Struggling against Neverbon

[huntroll]

I currently own four Masters and most of their related models: McMourning, Nicodem, Seamus, Yan Lo. I mostly play McMourning and sometimes Nicodem, haven't played Seamus outside of Crew Box games for years, and never tried Yan Lo. I don't have any trouble against most Factions with McMourning, but some heavily Wp-focuses Neverborn lists really give me the fits. They usually include the Widow Weaver to reduce my already mediocre Wp and one or more Teddies which they can easily move into my face (via pushes from Daydreams or Tangle Shadows), thus usually getting the alpha strike on me and tying up my forces so I can't deal with the Weaver who just makes my Wp lower and lower, until the Horror Duels and their sheer hitting power overwhelm me. In my experience, the general lack of Armor and low-ish Wp really plays towards their strenghts. I'm curious who and what would you take against those lists. I've tried Nicodem against a Pandora list, but she and her little friends have engaged me before I could get the summoning rolling and I've lost, but I feel he might obviously have a better chance against them than McMourning, however he does not seem perfect, either. 

My ideas so far are:
1. taking a Lawyer with McMourning if I'm against Neverborn for the +ve flip in Horror duels (still not enough imho)
2. Anna Lovelace to counter Lilith's Tangle Shadows and make delivering Teddies harder (they can still charge though)
3. Johan, although usually I get Paralyzed during my activation which he can't help with, but a Relic Hammer can come handy
4. Giving Seamus or Yan lo a try against those lists, or getting another Master. 

What are your suggestions?

[Wake of Godzilla]

Try Seamus, with his WP debuf, Izamu and some models with WP attach (the hanged can be fun). 

Remember they don't have nearly as much recursion as you so be willing to let the less important models die if it means you can kill them off and then summon to make up your losses. 

[Clyde_Davis]

As a Neverborn player, who has faced Seamus, McMourning, Molly and Yan Lo many a time, and have gone home with my tail through my legs (many a time), here are the models I hate seeing on the table. 

 

Izamu - NB have very few answers to Armour. He is also a tough muhafuha to put down, and with his massive threat range via the charge, will make the NB player player a little more conservatively with their more fragile models. 

 

Yin - what better way to play against Neverborn, than to play the same WP game. Yin is as annoying as hell, and can be one of best tar pits in the game. Most NB have low to average WP, to a Terrifying (All) tar pit is workable.

 

Jaakuna Ubume and Drowned - Jaakune's Manipulative, Lure, Hideous Screech and impressive Ml makes her a good counter to those pesky Insidious Madnesses, Sorrows etc. Again, the Manipulative forcing WP flips on NB is good. Couple her with some Drowned, whose Ca action Drag Under, is another could counter to the Incorporeal models. 

 

Neverborn have no Condition removal outside of The Dreamer. So any model that pumps out Poison, or any other condition, is also a good thing! 

 

Neverborn's weakness is Ca. So if you can spam Ca Attack Actions, and if you're able to buff up your WP (even by just one point), you'll be making things a lot harder. Also, NB models rely on some cornerstone units, and if you can identify those you're fine. With Pandora, the key is to take our her auxiliary models (Weaver, Sorrows, Poltergeist). Take them down and the crew will come to a halt. 

 

Also, never play Hanged against a NB player if you know they have Stitched Together. A Stitched that passes that Terrifying, will make short short work of that 9SS model.  

[Tayne]

40 minutes ago, Clyde_Davis said:

Neverborn have no Condition removal outside of The Dreamer. So any model that pumps out Poison, or any other condition, is also a good thing! 

The Scion of Black Blood joined us in book 3 for some native removal. There's always Johan too, and Collodi can take the Arcane Effigy.

[CactusEmperor]

To piggyback onto Clyde_Davis' post, a Yan Lo all stars crew might help out a bit. All of the Ancestor models can be brought back if you encounter a particularly bad alpha strike with the Reliquary upgrade on Yan Lo, and if they're not outright killed he can heal them. And Yan Lo is pretty durable himself, especially if you give him the Fortify the Spirit upgrade which can give him up to a WP 8 on a tome. Use his lightning dance to bring vulnerable or low defense models to Izamu, where they're likely to stay given his melee 8  disengaging strike.

