even Protean). I look at Eric Kressida's superior > Protean and wonder what the heck I'm supposed to actually do with > that! Obtenebration is pretty useless on Azaneal, Nehemiah, and > Terrifisto. And lots of vampires have random Vicissitude which I have > never seen used. Superior AUS/PRO/DOM and you're wondering what to do ? Earth Meld block with permanent or FoM dominate bleed ? > > and Assamites sucks anyway, and need setup action to 'not pay for > > celerity' > > I'm not prejudiced. They have great clan cards. Yoruba Shrine, HL: > > Leadership, WoKR, ALAMUT, Black Throne, Provision of Silsila, Market > > Square ... i can go further. Their combat is quite formidable [ as any > > combat with celerity could, with additional quietus touch ]. Winning > > by combat alone is not so vaible, but it's true for every combat. And > > voting [alamut/amaravati/barony/laibon assmites] or bleeding is now > > viable choice [not nearly the DEM Malks level, or DOM weenies but > > strong anyway]. > > So first you say that the Assamites suck. But then you admit that they > have great clan cards and can make several viable decks. Several non combat great cards. And there is something wrong with not using quietus at all to remain competetive - just clan cards and obf ... > The Assamites have SEVERAL, SIGNIFICANT advantages over ALL the other > clans. And I remain puzzled why you continue to stubbornly insist that > they're oh-so-terrible. Looks like I'm gonna have to join Peter in > slamming my own head against the wall. ::sighs:: Independents need more clan cards and better clan cards due to: -scarce disciplines [few ooc vampires have their disciplines, and even fewer have some sort of synergy] -lack of utility sect cards [no good indie only cards] They have very good breed and vote archetype. [OBF only][anarch version and independent version] They have good powerbleed archetype. [DOM + OBF, this one actually use few qui cards. few but still][independent] They have few good intercept decks. [ AUS + CEL] [laibon] They have few good Tariq decks [AUS + FOR + OBF, few quietus cards] [anarch version and independent version] They have good bleed and vote alamut archetype. [CEL + OBF] [Independent] They have various mediocrate black hand decks [Nizzam + Joe][Izhim + Djuhah][Yazid + Joe + Reza][sabbat version or anarch verson - anarch one use animalism on Yazid :P] They have mediocrate multirush deck [CEL + OBF + for - Fatima] [Independent and anarch version]

On Jan 5, 5:51 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI > > > [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. Yep, i played with > > > them. > > > I'm baffled by why you think Djuhah is so bad. He's definitely > > comparable to the other Seraphs. > > > Similar discipline spread to Yazid Tamari (two superiors, three > > inferiors). Yazid costs an extra pool for which you get +1 bleed. > > Yazid does have the handy Dominate, but I have never seen him use > > Animalism. While Djuhah has Auspex and Presence, which are both quite > > useful. > > He have 7(6) points in disciplines and seraph title. pretty low for 7 > cap with no special considering he have QUI. Um...how are you counting 6? It's 7. Djuhah has: aus cel OBF pre QUI, which is seven points of disciplines. Counting Black Hand Seraph as a one-point trait, he's comparable with: Graham Gottesman or Ubende. Sure, Seraph doesn't directly give you votes (though it gives you Black Hand Emissary, Emergency Powers and Praetorian Backer). Plus, inherent Black Hand Seraph is especially good since you keep it even if you change sects (Seraph card and Trophy: Chosen only function while you remain Sabbat). So perhaps you're just undervaluing how useful Black Hand Seraph is? > > > Kazimir has two superiors, two inferiors, and a special. I have never > > seen anyone use his Potence. Also comparable to Djuhah. > > Kazimir is actually not really amazing. Why not compare to teresita - > 3 in clan superiors and inferior FOR. And a special. Okay, so some vampires have more points in in-clan disciplines and less in out-of-clans. That's the way the design works sometimes. In Group 2, why do the Assamites get Abd al-Rashid (5-cap with two superiors, one inferior), Zahir (6-cap with two in-clan superiors and one inferior), and Jalal and Kalinda (6-caps with two in-clan superiors) while the Setities have three 5-caps and three 6-caps, none of which have more than one superior and two of whom lack a clan discipline? In Group 4/5, why do the Assamites get Layla while the Toreador get crappy 5-caps like Laecanus, Lindsay Yates, and Masdela? Furthermore, having a clan focus too much on their in-clan disciplines is not always a good thing. It can lead to redundancy, less diversity, and fewer deck options. Take a look at the Tremere/!Tremere for example, whose high caps have a shockingly high rate of AUS DOM THA. On the surface, that seems like a good thing. But then you realize that it means many large-caps are never used because you can easily find better vampires. Why bother with (basic) Lazarus when you can use Justine instead? When was the last time you saw Lille Haake, Erichtho, or Ardan Lane in play (so much better to use Carna or Selena)? When it comes to the !Tremere, most of the time Ayelea isn't worth the extra 2 pool over Kij. Why bother with Ethan Locke when you can go with Marino (for the same price you get superior AUS and the more useful +1 bleed). But now even Marino is eclipsed by Orlando Oriundus (both have two votes, +1 bleed, and the in-clan superiors, but Orlando gives you extra voting power). Normally Eric Kressida should seem reasonably good (8-cap with all in-clans) but every time I think about including him, I realize I'm better off with Paul Cordwood or Uta Kovacs. But guess what? I deal with it. That's just the way some clans are. Sure, Teresita gets a minor conditional special. Same vampires get a little bonus, others don't. In Group 2, Yusuf and Zahir get free minor specials, and Ur-Shulgi gets one (compared to the other FN 11-caps). In Group 4, Reza and Kashan each get a little extra. In Group 5, you have Bakr, Monty Coven, Izhim, Kabede, Nizzam, and Jamal. In fact all of the large-cap Group 5 Assamites seem to get a little more than normal. So now you're complaining because every Assamite (and specifically Djuhah) doesn't get an extra little special? That's