Marcus Versus Ramos

[E.T.A. Hoffman]

Funny story and maybe an interesting conversation piece.

Other day me and a buddy were playing a game. He had Ramos. I had Marcus. Turn 1 the fellow moves Ramos up and makes some spiders. I say to myself, hey there's nothing too scary over there yet. I position Marcus to be within 8" of Ramos. Just hoping for the init flip. I get it and I drop a couple 13's and Alpha Ramos. What happened? Well I used Ramos's controlled detonation to blow up Joss, a Swarm, and finally Ramos himself.

Anyone else think maybe Alpha shouldn't effect masters?

[Myyrä]

I'm guessing that Ramos player remembers to bring the Counterspell upgrade the next time he plays against arcanists.

[admiralvorkraft]

There are a handful of masters I won't run if the opponent declares Arcanists - not because that's likely to happen, but simply because I don't want to worry about it.

[Breng77]

Yup counter spell makes that far less likely.  It is really not that easy to pull off. That it needs to be changed.

[szendroib]

I'm not sure but Ramos's ability says friendly construct. If you control Ramos is Joss for example still friendly to him? Also what happens if he summons some spiders? Who will they belong to?

[Durza]

The model you alpha is still a part of its crew, it doesn't become friendly to you nor does it stop being friendly to its crew, you are just controlling it for an activation. 

[angyi]

Yup counter spell makes that far less likely.  It is really not that easy to pull off. That it needs to be changed.

If Ramos takes counterspell, there are still 7 cards in Marcus' deck that pretty much hose him. Even if he flips or cheats the red joker while defending vs Alpha. Sure thats "less likely" than w/o counterspell, but if Marcus goes for it, it's still very easy to pull off.

Edited October 3, 2015 by angyi

[Myyrä]

Yup counter spell makes that far less likely.  It is really not that easy to pull off. That it needs to be changed.

If Ramos takes counterspell, there are still 7 cards in Marcus' deck that pretty much hose him. Even if he flips or cheats the red joker while defending vs Alpha. Sure thats "less likely" than w/o counterspell, but if Marcus goes for it, it's still very easy to pull off.

Either you are thinking Ramos has Wp 4 or I'm misunderstanding you.

Sure, the counterspell does not provide a surefire protection, but it does make trying alpha more costly and risky for Marcus unless he has a perfect hand. It's still a good idea to bring it against arcanists because of Rasputina and Kaeris as well.

[Astrella]

You still need 8 (tome) to do controlled detonation as well, doing all that you listed requires a whole bunch of good cards.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Astrella

[Myyrä]

You still need 8 (tome) to do controlled detonation as well, doing all that you listed requires a whole bunch of good cards.

You can use soulstones.

[mythicFOX]

As someone who plays a lot of both Ramos and Marcus I've known about this interaction for a while and am fairly comfortable with it from both sides.

 

[thebarbalag]

It's so resource intensive, especially if Ramos has Counterspell, that it's not troublesome. Also, personally, I would never take Ramos is my opponent declared Arcanists, with a few possible exceptions. I've done this to opponents in a tournament setting, leading to top of turn 2 victories (when you opponent has one spider and the Brass Arachnid both in charge range of things like Cojo and Sabertooths, it's pretty much over), but it's not terribly dissimilar to the Vik slingshot, which can just as readily wipe out your entire crew top of turn two, with the same level of resource expenditure (say, 2-3 suited face cards, 2-3 stones). Or Leveticus's ability to ace one or two models every turn with no consequences as the rest of his crew does...whatever else it wants to do. These interactions are very powerful, but, personally, I think they're well within the intended power level of the game and don't need fixing.

Edited October 3, 2015 by thebarbalag

[angyi]

Myyrä:

You can use Howl to give Ramos -2 Wp, so he's practically Wp 4. You can also use Feral to make him a beast (here you'll need 1 SS), then you can Domesticate him with another auto-succeeding (0) action. The optimum: you have Ca 7, while Ramos has Wp 4 and has  to resist Alpha. So you'll spend another SS for a suite, having 7 cards in your deck that he can't resist by any means. And much more than 7 if you push your luck and suppose he won't flip the red joker or severe cards on his .

Of course this is the optimal setup, but your chances are still high if you can't Domesticate him or something. But it's clear that  Ramos needs more than the Counterspell to live in relative safety. The Philosopher's Stone, an Oiran or whatever he likes.

[Shadowfane]

Myyrä:

You can use Howl to give Ramos -2 Wp, so he's practically Wp 4. You can also use Feral to make him a beast (here you'll need 1 SS), then you can Domesticate him with another auto-succeeding (0) action. The optimum: you have Ca 7, while Ramos has Wp 4 and has  to resist Alpha. So you'll spend another SS for a suite, having 7 cards in your deck that he can't resist by any means. And much more than 7 if you push your luck and suppose he won't flip the red joker or severe cards on his .

Of course this is the optimal setup, but your chances are still high if you can't Domesticate him or something. But it's clear that  Ramos needs more than the Counterspell to live in relative safety. The Philosopher's Stone, an Oiran or whatever he likes.

Of course, this is somewhat complicated by the fact that if you make Ramos a Beast, he then has +2 WP from Howl, not -2 WP, giving him WP 8.....

[angyi]

Wrong. It's a pulse effect, so he gets the -2 Wp until the end of the turn, then he becomes a beast which has nothing to do with the previous Howl.

[Shadowfane]

Wrong. It's a pulse effect, so he gets the -2 Wp until the end of the turn, then he becomes a beast which has nothing to do with the previous Howl.

Actually you're wrong - the pulse effect gives you a Condition that changes your WP based on whether you're a Beast or not - you change him into a Beast, he gains WP, rather than losing it, as thats what the Condition does.

[angyi]

And you're 100% right, apologies. The last time I played Marcus was something like 2 years ago, and I built my self-confidence on those fading memories

So the howling part is out. You have 3 cards that auto-hit with Alpha, and the  for Ramos to give you the upper hand. Philosopher's Stone and/or the Oiran are still recommended, since it's Feral that you have to dodge at any cost.

[Shadowfane]

Eh, it's all good, dude - the rules catch us all out at times

[Breng77]

Does controlled detonation have a target number because if so putting him on negatives makes it unlikely to go off.

[angyi]

You need 8+, but you can always focus or use SS to negate any 

Edited October 3, 2015 by angyi

[Breng77]

Not saying it is impossible but now you are spending a ton of cards/stones to pull it off, and failing any one of those causes the whole thing to fail.

[Bengt]

You need 8+, but you can always focus or use SS to negate any 

Uncontrolled Detonation is (Ca 8 / TN: 16 / Rg; 10) so you need 8+. This is starting to sound like 2 SS per Uncontrolled Detonation unless you have that perfect hand...

[decker_cky]

You only go for it if you have the hand ready, then you burn whatever stones you can to blow up the enemy master.

[E.T.A. Hoffman]

If you have anything 8+ you've won. Spend a stone to sac a master? Sure!

[Bengt]

Yeah it's worth spending SS to kill the enemy Master, but perhaps not other close by constructs, depending on what they are. And you hardly "win" by killing the enemy Master, it can help, but that's it. We're not playing Warmachine!