spikes

Malifaux Night every Tuesday from 1800hrs onwards @ The Card Geeks, 195 Pearl Hill Terrace.

Will be there to give you a demo and a whirl around Malifaux city.

Hit me up on PM if you're curious to find out more!

15 hours ago, Memnaelar said:

Just to be sure, it seems to say you get an alt-master for every $100 you spend before shipping/taxes -- so if I spend $200 before those things, I get two alt-masters (that I request in the comments) as opposed to needing to put in two separate orders (with two separate shippings) of over $100?

Can we get an official word on this, especially since this is a departure from previous years practice? 

Wouldn't want to be caught with any surprises after we put in the orders. 

@I'm a Teapot!  Sounds like a fun game for you (not your unfortunate opponent)! Yes, I'm thinking of using Summoning Dora like how I use Melee Dora, as a solo or small unit. Her ability to reliably summon within her own activation makes this viable. Other support models are a bit more challenging as they have difficulty keeping up with Pandora, but you can consider a Reporter since her actions are all against Wp and she can put out conditions. 

@Xaos You might have underestimated Pandora a bit. She kills faster than it appears, especially with Sorrows around. Incite and her attacks are against Wp, so they do ping Misery. Even a weak damage track on a chaff model of say 2 dmg min gets +1 for Pandora's Misery and +1 for each other Sorrow. That's a min damage of 4 if you have just one Sorrow around, pretty respectable output there. 

Region locked for android Asia / Singapore.

Hey guys,

We'll be having our next Enforcer Brawl on Saturday, 18 Nov!

Details as follows:

Location - The Card Geeks @ 195 Pearl Hill Terrace

Time - 0900 hrs

Feel free to PM me if you have any queries. See you there!

Malifaux Night every Tuesday from 1800hrs onwards @ The Card Geeks, 195 Pearl Hill Terrace.

Will be there to give you a demo and a whirl around Malifaux city.

Hit me up on PM if you're curious to find out more!

Hmm. I don't quite know how to rank the Masters since I haven't played all of them and I'm the only active NB player in my group, but I think Titania is now extremely flexible. Her new Limited upgrades add 2 very strong roles to her - one as a tank, the other as a Master/SS user hunter. She already can run scheme marker based schemes very well, so this just adds to her flexibility. So much so that now I am confident of running her reliably in a single Master tourney, and in a fixed faction tourney, I'm comfortable dropping Lilith and just bringing Titania and Pandora. 

2 hours ago, TeddyBear said:

Yes and i thank you, i like much the idea of Pandora in one quarter and Nekima in another! Do you use terror tot with sprint for take another quarter (but without engage them)?

i Know i'm little off-topic but it would be interesting how you do with Lilith..

7

I usually try to keep the tots in cover but within sufficient distance to sprint from one quarter to another. Activating them late in the turn will give you the chance to 'steal' a quarter by increasing your model count if the opponent isn't careful, or by running into a cluster of enemy models and engaging them if they positioned poorly. Both of these threats add another layer to the opponent's decisions. To deny Interference, you only need to hold 3 quarters. I see this sort of like an L shape. Pandora and Nekima will take the ends of each L, while the tots will wait in the quarter between, seeing where they need to go to swing things in your favour.

I take a similar approach with Lilith, except that it's easier for her to move things around with Transfixing Gaze (lure models to you) and Tangle Shadows (teleport Lilith up).

2 minutes ago, Adran said:

I don't build "core" lists, I make it up as I go along, so I don't have any set things. 

Pandora may not be the best master at interference, but that wasn't the question you asked, you wanted to know a way to use her. I don't see why she is much worse that several other masters at it (I don't think she is much worse than Lilith or Titania or lucius for this on the whole,). All the masters are capable of winning it, if you know Pandora well and have never played the dreamer, then you would do better with Pandora than you would with the dreamer, even though he is probably a "better master" for Reconnotre, so its a very individual thing as to what you should play each game. 

Lilitu is something I would look at for interference due to lure and 4" engagement, but it may well depend on what the board looks like. 

Effigiy is a good figure when I need body count, as are Gupps and Tots, which is one of the things I look for. I also look for Models that can play a signifigant role from my side of the board (so I can leave them in my quarters to score and they still do something), so that might be something with a ranged attack, like Tuco or Angle eyes. 

I'm starting to take a liking for Changelings. (0) for 5" place lets them have some added utility as scheme runners. 

