Brujah Antitribu Newsletter

February 2004

1. Contents:

1. Contents
2. Introduction: !Brujah and voting
3. Library Card Overview
4. Crypt Card Overview
5. Deck Discussion
6. Final Words

2. Introduction: !Brujah and voting:

This month?s newsletter will focus on !Brujah and voting. Not having
had the time to do a lot of actual playing this past month, I will
mainly focus on the experience I got from playing with my only !Brujah
vote deck I have constructed so far. I realize this gives a very
limited view on the voting possibilities of the clan and I would like
to invite readers to write and discuss about their attempts to get
!Brujah politics to work.

3. Library Card Overview:

Iron Glare [BH:C]

Cardtype: 	Action Modifier
	
Discipline: 	Potence & Presence
	
[pot][pre] Only usable during a referendum. This vampire gains 2
votes.
[POT][PRE] +2 bleed. After playing this card, you cannot play another
action modifier to further increase the bleed for this action.
	
Probably one of the Black Hand cards every Brujah Antitribu player has
been excited about, in a lot of decks Iron Glare has become a
replacement of or a supplement to cards like Bewitching Oration and
Legal Manipulations. Its versatility often frees up valuable card
slots and as an action modifier it often provides a reason to block
bleeding minions with both superior presence and potence. Speaking of
those minions, there have been printed 29 of them and not surprisingly
the Brujah (11) and !Brujah (8) have the most of them among their
ranks. With the group restrictions, the Brujah and !Brujah are tied,
having 8 minions capable of playing Iron Glare at superior and
something that is not unimportant, the Brujah have only 3 of those
being lower than 9 capacity while the !Brujah have 6 of those being
lower than 9 capacity. A lot of numbers to make my point that this
card is really cut out for the !Brujah and in the deck I am discussing
later on in this newsletter I am packing 8 of them.

Conclusion: With no drawback except for maybe its restrictive
discipline combination, Iron Glare?s versatility, free cost and action
modifier?s surprise effect will often make a significant difference,
whether your strategy is voting or bleeding or both.

4. Crypt Card Overview:

Sela [BH:U2]

Cardtype: 	Vampire
	
Clan: 	Brujah antitribu
	
Level: 	Advanced
	
Group: 	2
	
Capacity: 	7
	
Discipline: 	cel obt POT PRE
	
Advanced, Sabbat Archbishop of Rome: Sela gets +1 stealth on (D)
actions directed at a Methuselah who controls a ready bishop.
Sabbat: After an action, you may move a combat card Henry played
during that action from your ash heap to the top of your library.

Sela is definitely one of the !Brujah?s best vampires, in fact if you
are playing !Brujah and not have her in your crypt, you better have a
really good reason. Black Hand gave us the advanced version and while
maybe not as good as the unadvanced 6-cap, a 7-cap Archbishop with a
good, although not always likely to occur special ability is not bad
either. Having lost the +1 bleed does hurt a bit though and it makes
her a little less useful if your deck is not concentrating on voting.
Merging her with the unadvanced version is definitely not as good as
doing it the other way around, as you will have spent 1 more pool on
influencing and also the marginally useful and widely neglected
special ability that the unadvanced Sela has, will not trigger. All
that being said, it?s nice to have another archbishop next to Salinger
in this clan that mainly had to count on its bishops for votes. Having
another minion with both superior Presence and Potence for Iron Glare
is very good too and the fact that she has Obtenebration too, makes it
possible to play 5 different minions with this discipline in a !Brujah
crypt.

Conclusion:
While maybe not strictly as good as the unadvanced version, advanced
Sela is a welcome addition to the clan that opens up and strengthens a
whole range possible strategies for the Brujah antitribu. Having no
additional merged effect, it is best to always merge the unadvanced
with the advanced version, if you have the option.


5. Deck Discussion:

Deck Name:   Doing It The !Toreador Way

Created By:  Hans Schrijvers

Description:

As hinted by its name, this deck plays a lot like a 'standard'
Toreador antitribu vote and bleed deck. The idea is by using evasive
tactics doing damage to your prey's pool in any way you can, using
votes or bleeding. Cards like Pentex Subversion, Mind Numb and
Propaganda, reduce the available blockers, while the multiple untaps,
provided by Majesties, Zillah's Tears and Change of Targets try to
create windows of opportunity in which damage to your prey can be done
as they run out of even more available blockers. Blood Dolls, Minion
Taps, Gang Territories, Voter Captivations and Enchant Kindreds are
able to provide the necessary pool gain as there is next to no defense
against heavy bleed. Using votes and bleed to oust this deck cannot be
completely shut down, should either of the two strategies be made
impossible. The Shattering Blows are a metagame choice, as lately a
lot of Ivory Bows, Assault Rifles, Rowan Rings and other equipment
have been showing up in my games. I might want to replace the
Bloodbath in the future and this deck is certainly up for some more
tweaking. Not having access to cards like Palla Grande, Patronage or
Art Scam has been fairly well compensated by the versatility of Iron
Glare and the presence of Miguel Santo Domingo and also the Gang
Territories. Not having access to Telepathic Misdirection for bounce
has not yet proven to be much of an issue as there is not that much
stealthy bleed around in my area. Propaganda has often been the key in
getting VPs and I am considering adding a few more.

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 14, Max: 32, Avg: 6.00)
----------------------------------------------
2  Frederick the Weak    pre              2,  Brujah Antitribu
2  Rigby                 aus CEL pot PRE  5,  Brujah Antitribu
2  Sela                  cel obt POT PRE  6,  Brujah Antitribu, Bishop
2  Sela (Advanced)       cel obt POT PRE  7,  Brujah antitribu,
Archbishop
2  Miguel Santo Domingo  cel for POT PRE  7,  Brujah antitribu
2  Salinger              CEL POT PRE tha  9,  Brujah Antitribu,
Archbishop

Library: (90 cards)
-------------------
Master (16 cards)
4  Blood Doll
2  Gang Territory
1  Giant's Blood
1  Legendary Vampire
4  Minion Tap
1  Pentex Subversion
1  Powerbase: Madrid
2  Sudden Reversal

Action (22 cards)
1  Bloodbath
6  Enchant Kindred
2  Entrancement
2  Intimidation
2  Mind Numb
2  Propaganda
7  Zillah`s Tears

Action Modifier (21 cards)
3  Bewitching Oration
5  Change of Target
8  Iron Glare
5  Voter Captivation

Political Action (15 cards)
2  Cardinal Benediction
1  Crusade: Mexico City
1  Crusade: Rome
2  Dramatic Upheaval
8  Kine Resources Contested
1  Political Flux

Combat (16 cards)
4  Flash
10 Majesty
2  Shattering Blow

6. Final Words:

This is the end of the February edition, hopefully it was interesting
enough, as I wrote in the intro, I have barely had the chance to play
any games of vtes the past month, but I hope to be able to do some
more testing this month. Anyway feel free to send questions, feedback
or other comments to my e-mail mundug2000@yahoo.com or just post them
on the newsgroup. Also if you have ideas for or want to contribute to
future issues, let me know.

- Hans Schrijvers

"Sometimes, the traditional methods are the best." - Jacob Bragg