OFFICIAL VEKN BAALI NEWSLETTER VOL. 1 NO. 2 FEBRUARY 2002 THE DANCE OF CORRUPTION Editor: David Anderson-Dávila In this issue: 1. Introduction to the Dance 2. Fiction 3. Card of the Month - Psychomachia 4. Strategy - "Fatties" Redux With Setite Enticement, and How To Build A Baali Crypt 5. Deck of the Month - Baali Power Bleed 6. Conclusion ---------------------------------------- 1. Introduction to the Dance ---------------------------------------- Bloodlines is a great expansion set for V:TES. With 12 new Bloodlines and 11 new disciplines (counting the pseudo-discipline Flight) the set promises to bring plenty of new strategies to the table. While Final Nights was definitely a boon to the game, Bloodlines is the first set since Ancient Hearts that is composed of all new cards. There is just so much to explore in the set, so many new combinations to try, that I really look forward to the next several months as we all figure out what these new vampires and disciplines can do. There are five Baali vampires in Bloodlines, including: Sargon 5 cap, dai obf pre cel Independent. Whenever Sargon successfully performs an action, you get the Edge. +1 strength. Infernal. Mary the Black 7, DAI obf PRE cel pot Independent. Once each round, Mary may burn a blood to make the damage from her hand strikes aggravated for the current round. Infernal. Giotto Verducci 7, DAI OBF pre for pot Independent. During any other Methuselah's discard phase, you may discard a card from your hand (and draw a new one). Vampires must burn a blood to attempt to block Giotto. Infernal. High Priest Angra Mainyu 8, DAI OBF PRE dem ser Independent. While Angra is ready, your prey's hand size is 1 card smaller. You may burn the Edge to give Angra +1 stealth on a non-bleed action. Infernal. Huitzilopochtli 10, DAI OBF PRE AUS DOM POT Independent. During your master phase, you may pay a pool to gain a Master Phase Action if Huitzilopochtli is ready. +1 bleed. Infernal. Stats: Average capacity = 7.4 DAI OBF PRE -- AUS CEL DEM DOM FOR POT SER inf 1 2 2 - 2 1 - 1 2 1 SUP 4 3 3 1 - - 1 - 1 - The Baali vampires are larger than most other Bloodlines vampires - only the True Brujah have a higher average capacity at 8.0, and the Harbingers of Skulls tie for second at 7.4. This presents a small problem. It will take longer to influence your Baali into play, so you will have to account for that when building your decks. On the other hand, each of the Baali comes complete with a very nice special ability to compensate for their cost. The Baali vampires have a really nice discipline spread as well. Four of the five Baali have Daimoinon at superior. Even though neither of the Baali 7 caps has all three in-clan disciplines at superior, both have DAI and extra disciplines that help to round them out. Potence and Celerity are the most common non-clan disciplines, and combined with Concordance (Concordance is stackable!) makes for some fearsome combat potential. Giotto, with his Potence and Fortitude, looks to mix well with both the Gargoyles and the Blood Brothers. Angra goes well with both the Setites and the Malkavian Antitribu. Huitzilopochtli can do just about everything and mixes well with a very long list of clans indeed. In this month's strategy section I talk about how to build a Baali crypt. In upcoming newsletters I'll talk more about what Daimoinon brings to the game. ---------------------------------------- 2. Fiction ---------------------------------------- Fall From Grace - Chapter 2 "Nemo repente fuit turpissimus." ('No one ever became thoroughly bad in one step.') Juvenal (A.D. 60-130?), Satires, 2, 83 Every night since they turned me into a monster I have awakened with hatred in my heart. I want nothing more than to exact my revenge upon them for destroying my life, stealing me from my husband and daughter, discarding me like trash when they were done having their fun with me. So I hunt them, and when I find them, I make them pay. Until a few months ago I didn't have a chance of finding them. I had been moving from city to city, searching for any sign that would lead me to them. I didn't know a lot about my kind, but I knew enough to find those that were like me. And sometimes the ones I found were willing to help me. "But always for a price," I thought, shivering at the memory of the well-dressed man in the dimly