Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Heirs to the Blood : Gargoyle Pre-Con Starter

HttB Gargoyle Pre-Con Deck

I've always been a big fan of the Gargoyles. To me, they are the manifestation of all things Gothic, you know, those stone things perching on the top of cathedrals, guarding them and turning into flying monstrosity at the right time to terrorize whatever they need to terrorize. VtM made these niceties into vampires, and that is simply too cool. My Gargoyle Air Rock deck was the first deck that I used in a tournament, and it did well for me (during then), so I had a soft spot for all things Gargoyle.

I cannot express enough my excitement when I found out that there would be a Gargoyle starter in HttB. Of course, I have no qualms about all the cool things that the Gargoyles get in this expansion, and the starter is pretty worth it if you're a Gargoyle fan.

However, of all the 4 pre-cons, I think that the Gargoyles is the weakest one in terms of effectiveness.

In all essence this is a combat deck, with wall elements, supported by some bleed potential of the master clan. However, it tried to satisfy so many conditions that it probably cannot be either of them too well.

Crypt

There are only 6 Gargoyles, and 2 of each, giving you only a selection of a maximum of 3 different Gargoyles, of which only 2 are slaves, and one of them doesn't even have superior VIS. The slave element in this deck isn't that heavy, with only 2 cards that requires slave, so I guess it is quite ok. The master clans took up 6 slots, and you have 6 different Tremeres, all of them of reasonable capacity, but the jewel among them has to be Claus Wegner, followed By Mushin Samir, both of them have superior DOM, and one off-clan discipline that the Gargoyles used extensively - POT / FOR.

Due to the slave element of this deck, you'll need to have vampires of both kinds in order for it to perform to its maximum efficiency. That by itself is a big problem since you have very little control over what you have with this kind of crypt composition. You might end up with all slaves and no Tremeres, or all Tremeres and no Gargoyles, or a mix of them that is not very effective (like Rocia...)

Primary Path of Ousting

Has to be bruise bleed I guess, with combat being a close option. The Tremere's DOM will help with their Conditioning while the Gargoyles will fight it out with whoever that stands in the way. The Slave element allows the Tremeres to not bother with stealth and just threaten to put their slaves in front whenever they're blocked.

There is only 1 single Fame in the starter and therefore it is insufficient to compose as a combat ousting element. The block and kill path has never been too easy for the Gargoyles since they don't have anything similar to Eagle Sight.

Combat

This deck fights really well among the 4 starters. With the Gargoyles' VIS and POT combat they are very effective against most combatants. There are enough damage prevention cards in this starter to make even CEL/POT deck cry. Raking Talons make even the youngest Hatchling a problem for unprepared opponents, and once Razor Bats are in place the Gargoyles can slowly wither down FOR decks as well. Stone Dog is absolutely essential in this deck, giving the Gargoyles a permanent enter combat ability. They should recruit it whenever they can. The Rockcat is not a very efficient ally that cannot regain life, but it is invaluable especially when faced with weenies. It is afterall another permanent enter com

Combat is mostly POT based, with Flight and VIS strikes added in for variety. Pounce is a magnificent strike, removing additional strikes and has no need for superior disciplines to execute, allowing the young Hatchling to pose a dangerous threat once he had the time to learn to fly.

Without Roll the magnificent maneuverability of the Gargoyles will not shine here, with only the sub-par Slam involved in giving the Gargoyles the ability to go to close and execute their grapples. This may be a problem against maneuver decks.

Defense

Very good intercepts are present in this deck, now supplemented with the Gargoyles' Voice of the Castle to reduce bleeds. The Tremeres have Deflections in this starter as well, providing yet another defense against bleeds. Between the intercepts and Deflections you should have a much easier time against attacks when compared to the other pre-cons. This deck has a very good number of Wakes to help with blocking even after your vampires have taken their actions.

Pool Recovery

Pretty pathetic, and couple that with the intensive pool requirement of this deck, one will really feel the pain of even a single bleed.

Where you go from here

Gargoyles now have the option of either going non-slave with Hatchlings, or Slave with Create Gargoyle, making breed decks a very good option. With the new Flight card As the Crow the Gargoyles are much more efficient.

Either way you're going with this deck you'll need to tune the combat package to your likings, adding in either VIS, POT or FOR cards (not to forget some more excellent Flight combat cards, most notably Roll). If you want to go towards the intercept path then you'll need more intercepts, be it Razorbats, Intercept masters or VIS intercepts cards. More enter combat cards is needed, you can either still keep to Bum's Rushes and Ambushes, or use more Dive Bombs. More copies of Stone Dogs might help too.

Value for money

Good if you're going for Gargoyles, since you can get Hatchlings and Create Gargoyles. But this starter has the least overall value compared to all the others, having no sorted-after expensive cards. If did give you a good number of Deflections and one Antildeluvian Awakening though.

(o.o)

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Heirs to the Blood : Kiasyd Pre-Con Starter

The Kiasyd has always been one of the strongest Bloodlines, with their superb in-clan disciplines and excellent bleed ability. The HttB Kiasyd starter is one of the strongest of the starters, and is pretty good value for money too, since it comes with many out-of-print OBT cards.

Any decks with Kiasyd will normally utilize their incredible bleed ability, this starter is no difference. And even though it didn't use the traditional stealth disciplines, its stealth bleed capacity is easily comparable to the Samedi starter, if not more, since many of the MYT cards are stealth-abled and multi-functioned.

Crypt

Of the split clan starters, with the exception of the Gargoyles, the Kiasyd's crypt is more effective than the Samedi and !Salubri, owing to the fact that most Lsaombras can use the OBT cards and some MYT cards to a certain effectiveness. The Lasombras are kinda on the fat side though, so as with all other starters, it is still most efficient to bring out Kiasyds than Lasombras, and almost never will you benefit from bringing out a fat Lasombra unless you have absolutely no choice, or you're winning with flying colours.

The new Kiasyd - Isanwayan, is an excellent vampire in this starter. He is cheap enough and has all the necessary disciplines plus a pretty good ability, though it is unlikely that you'll be using it very often. Pherydima is another excellent Kiasyd to have on the table, but the Kiasyd crypt is so good, that pretty much anyone will be able to add significantly to your effectiveness on the table vs any of the Lasombras.

For the Lasombras, try to just use the younger ones such as Ermenegildo, Andrew, or Virginie. The others are a little too expensive to influence early unless you have no choice, or you intend to superior Govern a lot.

Primary Path of Ousting

Bleed, bleed and bleed. There are not many other options for this deck. Resupply your vampires' blood with Capitalist and Hunting Ground, bleed with Governed the Unaligned and Bonding, stealth through with your myriad supply of OBT stealth cards supported by Stone Travel. Most of the time you should be quite successful. Barring extensive bouncing you should be able to get rid of your first prey with impunity. (If it's a wall deck, too bad) You even have Blind Spots to handle the occasional irritating blocker.

Of all the starters, this one has nothing else to fall back on. You have to bleed to kill like there's no tomorrow. There are many stealth cards and bleed enhancements to help you achieve that, you even have a couple of Nocturns to apply more pressure for your bleeds. Ridiculously obvious.

Combat

Kiasyds traditionally has excellent combat defense. OBT combat end cards combined with Fae Contortion can handle almost everything, as long as you have the blood to power it. Tinglestrip in this starter gives the Kiasyd another option that can be quite handy if equipped with superior MYT. Of course, being a pre-con starter you don't expect this deck to survive against good combat decks, but it has enough cards to deal with casual combat and is perhaps one of the better ones where even the off-clan vampires are covered with some combat cards.

Against combat decks, the Zaire River Ferry should be slapped on a vampire as soon as you can. It saves live.

Defense

You have some intercepts, and even a Channel 10. You probably may not want to engage in pointless fighting, so if you have older vampires such as Pherydima, use the Obedience to your advantage. On the other hand, you can use Covincraft and Folderol to reduce bleeds against you for those bleeds that you fail or not willing to block.

Strangely, despite the mighty DOM, this starter didn't come with any bounce cards.

Pool Recovery

Zip, nothing besides the Vessel and Villein package, with 2 Wider View threw in for fun. But you should be killing your prey fast enough to consider that pool recovery.

Where you go from here

Kiasyds are so good that for a bleed deck, the Lasombras have no advantage besides the Path of Night. The crypt is now deep enough for the Group 4-5s Kiasyds to really shine. Remove all Lasombras and complete a Group 4-5 (or 3-4) Kiasyd crypt, throw in more MYT stealth and defense cards, add in a couple of Deflections and some more DOM bleed goodies, and you're all set. Enhance your combat defense with either the almighty Entombment / Arm of the Abyss route, or just stick to the Fae Contortion / Oubliette route.