the way it is. Just like how apparently some vampires get hit with random disadvantages (Bethany Ray, Richard Tauber, Muhandis, Vasily). > > Plus, Djuhah has amazing synergy with his clanmates (another Seraph > > and an additional three other Black Hand members). This is a level of > > synergy that the other non-Assamite Seraphs can't even get close to > > matching. > > Those vampires are pretty expensive, with no good pool gain options > [if you want to oust anyone]. Um, you have Haqim's Law: Leadership, Khabar: Loyalty, Heartblood of the Clan, and Reunion Kamut, all of which provide pool gain. Tattoo Signal and Seraph's Second give you the untaps to take the extra actions. Or with your two Seraphs, you can use Watchtower: Greatest Fall for a permanent one pool a turn. > > And if you're worried about the lack of out-of-clan overlap, then it's > > a prevalent problem among most Black Hand members. The !Gangrel are a > > complete mess when it comes to disciplines. And none of the !Brujah, > > Lasombra, !Nosferatu, or !Ventrue Black Hand members share any out-of- > > clans with each other. > > Lasombra and !Nosferatu both have actually pretty good synergy [mostly > in clan disciplines, few ooc]. > Assamites are not bad either, second best BH clan IMO [in line with > background][best BH are lasombra, probably dominate just change > things]. Then why are you complaining about the "crap discipline synergy"? > > > Free untap reaction is not so much better than wake. > > > Yes it is. If you Wake and fail to block, you've wasted a card and > > remain tapped. If you untap with Black Sunrise and fail to block, at > > least you're still untapped so that you can block the next action. I > > know plenty of Tzimisce fans who would wet themselves if Vicissitude > > got a free untap card just like Black Sunrise. > > Tzimisce have animalism ... Sense the Savage way ? And Titles > [Ethernal Villigiance] Eternal Vigilance? You have to be kidding me. It's a TERRIBLE card! Except in a few all-star decks (Cailean for example), you almost never see it. It's really really bad. Sense the Savage Way is good, but requires a large vampire (> 6). Most of the good Tzimisce intercept decks rely mainly on mid-caps (ideally from capacity 4 to 6), so Sense the Savage Way is no good. There are also some large Tzimisce without ANI (most notably Radu and Vykos). > > > Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. And no > > > bleed modifiers. Check Presence, or Dominate, or Dementation, or > > > Serpentis [yeah, serpentis have better bleed!] ... > > > As Peter has already indicated, the Assamites are significantly > > advantaged because they have easy access to cheap superior QUI. > > > Let's see, we have a 3-cap, two 4-caps, a 5-cap, and four 6-caps. > > G2 - 3 cap/5 cap/6 cap > G4 - 4 cap/4 cap/6 cap/6 cap > G5 - 6 cap > > Not really cheap ... > > Serpentis, you're rather right. > 4/5 OBT - 5 cap/5 cap/ 5 cap/ 6 cap/ 6 cap - i'd call it better than > quietus :> Eh, I'd say Quietus wins slightly over Obtenebration. If you want between one and five vampires with the superior, you can get it cheaper with Quietus. And that also factors in how the Obtenebration vampires is split between Lasombra and Kiasyd while all the QUI guys are of a single clan. > > > Why it's not normal useful discipline ? Something like vicissitude in > > > terms of powers ? right now it's worst discipline for non-anarch > > > minion. > > > Even your much-loved Vicissitude lacks multi-acting capacity, like the > > Freak Drive you so desperately want for Quietus. Protean has the > > awkward inferior Dual Form, but that's it. > > I do not want freak drive for Quietus. Read the thread. I want either > celerity or generic big cap freak drive. And you don't think a Celerity Freak Drive would be overpowered for the Brujah, Toreador, and !Toreador (who are all already first tier clans)? No thanks. > > And no, it's not the worst discipline for non-anarch minions. I think > > Smallpox and Unre win that award. Or maybe Jacques and Pedrag. But > > honestly, there are plenty of out-of-clans that are wasted on vampires > > (Animalism, Celerity, Chimerstry, Necromancy, Obtenebration, > > Thaumaturgy, and even Protean). I look at Eric Kressida's superior > > Protean and wonder what the heck I'm supposed to actually do with > > that! Obtenebration is pretty useless on Azaneal, Nehemiah, and > > Terrifisto. And lots of vampires have random Vicissitude which I have > > never seen used. > > Superior AUS/PRO/DOM and you're wondering what to do ? Earth Meld > block with permanent or FoM dominate bleed ? Yes, because he has crappy synergy with the rest of his clanmates. You get 10-cap Lernean with inferior Protean. KoT helped a bit with Camarilla counterparts Rutor and William Thorbecke. But it's still vastly inferior to Gangrel DOM/PRO with Iliana, Stanislava, and Ingrid. In such a deck, superior PRO is much more important than superior DOM (for the stealth and Form of Mist). In theory, Tremere/! Tremere with Protean would be interesting but there's just not enough support (i.e. weenies and more mid-caps with Protean as an out of clan). Right now there's too much setup and not enough payoff, IMO. > > The Assamites have SEVERAL, SIGNIFICANT advantages over ALL the other > > clans. And I remain puzzled why you continue to stubbornly insist that > > they're oh-so-terrible. Looks like I'm gonna have to join Peter in > > slamming my own head against the wall. ::sighs:: > > Independents need more clan cards and better clan cards due to: > -scarce disciplines [few ooc vampires have their disciplines, and even > fewer have some sort of synergy] Which is why the average Independent clan has *25* clan cards, while the typical Camarilla clan has 12 and Sabbat clan has 9. The Independents (including Assamites) have over twice as many clan cards as most of the non-Independent clans. > -lack of utility sect cards [no good indie only cards] Are you smoking crack? Reckless Agitation is ridiculously good and overpowered. Free States Rant has been very popular for years. For Independent decks, Exclusion Principle is like an Autarkis Persecution that is far less likely to help anyone else. And Rise of the Nephtali is pretty hot too. Independents can also maintain access to their sect cards (and sect titles) when they have gone Anarch. Plus, it's a lot easier