Tactica: Pandora

[Kealios]

My first game played was with Lilith and she was fun, but I want a little more trickery up my sleeve.

That being said, my next attempt is going to be Pandora. She just seems so cool. I wanted to raise my ideas for a force and see what other synergies you all have had luck with.

Basically, with Pandora, anything that causes WP duels is good. I can see her using "Pity" from Project Emotions alot. This comes in direct form like Pandora's Expose Fears, but others have their tricks as well:

*Poltergeist's Persistent Distraction or Tantrum

*Terrifying (Bad Juju, Baby Kade with KGAK!

*Harmless (Candy

*Pacify (Candy, Pandora) or Incite (Baby Kade, Pandor)

*Candy's Wail ranged attack or Self-Loathing (Pandora as well)

*Lure (Baby Kade)

*Sorrow's Emotional Distress

One of the nasty things I see Sorrows doing is gang-tackling a model and Linking to it en masse. Thereafter, they dont need to worry about moving or chasing the target, but can focus on other nasty tricks. Maybe one casts Doldrums and the others hit the same target with Melancholy and Siphon Magic. You get 3 Sorrows on one target, make sure the target is in range of Pandora, and you have one dead target in no time. If it fails even one WP Duel at (-), thats 4 damage from Pandora and the 3 Sorrow's Emotional Stress/Trauma. I wonder if 3 Sorrows linking to the same target will deal 3 damage to that target at the beginning of its activation through Life Leech, or just 1?

Since Candy and Baby Kade are Woes and fit so well with Pandora's love of WP Duels, they are a must. Kade is actually one of the Neverborn's nastiest Close Combat beasties, I think, with both CB and DF of 7, and Sweetbreads and Backstab to add heavily to his damage.

Teddy is likely the best tank we have, or at least a close tie with Bad Juju, but his synergy with Baby Kade is priceless to keep your Terror In Diapers out of too much trouble. Keep Candy back for some nice healing.

This isnt a really original list, and there isnt a ton of options in it. Against Constructs you might have problems (actually this is more of a certainty, I think). It has some decent Melee weapons to fall back on if the WP Duels arent working.

How do you improve on this list? What tricks do I not see?

[Peterdita]

"I wonder if 3 Sorrows linking to the same target will deal 3 damage to that target at the beginning of its activation through Life Leech, or just 1?"

Under the "link" 0 ability it says you can only link 1 at a time.

Sounds like you have a great scouting report on that army right there. Don't forget about martyr. You can sluff damage into the sorrrows from the linked model. So I can have a tough time cracking into kade's df7, and when/if I do, if he's linked to a sorrow, a much weaker sorrow takes the damage. Try and get opponent to attack kade/candy/pandora etc, with higher Df/WP, and then you can dump the damage on the sorrows.

"Sorrow Shields"

[goblyn13]

Also Don't forget about Pandora's Dementia, best way to make your opponent kill himself slowly.

Use Project Emotions, to get Pity off, then cast Dementia on the target that is suffering from Pity and WHAM! every action it makes needs to make a WP-> 13 duel just to even do anything (and this includes passing)

And don't forget, every WP duel she wins she gets pushed 4" thanks to Fading Memory

Edited August 23, 2009 by goblyn13

[EricJ]

"Only one model may be linked to at a time" this means the Sorrow may only link to 1 model, not that the model may only have 1 sorrow linked to it.

Also due to the fact that Emotional Stress is an instantaneous effect, not one that needs to be constantly in effect on the model to work, it means that yes, a model with 3 sorrows linked to it would take 3 wounds on a failed WP test.

[goblyn13]

"Only one model may be linked to at a time" this means the Sorrow may only link to 1 model, not that the model may only have 1 sorrow linked to it.

Also due to the fact that Emotional Stress is an instantaneous effect, not one that needs to be constantly in effect on the model to work, it means that yes, a model with 3 sorrows linked to it would take 3 wounds on a failed WP test.

Add in being within 12" of Pandora, and suffering from Pandora's failed WP duels cause one wound, and you can kill off small stuff in a hurry.

[EricJ]

or you could just rely on all their melee attacks?

I'm bad at playing a Pandora Crew

[Kealios]

OK, Eric, thats the confirmation I needed - having 3 Sorrows gang up on one poor soul, combined with Pandora, equals 4 damage every time that poor soul fails one of the many required Willpower Duels it will need to be making

And the melee attacks are just the icing on the cake - the threat that causes models to avoid getting stuck in, which will lure them into making WP tests for all sorts of things....muahahaa!

I will likely suck at Pandora early on, but am looking forward to the practice!

[Kealios]

How do you deal with the fact that 50% of our opponents are immune to WP Duels, such as Res Undead and Arcane Constructs?

[goblyn13]

How do you deal with the fact that 50% of our opponents are immune to WP Duels, such as Res Undead and Arcane Constructs?

The Box Opens, causes all opponents within 12" to lose all immmunities to willpower dueals.

[chaos45]

We played several games of malifaux this last weekend, and from the showing this set seemed the weakest of the 8 different starters we played with.

