============================================= DAUGHTERS OF CACOPHONY PLAYBILL: APRIL 2006 ============================================= Written by Hyllan (caroline_hyll@yahoo.com) Co-edited by Forrest Nielsen Contents: I. Introduction II. Fiction of the Month - Flavour fiction for Antoinette Dubois III. Vampire of the Month - Antoinette Dubois IV. Card of the Month - Conductor V. Strategy of the Month - Choosing your sect: Laibon and Camarilla VI. Deck of the Month - a Laibon Daughter deck VII. Conclusion ---------------- Introduction ---------------- Welcome! Watch the torches, smell the garlic, feel the crosses! Rumours are spreading that the Nights of Reckoning are at hand, and that mortal hunters with strange powers have teamed up to reclaim the night. What is safest? To wander through the night alone, unprotected? To travel in packs and draw attention? Or to stay in your Haven, never sure of when they are going to find you...? The Daughters have several cards to protect themselves from the blockings and attacks of hunters. Toreador's Bane, perhaps the most rarely used Melpominee card, might see some use in NoR Pre-releases. Toreador's Bane strikes to end combat and continues any action as if unblocked at superior Melpominee - but it only works against Toreador, !Toreador, younger vampires and allies. Phantom Speaker - block fails against younger vampires and allies - and Blessed Audience - tap several younger vampires or allies - might be used increasingly as well. But for now, let's return to a state of blissful ignorance of the dangers outside the walls, when the mortals were still our pawns... ----------- Fiction of the Month ----------- Suzanne Kadim let her gaze sweep over Elysium and smiled. The Malkavian had just finished reciting his poetry and it had exceeded her expectations. A Harpy gave her an approving nod, and Suzanne was just about to join her when one of Suzanne's ghouls approached her with a bow. "My lady Keeper, there is an emissary from the Anarchs who insists on talking privately with the Prince." "Insists, you say? Well, why didn't you shut the door in the face of the rabble to keep it from bothering me?" Suzanne snapped. Then she looked towards the door, and saw the young girl who stood there with an absent-minded look. "Antoinette..." she whispered, horrified. She drew a deep breath of air into lungs that had been withered for centuries. "Let her in, Marc. I'll tell his Majesty he has a visitor." Suzanne was an accomplished liar and would rather explain herself to the Prince than face the wrath of the elders of her clan. -------------- Vampire of the Month --------------- *Antoinette Dubois* Capacity: 4 Group: 4 Disciplines: for mel PRE Text: Independent: Toreador and Toreador antitribu cannot block Antoinette. -1 intercept. Antoinette is a 4-cap with superior Presence and two in-clan inferior disciplines - Fortitude and Melpominee. That alone makes her an amazing vampire. She can Majesty at superior, push 4 votes with Bewitching Oration, gain pool with Voter Captivation or bleed for 5 with Legal Manipulation+Aire of Elation and gain a pool for the trouble. As if that wasn't enough, she's immune to blocking by Toreador and Toreador antitribu, two clans known for their intercept capabilities. If your predator has Anneke or is playing Toreador or !Toreador with Eagle Sight, Antoinette should be the one who performs the ousting action on your prey. It would not be a stretch to compare Antoinette with Delila Monroe in group 2, who is a 4-cap with [MEL], [pre] and [for]. Delilah has a slightly lighter disadvantage when it comes to intercept, but she lacks a positive special ability. Delilah is wonderful in a deck that relies heavily on Melpominee, such as a Choir deck, but she isn't as useful for other clans and bloodlines as Antoinette is with her [PRE]. Antoinette could easily be included in an Ishtarri deck or a group 3-4 Ventrue deck, which can't be said about Delilah. Antoinette has an unconditional -1 intercept, a trait she shares with her little sister Muse. Antoinette is not someone a player should leave untapped at the end of the minion phase. She won't be able to block anyway. She's there to be used. But if one would want to give her a possibility to block, the The Rumor Mill or the London Evening Star are two good choices, since they both can give intercept to other methuselahs without any cost for her Methuselah. It opens up for diplomacy, which is an essential part of a vote deck. Plus, if you have the intercept locations, others won't have them to block you with. Antoinette's sect loyalty can be seen as a disadvantage as well. The Daughters are indeed an Independent bloodline, so it's suitable for Antoinette to be so as well, but it sadly lessens her use in a weenie Presence vote deck tremendously. ------------ Card of the Month ---------- *Conductor* Rarity: R Type: Unique Master Cost: 1 Pool Requirement: DoC Text: Put this Card on a Daughter of Cacophony. While this Daughter of Cacophony is untapped or acting, each untapped or acting DoC gets an additional vote. Conductor is an interesting new card from the Legacies of Blood expansion and is likely to become a standard card in Daughter of Cacophony vote decks. It has the possibility to give up to six additional votes in a referendum, and together with Bastille Opera House it continues the encouragement for the Daughters to create new childer or to convince other vampires to Clan Impersonate into DoC. The ideal target for Conductor is a small Daughter who's easy to defend, since the Conductor vampire will become a target. Good choices are Muse or Rosemarie in a deck with Fortitude as main defence, and Celéste or Aimee Laroux in a deck that uses Presence as main defence. Note though that the vampire with Conductor need not be ready for the effect to take place. Untapped in torpor works fine. Free States Rant won't lower the votes of Conductor. It means that each Daughter benefiting from Conductor will have votes equal to those of a Prince or Archbishop. Conductor synchronizes well with Madrigal to give some or all Daughters a blood when one of them votes, something that before required a title or an expensive Echo of Harmonies. To get the most use out of Conductor, the Conductor vampire should be the last one to perform an action during the minion phase - unless she can be untapped again afterwards. The more untapped Daughters there are, the more useful Conductor will be. After voting the Daughters have a reliable way to untap with Freak Drive. However, untapping several Daughters each turn would require a silly amount of Freak Drives, so one might want to play the political actions so that the most crucial one is performed first, and thus gaining most votes from Conductor, and then expecting a decreasing number of votes. Firebrand could of course also be used for untapping in an Anarch DoC deck. ------------ Strategy of the Month: Choosing your Sect ------------ The subject of making a Sabbat DoC deck was briefly mentioned in a previous Playbill. While working on this Playbill I realized that discussing all sects at the same time would make the Playbill longer than even I thought was acceptable. As a result, this Strategy of the Month will discuss the Laibon and the Camarilla, and the Sabbat and the Independent will be discussed in my next Playbill. So, why would one want to build a mono-sect Daughter of Cacophony deck? The major answer lies in the titles. Prince for the Camarilla, Archbishop for the Sabbat and Magaji for the Laibon. The Daughters are good voters but they have a total lack of out-of-the-box titles. It usually becomes increasingly problematic the longer a V:tES game goes on, since ones opponents gets the transfers necessary to bring out big titled vampires. To counter it, the Daughters need titles of their own. The Sabbat and the Camarilla also have action modifiers that exclude other sects from voting; Closed Session and Private Audience. One can either use them or be able to ignore them if belonging to the sect in point. It is important to remember that the default sect of the Daughters of Cacophony is Independent. Thus, if a Sabbat Daughter Archbishop would make a Creation Rites, a Prince Daughter would make a Progeny or a Laibon Daughter would make an Embrace, the Creation Rites, Progeny and Embrace would all be Independent. In the same way, if a Camarilla Prince Clan Impersonated to Daughter of Cacophony, the Prince would loose its sect and title and become a non-titled Independent. ********** Laibon *********** Laibon is the newest sect in the Eternal Struggle, introduced just an expansion ago. We'll take a look at the cards that seem most relevant for the Daughters, and then do some more analysis. -Mozambique Allure- Type: Action Rarity: C Cost: None Text: Requires a ready Laibon or untitled vampire. +1 stealth action. If this acting vampire is Laibon, move the top card from your crypt to your uncontrolled region. Otherwise, this vampire becomes Laibon, and he or she untaps if he or she is Akunanse, Guruhi, Ishtarri, Osebo, Assamite, Followers of Set, Ravnos, Lasombra, Tzimisce, Harbingers of Skulls, or Salubri Antitribu Mozambique Allure is a straightforward "Go Laibon" action. Not the funniest card to have to include in a library, but at least it's useful even when all your vampires are Laibon. -The Eldest Command Undeath- Type: Political Action Rarity: R Cost: X blood Text: Called by any Laibon as a +1 stealth action. Choose a vampire controlled by your prey with capacity less than X. Successful referendum means that vampire is burned. This acting vampire cannot gain blood this action. Any blood he or she gains goes to the blood bank instead. The voting vampire can't