The finalists were (in order of seeding) Phillip (Ahrimane bleed and vote, replacing Ruan, who couldn't make the final), Richard (Tupdogs), Hendrik (True Brujah), myself (Hardbringer AUS black hand) & Brendan (Nagaraja power bleed).
Hendrik placed himself downstream of Phillip - I chose to go between Phillip and Hendrik, leaving Phillip at the mercy of the Tupdogs. Brendan somewhat surprisingly chose to be my predator - I had expected him to go downstream, as Hendrik didn't have bounce, but Brendan was perhaps disadvantaged here by not having really seen either my deck or Hendrik's during the initial rounds. The roll to see who started ended up with Hendrik starting, so the table was Hendrik -> Richard -> Phillip -> Brendan -> me.
Richard made most of the early running, binning and graverobbing the first minion Phillip brought out, and working through Phillip's pool quite quickly. Brendan got off to a very slow start, which hurt me, since I drew a lot of bounce, and didn't have anything to bounce. I also didn't draw anything to help me got forward, and mainly drew target vitals, rather than any of the other combat cards, so my deck didn't really get running. This left Hendrik free to tool up his Trujah without problems.
I spent a couple of blocks stopping some tool-up actions from Brendan, mainly to cycle cards (without much effect), and working on getting out more minions. I maybe should have tried to block Hendrik more, but early on I didn't have a decent enough combat package to feel I could risk that.
With Phillip looking very vulnerable at around 3 or 4 pool, and Hendrik's Antediluvian Awakening in play, Richard decided to start putting pressure on Brendan (with a Fame and a couple of rushes), rather than finishing off Phillip. This gave Phillip a window to call a couple of votes and gain blood and pool via voter caps, and also led to Brendan burning his Fame'd minion to get rid of the Antediluvian, which also helped Phillip. Richard then blocked a number of Hendrik's actions, and saw several minions (including the stolen minion) put into torpor, which left him unable to oust Phillip that turn. A Neonate breach from Phillip, and an Ancilla Empowerment from Hendrik then ousted Richard. I could potentially have blocked the Ancilla Empowerment, but opted out, due to a poor combat hand, which was my major misplay of the game, as it gave Hendrik momentum. To pass the Ancilla empowerment, Hendrik had agreed to leave Phillip alone for two turns, which Hendrik spent further tooling up, and this allowed Phillip to land some solid hits on Brendan's pool, but not quite quick enough to beat being ousted himself.
I finally drew into some bleed, so I was able to damage Hendrik's pool, but not enough to offset the gains from the ousts. Brendan also finally bled me, but I was out of bounce, so it left me rather low. I was able to survive until after Brendan had been ousted, but wasn't able to stop Hendrik sweeping.
Because my deck came up a bit strangely, I was overly defensive for much of the final. The current build of the deck is also too focused towards bleed defense. This was a design choice based on what I expected to see, but that didn't end up working that well for me in any of the games. I think there are some good ideas in the deck, though, and I can hopefully make a non-storyline rules version work.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The Battle Lines Storyline tournament: first rounds
I put together two deck ideas for the tournament, and Ahrimane Anarch Pre bleed deck, and a Harbringer of Skulls Black Hand deck, and managed to playtest both decks twice. The Ahrimane deck never really gelled for me, as the combat and defense never flowed nicely. The Harbringer deck did reasonably well in the first playtest, and got horribly crushed in the second (Simon's Blood Brothers made for a horrible prey), it did at least seem to be able to pull of the combos I wanted more often, and had access to bounce, which is always good, so, after further tweaking, I decided to run with it for the tournament.
In the first round, Dave (Kiasyd S & B, Bahari faction) was bleeding me (HoS, Loyalist) bleeding Ruan (smallish Daughters bleed, Bahari) bleeding John (Petanique something, Bahari) bleeding Hendrik (True Brujah bruise & bleed, Loyalist).