If you draw a high card while using Yin, you can severely hamper the Widow Weaver for two turns. Activate Yin before the Weaver, cheat high on the gnawing fears, and the spider will be at a on casting until Yin next activates, which you should hold off on until after the weaver activates next turn. She'll also be at a to WP, so you can use the opportunity to lightning dance her into melee with Yin if you'd like.

Chiaki can remove conditions at range and is generally awesome. Take her if you're worried about conditions, which it sounds like you are.

You can bring Komainu with Yan Lo as a Rsser, as they're retainer models. You can also summon them with Toshiro if you bring him with his upgrade. They have armor and attack willpower. They can also get a free attack on any model that uses a cast action within 6 (ignoring LOS and range) with a 1 ap action.

[benjoewoo]

Bouncing off the low Wp comments, Yin has a (0) that gives negative flips to a target model in Ca and Wp duels, which applies to terror checks. It's a Ca 5 I believe with a TN 10, so the TN isn't hard to hit, and it's a great little threat because if you successfully get it off against a model they usually auto-lose to terror checks and Wp duels, particularly if you run Sinister Reputation on Seamus or other Wp debuffs (crooligans). 

You can combo it with Sybelle's non-belle related (0), Attend to Personally, which will impose a Wp duel on every action an enemy model takes that does not target Sybelle. The TN is 12 for each move, but with negative flips that can still be difficult to get for Neverborn, again especially with Wp debuffs.

Funnily, I've found Bishop to be somewhat useful against Neverborn. He can choose for enemy models to defend with Df or Wp (except for Pandora), so his melees can be quite devastating against Neverborn if Bishop gets to activate relatively late for relatively risk free attacks, as he can be quite squishy.

[huntroll]

Thanks for the replies, you have convinced me to give Yan Lo a chance. Now I just need to get some Komainu for him.

[enderwiggin]

I'd be afraid of seeing Nicodem or Seamus more than the other two masters. If it's Pandy I'm pretty shocked you are getting engaged before allowing Nicodem to start the engine, her speed isn't generally what she's known for. Lilith is more of a toolbox (imo) so her crew can be more flexible, against her just try to play to the strat/schemes.

 

If you do get engaged so early, models that punish your opponent for getting engaged that quickly (Yin was mentioned and one of The hanged to strip immunities) or multiple overlapping auras (double or triple Unnerving Auras? Ouch) can put a dent in things. It may also behoove you to "play the wp game yourself" as mentioned but maybe toss a Nurse and Chiaki combo in there so that you can either keep tanking your own models, or simply paralyze the enemy via a lack of walk/melee/actual paralyze options, add a goodly chunk of dmg to the melee (Izamu with +2 damage suddenly gets a lot scarier), or simply slow a ton of things down.

Personally, I find the Nurse/Chiaki combo one of the best investments for support in the game and with a normal hand, Nicodem can summon and heal two decent models on turn one with their help pretty easily.

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Another obvious thing is your actual deployment tactics. Without seeing them, it sounds like you bunch up and don't have multiple prongs of models going for objectives. If a few models can alpha charge and lock down more than a few models, you may need to plan for a more ablative front line.

[Clyde_Davis]

If NB, especially Pandora, get close to a Nurse they drop.. Wp 4 ain't the greatest against the master Wp manipulator..

[Tayne]

37 minutes ago, enderwiggin said:

 If it's Pandy ... her speed isn't generally what she's known for.

Pandora can and often will cover 20" on the first turn between three walks and two incite actions (one due to her trigger). She'll normally be carrying Fears Given Form and The Box Opens, to force you to make tests for activating near her/targeting her and possibly Aether Connection, for survivability. 

And that's before any attacks miss her, giving her a 3" push. Pandora is deceptively swift.