restore its blood with Voter Captivation after a The Eldest Command Undeath (TECU), even if it's still possible to poolgain for two with superior Presence. Perfectionist won't give a blood after TECU either. However, the blood will not be a major problem for the Daughters since they can refill their vampires with Concert Tour. With that card and a Freak Drive, the vampire could be full again the same turn. Among the Bloodlines, only the Salubri has a more powerful way to refill vampires. Since both Freak Drive and Concert Tour cost a blood, the Daughter's largest vampire, Sayshila, could only burn a cap 4-vampire if she'd wish to be able to Freak Drive and Concert Tour afterwards. But if she could wait with the Concert Tour she could burn a cap 6 vampire. Since the key vampires in your opponent's decks will likely be larger than cap 6, that's not very mighty compared to Protect Thine Own, or even compared to what Eze or Ayo Igoli could do with TECU, but your prey or predator will still have one less vampire to block or bleed you with. There is one vampire who can make even the Inner Circle fear the Commands of the Eldest: the Daughter's friend Mata Hari. With an Ankara Citadel she could burn an 11-cap vampire with TECU for 6 blood, Freak Drive and Concert Tour and be able to do it again the next turn. It's a card-intensive combo though and is probably most useful in a focused Mata Hari deck. -Overseer- Type: Political Action Rarity: C Cost: None Text: Called by any Laibon with a capacity above 4 as a +1 stealth action. Title. In this referendum, each Guruhi gets one additional vote. Any votes any Magaji cast in favor of this referendum are ignored. If this referendum passes, put this card on the acting Laibon to represent the Laibon title of Magaji (worth 2 votes). Overseer is sadly the weakest of the 2-votes giving cards. The Magaji title can't be contested, but not being able to have your other Magaji add their votes in the referendum is a huge disadvantage, even if it's mainly a problem for clans without access to Presence. And it cannot be called by a vampire below cap 5, which disables 50 % of the group 2-3 Daughters and 60% of the group 3-4 Daughters from becoming Magaji without raising their capacity. It also means that all the excellent low-cap Laibon vampires with [pre] or [PRE] are nearly useless in a weenie Presence vote deck. Seems like weenie Presence vote will have to stick to group 1-2 and 2-3. -Ancestor Spirit- Type: Unique Master Rarity: R Cost: None Text: Put on a Laibon with capacity above 4. This vampire gets +1 bleed and gets one additional vote in referendums he or she calls. -Kduva`s Mask- Type: Unique Equipment Rarity: R Cost: 2 pool Text: This Laibon gets +1 bleed and 2 additional votes. Reaction cards that require Auspex [aus] cost an additional blood while this Laibon is acting. Both Ancestor Spirit and Kduva's Mask are good in any Laibon deck. Kduva's Mask even helps against block and bounce, which is very helpful for the DoC. Since Ancestor Spirit only can be put on the mid-cap Daughters and the small Daughters cannot become Overseer, Kduva's Mask is a good way to give the low-cap Daughters votes to use with Madrigal or Voter Cap. -Powerbase: Tshwane- Type: Master Rarity: R Cost: None Text: Master: Unique location. Requires a ready Laibon. Tap this location to reduce the cost of a card you play by 1 pool (this location is not tapped if that card was canceled as it was played). Any Laibon may steal this location for his or her controller as a (D) action. Everything is cheap in Tshwane. This Powerbase makes Paris Opera House, Conductor, Kduva's Mask and Creepshow Casino less pricey, and it's not as easily stolen as many other Powerbases. -Strange Day- Type: Action Modifier Rarity: R Cost: 2 blood Text: Only usable by Laibon. Vampires cannot block this action, only one strange day can be played during a game. Strange Day is an anti-block card that works against all vampires regardless of capacity and doesn't send you to torpor, which is something new for the Daughters. Include one in a Daughter Laibon deck. Not less, not more, and remember to have a Missing Voice ready for misled mortals and beasts. -Shaman- Type: Retainer Rarity: R Cost: 1 blood Text: Unique mage with 2 life. Require a ready Laibon. This Laibon has +1 intercept. When acting, this Laibon can shuffle this retainer back into your library to get +1 stealth. Like the Necromancy card Spectral Divination, the Shaman is versatile enough to provide with either stealth or intercept - things that the Daughters aren't very good at. One doesn't have to burn the Shaman when announcing the action to get the stealth, which makes it much more survivable. On top of that, it's recyclable. The Shaman continues the fine tradition of mages and warlocks being good companions to the Daughters. -Laibon conclusion- The Laibon