I played my first game last night! Since this was also the first game for my friend and I was the only one who had read the rules, I am sure we made dozens of mistakes. But, we had a lot of fun. We both really liked the duel mechanics; I found it more fun and engaging than rolling dice. Plus, although there is still luck involved like dice (and I do like the element of luck), it did give me a feeling of some control over the fate of the game.
Long battle report:
We played 15 pts.
I played Vik of Blood, 2 Ronin, and 3 extra soulstones (total 6 soulstones).
He played Judge, 2 Death Marshals, 3 extra soulstones (total 7 soulstones).
We picked standard deployment, and flipped for Strategy and 3 schemes/ pick one.
The shared strat was Reconnoiter. For schemes we both ended up picking and revealing Deliver a Message.
I realize as I write this that we played Reconnoiter wrong. We scored a victory point per table quarter controlled, not per two table quarters. Which meant by the end of turn 3, we were both at max Strategy VP
How the game played out had each Henchman and a minion from one crew facing off against a single minion from the other crew initially. Needless to say, the solitary minions both were eliminated before they could deliver their messages. At that point, I sent my remaining Ronin by herself to engage with the Judge. Thanks to hard-to-kill and a little fate cheating, she managed to survive that turn. The next turn all came down to the initiative flip, which after soul stone usage I ended up barely winning. She promptly delivered her message before being killed (this was the 5th turn). To make things interesting, I moved Vik up to engage the Judge (but not the last Death Marshal). My opponent moved his death marshal to engage Vik, but unfortunately for him, the end-of-game flip came up as a 2, preventing his last chance at getting the 3 scheme points.
Observations / thoughts / first impressions
As stated, loved the duel aspect of the game. It makes the random element of the game fun.
It'll take a few games to get the hang of / remember the different abilities and actions of all the models. Even more time to figure out / remember different synergies. Fortunately the low model count per game minimizes how much there is to juggle.
I like strategy / schemes a lot, especially since it means any model can be expendable if it gets you the VP in the end. It made model deaths suck a lot less than in other games, if that makes sense.
Felt more like playing a story than other tabletop mini games (due to strat and scheme).
That said, our misplaying the strategy and the scheme we both took / revealed meant there was not a lot of opportunity for guessing / tricking / preventing / etc. the opponent for VPs. But, we could both see the potential.
Due to low point value and only one model on each side that could use soulstones, we really didn't get much use out of them. However, as stated, they did prove vital in the decisive initiative flip.
I like that models generally seem durable / hard to one shot. It seems like you usually should get a chance to do something with a model before they get removed from the board.
I like the alternating activation, allows a more dynamic reaction, and helps prevent having a turn of helplessly watching your opponent decimate you, while you just have to sit and take it.
I need to find some strat / scheme cards to print. I found one set, but the pdf seems to be messed up and won't let me print. I thought I found another, but when I looked closer during the game, the text did not match up. I also printed a gameplay summary sheet that proved helpful, but didn't have everything I would like. My best bet there is probably to make my own.
Terrain! We put down more than we'd ever use for Warmachine / Warhammer, and I feel like we could have added even more.
Overall, we had a great time, and are looking forward to playing again, trying out the other crews I have and with a greater point value.
Ureshii, glad to see you two had fun! Also, your bullet points are right on about how I feel about the game.
As for strat/schemes, here are the ones we use: Clicky
I printed them out (2 copies of the schemes) and put them in card sleeves, they've been working great, plus it is nice to have a copy of the Strategy next to a big turn marker/dial.
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Longhand we say "That's a plus (double plus etc) to the flip/ minus (double minus etc) to the flip" or "that's a plus" etc.
We also sometimes specify the number of cards that will actually be flipped total (usually for damage flips): "That'll be a double minus on the damage, so three cards."
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Actually, now that I think about it "plus flip"/"minus flip" is a lot more common.
[*] Due to low point value and only one model on each side that could use soulstones, we really didn't get much use out of them. However, as stated, they did prove vital in the decisive initiative flip.
Card draw- If you have some to spare it is almost always always always worth it to burn a stone and draw 2 extra cards/ discard 2 cards when drawing your hand. Obviously it can improve a poor hand, but the secondary benefit is that even if the cards you draw are lower than what you already have, you've just effectively "milled" those lower cards out of your deck so they won't be impacting your flips.