1 hour ago, TeddyBear said:

What could possibly be (where appropriate) a good core- list for interference?

I was thinking about (i could be wrong)

- Pandora

Voices

Depression

Aether Conn.

- Primordial Magic

-Lilithu(????)

What else???

 

You don't think that other NB masters are better (then Pandora)  for interference?

 

 

 

@TeddyBear Not sure if you saw my reply previously, but I did suggest a non-thematic crew with Nekima and Tots supporting a melee Dora. That would be the Box + FGF configuration. Can't go wrong with Doppelganger too - copying Tot's Sprint can give her a potential 36" walk to hit the quarter you need. 

I'm not a big fan of lures, so Lelitu is not on my radar, but she could throw enemy positioning off depending on where she pulls them. 

Also, there are definitely other Masters who can do this better, like Lilith and Dreamer.

On a separate note, I posted a quick bat rep on my encounter with Reva. Technically, it's not really a Pandora bat rep since she doesn't do much and dies in Turn 2. Still, maybe you can get some insights into my crew building process.

17 hours ago, Treehouse said:

About 'rile them up', it frees your (0) incite for Depression if you play paralyze Pandora. Though it's not really worth it since you are paying 2ss, have one less potenial paralyze and the extra damage track is irrelevant. But it's there. 

I think a part about models amd what they can do for pandora would be nice, for example iggy chaining martyr.

 

Also, a rundow on the emissaries perfect copy ability would be great. What is good to take, what can't be taken because of timing. Armour and incorporeal are easy, but accomplice from the effigy, for example, allows you to chain activate summoned changelings. Or lelu to lure models into your hungry land marker. 'Don't mind me' is also nice. Or 'surprise'  

I really think Rile Them Up isn't worth it for 2SS. If it were 1SS, I might consider it. 

I'll get to the models part eventually, but it'll take me some time. Alternatively, anyone's free to work on it and post it here. I'll edit it into the post and credit them accordingly. In the meantime, there's still PMF and blogs. The value of posting it in a forum is to me is for the discussion.

Incidentally, I played summoning Dora against Reva yesterday and lost her in Turn 2. Bad play on my part, but it's also quite a bad matchup with Decaying Aura and Anna Lovelace. Total shutdown of Fading Memories and Aether Connection.

Lynch Crew Box is a pretty decent start with illuminated in them. You can flesh it out with Tots, Stitched, Doppleganger and Teddy. A little hodge podge for sure, but still very playable if you're not looking to get additional models. You could run Lilitu in place of a Beckoner for now. 

Lilith can run a similar Crew too, although you might want to expand to a more thematic crew in future. 

Both of these Crews start relatively straightforward, so are good as beginner Crews. 

Summoning Dreamer on the other hand, might require a bit more finesse, but you definitely have the models for it as mentioned by argentbadger

13 hours ago, Le gob said:

I just got my Pandora box.
Would you have some list advice for the different builds?

It'll take me some time to flesh out the rest, but I've put up Melee Dora. The list is quite generic, but feel free to ask if you have specific concerns or goals. 

@ringsnake Hey man, great work in doing up the PMF post! That's certainly an option for everyone to check out! Thanks for adding on to this post as well, I'll digest them later when I have a bit more time. Between work and Iron Painter, I'm a little swamped right now. 

@TeddyBear You can choose a different master.  

But on a serious note, while it's not her best suite, she can do it with a non-thematic Crew. One way is melee Dora and send her in to tie up one quarter on her own (killing everything there), while the rest of her crew is a motley of beaters and runners. I typically bring tots for last-minute sprints into the quarters I want, as well as a strong beater to control a quarter. Depending on the schemes, you could hold your own quarters - no one is coming in with melee Dora and Nekima guarding each quarter, or you can throw them up and hope to off-balance things by taking out their key models or weaker minions to get a  numbers advantage. 

I'm also thinking a summoning Dora can do some funky tricks with if you have a strong hand. I've had success with Dora Inciting and summoning on her turn. The fresh Sorrows can use Misery Loves Company to teleport to a different quarter for safety or contesting quarters. I've not tried this yet, but I suspect it can be quite viable. 

9 minutes ago, le_sphinx said:

@katadder @spikes thanks a lot guys! Even some basic concepts need clarification.

How did you find reporters with Pandora? Did they do something really significant? 

Recently I was thinking of purchasing one of them.

To be honest, they haven't been doing much in my games. That's partially because I've been tying things down and clearing the board much faster than expected, so the reporters end up being scheme runners more than anything else. I might swap one or both out for Insidious Madness instead. Faster and more potent shutdown by making cheating Wp duels a 2 card endeavour.

4 hours ago, Darkvenom said:

Even my card says mask.

I never noticed this difference with the book. There are no errata, and I always played assuming the card was right...

 

2 hours ago, esqulax said:

Same here. It only came up when I played against my friend who was using Pandora right after I had played her myself. I am pretty sure the double mask is the current version. 

Out of curiosity, what cards are those? I have the regular Pandora, the vintage Pandora, and the foil Pandora cards. All 3 of mine plus the book show Tomes. I also had a foil Pandora with the 'wrong' double mask trigger and was informed that it was an error. This might have came up in a forum thread, but again, I can't find it.

Anyway, without an errata, the book should be correct. So the cards are likely a misprint. 

39 minutes ago, le_sphinx said:

Seriosly? That could be really nice, but rulebook says: "An aura has the same Ht as the model it comes from, unless specified otherwise." (page 58)

Maybe that is old rulebook version? I will be happy, if auras have "unlimited" height

Auras have a limited height, as per rulebook. However, to be affected by an aura, it is not drawn from a vertical height but top-down horizontal range, so Ht becomes irrelevant. This is a quirk of Malifaux and the reason why elevation rules can be a bit confusing. There's probably a lengthier rules discussion about this in the forum elsewhere, but for now my search-fu eludes me.

19 hours ago, spooky_squirrel said:

@spikes a head's up from a Mei Feng/Foundry player:

There's a Foundry upgrade called Hard worker that lets Foundry models pitch a card as a (0) to ignore Armor and Hard to Wound with all of their attacks. Mei Feng has no competing (0) actions. You didn't run into it here, but it's something to be aware of when you're thinking about dropping Carlos into suspected Foundry crew.

Thanks. I was informed of that subsequently by the Mei player. It certainly would have made a difference! 

20 hours ago, Icarius said:

It is pinned!

Wheee! I was thinking it'd take some time as well!

6 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I'm not all that convinced by Aether Connections. You need to use a lot of Stones for prevention on that model for it to become useful.

If you don't have a full pool taking an extra Stone instead of Aether Connections seems like a better deal. That extra Stone likely deflects two damage so you need to make three prevention flips for Aether Connections to be worth if over an extra Stone. And when you take three damage, you might flip a Severe at which point Aether Connections was again useless.

Especially with Summon Pandy who is likely to stone for suits, I'm not sure that I would go for AE.

True. I find summoning Dora under less threat in my games so far. I'm used to playing her In melee Dora, which does see a lot of stone use for damage prevention.

My latest game with summoning Pandora here. Will slowly add on to the thread as I get more games in and free up more time to write.

Just to be sure, is your Ironsides post-errata? She now has in-built Tomes on her Df, which should automatically trigger Good Shot, My Turn. I forget if Viks can ignore Df triggers, but if they cannot, this should also soften them up somewhat, allowing you to finish them off even if they kill Ironsides. Pre-Wave 5, I believe most Ironsides players do expect her to die before the game is over, so just make sure she has done good work before that. 

Anyway, Viks are squishy, so what Jinn advises is very sound. Try to make them spend their alpha strike inefficiently, then counter attack. Or if you have a strong hand and stones, you can try to weather the storm with Ironsides. But with Wave 5 upgrades, Ironsides becomes much better. 

10 hours ago, le_sphinx said:

Thanks a lot for "Fading Memory" clarification! Initially I thought that all opposed duels against wp are meant in the ability!

Hopefully I didn't use this rule during my activations and didn't cheat my opponent last Saturday. My poor friend tried Gamelin for the first time and was tabled by my Pandora

She is really tanky against direct attacks and can punish for that unsuccessful tries!

Glad it helped you! Welcome to the NB faction and Pandora! It's a common mistake, I had that issue initially as well.

The reverse is also true - if you defend an attack with your Wp successfully, it doesn't mean your opponent lost a Wp duel, as for them it was probably a Ml, Sh or Ca duel. I've added this clarification to the initial post too. 

Misery Loves Company: Dora's friends to spread more sorrow!

