This isn’t going to be a long blow-by-blow account of
games played, more a general write-up of how things went for me at the English
GT. This is partly because my notes are atrocious and partly due to me trying
to mentally suppress what happened…
Anyway. These were the games. I took Box Opens Pandora
for all 5 rounds but changed the crew up on a pretty regular basis depending on
what I thought I needed to get the schemes done.
Round 1: Alex Hill, Neverborn Lynch. 3-6 loss
Round 2: Nick Featherstone, Guild Lucius. 8-8 draw
Round 3: Lee Battrick, Guild Lucius. 9-2 win
Round 4: Ross Hill, Voices Pandora. 4-7 loss
Round 5: Ben Leslie, Zipp. 1-6 loss
There was a pretty common thread running through these
games. Apart from round 3 (sorry Lee!) my scheme selection was awful. I always
seemed to find myself wishing I’d taken something else at some point, or I’d
picked a crew with a particular scheme in mind and then not taken the right
scheme or misplaced the key model.
Prime example would be round 5, Stake a Claim. I had
Pandora with Fugue State, Doppleganger and Primordial Magic. For those who don’t
know, that means potentially 7 casts of Nullify to make enemy models
Insignificant until they kill whoever cast it on them. Good luck Staking a
Claim to anything at that point.
Only, I got obsessed with melting Zipp with Pandora. I
did it, but by that point in turn 2 the Gremlins had 4 Claim markers down and
my Silurids were dead. So there’s 4 strategy points I’m not getting. And I had
Frame for Murder on the Primordial Magic thinking it would be target number 1
if it was stopping models interacting. Funnily enough it wasn’t because I hadn’t
nullified anything until it was too late (edit: it's been pointed out this was an even worse cock-up as you can't take Frame on a Peon). And when you plan to take Inspection
with 2 Hexed Amongst You Waldgeists and then only take 1 Waldgeist, don’t then
take Inspection.
So yeah. Moral of the story is to think scheme choice
through a lot more than I have been. Inspection is a poor choice with Neverborn
due to their lack of solidity, but it’s been fine with Guild and Arcanists
either due to massed ranks of models or Armour. Leave Your Mark was such a
gimme with Arcanists thanks to Practiced Production, but Neverborn like most
factions will need to take an actual scheme runner to get it done. And I don’t
know Neverborn well enough yet to identify which models straddle that key model
/ disposable model line well enough to warrant being a Frame target. More
homework needed.
Pandora herself is coming together, and I’m starting to
work out what she can do and what she can’t. A key part of what she does is her
0 action Incite which she uses WP for, so she can push through Fading Memory if
she casts successfully. There’s a trigger on a tome to let her do it again, so
if you hit the trigger and cast successfully twice then you have control over
when your opponent activates 2 of their models and Pandora has pushed 4” twice.
Canny opponents will try to stop that first Incite to slow her right down.
The bane of Pandora is attacks with a stat of 7. I’m
happy to rush up and engage enemy hitters with Ml6 because if I keep a 13 in
hand, I know she can get away thanks to Fading Memory (which by the way isn’t a
trigger, so tough luck Joss). If the enemy model has a stat of 7 then they can
force through the hit meaning Pandora can’t push away. And that in turn causes
her huge problems because she’s now taking damage from a heavy hitter and only
has 10 Wounds.
What Pandora loves are enemy models with healthy damage
tracks. In the 2 games against Guild Lucius I faced 3 Witchling Thralls in
total. None of the 3 made it to turn 3. She tore Zipp apart because Up We Go is
a melee attack and he’s WP6, meaning she had a stat advantage and his 10 Wounds
didn’t last long when he was repeatedly beating his head against the ground and
taking Misery damage in the process.
A big problem I had initially was what to do when there
weren’t any big beatstick targets for Pandora to deal with. But after playing a
few games that’s getting easier – just stand in the middle of a clump of lesser
models. When they activate they have to take a Fears Given Form DF14 duel or
take 3 damage. If they try to hit Pandora or walk around her, TN13 Horror duel
which will result in Misery damage. Should they want to disengage she’s
stopping them with a 7 stat. And Inflict, an attack which forces WP duels for
all enemy models in a 4” pulse or take 2 separate lots of 1 damage, will shred
an opposing hand trying to keep things alive. All that combined is usually more
than enough to see off several 4 or 5 Wound models at once, which takes the
pressure right off your own crew.
Funnily enough that’s the other bit I need to work on. I
have a few tricks that I’m happy with – Rougarou pinball, catapulting multiple
Teddies, laying out a string of Paranormal markers – but it’s the bread and
butter of the crew that I can’t seem to stick on. I think I need to start
fixing elements for a few games instead of swapping so many models so often.
What are the advantages of Sorrows over Insidious Madnesses. At what point do
Changelings factor in. Who do I want to support Pandora in the ‘horribly
murdering the enemy’ role. And so on.
So that’s where I am at the moment. English GT was a
great event, and although I got kicked in the head for most of it I’m hoping
the lessons learned will stick with me long enough to make it worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment