Blood brother - what can be done ?

Hello. I have received a significative bunch of mixed bloodlines cards. The one who I believe easier to use seem to be the blood brothers one. I still have quite a bit of interrogation. If you "simply" have a good blog entry or article about them, I would gladly read it. * crypt : I can choose between the Mexico Circle and the Kiev circle (no Angelo, no Torrence, no Chicago). Does the Mexico circle really have an interest or should it be let for experiment ? Because I can't see it work too well, especially since they don't have sup' sanguinis. * library card : * Since Blood brother main oust way seem to be walk of caine, what can be done about bleed redirection ? Brick laying does not seem to mesh too well with the low capacity of blood brother. So, change of target (while still having paid the heavy cost of Walk of caine, and maybe Shell game in addition), or rushing the would-be redirector vampires ? Or something else that I does not have thought of ? * For defense, I suppose Tribute to the master + Vessel or blood doll is the way to go, with some Slack the thirst to refill everyone. Am I right ? * are the Blood brother efficient in combat ? I don't think so (because Sanguinis does not seem too efficient, and they have low disciplines compared to weenies Nosferatu or Brujah), especially with the Kiev Circle (that often have Protean that as a combat discipline does not mesh well with Blood-brother only card) And, lastly, are blood brother deck difficult to create and / or play ? I does not recoil from "difficult" deck, but it's better to know if it's supposed to create direct and relatively simple S&B deck or somewhat complicated toolboxy decks.

> Ohlmann wrote: > Does the Mexico circle really have an interest or should it be let for experiment ? Because I can't see it work too well, especially since they don't have sup' sanguinis. > Some cards are insanely good even at inferior: Walk of Caine, Gestalt,... You can make a weenie based on the Hermana menor and Lilith's blessing. Since they enter play empty, you can Lilith them on the next turn to give them , and once they are 3 cap they can influence other copies with Street Cred.

They have very good cards that are unfortunately very expensive (in blood and/or card combinaison). I never managed to find a way to make them viable, but maybe some other people do? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Mexico circle swarm bleed something fierce. Kiev I have no experience with. I personally play Torrence circle. Bleed reduction. Not much. BB is more "my bleed reduction is reducing the amount of people bleeding me" AND/OR "my bleed defense is the 6 pool from ousting my prey". Defense. I usually stack up on many, many Unwholesome Bond. But if all you have access to is then it's not as good. Tribute is always good in BB decks. Effective in combat? Oh yeah. Nothing says "oh, this is going to hurt me" when the opposing player throws down Three's A Crowd + Torn Signpost, because you know there's an Immortal Grapple coming up. I find they're harder to create than play. Blood Brothers have a synergy feel over their cards that really tempt you to include a lot of different things. I play 90 cards and I've been in many situations where my deck doesn't flow good at all. My hope is that I one day will be able to make a 75-ish deck that works well. One day... As for making decisions in-game and playing to the strengths of the deck, that's the easy part. Remember, Blood Brothers unlike most other clans/bloodlines get exponentially better the more members they get out, not linearly. All decks benefit from having more minions, but many cards get better and better the more minions there are out there. Walk with Elvis, Unwholesome Bond, Gestalt etc. Blood Brothers thrive on minion advantage.

hi Ohlmann- Extrala mentioned a Kiev circle deck he saw at the EC 2010. extrala.blogspot.com/2010/11/vtes-ec-2010-decks-of-interest.html he writes a little about it and gives a link to secret library deck list.

I have a Mexico Circle Deck. Weaknesses: - Blood drains off them hard and you spend a LOT of time trying to keep them alive. I tend to lean to than because then I can consider multi-acting with them. Makes them VERY fragile. - Can't block a bus in an alley with a marching band. (At least I don't have the Gestalts to make that even a consideration). - Any lunge you plan comes with flashing lights, sirens, and a parade out front. All of the bleed-useful cards at are "as announced". - No . It really blows monkey bollocks and I've been tempted to graft in Agent of Power + Sanguine... but it seems like just another "not killing people" action. Positives: - Cheap, Cheap, Cheap - does some BAAAAAAD things. Walk of Elvis for LOTS + LOTS of stealth from Shell Game. I've previously landed two bleeds of 8 in a single turn from 2 caps (Computer Hack + Walk of Elvis for 6 + Shell Game for 3 stealth). That ruins most people's games. Tricks: - Zip Gun + Suppressing Fire. There was a lot of Draba played at one stage and this trick was my way to get around it. Suppressing Fire is -ve intercept, which can neuter star block decks. - Redistribution. Lose a weenie with stuff you want to sleep? Play Redistribution... it's like a Nod but BETTER (even at ) - can give you some light combat defence (Thrown Gates are handy) Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

