Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Skirmishes in the Dark : 16-02-2010

16th February, of the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.
A holiday on a Tuesday, and I managed to finish my work pretty early, so I reached the store before dark, which is pretty good. We had a casual game and went for dinner, when we came back, there were enough players to actually start a 6-player table.
The seating was as follows:
Keith's Giovanni Anarch, bleeding
My Maureen Heralds, bleeding
Ben's Shattering Daughters, bleeding
Ben Sum's Lasombra bleed, bleeding
Bann's !Salubri, bleeding
YeQi's Ventrue Vote.
My Maureen deck is pretty straight forward, and I was pretty lucky in this game with an opening hand of Secure Haven and Obfuscate discipline card. I quickly influenced Maureen as my first vampire, followed by Cathering Du Bois. The Obfuscate card went to Maureen by turn 3, and she called forth my first Infernal Servitor and proceed to bleed Ben's sisters, who really couldn't block very well even without stealth enhancement.
My predator Keith called forth Giovanni De Georgio and Kay Polerno to work for him in a Twilight Camp, and started bleeding me with Keystone Kine supported by Crime Inc untaps. My prey Ben Chia had Hillanvale as his first sister, supplemented later by Scout Youngwood.
The first attempt by my prey to curb my bleed was a successful Shattering Cresendo on Maureen, reducing her to 3 blood. It was really close as I immediately slap my Secure Haven on her to prevent future damage. Calling more Servitors I continued to bleed Ben without facing much resistance due to the Sisters' inability to generate intercepts. I was helped greatly by a timely Dreams of the Sphinx and a Charisma (whom it cost me 1 extra pool to play on Maureen), but it kept me pretty safe for a while.
Meanwhile, Ben Sum's stealth bleed had kept my ally Bann very busy, and he couldn't put much pressure on YeQi's Ventrues, whom went about to shatter the Giovanni's hold of the territory. Keith was closed to death, but showed me how deadly the Giovannis could be by bleeding me for 7 in a single round with Keystone Kine and Conditioning. I was lucky to have just eliminated Ben right before that happened with Catherine's Conditioning and a Servitor.
However, that 7 bleeds put me in a position vulnerable to YeQi's KRCs, which kept coming at me after that. I was down to 3 pool and relied completely on Maureen's recruit action to survive. A timely The Summoning called forth Veneficti, and I just had an Unmasking and a WMRH on the table, which was my saviour. My several bleeds towards Ben Sum was deflected to Bann, and I was reluctant to attack too aggressively as I totally needed Bann's !Salubris to block some of the political actions.
Eventually I was able to torpor one of YeQi's 3 princes with a Servitor, blocking her rescue actions with Veneficti. I was forced to pull everything from Catherine's Vessel to keep alive, and her hunt was blocked by YeQi's Second Tradition and she was sent to torpor. I was really in a fix, but just then Bann managed to send all of YeQi's vampires into torpor, and diablerized one before she brought out another prince.
I was extremely lucky that Ben ran out of Deflections, and I managed to finally alpha strike to kill him off. By then all of us were exhausted, and decided to just call it a day and start a new game.
Final VP count
Me - 2.5 VP
YeQi - 1.5 VP
Bann - 0.5 VP
The second game was really quick for me, since I sat below Ben Sum's DOM bleed and I was playing a Sisters deck which required setup.
I was gone like, within a couple of rounds~
After that I went about playing my Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone~ but I knew Keith won with his Giovanni Guns~
The table seating was as follows:
Keith's Giovanni Guns bleeding
Bann's Blood Sisters, bleeding
Ben's !Salubri, bleeding
Ben Sum's Lasombra Bleed, bleeding
My Sing to the Dawn
Nevertheless, I think more new decks will surface next week once most of the other players return from their Chinese New Year holidays. Next week will be a solid fight week~
(o.o)

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