Jump to content

Kirai Vs Pandora What to bear in mind


Mawdrigen

Recommended Posts

Ello all,

I'm likely to be playing against Pandora for the first time this weekend with Kirai.

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Kirai Ankoku
--
7 Cache

Lost Love [2ss]

  • Datsue-Ba
    [7ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Shikome
    [8ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Crooked Man
    [4ss]

this is Likely to be the List I'm using. What should I be looking out for, what can I expect from Pandora, and what is the best way to counter them.

Would it be worth dropping an extra 3 SS from my pool to get a Gaki in the starting line?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You will most likely not be able to deal directly with Pandora with that list. however don't fret. Pick off her significant minions when they are far enough away from her, then hide so she can't see any of your models to incite off and go for objective. This works as long as the strategy doesn't need you don't need to deal with her. If it does you have 2 options. 1. deny her her strategy and win on schemes. 2. swap in Hanged (Wp7 and gives a :-fate flip on Wp duels if you get a hit in), Jack Daw (Wp7 and stops her cheating) or Insidious Madnesses (debuffs WP), otherwise getting past her Wp->Wp defensive duel is nigh on impossible without putting in your entire force.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hanged are a possibility. Sadly the others are not in my stock of minis (yet :P)

Would you suggest dumping the Crooked Man for a Hanged. I was mostly taking him for BLast damage to spatter over to Pandy, but by the sounds of it I should be avoiding her.

Any advice on first round summons?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) You can keep your pool if you wish. Use it to try to beat her on initiative as often as possible, because the last thing you want is her breaking your activation order with Pacify and Incite (or whatever theyre called). Even getting off one activation before Pandora activates can be important.

2) Datsue-Ba is...arguable at best. Against Pandora in specific she's sluggish (due to ability costs and only 2ap), not particularly hard hitting, and can suffer blows to her best ability (Guide Spirits) by having your activation order messed with. Also 5wp is not high.

3) Crooked Man: Not a good model imho. I'd drop it.

4) Aim to kill her minions. The best way to beat Pandora is to remove her friends and then run away from her whilst completing objectives and denying hers. If you can isolate and kill her models do so, but you'll find that often you have to dive into her bubble of death to kill her support. Do so. Be aggressive, dont be scared of her; you can reanimate new guys, she cant. Just bear in mind she can still table you all on her own if you play badly.

5) Reiteration: Don't try to go for Pandora herself. No matter how good you think your chances are, the likelihood is you won't kill her and will waste activations and ap chasing after her when she moves after you miss. Don't get me wrong, she's killable, but you shouldn't be trying it unless you have no other choice. Personally I've never killed Pandora and I've also not lost to her yet.

6) Pandoravoidance: Use terrain to your advantage. Have as many models as you can sitting out of LoS, remember that the more models she can see, the more damage she can do and the more she can move. Keep the number of models in her LoS and threat range to an absolute minimum is key to minimising her damage and control. Remember she's super slow without stuff to cast on. Also, if you ever get a chance to cheat a high card and win an Incite/Pacify duel near the start of her chain of casting them, do so. It can cripple her turn by keeping her still and mitigate a lot of damage to your guys.

If I can make some list suggestions; if your opponent tends to run plenty of height 1 things then you can potentially spend spare points on Gaki (although remember you can summon them also). A Belle will work really well for dragging models out of her bubble of death (great substitution for your Crooked Man). Insidious Madness is another awesome 4 point choice, giving negatives to Wp duels (you might find her running one of these too) and also being good at the end game of running away from Pandora and capping objectives. Hanged have high WP which makes some people fond of them against Pandora lists, but personally I find them a bit slow. Jack Daw is the only way to go if you want to assassinate her, but as I've said, that's not recommended.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, I do have Belles, but I think the person using Seamus on the day might kill me if I try and nick one :D

One possibility is this:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Kirai Ankoku
--
5 Cache

Lost Love [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Onryo
    [5ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Shikome
    [8ss]

  • The Hanged
    [8ss]

Use the hanged to reduce Pandy's effectiveness and throw the Shikome/Onryo at the fighty types to kill/slow them (possibly with the double punch of the hanged dropping their WP before the onryo gets killed)

or possibly This:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Kirai Ankoku
--
5 Cache

Lost Love [2ss]

  • Gaki
    [3ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Onryo
    [5ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Shikome
    [8ss]

  • Onryo
    [5ss]

Giving me a potential first round summon of More Gaki.. Plenty of Onryo to get killing early on.

I suspect Kade, Candy, and Teddy will appear. Possibly Lelu/Lillitu.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, I do have Belles, but I think the person using Seamus on the day might kill me if I try and nick one :D

One possibility is this:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Kirai Ankoku
--
5 Cache

Lost Love [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Onryo
    [5ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Shikome
    [8ss]

  • The Hanged
    [8ss]

Use the hanged to reduce Pandy's effectiveness and throw the Shikome/Onryo at the fighty types to kill/slow them (possibly with the double punch of the hanged dropping their WP before the onryo gets killed)

or possibly This:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Kirai Ankoku
--
5 Cache

Lost Love [2ss]

  • Gaki
    [3ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Onryo
    [5ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Seishin
    [2ss]

  • Shikome
    [8ss]

  • Onryo
    [5ss]

Giving me a potential first round summon of More Gaki.. Plenty of Onryo to get killing early on.

