Ramos v Pandora, the pain.

[Hansbrix]

So i started playing malifaux and picked up the Ramos crew. I soon dicovered that he is harder to use than most. No big deal, i lost the first few games but learnt a lot.

Then i tee up a game against Rathnard and his wonderful pink Pandora crew.

I have never had a more demoralizing game. Seriously by turn 3 i just wanted out. There was quite literally nothing i could think of that would help.

It was a 35SS game with me taking:

Ramos

brass arachnid

steamborg

arachnid swarm

arachnid swarm

Rath took:

Pandora

Candy

Kade

Teddy

4x sorrows.

I have Rusty Alice on her way with the hope her ranged attacks might do some damage, and was thinking of getting Hans.

Is pandora just one of those matchups that ramos cannot deal with? How do you deal with her?

[Angus Khan]

Try forgoing the steamborg and the swarms and replacing them with lots and lots of steampunk arachnids. Use your arachnids to engage and tie up models or detonate and do 2 irresistible damage. Ramos should hang way back and create as many spiders as possible to make up for any who exploded. With any luck, you should be able to do a lot of damage with very few Wp tests.

Above all, don't get discouraged... Ramos has a steeper learning curve than most. Keep at it and you'll see how good Ramos can be.

Edited April 7, 2010 by Angus Khan

[Amarel]

There's a similar thread in the general forum which might help you out, too.

Essentially, yes, Pandora can be a right pain and is very difficult to lock down. Ramos has the advantage of detonating Spiders, however, which at least means he can bypass her WP-based defensive ability (although do expect your opponent to burn some Soul Stones on healing flips).

[Wombats]

Ramos has another gear.

Spiders don't hurt themselves much with Self Loathing and Pandora can cast it three times and so can Candy. About 1 damage a cast.

Self Loathing is fierce against Swarms because their Weak damage is remarkably high. Also their +ve flip applies.

Arcing Screen for Df8 Arachnids will protect you from Teddy.

Also, take out the Sorrows first, they are what makes Pandora deadly.

Don't be afraid to have Ramos attack her with Electrical Fire, a Soulstone is your best chance to win the Willpower duel, she has Df2 and only 8 Wounds.

[Csonti]

Spiders don't hurt themselves much with Self Loathing and Pandora can cast it three times and so can Candy. About 1 damage a cast.

+1 because of the failed Wp duel for Pandora (provided Sorrows are not close enough). So that's usually 2 Wd's per casting. 2 SL's and they are done. And just 1 if you manage to position a Sorrow within 3".

[Omadon]

And against a panda list that knows what it's doing, it'll be anywhere from 5-9 per loss

Anyway, that said. Best advice I can give is burn her activations out with smaller models. Present her with very little things to target, give your stuff reactivate, hell - reactivate a swarm, then in it's second activation, split it, and then activate those, even if they swivel. Don't waste Ramos's activations on making spiders like these madmen will have you believe Keep him as a cannon to apply when Pandora trys to rush you. Keep spiders hidden, and him slightly further forwards - starve her of targets that arent able to burn stones out of her will hopefully leave her stranded. Only ever make a spider at the end of the turn, if you've got nothing better to do. Electrical Creations are the bane of her existence, as they do automatic, indirect damage - which means that if she wants to stop it, her only recourse is desperate prevention flips. You have alot you can do, but you simply cannot let her have the last activations - the difference that makes is insane. Usually she gets to do pretty well as the sorrows are really cheap, but you can beat her at that hands down, and then if she wants to leap onto your side of the board, she's enevitably going to get stuck somewhere. That somewhere is where you then try to lamp her with some automatic damage. If her sorrows are linked to her, then they take it aswell, and if they arent linked to her - then she can't divert electrical fire.

In short - she's very easy to play badly against, but if you prepare for her, and don't let her just run amock when you've got nothing left to do for the turn, then she's screwed.

[Calisto]

That sounds like really good advice! I'll have to keep that in mind.

