Ramos spider engine options.

[WWHSD]

I was kind of working through the various options for getting Ramos some spiders in the first round and came up with the following list. There's probably nothing new here to see for a lot of players, I'm just trying to put it all in one place and see if I missed anything.

An assumption was made that moving forward  as far as possible in the first round is desirable. Some AP can be saved in some of the options if Ramos wants to summon closer to the deployment zone. I also left out any variations that just have a third model  killing something for scrap if it didn't result in some benefit above what Ramos gets for just making his own scrap. In the options that use Joss, he could be replaced by a Large Arachnid to save points (or free up Joss for something else) but that seems like it's overall a bit harder to make work.

1. Electrical Creation + Magnetism 
Electrical Creation activates, takes Damage, moves up to 8.
Ramos Activates, attacks Electrical Creation with Magnetism, Electrical Creation relents, Ramos pushes 6, damage kills Electrical Creation, Electrical Creation drops scrap, Ramos Summons spiders and has two AP remaining.

Notes:
- Only spider summoning requires specific cards or suits.
- Only a Black Joker on the summons stops Ramos from getting spiders. 
- Ramos gets movement from using Magnetize.
- Uses 2 activation and 4 AP.
- Points invested in engine: 4
 

2. Mobile Toolkit + Magnetism 
Mobile Toolkit Activates, moves up to 10.
Ramos Activates, attacks Mobile Toolkit with Magnetism, Mobile Toolkit relents, Ramos pushes 6, damages Mobile Toolkit, Ramos attacks  with Electrical Fire (needs a 7), Mobile Toolkit relents, minimum damage kill Mobile Toolkit, Mobile Toolkit drops scrap, Ramos Summons spiders and has one AP remaining, Ramos has one AP left unless he got a Black Joker on the attack that prevented him from killing the Mobile Toolkit. 

Notes:
- Electrical Fire and Spider Summoning both require cards, only spider summoning requires a specific suit.
- Only a Black Joker on the summons stops Ramos from getting spiders if he has cards and stones for cheating.
-  Ramos gets movement from using Magnetize.
- Uses 2 activations and 4 AP.
- Points invested in engine: 3
 

3. Electrical Creation + Joss
Electrical Creation Activates, takes Damage, moves up to 8.
Joss activates, attacks Electrical Creation with arc blast, Electrical Creation relents, minimum damage kills Electrical Creation, Electrical Creation drops two scrap. Joss does whatever he wants with his second AP unless he got a Black Joker on the damage flip.
Ramos activates, walks to within 6 of scrap if needed,  summons spiders. Ramos has 1 AP remaining.

- Only spider summoning requires specific cards or suits.
- Only a Black Joker on the summons stops Ramos from getting spiders. 
- Leaves scrap for second round summons.
- Requires Joss in crew.
- Uses 3 activations and 4 AP. 
- If forward movement is not desired this can be done in 2 activations and 2 AP. Joss will suffer a wound from the Electrical Creation exploding. (skip Electrical Creation activation)
- Points invested in engine: 4

4. Mobile Tool Kit + Joss
Mobile Toolkit moves up to 8. 
Joss moves into melee range. Joss charges, attacks with Arc Axe, Mobile Toolkit relents, minimum damage kills Mobile Toolkit, Mobile Toolkit drops two scrap. Joss charges instead of walking + attacking for the extra inch and insurance against Black Joker on damage flip..
Ramos activates, walks to within 6 of scrap if needed,  summons spiders. Ramos has 1 AP remaining. 

Notes:
- Only spider summoning requires specific cards or suits.
- Only a Black Joker on the summons stops Ramos from getting spiders. 
- Leaves scrap for second round summons.
- Requires Joss in crew.
- Commits all of Joss's first round AP
- Uses 3 activations and 5 AP. 
- If forward movement is not desired this can be done in 2 activations and 2 AP. (skip Mobile Toolkit activation)
- Points invested in engine: 3
 

5. Electrical Creation Summoning 
Ramos activates, summons Electrical Creation (needs 7 of tomes), attacks Electrical Creation with Electrical Fire (needs a 7), Electrical Creation cheats a low card if needed to get a straight damage flip, Ramos cheats a card if needed to deal moderate damage. Electrical Creation drops scrap. Ramos summons spiders. Ramos has one AP left unless he got a Black Joker on the attack that prevented him from killing the Electrical Creation. 