lit bar. The information that led me to the old warehouse, where one of my creators was in the process of conducting a big drug deal, cost me favors I had no idea how to repay, but it was worth it. I didn't really have a plan other than to wait for him to come out and then kill him. It was a simple plan. It was a stupid plan. I was counting on him being alone, but nothing is ever that simple. Rico, one of the monsters that introduced me to this ever dark world of living hell, came out of the warehouse with a couple of flunkies. They were newly turned, not much older than I was, and I was sure they were heavily armed. That smug bastard looked right at me even though I had cloaked myself in shadows. He muttered something to his bodyguards as I stepped out of the alleyway, with death on my face. I was halfway to Rico when one of his bodyguards stepped in my way, brandishing a huge pistol in my face. He had the look of a killer, and I was sure he would not hesitate to shoot. Just as he went to pull the trigger, I felt a surge of power, heat beyond fire, swelling up inside me. "Get out of my way, you insect!," I screamed at the punk as a nimbus of reddish-orange flames surrounded me. The punk stopped dead in his tracks, slack-jawed and pistol wavering, unable to keep me from exacting my revenge on Rico. Rico's eyes widened in surprise and fear and I felt great joy as I punched him hard, reached in and pulled his black heart from his chest. As he crumpled to his knees before me he whimpered softly, "Why me?" "As if you don't know, fucker," I said, laughing as his heart burned to ash in my grip. I turned to face the others and saw they were still staring at me, uncertain what to do. I could tell they wanted to run and decided to speed them on their way with a message. "You mess with me and this will happen to you," I said as a I melted into the shadows. One down, five to go. ---------------------------------------- 3. Card of the Month ---------------------------------------- Psychomachia Daimoinon/Presence, Action Modifier, 1 blood Only usable when an ally or younger vampire is attempting to block. [pre]: Cancel the current action and untap this acting vampire. The blocking minion is not tapped. [dai]: The block fails. The blocking minion cannot attempt to block this action again. [DAI]: As [dai] above, and the blocking minion takes 1 damage (damage not preventable). Psychomachia is the Daimoinon equivalent to Necromancy's Call of the Hungry Dead. It is slightly inferior due to the "ally or younger vampire" clause, but for 1 blood any minion with inferior Daimoinon can cause a block to fail, period. CotHD, on the other hand, while free at inferior does not guarantee a failed block attempt since it only gives the blocking minion -1 intercept. Only by playing CotHD at superior and burning 1 blood can a vampire with Necromancy cause the block attempt to fail. You might be asking yourself why you would use this card. The Baali have Obfuscate so you can just stealth the bleeds through, right? Wrong. The last thing you want is for your prey to bounce your stealthed bleeds to your grand-prey. Psychomachia, in combination with cards like Blackmail, Condemnation:[Betrayed, Doomed, Languid] (played at outferior to tap your prey), Mind Numb, and Faceless Nights can help you to push key bleeds through to help oust your prey. Just like CotHD, Psychomachia lets you bleed more responsibly and will make it harder for your prey to use your bleeds to oust his prey. Here's how you use it... Bleed your prey. If your prey tries to block, play Psychomachia to cause the block to fail. If your prey bounces your non-stealthed bleed then play Change of Target after assuring your grand-prey she should block. Better yet, lay some smack talk down and convince your grand-prey to take the bleed for 1 as long as she isn't within striking distance of your prey (might as well make your job easier in the long run, huh?). If your prey can't bounce your bleed, then bump the bleed with Sense the Sin. Simple, right? You can spice this up quite a bit as well. For example, consider playing Faceless Nights at superior if your prey tries to block your bleed. This will usually end up tapping on of his blocking minions and then when he bounces your stealthed bleed to your grand-prey, drop a Spying Mission on her for