Gaston

Serena somehow makes like 90% of my crews for healing, as she is awesome. When I do the two corpse trick, I usually don't hit the same target twice, but set myself up to attack two different models. Usually it is weak damage, and the Shaman auto-heals all the models with Blood Clot. The Lucius crew has an easy number of backline models to pick on, Changelings, Scribe, Lucius, Investigator. It is whatever suits my deployment. I don't usually worry over much about masks in the crew, as you have a 7 card hand and a decent amount of keyword card draw. The nice thing about the Shaman is that it can really go in any crew. Works great with Euripides.

It does suck to give it up, but the "perfect" play is to charge the BBS up a bit turn 1, use two masks to make two corpses. Pop the Ritual, give out 6-8 Focus. Next turn, you already have the corpse, so you pop the Ritual first (usually you don't get the whole crew as you have spread out at this point), grow up, then have 2 AP to play with as a Mature. Movement wise, you also have Entourage, Issue Command from Lucius (including Under Pressure), Issue Command from Changelings, Obey from Lawyers, and Stand Back, It's Evidence from Investigators. The crew does have a lot of "micro-movement" in order to make up for missing out on Fly with Me for 2 turns. So to me, you give up 1 Turn of a Mature in exchange for 8-12 Focus (position dependent obviously). Given that Concentrate is a 1 AP action, you have really netted a huge AP benefit. Also, I think there is a tendency to commit Mature's too early anyway, they are a bit squishy, so it helps to self-regulate, at least for me.

FWIW I prefer BBS over Mature. Cheaper, you get to pulse out focused and still get a Mature Turn 2.

@Sol_Sorrowsong Since the TN of the Mv Duel is based on your own duel, Euripides can use a single 13 twice (Old Ways) to pop 4 damage on a model with a TN 19 Mv Duel (hard to pass).

Turf War Breakthrough Harness the Leyline Take Prisoner Dig Their graves Vendetta The Dreamer, 8ss -Lord Chompy Bits Daydream -Ancient Pact Daydream -Ancient Pact Serena Bowman Widow Weaver Bandersnatch Another master whom I just haven’t played all that much is the Dreamer. While I know that Lucid Dream spam is really, really strong, I just can’t quit the really cool Henchman and Enforcers that the Nightmare keyword has. Ancient Pact on the Daydreams is pretty nice, as you can sit them way far in the back and generate some card draw and easy Lucid Dreams. Basse, 2ss -Bernadette Paul Crockett Pathfinder Pathfinder Brutal Emissary The Jury Pale Rider Turn 1 Summary He caps his markers easily due to the extra deployment, my Daydreams push up Coppelius and Widow Weaver. Crockett takes a bead on Coppelius and blasts him with a Red Joker on damage. Serena is able to heal him just for 1 Wd. Weaver flips her marker, then lays a web marker. Rider rides up, shoots Coppelius, injured and staggered. Coppelius flips his marker and gets outta dodge, but then Basse uses Caught in Quicksand to pull him right back out. Bandersnatch pops over to a web, attacks and Red Jokers a Pathfinder, then does 2 damage and poison to another one, but fails to bury. Brutal Emissary comes in on it and does 3 damage to the spider. Dreamer pops Chompy up to the Jury, the Jury Obeys Chompy away, so Chompy puts two sings onto the Emissary. Pathfinder dies to poison. Turn 2 Summary Coppelius kicks it off to charge in on Crockett before he dies, 4 damage in two swings (opting not to trigger Ahh, My Eye in order to stay engaged). Serena goes in and misses as well, heals Coppelius. Rider does Ride with Me on Basse, takes some shots somewhere. Dreamer comes in, kills Crockett, gives shielded and a push to everyone. Basse beats up on Coppelius, Bernadette too. It’s a big mess over there. Chompy, Weaver, Emissary just keep at it, Pathfinder makes a trap, is down to 2 Wd after poison and Emissary healing. Amusingly, the Pathfinder accidentally kills the Bandersnatch, which was its Vendetta target (negative on damage, got 2 Severe, can’t cheat). Dreamer: 1VP (Turf War) Basse: 1 VP (Turf War) Turn 3 Summary Rider goes nuts and blasts everyone for 4 damage. Basse is able to kill Serena, trigger Eternal. He burns through all his cards (and stones) early on, so Chompy goes ahead and Executes the Emissary and kills off the Pathfinder. Weaver collects some stuffing, then pops over to a web marker, walks and schemes. Dreamer is able to summon a Stitched, and pop it out by Bernatte and bring Chompy over with the trigger. Stitched gambles with the Rider, and LOSES, I cheat in a 12, he flips a 13. Consolation prize is doing 2 damage and poison to Bernadette. Jury reflips the center marker. Dreamer: 3VP (Turf War, Breakthrough) Basse: 2VP (Turf War) Turn 4 Summary Serena heals up Dreamer and Stitched, kills Bernadette to unflip the marker. Rider gets a Red Joker on Devastation damage, kills Dreamer, Eternals Serena, and just messes everyone up. Then he kills Chompy with severe damage. Then he kills the Stitched for fun. Basse kills Serena again, then flips the marker. Widow Weaver pops over to the Turf Marker and claims it, drops a Web. Jury moves up to my deployment zone, lacks AP to drop a marker...yet. Dreamer: 4VP (Turf War) Basse: 2VP Turn 5 Summary Rider rides, bombs Widow Weaver, shoots her, but only does 3 damage. Weaver webs over to the central marker, unflips it, and uses a stuffing marker to summon a Stitched. Jury drops a scheme marker and Obeys the Stitched to reclaim the marker. Stitched walks to stop Jury from getting Breakthrough Dreamer: 4 VP Basse: 2 VP Lessons Learned: Really tough game. Ancient Pact on the Daydreams was very helpful with card draw, I pulled about 8-ish cards with Lucid Dreaming, top 2 were 7’s, rest were 5 or lower. I believe we did play Devastation from the Rider incorrectly (according to Facebook anyway--it was too painful to try to check the rules on a phone), where one damage flip determined for everyone, obviously this would be less painful for that Red Joker on turn 4. It would probably be better to not have run the Bandersnatch/Widow Weaver combo, but damn you can’t say that Weaver didn’t have it going on. I am pretty terrible at summoning, the way my hands worked out is I usually only had 1 face card this game and didn’t have it in hand when summoning time came. @Kolath

