M2E Ramos

[Nick86]

Hi guys, am new to the game and Ramos is the 2nd Master I've picked up after Kaeris. To me he seems the Master that everyone seems to know how to use, but I'd love to hear some tactics that experienced players use. 

[Fog]

Ramos is arguably the best master in the faction. He brings a slew of great abilities that turn weak models into capable combatants and strong models into monsters. The brass arachnid is criminally underrated and ensures you can surgically remove what needs to go. He summons obnoxiously survivable spiders by the handful and, unlike the rest of the summoners in the game, still retains the majority of his actions to influence play directly with an armor ignoring non randomization gun. He's hard as nails with his armor and defense trigger and he heals when nearby models die.

 

My only complaint is his sculpt is kinda boring. I'd gladly take suggestions on how to remedy this.

[Nick86]

Yeah the impression I get is you take a couple of expensive hard hitters and fill the rest of the crew essentially with chaff that blocks and annoys your opponent and gives you board control, then you hit their most important pieces one at a time. Am I doing this right?

[madaxeman]

I used him at a 4-round event at the weekend, having played a handful of practice games beforehand and my thoughts and suggestions as a still-semi-noob are:

- getting the initial sequence of spider-spam/scrap generation right is very important, and easy to mess up unless you run through it a few times first. Maybe its worth writing down - or just printing out from the threads on here!

- 2 spiders is kinda the optimum number per turn, or put another way don't feel too upset about not summoning 3. With 2, they come in on 1 wound (2 wounds less armour) so as long as you have Bleeding Edge Tech they fully heal on their first activation

- Brass Arachnid, rewire, self-reactivate, reactivate 2 constructs is very good, but does need three 10's - but given how tome-intensive the rest of the crew is that can be a great use for your other cards. Again, sequence of activations can be important here - you will spend a lot of time effectively doing nothing in the early part of each turn to tee this stuff up.

- Focus on the schemes, and achieving them by the end of the game, not immediately. In several games I was able to "see ahead" and work out that the spider factory would allow me to score points freely in turns 4 and 5 enough to win, and I could send spider off on a 2-3 turn mission knowing that my opponents didnt have enough models to chase them all. In Turns 1-3 just building spiders, creeping forwards, tying up enemy models and starting a slow process of attrition was enough, even if I wasn't really getting much scoring done.

- Magnetism can be used as a movement trick as well as an attack, even on your own models ... but it does compete with Electrical Creation summoning for the zero action. 

- Powered by Flame makes the irritating low-level spider attacks a lot better, and it makes attacks by metal gamin who have metal protection positively evil.  

- Ramos can get away with surprisingly few soulstones. Using one for 3 spiders is rare as you also need a decent card, and he is fairly tough as well, and will be likely sat towards the back of the board. On the same basis, putting BET on another model (Johan...) allows the spiders to move up the board and keep healing whilst Ramos lags behind.

- Generating 2 scrap in turn 1, with Joss or the Big Spider will save you worrying about having scrap for 2 turns. After that, something else is going to be dead anyway...

[theSpiderGuy]

Hey Guys,

Super new to Ramos and Malifaux in general. Questions for madaxeman.

1. what do you mean the Spiders only come in on 1 wound?
2. How does magnetism compete with Electrical summoning. Can you only take 1 (0) Action?
3. Who is this Big Spider you speak of? I have been using Joss to create more scrap but I don't know of another model who can as well. 

[Postmortem]

Great points madaxeman. Almost exactly the same things I have noticed as a new Ramos player.

Your comment about the Brass Arachnid and activation sequence is particularly spot on.

[theSpiderGuy]

Yeah I was curious about the Brass Arachnid trick. I would be very interested in know how that works in more detail

 

[CougDyver]

Unless i'm mistaken, you can't use tactical actions targeting yourself, so the brass arachnid can't reactivate itself..  You can however make this happen with Lazarus and Assimilate.

[Shadowfane]

You'e mistaken

Tactical actions can absolutely be used on yourself, as long as the Tactical Action itself specifies that you can't use it on yourself (eg, it'll say something like "target OTHER friendly model")

I'ts attack actions that can't be used on yourself, which is why Johan can't Rebel Yell Conditions off himself...

Edited October 21, 2015 by Shadowfane
clarification

[Bengt]

Hey Guys,

Super new to Ramos and Malifaux in general. Questions for madaxeman.

1. what do you mean the Spiders only come in on 1 wound?
2. How does magnetism compete with Electrical summoning. Can you only take 1 (0) Action?
3. Who is this Big Spider you speak of? I have been using Joss to create more scrap but I don't know of another model who can as well. 

