karn987

I've been playing Levy for a while, I've gotten really good at keeping my Waifs safe. If Slurids or something quick want to press me, you kill them. Its that simple, Levy is the strongest single target model in the game. He can easily wipe them out. A good opponent has nothing to do with this. I can literally keep them in places the enemy can not get to without going through Levy and the crew. He has the range, the power, and the crew has the maneuverability to catch and kill any flankers. If you know what your doing with Levy, you don't lose many Hollow Waifs. Infact the only time I lose them is the same time I lose Levy and most of my crew. *shrugs* It's not that hard to protect them like this.

Sketch strikes again! +1 cookies That will 100% change how Levy goes through his usual turn as you can generally ignore having to get any more then just 1 Waif. Infact the only time I get another is by consiquence and never really because I wanted one. This will be interesting indeed....

For Pandora there are several things you always want to make sure you have. 1) Sorrows: These guys are a near must for you as they greatly increase your damage potential and protect Pandora through Martyr. 2) Wp duel causing crew: You want your crew to be centered around causing Wp duels in whatever form. Moral Duels, Attacks that resist with Wp, Wp resist spells, etc. The more you have the better off you are. 3) Don't forsake 1 melee beatstick: I've played way to many games with her and nearly every game I have seen the extreme value a single melee beatstick can bring to her. If nothing else, it can die while you setup your web of effects. At best it can nom the face of anything in it's way. I recommend Kade or Teddy for this (Kinda obvious choices but hey). Teddy being my first choice do to his supperior power and the Terrifying he has. Kade is a greate choice though if your low on points, always go for the sweatbreads trigger with him. But otherwise, experiment a bit. For things like Reconoiter and any board control type scenarios, just carefully choice your Schemes and you can off set your base sets disadvantage. Then all you have to focus on is making them and deny the opponent theirs (something Pandora is great at). Remember, a dead enemy can't do jack ;D. But otherwise, have fun!

Exactly. As it is right now, things work. *shrugs* I'd take that any time I can get it ;D

Agreed 100%. Wyrd did a very good job for a while with keeping all the errata in one place but its time to re-consolidate. Sneak errata's like this are VERY VERY BAD. I would never have noticed probably unless for some reason I needed to look at the exact text of the ability again as I had it memorized. So please, consolidate the errata and all the various updates please! Its best for the game and easier on the players.

Wow and ick at the same time.... that means you can't easily bring reserves up with your desolation Engine. >< Though for the best though, no more clinging to the rider and yelling "HI HO SILVER, AWAY!". Yeah they can still make it way up the board, the classic strategy is the 4 man rotation for helping them get up field and it still works fine. Then at the end you summon the Desolation Engine and everything is pie.

They are just some additional models that Wyrd produces. As far as I know, they are not for Malifaux or any game that I'm currently aware of.

Nice man, they came out rather well. This is your first time ever painting a mini? You should be proud of those.

Exactly, and thats the point I was trying to make. The broad statement he made was not accurate. People who say she is easy to kill probably play one of these crews and builds frequently enough that they have this impression of her. But at the same time, as I said, there is the vast majority of models out there who are at a disadvantage vs her. I was just bringing focus back to the fact there are crews who are good vs her.

Actually she can be really easy to kill. I know because I play her way to much. So back the truck up a bit man and think about it. She is easy to kill if you have blasts, auras, or pulses that deal damage. Then all you have to do is hit the things next to her with the blasts and chain the damage onto her or just pulse/aura. She won't survive many of them and Raspy can easily drop her in about 2 hits if she hits severe damage with all of her buffs in place. Shatter works nicely to as does exploding spiders etc. So she is easy to kill if you know what your talking about the right things. Don't jump the gun so quickly. For some crews and models she is easy to kill, but for most she is very hard to kill. But still, you don't need to go blasting people ok? ;D

