Legbiter#
Gangrel Anti Newsletter Vol1 number 3 May 1st 1998
In this Fang-filled Bumper Issue .....
IN THE SPRING A YOUNG VAMPIREąS THOUGHTS TURN LIGHTLY TO CANNIBALISM .....
fabby fiction about a typical World-of-Darkness Night on the Downs.
THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION IN PUBLISHING HISTORY. SNIFF. Cąmon guys
Śną gals, what about a little creative thought, huh? Half the compo
solved, and the other half extended for a month.
NEWS AND RUMOURS ...... A rumour about The Black Hand, an expansion for
VTES/Jyhad.
A DEADLY DECK Oą DOOM ....... Legbiterąs prophetic vision of Tournaments
To Come, and what you can do about it .....
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IN THE SPRING A YOUNG VAMPIREąS THOUGHTS TURN LIGHTLY TO CANNIBALISM .....
<BANG! BANG! BANG!>
łŚScuse me Sir and Madam, can I ask what youąre doing in this carpark at
this time of night?˛
łO shit! O Gerry! O No!˛
łWould you mind stepping out of the car for a moment, Sir and Madam?˛
Rustling of hastily-donned clothes, muttered comments .... łThis is YOUR
fault ..... my husband will kill me .....˛. Ah well, this will all look
less serious in a few seconds ...... you gotta think globally, know what I
mean? łIn Spring time, in Spring time, the only pretty ring time - when
birds do sing, o ring a ding a ding ... sweet lovers love, the Spring.˛
And so do I. More food, more animals to play with, and less mud to brush
off oneąs clothes in the morning. Terrific. Course, the downside is
shorter nights and more lupines. Here comes one now .....
łHey there, death-breath.˛
łHey, Rends! Gimmee five, or, er, however many ya got, Hairy Buddy!˛
<SLAP!!>
łIąll go snacks with ya on the car.˛
I saw it first, but no point in arguing with the Dancer. Heąs bigger than me.
łNow?˛
<VRRROOMM!!! SMACK!!!!> I strike the windscreen and bounce off. Shit,
never take your eyes off the food. Oww, that dustbin was full of broken
glass. I dunno, what about respect for the law, eh? Still, I have to admit
itąs funny, sitting here picking bits of glass outa my bum and watching my
hairy mate trying to catch the car. Ole! Toro, toro! Wow, can they do
that? Oops, clearly not, straight over the edge .... <ba-DOOMMMM!!!> ooo,
thatąs gotta hurt.
łCare for a bite?˛
łO Rends, you KNOW I donąt like my food cooked. Yech. Dąye have to slurp
like that? Uh-oh, time we werenąt here .......˛
<NEE-NAAA, NEE-NAAA, NEE-NAAA .... SCREEECH> ..........
Weąre skipping through the ruins of an Iron-Age fort. This is the unlife
.... the night-wind in my hair, the grass at my feet, the stars overhead
and a hygienically-challenged serial killer at my side ........
łThis is all YOUR fault Rends. Mummy was right ..... NEVER hang around
with a bloke whose eyebrows join in the middle.˛
łHey, I said Iąm sorry. Look, how about mixing my business with your
Pleasure .... the Treehuggers .... their camp is just down there.˛
Indeed it is, a series of tree-houses and tunnels right in the path of
the, erm, controversial Gibbet Hill Bypass [subcontractors Pentex, Inc,
Damborough and Provincetown]. Down we go, into the deep cutting under the
beech hanger. Theyąll be keeping a watch.... this isnąt the first time
that Pentex goons have roughed up the camp. So we gotta be Vewy, Vewy
Quiet. <SA-NAPPP!!!> <yaROOOOOO!!!!!> Uh-oh. Trust Rends to step in the
mantrap placed there specially by his Pentex mates.
łCąmon, ya hairy bugger, just bite the fucking leg off, you can grow
another ......˛
Sure hope he isnąt gonna frenzy on me .. think I might just slip over here
in case he does ..... o shit, here come the hippies, lots of them. Wow,
that big guy has calmed Rends with his flute, and theyąre prising him out
of the trap ..... maybe I can grab a snack in the confusion. Ahah,
perfect, a little one.
