New To Neverborn & Zoraida - Any Advice?

[Robbo]

I've probably played about 15 games of malifaux so far and looking towards Zoraida as i really like the idea of the multi obey after dabbling with Lucius.

I was curious to peoples opinions and advice on how she runs, what crew she runs best with to get started - id be aiming for 50SS.

So far I have... 

Zoraida, JuJu, Grootslang, Firstmate, Adze, Wisps, 2 Slurids, 1 Waldergeist, Vasilisa,

I have Serena Bowman, Bearly together, Wicked Dolls and also Doppleganger too.

I really like the idea of running the Grootslang seems really fun to play and great at scheming may be with the Doppleganger mimicking the lairs allowing the Grootslang to jump about more and also allowing the Doppleganger to leap to a lair also. 

Any advice to a beginner to this crew would be great but we dont play double masters.

Thanks

[Ogid]

I don't play her, but a few quick notes:

• This is Zoraida 101, but just in case: Bring at least 1 Wisp, if a model ends his movement too close of Zoraida, summon his doll and use the wisp to debuff it into uselessness.
• The First mate is really good, both schemy and hitty; if you are not sure about what to bring in a crew; pick him.
• The Grootslang is very good, but for a model as big as him he isn't tanky at all and with Sz4 and 50mm is hard to hide; take that in count.
• Interesting interaction with the Grootslang and obey: An enemy model who is obeyed to disengage will still be attacked by a friendly model. The Grootslang is wicked and you control both flips, get Ensorcel and you have two free hits.
• I've heard people complaining about Widow Weaver summoning Stitcheds out of her doll's scrap, so that's probably something worth to try (She is the only non-DMH model in the faction able to reliabily generate scrap for free). You don't seem to have WW, but you may do it with Vasilisa; she cannot stone for the trigger so it's not as reliable as with WW but Vasi is a legit model anyway.
• She likes to obey big beaters, so you might consider getting also the Rider or Hinamatsu. Other Swampfiend models like Bokors are also great and would be high in my to buy list, but I think with what you have you may play her without problems.

Not playing double master is also good for Zoraida as her obey cannot target Masters.

Hope it helps!

[FrostHunter]

Also quick notes:

Combo from second edition - McTavish & Doppelganger doesn't work as good as it was, but still is quite nice and Doppel is great with Zoraida - you will draw a card from her and stat 7 attack (use Mimic before obeying her) copied from big beater might be pretty powerful.

Swamp Mother and Gupps are quite nice flankers (or use them to create some swampfiend deathball, keep Mommy just 4-5 inches after Gupps so enemy will not be able to target her because of stealth and use Gupps to block lanes, if he kill them to move after schemes or Mother, or anything else you will get free charge, but beware of shockwaves!), don't expect they will evolve into Silurids, but they can be annoying as hell.

Also if you have high rams you may quickly heal somebody in melee with enemy thanks to Zoraida's Hex. Adze is quite funny with coordinated attack from Hex and then double Obey to regenerate to full wounds. Same things with Juju.

Bokors are great for corrupted idols as they can heal Zoraida when she suffer damage from double obeyed enemy to walk and interact with idol.

Emissary might be funny with obeying enemy model twice while it is in Hungry Land, but it's quite costly...

Ooh last thing - Zoraida's threats of fate can be life saver to ensure almost all her obeys gonna work on your models and most her attacks should work.

[scratchnsniff]

Great core you have already there, and agree with the above mention of adding rider for even more mobility and killing ability. 

Silirids i found to be worth their weight in gold and one of the factions best scheme runners.

I also used spawn mother quite a bit, summoning multiple gupps as a road block, surprise scheme runners or just a general PITA always seemed good value, especially as a focused charge from her is a painful experience for the opponent too. 

Otherwise, don't be afraid to forget obeying when the time is right, 3 hex attacks at a range of 24 inches is enough to kill a large number of things, especially if they're engaged. 

People don't rate him, but I found him decent (and also if you want that extra beater to be thematic instead of rider) then McTavish can do some damage too.

