Adopt a newbie

most common beginner mistake in my opinion: playing combat just for the sake of combat. they have fun doing it, but can't figure out a path to score the VPs. newbies don't realize that combat is like stealth or titles -- a means to an end. your combat needs to be part of your plan for pool damage.

... even if that plan gets screwed up or countered, at least you gave some thought to ousting your prey. and that means you'll still have a chance at winning.

"I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - the girl on the Zip Line card

We had some players in our group a few years back who never got past the "combat is everything" part of the game for a year and a half. But, oir meta is historically so combat and block heavy, a fame and some dumb luck, often with someone elses dragonbound and tension, those players often got vps, just not tables. Caught up in an arms race alot, with the exxeption of a guy who just wanted to super agg punch with gangrel. He once made me have to use Erinyi and a rock car with a camera phone to oust my prey, just by torping all my other gargolyes then losing half his gangrel in doing it....

On blocking: only bother trying to block stealthbleed if you can generate 4-6 intercept easily, and can also block more actions this turn. That govern or kindred spirits bleex of 2-3? Yea, itll stay that without conditioning or eyes of chaos. But letting your predator play stealth means they will draw these things fastwr, makimg each 3 bleed a 6 and so on. Letting them choke on stealth cards and backrushing a tad will let you get alot of milage out of your pool.
Also, some minions arent as important as youd think. If you can diablerize a huge threat and only lose a < 4 cap, it may be worth thinking on.

Wow, thanks guys. I learned a lot from your generous responses. I was impressed as I thought my message was totally uninteresting.

One of the things I was surprised to learn was that bleeding (which is, after all, the main goal of the game) is more complex than expected. I usually hit my prey with my best shot each round, especially at the beginning, not often making enemies, but losing a lot of momentum when the more important rounds begin. I’ll start slowly next time. I never saw an Archon Investigation in a game but sure will be careful in the future. Thanks Klaital, Kombainas, Juggernaut1981 and ReverendRevolver for those tips.

I don’t know why I have a fascination on guns. Like Lönkka hypothesised, I have been destroyed a few times by decks with guns and thought it was a must in almost any decks. Since the “fast hands” strategy to get guns without paying for it. I am surprised that weapons are not that popular. Just found “Ivory Bow”, 1R aggravated with a “1 pool” cost. I would have packed my decks with it. I Thanks again Klaital and Jamesatzephir for the advice.

I learned rapidly that combat is (to quote Haze) a means to an end and not the main goal of the game. I never had real fun playing heavy-combat decks and found that I was helping more my “grandprey” than myself. Reading Juggernaut1981’s and ReverendRevolver’s comments reminded me of a question I had on “obliterating vampires”:

7. I rarely see vampires “diablorised” in our games. I know that you must analyse the “cost/benefits” of such actions and I understand that you do not send a 10-cap justicar to diablorize a 2-cap weenie. But how often do you burn other vampires? In which conditions? And how often do you survive the following blood hunt?

7b. (and a newbie game rule question: is there a blood hunt if Archon Investigation – or kind-of-indirect action - cause the death of another vampire? Is a blood hunt only when another vampire is diablorised or automatically when another vampire is “killed”?)

Even if I already understood that combat is not the main goal of the game and bleeding is, I love both Juggernaut1981’s and Jamesatzephyr’s comments. Yeah, my prey is left, VP is left and 6 pool is left and I tend to forget that. I also have to understand that VPs are the goal of the game, and not being the last player on the table. Since I rarely have one VP, this is a tip for the upcoming months when I get a better understanding of the table dynamics. Kombainas, Dasein and ICL are right: I need understand and analyse what cards do, what clans are capable of and what to eventually block.

About blocking:

8. Do you always have some stealth and intercept in your decks? Like you already know, clans are balanced so that no one can be good at combat/political/stealth/bleed/intercept at the same time. Do you compensate for your lack of stealth and intercept in your decks? Let say you work on a Ventrue deck. Do you add sport bikes, for example, to add some intercept?

