spooky_squirrel

Joss and the large arachnids are good buddies--Joss spills spare parts everywhere, and the large spiders eat them to get bonuses in combat. This will all need to happen closer to the center of gravity for the strat/scheme pool, so might not be a turn 1 thing. Hank, Joss, and the large steam arachnid can form an interesting 3-part 'distraction carnifex' while you run schemes.

With the Electrical Creation, you can use Ramos' (0) action to inflict two damage on it, but you need to have your order of operations fixed for this: Electrical Creation activates first (takes 1 damage for activating, has 2 wounds left) and runs ahead of Ramos (end slightly more than 8" in front of Ramos). Next activation in order is Ramos, magnetism gets you 6" closer to the now wounded Electrical Creation, then strips its last two wounds (triggering explosion, hence the 'slightly more than 8"') and leaves the first scrap marker you'll be summoning spiders off of.

Also: get the generalist upgrades cards. That gives you all of the cards (up to the newest ones) for your models, to include the holy grail Imbued Energies, which will make Hank and Joss do so much more for you, whether they live to gain fast or die to fill your hand.

Your opponent made a beeline towards Hank (Howard Langston) because your opponent knows what Hank can do. Unfortunately, this means you're not getting to see it for yourself. If you have someone who's willing to play in "getting to know your models" mode, ask them to help you get a feel for what Hank can do. Once you see how brutally ugly he can be in combat, you'll understand why canny opponents will neutralize him before he can do his thing (twice over, with reactivate). Reading through threads here and looking at how some of the people in my local meta play, I see use for Hank as a counter-charge element (not running the front line, but instead responding later in the turn to things that happen during the turn), but that's not always going to be the case. Something to keep in mind for Ramos and his crew: his goal is to complete schemes and strats. If your opponent burns most of their activations trying to contain Joss and Hank, your spiders are dropping scheme markers and scoring (and doing their job, aka getting stuff done). With the other models you have, you might drop in a Rail Worker or two (they are living constructs, so benefit from Ramos' synergies and can drop scrap markers, as well as being significantly harder to remove than their point cost indicates). You also might use a soulstone miner to have something rooting around in the backfield (theirs) to keep them on their toes, but if Ramos is cranking out spiders every turn, you're not hurting for scheme runners. Other people with more experience can provide more details and corrections to my thinking, of course

I'm in the middle of assembling mine, and as dancater mentions above, packing it fully assembled will be very interesting. Fortunately, the blades are on secondary arms and like the head assembly has a nice smooth join surface that looks like it will be relatively easy to magnetize (1/16" rare earth magnets, using a 1/16" drill bit) in order to make it possible to pack subassemblies separately (head, blades). I haven't figured out the shoulder chimneys yet though.

I've got both the Shadow and Arcane Emissaries to put together, and I'll be running the Arcane in some practice games for an upcoming event to see if it'll replace Hank, Rail Golem, or Mech Rider (with some soulstones in change). I suspect that whether or not it will be an interesting swap will depend on the crew and schemes (I can practice into the strats as they're already published). My first three master grabs (playstyle bias) are Mei, Toni, and Kaeris. Colette could also be interesting to mess with, but I'll need more practice than I have time for (league play should help some though).

Shilling for favorites is why I suggested Mei. I think the flaw with pairing Colette with Kaeris is that you have two great scheme runners (my Kaeris game yesterday dropped a dozen scheme markers with G&D and a boiler-venting Rail Golem) that have some serious "can't touch this" tricks up their sleeve, but they're coming up a little short for some of the strats/schemes. Once I get my Joss assembled, that'll give me additional beaters in my hiring pool and I'll be revisiting the thoughts I had with Kaeris' crew yesterday. The big lesson I got was: with G&D, you don't need ice dancers running schemes; that dozen I mentioned above doesn't include what the dancers dropped and triggered for an early game Detonate the Charges. They have some amazing and continuous mobility for doing schemes like Inspection, so long as you can keep the rest of your opponent's force busy, but lack the standing power that you can get from Metal Gamin and Rail Workers (or having a half dozen spiders on each edge) doing the same job.

I agree, Mei's crew doesn't add much to Colette's crew, whereas Hank and Joss can tag into Colette's crew and provide more than just a second list with minimal overlap. If you're playing with some variant of a hiring pool and master restriction (i.e. 75SS pool, 2 masters) or just looking to keep your hobby costs down, then go for the stuff that can work within each other's crews without hesitation.

You might consider Mei Feng's crew. Kang has an aura that helps out your hard working rail workers when it comes to things that go bump in the night. The Foundry Master also has some serious mobility that she can use to eliminate peons and minions. Between the two you mention, I've never played with Rasputina, but I have played against. Her alpha strike is brutal and all that frozen heart will help keep your workhorses doing their job. Acolytes help burn through passive defensive tech while they're alive, and if you're looking for some scheme runners that you might also field with Colette, the Ice Dancers could fill that spot. Ramos uses a whole different approach than Colette. He mass produces spiders and brings a couple serious beaters to follow the spiders in. Of course, there is a more concrete answer for competitive play (that someone with more experience than I should answer) that is based off of what Strats and Schemes Colette's crew is weak on that December and/or the M&SU is strong on and vice versa.

