Introduction: Welcome to the February issue of the VEKN Brujah newsletter. As you might have noticed this is just my second attempt on describing the pros and cons of the greatest combat clan of the original Jyhad, and still one of the best in the game. In the first issue I was writing about weapons and their viability in bruise decks. My esteemed colleague Andrew 'Wes' Weston, writer of the !Bru newsletter, took a determined position against this sort of inclusion, so please read the thread following his latest effort to catch up on the discussion. No news about the Use Of Weapons deck I posted since it's barely three weeks ago that I wrote the first issue and didn't get to play it since. Fiction: They say you loose the taste for everything but vitae, but Dónal O'Connor still liked to start his nights on a few glasses of Guinness if there were no pressing matters at hand. He looked forward to a quiet evening in his favorite local pub, the Stag's Head, but even before he could down his first pint, his cellular phone rang. The call from Anvil, the Primogen sent over by the Don to check on the clan's assets at Getaway Computers outside Dublin came expected, but the message was not. Dónal felt the nervousness in the other man's voice as Anvil described how the webservers that ran the Getaway's e-commerce shop that incidently sold mass market PCs with pre-installed Macrosoft OS and (but this is not mentioned in any specification sheet) Black Cruezade (tm) were slowly going down under a distributed denial-of-service attack. Two hours later, after Getaway had basically disappeared from the Net, Dónal tried to stifle a bestial laugh. "Stupid bastard", he thundered as he reached for his phone. Indeed the one responsible for the hack had tried to be very stylish by using a Getaway computer and obviously didn't know about the powers of Back Cruezade (tm). You could call Dónal lucky, but he had not reached his position among the Brujah by leaving any possibility unchecked. He had the address of a local ISP in Frankfurt, Germany, and the IP number of the computer where the fateful command to a copy of the DoS program Stacheldraht had been issued - dutifully protocolled and sent to a server in New York by Black Cruezade (tm). "Don't you worry, I'll see to it myself," his fellow Archon Volker, prince of Frankfurt, said as he hung up. Half an hour later his limousine sped through nightly streets among the deserted skyscrapers in the city's financial district as he made his way to a nondescript building near the main train station. A heroin dealer ran away as the heavy car came to a stop two blocks from the address Lupo had just given him after he had "convinced" the night shift sysadmin at net-heral.de to ignore Germany's strict laws on consumer data protection for a second. Those big suit banker-guy Ventrue assholes in town called him the "puppet prince", but he would teach them respect, Volker thought as he summoned his burning wrath and kicked the sheep-skinned cardboard computer box out of the way. Dodd, who had just switched off the computer, looked terrified as Volker lunged at him, smothering the hapless Brujah Antitribu in a grapple of immortal strength and crushing his skull with three quick blows. Vitae smeared Volker's grinning mouth as he kicked the shrunken corpse into the corner where the sunlight would burn it to ashes. Dónal smiled as he saw the old bullet holes still doting the walls of the General Post Office. But it wasn't nostalgia that washed over the prince of Dublin, it was satisfaction. His fingers went into his pocket and touched the official Declaration of Anathema on a certain Carlotta Giovanni, who, as an email by cvinti@euronymous.net from Rome brought to the attention of the assembled Camarilla elders, had brought the masquerade into danger by hiring Dodd to a mafia investment group for an attempt to divebomb Getaway shares, preparing the stage for a hostile takeover. At the end of the day the whole scheme smelled like Ventrue, but the only odour that reached his nose at this moment was a faint hint of his first pint of Guinness as he crossed the river Liffey... Strategy: Burn, Baby, Burn Potence combat is the most efficient way to empty any vampire of blood and send her to torpor. While that is most often sufficient to help your ultimate goal (i.e. ousting your prey and surviving