Who Needs More Love? !Brujah, !Gangrel or !Nosferatu?

Pretty simple poll coming from outside discussions in my play group and elsewhere. Who needs most help of these three? Feel free to discuss what you feel are the weaknesses of your chosen clan, and what they could use for improvement. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

Antigangrel need the most help because of the city/country !Gangrel discipline split. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

I agree. !Brujah and!Nosfe already have good clan card and useable discipline spread. The !Nosfe lack a little in ousting power, but who without DOminate or presence doesn't ?

!Brujah have good vampires, a oust discipline (presence). They are playable and have many options (bruise&bleed, fight, vote) !Nosferatu have good support vampires (weenie obf), some stars (Beast) and some interesting strategies (Vermin Channel, and some have dominate). Not terrific but not the worst. !Gangrel have very little for themselves. Some support vampires (weenie obf again), non ousting disciplines. Some vampires are pretty good though (Sebastian Goulet), some allies are great (Shadow Court Satyr) and Leathery Hide led to some new archetype (www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k7badia2dec or www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011rautakanki) Still, I'd say that the !Gangrel deserve the boost. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

!Gangrel suffer from bad synergy between disciplines, aggravated damage and celerity don't really match, obfuscate is a delivery discipline but the other disciplines hardly offer any actions worth delivering. I do believe it is possible to work around though, to an extent. The main issue, however, is their crypt. It's split in two and even have a lot of weird disciplines splashed in. They do have one of the biggest weenie crypts available (with a superior soak not requiring any discipline) as well as some really infamous star vampires (Aksynya, Una, Enkidu). You hardly ever play them as a 'clan' efficiently though. Personally I like them having a bit of a vote angle (city gangrel connections for example) since I believe it's one of the few ways to make their disciplines worth the time. They lack somewhat in build in votes for this though. Lidingö Scourge

A protean card with some sort of pool damage effect would, IMO, go a long way into helping (!)Gangrel, and Protean in general along becoming more competitive.

> Izaak wrote: > A protean card with some sort of pool damage effect would, IMO, go a long way into helping (!)Gangrel, and Protean in general along becoming more competitive. > Don't you think that it would also help the , even though they have currently a better standing than their Sabbat cousins? pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Don't you think that it would also help the , even though they have currently a better standing than their Sabbat cousins? > I for one wouldn't really mind if the were accidentially helped a bit as well. I would really like to see both the and anti- get more play.

> Amenophobis wrote: > > > Izaak wrote: > > A protean card with some sort of pool damage effect would, IMO, go a long way into helping (!)Gangrel, and Protean in general along becoming more competitive. > > > Don't you think that it would also help the , even though they have currently a better standing than their Sabbat cousins? > Well... the thing is, now that Deep Song exists, you won't really power up regular Gangrel if there would be a Protean Card that would read, say 1 blood If this action is succesfull, untap this minion at the end of the action. pro: Bleed at -1 stealth. PRO: As above, but with +1 bleed. The bloodcost functions as a sort-of built-in inferor Freak Drive and the -1 stealth is there to make the card not stricly better than Flurry of Action at superior.

needs the most help without a doubt. They have good superstars, as previously mentioned. Una, Boobarella (Aksynya) and Enkidu, also I have a soft spot for Mugur Sabau. I suppose Mitru the Hunter would make a good gunslinger. They do got PRO OBF so they can do the whole Disguised Weapon - Black Gloves - Flesh of Marble into "I hit you for 2 aggravated and take no damage what so ever from you" for just a cost of 1 blood. But played as a clan... no. And trust me, I try now and then. They always end up like a Superstar deck. Best thing I can see them do with their discipline spread is to rush, aggpoke with additionals to make sure the opponent goes down and then use Sacrifical Lamb at superior. City Gangrel need help, Country does not. ANI/FOR is better than CEL/OBF when the last discipline is PRO.