sect has a greater diversity on suitable sect-based cards than the other sects. There are equipment, action modifiers, Masters and vote cards. A deck with both a bleed and a vote module seem to be the best use of the Laibon cards for the Daughters, since both Kduva's Mask and Ancestor Spirit gives +votes and +bleed. Team up with the Ishtarri to get some steady Laibon support. ********** Camarilla ********** Both group 2-3 and 3-4 Daughters has one inherent Camarilla vampire each; Angela Preston (group 2) and Rosemarie (group 4). The two other main ways to go Camarilla are: -Out of the Frying Pan- Type: Master, Trifle Cost: None Rarity: C Card Text: Choose a ready Sabbat vampire you control. That vampire becomes Camarilla. (His or her clan is not affected.) -Writ of Acceptance- Type: Equipment Cost: None Requirement: None Rarity: C2 Card Text: The vampire with this equipment is considered a Camarilla vampire. Out of the Frying Pan is (strangely enough for a sect which aspires to include all vampires) only usable by Sabbat Vampires. For the Daughters that means two vampires (Muse and Yseult) in group 2-3 and one vampire (Yseult) in group 3-4. Thus, a Camarilla Daughter deck would need either a mix of Out of the Frying Pan and Writ of Acceptance (perhaps an option for a group 2-3 deck) or only Writs of Acceptance, which means that 7-9 Writs have to be added for the Daughters to reliable go Camarilla early in the game, assuming that they succeed with the equipping action. Such a deck should also include flushing technology such as Specialization, The Barrens or Dreams of the Sphinx to get rid of superfluous "go Camarilla" cards. The Camarilla is considered as the strongest sect in the game when it comes to sect- and- title specific cards. Sadly, neither Justicars nor Inner Circle members are available for non-core Camarilla clans. The loss of Protect Thine Own is not heavy; it's rather the loss of the massive amount of votes brought with those titles that could make one envious. But at least being Camarilla grants protection from Protect Thine Own. The Camarilla doesn't have any cards that are obviously well suited for the Daughters, but Parity Shift, Justicar Retribution, Third Tradition: Progeny and, of course, the Praxis Seizures, are all good cards if one wants to play a Camarilla DoC deck. Command of the Harpies could be useful as well in a Prince-heavy metagame. Most of the mentioned Camarilla cards are related to titles, which indicate that a plain vote deck might be the best style for a Camarilla DoC deck. But one could choose light voting and mix it with Anathema+trap+Fortitude combat and perhaps some Death of the Drum. Archon or Blood Hunt could be used for permarush. The Daughters don't have any way to counter Strike: Combat ends, so the Anathema should be put on a vampire without such capabilities. ----------------- Deck of the Month ------------------ Deck name: Tourist Daughters in Mozambique Created by: Hyllan Description: A multi-task bleed- and vote deck which attempts to see what can be done with Laibon Daughters of Cacophony. Crypt: (12 cards) ---------------------------------------------- 1 Shasa Abu Badr cel for PRE 5 Ishtarri 1 Ubende for obf qui CEL PRE 7 Ishtarri (Magaji) 1 Falhu Shibaba ani CEL CHI FOR PRE 8 Ishtarri (Magaji) 1 Honorine Ateba cel nec FOR PRE 6 Ishtarri 2 Sayshila dem FOR MEL PRE 7 Daughters of Cacophony 2 Yseult FOR MEL PRE 6 Daughters of Cacophony 2 Antoinette Dubois for mel PRE 4 Daughters of Cacophony 1 Rosemarie mel FOR 3 Daughters of Cacophony 1 Aimee Laroux for pre 2 Daughters of Cacophony Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (16 cards) 4 Blood Doll 3 Perfectionist 1 Ancestor Spirit 1 Paris Opera House 1 Bastille Opera House 1 Specialization 1 Conductor 2 Minion Tap 1 Creepshow Casino 1 Powerbase: Tshwane Action (16 cards) 8 Mozambique Allure 2 Concert Tour 4 Enchant Kindred 2 Legal Manipulations Action Modifier (28 cards) 1 Strange Day 8 Freak Drive 4 Voter Captivation 7 Bewitching Oration 2 Awe 2 Aire of Elation 4 Missing Voice, The Political Action (14 cards) 2 Overseer 2 Eldest Command Undeath, The 8 Kine Resources Contested 2 Conservative Agitation Combat (9 cards) 7 Majesty 2 Staredown Allies and Retainers (2 cards) 1 Informant 1 Shaman Equipment (4 cards) 2 Kduva`s Mask 2 Laptop Computer Combo (1 cards) 1 Ishtarri Kholo ------------------ Playbill conclusion -------------------- Since you've read this far you've hopefully been entertained by this Playbill and been given some new ideas. New ideas are often based on old ideas, and both Forrest and I would like to give credit to our predecessors Thomas Custer and Alexander Schrijvers for their work on the early Daughter of Cacophony Newsletters, which are definitely worth checking out at The Lasombra's excellent clan pages (http://www.thelasombra.com/ClanPages/index.html). /Hyllan