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ive not exactly started playing this game as im more of a 40k player. in fact i dont even know the rules of the game much either! but i am interested in the neverborn as the models just visually appeals to me. can anyone tell me how is the play style of the neverborn feel like?

All i can remember is the dreamer is really cool. but personally i play rasputina. (archanists)

Straight from the Neverborn section of the Malifaux tactica wiki:

The Neverborn tend not to have straight forward styles of play, with a focus on speed, deception, and a lot of Willpower-based abilities. They have many tricks and a great deal of melee power, having the most damaging melee minions in the game. However this is offset by many of their models being relatively fragile - resilience is definitely not their forte and their survivability generally relies on speed, tricks, and special abilities. They are often tricky to learn when compared to some of the simpler crews in the game and take more time to master, but often this extra time and effort pays off. They are the monsters of the game, having inhuman creatures at their disposal and insidious means of dealing death to the invaders of Malifaux.

Again, this really depends on the Master you pick, have you given any thought to which Master you'd like to play within the faction?

Lilth is a straight beat stick really. Use here illusionary woods spell to get cover, get into CC and destroy the opposing force.

Everything in Malifaux really depends on which master you are playing. Pretty much every faction has a beatstick, caster, and midrange master. With more being added but that was the basic book.

The Lilth base box set is all about HtH tho. Pandora is all about willpower and spell manipulation. The Hag has the voodoo doll and some fate manipulation, but imo is one of the worst masters from what we have played.

AoE caster masters seem to be some of the more powerful ones...unless you can get in CC with them then they just die lol.

chaos45 wrote:The Hag has the voodoo doll and some fate manipulation, but imo is one of the worst masters from what we have played.

Lotsa people think Zoraida is the most powerful master in the game. Listen to episode 2 of the Aethervox to hear a Zoraida expert talk about her.

i had thought of playing the dreamer but im not too sure how exactly does he play out like. =)

All i know is i keep getting owned by him. Will have a look at rising powers book later for a bit more detail.

The Dreamer has quite a few unique mechanics, allowing him to remove friendly models from the table and place them in different positions later. Hit and run style melee beatstick.

Right now the Neverborn are probably the strongest faction in the game, as every master is extremely maneuverable

Hans Chung-Otterson wrote:

chaos45 wrote:The Hag has the voodoo doll and some fate manipulation, but imo is one of the worst masters from what we have played.

Lotsa people think Zoraida is the most powerful master in the game. Listen to episode 2 of the Aethervox to hear a Zoraida expert talk about her.

Right now Pandora is pretty much the undisputed tournement winner.

ok here's your general guide to the Neverborn Masters.
Pandora: focuses on Willpower tricks, one of the harder masters to play. But not up on a Leveticus level of difficulty, currently the most powerful master in the game imho. Basically the purpose is that every time your opponent fails a wp duel, you push 4", then make another WP duel, every time your opponent fails a wp duel, they take a wound. Very fun master, but one that will fall to pieces should you stuff up.

Lilith: Melee Beatstick master. Uses little spells like illusionary forest and Transposition to move up the map while covered and then rush out to hit your opponent. Not as magic orientated, the least trick orientated crew. Although there are some heinous ones out there

Dreamer & Nytmare: Very Trick based master, basically you bury models, then you pick where you want them and pop them up. While Nytmare may have a pretty mean statline make no mistakes, he IS NOT A BEATSTICK. He runs in and either cripples or kills the enemy model. The crew is based off of "Nightmares", you can try a few different types of crew with this master however Melee is the most common choice

Zoraida: A very difficult master, quite powerful however not on Pandora levels. I don't play her and have only played against her a few times, however you should attempt to remove abilites that synergise.(sp?) mostly a casting based master.

Collodi: new crew, haven't had the luck to play against him yet. very very very fast, a "Death by a thousand cuts" kind of master, push your models up, whack your opponent in the face, then pull them all back in again. simple.

Generally within every faction you have a Master thats.

- Good in Melee
- Good at Ranged Combat
- Good at Casting Spells
- A Summoner

There really isnt any faction that can't do something well.

In general pick your flavor of play and go. Every caster usually has some tricks so you have to be ready to play against them with your casters abilities and troops.