later. ---------------------------------------- 4. Strategy ---------------------------------------- This month's strategy section comes in two parts. In the first I return to a concept I introduced in last month's newsletter. In the second part I talk about how to build decks using the Baali. Strategy part 1 - How do you make "fatties" more effective? - Redux In last month's newsletter I wrote about a simple deck-building concept that I use to help make large vampires easier to play. I stated that if your crypt capacity is 5.5 or higher then you should included roughly 25-30 cards in a 90 card deck that are devoted to increasing the "action opportunites" available to your large minions. This means several untap sources (Wakes, 2nd Tradition, Eternal Vigilance, Read the Winds, Homunculus, Rutor's Hand, Metro Undergroun, etc.) supplemented by your choice of defense cards. Your defense can be simple bleed bounce or intercept, but don't forget that actions like Mind Numb (easy for the Baali and Setites to pull off) can be used to slow your predator down as well. Since last month's newsletter, I have had the opportunity to field test my theory on how to make large capacity vampires more effective. My experience shows that having untap and some sort of defense in a deck that uses large vampires really works. The deck that I chose to experiment with was a Setite Enticement deck. Here's the deck: Deck Name: Setite Enticement 01 Created By: David Anderson-Dávila Description: Stealth bleed plus Enticement. Defense is a problem, and the crypt is large, so use a lot of defense cards. Defense includes Ecstasy, Banner of Neutrality... Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 17, Max: 28, Avg: 5.75) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Hesha Ruhadze ani obf pre SER 6, Followers of Set 2 Danny Larkshill obf obt pot PRE SER 7, Followers of Set 3 Qufur am-Heru cel OBF PRE SER tha 7, Followers of Set 1 Celine Chevalier obf ser 3, Followers of Set 1 Nepata obf pre ser 4, Followers of Set 1 Dedefra nec obf SER 5, Followers of Set 1 Sir Marriot D'Urban aus obf PRE ser 5, Followers of Set 1 Count Ormonde dom OBF pre ser 5, Followers of Set Library: (82 cards) ------------------- Master (16 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker 3 Blood Doll 2 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Giant's Blood 1 Minion Tap 4 Obfuscate 1 Opium Den 2 Serpentis 1 Temple Hunting Ground Action (26 cards) 2 Blackmail 4 Embrace, The 3 Enchant Kindred 5 Enticement 1 Form of Corruption 9 Night Moves 2 Temptation Action Modifier (20 cards) 2 Aire of Elation 2 Change of Target 5 Cloak the Gathering 3 Forgotten Labyrinth 5 Lost in Crowds 3 Spying Mission Reaction (13 cards) 2 Banner of Neutrality 4 Ecstasy 7 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (4 cards) 4 Majesty Retainer (3 cards) 1 J. S. Simmons, Esq. 1 Priestess of Sekhmet 1 Tasha Morgan This deck is really a good example to use since the Setites have so much trouble with defense. This deck's Action Opportunites Module (or Defense Module, if you prefer) consists of 20 cards, including 7 Wakes, 6 bleed reducers, 4 combat/untaps (i.e., Majesty) and 3 steal/borrow minion cards. If you want to include the Embraces, then the total number of cards in this deck's AOM bumps up to 24. The first time I played this deck I swept a four player table. My prey was an Assamite bruise & bleed deck, my grand-prey was an Assamite rush deck, and my predator was a Dominate-based bruise & bleed deck. Even though my predator was able to consistently bleed for 3/4 (he used Conditioning on just about every bleed), I was able to untap and block or reduce his bleeds just enough to matter. I have some doubts about Banner of Neutrality, but at least you can stack them with Ecstasy. I found that with so many untaps I was able to tap out every single turn without too much concern, and that's the whole point when you are playing with large minions. Once I created two Embraces the whole table balance really shifted. The number of actions that I could take increased enough to let me quickly oust my prey. I was then able to steal a minion from my new prey, and started borrowing my predator's minions to use as extra bleeders. At that point the game went quickly - I had enough pool to ignore my predator's bleeds and ran forward to quickly