First steps with Ramos

[Franchute]

Hello,

I had my first game with Ramos yesterday. I would like to share this experience here because I'm sure I will learn a lot from your comments. So please help me get better with him as I found it fun to flood the board with many little spiders 

My opponent announced Neverborn. The strat was extraction and the available schemes were claim jump, eliminate the leadership, Tail'em, Search the ruins and Frame for murder. I took the following list:

- Ramos with Under pressure, Arcane Reservoir, Field generator and 7 ss
- Joss, with Bleeding edge tech and Powered by Flame
- Myranda with Imbued energies
- 2 x steam arachnids
- Mobile toolkit
- Malifaux raptor
- Metal gamin

My opponent took Lucius. He also had the scribe, a pathfinder, a lawyer, a changelling, an illuminated, Johan and a blood wretch. I was lucky he forgot his doppleganger at home, so he decided to take Candy instead. I'm not sure about the name of the upgrades he took, but I will comment below what some of them did during the game.

I chose Claim jump and Tail'em. My opponent took Frame for murder and Search the ruins.

The game went well for me. But I guess most of it was probably because my friend was playing against Ramos for the first time and he took Candy instead of doppleganger. The additional henchman made it easier for me to score Tail'em.

Some comments on the list I took and the game, or questions I'd like to ask you:

- I almost went for a list that was including Lazarus and the electric creation instead of the two steam arachnids, the malifaux raptors and the metal gamin. I just liked the idea of combining Lazarus with the toolkit and blasting everything in an extraction game. But, I thought that blasting everything was probably not very smart with Frame for murder in the pool, even though it might be fun  Morever, I thought that if I wanted to take Claim jump and Tail'em, I'd probably need to outactivate my opponent, which is the reason why I decided to hire 2 arachnids. So, I wanted to ask: What are your thoughts on hiring arachnids? I know it might sound stupid given that Ramos summons them later on during the game, but I'm wondering if this was one of the things that helped me win the game.

- I wanted to try metal gamin to boost Ramos' defense up to 6. One of the reasons was that eliminate the leadership was in the pool. Is this something you guys often do? I have never read on the forums people recommending hiring a metal gamin for this. However, many Guild players tend to use Frank for the extra defense he brings to Sonnia and the like. Do you think the metal gamin is undervalued?

- There is another model that does not seem to be recommended often for a Ramos crew: Myranda. Howard Langston seems to be the one people tend to choose. I've not played with Howard yet, but I have to say that I'm always happy with Myranda. Drawing four cards seems to be great when one needs to get those tomes for summoning the swarm and she's cheaper. In the game I played yesterday, I managed to draw a 13 when she turned into the Blessed of December at the end of turn 2. What are your thoughts on Myranda in a Ramos crew?

- Ramos died in turn 3. I wasnt expecting that to be honest. My opponent managed to teleport Johan next to Ramos with Lucius' dirty tricks. Then he discarded an upgrade to ignore armour and defensive triggers until the end of the turn. Johan flurried. Because Ramos is a construct, he had those extra  for damage, which allowed him to cheat in a red joker. Ramos was down from full health to dead in one activation. The end of the game went well as I still had enough models to score my schemes and strats, but that was a thing I wasn't expecting at all.

- I have the impression my opponent should have taken Tail'em as it seems easy to me to score it against Ramos. Does this mean you don't take Ramos if you see Tail'em in the pool?

[Mxbedlam]

So Ramos crews tend to be pretty static. Which is a good and bad thing. They don't often invite a lot of tinkering. I've found that Angelica helps with the ability to push models around to where you need to be. Johan is another solid addition to the crew as he can heal models and remove conditions.  I've almost stopped taking Howard Langston anymore. He is a huge target and very hard to keep safe. Often I will take Ramos into pools where I don't have to do a lot of killing but can tie up models instead

[Adran]

Arachnids are a great hire for 4 stones, regardless of what master you are seelcting, so I don't think that is a bad choice. 