> Izaak wrote: > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > > > > Izaak wrote: > > > A protean card with some sort of pool damage effect would, IMO, go a long way into helping (!)Gangrel, and Protean in general along becoming more competitive. > > > > > > > > Don't you think that it would also help the , even though they have currently a better standing than their Sabbat cousins? > > > Well... the thing is, now that Deep Song exists, you won't really power up regular Gangrel if there would be a Protean Card that would read, say > > 1 blood > If this action is succesfull, untap this minion at the end of the action. > pro: Bleed at -1 stealth. > PRO: As above, but with +1 bleed. > > The bloodcost functions as a sort-of built-in inferor Freak Drive and the -1 stealth is there to make the card not stricly better than Flurry of Action at superior. > Gangrel have some votes, some dudes with dominate, etc, but nothing that really shines for the clan in the latest groupings. Ariadne has a good special, but it has to be an Ariadne deck to benefit the most from it. What about this? The Hills Have Eyes (picture of two guys walking through some dark forest or decaying city with a few sets of glowing red eyes visible in a dark area) Reaction/Action Modifier pro: Reduce a bleed against you by one. PRO: +1 bleed !Gangrel could really use a way to survive longer and rather than giving them something they already sort of have (intercept from Ears of the Hare, Abbott, Eyes of the Beast, untap from Dual form and Mylan, plus a decent amout of inferior fortitude, stealth from Earth Control and Rapid Change). I also think that this helps voting !Gangrel because they have Confusion of the Eye and could use a secondary ousting strategy for that kind of deck. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

I wanted to wait till there were at least 20 votes before commenting. I have three words for the Gangrel antitribu supporters out there: Una, Aksinya, Enkidu Discuss. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

!Brujah clan cards are good - Dogs of War, Gang Territory, Unexpected Coalition are hot !Gangrel and !Nosferatu clan cards are bad (except, maybe, Vermin Channel, but then you're using it instead of your built-in obf) !Nosferatu and !Country gangrel can benefit a lot from Deep Song. Clearly, City Gangrel are poor. Mitru, Xendil and Luke are ok-ish. But the rest of the crypt is harsh. I'd like to see more stuff like Shadow Feint - strong combat options for these guys. 1 blood pro: agg hands cel pro: with maneuver CEL PRO: undodgeable with first strike

> Ohlmann wrote: > I agree. !Brujah and!Nosfe already have good clan card and useable discipline spread. The !Nosfe lack a little in ousting power, but who without DOminate or presence doesn't ? > You all slay me. They have awful clan discipline combinations. Anyway, rather than argue about such subjective things, !Brujah have 6 wins in 2010/2011, !Gangrel 12, !Nos 2 (zero in 2011). What's far more interesting to me than these historical losers is how much Gangrel are suffering these days. Gangrel were the winningest clan in the game at one point (keeping antitribu separate) and are struggling mightily now, with only one win in all of 2011. Traveller Card Game

> Pascal wrote: > !Brujah clan cards are good - Dogs of War, Gang Territory, Unexpected Coalition are hot > !Gangrel and !Nosferatu clan cards are bad (except, maybe, Vermin Channel, but then you're using it instead of your built-in obf) > How can Gang Territory be good and Nosferatu Kingdom bad? > I'd like to see more stuff like Shadow Feint - strong combat options for these guys. > 1 blood > pro: agg hands > cel pro: with maneuver > CEL PRO: undodgeable with first strike > Or since you're the rule master, you could errate First Strike so it finally does something useful, like beating Combat Ends

> Jeff wrote: > I wanted to wait till there were at least 20 votes before commenting. > > I have three words for the Gangrel antitribu supporters out there: > > Una, Aksinya, Enkidu > > Discuss. > Three vampires do not a strong clan make. (And that's assuming you consider Enkidu good, which I don't.)

> Pascal wrote: > !Gangrel and !Nosferatu clan cards are bad (except, maybe, Vermin Channel, but then you're using it instead of your built-in obf) > As Boris pointed out, Nos Kingdom is good. Also, Information Network is pretty good, especially since intercept/combat is one of the few things that !Nossies do well.

i prefer combat or 'pool damage to prey' options for !gangrel over additional bleed modifiers as those would level the game and disciplines too much IMO. a stealth rush with first strike could be fitting as well. in the right deck, janey pickman can be pretty amazing (una, enkidu, aksinya even more so). in regards to vermin channel: the cheapest !nos with inferior dominate is joseph cambridge (only inferior obf as well). pretty darn harsh to say the least. lubomira is excellent though. they sorely lack another plain and simple decent 5-cap with 2 superior disciplines in group 4/5 (or a good 4-cap, even more so perhaps). more non-abusable combat recycling for the !brujah would be nice IMO.

