VEKN Brujah Newsletter June 2003 Introduction About a month has passed, and everywhere people are slowly digesting the new stuff the Anarch expansion brought us. So far - as you will see in the discussion of the new cards - I'm far from convinced that the whole Anarch idea will lead to strong new deck archetypes, and the best idea I had so far is one that abuses Anarchy... That on the other side makes it safe to assume that this expansion will not threaten the game balance in any drastic way, which is good IMO as long as it offers new possibilities to play this game - these don't have to be strong, they have to be fun if you ask me. And fun I had so far, especially in the pre-release event - about the only time I played a serious anarch deck so far. Which says alot about the deck I present in this issue, I guess... A discusion of new cards This is a short view on the new cards from the Anarch set. It discusses the general viability of the cards that are available to non-anarch minions for the Brujah, and tries to answer the most important question this new expansion poses: Is it worth it to Go Anarch? I guess as with all clans the Brujah's answer is: It depends. Some generic cards like Anarch Railroad, The Anarch Free Press or Dummy Corporation can help to stuff generic holes in many Brujah decks. This is hardly new tech, Creepshow (only for undirected stuff though) and the other media do the same. The advantage of the new toys, be it that they are cheaper, more effective or both, has to be balanced against the fact that you have to devote deck space and/or actions to make some folks anarch. I can hardly see those cards alone justifying the anarch way, especially since generic Brujah strategies have always implemented or worked around the same. It looks like there are two main fields were becoming Anarch looks interesting: The Anarch/Fee Stake voting route, especially for a Free States rant angle, but also effective for a 5 cap. horde strategy. And the threeways that offer quite advanced effects at inferior discipline levels and, if coupled with the right crypt, are extremely versatile. I don't venture a final verdict on the pros and cons of Fee Staking vs. the classic princely voting thingy. It's not that the Brujah are massively short on votes, and actually having so many titled vampires floating around limits the Go Anarch approaches. (Stuff involving Into The Fire to get people rid of their titles to make them Anarchs to possible give them a new title belong to La-La-Land, if you ask me.) Being Independent is a necessity when sending Menele out to rant a little on freedom etc., but Protect Thine Owns flying rapant in certain areas might turn this into a not-so-good idea. Fee Stakes being an action again is not such a massive bonus where Brujah are concerned, as getting blocked is normally our bigger concern, considering Presence, Bewitching Oration and stuff. In this light the new vote modifiers Anarchs has to offcer - Emissary and Mob Rule - don't offer a significant advantage. I'd rather get my votes for free and/or only cancelable by cards. For the Threeways, it all depends. Let's have a look at what we get, card by card. Diversion Combat, requires a ready anarch [cel] Gain one additional strike [for] Prevent up to 2 damage. [tha] Strike: ranged. Steal 1 blood with an optional maneuver. This is a potential killer: a free additional strike at cel is marvellous, and the extra "prevent 2" on for would make this so outrageously good, except for the fact that out of the 8 Brujah with Fortitude only 2 don't have a title: Brachah and Maxwell, and the latter is happy with Resilience & Co. as he stands. Bummer... Or should I say: Good design? Improvised Tactics Requires a ready anarch. Only usable before range is determined on the first round. A minion can play only 1 Improvised Tactics each combat. [aus] During the press step each round, draw one card. Discard down to your hand size afterward. [pot] At long range, each round, this minion may strike for 2R damage each strike. [pro] Once each round, this vampire may burn 1 blood to get one maneuver. Improvised Tactics is basically an improvised .44 only usable at long range. Not completely bollocks, but rather cornercase. Especially since the other two disciplines are rather exotic on untitled Brujah, and their effects easily obtainable by very common cards (Flash and superior Infernal Pursuit). The Mole Requires a ready anarch. Only usable when a non-anarch minion is acting. [ani] Only usable by a tapped