Holiday gaming day!!! Wooooooo! I went through this thread and did a count up, and realized that I hadn’t any non-beta Titania reports. So let’s get this Fae train going! Reckoning Assassinate Claim Jump Search the Ruins Detonate the Charges Deliver a Message Titania, 6ss -Gorar Aeslin Serena Bowman Mysterious Emissary Autumn Knight -Ancient Pact Autumn Knight -Ancient Pact I have absolutely no clue what Asami does, so we’ll wing it! I haven’t played overmuch with the Autumn Knights, and they are tanky enough that now seems to be a good time to try them out. Deliver a Message, especially with Aeslin to provide the second point at range, and Claim Jump on Serena because I love her. Asami, 7ss -Amanjaku Ama No Zako Dawn Serpent Jorogumo Jorogumo Yokai Turn 1 Summary Some walking forward and focusing, I am being very conservative around the Jorogumo who seem pretty scary. The Dawn Serpent scoots up a bit too far, so the Emissary walks on up and shoots him, blasting down some hazardous terrain to cover a Jorogumo as well. Asami comes up and pushes the models around a bit, freeing the Jorogumo. Aeslin walks up, shoots his butt right back into the thorns and hazardous terrain. The other Jorogumo walks around the terrain, Titania uses Germinate to leap forward, Queen’s Command to move some terrain to the Jorogumo, and then she blasts it straight to death. Ama wanders on up. Turn 2 Summary Jorogumo leads off and hops over to the Emissary. It gets some licks in, but I save a high card to prevent it from getting the no-healing action off. Emissary brings the Dawn Serpent down to 1 Wd in response. Asami pushes Ama forward twice towards the Emissary. Serena heals the Emissary twice, then charges Ama for some damage. Ama is engaged now, and has to waste an AP to attack back. Both Knights go in on her (one focused), as well as Titania, and she goes down. Titania also commands an Underbrush marker to the Jorogumo to kill it with the final damage. Dawn Serpent dies to hazardous. The Yokai lays some mysterious scheme markers in my backfield. Aeslin walks towards Asami. Titania: 2VP (Reckoning, Claim Jump [Serena]) Asami: 0 VP Turn 3 Summary I win initiative, Aeslin walks up and Delivers a Message. Yokai walks and drops another scheme marker. Serena pops a shot at the Yokai. Asami summons an Obsidian Oni, it goes in on a Knight, does a good amount of damage before flickering out. The Knight walks back and the Gorar and other Knight put out the flames. Emissary walks and focuses. Titania hops over to the Yokai, but fails to kill it sadly. Titiania: 3VP (Deliver a Message) Asami: 1VP (Search the Ruins) Turn 4 Summary Yokai delivers a message, laaaaame. Asami pushes away the Emissary, summons another Yokai, and beats on Aeslin (who dies). One Knight takes out the Yokai before it can activate, Titania kills the other Yokai. Serena heals herself and the near dead Knight, the Gorar hatches an egg and out pops an Aeslin! Surprise! Titania: 4VP (Reckoning) Asami: 3VP (Deliver a Message, Reckoning) Turn 5 Summary A knight charges in on Asami, ultimately Aeslin shoots her and uses Into the Thorns to put her closer to Titania, who walks and drops a scheme marker. Titania: 6VP (Deliver a Message, Claim Jump) Asami: 3VP It has taken a few games, but the Emissary is finally clicking for me. I also really enjoyed putting in the Autumn Knights, having the Hard to Wound to negate the Flicker buff was very useful. I was also able to successfully fish out a Black Joker with them and Ancient Pact, which is just satisfying. I can't stress enough how much I enjoy playing Titania, she is just such a fun master to use and I think a great one to start with if you are just looking at the faction for the very first time.