I suspect Kade, Candy, and Teddy will appear. Possibly Lelu/Lillitu.

Im not a fan of Onryo in your starting list except in specific circumstances. Personally I'd skip them. Since you have limited model avalability (by the sounds of it) it seems like your best best is Shikome+Datsue Ba+The Hanged, or Shikome+2 Gaki+The Hanged (if you reckon Candy/Kade/etc will show up).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also don't recommend trying to kill Pandora, but since you are taking a Hanged, here is something you can try if you see the right opening:

Try and get your opponent's hand down as low as possible. When you see your chance, have Kirai cast Chill of Death on Pandora; of course she will have to win a WP/WP duel, this will probably take cheating and a soulstone (note, if you win it with a crow she takes 2 wounds from Twisted Mind). Cheat as high as you can; you may even have to channel it, and definitely use a soulstone. If you can win this, then for the rest of the turn her WP and DF (strike and cast too) is at -flip with Spirits (and btw, if you win it with a crow, she takes 2 more wounds from Twisted Mind). Then your hanged has a much better chance of hitting her that turn, and getting off the Horrfiying trigger. The game goes much easier after this.

Edited by ravenborne
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also don't recommend trying to kill Pandora, but since you are taking a Hanged, here is something you can try if you see the right opening:

Try and get your opponent's hand down as low as possible. When you see your chance, have Kirai cast Chill of Death on Pandora; of course she will have to win a WP/WP duel, this will probably take cheating and a soulstone (note, if you win it with a crow she takes 2 wounds from Twisted Mind). Cheat as high as you can; you may even have to channel it, and definitely use a soulstone. If you can win this, then for the rest of the turn her WP and DF (strike and cast too) is at -flip with Spirits (and btw, if you win it with a crow, she takes 2 more wounds from Twisted Mind). Then your hanged can has a much better chance of hitting her that turn, and getting off the Horrfiying trigger. The game goes much easier after this.

She doesnt take 2 more wounds if you win with Twisted Mind. Its a Cast duel for Kirai so it doesnt trigger. As someone pointed out to me recently :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, Twisted Mind doesn't trigger on a Chill of Death cast because Twisted Mind is a WP trigger for Kirai. When you are casting Chill of Death you are using Kirai's CA not her WP.

However if you are targeting Pandora you have to pass the Opposed willpower check to even target her. Now that duel, if you manage to pull a Crow and win will cause two wounds to Pandora.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

True, but you can always Mark of Jigoku it with one of your Onyro. Teddy's have a pitiful casting, if I recall correctly, so it shouldn't be that hard. Just don't do it to a Teddy if fighting against Zoraida, as you're just letting your opponent Obey it to attack you some more (I've had the pleasure of doing that to someone).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Take note with the Hanged and Whisper from Beyond it has a Wp resist so you will need to hit Teddy with Mark of Jigoku from an Onryo first to make it work as Teddy is Immune to Influence.

You also have access to the Insideous Madness as well which can make life quite difficult for Pandora if you can get it into position.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Played my first game against Pandora, edged barely a win, thanks to lack of time, but it was more probable it would end in a tie. Learned the hard way just how crazy mobile she is. Also learned that having your stuff run is no fun (I assumed the box nuked my immunity to it) and that the damage piles up fast with all the WP resists and duels from pacify and her WP resist spells (lost my remaining seishin to her AOE debuff by failling a WP test and then pacify).

My love of Shikome grows though, I used 3 with one in my starting rooster and the 2 I had on the table was what I had left when the match was over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well That Worked!

Onryo / Hanged double team crippled Teddy after he tried to Eat the Shikome on round 2. Then Ikiryo and a gaki burned him down to nothing.

Candy rushed up to try and get the now wounded Shikome down before she could drop onto her prey, but was unable to wound, and when the Shikome flew off to eat Kade found herself surrounded by Ikiriyo another Onryo and although she lasted a while was unable to withstand.

This left the Pandora team...

Ikiriyo * 2, Onryo * 2, Shikome * 2 (both with her as prey) and a The Hanged to take her down. Literally Kirai was going from full health to nearly dying each round to summon enough stuff to keep the pressure on. Mostly it was the WP test that was dropping them, with the occasional Self loathing.

In the end though 8 - 0 Victory to Kirai.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

on an unrelated note twisted mind doesn't have a range on it, and Pandora's ability to inflict wd has a 12" range, so if you're desperate for those last couple of wd on her her Kirai/Molly can target her with random things to try and pull off twisted mind with no fear of loosing anything other than the actions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly I've just realised that teddy is immune to influence... so I assume the Hanged wont be able to Whisper from Beyond him..

drat.

Unfortunately, yes, this is true. Teddy can pretty much ignore the majority of Hanged talents and spells because he's a construct and Immune to Influence.

The only saving grace is Condemed Whisper. Damaging Teddy forces a Wp -> 10 duel. It's a simple duel that occurs after the ranged strike duel, after the damage flip. This duel is not a morale duel, nor does it qualify as an attack. Therefore, construct doesn't play and it bypasses Immune to Influence, which requires that Teddy be defending himself from an attack. He's already failed to defend himself, he's taken damage ... and whatever the Hanged whispered was freaky enough to give even Teddy second thoughts.

Edited by Hatchethead
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information