So post waffle, I'd say McTavish and spawn mother are the only 2 things I'd consider grabbing personally, but what you have already seems pretty flexible at most S&S

[AdrianMills]

I ran Zoraida for the first in ages.

 Consider Bad Juju and a waldergeist.

Bad Juju was engaged with an Ice Golem . Waldiergeist germinated putting Juju in severe terrain making him regen +3.
 

 

[Ogid]

8 hours ago, AdrianMills said:

Consider Bad Juju and a waldergeist.

Bad Juju was engaged with an Ice Golem . Waldiergeist germinated putting Juju in severe terrain making him regen +3.

There is some synergy there, but mind you'll need to move Bad Juju outside of his activation for this. Germinate is a create, not a drop effect; the Marker can only be in contact with the Waldgeist. I think the only Severe + Drop Marker is Widow Weaver webs (not taking in count the emisary ones because these will damage him)

[Maniacal_cackle]

3 hours ago, Ogid said:

There is some synergy there, but mind you'll need to move Bad Juju outside of his activation for this. Germinate is a create, not a drop effect; the Marker can only be in contact with the Waldgeist. I think the only Severe + Drop Marker is Widow Weaver webs (not taking in count the emisary ones because these will damage him)

Incidentally, Widow Weaver is stupidly powerful with Zoraida (and is one of the main reasons I swapped to being an advocate of nerfing Stitched).

EDIT: of course, that means they may nerf the combo... So may be good to wait to see if they do errata with GG1 this week. Assuming you haven't purchased the models yet.

[Robbo]

Thanks this information is great to get me started. Had my first game last night ran Zoraida, voodoo, grootslang, juju, doppleganger, two slurids and a waldergeist. 

 

Slurids were great and juju and doppleganger really hit hard in melee especially when juju red jokered his damage. 

 

Turf war war against tara which was tough but fun. 

[Ogid]

7 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Incidentally, Widow Weaver is stupidly powerful with Zoraida (and is one of the main reasons I swapped to being an advocate of nerfing Stitched).

EDIT: of course, that means they may nerf the combo... So may be good to wait to see if they do errata with GG1 this week. Assuming you haven't purchased the models yet.

IDK... Dreamer is doing well in Russian meta and at least 1 of the top players really likes them, so I could see a nerf coming his way (and landing in stitcheds) for that if they are nerfing the top dogs of each region; but not for that particular combo.

Zoraida doesnt seem to be overperforming in any way right now. Even before the GG0 obey nerf slight change of politics about how obey should interact with strategies, Zoraida wasn't doing that well; and at least of the ones posted in the forum, I can't recall a single Zoraida first position in a tournament game after GG0. And even in Russia, where there are multiple masters allowed and strong NVB players, other masters are picked both as leaders and multiple masters instead of her (when supposedly she is broken as second master)
.

[AdrianMills]

13 hours ago, Ogid said:

There is some synergy there, but mind you'll need to move Bad Juju outside of his activation for this. Germinate is a create, not a drop effect; the Marker can only be in contact with the Waldgeist. 

the wording on germinate is anywhere within 6" at least 2" away from another underbrush marker

[Adran]

4 minutes ago, AdrianMills said:

the wording on germinate is anywhere within 6" at least 2" away from another underbrush marker

Germninate "Creates" a marker, so it needs to follow the create rules in addition to any extra rules of the action.

The Create rules are as follows

 

If a Marker is Created, it is treated as Dropped, with the following additional rules described below:

• Created Markers can overlap non-Impassable terrain, but they cannot overlap other Markers.

• Created Markers cannot be put into base contact with any models except for the model creating them. Impassable Markers cannot be Created insuch a way that their base overlaps the base of the model creating them.

[AdrianMills]

1 minute ago, Adran said:

• Created Markers cannot be put into base contact with any models except for the model creating them. Impassable Markers cannot be Created insuch a way that their base overlaps the base of the model creating them.

must have glossed over that thanks for clearing it up.