Haight

Moreover, Leveticus is the only person with any ability to summon them.

Totally agree. That and the previous poster's considerations for a boxed set is 32 points, and lacks the waif, which is pretty much compulsory to play leve. I'd bet on something like Leve, alyce, 1-2 waifs, and 3-4 SPA's. I'm betting the box will be "point light" in comparison to others, because it will more than likely include the waif, which is "free".

I'm not "poisoning the well" (little melodramatic, eh?), but asking an honest question. It does no one any good to drop into a thread and say a one liner with no backup. You present no data, no stats, no commentary. You might as well have posted "I don't like Ramos." for all the tactical discussion it was going to generate. My question was honest, and I thought my appraisal was fair (that it was okay / fair / cool that you didn't like him) - i didn't flame you. I just asked what the point was behind nebulous questions that don't engage others. I would have been much more interested in reading your thoughts as to WHY ramos isn't a good master to start the game with (and mind you, this is coming from someone who started with Leveticus and Ramos at the same time). I also don't get the logic behind you saying you didn't feel it "appropriate"... okay, so it's appropriate to say "I suggest learning the game with another master", but didn't feel it was appropriate to list any reasons why (positive or negative)? Forums are about discussion. If we phrase our discourse and diction in such a way that limits, rather than promotes, (via vagueness, inflammation, etc), then it gets us nowhere. Nebulous comments don't engage. If your comments don't engage, then no one listens. If no one listens to your comments - why bother posting on a forum ? I'd actually really like to hear why you think Ramos isn't the best caster to pick up.

Nevermind - misread something. Builder is cool, and i usually don't like these things.

Guild has a pretty high proportion of its stuff out already. Austringer, Peacebringer (which has art) guild guard and totems are all they are missing. Looks like totems are coming out for everyone, and then neverborn, outcasts, and ressers are getting some love this time out. I'm sure there will be more arcanist and guild love before long, but you have a situation where there is an outcast master without a starter box because he's missing his vital totem, his main big baddy,and the minion nearly half of his spell creates. Neverborn are in a similar circumstance where a lot of their pieces just don't have models yet.

Moreover, they have to be sacrificed when their connected master is no longer in play. As Hamelin is not a master model, I don't think he could take ANY totem. But that is a hunch.

It is very cool, but WAY different than i imagined. I somehow was imagining a tank treaded clockwork monstrosity with a gas mask looking sort of head, and tons of pipes and exhaust ports all over it. But i like the model for sure! It's just more flesh than i thought it would be.

You are welcome guys. I have heard rumblings that he's really tough to figure out - i'm lucky that i just clicked with him on the first read through. Other important notes: 1) Waifs - For one thing, when you summon one, they only get 1 AP that activation, and have to walk with it. Be mindful of that. 1a) If leve is not in play and your waif hasn't activated, it can't do anything, so do NOT kill off leve if you need to reposition your waif. Luckily the waif has companion (leve), so this isn't that hard to really manipulate, but it is really important to remember, because it can lose you games if you kill leve too early and your waifs are exposed. Particularly against S'ommer and Lilith and other masters with uber movement chicanery. 2) Take advantage of your varied minion pool!! I can't stress this enough. I talk with people about leve, and they're all "All SPA and desolation engine all the time!" This to me is needlessly limiting. Sure, i take SPA's with leve, and in bigger games consider a deso engine (though frankly i prefer the 4 SPA's split up for attack / activation economy reasons, and the fact i can use thier tokens if they get killed to make new ones and spawn a deso engine upfield, turn 2-4 so that the engine isn't taking needless wounds). For one thing, i don't leave home without a Rotten Belle. Lure with them and leveticus is DIRTY. Abuse the crap out of it. When you consider that you can turn unnatrural wasting into threat range 10+3 to 5 on average, it is worth every last one of the 4 points. Also consider Punk zombies. At 5 points they are cheap uber good melee, and are great to combo with Blessings of Desolation, as they already have 7 Crows for CB. This means if you give them blessing and they kill something with a melee strike, they will automatically spawn an SPA. Moreover, you want to ensure you take a couple undead models in you crew - even cheapies - just in case your waif gets killed off, so that you have a method of generating a self-engineered waif with necrotic transformation. Even a sole necropunk or canine remains for this very purpose is a cheap model that can serve ancillary roles if you don't need it, but in a pinch can rocket back towards leve quickly and with minimal effort for you to get a necrotic transformation off on it. In this same vein, don't be afraid to Desolation your own crap, kill it, and then follow up with a necrotic transformation. Great way to quickly hurt yourself and get your waif back. Dont' leave home without Alyce. Period. Not only is she uber good shooting and denial, but she's additional swarm mechanisms, anti armor, reactivation for constructs, and draw power for you. Seriously - she's the best 8 points leve can spend. Finally, soulstones have lesser import for leve because he recycles. I personally feel very comfortable with 1-3, and i aim for 2 at anything less than 40 stones. Because you can recycle, you are in a lesser position of "do or die" than other masters are typically.

