Skirmishes in the Dark : 31-08-2010

The night of 31st August, in the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.

The last day of August, and quite a while since I had Vtes in PI, due to the recent crisis in the family. But it seems to be all clear now, so I'm starting to dedicate time for my favourite hobby.

6 Methuselahs were present so I thought I would be sitting out the first game, since I only brought 1 deck yesterday, but Bann had superior CEL, and opted out before I can say "Vtes". So I got into the first game and started the long night of being bullied by G1 (AND YY).

Randomized Seating for Game 1

YY's Daughters, bleeding

John's Malkavian Wall, bleeding

Keith's Bleeding Hordes, bleeding

G1's Valerius Wall, bleeding

My Howling.

It was a sad sad day for my Ahrimanes. G1's second turn Valorius with a TupDog frightened me so much that I kept all my Ahrimanes in the uncontrolled region until I'm ready to move all 3 of them out in a single turn. That of course, is a super mistake - shame on me for being such a coward.

Anyway, that probably make G1 pretty happy, and soon I realized that his TupDog are such crypt cycler, and isn't as scary as Bann's pack. During a turn where he has no TupDog (and influenced Uta instead), I brought out the long awaited Wild Girls - Siamese, Howler and Nettie Hale. By then YY's Daughters had been happily Reckless Agitating John and devastating my mood with his ridiculous number of pool from all the Voter Caps and Fringe Benefits from Performing.

The double Vessel that I placed on the Ahrimanes, and the Powerbase Montreal kept me alive against G1's occasional bleeds, but G1's high intercept makes my life pretty difficult since I cannot easily stealth through Valorius's Bowl plus all his Auspex Intercepts. I did got through a Muricia's Call and had a Murder of Crows on Howler, and Siamese had the New Moon Vigil.

After a while, G1's Biothaumaturgically enhanced Uta and Valorius kinda cancelled my Howler's and Siamese's maneuvers, and we actually didn't get into much combat. I tried to focus on the Daughters, but by then it was too late. With Dmitra and Scout Youngwood (plus a whole horde of pool), my attacks were easily neutralized by YY's pool defense.

John was the first to go, with all those Reckless Agitation and KRCs (plus the occasional Lily), John was ousted quickly by the Daughters. Keith was then forced to attack relentlessly with his Hordes (which happens to be a bleed with Computer Hacking), and somehow his Hordes were able to bleed for 5 at 1 stealth, which was of course promptly deflected to me while I wasn't ready.

A massive combat sent Valorius into torpor, but Howler joined him quickly. Keith was soon ousted by the Daughters, and with Valorius weakened, even though I started to go easy on G1, YY didn't really need a lot of effort to kill G1 off. My death was then without a doubt.

Final VP Count

YY - All YY's

Randomized Seating for Game 2

I can't believe it, but I'm still being bled by G1, and bleeding YY.

My Howling, bleeding

YY's Samedi Bleed/Bloat, bleeding

Bann's Anarch !Toreador, bleeding

John's Malkavian Wall, bleeding

G1's Valorius Wall.

Another sad sad game for my Ahrimanes. It started off ok, with Howler and Cynthia onto the table pretty quickly. It then quickly went downhill as G1 blocked pretty much everything I do whenever he could - no Raven Spies, no Engling Fury, no nothing. And Howler went into torpor twice, once because of Rotschreck, and the other simply because G1 can.

Again, it allowed YY to run away with the game since I sucked as a predator. Though Howler was eventually allowed to get her Heart of the City, and that did manage to make Howler an effective bleeder, but the lack of Raven Spies made me unable to deal with YY's bloating mechanics. Aranthebes, Army of Rats, and the standard Rack+Vessel combo did keep my pool healthy enough to survive.

Bann had a terrible draw, since his bleed deck isn't really bleeding his prey very well, but was quite dedicated to dying. YY's Troglodytia truly exhibited the great ability to look at everybody's hand and I believed that that allowed YY to make a lot of informed choices. John's wall was effective this time, blocking 9 out of 10 of Bann's bleeds, and depleting his vampires' bleed quite effectively with Weighted Walking Sticks and so on. Meanwhile, G1 was enjoying himself sending my Howler into torpor, but besides that wasn't that effective in killing my pool. (Again, his Valorius had the Bowl, plus Abbot, plus Guardian Angel, so he wasn't too concerned about direct attacks)

The Cemetry and Off Kilter kept YY's controlled region full of minions, and soon all of them had Camera Phones and stuff and pretty much all of them bleed for 3. That contributed greatly to Bann's demise. The battle against John took a little longer, but all that changed when G1 sent (I think it was Titus) into torpor and Grave-Robbed him (comes with free Blood Doll and Weighted Walking Stick). Even though I quickly sent Titus into torpor it was too late for John. He never recovered from the shock and was soon ousted by YY.

With Valerius around, the OBF of the Samedi wasn't very popular, and YY started to have many of his actions blocked. Meanwhile I tried extremely hard to recover from the damages that G1 had done, and many thanks to the Powerbase Montreal and the Rack, I did. Though G1's Smiling Jack eventually caused a lot of damage to me (All my vampires only had 1 blood left and I was down to 6 pool), he was ousted before Jack could accumulate the 5th counter.

It was late and YY, after a few combat against obviously a very angry and pent up Howler, decided to give me the 2 VP and win the game.

Final VP Count

YY - 3 VPS.

Me - 2 VPs.

(o.o)