We havent played much with the rising powers book as the game kinda fell out around here. With just the original masters we were finding that AoE was dominating everything really.

Basically use soulstones and totem of power and just AoE the other crew down ASAP. Pretty much was auto win in most games. Some casters you might have to use some LOS or other tricks to make sure the AoE attacks are more effective but it worked in general.

When both players had AoE casters it was generally the best played/ or best cards that smoked the other caster first.

Again havent played alot of the new casters but was how the first book meta seemed to work out in our neck of the woods lol.

We play a lot of Malifaux at my LGS, and I play Neverborn exclusively, so I'll run through each master (with the exception of Collodi since my LGS hasn't gotten mine in yet).

Pandora- As people have stated, uses the WP stat for just about everything. First of all, anyone within 12" of her loses any sort of WP duel immunity they have. This also affects friendly models, so be careful. Any time an enemy loses a WP duel within 12" of her (note that it doesn't have to be a WP duel involving her, just within 12" of her) they take a wound. She has minions called Sorrows that amplify this with an ability that deals 1 wound to anyone loosing a WP duel within 3". So if Pandora and 3 Sorrows come within 3" of a model and that model loses a WP duel, instant 4 wounds. Seeing as the toughest models in the game have 12 wounds, you can see how the little wounds can add up quickly. She also pushes 4" anytime she wins a WP duel, which helps her be extremely mobile. All in all, she's in my opinion the hardest of the Neverborn masters to use, but can be one of the most fun as well.

Lilith- Our melee master. She has a few tricks up her sleeve as well (creating an illusionary forest, switching two models, etc.) and an amazing defense with a great defensive trigger that debuffs anyone who misses on a melee attack against her. She also has a great AoE sword strike that can potentially let her solo a crew (I took out 3 Sillurids and a Bad Juju Golem with one of these before). Her crew tends to be exclusively Nephilim, and Nephilim can grow from a Terror Tot, to a Young, to a Mature in a game (basically bring in a 3 SS unit, grow it to a 6, then a 10 for a 7 SS gain). Definitely our simplest master.

Zoraida- She is our most versatile master, but also the most indirect. Her main thing that she likes to do is take control of a model. Notice I didn't say friendly or enemy, she can do both. Basically she takes control of any non-master model and makes a (1) or a charge action. The cool thing about her is that I've had my entire crew killed except her and her totem, and while with another master I might give up at this point, with Zoraida I just took control of two of my opponents models, charged with one, and AoEd a cluster taking out about 2-3 with another. She has the ability to prevent a model from cheating fate (playing a card from your hand) and she can also rearrange the top 3 cards on either players' deck. Finally, with her the sky is the limit on what models go well with her. You can bring just about anything with her and do well.

Dreamer- My personal favorite of the Neverborn, he flies around dropping off Nightmares to kill things and picking them back up before the enemy has a chance to counterattack. He requires a bit of learning like Pandora. To use the Dreamer effectively, you'll need to master shuffling tactics with his totems so that when he's spent his AP, his totems can suck up the Nightmares (and him) and get everyone to safety. While he isn't restricted to Nightmares, he can only do his drop off/pick up/shuffling tactics with Nightmares, so most Dreamer players stick to Nightmares exclusively. While this may seem limiting, you'll find that Rising Powers provides a good selection of Nightmares to get just about any job done. Plus with the Dreamer, Teddy (the demonic looking, giant, teddy bear) is considered a Nightmare, and is no longer a Rare 1 IE, a little kid with 3 giant demonic teddy bears. If that doesn't sound awesome to you, then I don't know what else I can say to sell you on the Dreamer. Oh yeah, he can turn into the most Terrifying thing in the game, Lord Chompy Bits (literally! not even Rogue Necromancy has Terrifying->14)

In my experience, the Neverborn do seem to be one of the most popular factions out there, probably more popular than the Guild.

Just throwin' that out there, for what it's worth.

Thanks for the review Allidor, none of my friends are playing Neverborn at the moment but I'm going for Pandora and the Woes (and Teddy!!) but that Sorrows instant wound ability sounds a little overpowered! But is that because stat wise, they won't last long in a fight?