Pandora Turn 1 Kill

[Captain.Danger]

So supposedly my friends played a game today, one was Rasputina and the other was Pandora.

By the end of turn one Raspy was dead, killed by Pandora and 7 linked sorrows.

This seem practical/effective to you guys? other than the fact that it worked hahaha.

What I'm trying to ask is this a reliable list/strategy?

thanks!

-Captain Danger

[nilus]

What strategy were they playing, what were the schemes?

Also can you describe exactly how this all happened in turn 1. Would be tough to pull off that early.

Also as far as it goes this means Pandora and a bunch of sorrows should be sitting next to the rest of Rasputina's crew. So they might get slaughtered by the remaining models.

Effective, yes. The best strategy ever...Nope. Can easily be countered. Number one thing to remember when fighting Pandora is leave her to the end. She is much less of a threat when all her sorrows are dead. And they are easy to kill.

[Ropetus]

How can she practically Link with 7 Sorrows? They are not Spirits so cannot be moved through and will block her LoS to anything so that will only make her get stuck. Three is the max number of linked Sorrows if you still want to do something.

-Ropetus

Edited April 9, 2010 by Ropetus

[Captain.Danger]

I wasn't saying that this was the best strategy ever

The strategy was to kill the master, assassinate i think its called?

It was a chain of links, one sorrow to pandora and the rest linkning to the other sorrows. pandora then incites/pacifies all of her sorrows, moving a total of 28". in the description of link it just says that you place the sorrow into base contact(so you can move them further)

she then incited raspy and soulstoned the total to be in his favor and did 8 wounds with one incite.

[Zethal]

I assume that Pandora just incited/pacified herself and sorrows within 3" of Tina and then made her fail a couple Wp tests. Cheat and soulstone a Project emotions then cast a self-loathing or incite/pacify her.

If Tina fails I suppose Pandora can then also likely kill a couple more models as long as she can continue to win those Wp Duels.

This seems to be largely luck dependent though, certainly not a reliable way to win. And Pandy can't ever win Reconnoiter.

For example if it fails to kill Tina or even if it succeeds and there is an Ice Golem sitting around there is a nice cluster of 21 stones and a master that can easily be taken out. Or against Ramos if he lives he can just blow up one Gamin and wipe all the sorrows and nearly kill Pandora.

Most armies should have some AoE so that they can deal with a situation like this, it is a very risky gambit to try against an experienced player.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Zethal

[Captain.Danger]

wait, why do the sorrows have to be in a circle around pandora?

could this formation work? Plz correct me if im wrong

(just keep adding sorrows)

.......o-----etc.

......o------sorrow linked to sorrow

.....o-----sorrow linked to pandora

....O------pandora

[chaosobscuros]

wait, why do the sorrows have to be in a circle around pandora?

could this formation work? Plz correct me if im wrong

(just keep adding sorrows)

.......o-----etc.

......o------sorrow linked to sorrow

.....o-----sorrow linked to pandora

....O------pandora

They wouldn't have to be in a circle, but you would need the target to be within 3" of all of the Sorrows to get off the Wounds from Emotional Stress. Keeping them in a circular pattern would also help to keep an exploding model from getting into range of all of them.

All the same, tactics like this can be fun to pull off once, but more than that, you are really just taking the excitement out of the game. Lining up your models, and doing the exact same moves in order to pull off your unbeatable combo game after game would get very old very quickly. If the game is not fun for both you and your opponent, why bother playing it?

[Rathnard]

It seems to me like an all-or-nothing gamble. It could work, but one bad flip could leave Pandy facing an entire crew all on her own.

Personally, I think a slightly better approach might be to push into range, cast a spell (anything) on the Master and cheat/use a soulstone to trigger mental anguish. On the next turn, use a doppleganger/soulstone to ensure you get first activation and incite the master so he runs off the board first.

It's situational but it's more acheivable, less risky and far less reliant on a specialist crew than a 7-sorrow congaline would be.

[Captain.Danger]

i like that idea better Rath.

Thx for the comments guys, again this list was played by a friend and not me hahaha.

I asked him about it and he said it was too cheesy of a list and he's not gonna take it again. He just wanted to try something crazy and it worked haha.

again, thanks to all

-Captain Danger

[Zethal]

I don't think it cheesy at all and in some cicumstances can be devastating but it also has significant weaknesses and it's up to the ingenuity of players to exploit those aspects of an oppoents crew.

But I define fun as bringing my best, playing my best and playing against the best. Which seems to diverge from Chaos's definition of fun.

[Captain.Danger]

right. My opinion, I think its too cheesy. I'm never very competitive with my wargaming. I bring stuff that has a chance at winning but is more fun for me to play. This list seemed like a "eh, why not ;P" list, he said it was more of a one time list and he didn't have much fun with it seeing as they most likely spent more time setting up hahaha

[chaosobscuros]

I don't think it cheesy at all and in some cicumstances can be devastating but it also has significant weaknesses and it's up to the ingenuity of players to exploit those aspects of an oppoents crew.

But I define fun as bringing my best, playing my best and playing against the best. Which seems to diverge from Chaos's definition of fun.

My above statement wasn't meant to be insulting any style of game play. Over the years, I have played with and against some pretty cheesy lists from both several different miniature games. Simply put, I have personally found that strategies such as this one to be based more on list composition than actual game play. If you feel differently on this, that is perfectly fine.

