James Coupe#
Well, a good time was had by all, though with only 11 players it made
arranging the tables an awkward decision. Eventually, because of the
problems we had had before with using six player tables (the games tending
to take a very, very long time, possibly timing out), it was decided that
one three player table and two four player tables should be used. Not a
perfect arrangement, by any means, but the best that could be done under
the circumstances.
Rob Treasure turned up with a highly sleazy deck based chiefly around
Stanislava, though using a fair few big Gangrel too - Gitane St. Clair,
Ingrid Rossler and Iliana turned up, too, along with Chandler Hungerford
for a little low capacity back-up. The deck was based around being able
to do a few nasty bleeds, particularly with Stanislava, and, when blocked,
to play Dawn Operation at superior (in order that the opponent cannot back
out) and to start combat with a Drawing out the Beast. Then, the action
can be stealthed through with a Form of Mist, dealing one aggravated
damage to the opposing vampire, sending it to torpor, whilst avoiding the
damage to yourself. Yikes! A fair amount of back up from Earth Meld,
Form of Mist, a little damage prevention, Deflections, Elysium etc. all
made for a powerful deck, and stealing vampires with Graverobbing made for
some headaches for me. One copy of Protect Thine Own, too (the Inner
Circle burn a Non-Camarilla vampire vote - yikes!)
Gary played what looked to be mostly Dominate Fortitude, though I think I
recall a *little* Presence too. A lot of cards for bleeding, though he
suffered from not really being able to get the actions through. One or
two Dominate Kines and Bondings helped a little, but most of his actions
were at 0 stealth. Fortitude provided some damage prevention, and also
provided Rapid Healing and Restoration - very useful, since the low
capacity nature of his vampires meant that (with a fair amount of combat
flying around) he often ended up with at least one vampire in
torpor. Defence against bleeds came with Deflections and Redirections,
coupled up with a few Wakes. Surprisingly, Surprise Influence was also
found in the deck, a card which I rarely tend to see played, when it could
be all too useful.
Michael (Anklebiter) was playing the Jyhad based Brujah deck. There was a
fair amount of combat in the deck, based mostly around maneuvering to
range and throwing a few objects around - mostly Thrown Gates and Thrown
Sewer Lids. A few Blurs and similar additional strike granting cards
provided excellent chances to follow up with some serious damage - very
useful, considering that Strike: Combat Ends is, currently, more rarely
seen in Portsmouth - those decks which *really* want combat tend to be
able to circumvent it with Immortal Grapple, so it seems to have cycled
out of a lot of decks - perhaps it's time for someone to try and exploit
that hole. Surprising elements in the deck were a few little bits of
bleed and, I think, bleed bounce, designed to utilise the copies of Tura
Vaughn and Anvil which were in the deck. Of course, to capitalise on the
more usual vampires, Legal Manipulations and Computer Hacking played a
part.
Will Lee played an impressive Nosferatu Antitribu deck. It included a
fair bit of equipment, with cards like Leather Jacket, Sport Bikes and a
few guns. Nosferatu Kingdom turned up, allowing useful blood cycling to
get underway. A few obfuscate cards allowed for stealthed bleeds when it
was *really* necessary. Cailean provided an excellent base for the deck,
being the master of range, though only about 6 Carrion Crows were
provided, the deck not being exclusively combat oriented. Using the
Advantage and Tier of Souls each turned up at least once, the former being
a little more useful in the smaller environment than might generally be
expected. The Hungry Coyote was also quite surprising, though an
excellent card for the deck.
Mark Baxter was playing the sleaziest, cheesiest deck there (and got a lot
of ribbing for it) - Malkavian stealth bleed. Well, to tell the truth,
not exclusively Malkavian stealth bleed - there were more than a few
Malkavian Antitribu too. Madness Network was there to capitalise on the
bleeding angle when it could, and a lot of the standard bleed cards in
dominate and dementation were flying around, backed up by obfuscate, of
course. There were a few copies of Coma, too, for combat defence, when
possible.
