M2E+Widow+Weaver

// "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the Spider to the Fly." - The Spider and the Fly, Mary Howitt //
 * Widow Weaver, Neverborn Henchman**
 * [[image:weaver.jpg align="right"]]NIGHTMARE **

=__Overview__= A wicked spider all dressed up in finery, the Widow Weaver spins nightmares for children and feeds on their fear. The Widow Weaver is most often seen with Dreamer (since she is a Nightmare), or Collodi (since she can create and assist Puppets), or Pandora (since she weakens enemy **Wp**). While she can be fragile, she has a lot of utility, and can assist combinations of other models even outside those masters.toc

=__Mobility__= With only a **Wk 5** and no **Cg**, the Widow Weaver is not fast, but she's fast enough. She can move into base contact with an enemy with **(1) Seize Prey**, although that's more of an attack with the mixed blessing of putting the Widow Weaver in base contact with the target model.

=__Utility__= As a henchman the Widow Weaver is primarily a utility piece; granting bonuses to other models in your crew, and inflicting penalties on enemy models.

Her **Playthings** ability is an aura that gives all friendly constructs activating near her a +1 **Wk** for the rest of their activation. Note that while she's thematically linked to puppets, this ability extends to all constructs, which includes Teddy, who is not a puppet at all. She also gives you a card draw with **Inhale Terror** whenever an enemy model fails a Horror duel within a six inch aura of the Weaver. This makes her a popular choice for 'box' Pandora, who is all about drawing enemy models into a 'death bubble' around her, and forcing horror duels onto them, sometimes even multiple horror duels thanks to her The Box Opens upgrade.

Widow Weaver is best known for her ability to spin webs with her **(0) Create Web** tactical action. It puts a 30mm web marker anywhere within 6" and LoS of Widow Weaver, and enemy models suffer -1Wp for each web marker within 3" and LoS of them. There's no limit on the number of webs you can have on the board, but they all disappear when Widow Weaver is removed from play. This means that not only do the markers go away when your opponent kills Widow Weaver, but whenever they manage to bury her too.

You can use the **Spin Web** trigger of her **Needle-Filled Mouth** attack to move your own models into base contact with a web marker within 8". It requires a suit and deals your model 2/3/6 damage, which isn't ideal, but models like Teddy and The Illuminated can shrug off the damage and use the positioning to charge very distant models in a pinch. You have the option of cheating in weak damage after all.

=__Resilience__= The Widow Weaver's **Df 4** is very low for any model, but especially for a henchman. Even though henchmen can spend soulstones to prevent damage, if targeted by powerful attacks she'll still go down quickly. She does have a nice **Wp 7** and a sturdy **Wd 10**, but she's in great danger if she's targeted by many attacks that are resisted by **Df**. She's also **Terrifying (All) 11**, which is better than it seems, because enemies are likely to be affected by **Wp** penalties from Web Markers. You should be able to force your opponent into situations where they're forced to decide between walking away from a web and getting one less attack, or staying inside the web and risk taking the Horror Duel at a penalty.

It's a good idea to protect Widow weaver with tricks like fielding her with Barbaros, who's challenge upgrade forces enemy models to pass a **Wp** test to attack other models. If you make the enemy model take a penalty to that flip with a web marker all the better!

=__Offense__=
 * Needle-Filled Mouth**, is typed as a close combat attack, and is quite good. It does **2/3/6** damage with a **Ml 6** against **Df**, and it ignores **Armor**. It has two triggers: one that gives **Poison +3** (on Crows), and one that places the target in base contact with a friendly Web marker within 8" (on Tomes). Placing an enemy in the middle of a **Wp**-debuffing field of Web Markers can cause plenty of problems, especially if you're also throwing them out of the position where they wanted to be. While good, her Ml attack doesn't get used as much as her other abilities, because she's fragile, and lacks a **Cg**.


 * Exhale Terror** is an accurate medium-range un-typed **Ca** attack that does **1/2/5** damage, and forces a **TN 12** Horror duel, and it's resisted with **Wp**, so it's able to snipe at enemy models that are engaging your other models, or hiding in cover. Using her in the most obvious and basic way, you might walk her five inches, use **Create Web** to place a web marker near a model within eight inches of Widow Weaver, and then attack that model with **Exhale Terror** to make that horror duel effectively TN 13. Even better if the enemy model is within 6" of Widow Weaver, and you also get a card draw from **Inhale Terror** if they do fail that horror duel. If you do manage to lay down a **Wp** penalty, damage a model, paralyze that model with horror, and draw a card in a single activation early in the game, be ready for your opponent to put a high priority on destroying Widow Weaver.


