Vampire: The Eternal Struggle

More Than Damned
VTES brings out the nastiest of vampires in Kindred Most Wanted

The Red List. Anathema.

The vampires so ruthless and vicious that even elder vampires consider them monsters, and so cunning that they elude capture even when they're marked for destruction by those elder vampires.

These monsters enter the spotlight in Kindred Most Wanted, the latest expansion for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle from White Wolf. From the guile of Kemintiri, who looted Camarilla coffers in the guise of the Ventrue justicar, to the unbridled savagery of Enkidu, the most powerful predator the world has known, they're ready to enter your decks in a big way. In all, 13 of the most feared creatures in the World of Darkness make their way to the Eternal Struggle. Some of the original 13 have been replaced with new names. And, of course, there are cards that allow Methuselahs to add the names of their rivals' minions to the list during play.

The set also features a few of the more renowned alastors, the vampires who spend their unlives tracking down the Kindred Most Wanted. Of course, the anathema are fair game for any vampire, no special license or commission is necessary. That's the primary purpose of the Red List — to engage all vampires in the hunt and destruction of the few singled out for the list.

As fugitives, Red-List vampires constantly face the threat of combat in the game. Fortunately, they have the skills to survive such assaults. Many are simply fearsome enough that their would-be attackers have to spend some effort equipping with weapons and building up other resources before attacking, and not every deck will field vampires up to that task. Others are less fearsome, but also more wily and difficult to catch.

The rewards for bagging a Red-List vampire are great, however. Havens, hunting grounds, wealth, training in new Disciplines, progeny and even sanctioned diablerie are for the asking to one who takes down an anathema. In the card game, this is accomplished through a mechanism similar to the rules for diablerizing vampires of greater capacity. Instead of Discipline cards, though, there are now Trophy cards to place on the triumphant vampire.

The set also places a special emphasis on the independent vampires. It introduces many new group-four vampires for the four main independent clans, the Assamites, the Followers of Set, the Giovanni and the Ravnos, along with several new clan-specific library cards for each.

And the set features the first starter deck for a Bloodlines clan, the Baali starter, as one of the four pre-constructed starter decks. (The other three focus on the Gangrel antitribu, the alastors and the vampires of the Red List, respectively.)

By Design

The following is a preview of selected cards from the set. Note that these designs aren't finalized yet (playtesting was ongoing at the time of this writing), so the final forms of these cards are not guaranteed to match this text. But the flavor should still come through.

Designing the set was an interesting challenge. In particular, finding the interplay of power necessary to preserve balance while still capturing the feel of the Red List and the dread those vampires inspire was tough to get right. We ended up with a special rule for Red-List minions which allows anyone to try to bring them down in combat. That rule helps weigh the Red-List vampires down and offset the increased Disciplines, strengths and special abilities designed into them. Without that rule, some of the Red-List vampires would seem very powerful indeed, quite out of line with their predecessors. For example, Valerius, a Tremere possessed by his former dark master, Varro:

Valerius Maior (Tremere, 7 capacity)
Disciplines: nec pre AUS DAI DOM THA
Camarilla. Red List: If Valerius makes a strike that requires Thaumaturgy, he gains an optional additional strike, usable only to make a strike that requires Thaumaturgy. Infernal.

Valerius is enough of a combat threat to make most trophy-seekers look elsewhere, especially as the first non-Baali capable of playing all of the Daimoinon cards.

With the Gehenna release, we've already seen the introduction of the Alastor card, which is useful for getting trophy-hunters properly outfitted for the fight. The Kindred Most Wanted set adds a couple of faces to the position. One of those faces is that of Echo, the Nosferatu alastor:

Echo (Nosferatu, 7 capacity)
Disciplines: aus dom CEL OBF POT
Camarilla: Echo gets +1 strength in combat with a Red-List minion.

The justicars — and, indeed, sometimes entire clans — offer trophies, or boons, to those who bring down their enemies on the Red List. One possible reward is to be given claim to prime hunting grounds in the city.

Trophy: Hunting Ground
Action Modifier/Reaction
Boon. Hunting Ground. Usable by a tapped vampire. Usable during combat.
Usable only when this vampire burns a Red-List minion controlled by another Methuselah. Put this card on this vampire. During your untap phase, this vampire gains 2 blood from the blood bank. A vampire can gain blood from only 1 Hunting Ground card each turn.

The goodies for the independent clans include new ways of getting additional vampires into play, similar to what the Camarilla and Sabbat have with The Third Tradition: Progeny and Creation Rites. Rather than being sect-specific (and requiring a title), these are merely clan-specific (and some require a certain minimum capacity). Take Web of Knives Recruit for example:

Web of Knives Recruit
Action
Assamite
1 pool
+1 stealth action.
Put this card in play in your uncontrolled region. During your untap phase, move one counter from the bank to this card. When it has three counters, move it to your ready region. It becomes a 3 capacity independent Assamite with Celerity, Obfuscate, Potence, Quietus and three blood. A Methuselah may have only one Web of Knives Recruit in his or her uncontrolled region at a time.

The recruit is not active as quickly as a vampire brought in play with The Embrace or the other cards of that kind, but the resulting vampire is much stronger and less vulnerable. The other cards of this sort in Kindred Most Wanted are Proxy Kissed, Tumnimos and The Waters of Duat. Each functions a little differently, however.

As usual, there are cards for many Disciplines and deck types, including some new three-ways and other cards for the anarchs, some new allies, like Ossian, some new combat cards, like Disengage and Haymaker, new guns, vehicles and other equipment, and a even a few new events.

VTES: Kindred Most Wanted, an expansion with four pre-constructed starter decks and boosters, is available February 21st.

Warghoulator

The following VTES deck, created by Stéphane Lavrut (currently the game's #1 ranked player), has been used to devastating effect, notably winning the 2002 Austrian Championship.

Stéphane's Notes: The idea here is to get Warghouls out as quickly as possible in order to control the table. Note also that this is a slim deck, but to improve it, I'd recommend losing another two cards instead of adding any more.

Crypt (12 Cards):

Horatio (x4)
Lolita Houston (x4)
Nedal, The Careless
The Rose (x2)
Sandra White

Library (62 cards):

Blood Doll (x4)
Breath of the Dragon (x2)
Changeling (x6)
Delaying Tactics (x2)
Direct Intervention (x4)
Ghoul Escort (x4)
Jack (x5)
Library Hunting Ground
Memories of Mortality (x4)
Mr. Winthrop
Plasmic Form (x5)
Revenant (x4)
Trap (x7)
Vagabond Mystic (x2)
War Ghoul (x11)

Coming Soon

Kindred Most Wanted Expansion Set in Stores the Week of February 21st:

Order Kindred Most Wanted Starter Display
Order Kindred Most Wanted Booster Display
Order Kindred Most Wanted Booster Pack
Order Kindred Most Wanted Alastors Starter Deck
Order Kindred Most Wanted Anathema Starter Deck
Order Kindred Most Wanted Baali Starter Deck
Order Kindred Most Wanted Gangrel Antitribu Starter Deck