Second Master to compliment Colette

[DayWalker]

I have just got into the Arcanists after transferring from Gremlins. I bought the Colette set as I absolutely love the models and the fact they play well in theme.

I am now looking for a second master to compliment Colette, ideally one that would play well into Ressers or Neverborn.

I am torn between Rasputina and Ramos as they either have immunity to horror duels or won't drop a lot of corpse markers. Any suggestions?

[CougDyver]

I do really enjoy Rasputina for frozen heart when horror is involved, but I've always found Ramos to be a better all around choice, plus Joss and Howard in his box are pretty solid models in most arcanist crews.  Rasputina plays quite well "in theme" with frozen heart, and for ramos "in theme" applies to basically any construct, so he does well in theme.  

 

Short answer.  Both.  I think if you just want to buy a box, and have models that fit nicely in a colette crew as well, Ramos is the better choice.  But if you're willing to buy accessory models as well (December acolyte, snow storm, silent one, etc...) then Raspy is just as good of a choice.

[spooky_squirrel]

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.

[Mxbedlam]

I'm a big fan of Ramos as a compliment to Colette. He offers attrition, which is rare in Arcanists and has powerful buffs. There are several strats that Colette has to work hard for that Ramos does with ease.

Raspy is a good option as well, though I tend to basically play a Raspy crew with Colette as the master anyway, so I've stayed away from her.

Marcus is a pretty solid compliment to Colette too. he is adaptable, very fast and provides some stamina that Colette lacks.

[BFOmega]

Gonna have to disagree with Mei. You can't play Kang outside her crew in Arcanists, and Rail Workers are decent with Colette, but not great, so she doesn't add that much to Colette, and Colette doesn't add that much to Mei either (other than Cassandra, who is kinda a good addition to anyone). She would be a good grab after you've gotten Ramos though.

Also, Raspy's box itself doesn't play that great with Colette either, it's more the Silent One's and December Acolytes that go with the crew. That said, if you're getting and filling out the Raspy crew, it would be fine.

Ramos is probably the best though. Joss and Howard are super good with Colette straight out of the box, and both are pretty good into Ressers, with Howards high min damage mitigating Hard to Wound, and Joss just ignoring it. Plus, they can drop scrap instead of corpse, limiting their summoning resources in some cases.

[spooky_squirrel]

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.

[daniello_s]

IMO Ramos would be the best option here. He will allow you to play Interference/Reconnoiter rather easily and Colette would benefit from Joss and Howard greatly.

Also it fits the fluff nicely  

 

[Mxbedlam]

Myranda is another fun option for Colette too, so the Marcus box can come in handy.  Also, I'm digging mages with Colette thanks to their new super cheap upgrade. So Ironsides could work too. PS> Captain is awesome too

 

That being said, if I am stuck bringing ONLY 2 masters to an event it will be Colette and Ramos just about every time

[LunarSol]

 

Also, Raspy's box itself doesn't play that great with Colette either, it's more the Silent One's and December Acolytes that go with the crew. That said, if you're getting and filling out the Raspy crew, it would be fine.

Definitely agree with this.  Adding Acolytes and Silent One's to your Colette options will really help with one of your problems while Ramos is a good all around solution to the other.

In general, I think Ramos/Colette can handle anything, but Raspy, Marcus, and probably now Sandeep are excellent tools that can do just as well if you want to learn to wield them.

[DayWalker]

 

Also it fits the fluff nicely  

 

Sold, I like to have fluffy lists.

I am looking at 100 pt, 2 Master limit trying to get two fluffy lists with some crossover so that I can maximise the number of useful models available to both lists.

Edited August 26, 2016 by DayWalker

[Tiaburn Stedd]

Sometime ago, I was asking myself same question as you. I decided that I need a solid master, that has models in his box, which can complement Colette and expand my crew up to 50 ss. So I took Ironsides. Captain is quite solid tarpit and mages give me some ranged fire. After some time, I understand that it would be nice to extend with some M&SU models, so I brought Rail Golem, Johan and Willie into the pool. Cannot wait to try them out.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Tiaburn Stedd
Grammar

[LunarSol]

One of the goofy things when it comes to Arcanist expansion is just that you can pretty much throw a dart at their crew sets and be nearly guaranteed to hit one with an amazing henchman.  Even Raspy has a fantastic henchman... just not in her box...

