True Brujah Newsletter, May 2006. Mark Merlin Petersen - editor and author. hallofhadescourt@sbcglobal.net 1) Fiction from the Nights of Reckoning Prerelease in Livonia, Michigan, USA. 2) Imbued enter the Night/True Brujah and imbued a) Virtue overview with attention paid to imbued/vampire mixed crypts b) Imbued and the Trujah c) Playtesting Results and Commentary 3) Decks from Playtesting 1. Fiction Beatrice was confused. Lucita, a gorgeous Hispanic woman, had shown her that she had been doing the dirty work of corpses, and that was a good thing. However, now here she was in Egypt, headed toward the embassy at the suggestion from Lucita to report some inconsistencies in the local bureaucracy. A black man stepped out of nowhere and snapped a photo of her. Beatrice knew there was something wrong with this situation. She gave chase as the man ducked down an alley in retreat. Beatrice could sense that this man was working for *them*, but he seemed mortal. Nevertheless she drew a stake from her coat, ready to slam it home. But the man suddenly threw the camera up the side of a building as he fled. Beatrice saw a snake-like tendril of darkness flick out and catch the camera in mid-air. She searched the building to no avail. Beatrice back-tracked to the embassy but found that her contact was gone for the night. Nehemiah realized the danger that Beatrice presented to his powerbase in Egypt as soon as Shawnda told him of the encounter. Lucita was an old nemesis of his, and he understood the method behind her manipulations. She had been seen in Cairo recently herself, and had visited prominent government officials there, weakening his hold on that city. He could not allow Beatrice to reach her contact at the embassy. He called his pawns in the Camarilla and added her to the Red List, knowing that as long as she was to die, he may as well reap the benefits of his actions. He used the photograph Shawnda had given him to identify the woman to the Ivory Tower. Before the night was through, he had placed her name at the bottom of the list, though Lucita's allies had tried to intervene on Beatrice's behalf. With the preparations done, he sat in Beatrice's hotel room and exerted his will on time itself. Beatrice closed the door to her hotel room just after sunrise. She had spent the remainder of the evening looking for corpses to "kill"--for real--but had had no such luck. The door latched behind her and she saw a shadowy form rise from a chair in the corner of the room. She leapt toward the window to pull the curtains and expose the beast to the light of the sun, but only moonlight streamed into the room. "You have run out of time, Beatrice," he said, and he touched her. She screamed as her body withered at his touch, aging prematurely at an alarming rate. Her cries diminished as the seconds past. The breath of life left her lungs for the last time. Nehemiah stepped over her desiccated corpse and went to claim his reward. 2. Imbued Enter the Eternal Struggle I've been playing with the idea of mixing imbued with Trujah and enjoyed little success. I find the vastly different mechanics to be tough to mingle together. It isn't impossible, but it certainly isn't easy. a. Overview of Virtues (in supporting roles to vampires or vice-versa) Innocence - Helps other imbued. Not so good for vampire support. Martyrdom - Mainly helps other imbued, with some interesting support in cards like Project. Not so good for vampire support. Redemption - Powerful effects that support some strategies. Free States Rant combines with the do-a-damage effect from Respire. The Society of Leopold and Form of Corruption would do well in this sort of deck. Vengeance - Decent combat abilities and a way to enter combat. Not bad in a low-combat environment where the imbued can really shine, or if used in conjunction w/ multiple copies of Memories of Mortality. However, whether this strategy supports or can be supported by vampires is suspect. Inspire Greatness could be a great addition here. Judgment - Untap abilities, intercept, and a weird combat card. I like it, and it can add a great defensive (or offensive/defensive, with the untap effect from Vigilance) aspect to a deck lacking such things. Visionary - Determine is fantastic defense, especially for supporting clans without bounce cards. Note that imbued are technically less risky for bounce inclusion than Dominate weenies because the imbued can't be used against their controller to do pool damage via Fame, Tension in the Ranks, and Dragonbound. Forsee and Augur are good for looking at other's hands, and knowledge is power. Defense - Champion, Rejuvenate, and Lock are all incredibly useful and playable cards. Rejuvenate and Lock protect the investment that has been made on imbued by healing them or making them much less vulnerable to attack. Lock can also double as minion-irritation, so it's very cycle-able as well. Nice. Champion is simply fantastic. A few imbued with Champion and combat permanents (to survive the resulting conflicts) are a fairly substantial wall. b. Imbued and the Group 4 True Brujah The True Brujah function well (best, some would argue) when played as the "star" vampire of a deck. Why not fill the rest of the deck with hunters? Let us