to make non-Independent vampires Independent (just have them go Anarch to change sects, even if you're not using an Anarchs deck). Making a vampire into Camarilla, Sabbat, or Laibon usually takes a lot more work and several card slots. > They have very good breed and vote archetype. [OBF only][anarch > version and independent version] > They have good powerbleed archetype. [DOM + OBF, this one actually use > few qui cards. few but still][independent] > They have few good intercept decks. [ AUS + CEL] [laibon] > They have few good Tariq decks [AUS + FOR + OBF, few quietus cards] > [anarch version and independent version] > They have good bleed and vote alamut archetype. [CEL + OBF] > [Independent] > They have various mediocrate black hand decks [Nizzam + Joe][Izhim + > Djuhah][Yazid + Joe + Reza][sabbat version or anarch verson - anarch > one use animalism on Yazid :P] > They have mediocrate multirush deck [CEL + OBF + for - Fatima] > [Independent and anarch version] So despite all this, the Assamites still apparantly, in your words, "suck anyway"? Let's see, what do the Assamites have? #1. They have two extra vampires compared to the other Independent clans. (Got an extra in Anarchs with Advanced Tegyrius and were the only Independent clan to get a vampire in Sword of Caine with Nizzam). --> Advantage over the other Independents #2. They have *three* Black Hand SERAPHS (of which *two* can be played together). - The Lasombra have two (in incompatiable groups). - The !Gangrel, !Nosferatu, Tzimisce, and !Ventrue have one. - And the !Brujah, !Malkavians, !Toreador, and !Tremere have none. - (The Camarilla, Laibon, Bloodlines, and remaining Independents also have none). --> Advantage over all other clans #3. They have *seven* BLACK HAND members of which (of which *five* can be played together). - The !Gangrel also have seven members (of which five can be combined), though they only get a single Seraph (and only in Group 3). - The !Nos have 5 members (4 max in a grouping) - The Lasombra, !Malks, !Tremere, and !Ventrue have 5 members (3 max) - The !Brujah, !Toreador, and Tzimisce have 4 members (3 max) - The Setites, Abominations, Nagaraja, Pander, and !Salubri each have one - The Camarilla, Laibon, and remaining Bloodlines and Independents have none --> Tied with the !Gangrel but otherwise the Assamites have the advantage over all other clans #4. The Assamites have their very own JUSTICAR. - The six main Cam clans each have three (Groups 1, 3, and 5). - The Gangrel only have one (Group 1). He doesn't need to be Merged, but he's Angus the totally Ruled. (Pretty crappy and with inferior Fortitude). - The Setites have their Justicar equivalent (Kemintiri) but neither the Giovanni or Ravnos have one. - None of the Sabbat, Laibon, or Bloodlines have one. --> On par with the Setites and Gangrel. Assamites have the advantage over all the non-Camarilla clans. #5. The Assamites have *two* MAGAJI. - The Guruhi have three Magaji - The Akunanse, Ishtarri, and Osebo also have two - The Ravnos have one - The other pseudo-Laibon clans (Setites, Lasombra, Tzimisce, Harbingers, !Salubri) have none - The other remaining Independent clan (Giovanni) have none - All other Camarilla, Sabbat, and Bloodlines have none --> Out of all the clans only the Guruhi are better than the Assamites when it comes to Magaji. The Assamites are tied with the three other fully Laibon clans. --> The Assamites have the Magaji advantage compared to every non- Laibon clan. #6. Voting Power. Assamites have four Independents with 2 votes, two Independents with 1 vote, and Amaravati who also guarantees at least one vote. Two Magaji and also conditionally titles with Tegyrius and Monty Coven. They have Alamut and the Black Throne for additional vote power, and Yoruba Shrine provides some vote defense. - The Setites have five Independents with 2 votes and two Independents with 1 vote. One Primogen, conditional title with Kemintiri, and a very narrow ability with Khay'Tall. They get Ferraile and Hierophant, and their only other advantage is in-clan Presence. - The Giovanni have five Independents with 2 votes and two with one vote. Stefano also can get one vote. No other titled vampires. They have the craptastic Mausoleum and can take a lame action to add counters to Powerbase: Rome. - Ravnos have four Independents with 2 votes and a Magaji. No other inherent votes. They have Bujo (weak) and Eldest are Kholo (strong). Chimerstry gives some indirect political influence but nothing that spectacular. - (Assamites and Giovanni also get a small perk in having their own special Praxis Seizure, Istanbul and Venice to be precise). --> Among the Independents, only the Setites can give the Assamites a run for their money (and that's only because of Presence and that's less of an issue now that there is Old Friends). Assamites require more setup but it is ultimately more reliable (bleed lots and use Alamut, or swarm with Alamut and Amaravati). --> Assamites have a definite voting advantage over the Giovanni and Ravnos though. #7. Assamites have *25* CLAN CARDS - Setities have 26. Giovanni have 25. Ravnos have 24. - Cam clans average 12 (13 for Brujah, 11 for Toreador and Ventrue) - Sabbat clans average 9 (11 for !Gangrel and Lasombra, 10 for !Brujah and Tzimisce) - Laibon clans each have 6 - Bloodlines clans average 5 or 6 Of the Assamite cards, I would say: REALLY GOOD: Alamut, Deviki Prasanta, Market Square, Web of Knives Recruit, Yoruba Shrine QUITE GOOD: Black Throne, Clandestine Contract, Ghouls of Plaza Moreria, Haqim's Law: Leadership, Heartblood of the Clan, Khabar: Glory, Khabar: Loyalty, Omael Kuman, Provision of the Silsila - In comparison, what do the much esteemed Toreador really have? Toreador Grand Ball is amazing yes. Aching Beauty is quite nice (though expensive). Art Museum is good (though the !Brujah, Gangrel, ! Nosferatu, and Tremere also have the same thing). That's really about it. - The Ventrue have Ventrue HQ and Hostile Takeover. Island of Yiaros is occasionally good in trick decks. That's it. - Brujah have New Carthage and Carthage Remembered (mainly for Prince/ Justicar decks). Brujah Debate is good for swarms. And gun decks might use Arms Dealer and Al's Army Apparatus. --> The Assamites have quite a nice selection of clan toys. Easily better than anything the non-Independent clans can come up with.