I do, however define fun as playing a mutually enjoyable game, against another player, regardless of skill levels. The game and the social interaction is far more important to me than winning. If you feel differently, then you are right, we do have different outlooks.

[TheViking]

It happened to me today. I was the Rasputina player. I didnt see it coming at all because Pandora goes last, Pacifies all the sorrows and moves the 28" across the table. Its not bad at all for a strategy because there are only two things with higher WP than Pandora and when she gets to you she has all of her soulstones and has only used her 0 actions to get to you so has all of her spells left. And when you fail you take 8 different sets of wounds basically negating armor or any of that.

Plus if you think you cant kill the master you kill the rest of the crew. Unless your guild with a Judge your not over WP 6. Its pretty crazy, and then the dopplerganger allows you to basically go first if you fail, then you get 3 more shots at it. Its not as impracticle as it sounds. Not only that, when you try to target Pandora its another WP duel, so if you fail that take another 8 wounds. Just takes alot of good planning to set up

Edited April 10, 2010 by TheViking

[Justin]

This all only works because linked models now move when a model is pushed. Before the errata they did not work that way. Pushes were clarified as "moves" so that they followed all the same rules for terrain, etc. My guess is that allowing linked models to move into base to base with models that were pushed was an unintended side effect and will be corrected with further errata.

[Justin]

Double post.

Edited April 10, 2010 by Justin

[Amarel]

Just takes alot of good planning to set up

The only thing I disagree with in your post is this bit. I don't think it does take much setting up at all - just move and link sorrows to burn through your opponents activations and then you've got a 28" move (with an 8"-12" range on top of that, so expect some of that move to be used to return Pandy to safety).

That said it does become natural to start bunching most of your models when you play against her, with a couple of outliers to tempt her / make her wary of certain routes in / out. After that you start taking out her Sorrows and hoping to cap her range, in an ideal world you've got blast damage to fix her with (although this is a little faction dependent and if you're playing blind you can't put too many points into that for fear of screwing yourself against someone else ).

Anyway, she's definitely someone that requires practice to take out; which is no bad thing.

[Csonti]

My guess is that allowing linked models to move into base to base with models that were pushed was an unintended side effect and will be corrected with further errata.

I can just second that. Despite being a Pandora player (or because of that).

[Omadon]

It seems to me like an all-or-nothing gamble. It could work, but one bad flip could leave Pandy facing an entire crew all on her own.

Personally, I think a slightly better approach might be to push into range, cast a spell (anything) on the Master and cheat/use a soulstone to trigger mental anguish. On the next turn, use a doppleganger/soulstone to ensure you get first activation and incite the master so he runs off the board first.

It's situational but it's more acheivable, less risky and far less reliant on a specialist crew than a 7-sorrow congaline would be.

Um. Oh god. I was just about to say "Wouldn't they run as soon as they were hit by it?" However - I just read the errata. Jesus christ. This is amazing xD

As far as the panda one turn kill thing goes - bare in mind, all of the sorrows are insignificant. It is a total one trick pony, and if you scatter enough that she can't get a bead on too many things, then you can probably trash her on VP. Also - bare in mind that none of the sorrows have Martyr, so the ones linked to sorrows will deal damage to them. Annd, if you kill the sorrows that form links to other sorrows, then she's going to have to mess around alot rebuilding the chains. If you're playing guild - take Raid, and do whatever else you can to milk VP from the fact that as far as the final count is concerned, she only has one model.

[heckler]

i was the pandora player in the game. i tried it to see if it would work. i had 7 sorrows, pandora and a doppleganger. in hindsight i didn't need the doppleganger like i thought i would since he got left in the dust and didn't do anything.

the trick takes absolutely no planning and very little risks. the actual problem is that a linked to model can be linked to. if they changed it so that you couldnt do the link chain then it would bring it under control.

honestly the linked model bound to pandora is meant to move when she is pushed the 4", otherwise she would have no reason to get linked to, defeating the purpose of her box set. it's the link chain that makes it ridiculous.

in hindsight, i could have moved past each ice gamin, caused a pacify check, killed it, and moved the 4" back on course. with wp4 it's a good bet.

by the time you get to the master you have 3 casts left and a pacify you can still use. i didn't pacify any of his models in the game to this point, so it would make rasputina activate last had i not succeeded.

one question i do have is what is the duration of pacify/incite. neither the book nor the errata give a duration. is it for the rest of the game? does it last until the model activates again?

again, the moral of the story is that the link rules need to be changed. easy to do, low risk first turn kills don't make this a game. if i wanted a faster game like that i'd play poker.

[TheBugKing]

*edit*

In discussion

Edited April 10, 2010 by TheBugKing

[Keltheos]

This is being discussed.

[heckler]

i did not use them to block los to her. i used them to do an arc around rasputina.

[Amarel]

in hindsight, i could have moved past each ice gamin, caused a pacify check, killed it, and moved the 4" back on course. with wp4 it's a good bet.

This is the side issue with her - her WP is so high that she will nearly always have the advantage offensively (fine) but also defensively (not quite so fine, imo, as it makes her amazingly strong both on the attack and also when being attacked). But I digress, sorry .

[Keltheos]

Her Df is definitely not high, so shooting/melee work very nicely against her (yes, she can redirect damage to Woes, but that's something else)

[Captain.Danger]

@heckler

just think of incite/pacify as eHaley's feat its just for that turn.