Value for Money

Very high, with Blanket of Night and Shroud of Absence being the most sorted after cards.

(o.o)

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Heirs to the Blood : Samedi Pre-Con Starter

The NEC clans in HttB is kinda lagging behind, and Keith was telling me that White Wolf probably (and hopefully) had something big planned for the NEC discipline in a near future expansion. Well, I certainly hope so since the Samedi, and especially the Nagaraja and Harbingers sort of had the blunt end of the stick in HttB. This is actually reflected in the Samedi starter. IMHO, this starter, and this clan, brought the least toys to the scene, making it a rather dull clan to play.

This starter, however, is the nearest thing to stealth bleed in this expansion, and they actually do it pretty well, with a good number of stealth cards, it was also given alternative bleeding option, with some combat capability and out-of-combat defense/offense function that make this starter actually quite ok to play against the others.

The Crypt

As with all other HttB starter, the split clan decision didn't really help. The only thing that the Samedi shared with the Nosferatu in general is OBF, but some of the older Nosferatu do have FOR at inferior and some Samedi has POT to help with making the card use more consistent.

Baroque is the only vampire that comes with 2 copies in this starter, and unfortunately he is quite out of place in this setup. His in-built enter combat ability is good, but there just aren't enough combat cards to support his attacks efficiently. Having inferior OBF isn't going to help him much here either. The Samedi are all of mid-cap or higher, making this crypt pretty heavy to adopt a mass bleed strategy that this deck actually needs, because of that, it may make sense for you to bring out Troglodytia when you have some Little Mountain Cemetery in your hand.

The Nosferatus are mostly mid-cap too, with only 2 vampires of 5-cap or below. This problem will magnify the card distribution that you have in this starter, since there are so many cards that requires either THN or Samedi to play, and really don't cut it when played with outferior disciplines.

Primary Path of Ousting

This is probably best classified as a bleed deck, with quite a few different mode of bleeding available to the Methuselah using this starter. Primarily they stealth bleed, with 17 stealth cards and pretty much every vampire able to play them rather effectively, this starter can bleed well. Can they bleed much? Not without a lot of work. Camera Phone and Computer Hacking are the only cards that can add to the bleeds, Deep Song is unreliable since only Tangine of the Samedi can play it and you have to rely on the Nosferatus to sing properly. So here we have the delivery system without a more effective bleeding enhancement, and you have to get many vampires onto the table to do the bleed effectively.

There are some alternative to this, Samedis have Horseshoes to get rid of blockers and deflectors (and that's probably their only way), and you can threaten to bleed with a strong Reanimated Corpse that can bleed for 2 consistently with 2 STR, deterring less prepared blockers. You can also Cloak or Veil the Corpses. This is probably the best means of getting rid of your prey.

Combat

Combat in this deck is a pale attempt to showcase the power of THN. There are only 2 Compress, and that is that. The other combat cards are all defensive combats (but they generally will work well against many decks) but are nowhere near reliable. Soak cannot handle aggravated damage, and Cold Aura doesn't help you when there are ranged attacks.

In a nutshell, avoid combat when you can, and Compress to scare off attackers. (or defenders, for that matter)

Defense

There are Sport Bikes to help with defending, but ironically, the best defender here is actually the Reanimated Corpses with their 2 STR. With 4 On the Qui Vie and a Underbridge Stray, you can probably defend yourself with your Corpse a couple of times.

The vampires themselves have very little defense, so blocking with them and going into combat is not necessarily a good thing. You can use the Divine Sign to target a key minion from your predator and scare him with threats of Compressing him to torpor... on the other hand, you have Elder Intervention... but the problem with "I blocked you! But I can't fight you..." remains. I guess you really have to bluff with Compress.

The Steadfastness can help you generate the intercept, or reduce the bleeds, so do keep them with you whenever you can. You have too few of these cards to use.

Pool Recovery

You have Off-Kilter, which I think is what the Night Moves are for, to help you gain some pool. Little Mountain Cemetery is not reliable since the crypt is unreliable. Otherwise you still have to use your standard Vessel and Villien package.

Where you go from here

Assuming again, that you're keen on Samedi, you should again, throw the Nosferatus away and complete your Samedi crypt. The Samedi in HttB is joined with Pressing Flesh and Decompose, so that is one way to look. On the other hand, stealth bleeding with the Samedi and getting many Samedi out with Little Mountain Cemetery has been a proven effective strategy anyway.

The Samedi can fight with FOR and THN, now granted the mighty Groaning Corpse, so you can pursue a combat strategy as well. For this you will have to get a lot more FOR cards, some THN cards to add into your library, as well as more enter combat cards. Baroque will be a star vampire for this path.

Otherwise there is always the Reanimated Corpse route, which is now financially feasible.

Value for Money

Pretty good, given 2 Freak Drives, 3 Reanimated Corpse, a Dreams (!) and a Warsaw Station, plus the standard V&V package, this starter is well worth the investment where card value is concerned. In fact I don't think it is any less valuable than the !Salubri ones.

(o.o)

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Heirs to the Blood : Salubri Antitribu Pre-Con Starter

I don't really think if a CoRE entry is necessary for HttB starters because these are mostly beginner unfriendly. These starters are not the kind that a new player can pick up and play effectively in any constructed environment. Pretty extensive tuning is usually needed in order for the deck to be working better.

Well, nevertheless, here goes~

The !Salubri starter is the one that probably has the highest value for money at this point. It comes with 3 Target Vitals, 3 Abbots, a Blissful Agony, not to mention the standard 2 Vessels 2 Villeins package of every other starter - making this the fastest going starter in the store.

In use this starter is probably well classified as a wall/combat deck. It however, as with pretty much all the other starters, suffered from a divided crypt. For the Gargoyles this is actually necessary and to a certain degree, does help, but for the !Salubri, the !Ventrue's presence is quite unnecessary, afterall, with the !Salubri's lower cap and the Brothers in Arms, there is no real need to include the !Ventrue in the crypt, and certainly not with 2 8-caps. The !Ventrues do help with the Governed the Unaligned, be it for bleeding or for speeding up the influencing. That however, does not detract from the fact that it makes the crypt unnecessarily fat and unreliable. Neighbour John's +1 Intercept does help though.

The Crypt

Getting at least 1 !Salubri out as soon as possible is the key to this deck. The !Ventrue may be useful if you hold a couple of Governed the Unaligned in your starting hand and somehow get those !Ventrues to play them to bring out other !Salubri for cheap. But that is a risky attempt since the !Ventrue in this deck can rely on nothing except the inherent +1 Stealth of the Governs in order to justify their first appearance - and they are not exactly young. Once they get into combat the only thing they can do is absorb the damage with their FOR, or maybe armed themselves with a puny Baseball Bat.

Once you have a good !Salubri on the table things will be different for the deck, and options will be opened up. Of course you'd rather have older !Salubris with AUS and VAL, or even if you are forced to work with Rashiel, the Val will more than give you enough options to supplement your other !Ventrues. Your key vampires should be Langa, Uriel or Aredhel whenever you can.

Primary Path of Ousting

There is a Fame, but there is only one. There is a Dragonbound, but again, there is only one. But putting them together, especially if you draw one or both of them, you can practise a combat ousting. But I believe that most of the time this deck will work best as a bruise bleed/wall. Attack your prey's minions with Rumble or Sense Death with !Salubris with Baseball Bat, kill them off with your Sword or Vengeance (reserve the Target Vitals for your !Ventrue if you can). Once that is done, bleed bleed bleed.

Or alternatively, just bleed. Dawn Op to get rid of blockers, or just pound them into submission. With the exception of Uriel, all the !Salubris are small enough to influence and adopt a semi horde bleeding technique. And once you're ready, whenever able, wake to block your prey's minions' action and send them to torpor. This deck has good intercepts for you to do that.

Combat

Combat may seem like the forte of this deck, but actually, this deck's combat only shines when the !Salubris are armed with a melee weapon - namely, the Baseball Bat. Once that is done, the !Salubri will then have access to Sword of the Righteous and Vengeance of Samiel, and their combat suddenly seem rather deadly.

Other than that the vampires in the deck will have to rely on the FOR cards to asborb the damage and attrition the opponent to death. The 2 Blooding By the Code will go the great lengths in making your !Salubri a lot more dangerous. Deathseeker is the only answer this deck has against combat ends and other combat tricks.

The !Ventrue cannot use any of the VAL abilities, and therefore will have to rely on the FOR cards to keep them alive. They can arm themselves with Baseball Bat if they want. Do remember that the equipping of the Baseball Bat will allow the new owner to untap, which is not a bad defense strategy in a tight situation.

