Playing Against Pandora

[jonahmaul]

OK, not really sure which forum to put this in as I'm looking for general advice for playing against Pandora for my group so didn't seem to fit any of the faction specific ones.  Our group has a Pandora player who is very good and probably wins 90% of his games with her.  We've been having a debate over how good she is in a private group and some of us (two in particular including me) feel she is very good the the point of being OP (maybe not quite OP, but certainly on the border).  The main gripes are that she is very hard to take down and counter and that she can excel in anything that she does.  What do people find are good counters or good ways to play against her and try and mitigate her just ruining your day?  I mainly play Ressers but we have all factions represented in our group so any and all advice is good!

[Dirial]

Well, if I have Sonnia or Dita, I'm glad. If I don't, I'm sad.

 

I usually ping her to death, to be honest. Just pot shots all day. She doesn't have many Wds, so every little bit hurts, and even one Lady Justice or Executioner hit hurts a lot.

 

Also, I kill Bishop and Tannen on sight. If those two are in the crew, they have to die fast.

[TehMik]

When playing Pandy I really don't like seeing Sonnia or Perdita across the board. The reasons are: 1) their ranged attacks allow their crews to stay out of Pandy's death bubble, and 2) they can quickly and efficiently take out important pieces of my crew (sorrows, widow weaver, etc). 

 

So try to engage her minions at range. Pandy herself is tough to get to but she does require her crew around to function at optimal levels. 

 

Edit: beaten to the Sonnia/Dita point by Dirial. 

[Patzer]

Before I answer at length, does your local player run Box, Voices (paralyse one, I think), or Both?

[Dirial]

Edit: beaten to the Sonnia/Dita point by Dirial. 

 

It happens.

 

But, to be honest, who likes seeing one of those girls on the other side?

 

Playing Pandora as a death ball is a trap, I think. It's like Dita in that regard: High defenses count for nothing if models with low defenses are near them.

 

Before I answer at length, does your local player run Box, Voices (paralyse one, I think), or Both?

 

Good point. Both are pretty nasty.

[MasterDisaster]

I'm not gonna teach you to suck eggs with the usual "focus on VP" speech, I know you are a good enough player to know that by now . As far as Pandora crews go in my experiences I generally tend to ignore her as much as possible and focus on dealing with her crew, killing off her scheme runners or key components seems to work well for me. She is incredibly difficult to take out at times and it can become frustrating playing against her, if you do need to take her out I've found targeting weaker targets like Sorrows etc and chaining blasts off them onto Pandora can be quite effective. Candy also seems be be a royal pain given her ability to heal as well as do a lot of what Pandora can do so often shes a high priority target for me, same goes for the Widow Weaver if she makes an appearance. That Wp debuff from the Web Markers cannot be left unchecked in a Pandora crew, it just wrecks all day long. 

 

I used to lose against her left right and center but these days my win to lose ratio vs. Pandora has leveled out quite a bit. I find a lot of her crew tend to be Incorporeal so some nice Ca actions to take them out is always welcome. The slow grind that she puts on you can also be pretty nasty so I find having some healing is always useful to mitigate the drain on your wounds, additionally condition removal for Mood Swings and the Horror Duels can be really useful to prevent her from totally dictating the course of the game. Her mobility can also make life difficult for you and I happily discovered using stuff like Wicked Vines from Lilith, Hazardous Terrain or movement debilitating effects like those on Nurses can be REALLY useful in stopping or at least giving her a serious incentive to not use her push / movement to get into or out of position. 

[jonahmaul]

Before I answer at length, does your local player run Box, Voices (paralyse one, I think), or Both?

He runs both (I think!) from your description.  He generally has two loads out, one 'tanky' one with Fears Given Form, Aether Connection and something else and sometimes the Paralyse load out, depending on strats/schemes.  Both are frustrating but arguably the second one more so.  When she just shuts your whole crew down then largely determines your activation order it is just no fun playing against her!L

 

Lots of the arguments seem to be 'take Dita/Raspy/Sonnia/Levi' but this isn't a good counter to me.  Every faction/crew should at least be able to mitigate her somehow.

