Vampire: The Eternal Struggle is White Wolf's flagship collectible card game, still growing strong after many years and still releasing expansions roughly every six months. We've recently seen a new Camarilla edition and an Anarchs expnasion. Now the game has returned to focus on the Sabbat once more, specifically the elite warrior secret society within this sect: aka The Black Hand.
What do you get?
For $99 you get 36 booster packs, each with 11 cards. There are 120 new cards and no repeats from previous expansions. There are also four preconstructed starter decks which I will review separately.
So is it any good?
Simply put - yes. Veterans of V:TES will get a kick out of this expansion as although it does not introduce any new rules it has a lot of well thought out cards that have subtle and powerful effects. Take for example "Animal Magnetism". This card requires obfuscate and animalism, and gives you either 1 or 3 votes in a referendum.
A new player might miss the significance of this. A veteran will immediately realise that this shakes up the metagame by giving more voting power to the clan that has these two disciplines: the Nosferatu. This in turn could have ramifications on other decks, as many decks rely on light intercept to stop politics. With significant stealth in the Nosferatu clan, that no logner remains an option.
The levels of complexity and subtlety that are introduced by many other cards are similar. This is a great expansion for the thoughtful player, as it forces him to reconsider his approach to playing the game.
The power level of the cards is fairly even with previous expansions. There is a lot of good stuff here, but it doesn't suffer from "power creep" in the same way that Magic expansions tend to. Any effect that is more efficient than a previous similar one is balanced by a corresponding limitation. For example though WMRH Talk Radio provides +1 Intercept, and costs 1 pool, whereas the older KRCG News Radio costs more, the WMRH Talk Radio has the disadvantage of costing you a pool every time you fail to block after you use it. This is clever as it makes it a better option for decks that have other sources of intercept.
But... and this is a big but... the subtlety of the set is its downfall.
A new player who does not have many cards will find it difficult to use Black Hand as an entry point. It is difficult to build an effective game strategy without combining the new cards with older cards from other expansions.
Fortunately, Camarilla edition is still in print, and Sabbat War has recently been restocked. These expansions make much better entry points into the game. Black Hand is more of an expansion for loyal fans who already have a considerable collection.
Distribution
From buying one booster box, I was pleasantly surprised by the distribution. I have managed to get most of the rares in the set off 36 boosters, with no more than two repeats of any one rare. All the commons and all the uncommons were present at least once in the box, and the most of one uncommon I got was four.
Artwork
This was of a general high quality, thankfully moving away from the "mad manga" style and back to the darker and moodier painting style of early expansions.
Layout
The layout pattern that was started in Camarilla edition has been carried on. I was slow to convert to liking this layout, but now I see its merits. It is now much easier to sort through vampire cards looking for discipline sets, and the shape of each icon is much clearer across the table too. The text is much clearer now than it used to be. As always, the only problem is mixing new cards with old, especially when some of the old clan colours look like new clan colours for other clans.
Vampires
There are 6 new Brujah Antitribu who nicely round out the mid-range capacities for the clan. Henry Taylor is the MVP for this clan with a neat ability to pull back combat cards. There are 6 very solid Gangrel Antitribu, many of whom are city gangrel. This is great for city gangrel players who had trouble putting together a full crypt before. There are 5 Lasombra, including a 3cap and 5cap, to help the Lasombra field more small vampires. There are 6 Malkavian Antitribu who all seem average to me. There are 6 Nosferatu Antitribu. Teresita is my personal favourite: a 7-cap with all three clan disciplines at superior and +1 intercept versus all Camatilla Vampires, and a Black Hand Seraph to boot! There's a single pointless Pander who may appeal to some players but who makes me yawn. There are 6 Toreador Antitribu, including a 7-cap with AUS CEL THA, which should set pulses racing in certain circles. And the there are 5 Tremere Antitribu!
This, to those who do not follow the game, is big news for Vampire. The Tremere Antitribu have not been seen in force since the original (out of print) Sabbat expansion. They were excluded from the Sabbat War expansion and have had a token presence since. To me, the return of the Tremere antitribu is cause for celebration. Selena is an especially solid 6-capacity vampire with superior in all 3 clan disciplines. Terrel is a 7 cap with an inbuilt Cryptic Mission... and celerity too.