That's ...uh... not the most intuitive.... lol!

Where is Mimic inheriting suits and modifiers?

@MrTuna Hooded Rider for several reasons: --Pandora and Candy like to play mid-field to apply their auras, he gets them up the board faster with Ride With Me. --He has general durability, speed, and good damage with min 3 and positive twist to damage, which the keyword lacks in general. --Fast, large base models are good teleport beacons for Sorrows, you can get over 10" movement (once you add in base sizes) with a single Misery Loves Company. Great for Plant Explosives. --2" reach is very helpful with a control crew. I had played a game against Ironsides, where Pandora Slowed her, Candy Stunned her, and Hooded kept her at max engagement every turn. She was effectively locked down. --While I like Teddy, I find he goes down much more easily than Hooded, and he is slower. This could just be me. --He is a good generic that can slot into future crews as well, so you get more bang for your buck. In this, Hooded, Iggy, BBS, and Serena make it into a lot of different crews for me.

Starting box is good, Hooded and Iggy would be my next purchases for her specifically.

Thoughts on Savages after a couple of games: --Don’t forget Abundant Growth on the Bultingun! --Forcing myself to play Gigants has paid off. I didn’t think they were actually bad on paper, but they play quite well on the table. I do like that they have the ability to teleport, that can toss them 20” up the table Turn 1, pretty easily (Teleport 8 + Base Size, walk, walk). --Thoon remains in a weird spot for me. Frozen Trophy is amazing, the rest seems….alright? --SHUFFLE YO DECK!!! So for a while I couldn’t figure out why my flips were always terrible. Finally it dawned on me that with Old Ways, you are stacking all of your severes together, so if you shuffle poorly, then they won’t get redistribute throughout your deck. --Keywork is bad at getting there, but great at keeping your opponents where they are. Noticeable in the first two games where I really didn’t want to split up, but much better in the third game which was more centrally focused on the table. --Ping healing does wonders with Hard to Kill. True story. Also, when I skipped Serena, I missed her a ton. --There is a huge difference between crews that can ignore ice pillars (flight, incorporeal, removal), and those that cannot. --I need to learn my opponent’s card better. The Valedictorian straight up murdered me, and I missed that Hoffman could make his heal range 3 instead of 1, which was crucial. Mostly just gonna take time and reps.