your predator's efforts), outright burning of the opposing minion is not only way more satisfying, it also puts the Holy Terror into the other players. Psychological warfare, you know... And to really cripple your prey, you have to make sure that his vampires don't come back. Which means you need to have a speedy combat deck that torporizes them as soon as they come out, so there'll never be anyone (apart from a cross-table helping hand) that gets them out of torpor, or... you burn them. There are a two cards that give this option with Potence: Burning Wrath: Enough aggravated damage will burn a vampire. Burning Wrath gives you +1 (inf.) or +2 (sup.) aggravated hand damage, but the cost is intimidating: 3 blood. Still, combined with Torn Signpost and Taste Of Vitae you should come out clear, if you could afford the cost in the first place. Decapitate: Wth superior Potence, this card lets you burn a vampire going into torpor. Again, the cost of 2 blood makes it expensive, and you can't taste this blood back. Still, if you want to get rid of an opponent for good, this card rocks: Torn Signpost or Undead Strength, Immortal Grapple if needed, Disarm and Decapitate will do the job. Two non-discipline cards are very useful if you want to send your Brujah on a scorched earth mission: Amaranth: Works like Decapitate, only that it doesn't burn the other vampire, but diablerizes her instead. This means that there will be a Blood Hunt. If you can survive this (either by having vote lock or trustworthy allies with the necessary votes, being an Archon or using Absolution Of The Diabolist), Amaranth is obviously better than Decapitate, since it costs no blood. Anathema: It needs a prince to call, and it needs to get passed, but an anathema'ed vampire will rarely go to torpor. All you need to do is reduce her to 0 blood in combat, then she will burn and you earn her capacity in pool - a nice way to make a little extra profit by achieving your main goal. This month's deck is especially geared toward the last two cards. It uses the three of the so-called Euro-Brujah, the Brujah vampires introduced in the Dark Sovereigns expansion: they were the dreaded twins Dónal O'Connor and Constanza Vinti (both 8 cap. princes with CEL/DOM/POT), Volker, also a prince (and the youngest at 5 cap, with CEL/pot) and - less interesting in this context - Gwendolyn, the 11 cap. Inner Circle member. The three princes together form a formidable vote block, they can call the vote on Anathema, become Archons (see below: Card of the month) and do what Brujah are best at: killing. Vampire of the month: Dónal O'Connor 8, CEL DOM POT, Brujah, Prince Prince of Dublin: Any vampire blocking Dónal burns 1 blood before combat begins. I could have chosen Constanza Vinti instead - the only difference between the two princes (Constanza handling affairs in Rome) is their special: Constanza gets +2 bleed against a methusalah controlling a ready Ventrue. Both look like your usual all disciplines superior prince, only that instead of Presence they have Dominate, the "fourth" discipline of the Brujah: Anvil, Donal and Constanza, Turah and Don Cruez have it. If you want to use Presence, say if you want to play a political Brujah deck, their lack of Presence sort of sucks, but for bleeding Dominate, even at inferior, is as good or better than Presence. Not to mention nifty stuff like Deflection or Redirection for bleed bounce. Taking all this plus their access to the Camarilla traditions turns the Euro-Brujah twin princes into a force to be reckoned with - as I will try to show with this month' deck. And before you ask which one - Dónal or Constanza - I prefer: It depends. If some trigger happy Tzimisce wants to mess with your affairs, Dónal is slightly better because everyone blocking him has one blood less to pay for nasty cards like Horrid Form. If you have to eat through a Ventrue prey, obviously Constanza's special comes in handy. Card of the month: Archon Political Action, Prince or Justicar Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any Prince or Justicar at +1 stealth. Choose a vampire. Successful referendum makes the vampire an Archon. An Archon may enter combat with another vampire controlled by another Methuselah as a +1 stealth (D) action. Any vampire attempting to block an Archon burns 1 blood. A Blood Hunt cannot be called on