It has been so interesting to read about the cards you always have in your decks. I did not know many of them. I loved Villein, (until I found out that they cost 20$ on eBay!) I usually pack some Govern, but use it to move some blood to my uncontrolled region instead of bleeding with them. If possible, I always have redirection/deflection/…- kind of card in my deck. I love them and find them so impressively effective. Can we do anything to counter them?

We have a 90-card deck rule, (with a maximum of 4 of the same card, which I thought was an official rule until I found the deck archives (like Lönkka suggested). Jeff Kuta is right as I always have a hard time figuring out how to optimize my deck, because as Jamesatzephyr and ILC wrote, card cycling (and the capacity to do so) is what I am the most afraid. Did not know of Dreams of the Sphinx, but even so, I always find myself with 100+ cards in a potential deck, not wanting to lack anything and not knowing what to remove and what I am missing. Thank you Jeff for your advice on Jay Kristoff. I always find my readings on deck archives difficult as I have no ideas what exactly to look for. I will also take Lönkka’s advice in checking winning decks.

Finally, what I will analyse in the next few weeks is how to build a good crypt. If I take Kombainas’ advice on allocating 50% (15) of my pool to my crypt, that does not give a lot of room for vampires with titles in a political deck. Out of curiosity:

9. Usually, how many vampires do you put in play in a game?

Thank you! My game is next Sunday, I will try not to "do stupid shit", I promise.

Mark

P.S. Thanks TORRANCECIRCLE for the link. I already read that “Happy Family” theory, but was surprised to notice that some cards are dedicated to the 3rd or even 4th most popular discipline. Do you use that “theory”?
P.S. (2): Special thanks Dasein, I loved your insights on blocking (especially on how to let your prey spend blood to save a vampire in torpor, and intercept when that saved vampire with 0 blood need to hunt.

But how often do you burn other vampires? In which conditions? And how often do you survive the following blood hunt?

Not that often. To reliably burn vampires you have to win the following bloodhunt referendum. One way is to have more votes than others (vote-lock). Needless to say, combat and voting are different focuses, so it is somewhat limited. The more usual way is to convince that burning someone is for the benefit of the table. It is better if someone else takes the risk, and take the risk of deal-breaking if you do it yourself.

7b. (and a newbie game rule question: is there a blood hunt if Archon Investigation – or kind-of-indirect action - cause the death of another vampire? Is a blood hunt only when another vampire is diablorised or automatically when another vampire is “killed”?)

No, since, strictly speaking, the Archons burn them. Think of it in this way, if there is no culprit, there is no referendum to call on.

Do you compensate for your lack of stealth and intercept in your decks?

This depends on the deck focus. If you spread focus thin, you cannot rely much on it. In principle, stealth is more useful if you don't do much in combat, and intercept if you do. Think before spreading thin, whether this adds to your core mechanic, or just is a cornercase/makes your core mechanism unreliable.

Can we do anything to counter them?

Yes, but these cards need to be tailored to your deck. Say, you can use Direct Intervention to cancel a bounce to you, but how many slots/master phases do you want to spend on it. Most simple way is just to bounce it further, and only if you can't with your crypt, you better get creative!

If it is you bleeds that get bounced, you can use Spying Mission to minimize the damage, or cancel the card played with other means. Yet again, highly dependent on what disciplines/clans are available for your deck.

I always find myself with 100+ cards in a potential deck

Try making 60 card versions first, with just the core mechanics. As you become familiar with it and it works reliably, add more cards which, with your experience would have helped you to score more VPs or survive longer without diminishing your core set of cards. This part is mostly dependent on your metagame, as silver bullets can make you win games, but are worth it only as long as you can win games not needing the silver bullets at all.

If I take Kombainas’ advice on allocating 50% (15) of my pool to my crypt, that does not give a lot of room for vampires with titles in a political deck.

From that point you have to think "can I really afford more vampires?" If a heavy bleeder is behind you, probably not. If you have a Villein in hand, you probably can, as you empty the vampire and gain the pool spent on him back. If you have a reliable pool gain engine, you can probably influence non-stop and going low on pool. Just as long as you're sure that you can gain that pool back before a bleed of 7 lands on your 5 pool.

