Been a while since I've managed to get to play Vtes with a serious deck. It was supposed to be a tournament this night, but most players aren't ready for it, so it became a Race + normal Vtes night instead. The good thing is we have a good number of players down, the bad thing, many of them are playing Race instead~ :)
In the end, after dinner, I got into a 6-player table with my Army of Shadows Lasombra deck.
The opposition is refreshing. I'm the 5th player, bleeding Fauzi's Vote deck, bled by Zaki's Ventrue Cockroaches. My grand-prey is none other than the ally-killer Dan, with his Rabbat Teresita deck. Across the table sits Ryan's violent combat deck, and my grand predator is GeeHuan's Assamites.
This game went very very slowly, mostly because there were 3 political decks on the table, and none of the decks are fast decks. I started off calling in Gratiano, and his superior Pricus dominated the vote scene for a while. My crypt draw wasn't fantastic, and all the remaining 3 Lasombras were the weenies cannon fodders. In no time, I have Guido, Aaron Duggan and Ignatio on the table, supported by a Creation Rite 1 cap Vampire, making my minion count quite sufficient. However, I never get to draw my Power structure.
For a while I was happy. Gratiano called KRCs after KRCs to damage my prey. Fauzi's single Queen Anne wasn't able to defend against my stealth bleeds or my political damage. But soon contest comes in the form of a Ventrue Headquarters, and then I have to negotiate with GeeHuan's Assamite Magajis just to call forth votes.
Zaki had been going to my pool with Bondings, and I don't even have a single Intercept to stop that. My bleed defense is not a big deal since Deflections and Redirections doesn't work very well against Zaki's numerous low bleeds. He kept bleeding me for 1 or 2 with his 2-3 Vampires and I was forced to keep taking that damage. An Ancient Influence called by GeeHuan, and my Black Forest Base did manage to keep me relatively healthy to press my attacks on my prey.
When Fauzi was preoccupied with killing Dan, I managed to pull deal with GeeHuan and used a Disputed Territory to steal the Ventrue Headquarters. With that I was able to dominate the table for a while again, and used it to my advantage to negotiate KRC distribution from GeeHuan as well. Soon I was able to eliminate Fauzi.
This is where I started to learn why Dan is such a deadly opponent. Look at what he did to me at this point -
1. Archon Investigationed my Gratiano - bringing my effective votes on table to zero. It was stupid of me to use Govern the Unaligned and bleed with Gratiano, his in-built +1 Bleed makes him susceptible to AIs. But I was careless, AIs is not common in my environment. Well, until Dan that is.
2. Blocked and torpor Ignatio.
3. Drop 3 Raptors on Terrisita, making all my actions very costly, and preventing me from being overly aggressive.
I managed to invest the pool I've gained and influenced Antonio Delgado to give myself some votes, and with the help of GeeHuan's Assamites, as well as Ryan's consistent attacks with Enkidu against Dan, I was able to slowly wither down Dan's pool, while Consanguinous Booning my pool to allow Angelica to come to the table. With a Secure Haven on Antonio, I wasn't too worried about Enkidu, and proceeded to kill off Dan when he was tapped out defending against Ryan.
Ryan simple do not have the Intercepts or minions to block all my actions, and he wasn't able to kill off GeeHuan before succumbing to my bleeds. GeeHuan was the next to fall, though by then he was already deep in a Race game and probably didn't cared much.
I was decked out, and probably couldn't handle Zaki in the long run, but since both of us have nearly 30 pool we don't see the point of carrying on. I would've won the table anyway~
It was a tedious game indeed, much negotiations and much plotting, to the degree that everyone was so tired~
Final VPs-
Me - 4.5
Zaki - 0.5
(o.o)y
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