Seventeen people showed up for the DC-area prerelease event held in Chantilly, Virginia at the Game Parlor (near Dulles International Airport). There were about five nervous minutes when I asked the guy behind the counter if they had gotten the product and he had to go in the back room and look... and look... and look... before finding the box somewhere apparently out of the way. Thanks to Lisa Charlton and White Wolf for getting the stuff delivered in time!
We decided to run the event as "open your three boosters, then choose what clan you want to play to go with them". (No trading of cards, no booster draft, as I felt those formats would be less newbie-friendly than a more "straight sealed" method.)
Despite noise about how unloved certain clans would be, the actual distribution was:
3 Brujah
3 Malkavian
2 Nosferatu
3 Toreador
3 Tremere
3 Ventrue
So, the Nosferatu did seem a *little* bit unloved, but not as much as some would have predicted. *wink* Of course, this may have been due in part to the scoring method we were using: the top player from each clan, minus the lowest-scoring clan, would go to the finals. So there was some benefit to being in a less popular clan. Personally, I chose Malkavian because I had gotten two Malks in my boosters, a Muddled Vampire Hunter, and a couple stealth cards I liked (which I took out existing stealth cards for, I think - added a Mask of 1000 Faces and maybe a Spying Mission for a couple Lost in Crowds and Cloaks).
Results after three rounds:
Brujah:
Dan Coleman, 0 GW, 1 VP, 98 TP
Charles McDowell, 0 GW, 1 VP, 90 TP
Chris Cavett, 0 GW, 0.5 VP, 90 TP
Malkavian:
Joshua Duffin, 1 GW, 5 VP, 126 TP
Samuel Ntonme, 1 GW, 3 VP, 96 TP
Emily Lloyd, 0 GW, 2 VP, 102 TP
Nosferatu:
Trey Morita, 0 GW, 4 VP, 120 TP
Huan Vu, 0 GW, 0 GP, 64 TP
Toreador:
Colin Riggs, 2 GW, 5.5 VP, 120 TP (had to leave early)
Joseph Feeney, 0 GW, 2 VP, 124 TP
Heather Fogg, 0 GW, 1 VP, 66 TP (had to leave early)
Tremere:
John Oyerbides, 2 GW, 6 VP, 138 TP
Forrest Nielsen, 0 GW, 1 VP, 94 TP
Jim Suh, 0 GW, 0 VP, 60 TP
Ventrue:
Jason Babbitt, 2 GW, 9 VP, 168 TP
Peter Oh, 2 GW, 7 VP, 144 TP
Dan Scheidegger, 0 GW, 0 VP, 64 TP
Our finalists were therefore, in prelim-ranking order:
Joseph Feeney (Toreador, 2 VP)
Trey Morita (Nosferatu, 4 VP)
Joshua Duffin (Malkavian, 1 GW 5 VP)
John Oyerbides (Tremere, 2 GW 6 VP)
Jason Babbitt (Ventrue, 2 GW 9 VP)
Seating was:
Joseph and Trey facing each other.
I (Josh) inserted myself as Trey's predator, Joseph's prey.
John inserted himself as Trey's prey, Joseph's predator.
Jason inserted himself as my predator, Joseph's prey.
So order was, starting with the randomly-determined first player:
Joseph Feeney (Tor)
Jason Babbitt (Ven)
Joshua Duffin (Mal)
Trey Morita (Nos)
John Oyerbides (Tre)
In the finals, Jason apparently managed to not draw a titled vampire for the second or third time; instead he got, um, I think Diana Vick and Elena Gutierrez and that 6-cap with DOM PRE for. Trey on the other hand got Cock Robin, Nosferatu Justicar, and therefore controlled the politics. He got somebody else, too, later, but I forget who, somebody in the 2-5 range I think. I got Watenda, Dr. Netchurch, and I think Ruth McGinley - new vamp, DEM obf aus. Joseph got (perhaps) Radeyah and Isabel de Leon, and eventually Victoria Ash. John got Aisling Sturbridge, Blythe Candeleria, and one more whose name I forget.
Both me and Trey were pretty quickly reduced to pretty low pool totals (like 5-10); I had been bleeding Trey for a couple a turn and he spent quite a bit on vamps; Jason had been putting some vote damage on me and getting bleeds through occasionally (Trey had allowed him to pass at least one Conservative Agitation but required it to be 2 points to me, 3 points to his prey (John)). I made a deal with Trey that I'd quit bleeding him if he didn't let Jason pass any more votes damaging me; that deal held up for a couple turns but after I had a Pulse and a Spying Mission on Dr. Netchurch I could no longer live in fear at 4 pool and went for the oust (Trey had 8 or 9 if I remember right, so I needed to do the 5 with Dr. Netchurch, 1 with Watenda, and 2 or 3 with Ruth and Eyes of Chaos?). Trey would have lived if the Archon Investigation in his hand could have saved him from the Spying Mission bleed of 5, but as far as I could tell the wording hasn't changed to make AI playable against Spying Mission bleed increases, so he died and I was in somewhat less danger of being ousted.
John had also spent himself down pretty low on pool (and he'd also gotten bled at stealth by Trey a fair amount - Trey had plenty of stealth but the lack of bounce or very much intercept meant he was unable to very effectively stop my Malkavian bleeds). I think he was at about 3-5 when I ousted Trey; if I remember right I ousted him the next time around the table - apparently he didn't have any Harassment for me at the crucial moment.
Somewhere in there I got a Muddled Vampire Hunter, too, and used it to intimidate Jason (after he'd played a few Majesties) into laying off me some (or at least not trying bleeds that Muddles would be able to block).
Joseph was also pretty low on pool at this point, as John had gotten a couple Conditioned bleeds through (and beat up his vampires a fair amount with the Thefts and the Harassing and the hey hey it hurts me). So I ousted him pretty quickly too.
At that point Jason still had maybe 10 or 15 pool, and had finally gotten out a titled vampire (Wilhelm Waldburg), but I also had around 15 pool and had gotten out Khalid (my secret Nosferatu ringer with obf, in to replace the nigh-useless dom on Ohanna) as well. Oh yeah, and then I got Victoria too, with my ill-gotten pool gains - I managed to gain another 4 or 6 pool with her edge-forfeiting ability in the endgame. So basically Jason was doomed; it took a few more turns of bleeding but I ousted him as well.
So, result was:
Josh 5 VP
Jason 0 VP (first-ranked going in)
John 0 VP (second-ranked going in)
Trey 0 VP (fourth-ranked going in)
Joseph 0 VP (fifth-ranked going in)
Thanks to everyone for coming out to play, and I hope you all had
a great time. I know I did, and it wasn't just because I won. It
was also because I bought a bag of 100 glow in the dark zombies
(intended for use with the game Zombies!) and used them for my pool
in the final round.
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