 * Seize Prey** is another medium-range attack with a nearly identical profile to **Exhale Terror**; although the target must be near at least 2 Web Markers. It destroys all those Web Markers, and it places Widow Weaver in base contact with the target. In exchange for those penalties it gives the target **Paralyzed** and **Poison +5**. Since this will usually only happen mid-to-late game, the Poison's not likely to matter much unless you take a Performer as a mercenary for some reason. Don't use **Seize Prey** as your main attack unless you're absolutely certain you don't need those web markers, or that you need to be 100% certain of paralyzing an enemy model to get VPs from a strategy or scheme.

=__Upgrades__= The Widow Weaver's personal Upgrade **Handbag** is expensive at 2 Soulstones, but offers great summoning, and even a little ability to move corpse and scrap markers around the board; possibly moving them out of range of enemy summoners. The Handbag also adds two Tactical Actions to Widow Weaver. **(1) Create Doll** requires a seven of masks or higher and a scrap marker within 6" to summon a Wicked Doll in base contact with Widow Weaver. **(2) Create Teddy Bear** requires an eleven of masks or higher and any combination of four scrap or corpse markers within 6" to summon a Teddy in base contact with Widow Weaver. There is a theory that Widow Weaver with this upgrade can be fielded with Zoraida and Will O Wisps to create a 'teddy bear factory' by using Zoraida's ability to summon Voodoo Dolls, which are destroyed to create scrap markers, Handbag to create Teddy's, and the Will O Wisp's ability to copy both abilities from Zoraida and Widow Weaver. It's significantly easier to create an army of Wicked Dolls than a squad of Teddy's of course.

=__Tactics and Tips__= Positioning Web Markers can be one of the most important things in using the Widow Weaver. You want to place them where enemies will want to be, and ideally to place them so that enemies will be close to several. Lay out a network of them near the Turf Marker, or an alley or choke-point enemies can't avoid. You'll want to put them up every turn, so the first turn may you'll need to take a guess and take the best you can.

The Widow Weaver doesn't do well in the thick of combat. She likes to hang back and drop de-buffs, exhale and inhale terror to cause horror duels and draw cards. If she's been given a handbag she'll want to shift corpse and scrap markers away from enemy summoners, and perhaps even do a little summoning herself.

Not many Neverborn Crews use **Poison** much, so her **Poison** abilities are often wasted. Still, they add a little extra damage, which might be nice. Usually, her other offensive abilities will help you more.

=__Leading a Crew__= As a Henchman, the Widow Weaver can lead a Crew in a small game. In a leadership role, she generally acts as second-line support, de-buffing enemies and controlling territory with her Web Markers. She does well in terrain that has choke points or other likely locations. To be honest, you will rarely want to use Widow Weaver this way. Just about every other Henchman in the Neverborn faction is better at leading crews.

Strategies and Schemes
Widow Weaver does best with Strategies that center on a particular piece of territory she can mark up with Webs. She loves **Turf War**. **Squatter's Rights** is good too. Strategies and Schemes that make the acts widespread or unpredictable, like **Reconnoiter** and **Stake a Claim****,** are more problematic for her.

She can also be used defensively, to make your Crew better at protecting key territory you choose. This can be excellent for **Protect Territory** or **Outflank**, for instance. You can set your Scheme Markers in defensive places and then make those places more defensible with Web Markers.

You can also, in a pinch, force tough and hard to kill enemy models off of areas before they can score at the end of a turn with the **Spin Web** trigger of her **Needle-Filled Teeth**

Building a Crew
The Widow Weaver has a lot of different kinds of synergies. She will speed up Constructs, so those are good, and she can also summon two of them. She debuffs **Wp**, which means that **Wp**-attacking monsters will help, especially if they also cause Horror Duels. While she's a Nightmare, she doesn't actually have many abilities that support or rely on Nightmares much, except that many of them cause **Wp** duels.

Masters and Widow Weaver

 * Pandora** is a name that comes up often when talking about Widow Weaver. Pandora is all about the Wp duels, inflicting damage whenever enemy models fail Wp duels, and causing conditions that hamstring enemy models if they fail Wp duels. Unless she happens to take her **The Box Opens** upgrade Pandora barely even touch's the **Df** stat at all. Putting Pandora and Widow Weaver in close proximity to each other will add insult to injury for your opponent; damaging and paralyzing their models, and giving you additional card draws with **Inhale Terror**.


 * Dreamer** likes working with Widow Weaver for two reasons. She's a Nightmare, so he has some synergy with her, and he and his other crew can force horror duels that turn into card draws. The bonus card draws can in turn be used to cheat in the cards you need for the **Manifest Nightmares** tactical action from his Dreams of Pain upgrade. You need to f

=__Playing Against Widow Weaver__= Apart from the obvious problems of staying away from her web markers, which will be difficult if you're playing strategies and schemes that force you to occupy certain areas of the board, you want to make Widow Weaver a very high priority target; especially if you have models with long ranged attacks that can snipe her from a safe distance. It's generally a good idea to have models with good ranged options that are highly resistant to horror duels when playing against Neverborn anyway, but especially if you're up against Widow Weaver and one or more of the Masters that like working with her.

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