Introduction: Okay, this time it's for real. If any original Jyhad clan is about combat, it's the Brujah. And in this issue I would like to show you why that is so. Actually I was leafing through most of the stuff posted on this newsgroup by the diehard combat guys and I felt sort of intimidated. One issue will never be enough to introduce you to the fine skills that are needed to successfully play a dedicated combat deck. And just as I wanted to direct all of you to deja.com for some recommended reading, the place gets bought by Google and the archive disappears. Well, life is hard, and then you die. So I will try my best, and I beg no mercy - feel free to tear my arguments (and deck idea) apart, and I promise to return to this subject in future editions. No news on last month's Euro-nymous Archon Investigation deck, as I never played it since the last newsletter. That's because I discovered a fairly effective Lasombra deck more or less by accident and gave myself the pleasure of sweeping tables at will (Michael Eichler kindly posted it in this month's Lasombra Newsletter). But my enthusiasm for the Use Of Weapons-thingy from the January edition has ceased - it died too often for my ego. Intercept decks and ToGP/Hostile Takeover on any vampire with a gun just ruin your day. Fiction: March 5, 2001 "Okay, this time it's for real," I think as I ring the doorbell I know so well by now. It's six in the morning, and the dawn will indeed be cold... I am here to kill my lover. No more Dre, Leader of the Beautiful People. O how we laughed when Marilyn Manson played that song a few weeks ago at that gig in Berlin, me in my designer punk outfit Kallista finds so, well, cute. The Don has decided this affair has to end. Just to underline his point and to discourage all romantic heroism from my side he sent a colourful documentation on what happened to little Vasilis after his envolvement into the Giovanni/Ventrue Getaway hack last month was discovered. So I will have to prove that I'm not a traitor after all... September 29, 2000: I've been following her for quite some time now, but only today things started to get interesting. It's Oktoberfest time in Munich, and I'm standing on the gallery of the Hippodrom beer tent. Kallista, the woman I'm after, is down there with the beer drinking mob, oddly visible in her expensive cotton Yamamoto dress among the traditional bavarian costumes - not to mention the embarrassing crowd of tourists. If you ask them they wouldn't know where they come from, but you can tell by their shorts and T-shirts that the United States and Australia are having their own sort of Olympic contest. The band plays some ridiculous kindergarten songs, and I long for my discman and the Nine Inch Nails CD inside - but I guess that would attract too much attention, so I light another Gauloise and study the stale beer left in my enormous keg. Word came from New York six weeks ago that the elders would like to know the whereabouts of one Kallista, Master Sculptor - the title dates back from the late 19th century, when apparently she was quite the rage among the bohemian circles of Paris. First time I saw her was on a Vogue cover from 1963, from what I know a stunt that didn't go down too well with Anneke, Justicar of clan Toreador and technically her superior. But the Masquerade didn't blow, and Kallista disappeared from my and everybody elses view - Anneke included. Turns out that she kept a low profile in Munich (of all cities - this Tremere Chantry Elder guy I met one or two times too often gives me the creeps), going under the name of Karla Berger - at least that was what I read on her doorbell after I tracked her down to some derelict building in Schwabing, where she was living close to the university and apparently held a good position in the ever growing new age scene, being a medium and all, speaking with the deceased beloved and King Ludwig II. of Bavaria. Perfect cover for a Toreador, who would search them this far removed from the Beautiful People? That's the fifth cigarette I let burn down to my fingers. Not that it hurts, but the mortals around me start to whisper. So I crack a smile and lift my beer keg to the pounding rhythm - "Oans, zwoa, gsuffa!" What a dreadful place! Kallista seems to enjoy it though, she's laughing, her gloved hand resting on this suited guy's shoulder - corporate type, sweating profoundly in the humid heat, apparently quite drunk already. Dr. Kurt Zachhuber, a lawyer with good connections to the ruling conservative party. Not her type at all, so I sense some devious scheming by that cute little bitch. The Don seemed to be really worried, especially since Getaway Computers will move their european headquarter here soon. I better not blow this job. Nervously I light another cigarette. But there must be something going on here, and its not