2008 Promo Cards Revealed

The new season of promo cards were released last week.  They are also now appearing on eBay.  These cards are part of the new tournament prize kit for this year.

2008 Promo cards

Cloak of the Abalone [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Equipment
Unique equipment.
Toreador and Toreador antitribu cannot block this minion.
Artist: Brian LeBlanc

Convergence [LotN:Promo]
Cardtype: Master
Clan: Pander
Master.
Move 1 blood from each ready Pander you control to a Pander in your
uncontrolled region.
Artist: Brian LeBlanc

Nergal [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Baali
Level: Advanced
Group: 5
Capacity: 10
Discipline: AUS DAI FOR OBF PRE THA
Independent: Reaction cards cost an additional blood when Nergal is
acting. Once each action, Nergal may burn 1 blood to get +1 stealth.
Infernal.
Artist: Ron Lemon

Path of the Void [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Master
Cost: 1 pool
Unique master. Path.
Put this card on a vampire you control. This vampire gets +1 stealth,
-1 bleed, and can inflict 1 damage on any minion as a (D) action.
During this vampire’s untap phase, his or her controller must discard
a master card or tap this vampire. Burn this card if this vampire
commits diablerie. A vampire can have only one path.
Artist: Brian LeBlanc

Reliquary: Shango Remains [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Equipment
Clan: Assamite
Equipment.
Choose an Assamite in your ash heap or burn 1 pool to choose an
Assamite in your uncontrolled region. Remove that Assamite from the
game or burn this reliquary. Once per turn, if this Assamite is ready,
he or she may burn 1 blood to give you +2 hand size for the remainder
of the turn; this ability cannot be used during combat.
Artist: Andrew Trabbold

Sound of a Breaking Oath [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Action/Reaction
Discipline: Auspex & Dominate
[aus][dom] [ACTION] +1 stealth action. Put this card on a minion you
control. If an action to steal the minion with this card is
successful, this minion is burned instead and the acting minion takes
1 unpreventable damage.
[AUS][DOM] [REACTION] As above, but play when an action to steal a
minion you control is successful.
Artist: Jeff Laubenstein

Treaty of Laibach [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Master
Clan: Follower of Set/Tremere
Unique master. Requires both Follower of Set and Tremere.
Put this card in play. Each Follower of Set is considered to have a
level of Thaumaturgy [tha] equal to his or her level of Serpentis
[ser]. Each Tremere is considered to have a level of Serpentis equal
to his or her level of Thaumaturgy.
Artist: Torstein Nordstrand

Walks-With-Might [Promo-20080203]
Cardtype: Ally
Cost: 2 pool
Unique werewolf with 4 life. 0 bleed, 3 strength.
Master cards cost you an additional pool. Walks-With-Might gets +1
intercept against Followers of Set. Each strike or damaging effect
made against him inflicts 1 less damage on him.
Artist: Brian LeBlanc

Tournament! Beware the Ides of March – March 15th

Beware the Ides of March
Saturday March 15, 2008
Mini-qualifier
2R + F

Come to the White Wolf Headquarters on Saturday the 15th of March at 1:00 PM for a mini-qualifier event.
2 Rounds and a Final.
Soda and Coffee will be provided.
Doors open at 12:45 PM.

Boosters and swag for the winner.

Please let me know in advance if you will be attending so we make sure to wait for you if necessary.

Mapquest can show you the way:
2075 Park Place Blvd.
Stone Mountain, GA 30087

Look for the Target. The WW building is just to the left. Plenty of parking in front.

Hope to see you then.
David Tatu
VTES Atlanta
djtatu/ /at/ /mindspring/ /dot/ /com
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/VTES-Atlanta/

Vampire Fonts

De Vita In Excessum has a page with downloadable fonts for all the various Vampire clans as well as fonts from other WoD games like Werewolf, Mage, Wraith and Hunter.

Art Downgrade: Taste of Death

The original shows a vampire literally shooting blood out his mouth and exiting the victum’s body like a high powered machine gun firing bullets.

