Hamelin and Pandora sitting in a tree!

[Toadie]

Greetings all,

I have been looking at including Haemlin in a Pandora list, I like the idea of forcing more WP checks and some of his spells are simply amazing, I have a question for anyone who uses this combo already.

Hamelin has the ability to hire one height 1 model, has anyone utilised this ability effectively? If so, which height one model do you think would work well with a Pandora list that consists of Baby Kade, Candy, Hamelin and some Sorrows?

Thanks in advance for any assistance rendered,
Woebringer Toadie.

[Raintar]

I've never used it but Haemlin just brings out the worst in people. People will cheat out their hands SOOOO quick to stop any of his spells and it's great. His job is basically to clear the opponents hand so they won't actually have anything to stop you when it actually matters.

[karn987]

Pandora really doesn't need to hire much outside of her own crew. They basically gave her all the tools she needs to trash other crews and pretty much dominate the field.

That being said, Hamelin adds some canned cheese on top of Pandora's massive cheese wheel. Hamelin with Pandora is a well established mean thing to do to people to the point where you may find people refusing to play with you when you do this. He is also a huge point sink (10 ss) and isn't that hard to kill if you can get LOS to him.

Using him with Pandora is rather straight forward as well, get her within 12" so they suffer wounds on each failed WP duel. Stack her debuffs on them and generally go to town like usual, the only real change is you have another model with a bunch of WP tricks. I'd probably say always do Pandora first so you can debuff/soften up all the targets and generally ruin the enemies day with Pacify/Incite chains. Make sure to give them the negative flip on WP duels (can't cheat when you have a negative flip ;D) and rip things a new one. Hamelin then goes next and further lays on the pain.

Imagine, a model with a negative flip in WP from Project Emotions and effected by Dementia, you then have Hamelin cast Irresistible Dance on them and boom! They can only take walk actions and have to beat a wp -> 13 duel to do each one, suffering a negative flip each time and being in Pandora's hurt range (possibly with sorrows to). Put that on a model with fast and thats 3 times they have to do this, it's great ^^.

There are a number of combinations, all of them very very mean.

As for out of faction ht 1 models she would want to use...I can't really find any >.>

[Tonytone]

I agree with most of what Karn says. Againest the guild I would probably rather have Teddy than Hamelin for the points. But againest Ramos who is one of Pandora's tougher match ups Hamelin is amazing.

[Black_Mamba]

Thanks, Karn, for the thoughtful write-up about the combination of Hamelin and Pandora. I found it quite useful. I haven't had the chance to run Pandora yet, but I've finished painting up her crew and I'm ready to give it a try.

Tonytone, you indicated that you would prefer to take Teddy with Pandora (over Hamelin) when facing the Guild. Could you explain your reasoning behind that? In particular, what tactics do you employ specifically against the guild?

The reason I ask is that I know I will have to face Perdita and the Ortegas when running Pandora (a number of people I play with run Perdita.) I'm still trying to figure out how I'll keep Pandora and her crew alive in the face of the ranged attacks and still have the ability to stop Perdita's boys. Does Teddy give you the extra punch, or is he more resilient in the face of ranged bombardment? Do you have any advice?

[Wombats]

I'm just gearing up to play Pandora next, thanks for the information, it is all really useful.

[karn987]

Thanks, Karn, for the thoughtful write-up about the combination of Hamelin and Pandora. I found it quite useful. I haven't had the chance to run Pandora yet, but I've finished painting up her crew and I'm ready to give it a try.

Tonytone, you indicated that you would prefer to take Teddy with Pandora (over Hamelin) when facing the Guild. Could you explain your reasoning behind that? In particular, what tactics do you employ specifically against the guild?

The reason I ask is that I know I will have to face Perdita and the Ortegas when running Pandora (a number of people I play with run Perdita.) I'm still trying to figure out how I'll keep Pandora and her crew alive in the face of the ranged attacks and still have the ability to stop Perdita's boys. Does Teddy give you the extra punch, or is he more resilient in the face of ranged bombardment? Do you have any advice?


I can tell you the reason for that. Most guild models have high to stupidly high Wp and have ways of boosting it. The Governors Proxy is one way, and if your facing Perdita, your probably going to see it on the field. So now your facing an average of 8 and 9 wp accross the board.

For Perdita, well look no further then See the Unseen. She can ignore Pandora's Expose Fears with it because she doesn't have to take the test. So because she never starts teh test, Open the Box never comes into play to stop it. Sure Perdita also has Immune to Influence, but Open the Box strips that from her (open the box " Models within 12" of this model lose any immunities to Wp duels").

Perdita also has Bullet Bending, which thankfully, has been brought back down from near broken. It just ignores cover now so it's nothing for Pandora to fear really since if you do it right, he will never get LOS to her.

As for why Teddy over Hamelin, Teddy doesn't rely on Wp duels to be effective and guild is good at defending on Wp duels in general and Perdita is designed to kill Neverborn, especially Pandora. So take a look at Teddy, especially Dead of Night which can actually help him avoid attacks! I know its strange, a Pandora model that may be missed by an attack and isn't a baby? Wierd huh? Teddy is also a powerhouse and as long as he doesn't go down in 1 turn, you can do serious damage with him. Remember he is Hard to Wound 2, so most likely they will never get to cheat damage vs him (a huge high point) and he is Terrifying 13 so you want to keep him close to Pandora so Open the Box will strip any moral immunities from his Targets. Smell Fear is a nice ability, but I wouldn't count on it unless you specifically worked things to make a target model fail a moral duel near him (ie the Negative flip on Wp duels from Pandora).

So a few key things to remember when going in vs guild and Perdita.

