Pandora 2.0 Help?

[Helm]

I'm aware that this section probably counts as the 1.5 forums, however the arsekickings that I am receiving are current and show no sign of halting before September. So I'm asking now.

With a lot of Pandora's NPE features apparently being reduced in 2.0, I picked her up to use a bit in the Beta against my regular opponent who seems set on playing Sonnia as his Master.

I think I may be slowly getting a grip on Pandora herself; her 0 action combined with Tomes give her pretty reasonable movement at the cost of cards, and once she gets into melee with opponents things can get pretty hilarious. However, my attempts to get Misery working across the Crew using Beckoners and Sorrows aren't really working, due to Sorrows burning up in seconds. Add to this that Sonnia can deal wounds to Pandora while not actually targeting her, and I've been looking at crew wipes alongside barely being able to keep up in terms of VPs. My opponent is aware of how much movement Pandora gets when targeted by weak enemies and so doesn't bother with it, and the only thing that's stopped him utterly crushing me every game is his focus on killing the rest of my Crew. Once he works out to focus more on VPs, I'm going to have some serious issues.

Does anyone have any insight into this matchup using the Beta rules? Am I to essentially bumrush Sonnia with Pandora to stop her casting and have an unrelated crew do its thing elsewhere while Pandora is mobbed, or is there a way to make a Sorrows Brick work in 2.0?

[Gorbad]

I haven't played against Sonia so I can't say anything about that specific match-up, mm but I found a varied crew to work much better with Pandora than a whole WP/Pandora focussed crew. I typically bring a couple of sorrows with the expectation that they might need to be sacrificed at some point and try and keep them out of los. A utility model such as a Beckoner can be very useful, but you also need some melee/fast models to let the crew not be all about Pandora. And yes, sometimes it might be worth it to just ram Pandora down your opponents a throat and make him waste time killing her while you do objectives.

BTW, try out the Primordial Magic as well. It got a very useful WP attack, is much cheaper than the Poltergeist and helps with your hand.

Not really sure that's the answer you were looking for, but I found that making the crew too focus on WP/Pandora just makes it too fragile/easy to counter. You need more varied models so everything doesn't have to go through Pandora and be inside the Misery zone.

[Helm]

Thanks a lot for the advice. I've actually been playing with the Primordial Magic already, but he has the same issue as the Sorrows in that he is a low-wound model that is nicely flammable. He pays for himself in terms of card cycling by Turn 4 and helps a little with outactivating, but trying to make other models Insignificant with him tends to end poorly.

I guess I'll try more varied Crews with Pandora running headlong at Sonnia to lock her up as much as possible. Just wondered if she played at all as described in 1.5, with specific activation orders or crew combos producing insane results.

[Sklertic]

Try adding some waldgeists. They will provide cover and resilience to a somewhat fragile crew

[Gorbad]

I know some people have been having success with using incite and Candy to force activation order on the opponent. I haven't found it to work for me, but it seems to be a thing you can do. I think Pandora is less of a solo monster, she benefits greatly from a supporting crew, but you need to balance it with not having everything depend on her.

[Helm]

Haven't actually got any Waldgeists, although using Candy is something that hasn't really occurred to me before. At first glance she seemed to me to be a rather pitiful overpriced version of Pandora, although with her melee range and soulstone use I could see her as being a bit of a tarpit and Mood Swings alongside Sours could provide some hilarity. Not to mention that it could actually make sense taking her alongside Baby Kade. Thanks for the tip!

[phreaker187]

With Candy/Pandora you wait for your opponent to move a model closer, hit it with Incite, then beckon/lure it closer to Candy. You get to pick when Incite triggers so you do it at the beginning of their turn while within 3" of Candy to paralyze a target for free.

It's situational, but works great if you can lure an expensive target close enough.

[Helm]

I've actually started doing the opposite; Candy wanders into the middle of everything along with Pandora, Pandora throws about Incite to leave combat whenever she feels like, and Candy can repeatedly cast Melancholy until it sticks.

The 3" engagement ranges are a little ridiculous, and with Terrifying on Pandora and Fears Given Form on Candy my opponent soon doesn't have many cards left. Nexus of Power on Candy, Aether Connection on Pandora and 7SS combine to make the pair essentially immortal.

All in all, not a bad pairing. The rest of the crew just needs to soldier on with objectives, with Pandora wandering out to help whenever she feels like it.

[Claymore65]

To be fair, Sonnia is a pretty hard match-up. She can cancel out your suits while casting and is generally good at anti-caster matchups between the Witchling Stalker's Dispel Magic and Sonnia's own Reflect Magic, Ancient Runes and Visions of Flame. She's a highly effective anti-Pandora. Using a more varied model set with a variety of quick (or tough) attackers is a good idea. The Witchling Stalkers are strong in melee, but you can still kill them easily. Good luck, it's a hard match-up, but it's definitely winnable.

[jager3306]

I just picked up Pandora and was wondering if you have had more time to play her and see if there were anymore tweaks you might suggest

[Joel]

I've been playing a lot with her lately - probably now my favourite neverborn master. What would you like to know?

[Cornelious1424]

I've played a handfull of games with Pandora (for a change of pace) and I already feel like her play style is very much an NPE. Incite is super powerful, I almost always make sure I get my trigger off to control two of my opponents activations. This way I can guarantee my big models will be activating before theirs! In my games I usually rush Pandora to the center of the board and just melt face. It really pays to be aggressive with her, so you can start controlling your opponents activations, all the while nuking models that are imminent threats. With her defense against most duels at a 7, and Fading Memory, she really should be where you need her to be/out of harms way. I've been taking at least 2 Sorrows and staking them close to Pandora, this way my opponent really needs to really be selective about which WP duels they can afford to fail. I really like the combo of "No Body Likes Me" and Candy to auto paralyze models with Sweets. Also, "Pitty" on a solitary target to make them activate first in the turn, to take 3 damage from Sours! Like I said before, it really pays to be aggressive with Pandora and co., they benefit from being shoved down the enemies throat!!

