V:EKN Malkavian Newsletter August 1998
8991 tsuguA rettelsweN naivaklaM NKE:V
Gilbert pushed the trolley down the aisles of the supermarket slowly,
casually tossing his water pistol in his hand. He glanced to his left
and saw the fruit section looming up in front of him. Looking carefully
up and down the aisle to make sure no-one was watching him, he moved
swiftly over to the apples. Ripping off a plastic bag from the roll on
the shelf, he started quickly to pile a few Granny Smiths into the bag.
Having filled his bag, he placed it into the silver dish of the weighing
scales, noting the price and the weight of apples he had.
He pushed his trolley back into the aisle, glancing quickly about
himself to make sure, again, that no-one was watching him.
Walking up the aisle, he reached down a couple of packets of chocolate
biscuits, dropping them into the front of his basket. Turning round the
corner he picked up a 4 pint bottle of milk from the refrigerated
cabinet. He made a mental note to pick up some Cornflakes as well.
Shortly after picking up the milk, he walked further down the cabinet
and came to the margarine. He deliberated with himself as to whether to
purchase the low fat margarine or the low salt margarine. After much
thought, he took one of each.
He walked down another aisle, looking the same as all the others. He
threw several tins of tripe into his trolley, and a cat litter. A
couple of small squeaky toys and a flea collar quickly followed. He
picked up some flea powder for dogs as well.
At the end of the aisle, he picked up a magazine. Quickly, he flicked
through it until he reached the television section. Reading through the
satellite television listings, he paused to note the latest plot
developments in Beverly Hills 90210. "Oh," he exclaimed, "she is going
to kill him! And I so liked her too." He threw the magazine roughly
into his trolley, this latest development seeming to trouble him.
Walking down another aisle of the labyrinthine supermarket, he picked up
a couple of packets of Cornflakes. He seemed dismayed as he noticed
that the offer on the Wallace and Gromit free toys had run out.
He pushed his way threw a small tangle of trolleys at the drinks
section, picking up a couple of bottles of lemonade, two bottles of
vodka and a six pack of beer. Moving swiftly toward the bakery and
delicatessen, he reached a stick of French bread down into his trolley.
Taking a ticket from the counter, he waited for his turn at the
delicatessen. 200 grammes of ham, a small tub of coleslaw and a couple
of scotch eggs.
He loaded all of his goods up onto the conveyor belt, allowing the young
girl behind the till to pass it all passed the barcode reader. A few
swift taps on the control panel, a weighing of his apples and a loading
of all his goods into carrier bags later and he was reaching into his
pocket. Taking out his wallet, he handed over the money required and
waited patiently for the girl to count out his change.
Putting a couple of bags on each arm, he walked out of the shop. "My,"
he said, "I do like the convenience of 24 hour shopping at Asda when I'm
on holiday in England."
***
This month, a swift perusal of the cards available to the Malkavians for
one of their more fun hobbies - bleeding.
- Bonding: 0 Blood
A fun little action modifier with which you can wreak havoc. In most
circumstances, you need to have an increase bleed card AND an increase
stealth card. Bonding does away with the need for both, allowing you to
get +1 bleed and +1 stealth if you have Dominate at superior. If you
don't have Dominate at superior, why not? Though the +1 stealth can't
be used on a non-bleed action, the likelihood of doing many actions
which aren't bleed actions in a Malkavian bleed deck is slim. It isn't
like you're working on Bruise and Bleed most of the time. Definitely my
preferred choice for a bleed modifier, especially if my deck wants a
little bleed based kick but that isn't the main focus of it.
- Command of the Beast: 0 blood
An interesting modifier. Unlike other action modifiers which enhance
your bleeding capability, this card allows you to play another action
modifier after you have played this card. A useful ability, it has to
be said, but will that extra +1 bleed REALLY be worth it? Would it not
be better to have two separate bleeds going and have a better bleed card
played at superior on both of them? If you're working round only one
vampire doing bleeds, this could be useful but, of course, the tactic of
relying around one vampire is always risky.
- Conditioning: 1 blood
Now, this card allows for some kick ass bleeding potential. You trade
one of your blood for an additional three of their pool, assuming you
get the action through, of course. Very useful, of course, but are you
going to be able to afford it? You might not want to "waste" your
actions on hunting, would find an Asylum Hunting Ground very slow to
act, can't reclaim blood in combat using Taste of Vitae or many other
blood gaining tactics. Bolstering your use of hunting actions with
Aaron's Feeding Razor and Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt are always
possibilities, but do you want to risk it? Perhaps a card best used in
moderation to beef up your deck, rather than being the mainstay of your
deck.
