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Harbingers of Skulls Newsletter |
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While the March Newsletter, which will look at Legacies of Blood, is in preparation, let's get the ball rolling with a nostalgic look back at the Harbingers of Skulls in the days of Bloodlines.
Harbingers of Skulls, All Harbingers of Skulls, and Nothing But Harbingers of Skulls
The Bloodlines were said to be meant to play supporting roles, rather than lending themselves to monoclan decks. The group 2 Harbingers of Skulls have such compatible discipline spreads and special abilities that all-Harbinger decks would seem natural. In their clan disciplines Auspex, Fortitude and Necromancy, all have either [aus FOR NEC], [for AUS NEC] or [AUS FOR NEC]. The primary obstacle is that those three disciplines don't present a clear way to oust one's prey. Still, there are possibilities to explore.
Pulse of the Canaille can turn the Harbingers into serious bleeders; Pulse is expensive, but Restoration or Summon Soul can recoup the cost. Erebus Mask (unique clan equipment giving +1 stealth) and Spectral Divination can provide stealth, while Call of the Hungry Dead gives block denial. If that's not enough to get actions through, the Harbingers have access to several cards that make actions unblockable at the expense of torpor, like Day Operation, Daring the Dawn and Sunrise Service.
It's also possible to put together a Harbingers of Skulls combat package. Shambling Hordes can do some of the fighting, while your vampires play Martyr's Resilience to prevent damage to the zombies. The Hordes, too, are expensive, so again Restoration or Summon Soul may be helpful. Or check out the combination of Ecstatic Agony and Masochism:
Ecstatic Agony
Cardtype: Action
Discipline: Auspex
+1 stealth action.
[aus] Put this card on this acting vampire. Each round of combat, this vampire gets +X strength, where X is the amount of damage successfully inflicted on this vampire in the previous round of this combat.
[AUS] As above, and once per combat, this vampire may press to continue combat if any damage has been successfully inflicted on him or her in the current round.
Masochism
Cardtype: Action
Discipline: Fortitude
+1 stealth action.
[for] Put this card on the acting vampire. Whenever damage is successfully inflicted on this vampire, put 1 rush counter on this card for each point of damage. Remove rush counters in excess of the vampire's capacity. Whenever this vampire plays a card, you may remove X rush counters from this card to reduce that card's blood cost by X.
[FOR] As above, but put an additional rush counter on this card at the end of any round of combat in which this vampire takes damage.
This strategy takes presses and maneuvers, especially presses, but then you wanted them for the Shambling Hordes anyway -- so use some of the ones that don't require disciplines, like Fake Out and Trap. It also requires a lot of undirected actions, so Creepshow Casino is worth putting in. Use some Fortitude cards so your vampires only take enough damage to pump up the Masochism. If it all comes together, you're a moderate to serious combat threat and Masochism pays for the Shambling Hordes.
Likely Collaborators
The most obvious partners for the Harbingers of Skulls are the other Auspex/Fortitude clans: Salubri, Salubri Antitribu, and Ventrue Antitribu. The Salubri are scarce, so it's most reasonable to use just one of them. Any of them will work well. If you're expecting to have your vampires visit torpor, Miriam Benyona could be useful. She's got [for AUS] and pays one less blood for the rescue action; give her Humanitas or Catacombs and she rescues for free at 2 stealth. Matthias, with [nec AUS FOR OBE], is the most natural to work beside the Harbingers. With him, you can use Renewed Vigor to get your vampires out of torpor (at [for] or [obe]) and full of blood (at [OBE]).
With the !Salubri, it's more likely that you'd want them to make up the majority of the crypt, with Agaitas beside them for Daemonic Possession or some other necromantic trick. With the !Ventrue, you might want to use the titled Harbingers of Skulls, Gisela and Unre (whose [dom] helps the discipline synergy).
Egotha's [obf] and Gisela's [dem] suggest trying to have your Harbingers of Skulls work with the Malkavian Antitribu. Artemis has [for], and at capacity 6 works well in a crypt with Agaitas, Egotha and Gisela. Another possibility is to go with low-capacity !Malks like Boytoy, Yorik and Claven to work beside your mid-cap Harbingers. You might even bring in Anatole, Prophet of Gehenna (Camarilla Malkavian [dom for AUS DEM OBF]) to work beside Egotha, Gisela and Unre.
Egotha's [obf] and Anisa Mariana Lopez' [QUI] suggest a partnership with Assamites Fatima al-Faqadi and Tariq, the Silent. Expect an old-school deck built on this idea in an upcoming newsletter, maybe something like "Tariq Eats World, Egotha Regurgitates World."
"Fools' Abattoirs"
This month's deck has a 50/50 Harbingers of Skulls/Malkavian Antitribu crypt. It's a Slaughterhouse deck, using Kindred Spirits bleeds. Kindred Spirits has two important benefits here - the pool gain helps pay for the locations, and the "bleed any methuselah" allows you to adopt the 'bleed backwards' strategy if the table is suitable for it. Bleed your predator while using Slaughterhouses to hamstring your prey. Eagle's Sight, Life Boon and Malkavian Game let you interfere cross-table to help prevent unwanted ousts. Have an Escaped Mental Patient run a kamikaze mission, and Compel the Spirit brings him right back.
CRYPT (12)
4x Artemis !Mal 6 aus cel for DEM OBF
3x Gisela Harden, the Winnower HoS 7 aus dem FOR NEC
2x Egotha HoS 7 obf AUS FOR NEC
1x Agaitas HoS 6 for AUS NEC
1x Dolphin Black !Mal 6 AUS DEM OBF
1x Yorik !Mal 3 dem obf
LIBRARY (90)
Master (16)
8x The Slaughterhouse
4x Blood Doll
2x Auspex
1x Life Boon
1x Malkavian Game
Ally, Equipment and Retainer (11)
2x Escaped Mental Patient
2x Changeling Skin Mask
1x Erebus Mask
1x The Sargon Fragment
1x Blood Tears of Kephran
2x Ghoul Escort
1x J. S. Simmons
1x Tasha Morgan
Action (14)
10x Kindred Spirits
4x Compel the Spirit
Reactions (16)
6x Wake with Evening's Freshness
4x Melange
3x My Enemy's Enemy
2x Eagle's Sight
1x Telepathic Misdirection
Combo: Reaction/Action Modifier (1)
1x Spectral Divination
Action Modifier (18)
6x Cloak the Gathering
4x Lost in Crowds
3x Call of the Hungry Dead
3x Eyes of Chaos
2x Faceless Night
Combo: Action Modifier/Combat (3)
2x Deny
1x Swallowed by the Night
Combat (11)
4x Spiritual Intervention
2x Indomitability
2x Rolling with the Punches
2x Skin of Steel
1x Reality Mirror
I've only played this deck once. I was stuck between a stealth-bleed predator and a prey who constantly called votes that caused me significant pool loss, and my grandprey had no intercept at all. I didn't have enough blocks to go around, and had nobody out with [AUS] to bounce bleeds.
There are a number of ways to tighten the deck and/or adjust it to a metagame. For example, ten copies of Kindred Spirits will often not be enough for an effective 'bleed backwards' strategy, so Rafaele Giovanni could make sense in the crypt since he can always bleed your predator at +1.
Coming in March...
March's Newsletter returns to the present, with an overview of Legacies of Blood and the new group 3 and 4 Harbingers of Skulls. Mina Grotius will be the featured vampire; she'll star in a deck called "Slaughterhouses of the Ebony Kingdom."