Adding a suite to a flip- this will become more useful as you learn your models' abilities, but in an easy example, your Vikks can burn a stone to ensure their Whirlwind trigger, and the Judge can burn a stone to ensure Blades and Bullets goes off for extra attack. Also in the Judge and Lady J's case, don't forget that the Critical Strike trigger stacks for EACH Ram in the duel total. So you could in theory add +3 to their printed damage- 1 Ram "baked in" to their stat, 1 from burning a stone, and 1 from flipping/ cheating in a card with a Ram.
Damage mitigation- It is USUALLY better to use a stone to mitigate damage taken rather than using it to add a plus to you defensive/ Wp flip and a minus to the enemy damage.
[*] I like the alternating activation, allows a more dynamic reaction, and helps prevent having a turn of helplessly watching your opponent decimate you, while you just have to sit and take it.
Indeed. A more advanced strategy will be with regards to balancing your crew's model/activation count vs your opponent's. Sometimes lower cost units are good simply because they allow you to "pad out" your activation order and force your opponent to activate his heavy hitters/ critical pieces before you have to do yours. Also remember, if you still have models left when your opponent has none, you get to activate them all one after the other with impunity. My friend plays Gremlins and more than once I've had to watch in horror as half my crew has gone before he's had to move anything more than some fodder piglets.
[*] Terrain! We put down more than we'd ever use for Warmachine / Warhammer, and I feel like we could have added even more.
Yeah, this game benefits from having a denser board. You'll appreciate this more as you friend expands his shootacular Guid.
[*] Overall, we had a great time, and are looking forward to playing again, trying out the other crews I have and with a greater point value.
[/list]
Glad to hear it, welcome aboard! :O)
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
I have to get a new phone/ camera so I can start taking pictures of my crews/ be more motivated to paint.
I've now got Lady J, Sonnia, Perdita (more for the toolkit of enforcers she comes with, but I'll get around to using her), Seamus, Pandora, Collodi (he was on sale), and Tara (who I'll probably sell).
I have my eye on Lucius, Dreamer, and Molly. Hamelin makes sense too, as a friend gave me a ratswarm base from Skaven that has 5 rats on it which will each become a model in its own right. Added to the fact that I also own the "Lost" keyword models he can take as well- Candy, Kade, Iggy, and Crooligans will come with Molly. Come to think of it, Lucius can take Candy in Guild as she's a Mimic (She's 3 things- Woe, Mimic, and Lost.)
Thanks for the responses. Saying plus flip, double plus, etc., makes a lot of sense. We ended up saying "plus one," etc., which did cause a little confusion if there was an actual +1.
Regarding soulstones, I'd forgotten you could use them to draw 2 additional cards. It makes sense that even if it isn't a good draw, it can help weed out low cards. Due to the low number of models and how our game played out, there really wasn't much chance to use the SS for adding suit / adding [+] / damage mitigation.
I printed out two sets of the scheme / strat cards linked, that will be nice to have for the next time we play. Thanks @ForceVoid !
I started working on my own summary sheet / sheets last night. Not only will it be useful to have the information organized in a way that makes sense to may brain, but the process of writing everything down is useful for learning the rules.
EDIT: Looks like I'll have a couple hours tomorrow while my wife / daughter are at a playdate to work on some painting. My plan is to try to make some good progress on Vik of Ashes.
Yeah, Eric has been putting some nice art up on the Twitters, I wonder if they are going to have any new product at GenCon this year. I think they are focused on their RPG, Through the Breach, but I'd love to be surprised.
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
edited July 2014
They will. There'll be a nightmare kit, and a "Miss" model, I would also expect some of the unreleased wave 1 masters to show up.
I'm also counting on the Wave 2 book/ decks, and I've got my fingers crossed for some wave 2 kits but that's a bit of a stretch, who knows, though. We sure as hell didn't expect the 5 wave 1 kits last year. Miss Step was revealed on July 30th last year, and the kits soon after, so we should know soon.
- They apparently make a ton of money off on Gencon orders sooooooooooooooooo
So what are the "Miss" models, I've seen them referred to a couple times on Wyrd related sites. My inference is that they are unique models that are randomly bonus packed into some boxes, is this the case?
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
More or less. You also can get them at Gencon by ordering a certain dollar value worth of stuff.
Last year's was a female (they're always female) Howard Langston called Miss Step:
Most people sell these off for like 50 bucks, so it's a nice value, and a good excuse to buy more models!