just some legal manipulations. Karla Berger, the melodramatic hippie I got so bored following for five weeks, suddenly turned into this manhunting vamp - excuse the sad joke -, emerged from her drab appartment and got picked up by some old-time lover (I presume) in his pretentious BMW. They stopped at the "Acquarius", a fancy italian restaurant, where they met about five suits, slobbering redhead Zachhuber included. It looked like manhunting from minute one, and Mr. BMW left about an hour later, not looking too amused. I was halfway through "The Fragile" by then, not knowing that this would be ending, well, here. I hate this place, 2.000 people inside this tent getting drunk as if their life would depend on it - or their unlife, because I have the haunting feeling that a few kindred are lurking here as well. But Kallista didn't talk to anyone but the suits, a perfect display of majesty and charm - every beer fueled Adonis making his move has found himself trying to remember why on earth he has payed a few hundred Marks to be the bands' conductor for yet another piece of this terrible music. Admirable. I always thought a Toreador would drop dead in the middle of a crowd like this, but either this girl is different, or something damn serious is building up... October 3, 2000 It's a national holiday in Germany, the Oktoberfest exhaling a last foul breath on the torporous city. Everybody seems to be exhausted, and so am I - just that this is the worst moment for taking it easy. An email from New York ruined my day, and the days to come as well, I presume. I was right about the kindred that night in the Hippodrom, every clan seemed to be present at Munich. Headquarters wants to find out who's plotting who against whom - and I don't have a clue. There is no connection between Dr. Zachhuber and the Ventrue. My first suspicion, admittedly an obvious one, and of course the result was "niente". The Don is not amused... December 21, 2000 What a tedious job, this "monitoring of affairs" down here in Munich. I look through the window of my hotel room, outside the usual mixture of hookers and computer geeks that haunt the Schillerstraße day and night. Actually my job turned into a lot more fun than I would have expected. Not that I killed anyone, mind you, the only aggressive part of me lately has been my long neglected "third fang". And the willing victim is, surprise, surprise, Karla Berger. Call it a safety measure, but I had no choice after she witnessed me offing Dr. Zachhuber. Turns out that the link between those two is an internet firm called sanguis.com. She's some sort of freelance consultant for this startup, they are planning a "vertical esoteric portal" - whatever that means. Sounds slightly kinky to me. Anyway, Zachhuber didn't react too well after I followed him on one of his many dates with Kallista and accidently crashed into his Merc on the ice-covered road to Starnberg. Maybe I looked a bit threatening in my WW 2 leather jacket and steel helmet, Satyricon's "Rebel Extravaganza" running full blast on the stereo. But that's no reason for pointing a hunting rifle at me, right? Problem was: I couldn't kill the witness, because then I would never be able to find out what Kallista's strange mission in Munich was about - and the Don doesn't like his minions to fuck up their assigned task. "We're in deep shit, Arkansas," I said, hoping she had seen 'Thelma and Louise' and couldn't afford to blow her carefully crafted cover. She accepted my offered cigarette, smiled and said in a perfect Monica Lewinski voice: "Shouldn't that be a cigar, my Little Rock-er?" February 22, 2001 "Who is the seducer, and who the seduced?" I ask myself after another heated conversation with New York. The sanguis.com scheme fell apart after that special agent's fireworks in the Olympic stadium, and the pressure is up on me to, quote, "finish my job and come home pronto". Still I pretend that there are deeper connections to the shadowy figures orchestrating this effort that I could unravel, but the only connection I really want to make is rather mundane. No wonder that the Don only laughed when I spun out the idea of me as a double agent. March 5, 2001 My hug changes into a grapple, and as the surprise in her face turns into rage, I bounce my fists into her like a maniac and watch her turn into a very post-modern, deconstructive flesh sculpture. Outside the cold winter sun starts her way into heaven's realm. How I hate this... Strategy: Much has been written about combat as the third leg of generic V:tES strategies. General opinion has it that it's probably the most difficult "pure" strategy, but nevertheless playable. I could write as many lines as the most esteemed Legbiter in his latest and extremely entertaining !Gan newsletter without covering every aspect of combat, so I won't even try. Instead