[enderwiggin]

1 hour ago, Tayne said:

Pandora can and often will cover 20" on the first turn between three walks and two incite actions (one due to her trigger). She'll normally be carrying Fears Given Form and The Box Opens, to force you to make tests for activating near her/targeting her and possibly Aether Connection, for survivability. 

And that's before any attacks miss her, giving her a 3" push. Pandora is deceptively swift.

You throw her that far forward without support and I'll show you a dead master... Stuff like the Hanged and Izamu* won't care about most of those defenses with proper support. Anything with auto pushes (Collodi and Pandy springs to mind in my collection) can be countered by positioning and getting stuck in. You could also tarpit her from outside her range decently enough if you just flesh construct surround her (possibly near terrain since she's apparently coming to you).

*Nurses can juice Izamu's damage from far enough from the front line and hanged wiping half her wounds out a go makes it a race to see who kills who first. Since you can summon more beaters this tends to favor the Resser in the longer run...

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Besides, I think it would absolutely be a stretch to claim that a player can't prevent Pandy and Co. from being stuck in and preventing scheme running for the entire crew. Seriously, if grinding doesn't work then don't try to fight on her terms. Even if you get wiped as long as you get your ten they're less likely to have if they play a strict killing game.

[Tayne]

Wasn't saying she's unkillable by any means, I was disputing that she isn't quick. Looking at her card, she does not appear as a speedy master but she is deceptively quick.

As for her not being supported. Your Izamu and Hanged aren't likely to act first, thanks to her mood swings controlling your activation (if Pandora is that far ahead, she'll activate early the next turn and pop at least one more incite out), giving her crew time to chase the madwoman down.

[enderwiggin]

I don't usually call Masters quick if you just use the majority of AP for walking tbh. Just a personal thing, though the trigger is fair to point out.

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As for activation, I was assuming Pandy would be activating close to last (of note the Resser likely has the NB by model count), but it's less sure to say you'll get the next turn. If you say Doppleganger (pretty much auto-include for me to be fair to NB lists), then you have a Doppleganger, upgrades on Pandy (mine are usually 5SS worth but 4SS is fine), and in the OP's comment WW, 1-2 teddies... Aka points getting eaten up very quickly. Especially if you consider that you may have a decent cache to make Aether worth it (say 2 extra for five total). Also Pukeworm since her totem sucks imo and puke is life.

Theoretically speaking, this is already 45 SS and seven activations. Plus not as much support for scheme running or Pandy herself imo since this list would like to stay relatively bunched from what I'm seeing synergistically speaking. An Insidious Madness wouldn't be a bad way to finish the crew off there.

On the Resser side, you can easily swamp that few of activations in base hired crew, and with summoning easily get the activation advantage through sheer numbers. Especially if you take some cheap schemers that the slower NB list would be obligated to chase down. Imo if your 4-5 point schemer requires a 7+ pt to model counter it, then you come out ahead easily since he has no other real crew option to counter the cheap runners.

[CactusEmperor]

If you want to use Nicodem, he’s pretty survivable to alpha strikes as well. His card alone is a pretty daunting challenge to get through, with 14 wounds, impossible to wound, and 7 WP. I always add in the Reaper Grin upgrade if I’m worried he might get focused, so you can ideally pass off some wounds to a mindless zombie or some other undead if you need to (and if they die from it, you get a corpse marker and a card so no big loss there). The worst case will be that you’ll lose something you can’t summon back, but even in that case you’ll likely still get a corpse marker, so don’t despair too much and think of what you can turn poor departed Mortimer into and get some revenge. Hanged and the appropriate Student are both good picks and they can dish out a lot of damage in return and can stall down any further advances with their own terrifying auras.

Alternatively you can give Nico Necrotic King instead of Reaper Grin and slap Love Thy Master on Mortimer. It’s riskier, but assuming that Mortimer and Nico both survive the alpha strike you can summon something in (Hanged, Student, or Punk), give it fast, and chain activate into it. Since the model will be nearby, you'll benefit from all of Nicodem's auras, giving you up to four attacks (three if using Hanged), all at to accuracy and damage flips before they have a chance to react to it.