Defense

Any wall deck with a good number of intercepts like this deck shouldn't have too much trouble intercepting your predator's attacks. Between Abbots, Enhanced Senses, Precognitions, Eyes of Argus etc etc, you should always have a good number of intercepts to stop your predator and/or prey. Your problem will then be deciding what to use those intercepts for.

Even for those who managed to sneak in and conduct successful bleeds, you have Telepathic Counter and Hide the Heart to handle them. This deck is actually pretty safe against directed actions, so you should feel free to go downwind. If your predator is proving too troublesome, and you have armed !Salubri, you can always use one of your precious enter combat card to go teach his minions a lession (Or you can just Langa them)

Pool Recovery

The standard means - Vessels and Villein, nothing too exciting. Blood recovery is via hunting and a single Hunting Ground.

Where you go from here

I'd assume one is keen on the !Salubri when they bought this starter and not for the !Ventrue, (on the other hand it could just be due to the Target Vitals). So going forward from here one should immediately discard the majority (if not all) of the !Ventrue and re-tune the crypt into a !Salubri-only crypt. Add in 1 extra copy of every !Salubri in the starter except Uriel (you can if you want) but I'd recommend 2 extra Dela Edens instead.

The Hunting Ground will then have to go of course, and remove all the DOM cards such as Graverobbing and Govern the Unaligned. Add in new bleeding enhancement such as Pulse of the Canaille. A couple of more Vessels or Villeins can be considered. Add in some more AUS master disciplines and include Telepathic Misdirection for bleed defense.

Once the basics is done one must now decide what kind of !Salubri one wants to be. I suspect that whichever path you take, combat is and should be one of the key elements for this clan. Hide the Heart makes your defense really strong, and if you have enough Blooding by the Code you can throw out all those Telepathic Counters.

If you are going combat ousting, add in more Brothers in Arms, more Fame, and more combat packages. Don't forget your superior enter combat card Sense Death. You can either go the Eye of the Unforgiving Heaven let's burn together way of getting rid of your enemy, or with the My Weapons are hotter than yours and you burn when I touch you way of sending all your enemies to torpor. The Baseball Bat is actually quite a good melee weapon for the !Salubri so one doesn't really need to look far for weapon support.

Either way, Target Vitals aren't really needed by the !Salubri, so you can probably just put them into some other decks that need them more - like a Catatonic Fear deck.

Value for Money

Very high. Definitely worth buying.

(o.o)

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Keepers of Tradition Toreador

Keepers of Tradition Pre-Constructed Toreador Starters

This is probably the most toolboxy of the KOT starters, a good "graduating" starter for those who are now familiar with all the other basic mechanics introduced by the other more focused starters of the set. However, this starter suffers from an oversupply of weapons with insufficient resources to support it, and therefore isn't very effective just out of the set. But, if you buy 2 starters and slap them together, throw away some pointless cards and reduce some of them, it is actually effective enough to join most games in a form that you like, and it performs pretty well as a wall deck, or even a vote deck and toolbox deck.

How to Kill

This deck offers a few means to execute your prey. You can attempt to bleed him to death with your good PRESENCE bleeding card and threaten or eliminate your prey's blockers with your weapons, sending them to torpor or punish them severely to limit their ability to block your subsequent actions. You also have the option of using Kine Resources Contested to damage your prey's pool if you're able to get vote superiority. You're also able to use Intercept cards, especially with Eagle's Sight to block your prey's actions that are otherwise not opened to your blockers, and then sending them to torpor, either to remove their defense, or using Fame to cause damage.

But regardless of the path you're going, the weapons in this deck is the primary means for your Vampires to become a threat to your opponent, and therefore combat is almost a necessity for you to grasp and excel before you can successfully complete any of your paths to VPs.

That said, this deck's flexibility in ousting prey is by itself, an asset. Your prey will not be able to react to all your attacks anyway. If your prey excels at blocking, kill it with combat; if he is good at bouncing, KRC him to death, if he commands vote superiority, bleed him to hell.

For bleeding, use Public Trust to deliver heavy bleeds, keep Entrancement for stealing allies if you see some good ones hanging around. Use Crocodile's Tongue to dissuade blockers or reduce their blood level if they insist on blocking (and then you can shoot them dead), Approximation of Loyalty to remove young blockers or cancel wake cards; failing which, if you have other minions with guns, Suppressing fire might come in handy once in a while. But make no mistakes, stealth is not the forte of this deck, be ready to fight whenever you're doing something, unless you're facing opponents that are not blocking anyway. Use Contingency Planning if your prey bounces your heavy bleeds, this will encourage your prey to let it through, and hopefully net you one pool with your Public Trusts.

For Votes, you have the option of calling forth your titled Vampires - you have Rafael and Epikasta for this (Eugene is not efficient in this, unless you have no other choice). Use Public Trust to bring out big Vampires if you have a couple in hand, by influencing younger Vampires and hope that their bleeds will go through. This will save you some pool. If you're lucky enough to hold a Praxis Seizures in hand, and has one or both of the younger Vampires in your uncontrolled region, get them out quickly and hope that they can be declared Prince before anyone else can interfere. Also, do not forget the magnificent power of Kateline Nadasky - she is much more powerful in a voting scenario than you can imagine. Who needs votes when she can cancel opposing ones? She is worth at least 2 votes most of the time.

Intercept your prey's actions with Eagle's Sight when you see an opening, preferably with the ability to send that Vampire to torpor, and that he has a Fame slapped on it. This is all about combat.

Combat and Defense

This deck's combat is equipment-based, specifically, guns. It has so many guns that it is taking up too much deck space, and you'll almost always end up with too many weapons in hand, and the Concealed Weapon no where in sight, forcing you to equip them manually, wasting an action and often inviting trouble.

Throw the Beretta away when you can, they're inferior to Sniper Rifles and Desert Eagle and definitely to Ivory Bow. This deck doesn't really have a lot of manuevers to help you use Mark V so it might not be a very good weapon either. Sniper Rifles is the gem in blocking, giving you the ability to set range when you block, so it is the prime gun to buy when you're pursuing a blocking strategy. If you intend to get into combat really often, you have to hope that you have enough manuever cards, or you may be forced to equip 2 Berettas, which is quite an inefficient way to do it. If you get your hands on an IR Goggles, equip it immediately, it is crucial to your combat.

Once you get into combat, manuever to long if possible, shoot with guns, then additional strikes with Pursuit, start new combat with Psyche! if necessary, and remember to Taste back blood when you need it.

Other form of defense manifest as Telepathic Misdirection, allowing you to bounce bleeds to your prey, or if you really need it, the +1 Intercept to deal with some other malicious attacks. Use Minor Irritation to remain untapped if you expect further attacks in the round. IMHO, Eagle's Sight is usually more offensive in nature than defensive, but don't hesitate to use it at inferior AUSPEX if you see a good opportunity to punish or deter your predator. Oh, remember that you have a Bowl of Convergence, one of the best equipment in generating Intercepts.

Vampires

Depending on your path of ousting, all these Vampires will come in handy one way or another, there really isn't very much difference otherwise. With the exception of Epikasta, they all have the relevant discipline that is worthwhile for their cost (no, I'm not talking about the Inner Circle, he's pretty much a blank Vampire with +2 Bleed, but you may need his 4 votes afterall). Epikasta, however, is a good Vampire to get out if you're low on cards, he can continually Entrance allies if given half a chance (or bleed for that matter). Besides that, he is the most unnecessary Vampire unless you're pursuing a vote strategy and you don't see (or can't afford) Rafael.

Where you go from here

Anywhere exactly. Toreadors are good gun decks, good voters, and good interceptors. You can pursue a Toreador Grand Ball direction by acquiring maybe 3-5 Toreador Grand Ball master cards and make this into a vote deck. There are quite a few interesting Princes in KOT. Both the Justicars in group 3 and 5 are marginal Vampires of the investment. The Group 3 Princes are powerful Vampires, but Toreadors are quite lacking in numbers where titles are concerned. But hey, they have PRESENCE so who cares about titles anyway.

Toreador Gun decks are also a prime deck archetype in Vtes. Throw away some of the less useful guns in the deck and grab a couple of .44 Magnums. Add a few Concealed Weapons, some getting into combat cards, like the new Fleetness, more combat cards, especially defensive cards like Sideslip or Acrobatics, a few Blurs, and you're good to go. Don't forget to lower the average capacity of your crypt though, there is very little reason to include fat Vampires in a gun deck.