[TheBugKing]

I actually think Ramos is Pandora's second worst matchup (behind Perdita)

Ramos has access to the most indirect damage in the game. His pieces can be very mobile and he has access to an insane amount of action sinks.

I frequently try to build up my spider count early on while hanging back a bit. I also use this time to try to sculpt my hand a bit with surge (Do NOT underestimate the usefulness of surge!)

By turn three the Pandora player is usually about ready to pounce so I shift gears and do much what Omadon said. Two spiders detonating will clear out all the Sorrows linked to Pandora. Then you can Electrical Fire her into oblivion if you have the Soulstones to win the WP check. The great thing here is that you are starting with a base stat of 8 to her 2. She needs to spend a stone usually to even hope to defend against the spell. Also, you will likely get a surge trigger off and can often filter into another high card for the next salvo.

Be ready to finish off with a spider or two if necessary.

The issue is playing Ramos right. He plays several different ways and often you need to play all of those ways in each game depending on the situation.

[Zethal]

I'm confused why your opponents would wait to use stones on the Electrical Fire defense instead of Expose Fears. One she already has a higher stat in, and if you fail it you take a wound. This seems like the obvious duel to use a defensive stone on between the two.

[Calisto]

I didn't think that Expose Fears was a contested duel, more a static duel like terrifying.

[Hansbrix]

ok thanks guys. I have at least down graded raths crew from "never play again" to "at least pop a valium beforehand". ill give your advice a try next time

cheers

[Lictor]

I am bringing up the past but how have you fared since?

[Rob1981]

The problem with trying to corner Pandy likke that is that you have to give her 'stepping stones' which with an Incite or Passify can propel her across the board in little 4" jumps. The closest I've come to killing her is with Kirai's Ikiryo by summoning it into the middle of her sorrows with everything else out of incite range, unfortunately all of Kirai's abilities and spells work against her with Pandy so once your opponent gets onto this it's game over

[Natty]

Wow. This thread is old.

Honestly though, I don't see Ramos ever being able to beat a good Pandora player in a straight up fight. That is the problem with Pandora: some match-ups just aren't fair and aren't fun. Ramos needs to try to win by victory points and hope for the right strategies to get flipped.

Earlier in this thread people talk about using detonate to bypass the Wp duel, but any Pandora player that knows what they are doing will never let you do that. Pandora is by far the most mobile master in the game and the only hope a Ramos player has of beating her is to take out all her minions and try to win by victory points.

I know that if I was fighting Ramos and he started attacking Pandora instead of ignoring her, I've got the game won.

P.S. Save some soulstones for resist flips against crow triggers so Ramos wont fall back.

P.P.S. Don't group up your minions or the crow trigger on Pandora will make you lose all of them for several turns.

P.P.P.S. Hope that Pandora doesn't draw crows. I think this is your best strategy. Luck. I'd recommend using luck as much as possible. It could work.

[Nutcase168]

If I'm playing Ramos my strategies are the following:

1. take out the sorrows to reduce damage.

2. Work on the rest of her crew

3. work on main strategy and schemes

4. Have Alyce fire shots at her to keep her busy and afraid of head shot so she burns stones/cards.

5. Burnout or stoke spiders to close the distance and then detonate after she's gone.

[Zaqir]

If I'm playing Ramos my strategies are the following:

1. take out the sorrows to reduce damage.

2. Work on the rest of her crew

3. work on main strategy and schemes

4. Have Alyce fire shots at her to keep her busy and afraid of head shot so she burns stones/cards.

5. Burnout or stoke spiders to close the distance and then detonate after she's gone.

As a Levi player I thought of using much the same strategy but it wont work.

The sorrows wont be easily targets and are usually behind or our of sight of any enemy that can target them.

The rest of the crew will hide behind Pandora.

Alyce still has to win the duel to target her etc and if he is smart he will try and get Alyce to fall back etc.

The detonate idea will only work on a player who is new, and honest if they are close enough a smart Pandora player will use her powers and movement and constant bullcrap to kill them before you can even blink.