[zFiend]

Before I answer at length, does your local player run Box, Voices (paralyse one, I think), or Both?

Tom is a good man to answer this as he is a huge Pandora player himself.

[TehMik]

Continuing: as a Pandy player my key pieces will likely be something incredibly stabby (Baby K or Bishop, probably w/ a teddy too), Widow Weaver (Never Leave Home Without One ), some sorrows, and something fast (tots, silurids).

 

Depending on the strat/schemes, taking out the scheme runners will make it hard for the NB player to win the game. You'll feel like you're losing but in Breakthrough, Protect Territory, etc, you may actually be coming out on top. If Bodyguard is on the table odds are they're putting it on Candy. 

 

Another thing to remember is that NB is short on condition removal so if you have crews that can hand out conditions (Sonnia, Brewmaster, McM, etc) that's not a terrible idea either.

[Dirial]

Lots of the arguments seem to be 'take Dita/Raspy/Sonnia/Levi' but this isn't a good counter to me.  Every faction/crew should at least be able to mitigate her somehow.

 

Agreed. I said that mostly tongue-in-cheek. Sonnia is a really nasty matchup for Pandora, though.

 

As said, identify her linchpin models, like Bishop, and take them out fast. Ignore Pandora for that time. If you want to take her on, I'd either use high range attacks or blasts, or pot shots of doom. Like Perdita, she is incredibly hard to take out with few, hard attacks, because he will cheat those. But pot shots will sooner or later get through...

 

Also, never ever play Rail Workers against her. Ever.

[Adran]

He runs both (I think!) from your description.  He generally has two loads out, one 'tanky' one with Fears Given Form, Aether Connection and something else and sometimes the Paralyse load out, depending on strats/schemes.  Both are frustrating but arguably the second one more so.  When she just shuts your whole crew down then largely determines your activation order it is just no fun playing against her!L

 

Lots of the arguments seem to be 'take Dita/Raspy/Sonnia/Levi' but this isn't a good counter to me.  Every faction/crew should at least be able to mitigate her somehow.

 

Area damage. Anythign which forces her to use her rubbish Df stat.

Not eevry crew contains thesae, but every faction has access to them.

If you haven't taken them, then Focus and attack, you're more likely to hit and get decent damage than she is to run away.

[jonahmaul]

Area damage. Anythign which forces her to use her rubbish Df stat.

Yeah, learnt this with Sebastian when I forced her to take simple duels but as you say, not everything has this.

[Patzer]

Tom is a good man to answer this as he is a huge Pandora player himself.

Flatter, I like that!

 

He runs both (I think!) from your description.  He generally has two loads out, one 'tanky' one with Fears Given Form, Aether Connection and something else and sometimes the Paralyse load out, depending on strats/schemes.  Both are frustrating but arguably the second one more so.  When she just shuts your whole crew down then largely determines your activation order it is just no fun playing against her!L

 

Lots of the arguments seem to be 'take Dita/Raspy/Sonnia/Levi' but this isn't a good counter to me.  Every faction/crew should at least be able to mitigate her somehow.

When you (think you will) face Pandora (and Neverborn in general to be honest) you can never go wrong with Ruthless, WP buffs/debuffs/, Stubborn, and stuff like that. Against a Voices Pandora, Chiaki or Johan seems to be a nice addition (since Neverborn have heaps of conditions they aren't wasted hires anyway).

 

A very potent strategy against Pandora is to attack her with 7 stats, and cheat high from the get go. Its better to go all in with one big Focus hit, rather than trying to chip damage her. Blasts, and simple duels that targets DF are two other very good ways of attacking her. Since her crew likes to bunch up, blasts and AoE are usually fairly easy to hit her with.

 

Pandora's biggest weakness is her low amount of wounds, and that the only potent way for her to keep her wound count in check is ss prevention. If you can strike at her a couple of times, she will have to run away and hide.

 

If your opponent goes with the tanky Pandora, go at her with a model at the time. Otherwise she can tie up a chunk of you crew while never really getting hit, and they will take damage from FGF most likely. If you feed Pandora models, she might not be able to do more important things than killing your ranks. Summoners can do this with ease.