łHullo little girl, what is your name? Is that your pet whale? What is his
name? May I touch him?˛
She hands me the battered blow-up whale.
łOrky. But heąs not a pet. Heąs real.˛ Itąs inches from my hand and
somehow I know this is a bad idea, but I canąt stop myself .......
łOMIGOD ....... AIEEEEEE!!!!!!˛
As in a dream I watch my hands burst into flame, shrivelling and wasting
... I see myself trying to scrape the wretched whale off me, it seems to
take an age, and all the time there is this terrible screaming coming from
somewhere really close by. I do wish it would stop. The little girl is
watching solemnly. As the whale falls she calmly picks it up. I sink into
the chalky earth and she seems to grow, following me with eyes that are
clear and pitiless. And then it is dark again, and o so cool. Bliss. I
begin to wriggle downwards, and soon hit a rabbit warren. O well, at least
Iąll eat tonight .. though with my luck Iąll probably meet a Cute Ląil
Bunny with True Faith. Sigh ...... the dance goes on ......
********************************************
THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION IN PUBLISHING HISTORY. SNIFF.
NOBODY accepted my challenge to create the Mercy for the Weak or Betrayer
decks. Chickens. Alright, the compo goes on for another month, with the
same FABBY prize of a totally AMAZING but illegal deck. This isnąt one of
my cruel Legbitery jokes by the way - it really IS a deck, and it uses
home-made but Wizards-approved cards. NOBODY in your play-group has
ANYTHING like this, so it might even win you a game or two at first.
Just to show it can be done, here is the core of the Mercy for the Weak
deck. It is classically a Brujah kill-the-Ventrue affair, but can be
adapted for other clans using takeover effects and clan impersonation. Its
main point is to have everyone so busy with hunting that they get total
hand-jam and are unable to intercept your many fine, fine actions. You do
this by getting into combat with the main threats and whacking them, then
when they try to hunt you play multiple hunt-related reactions and
XTC-laced blood. With any luck they will end up fighting each other just
to cycle cards. The Mercy is in there to help Trioleąs Revenge kill the
big Ventrues.
Akram, other big Brujah [preferably with auspex, reasonable voting power],
weenie Setites, weenie Rag-heads with QUI, cheap sabbat vamp.
The Classic Combat cards [Bumąs Rush, IG, Flash, Blur, Sideslip, Pushing
the Limit, Death of My Conscience, Taste of Vitae].
Barrens
Camarilla Threat
XTC-laced Blood
Foul Blood
Tainted Vitae
Immaculate Vitae
Strained Vitae supply
Trioleąs Revenge
Intercept
Mercy for the Weak.
***********************************************
NEWS AND RUMOURS
This is an email I got from Morien Jones. I have no idea if there is any
substance to this, but i have heard similar rumours from other sources.
Hi to all of you,
You don't know me and I don't know you...but maybe you know some
persons whose email is listed above. I have found all these emails by
surfing on the Jyhad webring...a task that took me two hours...
Anyhow enough about me...let's talk about the game we all love: Jyhad.
As you may all know, Wizards of the Coast has decided that there would
not be any new expansion after The Sabbat. What you may not know is
that another expansion was scheduled: The Black Hand.
Yesterday at a Game con in Paris, France I discussed with a friend of
mine who works for WotC...and guess what he told me? That The Black
Hand was ready to be printed! All the texts have been written and it
has been play tested. WotC just has to give its go ahead.
Unfortunately, WotC executives do not believe that they will sell all
the cards if they print another expansion, and therefore the card texts
are hidden somewhere in Seattle.
The same thing is happening with Netrunner's second expansion Second
Impact (I am not sure of the name, though) [Silent Impact - Legbiter the
ed], it is the reason why someplayers have created The Top Runners
Conference in order to show WotCthat there are plenty Netrunner players
and that if the expansion is
printed, it will be bought. Maybe we, Jyhad players, should do the
same...At least we should write to WotC to show them that we are
looking for The Black Hand...but in order to make WotC changes its
mind, we must be as much as possible: So please ask as many friends as
you can to write to Wizards to ask them to release TBH.
