Ramos + powered by flame swarm crew?

[BFOmega]

Has anyone tried something like this?

Not sure exactly what it would look like, probably Ramos with Powered by Flame and Under Pressure, maybe either Joss with bleeding edge or Mech rider, 2 or 3 rail workers, and some spiders/gamin.

Mainly thinking of this for a non-blasty matchup, with something like turf war or the new equivalent, where you can stay as mostly a death ball (maybe throw on arcing screen, though that's a lot of SS of upgrades).

Thoughts?

 

[Griffin839]

I use it in my buff bot Ramos build. Powered by flames, under pressure, bleeding edge tech and field generator. I'll usually put the bleeding edge tech on joss, and the rest on Ramos. Now my bots have positives to attack, positives to defense, regeneration 1, and burning 1. Makes a spider swarm much more annoying, however I'm usually running elite with a build like this. Rail golem, ice golem, Langston, etc. big mean hard to kill beaters that become unstoppable Titans under all the buffs. The powered by flames really works here as often the min damage is just shy of killing but the burning will finish the job.

 

Then after they dump all their resources into trading with your Titans, you start making spider swarms. Really annoying..

[BFOmega]

Alright, so more just running a standard Ramos crew and having the burning there for the later game?

I usually run Johan, but maybe I'll try subbing in a rail worker and powered by flame for him. I feel like the Shovel Faster would be worth having around.

[Fog]

Toss in the arcane effigy and you have an extra level of hilarity.  CA 7 Ramos firing into melee against potentially lowered defenses dealing 2/3/4, ignoring armor and +2 Burning.  

Nobody expects Ramos to put out that level of hurt.

[BFOmega]

Now that's something I hadn't thought of...

Throw in Lazarus and make your crew a legit ranged threat? Could be interesting...

You could do the elitest of crews:

Ramos, Powered by flame and Under Pressure

Joss

Howard, Imbued energies

Lazarus, Imbued energies

Brass Arachnid and Arcane Effigy

Then 3SS to bring your pool up to 6 or add an upgrade to joss or ramos, maybe combat mechanic or electric summoning

 

Probably too elite, but could be entertaining.

Maybe take out howard, put in a gunsmith and a spider/electric creation so you can get some scrap going early.

[admiralvorkraft]

I would add a toolkit instead of the Arachnid, take a full cache and see how it goes. I've never been impressed by the Arachnid's reactivation shenanigans, and I won't run Ramos without guarantying myself two scrap on turn one.

Ramos is one of only a handful of masters that I would be comfortable running with three 10+ ss models, and only because I can likely get two arachnids on the first turn to bring me up to a "normal" number of activations.

[Bengt]

2 hours ago, BFOmega said:

make your crew a legit ranged threat

With range 8" on Electrical Fire and Powered by Flame Ramos isn't going to be all that "ranged". More like standing just behind the front line and shooting into engagements (since he doesn't randomize).

[BFOmega]

7 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

I would add a toolkit instead of the Arachnid, take a full cache and see how it goes. I've never been impressed by the Arachnid's reactivation shenanigans, and I won't run Ramos without guarantying myself two scrap on turn one.

Ramos is one of only a handful of masters that I would be comfortable running with three 10+ ss models, and only because I can likely get two arachnids on the first turn to bring me up to a "normal" number of activations.

Didn't grab toolkit in the pre-release, so don't really have that option. And I've gotten a ton of mileage out of brass reactivating Howard. Getting it off just once is usually enough to make him worth the four stones imo. Been able to use him with reactive plus imbued energies to tear apart my opponents flank a few times.  Also, a Reactivated Lazarus against anything the groups up is just dirty.

Might not be perfectly reliable, but worth it imo, especially since Ramos give out +attack flips to help with accuracy.

[admiralvorkraft]

I can see it, I just seem to need my high cards to get my attacks off even with the positive flips :-P

And the toolkit is easy enough to kit bash. I started with the mechanical attendant, but you could probably build up an arachnid without much fuss.