- Besides spider summoning, there is one additional required suit and several required cards. Additionally, a low card and a moderate card may be needed to get to moderate damage
- A Black Joker on Electrical Creation or spider summons stops Ramos from getting spiders. A Black Joker during the attack and less than moderate damage on a second attack can also stop spiders from being summoned. 
- Requires filling an upgrade card slot on Ramos. 
- Uses 2AP and a single activation.
- Gives Ramos the option of doing this in any round that high tomes are easier to come by then usable scrap markers.
- Points invested in engine: 1

6. Minimum Activations, Minimum Resources

Ramos activates, attacks Mobile Toolkit with Electrical Fire (needs a 7), Mobile Toolkit will cheat in a low card if needed to get a straight damage flip, Ramos cheats a card if needed to deal moderate damage, Mobile Toolkit drops scrap, Ramos summons spiders. Ramos has one AP left unless he got a Black Joker on the attack which prevented him from killing the Mobile Toolkit.

Notes:
- Electrical Fire and Spider Summoning both require cards, only spider summoning requires a specific suit.  Additionally, a low card and a moderate card may be needed to get to moderate damage.
- Only a Black Joker on the summons stops Ramos from getting spiders if he has cards and stones for cheating.
-  Use 2 AP and a single activation. 
- Points invested in engine: 3

 

Option 5 seems like it is the cheapest (in soul stones) option but requires the most resources to pull off and has the most potential for failure. Options 1 & 2 get Ramos the most movement and leaves his crew member with all of their AP to do something other than help him get spiders. Options 3 & 4 set Ramos up to summon in round 2. The options that include an Electrical Creation (1 & 3) in the crew cost a bit more but is slightly easier to kill than the ones that bring a mobile toolkit (2 & 3).

Based on feedback, I added option 6 for when Ramos wants spiders as quickly as possible without burning a lot of resources. 

Is there anything that I'm missing? I was thinking that Kudra could use her upgrade to kill a Gamin (everything but Wind is a construct) for scrap but I don't see any real benefit from doing that. Unless there's some reason you want to kill a Gamin there's no advantage over the 5 options I listed.
 

[spooky_squirrel]

For analysis purposes, I would count AP and activations. Every activation between scrap appearing on the table and Ramos summoning off of it has the potential for a setback.

So with that in mind, options where Ramos kills the first scrap source during his activation (bonus credit if it's with a (0) action) so that he can summon right away can be higher value if you're looking at close deployment or a rapid opposing crew that can disrupt casting or somehow discard your scrap (worse still if they can use it to some benefit).

Terrain can also come into play, so it's a good idea to plan on and practice several approaches.

[WWHSD]

38 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

For analysis purposes, I would count AP and activations. Every activation between scrap appearing on the table and Ramos summoning off of it has the potential for a setback.

So with that in mind, options where Ramos kills the first scrap source during his activation (bonus credit if it's with a (0) action) so that he can summon right away can be higher value if you're looking at close deployment or a rapid opposing crew that can disrupt casting or somehow discard your scrap (worse still if they can use it to some benefit).

Terrain can also come into play, so it's a good idea to plan on and practice several approaches.

Thanks for the feed back. I added activation and AP counts for each option as well as an option that uses a minimal amount of activations without requiring the as heavy an investment of resources in cards (and possible stones) that the Electrical Summoning option did.

For the options that had Joss killing things, I gave alternate activation and AP counts if getting the spiders quickly was more important than moving forward. IT didn't seem worth writing them up as separate options.

[Mxbedlam]

As soon as Wave 5 comes out there's another option assuming Steamfitter stays as is. He can ditch 2 cards for scrap.  IMO I like Joss + EC or Toolkit. Its nearly impossible to stop and it gets you 2 scrap. I would be very worried about running out of scrap to use with Ramos and stalling with only one initial scrap marker. Plus the Joss load out is so good just in general. Opponents tend to crap their pants if they don't have an option to deal with Joss and he helps buff your spiders.

[WWHSD]

44 minutes ago, Mrbedlam said:

As soon as Wave 5 comes out there's another option assuming Steamfitter stays as is. He can ditch 2 cards for scrap.  IMO I like Joss + EC or Toolkit. Its nearly impossible to stop and it gets you 2 scrap. I would be very worried about running out of scrap to use with Ramos and stalling with only one initial scrap marker. Plus the Joss load out is so good just in general. Opponents tend to crap their pants if they don't have an option to deal with Joss and he helps buff your spiders.

That'd be great if that's what the Steamfitter does. I think the last Wave 5 play test doc I saw just let them place Scheme markers. 

