Skirmishes in the Dark : 29-12-2009

29th December, in the year 2009, Paradigm Infinitum.

This is probably my last Vtes night for 2009, and I was early in the store. Took a while before we gathered 5 players to start our first game. Here is the randomized seating -

Player 1 was my Misery Tour deck, bleeding

BK's G1's !Salubri Unforgiving Heaven deck, bleeding

Alvin's Vote, bleeding

Bann's new Nephandus deck, bleeding

G1's Assamite bleed deck.

Early-Game

My position in this game was kinda challenging, sitting below a Assamite multi-action bleed, and bleeding a superior combat deck that totally destroyed my combat capability. I reverted to rely on my stealth bleed to do damage instead. Bringing out Boss Calihan followed by Pariah, I suddenly realized that if Pariah was to go to torpor, I'd have absolutely no way of getting him out of torpor...

BK influenced Nkechi, Rashiel, and Aredhel. He then spent his time recruiting little Brothers in Arms, and very soon he had about 3 Brothers working hand in hand giving Alvin a reasonably hard time. Alvin had Alexandria as his first vampire and dominated the vote table pretty much from then on. With Democritus and Alexandria, Alvin was to play a significant role in this game later on in determining the winner of the game.

Bann's first attempt with the Nephandus seemed reasonably effective, with Andrew Steward supporting Antonio d'Erlette, and calling out quite a few Nephandus. In the meantime he also recruited a Carton Van Wyke, a Vegabond Mystic and a Ponticulus, much to Alvin's despair. My predator had his own happy with Izhim and Djuhah, which both got themselves a Tatoo Signal. My major problem came when he slapped a Yoruba Shrine on the table pretty early in the game and proceed to bleed me with Loss pretty much once or twice a turn.

I thought I was lucky with Boss Calihan getting a Protean master card very early and a bucket load of Form of Mist in my hand supported by Legal Manipulations. However, my first attack was blocked by BK and he promptly sent Boss to torpor with a Rotschreck Eye. My attempt to get rid of (too many) Brothers-in-Arms with Pariah's attack resulted in a torpored Pariah...I was left with no Vampires in the ready region...

Mid-Game

I convinced my ally Alvin to rescue Pariah while Boss got himself of the mess. With a Remover on Djuhah, the bleeds from G1 became impossible to defend totally. I constantly tried to keep my pool at about 7 to fend off the 2 Loss attacks that came almost every round. Vessel and Social Charms kept me barely alive, but I was mostly saved because G1 didn't draw the Losses often enough. BK's one directional attacks against Alvin was not very effective since Alvin had almost free reign with his Voter Caps and Minion Taps. Across the table Bann had 4 Nephandus bleeding G1 constantly, keeping G1 from bringing out his 3rd Vampire. That gave me the time to kill off BK with a lucky Social Charmed Aire of Elation from Boss Calihan.

That extra 6 pool didn't really keep me alive for long. A Khabar Gloried Loss (even though Bann did tried to block it for me, but didn't manage to intercept that) killed off my final 7 pool and gained G1 10 pool for killing me.

Late Game

Getting through Alvin seemed to be rather impossible with Alvin Golcondaing his vampires when necessary. But Alvin was in a very bad position as Bann had Unmasking in play, while G1 had Wormwood, bringing down all his Vampire's cap and able to block pretty much everything Alvin needed to do. A cross table KRC before that did managed to hurt G1 at the critical time, denying him his crucial 3rd Vampire from hitting the table.

Bann now had 6 Nephandus. We did make a mistake thinking Nephandus had an optional maneuver instead of an optional press, and that was to cost G1 much. But we figured that out soon and everything went back to normal. Not that anything changed, Bann still bled G1 for 6 pretty much every turn.

But G1 was persistent and eventually ousted Alvin despite his many many pool. With so few cards left G1 didn't have the resources to take out Bann and was ousted by Bann's Nephandus eventually.

Final VP Count-

Bann - 2VP

G1 - 2VP

Me - 1VP

We went on to a second game.

Randomized seating as below -

G1's !Toreador guns (I think, didn't see any guns though), bleeding

Alvin's Vote deck, bleeding

Bann's Blood Sisters, bleeding

Keith's Khazar Diary, bleeding

My Foul Magnetism deck.

Early Game

With 4 Ysador in the crypt I didn't expect not to get her in the first draw, it kinda didn't look right. But well, we worked with what we have~ Looking at Bann's Menor and Keith's low-cap Giovanni I quickly brought out Stick for early defense. The good thing about G1 being 1st player was that he didn't have any Vampires still by turn 2, and both Bann and Keith, though supported by a good number of vampires, were too busy either hunting, or reading Khazar's Diary to bleed. I retained the Edge and got a pool from it. But soon Alvin's Democritus hit the table and I knew I was going to have problems getting my votes through. I did get lucky and had a first turn Powerbase Madrid.

