Shambling Horde. Need advice.

Hey, i just recently started playing Vtes again after a long break. Last time i touched a deck was in 2005 or whenever gehenna came out. Ran into an old friend and heard they started back up so i figured it was time to dig up my old cards.

I've always had a huge fetish for zombies and figured i would throw togeather a Shamblings deck for last thursdays games. I realised i only had 12 shambling hordes though so it ended up beeing more of a giovanni stealth bleed with the shamblings more of a distraction(in one of the games i didnt even manage to get a single shambling into play .

I had limited success with the deck but i atleast managed to pull off a tablesweep in one of the 3 games we played thanks to some luck and 2 far masteried Reanimated Corpses.

Anyways im looking for advice on how to build a more combat oriented Shamblings Deck. I've found a few new cards i would like to include if i manage to aquire them. Namely Liquidations, Sudario Refractions and procurers.

The liquidations looks amazing for bloating and getting shamblings into the ash heap, and the Sudarios should be useful for recycling whatever i need at the time.

Are there any other "new" cards i have overlooked?

I fear i have bored you with my wall of text so i will post my list for you to dissect.

Deck Name : Shambling
Author : YGG
Description :

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 7 average: 5.33333

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2x Andrea Giovanni 7 DOM NEC pot vic Giovanni:2
2x Carlotta Giovanni 7 NEC POT dom obf Giovanni:2
2x Isabel Giovanni 5 DOM NEC pot Giovanni:2
2x Gloria Giovanni 4 DOM nec Giovanni:2
2x Rudolfo Giovanni 3 NEC Giovanni:2
1x Gillespi Giovanni 7 DOM NEC POT aus Giovanni:2
1x Le Dinh Tho 5 NEC aus dom Nagaraja:2

Library [83 cards]

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Action [5]
2x Dominate Kine
3x Sudario Refraction

Action Modifier [9]
4x Call of the Hungry Dead
3x Conditioning
2x Seduction

Action Modifier/Reaction [4]
4x Spectral Divination

Ally [26]
1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1x Leonardo, Mortician
4x Procurer
20x Shambling Hordes

Combat [8]
2x Fake Out
2x Trap
4x Weighted Walking Stick

Event [2]
1x FBI Special Affairs Division
1x Unmasking, The

Master [20]
2x Acquired Ventrue Assets
4x Blood Doll
2x Charisma
2x Fame
1x Giant's Blood
4x Liquidation
1x Morgue Hunting Ground
2x Path of Bone, The
2x Tower of London

Reaction [9]
7x Deflection
2x Delaying Tactics


How do you intend to oust?
Pool damage from Fame along with bleeds, possibly fetching conditionings with sudario or carlotta.

How do you intend to keep from being ousted?
Backrush with shamblings and deflections.

What do you want your ready region to look like?
2-3 vampires plus a horde of zombies.

What do you want your average turn to look like?
Hopefully alot of brains beeing eaten.

What's your metagame like? How do your opponents play?
I've only played 3 games so far but i dont think the meta is biased towards any special archtype. There was a variety of bleed, vote, intercept and a few combat decks. I didnt run across any gun or animalism deck though so hopefully the shambling can have some fun.

What problems have you observed with the deck in play?
I havnt played it yet. But i expect to have problems with S:CE bleed decks like Nergal, or wall decks that prefer to stay at long range.



Thanks for taking time reading my post and i would appreciate any criticism(constructed or not .

Thanks for the response, any suggestions what to replace the towers with? I feel like the deck is kinda low on bloat atm and its doubtful if i can get my hands on more then 4 liquidations, if even that many.

About the sticks i might keep them in and try them for myself and just add some additional traps since i only have 83 cards for the deck so far. I've always loved the walking sticks

Perfectionist is better than Charisma here.

Wider View is just always good.

And where are your Governs?

some new combat tech to consider:

Glancing Blow - takes forever to draw back up, but very useful for both your Hordes and your vampires.

Target Vitals - a very popular +2 damage card. you can use these, but you also should expect them to be used against you, even from non-combat decks. if you can prevent the first 1 damage you prevent it all, so that might make Glancing Blow even more valuable.

Dagger - the first melee weapon actually worth using, in my opinion. I haven't tried using Concealed Daggers with Zombies yet, but you should have little fear of ranged combat with some of these. they also combo nicely with Liquidation, since they can pull extra copies out of your ash heap.

I've been experimenting with Tower of London in my Giovanni deck lately, and have to agree Johannes' assessment is correct.
Specialization though always gets me a fair chunk of pool, as well as helping with Hordes. Perfectionist is also worth including, as is Carlton Van Wyk (if you can get a copy). It might also be worth swapping a Horde or two for a couple of copies of Compel the Spirit.