I've played a bunch of Blood Brothers decks and learned some tricks with them. Sometimes I even win. * Hungry Coyote goes in every deck. You need that blood gain. with you can hunt for 2 and play Slake the Thirst easily. * Your minions are very cheap, so you use little pool and you can bring them out fast. Use this to your advantage, try to control the early game if you can. * Hive Mind is better than Unwholesome Bond most of the time. it's just so versatile! but they're both really good for pool gain. * Octopod is a very good combat card. Keep in mind that it's played by a BB not in combat, so you just keep one vampire with holding a bunch of blood to play it for everyone else. * With cheap vampires who can generate pool with Hive Mind, you could even afford to get some expensive equipment like Assault Rifle. one or two Clockwerx is good to surprise move it around, and Octopod multiplies the damage every round. "Take 12 damage." * Oppugnant Night is so crazy good. This one card has the possibility to make them the most efficient combat clan ever. Who needs deflection when you get 5 rushes per turn? * Everyone already knows Shell Game + Walk of Caine is great. * Brother's Blood isn't too bad at because it stays on the vampire forever. I always throw in 1 copy at least. The more you can manage their blood levels, the more you'll win. I haven't played with the Kiev circle too much, but I think their Protean is best used for stealth and Flesh of Marble. Mexico City begs to be used with Lilith's Blessing, but I haven't figured out the ratios for that. You could combine them with almost any discipline this way, so there's a ton of possibilities there!

Kiev and Mexico City are pretty much the worst two circles, Chicago is my favorite personally, with some potence masters to get them all at superior. They have two guys with SAN which is enough, and some really awesome specials (Jerry's special especially is so unbelievably good). But yeah your defense comes mainly from bloat with unwholesome bonds and/or hive minds (both of which require superior sanguinus) and back rushing. Torn Signpost + Octopod + Three's a Crowd + IG makes anyone not playing heavy prevent cry, and it works at either basic or superior levels, ranging from 4 to 9 damage depending on pot/san levels.

FWIW, i've played a successful Mexico circle, Hermana menor, deck. It's all H. menor - abt 20 copies. Plays Agent of Power, w a couple of Spontaneous power to get some SAN going. Lots of AoP, some Life in the City, some Lilith's Blessing, some Parthenon, some Effective management, a Hungry Coyote or 2, lots of Unwholesome Bond & Shell Game, some Walk of Caine. Some defence in the form of a few Gestalt & Thrown Gate. Most turns initially: play AoP on a H.menor, then Effective Management or Life in the City (etc), Unwholesome bond at SAN to govern down. 2 turns of that & you can suddenly bring out another 4-6 minions. Hard to play next to intercept decks, but otherwise i raise about 10 minions then bleed heavily. Worked maybe 50% of the time to get the GW. Still not fully updated w the latest new cards (not so new now, mind you) so the library may need some work... I luv the deck, but it either wins heavily or gets sunk fast; which can get a bit boring if you're losing!

I've thought about ding swarm vote with them, but never bothered trying it (crusades, krc, my kin against the world off of angelo then walk of caine bleed). i've always thought someone just needed to find the right cheese combo to make the mexico city circle shine. you could just swarm bleed and use SAN combat with undead presistance/trap/signpost. they're very almost awesome. the Kiev circle is better though. Danylo's ability has seemed very useful to me since he was printed, i just can't decided on what yet. the whole circle is greeat toolboxy stealthbleed. you have earth control, lokis gift, and rapid change for stealth, or you can grapple and use SAN combat with agg hands. unique and vicious stealthbleed is what they look most efficient as though.

Combat with BB is very efficient. My favorite combo is grapple, hands for 1, prevent with Fortitude, and disarm. Octapod to break through prevention.

