Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Skirmishes in the Dark : 02-03-2010

2nd March, in the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.
Time flies, and we're in March already, CNY is over, and I had my first Vtes games in March. Gee.
12 Methuselahs turned up yesternight, a pretty good turn up rate, and I went around to recruit participants for the upcoming Newbie Tournament on the 16th March. To date I had 6 attendants, pretty good if I may say so myself.
Anyway, I managed to get in 2 games.
Here's the randomized seating for game 1.
Alvin's Beat you many times over deck, bleeding
My Jacked Up Samedi, bleeding
YY's Tzimisce Wall, bleeding
G1's Ahrimanes, bleeding
Ben Chia's Harbingers of Skull.
I was in a terrible seating position on this table. My predator utilizes Count Germaine, who shut down my weapons completely. My prey had intercepts so high that I can only look at his pool and smile. I did managed to influence Jack Dawson and immediately slapped a .44 on him, a testament to my good draw. With the Anarch Convert I was lucky enough to make Jack an Anarch without needing to do it the hard way. I soon supported Jack with Wolfgang and that was all the vampires I had throughout the game.
Alvin decided to block a 1 bleed from Ben's HOS, and his Count Germaine proceeded to torpor the HOS. That was really early in the game, and pretty unnecessary (kinda over the top too), and that gathered all the animosity from Ben, whom after that did all he could to make Alvin's life difficult, which gave me a little room for breathing.
I blocked YY's attempt to equip with something (can't remember what) and went into an elaborate combat. Jack's Diversion prevented his Breath of the Dragon while my returning Compressed fire did send his vampire into torpor. This proved to Alvin that he must be really careful against me and sort of made him a little more prudent. But that didn't actually change much for my prey and soon, lead by Sasha Vykos, YY had a platoon of 4 vampires happily working against G1.
Meanwhile, G1 was able to work almost unmolested against Ben, since Ben was crippled early by Alvin's attack. G1 soon had 4 vampires, heralded by Muricia, eventually ousted Ben. Meanwhile, Alvin had been consistently bleeding me for 1, and had influenced Dmitra to augment Count Germaine's deadly attacks. However, given a Hougan and a Vessel on Jack I was able to keep my pool pretty healthy. YY's cooperation allowed me to bleed occasionally with Keystone Kine and Off Kilter to gain some pool. Eventually both Jack and Wolfgang were armed with a .44.
After some consideration, Alvin slapped a Fame on Jack, and a Haven Uncovered on Wolfgang. Both attacks were thwarted by my combat response, but eventually he managed to torpor both. By then, YY had the upper hand against G1 and soon ousted him. With Dmitra's hunt blocked and sent to torpor, YY's 5 vampires vs. Alvin's single Count Germaine, the outcome was inevitable. Though I managed to have Jack leave torpor, it was too late for me to challenge YY's superiority in this game.
Final VP Count
YY - 4 VPs plus GW
G1 - 1 VP
Game 2.
My Dark Cellars, bleeding
Danz's Potence Weenies, bleeding
Alvin's Beat you many times over, bleeding
G1's Kiasyd, bleeding
YY's Kiasyd.
This was most interesting. I didn't expect to survive against YY's Kiasyd bleed, knowing how effective his deck is. However, fate was to intervene in the form of G1, whom had also, a Kiasyd deck, of the same Group! With multiple Wider View, G1 managed to contest YY's Arcadian, and then Great Symposium earlier than YY to have more vampires than YY. Therefore, YY was pretty much bleeding me with 1 vampire (first Arcadian, then Omme) throughout the game.
I quickly brought out Greta Kircher and Jost Werner, prepared myself to full defense, and was pretty lucky with my draw. A Quickened Sight allowed my Depravity-ed Greta to block Danz's attempt to equip a Crimson Fang and sent one of his weenies to torpor. After that, I Telepathic Misdirected at least 3 bleeds of 3 or more to Danz, reducing his pool to a dangerous level.
Meanwhile, Danz was having a lot of fun fighting it out with Alvin's combat monster, and his low but multiple bleeds made it impossible for Alvin to bring out a second vampire. Count Germaine was fighting desperately to fend off all these little POT thingy infringing into his territory, and it was a losing battle, swarmed by so many despite Germaine's significant combat ability to always stayed on top in every fight. We did see a lot of Immortal Grapples.
Meanwhile G1 was bleeding very responsibly against YY, in 1s or 2s, never giving YY much opportunity to bounce the bleeds to me. YY was forced to bleed forward quickly since he must get rid of me before G1 bled him to death. With Wider Views G1 was keeping ahead of the contest, and with more vampires he was gaining an upper hand. We all knew that YY was doomed unless he could kill me off first. But a good hand full of Telepathic Misdirection and Quickened Sight prevented YY from doing too much against me.
With a timely Palla Grande I was able to bleed Danz down to 3 pool, that round I called a KRC and sent 3 to Alvin and 1 to Danz (Voter Capping in the process to annoy YY, not that he cared very much at that point), then bled with Jost for 2 to kill off Danz. Alvin decided to stay untapped to try to block my last counter on Palla Grande next turn and defend his remaining 4 pool. Alas, he had zero intercept and I was able to stealth through with both Jost and Greta's Resist Earth's Grasp.
12 extra pool didn't help at all once G1 got to me after ousting YY. With 4 Kiasyds he soon depleted my pool.
Final VP Count
G1 - 3 VPs plus GW
Me - 2 VPs
(o.o)

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