Ok, thanks for the "Miss" details. Does "get them at Gencon" mean you have to be there, or does it apply for ordering from the Wyrd store during Gencon? (Similar to how Privateer lets anyone order the convention models from their web store during cons).
I broke down and ordered two more crew sets ... Somm'er Teeth's and Pandora's. So, now I've got a starter crew for every faction except the Ten Thunders. This gives my gaming group a good variety to start playing with. And me lots of yummy models to paint!
I liked the fluff for her, as well as the model, so she seemed like a good first choice for a Neverborn crew. I'll have to take a look at her rules now.
Glad to hear the extend the promo to the web store, I am sure I can find a few things to buy if the "Miss" mini is one I like.
The one thing to know with Pandora is that she can be a bit rough on new players on the other side of the board. A lot of her schtick is about controlling your opponent's order of activation, punishing them for same (e.g. forcing a model near Candy to activate first, and then using Candy to Paralyze models that activate first near her), and using Willpower duels to limit what your opponent's models can do effectively (meanwhile draining HP with Sorrows while they fail the duels). It's possible to handle if you know what's coming, but if you're trying to introduce new players to the game it risks being a negative play experience since it limits their ability to play their own army effectively unless they know how to roll with it.
Oh yes, totally. I'd let someone who was really interested in her/that style play against me for their first game, but I wouldn't inflict her on a new player.
Ok, good to know! The nice thing is that both of us playing are new to everything, so even when one of us plays Pandora, it'll be a learning experience and we may not have all those combos figured enough to cause the other player pain. Although, admittedly, my friend is much better and finding and using synergies like that than I am, so maybe I shouldn't let him play Pandora for a bit
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
edited July 2014
What the others have said about Pandora generating Negative Play Experiences vs new players is absolutely true. Pandora is my main, and I would never take her to a pickup game against an unawares opponent. Like many Neverborn she "comes at you sideways" and requires unorthodox tactics to defeat.
The best advice I can give you to tell your opponent so they don't get trounced is:
1. Kill the Sorrows first.
2. Attacking Pandora herself is a waste of AP and time, she can use her ridiculously high Wp of 7 in place of her Defense, and when you miss she can just push away.
3. Pandora requires her own models to cluster up a bit, which makes them vulnerable to blasts- doubly so if they're blast due to Ca actions as they'll deal full damage to her incorporeal Sorrows who don't have many wounds.
4. Pandora can tank wounds for friendly Woes (Sorrows, Candy, Kade, Iggy, Insidious Madness, Tannen) onto herself to keep them alive, a savvy opponent will recognize that that is how you hurt Pandora herself- by attacking her units. She's a lot less menacing when her crew is dead. They're also pretty fragile, unlike Pandora herself.
5. She wants enemy models clustered up so she can get as many in range of her and her Sorrows' Misery aura as possible- her Inflict pulse is especially devastating when it can hit multiple enemy models. Without any Sorrows nearby, the pulse does 2 damage per failed test (1 from Inflict itself, and 1 because of the failed Wp test), this number increases with each Sorrow nearby.
6. Avoid using "heavy hitter" models with lowish Wp vs Pandora as she can turn their own damage profiles against them. Notice how Lady Justice has an avg Def of 5 but an awesome Wp of 7? It's so Pandora can't just waltz up and slap her silly, it's also why Seamus' Wp is 7- so Pandora can't cause himself to shoot himself in the face with his own 4/6/8 dmg pistol repeatedly.
5. Anything that buffs friendly models' Wp is good vs Pandora- this includes a lot of Guild pieces like Lady J's Scales of Justice and Perdita's +2 Wp buff upgrade. Stuff that ignores horror tests is also very useful vs Pandora and her crew. Be aware that attacking Pandora while she has Terrifying (from her Box Opens upgrade) and failing the test will cause them to take damage from Misery.
6. Focus on strategy/ schemes- Pandora excels at killing rather than dropping scheme markers and her base crew really needs to be bunched up to function effectively, this can and should be used against her.
I don't just like hearing myself talk, I swear. It's just that I don't get to Bullshit-ifaux too much, so I make the most of it when I can!
Edit- one more thing- Armor doesn't negate damage taken from Misery, each is a separate instance of damage as opposed to a lump sum. On the flipside, watch out for models with Black Blood, as each point of Misery damage will cause Pandora's stuff to take a point of Black Blood damage in return. Ouch!
