VEKN Brujah Newsletter February 2002



Introduction:



Welcome to the February issue of the Brujah newsletter, and hopefully

to another year of successful V:tES with Brujah decks. Strangely

enough roughly the same time I was playing the first incarnation of

the deck this newsletter is centered around, GreySeer down in New

Zealand came up with a quite similar creation to play in a local

tournament (and did quite well, 4th place IIRC).

It was quite interesting to watch the post Bloodlines local meta game

- there was none (yet). One !Ven/Sal deck by Rui Videira made a

reasonably successful appearance, but uses mainly Minion Tap/Renewed

Vigor for bloating and Anasthetic Touch to defend Blanche Hill. I have

yet to come up with any good ideas, haven't even tried any Brujah

Bloodlines crossover stuff yet... It always goes as far as "I could do

this and that with Ahrimanes/Daughters/Blood Brothers/Salubri

Antitribu" (to mention the clans I was toying with), but then, as

Peter Bakija has mentioned in the newsgroup, the question pops up:

"Why should I do this? Only because the cards are there?" I guess my

first real effort will lie in the remote realm of bizarre trick decks,

possibly for our upcoming storyline event.



Fiction:



From the diary of Hector Sosa, found by the NYPD after an anonymous

hint during the investigation on the disappearing of two girls, Rose

Brown and Callista Garrett:



(...)



Saturday, 09/02/02

Nice evening yesterday, as the Don had sent us out on a recruiting

spree. Went to town with Dre, had his last day in NYC before flying

over to Munich on some serious business. British metal bastards Cradle

Of Filth were playing the Hammerstein... Oh, the laughter! Talk about

upholding the masquerade when these loons & their dumb-ass fans go

ape-shit about this vampire romance thing. Dre & me standing there,

posing like Bela Lugosi himself, showing off our fangs & drowning the

hilarity in kegs of beer. None of them payed for, people really

excited & wanted to know where they could get some of those made &ct.

Could have embraced a legion then & there (here's how it's made,

morons!) with no one knowing, but decided to extend the fun. Got us

both some gorgeous goth babes, stupid bitches all of them, but they'll

be cannon fodder, all of them - I hope!

Went with that girl - Rose whatever - to her shit apartment somewhere

out in NJ. The full necrophilia treatment, funny draperies everywhere,

black candles & even a coffin as table. Comes handy, I thought & went

to seduce her the Sosa way. Had to listen to some crap Sisters album

first, got her drunk on that ghastly red Bulgarian Dre had looted from

some liquor store. Then went to work on her. She has a nice tattoo,

looks like Rake after he had his sunbath back in '82. Licked that &

about everything else, let here feel my teeth oh so slightly, & as she

liked it asked her what about some kinky games, she's into that and

even owns some gear. Seemed a little afraid as I turned all cold and

business-like, bind & gag her tightly & cooly smoke a joint - but I

ignored her. Started having some real fun. Finally I drained her life,

felt extremely good, & then heard one of her drugged-out friends from

the gig crashing up the stairs, screeching Rose something, & I shuffle

her into the coffin & lie down with her & have some more fun while the

dickhead stumbles through the place, spilling the Bulgarian & mumbling

nonsense all the time.



(...)



Strategy:



Bruise & Breed



There are four cards that let non-sterile clans in V:tES create new

vampires: The Embrace, Third Tradition, Creation Rites and Create

Gargoyle. Only the first two are interesting for Brujah.



The Third Tradition: Progeny

Action, 1 blood

Requires a ready Prince or Justicar. +1 stealth action. Put this card

in play; it becomes a 1 capacity vampire. Go through your library, ash

heap, or hand to find one Discipline card to put on this card. Move up

to 2 blood from the acting vampire to this card. This vampire is not

considered unique, cannot act the turn it is created, and is the same

clan as the acting vampire. 



The Embrace

Action, 2 blood

Requires a ready vampire. +1 stealth action. Put this card in play; it

becomes a 1 capacity vampire. Go through your library, ash heap, or

hand to find a Discipline card for this card; otherwise, the vampire

remains at 1 capacity. This vampire is not considered unique, must

hunt the turn he or she is created, and is the same clan as the acting

vampire.