Bleeding is also a viable tech for Toreadors, given that they do have a reasonable number of Vampires with both PRESENSE and DOMINATE. And even without the mighty DOMINATE, Aire of Elation is most efficient in the hands of a Toreador. With Celerity now gaining a good number of Stealth, denial or "get around" cards, Toreadors can now actually get their heavy bleeds across - like this - bleed with Fleetness, make it +2 Stealth with Resist Earth's Grasp, preferably with a Vampire that is already enhanced with either +Bleed permanent cards such as Laptop Computer or Heart of the City; if he's still blocked, get around it with Torrent, then Aire of Elation. This dream scenario is potentially a bleed for 6 or more, but is screaming for Archon Investigation.

Value for Money

Good Value for this deck. I'd say it is only second to the Ventrue Starters. It has an Entrancement, 3 Sniper Rifles, 2 Mark V, an Ivory Bow and a Bowl of Convergence, and Vessels, Eagle's Sight and On the Qui Vive is always good to have. And this starter is significantly easier to get than the Ventrue ones.

(o.o)y

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Keepers of Tradition Ventrue

Keepers of Tradition Pre-Constructed Ventrue Starters

Good luck getting any of these around here, as these are usually the fastest to fly away in a retail store, mainly because it packs many expensive and useful cards for the veteran and new players, and therefore is probably very high on the wish list for Vtes players around the world when Christmas is approaching. This starter will introduce (or at least attempts to) the player to vote decks, but it is a mediocre vote deck at best, though it performs reasonably well as a bleed deck.

How to Kill Heavy on Referendum cards as it is, this deck is actually a pretty deadly bleeder. Due to the 5 Conditionings and other bleed enhancement options available to this deck, it can deliver a deadly barrage of bleed if you are given an opening. Use Seduction to remove potential blockers, fight if you're blocked, and Majesty to untap and do something else (such as calling a referendum), or Freak Drive after an action to attempt another one. On a good draw, this can be devastating. For example, you could have Hardestadt bleed with Seduction and enhance with Conditioning, and then untap with Freak Drive, attempt to burn a KRCG of the opponent with Dominate Kine, gets blocked and Majesty to untap, and then call a KRC to cause another 3 points of damage to your prey - if your prey is not ready for this, you'd have done 8 pool damage to your prey with a single Vampire at the cost of 3 blood. Not many decks can stand this kind of damage for long. Your other option to kill will be with your referendums. Granted, this deck isn't too excited with it. You only have 6 KRCs to kill with, and that is just not enough to give you enough VPs. Moreover, there're only 1 Inner Circle, 2 Princes, and absolutely no cards to increase votes. Aura of Invincibility just isn't the kind of cards that is reliable enough to give you the vote superiority while Esgrima is almost a one use item that might take a while to come back to you, not to mention that it might actually keep you from voting through a referendum while it was controlled by an opponent. But if the environment allows, and you just happens to own the field with vote superiority, your issue will then be the stealth that is necessary to get the referendum to the podium in the first place. The Ventrue are notorius for NOT having enough stealth enhancement for any actions, and in this starter deck, the basic +1 stealth will have to suffice and you can only hope that your opponents either do not have the Intercept to deal with you, or you're able to seduce his Vampire before he even attempts it. All in all, calling votes in this deck isn't a very reliable way to kill, but it is a good supplement for your Vampire's bleed, giving your Freak Drived or Majestyed Vampires something else to do. The Vampire Gustav Breidenstein may be able to help you get the votes you need, but he's a 10-cap Prince and he can't do it to a referendum that he called himself, making this a most frustrating situation. Combat and Defense The Ventrue deck, when in combat, in this deck, relies on FORTITUDE to handle the mess. Hopefully, the Armor of Vitality and Soak will be able to absorb the damage that the opponent deals out while the +s in Strength of some of the Vampires here can deal enough damage to deter or even torpor the opposing minion. FORTITUDE is a difficult barrier to cross for decks that aren't able to handle it, and frankly, most decks can only rely on continuous attacks and hope that you run out of FORTITUDE cards since there are very few disciplines with the ability to bypass FORTITUDE damage prevention. This deck uses the inferior Haymaker to create some press and extra hand damage so to go on to the next round, not the best option but quite an interesting one, and when you have FORTITUDE cards in hand, it actually works.

Intercepts and untaps in this deck is provided by the Second Tradition. This is an excellent card that provides both a +2 Intercept and an untap which costs one blood. The problem with it in this deck (besides the low number), is that, only 2 of your Vampires can use it until you manage to both draw and call Praxis Seizures on some other of your Vampires. And given the temptation of often influencing Hardstadt, you most probably will not be using many of the Second Traditions. But when able, this card will be able to help you block most attacks.

The final defense against bleed will be your Murmur of the False Will. This card is the standard bounce card here, and also doubles as a bleed enhancement, which is a good deal. By using it at superior DOMINATE, you can redirect bleeds to someone else, usually your prey, and be dome with it, you can only do this to a younger bleeding Vampire, and the fact that you have no free untap cards is a problem, and you might resort to using Special Report to handle big bleeds.

Vampires

NOT ENOUGH votes is what you will find in your crypt of Vampires. The Princes are huge, Hardstadt is fatter, and there are no vote enhancement to help your younger Vampires to become Princes. That said, only the smallest Vampire in the deck does not have a full complement of superior discipline that you need to work with, making every Vampire that you influence ready to handle every card that you have in hand (you don't really need superior PRESENCE in this deck, it serves almost no feasible purpose)

If you're not too absorbed by the existence of the vote cards, and focus a little more on bleeds, the 2 Princes are usually better investment than Hardstadt, since they can use Second Tradition, and their abilities are more useful. Gustav can hopefully help another of your Vampire to call forth a referendum with his 5 votes boost, and Gotsdam has an in-built combat end.

Where you go from here

With the selection of Vampires, you can go towards a vote-heavy deck easily. The Ventrues excels at voting, with a good range of vote-support master cards such as Ventrue Headquarters. Add in multiples of vote-support cards such as Bewitching Oration or Perfect Paragon, and remember to add in a lot of Voter Capitation if you intend to maximize your votes to bloat your pool. Move out some Vampires and add in a few cheaper titled Vampires - Marie Ann is an excellent Justicar if you intend to use Hardstadt; there are cheap Princes like Mustafa and Victor, whom can add significantly to your crypt's speed and votes.

If you intend to go bleed heavy, then you might want to consider younger Vampires with DOMINATE. It is pretty easy to form a DOMINATE weenie bleed with Ventrues as they have a good number of 3-5 cap DOMINATE-abled Vampires. Throw in another few young Caitiffs and/or !Ventrue and you have it. Add in bleed enhancers like Bonding and Conditioning, throw in DOMINATE master disciplines and voila! Go Dominate somebody.

Value for Money

No need to think, if you intend to get the most out of the starters in KOT, grab every single Ventrue Starter you can spot - Freak Drives, Golconda, Powerbase Montreal, Second Tradition... the problem is that you usually cannot find one in the store nowadays.

(o.o)y

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Keepers of Tradition Brujah

Keepers of Tradition Brujah Pre-Constructed Starters

The Brujah starter, in my opinion, is a good choice to go forth after one is familiar with the Malkavian starter's basic function. It moves along the learning path of Vtes into the more "interactive" aspect in the fields of Combat. With the Malkavians, there's usually not much to talk about to your opponents, but with the Burjah's mighty fists, you do have more say in negotiating for whatever you might need. The Brujah starters also truly exhibit the basics of melee combat - dodge, press, strike, taste, enter combat, strength changes, restart combat etc, this starter has it all.

How to Kill

Well, combat may be something this deck can do pretty ok, but it has only a single Tension in the Ranks to actually make your prey suffer for losing Vampires. On the other hand, the Brujahs do have access to some bleed cards this time, so they can do quite a bit of bleed damage once the blockers are either out of the way or too afraid to stand in the way.

Bruise bleed is the closest this deck comes to be archtyped. It has several means of entering combat and their combat cards are deadly enough to deal with light combat defenses. The 3 Public Trusts and the 2 high-cap Vampire's in-built bleed enhances should be enough to give your prey a little scare. So basically your Vampires need only to bleed and hope that the defender picks someone to die by your hands. If they are consistently bouncing your bleeds or reducing them to nothing, you can then use your Harass or Enrage to enter combat with them and end their misery. Like the traditional Brujahs, only a single KRCG provides Intercept in this deck so blocking is not exactly an option, and this deck is certainly not really able to block anything with Stealth, such as rescues. Well, just like a boxing match, when he stands up, beat him down again~

Combat and Defense

Combat is what this deck is all about, and this deck is specialized on close combat - meaning that your Vampires need to get close and personal, and make sure that the opponent's minions are not running away. This deck is not really well geared to fight opponents with manouever abilities, the only card capable of sending your Vampire screaming into close combat again is Slam, and it commits your strike plus costs a blood. It is a reasonably good strike though, causing 3 damage without any enhancement. You can use Resist Earth's Grasp too, and it also costs a blood, but if you look closely you'd notice that half of your Vampires cannot do one or the other. The lower cap Vampires are strangely, very charismatic people with good PRESENCE discipline but lack the necessary "punch" to use the combat cards efficiently, especially CELERITY cards. You only have 1 of each Master discipline card to enhance these little ones, so be careful with how you use them. The lower-cap Vampires are not as good fighters as you may think they are.

