So whenever I play as Dracula, it becomes a slaughter. The hunters will run around and gear up and usually not bother looking for me. Then one of the event cards that reveals locations in my trail shows up and they converge. Aside from invoking the dice gods, there's not much I can do to counter lots and lots of stakes.

Basically....does Dracula seem remarkably squishy to anyone else? Or am I just doing something wrong?

I posted this in another thread, but I'll replicate it here:

1. Place new vampires in out of the way places as early as possible. Try and make sure that if a hero would encounter them it would likely be at night.

2. Use your movement powers often.

3. Avoid Spain (Unless the players realize that you always avoid spain, and then you can stop by)

Also, the more they gear up the more likely you are to have Dracula Cards, which are generally more powerful. Also, if they are not actively hunting for you, make sure that you can hunt Mina once night falls.

As a personal experience, a good place to start, if there's no hunter, is UK. You can leave Vampires, if you're lucky enough to draw some of them, and paying some blood, you can travel by sea to reach an undefended harbour. More, AMBusam is absolutely right about Spain.

Bye,

our gaming group has renamed this game the slaughter of dracula. Even if we have our best players that normally win other games play dracula, they usually never have a chance. We just play to see how long someone can actually last

Newpaper repots always seem to come up within the first 5 turns and people just get a straightline right to dracula.

I still enjoy it, and I've seen Dracula survive and get 1/2 to his goal once before getting slaughtered.

In the game last night, Dracula lasted nine turns. I really don't see how he can survive against players that have an inkling of how the game works, and this time we had two new players, me who only had played once before, and a guy who wasn't trying all too hard. As soon as we crossed his trail though, we converged, but really all it took was Mina double knifing him to death.

You rule the night... with your bat power you can escape out of way very easily.

I usually start just behind Mina and follow her then jump at her the first night to score some easy point. Then use wolf and hide to make them think you are running away.

Back track as often as possible, they always assume you go away from them, the Malta/sardinia Trick is nice, take boat, land, hide, then take boat, they will probably assume you go to East or West ( away ) not that you are waiting for them and landed back on the same area you start from.

When the night is near and they are close to your track put hurting events ( 2 if possible by using hide ) and wait for the night and one of them to enter the town, jump on him when he is weakened and bite him then use your bat form to escape far away next fight. The good thing with bat and wolf is that you can backtrack over town you already used to move.

Sometimes when you are allowed to move 2 or 3 space, only move 1 then follow them as they overshoot you and wonder where you gone.

They often assume you wont go back to city they cleared, make them assume wrong.

I found this game really hard on the hunter, especially as Draky isn't one armed, especially at night. Against an aggressive Vamp who dont concentrate on only siring and fleeing the heroes game can be much harder... and quite often the hunted is in fact the hunter.

Ivan Kerensky said:

As ol' Darty Wadery used to say: "Impressive, most impressive...".

I don't play FoD as soon as I'd like to, but I'm looking forward to use your strategy, really!

Thanks.

Ivan Kerensky said:

we have used all these tactics.. When with the first 5 turns of 85% of all games, the players find dracula trail, its fairly easy to avoid him at night, and even if they get into combat, a character dual wieldling knives can often still deal with him fairly easy.

We have a lot of competitive gamers that play our games, and the game as default has too many easy ways to dtermine where dracula is all the time. Makes it near impossible for him to do anything but get gang f@#$@#$

The hunters are powerless whimps without their good items so you should target those first before you target the hunters itself. Thief and saboteur and lightning are good for it, also the 'Rage' card. Don't underestimate the spy encounter, if you can see what they have than you can safely determine if you can win against them in a combat. A pistol/knife/garlic combo is easy to overcome by night. (Of course, never ever fight during daytime regardless of anything else.) The hunters might have full set of items but only half of them is good against Dracula. If they are geared up against vampires throw some minions in their way and watch them feebly waving their crosses as rifle bullets make them bleed.

Also, study the combat cards. Strenght can destroy the dreaded stake, afterwards the hunter is much easier prey. There is a solution for everything in the game, you just have to know what you are might facing and how to overcome it. Also, the hunters can't prepare for everything. They will have at least one weak point from the vampire/minion/other encounters triad of threats. Find it out and use it against them.

You will be a good Dracula player when you are hoping to get 'Vampiric Influence' event cards and Spy encounters in your hand.

Ivan Kerensky said:

Could you give an example of how you can move 3 spaces in a turn? I know wolf form you get to move 2 spaces and the same for unearthly swiftness. I can't remeber anytime that you get to move 3 spaces in a turn and want to make sure that I am not playing something wrong.

Thanks!

Maybe Wolf Form + Unearthly Swiftness...how many spaces you can move with this combination?

Wolf Form + Unearthly Swiftness indeed can end you up 3 cities away from your starting city.

What's more, if you using Wolf Form to attack a Hunter 2 cities away from you than managed to do Escape as Bat than your mileage is 4 cities, no less! The only backside is that they know where you were in the middle.

Unearthly Swiftness + Wolf Form + Escape Bat is the vampiric version of the Concorde as it makes you cover 5 cities in one round!!