The Third Tradition costs one less and frees the newly created vampire

from the danger of hunting (normally no one blocks the Embrace, but

rather the hunt), but is only playable by Princes or Justicars. The

Embrace is usable by every vampire and can lead to exponential growth

in minion numbers (say in a Sabbat Embrace deck with Hungry Coyote,

where every newly created Embrace hunts to capacity on its first turns

and creates a new one the next).

Third Tradition decks tend to have a split strategy. You need fatties

to play the card, and a weenie strategy to actually put those feeble

vampires to good use. The occasional presence weenie creation in a

princely vote deck to call that extra KRC is not unheard of, of

course, but generally all breed strategies should be done for real or

not at all, i.e. you base your main strategy around having a swarm of

little ones eventually (and that's true for both Third Tradition

and/or Embrace decks). Which leads to two points you have to keep in

mind: These decks are relatively slow, so you need a good defensive

component usable by your bigger minion decks to survive the first

rounds, and they are card intensive - you need the breed cards,

discipline masters to tool them up (which you can discard, so the

total amount of masters in your deck can be significantly higher than

normally), and actions for them to take. You will tend to have a

master and action card heavy library and rely mainly on one

discipline, so your deck will be of a very pro-active nature. Defense

and Plan B elements, the strong parts of more toolboxy decks, can be

tricky to add.

Of course there is the obvious question: Why not play weenies in the

first place? Sometimes your idea is so strange that there are no

suitable weenies (think about a Tremere swarm vote deck with presence

Gargoyles). Or you want that exponential growths thing, because you

will gain more by having an enormous amount of vampires in the middle

or end game. Swarm bleed in itself can be very effective,

Consangineous Boon will work wonders on your pool with a horde of

newly drafted Brujah on the table, and as the icing on the cake there

are a few master cards that give advantages to every vampire of a clan

you control. Classic examples are Power Structure for the Lasombra and

Bastille Opera House for the Daughters Of Cacophony, both give one

extra vote for every member of the respective clan (Legacy Of Pander,

allthough not a master, follows that template, but you don't really

need to breed Panders, they come cheap out of the box). The Brujah

have Brujah Debate, a card that turns the tiniest member of our clan

into a combat monster. Tap your highest capacity Brujah, and for each

copy in play every other Brujah gets one optional maneuver and +1

strength in combat. With more than two Debates things get ugly...



You will notice that this month's deck does not really go overboard on

Debates. The main reason lies in the aforementioned card intensiveness

of the breed strategy. I went for a mixed Embrace/Third Tradition

approach and use the cheap Brujah princes for massive pool gain

through Consangineous Boons, which IMHO is the strongest aspect of all

breed strategies. Ousting works through massive bruise and bleed with

the weenies, they all have Potence, and even without a Brujah Debate

repeated hits with Undead Strength, sometimes boosted by Increased

Strength, will wear your opponents down. The combat formula of the

deck is really simple, it doesn't even have Immortal Grapples.

Subtlety and finesse are lost in favour of brute force and strength by

numbers - the only way a deck like this can work. The weaknesses seem

to be glaring, but actually once you get the breed stuff going, it is

very hard to stop. Basically this deck finally shifted our local meta

game towards more intercept.



It is difficult to state the final verdict on breed strategies. They

tend to either win gloriously or die early. For a while I thought they

were just a lame excuse for not playing weenies, but that's not true.

The real challenge is deck construction, playing it is pretty

straightfoward. You only have to decide carefully when to stop

breeding and bloating in favour of attacking. There is not much room

to interact with the other decks, you will be seen as enemy number one

if you manage to breed succesfully, and if not, you are dead anyway.



Vampire of the month:



Hector Sosa

Brujah 4, POT pre



The cheapest Brujah with superior Potence, but he doesn't see much use

in regular Brujah combat decks. The main reason for this is his lack

of Celerity, the most common clan discipline. He's good for mono

potence decks and would be natural for any type of straightforward

punch and bleed/vote deck, which sadly don't see much play these days

(because they probably suck). The less Celerity your Brujah deck

needs, the more useful he becomes.



