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Pandora Tactica


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2 hours ago, Fortune said:

Hey everyone.  Struggling with the 8-10 stone range for Pandora.  I love Barbaros (conceptually and visually), but I keep seeing negative reviews of him online (Alex Schmid put out a pretty negative video on him this morning. Is anyone having good success with him in Summoning Dora?  If you are, are you running any upgrades on him?

Second question: how many models do you typically hire in Summoning Dora crews?  I've been leaning towards 9 lately, but could drop to 8 to get another big model in there.

The biggest problem with Barby is spending 10ss on a non-aggressive model doesn't fit my playstyle. That's all it is. If your playstyle bends towards a more defensive or zone control style, then he may do more work for you. My playstyle is very aggressive with Neverborn, ask your opponent a lot of questions and force them to use their resources poorly. Barby unfortunately doesn't fit that, and prefer to spend the 10ss slot on things like Rider (or a smaller beater like one of our many minions).

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2 hours ago, chryspainthemum said:

The biggest problem with Barby is spending 10ss on a non-aggressive model doesn't fit my playstyle. That's all it is. If your playstyle bends towards a more defensive or zone control style, then he may do more work for you. My playstyle is very aggressive with Neverborn, ask your opponent a lot of questions and force them to use their resources poorly. Barby unfortunately doesn't fit that, and prefer to spend the 10ss slot on things like Rider (or a smaller beater like one of our many minions).

Great point, Chrys.  I'm still fairly new to the game and this is my first summoner master.  I started with Viks and Lilith, so I'm used to much more aggressive strategies.  That said, I'm not yet ready to say aggro is my playstyle (it's basically been my only option thus far, basically). Worst case, i paint barbaros, don't like him, and still have an awesome looking model.  

 

Thanks very much for your input.  

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1 hour ago, Fortune said:

Great point, Chrys.  I'm still fairly new to the game and this is my first summoner master.  I started with Viks and Lilith, so I'm used to much more aggressive strategies.  That said, I'm not yet ready to say aggro is my playstyle (it's basically been my only option thus far, basically). Worst case, i paint barbaros, don't like him, and still have an awesome looking model.  

 

Thanks very much for your input.  

Summoning Dora is not a summoner. At least, the way I play her, she's just Box Pandora with a cherry on top. Turn 1 you're trying to end the turn engaged with 2+ enemy models and a Poltergeist summoned in. After that, it's positioning her so she keeps 2+ models tied down, then Inflicts x 3. Box Pandora that causes less simple duels, but the no-cheating aura lets her murder things more consistently. You want her engaged turn 1, and you don't mind losing her after the third turn.... very aggressive.

But again, that's just my playstyle.

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30 minutes ago, chryspainthemum said:

Summoning Dora is not a summoner. At least, the way I play her, she's just Box Pandora with a cherry on top. Turn 1 you're trying to end the turn engaged with 2+ enemy models and a Poltergeist summoned in. After that, it's positioning her so she keeps 2+ models tied down, then Inflicts x 3. Box Pandora that causes less simple duels, but the no-cheating aura lets her murder things more consistently. You want her engaged turn 1, and you don't mind losing her after the third turn.... very aggressive.

But again, that's just my playstyle.

In that case, can I ask what your typical list looks like?  Would like to see how you get her that far up the board T1.

I've been struggling to figure out how to break up the crew (i.e, what has to go with Pandora, what smaller groups can go up a flank together, etc).

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1 hour ago, Fortune said:

In that case, can I ask what your typical list looks like?  Would like to see how you get her that far up the board T1.

I've been struggling to figure out how to break up the crew (i.e, what has to go with Pandora, what smaller groups can go up a flank together, etc).

Pandora w/ Woe is Me, other upgrades as needed (sometimes Wings, sometimes Aether, sometimes FGF, sometimes Fugue, sometimes Rile).

Iggy

Lilitu

Doppelganger w/ Thousand Faces

Depression on someone. I've been trying Kade w/ Depression as he's a naturally great carrier for it, but you have a number of other Woes who could do it. The rest of your crew can be whatever, I really like The Tooth, Thorn, Hooded Rider, Nekima, Silurids/Madness, Mr Graves, I dunno, live your life the way you want man.