- Dominate Kine: 2 blood
Now, this is what you call expensive. At inferior, it's simply +1 bleed
with +1 stealth. Why not simply use superior Dominate and use Bonding
if you have to? Well, why not use *both*. This way, you can get lots
(comparatively) of stealth from Dominate if you want it, meaning less of
your deck has to rely around Obfuscate for stealth. But this card is
almost always worth including for its superior. For a Cardiff
tournament, I had my deck list in front of me. I didn't have any slots
left in the deck. I didn't want to take out any of the bleed that was
in the deck but I did want some way to deal with my opponents'
locations. Simple, I though, add Arson. But I wasn't willing to remove
any of the bleeding power from the deck. Comments from friends ran like
"Well, you can't have everything in the deck." Hehe, they'd obviously
forgotten the power of Dominate Kine. Bleed and *steal* locations, not
simply burn them. And with Malkavians, you often have lots of stealth
so the action may be more or less guaranteed. And wouldn't it just be
wonderful to not only stop them from intercepting your actions using
London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper but to also start intercepting
theirs with it? *evil maniacal grin*
- Foreshadowing Destruction: 0 blood
Another bleed modifier with a basic level of +1 bleed. In a card limits
game (eg 4CL, 6CL) it might be worth using the card simply as another
source of increased bleed. At superior, though, it really can kick in
*hard*. If your opponent is close to death, Foreshadowing Destruction
can kick in for +3 bleed making it much easier to finish them off. And
unlike Conditioning, this card is free. However, with both this and
Conditioning, remember to watch out for the Archon Investigation coming
in for the kill. However, if you draw this card against a powerful
opponent with lots of blood, the superior is going to clog you up and
prevent you from playing it to its best advantage :(
- Govern the Unaligned: 1 blood
A staple card for many Malkavian decks. It costs 1 blood and gives you
+2 bleed at inferior. A nice little card, at that. But what's the
difference between that and Conditioning, I hear you cry? You didn't
like Conditioning because of its hard to recoup blood cost. Well, the
thing is this. Govern the Unaligned at *superior* allows you to start
generating pool at a good rate. Combined with Information Highway, you
can generate few pool a turn which could be moved back onto vampires
using Blood Dolls, say. If you have this capability, then Conditioning
would be worth a second look. Alternatively, if people start burning
your vampires because they're low on blood, you just bring out new ones
using this (of course, the reason they were low on blood was because
they were playing this, you hope). It requires a younger vampire in
your uncontrolled region but if you know that this card is likely to be
played in your deck (ie you have a lot of them, rather than simply a
couple), then it wouldn't be that much trouble to bring out a higher
capacity vampire into your controlled region at the start of the game.
- Mind Rape: 2 blood
Aargh, my eyes. *enter triffids stage left*
The inferior is just another bleed card. 2 blood for +2 bleed. If
that's all you're using it for, I suggest you replace it with Govern the
Unaligned. The superior version is evil - stealing a vampire. Okay, so
it *has* been toned down by the 7/7 errata but it's still a nice card:
"Superior: (D) put this card on a younger vampire and tap that vampire.
The vampire with this card does not untap as normal during his
controller's untap phase. During the acting vampire's controller's next
minion phase, she must burn this card to untap the vampire and take
control of the vampire until the end of her turn."
Not at all fun for the other players, but plenty of fun for you. What
happens if they do something to the vampire whilst you're waiting for a
turn to get hold of it, like get someone else to kill it, maim it, cause
it to develop a cold or something, simply to stop you getting it? Well,
something missed by a lot of people in the current furore over the use
of Return to Innocence out of turn is that this card could also be used
out of turn with Madness Network........
- Scouting Mission: 0 blood
Govern the Unaligned's baby brother, having much of the flexibility,
less of the power, but less of the blood cost! Yay! Still Govern the
Unaligned may still be a valid proposition simply because of it's
increased speed with what it does over this card.
- Slaughtering the Herd: 2 blood
A bizarre card which I don't use, mainly because I only own 1 of them.
At inferior, it's, like Mind Rape, simply an expensive bleed card. You
have the advantage that allies can't block but that isn't really that
much of an advantage in most playing circles. At superior, it does this
really bizarre thing involving putting it on a vampire controlled by
your predator and gaining blood every time they attempt an action. They
can burn it by burning an earth staggering 4 blood, but will they
bother? And this card can be got rid of if this vampire goes to torpor
or is burned. A combat deck would, therefore, have an easy time getting
rid of it. A vote deck could call an Anathema simply to get the combat
deck to do it. Banishment wouldn't work, because it doesn't burn or
torporise them. Oh well :( But the major deck that this would find it
a difficulty to get rid of the card through that method would be another
bleed deck. Buggers up a bleed deck predator, perhaps.
- Threats: 0 blood
A card which has the rather dubious honour of being one of the largest
numbers of any card in my collection - 54 in total. Wow, bizarre. It's
not like I even like the card.
For me, the card is a little odd. If I want a bleed modifier, I will
*tend* to go more to Conditioning if I want a more reliable form of big
bleed or Bonding if I want a little extra bleed but some stealth.
Threats seems to occupy a centre ground limbo and suffers because of it.
(Now, if it was the centre right there would be some Tory party
analogies in there, but I digress). It's free, though, and at superior
it gives you that little extra bleed over Bonding. If you want to keep
the blood cost down and have few stealth worries, then, a usable card.
***
More next month. Ideas for fiction gratefully received (because I'm
crap at it).
--
James Coupe (Malkavian Mouthpiece)
Vampire: Elder Kindred Network
madnessnetwork.hexagon.net
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