1. Guns hurt and you generally have low Def. Avoid getting shot where you can.
2. Perdita ignores wp tests she has to take to target something, Ie Harmless and Expose Fear. She does not Ignore Moral duels when within 12" of Pandora*pokes the giant teddy and his rather high Terrifying*
3. She can not ignore Pandora's trigger if you can get it off on her. Your going to need to cheat and soulstone your casting totals as high as you possibly can and don't be afraid to do this. In this match, Perdita is your biggest enemy since she can shoot you through your only real defense.
4. Incite and Pacify can be done over and over and over untill you fail to win one of hte wp duels. Use this with Fading Memory to litterally chain Pandora accross the field and into the right spot, cast your spells, then do it on the last few models to hide yourself. This takes some careful planning and a bad flip could leave you in a very very bad spot. So always try to leave yourself in the best place possible on every move.
5. The Governors Proxy is really annoying, killing it can be a huge pain in the butt. Honestly, if you can kill it try to make sure its a Sorrow who does it, or have a good card handy to save your butt, dieing to Governor's Influence is just plain annoying.
6. Don't sit in the open. Your quick and you have tricks, use every single one of them to close distance and mess them up as fast as you can.
7. Sorrows are probably the single best unit to take with her because they were basically built to mesh with her perfectly. Emotional Stress stacks so if there are 3 sorrows in 3", they lose 3 wounds (1 per sorrow). You can also link as many as you want to 1 model and Pandora has Martyr so you always want at least 1 on her. Melancholy is a great spell if you can get it off and they fail to resist it, I recommend opening up with a battery of these when you go after Perdita, burn through her cards and hopefully get 1 off on her. Then follow up with Pandora and turn the hose on full blast. It will be like that craft commercial, the Dinosaur with the cheese hose. Mmmm cheese. >.>

Hope this helps! Sorry its a bit wordy but not enough time this morning to neaten it up enough!

[Black_Mamba]

Karn, that was great. Thanks for taking the time to write up your hints about how to play Pandora. In particular, I'm grateful for the advice about facing Perdita. I've played a couple of games against her with Pandora now and neither has gone well. My best showing was when I focused on Perdita from the start and cheated and spent soulstones to make her life difficult. It almost worked, but then she managed to shoot Pandora in the face. I should have chained Pacify/Incite to get away from her, but I didn't manage it. Up until now 've been playing with the starter box (Candy, Kade, Sorrows and Pandora), but I'm going to start using Teddy with her now too. Would you suggest swapping out Kade and a Sorrow for Teddy in a 25SS game?

[Tonytone]

A few more tips for taking down Perdita:

Luckily she has no Blast damage and the only part of her crew who does is Loco. Wait until he has activated if he is present or Pacify him before you make your run on Perdita. Bring along 3-4 Sorrows linked to Pandora.
When you move Pandora to push the Sorrows into BTB with her make sure to block LOS to the Govs Proxy if it is in play from Perdita. You may very well need 2 turns to kill off Perdita if you are unlucky. Do not worry even if you lose iniative. The Sorrows are there to soak up Perdita's attacks for a reason. If you manage to get off one spell on Perdita and get her trigger it is all downhill from there.

Sonia is a much tougher nut to crack than Perdita IMHO.


At 25ss I would take 5 Sorrows and Candy = 23 SS leaving you with 7 stones. Sorrows are the key to a standard Pandora list. Learn to use them and it will go a long way to helping you master Pandora

[nebiros]

As someone who not only uses, but loves this combo, allow me to say two things. First, don't worry about hiring another HT 1 model. I don't think you need to.

Second, let me expound on the greatest strength of this combo. Hamelin allows you to keep the tougher models away from Pandora's crew while keeping them in the bubble. Pandora is all about board control and Hamelin gives you a much greater board control mechanism than she can achieve on her own. Consequently, I feel that Hamelin is absolutely worth all 10 Soul Stones he costs.

[karn987]

Karn, that was great. Thanks for taking the time to write up your hints about how to play Pandora. In particular, I'm grateful for the advice about facing Perdita. I've played a couple of games against her with Pandora now and neither has gone well. My best showing was when I focused on Perdita from the start and cheated and spent soulstones to make her life difficult. It almost worked, but then she managed to shoot Pandora in the face. I should have chained Pacify/Incite to get away from her, but I didn't manage it. Up until now 've been playing with the starter box (Candy, Kade, Sorrows and Pandora), but I'm going to start using Teddy with her now too. Would you suggest swapping out Kade and a Sorrow for Teddy in a 25SS game?

Not a problem man, happy to help and glad you could parse it all ;D

I tried it a few times at 25 ss and I find it rather clumsy at that point level since the 3rd sorrow is really missed. I probably wouldn't use him untill 30 ss, I've managed to beat Perdita with the basic set several times. What I have found to be the key is not focusing on her right away, but rather ripping the army apart as fast as possible. Even with the Governors proxy, you are still in good shape for dealing with them. Just focus fire and try to shut down/avoid anything your not taking down right away. Don't be afraid to let a hit through to Pandora either and keep the sorrow alive. As long as it isnt to powerful of an attack, you can damage prevent it and probably take no damage, if they even get by your Expose Fears to begin with.

When it comes to Perdita... eh, she is the anti you so its going to be a hard fight the whole way. Just focus everything you got on her and try to time it after she has already activated so she has probably burned through most of her good cards already. But above all, use the terrain to keep yourself out of LOS and hit as hard as you can when you get the chance.

As for Sonnia, eh she isnt so bad once you deplete their hand a bit, her biggest challenge is her counter magic, otherwise you can basically pacify/incite chain in and rip her or her army appart in one turn. Just stay out of their anti magic pulses and your good ^^. Plus Kade can put out some rather heavy damage with his trigger, mmmm Sweat Breads.