Introduction:
Welcome to the second installment of the Clan Brujah Newsletter. I
recommend a visit to vekn_clans.tripod.com so you can check out what
has already been written by my predecessor back in 1998/99.
Fiction:
It's a cold evening in late February 2001. A woman leaves the subway
station "Olympiapark". The floodlights from the olympic stadium make
for a nicely illuminated winter sky. She is a bit late for kickoff,
but she is not here to cheer the players, despite her "FC Bayern"
scarf. Her slim figure is hidden in a voluminous black hooded cloak,
still the drunk homeless people huddled in the bleak entrance area
whistle as she passes by.
She carries a big sports bag. It is heavy, but she shows no sign of
struggling with the weight. She picked it up last evening on her way
down from Frankfurt airport, where she arrived sharing a coffin with
Hans Beermann, secretary to the German embassy in the States and
"accidently" killed by members of a dreaded crack gang called "The
Slashers" a few days before. A huge package was awaiting her in an
appartment in the university town of Heidelberg, where she posed as a
good friend of the american exchange student Shawn Delaney, who
unfortunately was away on a skiing trip to Ischgl in the Alps.
The hardware shipped to her by an Arms Dealer in Baltimore is sending
out some muffled clanking noises as she throws the bag over the steel
fence just out of sight from the security personnel at the entrance
area. She quickly follows and makes her way into the stadium. The
ranks opposite the V.I.P. lounges are almost empty. The evening is
cold, snow might fall any minute - and this part of the huge bowl has
no roof. No wonder that the "Kaiser", football idol Franz Beckenbauer,
wants to build a new arena for his team FC Bayern Munich. She smiles
drily as she watches this piece of local celebrity. She's standing in
the shadows of the stairwell to P 1, the Assault Rifle pointing over
the playing field where the Kaiser's army is down 2 - 0 against
Spartak Moscow in the European Champions League. But it's not Franz
she's after. The line extending from her barrel connects with a woman
in expensive furs who's sitting two rows further up the slope. As the
short burst from the rifle rips into Luccia Paciola's chest, panic
slowly starts to unfold among the V.I.P.s.
The woman knows that Luccia is not dead - at least not deader than
before. But the shots hit her, and there's also the Masquerade: She
has to pretend to be hurt with all the blood on her coat. Slowly the
woman looks around, smiling. The few spectators near her seem to be
extremely interested in their beers, the confused players on the field
or the structure of the concrete steps just in front of them. Nobody
turns around. She lets the rifle and bag slip from her gloved hands,
drops the black coat and hastens to meet the crowd of still confused
and panic-stricken mortals.
"They see me as their saviour, but I am the Nemesis," she muses,
feeling a bit pompous as the mob makes room for her. The Red Cross
uniform that was covered until now and the assumed authority of a
doctor bring her to the side of Senora Paciola in almost no time at
all. The two young men in uniforms similar to hers look relieved as
she immediately takes control of the situation. She orders them to get
an ambulance ready and looks down on Luccia. The Ventrue
representative of sanguis.com impersonates the wounded and
unsuspecting victim rather well. She has no idea that the real trouble
has not even started yet.
The woman is pretending to be quite concerned about Paciola's state.
The toughest part though is to stifle that smile as she watches her
victim: obviously wounded, but ready to run if it were not for the
dread of breaking the Masquerade. "Damned fool," the woman thinks as
the ambulance passes the police cordon outside the olympic stadium and
her fingers touch the cold metal of the 0.44 Magnum hidden underneath
her bosom.
The woman feels tired as she hurries up the steps to sanguis.com's
office in the Lehel quarters. But her job is not finished yet. Two
miles from here, in a dark backstreet, an ambulance with three more or
less dead bodies waits to be found by the more and more confused
police forces. The city will be in turmoil soon, but she will be
gone. With Luccia's keys she enters the deserted place in a matter of
seconds, exchanges some document folders in the COO's office and
disappears into the night.
Of course the papers the other day are full of the attempted
assassination in the olympic stadium, but Don Cruez is even more
satisfied by what he reads on page 6 of the Munich-based
"Abendzeitung": Obviously in an attempt to identify the still-missing
victim of the shooting, sanguis.com's office has been searched. Now
the attorney general of Bavaria is investigating a severe case of
drug-smuggling by this apparently fake internet start-up company. A
couple of people were arrested already, and it looks like the Ventrue
are leaving the city as fast as the woman he send there, Brachah...
Strategy:
The Brujah are the archetypical combat clan. Potence and Celerity are
- even after four expansions - the be-all-end-all of destroying other
minions. The standard strategies have been discussed to quite some
extent on this newsgroup, so for this first newletter I do not want to
bother you with my views on the usual Torn Signpost/Immortal
Grapple/Blur combo - more on this in a later issue. Also I want to
take this moment to recommend Andrew 'Wes' Weston's Brujah Antitribu
newsletters. He makes a huge effort to open the realm of fighting
vampires to those among us that are new to the game, and I salute him
for this. As you might have noticed, there is no difference between
Brujah Antitribu (termed !Bru from now on) and the old Camarilla
Brujah in terms of disciplines, and arguably the !Bru have some of the
best vampires with these standard skills. Brujah counter this with a
broad selection and some offbeat combinations that might lead to
interesting deck concepts.
