lost love tournament - crew selection part 1, initial thoughts.

Well, this is new territory for me.  Selecting a crew for a tournament.

This is a fixed master tournament so one size must fit all.  I can select 25 ss from a pool created from a starter box and one extra minion type, i.e. contents of one extra blister or box, so can't take an infinite number of anything  just what comes in a blister, plus a Totem.  It's very much a case of finding something that's going to be OK against as many different opponents as possible, or take a crew more effective against specific crews and hope for the luck of the draw?

Additional rationale..

I need something simple, I'm not a fast player so I want a few pieces, preferably fairly straight forward ones so I don't bog myself and my opponent down with options.  Doppelganger for instance.. probably not a good idea - excuse me, what does he do? And what about that one?.. could take a while.

game report: pandora vs victorias 35ss

Game last night.
35 ss
Pandora (that's me) vs Victorias.

My Pandora crew
Pandora 8ss
Baby Kade
Candy
Teddy
3 x Sorrow


Victorias crew

Victoria x 2 4ss?
Killjoy
Mizaki
Freikorp Tracker
Ronin
Desperate Mercenary

Basically I had my ass handed to me on a plate.
Within 3 turns all I had left was Pandora.  In return all I'd got rid of was Killjoy and done some wounds to Mizaki and the Tracker.
Turn one - the Viki's slingshot into Teddy and take him down to a couple of wounds.  I got Mizaiki to wound herself, failed on everything else with Pandora, having only a Red Joker to cheat with which I wanted to save (big mistake) for when I really needed it - doh.
Anyway, turn 2 I win initiative, good.  Except my opponent burns a ss in order to re-flip and flips an 11 so I burn one too and get a 5.  So Viki one kills Teddy (an end before I've done anything with him in his first outing) moves and slingshots Viki 2 across to start taking out Sorrows.  He sacrifices the Desperate Merc and brings on Killjoy, getting a healing flip (3 wounds) on Misaki at the same time. Killjoy is just out of range on Candy.  Candy triple casts Self Loathing at KillJoy, succeeding twice and doing 2 x weak damage for 8 points plus two failed WP within 12" of Pandora so he's 2 wounds left.  Pandora gets off three incites against KillJoy, Mizaki and Tracker then one self loathing against Mizaki (I think).  Kade, who's been round the back of a building comes out with a double move, dragging his Sorrow with him, the sorrow the Links to KillJoy ready to inflict his last wound if he activates.
Turn 3 and it's all over, he kills remaining sorrow with tracker who inflicts severe damage with blasts, which hit Candy taking her out as well.  I get rid if Killjoy, Kade gets taken out and that's it.
Pandoras left.  She can be useful on her own but I've scored no VP, he's scored 4 so far and will easily get his remaining four.. I can't win, we call it.
A few things would have helped immeasurably.  Firstly we made a mistake with Desperate Merc.  when sacrificed he shouldn't have been able to heal Mizaki, which meant I'd have killed her later (probably).
And one or two high Crows in my hand would have meant I could have had Mizaki (if not dead) and Trapper on the run after turn 2, which would have meant Kade and Candy and a sorrow still alive and much still to play for.  Never the less I was Hammered :-(

(previously published elsewhere Oct 2011)

neverborn new additions

For first time in ages I had a few quid spare and managed to get to my local suppliers to re-inforce my Neverborn crew in light of my enjoyable first Pandora outing.

Previously I had the Pandora box set of Pandora, Baby Kade, Candy and 3 Sorrows, a Teddy and 3 additional sorrows.
Now I've added the following -

Insidious Madness - I've heard good things for these, especially with Pandora as they provide plenty more will power tests for models to take.  It looks rather fragile though, perhaps I should have more of them at only 4SS but I'll try this one out and see how it gets on.

Dopplegänger - Again I've heard good things, Mimicking Pandoras' 1 wound per failed WP test could be nasty.

Stitched together - Not sure exactly how these are going to work, but they should fit well with Pandora, have Cannot Die' which may allow for a double activation the round they're killed.

Nothing individually tough or combat nasty but between them they should augment Pandora well I hope.
The Insidious madness and Doppleganger are not the best of Wyrd's miniatures but I really like the stitched togethers.