Pandora is one of the hardest masters to go against and to play correctly. She is complex and all her abalities are hit or miss. If they work, she is deadly. If they don't, she is easy to kill. As for Viktoria herself vs Pandora, I don't have much for you. She doesn't have a ton that is especially useful against Pandora, not many people do. The best thing I can say is threat saturation. Give Pandora to many targets to deal with at once and don't let her easily pick off your crew one by one. This is what she really wants to do, single you out and take you down while spreading her web over the rest of the crew. But against Pandora in general, here are the major points to always consider. 1) She is completely reliant on the Wp stat. So look for models with high Wp and Stubborn if you can. Models with low Wp are just going to get bowled over by her and her web of abilities. A note though, PANDORA STRIPS IMMUNE TO INFLUENCE WITHIN 12" OF HER. To many people forget this when going against her. The ability is useless vs her most of the time. 2) Pandora is really weak in combat, but some of her crew isn't. Kade and Teddy are extremely deadly in melee so always keep an eye out for them. If you get the chance, focus fire and kill these two asap. Generally they serve as her vanguard or a flanking force held in reserve long enough to make sure your offense is crushed. 3) 12" is her zone of doom. Inside it she can do what she wants to you. But if you are outside it, your safer. Try to avoid this zone. This isn't always possible as a good Pandora player will never let you out of it if you want to do anything. 4) When Pandora starts her Pacify/Incite train accross the board, stop it. Seariously, these are free Wds she is doing to you and screwing up your activation order. But worse! She is pushing 4" each time she does one of these to you. She can cover most of the field very quickly if you let her. So stop it on the first one if you can. Pandora players hate using an Ap to move because pacify/incite is a free move essentially for her. So bait her with a wp 6-7+ model just barely in her 12" range and try to shut down the chain right then an there. Cheat high and hope for the best. 5) She relies completely on spells. So models who can counter spell are a blessing against her. 6) Blasts. Blasts. Blasts. Pandora can't defend herself against a blast that is caused off of her other models. (hint hint, the sorrows around her are low Df and rather easy to hit ;D). That and Pulses and Aura's. Anything that doesn't have to target her to get her is what you want to go for. 7) Kill the sorrows asap. They give her Martyr to use and greatly increase her damage potential. They can also be a HUGE pain in the ass with link shinanigans and the ocassional paralyze they can pull off. Otherwise, it's just general tactics that you need to figure out. Viktoria is a cool master and there are tons of tactica threads on her. Have your Viky player read them and just try to figure out the best things you can do. But vs Pandora, your a bit SOL. Crews and Masters are not 100% effective vs all other crews and masters. Viky is dangerous and Pandora will do everything she can to stay away. You can try to hit her with Ranged and just hammer her. Or you can go in with heavy hitters and try to nail her. She is really squishy when you can finally get to her. But as of right now, Viky's choices are a bit limited and it's just a bad match up. Sure you can get wins, Im not saying you cant, but its not easy. Focus your attacks and try to kill her crew before you go after her. Especially the Sorrows, get them ASAP. For a bit of reference, Im a Pandora player. She is my primary master and I've put probably to much time into playing her ;D So this is all from the view of a Pandora player and what hurts them the most.

Tenabrae makes a very good point in that you don't need 4 SPA's right off the bat to get good uses out of them. Infact, Levy's crew is designed in such a way as to allow you to function with none at all and still make use of them. With the number of ways Levy, Alyce, and the Engine can make SPA's you have no issue getting more bodies out. The biggest issue becomes in small games where if you do not take 4 spa's (btw you should never hire a Desolation engine, hire the SPA's instead and just make it after you've hop, skipped, and jumped your way up the field using the rotational group method) what are you doing with the rest of the points to justify not taking them? If you take only 2 or 3 of them, then you should try to get your 3rd and 4th one asap if possible. But you need to protect the ones you already have and this can be tricky. Avoiding LOS is the best way to do this. Levy can make them rather easily through a few of his spells and as usual, who cares if he dies doing it. Alyce can make some but it costs her a lot to pull it off. Levy's spell that grants the trigger is another good source of them on models like Bette Noir etc etc. Basically if your not taking one of his models, whatever your taking better be a powerhouse and can make use of that trigger quickly. But focusing on the SPA's and Engine life cycle isn't the only way to play. I've done effective lists with only 2 at the start and slowly churned out more as I carefully grinded through the game. Cheat self destruct units like the spiders work great because you can claim their remains as yours and build an SPA you need. So nothing wasted! The point is, you 100% don't need to take 4 spa's to use them. Its simply just not true. It forces you to think differently and play a different style, but taking 2 -3 of them is a very viable strategy. Heck taking none of them works well at times to because it gives you a late game Desolation Engine and thats the beauty of Levy's crew. Taking 2 SPA's and some disposible, but effective troops lets you hit in waves. A lighter wave to wound them and shake them up and then the heavy wave which hopefully cracks their skull.

Pandora straight out of the box doesn't need any added models at all. Her battle box is probably her strongest and most balanced list you can find. Literally, you don't need to buy anything else for her. Even her totem is meh and she functions possibly better by having the added SS.

