combat and winning with it. and the headaches included.

So, lots of combat dexks popping up in threads since DM was released. We havent discussed combat and it winning in awhile. Everyone from TTC to Darby has strong, proveable advice and tactics, but we rarely discuss it, other than as a deck.

Points of interest are:
Winning, ousting, not gettimg ousted. So, how to add more damage than fame, tension, and dragonbound, often with bleeds and very rarely with hail mary cards like perpetual care or predators transformation. Timing tables right so you win them instead of leaving 2 flaming craters and getting ousted at 1 vp. And not dying, which is also timing, but also backrushing, bloating, farming with tastes and blood dolls, along with of course blocking and bouncing.

Lastly, and this is mayne more quantifiable but still the most abstract to my combat loving brain, making it worth it. If i block and wreck your star minion, i lose pressure, but wasnt i just gonna block you until the table develope anyway? I should leave you alice with 0-1 blood instead. Or, i can punch for three, taste and disarm, but that buys me one turn with that minion down, rescues are cheap enough early game, and i neex to be holding something good, like untapped keith moody with govern, command of the beast, leverage, and condiioning in my hand if i want lucinde to rush, soak, and disarm. Otherwise, small, small gain.
And also, the fear and its ups and downs. Really, if i discard a nose of the hound and a flamethrower, nobody SHOULD doubt that i can rush and agg/ block rotshrexk, even if my only minion out is guilbert duane. But for some reason, people get more afraid of having cock robin out and discarding signposts. If you have Ariadne block, aggpoke, amaranth, the effect of the table against you or fearing you possibly outweighs the now auxillery effects of gainimg blood and a skill card (maybe). Tupdogs make the table scared like imbued do, in some envirnments, but ive had sucess killing both, etc.

So, winnimg with it. Whats the general points of view? Its possible, and sometimes bad combat wins on luck, but barring that, whats the view? I rely alot on fortitude to not lose minions, and also to multiact, because torping 3 bugs with tension out isnt as good as doing that then bleeding.

First, differentiate between reactive and proactive strategies.

Intercept combat is easy to win with.

Rush, bruise and bleed are different stories.

Then, there's playing a bunch of small dudes with one discipline or even no discipline and that works well, to where bruise bleed even works. And, there's playing 7 caps with Quietus that doesn't work so well. And, there's playing a 3 cap with QUI and other superstars that has worked well.

The problem with so many rush decks or bruise bleed decks is that they want to play midcaps and up, many of which have been based around a particular clan where there was no particular option besides playing midcaps and up, which is too slow and too pool intensive. Now, when you have Dominate, the slow part is undone by Conditioning on offense and Deflection on defense, while the pool intensity may drop from Govern.

Anyway, I can't really help much with how someone should win with their midcap, fattie, or superstar rush or bruise bleed decks, as I suck at playing those sorts of decks. I could throw out ideas for bloating more, but I can't say whether they will work. And, so forth.

Just wanted to make sure it was clear what people were talking about.

The first thing to me is that you need to have an ousting plan. Its easy to just make a deck that can obliterate minions in combat, but that doesn't win games, it only makes someone else lose and (usually) your grandprey to win. So you need to both have reasonable pool damage output, and a way to handle your predator other than cratering him. The second is the important part that many rush decks fail in, if you need to torpor every minion your predator brings out (barring extreme cases like having malk 94 as your predator), then your deck needs work. The most simple ways to manage your predator without destroying him totally are bloating, bounce, and reasonable intercept/blocking capabilities.

Another thing is to not obliterate your prey completely either (at least not right away), because you want him to go forward and weaken your next prey, which leads to the other thing lot of inexperienced players do wrong with rush decks, you DO NOT have to torpor every single minion you get in combat with. Its usually better to just take most of the blood off your preys guys (so they can't be villeined/minion tapped for much) and leaving them up to do stuff forward. Again there are of course exceptions, like you probably do want to kill that Lutz dead before he caps back to full by banishing your guy.

Now there are some excellent cards that you can put to your deck that will give you more safety without making craters of your predator or prey, Archon Investigation is one of those, if you have one of those in hand, you can be sure your predator wont bleed you for 6 with that Gilbert Duane next turn so you don't need to kill him but can instead warn him that if he bleeds you for lots you will rush him next turn. Delaying Tactis is another such safety card in a rush deck, which lets you guarantee that guy you just almost emptied isn't going to cap back to full next turn while banishing your guy.

With combat you generally need lot of actions, while multiacting is one way of achieveing that, I generally prefer having more smaller minions out, because bad things can happen in combat, and all those freak drives wont help you if your superstar is empty in torpor (or sitting in a pentex). 5-6 caps are generally my favorites for that kind of decks, lower than that and they tend to run out of blood too easily, more than that and your probably wasting pool to discplines you aren't going to need anyway.

Yea, i was going broad, although i suppose i should have limited it to non weenie decks. Actions from swarms, fighting the same way, who cares ifcyou lose a few vamps, etc. Weenie dbr, weenie pot, weenie, ani, all pretty easy, and to me rather boring.

Intercept combat is the easiest to play and win with to me, and Anson Cel guns was my first deck i built, so its always been thus. Its harder for me balance bnb and dedicated rush stuff. In int combat, you wait. Andxif you get an early vp, your prey was foolish.
Rushing is hareder. Ive done great with Cock Robin and Nic V, because they block and rush. I cant win with Torvus for anything, because while he can do similar things, hes not as good at blocking with one card as a prince, for example. While revel makes all gangrel good in Torvus decks, Cock Robin plusxNic and calebros the martyrxand some fortitude nos do better.
I have decided that for pot dom are best for allstar with midcap help decks, becausexyou want to dish out pain, prevent it, and bouncexand bleed and bloat. I dont go that way alot though, because i like wallish decks better so thats wherexmany of my freak drivesxand deflections stay.
Cel aus is ok, but i like celerity princes better alot. Even after eyes of argus.
I guess im after everyones outlooks. I can win with some stuff, but other stuff doesnt have the defense, even if i use ai, dummy corp, boon, and intercept and bleed reduction, things like nonslave g2 gargoyles and g1 gangrel still lack defense. Although, gangrel block good, so that was thier remedy.
I feelxlorrie dunsirn and pug jackson and Benedict giovanni are 3 of the best potence combat support vamps. Used one or more of them in every potence combat deck they group with. Hardestadt and Ignazio are great, as is Germain, but im findng you need a GREAT vamp like that to make such decks work, because Karsh and Xacier and Hrothulf look good, but arent nearly as sucessful at winning as the others i mentioned.

Bleeding is, i feel, the best way to oust with priactive combat. Voting is too many cards.

Hrothulf is discpline-wise basically same as Germaine (except he has dom for bounce as a bonus and built-in rush), so I am not sure why you find Germaine better rusher than Hrothulf. Only thing Germaine has going for him over Hrothulf is that he has obf to disguise out that assault rifle instead of having to get it the old-fashioned way.

Klaital wrote:

Hrothulf is discpline-wise basically same as Germaine (except he has dom for bounce as a bonus and built-in rush), so I am not sure why you find Germaine better rusher than Hrothulf. Only thing Germaine has going for him over Hrothulf is that he has obf to disguise out that assault rifle instead of having to get it the old-fashioned way.

Germaine is better because hes a combat star who shuts down and entire other genre of combat. Guns etc cant be used on him, so hes safe from the more efficient brand of combat, which often outmanuevers potence. And ivr always ran one adv,3-4 base, whith epiphany, so he gets a bleed bonusxmost of the time, and a circumstantial rush. The big thing is the special. Hrothulf isnt as good as star for lack of it, but would be with built in plus strength. There are at least 12 vamps whod bexbetter with +1 syltrength, namely maxwell, karsh,jalan, etc.