The Defence boost from the Metal Gamin is good, if you are playing fairly statically. If you are moving Ramos about then he can easily l;eave the samll area where he would have had the bonus. Likewise, models like Johan can knock him out of the metal Gamin protection, which is why its less useful than Francisco. That doesn't mean its bad, but it is soemthign that will effect the way you play the game. 

My personal choice is I would rather have the Blessed/cedrberus with an upgrade than the extra cards that Myranda switching gives you, but I can see why people go the other way. I would say one  of the reasons that models like Howard are often recommended is because of the Brass Arachnid, and re-activate. And the more powerful the thing you re-activate, the better value it is. Taht and the synergies that you can get from Construct. But thinkign outside the box is good. Do what works for you. 

Remember Ramos can magintise to one of your own constructs to get an extra push during his turn if you want to lose tail em, and he is often able to out activate any crew so can potentially wait until the enemy has finished before going and losing spotted.  

[Mxbedlam]

Also remember that Ramos has to be within 6" of a minion to get tagged. Sometimes its best just to kill any minion that comes near to prevent the tag. 

[spooky_squirrel]

9 hours ago, Adran said:

My personal choice is I would rather have the Blessed/cedrberus with an upgrade than the extra cards that Myranda switching gives you, but I can see why people go the other way. I would say one  of the reasons that models like Howard are often recommended is because of the Brass Arachnid, and re-activate. And the more powerful the thing you re-activate, the better value it is. Taht and the synergies that you can get from Construct. But thinkign outside the box is good. Do what works for you.

A Ramos crew with an upgrade-bearing enforcer beast (Blessed/Cerberus) could also make some serious use of Blade and Claw, if you wanted to add an element of mobility above and beyond expected Ramos play. If it's on the beast, it'll be in place of its normal leap as a (0), but it's potentially more reliable and deeper-reaching starting in Turn 2. If it's on another model, then you could hide your Cerberus during Turn 1, get the spiders out and up the field, and after everything on your opponent's side has gone, the B&C caddie goes, moving into position and swaps any of the spiders that are still on the table for the Cerberus. Then the Cerberus goes. Bonus points if you dive in against something that's being debuffed by a couple of spiders.

[Franchute]

I like the idea a lot @spooky_squirrel. I just need now to think about which enforcer with accomplice could carry the upgrade.

[Trixter]

On ‎29‎.‎03‎.‎2017 at 7:21 PM, Franchute said:

Ramos died in turn 3

It is really rare thing. In most cases armor+2, magnetism, autoheal then construct near died and def-trigger is enough to survive. Hire metal gamin only for bump Ramo's def don't cost 4ss I think.

Generally, Ramos crew lack three things which you should cover in competitive game:
¤ Range damage. Dec.acolyte, Silent one, Rail golem, Lazarus, Envy.
¤ Mobility. Angelica, Captain, Cassandra.
¤ Protection from Ca. Sue, Hannah.

When I started with Ramos crew, my first small boxes was Sue, Acolytes, Angelica. And if I know that NB is my opponent, I'll hire such crew:
(4) Ramos +4SS Pool
 - Field Generator
 - Under Pressure
(4) Brass Arachnid - excellent reactivates
(11) Joss - tanking
 - Warding Runes
(13) Howard - FFM + reactivate target
 - IE
(10) Sue - anti-casting aura
 - Well Rehearsed
(4) Arcane Effigy - claim jump + condition removal
(3) Mobile Toolkit - scrap engine

10+ activation after 2nd turn, Ramos under Sue's aura and reactivated Howard - enjoy!  

[Franchute]

Hello, 

Lately I have been playing with this new comer in our area. He’s playing neverborn and he’s good, at least up to our local standards. I’m relatively new to arcanists, so I would like to share the experience of my last game here so that I could get some valuable feedback for the future (I appreciated a lot the comments by @Adran, @spooky_squirrel, @Trixter and @Mrbedlam). I’ve been playing mostly Marcus and Ramos in the last months. I have Sandeep and Ironsides available, but I have not tried them out yet. I would like first to paint them and get more experience with Marcus and Ramos before considering them.