> ICL wrote: > You all slay me. They have awful clan discipline combinations. > Well, I strongly disagree, especially for the !Brujah. (the !Nos discipline seriously lack outing power, I agree, which is a shame since they are otherwise very versatile). What would be a decent discipline combination in this case ?

> Ohlmann wrote: > > > ICL wrote: > > You all slay me. They have awful clan discipline combinations. > > > Well, I strongly disagree, especially for the !Brujah. (the !Nos discipline seriously lack outing power, I agree, which is a shame since they are otherwise very versatile). > > What would be a decent discipline combination in this case ? > While synergistic, from the standpoint of winning, Celerity and Potence are redundant. Presence has no synergy with either outside of multidiscipline cards. The most important elements in the game are (largely) missing - intercept, stealth, bleed bounce. Compare with Toreador/!, who get intercept and bounce. There's a reason Brujah (and everybody else who can) play with Dominate all of the time, foregoing Presence, which is the best discipline of the three in isolation. Even then, Brujah have the benefit of Traditions and they still have historically sucked in comparison to other Cammie clans, only achieving a much higher rate of wins in recent years. Pot/Pre/Obf - vastly better. Cel/Pre/Obf - vastly better. Could even argue for something like Cel/Pot/Ani would be more useful. I'd rather have the Osebo discipline mix than the Brujah/! mix. Vote may be hard to find in the game outside of Presence, but bleed is easy to find. Traveller Card Game

> Jeff wrote: > I wanted to wait till there were at least 20 votes before commenting. > > I have three words for the Gangrel antitribu supporters out there: > > Una, Aksinya, Enkidu > > Discuss. > Una equals 30 freak drives. Aksinya is basically a Gangrel, not antitribu, and is usually used only as a support vampire for bounces. Enkidu has Potence, and built-in strength of 3. All of these vampires have nothing to do with, say, city gangrel disciplines. Una is a freaking good vampire, but once again über only if you own those 30 freak drives. Which, say, I don't. As was already pointed out, 3 vampires out of the whole clan (and none of them are city gangrel) really don't make !Gangrel strong. The anti-gangrel could really use some extra pool damage methods. I don't see them doing much other than pretty decent combat, and having a spesific voter build, as well as some dominate techs. Also Black Spiral Buddy sucks... He's one pool too expensive, if you ask me. But really, three vampires out of 20 really cannot be used as a too valid argument. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

!Gangrel took my preference. They really do need some sort of cohesion enhancement for non-superstar all-in-clan crypts to be playable. This ought to mean some clan card of sorts or dual discipline that they all share, as was pointed out. I suggest it not being a combat card because these tend to be less swingy overall. One other way would be to augment their cohesion by bridging their discipline differentials, similar to what Lord Ashton did for the Gangrel. A couple of cards like these could turn their disparate crypts into something more pointed. > Predatory Adaptability > > Unique Master - Gangrel Antitribu > > Put this card in play. You may tap this card to move a blood and a [cel], [ani], [for] or [obf] discipline card from your ash-heap to a ready Gangrel Antitribu you control. You may tap this card to give you an additional discard phase action. > Not overly powerful, instead aiming for versatile. > Pack Bonding > Gangrel Antitribu > +1 Stealth Action > > Choose a ready Gangrel Antitribu younger than the acting vampire. That vampire gains a blood and a level from one of the acting vampire's superior disciplines. If this action is sucessful, the acting vampire untaps. > Similar to Sanguine Instruction but with some obvious perks. I like how this works thematically well with Bay and Owl. Drain

I tried to make a decent City Gangrel deck work for months. It did fine, but was missing that extra kick to make it great and actually win a tournament. Then I switched to Assamites, and concluded that Assamites are so much better because of their awesome clan cards. yes that's right. !Gangrel are weaker than Assamites. also, Enkidu < Beast

and problem lies in fact that isn't very useful outside combat, and it's role as combat discipline is taken by and respectively. Buff celerity and those clans will be way more viable. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