It all depends on what you want your levy list to do. I run a very vanilla Levy list. Levy, Alyce, and SPA's make up the entire thing and then I use the Desolation bomb tactics with Levy and Alyce supporting. Remember one thing, Levy WILL kill anything you focus him on. If you can push the resists to high (ie use ss) then they are hosed. Your most potent spell is the half wds +1 spell. Use that liberally and get them down in the 1 - 2 wd range so you can just outright kill them with no chance of a resist. Or use your other spells to get SPA's and Waifs etc from them. But the key thing to remember is, your waifs come back. Just keep them safe. Hide them in a building nearby, out of LOS etc, just keep them safe. Its really not that hard to do. Don't even bother thinging about using their abilities, it only gets them killed. I prefer this list: Levy (0) Alyce (9) 5 SPA's (15pnts) Then that gives you 6s in a 30ss game. Drop a SPA for a 25ss game and you have 4ss. A little less SS then I would like, but it works very well as long as your strat doesn't require you to have several non-insig models your golden. Especially in multiplayer games, your in a good situation. Ive gotten 2 almost 3 desolation engines up during multiplayer games before. Just remember to be careful when you need to be and DONT try to kill Levy every turn if killing him would be a bad thing for you. There are some times that killing him is not a good idea (ie you ahve a good hand, or Levy has the Treasure etc). Just dont focus to much on Levy dieing each turn. He does it rather well to himself without a ton of effort.

Really? They used to be on the big Pandora tactica thread burried some where near the start (first 4 pages somewhere in there I think). Well Ill see if I can find them if not I guess Ill repost heh.

Nope I didnt! Missed it completely, just sorta stopped checking that post for updates are a while ><. But I was at least doing something right! Just not all of it like I thought >.> Nicely though, it really doesn't effect how Im used to playing her except now I don't have to save the 1 ap for the Wk at the end of the turn. This is actually a good bit stronger now I think. (yeah I thought I was up to date on it all, I feel a little stupid for missing it >.>.)

Wow I missed that it was updated. I just got so used to nothing changing on it I guess I stopped checking it heh. Thank ya sketch.

What addition to the errata? As far as I know, the fix for push is still not out yet though it is coming soon I know that. Can you link me to it as I've not been able to find it?

You could do it before? >.> I never knew that. Playing her as I have (without doing it on friendly models) Ive only lost a few of my games with her. She is still one of the strongest masters in the game and has one of the most potent crews out there. The new link changes actually work better in her favor I think. Its a nice change IMO. But yeah she didn't really lose anything significant I think unless people were really depending on that bit of an abuse with pacify and incite. She is still an incredibly hard master to beat. Plus she is still more mobile then any other master out there if she gets into range of the enemy crew (which she will always do because her effective range is 10 - 12" all around generally). So *shrugs* she is still epicly powerful I think and this change to link works much better then it was I think. I rarely ever lose with her so yeah, Im doing something right ;D

Huh, some how the Hooded Rider never crossed my mind to use with levy >.> Not sure why... good call Tenabrae.

No its not a might, it will be changing. From what I understand, it wont be breaking the original movement strategy either because thats the intended. Im guessing the fix will simply be to add it what push used to have, a model that is pushed is not considered moving for effects that trigger on movement. Or something along those lines. But yes, you do make the valid point that it has not happened yet. But there is no sense in trying to help someone by recommending a strategy that isn't supposed to exist, is an abuse of the rules, and is going to be errata'ed away very soon.

Well for hte Desolation bomb to work, they all need to be in b2b with the last one that moves. But as I said, forget about the train. Its going away and its a break in the rules and should really not be used. It's an unintended abuse.

They all have their use and yes the SPA's arent the best if you need to hold a lot of objectives. But they are the best for killing and if you only need to hold one area. Like Land Grab and the Treasure scenario. Just have Alyce or Levy worry about getting them. Or have a desolation engine do it. Only reconoiter is a pain in the but for a Vanilla Levy crew. But thats fine, a few other units and your more then good to go. But again, its your own play style that really matters. I like the theme Levy stuff so I've learned to use it to maximum effect ;D

Well I mean the cluster SPA tactic, the train is an over-sight in the rules that is going away very soon. I would honestly stop even thinking about it, I have since I learned about it heh. The real blitz tactic is the 4 man cluster that you revolve each one around. A B C D They are all in B2B, SPA A moves and does the no target thing puting D upfront. Then D moves and does the no target thing. Both of these take the rest with them because they are all in b2b. Now there is no way to move B and C and take the entire group at once. So you move B and take A and then you do C and take D and put them all back into b2b and then make the Desolation Engine. That is the old way of doing and the way of doing it without the abuse of the current push description. The current SPA "train" will be going away soon, it will be fixed as its an over-sight from the errata. But thats the tactic I mean, forget about the train as its not even supposed to be possible.

It depends on what you want. I dont use Arachnids unless I have a movement based Strategy and even then I dont use them much. SPA's can go very fast but in a cluster and the Desolation Engine is walking death for any crew so I prefer to start with 4 SPA's so I can bring it out when I want it. But thats me, everyone has their own opinions and you have to find your own play style. If your looking for strong combinations, the SPA's are probably the best you will get because of the Desolation bomb stragey and their synergy with Levy. But others work nearly or as well to. What do you want to do with your crew?