vampire. This vampire untaps and attempts to block. [cel] +1 intercept. Not usable if the acting minion has Celerity. [dom] Only usable when you are being bled by a younger vampire. Tap this vampire to cause the action to fail. The Mole's restriction on only being usable against non-Anarch minions make the inclusion of a really massive ammount sort of risky, because your opponents have a work around with he cardless Go Anarch action. On cel it gives our clan much-sought-after intercept, albeit only against non-celeritous non-Anarch vampires. That puts it in a league with Kiss Of Ra, which obviously sees play, so I'll keep my optimism. The ani effect is great, but see above. The Dominate stuff looks, well, interesting. I guess I'll almost always prefer to have a Deflection, but when the bounce war escalates, this is a good way to put an end to the search for the sinking hole. Works great in two-player end games as well. Only against younger folks though, and only if the dom geezer is untapped... Skullduggery Action, requires a ready anarch [obf] Bleed at +1 stealth, with an optional maneuver in the resulting combat if the action is blocked. [pre] Bleed at +1 bleed. [pro] Bleed at +1 stealth. While any of the three disciplines can be found on one or the other anarchable Brujah, this card strikes me as rather redundant with generic effects the respective disciplines generate anyway. The [obf] version combined with bleed modifiers might do something for the Brujah, as the optional maneuver certainly doesn't hurt. Smash and Grab Action, requires a ready anarch [ani] +1 stealth action. Burn 2 life from an ally or retainer. [dem] Bleed at +1 bleed. [pot] +1 stealth action. Burn a location controlled by your prey or predator. Smash'n'Grab is a better Rampage at Potence and a very nasty ally/retainer hoser on ani, which again is rather uncommon on untitled Brujah (Raziya and, err, Raziya). Dementation? We don't have it at all... Other Anarch goodies: The Status Perfectus Well, the Brujah have never been huge on the intercept side of this game, and since Second Tradition is hardly usable by a Brujah Anarch, this card is quite cornercase. But since it looks like the best shot on a fixed Fast Reaction-like mechanism, I expect to see it quite a lot for a while, until time has proven whether it's any good. Vampires that can go anarch: In the light of these observations, who's worthy of going Anarch in Clan Brujah? Big untitled fellers beg for Free States decks (that's you, Menele, and probably Maxwell too). 5 caps are all good (apart from Volker who is not allowed...), especially Brachah (think Anarch guns together with Jimmy Dunn and Gustavo Morales). Them small ones should be nice in all sorts of rabble decks that don't care much about clan affiliations, Raziya is going to do an especially nice jobs in more Nosferatu-sophic environments. At the moment I'm not very convinced that Anarchism will change the surface of the World of Darkness according to V:tES significantly. Some of the mechanisms and cards offer a certain elegance, but the whole effort in making your minions anarch more than counters this IMO. Plus I can't really see myself devoting somewhere between 5 to 10 cards of valuable library space and/or a bunch of actions only for the benefit of a few versatile or cheaper card effects. Of course not all of the new cards are Anarch-only. Some stuff is usable by any vampire or minion. I'll try and classify these cards and give short comments from the Brujah point of view. Holds: No extensive comment on these, as I find them all too limited to use in most cases. They really only stop one aspect of a deck, if that deck relies excessively on one card and the minions don't have the blood to pay. Obviously if there are many copies in your opponents deck, he'll just do the discard thing and come back next turn. Plus you'll have to know which hold is requiered. All in all even for those that look good (Regarhagen's against Deflection/Wake for example), the opportunity cost seems to high. Vehicles & Havens: Delivery Truck has a certain appeal, but seems strangely obsolete in times of disciplineless concealed weapons. The Stolen Police Cruisers would definetely suit an Anarch Menele, and feverish dreams of Repo Man handing out nicked cop cars to the frenzied masses have their appeal - well, let's wait and see. It has something to it, but on the other hand pseudo-stealth-bleeding Brujah is about the least fashionable idea I had for a while. The Unlicensed Taxi Cab fails to