John Keech played a fun weenie Celerity-Presence deck. The basic idea was
lots of weenie vampires with .44 Magnums, to try and intimidate those
decks with very little combat defence into backing down. Blurs-aplenty
meant that he could easily end up dealing 6 damage to an opposing
vampire. Social Charm meant that bleeds were very annoying when they did
get through, though since Celerity was also a focus, the weenie selection
being played meant that Presence was not always available - so Computer
Hacking made the expected appearance. At least one copy of Marijava Ghoul
was seen, though being discarded. I would guess that the small size of
the vampires tended to mean that hunting to gain blood back from the cost
of it would be difficult. The Rumor Mill turned up for some much needed
intercept - a facet which Rob Treasure has been all to keen to
exploit. The deck was played with *plenty* of Wakes in order to try and
generate a solid bleed defence, but it couldn't cope with much stealth,
especially since the Tabloid Newspaper seemed to be in the deck only once.
Legbiter was playing with the standard out of turn malkavian rotschreck
deck. Greger Andressen and friends turned up, using lots of Protean in
order to try and torporise vampires. 2nd Tradition always seems to be in
his hand, making actions against him highly, highly problematic, since
that +*2* intercept can be a killer. Claws and so forth turned
up. However, Form of the Ghost was, in Legbiter's opinion, inferior to
Swallowed by the Night, for the deck. The press of Form of the Ghost was
rarely needed (and superior protean rare), whereas superior Obfuscate was
not difficult to get and the +1 stealth option both useful and needed, at
times.
Pierre Rebstock played another out of turn Malkavian deck, though this
time a fairly standard bleed deck. The idea, as with most of these decks,
was to try and use the Homunculus and Earth Meld to remain untapped, and
bleed lots in between each Methuselah's turn, so far as was
possible. This caused some headaches for Legbiter, with similar vampires
and cards being used. Of course, the big problem with such decks is
trying to keep the blood flowing, since bleed decks (unlike combat decks
and political decks) do not have any cards easily available to them to
replenish their blood supply (whereas the other deck types have Taste of
Vitae and Voter Captivation at least).
Jon Cooper played an interesting Auspex stealth and bleed deck. The idea
seemed to be to pull off Pulse of the Canaille in order to get the extra
+2 bleed and then stealth the actions by as needed. Lenadro turned up at
least once, providing a hideous +5 bleed, though it has to be said that in
the game I saw it happen, it was not capitalised on as much as it might
have been, though the table dynamics at the time made such *very*
difficult. Inferior Revelations was put to great use. A highly useful
card that seems to have been much neglected, it was twice used to discard
an Archon Investigation from Barney's hand.
Barney was playing a Celerity-Fortitude-Potence deck. Richter, Jimmy Dunn
and similar vampires turned up. Surprisingly, for me at least, Haven
Uncovered seemed to be the preferred method of beating people up, though
the expensive nature of the vampires meant that Bum's Rushes wouldn't have
generated many more combats, in the way they would in a weenie deck. A
few little bits of bleed (Computer Hacking, as I recall) were around to
hasten a player's demise as much as possible, whilst Immortal Grapple made
life hell for those decks who did choose to play any Strike: Combat Ends.
I played a Brujah political deck that was, essentially, thrown together,
and I kept kicking myself for not having altered the vampires and the deck
before I set off. :( The deck seriously needed a different selection of
vampires, since superior Presence was much needed in the environment, and
a few more Presence master cards were wanted too. I was, in the game,
much annoyed by the amount of *minor* intercept that was around, meaning
that I tended to get severely kicked in the first two games, and in my
third game was lucky enough to steal the Tabloid newspaper, making my life
easier. Alacrity was definitely needed. Surprisingly, despite putting
between 6 and 8 copies of the card in my deck, Majesty was only drawn (and
played) once! Yikes!
The final was played with Rob, Jon, Mark, Barney and Will (in that
order). Jon managed to bleed Mark, whilst Barney beat him up. Barney
being stealth bled, and finding himself incapable of doing much *serious*
damage to Will, ended up having to beat up Mark's vampires, so Jon was
finally able to put the boot in and oust him. However, this took quite
some time since Jon was having to fend off the best efforts of
Mr. Treasure who, after Jon had ousted Mark, quickly fell to Will's strong
deck. It was then only really a matter of time before Will managed to
oust Jon and Barney, in order to get 4 victory points, reigning
victorious.
Prize support from Wizards was severely lacking, an annoyance given that
the application was put in well before any announcements from White
Wolf. Hopefully, this situation will be rectified at some point in the
future - either by Wizards or White Wolf, depending on what happens there.
--
James Coupe