How does Pandora fight Sonnia and Von Schill?

[DorrieB]

Hello.

I played a game this weekend that to be honest, wasn't much fun. The crews were:

Mine: Pandora, Candy, Baby Kade, Iggy, Insidious Madness, Stitched Together, and one Sorrow.

His: Sonnia, Sammael, Von Schill, and two witchling stalkers.

The game was a draw, so there's that, but it felt like playing one of those bank robbers who throw their guns at the Justice League in frustration. Von Schill alone just laughed off my entire crew while Sonnia and the rest stayed in the corner doing nothing. When I finally got close enough to them Sonnia simply denied Pandora everything and then started throwing fireballs at her own crew, cheating low in their defense result in order to create blasts in which to catch Baby Kade and Candy.

How on earth do you fight that?

[Joel]

Do you need to?

If he's sat back in a corner with all but one model, can't you clear up on VPs from schemes and strategy? Let him have his hold out and bodyguard, because he isn't getting much else from back there - and you can probably deny him hold out too.

What were the starts/schemes in this case?

Other than that, you are running a Very friendly pandora crew (if such a beast exists), maybe try some stitched togethers. Another possibility is simply throw everything possible at Von Schill to burn the player out of stones and then go after sonnia. pandora doesn't like blasts though.

[DorrieB]

The strategy was 'Shared Turf War'. His scheme was... the one where you need to have more models in your opponent's zone than she does, which dovetailed nicely. Von Schill won those points for him handily. He also chose to kill Candy, which he did not manage or even really try.

Again, it was a draw on VPs, so you might think it was okay, but that's not really the point. The point is that I *did* throw everything possible at Von Schill and it did nothing. All I managed to do was kill my own Stitched Together with 'Gamble your Life'. VPs aside, it's just not fun when your crew doesn't do anything except 'walk toward the objective while Invulnerable Man takes shots at you'.

It's kind of discouraging that Pandora and the creepy kids are not a 'proper' crew. Aren't they supposed to be her thing?

[96p]

they are a proper Crew, just not the best she can take

If you have a high Crow or at least some high cards you can make von schill fall back or at least give him - on wp flipps, after that Pandora herself should kill him easyly... for sonnia, thats another story

[Adran]

1 approach would be to pacify Vonschill, then throw up the insidious madness aura near him, and them use a stiched outside that aura to gamble his life. If he soulstones to win, then there is a good chance he will kill the stiched, who can then reactivate and do it again.

getting terrifying near him as well is pretty useful. (only if he hasn't activated)

I'm more used to people complainign that they have played against Pandora, and they couldn't do anything.

Most crews are stuck slogging across the field. Sure, Pandora can be amazingly mobile, but only if your opponent lets you.

This time they didn't, so you had the same mobility as his master.

If you had left a Stiched in your own deployment zone, he would have had to decide if he used VonSChill to kill it allowing him to claim a break through, or to hunt the rest of your crew, which would be heading into his own zone.

And whilst I would expect Vonschill to kill a stiched, I would expect it to be costly in damage/soulstone.

There are several possible things that might have worked.

Hope you get a more enjoyable game next time.

[96p]

If you need to be mobile without the opponent beeing near, just cast dementia on pandora with a sorrow or Totem. Then she has to make a wp>14 duel everytime she wants to do any action and pushes 4" if she wins

[Sliver Chocobo]

Sonnia is very relate on her cards, so put the pressure on her, keep your models away from each other, especially Pandora, they will just bonce her spells from them onto her

---------- Post added at 10:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:11 AM ----------

Also keep the witchling stalkers away from pandora

[DarcXON]

1 approach would be to pacify Vonschill, then throw up the insidious madness aura near him, and them use a stiched outside that aura to gamble his life. If he soulstones to win, then there is a good chance he will kill the stiched, who can then reactivate and do it again.

getting terrifying near him as well is pretty useful. (only if he hasn't activated)

I'm more used to people complainign that they have played against Pandora, and they couldn't do anything.

Most crews are stuck slogging across the field. Sure, Pandora can be amazingly mobile, but only if your opponent lets you.

This time they didn't, so you had the same mobility as his master.

If you had left a Stiched in your own deployment zone, he would have had to decide if he used VonSChill to kill it allowing him to claim a break through, or to hunt the rest of your crew, which would be heading into his own zone.

And whilst I would expect Vonschill to kill a stiched, I would expect it to be costly in damage/soulstone.

There are several possible things that might have worked.

Hope you get a more enjoyable game next time.

This I can see as the OP's answer as Von Schill would still have to "stone off" against Pandora and to be fair it could go either way since Pandora is the attacker ( he would have to match her card to card in order to save himself).

Stitched that are attacking him without Collodi nearby have problems since he is both Stubborn and a Henchman (Use Soulstones), so I would not recommend doing Gamble Your Life without first doing what was recommended above.

Finally, this time around I just think you got out played by your opponent and not necessarily his crew. Sonia may be a great counter to Pandora, but Pandora has so much power behind her Trigger Mental Anguish, that anyone is wary of her anyways.