If you're running Amina with the Oxfordian Mages, her being around them helps their Resonance and Student Loans. This lets you space them out more if bringing all 3, or just bring the two that give your Warding Runes target(s) regen and condition immunity and still maximize their resonance. This could be used to help Sandeep trigger off of the Oxfordian Mages if you bring her along with him, but there's nothing restricting this setup to just him (and other crews might like the denial aspect a little more).

I originally picked her up because I (mistakenly) figured she'd allow for more straight-forward learning games than the Closing Time box. While her workhorses don't invert the positive/negative twists on the flip, the control piece of the pie can be rougher for new players, because Toni, Mouse, the Captain, and the Oxfordian Mages can all push people around with abilities and triggers. Trying to use her as a straight beater in a beginner game is fine, but it won't help much once games go beyond that point. I'm finding that she's an interesting support Master for control-based play. If I can get an edge in activations with her crew, by locking opposing minions up in the middle of the table and/or set piece removal, it gives me the ability to run schemes. If I'm using her and her crew's synergies right, I'm burning most, if not all, of the way through my entire fate deck every turn.

Kang's Rousing Speech is priceless against anything hoping to abuse your living crew members with horror. With the two newest Foundry models (Sparks and Mech.Porkchop), she's got a few more interesting options for her infiltrate ability as well.

Yeah, enemy non-masters on a trigger cannot target models with less wounds than their Wd stat. It'll at least slow down one of the sisters in turn 2 if you spend turn one scratching the paint on your own bruisers (Joss, Hank) and get the trigger.

These bits of nuance are why I'm trying to get more practice in. It looks like there are potentially many subtleties in Ironsides and her crew interactions.

Stray thought: Our (not yet released) new MS&U lawyer's ability (liability) and the same approach you'd use to get HPM rolling under Ironsides could potentially put their ideal targets for alpha striking out of reach.

Ooh, thank you. I'll add that to my growing list of "does not work that way" ...I should make sure my notes and cards are in front of me when I'm writing up a summary. On a less braindead note: I did remind my opponent to not burn AP trying to put conditions on Ironsides with Warding. This is why I need practice.

Follow up from "will be trying"--Ironsides into Gremlins with Reconnoitre I wanted more practice with Ironsides, so brought her with Mouse, a pair of gunsmiths, a pair of Mages, Arcane Effigy, and Mech Rider (no henchmen this round). My opponent fielded Mah Tucket and was trying out some new stuff of his own. Toni pulled bushwhackers into her and cleaned up about half of his minions herself, dying in turn 3 to Mah Tucket ("let mah handle this"), but leaving her burning from "Nice try, my turn" with Radiance from the Effigy. After Mah's activation, Mouse walked up, roped a gunsmith (flipped a 6R on defense, didn't even need to cheat the low ram in my hand) to just within shooting range of Mah, then chain-activated the gunsmith and shot Mah down with two cursed ammo shots and a red joker damage flip on the third shot. Using Mouse to speed them up proved to be a nasty surprise for my opponent, and the Gunsmiths in Toni's crew are using rams/crows while the rest of my crew is trying to work off of tomes. Playing without a Henchman was strange, but it let me out-activate the gremlin player from the first turn on, even with Mouse and the Effigy giving me chain activations. The activation attrition really kicked in after Toni's sacrifice in the center while the Rider rode the flank dropping Gamin and picking off stray gremlins trying to score off of the strategy. It was an interesting practice game, but I don't know how skipping out on a henchman will play out against a non-experimental list in the same strat/scheme pool.

Saturday (13 August) I used Ironsides, Captain, Mouse, and a pocket Rail Golem to pull select targets around terrain to pummel with the golem, including a Turn 1 Lady J assassination: you looking at me? at max range to pull Lady J from where she ended her activation into the Mouse's max Rope range of the Rail Golem. My next activation moved Mouse up next to the Rail Golem, roping Lady J into both Mouse and Golem, then chain-activating the Golem (who had imbued energies on top of Locomotion). Deployment came into play (I positioned Mouse and Captain where they could move and pull/push things into the Golem's threat range), as well as my opponent moving Lady J too close too early (inexperience on his part, if she had moved a few activations later, I would have potentially been forced into activating one of my control pieces early). I will be trying out his rope lash and its weak damage to pull models around for HPM next time I run Ironsides. It looks like with some card burning I could be using it to make up to a pair of gunsmiths fast and furious during Mouse's activation (Df trigger on Rams for fast, don't relent; 'furious' from HPM).