But before that, let's look at how your Vampires fight.

Generally, what gets you into combat are usually some random goons blocking your bleeds, or you enter combat with the card Harass or you commit 2 Vampires with Enrage (gives a +1 Strength, but generally not worth the effort unless you're sure of getting rid of the opposing minion). Once you get into combat, you play "Before-Range" cards, which are things you either do at home before any actions, or preperation done to enhance your chances, or stuff you can still do before coming face to face with an opponent. The key cards here is Torn Signpost. This card set your strength to either 2 or 3, depending on your level of POTENCE, and it is a key card in POTENCE combat as it increase your Vampires' potential damage tremendously - so if Adana is Enraged and holds a Torn Signpost, she will hit for 4 damage with her hand strikes. Note that Torn Signpost is NOT a WEAPON, and you can't Brute Force with it as a melee weapon. (Yes, I know it sounds stupid) The only other "Before Range" card is Weighted Walking Stick. This will place a Stick in the hands of your Vampires, and this IS a weapon until it's 5 counters run out. Do note that these counters are not limits to your damage capacity with this card - which means if you somehow hit for 6 damage the stick will still cause 6 damage and then runs out, it is NOT constrained by the 5 counters.

Once Before Range is decided, you go to range step. Unless somebody "Set" the range to short or long, you'll get to decide whether your Vampire will be fighting at close range (which is what you want) or throwing things at each other from far away (which is what you don't want). Setting range usually requires a card ability, the most famous one in this set is the Sniper Rifle, which will set range to long if the owner manage to block your Vampires. There is very little you can do at range, so please avoid getting into that situation. Otherwise, the default range is always short, and if the opposing minion use a card or ability to manouever to long, you can then use Slam or Resist Earth's Grasp to move back to close.

Once the range is decided, you can then choose your strikes. For your case, unless you've committed to Slam, you can now decide how you wanna pound your opponent if you're at close range. If you're at long, the only thing that makes any sense to you might be Stutter-Step. If you are at close, before choosing any strikes, you will need to consider whether or not to use one of the most prominant card in POTENCE - Immortal Grapple. By declaring Immortal Grapple, you're restricting both yours and the opponent's Vampires to use only hand strikes. And since your Vampire is probably full of damage enhancements that increase your hand strike damage, it is usually good for you. There are many dangerous non-hand strikes strikes that can cause you hours of headaches, the least of all are all the combat end cards, so you might want to use Immortal Grapple offensively to make sure that these Vampires are not going anywhere. On the other hand, certain disciplines have deadly strikes such as Coma and Entombment, which will send your Vampire to torpor directly, and in this case you'd need to use your Immortal Grapple defensively. The key issue here is that most decks who uses powerful strikes like these have no "plan B" which involves hand strikes so Immortal Grapple remains a key card that will appear in most POTENCE combat decks.

Now you can finally choose your strikes, and it is quite a no-brainer. Most of the time you'll be hitting with Brute Force, hopefully with a Weighted Walking Stick, or even better, a Sengir Dagger. After that, if the enemy is still standing, press for a second round of combat. You need to learn to decide when it is good to press, and when you're not in a good position to do so - it generally concerns the blood on your Vampire, as in whether or not your Vampire can survive a second round of combat with the enemy. Pressing is usually good for you since your Torn Signpost remains in place. Your key pressing card is either the ability granted by Harss (which will not be there if your Harass is blocked) or Relentless Pursuit which will give you 2 more cards, generally to help you alleviate the problem created by Brute Force. You can Psyche! if you want, but that is usually used to start a new combat where everything is reset - meaning, no Torn Signpost. This card is generally used to deal with Combat Ends. Do note that if you played Immortal Grapple at superior you do get a press, and it skips the determine range step, and your battle start straight at close - very handy.

The other card to take note of is Taste of Vitae. This card allows your Vampire to gain back blood loss in combat during combat. Basically you drain every point of damage that you deal to the enemy (provided he has blood) and turn them into your own. Do note that if the enemy did not have enough blood to heal all the damage you caused, then you only taste back what he had, ie. if Gem only has 2 blood and you caused 3 points of damage to her, she goes to torpor and you can only taste 2 blood back. Taste of Vitae are to be declared at the end of every round before pressing, so do remember to do so.

Combat is your defense. Just go pound your predator's troublesome Vampire into torpor.

Equipment

This deck has a few melee weapons. They're quite self-explanatory. Use Nod to transfer the equipment around your Vampires as needed, but generally they're just icing on the cake, you don't really need them to make your prey suffer. The 2 exceptions are Drum of Xipe Totec and Sengir Dagger. The Drum will allow your lower end Vampire to get Superior CELERITY and a free manouever - very handy; and the Sengir Dagger is your only source of aggravated damage.

If you really need that equipment you can use Resist Earth's Grasp to increase the stealth, though I think that is usually better reserved for bleeds or even enter combat cards.

Vampires

This deck works with the fat ones. Your younger ones are probably just out early to create some distraction. The good thing is Adana and Jann both have the perfect spread of disciplines for this deck, comes with bleed enhancement, and doesn't need to spend blood for combat cards (Jann will need to pay for Resist Earth's Grasp, but that's the only one)

The younger Vampires are lacking in CELERITY, and sometimes even POTENCE, so they're not really good at combat until you put a weapon on them. So for this deck, you target to bring out Tomaine first, any of the high-cap Vampires second, and then go on to the weenies. Of course, alter this as you need, since the table mechanics will and do cause disruptions to your plans.

Handy Trick

Enrage at superior is pretty annoying to your predator's bleeding Vampires. Do try it once in a while.

Where you go from here

This is a combat deck. Case closed.

For most POTENCE/CELERITY combat decks, this deck lacks in CELERITY strike cards. If you want to go that way, remove most of the low cap Vampires in this deck and exchange them with Vampires that have a better spread of disciplines - for example, Lynn Thompson and Paul Calderone. Throw in a few more Master discipline cards to enhance your lower end Vampires. Some of the equipment in the deck is not efficient, in fact, I'll probably remove most of them since they takes up space and slow down decks - even Weighted Walking Stick is not really that needed. Move in more Torn Signpost and Immortal Grapple, maybe a few Undead Strength to replace Brute Force if you don't like the hand size restriction. Add in CELERITY movement and additional Strike cards such as Pursuit, Flash, Nimble Feet and Blur. With these combinations the Brujahs can fight close or long, they're pretty good at both, decide what you like and then go get those cards that do well there.

If you like high-cap Vampires and their combat capabilities, you might want to look at combat monsters like Hector or Gratius, and then add in cards to help them survive - such as Sideslip or even Leather Armour or the new Kelvar Vest.

You can also go vote heavy with the Brujah. Throw in the new princes, add in vote cards, utilized the Second Tradition for defense. This is called the Euro-Prince archtype. KoT added the New Carthage and it makes the Brujah Princes even deadlier.

Value for Money

The Brujah starter is quite a bit more valuable than the Malkavians, especially to players who fancy a combat approach. It has many of the staple but slightly costly cards - Immortal Grapple, Torn Signpost, Taste of Vitae etc. But it lacks truly expensive cards that the Toreador and Ventrue starters provide. But for anyone who wants to start a POTENCE combat deck, just grab a couple of these and you're more than halfway there.