Ruan got off to a really fast start, and John never got into the game, only managing a couple of actions before being ousted. I failed to draw Sennadurek, but did get the +1 intercept Mordechai into play, and get a blooding early to get the black hand goodness going. Dave didn't seem to be drawing into any bleed, and, with Hendrik in a position to apply a fair bit of pressure early (due to John's troubles), was looking wall up a fair bit. Hendrik put one of Ruan minions down, and I was able to knock another down, to slow him down, and, when Hendrik suddenly brought out two small minions, it looked like he was in a good position to push through. Ruan, however, was able to contest one of the minions with Hendrik, and some Faerie Wards from Dave bought him some time. I had a couple of tight turns when I didn't quite have the bounce or intercept I needed in hand, and was only on 6 pool, but Dave, who had built up to 3 minions didn't draw the bleed push he needed, and I survived. I was able to land a few solid Trochmancy bleeds on Ruan, and whittled him down into lunge range, but I screwed up the lunge royally, needlessly boosting a bleed and having a minion Archon'ed. I was able to oust Ruan that turn, but, having lost a minion, I was left in pretty bad shape and couldn't pressurise Hendrik, who quickly ousted both Dave and myself. Still, 1 VP was a decent start to the tournament.
The second round saw Phillip (Ahrimane Vote & Bleed, Loyalist) bleeding Hendrik bleeding me bleeding James (Salubri Antitribu combat, Bahari) bleeding Richard (Tupdog & weenie dom madness, Bahari). The Tupdog deck got off to a fast start, graverobbing a small minion with a sniper rifle from James, and Fame'ing Phillip's vampire. I was able to Cadet my crypt early, which meant all my vampires came into play Black Hand, which was useful, but I spent a lot of the game trying to draw into my Trochomancies, and wasn't able to really pressurise James. I got a pulse down, but misjudged the amount untap James had and had the vampire burnt by an Eye of unforgiving Heaven. Hendrik played an Antediluvian Awakening and this led to probably the most amusing passage of play from the game. With Phillip on the ropes, Richard burnt the stolen minion to burn Hendrik's Antediluvian Awakening, so he could play his own Awakening, only to have it immediately contested by Hendrik. Richard duly ousted Phillip, but then run out of momentum a bit, and I was whittled down fairly quickly by Hendrik. Luckily for me, James eagle sight'ed an ousting bleed, and I was able to start farming back to hold on. I was able to block a couple of Hendrik's bleeds and drew enough prevent to survive the combats, but, with a Form of Corruption in play, and Sennadurak stuck on 1 blood in a Vessel & hunt cycle to pay for the Antediluvian Awakening, I couldn't afford to bleed James unless I could secure the oust, as gaining the Edge would have been fatal to me. Eventually, I blocked Hendrik who played domain of evernight and my prevent allowed me to torprise one of Hendrik's minions, and, with Richard burning another minion to burn the Antediluvian Awakening, I was in a position to lunge for James, and got that through. Hendrik then fell to the Tupdog deck, but as I was able to bring out another minion, and I had the combat to deal with the Tupdogs for a couple of turns, I was able to finally oust Richard. An admittedly rather lucky game win, but they all count.
The HoS deck is still fragile, and it is more passive than most other decks I play, but it does have some good ideas and is quite fun to play [1], although it does rely on the Storyline's no group restriction rules. I will need to think about how to make the deck work without the storyline rules a fair bit still.
[1] Unless it has Simon's BB deck as its prey.
In the first round, Dave (Kiasyd S & B, Bahari faction) was bleeding me (HoS, Loyalist) bleeding Ruan (smallish Daughters bleed, Bahari) bleeding John (Petanique something, Bahari) bleeding Hendrik (True Brujah bruise & bleed, Loyalist).
