March 3rd, 2001

A report from the front.


Bloodsiege: Dallas is a success.
The Nosferatu Antitribu have taken over the city!

Held at the SCARE2K1 convention, which is the South Central Region 
of the Camarilla's annual regional LARP event.  

[For more information about SCARE, go to scare.camscr.com]
[For more information on the Camarilla in Texas, go to www.camscr.org]


Thirteen Methuselahs were in attendance for a Table Draft / Rochester Draft event.
We used eight boosters of Sabbat War per person, turning over two cards at a 
time from each booster until all were drafted.  (Three Blood Siege cards were
drafted at this event, its supposed to be Rare!)

[See http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/veknRules.html Section 7.7 for more
information about Table Draft / Rochester Draft.]

We played two rounds followed by a final.  We had three tables each round, 
one five player and two four player tables.  

I did fairly well drafting, getting ten Nosferatu Antitribu, two copies of
Lambach, three copies of Talley, and one copy of Lazverinus.  My most important
drafts were two copies of Eternal Vigilance, Lazverinus, and Cailean.
I drafted as much potence as I could, and every animalism untap and
regular untap that came my way.  In each round, I would get either 
Cailean or Lazverinus with Eternal Vigilance, and the ability to
control combat with these two pretty much settled the scores at my tables.

I also drafted two Couriers who proved invaluable in the endgame, being
able to discard a Media Influence from my prey/predator and later a Tribute
to the Master were both excellent opportunities.  In this draft event,
with such small libraries, running out of cards was the norm for most
players each round.  The fact that the Couriers didn't cost me any pool,
only two blood instead, allowed me to hunt afterwards and permanently gain 
blockers/bleeders, for no additional pool expenditure.

Other things that proved crucial in my games, were the one Ambush I was able
to draft, and the two Fractured Armaments.  I was able to take Jost down
when he was my predator in the second game, and I was able to destroy some
Chainsaws, Leather Jackets, and Guns with the Armaments.

Each round, including the finals, I was able to oust my first prey, then outlast
my grandprey to be the final person playing, to end with three victory points
each round.  There was quite a variety of decks being played, from Salinger / Beast 
based Rush, to Toreador Antitribu / Brujah Antitribu presence bleed, to 
Malkavian Antitribu stealth bleed, to Tzimisce Intercept, and more that I didn't
really see enough of their decks to say.

We had two players from Dallas, two from Denton, six from Austin, 
one from Fayetteville, one from Stillwater, and one from Houston.
Quite a showing for a Texas event, which had none of the Dallas
regulars who might normally have been in attendance.

Austin was fairly dominate at the tournament, with only two other players
placing in between us.  (Not too surprising as we play twice a week most
weeks, and some of the players at the event were LARPers primarily,
CCGers secondarily.)

Devin Villegas from Denton made an exceptional showing, taking four
of five victory points in the second round with a bleed bleed stealth
deck, with five disciplines to increase either bleed or stealth.

Standings going into the finals were as follows:

Jeffrey Thompson (Austin) 6 vp
Devin Villegas (Denton) 5 vp
Brian Reed (Austin) 3 vp
TJ Fullington (Austin) 2 vp (90 tp)
Kelly Nine (Austin) 2 vp (84 tp)

Just missing the final were Michael Jones and Jack Yang, each
with two victory points, but only 78 tournament points.  


In the finals, the seating was as follows:

Devin (going first) preyed on
Kelly who preyed on
Jeff who preyed on 
Brian who preyed on 
TJ (who preyed on Devin).

Devin started strong, bleeding Kelly almost out of the game, before
the nature of sealed deck play became his undoing.  He over extended
himself against Kelly and tapped out with about 10 pool, but no untaps.
TJ swept in and bleed for that 10, and took Devin down.  Since Kelly had
been so hamstrung by Devin's large bleeds, he offered little long term
defense against TJ, and went down as well.  Since I had little pressure
from my predator, I was able to build up fairly well, with the exception
of an Eternal Vigilance blocked by my prey, the Tzimisce Intercept deck
run by Brian Reed.  I was later able to get into play my second Eternal
Vigilance before TJ became my predator.  TJ was not playing with much
stealth, if any, so I was able to block most of his bleeds, and remain
at long range with Cailean where he was unable to hurt Cailean.

I had enough minions that I was able to over power Brian's Tzimisce,
and it was down to just TJ and I.  I was able to keep the Edge, and
a Powerbase: Montreal that TJ had played, for quite some time.
I brought out three more weenie minions with them, and was able to 
outlast and overpower TJ's presence/dominate bleeders.

Final standings after the finals:

Jeff Thompson (The Lasombra) 9 victory points (3 in finals)
TJ Fullington (Austin) 4 victory points (2 in finals)
Devin Villegas (Denton) 5 victory points (0 in finals)
Brian Reed (Austin) 3 victory points (0 in finals)
Kelly Nine (Austin) 2 victory points (0 in finals)

Much fun was had by all, including each of my successive prey,
because many new cards were seen in unexpected combinations. 
For example, Vasantasena! struck with Pushing the Limit at least
twice when she was caught stealth bleeding.

The next Texas area event is going to be the Southwest Qualifier
for the national championships, held at Project A-kon (www.a-kon.com)
on Saturday June 2nd, with a draft event of some sort being held the 
day after.

Hope to bleed some of you there.


Carpe Noctem.

Lasombra

http://www.TheLasombra.com