In my last game, the strat was Collect the Bounty and the available schemes were Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership, Leave your Mark, Hidden Trap and Tail’em. It was standard deployment. Our lists were :

Neverborn:
- Dreamer with 6 soulstones, Otherwordly, Tantrum and Restless Dreams
- Daydream
- Teddy with a Thousand Faces
- Coppelius, with On Dreaming Wings
- Stitched Together
- Waldgesit x 2

Arcanists :
- Ramos, with 7 soulstones, Arcane Reservoir, Under Pressure and Field Generator
- Brass Arachnid
- Joss, with Powered by Flame and Bleeding Edge Tech
- Lazarus, with Imbued Energies
- Metal Gamin
- Electric Creation
- Mobile Toolkit

I took Claim Jump and Tail’em. My opponent took Leave your mark and Tail’em.

It was my first game ever against the Dreamer. I knew that he is good summoner, but I did not know much about his other limited upgrade which looks for bringing in Lord Chompy Bits every turn.

In that game, I managed to score a point for Collect the Bounty on turn 2, but then my opponent became the dominant agressor after he brought Chompy Bits at the end of turn 2. I killed Teddy at the begining because I was afraid of the Thousand Faces upgrade and the possibility of anti armour. But I did not anticipate that facing Chompy Bits would be so brutal. The guy has a trigger that ignores everything, in particular armour and prevents the use of soulstones. He left Joss with 1 wound in one activation. I had to blow him up after that to prevent my opponent from scoring. He also killed Lazarus in another activation. At the end of the game, I only had Ramos left on the table. I did not manage to score any point for Claim Jump. Tail’em on the other hand was easier given that I had Chompy Bits in the face all the time.

Clearly anti armour was the thing. I’m coming here to ask you guys the following : would you have played a different master given the strat, the schemes and the faction of my opponent? If so, which one ? If you had to play Ramos, which list and schemes would you have considered ? Do you see anything you dont like in the one I played?

Things I would like to try in the future are:

- of course Langston, I currently have him on the painting table

- Sue, as suggested by @Trixter. I have to paint him. The same applies to Johan and Angelica.

- I would like to start playing Sandeep and switch between him and Ramos. The idea is that I dont want my opponent to anticipate full armour. I'm thinking that by playing Sandeep more often, my opponent may decide not to bring anti armor the day I bring Ramos.

- I'm wondering if Anna Lovelace would have been useful in this specific matchup.

[Mxbedlam]

Hmm well Collect the Bounty isn't a normal Ramos strategy, especially since he gives away a lot of bounty points thanks to spiders coming in wounded. However, I wouldn't call him bad at it. One thing about Chompy Bits, is that if you kill him it leaves Dreamer exposed right where lord chompy bits died. So If you know he's going to drop LBC out, bait him with a model you can afford to lose, then murder him. He's not too tough and he can't use SS like Dreamer can. Then you should be able to light dreamer up with only 8 wounds and incorporeal. Dreamer is kind of a gotcha moment in his non summoning lists. Now that he's gotcha you'll remember it and be ready. 

I'm not sure about the Toolkit AND the creation in your list. I think that slot is better filled by effigy or a dedicated scheme runner. Same for metal gamin. Its great when summoned but not that amazing on the hire. 

[Franchute]

3 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

Hmm well Collect the Bounty isn't a normal Ramos strategy, especially since he gives away a lot of bounty points thanks to spiders coming in wounded.

Indeed, this is something I forgot to mention. The Dreamer on the other hand was summoning peons, giving zero points for Collect the Bounty.

6 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

One thing about Chompy Bits, is that if you kill him it leaves Dreamer exposed right where lord chompy bits died. So If you know he's going to drop LBC out, bait him with a model you can afford to lose, then murder him. He's not too tough and he can't use SS like Dreamer can. Then you should be able to light dreamer up with only 8 wounds and incorporeal. Dreamer is kind of a gotcha moment in his non summoning lists. Now that he's gotcha you'll remember it and be ready. 

Thanks. You're probably right. Next time might be different

6 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

I'm not sure about the Toolkit AND the creation in your list. I think that slot is better filled by effigy or a dedicated scheme runner. Same for metal gamin. Its great when summoned but not that amazing on the hire. 