The new one shows what looks to be a guy laughing while food is coming out of his mouth.

So we went from violent explosion of blood to a bad smoker’s cough.

Preventing the old Taste of Death required something tough like Skin of Steel. The new one looks like it only requires Tide Liquid Ultra. “Hey buddy, you got something on your shirt there.”

Final Judgement: Downgrade

The Nosies: V:TES Awards 2008

The Academy Awards are tonight. So in that spirit – what would you consider to be the best cards released in Sword of Caine and Lords of the Night – the two expansion sets from the past year?

Without going into all the various sub-tier categories the Oscars have, here are some suggestive categories to start off with:

Best Card

Best Vampire in a Leading Role

Best Vampire in a Supporting Role

Best Ally

Best Equipment

Best Event

Best Art

Nominate your favorite today! Top 5 suggestions in each category will be put up for final nomination in online poll.

Phase One: Nominations –> Feb 24th – March 2nd

Phase Two: Final Voting –> March 3rd – March 10th

Winners Announced on March 11th

Art Upgrades: Flamethrower

One of the most appealing features of V:TES is the quality artwork that White Wolf puts into the cards. Admittedly in the early years of the game the art used wasn’t of the best quality. In the years since with the release of new expansions, familiar cards have been reprinted with artwork, sometimes getting an upgrade.

In what will be a continuing series we’ll look back at these reprints and judge if it was an upgrade or downgrade. Here we’ll look at the card Flamethrower.

Flamethrower was introduced in the original base set back in 1994. Here we see a standard image, drawn by artist Brian Snoddy, showing a guy holding a flamethrower. Not a bad painting, pretty straightforward.

Several years later it was reprinted with a new image by Matt Wilson. Here we see a much more active visual of the flamethrower in use.

Final judgement: Upgrade

PTO: RIP

It’s finally happened. After 12 years, “Protect Thine Own,” one of the most feared political action cards in the game was finally banned from tournament play at the beginning of this new year.

This was happy news to many, but I was saddened. Just when I finally got enough copies to build a good PTO deck too. I never saw PTO used in an egregious way, but I heard stories about its use. But now it’s gone.

Banning cards is a very rare occurrence in VTES. Only 11 cards out of the 3,000+ introduced in 14 years have been banned from tournament play. And most of those cards were either obsolete or just didn’t fit in a tournament environment.

No word yet how Phillip Tan is reacting to this news.

World of Warcraft: The Lost Guild of V:TES

World of Warcraft for a time had some VTES crossover. A few players from the VTES usernet group got together and carved out a spot on the US WOW server Runetotem by forming the guild “Protect Thine Own.”

The guild met most Monday nights to play. Players created Horde characters named after their favorite vamps or cards. But slowly as time went by the guild’s activities dwindled to non-active.

I myself created a troll priest named Saulot, after the Salubri antediluvian. But I only got him up to lvl 14 before continuing on with my regular WOW duties. Eventually my WOW Salout suffered the same fate as the V:tM one.

Thankfully, some record of PTO’s existence still remains at Wacraftrealms

NAC ‘07 Winner Ben Peal gets own portrait

Ben Peal, former Prince of Boston, 2007 NAC Winner, Drinker of bourbon, and King of the Kettlebell, was immortalized in water colors by long time VTES artist Lawerence Snelly. Might this appear soon as an actual crypt card?

Source: Lawerence Snelly Blog

New Expansion: Twilight Rebellion

The Anarchs seek to disrupt the resurgence of the Sabbat and Independents. It’s all on the line and the Anarchs have nothing to lose. This is a booster-only VTES expansion with 60 brand new cards, supporting the Anarchs game mechanic.

The next V:TES expansion will be “Twilight Rebellion.” Set for release in May 2008.

Nothing is safe!

From TheLasombra:

“Heather Kreiter has put two pieces of art for “Twilight Rebellion” cards on her website:”

Art #1: Anarch Manifesto
Art #2: Blade Clot