Woes

Henchman

Candy

Enforcers

Baby Kade

Doppelganger

Iggy

Mr. Tannen

Minions

Insidious Madness

Poltergeist

Sorrow

Reporter (Guild)

Non-Woes

Barbaros

Aeslin

On 12/7/2017 at 2:16 AM, I'm a Teapot! said:

Well first of all aeslin has a claw atk targeting wp, so there is a lot of use for this in a pandora crew. She also has the passive wp duel on activation in her engagment. And I've loved Aeslin vs Tara because her (0) that discards a schememarker to generate an aura that gives enemies around her (-) to casts is brilliant vs the Nothing beast, the scion, void wretches and aionus. Also her Atks are casts and therefore ignore incorporeal.

I also like to bring her if I expect lures of any type in the enemy lines. Her other (0) just makes you immune to lures if you position carefully. Its more of a sideeffect but my opponents told me that they felt like spending stones on their belles/Lilithu/Beckoners felt pretty wasted in those games where turn 1 and 2 Aeslin protected my crew and in later turns they were already dead or lures didnt matter as much anymore. 

Aeslin does relatively weak dmg on her own, but she is phenomenal in a pandora crew in my opinion. I find myself charging a lot more with Aeslin than I use her range atk tho.

I've also started to try Vasilisa with Aeslin or Candy in a Pandora list. That trick with obeying people to disengage from pandora/aeslin/candy can wreck people so hard. Usually the enemy doesnt expect Candy or aeslin to charge you early and then I gladly stone for each obey and keep some high cards for vasilisa, because every obey is worth 3 or more wp fails for all misery auras in range. I'll even double walk aeslin into melee for this.

Pandora and Aeslin in melee with any model in the game (lets say they didnt charge, just got into melee somehow and didnt do dmg with their activations) Pandora usually summons 1-2 Sorrows early and the emissary tries to get into range and copy misery. So let's say 1 misery from pandora, 1 from a Sorrow, 1 from the emissary as a bad case scenario. Vasilisa Obeys the enemy = 3 dmg, makes the model try to walk out of engagement, you controll all flips and its pretty easy to fail them on purpose. This means 3 misery damage from Pandoras disengaging strike and 3 misery damage from Aeslins disengaging strike. 
9 times 1dmg from a single Vasilisa obey and she is free to do it a second time and normally I manage to get more then 1 Sorrow into the heat of the battle. Obviously this ignores armor, incorporeal and hard to kill.

If nothing has died to misery before, it now did and the poltergeist gets summoned. And whenever the poltergeist gets summoned in the frontline of the enemies, the pandora player has a good time.

Be aware of arcane shield and the new titania upgrade tho. =D

Limited Upgrades + Build

Melee Dora / The Box Opens: 

For 2 SS, Pandora now gains Terrifying (All) 13 and an Attack Action with triggers to force a TN 13 Horror Duel or give a condition that removes all immunity to Horror Duels and Paralyse until the end of the turn, including immunity gained from winning Horror Duels. On the surface, this looks like a great way to play Control Dora by Paralysing enemy models with Terrifying and Horror Duels. However, as these are all via simple duels, they are too indirect to give consistent results as opposed to the Voices build which pits Pandora's high Ca 7 against enemy Wp.

As such, Box is more commonly taken by Melee Dora as a defensive + situational control upgrade. In Melee Dora, the main aim of the build is to throw Pandora into the midst of the largest amount of enemies, tie them up, and inflict massive amounts of damage before she dies. While she's busy wreaking havoc, it frees up the rest of her crew to run Strats and Schemes. From this perspective, the primary function of Box in Melee Dora is to make it more difficult for opponents to take her down by making them pass a Terrifying 13 duel first. It helps to drain cards and act as a first layer of defence before the opponent can do anything.

In the same vein, a typical choice for the next upgrade is Fears Given Form. By forcing enemy models to take the Df 14 duel, it forces potential card drain or damage, making it harder to hit Pandora subsequently. The damage also nicely layers on with Pandora's passive Misery bubble, as well as offering an alternative way to hit High Wp Low Df models. 