Ruan got off to a really fast start, and John never got into the game, only managing a couple of actions before being ousted. I failed to draw Sennadurek, but did get the +1 intercept Mordechai into play, and get a blooding early to get the black hand goodness going. Dave didn't seem to be drawing into any bleed, and, with Hendrik in a position to apply a fair bit of pressure early (due to John's troubles), was looking wall up a fair bit. Hendrik put one of Ruan minions down, and I was able to knock another down, to slow him down, and, when Hendrik suddenly brought out two small minions, it looked like he was in a good position to push through. Ruan, however, was able to contest one of the minions with Hendrik, and some Faerie Wards from Dave bought him some time. I had a couple of tight turns when I didn't quite have the bounce or intercept I needed in hand, and was only on 6 pool, but Dave, who had built up to 3 minions didn't draw the bleed push he needed, and I survived. I was able to land a few solid Trochmancy bleeds on Ruan, and whittled him down into lunge range, but I screwed up the lunge royally, needlessly boosting a bleed and having a minion Archon'ed. I was able to oust Ruan that turn, but, having lost a minion, I was left in pretty bad shape and couldn't pressurise Hendrik, who quickly ousted both Dave and myself. Still, 1 VP was a decent start to the tournament.
The second round saw Phillip (Ahrimane Vote & Bleed, Loyalist) bleeding Hendrik bleeding me bleeding James (Salubri Antitribu combat, Bahari) bleeding Richard (Tupdog & weenie dom madness, Bahari). The Tupdog deck got off to a fast start, graverobbing a small minion with a sniper rifle from James, and Fame'ing Phillip's vampire. I was able to Cadet my crypt early, which meant all my vampires came into play Black Hand, which was useful, but I spent a lot of the game trying to draw into my Trochomancies, and wasn't able to really pressurise James. I got a pulse down, but misjudged the amount untap James had and had the vampire burnt by an Eye of unforgiving Heaven. Hendrik played an Antediluvian Awakening and this led to probably the most amusing passage of play from the game. With Phillip on the ropes, Richard burnt the stolen minion to burn Hendrik's Antediluvian Awakening, so he could play his own Awakening, only to have it immediately contested by Hendrik. Richard duly ousted Phillip, but then run out of momentum a bit, and I was whittled down fairly quickly by Hendrik. Luckily for me, James eagle sight'ed an ousting bleed, and I was able to start farming back to hold on. I was able to block a couple of Hendrik's bleeds and drew enough prevent to survive the combats, but, with a Form of Corruption in play, and Sennadurak stuck on 1 blood in a Vessel & hunt cycle to pay for the Antediluvian Awakening, I couldn't afford to bleed James unless I could secure the oust, as gaining the Edge would have been fatal to me. Eventually, I blocked Hendrik who played domain of evernight and my prevent allowed me to torprise one of Hendrik's minions, and, with Richard burning another minion to burn the Antediluvian Awakening, I was in a position to lunge for James, and got that through. Hendrik then fell to the Tupdog deck, but as I was able to bring out another minion, and I had the combat to deal with the Tupdogs for a couple of turns, I was able to finally oust Richard. An admittedly rather lucky game win, but they all count.
The HoS deck is still fragile, and it is more passive than most other decks I play, but it does have some good ideas and is quite fun to play [1], although it does rely on the Storyline's no group restriction rules. I will need to think about how to make the deck work without the storyline rules a fair bit still.
[1] Unless it has Simon's BB deck as its prey.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Spontaneous Photoblog
A selection of some recent photos [1][2].
[1] because writing a RSS feed generator for my gallery keeps slipping down the priority list
[2] More over here
Saturday, March 6, 2010
First VTES torunament of 2010
Last weekend was the 1st tournament of the year, the Battle of Paardeberg. Unfortunately, only 7 players showed up, which is one of the more awkward numbers.
Saturday saw the preliminary rounds (tables of 5, 4, and 5).
The first round saw Dan (Osebo wall with thrown junk) bleeding Kevin (!Toreador sneak bleed & vote) bleeding Hendrik (weenie Pre & For swarm) bleeding Phillip (Brujah Trophy deck) bleeding Richard (Guhuri Ani Pot Pre bruise and bleed).
Hendrik got off to a fast start, but was slowed down by a cross table eagle sight from Dan. This allowed Phillip to bin and burn a couple of Hendrik's minions. It was at this point that Phillip discovered that his trophy deck completed lacked any Master cards, which was rather amusing. Kevin got a few bleeds and votes through, and gradually whittled Hendrik down. Richard was able to trump Dan's combat package, as Dan never got the Ayes he needed, or the maneuvers to avoid close range combat. Hendrik was eventually able to bleed through Phillip, but had taken quite a heavy toll doing so. Richard duly ousted Dan. Kevin should have ousted Hendrik, but backed off at a point when he should have just bled Hendrik out, and then opted to allow one of his minions to be Golconda'ed by Richard, which never looked the right play. This allowed Richard to clean up the rest of the table.