On Jan 5, 12:51 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: <snip rant> > > They have very good breed and vote archetype. [OBF only][anarch > version and independent version] > They have good powerbleed archetype. [DOM + OBF, this one actually use > few qui cards. few but still][independent] > They have few good intercept decks. [ AUS + CEL] [laibon] > They have few good Tariq decks [AUS + FOR + OBF, few quietus cards] > [anarch version and independent version] > They have good bleed and vote alamut archetype. [CEL + OBF] > [Independent] I'll assume you're ignoring the fact that Loss helps Alamut decks get moving quicker so that you can claim that there aren't any good archetypes that use Quietus, since Loss helps this decktype out a bit. -Merlin > They have various mediocrate black hand decks [Nizzam + Joe][Izhim + > Djuhah][Yazid + Joe + Reza][sabbat version or anarch verson - anarch > one use animalism on Yazid :P] > They have mediocrate multirush deck [CEL + OBF + for - Fatima] > [Independent and anarch version]- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -

[ quoted text not captured ] Actually, I was thinking something a bit more radical. I've been trying to find a good example all day, and this isn't perfect, but... Imagine White Wolf had created a Laibon offshoot of (for example) the Gangrel. ANI/PRO/SER. Translated into V:TES, such a clan would play radically differently to the Setites - it wouldn't really be about stealth bleed, and it wouldn't really be about stealth vote. It would have stealth (Protean, a bit of Serpentis), and would have a bit of bleed (Animalism, Serpentis), but then so do a lot of disciplines. It'd have a bit of Corruption tech on hand (via Serpentis), but the combative element of Serpentis might combo better here. Protean could provide agg damage, maneuvers etc., Serpentis would provide prevention that could work alongside Flesh of Marble (which isn't perfect), Animalism could provide lots of combat support, retainers, intercept etc. Various cards that are sub-standard for the Setites might turn up being quite playable by the Sergrel, because they aren't duplicating things in Obfuscate and Presence anymore - they're working alongside Animalism and Protean. And, hopefully, Serpentis is different enough from Fortitude that people get a different flavour for the clan. There are probably other and better combinations to imagine, but you see the sort of thing I'm thinking. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 5 Sty, 21:18, "echiang...@yahoo.com" <echiang...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jan 5, 5:51 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > > > yeah, but Djuhah is underpowered as second seraph. He have OBF QUI > > > > [useless] cel [useless] aus pre and seraph title. Yep, i played with > > > > them. > > > > I'm baffled by why you think Djuhah is so bad. He's definitely > > > comparable to the other Seraphs. > > > > Similar discipline spread to Yazid Tamari (two superiors, three > > > inferiors). Yazid costs an extra pool for which you get +1 bleed. > > > Yazid does have the handy Dominate, but I have never seen him use > > > Animalism. While Djuhah has Auspex and Presence, which are both quite > > > useful. > > > He have 7(6) points in disciplines and seraph title. pretty low for 7 > > cap with no special considering he have QUI. > > Um...how are you counting 6? It's 7. Djuhah has: aus cel OBF pre QUI, > which is seven points of disciplines. Counting Black Hand Seraph as a > one-point trait, he's comparable with: Graham Gottesman or Ubende. > Sure, Seraph doesn't directly give you votes (though it gives you > Black Hand Emissary, Emergency Powers and Praetorian Backer). Plus, > inherent Black Hand Seraph is especially good since you keep it even > if you change sects (Seraph card and Trophy: Chosen only function > while you remain Sabbat). So perhaps you're just undervaluing how > useful Black Hand Seraph is? It seems that every discipine after thrid or fourth cost less [0,5 point less]. Basicaly he is underpowered for it's point cost. Some so called vampires are overpowered, but he is not. I play with seraph toys, they are more or less about princedom power. but grants no votes [but considering all thing are about equal]. If it would have CEL OBF QUI aus or even CEL OBF QUI aus pre, then yeah, he would be good enough. > > > > Kazimir has two superiors, two inferiors, and a special. I have never > > > seen anyone use his Potence. Also comparable to Djuhah. > > > Kazimir is actually not really amazing. Why not compare to teresita - > > 3 in clan superiors and inferior FOR. And a special. > > Okay, so some vampires have more points in in-clan disciplines and > less in out-of-clans. That's the way the design works sometimes. Yeah, but some disciplines are just better. Would you play QUI weenies, or AUS weenies ? > In Group 2, why do the Assamites get Abd al-Rashid (5-cap with two > superiors, one inferior), Zahir (6-cap with two in-clan superiors and > one inferior), and Jalal and Kalinda (6-caps with two in-clan > superiors) while the Setities have three 5-caps and three 6-caps, none > of which have more than one superior and two of whom lack a clan > discipline? In Group 4/5, why do the Assamites get Layla while the > Toreador get crappy 5-caps like Laecanus, Lindsay Yates, and Masdela? Toreador have quite good weenies in G1/G2 and ya know, they can take ! tor/!bru/bru/ose/ish for support easly. Assamites with Qui have no helpful midcaps around. Explore new setite grouping. And compare them to actually good vampires. Yeah, G2 presence/potence brujah do not exist. So you give me example, "hey, at least assamites have better disciplines than G2 brujah" [ quoted text not captured ] They are not best vampires in their respective capacity anyway. And you really consider Ur-Shulgi so great vampire ? He's worse than Arika, Nergal, Cybele, Lutz, Mistress, Etrius, Stanislava. Kashan does not get freebie. He have 7,5 pts in disciplines and 1 vote worth 0,5 points. Check create a clan guidelines. > > > Plus, Djuhah has amazing synergy with his clanmates (another Seraph > > > and an additional three other Black Hand members). This is a level of > > > synergy that the other non-Assamite Seraphs can't even get close to > > > matching. > > > Those vampires are pretty expensive, with no good pool gain options > > [if you want to oust anyone]. > > Um, you have Haqim's Law: Leadership, Khabar: Loyalty, Heartblood of > the Clan, and Reunion Kamut, all of which provide pool gain. Tattoo > Signal and Seraph's Second give you the untaps to take the extra > actions. Or with your two Seraphs, you can use Watchtower: Greatest > Fall for a permanent one pool a turn. I mentioned this. They do not have forward motion or poolgain. Tattoo Signal might seems cool, but after you use it in turn number 6, you're so low at pool, it's not even funny. > > > And if you're worried about the lack of out-of-clan overlap, then it's > > > a prevalent problem among most Black Hand members. The !Gangrel are a > > > complete mess when it comes to disciplines. And none of the !Brujah, > > > Lasombra, !Nosferatu, or !Ventrue Black Hand members share any out-of- > > > clans with each other. > > > Lasombra and !Nosferatu both have actually pretty good synergy [mostly > > in clan disciplines, few ooc]. > > Assamites are not bad either, second best BH clan IMO [in line with > > background][best BH are lasombra, probably dominate just change > > things]. > > Then why are you complaining about the "crap discipline synergy"? Seraph Tag team