Plant Explosives Breakthrough Take Prisoner Claim Jump Outflank Hold Up Their Forces I need to get more Thoon Time going, so I grab him. I opt for a Bultingun so due to Outflank and Plant Explosives, and also to hide behind a forest on the left side of the table. The Gigant was to help launch a model forward via Shattering Shove, the last few times I have played versus Wong he has hang back and shot me to bits and bits, so I wanted to be able to close the distance. Euripides, 6ss -Primordial Magic [x] Cyclops [x] Cyclops Bultingun [x] Thoon [xx] Gigant Geryon -Inhuman Reflexes Wong -Olivia Lightning Bug Lightning Bug Gautreaux Bokor Pigapult Gracie Swine Cursed Sammy LaCroix Turn 1 Summary A whole lotta moving up. Wong does Wong things. The Cyclops made some pillars, Euripides was able to pop over to one and throw another 10” forwad. The turn culminated with a Gigant shoving the Geryon through one pillar and out another, then teleporting himself forward to yet another pillar. Geryon goes in on Sammy, gets her down to 2 Wd, but the Swine Cursed is Cursedly Fast, so he is able to leap in with Heroic Intervention and deal out 4 damage. Turn 2 Summary Gracie beats up on Geryon, he survives and charges Sammy, but fails to kill her. Swine Cursed gets him in the end. More moving, more shooting, more pillars. The two Lightning Bugs make a MESS of Euripides with irreducible damage, dropping him to 3 Wds. Bultingun is able to drop his marker, Thoon as well. Snake moves up the left flank. Gigant runs to the other flank. Bultingun uses Deadly Pursuit to scoot back to centerline. Euripides: 3 VP (Plant Explosives, Claim Jump [Cyclops], Outflank) Wong: 0 VP Turn 3 Summary Euripides leads off, making several ice pillars and pitching one at Gracie before teleporting to safety (at this point I’m in delay and deny mode). Bokur Obeys Gracie, Cyclops walks, charges, and kills a Lightning Bug. Gigant walks through the woods, ports over to a pillar and shoots Gracie, does nothing. Gracie repays the favor by killing the poor Gigant. Second Lightning Bug escapes the Cyclops and gets him to 1 Wd. Swine-Cursed gets to Thoon with Heroic Intervention, does some damage, Thoon repays the favor by shoving him in an ice cube. Pigapult drops in the Bokor to free up the Swine-Cursed next round. Bultingun walks and charges Sammy, drops her to 1 Wd (she had been healed a bunch). Primordial drops a bomb. Euripides: 4 VP (Plant Explosives) Wong: 0 VP Turn 4 Summary Thoon leads off, finishes the Bokor to keep the Swine-Cursed buried. Lightning Bug finishes Cyclops, Bultingun finishes Sammy. Pigapult launches Oliva. Game ends on time. Euripides: 6 VP (Plant Explosives, Claim Jump) Wong: 0 VP Well, that was interesting. I was getting super obliterated with his gunline, but conversely he wasn’t moving forward to score quickly enough. Thoon was down to 2 Wd, so was Euripides. I think --if-- the cards were right enough, I might be able to lay a pillar and Stagger Gracie, which knocking her to Mv 2 would be pretty controlling.