Note to all the American players: When I asked my friend why WotC did
not want to print the expansion, he told me something like that: "When
we (WotC France) told WotC USA that at least half of the cards printed
could be sold in France, they answered that if a game sells are good in
the States they should be good anywhere in the world...therefore the
sells being not good in America, ( I wonder what they mean by good
sells???) they won't be good in another country and TBH is not going to
be printed." So this mean that you Americans will have to lobby a LOT!
;-)
That's all I have to say...If anyone has ideas on how to have the
expansion printed or any other news, please share it with
everybody...and now let's hope that one day Jyhad will become a four
expansion game.
Yours,
Adrien Honda-Bornhauser
***************************************************
A DEADLY DECK Oą DOOM
Since a Gangrel/Gangrel-anti Fame deck is now the official on-line world
champion [see Newsletter volume 1 number 1, or mail me privately at
james.m...@port.ac.uk, for Legbiterąs ingenious reconstruction of
said deck from discards] there is bound to be an explosion of wannabees
building similar decks. So here are Legbiterąs top two tips for the coming
Gangrel anti-gangrel Fame deck explosion:
1. Join Śem.
The basic strategy of a Gangrel Fame deck is for a Famous vampire to take
several actions that put him/her in torpor. In principle, Gangrel antis
should be BETTER at this than Gangrels. This is because we got the same
core disciplines so we can use the combos talked about in Newsletter 1,
PLUS we can use Sunrise service [not available to the scumbucket Cammies].
Additionally, Pieter is a low-priced member of our clan able to use
Rutorąs hand, which is the other neat Go To Torpor card.
So, this deck would be several copies of Pieter as most expensive vamp,
little guys [mainly Gangrel antis] with for and/or pro to make up the
numbers, and the actions in it would be Force of Will, Movement of the
Slow Body, Sunrise Service, Rapid Healing, Laptop Computer, Rutorąs hand,
Restoration, Raven Spy, Owl Companion, Shadow Court Satyr. Action modifers
would be Day Operation, Daring the Dawn [day op is better, really], Earth
Control. Combat cards would be Burst of Sunlight, Form of Mist and Earth
Meld. Masters would be Park Hunting Ground, Twisted Forest, Fame, Minion
Tap, Blood Doll, fortitude, protean, thaumaturgy. Reaction cards you might
not need .... a few WWEFs just for comfort, perhaps, and/or some Delaying
tactics. In a Return-to-Innocence heavy environment you might consider
leaving out the bleed cards and using a Protected Resources plus a few
more non-unique allies [Black Spiral Buddies] and maybe a vote or two ...
it doesnąt matter if these fail, the point is to day-op them soąs you go
to torpor. Kindred restructure would be interesting .... your prey might
very well vote to have you off his/her back, even if it DID mean you got a
VP.
2. Beat Śem.
A vote-and-biff deck can take this anti-Gangrel affair down, not to
mention most other strategies. AND it is more robust, and youąll make
fewer enemies playing it. But do remember boys and girls, have ways to get
the blood back off your vamps, have an anti-Return to Innocence strategy
[Protected Resources is good for biff-and-vote] and put Fame in there too
.... you need to at least contest it, and you may get a chance to use it.
However, the most effective versions of such decks donąt include
anti-Gangrel vamps, so Iąll leave this to my esteemed Brujah-Brujah anti
and Nosferatu anti colleagues.
*************************************************
Alright, thatąs it for this month. Have a great one, and see yąall on June
the 1st, when Iąll try to emulate Tony Van-the-Ventrueąs inspired
cheap-but-effective deck for beginners, and weąll have a look at Jyhad
variants that borrow rules from the technically-excellent but
profoundly-uncool Netrunner and Battletech CCGs.
May the Great and Threefold Wyrm Illuminate your Path into Darkness,
Legbiter, Scandalmonger of Clan Gangrel antitribu.