How do you usually lose with Pandora?

[n0signal]

My experience against Pandora is that she eats Jones's Gremlin crew alive; their Wp is just too low to fight against her and she can absolutely murder them all. Conversely, Leveticus and his shenanigans owns her face off; he's Wp8 for the face-to-face duel in order to target her, which are decent odds he'll pass. Then she's reliant on her Df to avoid his hideous spells, what is she, Df2 or something? She's doomed (especially if the Levi player has used Deaths Lessons to set up a particularly nasty combo). This is from experience.

[Nutcase168]

So there you go. Alpha strikes vs. Pandy and Spells with blast effects. That seems to be what kills her. Spells that ignore her WP duels (Lady Justice/Perdita in particular) would also hurt, although liberal use of pacify/incite can help deal with that.

This is how I kill her if need be. Blasts on near by models (like an ice gamin that then explodes and does more damage) or for Ramos detonating spiders near her.

Reminds me on WM where I would slam my own models into the enemy to get around high def.

[Csonti]

@Tonytone:

Perdita, Sonnia, Ramos, Rasputina, McMourning, Nicodem, Lilith, Viktorias - usually the crews contain their masters' favorites, sometimes with some additional figs.

@n0signal:

Yeah, I guess the Gremlins wouldn't last long but that's not a Pandora problem rather a Gremlin one.

I see your logic with Levy but IMHO he and his waifs are way to slow to catch Pandy even with a range 12 spell. She fights like a cobra. Lurks behind terrain, comes out (with an investment of 0 AP), hits hard and goes back (from 0 AP) before she ends her activation. Provided you don't play in a desert, a good Pandora player would deny even LoS to her for Levy and his puppets. And the rest can't touch her if you have a high card and SS ready.

Of course this is just theorymachine from my part.

@Nutcase168:

Auto damage and self-destructing things do have a very good threat. But if you don't need to risk Pandy to press really hard forward, then they don't really have a chance. The self-destructing things usually die before they could harm her. Blasting into an own model has the same problem and anyway blasts don't do that much damage. Pandy can survive several before even needing an SS to prevent the damage.

At least our Ramos and Rasputina all failed with these tactic.

[assimilation]

Rasputina's blast should be laying down 4 or 5 points of damage though, depending upon whether you have bite of winter active. That can put some hurt on her pretty quickly, as well as vaporising sorrows instantly. And with a 5" range from the edge of the Golem/Gamin's base, Rasputina can be a fair distance away as well.

[Amarel]

I see your logic with Levy but IMHO he and his waifs are way to slow to catch Pandy even with a range 12 spell. She fights like a cobra. Lurks behind terrain, comes out (with an investment of 0 AP), hits hard and goes back (from 0 AP) before she ends her activation. Provided you don't play in a desert, a good Pandora player would deny even LoS to her for Levy and his puppets. And the rest can't touch her if you have a high card and SS ready.

Of course this is just theorymachine from my part.

Exactly, it's the catching her that's tricky. She easily has a 24" threat range (at the end of which she can cast three times) and then, after all that, she can nip back out of LoS. If you can slow her down / stop her she's in a right pickle though (shame Hamelin's obey doesn't work on Masters anymore - that helped ).

[nebiros]

In my experience as an avid Pandora player, she generally does well in "go fetch" type strategies. Slaughter is one of her worst strategies. As far as schemes go, stay away from Bodyguard if you are trying to lose. Kidnap is great for throwing a game, because you can pick a hard as nails character to kidnap which will give your opponent a better chance at stopping you. Eye for an Eye is another good scheme to pick to dump victory points.

By choosing the tougher schemes and strategies, you can throw a game or just present yourself with a much tougher game than is entirely necessary. This should work to help balance out things a bit.

[Tonytone]

Now that you posted your opponents masters I find it hard to believe that they are equal skill players or they have no idea how to create a crew.

Perdita and Sonnia with Gov Proxy and 3+ Witchlings should be beating you often.

Ramos played well with his totem and lots of spiders should at least be a 50/50 affair.

Nicodem should be winning more than losing as well.

Raspy depending on your Pandora crew should make a good fight of it as well though she is not a great match-up.

The other 3 are just not good for using againest Pandora I would have to say. Lilith in particular is a really bad match.

[Omadon]

Levi/Alyce with 8 SPAs? Caustic Aura > Panda She simply cannot, after a long turn of casting - make every single Df9 resist. Doesn't target, and they can hide from her, goading her activations in packs til she's done doing her thing, then slingshot around her and wipe her out. Either that or she'll be completly devoid of soulstones. Tis a bit of a one trick pony though, as if she -doesnt- die (from the 8 seperate caustic auras ) then she can project emotions the lot of them and they'll never recover xD

Seriously though, people just need to space well. If people clump up - then project emotions with anguish is brutal, but she can only cast three serious spells, and she doesn't have an amazing cast. It's a pretty safe bet that if you save some high cards for your master to deal with resisting project emotions (Which can only be cast once) or anything she happens to drop a high raven in, as you'll know before you need to resist due to how spells work, then you shoulden't be in too much trouble. Also - if you don't stick close to eachother, then she's got to use mostly her own stuff for incite/pacify loops. If you break the chain of her spells well enough, it's quite possible to leave her stuck out in the open.

Furthermore - she's fragile as all hell. If you have -anything- with an AoE, then she has to think really hard about where she stands. Tis why Sonnia compleatly destroys her.

All of this in mind, I think the problem with Panda is that it's very easy - if you aren't paying attention to how you deploy - to get completly screwed by her. Hide yourself. Take Holdout so she either sends stuff to you or gives you free VP. Take Bodyguard and then brace your master for a torrent of psychological abuse. Surviving her onslaught means that she doesnt get to run away nearly as far. Also - her minions are all pretty damn weedy, so take them down and she loses alot of her psychic pinball game. And for heavens sake do not group up.

EDIT: I just saw someone say Jones was shit on her. X4 Mosquitos dumping pull my finger on her says otherwise. Goad her activations with gremlins or companion the lot with Jones then chaincast it on her - she either uses prevention flips or takes exactly 8 to the face. Thats alot of stones, and if you get initiative next, then she takes it all over again. Jones Ruins Panda almost exclusivley because of that spell - you just need to plan for killing her, and not just do generic game plan X that you usually would with them.

Edited March 8, 2010 by Omadon

[Amarel]

It's a pretty safe bet that if you save some high cards for your master to deal with resisting project emotions (Which can only be cast once)

Actually she can cast it multiple times, but a model can only be affected by it once per turn. Very important difference .