Turf War Breakthrough Search the Ruins Dig Their Graves Deliver a Message Power Ritual Euripides, 5ss -Primordial Magic Cyclops Cyclops Gigant -Ancient Pact Gigant -Ancient Pact Serena Bowman Black Blood Shaman Hamelin, 5ss -Stolen -Stolen -Stolen Malifaux Rat x5 Rat Catcher Rat Catcher Benny Wolcomb Nix Rat King Turn 1 Summary A ton of Rats activate as I burn a ton of pass tokens. Eventually I get to work, with the BBS charging and popping the Gigant for Severe damage (seriously?!), making a corpse, then popping out some Focus. The Cyclopsii prep some port-a-pillars, one in the center, and one on the right flank. Hamelin Lures one towards Nix. Snake flips the marker, gives incorporeal to a Gigant. Serena heals the poor Gigant up. With most of the trash activations out of the way, Euriprides pops up to an ice pillar, and dunks a crap-ton of movement duels and a tossed pillar (TN 19) on 3 Rats, Benny, and two Catchers. The rats all die, the Catchers eat 2 points a piece, and Benny takes a bit more, having been on the receiving end of all 3 duels. A Gigant pillar jumps and flips the right side marker, the incorporeal one just comes up the middle. Turn 2 Summary Euripides goes first, pillars up on Nix for some damage, and the Rat King as well. He teleports over to the Rat King and uses his focus to cheat in damage and kill him off. Nix charges through the pillars, puts some jaws onto the Cyclops. The Cyclops and Serena are able to take him down with some Focus and a Red Joker damage flip (we missed Cruel Disappointment in game, I am only catching it now during the write-up as I am looking at cards--makes a big difference). Hamelin and the Stolen make a blighted Gattling Gun team and tear into Serena and the Cyclops, leaving Serena on 2 and the Cyclops on Hard to Kill. The BBS flys the snake up, and Delivers a Message to Hamelin, then heals Serena and the Cyclops. The other Cyclops walk/charge hits Benny, then uses the heal on the injured Cyclops. The Snake runs behind the house. He invests some AP into removing pillars. Euripides: 2 VP (Deliver a Message, Turf War) Hamelin: 0 VP Turn 3 Summary I win initiative, Serena does a bunch of self healing and kills a Rat. Hamelin tries to take down the Cyclops again, only gets it to Hard to Kill again (some Red Joker action on my part to save the guy). The Gigant tries to shoot some of the youth to use the RJ, but turns out they are stealth, oops! Cyclops is able to dodge some more Vomiting Disease through dumb Cyclops luck, then he uses a pillar to heal himself and Frozen Vigor to heal again. On the other flank the Gigant focuses and drops a hammer on the Rat Catcher for Severe, then uses the double blast to kill Benny and a rat. Euripides drops a scheme marker, walks, ports to an ice pillar, then charges the Rat Catcher, taking him to 1 Wd. The Catcher eats a rat to heal up, swings and misses on Euripides. Snake Schemes. Cyclops Schemes. Euripides: 4 VP (Search the Ruins, Turf War) Hamelin: 0 VP Turn 4 Summary I win initiative again via Cheating, Ill Omens, and a pass token. Euripides carves up all 3 Stolen and a Rat Catcher. Hamelin does what he can, but is all alone. 3 more Schemes get dropped by terrain, another is placed next to Hamelin via Cyclops Ice Pillar Magic. Euripides: 7 VP (Search the Ruins, Deliver a Message, Turf War) Hamelin: 0 VP Game ends on time. Pretty decisive here (granted he and I had the same Hamelin level of experience going into this, so I wouldn’t overthink the score). I think the scheme pool favored me, also he had a limited model selection to choose from, I think with either some Winged Plagues and Arik/Mad Dog things play out much differently. It did showcase how effective the keyword can be against weaker horde-style armies, with killing the rats, or even non-Wong/Zipp Gremlins. I did see at least 2 spots where I played Intuition/Focus/Old Ways incorrectly--something I definitely need practice with.

Corner - Reckoning - Harness the Leyline - Hold Up their Forces - Take Prisoner - Power Ritual - Outflank Euripides, 5ss -Primordial Magic Cyclops Cyclops Geryon Geryon Serena Bowman Black Blood Shaman Prof Von Schtook, 6ss -The Whisper -Research Assistant Necropunk Undergraduate Carrion Emissary The Valedictorian -Grave Spirit’s Touch Anna Lovelace Turn 1 Summary A lot of moving around mostly. I put some time and effort into getting a lot of scheme markers on the wrong centerline (in my defense, it was a long day at work). He flank denies and heads toward the top corner with everything, neutralizing my bottom Geryon and putting the top Geryon somewhat all alone. Turn 2 Summary Shaman is able to grow up into a Mature, I redo my pillars to score up the correct centerline. Valedictorian is given fast. She uses Lecture Notes to place base to base with the Geryon and sidestep the pillars and Extended Reach. She nails him, gets Shove Aside, nails Serena with a Red Joker, then jacks up the Geryon some more. The Undergraduate is able to place by the Valedictorian and kill off Serena. Euripides bangs on the Valedictorian. Von Schtook: 2 VP (Harness the Leyline, Reckoning) Euripides: 1 VP (Harness the Leyline) Turn 3 Summary Mature goes in and kills the Undergraduate. Von Schtook kills the Mature and Cyclops with Gruesome Lecture. Euripides and Cyclops beat on Valedictorian, who returns the favor with friends. Last activation is the Primordial Magic, who just runs to engage. Von Schtook: 4 VP (Harness the Leyline, Reckoning) Euripides: 3 VP (Hold Up Their Forces, Reckoning) Game ends on time. Lessons Learned: Obviously I lost this one big and played it horribly. I went for the wrong centerline, which is just dumb, I also let him deny a flank and that left a Geryon basically out of the game entirely. For better or worse cards played a part of things, esp when the Valedictorian came on it, I was working with pooh from hand and top deck. This actually taught me a valuable lesson about shuffling decks if you are using Old Ways--you stick all your high cards in one spot, so to break them up you got to SHUFFLE. A LOT.

