OFFICIAL VEKN GIOVANNI NEWSLETTER Vol.III No.3 March 2001
In this Issue:
INTRODUCTION
QUESTION OF THE MONTH: Why can't my Dom/Pot clan Bruise'n'Bleed?
ANSWER OF THE MONTH: Why the Giovanni aren't the clan you thought.
PRAYER OF THE MONTH: What the Giovanni would need.
DECK OF THE MONTH: Giovanni's Allies
(with absolutely NO Jar the Soul!)
CONCLUSION/PREVIEW
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INTRODUCTION
================================================================
Running a bit late this month, but it's not for lack of ideas, just lack of
time to implement them. I was saved this month by an Italian contribution
to the Deck of the Month (how perfect is that?).
(For anyone who cares: No fiction this month, since I'm short on time, and
the rest of the newsletter is plenty long enough blather already.)
Previously, I've gone over what the Giovanni do well (namely, bleed, and
make good use of allies). This month I'm going to go over something that
they don't do well: Bruise and Bleed.
================================================================
QUESTION OF THE MONTH: Why can't my Dom/Pot clan Bruise'n'Bleed?
================================================================
Not too many months ago, I remember someone on this newsgroup saying "Most
Giovanni decks I see don't use Necromancy."
I was vaguely puzzled by this.
But then there was another comment in the thread like "When I try making a
Giovanni deck, I always end up going Lasombra instead."
Then I understood; there's this hope of making a Dominate/Potence deck with
the Giovanni; classic Bruise'n'Bleed combining the most you can bleed at a
time with the most you can smack someone for at a time, should they dare to
block you.
The problem with this is that the Giovanni don't have Dominate and Potence.
Oh, yeah, sure, the in-clan disciplines are Potence, Dominate, and
Necromancy, but they just DON'T have Dominate AND Potence, not to mention
the backup to make it work.
================================================================
ANSWER OF THE MONTH: Why the Giovanni aren't the clan you thought.
================================================================
Let's take a look at Clan Giovanni:
***The Vamps
Rudolpho Giovanni 3 NE
Mario Giovanni 3 ne po
Cristofero Giovanni 3 ne po
Gloria Giovanni 4 DO ne
Francesca Giovanni 4 do ne po
Vittorio Giovanni 5 do ne po (fo)
Patrizia Giovanni 5 ne (qu th) pay one blood to employ retainers
from ash heap
Stefano Giovanni 6 DO ne po (pr) burn 1 blood to gain 1 vote
Rafaele Giovanni 6 NE (ce ob) +1 bleed, can bleed predator
Gaspare Giovanni 6 ne PO (ce) +1 str.; burn 2 blood to move vamp
from ash heap to top of crypt
Carlotta Giovanni 7 do NE PO (ob) burn a blood to switch card in
hand for card in ash heap, at +1 stealth
Enzo Giovanni 8 DO NE po (an th) can block any political
action, +1 intercept on political actions by vamps not Prince, Justicar, IC
Regina Giovanni 10 DO NE PO (au fo) 2 votes, employ/recruit for
one less.
13 Vampires total. Just enough to make a full crypt without repeats,
since Patrizia is effectively a 5 cap with the abilties of a 2 cap
Giovanni (and the abilities of a 4 cap, even if you could make a [ne qu
th] deck) and is therefore "wallpaper." Rafaele isn't much better,
having the abilities of Rudolpho and a +1 bleed, a reasonable 4 or 5 cap
that you end up paying 6 for.
*** The Disciplines
Dominate:
do: 3
DO: 4
do+DO: 7/13 This is sad. The Giovanni should be a good Bruise and Bleed
clan with Potence and Dominate, but they just -don't- have the Dominate
to make any Dominate based deck work. And they have only ONE vampire
with DO PO, and it's the 10 cap.
Necromancy:
ne: 8
NE: 5
ne+NE: 13/13. This is good. All Giovanni can play necromancy cards.
Alas, most of them are pretty worthless when played at minor, and while
having the 3 cap NE seeming great, the next up is the 6 cap with NE and
no other in clan abilities. After that, it's a 7, an 8, and a 10. Still,
Necromancy is what the Giovanni do best, and any Giovanni deck with none
of it is wasting resources.
Potence:
po: 6
PO: 3 -This- is where they're hurting the most. A potence clan where
the smallest PO guy is a 6, and there are only 3 with it.
po+PO: 9/13 This isn't much better than the Dominate, and REALLY lacking
in superior Potence.
