This Saturday was a big one. For the first time, I finally got to play VTES with experienced players. I've mentioned before that I'm heading to my first tournament in January, and honestly, my nervous system has been doing warm-ups ever since. Until now, my VTES life has mostly been me teaching friends who knew less than I did, which is fun, but also a bit like training for a marathon by running laps around your living room. Great cardio, not much real-world action.
So Saturday afternoon I hopped in the car to meet my fellow Methuselahs: David, Manuel, and Cristina. We'd never met in person, but they kindly invited me over for a friendly game. David and Manuel started playing about twenty years ago and have stuck with the Eternal Struggle through most of its phases, basically the kind of veterans who remember when Dominate was printed on stone tablets. Cristina is a neonate like me, though with more games under her belt, meaning she's at that terrifying stage where she's learned confidence and consequences.
I brought my Ventrue and Tremere decks, but I wasn't sure which to run. I usually play into my own decks, so I know their habits like family members. This time I had no idea what I'd be facing. As much as I love my aristocrats, I decided the Tremere had better odds. When you're walking into the unknown, bringing the clan with magic for every occasion feels sensible.
The table lineup was delightfully ominous. David had a Lasombra/Nosferatu deck (which sounds exactly like it plays: shadows, sewer claws, and no personal space). Cristina brought a Brujah rush deck, the kind that doesn't just start fights, it schedules them and shows up early. Manuel's was an Assamite/Tremere concoction full of mystery and sharp objects. We randomized seating and got Manuel > David > Cristina > me. Translation: my predator was a Brujah who treats combat like a hobby and a lifestyle, and my prey was Manuel's Assamites: a deck I knew as well as I know the last page of a book I haven't read. Both directions: danger. And fun!
The game was epic in that "everyone is one bad turn away from disaster" sort of way. I spent a lot of time trying to keep my wall intact while the Brujah applied pressure like a hydraulic press with opinions. Cristina Famed, then torpored my strongest Tremere in the same round, the VTES equivalent of putting a neon sign on your best minion and then immediately throwing them into a ditch. Manuel's Al-Ashrad was geared up like an action-movie final boss, so I was very cautious about picking fights I couldn't finish.
I did get a beautiful moment, though: one round where everything lined up and I yanked seven pool off my prey. For a brief, shining second I felt like a Warlock with a plan and not just a guy frantically flipping cards and thinking "please don't block". Meanwhile, David's Lasombra politely "borrowed" my Power Base: Montreal and then squatted in it for the rest of the game like a shadow landlord. What an elegant move!
When we hit the two-hour mark, nobody had been ousted, so we extended the game by thirty minutes. During that stretch, my torpored Abraham's Fame kept draining pools like a slow-leaking pipe none of us could find. I also managed to land Camarilla Segregation, and since I was the only one not affected, I figured time was now my ally. If the game dragged, I'd win by bureaucratic attrition, the most Tremere/Ventrue victory condition imaginable.
At the end of the extension we were still all alive, so everyone got half a Victory Point. Not the clean ending you write poetry about, but very much the kind of ending VTES enjoys: nobody actually wins, but everyone has a great story.
I learned a ton. The biggest rule catch: you can only play Arcane Library if you already control a Tremere (which is one of those perfectly logical rules you still forget the first time you try it). Also, thanks to David narrating combat windows like a very polite combat instructor ("this is your Immortal Grapple window", "now we set range", "here's where maneuvers happen") the whole combat sequence is much clearer in my head now. It was like getting a live tutorial, but with more vampires and less mercy.
Cambridge in January can't come fast enough! I'm excited in that slightly unhealthy way where you start playtesting imaginary tables in your head while brushing your teeth, and every random shuffle feels like destiny.
The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.
Custodian Hargrave
No comments:
Post a Comment