an Archon. [Any vampire can remove these abilities with a successful referendum; calling that referendum is a +1 stealth political action]. (Please also take note of the following excerpt from chapter 10.1 of the SW rulebook, which makes the card even better: Only Camarilla vampires can call the following referendums: [...] the referendum to remove the abilities granted by Archon. Only Camarilla vampires can be chosen in the Archon and Camarilla Exemplary referendums. [...]) What the Brujah are best at is rushing other minions. The generic way to do this is by using cards like Bum's Rush, Ambush and/or Haven Uncovered. Vampires with an inherent rush ability are highly (and rightly) praised by all combat afficionados, alas the Brujah have none among their ranks. If you consider playing Euro-Brujah though, Archon becomes the card to have. Not only does it grant free rushes to one of your vampires, it also lets her diablerize her opponents (and I'm having Amaranth in mind, nothing else) with impunity. The third part of the effect (blocking vampires burn 1 blood) comes in as a sometimes useful benefit, but as with Dónal this is not why I would ever play this card. Deck: A Euro-nymous Archon Investigation Euronymous is the name of the demon prince of death. This deck uses the Euro-Brujah princes to kill everyone in reach. It employs standard rush techniques to destroy your prey and Second Tradition: Domain to untap, block actions by your predator or prey and destroy some more minions. It has a lot of rush, especially in the form of Archon, as it is ready to utterly burn any vampire standing in its way by playing Amaranth. Anathema comes in as a secondary burning and pool-gaining strategy. Intimidation or simple vote-lock should help to pass those votes. This deck has a slow start, but Deflections and the threat of blocking and killing should keep you in the game until your forces are gathered. Govern The Unaligned proves once again that it's probably the best action card in the game: It can speed your minions into play, or help ousting your prey later on. Normally I bring out Dónal or Constanza first, then Volker or Anvil, preferably helped by Governs. I played it in this incarnation quite a lot last year and it worked very well, especially the destructive potential is frightening. I just blew the dust off for this newsletter and might try some changes. The crypt is very tight and might use a little more diversity, especially because if you go first and don't have Volker in your uncontrolled region, you loose a full turn. Less rush, more bleed might be an option, as well as some extra master cards (like more Dreams Of The Sphinx, Sudden Reversal or Direct Intervention). I will keep you informed... Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 21, Max: 32, Avg: 6,75] 3 Anvil (dom CEL POT pre tha, Brujah, 6, Primogen) 3 Constanza Vinti (CEL DOM POT, Brujah, 8, Prince) 3 Dónal O'Connor (CEL DOM POT, Brujah, 8, Prince) 3 Volker (CEL pot, Brujah, 5, Prince) Library: (90 cards) Master (11 cards) 5 Blood Doll 1 Dreams Of The Sphinx 4 Haven Uncovered 1 Information Highway Minion (79 cards) 5 Amaranth 4 Anathema 4 Archon 5 Blur 5 Bum's Rush 4 Burning Wrath 3 Deflection 2 Disarm 1 Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, The 5 Flash 5 Govern the Unaligned 8 Immortal Grapple 4 Pushing the Limit 5 Second Tradition: Domain 3 Side Strike 3 Sideslip 6 Taste of Vitae 5 Torn Signpost 2 Wake with Evening's Freshness In the next issue: A serious Brujah rush deck - no frills, just kills. Final Note: Inspired by Wes' work on the !Bru, I'm starting to think about some sort of beginners' tutorial for playing Brujah. I want to take this opportunity to especially encourage new players to mail me, cause I don't know how big the interest is and if you think that the stuff I'm doing so far is too "advanced". If your feedback suggests that this tutorial should happen, I promise to add it to the current content, thus not limiting this to (at least for experienced players) maybe boring repetitions of the obvious truth. Please mail to: skaffen_amtiskaw@my-deja.com which is also the place to drop any suggestions, criticism or praise. Thanks for reading Skaffen Chantry Elder Of Munich "Those who lurk in the shadows Watching, obtain the greatest reward And amongst them wolves Lay the serpents of this world..."