(o.o)y

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Keepers of Tradition Malkavian

Keepers of Tradition Malkavian Pre-Constructed Starter The first of the starters that I worked on for the Keepers of Tradition set. No, it has very little to do with the gorgeous Gem Ghastly's protrait on the cover, it has absolutely nothing to do with the adore and longing that I have for this pretty Vampiric girl and all her glorious beauty, nor with her exotic and wild look that is completely different from all the other starter artwork that I've seen. I started on the Malkavian Starter because it is supposed to be the easiest starter for new players to work with - afterall, it is a stealth bleeder, isn't it? Like all base set starter groups, stealth bleed is usually the domain of the Malkavians or their Sabbat counterpart. This pre-con is no different. And it is very well geared to be a starter to teach new players how to play Vtes, albeit in the most fundamental way - it does illustrates a few key concepts in the game with the card mix that it has - blood expense, pool gain and the usage of stealth and intercept. Once you've grasped the fundamentals of playing this deck well, the Brujah will be a good follow up to understand combat and why your Vampires keep dying to other Methuselah's combat monsters. I think White Wolf has it all thought out. How to Kill Simple, bleed. Stealth through and bleed like there's no tomorrow. Well, there is nothing much you'd need to do besides that anyway, so, just bleed. Bleed with Kindred Spirit whenever you can, preferably with superior DEMENTATION to get that +1 Bleed (I don't really agree with the new artwork, but that explains the "gain 1 pool" part of the card). When the opponent declares a block, stealth through with your myraid hand of stealth cards - preferably in this order - Into Thin Air, Veil the Legions, Deny if necessary (or able). Note that Veil the Legions is to be used by another untapped Vampire rather than the acting minion - which is a great way to exhibit action modifiers operated by minions other than the acting one, thus paving the way for the new player to get used to cards such as Cloak the Gathering and Fast Reaction. Kindred Spirit will be a chance to understand the bleeding relationship between predator and prey and the (most common) exception to it, this is most often illustrated by Kindred Spirit's "offensive negotiation" by bleeding (or even ousting) predator or any other Methuselah that one finds offensive to look at. This is a great way to highlight the need to negotiate in Vtes, and the resources one can use to do so.

Bleed enhancers is another key element that the new player will get to learn to use. Basically the Eye of Chaos is the only one, so it's a little lacking in highlighting multiple enhances. Of course, given Tryphosa, Forgery and Kindred Spirit, the player will have a bit of math to do with every bleed - this will help him understand the intricacies of bleeding. Spying Mission helps in avoiding bounces as well as a "storing" alternative to make your bleeds even stronger later. Learn to "bleed responsibly", meaning that if your prey bounced your bleed somewhere else, usually to your ally or your grand prey, use Change of Target or Spying Mission to avoid bleeding for your prey. This is an important tactics for stealth bleeders. Tryphosa, the Malkavian Prince is an interesting addition to this deck, as it exhibits global effects on Malkavians, and the changes that it brings to a deck. It also creates the opportunity to relate blood cost to the player, and the power of a blanket +1 Stealth. To support this Vampire's ability, as well as some other cards that require blood - for example, Veil the Legions and Voice of Madness, there are actually quite a good number of cards that add blood to a Vampire - Cooler, Life in the City, The Coven and the mighty Giant's Blood. You can also use Forgery to bleed and gain back the blood cost. Do remember that the moment Tryphosa hits the table, ALL your bleed actions cost 1 blood, regardless of whether you're using a card or not, and whether you like it or not - you will lose the option the moment she comes to play so time her entrance well or you may end up slowing down your momentum. This is an interesting notion to new players to consider. But this deck lacks the number of cold bodies for you to bleed very quickly for your VP, so some level of defense is provided to prolong the unlife of your Vampires. That includes combat cards but probably more importantly, cards to avoid combat. Combat and Defense The only combat card in this deck is Glancing Blow. It is only marginally useful against the most unprepared combat opponent (or the very specialized). It is however, a good example of how to prevent damage. Not that the Malkavians is particularly good at that, and probably not really a good show of how it works (one should get the Ventrue starter for a show of that). But hey, you get what you get.

The most important component of the defense in this deck is actually the cards which avoid combat altogether. Shattered Mirror and Voice of Madness can be used to avoid combat after a successful block. You can keep a Vampire or two (if you can afford it, or you're expecting a major offense from your predator) untapped to deal with any attacks, and you have the Spirit's Touch to help you add that precious +1 Intercept to deal with light stealth. Keep in mind that Spirit's Touch provides a manouever for you, which might or might not save your Vampire's hide. But nothing is safer than making sure that the combat doesn't occur in the first place. Learn to choose between Voice and Shattered as you play along (provided you actually get to choose). Remember that this pre-con is pretty offense-oriented, so the best offense is usually the best defense. Take note of the Sleep of Reason. If you spot a Vampire that you can send to torpor with it, do so with your stealth, it really helps since you can also block their rescue if you have the right cards. As with all the new KoT starters, you might actually randomly end up with enough votes to survive a blood hunt referendum to allow your Vampires to diablerize the torpored Vampire.

You might also get to use Elysium : Arboretum once in a while if you face a Camarilla-heavy enemy, but you shouldn't be counting on that too much. Bleeding the Vine is another interesting card, but will really take some practise to use, so for new players, I'd recommend that you keep that card in the ash heap for the time being, or just use it in the turn you brought it in and forget about it unless you have so much pool you don't know what to do with them - but if you really have to, focus on canceling those cards that provide Intercepts for your opponents, or even pool gain cards such as Blood Dolls or Vessels played by your prey, definitely cancel those Haven Uncovered or direct combat cards (such as Contract) played on your Vampires as this is the weakest aspect of this deck.

Hand

Cards in your hand is a resource, but too many of the same card is a liability. Remember that this deck requires a good mix of stealth, bleed action, bleed enhancers, and at certain times, blood gain and defense. But you'll have to judge when it is considered too many and when you should hoard a certain card. For example, if you have 6 Kindred Spirits in hand, but you don't see any blockers that is able to generate Intercepts and you already have Tryphosa on table, you might consider to just hold these Kindred Spirits in hand (afterall, you only have 6 in this deck, and it is the most powerful bleed card that you have). On the other hand, in the same situation, and you have 4 Glancing Blows in hand, then you really should get rid of a few if you're not expecting some attacks.

You only have 1 discard phase every turn, but Learjet will help in drawing more cards for every use, and therefore cycling through your hand with more "forced discards". Note the line "you may draw" so there is no need to draw more and discard if you have everything you need in hand (unlikely, but, well, it happens)

Vampires

All the KoT starters (like most pre-cons) aren't that fantastic with crypt choice. This is exceptionally true in this one. The fat Vampires in this starter are not good investment to bring out since you do not really have lots of defense. Granted, you don't always come up against opponents that are really good at pounding your Vampires into bloody mess everytime they look your way (In fact, it is pretty rare to come across these over here), but even non-combat decks may be able to randomly put your Vampire into torpor once in a while, and losing an Inner circle with 11 pool investment might just cost you your game. Also, this deck is action-reliant rather than discipline-reliant, meaning that the more Vampires one has, the more damage it can do to your prey, and it is generally better and easier for a weenie stealth bleeder to work than a fat stealth bleeder (especially in the case of a starter deck)

In this case, the lower end Vampires in this deck, Morel not included, lacks one key discipline or the other (Cassandra lacks OBFUSCATE and Florentina doesn't have DEMENTATION), making them lacking in one area or the other. The bigger Vampires are also constrained as Tryphosa will demand that the deck is ready for her; Aleister doesn't have superior OBFUSCATE; and the power of Lutz is quite irrelevant and at best, a random bonus if there's a vote deck on the table. So in this crypt, the best option is to bring out Morel whenever he is available, with Aleister a second choice as you have 2 OBFUSCATE master discipline card to make him better (and at inferior OBFUSCATE he can still do enough damage against light intercept preys). You can then go on to Florentina and/or Cassandra depending on your hand and the situation. Despite her problem, Tryphosa will actually make all your bleeds a lot easier. So if your Vampires are ok with blood management, you can get her out at the right time. Lutz is really not very worth it unless you're desperate for his +2 Bleed. Don't ever bring out 2 fat Vampires (namely Tryphosa and Lutz) at the same time unless you're in such a great position. (or you have no choice)

Where you go from here

One has 2 major options with these Malkavians. One can go stealth bleed and decide on mid-fat bleeds or weenie bleeds. For weenie it is pretty simple. Just get the ARDB and weed out all the 4 cap and below that comes with OBFUSCATE and/or DEMENTATION. Load up a good number of Kindred Spirit and Stealth cards, plus some bleed enhancement like Confusion and Eye of Chaos, throw in some Master Disciplines and get a good mix of library by trial and error; and you're good to go. Since you don't really have to bother about clan purity here, it will probably be a mix of Malkavians and !Malkavians. For this concept, besides the lower cap Vampires that you need to gather, you'll need more stealth cards and bleed enhancers.

You can also create a weenie centered around Tryphosa. In this case you might need some blood recovery cards such as Hunting Ground or even Club Zombie. Kindred Spirit can replendish your pool pretty quickly so reverse Blood Dolls might be an option too. These cards slots can be salvaged from the lesser reliance on stealth cards. You however, do need to have some way to get Tryphosa out quickly and defend her if necessary. You can either block with your other weenies, or slot in a few No Trace and/or Behind You! for combat defense. With fat Vampires like Tryphosa you can delicate her to defensive projects that utilised bounce cards such as Telepathic Misdirection or My Enemy's Enemy. Or she can use Shattered Mirror or Voice of Madness to block and avoid combat. With a crypt that relies on her, you might need 4 copies of her (or more) in the crypt.

