So close, yet so undead

Last week, I sat down with Cristina, David, Aaron and Manuel for another evening of our favourite vampire card game. We met at our usual place in Cambridge, a venue that seems to host a bit of everything: sometimes live music, sometimes Magic players, and sometimes five Methuselahs quietly taking over a table with cards, counters and a weirdly shaped item called the Edge. This game was particularly interesting for me because I finally brought the deck I had originally planned to take to the UK Nationals, before a virus successfully performed the most effective tournament denial action I have encountered so far. The Hecata were finally leaving their crypt, and this time they had a new star: Parijat.

Aaron brought his familiar Salubri, David arrived with Lasombra heavy bleed, Cristina had her Brujah bruise deck, and Manuel surprised us with an Assamite/Tremere wall. The randomised seating was Me (Hecata) > Cristina (Brujah) > Aaron (Salubri) > Manuel (Assamite/Tremere wall) > David (Lasombra).

Going first felt less than ideal, but the dead do not complain about seating arrangements. I started small and influenced out the dwarf looking vampire (Alek König), while beginning work on Parijat. By Turn Three, neither my predator nor my prey had a minion on the table, which presented a beautiful little window of opportunity. Alek went to work immediately. A Spectral Servitor hit the table and successfully bled Cristina, followed by an inferior Shroud of Decay from Alek. Three pool gone, the Edge acquired, and nobody in a position to stop me. Necromancy was off to a very fine start.

Of course, peaceful neighbourhoods in VTES rarely remain peaceful for long. Cristina brought out Theo Bell, while David influenced Maria. Suddenly both directions around me looked considerably less welcoming. I knew exactly how dangerous Brujah combat could be, and Maria's ability to rush made me initially suspicious of the Lasombra too. As it turned out, David's vampires were interested in a much simpler business model: bleed for a lot.

The slow build-up still worked in my favour, and I managed to keep the Edge for two consecutive turns, recovering a little extra pool while everyone else developed their boards. I was feeling fairly comfortable. Then I decided to fight Theo Bell. This was educational.

I sent a Rotting Behemoth after him, hoping to weaken Cristina's board and open a path for my bleeders. On paper, a zombie hitting for three damage sounds quite intimidating. Theo Bell apparently disagreed. Between Torn Signpost, additional strikes and the general experience of being Theo Bell, my Behemoth was quickly returned to a much more traditional state of death. Lesson learned: perhaps don't fight Theo Bell.

From there, the game remained surprisingly balanced. Aaron's Salubri were receiving what I will politely call significant physical persuasion from Cristina's Brujah, but they stayed in the game. Manuel's wall steadily developed, David kept preparing unpleasant bleeds, and my Hecata continued looking for openings among all the chaos.

We had originally planned to play for two hours, but when the timer expired everyone was still very much alive, so we added another thirty minutes. We are still getting faster with combat sequencing and card interactions, and occasionally we stop to check timing or make sure an effect works the way we think it does. Every game makes that process smoother.

David, meanwhile, had clearly decided that my pool total needed correcting. His Lasombra kept coming, including one particularly memorable bleed for four. I had Archon Investigation in my hand and I really (and I mean REALLY!) wanted to play it. However, there was a better option. I could bounce the bleed to Cristina. So, with great personal sacrifice and admirable restraint, I did the responsible thing and redirected the problem to my prey. Nobody gives you victory points for emotional maturity.

As the extended timer approached its end, Cristina was down to three pool. I had Shroud of Decay in hand and enough stealth to make the action difficult to stop. The possibility of my first oust was sitting right there. Then time was called.

Afterwards, we looked at what might have happened next. Manuel potentially had a way to block my finishing action cross-table, while several other players were also dangerously close to securing their own ousts. One more turn could have changed everything. Perhaps the Hecata would have claimed their first victim. Perhaps Manuel's wall would have intervened. Perhaps David's Lasombra would have removed my remaining pool first. We will never know.

And strangely, that made the ending rather fitting. Brujah had beaten zombies back into the grave, Salubri had endured an impressive amount of punishment, Lasombra had thrown huge bleeds across the table, Manuel had quietly built a wall in the middle of everything, and the Hecata had crept within touching distance of an oust before time itself became the final form of table control. No winner. Just five unfinished schemes waiting for another night.

The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.

Custodian Hargrave

One year after respawning

Somehow, it has been a year.

Last September, I started Respawn at Midnight as a place to write about the games and hobbies occupying far too much space in my head and, increasingly, my shelves. I didn't really know what the blog would become. I simply wanted somewhere to record games, talk about decks and crews, explore the lore behind them and occasionally investigate questions that no reasonable person had actually asked. Twelve months later, I think that last category may have become more important than originally intended.

A year of Eternal Struggle

VTES has undoubtedly become the heart of the blog. When I started writing, I was still relatively new to the game. Since then there have been new decks, tournaments, experiments, victories, spectacular failures and an alarming increase in the number of vampires living in my house.

The clans have taken me in different directions. The Ventrue appealed to the part of me that believes every supernatural conspiracy could be improved with proper governance and a sufficiently organised board meeting. The Tremere encouraged experiments, research and an entirely reasonable amount of staring at deck lists. Then came the Hecata, and apparently somewhere along the way I decided that the obvious solution to most Methuselah-related problems was necromancy.

There have been tournaments too. I was in Cambridge, made a final in Bedford, travelled to Edinburgh for the Scottish National Championship, experimented with decks ahead of the UK Nationals and spent a significant amount of time deciding what to bring. The Hecata eventually won that particular internal struggle, only for illness to keep both me and my carefully prepared corpses at home when Nationals finally arrived.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part, though, has been introducing other people to the game. Friends have joined our tables, decks have been built and rebuilt, and I've discovered the peculiar satisfaction of designing a Salubri deck for someone else only to have them use it to oust me. Task failed successfully.