I was finally! able to get my Savage models on the table. There is a local slow grow running, so I jumped down to 40ss to give things a shot! Corner - Reckoning - Harness the Leyline - Hold Up their Forces - Take Prisoner - Power Ritual - Outflank Euripides, 6ss -Primordial Magic Gigant Gigant Cyclops Serena Bowman Black Blood Shaman I wanted Serena for the healing (Reckoning and Hard to Kill) and the Shaman to try to get some focus efficiency and then grow into a Mature for another beater. One of my goals since getting the box set was to get some more play time in with the Gigants. Charles Hoffman, 2ss -Mechanical Attendant Hunter Hunter Guardian Peacekeeper Mobile Toolkit This was my first game against Hoffman so I know he has Armor...and...other...things? Guess we find out the hard way! Turn 1 Summary This turn was relatively unexciting. Hoffman handed out some fast, some focused, and a whole lotta “power tokens”, which I am sure are completely benign. Shaman led us off with a Focus pulse. I was able to get the Cyclops up to make a crystal for Euripides. He hopped to that one, then made two more for the Gigants. They then hopped in turn, and then moved up (getting an 18” move ain’t too shabby). The Peacekeeper did get a bead on one of the Gigants late in the turn and dragged it up. Turn 2 Summary The Gigant in range of the Peacekeeper took a shot at it, and blasted damage onto the Mechanical Attendant. He then hopped to a different pillar, blasted the Guardian and killed the Attendant. Euripides made a bunch more ice pillars, then charged in on the Hunter and banged it up. The Hunter was able to use a token to push away, walk and scheme. A Gigant followed up, but failed to kill it. The Guardian made some mess in the middle of the table, but was able to get a scheme marker on the centerline, ditto for the other Hunter. BBS grew up into a Mature. Hoffman: 2VP (Outflank, Harness the Leyline) Euripides: 1VP (Hold Up) Turn 3 Summary A focused Gigant takes down the Hunter with a Red Joker on damage (cheated in). The Cyclops is able to Stagger the Peacekeeper, taking him down to Mv 2. Pretty much everything goes in on the stupid Guardian, they get it down to 2 HP. Euripides tries to block Hoffman in with pillars, but what I missed was that he can make his Blowtorch Rng 3 with a token, so he is able to walk around the pillar and heal up the Guardian to full, d’oh! The Peacekeeper is able to kill the Primordial Magic...because I am dumb at positioning. Euripides: 2 VP (Reckoning) Hoffman: 3 VP (Reckoning) Unfortunately the game ended on time there, just my normal weekday bedtime limiting fun time I am afraid. Big misplay on the torch heal, otherwise I think that the Guardian goes down next turn, the Peacekeeper should be pretty easy to control, and I start running schemes a bit better.

@Mut Totally agree about Pandora's flexibility. She is an amazing master like that.

Zoraida aside, the issue I have with Obey is being able to spend conditions, upgrades, and tokens. For example, you can Obey a Chimera and force them to toss a mutation. Or I have had Hooded Rider Obey'd and they spent 10 tokens to generate 10 masks on an attack.

Stat-wise, Rattler has highest of all the beasts, so wouldn't really call it fragile. It works best up the flanks both laying schemes and picking off scheme runners in the 4-5 ss range. Ambush is key for getting good use of it. Against models like Silurids for example, charge, they butterfly jump, Ambush, attack. Or for putting down 2 scheme markers in one activation, scheme, ambush, scheme.