Lilitu walks up, lures Doppel. Doppel walks up, copies Lure w/ a Tome to Lure Dora up twice. Up to this point, you are trying to position so that Dora will end within Incite distance of an enemy model.

Dora Incites (using a Soulstone for trigger if needed) to swing 8" up the board. You may have to spend an AP to walk, but you really want to limit your walking. This is where your opponent should try to counter if they have a high card - stop the Incites, and you have to spend time Walking (which sucks). In non-Corner deployments, you should be able to engage enemy models and Inflict at least twice. In an ideal world, you end engaged with all 3 AP, using it to summon a Sorrow (off the Mood Swing) + 2x Inflict.

Top of turn 2, you are activating Pandora first, throwing Incite onto 1-2 useless enemy models (using your 4" push to engage more enemies ideally), and inflict thrice to get that sweet, sweet Poltergeist into play. Then play your game as needed.

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12 minutes ago, chryspainthemum said:

Pandora w/ Woe is Me, other upgrades as needed (sometimes Wings, sometimes Aether, sometimes FGF, sometimes Fugue, sometimes Rile).

Iggy

Lilitu

Doppelganger w/ Thousand Faces

Depression on someone. I've been trying Kade w/ Depression as he's a naturally great carrier for it, but you have a number of other Woes who could do it. The rest of your crew can be whatever, I really like The Tooth, Thorn, Hooded Rider, Nekima, Silurids/Madness, Mr Graves, I dunno, live your life the way you want man.

Lilitu walks up, lures Doppel. Doppel walks up, copies Lure w/ a Tome to Lure Dora up twice. Up to this point, you are trying to position so that Dora will end within Incite distance of an enemy model.

Dora Incites (using a Soulstone for trigger if needed) to swing 8" up the board. You may have to spend an AP to walk, but you really want to limit your walking. This is where your opponent should try to counter if they have a high card - stop the Incites, and you have to spend time Walking (which sucks). In non-Corner deployments, you should be able to engage enemy models and Inflict at least twice. In an ideal world, you end engaged with all 3 AP, using it to summon a Sorrow (off the Mood Swing) + 2x Inflict.

Top of turn 2, you are activating Pandora first, throwing Incite onto 1-2 useless enemy models (using your 4" push to engage more enemies ideally), and inflict thrice to get that sweet, sweet Poltergeist into play. Then play your game as needed.

That's super helpful.  Thanks Chrys!  I didn't realize Pandora could be so self sufficient in summoning (thought you needed a ton of crew causing status to get her going).

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14 hours ago, Fortune said:

I didn't realize Pandora could be so self sufficient in summoning (thought you needed a ton of crew causing status to get her going).

That's true. So you can just take Pandora with upgrades, Iggy and 1-2 models like Madness or Wisp to apply conditions. Another part of the crew can be independent and do their job, while Pandora will summon and demolish the enemy. One game I was able to summon only one Sorrow and Poltergeist turn 1. Turn 2 I lost Pandora, but anyway I significantly won that game.

@chryspainthemum shared really nice strategy. However, my staple upgrades on Pandora are obvious "woe is me", "depression" and "aeth. connection". The most important for me in "depression" is "melancholy" action, which is wp based attack for woes. This makes summoned Sorrows much more deadly.

Also I like to use Mr. Graves to push Pandora round 1. Lilitu + Doppel can lure a couple of enemy models. Pandora uses her "incite" twice as @chryspainthemum said. This applies condition on enemy (for further summoning; conditions can also be applied previously by Iggy, Madness or Wisp depends on situation) and gives her free push moves. After that she tries to summon at least two Sorrows and attack someone. Summoned Sorrows can finish off somebody by "melancholy"+"misery" and summon Poltergeist, who actually can use "melancholy" as well. Next round could be really salty for opponent:D Pandora should try to provide as much wp duels as it will be possible covered by multiple "misery" auras. Thanks to "inflict" and Poltergeist aura ("distraction") it is possible to kill around 3-4 models per one Pandoras activation.

