Thalaric

Completely off topic, but man... it's so refreshing seeing Ramos get the respect he deserves, without needing his avatar I agree that if you want to take two heavy beaters (which both Miss Step and the Rail Golem are) you probably want to look more at Ramos, since he can easily be run in super-support mode to make his big beaters even better, with flips to both attack and damage within 8" of him, healing his big dudes and creating small spiders to harass the enemy and grab objectives.

So GenCon has come and gone and the final print of the old man has seemed to fix the "one cuddle too many" problem from the very end of PT, as well as giving his team some additional buffs on the whole. Pulling them out for ease of reference so we don't need to go digging into the big change thread: Ramos - Summon the Swarm: Now reduces by Armor again. So 1 or 2 bugs come in with 1 Wd each, and when you summon all 3 Arachnids, they each come in with 2 wds each. Steam Arachnid Swarm - a couple changes. First, on their attack, they picked up: :masks Carry Away: After damaging, push the target 4" directly away, then push this model into base contact with the target. Then for Self-Repair, they gained the ability to sacrifice a friendly Steam Arachnid within 6" to pay the cost, instead of discarding a scrap marker. Finally, Johan had a price drop, from 8 points after Mercenary tax to 7. (his base cost is now 6). With that final change, I think I may actually start hiring Steam Arachnid Swarms, or at the very least I will have a reason to swarm them together in the middle of a fight for reasons beyond eating a bunch of scheme markers. The ability to shove Ramos or another model 8" up the board at the cost of 2-4 Wds (depending on armor, which can be healed) is always worth exploring. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also figure this is a good place to keep a compilation of Ramos tips & tricks... maybe I'll kick this off with an obvious one: Spider Pinata - Start the game with an Electrical Creation. Activate him first, and move him so he's at least 8" away from Ramos and in the general direction of where you want Ramos to go turn 1. Then activate Ramos, use his Magnetism ability to pull 6" towards Electrical Creation, doing just enough to kill it and have it drop a scrap marker. Then use 1 AP to summon 2-3 Steam Arachnids off of the scrap. Easy way to start a scrap engine / start stockpiling walking bombs (depending on playstyle).

Something else I missed on my first pass - Steam Arachnid Swarms have the ability to sacrifice a Steam Arachnid within 6" instead of discarding a scheme marker for their Self-Repair ability.

A few more goodies while I've got a keyboard: Ramos - Summon the Swarm now reduces by armor again, with reminder text. December Acolyte - the Sh on his harpoon gun is now Sh 6. Steam Arachnid Swarm - picked up a new trigger on his melee attack: :masks Carry Away: After damaging, push the target 4" directly away, then push this model into base contact with the target.

Hrm.... You look set on big beefy pieces, so my initial suggestion would be 'Rail Golem' but that's kinda covered by the other big guys. The other option that's probably good for a 'tournament' set of models would be Sabertooth Cerberus - crazy fast cat-missile! Lets you get to pieces the rest of your crew may not be able to get to, or do some objective running for you, plus the ability to eat enemy models is appreciated.

You can still use it after getting tossed. The only thing insignificant prevents you from doing is taking the Interact action. If you've got another way to mess with markers, like Devouring Swarm, you are still allowed to use those.

You dirty cheater :-P Poor Ramos isn't allowed to bring Kang with. Rail Workers with Ramos are my usual shock troop of choice though, they can do a lot of damage before they get put down, between Implacable and Ramos' auras. Then you get a scrap to summon some bugs out of their corpse.

Haven't tried Ice Gamin with Ramos or Mei. I could see taking them with Ramos as shock troops, but Mei I've been sticking to more durable constructs (either Metal Gamin or Steam Arachnids) into my lists to use alongside rail workers for my railwalk points. That's really where I see their value now. They aren't crazy good like they were in v1, but hey, the rest of our guys got way better to compensate *grin* About the only time I actually use them as bodyguards are in Raspy's crew - Raspy or Ice Golem at Df 6 is pretty funny. If I had to pack my bag for an event, I'd probably slot these: Masters - Ramos, Mei Feng (Fitting both of these is easier in the 20 model stipulation then Raspy!) Brass Arachnid, Emberling, Joss, Rail Golem, Kang, Howard, 3x Rail Worker, 2x Metal Gamin, 1x Steam Arachnid Swarm, 1x Electrical Creation, 5x SPA ...this list would push model count to at least 30, but this is what my wave 2 would look like: Raspy, Wendigo, Essence of Power, 3x Ice Gamin, Ice Golem, 2x December Acolyte, Sabertooth Cerberus, and any more SPA and Swarms that didn't make the first cut.

