Your approach to a scenario

[Regelridderen]

I’ve just arranged a game, my opponent hasn’t declared master/faction yet, I myself will go with Pandora, as I need some practice with her.

 

The Strategy is : Plant Explosives, Flank deployment.

The Schemes are : Search the Ruins, Harness the Ley Lines, Deliver Message, Hold their Forces, Dig their Graves.

So my question is; how would you approach this as a Pandora player?

 

[cbtb11235813]

Step 1) Bring Iggy. He is pretty fantastic at denying 3 of the 5 schemes available, leaving only two "easy" ones as long as Iggy is on the board. Deliver a Message and Hold Up both require you opponent to be in your crews bubble, something they normally do not want. Pandora is all about making your opponent pick the lesser of two evils, make them do that with their scheme selection as well

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've not played Pandora yet, but am interested in her eventually.

Iggy seems like a great choice for scheme denial. Getting enough models across the line to plant the bombs is going to be important, so think about how to handle the explosive markers. Baby Kade + Teddy might be good at this, as Lure + Where's Teddy gives loads of extra move.

Wedge deployment means you'll be up in your opponent's business quite fast, which I'm guessing is exactly where you want to be. Be somewhat careful with Pandora until they reveal their schemes - if they grab deliver a message, you want to make it hard for them. An Aversion protecting Pandora could do wonders for this, if you're using proxies.

Given you're already going to be pretty busy interacting (planting/picking up explosive markers), it may be worthwhile to consider the Hold up their Forces/Deliver a Message combo yourself. You could also snag Dig Their Graves - Misery should make it easier to manipulate where people die to secure that objective.

Search the Ruins has been enormously nerfed, so that one is extremely board dependent (only take it if you have good search targets).

Harness the Leyline potentially pairs up well with plant explosives, since you can plant a scheme marker on the line, then plant a strategy marker just over the line. Very action efficient. So this scheme is worth considering. Watch for the same combo from your opponent.

[Maniacal_cackle]

A basic question to ask will be "if the game turns into a brawl in the centre, which crew wins?"

If your crew has the advantage there, take schemes that rely on you dominating the centre (since you are both so close to it in wedge deployment). For example, plant plus harness.

If their crew dominates there, think how to work around their crew (for example slowing down their plant while scoring hold up their forces).

[Nagi21]

Without knowing what you're going into, couldn't tell you exactly.  That into Arcanists vs that into Ten Thunders are two very different setups.

Search, Leylines, and Deliver are going to be your go to in this pool since wedge is likely going to cause an early scrum in the center.  Your opponent may choose to fight you for the center (which is your wheelhouse so go for that unless it's something insane...), or he may opt to go for Leylines and Search if he wants to avoid you.  Also you'll have to account for him taking Deliver and getting the free point on that.  Pandora wants to play right up near the middle and a lot of things can close that gap in one turn with some setup.  By the same token, you shouldn't have any issues denying the second point of Deliver, so it depends on how confident your opponent feels about scoring some of the others...

Dig is unlikely for him because very little of yours drops corpses, so while the first point is doable, the second is this side of impossible (with proper play that is).  Depending on what you bring I would say the most likely schemes to account for are Search/Leylines (for evasive crews), or Deliver/Hold Up (if they want to go brawl in the center).

Some of the posts here already mentioned Iggy, who is good in plant and in this pool.  Also a notable take should be Carver, as his breath of fire trigger burns up scheme markers in a blast a la poltergeist marker style.  Bowman can work as she can hang back and channel through carver (and teddy should you opt for him, which in this scenario I would personally).

This is a pretty good encounter as Pandora as the amount of schemes that require you to react to all corners of the map are limited.  It is likely to be pretty even on the strat points (depending on the enemy), but the scheme pool tilts heavily to you.

[Regelridderen]

Thanks for all the great advice so far. I just noticed, I’d written Wedge, when its supposed to be Flank. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

2 hours ago, Regelridderen said:

Thanks for all the great advice so far. I just noticed, I’d written Wedge, when its supposed to be Flank. 

Most of the same points will apply, but note that Harness covers much larger area and is easier for both sides to score it.

[Regelridderen]

So my opponent has now declared Collodi. 

[Ogid]

It isn't a bad match. Pandora beats Collodi in a straight fight abusing her ping damage and conditions, but Puppets have much better scheme runners than Pandy; so pick scheme denial because you'll need it. Stunned really hurt some of his top tier beaters (Coryphee Duet/Hinamatsu). A Lyssa could be very nice to include, it's very cheap and may counter the staggered of Vasilisa (and it may even dispel 3 in one turn, using also her bonus action). Some healing to keep the damage of stitched gambles in check would be good to have... Serena or a Changeling to copy the goody basket. Kade/Teddy have some healing together and are probably good to lure and kill puppets.

If I were the Collodi player, I'd probably go for Search the ruins and Harness the leyline (going toward the part of the board not controled by Pandora) using a fast crew (Bunrakus/Coryphees)... Deliver and Hold require entering in the bubble, so that's very unlikely. Dig their graves would be another possible pick, it'd be about kidnapping and killing a Woe and then score the rest of the strategy generating scrap with the Marionettes.

Good luck!

[Regelridderen]

So the fight went down. I ran Pandy, Polter, Candy, Carver, Kade, Iggy, Teddy and a Sorrow - I probably should dumped one of the beaters for a Sorrow/aversion, pushing people into a ditch seems like a great way to deal with enemies.

The board spanned a raging river of severe terrain, a couple of natural bridges creating two bottlenecks.

Kade & Teddy grabbed a couple of bombs and hit the northern bridge, where they faced off vs Hinamatsu and a Hodgepodge Effissary for 5 rounds, while the puppets managed to drop a bomb and score a point of Ley Lines - through broken and cheating abilities.

At the southern choke point, Candy, Pandy, Carver, Iggy and a Sorrow fought the good fight. Candy throwing some great temper tantrums and pushing puppets into the river left and right. Sadly due to 4:5 hands being horrible, I was never really able to push through, and I learned the hard way, that not having an engagement zone can be detrimental. 

End Result was a 4 - 5 loss, 3 points from Explosives and 1 from Deliver Message.

 

Great Lessons Learned

I had some fun with Despairs Influence on Kade, Carver and Candy. My timing was off, but I see its worth now.

I finally got the regeneration synergy between Kade and Teddy up and running - while Teddy’s terrifying finally work as a Defense.  

I generally had horrible hands, at max getting one severe in 4 out of the 5 turns. Luckily the crew can drain an opponents hand fairly easily, while making use of moderates and wreak cards. So my opponent only managed to kill Kade, while all his schemers just wasted away in despair - just a little too slow for me to capitalize on it.

But most important of all, I learned never to dump a bomb, when my model isn’t able defend it.

[Ogid]

What about Collodi? How his crew looked like?

2 hours ago, Regelridderen said:

where they faced off vs Hinamatsu and a Hodgepodge Effissary for 5 rounds

Did you mean effigy? Or he picked the OUT effigy with the upgrade?

[Regelridderen]

6 hours ago, Ogid said:

What about Collodi? How his crew looked like?

Did you mean effigy? Or he picked the OUT effigy with the upgrade?

He upgraded the Effigy to turn into the emissary  

His crew was

Collodi, Vasilisa, Hinamatsu, Stitched, Brutal and Hodgepodge Effigy, Bunraku, changeling and 4 Marionettes. 

 

[Nagi21]

So what schemes did you take and what schemes did he take other than the two mentioned?