I brought the toolkit for Lazarus to increase the chances of blasts. I was thinking about combining them with the Brass Arachnid. I maybe spent too many soulstones on something that wasnt that useful in the end. I brought Metal gamin to increase Ramos' defense because of the presence of Eliminite the Leadership in the pool. I should definitely get the effigy. It is on my shopping list.

 

[Mxbedlam]

Yeah that's too many eggs in that Laz basket, especially when he does a good job all on his own. I've found myself ditching the arachnid lately as it usually is only good for turn 1 and 2 before it gets outpaced.  I've heard of others taking Malifaux Child to copy Arcing Screen, freeing Ramos up to do more shots. IMO a raptor in that spot will suffice as well. 

[Adran]

16 hours ago, Franchute said:

Clearly anti armour was the thing. I’m coming here to ask you guys the following : would you have played a different master given the strat, the schemes and the faction of my opponent? If so, which one ? If you had to play Ramos, which list and schemes would you have considered ? Do you see anything you dont like in the one I played?

Things I would like to try in the future are:

- of course Langston, I currently have him on the painting table

- Sue, as suggested by @Trixter. I have to paint him. The same applies to Johan and Angelica.

- I would like to start playing Sandeep and switch between him and Ramos. The idea is that I dont want my opponent to anticipate full armour. I'm thinking that by playing Sandeep more often, my opponent may decide not to bring anti armor the day I bring Ramos.

- I'm wondering if Anna Lovelace would have been useful in this specific matchup.

 

I wouldn't have not played Ramos. ( or for the non english speakers, I wouldn't have avoided Ramos just becasue of the game). Whilst I wouldn't have built that list myself, iI would have happily played it. I would agree with your approach of killing Teddy ASAP, because he is a large threat to you. 

How many spiders did you summon over the course of the game? because it sounds like you didn't get to many. Alps are actually a really annoying thing for Ramos, because they do extra damage to the summoned spiders. 

Joss is one of the scariest things that a Dreamer player can face, especially if you can re-activate him and have a good number of activations. He can kill dreamer in 1 charge ignoring most of his normal defences, so I would try and hold him back from the fight to line him up for a dreamer attack. Laz is a good choice for removing little summons., and if you're lucky and get blasts then you might even get some damage on dreamer. This means he wants chompy out fast and to keep him out. i would have tried to tie chompy up with Spiders, using them as a scree for Joss/Ramos and with Electrical fire Ramos doesn't care if they are engaged, he can hopefully kill chompy and unbury Dreamer ready for a reactivating Joss. (I like Imbued energies on Joss, and never personally bother with Powered by flame and Bleeding edge tech, but I know others like them). 

[spooky_squirrel]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

Joss is one of the scariest things that a Dreamer player can face, especially if you can re-activate him and have a good number of activations. He can kill dreamer in 1 charge ignoring most of his normal defences, so I would try and hold him back from the fight to line him up for a dreamer attack. Laz is a good choice for removing little summons., and if you're lucky and get blasts then you might even get some damage on dreamer. This means he wants chompy out fast and to keep him out. i would have tried to tie chompy up with Spiders, using them as a scree for Joss/Ramos and with Electrical fire Ramos doesn't care if they are engaged, he can hopefully kill chompy and unbury Dreamer ready for a reactivating Joss. (I like Imbued energies on Joss, and never personally bother with Powered by flame and Bleeding edge tech, but I know others like them). 

 

With Bleeding Edge Tech on Joss he gains a (0) that will hurt Dreamer's summoning Alps and performing cast actions (like his Nightmare controlling bits) just in case you don't get all the damage you needed. I generally won't bother with Powered by Flame, instead opting for things like Warding Runes or Recharge Soulstone, since I know he's going to be in the scrum in most games. Joss ignoring triggers is the key to getting his hits in on Dreamer, and with Imbued Energies (as mentioned above) he gets a third attack for getting those last two wounds (barring Dreamer stoning damage away). The downside of being aggressive with your BET-caddy is that your spiders won't be regenerating unless they are up in the mix of things, so if you need them to scheme you need to be summoning in 2-3 every turn to make up for the fact they're going to be dying 2-3 per turn.