oust the other two remaining players. I would definitely say that the defensive cards in this deck gave me the time I needed to set up my offense. Since then the deck has continued to perform very well and very reliably, but I intend to continue my testing of this concept (the Baali deck of the month utilizes the concept, for example) and urge any of you who have had success with it to write to me to let me know. [Editor's Note: You really should put both Sargon and Jazz Wentworth in the crypt for this deck. Being able to use Enticement multiple times in a turn is a very nice thing indeed...] Strategy part 2 - How To Build A Baali Crypt One question that you may have asked since seeing the Bloodlines cards is how do you create a Bloodlines "clan" deck? Since most Bloodlines only have 5 vampires this may seem difficult. One possibility is to simply double up on all of the Bloodlines vampires and then add a couple of filler vampires with closely matching disciplines. This works for just about every one of the Bloodlines, except for the scarce ones. For example, you can make a great Ahrimanes deck by putting two of each of the Ahrimanes in your crypt and adding Bear Paw and Jost Werner. The Baali, unfortunately, need a little bit more help than that. Sure, you can go ahead an use an all Baali crypt, but the maintenance cost to untap them each turn will be prohibitive. And if you intend to build a deck that counts on playing with all of its vampires tapped every turn, then I would suggest that you re-read the rules of the game. The Baali are light on Auspex (specifically AUS) so you can forget about that whole Wake with Eagle's Sight to stop your prey's actions nonsense. So, given that it will be difficult to play a deck with a crypt composed almost completely of Baali, here is a partial list of your options: 1. Pick two Baali vampires and put two copies of each in your crypt. Then just add eight non-Baali vampires that support what you want to do with the deck. For example, Mary the Black and Giotto Verducci both have Potence as a non-clan discipline, so you could mix them with the Nosferatu/Nosferatu Antitribu since they share both Obfuscate and Potence as disciplines. Alternately, you could go with the Potence and Presence angle and just use Brujah/Brujah Antitribu. With a ratio of 4/12 you will more than likely end up with at least one Baali in your opening draw, and paying for a single Baali to untap each turn really isn't that bad, is it? 2. Pick one Baali vampire and put four copies in your crypt. Huitzilopochtli and Mary the Black are the prime candidates here. Mary, because she can form the core of a really interesting combat deck, and Huitzo because he is the man and can do anything. 3. Try building a Baali intercept deck using Concordance. Let your Baali burn a blood to untap at the end of your turn instead of paying a pool to do it for them at the beginning of your turn. You will want to use the intercept locations, cards like Elder Intervention or Pack Tactics, and Sense the Sin. In fact, you definitely want to mix the Baali with some Setites so the snakes can put Corruption on key vampires to let you use Sense the Sin to get +2 intercept. 4. Screw the cost of being Infernal and use all of the Baali anyway. Keep in mind that if you do this, you MUST build a deck that can gain enough pool to let you untap your Baali minions. At least some of them, anyway. Some of the time. It seems like using Huitzilopochtli as a blood siphon in a vote and bloat deck (i.e., Minion Tap and Voter Captivation) would work very nicely indeed. One thing to keep in mind about the Baali and their Infernal disability - you DO NOT have to bother untapping them. In fact, there are a few weird things you could try to get around having to pay to untap these guys each turn. For example, you could use vampires with AUS (Zoe, Isabel de Leon, etc.) to play Precognizant Mobility to untap your Baali. You could also give them Thaumaturgy and let them get a Rutor's Hand. If you are using both the Baali and the Salubri Antitribu (stranger things could happen), then you could use Blessing of the Name to untap your Baali. I won't mention the crazy Clan Impersonation angle that takes advantage of Patronage or Alexandra's special ability... Time will tell how big a liability being Infernal turns out to