Bigger Malkavians do have other options. To make it more toolboxy the Malkavians can work with some mid-cap or even high-cap Vampires to create a stronger defense. Traditionally Malkavians and !Malkavians can utilise their high Intercept ability and use Rotschreck plus Disguised Weaponed aggravated weapons such as Ivory Bow (I think the Ivory Bow in the Toreador starter should belong here, the Toreadors have too many guns for their own good already) and Flamethrowers to deter or eliminate attackers. Another card that you can look at for such a direction is Milicent Smith, since it is a favourite among stealth blockers that can block well and stealth well. Decks like these will probably work with mid-cap Vampires for more AUSPEX and discipline spread, and do pack more defensive cards.

The Malkavians also have access to the Madness Network. But that is a totally different animal and requires a completely different set of Vampires and cards, so new players might want to keep away from that for the time being. However, it is one hell of a deadly concept. There are other interesting Malkavian possibilities, like Malkavian Prank decks, Deranged with Social Ladder and so on, which makes the Malkavians one of the more interesteing clans to play with.

Value for Money

The KoT starters are made for value. All of the KoT starters have enough valuable cards (by today's value on ebay) to make buying anyone of them more or less worth it, especially if you needed those cards. For example, all KoT starters have 3 On the Qui Vive and 2 Vessels, and these alone would cost you about US$4-6 if you buy these off ebay individually. Of course, now that the KoT starters pack so many of these in them, the price of these cards will drop over time. I'm guessing that it'll take about another 2-3 months or so for the prices to be stabilized enough to get a better idea of the value of these starters, but at the moment they're really quite worth it to buy.

Among these the Malkavian starters are actually the least valuable. It has the standard compliment of cards, but besides that pack quite few other "valuable" cards when compared to the others. It has a Giant's Blood, 2 Deny, a Coven, and you can consider Bleeding the Vine of some value, plus some lower end cards such as Change of Target and Spying Mission. But besides that it has not much more.

One major change in the KoT starters is that the Vampires in the starters are now only available in the starters. And since they all contain Inner Circles, it will make Inner Circles of these 4 clans exclusive to the starters, and technically they'll eventually be worth a little bit. But we have no indication that they'll be of any value in the short run. (perhaps in the future then)

(o.o)y

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Third Edition Tzimisce

Third Edition Tzimisce Pre-Contructed Starter

Due to the few expensive cards available in this starter, the Tzimisce starter deck used to be one of the more popular stater to buy - mostly because of the War Ghoul. Despite the competition from newer starters, this deck continues to be one of the most value for money starter where card value is concerned. Also, for anyone who's interested to play Tzimisce, this deck is a good place to start, it has some of the staple VICISSITUDE cards, and the deck is quite focused where playstyle is concerned. A good buy for anyone wanting to start Tzimisce.

How to Kill

This deck is a wall deck, means it blocks people, and then torpor those minions, depriving your prey/predator of any actions to do (and incidentally, any defense against you). This deck is very much combat in nature, but as a starter deck, there is still much to desire on the combat elements of the deck. But it works, to a certain degree.

The Vampires in the deck are quite fat, and there are not enough small Vampires to weenie bleed your prey, even if he has no Vampires to defend against you. The number of bleed enhancing cards are quite minimal, and they are not heavy enhancers, so bleeding is going to take a supportive role in this deck. You can try to use Fame to get off some pool of your prey. First, put Fame on one of his Vampires, preferably someone you're confident of getting rid of, attack him with Rumble, or block his actions, send him to torpor and your prey will lose 3 pool and subsequently everyone will lose 1 pool every turn (including you). Rescue his Vampire from torpor, make it spend the 2 blood (yes, you can do that), or spend it if you think you can afford it, and then block his hunt, or do something to it to torpor it again, making your prey lose 3 more pool everytime you do this. Not the most efficient way to kill for this deck, but hey, it's an option.

You also have the card Smiling Jack, the Anarch, as a support card to kill off your prey. This card, however, affects everybody, and you might draw some table interference this way. What it does is that it will make you commit one pool every turn, but everybody else loses blood and/or pool equals to the accumulated counters you put on the card. After a while, this card is quite painful to others. But it might be a problem for you too unless you can afford that loss of 1 pool to feed it every turn - I have seen Methuselahs die to their own Smiling Jacks before - so be prudent in its use. Also remember that it can be burnt, and people will want to burn it, so be prepared to defend it when you play it.

But this deck has a good defense, so I guess if you torpored everybody, you can probably ask them to concede, or just bleed them slowly to death after a while.

So you see, this deck is about blocking everything your prey does, (and your predator if he even look at your pool), punish his Vampires for trying to do them, and then do what you like to his pool since he has absolutely nobody to say no to you. To do that, you have to learn to use your intercepts, and fight with VICISSITUDE combat.

Combat

So obviously, combat is very important in this deck. The Tzimisce fight with their unique discipline of VICISSITUDE, and complement it with ANIMALISM. AUSPEX is for them to see what your enemies are doing, and react accordingly. VICISSITUDE combat, in a nutshell, is about aggravated damage and prolonged battle.

Aggravated damage is simple, just look at the opponent's vampire, and if you think he's unable to dodge or prevent the damage from your strike, use Body Arsenal or Breath of the Dragon to send it directly to torpor. Prolonged battle in this deck is a little tricky, as it lacks the sheer number of required combat cards to make it really consistent. But it has enough to show you the options you may want to look at in the future.

Horrid Form is one of the more common means of prolonged battle. What it does is it gives your Vampire a +1 Strength, as well as prevent 1 damage PER ROUND of combat. The only thing you need to do then is to supply your Vampire with presses to continue this combat round after round, until the opponent goes torpor while you prevent the damage that the opponent can dish out. This is very good if you play multiple Horrid Forms - meaning you get +multiple Strength, and prevents multiple points of damage. The blood cost is a problem for this deck, since every Horrid Form costs your Vampire 1 blood. You can use Inner Essence to help pay a little for this, but it hardly makes it viable here. Normally you use Path of Metamorphosis to circumvent the cost of blood, you might want to get a copy or 2 to add into this deck later.

Another mean of prolonged battle in this deck is with Bonecraft and then get into combat or block the minion to slowly whittle it's blood level down while not suffering any damage yourself. The deck's reliance on Starvation of Marena is again, not efficient, since the deck lacks good manuoever cards in quantity. If not, you can always use Drawing out the Beast, and then manouever to long and strike with Starvation, since the opponent cannot get back to short. Well, not really do-able in this deck at the moment.

On the other hand, you can recruit the War Ghoul, and get it to enter combat every round with some of your opponent's minion. The War Ghoul is a deadly ally, able to hit for 4, and prevents 1 damage per round - very few minions can stand up to it. Do remember that in order for it to come out, you must have a retainer or the Neighbourhood Watch Commander already in play, and is prepared to sacrifice it. (usually not an issue)

Defense

This deck can block rather well. Quite a good number of AUSPEX intercept cards are included. Remember to read them carefully, they're meant to be used differently. Enhanced Senses is a straight forward intercepe supply, but is able to give you a good +2 Intercept with one card. Spirit's Touch gives you an optional manuoever to use with your Starvation of Marena. Guard Dogs are similar, but can only be used when attempting to block a bleed. Be very prudent with your Eagle's Sight, it is the only card that allows you to ignore normal blocking protocol. Meaning that it allows you to block your prey (or anybody else you don't like) - for example, if your prey decided to committ a 1 blood Sha-Ennu to bleed his prey, and his prey will die from it, you can play Eagle's Sight, and block Sha-Ennu as if you're the prey. (Which, if you don't have Eagle's Sight, you can't do that) What this does is that, not only did you prevent him from killing his prey and hence making you do that extra work of bleeding another 6 in order to oust him, but also giving you a chance, (not to mention the surprise) to actually kill off one of his Vampires. Try not to use Eagle's Sight for that +1 Intercept, it is quite a waste, but don't hesistate to if it makes sense to you.

The Raven Spies and Revenant are good permanet intercepts that you should slap on your Vampire as soon as possible, these will save you many intercept cards, and in many ways, make your opponent think twice before doing anything at all.

