Official V:EKN Caitiff Newsletter May 2004 Official V:EKN Caitiff Newsletter - January 2004 Contents - Life in the City (Vampire fiction) - Um, I dunno. What d'ya wanna do? (Clan Strategy) - ...and the Kitchen Sink too! (Discipline overviews) - Pick Me! PICK ME! (Card overviews a. crypt b. library) - Smack Talk (Reader feedback) - Dear Azel (Advice column) - Ante up, Sucka (Deck designs) - Peace Out (Conclusion) Life in the City No short fiction this time. Any submissions welcome. Contact information on the bottom. Um, I dunno. What d'ya wanna do? Last newsletter I covered the eclectic spread of disciplines within the Caitiff. Some interesting patterns emerged, and surely many of these will be explored in later newsletters. But we also have among our crew the *disciplineless*. Yay, we cover almost all the bases! But, what to do with the disciplineless? Why many things! Like bleed, hunt, rescue from torpor, recruit, employ, call political actions, disciplineless actions, bow for the favor, er, wait... no, um, no bow for the favor... oh, and diablerize! We make great expendible cruise missiles against the torporized. Unfortunately we are very dependent on our allies to speak for us to spare our destruction. But our two disciplineless buddies have a neat little trick, if they survive they get a nifty bonus from diablerie. Besides being great cruise missiles to the torpored, we are also great help with the side-actions; they may not be pivotal to the game, but they help stack each little chip towards our favor, sparing our allied vampires for the more critical actions. It is this capability of doing dirty work that is our greatest strength. Running out those extra actions, gathering more blood for pool for our master, dealing tick damage, and being a flesh wall are all actions that any vampire can do, but we are so readily available (and unfortunately expendible). And if it's all the little things that add up, it'd be good to know what actions (outside of recruit, equip, hunt, bleed, rescue, open political actions, etc.) that would be interesting considerations on the sidebar. Cards that I'm interested in casually pointing out are Scrounging, Ritual of Bitter Rose, Computer Hacking, and Thin-Blooded Seer. Computer Hacking goes wthout saying, the extra bleed is very useful when timed well. Ritual of the Bitter Rose begs to be allied with our two disciplineless cruise missiles - I'll be talking about this later in the library card overview: Pick Me! PICK ME! Thin-Blooded Seer is a nice side-action to double your pleasure, double your fun. An extra vampire to help us divide the labor is always a great thing, and their special is quite interesting! And lastly Scrounging is an interesting alternative to typical card cycling. Takes advantage of our "message courier" nature, not contestable, and generally can fit as a casual filler card in most decks. So pick up a token Caitiff for your crew today! You won't regret it! ...and the Kitchen Sink too! No discipline overviews this time. This is all about the disciplineless, baby! Pick Me! PICK ME! Crypt: Name: Smudge the Ignored [Jyhad:V, VTES:V] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Caitiff Group: 1 Capacity: 1 Discipline: Camarilla: After Smudge diablerizes an older vampire for the first time, he gets +1 strength. This is the original disciplineless vampire. Unfortunately the two disciplineless Caitiff cannot play together, grouping rules. But Smudge has a place in many a Methuselah's memory. He was the cardinal cruise missile. Not only did he get the potential to get a discipline card after his first diablerie, but also +1 strength! This all depends on whether he survives the wrath of vampiric society, but, eh, c'est la vie. Needless to say that, besides being incorporated to decks just for his disposability, he also found a comfortable niche in some fighty decks, especially those with some latent vote power. He still has his uses, but many in the Methuselah community has found a new darling in the diablerie role. Name: Sandra White [Anarchs:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Caitiff Group: 3 Capacity: 1 Discipline: -- Camarilla: If Sandra diablerizes an older vampire, the controller of that vampire burns 1 pool. Ahh, salt in the wound of my enemy is ambrosia to my lips... There are very few vampires Sandra is going to be diablerizing that will not be older than her. And she doesn't invite using up discipline cards on her, why would you want to make her any generation older than she is? Disciplines, she doesn't need to bother with such things - she already pays for her self-sacrifice and then some by her special. If she does happen to survive, heh, cool another opportunity to twist the knife (not the card! not the card!). Yes indeed, Smudge's modern replacement more than adequately fills his space. Library: Name: Ritual of the Bitter Rose [Jyhad:R2, VTES:R, CE:R] Cardtype: Action Modifier/Combat This card can be played as an action modifier card or a combat card. Each ready vampire you control gains an amount of blood from the blood bank equal to the amount of blood on a vampire being burned either by diablerie or while in combat with this vampire. The 'while in combat' is wishful thinking for the most part. Sure, I'm positive someone out there has worked Smudge up into a combat monster and finds this card extremely useful for his combat mechanics. But that's not what interests us, the Caitiff. We don't lend ourselves to such elaborate combinations as easily, so the plain and simple attracts us more. That's why basic 'courier duty' is our forte; we can do the basics, and we can do them often - and guess what, they add up. So the big use of this card is the obvious: diablerie. To not only diablerize without much care, but the opportunity to fill up our buddies from our selfless action, is a great boon to our utility. The trick is to find a vampire with an 'amount of blood' on