some new Ravnos GR4/5.

to fill some gaps in the existing line-up since GR4/5 Ravnos are so underpowered in comparison to Ventrue/Nakhthorheb& his Folowers/Assamites/etc etc.

Violca, Flower of Yesteryear [5-cap; Ravnos. GR5]

Independent Anarch. While Violca is acting, cards which change the target of a bleed action have no effect while you control two or more ready Ravnos. She cannot target vampires with capacity above 6 with actions.

Durga Syn, ADV [9-cap; Ravnos GR4; advanced ]

Independent [adv]. Whenever your predator or prey play a non-out-of-turn trifle master card, Durga untaps and gains until your next untap phase.
[MERGED] Durga pays no blood for playing combat-cards requiring chimerstry . Any Gangrel , Ahrimane or Werewolf ally can enter combat with Durga as a action.

Kerosine Kai [10-cap, Ravnos, GR5]

Laibon Magaji. While Kai attempts a action at +X additional stealth, he gets an additional +X strength during that action. +1 bleed. While Sensory Deprivation is in play, your predator's minions get +1 bleed when bleeding you.

Mirra [6-cap; Ravnos GR5]

Laibon. Mirra gets +1 stealth on actions targetting any Methuselah's uncontrolled region. Mirra cannot attempt actions against untapped vampires or Harbingers of Skulls .

-i'd like to hear your comments!

The firt one should not be anarch from the get go, and if you really want her to be one, make her a 7-cap or give her a real disavantadge. Anarch is not supposed to be easy to get, that's why what require anarch is so often ridiculously powerful.

Mirra seem undercosted, seem to have been taylored to play one card (Nightmare curse), which I would prefer to remain hard to play.

Durga for me have too much card for few effect. It should be cleaned and maybe done more flavorful - it seem extremely bland as is.

Kerosine pay a lot for a very difficult to play special.

Not an horribly designed set, but I'm not too sure, it seem to lack a bit of consistency.

Also, I believe Ravnos are best without either Sensory deprivation or Nightmare curses, who are card that are bad for the game as a whole when spammed. And apart from Nightmare curse, is auspex good for ravnos strategy ?

I agree that Ravnos 4/5 could do with a couple more vampires.
I find that the spread of sects can be troublesome (I count: Independent - 22, Sabbat - 2, Laibon - 2, Camarilla - 1).
And the disciplines are rather varied.

I like Violca. Could be used with Jayakumar, Durga Syn, Marcia. The anarch aspect could be interesting.

Mirra is not too bad. The necromancy helps Chavi. I agree with Ohlmann that Mirra is undercosted. There is only one vampire with Hazimel at 10 cost. A possible reason for this is to avoid Nightmare Curse+Freak Drive+Sensory Deprivation.

Durga Syn ADV is interesting. Adding cards from the ash heap can be powerful. But I think at a cost of 2 blood it is not overpowered. Free chimestry cards in combat is great too.
I can see that the merged ability synergises with the base version. However I never thought Durga Syn was great to block with anyway given basic animalism, auspex. I guess being untapped to play Ignis Fatuus is good.

Having Kerosine Kai as another Ravnos magaji is interesting. But it may make the Eldest Are Kholo decks too strong. Especially with Mirra as well.
Not sure how useful the additional strength ability would be? What D actions with built-in stealth will you be taking?

_Violca (and/or Mirra) could be Red List giving the table a chance to get rid of them. i wouldn't care about it, but it does make them way more balanced. So many of the existing playable Ravnos are Red List anyway.

personally, i've never been a big fan of Sensory Dep, but i do love Nightmare Curse at inferior on some of my prey's vampires.. Limiting Sensory Dep to 1 per vampire per game would be fine by me.

_:AUS: for Ravnos-strategy could be used to put down Revelations, enter combat with Nose of the Hound or defend Mass Reality, or while anarch defend constant revolution. also helps to combine them with Dr. John Dee or Aidan Lyle (Trem GR5) (or Laika). of course gives easier access to equipment (magic of the smith).

_Durga ADV would be good against weenies and allow to use some of the less common combat cards (like Horrid Reality, Mayaparisatya or even illusions of the kindred). the fact that she doesn't have , a Prince or Magaji-title means that she definitely won't be blocking *everything* all the time unless the deck would be a very dedicated wall. she will however block weenies without a sound plan.
Think of her as a spider in some dark wood, noticing through all sorts of magic gadgetry what is going on and how to respond to trespassers with the fitting amount of illusions, ammo and venom.


_Kerosine Kai's extra (the +X strength) is indeed hard to depend upon, but i wanted to give him an unusual ability while acting (even more so since No Secrets Magaji can block while being tapped anyway). Ravnos really need another Magaji imo. His skills should guarantee that he can be added to quite a few Ravnos-decks. 10-cap should prevent him from being too good.

- thanks for your input!

porphyrion wrote:

_Violca (and/or Mirra) could be Red List giving the table a chance to get rid of them. i wouldn't care about it, but it does make them way more balanced. So many of the existing playable Ravnos are Red List anyway.

I am not too sure that this is enough.

The problem with Nightmare Curse (and Sensory dep for that matter) is that it's exponentially good. If you play one nightmare curse sup', you have more or less the effect of a pentex. If you have played six, well... It's very likely that you just won the table. And the fifth and sixth one are easier to play than the first one.

But the moment where it begin to be very nasty is with the path of paradox. Nightmare curse for one blood. Apparition for zero blood. Auspex to protect the path. You see the basis for a deck that will either shut everyone down or be destroyed by everything.

(and it's pretty worse than sensory deprivation in my opinion, because especially with the path it's half the price)

But the worst part is that once you will have put into play some minions, everyone will start destroy you regardless of wether you actually play Nightmare curse or not.

Maybe maing thoses cards unique is a way to avoid this. Or maybe simply avoiding giving to a small cap would be better.

Ohlmann, these days i see a lot of Allies-decks, Infernal vampires or people needing only the 2 master phase actions per turn from Anson/Cybele/Nana... I've never seen more than 3 vampire sense dep'ed in a single game no matter how easy it to do so theoretically (even with Spider-Killer @+1stealth!)- have you btw? Being infernal or playing Villein, Golconda, Blood Doll, Eurayle, Metro Underground, Babble, Eluding, 2nd Tradition, even Majesty (followed by actions+freak drives) offer complete or partial ways out of SD or NC-misery. and in most situations the ravnos-player gets ousted before the end anyway and the minions are 'released'. ravnos, like gangrel are the bleeding-sinks of a table anyway. like it or not, right now sense dep is their defense.

Red Listing Violca would be a solution for her, i believe.

Violca, Flower of Yesteryear [5-cap; Ravnos. GR5]

Independent Anarch. Red List. Cards which change the target of a bleed action have no effect while Violca is acting. Tremere with capacity above 5 get +1 intercept against Violca.

For Mirra, disallowing her to play any actions on elder vampires, could suffice (at the same time dropping the rest of her special text which tried to push the underplayed Trick of Danya/Caïro Airport/Undue influence (anarch)).

Mirra [6-cap; Ravnos GR4]

Laibon. Mirra's actions cannot target elder vampires.

thereby turning her advantage (mid-cap) into a drawback without totally crippling her. she still complements Chavi, Tsunda, Ganesh, Aidan, Hazimel and a new way of playing the Ravnos rather nicely imo...

just my 2cts