Thanks for the tips on how to play for / against Pandora's crew. Since I am new and also responsible for teaching my local gaming group, I love this sort of in depth "Bullshit-ifaux." It definitely sounds like she should wait until we've had a few games with the other crews, so we get all the basics of rules and tactics down.
When it comes to demoing, having a durable Master for the demoee is pretty key to their experience. I mean, they'll want to use this cool dude/dudette with all the neat powers and might not think about holding back or whatever. Masters that fit this (if you are thinking about expanding your demo stock):
Lillith/Lady J (high def, good combat to murder fools)
Any Rezzer Master (seriously, I think they are all impossible to kill, haha, well maybe not Molly or Kirai)
Perdita (she's a bit more fragile, but is a real shooty crew if you have a player that is into that)
Von Shill (pretty durable, and can field a more "traditional army." What I mean here is that his crew feels the most like a small WarmaHordes army, with multiples of certain troops, etc.)
Mayyybe Rasputina for demoing a heavy caster, just use Heart of Ice/Ice Mirror to keep her casting from far away.
I think you've mentioned before you've got Lady J, the Viks, and a Rezzer or two, so you should be good, but those are a few more crews you can point new people to.
Oh and I forgot maybe the most important resource for your growing club, the list builder: Clicky
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
the 2nd Wave book is called "CrossRoads" will be about 320 pages and will quite possibly be available GenCon along with the new faction decks, here's how the cover art will look, it includes in thew new art for the Guild Austringer, and that tree thingy on the left is a Neverborn Walkdgeist:
your Through the Breach stuff should be shipping :O)
Yeah, only took them 19 months. :-(
Oh well, light at the end of the tunnel and whatnot.
Also, I'm pretty sure the female Death Marshall was Miss Terious. I got one off Ebay two years ago (that was when they swapped to plastic, and due to reasons didn't have any Guild stuff there, so it wasn't worth my time to blow $100+S&H on stuff I didn't really want), and will have another coming in my Through the Breach box, along with the rest of the giant pile of swag found within.
Time to fire up Craigslist, I suppose.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Wait, what else is coming in your TtB box? Do you have a list?
Might you be willings to part with some of what of you might be havings?
Glad to see someone else uses blister packs as mixing trays!
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
She looks great! You're an excellent painter.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Still super tempted to get into this game.
I noticed my FLGS stocks the Terraclips sets. How good are these? They look pretty complex once built. Two crews, 2nd edition rulebook and a Terraclips set will set me back under $200au, which is my kind of value.
I really recommend the Terraclips sets, especially if you are light on terrain wherever you play. They are pretty durable, the connectors work well, and there are flourishes like the fact that the inclines have small raised portions to support the models (so they don't slide down). I might recommend getting 1 extra connector box than you need, but that is not a requirement, just a luxury.
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No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
If you like the Terraclips and pick up a few "detritus" bits of terrain as well (barrells and fences and stuff) then you're all set. This game has a really low point of entry and even sustainability. From a "starter" crew you can easily expand by buying a 10 dollar fig.
The one thing to know with Pandora is that she can be a bit rough on new players on the other side of the board. A lot of her schtick is about controlling your opponent's order of activation, punishing them for same (e.g. forcing a model near Candy to activate first, and then using Candy to Paralyze models that activate first near her), and using Willpower duels to limit what your opponent's models can do effectively (meanwhile draining HP with Sorrows while they fail the duels). It's possible to handle if you know what's coming, but if you're trying to introduce new players to the game it risks being a negative play experience since it limits their ability to play their own army effectively unless they know how to roll with it.
So what you're saying is Pandora is like playing a Mesmer in Guild Wars?
Wait, what else is coming in your TtB box? Do you have a list?
Might you be willings to part with some of what of you might be havings?
Off hand, I'm probably going to be at least trying to part with;
- One set of books (haven't decided if it'll be the pair of regular books or the combined hardcover yet).
- One of each (male and female) Multi-pose mini.
- Miss Terious
- Santana
- Hannah
- Hanging Tree
- One special edition fate deck
- Fatemaster's Kit
I think that's pretty much everything. I went in at the top tier ("Gaming Room"), so the only other thing I can think of is a 'one of a kind plush voodoo doll', but that's going to a friend as a gift.
I'm leaning towards staying local if possible (saves having to deal with Paypal or shipping), but I know several of those have attracted significant attention, and haven't forgotten that some folks here (and elsewhere) have commented on their interest.