[nix]

I actually like Pandora for this match, as Shared turf-war is playing to her strengths especially if the Sonnia player was staying in her own deployment zone. My approach to this would be as follows:

First, use Pandora and the Insidious to hunt down Von Schill. It sounds like your opponent was playing into this for you by bringing Von Schill out ahead of the rest of the crew. The key here is to hold a high crow in hand and then use your stones to make Von Schill run. After he is running you can keep him in range of the Insidious until he leaves the board. If Von Schill is coming up the board early, this is something that can be fairly easily accomplished.

In the interim, I would start bringing Iggy, Kade, and the Stitched forward. I would leave the sorry and Candy to hold my deployment zone vs Breakthrough if your opponent had announced it.

Mid game I would then swing my focus toward the Sonnia ball. Your a bit light on spells to push through Sonnia's bubble of dispell, but its still worth a try. I would use Pandora to target Sam first and force the Sonnia player to burn cards dispelling your spells. PE is a key spell here, as if its not dispelled them the grouping of models ends up on flips. Also keep in mind that Sonnia has to burn the cards off (to dispel) before you even flip, so your saving your cards to cheat with. Once you have burned through some cards, follow-up with the kids and Stitched. The kids (Kade/Iggy) should focus on the Stalkers while the Stitched should focus on Sam. Make sure to hold some high cards to use as Pandora's defense if she is targeted during the fight. Also remember that Sonia cannot dispell Incite/Pacify, so splitting up your opponents activations can also be helpful.

[*Jack*]

Throw a project emotions strike on him, cheat a high card and use a SS. He'll have to use a SS too, if he hopes to resist it, and if he suceeds, just do it again. From there, use stitched's to cast gamble your life. He wont be able to cheat on a negative flip and you will

[DorrieB]

If you need to be mobile without the opponent beeing near, just cast dementia on pandora with a sorrow or Totem. Then she has to make a wp>14 duel everytime she wants to do any action and pushes 4" if she wins

I never would have thought of that!

Thanks a gazillion! : )

[Sliver Chocobo]

Try Mr Tannen, so it's really hard for Sonnia to cheat and forces her to discard

[96p]

I never would have thought of that!

Thanks a gazillion! : )

It's a dirty little trick, and I would normally never ever recommend it to someone... but I hate those Von Schill Users (those that use him without a full freikorps crew or at least a vic mercenary Crew)

[DorrieB]

It's a dirty little trick, and I would normally never ever recommend it to someone... but I hate those Von Schill Users (those that use him without a full freikorps crew or at least a vic mercenary Crew)

Now now, he's a nice bloke. Hate is a bit strong! : )

[DorrieB]

If you need to be mobile without the opponent beeing near, just cast dementia on pandora with a sorrow or Totem. Then she has to make a wp>14 duel everytime she wants to do any action and pushes 4" if she wins

Well we played again today, and I used this trick and it... helped. Pandora did great. The rest of my crew is still getting slaughtered though, and I can't think of anything to do about it.

This time I used: Pandora, 2xSorrows, Candy, Iggy, Insidious Madness, and Teddy

He used: MacMourning, Mortimer, 3xCrooked Men, 2xZombie Dogs, and of course Von Schill again

We tried one of the Halloween scenarios from 2010, the one with 'the Carver'. Insidious Madness found the Carver... great! Oh dear, the Carver is killing it, not so great. MacMourning comes into the building and *by himself* proceeds to carve the Carver. Von Schill jumps in from a thousand miles away and shoots poor Iggy down in one activation. The Crooked Men kill both of Pandora's Sorrows and leave her wounded with blasts. Teddy charges Von Schill, who laughs at the beast and jumps away, then shoots and wounds him for good measure. A dog bites and kills the Insidious Madness.

I'm left with Candy and Pandora and, oh look, the Carver is immune to Wp duels AND he doesn't care about the box, oh well.

I figure I can still win if I can save the Carver (as I have one point for finding him?) So when I got to activate it I used his magic spell to teleport him away to another building. No problem! says MacMourning. He uses his scalpel on his own dog to get an extra move and reaches the Carver to finish him off.

I get that my Pandora crew is 'very friendly', which is a nice way of saying 'a bit lame', but quite frankly if one has to throw the fluff out the window and trade in Candy for a Doppelganger or whatever or get used to being slaughtered, well I dunno...

[nix]

Candy is not a strong model, unfortunately. In addition, your scenario was awfully rough since the Carver ignores the box and WP duels as a whole. In a match vs the Carver, melee centric models such as McMourning have a distinct advantage.

With that said, keep in mind that there are a number of Woe's in the game, a couple of which you are not using. If your determined to use Candy, I would look at her as a healer and then additionally as an additional source of Self Loathing. Aside from that, Candy is pretty tough as she is a bit expensive for her abilities. Kade is much better, as Harmless plus Df 7 is a great defense overall. Iggy is more aggressive, but can dish out some ranged attacks and has a good melee punch. Try to focus on what the kids do well, and use the Insidious as a back-up once something is already fleeing from Pandora's trigger. I also recommend only adding Teddy to your crew if you have Kade. Teddy is a bit tough to get in position without using Kade's Where's Teddy ability.

Good luck and keep at it, Pandora can be a lot of fun to play!