share OBF QUI cel/CEL, sect and bh seraphness. Not great considering they cost 16 pool. > > > > Free untap reaction is not so much better than wake. > > > > Yes it is. If you Wake and fail to block, you've wasted a card and > > > remain tapped. If you untap with Black Sunrise and fail to block, at > > > least you're still untapped so that you can block the next action. I > > > know plenty of Tzimisce fans who would wet themselves if Vicissitude > > > got a free untap card just like Black Sunrise. > > > Tzimisce have animalism ... Sense the Savage way ? And Titles > > [Ethernal Villigiance] > > Eternal Vigilance? You have to be kidding me. It's a TERRIBLE card! > Except in a few all-star decks (Cailean for example), you almost never > see it. It's really really bad. > > Sense the Savage Way is good, but requires a large vampire (> 6). Most > of the good Tzimisce intercept decks rely mainly on mid-caps (ideally > from capacity 4 to 6), so Sense the Savage Way is no good. There are > also some large Tzimisce without ANI (most notably Radu and Vykos). So probably have AUS VIC ... sound like a good play to have eyes of argus. intercept or wake. dream card. > > > > Powerfull bleed ? You need SUPERIOR QUIETUS to bleed for 3. And no > > > > bleed modifiers. Check Presence, or Dominate, or Dementation, or > > > > Serpentis [yeah, serpentis have better bleed!] ... > > > > As Peter has already indicated, the Assamites are significantly > > > advantaged because they have easy access to cheap superior QUI. > > > > Let's see, we have a 3-cap, two 4-caps, a 5-cap, and four 6-caps. > > > G2 - 3 cap/5 cap/6 cap > > G4 - 4 cap/4 cap/6 cap/6 cap > > G5 - 6 cap > > > Not really cheap ... > > > Serpentis, you're rather right. > > 4/5 OBT - 5 cap/5 cap/ 5 cap/ 6 cap/ 6 cap - i'd call it better than > > quietus :> > > Eh, I'd say Quietus wins slightly over Obtenebration. If you want > between one and five vampires with the superior, you can get it > cheaper with Quietus. And that also factors in how the Obtenebration > vampires is split between Lasombra and Kiasyd while all the QUI guys > are of a single clan. Only one 5 cap is Kiasyd, and have DOM OBT. > > > > Why it's not normal useful discipline ? Something like vicissitude in > > > > terms of powers ? right now it's worst discipline for non-anarch > > > > minion. > > > > Even your much-loved Vicissitude lacks multi-acting capacity, like the > > > Freak Drive you so desperately want for Quietus. Protean has the > > > awkward inferior Dual Form, but that's it. > > > I do not want freak drive for Quietus. Read the thread. I want either > > celerity or generic big cap freak drive. > > And you don't think a Celerity Freak Drive would be overpowered for > the Brujah, Toreador, and !Toreador (who are all already first tier > clans)? No thanks. Even if it would cost 2 blood ? really ? Or have 'not usable during political action' ? It could be easly balanced. > > > And no, it's not the worst discipline for non-anarch minions. I think > > > Smallpox and Unre win that award. Or maybe Jacques and Pedrag. But > > > honestly, there are plenty of out-of-clans that are wasted on vampires > > > (Animalism, Celerity, Chimerstry, Necromancy, Obtenebration, > > > Thaumaturgy, and even Protean). I look at Eric Kressida's superior > > > Protean and wonder what the heck I'm supposed to actually do with > > > that! Obtenebration is pretty useless on Azaneal, Nehemiah, and > > > Terrifisto. And lots of vampires have random Vicissitude which I have > > > never seen used. > > > Superior AUS/PRO/DOM and you're wondering what to do ? Earth Meld > > block with permanent or FoM dominate bleed ? > > Yes, because he has crappy synergy with the rest of his clanmates. You > get 10-cap Lernean with inferior Protean. KoT helped a bit with > Camarilla counterparts Rutor and William Thorbecke. But it's still > vastly inferior to Gangrel DOM/PRO with Iliana, Stanislava, and > Ingrid. In such a deck, superior PRO is much more important than > superior DOM (for the stealth and Form of Mist). In theory, Tremere/! > Tremere with Protean would be interesting but there's just not enough > support (i.e. weenies and more mid-caps with Protean as an out of > clan). > >Right now there's too much setup and not enough payoff, IMO. You described CEL OBF QUI synergy perfectly. > > > The Assamites have SEVERAL, SIGNIFICANT advantages over ALL the other > > > clans. And I remain puzzled why you continue to stubbornly insist that > > > they're oh-so-terrible. Looks like I'm gonna have to join Peter in > > > slamming my own head against the wall. ::sighs:: > > > Independents need more clan cards and better clan cards due to: > > -scarce disciplines [few ooc vampires have their disciplines, and even > > fewer have some sort of synergy] > > Which is why the average Independent clan has *25* clan cards, while > the typical Camarilla clan has 12 and Sabbat clan has 9. The > Independents (including Assamites) have over twice as many clan cards > as most of the non-Independent clans. > > > -lack of utility sect cards [no good indie only cards] > > Are you smoking crack? Reckless Agitation is ridiculously good and > overpowered. Free States Rant has been very popular for years. For > Independent decks, Exclusion Principle is like an Autarkis Persecution > that is far less likely to help anyone else. And Rise of the Nephtali > is pretty hot too. Comparing with say Parity Shift, it's not so good. Sabbat politics is about on par. Laibon is slightly worse. But it's just voting. General cards are on par with camarilla [non-titled and primogens], much less than sabbat or laibon. > Independents can also maintain access to their sect cards (and sect > titles) when they have gone Anarch. Plus, it's a lot easier to make > non-Independent vampires Independent (just have them go Anarch to > change sects, even if you're not using an Anarchs deck). Making a > vampire into Camarilla, Sabbat, or Laibon usually takes a lot more > work and several card slots. You're kidding right. Sect titles are very hard to keep [must play anarch secesion, not worth the effort]. Once a blue moon it make any difference when playing anarch. > > They have very good breed and vote archetype. [OBF only][anarch > > version and independent version] > > They have good powerbleed archetype. [DOM + OBF, this one actually use > > few qui cards. few but still][independent] > > They have few good intercept decks. [ AUS + CEL] [laibon] > > They have few good Tariq decks [AUS + FOR + OBF, few quietus cards] > > [anarch version and independent version] > > They have good bleed and vote alamut archetype. [CEL + OBF] > > [Independent] > > They have various mediocrate black hand decks [Nizzam + Joe][Izhim + > > Djuhah][Yazid + Joe + Reza][sabbat version or anarch verson - anarch > > one use animalism on Yazid :P] > > They have mediocrate multirush deck [CEL + OBF + for - Fatima] > > [Independent and anarch version] > > So despite all this, the Assamites still apparantly, in your words, > "suck anyway"? Ok, quietus suck anyway, and most deck's build around quietus. > Let's see, what do the Assamites have? > > #1. They have two extra vampires compared to the other Independent > clans. (Got an extra in Anarchs with Advanced Tegyrius and were the > only Independent clan to get a vampire in Sword of Caine with Nizzam). > > --> Advantage over the other Independents Quantity does not mean quality. > #2. They have *three* Black Hand SERAPHS (of which *two* can be played > together). > > - The Lasombra have two (in incompatiable groups). > - The !Gangrel, !Nosferatu, Tzimisce, and !Ventrue have one. > - And the !Brujah, !Malkavians, !Toreador, and !Tremere have none. > - (The Camarilla, Laibon, Bloodlines, and remaining Independents also > have none). As it should be. Read about black hand. I'm suprised they do not have 4. It's probably balance issue > --> Advantage over all other clans > > #3. They have *seven* BLACK HAND members of which (of which *five* can > be played together). > > - The !Gangrel also have seven members (of which five can be > combined), though they only get a single Seraph (and only in Group > 3). > - The !Nos have 5 members (4 max in a grouping) > - The Lasombra, !Malks, !Tremere, and !Ventrue have 5 members (3 max) > - The !Brujah, !Toreador, and Tzimisce have 4 members (3 max) > - The Setites, Abominations, Nagaraja, Pander, and !Salubri each have > one > - The Camarilla, Laibon, and remaining Bloodlines and Independents > have none > > --> Tied with the !Gangrel but otherwise the Assamites have the > advantage over all other clans 5 black hand assamite deck tend to be very slow. lack general pool gain, but i'll test it anyway. > #4. The Assamites have their very own JUSTICAR. > > - The six main Cam clans each have three (Groups 1, 3, and 5). > - The Gangrel only have one (Group 1). He doesn't need to be Merged, > but he's Angus the totally Ruled. (Pretty crappy and with inferior > Fortitude). > - The Setites have their Justicar equivalent (Kemintiri) but neither > the Giovanni or Ravnos have one. > - None of the Sabbat, Laibon, or Bloodlines have one. > > --> On par with the Setites and Gangrel. Assamites have the advantage > over all the non-Camarilla clans. After merge. Just like keminitri. Tie with FoS. > #5. The Assamites have *two* MAGAJI. > > - The Guruhi have three Magaji > - The Akunanse, Ishtarri, and Osebo also have two > - The Ravnos have one > - The other pseudo-Laibon clans (Setites, Lasombra, Tzimisce, > Harbingers, !Salubri) have none > - The other remaining Independent clan (Giovanni) have none > - All other Camarilla, Sabbat, and Bloodlines have none > > --> Out of all the clans only the Guruhi are better than the Assamites > when it comes to Magaji. The Assamites are tied with the three other > fully Laibon clans. > > --> The Assamites have the Magaji advantage compared to every non- > Laibon clan. True. Even some Assamite magaji deck won something ... [ quoted text not captured ] Ravnos voting is quite good, and won few tournaments. But assamite breed and vote fu is stronger. [ quoted text not captured ] About assamite cards - swap places between Deviki Prasanta and Haqim's Law: Leadership. Add Shongo Remains to good cards, remove this set range retainer. Also, permanent pool gain [i would gladly swap even alamut for such tool] and TGB proven to be really strong, add to that sect card disciplines and Toreador won. Ventrue have VDA ... add sect cards, and we have a tie. Adding both clan disciplines, and Ventrue won. Brujah have very good crypt, and new carthage + CR seems really powerful. Considering all pros and cons. Assamites have very good clan cards, weak sect cards [or lack of discipline synergy/only few vamps if it wants to go cammy/sabbat/laibon route] and is about equal with other clans not counting disciplines. In terms of disciplines, it have two not flexible COMBAT disciplines [Quietus and Celerity] which lack synergy atm, and Quietus is just weak here [despite number of combat card it have]. It have also best delivery mechanism in vtes - obfuscate. Which again is not flexible discipline. It's mostly about stealth and not much more, pardon - old friend give some vote potential. The thing, you might have to deliver is Loss bleed. So why not simply play DEM obf malks, better crypt, better bleed and poolgain! Or DOM weenies, or Malk94 ? you have not only bleed for 3 [here you could even bleed for 6!] but also bleed defense. Disciplineless combat is about QUI combat level ...

On Jan 5, 5:02 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > In terms of disciplines, it have two not flexible COMBAT disciplines > [Quietus and Celerity] which lack synergy atm, How do Quietus and Celerity lack synergy? Playing nothing but Flash and Taste of Death is as good a minimal combat package as it gets. If you want S:CE counters, you have Psyche!. No, it isn't as good, in general, as, like, weenie potence, but Quietus and Celerity work fine together if you want to have good, light, opportunistic combat. > The thing, you might have to deliver > is Loss bleed. So why not simply play DEM obf malks, better crypt, > better bleed and poolgain! Or DOM weenies, or Malk94 ? 'Cause you are going to get your ass kicked in combat. Everything has a trade off. If you aren't afraid of getting rushed, sure, play Malks or DOM weenies. But that is always the case (Why play the Gangrel instead of the Malks or DOM weenies? Why play the Toreador instead of Malks of DOM weenies?). If you are afraid of being rushed, or want to have some light combat offense? Play the Assamites--you can bleed for 3 at stealth, and if someone needs some killing, you have efficient, low card intensity combat (play a handful of Contracts or some rush actions and you get into combat with folks you want to get into combat with). Very few clans hold up under the light of "Why not just play Malkavians of DOM weenies". Which is a problem for the game as a whole. Not just the Assamites. -Peter

On Jan 5, 10:02 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > > He have 7(6) points in disciplines and seraph title. pretty low for 7 > > > cap with no special considering he have QUI. > > > Um...how are you counting 6? It's 7. Djuhah has: aus cel OBF pre QUI, > > which is seven points of disciplines. Counting Black Hand Seraph as a > > one-point trait, he's comparable with: Graham Gottesman or Ubende. > > Sure, Seraph doesn't directly give you votes (though it gives you > > Black Hand Emissary, Emergency Powers and Praetorian Backer). Plus, > > inherent Black Hand Seraph is especially good since you keep it even > > if you change sects (Seraph card and Trophy: Chosen only function > > while you remain Sabbat). So perhaps you're just undervaluing how > > useful Black Hand Seraph is? > > It seems that every discipine after thrid or fourth cost less [0,5 > point less]. Basicaly he is underpowered for it's point cost. Some so > called vampires are overpowered, but he is not. I play with seraph > toys, they are more or less about princedom power. but grants no votes > [but considering all thing are about equal]. If it would have CEL OBF > QUI aus or even CEL OBF QUI aus pre, then yeah, he would be good > enough. As the Create-A-Clan Rules state: "The rules below have no association with the actual vampire design method." But if you really want to use this framework, remember that it treats all disciplines as equal. Quietus = Dominate = Protean = Vicissitude. > > Okay, so some vampires have more points in in-clan disciplines and > > less in out-of-clans. That's the way the design works sometimes. > > Yeah, but some disciplines are just better. Would you play QUI > weenies, or AUS weenies ? Neither. I'll stick with my DOM weenies, thank you very much! ;-) > > In Group 2, why do the Assamites get Abd al-Rashid (5-cap with two > > superiors, one inferior), Zahir (6-cap with two in-clan superiors and > > one inferior), and Jalal and Kalinda (6-caps with two in-clan > > superiors) while the Setities have three 5-caps and three 6-caps, none > > of which have more than one superior and two of whom lack a clan > > discipline? In Group 4/5, why do the Assamites get Layla while the > > Toreador get crappy 5-caps like Laecanus, Lindsay Yates, and Masdela? > > Toreador have quite good weenies in G1/G2 and ya know, they can take ! > tor/!bru/bru/ose/ish for support easly. Assamites with Qui have no > helpful midcaps around. > > Explore new setite grouping. I did. I was just using that as an example. Maybe it's you that needs to explore all of the Assamite groupings a bit more. > They are not best vampires in their respective capacity anyway. And > you really consider Ur-Shulgi so great vampire ? He's worse than > Arika, Nergal, Cybele, Lutz, Mistress, Etrius, Stanislava. No that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that Ur-Shulgi is better than the other FN 11-caps. And if you actually did your homework, you'd realize that as well. In the words of Todd Bannister (who designed Ur-Shulgi): "Now, when we created the 11 cap independents, they simply were not allowed to be nearly as powerful as the IC vamps that WotC created in Dark Sovereigns. Arika is a 16 to 17 point vampire while Ur-Shulgi is properly costed at 13.5 points (along with all other 11 cap Independents on the new point scale). If/when any more 11 cap vampires are created, they will certainly all use the new point scale and thus we'll never see anything near the power level of Arika and the IC members again. Just as most of the original Cam vamps are over-costed when calculated using the new point scale - the 11 caps more than make up for it. So, in order to evaluate Ur-Shulgi, we need to look at how he stacks up against the other 11 cap Independents. (Note: All of the 11 cap Independents have each of their 3 in-clan disciplines at superior, 2 votes and a built in +1 bleed. Thus, the real difference between them is their out-of-clan disciplines and their special abilities.) V:TES is a game of resource management and one of the biggest problems with using larger capacity vampires is the tendency for including out- of-clan disciplines that essentially become wasted in a deck. From the numbers above, you can see that Ur-Shulgi clearly has the tightest out- of-clan discipline integration with his clanmates when compared to the other 11 cap Independents. I built Ur-Shulgi with this exact purpose in mind. I wanted to concentrate on his disciplines and make them all as useable as possible (and ultimately cut down on his wasted/useless disciplines). While he does have superior Dominate (it still remains fairly scarce among the clan), I really wanted him to have the ability to perform a Khabar: Loyalty and a Govern the Unaligned at superior in the same turn after getting a Rutor’s Hand thus gaining 5 pool and 5 transfers at the cost of only two cards. I also wanted the clan to have a vampire that could play Thoughts Betrayed and deflect bleeds all day long if needed. In the end, I think this goal was reasonably accomplished. The biggest complaint that I hear on Ur-Shulgi is that his special ability is nearly useless/worthless or it just plain "sucks". Understand this, his special ability is a zero cost ability and thus it didn’t count against him in any way (on the point scale). Typical zero cost abilities are things like “X vampire gets +1 HD when in combat with a Lasombra” or such. While I admit his ability isn’t very exciting or even slightly powerful, it represents a key event in our clan’s history and it is at least useful in game terms. As mentioned before, one of the nice things about his ability is that it can be used during any of your untap phases and thus if you do not have a Master card in hand, you can fetch the Tajdid and thus allow you to become a little more efficient with your Master phase actions. All in all, not a bad zero point ability in my opinion (when compared to other abilities on the same scale in the game). Does his special ability stack up with the rest of the 11 cap Independents? No and of course it shouldn’t. They had to pay for their abilities while Ur-Shulgi got his for free. Do Augustus or Sutekh’s special abilities really overcome the inclusion of their scarce out-of- clan disciplines? In my opinion they don’t. Ezmerelda has by far the best special ability among the 11 cap Independents and she probably should have it since she has the weakest integration of the out-of- clan disciplines with her clanmates. While I agree that she needed the strongest ability among the 4 vamps, I think the ability to recoup all of the investment in her at no real cost (and can’t be intercepted or stopped outside of keeping her in torpor) to the player is simply too strong." --> Overall summary is that Ur-Shulgi pwns August, Sutekh, and Ezmeralda. > Kashan does not get freebie. He have 7,5 pts in disciplines and 1 vote > worth 0,5 points. Check create a clan guidelines. Once again, "The rules below have no association with the actual vampire design method." But if you insist on using the Create-A-Clan guidelines, then you should be pleased to know that many of the Assamite are QUITE OVERPOWERED. With 5 Black Hand members in the Group 4/5 set, the Black Hand trait is worth 2 points. Similarly, the Seraph trait is worth 1. So Djuhah actually has 7 (discipline points) + 2 (Black Hand) + 1 (Seraph) = 10 points. Whereas a 7-cap should have 8 points (plus 0.5 because he has five disciplines). So that still makes him 1.5 points over. Also note that the "Quietus costs 1 less" special costs two points. That means Izhim has 9 discipline points, 2 for Black Hand, 1 for Seraph, 2 for Quietus costs one less, and 1 for weapons cost less. That's a total of 15 points. A 9-cap with 5 disciplines should have 11.5 points, meaning he's 3.5 over. (He's even better than Ur-Shulgi!) Totally BROKEN!!! > > > > Plus, Djuhah has amazing synergy with his clanmates (another Seraph > > > > and an additional three other Black Hand members). This is a level of > > > > synergy that the other non-Assamite Seraphs can't even get close to > > > > matching. > > > > Those vampires are pretty expensive, with no good pool gain options > > > [if you want to oust anyone]. > > > Um, you have Haqim's Law: Leadership, Khabar: Loyalty, Heartblood of > > the Clan, and Reunion Kamut, all of which provide pool gain. Tattoo > > Signal and Seraph's Second give you the untaps to take the extra > > actions. Or with your two Seraphs, you can use Watchtower: Greatest > > Fall for a permanent one pool a turn. > > I mentioned this. They do not have forward motion or poolgain. Tattoo > Signal might seems cool, but after you use it in turn number 6, you're > so low at pool, it's not even funny. Then you're probably not playing them right. Please try again! > Seraph Tag team share OBF QUI cel/CEL, sect and bh seraphness. Not > great considering they cost 16 pool. Try using more Reunion Kamut to get them at a discount. And Vessel/ Villein to get pool gain back. > > Sense the Savage Way is good, but requires a large vampire (> 6). Most > > of the good Tzimisce intercept decks rely mainly on mid-caps (ideally > > from capacity 4 to 6), so Sense the Savage Way is no good. There are > > also some large Tzimisce without ANI (most notably Radu and Vykos). > > So probably have AUS VIC ... sound like a good play to have eyes of > argus. intercept or wake. dream card. Yes it is. But Obfuscate has dream cards with No Trace and Old Friends. (And its stealth is still better with Forgotten Labyrinth and Into Thin Air) > > > 4/5 OBT - 5 cap/5 cap/ 5 cap/ 6 cap/ 6 cap - i'd call it better than > > > quietus :> > > > Eh, I'd say Quietus wins slightly over Obtenebration. If you want > > between one and five vampires with the superior, you can get it > > cheaper with