compare the various group 4 Trujah and what they can offer to imbued who complement them in the crypt. All - superior Temporis and Potence are common to all Group 4 True Brujah. Clotho's becomes much less useful with a hunter-support crypt because the "influence" effect is lost on imbued. Clio's Kiss and inferior Hourglass of the Mind are good for recursion and hand-setup for decks that just *need* to get and keep those powers in play. Hourglass at superior is good to keep the hand stocked through the end of the world, since imbued and Gehenna cards mix like nobody's business. Kiss of Lachesis can fetch guns for less pool that the imbued can equip from the Trujah, and doubles as anti-gun (anti-Sport Bike, anti-Winthrop, etc.) support against foes. Potence doesn't bring nearly as much to the table as far as helping allies, other than the ability to muscle-through minions and burn locations. The exceptions to this are the combination cards Inspire Greatness and Iron Heart, which could find some use in Trujah/imbued rush decks and Trujah/imbued walls, respectively. Nehemiah - He has votes. He cycles the hand like a fiend. He's huge, which is a drawback. He has superior Presence for yet more votes and can call Free States Rant. He can also put Form of Corruption in play to capitalize on those FSR votes. He's a deck by himself, but Redeemers could help him out with Respire, and Visionaries add some wanted defense to the package. He can also use the Summoning to find Moise Kavabubu, which will help the imbued get weapons quickly. He can play Entrancement and Lure of the Serpent to steal (back) any imbued that wander over to the wrong side of the fence, as well. Serpentis brings some weird and useful options to the table. Consignment to Duat and Thrones Crumble (admittedly cornercase, but damn those Nos royalty decks!) compliments the aforementioned FSR strategy, and Mark of Damnation is a good compliment to imbued-rush support. Obtenebration doesn't add much to the hunter/Trujah deck, perhaps Shadow Twin to do damage. Al-Muntaquim, the Avenger - His name alone makes me want to pair him up with some Avengers and get some serious rush on, but i'm not sure that it would work well. However, his Gehenna special is amazing with the fact that imbued love Gehenna. If he is tooled up w/ combat permanents he won't even care if Veil of Darkness, Blood Weakens, and The Slow Withering are in play. Transient combat cards are for false Brujah, anyway ;-). He works great with Afifa in a Gehenna-themed deck, and he can burn her for a +1 bleed after the events have all hit the table. His Fortitude doesn't bring much to the imbued party, but inferior Obfuscate does. He can Hidden Lurker against a blocked Power action or Mask of a Thousand Faces a bleed, so that the hunters, who are a little more squishy than he, remain healthy. He can also use the outferior Clotho's Gift effect to pull more imbued into the fray (from the top of the crypt to uncontrolled region only). Ibn Khaldun, Scholar - the Scholar doesn't have the utility of Obfuscate to bring to the party, but he's the cheapest True Brujah that can work with imbued. His Inspire Greatness works at the superior level for +2 strength and his superior Presence gives him a greater ability to vote than Al-Muntaquim. He also has a permanent Metro Underground effect, which is nice in deck that has more reactions than Wake-cards. This way he can take a few actions (he's got for/TEM for multiact) and still untap at the end of the turn. Like Nehemiah, he can also use the Summoning to get Moise. Mylan isn't as useful for the Scholar without skill cards, however, so the extra Summoning will have to be used to get Carlton Van Wyk or Vagabond Mystic. Actual Playtests I have run all three of these Trujah in decks with imbued, two of which are at the end of this newsletter. I have found that running both vampires and imbued in the same deck causes handjam quite frequently if there are many cards that one or the other cannot play. My best successes so far have been my "Nehemiah + splash of imbued for Respire + Red List/Trophies for other imbued" NoR prerelease deck and my Al-Muntaquim combat permanent Gehenna-Wall. The Ibn Khaldun deck listed below suffers against my combat-heavy metagame, but it's fun to play anyway. Nehemiah deck: It was a prerelease event, so the number of cards was limited. I played a 60-card deck, and Nehemiah's cycle-special helped me stay in decent cards the entire game. Tabriz Assembly was key as well; having eight cards in such a limited and disparate environment is huge. I think that the cycling ability helps him work better with imbued than any other True Brujah. Link to my report for the NoR Prerelease with this deck on thepathofblood.com: http://www.thepathofblood.