It's funny, because that's the exact reason why I didn't jump ship to Andromeda. But in full agreement about going after hackers. I may have to try Weyland when I get my hands on the newest data pack and their Dedicated Response Team.

Shaper is fun for the Control player in me, but I just prefer the recklessness of Criminal (Gabe). For corp it's NBN though, because Tags let me feel like I can be proactive in my game.

So what I'm getting from this thread is I should pack my Netrunner decks for GenCon?

Oooh, I may have to get me one of these What colors can you do besides red?

H'ok, now that I've got the book in hand, I thought I'd post up some more info on Mei Feng: Mei Feng is... a lot to digest. I'm swear I'm only scratching the surface with my spoilers, but with 7(!) abilities, 6(!!) triggers, and 6(!!!) spells, all interlinked, it will take a while to master her. Ratty's reference card definitely helps mitigate some of those though! First up, the stats. She has average wounds for our masters, and the highest unbuffed defense of any Arcanist master (equalling Marcus under Fox). On top of that, she has a spell which lets her give herself or her friends Armor 2 on a 5 of any suit - this spell can happen as a (0) action, or as a trigger on her kick. So assuming she goes early, she is going to be tough to take down. She also has a nice high willpower, equaling her defense, and remains the high cast that is typical among Arcanist masters, paired with Casting Expert. Her attacks are downright amazing, Both have an above-average Cb (on par with Marcus), She has a jackhammer kick, which if it connects pushes her into base contact with her target, and has a trigger for her armor spell. Her Tiger's Claws, however, are her primary attack. They are paired, hit almost as hard as the Greatsword wielders, and get a flip if the target has a burning counter. If the target doesn't have a burning counter, the tiger's claws will give them one when they successfully damage an enemy model. It also has a trigger that can best be described as a super Whirlwind, which lets her push 2" to bring someone else into the tiny range on her claws. Then we get to her spell list. I've already described her armor spell, and like Raspy, she has a spell that lets you put up an obscuring cloud, which auto-casts a different spell to give enemy models inside the cloud a burning counter if they fail a resist. She also has a melee spell that hits for low amounts of damage, but has blasts, ignores armor, and hands out easy to wound. She also has a downscaled version of Zoraida's repulsive, which I see myself casting off of her totem a lot to move my crew around - but I'm showing my roots, since these kinds of abilities were always at a premium in my WM/H days. And finally, we come to (what I feel) is her signature spell - Railwalker. It requires a 7 of any suit to cast, but you are going to want to throw a tome to cast it. Mei Feng gets on a train and starts travelling - she essentially snaps in b2b with a construct or rail worker within 5", then can snap to a second construct or rail worker within 5" of her new position, and finally (depending on trigger), can either snap to a third construct or rail worker. Or (what I expect is more typical) she immediately throws a Jackhammer Kick at an enemy model. It will take practice, but if I remember my base sizes correctly, with 2 Large Steampunk Arachnids and good positioning, this means Mei Feng can start 18" away from an enemy model, and end her Cast action in base-to-base with the same enemy model, after smacking it for damage :Combat_Puppet: Given all of the triggers, I see three things immediately - 1.) she is going to absolutely chew through soulstones. 2.) She is going to do the same to your hand, although her totem does bring Arcane Resevoir, and she has the ability to draw cards when she kills something. 3.) It's going to be super easy to get ahead of the rest of her crew, and even with her defensive stats, your opponent will have good incentive to cut her down before the rest of her team shows up to help.

I seem to recall that there were models based off of Eric and Nathan back when people were trying to catch all of the references in Books 1 & 2. Could those be hints as to what the nightmare models are?

Having proxied Iggy, I can say he is definitely another good way to get some burning counters going. Using Incite and his 'I push towards you' trigger off of that get him in a nice clump of models and then cast Playing with Matches 1-2 times (depending on cards in hand and flips) and tag a bunch of models with damage and burning - just make sure the only models you have in the zone are Fire Gamin! Sending a Fire Gamin as a sacrificial pawn is usually good too in a pinch. Position him in a spot where he will tag several models when he dies and then have Kaeris either blow them up for some unopposed burning counters or just let the opponent kill them for damage and burning, then they explode for more damage and burning on everyone else