Followers of Set Newsletter – Volume 5 Issue 4 Followers of Set Newsletter Vol. 5 Issue 4 Author: Daniel Figueiredo Table of Contents: 1)Introduction 2)Poll: Best 4th FoS Disicpline 3)Strategy: No Titles? Yes Votes! 4)Vampire of the Month: Sir Marriot D'Urban 5)Card of the Month: Aura of Invincibility 6)Sign-off Introduction: Hi all! As I promised you, this next newsletter is smaller than past issues. This time I will review strategies and cards for our clan that help us build political decks. While Presence as a clan discipline alone can help a lot, it does most of its job while acting and actively trying to pass referendums. As a defense against votes, Presence isn't the best bet. But then again, the FoS aren't known for their great defensive strategies. So we will be focusing on offensive vote strategies for the clan. Pretty basic stuff actually, but it never hurts to go over some strategies again. Hope you enjoy this newsletter! Poll: Best 4th FoS Discipline This time, instead of having a piece of fiction, I'll ask you readers which out-of-clan discipline the Followers of Set can benefit the most from in your opinion. 1)Auspex 2)Necromancy 3)Potence 4)Dominate 5)Thaumaturgy 6)Actually, I prefer to teach them Obeah! (yeah, right) 7)Other Strategy: No Titles? Yes Votes! Is Presence as a clan discipline alone good enough to make a strong political deck based on the Followers of Set? Well, yes and no. Yes because it is the best discipline for passing referendums you call. No because it offers not much other than Dread Gaze and the less used Treachery as weapons against other voters. Dread Gaze can actually help, since it can cause the called referendum to fail, but Treachery is more a threat than anything else, and an empty threat at that against some votes such as PTO, Parity Shift or Kine Resources Contested, that have an effect strong enough to warrant the loss a few 1pool. Further, Treachery's effects can be almost neutralized by the simple use of a Bribes card. And Bribes is available to all vampires, regardless of capacity, sect or discipline. With Presence you may be able to pass votes, but so will everyone else that is really trying. And unfortunately, unless you use Dominate as well, the FoS don't have anywhere near a good vote defense against most Camarilla/Sabbat political decks. So let's focus on the offensive capabilities of Presence and the ways it can best help our clan. Bewitching Oration and Awe are basic cards that give the acting vampire extra votes. That works the same for everyone, and they just scream to be used with Voter Captivation, which makes them worth something even if they are not needed for the referendum to pass. What about less common presence cards that help with votes? Disarming Presence can help FoS decks, reducing the amount of stealth cards you need by tapping vampires that vote against you. Disarming Presence works indeed for the FoS because, unlike Ventrue, Toreador, or Brujah and their antitribu brethren (the other clans with Presence), the FoS don't have many titled vampires. So, chances are, they will be tapping a lot more vampires than you are when using this card at inferior. It is also a free card, so if you are not using titled vampires, your weenie FoS with inferior Presence can use this card with no worry at all. Business Pressure isn't really more useful for the FoS than it is for other clans, and paying pool to gain votes is a risky proposition that can backfire and become a self-bleed, so it is best avoided. Iron Glare and Under the Skin require disciplines that the FoS don't have in great enough number to be considered useful cards for them. Outside of Presence, the FoS must rely on cards available to all vampires, Obfuscate and Serpentis don't help directly at all in the voting department. Obfuscate can give you stealth and that's about it. Serpentis can only help very indirectly if, for example, you steal your enemy's titled vampires with Temptation or Form of Corruption. Thrones Crumble and Dismemberment of Osiris can help against titled enemies, but don't have much synergy with a vote deck archetype. Speaking of Archetypes, the best one available for political decks, Guru, is not available to the FoS as a clan (Sabbat FoS vote decks, while not completely out of the question, are much more trouble than they are worth it). The next best Archetype for vote decks is Perfectionist, which helps a lot. Only the political action has to be successful, not the ensuing referendum as well, so if you are not blocked and no one plays any reaction card, you gain your blood even if your vote fails. So if you know your referendum is doomed to fail, you can at least cycle AND "hunt" in one action. To guarantee that more of your votes pass, you can include Cryptic Rider after your first referendum in a turn passes, since the political action will probably not be blocked because of your Obfuscate. Cryptic Rider is great for our clan, since we have no problem getting the action to pass, and it makes the second political action's referendum pass automatically, which means even less slots for Awe and Bewitching Oration. Add Aura of Invincibility and you need even less of those. Push the first, innocent vote with Aura, and use Cryptic Rider to nail the second, more devastating one. Nefertiti and Kay'Thall are your best friends in a FoS vote deck. Kahina makes good use of Aura of Invincibility as well since she has a built-in referendum. These tips may sound obvious, but it doesn't hurt to gather them all together in one place. Vampire of the Month: Sir Marriot D'Urban Sir Marriot D'Urban [FN:U2] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Follower of Set Group: 2 Capacity: 5 Discipline: aus obf ser PRE Independent Since this month we are focusing on voting strategies, let's take a look at the youngest FoS with superior Presence. He has all the 5 points worth of goodness he should have being a 5cap. FoS