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Advice on playing against pandora


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So on Sunday I'm playing a 35ss game against my friend who just bought pandora. I'm going to be using kiria and wondered if there's any particular things to watch out for and if there is anything I should take or avoid and if there are any schemes I should avoid? Thanks for any help you can give :)

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I played my first game against Pandora the other week (with Molly) and I found that Luring with Belles helps, but don't bother with Pounce, as the Belle's Ml 5 vs Pandys WP 7 (she can swap her Df for WP) means she will likely push away again with no real gain for you.

Black blood was effective, as Pandy would Incite(? - the one where she hits everyone in her range/aura) and my Belles surrounding her would splash-back 1 dmg when they were hit.  

Indirect damage such as bouncing a blast off one of her sorrows onto her, or pulses (Slice 'n' Dice is great!) work well, forcing cards from the control hand at least.

The Pandora player I played against was very aggressive with her. I don;t know if that is the standard way to play her but expect her to be all up in your grille from turn 1!

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(Slice 'n' Dice is great!)

Slice and Dice is particularly effective because Pandora does not get to use her Wp7 to defend and has to use her crappy Df.  She can only use her Wp on opposed duels and Slice and Dice forces a simple duel (if you can stack poison on her and use Sebastian's pulse to force a Df duel it's also nasty although that's not much help with Kirai!).  I also think your game was against my very close friend Neil so I don't know whether I should be annoyed with you or take satisfaction that you gave Pandora a tooling as I hate that nasty cow (I'm gonna go with the latter!)!

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Be careful of the simple duels. Some Pandora crews make heavy use of duels triggerded by targetting them. ALways be aware of the Manipulative and Terrifying abilities, so you know exactly what you get into. Thus, pot shots are dangerous. Target selection is vital.

 

Don't try to get Pandora herself with lots of melee attacks. Focussed attacks work better, as she cannot push away so easily.

 

As always when a Master has good defensive stats: Count the high cards. If he cheats high to attack, go after Pandora. If he holds on to high cards to defend her, don't go after her but anything else.

 

If he brings Tannen, kill him fast. Cheating simple duels is horrible with that guy around.

 

Be careful with Gaaki. They are good tar pits against anyone except Pandora. She just melts them.

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The Poltergeist I think can also make you have to throw away cards before you cheat (there's definitely something else that my regular opponent has run that does this which isn't Tannen anyway!).  Fears Given Form is also horrible for us Ressers with our typically low Df.  You have to take a Df13/14 duel (can't remember the target number) or suffer three damage whenever you activate within the engagement range of somebody with the upgrade (3" for Pandora herself).  If your opponent does take this then ensure he's taking checks for his own models too as it's any model.

 

I typically find spreading out and ignoring Pandora can be quite effective.  She's so hard to stop doing what she wants to because of her high Df/Wp (which are usually the same thing), her ability to push after winning successful Wp duels, and the high Ca values of her actions that devoting things to stop her is often a waste of resources.  Just concentrate on getting your own schemes done.  You also want some condition removal, especially if there Cursed/Distract etc. in the scheme pool (and in general anyway).  She can make things Insignificant very easily which can completely gimp your ability to do anything towards accomplishing your strats/schemes (Candy can also do this I believe though it's not as high casting).  If your opponent knows their stuff they will target your condition removal though so treat them with care!

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I'm getting the niece so I will have acess to a little condition removal. Would adversary work with the positive flips to make hitting her consistent , and does the ability to attack wp/df take precedent over her own?

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The Poltergeist I think can also make you have to throw away cards before you cheat (there's definitely something else that my regular opponent has run that does this which isn't Tannen anyway!).  

They are probably using Insidious Madness which causes you to have to discard in order to cheat WP duels if within 4 :aura .

 

 

 

You also want some condition removal, especially if there Cursed/Distract etc. in the scheme pool (and in general anyway).  

I'm not sure if you meant it that way or not, but you cannot use condition removal to get rid of Distract or Cursed Object. They can only be removed by taking the required interact action necessary to remove them (or by some Masters such as Leve and Dreamer who can Bury and remove all conditions as a result).

 

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I'm getting the niece so I will have acess to a little condition removal. Would adversary work with the positive flips to make hitting her consistent , and does the ability to attack wp/df take precedent over her own?

 

No, not consistent, but better. Remember that you likely will only get one attack in per charge. Her own ability takes precedence over the Df/Wp choice some spirits bring. You attack Df, she replaces it with Wp. Nothing gained. ;)

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Would adversary work with the positive flips to make hitting her consistent , and does the ability to attack wp/df take precedent over her own?

Positive flips always make it easier (due to the potential of flipping high cards and less resource drain on your own hand so you don't have to cheat them), but keep in mind her WP is 7, so if she does flip/cheat high it's hard to beat her unless you have an attacker with melee/shooting/casting of 7+.

Pandora, per FAQ, always gets to use her WP in opposed duels. Her Expose Fears ability overrides attacks that give the option of Df/WP.

From the FAQ:

 

Q: Some Attacks (such as on the Moon Shinobi) allow the attacker to choose whether the Resist is Wp or Df. In the case of such an Attack, can Pandora use her Expose Fears Ability to resist with Wp instead of Df, even if the attacking model chose Df as the resist?
A: Yes. Pandora may still use Expose Fears.
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I'm not sure if you meant it that way or not, but you cannot use condition removal to get rid of Distract or Cursed Object. They can only be removed by taking the required interact action necessary to remove them (or by some Masters such as Leve and Dreamer who can Bury and remove all conditions as a result).