thrill me because there are no thrilling Brujah allies around. Come to think of it, Ghouled looked really nice until I read more closely and found the "only strikes" line... The Haven concept is nothing too exciting as well, if only because I can't see any reason to play anything but Secure Haven. I mean, Body Bag? C'mon... Weapons and weapon-related stuff: Blowtorch is a weapon I didn't really want to see: A non-unique, affordable source of aggravated damage without a drawback. All combat clans without access to damage prevention will have to look out for this one. For the Brujah the situation is not that bad: Either you're short range so you grapple them, or you go long and they can blow their own ass. Sideslip also helps. The new swords are all amusing, if not much more (see comments on the Sword of Troile in the last issue). Molotov Cocktail can be very annoying in Trap or press decks, so keep your fighters well stocked on presses. I might try and see how these work in Brujah decks. Magazine looks intriguing for CEL concealed .44 decks, though experience dictates that by the time you reliably have this going, you won't need it anymore. Finally although the Potence most brujah carry around were a good deterent against Meat Hook extravaganza, I welcome the change the card. Other stuff, mostly masters: Well, the potential of cards like Bleeding The Vine has already been discussed on the newsgroup, and there's nothing Brujah-specific to add. Filchware's Pawn Shop, being a Trifle and all, could be fun to throw into any deck that can spare the slot, and most Brujah decks will at least have an idea about what to do with weapons... Seattle Committee IMO is the best card for decks that eventually plan to "Go Anarch". Dummy Corp. has the one problem that it eats valuable master slots. Apart from that and especially for the not-really bouncing or intercepting Brujah it gives a nice, extra layer to bleed defense. Deck Chaos Bound I guess quite a few players started their "Anarch career" by just throwing a bunch of neat-looking new cards onto a crypt not too heavy on titled vampires. This is pretty similar, the core is actually "Gravity's Rainboiw", a really old frisbee deck I published in the April 2001 newsletter. That one doesn't have too many titled vampires, and most importantly it's only 70 cards, leaving some space for extra gizmos. What I did is adding Anarch Free Press, Seattle Committee and a bunch of Galaric's Legacys. Combat consists of Improvised/Flash/Blur for 4 to 6 R damage (at cel/CEL respectively) with 3 cards, which is an improvement at CEL (cel was Gate/Blur/Sewer Lid for 4, CEL Gate/Blur/Sewer Lid x2 for 7 at one card greater cost, all considering CEL/pot vampires), and we haven't counted presses yet. Amazingly the moment you start to weed out the titled folks, some most unusual characters take the stage. I mean: I've never made a deck using Adrianne (and probably shouldn't begin doing it now...). The deck still doesn't like being bled a lot, but you can't have everything. Too early to say if this is any better than the original, though to be honest I doubt it - the whole "making folks anarch" stuff eats to many action/card slots. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 16, Max: 24, Avg: 4,58) ---------------------------------------------- 1 Adrianne (Toreador 6, aus cel pot pre) 2 Bianca (Brujah 6, CEL pot pre) 2 Black Cat (Brujah 5, CEL pot pre) 1 Dre (Brujah 3, cel pot) 1 Evangeline (Brujah Antitribu 4, cel pot pre) 1 Jacob Bragg (Brujah Antitribu 3, cel pot) 1 Jimmy Dunn (Pander 4, CEL for POT) 1 Radeyah (Toreador 6, CEL pot pre) 1 Uma Hatch (Brujah 3, cel pre) 1 Yuri, The Tallon (Brujah 4, cel pot pre) Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (16 cards) 4 Blood Doll 4 Haven Uncovered 1 KRCG Newsradio 1 Anarch Free Press 2 Seattle Committee 4 Galaric's Legacy Action (14 cards) 5 Computer Hacking 8 Legal Manipulation 1 Smash and Grab Reaction (6 cards) 6 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (52 cards) 14 Flash 12 Improvised Tactics 5 Blur 5 Diversion 6 Psyche 6 Taste of Vitae 4 Sideslip Equipment (2 cards) 1 IR Goggles 1 Sport Bike Final Words: Sorry for this being rather late, which makes a late July issue look likely as well. If you've any ideas on stuff I should include or a deck to publish, drop me a line at skaffen_amtiskaw"at"mail"dot"ru. Thanks for reading Skaffen www.8ung.at/colddawn "Eventually the revolutionaries become the established culture, and then what will they do?" (Linus Torvalds)