How do i use a weapon in combat?

Hi, as the title goes, i'm unsure about how do i use a weapon in combat? do i declare i am striking with that weapon instead of a combat card? how many times can i use the weapon per round? also, if i'm having a melee weapon such as meat cleaver and i play a hand strike combat card? does the weapon's 'Strength + 1 damage' get added onto the combat card? also, how does wooden stake works? most vampire only have one strength, since the card require 2 or more damaged be down with wooden stake, does it means that it is only applicable to strength plus 1 vampires? thanks for the advice!

> cpf86 wrote: > do i declare i am striking with that weapon instead of a combat card? Yes. During the "Choose strike" step of combat, you can choose to use the strike option given by a weapon you're holding, or you can choose to play a strike card from your hand, or you can choose the default strike (hand strike). Some strike cards say "use a weapon strike " (e.g., Lucky Blow or Undead Strength), so you could choose that strike card to use your weapon strike more effectively. > how many times can i use the weapon per round? The default is: unlimited (which means: you can strike with it as many times as you have the ability to strike in each round). Some weapons have text limiting them to "once per round" or "once per combat". > also, if i'm having a melee weapon such as meat cleaver and i play a hand strike combat card? No. (Well, you can play the hand strike card to make a hand strike, ignoring the Meat Cleaver altogether.) But you can play a "use a weapon" strike card together with the Meat Cleaver. > does the weapon's 'Strength + 1 damage' get added onto the combat card? The "use a weapon" strike card's effect gets added to the weapon's effect, yes. > also, how does wooden stake works? most vampire only have one strength, since the card require 2 or more damaged be down with wooden stake, does it means that it is only applicable to strength plus 1 vampires? Or to minions with 2 or more strength (e.g., Muddled Vampire Hunter). Or to minions using any of the "use a weapon at +1 damage" strike cards. But more practically, note that the 2 damage is tallied over the whole combat, so a minion can press and then strike with the Stake again in the second round to do the second point of damage (or gain an additional strike in the first round and strike with the Stake again).

thanks alot for the quick reply! that cleared up a lot of doubts! > Rulemonger wrote: > But more practically, note that the 2 damage is tallied over the whole combat, so a minion can press and then strike with the Stake again in the second round to do the second point of damage (or gain an additional strike in the first round and strike with the Stake again). Now i understand! this makes more sense. yeah, so i can cramp my deck with more additional strikes to make use of this and concealed weapon. i've 2 of each of the 4 black handstarter deck. I'm trying to mesh them together to get a better and more focused deck. I'm currently trying to build a nosterafu antitribue rush/combat deck (using potence and animal combat cards from the starters) and a tremere antitribue bruise and bleed deck. i've only played this game once using the unmodified nosterafu antitribue. Once i try out the other decks such as voting, i'll try to modify the treodor voting starter decks.