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3544&highlight=livonia Al-Muntaquim deck: This one does pretty well because it uses mainly discipline-less cards. The only discipline-required cards in the deck are Freak Drives, Hourglass of the Mind, and Domain of Evernight. This way Al can take some extra actions tooling up and getting all walliflorous while the imbued get moving forward (Second Sight + Strike with Conviction, it's been said elsewhere...). Travis is awesome for bloat through most of the game. The combat package makes what i believe to be effective use of Berretta 9mm, since I'm tired of fighting press-combat here. Also, it's great protection against a Blood to Water deck, a favorite ally-hoser in my playgroup. Ibn-Khaldun deck: I have difficulty finding use for Ibn Khaldun as a stand-alone star, but i think the imbued make him a little more useful. In this deck he is a defensive star who can also grant +2 strength to his rush-happy Avengers. I've included several ways to give him back the copious amounts of blood this can require, but I've not yet managed a VP with this deck. If the imbued get blocked while getting a Surge or a Leather Jacket they usually get beat up before i can hand some ass with them. Also, in my metagame Ibn Khaldun is a target since there are few combat cards in the deck that he can play (permanents, mostly). In both playtest games he's also been hit with master-nasty in the form of Fame or the Society of Leopold (empty, of course). It has come to my attention that i might not own enough Surge for the deck, or that i should use Muse of Flame instead of Bum's Rush. I have to agree on the Surge point, but I prefer a blockable rush that can get me a maneuver to a random rush that allows me to draw back to full hand-size. Overall: I'm not impressed with mixed-crypts, but it's possible that I'm just not doing it right. Regardless, I'm glad the fancy has worn off of the new cards and I can get back to the real business: True Brujah sans imbued. Deck Name: Destroying the World to Save It (Chronicle of the End Times Mix) Created By: Mark Merlin Petersen Description: Travis bloats the team while Al-Muntaquim walls up and the world ends. This deck functions well if Al-Muntaquim can get a couple of Berettas early. He untaps at the end of almost every turn when a Gehenna card is played, so i have forsaken the Wakes in this build. It can be tough to move forward with this one, but I've still gotten a GW out of the Second Sight + Strike with Conviction combo. Crypt: (12 cards) ------------------------------------------ 5 Al-Muntaquim obf pre TEM POT FOR 8 True Brujah 2 Travis "Traveler72" Miller DEF MAR 5 Martyr 1 Lupe "Cabbie22" Droin DEF VEN 4 Defender 2 Jack "Hannibal137" Harmon DEF JUD 4 Defender 2 Francois "Warder" Loehr DEF JUD 3 Defender Library: (88 cards) ------------------- Master (12 cards) 1 Illegal Search and Seizure 1 Anachronism 1 Anarch Troublemaker 1 Fortschritt Library 1 Visit from the Capuchin 1 Church of Vindicated Faith, The 1 Vigil: The Thin Line 2 Angel of Berlin 1 Nod 1 Blood Doll 1 Fame Action (6 cards) 2 Lock 2 Jack of Both Sides 2 Hourglass of the Mind Action Modifier (10 cards) 6 Freak Drive 4 Domain of Evernight Combat (11 cards) 5 Concealed Weapon 3 Trap 1 Dragon's Breath Rounds 2 Manstopper Rounds Ally (2 cards) 1 Repo Man 1 Moise Kasavubu Equipment (14 cards) 1 Delivery Truck 3 Sport Bike 8 Beretta 9mm 1 Orb of Ulain 1 Tapestry of Blood Event (8 cards) 1 Torpid Blood 1 Unmasking, The 1 Recalled to the Founder 1 Fall of the Camarilla 1 Edge Explosion 1 Dragonbound 1 Slow Withering 1 Blood Weakens Conviction (12 cards) 4 Strike With Conviction 4 Second Sight 4 React With Conviction Power (13 cards) 3 Champion 4 Rejuvenate 2 Project 2 Vigilance 2 Discern This deck was last saved at 8:48:55 PM on 5/26/2006 Deck Name: The Vengence of the Scholar Created By: Mark Merlin Petersen Description: Ibn Khaldun supports Pedro and his fellow Avengers in a rush-fest. I've gotten my ass kicked every time i've played this, but i think it has some potential. The basic idea is that Ibn Khaldun plays reactions as defense (Rewind Time and Quicksilver Contemplation) and Inspire Greatness for rush support on the imbued. When he's empty he fills up via Jake Washington or Giant's Blood. It works until someone kicks the crap out of poor, empty, mostly defenseless Ibn Khaldun. Leather Jackets have been added to stop this and to protect the squishies. React With Conviction is the largest count of Conviction because I'm using it to thwart Majesty. Crypt: (12 cards) --------------------------------------------- 5 Ibn Khaldun for POT PRE TEM 7 True Brujah 3 Pedro Cortez VEN MAR 4 Avenger 1 Peter "Outback295" Rophail RED VEN 4 Redeemer 1 Lupe "Cabbie22" Droin DEF VEN 4 Defender 1 John "Cop90" O`Malley JUD VEN 4 Avenger 1 Jennifer "Flame61" Vidisania VEN VIN 4 Avenger Library: (84 cards) ------------------- Master (12 cards) 1 Giant`s Blood 3 Jake Washington (Hunter) 1 Fortschritt Library 2 Angel of Berlin 3 Haven Uncovered 1 Church of Vindicated Faith, The 1 Tabriz Assembly Action (8 cards) 4 Bum`s Rush 3 Ambush 1 Big Game Action Modifier (8 cards) 8 Inspire Greatness Reaction (8 cards) 3 Rewind Time 3 Wake with Evening`s Freshness 2 Banner of Neutrality Combat (19 cards) 12 Cleave 2 Smite 5 Weighted Walking Stick Equipment (3 cards) 2 Living Wood Staff 1 Crusader Sword, The 4 Leather Jacket Event (5 cards) 2 Edge Explosion 1 Unmasking, The 1 Blood Cult Awareness Network 1 Torpid Blood Combo (4 cards) 4 Quicksilver Contemplation Power (3 cards) 3 Surge Conviction (12 cards) 6 React With Conviction 4 Second Sight 2 Strike With Conviction This deck was last saved at 10:40:15 PM on 5/26/2006