Firstly, I should mention that it's my partner who is running this, and that we haven't actually gotten started yet. I'll doubtless be updating this review once we've gotten our teeth into the scenario, but there's a few things that have made themselves known about this one already.

One is the difficulty in getting all the info you need to get set up. It's all very well saying 'any clan except Giovanni and / or Cappadocian', but let's be honest - how many players do you know who can reel off the names and basic natures of all 13 clans after a year or two's break from the game? There's a number of bits of info you need to get the characters generated to begin with that are just scattered all over the damn place, and it's annoying.

Second, the overall story arc starts from 04/04/1444 (definitely Dark Age) and is aimed to conclude somewhere in the vicinity of now. The possible annoyance of having to convert the characters from Dark Age to Modern has been avoided by simply using the Modern rules from the beginning, though that has issues in itself - Clan Assamite in 1444 is a very different thing from Clan Assamite in 1990, for example. So do you use Dark Age clanbooks to begin with, or Modern?

Aside from that, I'm really looking forward to getting into this game. It's an opportunity to see the formation of first the Camarilla and then the Sabbat close-up, and to play lower-generation characters than most of us have had before.

Be aware, though, that this is one of the Black Dog adult-concept publications, and you'll need to have a group that can cope with the extra darkness this adds to the World of Darkness.