If you take a look at the original Jyhad cards for Brujah, you will
notice one thing: Immortal Grapple, the backbone of any seriously hard
hitting combat deck, was rare. Weapons are floating around in
abundance, and quite a few of the Brujah's special cards or specials
deal with them. The history of the V:tES game has proven weapons to be
second choice to almost any other combat strategy. That might be true,
but as often the stigma on weapons is worse than they actually are.
There are two things I want to mention in their favour:
1.) Classic Potence combat is so card-intensive that all the Immortal
Grapple heroes on this newsgroup basically agree that a dedicated
combat deck has one offence (kill everyone) and one defence (guess
what: kill everyone). Weapons are permanents, i.e. one 0.44 Magnum
will be there until it gets destroyed by some other effect. You have
to equip, so you normally loose a turn, but that's not a big cost if
you leave the generic combat strategy behind. Which brings us to the
land of "bruise and something". Basically you want to bleed or vote
(which, thanks to Presence, the Brujah are quite good at), and if
someone thinks about blocking you, the threat is the total
annihilation of his blocking minion. "Bruise and something" is not
considered a really promising strategy, because to do both things
right (that is: do something, and, if blocked, kill) you need the
right cards at the right time. But weapons are there, once you have
equipped with them. For the Brujah that gives interesting options:
While the majority of your deck centers around your main strategy, the
weapons plus some Celerity cards make sure that everybody that stands
in your way regrets it.
2.) Some weapons, and those I want to center this newsletter's deck
around, give you ranged strikes and a maneuver. While at long range
there is no convenient way to avoid Strike: Combat Ends (S:CE in
short) cards, you are reasonably safe against most other combat
strategies. Immortal Grapple does not work at long range, and most
combat-oriented decks will have hard time to out-maneuver you (i.e.
setting the range to close). Plus guns are no transient combat cards.
With help of certain cards, especially Psyche!, you have a good chance
of running your victim out of S:CE.
Of course there are things you have to address:
You don't want to include too many guns in your deck, because they
cost pool and you only need a few. Plus you need them early. But the
Brujah have ways to deal with this problem: Both Arms Dealer and Al's
Army Apparatus give you the means to search your library for a weapon.
Second, as already mentioned: Guns cost pool. So you have to find a
way to deal with these extra expenses. Either you go with relatively
small minions, or you find a way to gain back that pool.
Third: A minion has to take an action to equip, which means: He can't
do "something", like bleed or call a vote. Again, you have to find a
way around this, or your deck will be too slow. Disguised or Concealed
Weapon can help, but the Brujah don't have Obfuscate. Actually this is
the biggest drawback to a successful Brujah weapon deck, but as you
will see further down this newsletter there are a few options in the
form of Pier 13, Baltimore, and cards like Heidelburg or Rave.
So what sort of guns are available?
The first and most interesting category for us are guns that bring a
maneuver. We have Saturday Night Special, Deer Rifle (gives two
maneuvers, which the Brujah as any Celerity clan don't really need),
0.44 Magnum (with 2R damage and a maneuver for 2 pool it has arguably
the best bang to buck ratio), Submachine Gun and Assault Rifle (both
lethal, but expensive).
Other weapons with ranged damage, but without inherent maneuver, are
cheaper, but they all have a drawback: Shotguns (only usable once per
combat or once per round), Ivory Bow (no maneuver, unique), Flame
Thrower (no maneuver, really expensive), RPG Launcher (massive damage,
but only second round at long range, no maneuver) and Grenades (burn
after use). Apart from the Flame Thrower and Ivory Bow (both deal
aggravated damage), they need too many cards to work properly (RPG
Launcher), take too much time (Grenades) or have a rather intimidating
than actually versatile and useful character (Shotguns).
One final note on ammunition cards like Manstopper Rounds: While they
might be useful in certain circumstances, I find them to be
counter-productive, because they take up card slots. The best thing
IMHO about weapons is the fact that you get decent combat without
using too many card slots.
Vampire of the month:
Brachah
Cap. 5, for CEL PRE
If you want PRE and CEL, she - together with her Sabbat brother Rigby
- is as cheap as it gets. Her third discipline is not Potence, but
Fortitude. As gun decks don't need Potence, she will be the center of
this month's deck. Apart from that she's still dead cool. She can
bleed for loads, can control any combat through Celerity, and avoid
destruction either through S:CE or prevention. Fortitude also gives
her access to multiple actions (Freak Drive, Force Of Will), blood
gain (Restoration) and intimidation (Dawn Operation).
