How to deal with Ramos or Arcanists in general?

[marke83]

Hi everyone! Any advice for an enthusiastic noob with an armor cracking problem :D? Today had two games, and got my backside handed to me again by a local Arcanist player. I consider him a much better player than me, but so far in my short Malifaux career I've yet to beat him and most of the times it's not even close. I'm simply a bit out of good ideas.

We played Interference and Extraction. In both games first few turns were looking good as I removed Joss early in both games, but then, Rail Golem happened. His static list (due to lack of models) has been basically Ramos, reactivate robot, few spiders, Rail Golem, Howard, Joss. My first crew was Pandora, 3 Sorrows, Teddy, Prime Magic, Doppel, Widow. Second list BoP Collodi with 2 Coryphee, Vasi, Teddy, Brutal and couple of Marionettes.

I just feel like my crews lack "business", or then I'm not choosing the correct schemes and playstyle vs that crew. If I deal with Joss, Rail Golem gets me. If I deal with Howard, Rail Golem gets me. If I deal with Rail Golem.. well, you guessed it. Marionettes and Sorrows don't seem to be doing much vs 4 heavily armored, high wounded beaters, and Teddy with Retribution's Eye surely wasn't enough.

Which masters and models you usually bring against this kind of crews? At least I'm beginning to learn that I'm often going to lose the damage race, so controlling/kiting/scheming is probably a some kind of solution. Collodi felt better because I could just spam slow everywhere, but on the other hand Pandora dealt better with armor problems as the misery procs help against that.

[EnternalVoid]

Well first I often take Pandora and Collodi in Extraction, as both like the enemy being concentrated.  Inference is a bit more of a gamble for me as I still like Pandora in it but also consider some other masters.  Though to be fair, his list is walking in with 3 of the heaviest hitters of the Arcanist faction.  Joss, Langston, and Rail Golem clock in at 33ss, basically 2/3rds of a 50ss list.  It is pretty clear he is going for "Power" to lead his crew while Ramos creates more lesser minions, provides some support, and uses his Totem to double down on a beater with reactivation.  I would suggest keeping to your own crew rather than building one specifically to handle his though, that way he cannot pull to big of a surprise if he suddenly switches it up.  Putting to much into counterpicking a single list can leave you flat footed if things get swapped.  So it is better to know what option on what you are normally taking can do in these cases and work from there.

Personally this multiple beater problem is why I tend to take Voices on Pandora as my limited upgrade.  Being able to paralyze some of the beaters or Ramos goes a long way to slowing the list down and giving you time to deal with other elements.  Remember, Pandora can use her Self Harm on a model even if it does not have a range attack.  This is even in the FAQ so if a player disagrees you can supply proof.  Sure it will not deal much damage outside of Misery aura, but if you get the trigger you can Paralyze them at range.  If you can paralyze two of them you basically shut down half his SS worth of crew for a turn.  If the model had already went in the turn you can use Incite as well to force them to activate the model early next turn giving you a chance to paralyze them again for the following turn.  I have done this to the Viks before, pulling Vik of Blood in after she activated, paralyzing her, using Incite on her, when they won Initiative next turn made them activate Vik of Blood which removed Paralyze, then activated Pandora to re-paralyze her so she would not have a turn next turn.  It is harder when you are trying to hold down more than 1 model but if you can get both of them in range of your Self Loathing action it should be easier.  If you can get a Widow Weaver Web marker nearby though it will make it even easier.

The second issue that I can suggest considering is that your list seems to lack any durability or front line.  It makes it easy prey to alpha strikes and rushes.  The fact that pretty much all factions have the capability of making these sort of lists means you might face this issue elsewhere as well.  I like to fit a Waldgeist or Illuminated into my Pandora crews to have a model with durability as an option.  Mind you models like Joss can still mess them up, but even Joss is leery of charging a Waldgeist that has not activated yet as he does not like Negatives to hit.  Even putting something like a Depleted in instead to have something with wounds to soak a beater's activation would be useful here.  But it seemed like your Pandora list really lacks a model that is willing to be in the front.  I rarely take more than one sorrow myself, and tend to use those points on other things.  I can see two but three always has struck me as putting to many eggs in one basket as they want to be near Pandora most of the time to really get the most out of misery.  In fact your first list looks like it really wants to ball up, but playing Inference you want a list that can spread out and claim quarters normally.  Ramos is a tough one to face in this of course as with the right card and a scrap marker he can basically claim a table quarter if you don't get the spider's engaged right away.

 

Collodi has good options too, you were right about Slow and his other triggers being able to take some of the fight right out of beaters.  The problem I see with the second list is you took two Coryphees for Extraction. That is a lot of points put into two fragile but fast models in a strategy that involves holding a point.  I do not know what the scheme pool was so I cannot comment there but Extraction means those beaters are likely bearing down on you and much like with the Pandora list your Collodi list did not have a lot of endurance.  So once he gets into you he can start dismantling you and again his list is built to be able to rush or alpha strike.  Unless you get aggressive with Collodi he is likely going to out range you but if you do catch him you can really mess with his initial attempt.  I am not a big fan of Vasilisa unless you have Stitched Together personally.  She is a debuff/support model, but her Debuffs are not good against heavy armor as often it will reduce the damage to 1 to remove them.  She is often better as a Stitched escort to help get the most out of their AP.  I imagine if Neverborn get more offensive puppets her value will go up in this role.  She is also somewhat soft and against heavy hitters while having high Df is nice, they tend to have high Ml too or Positive Flips to combat it.  I would argue that your second list, save for Teddy, tends not to have a lot of offensive power.  But a Teddy with Retribution Eye can do quite the number on these beaters, just you would have to keep the beaters from being able to concentrate back on Teddy.  Which is what Collodi would be needed for.