I really think the best way is to save soulstones and lead with your master if possible to force a confrontation between Pandora and your master so you could use soulstones yourself to try and win the WP duels and get her from moving across the table.

The trick is to watch out for Kade/Teddy at that point and honestly anyone you might use to fight them Pandora will target and try to make fall back so that your Master is left alone.

If you can find a way to flank and delay the Kade/Teddy combo and keep it master vs master you have a decent chance.

[Natty]

I basically never play with sorrows. They are bad. Targeting the sorrows is not a very valid strategy against a Pandora player that doesn't field any sorrows.

Admittedly sometimes I take exactly one sorrow just because of the conversion work I did to the guy and I like to see him on the table, but that doesn't count.

[Natty]

The trick is to watch out for Kade/Teddy at that point and honestly anyone you might use to fight them Pandora will target and try to make fall back so that your Master is left alone.

If you can find a way to flank and delay the Kade/Teddy combo and keep it master vs master you have a decent chance.

Teddy fighting advice:

Always remember that if Teddy can get his flurry off, whatever he is fighting is gonna be dead dead dead, so be careful of having Ramos anywhere near either Kade or Teddy (since Kade can switch in).

Teddy's ability to give him (1) cost charges makes him charge the closest model. Keep that in mind when you are positioning your stuff. Don't have that steamborg closer than your spider. Make him kill the spider.

Never attack Teddy unless you are sure you can kill him between his activations. Regen 2 is a waste of your damage output if you let him heal. Either take him down completely, find a way to neutralize him without killing, or ignore him.

Advice on fighting Kade:

Don't underestimate Kade. He often looks bad at first glance but he is one of the best 6 point models out there.

Don't underestimate Kade. I'm saying it twice because it's true.

[Rob1981]

Teddy isn't much of a problem as a Ramos crew can outfight all but the nastiest of Neverborn things, a Steamborg can floor him in one activation with only slightly better than average cards, never been troubled too much by Kade either, it's the inability to target Pandora more than her mobility that makes her a problem, Pandora with soulstones and a sorrow is invulnerable

[Lictor]

Teddy isn't much of a problem as a Ramos crew can outfight all but the nastiest of Neverborn things, a Steamborg can floor him in one activation with only slightly better than average cards, never been troubled too much by Kade either, it's the inability to target Pandora more than her mobility that makes her a problem, Pandora with soulstones and a sorrow is invulnerable

She doesn't even require a Sorrow =/

I have only played her once using Rasputina in a 20 SS game. I destroyed Kade, Sorrow and Doppleganger by turn 3, leaving Pandora and Totem against 'Tina, Essence, Golem and 2 Gamin, the latter 3 in melee against Pandy by this stage.

Pandy having survived the Charges then completed Assassinate on 'Tina (My fault for not realising you can cast ranged spells whilst in melee, and possibly the only rule I am against) which of course removes Essence. Danced away from combat and successfully destroyed my entire crew single handedly, without soul stones by this stage.

Pandora is a machine!! I have a lot of respect for what she can do.

*sad face*

[karn987]

Pandora is possibly one of the hardest masters to take on if the person playing her knows how she works. With the restoration of the old end time on Link, Sorrows are back but not in large numbers any more. Generally it's dropped to 1-2 Sorrows to protect Pandora and Candy/Kade and add some potential devastating damage to your crew.

With the release of Rising Powers and the advent of Lilitu and Madness things got even more tricky to deal with as you have to now face a powerful Lure and un-resistible negative flips on your Wp. Stitched Together adds in a potential huge burst of damage to a target and provide HUGE cover for the crew.

Arcanists I must say, are in general not well equipped to fight her. But after having played her for a long time and all the effort I put into writing the Tacticas I've done for her, I've hit upon a few things you can exploit.

The biggest is the lack of toughness in any of the models that you generally find in her crew. They can not take a punch, so if you hit them they tend to crumble. But you have to figure out how to get that hit on them.

