Contents:
I – Vampires of the Month (Sundown and Joseph O'Grady)
II – Card of the Month (The Mole)
III – Deck Idea (The Terrible Barons)
IV – Deck Idea
V - Conclusion

(No fiction this month, but two decks!)

I. Vampires of the Month

Sundown
Nosferatu
Group: 3
Capacity: 6
ANI obf POT pre
During a referendum, Sundown can burn 1 blood to gain 1 vote.

Joseph O'Grady
Ventrue Antitribu
Group: 3
Capacity: 7
aus cel DOM FOR
During a referendum, Joseph may burn 1 blood to gain 1 vote. +1strength

I'll talk about both of these vampires together, because many of my comments will be similar. First of all, both of them are excellent choices for anyone playing their respective clans, whether anarch or not. Sundown is the smallest Nos with ANI/POT, and Joseph is the youngest !Ventrue with any kind of vote (important in a clan of vote-cancellers). For both of them, the blood-for-vote ability can be an important part of the deck or an important defense mechanism. However, this mechanic becomes so much more useful for both of them if they are Barons.

Last week, in talking about Firebrand, I mentioned briefly that the one extra vote can be significant in defending a Fee Stake. Joseph and Sundown are therefore very able to defend a Baron title. Three votes means, for instance, that lone Inner Circle members can't vote away the title by themselves. At most tables, another Fee Stake or even a single Firebrand can make the titles completely unassailable. Now many people might be asking why I worry about that so much, because in many play groups people don't seem to care enough to try to get rid of the Fee Stakes. The point is, they will eventually. As Anarch decks become more prevalent, and maybe even win some tournaments, people will start to fear those Barons and try to take them down.

Back to Sundown and Joseph. The other quality about both of these vamps that makes them such good Anarchs is their discipline spread. Both of them have access to some good 3-ways, and more importantly, they have a variety of options within those 3-ways. Joseph, for instance, can use The Mole at both [cel] and [dom], and he can use Diversion at both [cel] and [for]. (If you'll look back at the Nov 2003 Newsletter, you'll see that Joseph is a very useful part of that deck, which happened to feature Diversion.) Sundown can use Smash and Grab at both [ani] and [pot], and he can use Skullduggery at both [obf] and [pre]. The ability to use two different aspects of the same 3-way is one of the things that makes Anarchs so good. They can be flexible in ways that would cripple an ordinary "toolbox" deck without losing the decks focus. What I mean by this is that I can build a dom/for deck (again, see Nov 2003) that uses The Mole as part of its bleed defense (I'll explain this below), but what if my predator isn't bleeding? Well, if I have Joseph or one of my other minions who happen to have celerity in play, then I also have the ability to block their votes or other undirected actions. I may have specifically prepared for one eventuality, but I also have flexibility to deal with others without adding extra cards.

One final side note: I have no idea why two vampires from the same expansion have the same special ability worded slightly differently. Just missed in editing, I guess.

II. Card of the Month

The Mole
Reaction
Requires a ready anarch. Only usable when a non-anarch minion is acting.
[ani] Only usable by a tapped vampire. This vampire untaps and attempts to block.
[cel] +1 intercept. Not usable if the acting minion has Celerity.
[dom] Only usable when you are being bled by a younger vampire. Tap this vampire to cause the action to fail.

So let's talk about 3-ways some more. This one is definitely my favorite after Diversion, so it makes sense to bring it up next. Some people are put off by The Mole because of its very strict requirement that a non-anarch must be acting. They seem to think that this encourages your predator's vampires to go anarch, and then you'll be stuck with a bunch of Moles you can't use. In practice, however, this is rarely problematic for a number of reasons. First, in most decks that are not anarch decks, there will be at least one vampire with a title who therefore cannot go anarch, and usually these will be the more important vamps for that deck. This means that if you are using the The Mole at ani, you will usually have at least one vampire acting that you can untap against. Even if you fail to block, you are then untapped. The second case is when your predator is playing more of a weenie deck. If this is the case and it is not specifically an anarch weenie deck, going anarch in any measure large enough to hurt your use of The Mole will cost that deck a great deal of time and blood, which adds up to a less effective predator for a couple of turns.

So let's talk about some specific tips for using The Mole:
1) Animalism: The ani power of The Mole is probably the most commonly used. It's one of the better animalism untaps out there, since it is usable against any action you can legally block. Note the word "legally". You can only untap against (D) actions directed at you or undirected actions taken by your predator or prey because it requires you to attempt to block. No cross-table untaps with this card. Also, note that you automatically attempt to block. You cannot Mole/Deflect unless the action is at stealth. However, this brings us to one of the most important uses of the ani version of The Mole – cycling. If you have a handful of Moles, wait for your prey to hunt or call a vote and untap everybody!
2) Celerity: This is also a fairly easy-to-use power in most situations. It's especially great if you're playing a !Ventrue block deck, because it can be another point of intercept that no one expects. And of course it's the cheapest intercept reaction the Brujah/!Brujah can get.
3) Dominate: This power probably gets the least use but is one of my favorites. People may wonder why this is so cool, when deflection would seem to be much better, but I've found that causing a bleed to fail is sometimes a lot more frustrating to my prey than bouncing it. First of all, in a high-bounce environment it keeps the bleed from being bounced back to you. Second, if you have the edge you get to keep it. And third, it foils many "acting minion untap" situations, such as change of target, inferior Freak Drive (because it causes the action to fail) or your prey blocking and playing inferior Obedience or Meld With the Land. More importantly, it does not clog your hand in the endgame, when deflection and redirection become useless. The big concern is of course the secondary restriction that the acting vampire must be younger. But if you are playing barons this will happen more often than you think. Save the deflections for the big minions. This combination does require a little more thought than the "bounce everything" strategy, but there's more flexibility.

