Woe - Woes she fit?

[Wenshai]

Alright, Pandora got me into Malifaux. I loved her oppressiveness. I played her a couple times in the beta. Atm, i dont 'see' what she does or where she fits.

 

Can someone breakdown Woe for me? Cause less than m2e, i think shes not intuitive.

[Ogid]

I'm not an expert but I hope this helps:

In a nutsell:  Strong bubble play, strong condition and anti-condition play, good control, lot of chip damage, Mood swing,  Lure, 2 models with Self-Loathing (long range spell), access to some good beaters (Caver, Teddy), good synergy with dreamer (imo) Need the bubble (or at least small groups of at least 3 models) to work well, Low mobility, lots of manipulative (you can't delay all of them), light on damage reduction.

Pandora bubble is oppresive (lots of Missery triggers, life leech, mood swing, stunned, slow, ludicrous beaters...), anyone who enters in his bubble is doomed (specially considering that mood swing may delay critical activations or force enemy beaters to activate too early), but they need each other to work well and they haven't a lot of mobility tricks. So you'll want to play her into a pool that rewards area control, direct combat and keeping enemies in place. Gunlines and crews with a lot of shockwaves are dangerous for her playstile and models, so try to avoid picking woe versus shooty factions or in maps that are too open.

 

Check some of the threads about them, there are a lot of useful info there:

Missery aura threads (it's very important to understad how it works):

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/147348-yet-another-miserable-question/

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/147178-pandora-misery/

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/146685-multiple-misery-and-life-leech-auras/

General playstile threads:

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/146917-running-pandora/

https://themostexcellentandawesomeforumever-wyrd.com/topic/146417-help-with-pandora/

[Gaston]

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.

[Ogid]

15 hours ago, Gaston said:

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.

I'm interested in this part, could you elaborate which OOK you usually use to adapt to different pools and masters?

These are some I think it could work in the right game (#theoryfaux), but it'd be nice to know if someone use them:

• Wrath: Terrifying (poltergeist WW), lure with extra movement, decent beater, some extra control with the sin tokens, easy to get sin tokens.
• Azde: A bit squishy but it may handle a lot of negative states (Stunned, Distracted, Burning, Poison, Slow), some of them in the enemy model's activations (very valuable to get extra missery triggers), Lured models will gain Distracted. In his activation he may trigger Pandora's, Kade's and Iggy's auras. Plus he is quite fast, has a lure and a decent attack with a trigger built in. Good synergy with Iggy and Carver (Burning)
• Black Blood Shaman: Healing aura, pulse Focus, Corpses for Lyssa, grow into mature if needed in turn 2+.
• Autum: Tough as nails, Parry, Challenge, underbrush markers. Move (Missery) enemy dangerous beaters into CC with this guy.
• Changeling: Lots of good tacticals, some without TN (Despair's Influence, Graspling Tentacles, Temper Tantrum, Goody Basket, Draw essence...), this may set up a Pandora with 3 slowing self-loathing attacks; pulse slow. Negative point: Another Manipulative.

[Gaston]

@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.  

[Ogid]

Great insight @Gaston Ty! I take good note of it 😊

Hinamatsu and Vasilissa could work quite well... not only they are great models, but it's also the surprise factor; the main defensive tech of the woes isn't damage reduction, so the other player could be light on tools to counter it... and puppets are really solid models.

This costs quite a few points in OOK models, but it's something to consider: with Vasilissa it's possible to grow a Mature in turn 1

• BBS make 2 attacks getting the trigger (cheat to get them if needed), and consume a body to get the pulse
• Place a scheme marker with a cheap model (Lyssa, Wicked doll...)
• Use Pulling the Strings to consume a second body and grow the mature in turn 1 (so he will be healed in turn 2 to 8HP thanks to regen)

Azde seems like a great model tbh and with Marcus he have to work wonders; the mutations cover his weaknessess really well, and the extra attacks he may get plus the built in drink blood trigger could make him very annoying to put down, on top of all the states. Plus that built in trigger may be used to trigger Puncture from the mutations if the healing is not needed.