Joss + Electrical Creation is what I've used so far playing Ramos. I haven't picked up a Mobile Toolkit yet but it seems like it would be nice to put that soul stone I save into Ramos' stash. The real downside to the Toolkit would seem to be the larger AP commitment from Joss that it requires if I'm wanting my scrap as far out as I can get it (which I usually do). 

I can't picture playing Ramos without Joss because he's such a solid piece and Creative Salvage keeps giving Ramos options on where to summon.  

[retnab]

One thing I like to do with the Mobile Toolkit is to give someone like Howard one of his Turn buffs before killing him, as they don't go away just because you chop it into pieces.

 

Definitely agree that the Steamfitter is a nice alternative but it WILL leave you card starved (unless it changed after open beta).

[WWHSD]

20 minutes ago, retnab said:

One thing I like to do with the Mobile Toolkit is to give someone like Howard one of his Turn buffs before killing him, as they don't go away just because you chop it into pieces.

 

Definitely agree that the Steamfitter is a nice alternative but it WILL leave you card starved (unless it changed after open beta).

The number of cards that you burn with the Steamfitter should be similar to what you burn if you went the Electrical Summoning route, except you can discard crappy cards instead of needing a high card.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to have the Brass Arachnid give the Steamfitter reactivate on the first round so he can pull whatever high card Ramos uses for summoning out of the discard pile.

- Brass Arachnid activates, and gives Steamfitter reactivate using a high tome..
- Steamfitter activates, grabs high tome used for reactivate, discards something low. Walks and discards two low cards for scrap.
- Ramos activates and summons spiders using the high tome that was used for reactivate.
- Steamfitter reactivates and picks up the high tome so that Ramos has it for next round. Drop another scrap marker if you've got enough mediocre cards in hand or a scheme marker if you've got an Enforcer with Well Rehearsed.

[BFOmega]

I could see running both a non-Joss scrap engine for turn 1 and the steamfitter for later turns. This would have the bonus of letting you pick up Ramos's summing card turn one, since he wouldn't have to activate before him to make the scrap. Hell, you could even do Steamfitter+Large Arachnid for the same SS cost as Joss+IE+BET (or one less if you run him with PbF), and get 3 scrap turn one, and your summon card back. Maybe use one of those to give Johan Armor +1 for the rest of the game, and he can be your BET caddie? Or maybe The Captain would be worth bringing with Armor +1? Make it a Blade and Claw crew, suddenly you have an Armor +1 Myranda/Cerberus/Blessed? I'm actually starting to like this idea more and more...

2 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I'm wondering if it makes sense to have the Brass Arachnid give the Steamfitter reactivate on the first round so he can pull whatever high card Ramos uses for summoning out of the discard pile.

Is the Steamfitter a construct? I don't think it was if I'm remembering right.

[retnab]

10 minutes ago, BFOmega said:

Is the Steamfitter a construct? I don't think it was if I'm remembering right.

Last time we saw it it was just Living.

26 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

The number of cards that you burn with the Steamfitter should be similar to what you burn if you went the Electrical Summoning route, except you can discard crappy cards instead of needing a high card.

More or less yes, but if you're bringing anyone else who wants to discard cards (Mobile Toolkit, Cassandra, Oxfordians, etc) then you start to *really* feel having 5 cards in your hand to start (and 5's assuming you're bringing Arcane Reservoir, 4 card hands hurt).

[WWHSD]

24 minutes ago, BFOmega said:

Is the Steamfitter a construct? I don't think it was if I'm remembering right.

The Brass Arachnid can only reactivate constructs can't it? I don't think I've ever had anything that wasn't a construct that I wanted to use his reactivate on.

[BFOmega]

1 minute ago, WWHSD said:

The Brass Arachnid can only reactivate constructs can't it? I don't think I've ever had anything that wasn't a construct that I wanted to use his reactivate on.

Yep, just constructs. Being Ramos' totem, it doesn't come up much though.

Also, a bit off topic, but what would be the most rude thing to add Armor to with the Steamfitter, if you could fit him and a scrap engine to do it.

Cassandra would be interesting, means that even when the manage to hit her, it's not as bad. Carlos might be a beast with it, Armor +3 and a bit of safety if he's not on fire for whatever reason, could be overkill though.

Kang seems ridiculous, Armor +1 (or +2 with Sparks in the mix), Hard to Wound, Hard to Kill, some healing... yeah, that. Could get some scrap from porkchop or Emissary or something there too, so not as hard on cards.