When deciding whether or not to include The Mole, I would suggest that it's okay to build towards just using it at the animalism or just at the celerity, but if you want to use the dominate you'll need to also be able to use the others, since you can't count on cycling the dom power nearly as often.

III. Deck Idea – The Dirty Barons

Crypt 12 cards (Min 12, Max 26, Avg 5.75)
Amelia ani obf POT - Nosferatu 5
Christianus Lionel pot ANI OBF - !Nosferatu 6
Darva Felispa ani pot – Nosferatu 3
Gemini ani pot obt OBF - Nosferatu 5
Gerard Rafin ani for OBF POT – Nosferatu 6
Mouse ani – Nosferatu 2
Nigel the Shunned obf ANI POT – !Nosferatu 5
Ox ANI OBF POT – !Nosferatu 6
Sundown obf pre ANI POT – Nosferatu 6
Tammy Walenski nec tha ANI OBF POT – Nosferatu 8
Tommy ani pot – !Nosferatu 3
Wolfgang for obf pot – Nosferatu 4

Library (85 cards):
Masters (16)
Archon Investigation
Bleeding the Vine
2x Dummy Corporation
Hospital Food
KRCG News Radio
Life Boon
3x Minion Tap
Slum Hunting Ground
5x Tribute to the Master

Actions (22)
Aranthebes, The Immortal
4x Border Skirmish
Fee Stake: Boston
Fee Stake: Los Angeles
Fee Stake: New York
Fee Stake: Perth
Fee Stake: Seattle
5x Go Anarch
3x Kindred Intelligence
4x Smash and Grab

Action Modifiers (14)
5x Cloak the Gathering
2x Emissary
2x Forgotten Labyrinth
5x Rant!

Political Actions (21)
4x Anarch Salon
4x Conservative Agitation
Disputed Territory
Domain Challenge
Dramatic Upheaval
3x Firebrand
6x Kine Resources Contested
Year of Fortune

Reactions (7)
5x Banner of Neutrality
2 x Car Bomb

Combo (5)
5x Swallowed by the Night

Comments:
Until I took it apart, this was my most consistent anarch deck. It won many games and consistently got at least one VP. The key to this deck is minion bloat. I typically have between 6 and 8 vampires out, and usually at least a couple of them are Firebrands, so I have 8-10 actions per turn. It's a voting force, and the Dummy Corp/Banner of Neutrality combo is actually a fairly strong bleed defense. Plus the Anarch Salon/Tribute combo is huge when you have 8 minions out. The biggest weakness the deck has is against rush, so you need to be willing to throw your small vamps in the way when your barons get rushed. And be sure to rescue those small vamps in that situation, because they're the ones that get extra actions from Firebrand.

IV. Deck Idea – The Baronesses

(I hinted at this crypt last month, and decided to challenge myself to try it out. This is one of my favorite anarch crypts so far.)
Crypt 12 cards (Min , Max , Avg )
2x Ana Rita Montana aus dom obf VIC, Tzimisce 5
Creamy Jade aus cel PRE vic, !Toreador 5
Dominique ani AUS dom FOR vic, !Ventrue 7
2x Dominique (Adv) ani AUS dom FOR vic, !Ventrue 7
Edith Blount aus cel pot vic, Toreador 5
Elizabeth Westcott ani AUS cel vic, Tzimisce 5
Enid Blount aus dom pre vic, Toreador 5
Olga Triminov vic, Pander 1
Piotr Andreikov aus, Tzimisce 2
Terrence ani aus vic, Tzimisce 4

Library (90 cards):
Masters (19)
Anarch Railroad
Archon Investigation
Bleeding the Vine
5x Galaric's Legacy
Hospital Food
Life Boon
3x Minion Tap
5x Tribute to the Master
WMRH Talk Radio

Actions (10) Aranthebes, the Immortal
Fee Stake: Boston
Fee Stake: Corte
Fee Stake: Los Angeles
Fee Stake: New York
Fee Stake: Perth
Fee Stake: Seattle
3x Revelations

Political Actions (18)
6x Anarch Salon
2x Conservative Agitation
2x Disputed Territory
2x Dramatic Upheaval
2x Firebrand
4x Kine Resources Contested

Action Modifiers (12)
5x Bribes
3x Cryptic Rider
4x Changeling

Reactions (20)
2x Car Bomb
3x Deflection
5x The Mole
2x My Enemy's Enemy
8x Telepathic Counter

Combat (11)
4x Body Arsenal
7x Meld With the Land

Comments:
What I've enjoyed most about playing this deck are the baffled looks I get when people realize I'm playing Meld With the Land almost exclusively at the inferior. It does, however, make this deck more resilient to casual combat than the above Nos/!Nos deck. Interestingly, this has also been a fairly effective deck for me, primarily because it doesn't look very offensive. The key is to only Cryptic Rider the absolutely critical votes, specifically the two Dramatic Upheavals, as it's designed to be a VP stealer. It has some blocking and a fair bit of bleed defense for the early game, and you'll want to spend some time getting quite a few vamps out. No need to take cardless actions to go anarch unless you're sitting on a couple Fee Stakes early on. Just keep cycling for a Galaric, or wait until you have several vamps out so they can all go at once.

V – Conclusion

The phrase that I would like to get people thinking about Anarchs is "focused, but flexible". Keep this in mind when building anarch decks, and watch how the 3-ways and certain vampires can help with this.

Next month I'll tackle a 3-way card that gets little respect: Skullduggery. Plus a look at Antonino, a vampire who doesn't fear taking the cardless anarch action.

------
Eric Simon
Prince of Chicago
Writer of the Official V:EKN Anarchs Newsletter
http://dragonhawke.net/chicagovtes