Pretty right. Celerity, outside of gun, is more of a support combat discipline, without too much non combat stuff. Resist Earth Grasp is amazing and Flurry of action is useable but apart from thoses two ? (note that !Brujah, like Brujah, also have Iron Glare and scalpel tongue at the same time, both being pretty amazing card)

have also scourge of alecto (amazing card, isn't it?). Iron Glare is not bad for high capacity vampires, but is not great card, Scalpel Tongue is good card, but alone have better cards like BO or awe. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Lech wrote: > Iron Glare is not bad for high capacity vampires, but is not great card, Scalpel Tongue is good card, but alone have better cards like BO or awe. > For a dedicated vote deck, alone may be better, but for a mixed strategy both card are a lot more amazing than the vote-specialists one. Sup' iron glare is more or less an inferior version of BO and Threat in one card. Theirs effects are not extremely powerful, but the versality is.

> Haze wrote: > yes that's right. !Gangrel are weaker than Assamites. > While I totally agree with you, I have been recently playing a not horrible !Gangrel deck--all the guys in G3/4 who are 4 cap and smaller, and then 2 each of Hartmut and Mugur (both Arch Bishops). Basically a very master heavy (40%; multiple Parthenons) breed/boon bloat political deck that uses a lot of Bay and Howl to get the big guys out fast. Hardly super optimal, using Protean and Obfuscate for stealth and combat defense, but not horrible. Granted, the only thing the !Gangrel angle has going for it is the Bays and Howls (10% of the deck), but certainly playable and wins occasionally. As noted by, well, everyone already, the !Gangrel lack discipline cohesion and ousting power. Leathery Hide isn't horrible. Bay and Howl is strongish. City Gangrel Connections gives them a little help in the voting department (although, for the love of puck rock, why Una doesn't have Obfustcate is beyond me. Oh, wait. Then she'd be even more insanely broken. Make her "Once per turn, Una may pay 1 less blood for a fortitude card" and turn the dem into OBF...). Giving them a clan specific card that gives them some bleed potential (and doesn't blow) and they might have a fighting chance. To address Jeff's question: A) Una: A broken one trick pony. It's a really good trick, but that's all she does. And results in one of those decks that either gets shut down instantly due to a Pentex, a DI, or a preemptive insanely effective rush *or* she goes off and either just wins or ruins the game for everyone but her. B ) Enkidu: Not really a one trick pony, but in my experience (which, re: Enkidu, is pretty vast) tends to make decks that don't win but do ruin the game for anyone sitting next to him, either by being a huge silly, crater making combat deck that has a lot of trouble actually winning *or* by being some Raptor "Really! I can deck you and win with a Brinksmanship!" abomination. I have seen decks with Enkidu win games (very) seldomly. I have seen decks with Enkidu just make a game a huge mess, ruin people, and directly contribute to someone else winning (very) often. C) Aksinya: A very good support vampire. Who costs 9. She isn't winning any games on her own. But she has an almost unique mechanic attached to her (use master cards for something other than being master cards or discards; Pariah is the only other minion who does something like this IIRC, and his ability is vastly worse, although still something to build a deck around once and a while for fun), so she will show up in decks that want to really maximize master use and needs bleed bounce grafted in. Like when hanging out with Cybele. But Aksinya is rarely going to be the main focus of the deck--she is going to be the adjunct that provides bounce support and master cycling.

TWDA !Brujah 22 (6 in 2010-2011) !Gangrel 37 (boosted by Aksinya rather than Una, 12 in 2010-2011) !Nos 27 (2 in 2010, 0 in 2011) obviously this in only one way of looking at it - you could also search the TWDA for vampire instances and i'm sure !nos would get Beast and !Gan would get Aksinya a few times ad !Brujah would get erm Sarah Brando? My local data on tournament clans and decks is't ready yet but I see more !Nos and !Bru clan absed decks (!bru around Hektor, !nos around Beast or Bhand).

> bakija wrote: > But she has an almost unique mechanic attached to her (use master cards for something other than being master cards or discards; Pariah is the only other minion who does something like this IIRC, and his ability is vastly worse, although still something to build a deck around once and a while for fun) > Check also some female 10 cap lasombra. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Non-existant user wrote: > > > Pascal wrote: > > !Brujah clan cards are good - Dogs of War, Gang Territory, Unexpected Coalition are hot > > !Gangrel and !Nosferatu clan cards are bad (except, maybe, Vermin Channel, but then you're using it instead of your built-in obf) > > > How can Gang Territory be good and Nosferatu Kingdom bad? > Gang Territory gives you !Brujahs, Nossie Kingdom gives you !Nossies.