Mech Rider could be funny, and shores up some of the early game weakness. Could make the Acolytes even dumber... There's also all the beasts, but I haven't run any of them so can't comment too much on them. Would make you have to do 3 damage to even hurt an unactivated Ox Mage, which could be interesting.

There's plenty of other choices though. Anything truly interesting that I'm not thinking of?

[Jinn]

Well on the beasts side of things, the Slate Ridge Mauler is already really tanky with Impossible to wound, hard to kill, immune to damage from  and  and gets healing on an attack trigger, if you give it Armor +1 it becomes even harder to kill and the metal plating blocks the first severe (read RJ) so that impossible to wound is not going to backfire. A few other models that might really like armor: Johan, Snow Storm (A +1 and Bulletproof +3 means a Sh needs to deal at least 6 damage to deal more than 1 after reduction) and the Blessed of December (hard to wound, armor and eat your fill) off the top of my head. Another thing to note is that warding runes should block most enemy cleanses with Counterspell.

You can also use Ferdinand Vogel's beast form to generate scrap for a Marcus list with the steamfitter.

[WWHSD]

1 hour ago, Jinn said:

You can also use Ferdinand Vogel's beast form to generate scrap for a Marcus list with the steamfitter.

In a Ramos list you could bring Vogel and Mobile Toolkit. You'd need to cheat in a tome but you'd get three scrap markers out of 1 AP and a low tome. You'd have to go to plan B if you don't the the card for it but getting three scrap right out of the gate is pretty cool.

[Adran]

I'm not sure that I would include the sacruifical AP in the AP used, because saying for example the electricakl creation route 1 that you have uses 2 activations and 4 Ap is not really true, and discounts the fact that you normally want to be able to activate the "target" to help with your activation control. So it uses 1Ap (to summon), and a (0) from Ramos, and gets Ramos a move included in that. Saying it takes 2 activation's is also a little misleading. You aren't leaving Scrap out during an enemy activation, so unless they have ways to remove the creation without it dropping scrap, its safe. 

Also the places where you are forcing Ramos to walk, that's only because you have chosen to place that scrap beyond his range. Since you chose the location of the scrap you don't have to spend those AP to get the summons. 

And for the minimal resources, you use the mobile toolkit to give Ramos positive to damage flips to let him cheat the damage flip with the electrical fire at a lot lower resource.

 

Otherwise its a pretty good summery of the different ways to get turn 1 scrap. I can't think of any major different routes at the moment

 

[Hot4Perdita]

I couldn't find a Steamfitter or Vogel in my books. Future models I assume? Are there any current models that can generate a scrap marker through ability,  AP, or 0 Action without being killed or sacrificed?

[Adran]

4 minutes ago, Hot4Perdita said:

I couldn't find a Steamfitter or Vogel in my books. Future models I assume? Are there any current models that can generate a scrap marker through ability,  AP, or 0 Action without being killed or sacrificed?

There were models that were in the playtest for the next book. We don't know their final form, but the last version we saw could generate scrap (although Vogel was from killing a model again)

At the moment The mechanical porkchop drops scrap, but the only way to get him into arcanists is to play Mei feng, as does the emberling, so no spider summoning. Hoffman can as well.  I think the only way to generate scrap in a Ramos crew is to kill a construct. Joss and the Large Arachnid will generate extra scrap when they kill something (so actually you could hire in an essence of power for 2 ss and turn that into turn 1 scrap if you want for a cheap route).

 

[spooky_squirrel]

Re: Kang, similar to Mechanized Porkchop, the only way he's coming in is with Mei Feng, which precludes Spider Engine games.

 

My assumption is that we're working with released, finalized models. Otherwise Steamfitter and Vogel should be on the list (Vogel could get you 3 scrap off of that toolkit/electric creation if they keep his rules the way they were in playtest--don't count on it though).

[spooky_squirrel]

8 hours ago, Adran said:

I'm not sure that I would include the sacruifical AP in the AP used, because saying for example the electricakl creation route 1 that you have uses 2 activations and 4 Ap is not really true, and discounts the fact that you normally want to be able to activate the "target" to help with your activation control. So it uses 1Ap (to summon), and a (0) from Ramos, and gets Ramos a move included in that. Saying it takes 2 activation's is also a little misleading. You aren't leaving Scrap out during an enemy activation, so unless they have ways to remove the creation without it dropping scrap, its safe.

Yeah, in case I wasn't clear: only count activations in which there is scrap on the table that can be messed with. In the first turn, barring some truly squirrelly deploying (close deployment or flank, and you putting your Spider Engine components too close to the opposing deployment zone), even things with 18" lures aren't going to be in position to pull your Electric Creation away from where you need it.