Where you go from here

Oh, many possibilities. Tzimisce are mostly combat decks, so it is natural for you to look that way. To make the current deck feasible, you can consider making it into a Horrid Form deck. Get many more Horrid Forms, somemore Intercepts, maybe about 10 Chiropteran Marauder, most importantly, a few Path of Metamorphosis, and you're cool to go. You can then add in some Raven Spies and Revenant for permanent intercepts to reduce the need for Intercept cards. Support your deck with some ANIMALISM cards - Cat's Guidance for the untaps, Army of Rats for the damage, and even a couple of Drawing out the Beast for handling troublesome equipment. Always include 1-2 Canine Hordes for the inevitable service that they render.

If you're rich enough to consider an ally deck - the War Ghoul is a most attractive path to go. For this you'll need quite a few of them, maybe 8-10? Get a Charisma that I heard is included in the reprint of the Keepers of Tradition, replace your fat Vampires with smaller ones and you're good to go. You will also need some generic combat cards to make sure your War Ghouls can land their punches well - Fake Outs, for example.

Value for Money

Due to the few more sorted-after cards in this starter, it is a good deck to buy in terms of investment if you need those cards:

1 x War Ghoul

2 x Horrid Form

1 x Smiling Jack, the Anarch

1 x Club Zombie

1 x Breath of the Dragon

1 x Festivo dello Estinto

2 x Eagle's Sight

One thing's for sure, this is the most financially feasible deck to buy in the Third Edition.

(o.o)y

Compendium of Resources Extraordinary : Third Edition Tremere Antitribu

Third Edition Tremere Antitribu Pre-Constructed Starter

The Tremeres and Tremere Antitribus are a very exciting clan, as they are able to do quite a few things well. THAUMATURGY is a great discipline, throw in DOMINATE and AUSPEX, and you have a clan that is able to do combat, intercept, and bleed rather well. I've always liked my deck to be as toolboxy as possible, and hence the Tremere and their Sabbat counterpart are one of my favourite clans. This particular pre-con did highlight the flexibility of the Tremere Antitribu rather well, and is a good deck to buy if you plan on starting Tremere Antitribu, or Tremere~

How to Kill

This deck is primarily a bleed deck, with some bruise element, and it is probably one of the most combaty deck in the 3rd Ed pre-con selection. You can't really oust by combat alone since the deck lacks the combat ousting cards (pretty much completely) but with a good hand this deck actually plays quite competitively.

One way to kill is to bleed with your DOMINATE actions. Govern the Unaligned is a great card. In fact, it is probably one of the best cards that you can get your hands on in this starter. At basic, your Vampires will be able to bleed for 3 before modifiers, and in the hands of Paul Cordwood, you can just remove one card from your crypt to make this action +1 stealth. If you're facing only starter decks, and if you have a Bonding in hand, you're almost guaranteed a 4 bleed with +2 Stealth, which is something that most pre-cons cannot easily recover from. (Even comepetitive decks will not scoff at a 4 bleed, do beware of Archon Investigation though, and it might be wiser to just keep to 3 bleeds)

Threats and Bonding or even Dominate Kine will help your Vampires bleed your prey to death. Among all the pre-cons in 3rd Ed, only the !Malkavians can bleed as well as you, and that's because some of their Vampires have in-built bleed enhancers. But unlike them, your main path of getting your bleeds through will be your combat ability.

THAUMATURGY combat will need a little time to get used to, especially if you have never come across it. It has the unique ability to steal blood rather than hit for damage where the opposing Vampire will burn blood to heal. This is how it works. The key combat card here will be these 3 cards : Apportation, Theft of Vitae and Walk of Flame. A very common THAUMATURGY combat package, at it's simplest form, goes like this -

1. Move to long with superior Apportation, repeat if needed, this is mostly to avoid Immortal Grapples or aggravated close combat with the opponent. You can stay close if you do not have superior THAUMATURGY, but it is less efficient, and is more risky for your Vampires.

2. Strike with Theft of Vitae to steal up to 2 blood from the opposing Vampire. This is not a damage, and therefore cannot be prevented with FORTITUDE cards, or other stuff that target damage, such as Leather Jacket. The opposing Vampire will lose those blood, and your Vampire will gain the same amount. If your Vampire is suffering damage from the opposing Vampire's strike, you can use these "stolen blood" to heal, and not go torpor. For example, if you only have 1 blood, and the opposing Vampire hit you for 2 damage, but you Theft of Vitae for 1 blood, you will end up with zero blood, but you are not in torpor. Also note that, if the opposing Vampire do not have enough blood on him, you will not be able to steal "extra" even if the card says so. For example, if Uta strikes at Patrick with Theft of Vitae, attempting to steal 2 blood from him, but Patrick only has 1 blood on him, Uta is going to steal only 1 blood. THIS STEALING IS NOT A DAMAGE and it WILL NOT send the opposing Vampire into torpor even if they have no blood on them. Which brings you to step 3

3. You press for the next round of combat using Apportation.

4. This time, you can either continue to steal blood with Theft of Vitae, or use Walk of Flame to torpor or burn the opposing Vampire.

More about combat later.

This deck allows you to bleed heavily, and if you're blocked, send the opposing Vampire to torpor, and then bleed them heavily when he has no defense. This is the primary ousting path of the deck.

Combat

Besides the standard THAUMATURGY combat described above, you should pay attention to the following cards : Weather Control and Blood Rage.

Weather Control is another key card that many THAUMATURGY combat decks use. What it does is that it will be used at the Before Range step to cause one UNPEVENTABLE damage to each minion and retainer in the combat. Imagine the whole battlegrond being ravaged by tornados and lightning strikes and everybody suffers, including yourself. The issue here is that your Vampire can get those blood back with Theft of Vitae, theirs can't. It also kills off most retainers efficiently, as these retainers have no means of preventing these damage. Generally, 2 rounds of Weather abuse will kill off pretty much any retainer in combat, very handy against those pesky Raven Spies and Raptors. The decision to use Weather Control at superior or inferior depends on the situation and the relative health of your Vampire. You'll need to learn to assess the threat level of your opponent to decide on that. So, to use this card effectively, you just need to add it to the combat cycle highlighted above, and the opposing Vampire might not even get to strike resolution in round 2.

Blood Rage is a hand strike that will prevent damage from enemy's weapons, as well as disallow FORTITUDE cards to prevent it's damage. In this particular deck you have no Biothaumatrugic Experiment and no Vampires with enhanced strength, so this card isn't that much of a deal. But if you're facing FORTITUDE decks, this would be a great card to damage their Vampires, especially if they've lose all their blood to your Theft of Vitae.

Defense

This deck can block rather well too. Spirit's Touch, Enhanced Senses and Eternal Vigilance (note that this card can only be used by Lucubratio and Ladislas, discard it if you don't have them in play), make you the most viable deck to intercept the !Malkavian starter deck.

You can also use Redirection to bounce bleeds away to your prey if you like. And in general, you have no issue when you get into a fight.

Take a look at Rutor's Hand. This may look like a very expensive card to use, but do not underestimate the value of an extra untap every turn. You can get those blood back in combat anyway, so if you can, Rutor's Hand one of your bigger Vampire, and he can both bleed, and then untap to prepare your defenses - it's almost like having an extra clone of him - it's generally worth the investment.

Where you go from here

If you are ok with the toolboxy approach of the starter, you can start by getting rid of the vote cards, add in more bleed cards, and perhaps a few more combat cards. You can consider Deflections if you can get them, and replace or augment your Redirections. Spirit Summoning Chamber is a reasonably good search card for you to have too. Throw out the Threats and replace with Conditioning, they're more efficient.

You might want to tune your crypt a little, depends on which route you want to go. If you want to focus on combat, you should focus on Uta Korvacs, and maybe look to the Tremeres to add in some good Vampires from their selection - Hector Trelane comes to mind. You can then add in more Graverobbing, some combat oust cards like Fame and Tension in the Ranks. You might need a lot more Theft of Vitae, as many as 8-15 copies, and just as many Apportations. You can also consider 1 or 2 Rotschreck with Walk of Flame, just to be fun.

You can also go weenie DOMINATE bleeds with the deck, and you'll need to add in a lot more bleed cards and get rid of the bigger Vampires and replace them with small ones. This one is quite easy to achieve but you probably cannot stick to the Antitribus alone.

The Tremere Antitribus boast the Vampire Malgorzata, and she is often the key Vampire for a beginning !Tremere deck. I'll leave you to figure her out. She is kinda cool to play.

Value of the Deck

The !Tremere Antitribu deck is more valuable than the other 2 that I've discussed. It has some reasonably rare and good value cards in the deck to warrant a buy. Not exactly the best investment if money is what you're looking at, there are better starters to buy. But unlike the previous 2 starters, you'll probably get your money back with this one.

1 x Golconda, Inner Peace

1 x Helicoptor

1 x Infernal Pact

2 x On the Qui Vive

1 x Dominate Kine

2 x Uta Korvacs

(o.o)y