> Squidalot wrote: > TWDA > !Brujah 22 (6 in 2010-2011) > The !Brujah can be the basis of very solid rush decks (CEL, pot, particularly), and with presence, they can oust folks. So not surprising. > !Gangrel 37 (boosted by Aksinya rather than Una, 12 in 2010-2011) > That is certainly interesting. I'm curious (anyone wanna look this up?) how many of these decks are "Gangrel Antitribu" decks, in the sense that the crypt is made up of mostly various !Gangrel, and how many of them are decks that have 5-6 of a single Anti-Gangrel (see: Una, Aksinya, or Enkidu) and otherwise aren't particularly Anti-Gangrelly. > !Nos 27 (2 in 2010, 0 in 2011) > They can do a lot of things that the regular Nosferatu can do nicely (also Rush combat, mostly). And have a few good superstars (Beast, Cailean).

> bakija wrote: > They can do a lot of things that the regular Nosferatu can do nicely (also Rush combat, mostly). And have a few good superstars (Beast, Cailean). > Note that Jacques Molay, despite being very similar to Beast, is far from being as good. I suppose that the 8-cap restriction is too restricting (or simply that weenies Brujah are more efficient than weenies Nosferatu, so you are more likely to need Beast than Molay)

> bakija wrote: > That is certainly interesting. I'm curious (anyone wanna look this up?) how many of these decks are "Gangrel Antitribu" decks, in the sense that the crypt is made up of mostly various !Gangrel, and how many of them are decks that have 5-6 of a single Anti-Gangrel (see: Una, Aksinya, or Enkidu) and otherwise aren't particularly Anti-Gangrelly. > Yeah, on checking, about a third (13 or so) of the !Gangrel decks in the TWDA are crypts that are mostly and broadly !Gangrel (i.e. the crypt is, like, 8+ !Gangrel with a few of each or even one of each); the rest of them seem to be decks that are !Gangrel by virtue of having 5 or 6 !Gangrel, of which 4 or 5 are the same minion (Enkidu, Aksinya, Una; Sebastian Goulet and his Advanced version show up as a superstar in 3 or 4 decks). Many of the !Gangrel decks in the TWDA are 4 of a given !Gangrel superstar (Enkidu or Aksinya, generally) and then exactly 1 more completely exchangeable weenie !Gangrel (Denette?), presumably to get to 5 of the !Gangrel in the crypt to count as an !Gangrel deck for TWDA purposes (at least 5 of one clan, no more minions of another clan I think are the requirements). This isn't, like, a condemnation of anything, just seeing that, in fact, most of the TWDA !Gangrel decks are really only effectively !Gangrel decks by virtue of technicality, rather than !Gangrel decks in spirit.

> Ohlmann wrote: > Note that Jacques Molay, despite being very similar to Beast, is far from being as good. I suppose that the 8-cap restriction is too restricting (or simply that weenies Brujah are more efficient than weenies Nosferatu, so you are more likely to need Beast than Molay) > Oh, sure. But Jacques Molay is a 9 cap (i.e. big) and hasn't been around for as long as Beast. And Beast is far more of a bad ass.

It is not worth risking a 9+ cap in rush combat. This is also why Black Annis never sees play. Enkidu as least has Fortitude which helps tremendously your odds of surviving combat. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> bakija wrote: > I'm curious (anyone wanna look this up?) how many of these decks are "Gangrel Antitribu" decks, in the sense that the crypt is made up of mostly various !Gangrel, and how many of them are decks that have 5-6 of a single Anti-Gangrel (see: Una, Aksinya, or Enkidu) and otherwise aren't particularly Anti-Gangrelly. > I looked at the TWDA back to about 2005 and here's what I saw (no exact numbers because I was lazy): With three exceptions, every deck featured either: Una, Aksinya, Enkidu, or Janey Pickman. Two exceptions were decks which were Embrace hordes backed up by Leathery Hide. One exception was a Sebastian Goulet bleed deck. None of them were based on . When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> bakija wrote: > > > Ohlmann wrote: > > Note that Jacques Molay, despite being very similar to Beast, is far from being as good. I suppose that the 8-cap restriction is too restricting (or simply that weenies Brujah are more efficient than weenies Nosferatu, so you are more likely to need Beast than Molay) > > > Oh, sure. But Jacques Molay is a 9 cap (i.e. big) and hasn't been around for as long as Beast. And Beast is far more of a bad ass. > It's also worth mentioning that Jacques Molay can only rush smaller vampires, which is a very significant disadvantage, even as a 9-cap.