Card of the month
Arms Dealer
Ally with 1 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed. Arms Dealer may take a +1
stealth action to allow you to go through your library, find a weapon,
and take it into your hand. Reshuffle afterwards and discard to your
maximum hand size.
He does not only possess a useful special (if you play with weapons),
he is also one of the few allies that don't have a cost (apart from
the action to bring him into play), and he isn't unique. Okay, with
one life and one strength he's a bit fragile, but his special ability
comes with +1 stealth. In the context of this newsletter, he is one of
the keys to managing your "armory": He can fetch the weapons you need
to cope with the game situation, and he slims down your library -
because if you can go and find it, you don't need multiple copies to
have one in your hand when you need it. Even after you have equiped
all you want, he can just continue to get out those cards you won't
need anymore so you can discard them. With loads of Computer Hackings
he might even be the backbone of an ally swarm deck. And of course he
can block - with a gun on him he might even survive.
Deck:
Use Of Weapons
This is not your standard bruise and bleed deck. It tries to fight
hard and bleed heavy, and it uses multiple actions to make up for the
somewhat steep cost of some of the vampires (and artillery) involved.
Blood gain is through Minion Tap and Blood Dolls, Taste Of Vitae
should bring back the blood lost by your minions. The ideal turn by
your ideal minion - Brachah - goes like this: Rush through Haven or
Bum's Rush, maneuver and shoot, Blur, but Majesty and untap before
opposing minion goes to torpor. Psyche! to restart, torporize. You are
untapped, so go for a big bleed with Legal Man. and Aire. Freak Drives
are there to counter the requirement of taking an action to equip, if
you want to be untapped to block or of you just want to rush first and
bleed next. Arms Dealer and the Army Apparatus should help getting the
equipment, Pier 13 is a way around the usual equip actions. Use Rave
and Heidelburg to move the guns between your minions.
The deck takes advantage of the general lack of ranged combat. It
fares well against other combat decks, but has problems with speed
predators (bleed or politics). Try to choose the weapons you need.
Sometimes it's better to bring out huge vampires like Crusher
(Gwendolyn is a really massive, but she can be useful as well, with
her votes and bleed modifier. And actually I made a point of using all
those rarely seen minions), because you can Minion Tap for loads -
everybody should be functionable with 3 blood on them, and you have a
huge margin for filling up again with Tastes. The biggest problem is
the lack of anything but casual intercept and the fact that equiping
is just at +1 stealth - if someone blocks these actions, you are in
trouble. This deck is still in beta, and don't think it will ever be a
tournament winner. The biggest problem is running into reliable
intercept - if they block your equip actions early on, you will be in
serious trouble. I will keep you updated about its performance in the
next months.
Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 12, Max: 39, Avg: 6]
1 Angel (cel, Brujah, 2)
1 Appolonius (CEL for pot PRE, Brujah, 10,
Primogen)
1 Black Cat (CEL pot pre, Brujah, 5)
3 Brachah (for CEL PRE, Brujah, 5)
2 Crusher (CEL for PRE POT, Brujah, 9,
Primogen)
1 Gwendolyn (aus CEL FOR POT PRE tha, Brujah, 11,
Inner Circle)
1 Sheila Mezarin (AUS cel for PRE, Toreador Antitribu,
6)
1 Uma Hatch (cel pre, Brujah, 3)
1 Vasilis (pre, Brujah, 2)
Library: (90 cards)
Master (14 cards)
1 Al's Army Apparatus
3 Blood Doll
1 Fortitude
4 Haven Uncovered
2 Heidelburg Castle, Germany
1 KRCG News Radio
2 Minion Tap
Minion (76 cards)
3 .44 Magnum
2 Aire of Elation
1 Alacrity
3 Arms Dealer
1 Assault Rifle
1 Atonement
6 Blur
6 Bum's Rush
2 Dawn Operation
4 Flash
4 Freak Drive
3 Hidden Strength
1 Ivory Bow
6 Legal Manipulations
6 Majesty
2 Pier 13, Port of Baltimore
5 Psyche!
2 Pursuit
2 Rave
2 Side Strike
3 Skin of Steel
2 Social Charm
6 Taste of Vitae
3 Wake with Evening's Freshness
In the next issue:
Euro-Brujah - princely combat options
Final Note:
Dear White Wolf, if you're ever going to reprint Heidelburg Castle,
Germany: The city with this nice pile of old stones is called
Heidelberg ("Burg" is "castle" in German, but this one is build on a
"Berg", which means "mountain"...).
Thanks to my friend Hardy Range for his valuable assistence in writing
this newsletter.
Any criticism, comments or suggestions please send to:
skaffen_amtiskaw@my-deja.com
Regards
Skaffen
Chantry Elder Of Munich
"Han la hodet in til hennes bryst - han horte hennes hjerteslag -
folte blodets gang i hennes are - og han kjendte to braendende laeber
mot sin nakke - det gav ham en frysning gennem legemet - en frysende
vellyst sa han krampakti trykket hende til sig"
(E. Munch, "Vampyr")