After the over 1.5 years that this has been going on, my crew basically fell out of love with Malifaux, and with several recent major issues arising, I'm trying to pay down some debt, so that pile of swag will hopefully help do that a bit.
With hindsight, if I'd known it was going to be such a clusterfuck, I would've just gone with the basic $90 tier and saved myself a lot of frustration.
Which, funnily enough, is essentially my stance on the Robotech Miniatures KS I backed last year as well.
2013 was a big year for kickstarters for me, but sadly, not entirely in good ways.
Edit: oh, and Terraclips are pretty awesome. Got the Sewers, Towns and Streets sets, along with a bunch of clips (3 packs? Maybe 4) and used them extensively over our time with Malifaux. Highly recommend them. As a heads up though, expect to snap some clips now and then. It just happens. So even if you get, say, 2 boxes for 3 sets, you'll probably want another eventually. At first you can just be frugal with the clips, but having a giant pile of them can eliminate that concern and/or open up some build options that'd be harder to do on a tighter budget.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Looks like I won't need to go in with two crews - I've successfully gotten my brother interested in playing the game (he's already bought a few minis to paint or use in conversions). He's going in with Ten Thunders, since he's pretty big into Asian themed stuff. I'm going in with the Lilith - Mother of Monsters starter. This weekend I should be grabbing the starter and second edition rulebook.
With Terraclips, how big of an area do they make? Do different sets mix together well?
Posts
Long battle report:
We played 15 pts.
I played Vik of Blood, 2 Ronin, and 3 extra soulstones (total 6 soulstones).
He played Judge, 2 Death Marshals, 3 extra soulstones (total 7 soulstones).
We picked standard deployment, and flipped for Strategy and 3 schemes/ pick one.
The shared strat was Reconnoiter. For schemes we both ended up picking and revealing Deliver a Message.
I realize as I write this that we played Reconnoiter wrong. We scored a victory point per table quarter controlled, not per two table quarters. Which meant by the end of turn 3, we were both at max Strategy VP
How the game played out had each Henchman and a minion from one crew facing off against a single minion from the other crew initially. Needless to say, the solitary minions both were eliminated before they could deliver their messages. At that point, I sent my remaining Ronin by herself to engage with the Judge. Thanks to hard-to-kill and a little fate cheating, she managed to survive that turn. The next turn all came down to the initiative flip, which after soul stone usage I ended up barely winning. She promptly delivered her message before being killed (this was the 5th turn). To make things interesting, I moved Vik up to engage the Judge (but not the last Death Marshal). My opponent moved his death marshal to engage Vik, but unfortunately for him, the end-of-game flip came up as a 2, preventing his last chance at getting the 3 scheme points.
Observations / thoughts / first impressions
As for strat/schemes, here are the ones we use: Clicky
I printed them out (2 copies of the schemes) and put them in card sleeves, they've been working great, plus it is nice to have a copy of the Strategy next to a big turn marker/dial.
We also sometimes specify the number of cards that will actually be flipped total (usually for damage flips): "That'll be a double minus on the damage, so three cards."
Card draw- If you have some to spare it is almost always always always worth it to burn a stone and draw 2 extra cards/ discard 2 cards when drawing your hand. Obviously it can improve a poor hand, but the secondary benefit is that even if the cards you draw are lower than what you already have, you've just effectively "milled" those lower cards out of your deck so they won't be impacting your flips.
Adding a suite to a flip- this will become more useful as you learn your models' abilities, but in an easy example, your Vikks can burn a stone to ensure their Whirlwind trigger, and the Judge can burn a stone to ensure Blades and Bullets goes off for extra attack. Also in the Judge and Lady J's case, don't forget that the Critical Strike trigger stacks for EACH Ram in the duel total. So you could in theory add +3 to their printed damage- 1 Ram "baked in" to their stat, 1 from burning a stone, and 1 from flipping/ cheating in a card with a Ram.
Damage mitigation- It is USUALLY better to use a stone to mitigate damage taken rather than using it to add a plus to you defensive/ Wp flip and a minus to the enemy damage.
Indeed. A more advanced strategy will be with regards to balancing your crew's model/activation count vs your opponent's. Sometimes lower cost units are good simply because they allow you to "pad out" your activation order and force your opponent to activate his heavy hitters/ critical pieces before you have to do yours. Also remember, if you still have models left when your opponent has none, you get to activate them all one after the other with impunity. My friend plays Gremlins and more than once I've had to watch in horror as half my crew has gone before he's had to move anything more than some fodder piglets.