> Jeff wrote: > None of them were based on . > Heh. I guess I gotta win a tournament with my Pro/Obf !Gangrel breed/boon deck now...

> bakija wrote: > Heh. I guess I gotta win a tournament with my Pro/Obf !Gangrel breed/boon deck now... > City Gangrel Connections FTW! Whoops, that's disciplineless too. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> bakija wrote: > Heh. I guess I gotta win a tournament with my Pro/Obf !Gangrel breed/boon deck now... > Weenie gets you 2 votes (per minion) by using and burning Loki's Gift. Add in an Old Friends and that should be enough to pass various Crusade cards. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Izaak wrote: > > > bakija wrote: > > > > > Ohlmann wrote: > > > Note that Jacques Molay, despite being very similar to Beast, is far from being as good. I suppose that the 8-cap restriction is too restricting (or simply that weenies Brujah are more efficient than weenies Nosferatu, so you are more likely to need Beast than Molay) > > > > > > > > Oh, sure. But Jacques Molay is a 9 cap (i.e. big) and hasn't been around for as long as Beast. And Beast is far more of a bad ass. > > > It's also worth mentioning that Jacques Molay can only rush smaller vampires, which is a very significant disadvantage, even as a 9-cap. > Also, as a 9-cap, you'll probably need 3 turns to bring out Jacques, compared to the hopefully 2 turns for Beast. Jacques' rush restriction prevents him from targeting big vampires (say Arika) and allies. His Valeren is also often wasted. And I think Beast probably has better support (in other vampires in his Groupings) than Jacques does. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > > > bakija wrote: > > I'm curious (anyone wanna look this up?) how many of these decks are "Gangrel Antitribu" decks, in the sense that the crypt is made up of mostly various !Gangrel, and how many of them are decks that have 5-6 of a single Anti-Gangrel (see: Una, Aksinya, or Enkidu) and otherwise aren't particularly Anti-Gangrelly. > > > I looked at the TWDA back to about 2005 and here's what I saw (no exact numbers because I was lazy): > > With three exceptions, every deck featured either: Una, Aksinya, Enkidu, or Janey Pickman. > > Two exceptions were decks which were Embrace hordes backed up by Leathery Hide. > One exception was a Sebastian Goulet bleed deck. > > None of them were based on . > Technically, Goulet was based upon , so it counts as city gangrel. Molay would be good, but his main problem is conditional rush versus unconditional rush and his high capacity. I would totally play him as 8 cap, but 9 cap require that additional turn and he is just not worth it. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> echiang wrote: > Weenie gets you 2 votes (per minion) by using and burning Loki's Gift. Add in an Old Friends and that should be enough to pass various Crusade cards. > Well, except that the !Gangrel (or Sabbat vamps in general) crypt has no vampires 4 or smaller with PRO. And a large number of them without any protean at all. Weenie PRO vote decks using Loki's Gift are totally solid. But tend to revolve around G1/2 Gangrel (you get Chandler 3 PRO, Dalyiah 4 PRO, and then Camille and Mirembe 5 PRO; the Sabbat start with Celeste 5 PRO and go up from there). And Being Camarilla. And eventually playing Parity Shift...

> bakija wrote: > > > echiang wrote: > > Weenie gets you 2 votes (per minion) by using and burning Loki's Gift. Add in an Old Friends and that should be enough to pass various Crusade cards. > > > Well, except that the !Gangrel (or Sabbat vamps in general) crypt has no vampires 4 or smaller with PRO. And a large number of them without any protean at all. > > Weenie PRO vote decks using Loki's Gift are totally solid. But tend to revolve around G1/2 Gangrel (you get Chandler 3 PRO, Dalyiah 4 PRO, and then Camille and Mirembe 5 PRO; the Sabbat start with Celeste 5 PRO and go up from there). And Being Camarilla. And eventually playing Parity Shift... > Okay, maybe the weenie aspect doesn't work quite so well with them unless you are using skill cards (which is still feasible, especially with Lilith's Blessing). The !Gangrel do have a strong lineup of mid-caps (two 5-caps, and five 6-caps all with ). You have Xendil Charmer, a Priscus for 7 pool as well as a 6-cap Bishop, City Gangrel Connections, and Powerbase: Madrid. Your primary course of action is to use Loki's Gift to get the Crusades, but even if you are facing a vote-heavy environment, you could use Xendil to play Bloodbaths for extra votes. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