I promise to return to the subject again in future editions. On paper rush combat is a very simple strategy. Your offence: Kill all your prey's vampires. Your defence: Kill everyone posing a threat to you. (A short definition might be due: By "killing" I mean sending into torpor with no blood - as opposed to last month's deck which was actually built to burn vampires. Still if everyone lies in torpor empty, they will stay there...) The problem is that a pure rush deck attacks what is often called "secondary resources", i.e. not pool, but blood on vampires. If you kill all your prey's vampires, he has to spend more pool to keep an active role in the game. So there is an effect on his primary resource as well, but don't count on that too much: Sometimes they will just refuse to bring out any more vampires, instead agitating the table against you so they stand a chance of surviving until you are ousted. And that's the biggest problem: To actually oust your prey you have to eat into his pool one action at a time. Some cards (especially the errataed and - in Sabbat War - reprinted Fame, which I will use in this month's deck) might help, but speed is the biggest problem for pure rush decks (and not only in ousting, also in having enough minions early on to pro-actively fight any threat). I guess it's time for a little encouragement: Rush combat decks tend to dominate three-player tables, since they control both their prey's and predator's potential for actions. So if you eat your way through one or two victims and still have sufficient cards in your library, a sweep is close at hand. The most demanding part is to find the right balance between offence and defence in the early game. Just as a reminder: A rush deck does nothing but rushing other vampires. It never blocks. And to make this perfectly clear, once more in capital letters: IT NEVER BLOCKS! (*exit drill sergeant*) Every single card in your library is there to give your army of roughnecks all the tools they need to beat the unliving shit out of any opponent. The question is where to begin. Obviously attacking your prey is quite important, as you want to gain VPs. But if you kill all his vampires as they come out (the wet dream of every rush deck), you take all the pressure from your grandprey. Thus he has a free run on his prey - which again might be your predator (so it's a good thing) or your grandpredator (then it's a not-so-good thing because your predator can concentrate on attacking you). If you put too much effort into your defence, say by killing all your predator's vampires as they come out, his predator has a free run and will come knocking on your door with 6 extra pool under his belt... The message is: Learn something about table managment. Best way to do this is: Start playing rush decks! I could bombard you with nifty pieces of wisdom like "take it easy on your prey first so he can do some damage to your grand prey, then jump in and grab 2 VPs at once", but I recommend finding out these bits yourself. Why? Two reasons: First, combat is designed to be a part of the game, so even if you don't like it it will help you to know what a rush player has in his mind when you encounter him at a tournament. Second, table managment is a required skill for a truely good V:tES player, and you won't learn it faster with any other deck type. Actually whom to attack is the question you will have to answer every few seconds, while how to do it is pretty straightforward - a well-designed rush decks flows like a charm. It's the ultimate focused deck. Brujah rush: If you take a look at rush decks archived on the web (Lasombra's page being possibly the richest source), they come in all flavours. If we start thinking about Brujah, most of the esoteric stuff drops out and we arrive in the land of pure honest Potence rush. Potence is the best skill for rushing because it let's you dish out huge amounts of damage, and it has the single most important combat card: Immortal Grapple, which thwarts most anti-combat strategies, especially Strike: Combat Ends and Dodge (see below for more details). Celerity, which the Brujah also possess, is without doubt the best combat support discipline, offering you maneuvers, presses and additional strikes. POT/CEL, ideally combined with Fortitude so you can prevent everything your opponent is sending your way, could be the ultimate skill combination for combat decks. But you will rarely see a good rush deck having this awe-inspiring potential. That's because, as stated above, speed is even more important than oomph. You need many rush actions to hold your position and drive forward, and that translates into many minions. Peter Bajka, whom I deeply respect for his almost perfect knowledge of how rush works and who actually inspired me for my first efforts a while back, uses Potence weenies - Hasina