048 - UK Masters Tournament Report: Part 2

There were two more games in the afternoon, making for a bit of a marathon of a gaming day, and with the calibre of opponent there was no room for relaxation.

Game 3: Shared Reconnoiter Seamus vs. Dreamer Opponent: Calmdown Game Type: Tournament

This was going to be a difficult matchup. I decided to stick with my original plan of using Seamus and attempting to Insignificant-ify his crew when they showed up, but expected Ian to be fielding the Dreamer. If nothing else, I wanted to try and prove to myself that Seamus wouldn't be a pushover for Chompy.

Ian started with a standard Dreamer crew build containing Lelu & Lilitu, 3 Stitched Together and 3 Daydreams. His game plan was obviously to try and remove as many of my models as possible so that I'd have nobody to contest quarters at the end of the game. For my Schemes I chose Frame for Murder (unannounced) on Sybelle, and Exterminate Dolls, intending to take out the Stitched Together. Ian's Schemes were Hold Out and Steal Relic.

Dreamer prepares to launch his Nightmare Friend at Seamus & Co.

Winning the initiative, the Dreamer did his signature slingshot move and Chompy ate one of my Belles before retreating behind a distant building, a place I knew he would continue to hide his master unless I got one of my models behind his lines. I therefore advanced everyone as quickly as possible towards the center of the table, luring forwards the exposed Daydream and taking him out to try and limit Ian's future mobility.

I won the second turn initiative and put Seamus in Defensive Stance, knowing that he would be the next target and he re-raised the Belle from the nearby corpse to keep my model count up. Chompy jumped out again, and this was where I made probably my biggest mistake of the weekend. Seamus had plenty of Soulstones and managed to survive the first Strike, but in the Onslaught that followed and every subsequent attack I forgot to flip extra cards for his defense! These are the worst kind of mistakes, the "what-ifs". Not knowing how the result might have been different, and knowing the potential effect Seamus could have had on the subsequent turns, means you're always kicking yourself that it could have been different. Ian knew the best way to put Seamus down was to go for lots of negative flips and hope for the Red Joker to inevitably come out. Flipping 4 cards on each damage flip meant he quickly hit the card he wanted and Seamus went down. Whoops for Ian here though as in his rush to kill Seamus, he'd forgotten to Steal the Relic!

After my master was dead, Ian felt comfortable dropping his crew to engage my minions, and the game became a protracted fight in the center of the board. I'm struggling to remember the details of exactly who killed who from that point. One Belle almost made it through in an attempt to deny Hold Out, but was killed before she managed to escape. Knowing that it was my only chance to claw back some VPs, Sybelle attacked and wounded Chompy, and was eaten in retaliation, but this only gained me 1VP. Bete Noire appeared from Sybelle's death and managed to kill Lelu with a timely Slit Jugular, but she was unable to get close enough to the Dreamer to pick him off before being Chomped. I think I managed to put down a couple of Stitched Together, but it was around Turn 5 when the last of my models fell to the Neverborn attack and Ian was able to position his survivors to gain 3VPs for the Strategy which along with 2 for Hold Out gave him a 5-1 win.

This was another excellently played game by an expert Dreamer player. Even had Seamus survived that first round of attacks, he would have gone down in Turn 3 or Turn 4 at the very latest, so I'm not confident that the result would have been much different. Defensive Stance isn't something I've used all that much (and I know that's an issue in itself), so when I did need to use it I completely forgot it was still active. Ah well, lesson learned. I still believe Seamus can hold his own against The Dreamer if played a bit better, and with a slightly more optimal crew selection, so I think I'm going to make that a mini-objective for the year.


 

Game 3: Shared Distract Pandora vs Colette Opponent: 13th Warrior Game Type: Tournament

The final game of the day used a strategy that I’m not at all familiar with – in fact I don’t think I’ve ever played Distract until this point. The majority of the games I’ve played have used the Core Strategies chart and not the Expanded, mainly because that’s what people tend to prefer in my local meta. The Expanded Strategies are more varied (and dare I say it, more fun), but also have an element of imbalance in that they can advantage certain crews more than others, in contrast to the Core strategies which are generally fairer. Another thing for my 2012 objectives list: Play every one of the Expanded strategies at least once.