The second game saw Phillip bleeding me (!Nosferatu rush with Fame) bleeding Hendrik bleeding Simon (!salubri combat). Hendrik got off to a fast start, which only allowed Simon to bring out a single minion. Simon and I ended up co-operating to rush Hendrik minions into the ground to keep him from sweeping though Simon, but this meant that Simon was unable to pressurise Phillip, so I was also having to try and balance that threat. I was able to successfully burn one of Phillip's vampires, and did torporise a few others, and between Simon and I, Hendrik and 6 or 7 minions either toporised or burnt. However, I didn't draw into a single Fame or Tension, so was never able to really damage Hendrik's pool, and, with Phillip burning my hunting ground, eventually ran out of blood on my minions and was duly ousted. Phillip was able to sweep the table from there, although Hendrik might have been able to oust Simon if he'd played things a little differently.
The third round saw me bleeding Richard bleeding Kevin bleeding Simon bleeding Dan. I got off to a good start, being able to bin one of Richard's vampires early, but then went through a long period of not drawing into my combat, which slowed me down to a crawl. This meant I was also unable to stop Richard gearing up - the leather jackets were a real problem for me. Dan built up fairly slowly, while Sim on back-rushed Kevin a fair bit. This allowed Richard to oust Kevin, after which the table stabilised for a bit. The most amusing incident was the complex deal Simon struck, agreeing to torporise one of Dan's minions for my support, and then later agreeing not to rush Dan for his support, which he was not quite able to fulfill, due to Dan choosing not to block Simon when he had a Kiss of Ra in hand. Richard was able to oust Simon, but at this point he had several minions in torpor (as did I), and was severely hurt by having a few minions diablerised. I didn't have the minions to survive against Dan, and he duly ousted both me and Richard.
I ended up being the 5th player in the final in the roll off.
The final saw me (starting) bleeding Richard bleeding Phillip bleeding Dan bleeding Hendrik.
I had a poor crypt draw, no beast, all three copies of Calebos and one Mateusz, which immediately meant that I wasn't going to get any use out of the Street Creds in my deck. Hendrik, however, opted to go slowly, and thus I was able to bring out both Mateusz and Calebos. I generally tried to keep Hendrik down to two minions by rushing backwards, and tried to put pressure forward on Richard. Richard, however, opted to largely sit tight, leaving Phillip alone, except for a couple of cross-table rushes against Dan. Phillip seemed to have a poor crypt draw, and so didn't put much pressure on Dan for much of the game. Dan played a Powerbase Montreal, which was promptly stolen, and for much of the game, it was traded back and forth between Phillip and Hendrik. I perhaps should have gotten into the stealing act earlier, but didn't really have that many actions to spare, as I was trying to pressurise Richard (without much success). Hendrik eventually lunged, but I had enough untap to survive, and Hendrik left himself to exposed and was ousted by Dan.
This game saw quite a bit of contesting as well. I spent much of the game contesting a fame with Richard (my Fame on Hendrik), and, after Hendrik was ousted, I ended up contesting both a Fame and a Tension with Richard for some turns.
I managed to bring out Beast, and started whittling Richard down, but a Golconda but Richard out of range. Dan stopped on ousting lunge from Richard on Phillip, and I binned one of Richard's two minions the next turn, but was unable to stop the rescue, and Phillip was unable to stop the final bleed. At this point, Richard was out of library, I had both the Powerbase and the Nosferatu Kingdom, so was able to farm up. Dan was down to only 1 minion. I ran out of time to oust Richard (The game ended with him on 1 pool, and a famed minion in torpor), and may have been able to take Dan due to minion superiority, but my minions were looking quite low, so it wasn't that clear cut.