9. Usually, how many vampires do you put in play in a game?

This is hihly dependent on the deck. First you have to ask yourself, what is the minimum I need to play my game? If you need 3 high-cap titled vampires, then you probably need a reliable way to get that pool spent back. If you are playing a star vampire, then you probably need just one with as much supporting cast as you can afford. If you play weenies, you can probably afford them all.

some cards are dedicated to the 3rd or even 4th most popular discipline. Do you use that “theory”?

Again, depends on how your desireable ready region looks like. If the risk of not being able to play the card outweighs the benefit of the card, then you don't need it. If it adds to your concept, where your main disciplines don't, then you might want to include that. Weenies can work with up to 1 discipline, whereas for star vampires you could even go with as much as 5.

On a personal notice, I tried to build a deck relying strictly on Happy Families, it was terrible . This theory just suggests how many cards of each you could afford, not how many you should put in.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

I don’t know why I have a fascination on guns. Like Lönkka hypothesised, I have been destroyed a few times by decks with guns and thought it was a must in almost any decks.

Guns are fun. If you like guns, you can easily build a variety of decks that will let you use guns, many of which are quite good.

But overall, there are relatively few must-haves in V:TES, and most of the ones that you might say are close to must-haves are master cards.

On combat generally, there are a load of different strategies:
- if you don't like combat, many decks will load up on Strike: Combat Ends strikes (most common in Presence and Protean, but found elsewhere)

- if you really like a lot of combat, you can often cause more mayhem, more quickly with just ordinary combat cards. The commonest example of that is possibly a weenie Potence or Potence/Celerity deck that can play Torn Signpost, Flash, Blur, Disarm.

- if you want to want to use a bit of combat in a somewhat toolboxy decks, guns are a decent option, but so are Weighted Walking Sticks. So are Carrion Crows. So's popping a 'claw' card, like Wolf Claws or Chiropteran Marauder to get some surprise agg damage. So's using some flung junk (like Thrown Gate) to go to long range and hit your opponent at the same time.

- not having any combat strategy is also sometimes common. Some players take the opinion, especially in tournaments, that they should build a deck that will do really well on some tables, and if they find one deck that owns them, well, that's life.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

Since the “fast hands” strategy to get guns without paying for it. I am surprised that weapons are not that popular. Just found “Ivory Bow”, 1R aggravated with a “1 pool” cost. I would have packed my decks with it. I Thanks again Klaital and Jamesatzephir for the advice.

Ivory Bow is pretty good, and used to be extremely popular to find one copy of in a deck, pretty much regardless of the rest of the deck. You can still find it in quite a few Tournament Winning Decks. But:

1) Don't pack your deck with them. They're unique. You can only have one in play at once. If you already have one in play, you can't bring out another. If someone else has one in play with you, they contest.

2) In general, the hidden cost of taking an equip action is quite high. That is, consider what else you could have done with the action - bled your prey, called a vote, or whatever. This hidden cost comes down a bit if you play a lot of small vampires; or if you can "multi-act" with cards such as Freak Drive, Rutor's Hand, Truth of a Thousand Lies, or Instantaneous Transformation; or if you're doing a lot of blocking with "wake" cards, so being tapped doesn't matter so much.

3) If you like Concealed Weapon (which is a little awkward to use, but far from terrible), it doesn't work with Ivory Bow, because the Bow does aggravated damage.

4) You don't have a maneuver, which you get with a gun.

5) Immortal Grapple can make you cry.

However, Ivory Bow is far from terrible. You can easily include it in a deck and have a good deck. If you have a few Target Head or Target Vitals in the deck, they make the Ivory Bow fun to use.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

7. I rarely see vampires “diablorised” in our games. I know that you must analyse the “cost/benefits” of such actions and I understand that you do not send a 10-cap justicar to diablorize a 2-cap weenie. But how often do you burn other vampires? In which conditions? And how often do you survive the following blood hunt?