Typical EC/Joss/Ramos start up features the Ramos player activating those three models in that order at the top of Turn 1. So your opponent has very limited time to try and interfere with the Turn 1 summons in a standard or corner deployment. Even in the closer deployments, if you keep those three models as far back as possible, your Turn 1 scrap generation and summoning should be relatively immune to opposing influence.

Later turns dictate opportunistic summoning. If you have leftover scrap from the first turn, it can be tempting to summon right away (especially if facing a master/crew that can use your own scrap), but it can also be beneficial to activate your previously summoned spiders first (BET regen back to full if you summoned 3 in the first turn) and get them into position to score off of strategy and/or score/bluff schemes, it can also be a good idea to get those spiders to engage quality beaters in the opposing crew. It forces your opponent to have to think about and potentially respond to your chaff models. Yeah, Ramos summoning spiders is how he scores interference and plays into many schemes, but the thing that people hate most about facing summoners is the fact that if you kill the summons you aren't actually gaining ground (unless you can score from it).

[Treehouse]

0If you want to include the Emissary into the crew (which is a nice way to give an additional AP to Langston, for example), you can combo him with a Large Arachnid. 

1. Activate Toolkit, optional: Give plus armour to Emissary. Move up to 10’’(less might be adviseable).

 

2. Activate Arachnid. Double walk next to Toolkit (or within 2")

--> you could charge, but because of armour, that might eat cards unneccessarily)

 

3. Activate Emissary. Toss a card for extra AP for Arachnid later. Magnetize to Toolkit. Walk. Do whatever with 2. AP (scheme marker). Use extra AP on Arachnid to kill Toolkit for 2 scrap. 

 

 

You could try to save a step by charging the toolkit with the arachnit and possibly killing it (might need cheating, but you'd toss a card with the emissary anyways), and use the emissary as backup in case the charge does not kill the toolkit.(Toss card, walk, walk, use ap with arachnid). 

 

but in the order written above, you can.squeeze an extra ap out of the emissary since you  magnetize. Lets you drop a sheme marker for strategy or the arachnid to eat later. 

[Mxbedlam]

I still think Joss killing the EC or Toolkit is the best option. Getting 2 scrap at the beginning gives you a bit of insurance in case you don't manage to get Joss into position to kill anything on turn 2 or a spider doesn't die. A canny opponent will tie up multiple spiders without killing anything, starving you of options to summon from. I've had a pretty awful game where after turn 2 I had no scrap in range for Ramos to summon anything and it was a nasty loss after that. 

[spooky_squirrel]

2 hours ago, Mrbedlam said:

I still think Joss killing the EC or Toolkit is the best option. Getting 2 scrap at the beginning gives you a bit of insurance in case you don't manage to get Joss into position to kill anything on turn 2 or a spider doesn't die. A canny opponent will tie up multiple spiders without killing anything, starving you of options to summon from. I've had a pretty awful game where after turn 2 I had no scrap in range for Ramos to summon anything and it was a nasty loss after that. 

When this happens, especially in Turn 2-3 when you need Joss moving up to be point man, it's really rough. Either Ramos is trying to kill one of his own spiders (summoned in Turn 1) or Joss is burning AP doing it.

Generally it's a good idea to get a couple scrap down in the first turn and use Arcanist card manipulation to get/keep the cards that get you 3 spiders per scrap. Arcane Reservoir, stoning for cards, using IE on a guided missile like Hank (or Myranda, but I'm not a fan of doing this because it's too good), using Raptors, even our Emissary lets us card cycle. Then there's the stuff in Wave 5 that we've seen that further enables card manipulation and scrap generation.

Unless you're facing someone with a deathwish and the Viks (or a really aggressive Sandeep player, or similar first-strike kind of master that can reach out and smack you from the other side of the table), you have until early Turn 2 to get things into motion, including blocking threat vectors and setting up for schemes. Ideally you're spending your AP and activations (even as you substantially increase activations) completing victory conditions and denying some for your opponent. So the less AP and activations spent keeping the Engine running, the better.

[Mxbedlam]

Exactly my point, which is why I think the Joss version of getting scrap is the best way. Though it does you good to pay attention to what your opponent brings. I once in a close deployment situation had a Reva player use their Emissary to drop a wall between Joss and the EC on turn 1, AND have a mindless zombie (ie corpse marker) within 3' of Ramos at the end of the turn. This is a really really bad place for Ramos to be btw.