Still, the final was extremely epic at times, and, considering that I was downstream of the fast weenie horde, I was really surprised to not be ousted.
After the final, I was involved in a quick social game, playing my modified Anarch Vote deck. I was bleeding Yancke (Ravanos bleed) bleeding Richard (Kiasyd) bleeding Simon (DoC vote). I managed to oust both Yancke and Richard, but fell to the daughters. Overall, I think the tweaks help the deck, although it still struggles to get going a bit, and is very vulnerable to other vote decks.
Saturday saw the preliminary rounds (tables of 5, 4, and 5).
The first round saw Dan (Osebo wall with thrown junk) bleeding Kevin (!Toreador sneak bleed & vote) bleeding Hendrik (weenie Pre & For swarm) bleeding Phillip (Brujah Trophy deck) bleeding Richard (Guhuri Ani Pot Pre bruise and bleed).
Hendrik got off to a fast start, but was slowed down by a cross table eagle sight from Dan. This allowed Phillip to bin and burn a couple of Hendrik's minions. It was at this point that Phillip discovered that his trophy deck completed lacked any Master cards, which was rather amusing. Kevin got a few bleeds and votes through, and gradually whittled Hendrik down. Richard was able to trump Dan's combat package, as Dan never got the Ayes he needed, or the maneuvers to avoid close range combat. Hendrik was eventually able to bleed through Phillip, but had taken quite a heavy toll doing so. Richard duly ousted Dan. Kevin should have ousted Hendrik, but backed off at a point when he should have just bled Hendrik out, and then opted to allow one of his minions to be Golconda'ed by Richard, which never looked the right play. This allowed Richard to clean up the rest of the table.
The second game saw Phillip bleeding me (!Nosferatu rush with Fame) bleeding Hendrik bleeding Simon (!salubri combat). Hendrik got off to a fast start, which only allowed Simon to bring out a single minion. Simon and I ended up co-operating to rush Hendrik minions into the ground to keep him from sweeping though Simon, but this meant that Simon was unable to pressurise Phillip, so I was also having to try and balance that threat. I was able to successfully burn one of Phillip's vampires, and did torporise a few others, and between Simon and I, Hendrik and 6 or 7 minions either toporised or burnt. However, I didn't draw into a single Fame or Tension, so was never able to really damage Hendrik's pool, and, with Phillip burning my hunting ground, eventually ran out of blood on my minions and was duly ousted. Phillip was able to sweep the table from there, although Hendrik might have been able to oust Simon if he'd played things a little differently.
The third round saw me bleeding Richard bleeding Kevin bleeding Simon bleeding Dan. I got off to a good start, being able to bin one of Richard's vampires early, but then went through a long period of not drawing into my combat, which slowed me down to a crawl. This meant I was also unable to stop Richard gearing up - the leather jackets were a real problem for me. Dan built up fairly slowly, while Sim on back-rushed Kevin a fair bit. This allowed Richard to oust Kevin, after which the table stabilised for a bit. The most amusing incident was the complex deal Simon struck, agreeing to torporise one of Dan's minions for my support, and then later agreeing not to rush Dan for his support, which he was not quite able to fulfill, due to Dan choosing not to block Simon when he had a Kiss of Ra in hand. Richard was able to oust Simon, but at this point he had several minions in torpor (as did I), and was severely hurt by having a few minions diablerised. I didn't have the minions to survive against Dan, and he duly ousted both me and Richard.
I ended up being the 5th player in the final in the roll off.
The final saw me (starting) bleeding Richard bleeding Phillip bleeding Dan bleeding Hendrik.
I had a poor crypt draw, no beast, all three copies of Calebos and one Mateusz, which immediately meant that I wasn't going to get any use out of the Street Creds in my deck. Hendrik, however, opted to go slowly, and thus I was able to bring out both Mateusz and Calebos. I generally tried to keep Hendrik down to two minions by rushing backwards, and tried to put pressure forward on Richard. Richard, however, opted to largely sit tight, leaving Phillip alone, except for a couple of cross-table rushes against Dan. Phillip seemed to have a poor crypt draw, and so didn't put much pressure on Dan for much of the game. Dan played a Powerbase Montreal, which was promptly stolen, and for much of the game, it was traded back and forth between Phillip and Hendrik. I perhaps should have gotten into the stealing act earlier, but didn't really have that many actions to spare, as I was trying to pressurise Richard (without much success). Hendrik eventually lunged, but I had enough untap to survive, and Hendrik left himself to exposed and was ousted by Dan.