[goth]

Can't believe nobody said Collodi.  Oiran (great with Collette, too) gives out a condition to a model where they can't target Showgirls with attack actions until end of turn.  As an added benefit, Arcane Effigy is great for Collodi.  You said you might want to dip into Neverborn - well here's your chance to start acquiring some of the quintessential units like Nekima, Doppleganger, Waldgeist, Primordial Magic, etc

Collodi

  +Fated

  +Breathe Life

4x Marionette

Coryphee

Coryphee

Mannequin

Performer

Oiran

Stitched Together

[CougDyver]

 

Can't believe nobody said Collodi.  Oiran (great with Collette, too) gives out a condition to a model where they can't target Showgirls with attack actions until end of turn.  As an added benefit, Arcane Effigy is great for Collodi.  You said you might want to dip into Neverborn - well here's your chance to start acquiring some of the quintessential units like Nekima, Doppleganger, Waldgeist, Primordial Magic, etc

Collodi

  +Fated

  +Breathe Life

4x Marionette

Coryphee

Coryphee

Mannequin

Performer

Oiran

Stitched Together

I understood it as the OP was looking for models that would play well against Neverborn and Ressers, and was looking for an arcanist master to do so, hence the decision between Ramos and Raspy.  Plus, I think Collodi is more of a one way street rather than a complement, he doesn't lend anything to colette, just gets to take some of her toys.

[Solidhavok]

KAERIS!  I think she's the only one not mentioned yet.  Of course, her box set is only of questionable utility (although Firestarter is an amazing cheap henchman).  Kaeris doesn't line up the best for working with Colette now, but there's that new Firedancer Carlos coming......

But if I'm not shilling for my favorite, I'd say you can't go wrong owning Ramos when you play Arcanist.

 

[RustAndTheCity]

I've been playing with only Ramos and Colette for a few months. Ramos excels at hold ground strategies (where Colette struggles). Their crew boxes work well together. I always take Cassandra with Ramos as she adds some needed speed and scheme running.

[DayWalker]

Cheers for the feedback, I'm going to go with the Ramos crew as Joss and Hank bring some hard hitting power which I feel I was missing I n the Colette crew (Coryphee are great at dealing damage but not quite so good at receiving it). Going to get the box and then a box of little arachnids to supplement him for all of the summoning I think he will be doing.

I'll probably expand from there into Ironsides as I hear she is a difficult master to get to grips with.

[BFOmega]

 

 Going to get the box and then a box of little arachnids to supplement him for all of the summoning I think he will be doing.

Definitely go for the box of 6 spiders instead of 3, unless you're going to magnetize them. That'll give you 9 singles and one swarm rather than 6 and 1. I've definitely had 6-9 spiders on the board a few times, so it's not that uncommon.

An electric creation or mobile toolkit for Joss to kill at the start to make scrap isn't a bad idea either.

[DayWalker]

 

Definitely go for the box of 6 spiders instead of 3, unless you're going to magnetize them. That'll give you 9 singles and one swarm rather than 6 and 1. I've definitely had 6-9 spiders on the board a few times, so it's not that uncommon.

An electric creation or mobile toolkit for Joss to kill at the start to make scrap isn't a bad idea either.

I assume then that I will only really need one swarm then and to make the rest up as individuals.  I take it you don't often get the chance to summon two swarms in a game?

[JoeJones]

I rarely if ever use swarms. Having sheer numbers of steam arachnids generally offers more utility than turning 3 activations into one.

i strongly recommend both the mobile toolkit and the electric creation. Learning to use those has upped my Ramos game considerably. My most recent tech has been to use a summoned electric creation for early scrap and using the mobile toolkit to buff Howard Langston.

My other suggestion for Ramos is to find the old metal sculpt of the Brass Arachnid. I never played that totem for my first year of Malifaux because I strongly disliked the oversized thing. Once I got the metal model and actually started using the totem, I really liked what it did for my game.

[spooky_squirrel]

 

KAERIS!  I think she's the only one not mentioned yet.  Of course, her box set is only of questionable utility (although Firestarter is an amazing cheap henchman).  Kaeris doesn't line up the best for working with Colette now, but there's that new Firedancer Carlos coming......

But if I'm not shilling for my favorite, I'd say you can't go wrong owning Ramos when you play Arcanist.

 

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.

[LunarSol]

Individual spiders work better as a swarm than Swarms do, unfortunately.

Brass Arachnid is amazing once you realize he can reactivate himself.