Another tool is NB Emissary, which can be really good and flexible in Pandora crew. For example, additional "misery", "martyr" or "distraction", etc. I feel like Emissary works very well with almost all of our masters. I think it worth to mention Mr. Tannen either. He has wp based attack with condition and mainly "cooler" aura, which is great in wp duels+"misery" environment. Emissary can copy this aura as well.

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5 hours ago, le_sphinx said:

 

However, my staple upgrades on Pandora are obvious "woe is me", "depression" and "aeth. connection". The most important for me in "depression" is "melancholy" action, which is wp based attack for woes. This makes summoned Sorrows much more deadly.

 

Keep in mind that Depression does not need to be on Dora herself. It can be on any Woe, and you only need LOS to the other Woes to give them the attack. Throw it on Dora if you have the slots, but you can also attach it to any other Woe in your crew.

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On 19 marzo 2018 at 5:06 PM, chryspainthemum said:

Keep in mind that Depression does not need to be on Dora herself. It can be on any Woe, and you only need LOS to the other Woes to give them the attack. Throw it on Dora if you have the slots, but you can also attach it to any other Woe in your crew.

Well but depressione give the possibility to get the right trigger for sure, helping with wp test on pandy...

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10 hours ago, saxcloud said:

Well but depressione give the possibility to get the right trigger for sure, helping with wp test on pandy...

The issue most people have with Depression, is that although you can help get the trigger (drawing no crows for Voices Pandora is always a possibility though) Incite is such a strong action, that losing a potential 2 moodswings a turn isn't as effective. If you can or need to paralyse 3 models a turn, it's great, but how often is that guarenteed to be possible? If you have the option for, say, Kade to carry it, it gives a good CA 5 action to help with extra control, and Misery damage, but Pandora can happily carry 3 upgrades, so throwing Depression into the mix can complicate things. It's not to say you shouldn't take it, your experiences and value for the upgrade may be more positive than others. 

I like the idea of summoning dora, dropping a mask, but that may be too card intensive, with 1 mask dropped, and a potential 3 10+ cards if your flips don't work out.

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Just thought I'd do a quick overview of a tournament game I had today.

So, the tournament rules restricted us to Wave 1 models only, but any upgrades from any Wave could be used. It was great, without Nekima, Lilitu, Hooded Rider etc, to see how other models faired up. 

I decided to run summoning Pandora (with the stratergy of Ply) and it was crazy! Bad Juju had already tied up a good few models, before Pandora dropped 2 sorrows and a poltergeist just before, into a mass of models. At that point, my opponents crew had lost a lot, passing a WP 7 VS WP duel on a negative, or suffer 3 damage, is difficult to take. It was surprising how little the reliance on conditions is, when Ply is in the pool.

Even Baby Kade pulled his weight, dropping Fingers from full wounds, to just 1 left (he was the entourage target too) and even though his lure is only CA 5, the added WP Duel and placement shenanigans, it went pretty well.

I guess the experience, not only made me value Wave 1 models a lot more, Silurids and Beckoners are great in the right scenario, but Pandora's summoning engine doesn't even need a WP based or condition based crew, to get started.

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Ply is made for summoning Pandora. People want to score so they’re not likely to drop the condition, which makes it easy to drop a Sorrow or two on the model then start overwhelming it with Misery damage. 

Rinse and repeat any time they try to Ply something.

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Tested yesterday:

Declared Faction: Neverborn 
Crew Name: Open the Box 50ss 
Leader: Pandora - Cache:(3)
   Fears Given Form 1ss 
   Rile Them Up 2ss 
   Woe is Me 2ss 
Doppleganger 7ss 
Mysterious Emissary 10ss 
   Conflux of Sorrow 0ss 
Serena Bowman 7ss 
   A Thousand Faces 1ss 
Bloodwretch 5ss 
Beckoner 6ss 
   Warped Reality 1ss 
Insidious Madness 5ss 

The main thing is a "Pandorapult" engine that consists of:
- placing Beckoner wia FtS within 4 of Dora, and use her lure tricks to move her 8"
- killing Serena Bowman to make Dora do her Incite wia Rile Them Up
- polish it with the regular Incite.

