I would like to start a new series on this blog. Similar to my Tradition series, I will be looking at individual clans, their stars, common winning strategies and the general feel of playing them. Since my personal experience is limited to only a handful of clans, these articles will be based mostly on tournament-winning deck lists, observations, and impressions rather than decades of mastery. My goal is not to provide the definitive guide, but rather to explore what makes these clans tick, highlight cards that caught my attention and hopefully learn something along the way.
It felt only appropriate to begin with everyone's favourite troublemakers: the Brujah.
In the tabletop RPG, Brujah are the eternal rebels. They challenge authority, question tradition and generally make life difficult for anyone attempting to maintain order. My Tremere characters often found themselves caught in the blast radius when a Brujah decided that tonight was the night for revolution. My Ventrue, on the other hand, usually arrived afterwards to deal with the consequences, fill out the paperwork and explain to the Prince why half the city was on fire. Their clan bane perfectly captures their nature: they are passionate, impulsive and occasionally their emotions drive straight through carefully crafted plans like a truck through a garden fence. And don't even get me started on Theo Bell and his famous disagreement with Hardestadt. Some people call it a pivotal moment in vampire history. My inner Ventrue calls it a tantrum.
In VTES, the Brujah appear to have taken all that bottled-up anger and converted it directly into combat efficiency. Their disciplines are Potence, Celerity and Presence. Potence and Celerity practically scream "fight me," while Presence looks like it was invited merely to ensure witnesses remember who won. Technically they could use Presence to avoid combat. Looking at tournament-winning decks, however, I get the impression they view that option as a personal insult.
When examining successful Brujah crypts, three names appear repeatedly: Saku Pihlajamäki, Aline Gädeke and Leumeah. Saku's built-in maneuver helps ensure combat happens at the range most convenient for punching people. Aline can unlock whenever another anarch performs a successful action, which is exactly the sort of efficiency that wins games. Then there is Leumeah. No special text, no flashy tricks, just a six-cap prince (ehm, baron) with an excellent discipline spread. Sometimes being solid is enough. Theo Bell still appears from time to time, but these three seem to be the true workhorses of modern Brujah decks. In fact, if two Brujah players sit down at the same table, there is a decent chance they'll spend the evening contesting one of them.
The combat package itself is exactly as terrifying as you would expect. Immortal Grapple and Torn Signpost appear so often they may as well be printed directly onto Brujah character cards. The combination allows them to hit extremely hard while preventing many of the tricks opponents might use to escape. Once the beating is complete, Taste of Vitae often refuels the attacker, creating the vampire equivalent of finishing a workout and immediately drinking a protein shake. Celerity then adds extra strikes, pursuit effects and enough flexibility to ensure the unpleasant experience continues for as long as necessary.
Many decks also use Brujah Debate, a master card that grants +1 strength at the cost of locking one of your vampires. This sounds like a drawback until you realize the Brujah are perfectly happy letting one of their bosses sit in a meeting room while the mob handles business in the streets. Line Brawl is another card that appears frequently, serving double duty by helping with both bleeding and entering combat. It is a wonderfully Brujah design: if talking doesn't work, punch them. If punching doesn't work, punch them harder.
When it comes to defense, Brujah seem to subscribe to a philosophy I deeply respect from a thematic standpoint, even if it occasionally terrifies me as a player: the best defense is making sure the other vampire is incapable of continuing their action. They do have access to cards like Organized Resistance, which provides intercept and unlocks the reacting vampire, but even then the card feels less like defense and more like an invitation to start a fight.
Will I build a Brujah deck myself? Perhaps. My inner Ventrue still finds their methods a little uncivilized, but I have to admit there is something refreshing about a clan whose strategic plan can occasionally be summarized as "run forward and see what breaks." And judging by the tournament results, quite often the answer is "everything."
The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.
Custodian Hargrave