Typically, people have a good idea of whether or not they will survive the Blood Hunt. Because you cannot use action modifiers or reactions as part of that referendum, players are much more reliant on the votes already on the table. (Yes, they can burn a Political Action card for a vote and a few other options.) So if you know you're going to be burned, you probably don't do it, unless it's really worth it.

Also, some other options are, overall, more efficient. For example, burning a vampire in combat is quite easy if you dedicate some resources to it. Also, Banishment (a political action) is pretty excellent.

Also also, it may be better for you to leave the vampire in torpor, for a variety of reasons. e.g.

a) Imagine you've just sent Petra (5 cap Nosferatu) to torpor. That Methuselah might have another copy of Petra in their uncontrolled region. Because they cannot self-contest, they can't bring out that second copy. If she's burned, they can. This can be especially important when you face "star" decks - decks which have 4, 5, 6 copies of the same vampire in their crypt, in order to get it out very easily because the deck is focused around them.

b) Dragonbound is excellent (though has potential for danger, and unexpected problems) and punishes Methuselahs for having vampires in torpor.

c) You might prefer that the Methuselah wastes more time and resources trying to rescue the vampire.

The rewards for diablerie typically aren't that great. But don't count it out entirely. At the right time, it's an excellent tool. It's just typically rare.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

7b. (and a newbie game rule question: is there a blood hunt if Archon Investigation – or kind-of-indirect action - cause the death of another vampire? Is a blood hunt only when another vampire is diablorised or automatically when another vampire is “killed”?)

Only during actual diablerie, or if indicated by card text (for example, Abacator).

Things that don't trigger a Blood Hunt:

- killing a vampire through sufficient aggravated damage to a wounded vampire in combat
- sending Julius to torpor ("If Julius goes into torpor, burn him.")
- burning a vampire with Sixth Tradition or Community Justice or Sacrificial Lamb


In the situation of Archon Investigation (and other master cards, like Vulnerability), the burning isn't done by any particular vampire - you don't need a vampire in play to play them. So it wouldn't be clear who to call the Blood Hunt on anyway.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

8. Do you always have some stealth and intercept in your decks? Like you already know, clans are balanced so that no one can be good at combat/political/stealth/bleed/intercept at the same time. Do you compensate for your lack of stealth and intercept in your decks? Let say you work on a Ventrue deck. Do you add sport bikes, for example, to add some intercept?

A Ventrue Prince deck has decent access to intercept, if it wants it, through Second Tradition. Second Tradition + Obedience is a thoroughly tried and tested combo.

But in general, look at what you want to achieve, not the presence or absence of specific tools. What would you be trying to do with the intercept? Is that how you want to stop yourself being bled? Are you worried about politics? Is it that some players play totally different decks all the time, and so you don't know what's best to use as defence, so intercept is a good catch all?

For example, some decks will let themselves be bled and just generate a massive amount of pool. The best example of this is the "breed boon" deck - it generates a lot of weenie vampires with Embrace, Second Tradition, Creation Rites etc., and calls Consanguineous Boon to get a lot of pool. Blocking general actions isn't typically super-important to it.

If you're worried particularly about politics, why bother with intercept when you could just play Delaying Tactics? Of course, intercept might be the right option for you - but it's not mandatory.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

It has been so interesting to read about the cards you always have in your decks. I did not know many of them. I loved Villein, (until I found out that they cost 20$ on eBay!)

In casual games, people will often let you "proxy" cards. Or ask a fellow player if you can borrow some.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

I usually pack some Govern, but use it to move some blood to my uncontrolled region instead of bleeding with them. If possible, I always have redirection/deflection/…- kind of card in my deck. I love them and find them so impressively effective. Can we do anything to counter them?

Bounce cards are some of the most efficient cards in the game. Deflection is very likely in a lot of players' "top 10 most powerful cards" list.

Ways of combating bounce include:

- Narrow Minds, an event that makes bounce more expensive

- "responsible" bleed. A fairly common situation is this:
Me: "I bleed you with Arika for 3."
You: "Neighbor John will attempt to block. He has his native +1 intercept."
Me: "I play Lost in Crowds for +2 stealth."
You: "Oh well, I can't block."
Me: "I play Conditioning for +3 bleed. Total 6."
You: "Neighbor John plays Deflection. You're now bleeding Kombainas."
Me: "Oh, uh, hi Kombainas. Arika is bleeding you for 6 at +2 stealth."