With this, we can possibly move Dora up to 24" without spending any of her AP.

2nd part of a crew is my regular card-cycling engine, which gives Dora resourses she needs.

At last - Insidious Madness for a scheme-run and little support.

After a test game I came to conclusion that IM should be replaced with Mr. Tannen.

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19 minutes ago, Mutter said:

I don't get how this works. Would somebody mind explaining?

Doppleganger uses her 0 AP action "Mimic" to copy the 1 AP action "The Rage Builds" from Bloodwretch, and for tomes trigger do it for free. It requires 7+ tomes, but after this he can do two attacks with her fists (1|1|2 damage changing to 2|2|3) - probably combined with charge moving. Each of these attacks, if damaging, allow you to draw two cards and discard one.

The Bloodwretch itself can do only one such attack - after tactical action. Her damage track will change to 3|4|6 - so at the end of all 3 attacks Serena will die, unless she activates in a middle and heal herself. But she will be auto-summoned back, and we will get cards-cycling and free 1 AP action for Dora.

This card-farming engine can be used with any master, and Serena can be easily chaged for any other model with easy healing or high armor. But the best use of her I found with Jacob Lynch - since we can always discard Aces to get them back. And Hungering Darkness with Malifaux Provides is quite good in place of Serena.
 

 

 

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No Emissary is too bad, but summon Dora may serve you well nonetheless. 

You could try The Tooth/Thorn with Rougs or Baby Kade (or even both) as Lures and Marker Drops align well for most schemes, plus both of them are cheap enough to make Vendetta possible. Autumn also brings a few more WP duels. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/8/2018 at 2:06 PM, Domin said:

But the best use of her I found with Jacob Lynch - since we can always discard Aces to get them back. And Hungering Darkness with Malifaux Provides is quite good in place of Serena.

Maybe i'm in wrong but JL allow you to take aces when they're put in discard pile from deck.  
Whit "The Rage Build" you draw 2 card than discard from your hand, not from your deck. 

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When Jacob lynch talks about aces from your deck, it means your original deck of cards, rather than when it is flipped (rather than cheated). 

Its in the FAQ 

131. With Jakob Lynch’s Ace in the Hole Ability, can he only place aces which were flipped directly off the
top of the deck into his hand? Or can he place aces into his hand which had been cheated/discarded as
well?
He can place any aces into his hand which ended up in the discard pile, regardless of whether they were
cheated, discarded, flipped, etc. The language “When an ace from this Crew’s deck…” is simply meant to
clarify that Jakob cannot place aces from his opponent’s deck into his hand.

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14 minutes ago, Adran said:

When Jacob lynch talks about aces from your deck, it means your original deck of cards, rather than when it is flipped (rather than cheated). 

Its in the FAQ 

131. With Jakob Lynch’s Ace in the Hole Ability, can he only place aces which were flipped directly off the
top of the deck into his hand? Or can he place aces into his hand which had been cheated/discarded as
well?
He can place any aces into his hand which ended up in the discard pile, regardless of whether they were
cheated, discarded, flipped, etc. The language “When an ace from this Crew’s deck…” is simply meant to
clarify that Jakob cannot place aces from his opponent’s deck into his hand.

Ty for remind me this faq

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  • 2 weeks later...

That's a great setup @Treehouse but I'm not sure it works that way because of the wording on Graves' SYTD. "Push..., then push.... This model may only target a friendly model with this Action once per Turn."

Thinking about the setup though, if you switch Lilitu & DG in the pictures, then:
1. Graves pushes Lilitu but won't go BtB because of the DG in the way
2. Lilitu can lure Pandy & DG towards her. With Pandy's 4" walk, she should still have room between her & Lilitu after the lure, leaving room for the next push.
3. DG can then copy SYTD from Graves and push Pandy 6", then walk into cover.

It won't push Pandy the full 12", but 10" is still great to get her upfield before activating.

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