On the other hand, G1/G2 have Gangrel Justicar to get many votes, and sabbat titles are just for votes - camarilla titles give you parity shift, camarilla segregation and domain (not to mention dreaded 1st tradition and temptation of greater power). Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

Sabbat politics isn't nearly as good as Camarilla ones, but they're hardly useless. Powerbase: Madrid is a very good card (and far better than Elysium: The Palace of Versailles). Dia de los Muertos gives you an automatic pass for one vote (hopefully a Crusade). If you play larger vampires, Cardinal Benediction is often easier to pass than a Justicar vote, plus you can make multiple vampires of the same clan Cardinals (as opposed to the unique clan Justicar title). Camarilla have nothing remotely similar to Black Forest Base (2 free pool a turn for you and your Sabbat allies). I think Bloodbath and Blood Siege are underplayed, but have potentially strong uses as well. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> echiang wrote: > Sabbat politics isn't nearly as good as Camarilla ones, but they're hardly useless. > > Powerbase: Madrid is a very good card (and far better than Elysium: The Palace of Versailles). Dia de los Muertos gives you an automatic pass for one vote (hopefully a Crusade). If you play larger vampires, Cardinal Benediction is often easier to pass than a Justicar vote, plus you can make multiple vampires of the same clan Cardinals (as opposed to the unique clan Justicar title). Camarilla have nothing remotely similar to Black Forest Base (2 free pool a turn for you and your Sabbat allies). I think Bloodbath and Blood Siege are underplayed, but have potentially strong uses as well. > I agree. Don't forget priscus! Often 3 votes for a 7 cap with 3 superior disciplines. What makes Camarilla politics better are : Parity Shift, 2nd Tradition and just plain better crypts for the Camarilla clans when you want to vote (including the options for inner circles).

In 16 years, I have never seen anyone play Bloodbath or Blood Siege. Not even in casual games, not even in limited games. I think I know why they are underplayed "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Ashur wrote: > In 16 years, I have never seen anyone play Bloodbath or Blood Siege. Not even in casual games, not even in limited games. I think I know why they are underplayed > Actions to get votes can be pretty strong, votes to get votes on the other hand, it really depends on the situation. Consider: I try to Crusade: Rome 1 stealth undirected action, one vote automatically for it. Title goes on the *acting vampire*. Say someone has intercept or a vote card (or the edge, or a title), now you need stealth and/or vote push (unless someone will help you). Now consider Bloodbath 1 stealth action requiring an archbishop, priscus, cardinal or regent to give one vote to a 5+ capacity vampire. Can be blocked, but no issue of voting applies. Ignoring the blood part, which is sort of interesting, I have thrown a copy of Bloodbath in my g2/3 Tzim toolbox deck because I wanted to have more permanent votes and the crypt already supported it. If I wanted to play a crusade card casually, I would usually have to be winning in votes already, so what's the point? Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Ashur wrote: > In 16 years, I have never seen anyone play Bloodbath or Blood Siege. Not even in casual games, not even in limited games. I think I know why they are underplayed > They're really not that bad at all. Bloodbath can essentially give you votes without needing to pass political actions. Really good if you have cheap Archbishops or Prisci (Fabrizia obviously, Shawnda, 7-caps). Works well with the !Toreador (with Foundation Exhibit, each guy with a Bloodbath has the same votes as a Prince/Archbishop) or the !Tremere (with Orlando Oriundus). If the Pander actually had bigger vampires, it would be really good with Legacy of Pander. For something a bit trickier, you could play Bloodbath on 5-caps before going Anarch (which then stack with Firebrands and provide a backup in case your Fee Stakes get voted out). The greatest strength of Blood Siege is removing the Prince title (getting an Archbishop is just gravy). Not being able to play action mods makes it hard to use, but the !Ventrue can still use it best with Demonstration, along with Quentin or Bruce or Laszlo. Also not that bad with Orlando Oriundus (each blood is worth 2) or Terrifisto (people are unlikely to burn too much blood since they might take damage). Dia de los Muertos or Powerbase: Madrid also help. Or you can just use this as the vote after Cryptic Rider / Charming Lobby. Heh, Blood Siege decks might be one of the few situations where Distant Friend actually becomes a useful choice. Could also be hilarious if you follow up a failed Blood Siege (because someone burned lots of blood) with a Tribunal Judgment! With all the concern about Prince/Justicar decks, I'm surprised people haven't tried building anti-P/J decks with the Ventrue Antitribu. Framing an Ancient Grudge eliminates Princes and Primogen (and Justicars if you pay the pool). Fear of Mekhet deals with IC's. Gustav Mallenhous neutralizes any Bishops or Archbishops around. Demonstration, Quentin, and Kindred Manipulation take care of any voters left. Slotting in a Blood Siege or two (for added Prince removal, on top of Framing) is just gravy. If you have the space, you could even include a copy of Rastacourere. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