Card of the month:



It should be Brujah Debate, but I'll leave that one for a seperate

issue that focuses especially on it. Instead here is the card that

makes the whole bruise'n'breed thing worthwhile. It is dirt common and

still not seen as widely as I would expect it.



Consanguineous Boon

Political action

Political card - Worth 1 Vote.

Called by any vampire at +1 stealth. Choose a clan. Successful

referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool for each member of that

clan he or she controls. 



Every single deck I build has some elements that deal with pool gain.

Normally stuff like Blood Dolls (my current favorite) handle that, but

as soon as you enter the political arena, more options open up.

Consanguineous Boon is very suitable for Brujah, as our clan's

political power comes from relatively cheap vampires, thus giving you

the chance to bring out a good number of minions. Even a Boon for

three is nothing to sneeze at, and on top of that it is the perfect

gift if you want to be Mr. Nice Guy - call it on your ally's clan in

exchange for support on the next one for clan Brujah. Or keep your

grand predator in the game with a well-timed blood boost... So we are

having a pool-gain card at first glance and an agitation/table control

tool on top of that - make sure to have a few if you go political with

Brujah!



Deck:



Procreation of the Wicked



Somewhat in contrast to my earlier advice to build this sort of deck

carefully I basically bolted this creation together based on a very

stripped-down Euro-Brujah core. So it has the usual minions, Second

Traditions and Deflections as its basic defense parameter. Added to

this core are two main components: An extensive breed module with

Progenies and Embraces plus Potence masters, and a ton of

Consangineous Boons for pool gain. The combat is relatively weak,

without any Immortal Grapples to stop S:CE. You rely on sheer numbers,

use the Haven Uncovereds wisely against the biggest threats on the

table and go bleed for one with all the little ones if you don't need

to call a vote. As with all decks that evolve through multiple phases

it is a question of luck to have the cards you want when you need

them. Therefore only two Brujah Debates, because you will only want to

play them late in the game when you are ready to move forward. It dies

against any form of reliable +1 intercept, as after the first surprise

is gone everybody will block the breed actions, and you normally can't

punish the blockers enough with only Increased/Undead Strength at your

disposal.



Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 36, Avg: 6,25)

2  Constanza Vinti (Brujah 8, CEL DOM POT, Prince)

2  Don Cruez (Brujah 10, ani CEL dom pro POT PRE, Justicar)

2  Dónal O'Connor (Brujah 8, CEL DOM POT, Prince)

1  Dre (Brujah 3, cel pot)

1  Hector Sosa  (Brujah 4, pre POT)

1  Lupo  (Brujah 2,  pot)

2  Volker (Brujah 5, CEL pot, Prince)

1  Yuri (Brujah 4, cel pot pre)



Library: (90 cards)



Master (20 cards)

2  Brujah Debate

1  Creepshow Casino

4  Haven Uncovered

2  Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt

8  Potence

2  Storage Annex

1  Warzone Hunting Ground



Minion (70 cards)

2  Alacrity

1  Brujah Justicar

8  Consanguineous Boon

4  Deflection

2  Disarm

4  Embrace, The

1  Fourth Tradition: The Accounting, The

7  Increased Strength

5  Obedience

1  Praxis Seizure: Venice

7  Second Tradition: Domain, The

5  Taste of Vitae

6  Third Tradition: Progeny, The

14 Undead Strength

3  Wake with Evening's Freshness



Final Notes:



Thanks for staying with me through this issue. As I have kept away a

little from playing Brujah lately to protect the sanity of my

playgroup and to get some fresh perspective on the game, I have no

clue what I will write in the next edition. Therefore all suggestions

and ideas from you people are more than welcome to the usual address:

skaffen_amtiskaw"at"mail"dot"ru



Best regards



Skaffen



Chantry Elder Of Munich, Archon Of The Cold Dawn



'As they select themselves and cut in innocent flesh

what Jesus really meant by: "Let the children come to me..."'

(Moonspell, 'Let The Children Cum To Me')