If you summon 1 or 2 spiders they'll come in one wound down, i.e. at 3 wounds.

You are only allowed to take one (0) Action unless you have an ability that says otherwise, e.g. Instinctual.

Large Arachnid also have Creative Salvage, it's in the Crossroads book and Wave 2 arsenal. It hasn't been released in plastic yet.

Yeah I was curious about the Brass Arachnid trick. I would be very interested in know how that works in more detail

 

Activate BA and cast Rewire to give it  on it's Ca, then have it cast Stoke on itself to get Reactivate. Then sometime later in the turn you activate it again, as rewire last until the end of turn you can now cast Stoke twice to reactivate other models. Each cast of Stoke require a 10+ card so it's not very often you can do this, most of the time you'll have to settle for just Rewire and then Stoke on a good construct.

[LulleK]

TheSpiderGuy, I know the answers for your questions, so I figured I could answer them since madaxeman haven't answered yet

1. The newly summoned spiders suffer wounds equal to the number of spiders created, but is affected by armor. So if you summon one or two spiders, they suffer one wound each, and if you go for three it's two wounds.

2. You can only use one (0) action per model each activation.

3. The model called Large Arachnid has the creative salvage abillity just like Joss. But it isn't available in plastic yet.

[Nick86]

I never even thought about the double re activate. That means both Joss and Langston could be reactivated in the same turn!

[theSpiderGuy]

LulleK:

Thanks for the answers. Those will come in handy.

Im also looking at expanding with some options for my Ramos Crew. What kinds of models can he hire outside of the ones in his crew. Obviously Arcanists models but what about out of faction models and Constructs?

[Ampers&nd]

he can only hire Arcanists or mercenaries as he lacks any ability like Marcus/Levi to hire from outside his faction. That said Lazarus can be great with him, Assimilate works great with many of the constructs you have, and he adds some serious ranged punch that you can find lacking in arcanist constructs. The rail golem is another expensive but good hire, whereas both metal Gamin and Railworkers are great cheaper constructs to field, though somewhat slow for true scheme runners. Good models that lack purchases at the moment are the mobile toolkit (can make howard/joss evil, and is a good cheap scrap marker when you really need it) the large arachnid and the Scorpius. I actually think another Ramos box is a good value buy, I built a Large arachnid and a scorpius out of Howard and the Brass arachnid, more steam arachnids are always useful and I guarantee there's someone (usually a levi or hoff player) who'll buy Joss off you:)

[LulleK]

The most obvious mercenary to get for Ramos I believe is Johan. He can remove conditions and has synergy with M&SU models. He seems to be a staple in many peoples Ramos crews.

Edited October 21, 2015 by LulleK

[madaxeman]

I'd agree - Other thoughts and suggestions from my handful of games are:

- Johan is almost an auto-include for me, he also has a neat heal action, and can be a great carrier for taking BET up the table.  

- There are often some metal large (often packaged as "Steampunk") Arachnids on ebay. 

- Spiders don't need to attack or charge to be useful in combat - if you have nearby models with better attacks, sometimes moving twice, or going defensive but still ending in base contact will be enough to buff your proper attack later in the turn, and also it can force the enemy to "waste" activations attacking your spiders. 2 in base contact with an enemy is -2 on Df, and takes at least 2 attack actions to kill them off, most likely 4-6.

- Essence of Power looks like an alternative to Brass Arachnid on paper, but it does have to stay very close to Ramos and it does have to do its 2-action buff right at the start of the turn to be most useful.

- at some point in the turn Ramos is no longer going to be able to generate spiders who have time to actually achieve anything, especially remembering that they come in "slow". He is always a big target for enemy to try and kill, so by turn 4-5 it may be easier to just let him take the pounding and die rather than throwing cards and stones to keep him alive

[Breng77]

After using Anna Lovelace with Ramos for a tourney this weekend she is quickly becoming an auto include for me in my Ramos lists.  Her aura of no movement tricks is good for protecting Ramos from fast models and from tangled shadows, and also keeps people from pushing out of engagement with spiders.  Rush of magic is nice for the extra card draw.  But the biggest help was her CA action that does 3/3/4 and does not randomize, so you can drop enemy defenses with spiders and then hit them for 6 damage pretty easily. With the bonus of possibly summoning a extra model or causing a terror check on multiple models.

[Fog]

That's a lovely idea.  I think I'm going to have to give that a go at some point.