Monday, July 19, 2010

Skirmishes in the Dark : 17-07-2010

Night of 17th July, in the year 2010, Games Garage.
The second time I'm playing at Games Garage, and we have 2 new players that G1 was trying to embrace into Vtes. Therefore the first game was a demo game, and since there were more than 5 players involved, Bann, G1 and me sat out the first game and awaited the arrival of Derek and wife to start a second table. That wait took us about 2 hours plus before Derek and wife arrived, with VS. cards as their crypt. The vampire couple had to therefore borrow decks to play.
I got into 2 games that night, and was quite successful in both games.
Randomized seating for Game 1 -
Bann's Nephandus Mage, bleeding
Derek playing my Beautiful Eyes, bleeding
LF's Cemetry Samedi, bleeding
My Army of Shadows, bleeding
G1's Eat the Caitiff True Brujah, bleeding
LeeWen playing my Air Rock.
Bann was having a bad time sitting in between a wall deck and a combat deck with reasonable intercepts, so even though the Air Rock is very slow in killing prey he was having a difficult time getting anything to do what he wanted. That distracted him enough to make him commit several mistakes in the game.
G1 was the first one to bring out 2 Caitiffs, and initially I though it was a weenie deck of some sorts. I brought out Gratiano quickly, hoping to use Governed the Unaligned to bring out more vampires. LF's Samedi quickly come into play and I was soon under a lot of pressure from her consistent bleeds. Derek apparently had a bad draw, and since his prey did not block at all, his Earth Controls and combat cards weren't very useful, and he put the Bowl of Convergence on Donald Cargill instead of Ondine, and lost quite a few turns of using her effectively. AND HE DISCARDED PALLA GRANDE!!!!! Ahem, sorry.
Nevertheless, I soon had 2 Creation Rites, Ramiro and Hester Reed, with an early Lilith's Blessing one of my Creation Rites actually had superior Obtenebration. I had a reasonably ok hand and was preparing to go attack my prey but G1 brought out Al-Muntaquim and played several Vacticcination, removing the Entombment from my hand. LeeWen's Gargoyles was having quite a bad hand, with very little to do, and therefore didn't do much to her prey nor her predator.
Bann was devastated when Derek played an Entrancement, taking over one of his 4 Nephanduses. At that point I was down to 4 pool, and tried to use a Consanguinous Boon to push my pool back to 7, but Bann decided to Delaying Tactics my Boon, his purpose being to help LF killed me off so that his prey couldn't gain an extra 6 pool - a cunning and effective strategy. I was lucky to have 2 Deflections in hand then, and survived the ordeal while weakening my prey significantly.
My KRCs and bleeds then killed off G1 and my worse time in the game was over. By then I also had Antonio on table as well as 2 more Creation Rites (one of early ones was in torpor though) and had enough stealth and action to kill off the severely weakened Gargoyles. A Horseshoe sent Bann's Antonio d'Erlette into torpor, and with only 2 Nephandus he couldn't defend against my attacks.
The push to kill off Derek before LF killed me was a challenge. But when he went out of wakes I quickly KRC-ed him to death. My last prey had about 22 pool, but so did I, and we decided to try if she could kill me off before I kill her. Massive DOM bleeds coupled with KRCs and a couple of timely Consanguinous Boons gave me the victory point at the end.
It was as successful as I could wish for.
Final VP Count -
All mine, mine!
Randomized Seating for game 2 -
YY's Nosferatu, bleeding
My Beautiful Eyes, bleeding
LF's Ventrue Vote, bleeding
Derek playing G1's Malk94
Again I was lucky in this game. Derek brought out Laurent de Valois and slapped a DOM Master Discipline card on him. His first bleed cost YY 6 pool before YY had any defense, that kept YY in the defensive mood for a reasonably long time. I brought out Redbone McCray and gave him superior PRO immediately while using Monique Kim as my Vessel. I brought out Ondine instead of Malabranca first as I thought I'd be needing her +1 Strength very soon.
Meanwhile, LF brought out Muktar Bey as her first vampire, and supplement her minion base rather quickly with 2 other Ventrue Princes (or maybe one Prince and a Primogen or something). With good intercepts and wake cards I was able to prevent her from calling a lot of her votes and she wasn't having much success taming her prey - whom was however, suffering quite badly against YY's new minions - Gustaphe Brunelle and Benjamin Rose. Gustaphe went in and sent Laurent and the new Mariel the Lady Thunder into torpor rather quickly, and Ozmo was being attacked consistently by Nosferatu Crows and Bats.
YY took some time off his predator and came after me, but was promptly sent into torpor pretty much everytime he blocked my actions (like my attempt to put a Homunculus on Ondine) and come my way since he has very little defense against my PRO attacks. Eventually he lost his vampires enough times (despite using 3 Warsaw Stations) while I rescued Ozmo from torpor to keep him busy that he couldn't really do much anymore.
LF fell to my PRE bleeds after she too lost a few vampires to my Claws of the Dead, and I was successful in ousting her. By then the Malk94 had only a single vampire with zero blood most of the time and couldn't defend himself against my minions. I casually swept away all opposition by then.
Final VP Count -
Mine, still mine!
It was a most successful night.
(o.o)

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