The Tzimisce get 4 mediocre vampires, The one of who compare to the best picks of Sabbat War. The Ventrue Antitribu get 6 new vampires, some with interesting play mechanics attached to them. There is one Assamite who will be welcome in Assamite decks for his immunity yo the Blood Curse and his inherent +1 bleed. There is 1 very dull Setite. There is 1 Giovanni, who has an inbuilt rush agaist younger vampires and has +1 strength. As Giovanni have never been the strongest in pure rush decks, his utility presumably comes from the added versatility he adds to the Giovani. There is 1 Ravnos who is enitrely pointless except in a weenie-animalism deck. Finally there is one new Tremere - Goratrix - who has the ability to burn a Tremere antitribu as a directed action. Happily he costs 10 pool has no easy access to stealth, so Tremere antitribu players need not worry too much.
A special mention needs to be made of Black Hand vampires. Many Vampires are Black Hand members by default - generally there is a good spread of vampires here, though any player wanting to build a Crypt solely of these vampires may find it hard to focus on any discipline other than Potence or Dominate. This is not a bad thing though!
Library
Many of the Library Cards are (naturally) dedicated to the Black Hand. Most of these cards require you to have a Black Hand vampire in play for them to work, and compensate for this by being versatile and powerful. In playtest I have yet to win with a deck of pure Black Hand, but I see their potential.
Whereas Anarchs seemed to work best with a wide discipline spread on your vampires, and picking your tricks, with the Black Hand it is possible (and preferable) to focus on one or two disciplines then use all the powerful supporting cards that are disciplineless. Particularly handy are the Watchtower cards which have very powerful effects but require a Black Hand Seraph. Also (though I may be wrong) I believe that Watchtower: Greatest Fall is the first politcal card with a pool cost to offset its extra power.
For those not interested in the Black Hand, but who want to play Sabbat, there is plenty more too.
As in any CCG set there are certain "cycles" or groups of cards. For example, there are several "Archetypes" which are Master Cards that you play on a Sabbat Vampire. Though a Sabbat Vampire can only have one, the card rewards that Vampire for playing to type. For example "Guru" gives the vampire a blood every time it calls a vote that passes. Having got about eight each of these (all commons) I'm not sure yet how many to put into a single deck. Intuition suggests 2-3 at most right now,though there is the potential for using Archetypes and Blood Dolls as a deck's primary pool gain mechanism.
Also for the Sabbat there are power cards like Zillah's Tears, 3 new Crusades and lots of clan specific stuff.
Oddly there are not many new cards that use mono-disciplines. For example, for Vicissitude I could only find one new card (Corpse Balloon). Again, this makes Black Hand a bad set for beginners as you won't find the basic building blocks of a deck. Instead, room is made for more dual discipline cards, a lot of black hand stuff, and a lot of actions, action modifiers, reactions and a few politics. This is nice for an expert player, as there are already so many good cards for each discipline that you barely need more. Thos that are present tend to be an eclectic mix that often do things you don't expect from the discipline. For example Gemini's Mirror gives Obfuscate a dodge with optional maneuver or the ability to cancel 50% of an opponent's strike, whereas Typhonic Beast uses Serpentis to turn a Setite into a combat machine. Hardly stereotypical behaviour for either discipline!
This then makes the expansion an especially interesting one for those who want to take a Clan or discipline in an unexpected direction.
Should you buy it?
If you don't own any Sabbat cards yet and you want to start a Sbbat deck, get Sabbat War. You will not be able to build a competitive deck with this expansion alone.
If you want to improve your Camarilla or Independent decks, then get a few boosters, then trade the Sabbat stuff for those new cards that you need. Certainly don't buy a box.
But if you already own a bit of Sabbat or Sabbat War, and you want new options, get this expansion. Buy a Booster Box, or maybe even two. Black Hand will change the way you fight the Jyhad forever.
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