[Fog]

I can respect the choice to not bring the arachnid.  It doesn't work for everyone.

That said, if my opening hand allows for it and the strats and schemes are good, sometimes I'll put reactivate on Langston and Joss first turn.  If I had the nut draw and I was able to summon three spiders, even better.  Doesn't happen often, but it'll go like this:

1. Scrap walks forward
2. Joss converts model to scrap.
3. Ramos puts up buffs, summons 3 spiders.
4. Spider 1
5. Spider 2
6. Spider 3
7. Brass arachnid gives self reactivate
8. Brass arachnid gives Langston & Joss reactivate.
9. Joss punishes anyone playing too far forward, maybe using IE
10. Langston walks upwards of 20 inches.
11. Langston walks, charges or walks, flurries.  Something dies.

It's not guaranteed, but I find it to be pretty similar in effectiveness to the Killjoy bomb against most crews, even if you only summoned one or two spiders.  Langston is even more likely to survive retaliation than Killjoy if your opponent wins initiative.  You might not have the Viks or Leveticus bringing up the rear for a second wave, but Outcasts don't have an endless stream of spiders.  

I've lost using this tactic exactly twice--both times against Gremlins, against the same player, who had the red joker to cheat in to kill Langston first turn, then a second red joker to deal with Joss and spiders via blasts.  It may not outactivate as hard as Ratjoy but it's similarly obnoxious.  

[admiralvorkraft]

I play for turn five, which is probably why the reactivate doesn't pay out for me. 

I just find alpha striking to be A - a gamble, and B - not much fun. Personal preferences though. 

In all fairness having an alpha strike in your pocket is almost a must against certain crews. But I'd rather go the Angelica+Howard+IE route. Yes, you get less total distance but it's still an 18 inch threat range which is plenty on most boards, especially if you deploy second. Plus it's more reliable and puts less pressure on your hand.

But again, play to taste.

[Fog]

I definitely agree that if something goes wrong with the alpha it can put you in a difficult position.  A lot of the time I don't use it, simply letting the threat of it curtail my opponent's game play.  I love hearing "Langston threats how far?  AND you can reactivate him?  *muttered curse words, shaking head*"

On top of that, having a backfield construct to pull to has gotten me out of a few tough spots.  I'd never say that not running the totem is *wrong* but I hear people disparage it like it's completely worthless all the time, and I strongly disagree.

[BFOmega]

I often don't even really use him as an Alpha strike, usually I pull off the shenanigans on turn 2, where he's not quite as overextended (except for one close deployment game. That was brutal...).

I've definitely not run Brass a couple times, but I always felt stronger with him around. Though I don't have any other totems though, so I'm comparing between brass and nothing (or more likely another spider)

[Fog]

If you're going for maximum individual kill power, I'd recommend the essence of power to kick Ramos up to cast 8.

[admiralvorkraft]

I definitely don't think the Arachnid is worth it. When I pull the hand to support it (the summon card plus at least two other 10+ cards) it does get work done. I just really hate dropping high cards on "support" type actions.

[trikk]

I think if you have high damage models like Howard, Nekima etc. you`re sometimes really urged to get them into combat and sometimes you ignore the pressure and board control that they bring and I think sometimes unleashing Howard might actually backfire as with him out of the way you become way more vulnerable.

 

[Fog]

Langston is definitely a scalpel, not a sledge.  If you don't have the right target, don't commit.  Very little in the game should be able to alpha him, and if you're not abusing his mobility then you're losing out.

[MR TORGUE]

On 14/04/2016 at 4:56 AM, Fog said:

Toss in the arcane effigy and you have an extra level of hilarity.  CA 7 Ramos firing into melee against potentially lowered defenses dealing 2/3/4, ignoring armor and +2 Burning.  

Nobody expects Ramos to put out that level of hurt.

clockwork fisted lady Justice once... she wasn't expecting 7 damage...or a fisting... 

Ramos can rain down the pain on a good day

[Fog]

When I find myself thoroughly in control of the late game I'll go out of my way to melee with Ramos. It's comedy gold.