Nico vs Ramos

[Scoops]

Hey, I've recently been called out by a local Ramos player in my area and am hoping to get some general advice on how to handle this matchup before we play some games. We're both relatively new players, but I have a pretty basic understanding of Nico tactics. More looking for some specific concerns to be aware of when facing Ramos, or particular tactics to employ.

[JoeJones]

As a Ramos player who hasn't played as Resser yet, I can only advise on his strengths & weaknesses. Ramos's strengths lie in his summoning, his crew buffs, and the usual suspects who accompany him.

First off, his summoning. As long as he has access to a scrap marker, Ramos can summon one spider on a 5 of any suit, 2 spiders on an 8 of tomes (or any 8 + a soulstone), or 3 spiders on an 11 of tomes + one soulstone. He can flood the board with spiders, given enough scrap. Given that each spider is a significant minion with high defensive stats and armor, these spiders can overwhelm the board if not controlled. To fight this swarm you must either cut off the supply of scrap (through removal, blocking LOS, or keeping them outside Ramos's 6" summoning range), cause Ramos to discard his hand (I'm not familiar enough with Ressers to know what discard tricks they have, but forcing a lot of duels to make him cheat away his hand could work), or kill the spiders faster than Ramos can summon them (easier said than done, from my experience). I didn't mention killing Ramos as a way to stop his summoning, since is not only plays near the back of his crew, but also is surprisingly resilient: Armor+2 and healing when constructs are killed nearby make his 10 wounds stretch much further than you'd expect from a squishy spellcaster.

Ramos's crew buffs tend to be fairly formidable also. Under Pressure gives his friendly constructs within 8" positive flips on Ml attacks, Field Generator gives his crew within 6" positive flips on Df, and Combat Mechanic allows Ramos to heal friendly constructs. Not every Ramos player will take all these upgrades, since Ramos likes the flexibility that Arcane Reservoir grants, among other options. Also watch for Bleeding Edge Tech on Joss, which will allow summoned spiders to regenerate at the start of their activations, partially or completely negating the damage they receive from being summoned.

And with that, we come to Ramos's right-men: Joss and Howard Langston. These two models provide the bulk of the offense in Ramos's standard crew, and many players will take them as auto-includes for him. Joss is extremely resilient and his Arc Axe ignores most defense abilities (Armor, HtW, HtK, all Df triggers). Howard Langston is surprisingly fast (due to Nimble), has 4 weak damage, and has an auto-kill trigger on his attack. Any plan to beat Ramos must include plans to destroy, distract, or otherwise negate these two, while also controlling the spider population. Add to these two a decent ranged threat and a sacrificial construct to get the spider engine going, and that is my standard Ramos list.

On my first turn as Ramos, I will generally move the sacrificial construct forward so that Joss can charge & kill it, dropping 2 scrap markers for the first couple summons. I will move Howard Langston into position to either threaten my opponent's heavy hitter or send him up to clear a flank. Any summoned spiders (or hired ones) will start heading to tie up opponents or run schemes. Ramos, of course, moves into position, buffs, and summons.

This is how I play Ramos. Other people may change things up (Mech Rider instead of Howard Langston, for example), but it should be a reasonable overview, so that you can start thinking about how to counter various parts of the crew. As always, keep your eye on schemes and strategies, and remember that tar pits are good things against speedy heavy hitters.

With apologies to my fellow Arcanists, of course, but my second faction will be Ressers when I finally start getting them assembled and painted.

[Clement]

If you have the university of transmortis, the student of steel will be great for scaring him into dealing with it.  Generally, if Ramos can get a single marker every turn he's a happy summoner, so you want to generally kill spiders FAAAR away from him, forcing him to come closer to you in order to do what he wants to do.  Belles are great for this.  Failing that, make sure you can kill 2-3 per turn so that Ramos struggles to put them back.  

Generally speaking, the two of you are likely going to get into a serious slap fight in the middle of the board while your scheme runners go try to win the game (so typical Nicodem game).  In that sense you may well have the advantage since most of our typical scheme runners are faster then spiders.