Kesi, Lupo, KoKo - to greatest effect. His decks are not very clan-focused though, so in my role as the Brujah advocate in this newsletter I will concentrate on a derivate of pure potence rush which needs somewhat bigger minions (and incidently mostly Brujah), but is still effective enough (and a little less vulnerable to other combat strategies, especially poke - Gangrel or Tzimisce giving you that one point of aggravated damage in return for your big beats) to do the thing you want: CEL/pot. Rush, Torn Signpost, IG and Blur mean six points of damage to your opponent, enough to grind most of them into dust. Just keep in mind that you can't soak up too much pool damage (because you'll spend more on minions), so the focus should be a bit more on your predator than if you'd play serious weenie potence rush. Vampire of the month: Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn 3, cel pot Dre, the enigmatic leader of the even more enigmatic Cold Dawn, has celerity and potence at the cost of 3 - cheap enough to bring him out quickly and start to wreak havoc before your prey or predator can think about doing any harm. He's able to take down vampires much bigger than him, even without using the monstrous and unfortunately quite rare Disarm. Slap a skill card on him and he's your guy for CEL/pot, POT/cel or even straight Potence decks. Card of the month: Immortal Grapple Only usable at close range before strikes are chosen. Strikes that are not hand strikes may not be used this round (by either combatant). A vampire may play only one Immortal Grapple each round. (S) As above, with an optional press. If another round of combat occurs, that round is at close range; skip the Determine Range step for that round. Remember why Muhammad Ali is still seen as the greatest boxing champion of all times? Because he used to dance around his opponents, dodged most of their attacks and maybe even because he paralysed them with his presence. Good for him that grappling is not allowed in boxing, but your minions shouldn't be bothered by such petty rules. Immortal Grapple is the one card that stops almost everything a typical non-combat deck can do to avoid destruction. No dodge, no Majesty, no Earth Meld - only hand strikes are allowed. Include a good number of these in every rush deck you play to make sure that those undead fists hit where it does the most good. There are only a few things you should have in mind before loading up on IGs. It only works at close range, so a few maneuvers as a support help to catch those that run away. Be careful against poke decks, because while grappling you can't dodge their strike for 1 aggravated either. And of course it's no help against the nemesis of all rush decks: Fortitude damage prevention. Deck: No frills, just kills As the title implies, there's not much to say about this deck. Rush at will and kill. I think the library is pretty much self-explanatory, but a few words on the crypt: I know I shouldn't encourage theme elements and Brujah chauvinism in a serious deck like this one. Feel free to include Victor Tolliver (!Bru 4, CEL, pot) or another Jimmy Dunn and cut down the 6 cap. minions. But I wanted this to be as Brujah as possible (although it doesn't make use of any clan-specific cards), and I actually had serious headaches about including Jimmy at all and hope my coterie will punish me by including tons of Judgement: Camarilla Segregations... The weenies are there for early kill potential and also to diablerize those that have to go to the land of no return. Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 8, Max: 23, Avg: 3,92] 2 Anvil (dom CEL POT pre tha, Brujah, 6,Primogen) 1 Bianca (CEL pot pre, Brujah, 6) 1 Black Cat (CEL pot pre, Brujah, 5) 2 Dre (cel pot, Brujah, 3) 1 Hasina Kesi (pot, Caitiff, 1) 1 Jimmy Dunn (CEL for POT, Pander, 4) 1 KoKo (pot, Nosferatu, 2) 1 Lupo (pot, Brujah, 2) 1 Volker (CEL pot, Brujah, 5, Prince) 1 Yuri (cel pot pre, Brujah, 4) Library: (90 cards) Master (14 cards) 4 Blood Doll 3 Celerity 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 2 Fame 4 Haven Uncovered Minion (76 cards) 8 Blur 8 Bum's Rush 2 Disarm 2 Fists of Death 8 Flash 12 Immortal Grapple 3 Pursuit 2 Rampage 3 Side Strike 3 Sideslip 8 Taste of Vitae 10 Torn Signpost 7 Undead Strength Final Note: That's it for this month. Apologies for the late date of publishing, serious stuff in real life and a serious topic for this edition just ate my time away. Next month I will take it a little easier and indulge my bizarre strains by bringing you an All-Justicar deck centered around Don Cruez. Any criticism, comments or suggestions please send to: skaffen_amtiskaw@my-deja.com Thanks for reading Skaffen Chantry Elder Of Munich "I'm alive and bleeding for everyone Pull me from this mire Hold me till I'm home." (My Dying Bride, 'Der Überlebende')