Ventrue Brainstorming

Haze wrote: This one's my favorite

everyone's eager to fight when they see this crypt, until they get a couple grenades to the face

Man, I miss Perlman.

brandonsantacruz wrote: I really want to play Ventrue, but I am tired of getting blocked all of the time. I've tried the usual methods (Pentex, Seduction, Majesty, Anarch Troublemaker, Misdirection, Daring the Dawn), but I find that I get blocked with my zero to one stealth actions.

What are you trying to do? More bleed? More political actions? If you're only going for one, you're probably not capitalizing on your Fortitude, and you may be giving players unnecessary time to cycle their hand and draw back into more wakes, Second Traditions etc.

For masters you haven't mentioned:
- Blind Spot isn't terrible, and if your prey has a designated bouncer (that weenie with some spliced on Dominate, say), it can also protect you against bounce.
- Creepshow Casino isn't altogether terrible, and cheaper than Monastery of Shadows, though it lacks the hand size and is only usable on undirected actions

Bleeding - consider Bonding and Dominate Kine, which can take you up to 2 stealth.

Perfect Paragon can you give negative intercept, and is a versatile card in small numbers for its use as vote push.

Approximation of Loyalty is surprisingly popular in the TWDA in small numbrs, one or two per deck. The inferior is decent when facing, say, a lowbie and midbie grinder deck. At superior, cancel a Wake, cancel a bounce, cancel Second Tradition.

Daring the Dawn and Day Operation aren't unusable. If you bleed during your predator's minion phase with Enkil Cog, you could rescue yourself in your own turn or perhaps pop a pre-played Renewed Vigor - assuming your predator can't act after you, make sure you know the sequencing rules well for this. But even without such shenanigans, bleed in your own turn, Freak, bleed in your predator's turn with Enkil Cog, untap in your own turn, call a KRC, Freak, bleed in your own turn... is a decent way of cutting through defence.

People haven't so far mentioned Mind Rape. If you can push one through, you can do a lot to screw up key resources of your prey - take all their blood with a Heidelberg, do something to send them to torpor, have them diablerize someone yuo've previously Kiss of Ra-ed then burn them with your titles, steal their equipment using a normal equip action. You might consider unblockable action modifiers here, because you don't need to worry about being bounced, as you might with an unblockable bleed. Similarly, you might pair a few Kiss of Ras with one or two Graverobbings.

How are your actions being blocked? There might be metagame specific tech you could employ. If you see a lot of equipment, consider an Anarch Troublemaker.

Are you playing a lot of politics and worried about what happens when you oust your current prey, moving your grand-prey wall next to you? Cripple your prey but then use him as a blocker while you soften up the !Ventrue grinder or the Howler wall cross-table. It probably has some Eagle's Sight or Falcon's Eye, but not generally enough, unless you get unlucky.

Banishment. Key vampire, force an action through somehow (pick your time, gather up your resources) and give your prey a turn off from their Volker-Second Tradition-fest.

Hand cycling. Against a good wall, an action heavy deck can get its hand clogged a little. Consider The Barrens. Consider Dreams of the Sphinx. Consider Visit from the Capuchin. Consider Fragment of the Book of Nod. Use your discard phase. And don't forget that you can play some cards uselessly - even if you know you're going to be blocked, you can still play Threats in the hope of cycling into your stealth location a little quicker.

Negotiate. If you're playing votes, you usually have a lot of negotiation capital - Parity Shift, Con Boon, throwing a spare point from a KRC the right way, adding someone else to your Rumours of Gehenna etc. You might be able to get your cross-table buddy to scratch your back if you scratch his.

You can always take the stickmen approach and just play walking sticks, loads of prevent, and maybe some target vitals and/or pulled fangs to make people think twice about blocking you. Obviously if going this route you want to focus on guys with superior fortitude.

Klaital wrote: Obviously if going this route you want to focus on guys with superior fortitude.

If willing to have fun with this sort of route, you could try a hybrid weenie-ish Fortitude + key fatties deck, and go for Trap + Undead Persistence.

A crypt like Victor Pelletier, Mustapha, Victor Donaldson, Lodin, Graham Gottesman (group 4-5 Ventrue titles), plus a bunch of weenie Fortitude could be mildly hilarious. Sadly, you don't get that much Ventrue weenie Fortitude (Portia, 4 cap), but you can add of vampires like T.J., Ulrike Rothbart, Randel the Coward, Rico Loco etc. Could certainly be a fun way of playing the game.

I tried Ishtarri version with embraces (Bamba), who uses sticks and refuse to die. This concept might be a little better with Ishtarri due to great reactions available for Laibon, which can be played even by Bambas, installed untap and installed maneuver/press.

Perhaps, if you want to play hitback combat with Ventrue, just don't, or use an out of clan discipline.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Klaital wrote: Obviously if going this route you want to focus on guys with superior fortitude.

If willing to have fun with this sort of route, you could try a hybrid weenie-ish Fortitude + key fatties deck, and go for Trap + Undead Persistence.

A crypt like Victor Pelletier, Mustapha, Victor Donaldson, Lodin, Graham Gottesman (group 4-5 Ventrue titles), plus a bunch of weenie Fortitude could be mildly hilarious. Sadly, you don't get that much Ventrue weenie Fortitude (Portia, 4 cap), but you can add of vampires like T.J., Ulrike Rothbart, Randel the Coward, Rico Loco etc. Could certainly be a fun way of playing the game.

Very doable. I have a weenie and mids grinder wit stick trap, brainwash, and bleeds with some blocking

Never played it in a tournament, as id have to shower afterword.......

But i showed it to Bell once, he shook his head and handed it baxk with a sigh.

Anyway, Andys 1cap, Aimee Laroux is a 2 with for and pre, then theres plenty of 3s and 4s in the grouping. Ive done weenie for pre flash grenades with pentinent resillience, and weenie diversion, so Ishtari and Daughters are good support here, ive checked.

Bernerd the Scourge could be neat too (built in blood hunt call on weenies, has gangrel in clans and pre)

But, theres also the angle with disarms and potence and graverobbing in g2-3 with a ventrue and a giovannie small mid(3/4) with for pot dom, and lucinde, lazvernious, etc for fatties.

What blocks you the most? Weenies and allies should fear tension in the ranks.