Pandora's Nullify means that you can't take Interact actions.  So if Distract or Cursed are on somebody puts them on you then she stops you being able to remove than by removing your ability to Interact (you are required to take an Interact action to remove either).  It also stops you being able to turn Squat Markers, drop Scheme Markers for any number of schemes etc.  So you need condition removal to get rid of Nullify which is a condition so that you can take Distract etc. from yourself (it is very irritating when you have this option completely removed and it allows Pandy and her crew to rack up VPs for these schemes very easily).

 

And Insidious Madness was what I was thinking of! Thanks!

 

Positive flips are always welcome, as they are against most things, but as has been pointed out she is Wp7 so very hard to beat if your opponent as some high cards in their hand.  I am a fan of Yin's Gnawing Fear against her and if you want to make a sustained attack against her then getting this off will help a lot (I will burn a RJ on it if I have one) because she will get :-fate to her Wp duels and it also stops her cheating them which means that she becomes very easy to hit (once you get hits through on her she goes down pretty easily as she has a low wound count).

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Pandora's Nullify means that you can't take Interact actions.  

 

Right. Just the way your prior post read it seemed like your intent was to use condition removal to counter the scheme conditions. I understand what you mean for her Nullify. I just didn't want anyone else to get the wrong idea about using condition removal for Distract or Cursed Object. :D

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I typically find spreading out and ignoring Pandora can be quite effective.  She's so hard to stop doing what she wants to because of her high Df/Wp (which are usually the same thing), her ability to push after winning successful Wp duels, and the high Ca values of her actions that devoting things to stop her is often a waste of resources.  Just concentrate on getting your own schemes done.  You also want some condition removal, especially if there Cursed/Distract etc. in the scheme pool (and in general anyway).  She can make things Insignificant very easily which can completely gimp your ability to do anything towards accomplishing your strats/schemes (Candy can also do this I believe though it's not as high casting).  If your opponent knows their stuff they will target your condition removal though so treat them with care!

That is some good advice.

 

As a Pandora player, my advice is : Don't Panic, and always carry a towel. Because people freak when I drop her on them for the first time, so here are three things to watch out for:

 

1. Fading Memory. It works when she wins a Wp duel. She has one attack action that uses Wp, Incite, which is a (0) with a "cast again" trigget, so she won't be pushing around the board during her activation. If you try to kill her, she will be pushing all over the place during your activations. Unless you really have to kill her...

2. Don't. Assassinate in the scheme pool? Pass on it for something else. Or have a really good plan and a really good hand with which to do it. Best is to pass on Pandora herself and kill her crew... dead models generate no Wp duels, lesseing the Misery index.

3. Beware the Inflict bomb. It's a (1) Action with a 4 :pulse  of doom and no restrictions on use. Your already in her Misery aura; if any sorrows are around, you could be in a world of hurt. Especially your low-Wd models with hard to wound, Armor +x, etc, as each point of damage is separate. 4 :pulse  is larger than it sounds, especially if you're in a Turf War game.Oh, and all she does is decalre its use; no cards needed. Dirty.

 

Most importantly, play through it no matter how bad it gets. Because a bad day of gaming is still better than a good day of working.

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Beware the Inflict bomb. It's a (1) Action with a 4 :pulse  of doom and no restrictions on use. Your already in her Misery aura; if any sorrows are around, you could be in a world of hurt. Especially your low-Wd models with hard to wound, Armor +x, etc, as each point of damage is separate. 4 :pulse  is larger than it sounds, especially if you're in a Turf War game.Oh, and all she does is decalre its use; no cards needed. Dirty.

 

Most importantly, play through it no matter how bad it gets. Because a bad day of gaming is still better than a good day of working.

Inflict hurts so bad!

 

I like that motto too!

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How did the game go? :)

Ill throw in some comments just because.

 

Pandora can be nasty to face. She really shines in killy and interact heavy strategies and schemes, as well as if models are going to group up (Extraction, Turf War).

 

The best way to go against her is having models who ignore WP-duels, and sevens in offence or defence. As she can easily push out of melee, shooting is probably a better option rely on. Another weakness is her wound count and Neverborns' lack of healing. Once she starts to loose wounds (or SS in order to prevent) she will have to run away and hide.

 

Another thing that is worth to remember is that Fading Memory is a push. So she can be "boxed in", thus unable to runaway. However, sometimes that will result in you having multiple models near Pandora, which can be a bad thing.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not bad. Teddy is obscene especially with baby kade but making it slow really helped keeping it pinned down. Datsuba is a melle monster I mean forcing him to negative flips with yin then shooting stuff out with himself and the niece worked really well. He eventually forfited after I managed to pull off malevolence off and got ikiryo into play

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We did my fate deck was killing me at times, the big problem was one of our power gamer friends kind of utterly trashed him first game he had played so yeah. I was trying to avoid people using my kirai crew because of the power level of that crew

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Could you elaborate on that? Other people use your crew? What do you mean by her power level? Do you think her underpowered?

Probably meant overpowered, at least in the initial shock basis. First, and only game, I've ever played against her and I felt like I was in one of zFiend's shower prison dreams. It was awful. Mind you, I enjoyed the hell out of the game and the player (Hypoking), but just coming against the crew blind beyond only what I'd heard/read was rather overwhelming. It felt like the crew, on a 1-to-10 scale started around a 7 or 8, and then by turn 2 it morphed into a Spinal Tap 11 (though to be fair I made some horrible mistakes during my game, and had some bad hands/flips which didn't help me in the least for recovering).

Overall, I felt her crew was good, not over the top, but if you let it get away from you (as an opponent), it will quickly decimate you until you played against it a few times.

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