> Klaital wrote: > Kiev and Mexico City are pretty much the worst two circles, Chicago is my favorite personally, with some potence masters to get them all at superior. They have two guys with SAN which is enough, and some really awesome specials (Jerry's special especially is so unbelievably good). > > But yeah your defense comes mainly from bloat with unwholesome bonds and/or hive minds (both of which require superior sanguinus) and back rushing. Torn Signpost + Octopod + Three's a Crowd + IG makes anyone not playing heavy prevent cry, and it works at either basic or superior levels, ranging from 4 to 9 damage depending on pot/san levels. > I have messed around with Blood Brothers a bit (although I am no expert). My favorite are those of the Chicago Circle although I have nothing too spectacular to write home about on that front. I will, however, say that right now, the most success I've had with Blood Brothers is with the Kiev Circle. They can effectively stealth/bleed and bloat. And have access to fortitude. So most of my turns in my current JOL game are like unwholesome, freak, bleed for 4-5 at stealth. With a Hungry Coyote in play, blood management is vastly improved without taking away from the decks offensive capabilities. That's also the beauty of have 3+ BB in play with them being so cheap and having acces to Hive Mind/Bond.

I find it amusing that you thought the would be the easiest to use from blood lines clans, though it sounds like you don't have access to a lot of cards from the set Bloodlines, which is understandable. They are one of the hardest clans to win with but very fun to play. They have a tendency to play a lot of cards that seem good, but often take up space and time. For instance, a common thing I see them do is spend a turn maybe fighting some people and maybe getting a decent bleed threw, and then the next turn trying to recoup the blood loss from the previous turn. They spend a lot of blood and are very small for combat, but can be one of the scariest predators around. The biggest problem for them is the amount of resources they need to oust. Often they get their first prey and then fizzle out do to the cards they went threw to do so. Now their three clan cards are really good, like absurdly so. Then there's , arguably the weakest discipline in the game. One problem is that it's a all in or nothing kind of deal with splashing it often will just be kind of weak. The biggest problem I think is that a lot of the cards do things that their other in clans do. So let's look at some of them. Actions Unwholesome Bond or Hive Mind You can run both but the time when you want the other is when you will get the one you don't want, and then your turn just kind of stops. Bond is stone if you have and can Freak drive. Hive Mind good on the non-fort guys. Coagulated Entity DON'T Redistribution Is 4 Redistribution better then 2 Heidelberg's, I say no, but whatever. Action Mods To me this is where shines, Slake the Thirst is great in all their decks and Shell game might be it's best card. A few room''s full of Elvis can be a good lunge card, but you will need more then it to win. Combat I hate combat, not because it's terrible, but because you need or to have it be really scary. With as small as the are why not just do wenni or . Gestalt is neat, but one Elder Impersonation and you feel like a clown. A dead clown. Kaymakli Nightmares goes well with them to. As for Kiev or Mexico circle, Kiev has an entry into the TWDA, Mexico does not. /rant

> Pullen wrote: > I find it amusing that you thought the would be the easiest to use from blood lines clans, though it sounds like you don't have access to a lot of cards from the set Bloodlines, which is understandable. > They are very straightforward after all. You don't do strange shenanigan, juste bloat, bleed, and rush. No scarce issue, somewhat easy and coherent crypt, few strange card. Maybe the kyaside are even more straightforward, I can admit it. > Pullen wrote: > Then there's , arguably the weakest discipline in the game. > I have not posted all my experiment on them here (since they are unfinished and not exactly exciting news), but I'm more on the side that is the best discipline of the game, with only problem the fact you must play blood brother for it. Walk of caine is just insanely powerful, simply because of the extreme lunge power it give you. A turn of 14+ bleed is very possible, and Blood Brother can be extremely threatening for any deck. Gestalt and Shell Game are on the same idea of being able to be as strong as any dedicated discipline if you want (or need) to. Anything you want, Sanguinis can do it, you only need to pay the price. Unwholesome bound and Hive mind are both on the power level of Govern : a strong pool gain with a strong secondary option (especially Hive mind). The other card are sometime useful support. When you have a strong intercept card, a strong stealth card, a strong bleed card, and two strong bloat card, all in sabbat to match with Hungry Coyote, you can have the rest of the discipline being support card.

Here is my latest blood brother deck that worked quite well for me at least. It has strong combat and lots of bloat with quite decent lunge potential also. Perfectionists, Taste of Vitaes and Slake the Thirsts together with Jerry's awesome special keep your guys from running out of blood usually. Crypt: 2x Tom 2x Barry 3x Jerry 3x Larry 2x Terry Library: 90 Master: 14 3x Fame 4x Potence 4x Perfectionist 1x Tension in the Ranks 2x Wider View Action: 23 8x Hive Mind 4x Oppugnant Night 7x Coagulated Entity 4x Unwholesome Bond Action Modifier: 8 5x Slake the Thirst 3x Walk of Caine Combat: 45 8x Immortal Grapple 9x Octopod 4x Skin of Steel 7x Taste of Vitae 7x Three's a Crowd 10x Torn Signpost