So instead, do things like:
* keep your bleeds small
* negotiate with your grand-prey (or any other likely bounce target) to make sure you know each others' capabilities, if your prey is using a lot of bounce
* prevent blocks without going to stealth, such as using cards like Seduction (a particular vampire can't block), Call of the Hungry Dead (negative intercept / block fails), so you stay at 0 stealth


- inspect your prey's hand, with a card like Revelations or Le Dinh Tho (vampire). Revelations is interesting, in that the inferior version, which lets you discard a card, is often considered more useful, since you can choose to make your prey discard a copy of Deflection if you find it there. Of course, some players hate this because if there's no bleed bounce in their hand, you still have to make them discard a card. But if you have, for example, a bunch of 'weenie' Auspex users, a few copies of Revelations in a deck can really pep it up.

- use cards that aren't bleed. If a player is stuffing their deck with bleed bounce, use political actions, like Kine Resources Contested, Revolutionary Council, Reckless Agitation. Use Choir to do lots of pool damage without bleeding. Use Inside Dirt to bleed some, not-bleed some.


- get rid of the bouncer. Some decks (though not all decks) will have a designated bouncer. For example, it might be the vampire who's left untapped, or maybe not all the vampires in play have Dominate or superior Auspex, or whatever the deck is using. Rush the vampire and torporize it. Banish the vampire. If they're using Deflection or Telepathic Misdirection a lot, hurt the vampire in other ways and leave it on no blood (some options, such as Murmur of the False Will and Redirection, are free), and Narrow Minds helps a lot here!

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

I always find myself with 100+ cards in a potential deck, not wanting to lack anything and not knowing what to remove and what I am missing.

Look at how many cards you have left at the end of the game. Those cards didn't help you at all. You lacked them. A few decks can pretty reliably get through 80-90 cards in a game, principally those involving dedicated combat and those that have a lot of Freak Drives (or other untap cards, but Freak Drive is usually the best) and take squillions of actions.

The vast majority of other decks tend to find themselves with a good number of cards left at the end of the game.

Again, consider thinking about what you want to achieve, rather than focusing on the presence of particular mechanics. If you don't mind being blocked because you're playing Form of Mist, stealth isn't such an issue. If you're generating squillions of pool, intercept may not be such an issue. And so on.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

9. Usually, how many vampires do you put in play in a game?

This varies a lot based on the size of vampires. And a lot of players use cards like Villein to pull pool back, so vampires sort-of cost less.

Years ago, TheLasombra coined the rule of thumb that no vampire should cost you more than 3 pool, because you should be using cards like Minion Tap (at the time) to get it back.

Prudent_Audacity wrote:

P.S. Thanks TORRANCECIRCLE for the link. I already read that “Happy Family” theory, but was surprised to notice that some cards are dedicated to the 3rd or even 4th most popular discipline. Do you use that “theory”?

Legbiter, the original creator of Happy Families, enjoyed more varied and subtle decks than are typically played by the most aggressive players. (Not that he didn't play very competitively - he did - but he liked exploring less well-travelled options too.)

Three disciplines is often pretty feasible, though, especially in a clan-heavy deck. Your Cel/Pre Toreador and Toreador antitribu deck that picks up some Auspex along the way? Maybe it's worth trying those three copies of Revelations.

Four disciplines is a bit harder to build a decent crypt with, though.

Also, you should talk your playgroup out of the 4 card rule, since that is strictly home-made house rule, there is no official rules about that, and all tournaments are played with no limit to how many copies of an individual card you can have (only limit is that library has to be from 60-90 cards). This kind of card limit also makes certain strategies much stronger (like stealth bleed as there is gazillion different obf stealth cards, while only relatively few bounce or intercept ones), while making some strategies considerably weaker (like there is only one Immortal Grapple, but plethora of presence combat ends cards).