Week of Nightmares Tuesday Summary

Whew. Busy day. So we began the morning with a Lords of the Night Pre-Release. We each received one of the four LoN starter decks and four booster decks. Each table was pre-arranged to have exactly one of each clan represented. Our vampires were table drafted and then we drafted the boosters by selecting a vamp from the booster and passing the remaining cards to around the table.

There were many gasps as various cards were seen for the first time. Vessel seemed to be the card that generally met with shock. Players really couldn't see ever using Blood Doll again now that Vessel exists. That said, I drew a Vessel in the first round and couldn't play it because it costs 1 pool and, of course, I had only 1 pool. I discarded the damn thing and drew another as a replacement. Again. 1 pool.

Sometime near noon, Oscar (aka White Wolf) purchased a nice buffet for all of the players. We consumed massive amounts of sandwiches. Since the manager's buffet is generally chips and salsa and other finger foods, many players really gorged themselves on food.

At my first table, Paul Johnson, playing the Assamite starter really wrecked havoc on his prey and predator (Peter Oh). I was playing the Ravnos starter and stayed completely out of the game while Paul destroyed his Giovannia prey. Loss, was played to unlease hefty bleeds on the Giovanni. Clandestine Contract was played to wipe out the Setties on a few occassions.

My Ravnos tended to build up. I equipped with Treasured Samadji and was using a high-cap Ravnos who could burn a blood for +1 bleed. Soon Peter's Settites and Matt Wedge's Giovanni were ousted and it was my Ravnos vs. Paul's Assamites. I had a hand full of combat by then and was well equipped to fight it out. Paul and I were both low on pool and he had one last change to kill me. Paul's library was almost complete depleted. Yes, the Assamites almost decked themself in a limited format event. Paul needed to get one stealth or a "that vamp can't block" card in order to oust me. I had to block his bleed and hope he didn't cycle into the stealth. I played a mirror image in order to minimize the number of cards he could play. However, Paul played one of the new Aim cards and several other combat cards to draw the remaining cards in his library. He got the card he needed and was able to thwart my last blocker and oust me. 3 VP Assamites. 1 VP Ravnos.

My second round went poorly and Hugh's Giovanni swept the table. My understanding was that the Giovanni won the most games. Jeff "The Lasombra" Thompson was nice enough to run this event and offered each player who got a game win, the chance to purchase Lords of the Night before the release date. Woo hoo!