My worst match up was against Sonnia, and I'd assume the same would be against Raspy. I guess the best adivse would be to not bunch up, that way if either of them want to put damage on Pandora, they need to target her specifically, which may result in her getting a free 4" push if they fail to land the action. I would put her on a flank and walk up until she can engage the enemy crew in melee, where you'll be a little less vulerable to blast damage.

[Joel]

I really disagree with her being an NPE - but them I've had plenty of experience of her actually being one in 1.5. Trust me, this version of pandora, while still powerful, is like comparing a care bear to a grizzly with her former iteration.

I've used almost every neverborn model with her now (just illuminated to go!) and she can be built in many ways, to get many jobs done.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Just as a point of clarity, unless they reversed the effects with the official cards, incite is used to make opposing models activate earlier in the turn, effectively, and thus to paralyze them with sweets. No body likes me makes those models effected activate after everyone who doesn't have said condition goes, and combos well with sours, for damage.

[Helm]

I'd agree that M2E Pandora isn't really an NPE. I've been playing for the last few days against my girlfriend, who's been tolerant enough to learn Malifaux; she's been using Lady J and 3 Death Marshals against my Pandora and 3 Sorrows. Pandora has been surviving far fewer matches than I've anticipated, and I've only won one game thus far.

Pandora herself is stupid fast and is really adept at slinking in and out of melee, using that 3" range to tie up enemy models. Paired up with Candy and the aforementioned activation tricks with Sweets and Sours, you can control a large board area and deal out a lot of damage quite easily.

While it's been a while since I've used Pandora in a full Crew, I've also come to appreciate Sorrows a lot more after using them exclusively in games. If Pandora stays close enough for them to consistently use Misery Loves Company, they have very decent movement. Taking Depression can also bump up the Sorrows' damage output to ridiculous heights if one or two team up with Pandora.

My housemate used to play Sonnia constantly against me, and she's definitely an issue with her indirect damage and ability to ignore Incorporeal. However, she normally plays at a 2-card deficit due to Confiscated Lore; massed fire with Depression and a couple of Terrifying models can give her crew a lot of difficulty.

[Cornelious1424]

Thanks Fetid, I had the abilities mixed. I have been playing it in the order you have, I just dont have the names down yet.

I dont know, the ability to tell your opponent when they can/can't activate their own models can become a major NPE in my opinion. People want to play with their toys, Pandora tells them when they can do it. I Played a game last Thursday against probably my groups best sportsman (takes a beating like a champ, is humble when he wins) and I could see the look of frustration on his face when his crew couldn't activate when he wanted them to. I had his Misaki crew pretty much whiped out by turn 3 (mostly cause Misaki could never activate early in the turn) including finishing off both Misaki and Yamaziko in turn 2. Also, repeating the phrase "no, activate model X instead" was getting old for both me and my opponent. Pandora still plays "Pandora" instead of Malifaux, in my opinion. Maybe its just me, but I still feel she is crazy powerful.

[Joel]

My I suggest, if you killed misaki and yamaziko in turn 2, then a lot more than incite was going on.

1) pandora is not crazy-fast turn 1 unless you are prepared to incite your own crew. If you do this you can't incite the enemy in that turn

2) or he moved a lot, straight at pandora, giving her the opportunities to hurt him. Even then, incite would have been the only issue, and he would have been out of misery range probably.

What happened to misaki and yamaziko?? Both soulstone users with decent stats, what did you do to them that killed them so fast?

What I'm trying to say is that this one game may not be typical of pandora games, and I'm not sure she is totally at fault here.

Ta,

Joel

[Fetid Strumpet]

Inciting your own crew does not speed Pandora up. Pandora only gets her fading memory push when she wins an opposed WP duel against an enemy.

[Helm]

I'd also be interested in how you managed to kill them both on T2, if only to learn how to use Pandora better. I've managed to slap down Sonnia on T2 when she decided to run into the middle of the board using all 3 AP, but two SS users in a turn seems like a good result.

As for activating models out of turn, I suppose that could feel bad for the person whose plan is being disrupted. However, looking at someone like Sonnia or LJ who would simply have removed that model from the board, surely altered activation order wouldn't be so bad?

[Mason]

What would people say is a good "core crew" for Pandora?

[Joel]

Depends if you want to go woe-heavy or not.

If you do then.

Pandora with depression upgrade (amongst others)

3 sorrows

Doppleganger

Form a solid core.

If you fancy moving I to more general minions

Pandora

Primordial magic

Teddy

Kade

Form a useful core.

[Myth]

I kinda want to try Bishop in a Pandora crew, since he can target WP with all of his attacks, and that seems like it could be effective. It also gives another decent front-line figure to get in the way, and who can both help double down on AP control (via slow and paralyze) as well as handle some threats (armor) that Pandora's normal crew doesn't have as many answers to.

[Fetid Strumpet]

If you are Woe Heavy and take the Voices upgrade then armor can't do anything to the damage from Misery.

[Joel]

May be me, but can armour do much to misery damage anyway? Misery damage is 1pt of damage from pandora (which armour can't reduce anyway) and 1pt from a sorrow (that armour can't reduce) and 1pt from sorrow number 2 (same again).

Armour reduces to a minimum of 1 damage - so why do you need voices?

[Fetid Strumpet]

I have nothing Official on this, but someone told me at Gen Con that Justin had said that effects like Misery stack their dmg into one Source that then armor can apply to. I'm not sold on it, but in the chance that that is accurate I mentioned the possible need for voices. Again keep in mind this was hearsay.