Expanding on the Neverborn

[TimH]

I'm thinking of adding to my neverborn forces and am curious as to what master people would recommend.

At the moment I have the dreamer and most associated models (Stitched, Coppelius, some Alps, Insidious Madness, Day dreams and the twins). And am planning on picking up Dark debts. To compliment this I'm thinking of taking a 3rd master for certain formats of play and so am torn between which book 1 master to go with (not interested in Collodi even though I understand he is meant to be very strong)

The twins have synergy with both Lilith and Pandora whilst the stitched have a little synergy to the Zoraida doll theme. From the looks of things dark debts might have a few woes (Tannen is confirmed to be one, and so far most 'human' neverborn have been woes) so there is additional synergy there plus she plays very differently to LCB aggressive play style whilst still working well with him in larger games (Coppelius and terrifying work well with Pandoras tactics) so Pandora does seem a strong option.

Lilith on the other hand would be a good one for intro games and she has a fair few fun models of her own (Tuco) plus would give me the eventual excuse to by Nekima (even if she is horribly overcosted).

So thoughts and opinions?

[Bunny_Avenger]

I think Insidious Madness is supposed to be pretty evil with Pandora too, so that's another one you could reuse.

[TimH]

Yeah that had occurred to me as well.

Pandora backed by an Insidious madness or two, primordial magic, Doppelganger, 3 Sorrows and then a pair of effigies (Arcane and either Brutal for some raw power or Carrion for sniping immunities) is the 35 point list I was thinking of for her. The various abilities of the models would give me very strong control due to my increased hand and the ability to near enough guarantee initiative when I need it.

[011121]

Insidious madness also helps Zoraida by opening up obey options to include Immune to Influence models.

Zoraida, as it has been often observed, works with basically anything.

My son started with the Dreamer adn I resisted getting Pandora mostly because both crews do so much by way of morale or at least Wp duels that I felt they sort of overlapped. Lilith I thought was okay but I really didn't care for the nephilim archtypal demon look (although I have been thinking about picking up angels from another miniatures game to use as nephilim like this guy as the mature:

See that? That I like.)

Anyway, so I went for Zoraida. Never regretted it, not by a long shot.

[Ozz]

I have to say for what you have Zoraida just works with everything she pleases, and to me just has her dolls for little odd jobs But when i run Zoraida, i so far have a tendancy to run her with a Nephilim list (Only master twins enter with frequently for me, and they rock with her)

Zoraida messes around with a model on your opponents side of the board, Lilitu pulls another model forward, ideally a tough model your opponent wants in mele then they let it happen, then you gang up on it all by its self and it can at best have 1 activation to hit before you kill it:) (Recently Zoraida has been the master i have had the most fun playing with)

But basically, if you go for Lilith, you can just add in a Zoraida and Vodo doll blister and you have two new crews instead of 1 for an extra £10

[TimH]

What I seem to be hearing here is that Zoraida's box then is nothing special and that she has no particular models specialized to her (unlike say Dreamer Nightmares, Pandora Woes and Lilith Nephilim) to the extent that picking her and her totem up makes you good to go with a neverborn crew (assuming you have any neverborn models). That about right?

Good to know. I have to say I prefer her origional sculpt to the alt one though.

[011121]

What I seem to be hearing here is that Zoraida's box then is nothing special and that she has no particular models specialized to her (unlike say Dreamer Nightmares, Pandora Woes and Lilith Nephilim) to the extent that picking her and her totem up makes you good to go with a neverborn crew (assuming you have any neverborn models). That about right?

Good to know. I have to say I prefer her origional sculpt to the alt one though.

I like her box set personally. Silurids are awesome at objective running because they can (0) leap and still take a (2) interact, or (0) leap , (1) walk and still take a (1) interact action. They're zippy as all hell.

Bad JuJu is not the best for Zoraida but he's still pretty cool. He's roughly on par with a teddy in terms of toughness and power but has a slight mobility edge given that he can show up where he wants the first time. He's a great objective holder. Plus he looks cool.

That said no you don't need her box set. The only thing she needs is a voodoo doll (and it isn't in the box set anyway).

[TimH]

What about a construct based Zoraida list?

Zoraida and the weaver widow backed up by Collodi and his mannequins (whilst I don't plan on taking him as a master I might use him as a henchman). Zoraida and the widow skirt around the board together sniping lone targets whilst making scrap (I could make up for the widows slow movement by catapulting her around with repulsive). Meanwhile Collodi and co jump about the table dealing pain or grabbing objectives with the weaver and Zoraida spawning in Wicked dolls that can then teleport to Collodi to dish out some pain. Depending on objective I could place down teddy on anything that needs holding by generating plenty of scrap tokens through obey.

So for a list it would be something like this.

Zoraida

Collodi with primordial magic

4 marionettes

Weaver widow

Arcane effigy

Carrion effigy

[011121]

Yes it works great. As for the WW's movement, keep in mind she has arachnid and so clambers up on top of things very well. It's nice for keeping her safe and since she can make teleporting dolls and has a ranged attack it's pretty much ideal.

[TimH]

Yeah. In the turn of the initial attack I'd be looking at a chain of something like this.

Primordial magic activates, casts breathe life to give the attack marionettes melee expert, activates collodi with companion.

Collodi activates using his doll friends on one of the effigies. He uses puppet show and then breathes life into extra dolls or casts fill with stones.

Effigies activate and do their things.

Then marionettes activate probably using two to move and two to attack.

Alternatively instead of using doll friends on an effigy he could use it on a wicked in which case after using the initial marionettes to move everyone into place the wicked doll could then teleport into a position where the attacking marionettes could benefit from its poison. That would be 2 marionettes flurrying for 3 attacks each with an additional attack from melee expert and depending on where I can push them too with retract a potential extra attack from fast. So about 8-10 attacks with poison. Ouch.

[SilentAJ]

What in intensely helpful thread. Thank you so much for this - it filled in a few gaps I was chewing on for expanding my own NBs.

[nurglez]

I have Dreamer, though I don't use him much due to me beating my friends rather easily with him (and he was my first master too). I've recently picked up Collodi and Zoraida and they are pretty fun together (I usually use elite tough armies/crews, so going for a horde of weak models is rather different).

Zoraida has the option of 2 obeys on the first turn, then 3 each turn after, making her pretty cool. Collodi is amazingly fast as long as his marionettes stay alive, and also Zoraida can pump out wicked dolls for 2ap which can then teleport to Collodi as a 0 action, which is also rather nice