Great game, and in my opinion actually an improvement over the original.

But it shares the frustration element for the hunters. Drac himself is **** sneaky and tricky to pin down. We find that you think you've got him cornered only to se him slip away.

Does anyone have any good tips, tactics and strategies for really pinning the Count in and keeping him under pressure until the final blow can be struck?

Indeed a great game. And I have to say it can indeed be tricky to trap dracula. But in general the hunters need to work together. Don't keep drawing event cards, this make dracula stronger and stronger. Make use of the special abities of your hunters. For instance mina can draw more items card, whitout the additional risk of drawing a dracula event card. Make sure you can blok dracula's escape routes to sea, so don't be to hasty throw away event cards that might look useless in your current sitiuation. Use train track only if you want fast transport to other side of the map or speep up your way to dracula. Group Combat is also very nice, but watch out for mina (She is to weak to battle dracula, and a dead hunter means 2 VP to dracula ). One last things, you got to love those discard event cards.

I would also add that going into Eastern Europe after sundown is just asking for trouble.

Hehe, some (most) other posters think that Dracula has actually no chance against the Hunters.

In our experience Heavenly Hosts are much more useful to limit Dracula's movement by denying him key choke points and bottlenecks than combat cards. Zagrab, Vienna and Saragosa are good cities to block that way.

Dracula can usually slip away to the sea but it costs him blood which is hard to replenish, especially with Rufus Smith in play. Sooner or later he won't be able to afford it. Also, a well-timed Stormy Seas card can win the game, think very carefully when and how to use it.

Forcing Dracula to come to you (instead of you moving on him) removes those pesky encounters (like Fog) from the equation which hinder the hunters so much. If you had a successful Hypnosis than jump on the city Dracula announces he will move to. That way he can't place an encounter but you get straight to combat.