*** The Combo
Dominate/Potence
do/po: 2 (4, 5 cap)
do/PO: 1 (7 cap)
DO/po: 2 (6, 8 cap)
DO/PO: 1 (10 cap)
6 guys, enough to make a doubled crypt, but with an average crypt size of
6.67. And ONLY the 10-cap with superior in both. Of the 3 vamps with PO,
one of them is Gaspare, the +1 strength Bouncer, with no Dominate at all.
For comparison, let's take a look at "the other dark meat," the Lasombra:
do/po: 3 (3,4,6 cap)
do/PO: 2 (6,9 cap)
DO/po: 2 (8,8 cap)
DO/PO: 5 (6,9,9,10,10 cap)
Crypt of 12, all of which can play the cards. Albeit at a 7.33 average, but
4 of the biggest 5 have DO/PO, and all 5 have PO.)
Even calling 3-cap Cameron too small to take a beating, and you can have
do/po: 2 (4,6 cap)
do/PO: 1 (6 cap)
DO/po: 2 (8,8 cap)
DO/PO: 1 (6 cap)
and have the same double crypt spread for an average size of 6.33, and the
vamp with DO/PO is a 6 cap.
Actually, to be truly absurd, let's look at the Brujah:
do/po: 0
do/PO: 3 (6, 8, 10 cap)
DO/po: 0
DO/PO: 2 (8,8)
5 vamps, average crypt size ~8, but note they ALL have superior Potence, and
actually, they ALL have superior Celerity, and ALL have at least one vote!
The friggin *Brujah* are almost better suited to Dom/Pot Bruise'n'Bleed!
Not to remotely mention how good of a Brujah or !Brujah Pre/Pot Bruise and
Bleed deck you can make.
"Well," you may say, "That's really not so bad. That's 6 guys with
Dom/Pot, I can drop some skill cards, and Govern backwards to pay for the
crypt size, or Minion Tap and Taste of Vitae it back, and even play
Decapitate and Soul Stealing!"
Course, you have to HIT them, first. Immortal Grapple comes to mind, to
keep those pesky victims from dodging or playing S:CE, but what if they
maneuver away? Dominate: No maneuvers. Potence: No maneuvers, excepting
the superior Immortal Grapple close range continuance. Necromancy: No
maneuvers.
Note that for other "Bruise and Bleed" clans: Bru, !Bru, and Lasombra,
the third discipline *does* give maneuvers, and the Gangrel, who have
Potence in enough guys to go a'grappling, have both DotB AND maneuvers
coming out the Wazoo.
*** In fact, the Giovanni are the ONLY clan (Pander, Caitiff aside, of
course) that have a discipline set granting no cards allowing a plain'ol
maneuver. ***
(Thrown gate commits you to a strike. Useless for grapple combat unless you
press and re-grab at close: card intensive, not to mention getting whacked
in round one for at least one.)
Guess you play Fake Out, and hope they don't jam up your hand.
Well, the Tremere have a similar problem, so they usually use Thoughts
Betrayed to get around this, and steal the 2 blood back (after using
Movement of the Mind or Apportation for, of course, a maneuver.). How about
the Giovanni?
Well, that requires DOM, leaving us:
DO/po: 2 (6, 8 cap)
DO/PO: 1 (10 cap)
Not to mention that if they maneuver, you've got to Fake Out, press, or
throw stuff at them. Trap is ostensibly an option, but unlike the Tremere,
you don't have a press to end if things get bad. Mighty Grapple is a better
option if you insist.
Note that all of this makes total waste of the fact that all the
Giovanni have Necromancy. Well, for the "Bleed" part, it's only good for
stealth, and for the "Bruise" part, it's worthless. The Necromancy
"bruisin" combat cards aren't good for the vamps:
Torment the Soul: 2nd+ round. (i) 1R (S) 1R agg.
1 agg won't burn anyone unless you can pile on more damage onto the strike
(Zombies? Only at close range), diablerize with Amaranth (you have no
votes, and will lose the Blood Hunt), or Decapitate (only Carlotta and
Regina, 7 and 10, have the NEC/POT to pull off the combo.)
Soul Stealing: only usable in combat at superior, only your prey.
Again, you have to BURN them, requiring Burning Wrath (only Carlotta, Enzo,
and Regina, 7,8,10 can do this), Decapitate (see above), or Amaranth (again,
see above).
All of this is compounded if you're in a combat heavy environment, where
you have to worry about being bruised back, or lots of damage prevention
floating about. You can't prevent even a single point, and you can't
maneuver away except with Fake Out. You can't generate additional strikes
to get around even inferior Skin of Steel. The only saving grace is that
they can ALL play Spiritual Intervention to at least dodge, if not S:CE,
against guys hitting back.
So what are you left with? With only 6/13 vamps having Dominate and
Potence, and with only 2 or 3 having a prayer of consistently knocking
someone's block off, you just don't have the crypt to do it. On top of
that, you haven't got easy access to maneuvers, can't prevent or beat
prevention, and can't press to end in bad situations.
Recommendations:
Giovanni Bruise'n'Bleed: Don't do it! Tap and Bleed or Stealth and
Bleed if you want to be sure the bleeds get through. If you just want to
discourage bleeding, go for Thrown Gates. They keep you alive, and
efficiently use up combat cards of the opponents, and hit at short or long.
Consider Sacrament of Carnage, for gun-heavy environments, and usually
playing or discarding a single Burning Wrath will discourage blocking,
without you having to actually try and hit with them. If you just want to
stay alive, go with Spiritual Intervention; Available to ALL the Giovanni,
free, and useful against most non-dedicated combat.
================================================================
PRAYER OF THE MONTH: What the Giovanni would need.
================================================================
Now, all that aside, most of this could be fixed when Final Nights comes
out, just by adding the vamps with DOM/POT and/or POT/NEC. Having a
Necromancy card that gives a maneuver would also be a hope, and fill in the
slight to the Giovanni of placing the range at the mercy of the opponent.
I'm counting on the former: ancient hearts screwed up Dom/Pot for the
Giovanni so badly, that to fill out the ranks, the new vamps damn near HAVE
to have Dom/Pot. The latter I'm less optimistic about, but we'll see.
================================================================
DECK OF THE MONTH: Giovanni's Allies
(with absolutely NO Jar the Soul!)
================================================================
This month's deck is courtesy of Stefano Calzighetti (VEKN Prince of
Pordenone, Italy). I dunno about you, but when I get a Giovanni deck from
Italy, I build it and play it. =) On top of that, it coincidentally has a
number of features I recommended, while simultaneously NOT having a single
Jar the Soul, certainly the prize card of the last two month's decks.
***First, his deck:
Deck Name: Giovanni's Allies
Created by: Stefano "Walt" Calzighetti, V-ekn Prince of Pordenone, Italy.
scalzigh@hotmail.com
Description:[Ed. Note: Per request of the author, the English (at the very
least, what silly Americans speak) grammar has been edited/corrected
throughout the text, without changing the content.]
This deck works around double-usage cards and allies.
4 Gov. the Unaligned, 6 Scouting Mission, 2 Kine Dominance and 10 Spectral
Divination means 44 usable effects with only 22 cards. Plus 10 thrown gates
that give both a maneuver and damage in one card. Not bad, eh?
The allies section includes 3 Allies that can bleed and 3 more with very
usable effects. The Vagabond mystic's special ability to give life to ally
even during a combat renders the bleeding allies not worth stopping. And a
well-timed Compel the Spirit can bring a burned ally back into play without
cost. [ed note: Assumed "no pool cost," 1 blood aside]. So attack each turn
with the allies and gain the edge on regular basis. A few retainers add
spice, and Regina can help to reduce the cost of the allies.
Offensive strategies:
To win this deck use bleed and a little stealth (both Bonding and again,
Kine Dominance).
Defensive strategies:
1)deflection/redirection and Ambrosius for bleed (and stealth) decks,
2)A little intercept, The Mausoleum, Enzo and bureaucratic overload for
political decks and
3)potence for combat decks. Maneuver to long if your opponent wants short,
short if he/she want long, burning wrath if he/she is so rude to insist and
a few spiritual intervention just in case. [Ed. Note: obviously you can't
Burning Wrath if you've already maneuvered with the gate]
4) to gain pool you have minion tap, blood dool + H.G., Slave auction and a
couple of Autarkis Persecution (everyone needs pool, and will vote for it,
but you have many minions: low cap. vampires and many allies. I get 4/5
vamps and 4/5 allies in play on a regular basis with this deck).
This deck works well in my play group and I tested it about 10 times against
many decks. Let me know if you use it (or similar one) and how it works.