Soon I had Lukas on the table with the help of a Zillah's Valley, and he employed a Raven Spy successfully despite Keith's attempt to block. (This is a stealth vote after all). I threw a Vessel on Stick and he proceeded to pretty much being a pool recovery fella the whole game. G1 influenced Venere Carboni and I allowed him (much to my regret) to have an Eternal Vigilance on him, completed with a Bowl of Convergence, making this vampire a virtual wall. G1 called Lachlan as his second Vampire, and in order to challenge his votes I was forced to commit to Greensleeve's hash salary to neutralize the Priscus votes.

Keith had his 4 Giovanni pretty quickly and had quite a few counters on his diary very soon. Bann was complaining about the bad draw he had since he didn't have any Potence master disciplines despite like, 10 in his deck. He soon have 6 Menor and 1 Mayor on the table. Alvin was having his fair share of bad draw since he didn't have any Minion Taps at all, and his votes were pretty well challenged by G1 and me put together. He influenced Gwendolyn and Donatian onto the table and his pool were dangerously low. He did fend off G1's Palla Grande attack with enough Deflections though...

The happiest person on the table should be Keith as he spring-started his Khazar Diary. I was lucky to send 3 of his Vampires into torpor with Lukas's single Raven Spy. The bleeds from Bann was also heavy enough to reduce Keith's pool, complete with the table's fear of the diary, sent his pool way below the healthy level, even Alvin's KRC went his way. (And everybody agreed that it was all good)

Mid-Game

Eventually Bann got his Potence and started teaching his Vampires the discipline that he needed. My attempt to attack G1 failed miserably and both Stick and Greensleeves were sent to torpor. I did out-survive Keith as he was bled to death by Bann's blood sisters. It was a close call since Bann was down to 4 pool and Alvin had 4 vampires (Moncada just joined his cause) at that point. I was thinking about what to do during that crucial round, and decided that the best option I had was to help Bann sweep since I cannot hope to survive from either Keith or Bann, but both of them are down to a dangerously low level of pool. Lukas tried to call a KRC to reduce Keith's pool so that Bann could kill him, but was voted down by Alvin anyway. Afterall, I was inconsequential...

Bann still managed to kill off Keith, and then went ahead to kill me.

At this point, G1 had Jessica on the table too, but it appeared that Bann was in an excellent position. I was distracted by PI's buy 5 get 2 free offer and went off to buy stuff before the counter closed and I missed the rest of the game. I think Bann won in the end~

Final VP Count-

Not sure

For once I actually got to play a 3rd game! Gathering 4 players, this was the randomized seating-

BK's G1 !Salubri deck, bleeding

Ben (New)'s Tzimisce wall, bleeding

My Foul Magnetism, bleeding

Keith's Giovanni Anarchs.

Again, I had not Ysador in the first draw! She was being very elusive this night.

Early Game

BK got Nkechi out again, and soon followed by Dela Eden and Rashiel. Ben influenced his only vampire in this game - Sascha Vykos [ADV]. I called forth Stick again, followed by Greensleeves and Lukas with the help of Zillah's Valley and a just-in-time Minion Tap. I got a first turn Powerbase Madrid again. Keith summoned Pochtli and another low cap Giovanni that I didn't catch the name. Keith told me earlier that the reason to use Pochtli in this deck was his incredible ability to exploit Keystone Kine (and we still haven't figure out what the art on Keystone Kine is supposed to depict...)

Sascha was supported by 2 Raven Spy and a Revenant, plus a Sniper Rifle bought with Vast Wealth. Ben had a Powerbase Chicago to support his pool and soon slap a Smiling Jack onto the table. By then, I already had great fun KRC-ing Keith down to a low pool level, given that the whole table didn't have much votes against me besides the pathetic 2 votes that Sascha had.

Bk, on the other hand, did suffer quite a bit from Keith's Keystone Kine/Conditioning bleeds, but eventually entered combat with both of Keith's vampires and torpored them in turn. By then BK was left also with 4 pool. But Sascha wasn't putting up much of a fight either since he wasn't able to really block BK's multiple bleeds and was reasonably afraid of BK's aggravated attacks from range.

Late Game

I ousted Keith quickly with mu bleeds and votes and then started facing off BK's deadly combat minions. I was lucky that the Smiling Jack already had 4 counters on it and was doing a better job reducing BK's assets than I possibly could. Blocking Stick's hunt Sascha still couldn't torpor him but was himself reduced to zero blood.

With Bann's advise, and the time clocking midnight, I made a deal with BK (with his 2 remaining 2 pool) to call a KRC to kill off both of them at the same time in exchange for him not blocking the KRC. This would give him 1 VP also but awarded me with the GW. I will always remember Bann's advise that GW is more important than VP, anytime.

And that was that.

Final VP Count-

Me - 3VP plus GW

BK - 1VP

(o.o)y

ps. And I look forward to a new year of blood and Jyhad!!!