Through the Breach

VTES hasn't been the only game appearing here.

My journey into Malifaux has continued as well, although opportunities to actually play remain frustratingly rare. I've taken crews through the Breach, learned the rules one mistake at a time and slowly expanded the collection.

There have been battles involving Kastore and Seamus, teaching games with Dashel Barker and the Guard, and Titania's attempt to conquer a small western town. That particular invasion ended when the local authorities introduced the Autumn Queen to rifles and an Executioner. She'll be back!

Malifaux has also given me an excuse to paint more, not just crews, but scenery. Some of that has even turned into a family project, with my daughter helping me prepare terrain before games. There is something particularly satisfying about putting a newly painted piece onto the table and immediately having imaginary people fight around it.

Experiments, rabbit holes and other questionable research

Some posts have been harder to categorise. We've looked at new cards and upcoming releases. I've written about the changing World of Darkness and what Vampire: The Masquerade Sixth Edition might mean for both the RPG and VTES. I've experimented with deck building, compared tournament results and occasionally wandered into statistics.

At one point my daughter helped me sort vampire cards alphabetically, which naturally resulted in me writing software to investigate why there seemed to be so many vampires whose names begin with A. As any respectable Tremere will tell you, research does not need to be useful to be important.

Looking back, the blog has ended up becoming a mixture of game reports, deck building, lore, opinion pieces, painting, statistics and whatever other hobby-related question happens to send me down a rabbit hole that week.

There is, however, one conspicuous absence.

In my very first post, I said that Respawn at Midnight would also be a place where I'd write about my computer gaming adventures. One year later, the number of computer game articles published stands proudly at...zero.

It's not because I stopped playing computer games. Quite the opposite. There have been plenty of digital adventures over the past year; somehow, whenever it came time to write, vampires, card games and tiny painted people kept pushing their way to the front of the queue.

Perhaps that should change. I'd happily write about the games I'm playing, old favourites I keep returning to, interesting discoveries and whatever digital world happens to consume my evenings. I just don't know whether that's something people coming here for VTES and Malifaux would actually want to read.

Which brings me rather conveniently to you.

What do you want to read?

As Respawn at Midnight enters its second year, I'm curious about what you actually enjoy reading here.

I know which articles I enjoy writing, but blogs are strange creatures. Sometimes the article you spend days researching quietly disappears into the internet, while something you wrote because you were wondering why there aren't enough vampires called Wilhelmina gets considerably more attention than expected.

So I'd love to hear from you.

Over the past year, the blog has covered (or, in one notable case, promised to cover) topics such as:

• VTES game and tournament reports – stories from actual tables, including the questionable decisions made around them.

• VTES deck building and experiments – building decks, changing strategies and discovering whether the theory survives contact with another Methuselah.

• Clans, cards and playstyles – exploring different clans, interesting cards and what makes particular strategies appealing.

• New VTES cards and releases – first impressions, ratings and thoughts about where new cards might fit.

• VTES statistics and strange investigations – tournament numbers, card data and questions nobody realised needed answering.

• Vampire: The Masquerade and World of Darkness – lore, RPG changes and what developments such as V6 could mean for VTES.

• Malifaux game reports – adventures through the Breach as I learn different crews and introduce new players.

• Malifaux crews and tactics – what I'm learning about Masters, crews and how they actually work once the cards start flipping.

• Painting, miniatures and terrain – hobby projects that eventually make their way onto the gaming table.

• Teaching games and introducing friends to the hobby – what happens when unsuspecting people encounter VTES or Malifaux for the first time.

• Computer games – my adventures on the PC, currently represented by an impressive collection of zero articles.

• General hobby stories and experiments – everything else that somehow turns into an article.

So consider this my first, extremely informal, reader survey.

What would you like to see more of in year two? More battle reports? Deck-building experiments? Deeper dives into clans and cards? More Malifaux? World of Darkness lore? Painting and hobby projects? More completely unnecessary statistics?

And importantly: would you be interested in reading about the computer games I'm playing as well?

Leave a comment, send me a message on Discord, hire a magician to project your preferences onto the night sky, whatever method you choose, just let me know what you'd like to read more of. I can't promise the results will be analysed with anything resembling proper scientific methodology, but rest assured that the Tremere Research Department will record every response, regardless of whether it arrives by comment, Discord or blood ritual.

A year ago, I started this blog without really knowing where it would go. Since then I've met players, travelled to tournaments, introduced friends to games I love, painted tiny monsters, summoned an unreasonable number of zombies and written about all of it.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to read, comment, share a post or simply follow along. It's been considerably more fun knowing there are people on the other side of the screen.

Year two begins here.

The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.

Custodian Hargrave

A weekend in torpor

For weeks, the crypt was prepared. The deck was sleeved, the final adjustments made, and my Hecata were ready to leave their resting places for the UK VTES National Championship. Unfortunately, somewhere between all that careful preparation and tournament day, my immune system decided to launch a successful bleed action of its own. I got ill and (with considerable reluctance) had to stay home.

Twenty-five Methuselahs gathered without me, and from everything I've seen and heard, they had a fantastic weekend of combat, politics, unlikely alliances and carefully timed betrayals. I won't pretend I wasn't devastated to miss it. This was the tournament I had been looking forward to for months, and watching it unfold from afar was a particularly cruel form of torpor.

Still, Methuselahs have one advantage over ordinary mortals: patience. The Hecata have returned to their crypt, the deck remains ready, and there will be other tables. 

The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.

Custodian Hargrave