I voted Gangrel! I agree that they have some really good vamps (enkidu, aksinya, hartmut) but that do not work well as a clan (country gangrel! are Ok, city gangrel! are weak) In the other hand, Brujah! can fight, vote and bleed considering their weakness against bleed and heavy combat. Nosferatu! have Animalism to control, good titled vampires and decent combat. (City) Gangrel! do not have much to say in a vote, need lots of support to block, they only can fight but need a 4th discipline (potence) to fight effectivily.

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > > > Ashur wrote: > > In 16 years, I have never seen anyone play Bloodbath or Blood Siege. Not even in casual games, not even in limited games. I think I know why they are underplayed > > > Now consider Bloodbath > 1 stealth action requiring an archbishop, priscus, cardinal or regent to give one vote to a 5+ capacity vampire. Can be blocked, but no issue of voting applies. > > Ignoring the blood part, which is sort of interesting, .... > In the L.A. Storyline tournament I used bloodbath for both the vote and the blood. It was very effective. However, I have tried to think of other ways to use bloodbath more and it never seems to make the cut. Edit: back around to the topic. !Nos are more likely able to use this card (bloodbath). I voted for them but the argument for !gangrel seems overwhelming. As the arguments role in, it seems that they have fewer options.

> echiang wrote: > They're really not that bad at all. > Bloodbath...and... Blood Siege...and... Framing an Ancient Grudge... ...all require another situation to be active on the table for the card to even be played. Bloodbath you can control but it's expensive (costs an action), slow (need two vampires of sufficient capacity), and doesn't help you oust (it's a minor tool-up). The others you can't control at all. The latter two could be great in an environment where you expect Princes everywhere like that one past storyline, but not for a random casual or tournament game. And even if you do see P/J's at every table, there's a 40% chance they'll be your allies. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

I have played all three clans quite a bit, and I have to say that !Gangrel is definetily the worst. I have a semi ok !Gangrel mono protean rush deck with lot of agg damage, amaranths, and gangrel conspiracies which sometimes wins games, but dies if it faces lot of prevent or s:ce. I also had quite a bit of success with Sebastian Goulet satyr deck, but that wasn't really !gangrel deck so much, as it used dom/obf/pro. Although crypt was mainly !gangrel (basic and advanced Goulet and Philippe,) with just couple DOM/obf support vampires off-clan). !Nos I have made several quite well working decks with, best was probably group 2-3 midcap toolbox with some black hand tech (Teresita with watchtower four ride forth, and some corporal reservoirs and truth in inks), they can also make fairly decent stealth vote decks with group 3-4, as they have nice grooming chain of titled vampires, but that still never worked as well to me as similar concept with !malks who had the advantage of The Call and bounce. !Brujah is the best of those three clans by far, they can do good vote decks, good rush decks, good bleed decks, about only thing they can't do is intercept. They also have lot of out of clan obfuscate in group 3-4 if you want to go that way. They have great midcaps in group 2-3, and great big caps in 3-4. About only problem I can think of for !Brujah is that their clan cards (apart from Gang Territory) are fairly weak.