For Distract, I knew I needed a fast Master, and one that could either kill the enemy Master or really slow them down. I toyed with the idea of using Seamus again to drop Insignificant on the enemy master and stop them getting any VPs, but he wasn’t particularly speedy, and I suspected I’d be facing Colette who’d be a) hard to pin down and b) dropping SS like crazy to stop me hitting her. I plumbed for Pandora, since I’d have to use her at least once over the weekend, and using her in Game 4 would mean I’d have complete freedom of choice in Game 5.

Rob’s crew was the cookie-cutter Colette crew, with Cassandra, the Coryphee duet and one Performer/Mannequin pair. For his schemes he selected Power Ritual and Breakthrough. I chose Kidnap (2 Coryphee and the Performer) and Assassinate. Kidnap would be a little easier on me as the Coryphee would obviously combine and disappear from the table, and I’d only have to take care of the Performer. Assassinate would be a little harder but my main aim Colette and making her run off the table would be just as good as killing her for that Scheme.

In Turn 1, Rob interacted with the two corners in his half of the board, and ran Cassandra alarmingly fast up my left flank to try and capture another corner. The Coryphee joined into a Duet and positioned themselves ready to rush me on Turn 2. I flew the Doppelganger, and the Madness into the ruined tower in the center, and the rest of my crew shuffled forwards slightly.

Turn 2 was where it all kicked off, with Lilitu casting Lure on Cassandra to pull her away from my left corner. Rob decided that his lieutenant was too exposed on her own, and after some fire-breathing and some swapping about she was repositioned safely in his deployment zone. I foolishly moved the Doppelganger out of cover (I can’t even remember what combo I was trying to line up here – it was late in the day and I don’t think I was thinking straight), and Colette pounced on the opportunity, casting Disappearing Act with her trigger and turning my most expensive minion into a Mannequin.

The only positive from this was that it gave Pandora a nearby target for Incite which gained her some extra movement and allowed her to engage the whole of Rob’s crew. A liberal usage of Soulstones on some casting flips, and a high Crow that I’d been saving for the occasion meant that after Pandora’s onslaught, the Performer and Colette herself found themselves on Rob’s board edge and needing to rally. The Duet shot around my right flank, captured the 3rd table corner and hit a few things along the way, but I wasn’t too worried about it.

I was pretty confident at this point that I had Colette trapped and potentially even run off the board. You might even say I was over confident. Colette rallied and recovered in the next couple of turns, and I realised that fate had deserted me when I drew a hand of cards with nothing above a 5. Colette’s retaliation was brutal and effective. Magician’s Duel, Magician’s Duel, Magician’s Duel. Pandora bit the dust and the Showgirls started to close on my deployment zone. With time running out on the round, Rob picked up his tape measure to move Colette her Wk which would bring her into my DZ and score him points for both Distract and Breakthrough. With the tape measure poised, Jo the Tournament Organiser rushed past shouting “Time’s Up! Tape Measure’s Down!” Unlucky for Rob, this denied him 4 VPs, but Cassandra still got to take her free activation at the end of the game and interact with the final board quarter for Power Ritual to give him the game at 4-2.

Sorry it's taking me so long to finish this series of posts - my very helpful place of work has recently decided to ban blogging from work at lunch time, which has meant I'm struggling to fit time in to write these up. Recap of the final game and the results coming soon though.

017 - In which Pandora gets pumped full of lead

I had a really fun game against Adam (Soul Miner) at the club yesterday, where he brought the full force of the Ortega family against Pandora. The full write up of the game can be found on Adam's blog.

I made a silly mistake of putting my master in a vulnerable position, and she got annihilated in a storm of gunshots from Perdita and Nino, swiftly followed by a headshot on Teddy, and I couldn't recover from that.

I did learn a few things though which I'll be bearing in mind next time I face these hijos de putas!

1) They are defending on a WP of 8... so that's my main advantage out the window. I'm used to having at least 1 point of WP over and above whoever I target. This will make Incite/Pacify chains harder to pull off, so I'll have to get sneakier, and make sure that the WP duels I do win count for as much as possible. Leading to...
2) Bring more Sorrows. They will get sniped early on, either directly or as human shields for Pandora. I can also use them to maximise my Emotional Stress damage.
3) I'm burning through my cards too quickly at the start of the turn. Twice now, Teddy's been killed by an insta-death attack because I've got nothing in my hand to discard.
4) I think it's time I got a Doppelganger painted up. Never having the initiative hurts too much.

Watch out Adam - Pandora will return!

Mike

011 - Battle Report x2 - Pandora vs Ramos/Kirai

I've had a couple of games in the last few weeks that I've not mentioned, one against Ramos and a second game against Kirai. In both cases I played Pandora.

My game against Kieran (Ramos) was the first outing for my panda Teddy, and unfortunately he didn't last long. Teddy and the Steamborg Executioner spent the first couple of turns warily eyeing each other up across the table, until I made the mistake of getting too close with Candy. The Steamborg charged her, used a trigger to throw her out of the way, and then got a second charge off against Teddy! I really underestimated his ability to get up close quickly, and he managed to shred Teddy into small pieces of fluff and stuffing within the space of a single activation, before Teddy'd had chance to eat a single enemy. Pandora was not happy about that one bit, and projected Self Loathing to force the Steamborg to slice off all his own legs (coming to the realisation that he was a massive freak of nature no doubt!).

The rest of the game was spent fending off exploding Arachnids while Ramos led from the rear. Eventually I'd thinned their ranks enough to go after the Arcanist leader, but by that point it was just Master vs Master. Pandora forced Ramos to flee with a crafty trigger, at which point the sixth turn ended and I was sadly denied the chance to pursue and finish him off. The victory points showed a level draw which I was happy with, as it had been close fought throughout.

The second game against Paul's Kirai crew leaves me with mixed feelings. Although I won decisively, with a final score of 7-1, it wasn't a particularly satisfying victory as I didn't do much of the work myself. I believe Paul may have upset his Puppet Deck somehow, because it decided this game was a great opportunity to royally screw him over and, to be honest, he didn't stand a chance.

In his defense, having more Kirai experience than the last guy that fielded them against me, Paul pulled some surprising and powerful tricks out of the bag. I was particularly upset when I sent an Onryo fleeing, only for Kirai to sacrifice it and resummon it right back where it had been standing! She also managed to infiltrate a friendly looking Seishin close to my lines and then switch it with Datsu-Ba who proceeded to flail around with her skinning knife to damage 4 models at once!

However with the cards against him this wasn't enough. For three turns out of the five we played, he didn't pick up a single card higher than a 5 in his control hand. Unable to cheat effectively, he couldn't do anything except look on in despair as I picked apart his crew with Willpower duels. My Stitched-Together, taking the field for the first time and without Paul able to cheat against him, managed to Gamble his life against a Gaki, the Datsu-Ba, and the Ikiryo, killing all 3, and earning himself model of the match for me. I'll definitely be bringing him again next time!

In the end, I hadn't lost a single model, and Kirai was left on her own, using Uncontrolled Crying and feeling quite Pitiful.

"I know how she feels" quipped Paul.

007 - Battle Report - Pandora vs Kirai

This week's game was against Ade, another Night Owls regular and another Neverborn-phile. A man after my own heart, Ade has collected all of the Neverborn masters from the original book, and the Dreamer is next on his shopping list! Therefore I was surprised when he decided to bench his Neverborn crews in favour of his new Kirai crew. It did make sense though, in that we couldn't think of any reason why Pandora would be fighting against Zoraida or Lilith fluff-wise, and a fluffy game is always more fun!

You'll have to excuse the fact that we're playing on bare tables with the minimum of terrain. The Yorkshire Open Tournament 40k Heats were taking place downstairs, and they'd nabbed most of the club scenery!

Me: Pandora, Candy, Baby Kade, 3 Sorrows, Teddy (Ade kindly lent me his model to test him out)
Ade: Kirai, Lost Love, Datsue-Ba, Shikome, Gaki, 5 Seishin

Strategies: Shared Reconnoiter - We both would gain victory points for table quarters occupied at the end of the game

Turn 1
My forces deployed in a line, and Kirai's crew deploys in a loose mob formation on the right hand side. Winning the initiative, Kirai gives up some of her own Wds to summon Ikiryo and a second Gaki. The Sorrows link up to Pandora and Candy to form their human shields. The Ikiryo advances and uses (0)Call Spirits, which means that pretty much all of Ade's crew can advance 4" forwards. The Shikome advances on my right hand side, with one of Pandora's linked Sorrows as its target. The photos here are all end-of-turn views of the game.

Turn 2
Again winning the initiative flip, Ade activates the Ikiryo, who charges Kade. Thankfully he defends himself against the strike, which would have been nasty because Ade had flipped the Ikiryo's trigger to give her ++ on the damage. Kade isn't so lucky the second time though, and suffers 2 Wds from her next strike. Teddy isn't too pleased with this spirit beating on his little friend, so he uses (2)Flurry, discarding a low control card and mashing the Ikiryo into a pulp with his claws. Both Kirai's spell casting attempts fail, so she begins (0)Uncontrolled Crying (an overreaction if you ask me!). Pandora, seeing the threat to her pet Sorrow from the incoming Shikome, casts Self Loathing on it, cheating with a crow to get her Mental Anguish trigger off, which sends it fleeing to the table edge before clawing itself to death. (We weren't sure whether the spell effect still takes place after fleeing, can anyone clarify?). Baby Kade, seeing the oncoming pair of Gaki, and not wanting to be snacked on next turn, makes a break for it, switching over to hide near Pandora.

Turn 3
The Datsue-Ba casts (0)Denial of Sanzu on Teddy, stopping him from making any movement actions. For a melee beast such as the Ted-ster, this basically shuts him down for the whole turn. Pandora spends her activation using Incite on several models, inflicting a Wd here and there, followed by a couple of failed casts (Dementia on Kirai is shifted onto one of her nearby Seishin minions). One of the Gaki then runs up and, rather impertinently, eats one of the Sorrows right in front of Pandora, healing itself to full in the process! This is somewhat of a suicide mission though and, exposed as it now is, Candy forces the Gaki to eat itself using (1)Self Loathing. Kade advances towards Kirai, intending to attack her next turn, but Ade casts (0)In the Spirit World which teleports her 18 inches away and safely next to her Lost Love. She then summons an Onryo. It seems that whenever I put one of Ade's crew down, another pops up in its place!

Turn 4
Freed from his anti-movement curse, Teddy wades into the mass of enemy models and makes mincemeat of Lost Love. Next, fancying herself a nice new furry coat, the Datsue-Ba goes to work on Teddy with her skinning knife, inflicting a few Wds but not enough to take him down. Pandora fluffs her Incite flip, meaning she is unable to do much damage this turn, but Kade kills the Seishin that had been left behind when Kirai scarpered last turn. Then, in the most insultingly hilarious move of the whole game, the surviving Gaki uses (1) Absorb on Teddy, swallowing him whole for a light snack! If there was anything I was not expecting to see this game, that was it!

Turn 5
Kirai heals herself, and then resummons Ikiryo, who speeds off to hunt down Kade and finish him off. Kade is unable to defend himself against its Razor Sharp Fingernails, and gets shredded. Next, Pandora attempts to cast a spell on Kirai. First she has to flip to get through Kirai's Pitiful ability, and the resulting WP duel causes Ade's master to flee due to another Mental Anguish trigger. I'm now starting to realise the sheer power of this trigger! Not content with that, Pandora also avenges Teddy by killing the remaining Gaki, and causes 2 Wds on the Ikiryo. The Datsue-Ba casts (1)Weigh Sins on a Sorrow, flipping severe damage, and replacing it with a new Gaki right next to Candy, just when I thought I was rid of the damn things! Candy promptly poisons it with (1)Sours, and it attempts to eat her but fails, causing only light damage.

Turn 6
Potentially the last turn in the game, we both knew that it was make or break time as far as the Strategy (and the victory) was concerned. With that in mind, Ade uses a Soulstone to reflip to make sure he gets the initiative, but his Gaki is still unable to kill Candy. I want to give Candy the "Activation of the Match" award for what she did next. (0)Incite on Gaki, dead. Move. (0)Incite on Onryo, dead. Move. (1)Self Loathing on Ikiryo, dead. You go girl!! The Datsue-Ba tries twice to repeat her Gaki-summoning trick from last turn, but is unsuccessful, and is forced to slit her own throat by Pandora, who then picks off 2 Seishin before pushing into one of the empty table quarters. Flipping to see if the game continues for a 7th turn, Ade flips a 5 which means the game ends.

Result
Pandora and Candy both claim a quarter, and Kirai claims another, but there are no other survivors, so the game goes to the Neverborn 2-1.

Lessons Learned

• I had a lot of fun playing Ade, and as a fellow Neverborn-aholic, he certainly knows his stuff.
• Using strategies for the first time added an extra layer to the game, as table quarters had to be borne in the back of my mind throughout. With Reconnoiter though, it was surprising how much of the result rested wholly on the actions of the last couple of activated models. I think this was due to the game being so close fought that neither of us had much left at the end to claim quarters. If Datsue-Ba had managed to summon that Gaki, or had survived Pandora's final attacks, the result would have been different.
• I liked the Kirai crew's mechanics and they were fun to play against. I think we mis-played the rules for Spirit a couple of times in that sometimes we forgot to halve their incoming damage, but in balance, we also allowed the Spirits to attack through terrain (believing their special move through terrain abilities meant they could also see through obstructions) which with hindsight I think was incorrect.
  
• A couple of times when Ade activated his first model (after winning initiative), it was the same model that activated last in the previous turn. This created the illusion of massive speed, which took me completely by surprise, and is a tactic I may consider using in the future.
• Teddy is a combat monster - but who didn't know that already?
• I was more restrained in moving Pandora about this time, and it paid off. She never got stranded and (I think) never even got attacked!
• Mental Anguish is very painful for your opponents. I almost felt bad using it on Kirai the second time! It did it's job though of taking her out of use for a full turn.

You may be happy to learn that, now that I'm more comfortable with the rules, I've decided that future battle reports are going to be a bit more summarised than the last 2 epics!

In my next post, I'm going to be doing a bit of mathematics for your viewing pleasure, and looking at the probabilities of certain card flips and how we can use these numbers to our advantage.

004 - Battle Report - Pandora vs Collette

The stage was set last week for my first ever complete game of Malifaux. Two previous attempts to get a game in at the local gaming club had fallen through - on both occasions we'd only managed to get 2 turns done before having to pack up due to Real Life interruptions. My opponent was Alan, another newcomer to the game who'd brought along his Colette crew so we could feel our way through the rules together. We set up a table at the Thursday Club's brand new venue and got down to it.

This battle report is just a short summary of the key moments of the game as i remember it, and apologies for the lack of pictures, I aim to take some next time!

Me: Pandora, Candy, Baby Kade, 3 Sorrows
Alan: Colette, Cassandra, 2 Performers and 2 Mannequins

Turn 1
Pandora deploys on the left with 2 Sorrows for support, staring down Colette and one Performer/Mannequin duo. Candy, Kade and the other Sorrow hide behind the trees on my right, facing towards Cassandra and another duo. Not a lot happens this turn except some link-ups, advancing, and Colette creating a Mechanical Dove.

Turn 2
Cassandra runs up and hits Candy hard in the face, causing some damage, and Candy retaliates with Sours (it still doesn't make much sense to me that Cassandra would accept poison sweets from the little girl she'd just cleaved a chunk out of, but them's the rules!). Alan attempts to pull off a tricky combo with the Mannequin and Performer on my right, to try and Paralyse and then Poison Candy, but the triggers didnt work out and it fails. Kade hits the Mannequin but its armour is way too strong to penetrate. Pandora uses Pacify on several of the Showgirls, causing slight damage on 3 models, and uses the momentum to travel across the table behind their lines. Colette releases another Mechanical Dove from her.... hat?

Turn 3
Now that our models are engaged, the initiative flip to decide who goes first is crucial, and Alan wins it by flipping a difficult to contest 13. Cassandra paralyses Candy by borrowing the nearby Performer's spell. Pandora pushes up to Collette, killing a Performer on the way by causing such self-loathing that she jabs herself with her own Poisoned Ring! One of the Doves also succumbs to its negative emotions. With actions still to take, Pandora inflicts 3wds on Colette but then falls foul of bad luck when her Fading Memory ability fails and she's left stranded and looking vulnerable, easily in range of Colette's revenge. Colette uses Magician's Duel twice, uses a Soulstone to reactivate, then does it twice more! This sends Pandora reeling and forces her to burn through all but 1 of her own Soulstones just to stay alive! The surviving Performer rapid fires her Clockwork Pistol at the paralysed Candy, putting her out of her misery. Kade finally inflicts a Wd on the Mannequin, but it takes every trigger he has, and once again it's still merely a scratch! Damn that blasted armour!

Turn 4
The Mannequin near Cassandra (that Kade has been beating on all game to no avail) sacrifices itself to give Cassandra a healing flip to help her through the poison damage she continues to receive. Pandora attempts to finish off Colette and does so easily, projecting Pity and then then Dementia. Colette, though, has "Slow to Die" which grants her a free action when she is killed and Alan used this to cast one final Magicians Duel for which he flips severe damage and kills Pandora in a blaze of glory. With both masters dead, we decide that this is a fitting end and call it a game there.

Lessons Learned

• Alan was a fun opponent I'd gladly play again.
• Armour +3 is immense! Physical attacks don't stand a chance against Mannequins, so try inflicting WP duels with Pandora instead.
• Having said that, Mamnequins are WP8!!
• Kade really needs his trigger to do respectable damage, preferably with a severe damage cheat.
• Don't forget Expose Fears or Harmless! Both of us forgot this ability repeatedly throughout the fight, meaning a lot of damage could have been prevented on both sides, and Pandora may have survived!
• I need to plan out Pandora's activation before she moves, and have a destination in mind. Too often she just milled about with no real direction. Make sure she has somewhere to hide after doing damage.
• Keep people closer together (except perhaps Kade). I needlessly split my force up and that left the children without Pandora's support.
• Using Reactivate, Colette can throw a lot of actions at you in one activation. Also, she doesn't have a melée weapon so it's difficult for Pandora to damage her directly. I think I was lucky in that Alan didn't make much use of the crew's swapping about abilities or else I may have been outmanoevered.
• Remember that casting totals are generated up front, with Cheat & Soulstone if wanted, before the target makes a resist flip. We got this wrong a few times.
• Having a crap hand in Turn 3 really limited my tactics and forced me to burn a lot of Soulstones. Maybe I should try and hold some high cards back for this crucial turn

Anyway, hope you found this summary interesting! I'll be back with more in the future!

003 - Meet the Neverborn

There I was, happily painting my way through legions of Imperial Guardsmen and Leman Russ tanks, eagerly looking forward to having the army finished by the new year and ready to join the local gaming club, the Leeds Night Owls to learn how to play 40k, when I was bitten by the Neverborn bug!

While browsing their forums I came across mention of the game of Malifaux, and a quick Google search led me to this picture of the creepy little serial killing baby known as "Baby Kade". My curiosity immediately piqued, I delved further, and after discovering he partners with a giant carnivorous Teddy Bear(!!), I knew I had to try this game and that my starting faction couldn't be anything else but the Neverborn. I immediately picked up a Legion of Sorrows box set which would allow me to start playing straight away.

My Crew
Pandora
Owner of the legendary Box, Pandora is one of the 4 currently available Neverborn Masters, and plays completely differently to any other master in the game. By opening the Box, Pandora unleashes the worst fears and emotions of her enemies, who literally kill themselves with self-loathing and pity. She can also be incredibly fast, appearing and disappearing before the enemy crew has time to react, and her style is very much "death by a thousand cuts", preferring to chip away at the health of enemy models 1 Wd at a time, rather than wade in and hit things hard with a big sword (that's Lilith's job!)

I painted Pandora in a similar scheme to the example in the Malifaux book. I had experimented with a few different colours for her dress, including red and white, but nothing seemed to look right, so I settled on the cream colour.
The magical flame emerging from the open box is actually half the size of the one the model comes supplied with. I felt that putting the whole piece on obscured the rest of the model, so I snipped off the bottom half and only used the tip of the fire. The fire was painted GW Jade Green, a colour which I carried through to the whole crew in small amounts, to give a unified scheme.

Coat: Liche Purple/Liche Purple+Skull White
Dress/Leg Wraps: Graveyard Earth/Bleached Bone
Skin: Dark Flesh/Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh
Hair: Chaos Black/Skull White streaks

Pandora's base was made by cutting out sections of cardboard from a cereal packet in the shapes of flagstones, and glueing them on with PVA. This was then drybrushed to resemble stone, and a few tufts of static grass added to finish the effect.


Candy
Candy is the Woe of Innocence Corrupted, and she features in the top right corner of this blog in Voodoo-doll form. Candy hates humans, and those she cannot ensnare with poisoned sweets often fall foul of her ability to use her victims guilt and regret against them.
I decided to paint my Neverborn children with regular skin tones, instead of the pallid, undead looking skin in the Malifaux book, as I didn't want them to look like zombies, especially when I might consider painting zombies in a Ressurectionist crew in the future. Plus I figure that if they look like real children then it's even more scary!

Pink Dress: Blood Red+Skull White, highlighted with extra Skull White
White Frills: Fortress Grey/Skull White
Hair: Bestial Brown/Sunburst Yellow
Skin: Dark Flesh/Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh

Candy's lollipop was painted with a Jade Green spiral pattern, she was based with the same cardboard flagstones as Pandora.


Baby Kade
Kade is the Woe of Innocence Lost, and he delights in pretending to be a baby to lure his victims to their death, which he dispenses with a gigantic (to him at least!) carving knife. While not the strongest melee fighter available to Pandora, if he gets the right triggers at the right time, he can be deadly. Plus, isn't he just so CUTE? The model is one of the tiniest things I've painted, but I still wanted to pull off a nice paint job, so he took a lot of time to get right.

I painted his teddy bear in the colours of a panda, as I intend to add Teddy to the crew soon, and he will also be painted as a great big evil (but cuddly) panda.

Skin: Dark Flesh/Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh
Nappy: Fortress Grey/Skull White

I did my best to make his eyes look as deranged as possible, by painting small pupils in the centre of his big round eyes.


Sorrows
These guys are minor Woes, basically backup for Pandora and friends, and they don't have any particularly special abilities in themselves. Their main use is in linking up to the main crew members in order to borrow their more effective spells, and absorb damage from enemies attacks. I painted them slightly different to the pictures on the box, because I didn't like the bright green colour that made them look like Slimer from the Ghostbusters.

Shadows Layer: Dark Angels Green
Base/Middle Layer: Jade Green
Highlight Layer: Rotting Flesh

The protruding tongues and eyes were painted with Scab Red followed by Blood Red highlights. Lastly, the bases were finished off with cardboard flagstones and static grass

The next addition to the crew is going to be Teddy, following which I'm leaning towards a couple of Stitched Together, who appear to work well with Pandora's Willpower based mechanics.