Which is fair, because you tried him and didn't like him. Conversely there are many, many people on here who have had a great deal of success and fun with Ramos. It might be that he simply wasn't for you, but may be for someone else. Your post comes off negative. *shrug* It's cool that you don't like him, but my question is... what good does it do to drop into every thread on Ramos and reiterate your dislike for him nebulously with no backup, opening up zero potential for debate on the topic?

I've been proxying the steamborg from the ramos box as the desolation engine, and spiders or necropunks for SPA's.

Nope you have it 100% right sans one thing: you don't necessarily want to get leveticus in melee. I find his melee is more of a good reason for people not to get into melee with him rather than something i'm searching out. Besides, unnatural wasting is far, far nastier. Note too that you CAN kill yourself with death's lessons and Desloation. This is because the WD's that leveticus takes happen as a result of what you do with the action, and the wounds occur at the end of the action once completed. The other stuff he can't use to kill himself, only those two. This is your ace in the hole. Almost every turn you want to be blowing leveticus' wad of cards landing your spells, making SPA's and waifs, and doing wds to the enemy, but you also want to make sure that your waifs are safe, and that by the end of the start close phase you have 1 wd left, or are dead. If that happens, bamf, you recycle and go back to a waif. Note that its actually detrimental for you NOT to kill yourself every turn because you don't draw up cards unless alyce is within 3".... so you're better off making sure you die each and every turn if possible, so long as you can keep your waifs safe. What i like to do to make sure that i am going to die every turn is: - necromantic sacrifice for 2 wd and a free walk. - cast blessing of desolation on something for 1 wd. - If possible, entropic transformation to create a waif or SPA for 3wd, or unnatural wasting enemy for 0 wd. We're either at 6 or 3 right now. - If i unnaturaled before, i'll necrotic unmaking another target for 1 Wd. Now we're at 7 (and thus end close will kill us), or 6. - Finally, death lesson's myself out for 1-3, whatever is needed. Honestly, there are ton of ways to take yourself out. Think of your melee ability as a deterrent more than an offensive (unless you're sitting on the red joker and a high hand of cards and have a soul stone, in which case swing away, cheat fate with a high card, burn soulstone to add to total, cheat fate on damgae with red joker, flip to add, hope for severe, and cackle as you do 24 points of damage). He is very very powerful once you get the hang of him, but he is an order of operations nightmare, and all your plans can be undone by the waif getting killed. In return, you get an amazing direct damage master, good swarm production master, and a master no one wants to risk getting into melee with important pieces.

I got a sprue of 20 zombies from wargames factory for like 17.00 and made 10 mindless zombies with them, and 10 corpse / body part counters. Worked fantastic.

I dig the plastics. Goes together easier, more resistant to damage when falling / knocked over, and the quality is very high. Plus plastics pricing is a lot more consistent than dealing with a commodities market item (tin, etc). Frankly, I wish they'd do more plastic. You can also do a lot more with plastic because of weight ratio differences than you can with metal - a plastic model is a lot lighter so you can put a load on a join that would be unsustainable in the metal medium.

Well, remembering and looking up rules will alleviate itself with experience. However when the rules don't cover something, that can bring play to a screeching halt. It's not the ideal answer, but posting rules questions here (and hopefully getting word back swiftly) will decrease the frequency those kinds of things crop up. Hemming & Hawing.... ugh. Yah, nothing is going to alleviate a non-commital opponent.