This game saw quite a bit of contesting as well. I spent much of the game contesting a fame with Richard (my Fame on Hendrik), and, after Hendrik was ousted, I ended up contesting both a Fame and a Tension with Richard for some turns.
I managed to bring out Beast, and started whittling Richard down, but a Golconda but Richard out of range. Dan stopped on ousting lunge from Richard on Phillip, and I binned one of Richard's two minions the next turn, but was unable to stop the rescue, and Phillip was unable to stop the final bleed. At this point, Richard was out of library, I had both the Powerbase and the Nosferatu Kingdom, so was able to farm up. Dan was down to only 1 minion. I ran out of time to oust Richard (The game ended with him on 1 pool, and a famed minion in torpor), and may have been able to take Dan due to minion superiority, but my minions were looking quite low, so it wasn't that clear cut.
Still, the final was extremely epic at times, and, considering that I was downstream of the fast weenie horde, I was really surprised to not be ousted.
After the final, I was involved in a quick social game, playing my modified Anarch Vote deck. I was bleeding Yancke (Ravanos bleed) bleeding Richard (Kiasyd) bleeding Simon (DoC vote). I managed to oust both Yancke and Richard, but fell to the daughters. Overall, I think the tweaks help the deck, although it still struggles to get going a bit, and is very vulnerable to other vote decks.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
How not to setup your firewall
(This is of course an entirely hypothetical set of notes, since it's inconceivable [1] that I would make any of these errors).
For the purposes of this exercise, we assume a gateway machine, running a simple firewall, which we want to use to drop various packets on the floor - such as those from machines particiapting in a distributed brute for ssh attack, for instance. We assume there are several scripts managing the blocked list. For best effect, your gateway box should be mounting a few directories via nfs from another machine.
[1] Which means exactly what I think it means.
For the purposes of this exercise, we assume a gateway machine, running a simple firewall, which we want to use to drop various packets on the floor - such as those from machines particiapting in a distributed brute for ssh attack, for instance. We assume there are several scripts managing the blocked list. For best effect, your gateway box should be mounting a few directories via nfs from another machine.
- Ensure that packets between the gateway box and the file server need to traverse the blocked list first.
- Don't lock properly when adding new IPs to the firewall. This ensures that, under load, you can add large numbers of duplicate entries to the list.
- Have every packet traverse the blocked list twice.
[1] Which means exactly what I think it means.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Novemebr 2009 Vampire Tournament
The November tournament was this weekend.
After it worked quite well at the previous social, I opted to try my Ventrue vote deck. Unfortunately, the deck decided to mock me, very badly, in both rounds.
The first round was one of the stranger games I've been involved in. Simon (Tremere Thaum combat & bleed) (starting) bleeding me, bleeding Richard (Guhuri Brutal influence bleed), bleeding Hendrick (Thau combat & some wall). Simon's deck was in several ways the rock to my scissors - he got out both Carna (+1 intercept) and Oliver Thrace (no S:CE), and, when he placed a Pulse on Oliver, was able to keep me under a fair bit of pressure. I suffered badly in that I drew very few votes early on, and, with the number of other votes on the table (mid-game, the 13 votes I could generate from my vampires and locations was only enough to tie the rest of the table) I was unable to exert enough pressure on Richard. I was fortunate to draw most of my Minion Taps, so I was able to farm back fast enough to prevent Simon being able to overrun me. Richard was also farming quite successfully, but wasn't cycling into the bleed cards he needed to pressurise Hendrick. Hendrick took some time to get setup. He never had enough ways around S:CE to bother Richard, and, while he was able to trouble Simon in combat, didn't have enough ways of getting into combat with Simon, and didn't have the bleed push to pressurise him much either. The game was much more attritional than most, and never looked that likely to fold before we timed out. I gradually whittled Richard down to lunge range, but, due to a Smiling Jack, and a turn when I was short an untap card to bounce a bleed from Simon, was left with 1 less blood on my minions than I needed, and was thus unable to play both a Govern and a Conditioning to oust Richard. Richard, right before time, lunged at Hendrick with a Strange Day bleed, but it was bounced to Simon, ousting him with the last act of the game.