For the third upgrade slot, Aether Connection is recommended to make Pandora more survivable. In most cases, a savvy opponent will avoid taking on Pandora and try to stall her by feeding a single model or two to tie up Pandora while spreading out the rest of the crew. However, some opponents can and will take out Pandora. While resource intensive, heavy hitters can take out Pandora in a turn or two if you are suffering a bad hand. Aether Connection helps to stall this demise and let Pandora survive into turn 3 or 4, by which her crew would have scored some VPs and denied or stalled the opponent's progress. Better yet, Aether Connection might deter some opponents from even trying to hit Pandora at all. So even if you end up not having to stone much for damage prevention, the cost invested just to make the opponent avoid Pandora is well worth it. 

A typical start for Melee Dora is to get up the field as quickly as possible, possibly spending the first 3 AP on walk actions. She can then Incite twice (with trigger) to push another 8" via Fading Memory, giving her a potential move range of 20". While not quite reaching the entire board, it should be sufficient to engage models that have moved up the board. The aim is to get engaged with as many models as possible in turn 1 to setup for Terrifying, FGF and Misery in turn 2. Also, Incite is used here primarily to move, not to control activation order. That means choosing models in range with low Wp that you are more likely to successfully Incite, over chaff models that you'd like to go first.  

Watch how your opponent deploys and position to hit the most number of models or the most critical models early. If deploying first, try to position her somewhere central to access most of the board easily. Sometimes, I like to bait shooting crews by moving her right into the middle of an open board as an easy target (make sure you have high cards in hand). The opponent might be tempted to shoot at her, allowing you to push forward even more. 

Turn 2 onwards, it is a combination of Incite to get to where you want and attacking with Self Loathing. Look at (re)positioning yourself to catch as many within your 3" bubble while moving out of engagement range with 2" melee beaters. Take out the big threats first if possible, but don't be afraid to throw Pandora into a different group of models if it stops them from achieving their Strat and Schemes. The key finesse to this build is knowing when and where to move Pandora. I have ever sent Pandora all the way to one corner to chase a single December Acolyte and deny Claim Jump. In this case, the opponent's remaining threats to my crew were too far to have an impact while none of my crew could reach there the Acolyte in time. Inflict is also a possible option if you just want to spread damage all around instead of focusing fire on a single model. It is a good way to ping damage and drain cards at the same time. 

Given the offensive nature of this build and how quickly she can take out key enemy models, opposing crews will either choose to beat on her or avoid her. In my experience, I prefer it when the opponent is running away - it forces them to play on the back foot as my single model is dictating and scattering 2-3 models, making it a worthy AP trade. It also frees up stones to do other things.
Things get a little more hairy when the opponent has 2 beaters wailing down on Pandora. Even with Aether Connection and Wp 7, she may not be able to hold for long. More so if you get caught by auras that deny SS use such as Resser's Decaying Aura or the new Wave 5 upgrade, Pact of the Grave Spirit, on Titania. In such cases, consider your approach more carefully. She will need another beater to support her and tag team the biggest threat. Alternatively, she can try to avoid the beaters altogether and chase the scheme runners (although this is less optimal). Don't be afraid to trade Pandora away if you can take out a chunk of the enemy crew!

For this build, almost any model is fair game. There is no need for a thematic crew as Pandora can play solo here. That said, I'd advice at least one heavy hitter to support Pandora or control a different flank, a few utility models that can double up as secondary beaters or scheme runners, and some cheap activation for the turns you need to wait out and position Pandora after the enemy crew. The typical Neverborn all stars team will work well in this regard - Nekima, Doppelganger, Primordial Magic, and Terror Tots. For some ranged control, a Freikorp Trapper with a Doppelganger to copy his gun can further shut down enemy movement lanes while threatening Guild gun lines. The rest of the crew can be filled out with either thematic or functional models depending on your play style and the Strat and Schemes. 

Do watch out for bad match-ups though. Von Schill and his Freikorps are largely immune to Pandora's Wp shenanigans (but not FGF), making it more challenging to deal death by Misery. Ten Thunders also tend to have high Wp (6-7) models, allowing them to better resist Pandora's advance. Ironically, Pandora's thematic crew models have a lower Wp (5), which makes them vulnerable to Obey crews or models such as Zoraida, Huggies and Yasunori. 

Melee Dora is a good place to start for a beginning Pandora player, simply because it is much more forgiving with mistakes and you only need to bother with Pandora herself when figuring out all the Wp shenanigans. The rest of the crew can be formed from a motley of non-thematic models that are best in their respective roles.

Control Dora / Voices:

Summoning Dora / Woe is Me: