Ravnos Clan Newsletter
September 2005

Ravnos Clan Newsletter September 2005
Written by Graham Smith

Introduction

I asked Emile Bosman if he would mind if I wrote a few Ravnos
newsletters and he said go right ahead.  So here we are.
I will try to write one every couple of months but don't hold
me to it!

=============================================================

Kindred Most Wanted

The Ravnos clan got a lot of new toys in KMW. I will try and pick
two of them to talk about in each newsletter.  This month I'm
going to look at Tatiana Stepanova, Alastor and Edged Illusion.

Vampire of the (next two!) months:

Tatiana Stepanova, Alastor
Clan: Ravnos (group 4)
Capacity: 7
Disciplines: CHI PRE ani for obf
Camarilla: You and Tatiana may play cards that require Brujah
or Gangrel as if Tatiana were a member of the required clan.

Rarity:  KMW:U

So what is there to say about Tatiana? She is a 7 cap with only
one traditional in clan discipline at superior. However, since
that is Chimerstry, all is not lost. She has superior Presence
which matches up nicely with 2 of the new smaller Ravnos, Devyn
and Paul Forrest. Presence allows Tatiana to enchant down
to give the Ravnos a much needed influence enhancer and also
combos nicely with Red Herring in a tap and bleed deck as Presence
can provide a lot of different bleed actions. She also has
a very interesting special.

I'm still working on the best uses of Tatiana's special but here
is the list of cards that she can play:

Brujah

Al's Army Apparatus
Arms Dealer
Knights, The
Loyal Street Gang
Oxford University, England
Slashers, The
Sword of Troile
Triole's Revenge
Warzone Hunting Ground

Gangrel

Dog Pack
Gypsies
Renegade Garou
Ritual Challenge
Shackles of Enkidu
Werewolf Pack
Zoo Hunting Ground

So from this list, we can see that Tatiana can call upon and use
a number of cheap or useful Allies.  She can also give the Ravnos
access to anti SC:E with the Dog Packs.  I will include some
decks that uses Tatiana's special to greater depth in the
next newsletter.

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Card of the month:

Edged Illusion

Type: Action
Requires: Chimerstry
Cost: 2 blood
[chi] (D) Tap a ready minion. This acting vampire inflicts 1
unpreventable damage on that minion.
[CHI] (D) Choose a Methuselah. This acting vampire inflicts 1
unpreventable damage on each ready minion controlled by that
Methuselah.

Rarity:  KMW:C

Edged Illusion is a very good card, expensive but good.  At inferior it
combos well with Red herring to make sure a minion is going to end up
tapped, at superior it is screams weenie killer.  Ravnos have been able
to slow down the mid to large cap vampires using Sensory Deprivation
but still get overrun when dealing with weenies. Not anymore!
Hit the weenie deck with a couple of Edged Illusions and watch
them spend a lot of time hunting or in torpor.

Deck of the month:

There has been a lot of interest in Edged Illusion on the newsgroup
lately with decks posted that use it to knock vampires in to torpor
after removing their blood with Free States Rant.  I've been playing
around with a FSR and Edged Illusion deck but thought I would try
something a bit different.

After looking back through the Ravnos newsletter archive on
www.thelasombra.com I came across the July 1998 newsletter that
discussed the use of Sensory Deprivation and Society of Leopold
to burn vampires.  The plan was very simple, place the Sensory
Deprivation on the target vampire, let the society come after them,
watch them burn. I thought this concept would work very well with
the new cards available in KMW. Hence the deck listed below:

Deck Name : The Society lend a hand.
Author : Graham Smith
Description : The plan is to place Sensory Deprivation on
your prey's vampires. Then when you have the Society of
Leopold in hand place it on said vampire.  Before the society
burns the vampire, move it away from them with Jayne Jonestown
and hit them with an Edged Illusion.

You have to keep up the regular bleeding to stop your prey from just
letting their vampire burn to the society.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 7 average: 4.5
------------------------------------------------------------

3x Tatiana Stepanova,     7  CHI PRE ani for obf   Ravnos:4
3x Jayne Jonestown        2  PRE                   !Brujah:4
2x Paul Forrest, Fals     5  chi for pre           Ravnos:4
2x Devyn                  4  ani chi pre           Ravnos:4
1x Callirus               5  CHI FOR ani           Ravnos:4
1x Gharston Roland        4  CHI ani pot           Ravnos:4


Library [87 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------

Action [19]
  4x Edged Illusion
  5x Enchant Kindred
  2x Fatuus Mastery
  2x Mass Reality
  6x Sensory Deprivation

Action Modifier [5]
  5x Fata Morgana

Action Modifier/Combat [9]
  4x Mirror Image
  5x Occlusion

Action/Reaction [5]
  5x Draba

Combat [16]
  5x Apparition
  3x Majesty
  5x Staredown
  3x Zip Gun

Event [1]
  1x Dragonbound

Master [19]
  1x Barrens, The
  4x Blood Doll
  1x Week of Nightmares
  1x Park Hunting Ground
  2x Path of Paradox, The
  2x Perfectionist
  1x Secure Haven
  3x Society of Leopold
  1x Tension in the Ranks
  1x Warzone Hunting Ground
  2x Waste Management Operation

Reaction [11]
  5x Ignis Fatuus
  6x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Retainer [2]
  2x Raven Spy


Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Sun Sep 25 09:26:30 2005]

Please send any comments, suggestions and contributions to:
graham.r.smith@gmail.com