The next game saw Matthew (weenie pot Swarm with Brutal Influence) (starting) bleeding Hendrick, bleeding me, bleeding Dave (Brujah Cel/Pot). While I was never under much pressure from Hendrick, Dave went backwards a great deal, and, drawing into his Immortal Grapples quite often, gave me a very hard time, especially after he got a KRCG down. I didn't draw a single Voter Cap until the very end of the game, and thus wasn't able to refill my minions, which hurt me quite badly. Hendrick was unable to hold off Matthew's swarm although it did leave several of Matthew's minions in torpor. I managed to get Dave down to a couple of pool, but he was able to torporise all my minions . With no prospect of getting another minion out, I transferred myself out, giving Matthew a second VP. Matthew was unable to survive against the Brujah, and Dave duly collected the remaining 2 VPs.
I didn't see much of the final, as I went off to find some lunch, but Dave eventually won that with 4 VPs and Richard collecting the remaining VP.
After it worked quite well at the previous social, I opted to try my Ventrue vote deck. Unfortunately, the deck decided to mock me, very badly, in both rounds.
The first round was one of the stranger games I've been involved in. Simon (Tremere Thaum combat & bleed) (starting) bleeding me, bleeding Richard (Guhuri Brutal influence bleed), bleeding Hendrick (Thau combat & some wall). Simon's deck was in several ways the rock to my scissors - he got out both Carna (+1 intercept) and Oliver Thrace (no S:CE), and, when he placed a Pulse on Oliver, was able to keep me under a fair bit of pressure. I suffered badly in that I drew very few votes early on, and, with the number of other votes on the table (mid-game, the 13 votes I could generate from my vampires and locations was only enough to tie the rest of the table) I was unable to exert enough pressure on Richard. I was fortunate to draw most of my Minion Taps, so I was able to farm back fast enough to prevent Simon being able to overrun me. Richard was also farming quite successfully, but wasn't cycling into the bleed cards he needed to pressurise Hendrick. Hendrick took some time to get setup. He never had enough ways around S:CE to bother Richard, and, while he was able to trouble Simon in combat, didn't have enough ways of getting into combat with Simon, and didn't have the bleed push to pressurise him much either. The game was much more attritional than most, and never looked that likely to fold before we timed out. I gradually whittled Richard down to lunge range, but, due to a Smiling Jack, and a turn when I was short an untap card to bounce a bleed from Simon, was left with 1 less blood on my minions than I needed, and was thus unable to play both a Govern and a Conditioning to oust Richard. Richard, right before time, lunged at Hendrick with a Strange Day bleed, but it was bounced to Simon, ousting him with the last act of the game.
The next game saw Matthew (weenie pot Swarm with Brutal Influence) (starting) bleeding Hendrick, bleeding me, bleeding Dave (Brujah Cel/Pot). While I was never under much pressure from Hendrick, Dave went backwards a great deal, and, drawing into his Immortal Grapples quite often, gave me a very hard time, especially after he got a KRCG down. I didn't draw a single Voter Cap until the very end of the game, and thus wasn't able to refill my minions, which hurt me quite badly. Hendrick was unable to hold off Matthew's swarm although it did leave several of Matthew's minions in torpor. I managed to get Dave down to a couple of pool, but he was able to torporise all my minions . With no prospect of getting another minion out, I transferred myself out, giving Matthew a second VP. Matthew was unable to survive against the Brujah, and Dave duly collected the remaining 2 VPs.
I didn't see much of the final, as I went off to find some lunch, but Dave eventually won that with 4 VPs and Richard collecting the remaining VP.
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