don't have many mid caps with a lot of superior disciplines, and they don't have any vampire younger than 5 with any superior disciplines. So among our brothers he is one of the most cost-effective vampires for a vote deck. Votes already have built-in stealth, so his inferior Obfuscate shouldn't be much of a problem, and in a vote deck, he should be calling a lot of political actions, and for that his inferior Serpentis won't hinder him much either. So, why exactly is he good for a vote deck? Well, for starters, he is the youngest FoS that can use superior Voter Captivation, Awe, Bewitching Oration and all the other Presence vote action modifiers. He is also the youngest FoS that can bleed/hunt/whatever to lure blockers and untap via Majesty if blocked to later call a political action. A trick that goes well with superior Majesty when you are up against a lot of permanent sources of intercept is to put a copy or two of Mask Empathy in your deck. If someone with a retainer blocks you (doesn't matter if the retainer is the source of intercept or not, but usually there is at least one), burn their retainer with Mask Empathy and then untap via Majesty as a strike. If their intercept came from the retainer, you should be much safer when calling your political action, and can always regain the blood lost to those cards with Voter Captivation. It gets even better if you are up against pesky Gangrel with Dog Packs. You will love the look on their face when you burn their puppies AND untap in the same combat. Sir Marriot has the additional advantage of having inferior Auspex, which gives you the option of canceling the referendum if something goes wrong. This is especially helpful if you are using Aura of Invincibility (more on that card below) on him. Telepathic Vote Counting makes the Aura last a lot longer on Sir Marriot. The extra Bewitching Orations and Awes that you are saving if you are using Aura of Invincibility easily make room for a copy or two of Telepathic Vote Counting if you are using auspex, and/or Mask Empathy as well, regardless of Auspex. Card of the Month: Aura of Invincibility Aura of Invincibility [Gehenna:C] Cardtype: Action Modifier Cost: 1 blood Only usable during a referendum, before any votes are cast. If this referendum passes, put this card on the acting vampire and put a counter on this card. This vampire gets an additional vote for each counter on this card in referendums he or she calls. Add a counter to this card when a referendum called by this vampire passes. If a referendum called by this vampire fails, burn this card and send this vampire to torpor. A vampire can have only one Aura of Invincibility. In past Newsletters, I have focused on the more common steal vampire strategy available to the FoS. This time we will take a look at a card that helps a lot with another strategy viable to the clan: Voting. Obfuscate guarantees that our clan can pass most political actions, but when it comes to the referendum, always relying on Bewitching Orations or Awes can be a bummer. Let's face it, the FoS can't guarantee votes without help from Presence, since they don't have many titles or permanent ways to gain votes. Going anarch and becoming a Baron can help, but that strategy is best left for newsletters specializing in anarchs. Aura can help any FoS voting deck. If you use it (with or without a Bewitching Oration or Awe), and the vote passes, it is placed on your vampire and starts giving you permanent votes. This can help decrease the number of slots in your deck dedicated to vote-pushing. Most of the time when Bewitching Oration is used, you don't need the full 4 votes it gives you at superior, and after only the initial referendum to put the Aura in play plus one more, you have a permanent inferior Bewitching Oration on your vampire. Note that Bewitching Oration, Aura of Invincibility and Awe are all cards that can only be used by the vampires calling the referendum, so direct comparison is easy. And Aura has the added benefit of not requiring any discipline at all. So while it can be put to good use on those high-cap FoS without superior Presence like Kahina, Amisa and Kephamos, in my opinion this card is better used on vampires that already have superior Presence since when you do not pass the referendum you call with it, your vampire goes to torpor (and superior Presence guarantees better chances of passing your referendum). So save the Aura for vampires with superior Presence (to use with Voter Captivation), or low caps with any or no level of Presence, since a 4 cap in torpor is much less trouble than an 8cap in torpor. In fact, weenies are perfect targets for the Aura since it does not have any restriction as to who can use it, and they are a much more expandable resource should they find themselves in torpor. Celine Chevalier, Hadrian Garrick, Khalil Anvari and even the Aabbt Kindred are all great voters with the Aura. Another good card to use with Aura is Bribes. Both require no discipline and all vampires can use them. Bribes also has an instant Blood Doll effect in this combo since the blood you use to pay when you first play the Aura is given back to you as pool because of your Bribes. This also guarantees that other Methuselah's have a better chance of voting in your favor, thus passing the referendum and strengthening the Aura. Just watch out for Dominate users (Pulling Strings and Kindred Coercion) and Ventrue antitribu (Demonstration and Quentin), the two enemies most likely to disrupt your referendum and send your vampire to torpor. Note that Delaying Tactics does not trouble you more than normal if you use Aura. Your referendum does not fail, it is merely cancelled, so don't be afraid of it. Sign-off : Hope you enjoyed this month's newsletter, and as always, your feedback is welcome. Next month I will cover more uncommon ground for the clan, and hopefully will have some fiction as well. Thanks for reading!