them while being burned. Generally this isn't too hard with aggravated damage. Many tables face a bit of agg damage throughout the course of the game. Some disciplines are replete with it, and there's a nice spread of it in equipment. You don't have to be an agg. saturated deck to exploit this, just a little agg. and a little of this card will do. Name: Thin-Blooded Seer [BH:] Cardtype: Action Cost: 1 blood Capacity: 1 Requires a ready non-sterile vampire of capacity less than 3. Put this card into play; it becomes a 1 capacity vampire. This vampire is clanless and sterile. This vampire is not considered unique, must hunt this turn and is the same sect as the acting vampire. Cards that cost blood cost this vampire twice as much blood to play. During your untap phase, you may tap this vampire to look at the top two cards of any Methuselah's library. Whee! Let's make friends! Literally! This is a great boon to us Caitiff. Often we are outnumbered by our allies and when we do make it onto the board we are swamped with menial tasks. Often when our fellow Caitiff buddies are with us in the crypt they don't always make it out with us. But does that mean our tasks would be lessened in response to our manpower shortage? Noooo... So now we can create a friend! This speeds up the completion of menial tasks considerably. Unfortunately their big drawback is any 'cards that cost blood cost this vampire twice as much blood to play.' But considering the cards I was mentioning earlier, CH, RotBR, Scrounding, are free and inherent hunting and bleeding are free, along with the ever important Wake with Evening Freshness, you really aren't hurting too much from this. And the special, oooo! If you got a bit of free time sitting about for us 'couriers' (sometimes just staying still is strategic) you can still squeeze out some nifty effect. There's no possibility of interference from others during the special's activation (that I know of), and it gives useful information - about anyone you so please. And if you are particularly devious with bluffing and deals, well, the value of these Seers only increase. Bravo. Name: Scrounging [CE:U] Cardtype: Action +1 stealth action. Look at up to 3 cards from the top of your library and move up to 2 of them to your hand. Discard down to your hand size and shuffle your library afterward. Hmm, but aren't there better cards to cycle? Yes. But of those cards they are either unique, cost a Master Phase Action, and are very popular or have less appealing conditions for Caitiff, such as 'only usable in combat.' And this card has broad appeal because any minion can use it - no discipline, sect, clan, or type restrictions; good cyclability. This card complements our 'courier' nature well. With some free time, or in an emergency hand jam, we can take this menial action to spy on the future, choose what's most needed, and cycle out the chaff sitting in our hand. It cycles out more than 1 card at a time, and gives you a free glimpse of what's next. Not a bad trade off for an expendable action from us industrious Caitiff. And given the above card, Thin-Blooded Seer, there's a nice mini-combo working to add every bit of fortune to our Methuselah masters. Considering there's often a few slots open for variance in many decks this card should definitely be up in the running on the sideboard. Give it a whirl. Smack Talk Well, this month is my birthday and I'm trying to figure out how to make a birthday themed deck. Flaming Candle comes to mind, but considering its restriction, and that I'm older than 1 year old, it doesn't work well. That and I can't find a big, pink, frosty cake anywhere in the pictures of my library cards. So, I pose it to my readers: Can you make a birthday themed V:tES deck? You get mega-kudos for pulling it off; and if there's more than one we'll debate to find out who has the most bad-ass b-day deck, who has the most imaginative, and who has the most bizarre. Are you capable? ps: I'm a gemini sun sign, virgo rising sign, if that helps in the process. Dear Azel Been all over the place busting my ... souffles, trying to get all my schooling gear in order. Vaccinations, transcripts, grants, red tape... you name it I probably saw it these past two months. Then I came to a realization. I don't like bureaucracy (profound, no?). I know it's needed, but I don't like it. So I came to thinking about V:tES, because when stuck in line it's a natural reaction, and started to think: Is there a use for Tongue of the Serpent? I stood there, playing with the ideas of how to exploit this card, and as I was starting to touch upon something, *blam*, I was next in line. Needless to say I wasn't the quickest on my feet, head full of V:tES terminology and all, and was often weirded out because as I was talking to the person over the counter I had this mental image of some faceless stranger behind them with this big elongated tongue by their face. Yeah. Um, those poor people must have thought I was bugging out with my startled and contorted face every now and then. Yeah... I strongly suggest being mindful of what V:tES brainteasers you do and where. So I, Azel, leave two questions to you, my readers, (along with disturbing imagery) about the above. First, have you ever found your real-life self getting messed with your V:tES hobby? And second, is there a good use for Tongue of the Serpent? Ante up, Sucka Because I can't find a V:tES card with a picture of a big, pink, frosty cake there will be no deck design this month. This is a travesty of CCGdom and must be rectified ASAP. I want my big, pink, frosty cake!!! Peace Out Yes, I came back. And now I must go. Hope you had a great time like I did. Go toss a few White Phosphorous Grenades in the air to celebrate my birthday with me and I'll go blow out the Flaming Candle and make a wish. Whoever pins the tail on the Gargoyle is the winner (of a world of hurt)! With Love, Azel opaopajr@comcast.net