@Ogid I don't necessarily have a hard and fast rule. For things like Turf War and Reckoning, I generally want hard to kill models who are killy back, so would look toward Hinamatsu and Hooded Rider (in general I take Hooded Rider a LOT with Pandora, specifically for Ride with Me). Or Vasilia to speed things up (and auto stagger for that sweet Misery ping damage). Corrupted Idols--I typically try to take a small, elite crew with 2 instances of Ancient Pact. That should give me a pass token or 2, and the +2 initiative in order to place the idols where I want them to be. Hinamatsu again does good duty here, both as a hard to kill, elite model, but also can use Leverage to gain more pass tokens. Other things can be like taking the Half-Bloods when up against Wong or Von Schill for Evasive. Or Serena/Angel Eyes for Armor cancellation. BBS for blasting out Focus and then growing up is legit. Changelings are great too. Ironically, I have used the Adze/Iggy combo, but in Marcus instead of Pandora, lol. I guess the point I am trying to get at is that since she has really only one synergistic ability with her keyword, Despair's Influence, you are freer to have more flexible options when building a crew. That being said, the individual Woe models are great themselves too, and I really enjoy playing all of them as well! Best of both worlds.

Pandora can fit into several places: She is the "control" master of Neverborn. Most of the crew hands out Stunned, which is a very powerful condition. Additionally Pandora herself can hand out slow to every model she attacks, and the combination of slow and stunned is brutal. She can be the Neverborn answer to "condition" masters, such as McMourning. Pandora herself can roll in and yank off all the poison for some juicy positive flips. Burning as well with Iggy when you go up vs Kaeris. She can also be the Neverborn answer to "bubble" crews. She has a pulse attack, and a shockwave attack to punish models that bunch up. Also the bunching up makes it easier to apply the aura's of the crews, such as Misery, Life Leech, or every awful thing that Candy does. Woe itself is not a strong thematic keyword, so she actually has an astonishing amount of flexibility in hiring models. You can get tanky with Hinamatsu and Hooded Rider, or a bigger crew for interacting. This means that she can reasonably play into pretty much all the schemes and strategies with some tweaks here and there.

Realistically WM is having company issues, SFG is having issues, GW has indeed had shipping delay issues (tariffs or brexit?), so Wyrd is far from alone. I think we just hyper focus on it bc they did such a great job on the new edition that we are impatiently chomping at the bit.

In general I agree on card draw and efficiency, however it only works in certain schemes (and at the moment they feel weighted toward combat). I don't know if it is a coincidence or not, but during a run of crappy hands, I did much better on Plant Explosives than I did in Turf War or Reckoning. I do also like damage that doesn't interact with an opponent, I think that could be a hidden strength of Nekima that is still untapped.

Here is how I would consider it: Ophelia does a gunline, and Reckoning as a strategy feeds into this, so one way or the other, you're going to have to be crossing the table. Presumably she won't want things that will make her have to move around a lot, so seems likely she will pick from Assassinate, Hold Up, or Take Prisoner. Conversely, you get the joy of having to cross to either get into melee or within range of your 8" guns. Search should be pretty straightforward given you will be on her side of the table. Breakthrough on standard isn't terrible, however you can expect a lot of her models to be back there making a mess for you. Take Prisoner....you can Lure a model up, but then you are going to be at cross purposes with Reckoning. Hold Up is possible, but a) you have to get there and b) you have to have models that are less expensive, which may be a struggle and c) the best model you have for it (Bultingun) is pretty easy for her to shoot down. Soooo Assassinate! Titania isn't terrible for Assassinate because she can put you in the severe terrain, injure you, etc. So you want speed, durability, and search/assassinate. I would consider a model pool of: Hooded Rider Wicked Dolls (cheap, stealth, good for Killjoy and Search) Emissary Tuco (Stealth, From Shadows) Serena Bowman (Demise, Healing) Hope these ideas help and best of luck!

Cave Painting is still handy for Idols, Turf War, and playing defense for your markers, esp if the Cyclops was used to lay them next to a pillar.