Ciao
Stefano
Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 14, Max: 35, Avg: 5,75]
1 Carlotta Giovanni (dom NEC obf POT, Giovanni, 7)
1 Cristofero Giovanni (nec pot, Giovanni, 3)
1 Enzo Giovanni (ani DOM NEC pot tha, Giovanni, 8)
2 Francesca Giovanni (dom nec pot, Giovanni, 4)
2 Gloria Giovanni (DOM nec, Giovanni, 4)
1 Mario Giovanni (nec pot, Giovanni, 3)
2 Regina Giovanni (aus DOM for NEC POT, Giovanni, 10, 2 votes)
2 Stefano Giovanni (DOM nec pot pre, Giovanni, 6)
Library: (90 cards)
Master (16 cards)
1 Archon Investigation
2 Blood Doll
1 Bureaucratic Overload
3 Dominate
1 Mausoleum, Venice, The
1 Minion Tap
2 Morgue Hunting Ground
3 Necromancy
1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The
1 Slave Auction
Action (17 cards)
3 Compel the Spirit
4 Govern the Unaligned
2 Kine Dominance
1 Possession
6 Scouting Mission
1 Whispers from the Dead
ActionMod (4 cards)
2 Bonding
2 Seduction
Political (2 cards)
2 Autarkis Persecution
Reaction (16 cards)
4 Deflection
4 Redirection
8 Wake with Evening's Freshness
Combat (16 cards)
1 Burning Wrath
5 Spiritual Intervention
10 Thrown Gate
Ally (6 cards)
1 Akhenaten, The Sun Pharaoh (Mummy)
1 Ambrosius, The Ferryman (Wraith)
1 Leonardo, Mortician
1 Order of Hermes Cabal
1 Scapelli, The Family Mechanic
1 Vagabond Mystic
Retainer (3 cards)
1 Mr. Winthrop
1 Spiritual Protector
1 Zombie
Combo (10 cards)
10 Spectral Divination
***And now, my comments:
I've been a bit busy to put decks together, so it was good to have a new
Giovanni deck to build and try out. The only problem was finding I didn't
own an Order of Hermes Cabal! I subbed in a Mehemet of the Ahl-i-Batin, who
admittedly doesn't bleed, making him kind of a poor substitute, be he did
ok. I played the deck twice, got killed by aggressive intercept behind me
the first time, but almost got 3 the second game (got down to just two of
us, but only got 1 VP). I didn't change anything, but played it straight
up. I was tempted to drop a few Masters, but decided against it.
Some tricks I found when playing the deck:
1) You'd think Akhenaten, who gets reshuffled into your deck when burned,
fits poorly into a deck with 3 Compel the Spirit. But that 3 hand damage
gets a lot of Bleeds for one through. What's more, he can play Spectral
Divination for 1 stealth, and then you can tap the Mystic Vagabond to put
the 1 blood right back on him. Seems silly, but since I pulled that off 3
times (one time giving me the oust) and still had the otherwise dead
Akhenaten, it was pretty cool.
2) Having allies can be cool. Even my poor replacement of Mehemet made a
good blocker, especially when the deck behind you relies on Seduction
(vampires only) to push bleeds through. (Hi, Derek! =) It never came up,
but note that allies can't be Redirected or made to Obey, among other
effects.
3) Autarkis persecutions really CAN get passed, despite you having lots of
guys. With at least one source of votes (edge; Stefano...Giovanni that is,
not Calzighetti; Regina; Mausoleum) there's usually one other source of
votes out there that needs the pool.
4) Our (Atlanta) current play group is a bit heavy on combat and intercept
and lighter on bleed and vote than this deck was designed for. First game I
got all 4 of my vamps into torpor trying to rescue on of them, but had the
Ivory Bow with LOTS of Wake and Intercept behind me. Second game I got 1
VP, and almost 3, but lost the endgame.
Anyway, thanks again to Stefano from Italy for his deck contribution,
helping me get this newsletter out while it's still March!
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CONCLUSION/PREVIEW
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April and May should contain more of a "trick deck" feel. In a fit of
hypocrisy, I'll be showing a deck based around using Torment the Soul, and
one based around using Soul Stealing, having badmouthed them both this very
newsletter.
June should give us the release of Final Nights, and I'll very likely delay
that newsletter till after I've ripped open some packs and report on the new
cards.
And as usual, for anyone enjoying the newsletters, Welcome to the Family!
--
Pat Ricochet
Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta