Woe, that is a Dysfunctional Family

     I have been playing Malifaux for roughly two years now (after taking some time away from it). I am known amongst my friends as someone who doesn’t stick with one faction and just learn all the keywords. I tend to buy things I am interested in and for example a the “Woe” keyword has caught my attention for about two years now. Why has the Woe keyword caught my attention?

      The first reason is that she is a classic keyword. She has been around since the first edition and has been through multiple looks from the earlier first edition sculpt, one of the first rotten harvest boxes to her title form. Which gives someone a lot of room to paint her various sculpts in a unique style.

 

     This is second reason is because I have truly enjoyed myself while painting this keyword. I have always enjoyed painting well sculpted models and these models does not disappoint. This keyword allows one to play around with various colors, shapes, values and more while painting or coming up with a color scheme, In my experience there are plenty of supernatural effects that lend themselves to fluorescent colors, highly saturated colors, contrast paints, speed paints and more with these models. So go nuts, have fun!

     The third and probably last reason is that the keyword is a lot of fun to play. In my opinion is that it is a fairly self contained keyword where one can buy just the Woe models itself and have a good time. All the models are relatively easy to find (currently that is). At the time of this post I haven’t had a chance to play with Delirium and the Delirious Thralls (because they haven’t been released). On the tabletop (and this is coming from a pretty average player) the Woe keyword doesn’t have to rely on activation order to get the most of the models. 

     For example, the other day I was playing against my friend who was playing Big Hat. In was the top of Round 2 and I looked at him and said “this could be really smart or really dumb”. I moved Pandora into place, used her tactical action “Open the Box”, then “Fears Given Form”, and lastly made Georgy and Olaf punch themselves for four damage which gave them staggered and I pinged them for a damage from Candy (who was close by). In just her activation she made my opponent go from six cards in hand to top decking (which is never a good feeling at the top of a turn). Her keyword plays with conditions so you have the ability to be reactive especially when you see your opponent is building up for a potential alpha strike. Pandora’s front of card ability “Mood Swings” can really mess with your opponent’s activation order. For example, you see The Iron Matron or another big beater getting all buffed up. Well, cause it to go first and really block their ability to cause massive damage. Make Ulix go first to where he cannot grow pigs, heal or other various things. The possibilities are endless with this front of card ability. 

      That is where unfortunately one of Pandora’s weaknesses comes to light. In order to use this ability you need to either discard a card or a pass token. The Woe keyword has 0 ability to draw cards outside of your initial six card hand at the beginning of the turn. Therefore you have to rely on the ever popular “Ancient Pact” upgrade to help you counteract that.

     Another weakness is that most of the keyword relies on incorporeal, terrifying or manipulative as their defense. It is fairly easy to get around most of those with “Ruthless” or one of the numerous abilities that ignore incorporating. So, usually models with those abilities tend to have a target on their back or you just try to ignore them.

     In conclusion, Pandora and her dysfunctional Woe family are loved by many Malifaux players. Unfortunately she gets slapped with this title “NPE (Negative Play Experience)” but is that true? Well, if she is an NPE why would Wyrd keep her in the game? I believe this is a fairly simple answer. It’s a simple as if you know her weakness the other player can exploit it. It’s like when people complain of the Tormented keyword as being an NPE (the tormented keyword can melt against ruthless) At first it might be but once you see that weakness you can use it for your advantage. So, if you like ghost, demonic children, and just creating roadblocks for your opponents check out Woe. It will take a lot of reps but you might have some fun! (Myself I am just on my third game with them)

      I would like to leave you all with some various photos of WIP and my various games with this keyword.

Also, these opinions come from someone that has last nearly every game of Malifaux for the past two years. So take them with a grain of salt 😂