Lyrics of the Night : Allies

Very few allies are vampiric, and they don't even burst into flame or turn to dust in the sun, but you still see many of them running around bleeding, killing, or doing random things to Methuselahs that are usually minding their own business. What's so attractive about spending for a little thing that is usually not even immortal? (Of course, there are those who are, but they aren't as cool as vampires anyway, except the Succubus of course, who even has her own club)

Well, allies have several standard advantages over our reliable kindred. First of all, they don't really differentiate aggravated damage from normal damage - which means that if your combat deck relies on the "1 aggravated damage" to remove your prey's minions, you'll have to do it many times to even to be able to get rid of some lowly allies, and for some, you simply will never be able to do so.

Secondly, the ally is kind of an "action" card, and comes into play usually through the action of some other minions, giving one the potential of overwhelming the table with many minions over several turns, since it sorta "bypass" the limit of the influence phase. (Trivia - say I Clan Impersonate Appius into Tremere, slap an Ankara Citadel on it, and then Clan Impersonate him back to Lasombra with a Path of Night in play, and then slap a Charisma and a Perfectionist on it; assuming that he has full blood and no blocks or reactions cards were ever played while he's at it, and assuming he can untap without cost and without limits, how many Nocturns can he call in a round before he runs out of blood?)(I know, it's stupid, but it's fun)

Lastly, allies are able to bypass many interesting and often deadly stuff that vampires do to each other but conveniently forgotten to get it useable on allies. Daring the Dawn for example, is completely useless on even the lowest Arms Dealer (or even a Stray). That can be life or death when you're up against a deck that uses a lot of "vampires cannot block" tech.

And many of the better allies has abilities that make even the eldest kindred drool with envy. Take Ossian for example, on a good day he might have more life counters than the whole bank of Caine can afford (Imagine a vampire with that much blood counters on him...), or the in-built Stealth and Bleed of our latest Veneficti. (And all the other cool stuff that it has). Not to mention that some really really good allies can play discipline cards like a vampire (or be able to gain that ability in some way, like with Leech)

There are many dedicated ally decks that make use of some of the best allies in game, the Nephandus, the Renegade Garou, the Nocturns, Tunnel Runners, War Ghouls, Shambling Hordes and the occasional Reanimated Corpse.

Certain cards are key to ally decks, Unmasking is almost always present in every deck that uses a good number of allies. The no-questions-asked +1 Intercept for all allies is a ridiculous advantage in defense - but it can backfire if your prey (or predator) happens to use either the right ally, or also with lots of allies. You can of course choose not to play the Unmasking. Speaking of Unmasking, most events are the allies of the allies, since they rarely affect them, and many of them gives them advantages that can trump the vampire's advantages over them - like the FBI.

Speaking of the vampire's advantages - the first is the vampires' ability to recover from damage - be it hunting, or leave torpor. When an ally runs out of life it is gone, to the ash heap it goes. Besides Ossian, I don't think any other allies can recover life easily - most combat allies get to recover about 1 life per turn, but can never go beyond their starting life, and it is really hard to do that. Vegabond may help to recover life for the allies, and some disciplines have abilities to do so (OBE for example), but it is usually pretty inefficient to do that. I think that NEC has the best means of utilizing the allies AFTER they're dead (usually a couple of times), but those are specific decks (Mental Patients in our case)

There are also cards that can really startled the allies - Entrancement is something you really don't want to see when your War Ghoul is on the table. Random cards can eliminate your allies just like that, no matter how threatening it may look like - take Entombment for example, or stuff like The Secret Must Be Kept.

But throwing generic advantages and problems aside, allies are usually used for 4 main purposes.

1. Combat.

Combat allies abound in the environment. From the 史上最强werewolf (Remnents), to War Ghouls and Reengade Garous, their one standard ability is the ability to enter combat directly. They also usually come with the ability to end the combat victoriously - be it with their ridiculous amount of Strength, the ability to generate aggravated damage, or simply the inability for unprepared vampires to kill it. Combat allies deck is one of the most common sight for ally decks.

2. Bleed

Bleeding allies can either use an overwhelming number of actions (like the Khazar's Wraiths, or the Nocturns), or in-built stealth (or the ability to play stealth) and bleeds like the Veneficti. Some may play discipline cards to either get stealth or bleeds, like the Servitors or Thuggees.

3. Defense

Many allies are defensive in nature, even combat allies are sometimes used just to add in some defense. Carlton is the star of defensive allies, so good he is that he is even used in decks just to deny the opponent from having him. There are also those who can only be killed with aggravated damage, like Tye Cooper, and with Unmasking it is often difficult to get pass him. Certain allies can add (or have)Intercepts or untaps for their masters, like the Strays, or High Top.

4. Enhancement

There are certain allies that are used because their abilities enhance or complement the deck effectively - for example, the use of Succubus or Young Blood in a Cryptic Mission deck, Ambrosius in a Zombie deck, Arms Dealer in a weapon deck and so on. Sometimes the ally can be so good that they become the star of the deck, like the Nephandus; or they can be integral to the deck's operational ability and become so important that their removal can spell a great setback for the deck - like the Procurer.

Overall, allies are nice pets to have in a deck, some of them are truly amazing, many are quite useless for their cost, but most are just icing for your deck. Use them carefully, and use them well.

(o.o)