[marke83]

29 minutes ago, EnternalVoid said:

Personally this multiple beater problem is why I tend to take Voices on Pandora as my limited upgrade..

The second issue that I can suggest considering is that your list seems to lack any durability or front line.  It makes it easy prey to alpha strikes and rushes.  The fact that pretty much all factions have the capability of making these sort of lists means you might face this issue elsewhere as well.  I like to fit a Waldgeist or Illuminated into my Pandora crews to have a model with durability as an option.  Mind you models like Joss can still mess them up, but even Joss is leery of charging a Waldgeist that has not activated yet as he does not like Negatives to hit.  Even putting something like a Depleted in instead to have something with wounds to soak a beater's activation would be useful here.  But it seemed like your Pandora list really lacks a model that is willing to be in the front.  I rarely take more than one sorrow myself, and tend to use those points on other things.  I can see two but three always has struck me as putting to many eggs in one basket as they want to be near Pandora most of the time to really get the most out of misery.  In fact your first list looks like it really wants to ball up, but playing Inference you want a list that can spread out and claim quarters normally.  Ramos is a tough one to face in this of course as with the right card and a scrap marker he can basically claim a table quarter if you don't get the spider's engaged right away.

Collodi has good options too, you were right about Slow and his other triggers being able to take some of the fight right out of beaters.  The problem I see with the second list is you took two Coryphees for Extraction. That is a lot of points put into two fragile but fast models in a strategy that involves holding a point.  I do not know what the scheme pool was so I cannot comment there but Extraction means those beaters are likely bearing down on you and much like with the Pandora list your Collodi list did not have a lot of endurance.  So once he gets into you he can start dismantling you and again his list is built to be able to rush or alpha strike.  Unless you get aggressive with Collodi he is likely going to out range you but if you do catch him you can really mess with his initial attempt.  I am not a big fan of Vasilisa unless you have Stitched Together personally.  She is a debuff/support model, but her Debuffs are not good against heavy armor as often it will reduce the damage to 1 to remove them.  She is often better as a Stitched escort to help get the most out of their AP.  I imagine if Neverborn get more offensive puppets her value will go up in this role.  She is also somewhat soft and against heavy hitters while having high Df is nice, they tend to have high Ml too or Positive Flips to combat it.  I would argue that your second list, save for Teddy, tends not to have a lot of offensive power.  But a Teddy with Retribution Eye can do quite the number on these beaters, just you would have to keep the beaters from being able to concentrate back on Teddy.  Which is what Collodi would be needed for.

Thanks for your reply! I clearly need to think more about my crews and the way I play them. I don't want to find a specific counter for that Ramos list, but rather an option how to deal with something similar. I'm planning to attend to a tournament in two weeks, and want to be prepared to face a similar situation. Pandora with Voices seems so obvious now, and I don't know what I was thinking with the Box.. also, I didn't use Dopple to her full potential. Joss hitting himself in one form or another is pretty good. Also I perhaps should've focused Obeying Joss and choosing his activations (Collodi's trigger) instead of getting rid of him so fast. I'm thinking Rail Golem is a bigger priority?

As for Coryphees and Vasilisa, my reasonings were simply I like Coryphee in general as a fast annoyance to hunt Scheme runners like Steam Arachnids, and Leave your Mark was in the pool. I indeed managed to score 3 points from it with the 2nd Cory, and the first one ate 2-3 activations as I Vasilisa taxied him to opponent's deployment with a marker right away (which in turn gave me a good start on extraction). But that is a lot of points invested as you said, and actually they don't do much vs such armor. Vasilisa, however, was not only for the Coryphee purposes. I thought I could Obey and sew the beaters to lift a bit pressure off Collodi's slow spam.

Fated Collodi with 2 Illuminated and a Depleted looks better in this kinda case? Perhaps even a Beckoner for +flip lures (although I find her a bit expensive). Don't know if Illuminated tank much more though, as the def and armor is lower, plus they don't get to plus flip def duels, but at least they don't drop scrap for Ramos, unless for Joss

 

[Mutter]

11 hours ago, marke83 said:

Don't know if Illuminated tank much more though, as the def and armor is lower, plus they don't get to plus flip def duels, but at least they don't drop scrap for Ramos, unless for Joss

 

But Illuminated with the Brutal Effigy buff and possibly +1 armor or +1 defensive are really, really hard to take down.

[ObliterationPopsicle]

+1 for Voices Pandora.

If you have the Primordial Magic and the Wings of Darkness upgrade, you can stone for cards to draw 10 cards in total to build your hand. Chances are good that you'll get some top cards which Pandora can then use to force paralyse through (stone for the Crow if you need to), on to the majority of models in the game. 

The ability to consistently deny the opponent one or two of their most valuable models each turn is extremely powerful.