[Kogan Style]

Ramos players will usually start with the Electrical Creation or summon one in. As Clement said, lure the creation away from Ramos and he has to go and chase after his scrap marker, similarly Joss (who could make two scrap from the Creation) will also be frustrated.

Ramos works by out-activating the opponent, so anything you can do that will reduce the model count or make scrap hard to come by is great! Also remember that as all of his crew is likely to be constructs, you wont be getting any corpse markers from the opponent so make sure you have a reliable source all game.

Ressurs do have a few anti-armour models that you may want to bring to the party:

Shikome's auto-trigger to ignore armour (summonable)

Student of Steel's attack ignores armour (summonable)

Datsu-Ba's attacks ignore armour

Onryo have a trigger to ignore armour

 

 

 

[Daysleeper]

Also Sebastian and Poison usually results in lots of dead spiders 

[Clement]

6 hours ago, Daysleeper said:

Also Sebastian and Poison usually results in lots of dead spiders 

Man, Sebastian doesn't get enough good press about what a minion murder machine his buzz saw is.  If he can get at someone that can't spend soulstones or ignore poison, the odds of them turning green and dying from poison on their next activation are insane.

[benjoewoo]

When Ramos summons them in they have 2 Wds I believe. Datsue-ba is my general anti-armor because a charge can get 4 attacks with the right triggers and both of her attacks ignore armor. Weigh the Sins a 2Wd spider twice successfully and you get a gaki. They're not amazing, but they provide activation control and they can be surprise scheme runners with a walk of 5 plus a push in the right direction. Onryo will likely be better, but the suit to summon a gaki on kill is built in while the Onryo requires a mask for Datsue-ba.

Poison damage can't be avoided by armor, but I think the Catalyst damage can be reduced. 

Punk zombie slice and dice, similar to Hanged horror pulse, can be nice--also a more consistent summons for Nico. Two pulses and each spider must pass at least one check to stay alive if it was just summoned. 

As for tactics, try luring out the initial scrap marker generators, e.g. electrical creation and metal gamin. If you kill them fairly fair from Ramos he has to spend his AP walking, which means either fewer attempts to get more spiders and/or fewer explosions in your face.

I'm unsure who wins the war of attrition between Nico and Ramos. Likely Ramos because each summon can summon multiple things, but Nico can summon hardier and more elite units. While Joss isn't easy to take down, Student of Steal does work on him and will tie him up a while to buy you time to fight the ramos summoning engine and run your schemes. 

Play for VP, not tabling or overwhelming your opponent. If you clinch 10 VP by turn 4, your opponent can only tie you at best.

[Clement]

12 hours ago, benjoewoo said:

Poison damage can't be avoided by armor, but I think the Catalyst damage can be reduced. 

Punk zombie slice and dice, similar to Hanged horror pulse, can be nice--also a more consistent summons for Nico. Two pulses and each spider must pass at least one check to stay alive if it was just summoned. 

Play for VP, not tabling or overwhelming your opponent.

A few things on the above comments.

1) Catalyst damage is being dealt by the poison condition, so no reducing (preventing yes.  The interaction with soulstone damage prevention is odd)

2) Spiders are immune to pulse damage, sad times.

3) Very much YES.

[benjoewoo]

Whoops, totally forgot about the pulse immunity. Hanged it is.

[Erorior]

It might not be the most optimal way, but if you want to put another kind of pressure on him you could always bring Toshiro with Command the Graves. That way, you can "steal" his precious scrap markers by turning them into Komainu.

[Kogan Style]

Or stand on the scrap marker, if Ramos can't see the scrap, he can't target it.

[SurreyLee]

I recently played against Ramos. Lured the electrical creation then, after he moved and blew them up with Joss, proceeded to block line of sight using the emissary shard's. It meant he coulnd't get his spider summoning really going until turn 3 which greatly helped. Not sure you can ever stop it, but delaying it a turn or two makes all the difference.

[SurreyLee]

Oh, and the rot and rend attach for the emissary also has blasts which newly created spiders don't seem to like.

[Scoops]

Thanks for all the replies, hopefully I can get a game in this week and post an update

[benjoewoo]

Run a re-activate list!