All those willpower duels sound like they will work but when faced with an army that can sit back and shoot alot all it equals is a quickly dead force. As they can focus on killing all of pandoras minions very quickly before having to worry about making willpower checks to shoot her.

Also Blast attacks can still hit Pandora without even targeting her so just blast her minions and chain the blasts into her seemed to work really well. In the game we played this entire team was wiped out in pretty much 2 turns doing almost no damage in return.

Just our little experience with this force so far. Lilith, seamus, and criid did the best of the teams we played all weekend.

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

All those willpower duels sound like they will work but when faced with an army that can sit back and shoot alot all it equals is a quickly dead force. As they can focus on killing all of pandoras minions very quickly before having to worry about making willpower checks to shoot her.

Also Blast attacks can still hit Pandora without even targeting her so just blast her minions and chain the blasts into her seemed to work really well. In the game we played this entire team was wiped out in pretty much 2 turns doing almost no damage in return.

For one, The Box opens has a range of 12" and most ranged weapons are 10" or less.

Secondly, Expose Fears has no range limitation. You will always have to make a Wp test to target Pandora.

Thirdly, yes you can hit her with blast damage, but se can shunt that damage to a Woe in base contact.

What you see as weakness, I feel, is actually just a need to learn how she works. She's not the weakest Master, just one with a higher learning curve.

[chaos45]

yes it is range 12, but you still have to cast spells on the enemy models to make them make WP checks and many of the spells take at least one action, plus you will often have to move at least 1 action.

So in a game with missions such as take and hold, assassinate, recon, grab the box... the enemy can wait for you to walk into kill range and then just unload with ranged damage before you can get many casts off.

Try pandora against Criid lol.....reflect magic minions, and her ability to just cancel spells within 3" = game over before it starts.

Just our experience so far

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

Try pandora against Criid lol.....reflect magic minions, and her ability to just cancel spells within 3" = game over before it starts.

I have. :

[goblyn13]

yes it is range 12, but you still have to cast spells on the enemy models to make them make WP checks and many of the spells take at least one action, plus you will often have to move at least 1 action.

So in a game with missions such as take and hold, assassinate, recon, grab the box... the enemy can wait for you to walk into kill range and then just unload with ranged damage before you can get many casts off.

Try pandora against Criid lol.....reflect magic minions, and her ability to just cancel spells within 3" = game over before it starts.

Just our experience so far

Well Expose Fears makes you have to make an opposed willpower duel, if you target Pandora for any reason, Fading Memory makes it so that every time Pandora wins a WP duel she moves 4", Open the Box negates willpower immunities and then her other ability says everytime opponent loses WP duel, they suffer a point of damage.

[Kealios]

I can see that her crew isnt easy to learn. I think subtlety is required, which is one reason it is so appealing.

That being said, any melee group stands to get shot up by a shooty army as they cross the board, and with some cool Melee units, Pandora isnt totally shut down if their spells arent being effective.

Thanks for the tips, Goblyn and WS.

[goblyn13]

I can see that her crew isnt easy to learn. I think subtlety is required, which is one reason it is so appealing.

That being said, any melee group stands to get shot up by a shooty army as they cross the board, and with some cool Melee units, Pandora isnt totally shut down if their spells arent being effective.

Thanks for the tips, Goblyn and WS.

The other thing to remember is Kade and Candy have Harmless, and they can reactivate it (candy has a spell, Kade has a trigger) which was made to give them both a chance to get through range and into melee. And while its not in the crew, Teddy Rocks!!

[AoM]

I'm bad at playing

fixed it for you.

[Isoulle]

yes it is range 12, but you still have to cast spells on the enemy models to make them make WP checks and many of the spells take at least one action, plus you will often have to move at least 1 action.

So in a game with missions such as take and hold, assassinate, recon, grab the box... the enemy can wait for you to walk into kill range and then just unload with ranged damage before you can get many casts off.

Try pandora against Criid lol.....reflect magic minions, and her ability to just cancel spells within 3" = game over before it starts.

Just our experience so far

I think Pandora's battle box has a bit of a hard time with Sonnia. However Pandora with some proper army tweaking works well. I find her starter box is a little too focused and this results in it doing really well in some matchups and really bad in others (As specialized armies tend to do). Thankfully there are plenty of models in the army to fix this (Teddy, Mature Neph, Young Neph, Silurid, Ju Ju just to name a few) and with proper army balancing she can deal with most lists.

[chaos45]

I understand most of the arguements you are guys are saying is supposed to make Pandora cool, and I think vs a melee army you are correct. However against an army that can sit back and shoot and with resonable success drop 2-3 blast templates per spell and throw that spell several times per round she dies in quick order.

Even being able to move the damage to the woes doesnt help due to the fact that they are taking the blast damage as well so they just die all the faster leaving you with only your master on the table.

The issue is you can just kill all her other models then worry about the WP checks to kill her, and in the instance of criid a couple key spell reflects from her minions or auto counterspells can spell your doom.

In the game we played a spell reflect pulled (Allure I think was the spell he tried to use)baby Kade to to the criid team who them wiped him out solo in quick order then used Samuel to mow down Candy with his RoF of 3 with flaming bullets, then finished off the round with tons of fire blast attacks from criid, and using her totem. Game was over before it even really started.