 

Crew wise, Bishop is a priority target, as well as the Widow Weaver. The latter can really wreck you crew if you aren't careful.

 

If you play Ressers, you are well suited to deal with Pandy. Seamus with Sinister Rep, Red Chapel Killer, and Decaying Aura will utterly scare Pandora to death. Belles Ca 8 can easily lure Pandora to places she doesn't want to be, and if Seamus gets within 4" (which he is fast enough to do) of her with that set-up Pandy can say her farewells. Hanged's Whisper From Beyond can also wreck Pandora's day.

[Insidiously Mad]

You want to attack her with models that have a 7 stat so you can guarantee you hit her if you have the cards. Also anything that targets DF as a simple duel is brutal for her. Fears given form, punk zombies tactical etc. 

[Patzer]

You want to attack her with models that have a 7 stat so you can guarantee you hit her if you have the cards. Also anything that targets DF as a simple duel is brutal for her. Fears given form, punk zombies tactical etc. 

Slice and Dice from the Punk Zombies is a really good suggestion! Nico with Love thy Master should really scare Pandora too. She would need a 10 to pass each Slice and Dice.

[Bodiless]

I'll throw in my support for the general consensus of any ability/attack that doesn't let her test on Wp against it. Failing that a 7+ on the attack stat and a good card. Pinging at her with anything else generally lets me push away to a less threatened location, or worse push into a better position to attack.

 

Oh, on that note, something I haven't seen mentioned yet is use some chaff models to crowd her and limit where she can push to. Although if she has Wings of Darkness and can fly that probably isn't worth pursuing. 

[jonahmaul]

I think my issue with the 7+ argument is what if you don't have those models (say you don't know that you are playing Pandora, or they don't fit your strats/schemes or whatever).  What do you then to mitigate the havoc she can reek? 

[zFiend]

The students take away the ability to declare triggers. The valedictorian does it with a ca7. Might be worth a try?

[jonahmaul]

The students take away the ability to declare triggers. The valedictorian does it with a ca7. Might be worth a try?

She doesn't need Triggers!  Incite has one but Fading Memory is an ability not a defensive trigger!

[Dirial]

The students take away the ability to declare triggers. The valedictorian does it with a ca7. Might be worth a try?

 

Her push is not a trigger, sadly, but at least she'll have a hard time Paralyzing people.

 

What do you then to mitigate the havoc she can reek? 

 

Ignore her, feed her models with weak damage profiles, take pot shots, try to make him regret clumping up. That sort of thing.

[zFiend]

Well stopping Paralyze is pretty damn good.

[Dirial]

Well stopping Paralyze is pretty damn good.

 

Absolutely true.

[TehMik]

Just popped into my head -  was playing a game as Pandora and someone got Hannah (I think) into range where she turned off all built-in suites. Man, did THAT suck for me. So, yeah, if you can pull something like that off it would help a lot.

[zFiend]

Also McMourning does majority of his tricks with ca7. Rancid transplant, Expunge.

Sure Pandora will have a field day with his wp5 but still.

[Bodiless]

I think my issue with the 7+ argument is what if you don't have those models (say you don't know that you are playing Pandora, or they don't fit your strats/schemes or whatever).  What do you then to mitigate the havoc she can reek? 

 

Indirect attacks are better than 7+ anyway, in my opinion, because the 7+ route is going to be very card intensive. 

 

If the schemes and strategies allow it, Spread Out. Pandora's crew really gets dangerous when she can catch multiple models with stacked auras. If there is a Widow Weaver, focus fire on it asap. You will often see Pandora in Turf War, and if the WW is not down by turn 3 or so you will find yourself really struggling to accomplish anything through stacked web markers. 

 

Any time you are facing NB it is worth planning against Wp attacks, since the odds are very good you are going to see some of those no matter which master you face. Condition removal is also a good idea, whether you are taking off Paralyze, Nobody Likes Me, Brilliance, Rooted, etc. NB can hand out a lot of nasty conditions, so again that is an ability that is not likely to go to waste.