Yeah, this game benefits from having a denser board. You'll appreciate this more as you friend expands his shootacular Guid.
Glad to hear it, welcome aboard! :O)
I've now got Lady J, Sonnia, Perdita (more for the toolkit of enforcers she comes with, but I'll get around to using her), Seamus, Pandora, Collodi (he was on sale), and Tara (who I'll probably sell).
I have my eye on Lucius, Dreamer, and Molly. Hamelin makes sense too, as a friend gave me a ratswarm base from Skaven that has 5 rats on it which will each become a model in its own right. Added to the fact that I also own the "Lost" keyword models he can take as well- Candy, Kade, Iggy, and Crooligans will come with Molly. Come to think of it, Lucius can take Candy in Guild as she's a Mimic (She's 3 things- Woe, Mimic, and Lost.)
Regarding soulstones, I'd forgotten you could use them to draw 2 additional cards. It makes sense that even if it isn't a good draw, it can help weed out low cards. Due to the low number of models and how our game played out, there really wasn't much chance to use the SS for adding suit / adding [+] / damage mitigation.
I printed out two sets of the scheme / strat cards linked, that will be nice to have for the next time we play. Thanks @ForceVoid !
I started working on my own summary sheet / sheets last night. Not only will it be useful to have the information organized in a way that makes sense to may brain, but the process of writing everything down is useful for learning the rules.
EDIT: Looks like I'll have a couple hours tomorrow while my wife / daughter are at a playdate to work on some painting. My plan is to try to make some good progress on Vik of Ashes.
I'm also counting on the Wave 2 book/ decks, and I've got my fingers crossed for some wave 2 kits but that's a bit of a stretch, who knows, though. We sure as hell didn't expect the 5 wave 1 kits last year. Miss Step was revealed on July 30th last year, and the kits soon after, so we should know soon.
- They apparently make a ton of money off on Gencon orders sooooooooooooooooo
Last year's was a female (they're always female) Howard Langston called Miss Step:
Most people sell these off for like 50 bucks, so it's a nice value, and a good excuse to buy more models!
Also you guys should check out "A Wyrd Place" on facebook groups, lots of members, and they have lots of spoilers for art and new models!
I broke down and ordered two more crew sets ... Somm'er Teeth's and Pandora's. So, now I've got a starter crew for every faction except the Ten Thunders. This gives my gaming group a good variety to start playing with. And me lots of yummy models to paint!
Yeah, the last few years, Wyrd has extended their "Miss" promotions/exclusive minis to their webstore during the GenCon time frame.
Glad to hear the extend the promo to the web store, I am sure I can find a few things to buy if the "Miss" mini is one I like.
The best advice I can give you to tell your opponent so they don't get trounced is:
1. Kill the Sorrows first.
2. Attacking Pandora herself is a waste of AP and time, she can use her ridiculously high Wp of 7 in place of her Defense, and when you miss she can just push away.
3. Pandora requires her own models to cluster up a bit, which makes them vulnerable to blasts- doubly so if they're blast due to Ca actions as they'll deal full damage to her incorporeal Sorrows who don't have many wounds.
4. Pandora can tank wounds for friendly Woes (Sorrows, Candy, Kade, Iggy, Insidious Madness, Tannen) onto herself to keep them alive, a savvy opponent will recognize that that is how you hurt Pandora herself- by attacking her units. She's a lot less menacing when her crew is dead. They're also pretty fragile, unlike Pandora herself.
5. She wants enemy models clustered up so she can get as many in range of her and her Sorrows' Misery aura as possible- her Inflict pulse is especially devastating when it can hit multiple enemy models. Without any Sorrows nearby, the pulse does 2 damage per failed test (1 from Inflict itself, and 1 because of the failed Wp test), this number increases with each Sorrow nearby.
6. Avoid using "heavy hitter" models with lowish Wp vs Pandora as she can turn their own damage profiles against them. Notice how Lady Justice has an avg Def of 5 but an awesome Wp of 7? It's so Pandora can't just waltz up and slap her silly, it's also why Seamus' Wp is 7- so Pandora can't cause himself to shoot himself in the face with his own 4/6/8 dmg pistol repeatedly.
5. Anything that buffs friendly models' Wp is good vs Pandora- this includes a lot of Guild pieces like Lady J's Scales of Justice and Perdita's +2 Wp buff upgrade. Stuff that ignores horror tests is also very useful vs Pandora and her crew. Be aware that attacking Pandora while she has Terrifying (from her Box Opens upgrade) and failing the test will cause them to take damage from Misery.