Harmless is well about harmless...most guild only need like a 6 to beat it. Not one attack was stopped from harmless.

Maybe in larger games Pandora shines IDK, but in 25 SS games she seems pretty weak. General opinion from the 5 of us around the table playing was she was very weak in comparision. THe sorrows while having some cool abilities, have to use 1-2 actions to use most of them. So if you have to move you cant use paralize thus limiting their use alot vs Guild teams which pretty much all have guns of roughly range 10 plus range 10 spells. Given we dont have all of the starters as of yet but we played with 7 different starters multiple games over 2 days as I was teaching some friends the game. Which they all loved but Pandora was avoided like the plague very quickly after this game.

Maybe once Teddy is released luck will improve with this team, as him with Kade should be cool...however we dont like to play with proxies unless we absolutely have to such as with liliths team, but we have alot of normal size demon models from other games we sub'd for that till they release the immature nephs.

[EricJ]

I totally agree that Pandora isn't for everyone, and other than Leveticus, probably the most difficult and unforgiving master to play. This is exactly as we planned for her actually, to make a master that would be much more of a challenge to play. Some people like the challenge, others don't, but the advantage of releasing the book with 15 different masters, it gave us the freedom to take 2 of them and put a different twist on them. There are plenty of other choices for those who want other play-styles

[Isoulle]

I understand most of the arguements you are guys are saying is supposed to make Pandora cool, and I think vs a melee army you are correct. However against an army that can sit back and shoot and with resonable success drop 2-3 blast templates per spell and throw that spell several times per round she dies in quick order.

Even being able to move the damage to the woes doesnt help due to the fact that they are taking the blast damage as well so they just die all the faster leaving you with only your master on the table.

The issue is you can just kill all her other models then worry about the WP checks to kill her, and in the instance of criid a couple key spell reflects from her minions or auto counterspells can spell your doom.

In the game we played a spell reflect pulled (Allure I think was the spell he tried to use)baby Kade to to the criid team who them wiped him out solo in quick order then used Samuel to mow down Candy with his RoF of 3 with flaming bullets, then finished off the round with tons of fire blast attacks from criid, and using her totem. Game was over before it even really started.

Harmless is well about harmless...most guild only need like a 6 to beat it. Not one attack was stopped from harmless.

Maybe in larger games Pandora shines IDK, but in 25 SS games she seems pretty weak. General opinion from the 5 of us around the table playing was she was very weak in comparision. THe sorrows while having some cool abilities, have to use 1-2 actions to use most of them. So if you have to move you cant use paralize thus limiting their use alot vs Guild teams which pretty much all have guns of roughly range 10 plus range 10 spells. Given we dont have all of the starters as of yet but we played with 7 different starters multiple games over 2 days as I was teaching some friends the game. Which they all loved but Pandora was avoided like the plague very quickly after this game.

Maybe once Teddy is released luck will improve with this team, as him with Kade should be cool...however we dont like to play with proxies unless we absolutely have to such as with liliths team, but we have alot of normal size demon models from other games we sub'd for that till they release the immature nephs.

Truth be told, in 25 point games I don't tend to run any sorrows, and in larger point games only a few. They're good models, but support units and like any support unit you don't want to spend a lot of points on them. I'd seriously advise trying her with more big angry units. She really needs to run some speed melee units to get in and start killing stuff. Sonnia requires fast engaging to beat as she has lots of range attacks and blast templates

[Brasidas]

After taking on an Ortega starter with a Pandora starter a couple times now, I offer the following tidbits:

1. Pandora can probably take one round of shooting from Perdita, don't push your luck and try to survive two rounds. Perdita, due to her See the Unseen ability must be your priority. Do whatever it takes to remove her in one round, if at all possible.

2. Because so many of our models have Martyr, it's tempting to clump them together. Beware the Papa Loco suicide run--you don't want to lose your Sorrows to him, you want to use your Sorrows to make Perdita pay for losing those Wp tests (in addition to making her shoot herself, of course).

[Kealios]

Do whatever it takes to remove [Perdita] in one round, if at all possible.

Other than making her shoot herself with Candy, Pandora and maybe a Totem, what have you found to be your most effective way of isolating her and dropping her quickly? I am taking Pandora out for the first time tomorrow night...

[Brasidas]

Other than making her shoot herself with Candy, Pandora and maybe a Totem, what have you found to be your most effective way of isolating her and dropping her quickly? I am taking Pandora out for the first time tomorrow night...

Getting Kade into combat did the job once. If you can get a couple Sorrows around her being able to add an extra 2-3 points of damage every time she fails a Wp duel will add up quick.

I failed to concentrate against her last night, and left her with 3 health remaining for her to take that second round of shooting against Pandora.

[Isoulle]

Other than making her shoot herself with Candy, Pandora and maybe a Totem, what have you found to be your most effective way of isolating her and dropping her quickly? I am taking Pandora out for the first time tomorrow night...

If you're willing to proxy/use non-boxset models. Bad JuJu, Mature/Young Neph, Hooded Rider and the Silurids can all engage her quickly and most of those models hit like a ton of bricks...