Wow, 90-120 minutes seems excessive for 25-30 stones. We've been firing them out in 45-60 minutes, with 35-40 stones taking about 75-90 minutes. I don't think i've had a single malifaux game go two hours yet. Is there a lot of rule referencing in the book, double checking rules, hemming and hawing going on KO ? I only ask because evne my first 25 point game didn't take 90 minutes, and I was using Leveticus (and thus reading his rules every 10 seconds or so). What seems to be holding up the games more than anything, out of curiosity ?

Oooooh, i'm in like flint. And 40 SS scrap rocks! What's the policy on models ? Just stuff officially released (i kind of assume this)? What about conversions etc. ? Just because I don't recall seeing any official tourney stuff with rules and provisions and whatnot.

You can also use it as a friendly threat range extender. Just be sure only your stuff is within 12", and its an easy way to give your stuff some extra distance. Great use of earthquake early on in the game.

It kind of depends on how you play. If you expect that every turn you're going to be using brass arachnid to reactivate ramos and thereby make 2 spiders in one turn, every turn.... you're going to need a bunch. If you're going with a swarm style of play with ramos, i have to believe you'd be okay with 6-9 small spiders and 3 swarms. That may even be overkill, frankly. Note that is what i'd want to have on hand for summoning and swarm together purposes. Whatever spiders you want in your initial crew i'd tack on additionally.

No one but staff is sure, i think. However i do believe that i saw nathan caroland say in a post about the currently just released totems that "more would be on the way [in november]".

Exactly - i think people vastly underestimate the usefulness of the borg's steamcloud. It is stupid good. The borg's cloud means that, barring hunter or other cover ignoring stuff, I can march my things out in the open and keep my opponent from cheating on attack duels while maintaining optimal position in what would, otherwise, be out in the open. The borg is no slouch in melee, but definitely not as damage producing as Joss. The borg also has armor 1 inherit, more wounds, and none of his mechanisms self-damage. While he won't output as much damage as joss if all things are ideal, his melee master and decapitate do keep him a threat. Really i view the borg as a combination of melee fighter / tank + damage soak / support piece. His defensive and offensive abilities in tandem keep him worth the 10 points to me. Joss is awesome, but the two pieces play different roles. Joss is hyper aggressive - point, click, kill something, and hopefully repeat before joss dies. The borg is support and tank / los block on approach, and melee fighter upon delivery. It's sorta like comparing bete noir and killjoy, and declaring that killjoy is unequivocally better because he has a greater damage output - but ignoring all the denial and survivability of Bete, as well as the costs of killjoy. Both pieces are good - but they play different roles on the table. Same thing with the borg and the Injun. -- Haight

Love it when I see my fellow partners in crime and templecon attendees showin' up over here. If i know you half as well as i think i do (and i should, we talk tactics and gaming all the damn time), you are going to love this game. Good to have you here bro - looking forward to brainstorming some ass pounding combos.

I've used P3 in the past and it hasn't given me any issues, though i have to admit, its really, really hard to get me to use anything other than duplicolor sandable black primer. I'll use P3 for white primer, but for black, duplicolor all the way. Paintwise, man, i love me the P3 line. I was a diehard vallejo fan for a long, long time, but since switching over to P3 I find that when i'm buying new colors or replacing old ones, i start (and usually end) with P3.... and i hate open top pots, to boot, but you just can't beat the quality.

You could use the Brass arachnid to Stoke ramos and reactivate if you want to move. Alternatively, this allows you to (if you don't need to move) activate twice and make two spiders. Just requires a ten for the brass and then ramos to meet his casting cost for the construct spider zero AP spell. Leaves you an open cast as well so you can arc screen for protection or electrical fire, or whatever. I know as soon as brass comes out he's going to be in a LOT of my ramos lists. Joss not having to ditch 3 power tokens and take wounds, ramos reactivating.... lots of potential there. Additionally it has a cast of 5 Tomes so its relatively useful for casting ramos spells as well.

Another vote for Convict Gunslinger, Belles, and Punk Zombies (and probably in that order). The convict gunslinger is just stupid useful for ressers, think of belles are ridiculous threat range extenders, and punk zombies are cheap ridiculously good melee and can seriously explodinate lower defense models with a combination of slice and dice and self mutilation.

It's either a typo, or a transcription error. It modifies misaki's melee range on her melee attacks (which would be defended against with defense), but that probably shouldn't be in the spells profile.