Quietus. And that also factors in how the Obtenebration > > vampires is split between Lasombra and Kiasyd while all the QUI guys > > are of a single clan. > > Only one 5 cap is Kiasyd, and have DOM OBT. Yeah. But one of the 6-caps is also a Kiasyd. > > And you don't think a Celerity Freak Drive would be overpowered for > > the Brujah, Toreador, and !Toreador (who are all already first tier > > clans)? No thanks. > > Even if it would cost 2 blood ? really ? > Or have 'not usable during political action' ? > It could be easly balanced. As I said, no thanks. Really. > > #1. They have two extra vampires compared to the other Independent > > clans. (Got an extra in Anarchs with Advanced Tegyrius and were the > > only Independent clan to get a vampire in Sword of Caine with Nizzam). > > > --> Advantage over the other Independents > > Quantity does not mean quality. Correct. But individual Assamites aren't worse than the other individual Independent vampires. So your point is irrelevant. > 5 black hand assamite deck tend to be very slow. lack general pool > gain, but i'll test it anyway. Use the Black Hand Assamites and some weenie Black Hand vampires (Lubomira, Rashid). Use lots of Reunion Kamut to quickly bring out vampires. Once you have Tattoo Signal / Seraph's Second set up, every action nets you 2 pool. How is that bad? > > --> On par with the Setites and Gangrel. Assamites have the advantage > > over all the non-Camarilla clans. > > After merge. Just like keminitri. Tie with FoS. Uh, that's what I said. That's what "on par" means. > Ravnos voting is quite good, and won few tournaments. But assamite > breed and vote fu is stronger. Agreed. > About assamite cards - swap places between Deviki Prasanta and Haqim's > Law: Leadership. Add Shongo Remains to good cards, remove this set > range retainer. Okay, sure. I quite like Deviki. Lets you play with all sorts of out-of-clan disciplines and helps thin your deck and saves you master phase actions. Ranged Retainer can be great for all-star combat decks (like a permanent Selective Silence). Also good for close-range decks (and then you don't have to worry about your retainer getting killed as much). > Also, permanent pool gain [i would gladly swap even alamut for such > tool] and TGB proven to be really strong, add to that sect card > disciplines and Toreador won. Watchtower: Greatest Fall. Assamites can use it best. There's your permanent pool gain. And you can have it and still keep Alamut. > Ventrue have VDA ... add sect cards, and we have a tie. Adding both > clan disciplines, and Ventrue won. VDA ain't so good. Easily burned. > Considering all pros and cons. Assamites have very good clan cards, > weak sect cards [or lack of discipline synergy/only few vamps if it > wants to go cammy/sabbat/laibon route] and is about equal with other > clans not counting disciplines. > > In terms of disciplines, it have two not flexible COMBAT disciplines > [Quietus and Celerity] which lack synergy atm, and Quietus is just > weak here [despite number of combat card it have]. It have also best > delivery mechanism in vtes - obfuscate. Which again is not flexible > discipline. It's mostly about stealth and not much more, pardon - old > friend give some vote potential. The thing, you might have to deliver > is Loss bleed. So why not simply play DEM obf malks, better crypt, > better bleed and poolgain! Or DOM weenies, or Malk94 ? you have not > only bleed for 3 [here you could even bleed for 6!] but also bleed > defense. Disciplineless combat is about QUI combat level ... Unfortunately, it seems most people disagree with you. Quietus is not as terrible as you make it out to be. And Celerity + Quietus is better than you think. Assamites are very good! Back to talking to the brick wall I suppose....

On Jan 5, 5:02 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > I mentioned this. They do not have forward motion or poolgain. Tattoo > Signal might seems cool, but after you use it in turn number 6, you're > so low at pool, it's not even funny. Been reading the thread, looking for a spot to jump in. Might as well be here. If you are playing Black Hand, you are (or ought to be) a *BLOCKING GOD*. Trifle Contract, Open Dossier, Black Sunrise, and Ministry (maybe Blood Awakening, if you want to work it in there). Between those four cards, you ought to be able to work Contract+OD *or* Black Sunrise + Ministry for an untap, 2 or 3 intercept, and maybe a maneuver. It is not much of a stretch to imagine stacking Ministry and OD for an insane 4 intercept off two cards. Stir in the dirt cheap Market Square.... if there's one thing you can do with your black hand assamite deck, it ought to be defending your own pool. And fighting off the block combat means the hideously inefficient QUI combat models get a little less inefficient, as a bonus. > Seraph Tag team share OBF QUI cel/CEL, sect and bh seraphness. Not > great considering they cost 16 pool. While you are defending your pool with your mad untap, taking Haqim's Leadership or Reunion Kamut actions shouldn't be that hard. Or, as you block the stabs at your pool long enough to get your 16 pool of vampires out the hard way, those actions will come later to recoup the loss. Assuming you are at least using the trifle contracts, and probably at least a few CC's too, it shouldn't be that wild of a stretch to say vampire #1 rushes backwards once, and then untaps and block/kills once or twice on your pred's turn. Depending on what kind of combat defense they run and the dumb luck of card flow, you could pretty quickly poolsack a predator with just your one vamp. -- David Cherryholmes

About blocking, you forget that tattoo signal work well as wake too. Of course, there are others cept locations and guardian angel for close range combat [and intercept]. And of course there is abbot and +intercept actions like sport bike/ mr.w. I'm well aware of that. It's bit expensive bloodwise.

[ quoted text not captured ] OK, then. I mean, the list of untap and block options to the BH Assamites is as long as your arm. You mentioned Abbot and Tattoo Signal, but then there's also the Monster archetype, and a very playable Watchtower, all of which *will* be in the deck in more than prayer numbers. Still, I wanted to make my point on the most mundane, baseline construction of cards played from hand. I really hate those "Oh yeah!?! Well then I play *this*!" tit for tat discussions. But cutting your argument down to a robust core of the deck, which you will have in healthy numbers? That seems closer to an OK argument, to me. But, between you and me, and I think you already see this, your untap and blocking will be even better than I outlined. > It's bit expensive bloodwise. If you are playing Indies and you haven't devoted about 10 slots to blood management somehow, then your deck is just going to collapse in on itself anyway, regardless of your strategy. When I play BH I usually go with the long range combat, grab my ankles and prey I don't see much S:CE, and play the hell out of Provisions. Play 2 Paths, 'cause you are built to defend them anyway. Round out with a couple RtQB or Tastes (if you run Blood Sweat). -- David Cherryholmes

acheronni...@gmail.com wrote: > About blocking, you forget that tattoo signal work well as wake too. Who forgets? You've got no context quoted to enable you to toss around pronouns like that.

On Jan 6, 9:46 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] "They" forget, it is always "Their" fault! Sheesh, common social contracts not kept to... ;) (just in case someone thinks i am on crack, or something...)