[Adran]

Cheers, I forgot that Joss doesn't ignore incorporeal.  

I'd say that metal ganmin should have been pretty useful in this game, magnitism will hurt stitched and teddy very easily, so having 2 sources of it should be good. Toolkit might work well sometimes, but this didn't seem to be one of those times. Electrical creations are useful, as sources of unavodable damage, but I'm sure this one was just scrap. (I like the upgrade to summon them, but it competes with spider summoning cards too much)

[Franchute]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

How many spiders did you summon over the course of the game? because it sounds like you didn't get to many. Alps are actually a really annoying thing for Ramos, because they do extra damage to the summoned spiders.  

If I remember correctly, I had two spiders summoned on turn 1, 2 and 4, maybe 3 on turn 3, but not sure. I took the decision of blowing up two I believe.

One of the things I did not mention is that he constantly had about three daydreams around, reduing the Wp of my spiders by 3. Then, the Dreamer was Shing them with the Tantrum upgrade. The upgrade has the following Sh action:

(1) Surrounded by Nightmares (Sh 7 / Rst: Wp / Rg: 8): Target model suffers 1 damage for each Nightmare within 3'' and LoS of it which it considers an enemy.

He could one shot each 2 or 3 spiders per turn. With 4 nightmares around, they were receiving each 4 times x 1 damage, killing them and making armor useless because those were a bunch of 1 damage.

After that, he was brining Chompy Bits thanks to the Restless Dreams upgrade.

4 hours ago, Adran said:

Joss is one of the scariest things that a Dreamer player can face, especially if you can re-activate him and have a good number of activations. He can kill dreamer in 1 charge ignoring most of his normal defences, so I would try and hold him back from the fight to line him up for a dreamer attack.  

I'll take this into account next time. I certainly overextended Joss a little bit to Sh the Teddy. I should keep him more in the back next time.

4 hours ago, Adran said:

Laz is a good choice for removing little summons., and if you're lucky and get blasts then you might even get some damage on dreamer.  

Lazarus helped a lot at the beginning to kill Teddy, but he got tied up in melee quickly with a Walgeist. He then became slow. The Brass arachnid only reactivated him once in total the whole game. I did not get many blasts out of him. I got a nice blast with him when engaged with Chompy Bits just before he killed him and that's all. Maybe I should have kept him a bit more in the back too. I dont know. After all, he made about 6 damage to Teddy.

Thanks @Adran. I see a bit better where things got wrong and what I should do next time. I thought I wouldnt be able to kill Dreamer because of the Df trigger and sort of ignored him. This is probably something I should not be afraid of next time.

 

[Franchute]

15 minutes ago, Adran said:

I'd say that metal ganmin should have been pretty useful in this game, magnitism will hurt stitched and teddy very easily, so having 2 sources of it should be good. 

The magnetisms of metal gamin and Ramos were indeed very useful against both. I was indeed very happy with what the gamin did that game. Ca 8 and Rg 16 are very good. Plus it's a (0) action.

18 minutes ago, Adran said:

Electrical creations are useful, as sources of unavodable damage, but I'm sure this one was just scrap.

It generated my first two scraps indeed.

[Franchute]

41 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

With Bleeding Edge Tech on Joss he gains a (0) that will hurt Dreamer's summoning Alps and performing cast actions (like his Nightmare controlling bits) just in case you don't get all the damage you needed. I generally won't bother with Powered by Flame, instead opting for things like Warding Runes or Recharge Soulstone, since I know he's going to be in the scrum in most games. Joss ignoring triggers is the key to getting his hits in on Dreamer, and with Imbued Energies (as mentioned above) he gets a third attack for getting those last two wounds (barring Dreamer stoning damage away). The downside of being aggressive with your BET-caddy is that your spiders won't be regenerating unless they are up in the mix of things, so if you need them to scheme you need to be summoning in 2-3 every turn to make up for the fact they're going to be dying 2-3 per turn.

I should definitely try Warding runes, especially against Neverborn. Moreover, I forgot about Powered by Flame the whole game this time.