Revenge of the meek - Tzimisce S&B

Kushiel wrote:

Again: Have you tried to trade for the 2/3 vampires? I doubt it would take much work to get them, and any hoop-jumping you need to do to get them will save you a lot of hoop-jumping while building your deck and playing. On top of which, the 2/3 guys are pretty good for a number of different kinds of decks, meaning that you get a good bit of variety for your investment.

Well, the main problem is that I mainly interact with people who strictly have black hand and later card. So, trading for gr 2 mean go to another town to exchange or buy to locals player. It's not impossible by any mean, it's just way slower. It's especially bad since I need an entire crypt and not just to fill the holes, I.E. something like 16-20 vampires to have a bit of room to adjust the crypt.

(the four aforementionned chiroptean marauder are from about 6 entire box of third edition. Meanwhile, we got a total of 5 war ghoul. Random is random it seem)

Ohlmann wrote:

Well, it's not a deck that can bleed someone out by surprise, unlike for example blood brother. It does not mean the concept is completely invalided, just that the defense is particulary important.

It's possible to go the route of having a smattering of Monkey Wrench in, a few Anarch Converts, and not much other Anarch tech. You could throw away the Wider Views, too, maybe.

It's not the strongest move on earth, but being able to threaten significant lunge capability might be worthwhile. Certainly, I might be tempted to try it in a casual game or two.

erewego wrote:

Hope this helps some,
Adam

A good analysis!

What can obfuscate do? Stealth obviously, but what else is there?

Conceal is great but not something to build a deck around. Disguised Weapon is nice for surprise agg but less so with Tzim as they already can do aggravated nicely enough. Animal Magnetism would let you vote, so that's one possibility, but the obf Tzim have very lackluster titles. Howabout Hidden Lurker? Aggra poke would then only be foiled by prevent.

Monkey wrench is clearly a surprising and somehow possible card

Lemminkäinen wrote:

Howabout Hidden Lurker? Aggra poke would then only be foiled by prevent.

That's an option. But since Hidden Lurker is so action expensive, it need either that I find a creative way to untap people or that I load on the cheaper guy. As Erewego said, there is quite a bit of cheap guy, so it may work if I play it whithout too much pressure from the predator.

As a side note, the option - other than carrion - gun that I see is chiroptean marauder, high ground, breath of the dragon. Breath of the dragon is not too great, but it can work as long as I get some maneuver, and it require only

Edit : another option that work well with having bleed permanent : Mask of 1000 faces. If I fear being blocked, then I bleed with a small vampire for 1, and mask once block are declined. If I fear being redirected, I bleed with the bigger bleeder, then mask if I got redirected. In both case, my prey must take care of everyone.

Corpse Baloon + Abbot + Breath of the Dragon is really solid. 2 permanent intercept against D actions and a maneuver with the occasional 2r agg to take down animalism combat/guns/whatever could make your predator think twice before bleeding.

Try playing a crypt of Unmada, Gravitnir and Cyscek. Then everybody has dementation, which gives you the ability to bleed with something good, with Soul Decoration and that one cheesy dementation card the ability to cancel any bounce, with Wrong and Crosswise a reduce and between Unmada and Gravitnir probably the ability to shoot down any vote.

Then Unmada gives you hand size and two discard phase actions and the option to include a few Parity Shifts and why not Petra Resonances since every vampire you have is a fatty.

The cons? You need a bunch of Information Highways, Zillahs and what not to ever influence these guys out, and you can't multiact (except Unmada and with some fortitude masters the others, which is impractical and which I have actually done) so actually getting something like a + bleed modifier and Soul Decoration permanently doesn't just happen easily.

Anyhow back on sane subjects. The main strengths of the Tzimisce in my opinion are their versatile disciplines, the excellent Asabonsam Ghouls and a great crypt selection. Any major VTES strategy can be executed with the Tzimisce.

Unless I make an ANI AUS Tzimisce combat wall (which is pretty strong) I always have Changelings and Chiropteran Marauders which IMO are the best Vicissitude cards, versatile and cheap. Even in a stealth bleed, having Chiropteran Marauders (maybe 6 or so) makes blockers and rushers guess if they have to eat an aggro poke and just maneuvering to long and playing Meld with the Land should be enough to stop the majority of offensive combat in this game.

Usually my reaction module includes only cards that are both wakes and give intercept (AUS ANI) or cards that bounce (My Enemy's Enemy and Telepathic Misdirection). This way I have good bleed defense, mediocre ability to intercept undirected actions and good ability to block directed ones and a lot of wakes so I can get some shit done with my vampires, playable reaction cards even if nobody has any stealth, and of course the majority of my deck doesn't have to be reactions. Unless I play a straight wall of course.

Now! I don't think you get a lot of mileage from using expensive guys for the off-clan discipline of Obfuscate. I'd think it's better to just play straight clan disciplines, Vicissitude gives you 2 stealth already, both of them which give something else too and ANI AUS gives you +1 stealth and some combat threat if you're blocked. And you should threaten combat a little, otherwise your'e bleeding with four guys which are always attempted to block by default. Even something like 6 Chiropteran Marauders, 3 Breath of the Dragons makes people guess enough. Of course sometimes they simply will be blocked no matter what and beat down, remember to bring your Pentex Subversions (2+) and Anarch Troublemakers (2).

I realise I didn't comment much on the OP deck, that's because I have tried that style out so many times and I find that the crypt cards for Obfuscate Tzimisce just aren't hot enough to make a Stealth Bleed work.