(previously published elsewhere Oct 2011)

first pandora outing

Had a game last night, well, part of one, and got to use my Pandora crew for the first time.  My opponent was using his C. Hoffman crew for the first time too and as we didn't start until late thanks to my wife cooking us a lovely Curry, we only got two turns done.. But, they were fairly interesting turns, turn two in particular.
Here's an overview of how it went down.

20SS Game

Pandora
Kade
Candy
2 x Sorrow

vs

C.Hoffman
2x Guardian
Watcher
Mechanical Attendant



Strategies  Pandora - Turf War, C. Hoffman - Deliver Message
Schemes Pandora Bodyguard & the one involving being in opponents deployment zone, C. Hoffman Kill Candy & 1 other I can't recall.

We'd set up our small crews virtually opposite each other, there wasn't a huge amount of scenery, 3 trees and 3 ruins, but just enough to ensure it wasn't quite a straight run accross the table.
The Hoff was set up in a gaggle with everything in base with the Hoff.  Pnadora set up with both sorrows in base, one each side, Candy in base with one of them and Kade off on his own a bit to my left.

Turn 1, not a lot happened.  Hoff won initiative and moved a guardian up dragging Hoffman with it.  I activated a sorrow to link to Pandora, he moved up his other guardian. I moved Pandora, tried to use Incite (or Pacify, I can't remember which) and failed, managed to cast Self Loathing on Hoffman for a total of 4 wounds, failed everything else.  Not much of significance happened that I remember that turn, my deck was week with a solitary 9 being my only remotely high card so couldn't force much.

Second turn was more interesting.  I don't recall the exact order of everything but some of the highlights were, Pandora getting off my first sequence of wounds/moves caused by Pacify/Fading memory, pulling it off 3 times causing a wound to Hoff, 2 wounds to one  Guardian and 3 wounds to the 2nd Guardian (multiple wounds thatnks to Sorrows Emotional Stress) whilst also triggering Mental Anguish that saw one Guardian falling back to within a few inches of my table edge.
One sorrow bought it as did Kade, eventually, after successfully using backstab on Hoffman, only to see his damage limited by borrowed armour.  A Guardian cast a spell that put all my casts within 6" on  -ve flip, which is nasty, luckily it was the guardian I sent packing so impact wasn't too sever.

That was it really, no objective points scored, however he'd killed two of my models and I'd got Hoffman down to 4 wounds both guardians damaged and one of them a push away from being off the board.  Could have gone either way, with a good hand next round I think I'd have had him, but I was low on soul stones (though I wouldn't have used my penultimate one had I thought the game was going to continue).
had some bad luck, twice using Soul stones to add to my casting value or dual value only to flip a one, and had some good luck, he flipped black joker a couple of times.

Great game, if a bit slow, both crews more complex than we're used to.  So nice to play something different.
Got a good idea of the power of Pandora though :-)   great fun when it comes off, but Soul stones and good cards are important I think.

(Originally posted elsewhere October 2011)

started pandoras crew

Managed, at last, to make a start on my Pandora crew. Not much of one admittedly but, it's a start none the less.

Having been given a sewer grill base by a friend who thought it would look cool to have a sorrow appearing from between the bars of the grill, I decided to put the entire crew on Sewer bases.  This had the added advantage that I had a set of sewer bases, and with the one given me I had enough for the entire crew box set.

So, in my 45 minutes I had to work I managed to trim up the 6 sewer bases I had and glue them into their plastic bases.

Once this was achieved I started work on one of the sorrows.  The idea of gluing to between bars of the grill was a nice but tricky one, in order to provide as strong a bond as possible I decided to leave part of the tab on the Sorrow.  This proved tricky to do given I was missing most of my modelling tools since my house move.  Still, with much sawing and filing I finally managed it and got the sorrow glued in - hurrah my first part of Pandoras crew together!

And, lucky boy that I am I still had time.  Not enough for another sorrow, but, my favourite model from this crew, Baby Kade.  A much easier option this one, the main problems being flash down the front left of his face and the underside of the figure needing a good filing in order to make him and his Teddy easily glue able to the base.

Pictures soon.

(originally published elsewhere August 2011)