be. ---------------------------------------- 5. Deck of the Month ---------------------------------------- Deck Name: Baali - Power Bleed Created By: David Anderson-Dávila Description: Feb 2002 Baali Newsletter Deck Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 14, Max: 30, Avg: 6.00) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Mary the Black cel DAI obf pot PRE 7, Baali 2 High Priest Angra Mainyu DAI dem OBF PRE ser 8, Baali 2 Giotto Verducci DAI for OBF pot pre 7, Baali 2 Qufur am-Heru cel OBF PRE SER tha 7, Followers of Set 1 Celine Chevalier obf ser 3, Followers of Set 1 Nepata obf pre ser 4, Followers of Set 1 Hadrian Garrick obf pre 4, Followers of Set 1 Dan Murdock aus obf 3, Caitiff Library: (84 cards) ------------------- Master (13 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker 3 Blood Doll 1 Brainwash 1 Giant's Blood 1 Major Boon 1 Minion Tap 1 Opium Den 1 Slave Auction 2 Sudden Reversal 1 Temple Hunting Ground Action (16 cards) 2 Condemnation: Doomed 4 Enchant Kindred 2 Enticement 2 Mind Numb 6 Social Charm Action Modifier (25 cards) 2 Change of Target 4 Cloak the Gathering 3 Elder Impersonation 5 Faceless Night 3 Marked Path 5 Psychomachia 3 Spying Mission Reaction (7 cards) 7 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (8 cards) 3 Conflagration 5 Majesty Retainer (2 cards) 2 D'habi Revenant Equipment (6 cards) 3 Blood Tears of Kephran 2 Leather Jacket 1 Palatial Estate Combo (7 cards) 7 Sense the Sin The deck of the month is a relatively straight-forward stealth bleed deck. Since the Baali share disciplines with the Followers of Set, the crypt is a mix of the two. This deck is the corollary to my Giovanni Power Bleed deck. Use Psychomachia and Elder Impersonation to foil blockers. Play Change of Target or Spying Mission if your bleeds are bounced. The vampires in the crypt are large, so I used a lot of defense, including Sense the Sin for light intercept. The deck has a lot of defensive cards in it to help keep it alive - Major Boon, casual intercept (Sense the Sin), combat and combat defense (Conflagration and Majesty) and plenty of Wakes. The deck moves forward fairly quickly, and has a lot of pool gain built in to offset the maintenance cost (pay 1 pool during untap to untap) of the Baali. This deck did exceptionally well during playtesting. The first time I played it I swept a five player table, even though I had an Assamite rush combat predator. I brought out Mary the Black, Nepata, and Hadrian Garrick. I paid 1 pool to untap Mary the Black every turn of the game and it proved to be no problem. Even though this kept me from bringing out a fourth minion, it did not seem to matter. I was generally able to pay for Mary's infernal maintenance fee by bleeding with Social Charm at superior. The best moment of the game turned out to be the very situation the deck was designed to defeat. Mary the Black had hired a D'habi Revenant on the previous turn and I used her to bleed my prey for 2. I had a Sense the Sin in hand and my prey was sitting on 4 pool. My prey, playing Blood Brothers, decided that he wanted to try to block the bleed. I played Faceless Night for +1 stealth. He replied by playing Gestalt for +3 intercept. I then played Psychomachia to cause his block to fail, and dropped Sense the Sin on the bleed for the oust. You could tweak this deck slightly to give it a different focus. If you let the Setites place Corruptions on your prey's vampires, then they will get -1 intercept against you when you bleed with Sense the Sin. While this has interesting implications (stealing minions is nifty), it may just involve a few too many moving parts to work that well. If any of you feel so inclined, give it a try and write to tell me how it worked. ---------------------------------------- 6. Conclusion ---------------------------------------- So, two whole months with the Bloodlines cards in hand has left me feeling rather impressed. The set as a whole introduces so many interesting cards and combinations to the game that I must admit to feeling somewhat overwhelmed. If you're anything like me, you've probably created about 10 new decks by now! Next month we'll explore the highly corrupt and bribery-ridden world of Baali politics. If you have any comments or suggestions, please send them to me at dmd1966@yahoo.com. David Anderson-Dávila