6. Focus on strategy/ schemes- Pandora excels at killing rather than dropping scheme markers and her base crew really needs to be bunched up to function effectively, this can and should be used against her.
I don't just like hearing myself talk, I swear. It's just that I don't get to Bullshit-ifaux too much, so I make the most of it when I can!
Edit- one more thing- Armor doesn't negate damage taken from Misery, each is a separate instance of damage as opposed to a lump sum. On the flipside, watch out for models with Black Blood, as each point of Misery damage will cause Pandora's stuff to take a point of Black Blood damage in return. Ouch!
Lillith/Lady J (high def, good combat to murder fools)
Any Rezzer Master (seriously, I think they are all impossible to kill, haha, well maybe not Molly or Kirai)
Perdita (she's a bit more fragile, but is a real shooty crew if you have a player that is into that)
Von Shill (pretty durable, and can field a more "traditional army." What I mean here is that his crew feels the most like a small WarmaHordes army, with multiples of certain troops, etc.)
Mayyybe Rasputina for demoing a heavy caster, just use Heart of Ice/Ice Mirror to keep her casting from far away.
I think you've mentioned before you've got Lady J, the Viks, and a Rezzer or two, so you should be good, but those are a few more crews you can point new people to.
Oh and I forgot maybe the most important resource for your growing club, the list builder: Clicky
your Through the Breach stuff should be shipping :O)
@ everyone
the 2nd Wave book is called "CrossRoads" will be about 320 pages and will quite possibly be available GenCon along with the new faction decks, here's how the cover art will look, it includes in thew new art for the Guild Austringer, and that tree thingy on the left is a Neverborn Walkdgeist:
Yeah, only took them 19 months. :-(
Oh well, light at the end of the tunnel and whatnot.
Also, I'm pretty sure the female Death Marshall was Miss Terious. I got one off Ebay two years ago (that was when they swapped to plastic, and due to reasons didn't have any Guild stuff there, so it wasn't worth my time to blow $100+S&H on stuff I didn't really want), and will have another coming in my Through the Breach box, along with the rest of the giant pile of swag found within.
Time to fire up Craigslist, I suppose.
Might you be willings to part with some of what of you might be havings?
I noticed my FLGS stocks the Terraclips sets. How good are these? They look pretty complex once built. Two crews, 2nd edition rulebook and a Terraclips set will set me back under $200au, which is my kind of value.
Ashes and Dust and that Madness lookin' good.
So what you're saying is Pandora is like playing a Mesmer in Guild Wars?
*drool*
Off hand, I'm probably going to be at least trying to part with;
- One set of books (haven't decided if it'll be the pair of regular books or the combined hardcover yet).
- One of each (male and female) Multi-pose mini.
- Miss Terious
- Santana
- Hannah
- Hanging Tree
- One special edition fate deck
- Fatemaster's Kit
I think that's pretty much everything. I went in at the top tier ("Gaming Room"), so the only other thing I can think of is a 'one of a kind plush voodoo doll', but that's going to a friend as a gift.
I'm leaning towards staying local if possible (saves having to deal with Paypal or shipping), but I know several of those have attracted significant attention, and haven't forgotten that some folks here (and elsewhere) have commented on their interest.
After the over 1.5 years that this has been going on, my crew basically fell out of love with Malifaux, and with several recent major issues arising, I'm trying to pay down some debt, so that pile of swag will hopefully help do that a bit.
With hindsight, if I'd known it was going to be such a clusterfuck, I would've just gone with the basic $90 tier and saved myself a lot of frustration.
Which, funnily enough, is essentially my stance on the Robotech Miniatures KS I backed last year as well.
2013 was a big year for kickstarters for me, but sadly, not entirely in good ways.
Edit: oh, and Terraclips are pretty awesome. Got the Sewers, Towns and Streets sets, along with a bunch of clips (3 packs? Maybe 4) and used them extensively over our time with Malifaux. Highly recommend them. As a heads up though, expect to snap some clips now and then. It just happens. So even if you get, say, 2 boxes for 3 sets, you'll probably want another eventually. At first you can just be frugal with the clips, but having a giant pile of them can eliminate that concern and/or open up some build options that'd be harder to do on a tighter budget.
With Terraclips, how big of an area do they make? Do different sets mix together well?