It is true, Blasts and all AE based attacks are THE BEST way to hurt her crew. Even if you have to sac your own models to get this off, any damage you can put on Pandora is worth it. But be aware, they have new healing options! Candy and Lilitu can actively and easily heal their crew, though in a short range. So keep your eye on those two and try to take then out first if you get a chance.

One effective thing, especially for Raspy, is you run a Ice gamin up close to someone but not in melee range. Shoot them if you have the AP, but otherwise thats fine. Then have Raspy Blast the crap out of the Gamin, hopefully get 2 shots on it and chain the blasts into the target as well as getting Shatter damage on them hopefully. That will melt a lot of Pandora's models without her being able to do much at all.

Counter-spelling is incredibly frustrating for a Pandora player because she and her crew rely on things working. If something goes wrong, a pacify/incite is failed at the wrong time or a model resists the wrong spell, she can collapse in on herself. Its still not easy to nail her once this happens, but you have a chance and you should go for it.

Her speed is deceptive, she is incredibly quick as long as your models stay in her LOS. If you can, try to take shots and then hide. The problem with this is, her crew rarely stays in the open to and will often pop out and nail you or come running at you through a wall etc. But try to do it as often as possible, blocking LOS to you will protect you from her abilities.

Never count on her to only rely on Wp duels. The strongest lists of hers generally include 1 melee beatstick which is usually either Kade, Teddy, Hooded Rider, Coppelius, or Lelu (if Lilitu is present). All of them will do horrendous things to even your mightiest construct, so be careful of that.

The biggest advice I can give you while your building your crew is look for blast damage and dis-possible models. She doesn't handle a swarm very well, and her and her crew are generally helpless against AE's

I could ramble on for a while, but I think most people know what Im getting at already. I don't know if it would help you a lot, but request my tactica on her (PM me with your email address) and maybe you can spot holes by reading everything there. I address some of her biggest weaknesses and show how to counter them.

[Rob1981]

that 'tina trick is nice, I'll have to try that one out!

[Natty]

Never count on her to only rely on Wp duels. The strongest lists of hers generally include 1 melee beatstick which is usually either Kade, Teddy, Hooded Rider, Coppelius, or Lelu (if Lilitu is present). All of them will do horrendous things to even your mightiest construct, so be careful of that.

Personally I prefered to use the doppelganger and then ALL melee beatsticks with Pandora. Even the doppelganger becomes a melee beatstick depending on what it is standing nearby.

Using all my soulstones to hire tons of melee beatsticks has never failed me yet. Silurids or Teddy/Kade are my favorite choices.

------------------

Advice to fight against the Silurids:

Always remember that the Silurids are one of the fastest moving units in the game. They can basically attack any of your models from anywhere they want and they don't really care about terrain to get there. You cannot separate your troops too much against a Silurid pack because they with all companion and take out anything that isn't being backed up.

The flaw to the Silurids is that they go down easy. You need to be able to attack them after they kill several of your models (and they WILL kill several of your models before they are done being companioned). Always have a counterattack strategy in the back of your mind. Always think to yourself: "If the Silurids attack THIS group of minions, I can take them out with _____, and if the Silurids attack THAT group of minions, I can take them out with _____."

Position your troops in a way that your troops could actually shoot or charge each other if they wanted to, because those Silurids will pop out of nowhere and end up standing right next to where some of your troops used to be.

[Amarel]

Teddy isn't much of a problem as a Ramos crew can outfight all but the nastiest of Neverborn things, a Steamborg can floor him in one activation with only slightly better than average cards, never been troubled too much by Kade either, it's the inability to target Pandora more than her mobility that makes her a problem, Pandora with soulstones and a sorrow is invulnerable

The trouble with this is that bringing a Steamborg against Pandy is basically throwing points down the drain - he'll either be dead via self-loathing at the top of turn two, or will spend the entire game hiding behind Ramos.

[Natty]

The trouble with this is that bringing a Steamborg against Pandy is basically throwing points down the drain - he'll either be dead via self-loathing at the top of turn two, or will spend the entire game hiding behind Ramos.

Pandora eats Steamborgs for breakfast.