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M2E Ramos


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6 hours ago, azgadil said:

I am skeptical of Vox Populi. To do damage am I right that the Net result is spend a Masters AP and The Captains AP to displace and damage?  That seems inefficient and with no guarantees it’s going to potentially cost cards. 

One of the reasons I like Ramos’ other upgrade uoptions is that they don’t require a card. (Looking at under pressure or leviathan core).

Cards are tight when playing Ramos. Vox and AirBustvboth requires a 6. The feels high  

 

 

 

i havent played it yet, but i guess the best way of playing it is throwing the vox down to force people to move through and take damage or go around terrain.

 

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I've played it several times, and it's not just damage on its own.  It's slowing down enemy movement, it's making any offensive pushes you have even more effective, and it's causing damage without Df/Wp flips which gets around a lot of shenanigans.  Try it out!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I took the VoxPop core and, for unrelated scheme scoring shenanigans, a performer. It was less effective once the crews were locked in melee, but before then all those strike markers did a disproportionate amount of damage. (Who expects 3 + 4 damage out of a Malifaux Child’s action?) If I had been thinking a bit better in later turns, I would have laid them in front of Ramos in such a position that incoming melee attackers had to place upon them.

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Need some help to figure out how to get the most out of Ramos.

Yesterday I face Viks in Public Excecution.

Viks crew was; Viks, Vanessa, Malifaux child, 3 Ronins and Killjoy. The schemepool was; Show of Force, Eliminate the leadership, Dig their Graves, Undercover and Public Demo.

Ramos crew; Ramos, Joss, Howard, Slateridge mauler, Brass Arachnid and El creation. The slateridge was there cause I wanted to try something new.

Bad Things did happened, like flipping the black joker each round (ended at round 3). I got totally wrecked, Killjoy didn't even come into play (started buried).

I have played against Viks before, but with other masters so I know what they are they can do.

So my question is; how would you play Ramos in this strat and schemepool?

 

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From how this game went it sounds to me like public demo should be easy as hell against Viks with that particular opponent. Keep the minions unactivated turn one but bait Vik with a juicy high value target. Dig their graves is usually really easy for any crew. Claim 3vp for demo turn one. Turn two kill Henchvik for dig their graves and probably public executions. After that you run home, kill your own models that threaten to give strat points away, spread your crew out so no one remaining see each other and win 5 - 3 because they can't score the strat and likely took at least one scheme where they expected to actually do something involving your models. 

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If I was playing your list against that Viks list I would probably pick Show of force (assuming you have upgrades on Joss and Howard) and eliminate the leadership. 

I would walk the Electrical creation to a point of interest, and leave it there. (this might well be a point that just blocks the Viks route to me , or at least stops an easy charge into my deployment. I would try and reactivate Joss and Howard (By reactivating the Brass arachnid with rewire) assuming I had the hand to support it. Even if I could only safely do 2 reactivates, I would reactivate the brass arachnid and then hold off its second activation for a little and then hope I might manage a lucky flip.  A lot of the first turn is trying to hold back activation's. Ramos could activate quite early, magitise to the creation and then create 2 spiders from the scrap, again using them to block vik attack routes.  Ramos is unlikely to be killed on a Viks attack run because you are going to try and use his Df trigger to keep him safe.  The Bear would be used to block a different rout into my deployment, and I would try and position to minimise whirlwind capabilities. 

Hopefully the threat of 2 reactivating big threats will force the Viks to play cautiously on the first turn, helping you get into good positions for turn 2. And if the viks made a mistake try and get the reactivating Howard or Joss to kill a vik. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

From how this game went it sounds to me like public demo should be easy as hell against Viks with that particular opponent. Keep the minions unactivated turn one but bait Vik with a juicy high value target. Dig their graves is usually really easy for any crew. Claim 3vp for demo turn one. Turn two kill Henchvik for dig their graves and probably public executions. After that you run home, kill your own models that threaten to give strat points away, spread your crew out so no one remaining see each other and win 5 - 3 because they can't score the strat and likely took at least one scheme where they expected to actually do something involving your models. 

The original list can't do public demonstration, which I would agree is probably a good scheme to pick against the viks if you can get the out activation. But you would need to drop Howard or Joss. 

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Dropping one of them does sound pretty bad, I hadn't really concidered that. Your plan probably makes more sense. 

Bonus points to @HadjiMurat because I read the shorthand for the electrical creation as "el creación" which makes so much sense considering Ramos is a spanish/portugese name. I guess everyone just got that bit wrong in apparently english-centric Malifaux when he got there. Thanks for that, it has improved my day. ;)

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  • 1 month later...

Joss is a waste now that the Steamfitter exists. And Langston has been a waste since always.

Envy, a December's Acolyte, and Ramos himself deal plenty of damage. Unless Viks are doing the bury trick Ramos should have no problem blocking off any charge lanes with spiders. Seize the Day gives you good odds of winning initiative at which point you summon more spiders in b2b with Vik and burn her up.

But that's list building advice as much as anything.

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7 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Joss is a waste now that the Steamfitter exists. And Langston has been a waste since always.

I’m not sure how hiring Joss is a waste. He’s got a decent damage track, ignores most defensive abilities, and is pretty tanky.

The Steamfitter makes it so that Joss is no longer a required hire in Ramos crews but he’s a long way from useless.

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3 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Joss is too slow to project threat and way too expensive to justify his existence as a counter-charger. After the turn one marker generation he just sits around holding BeT. Plus now that you don't need to kill the Toolkit for scrap Ramos will be flipping positives 3/4/5 for damage.

Where's Ramos getting a 3/4/5 track from? 

Joss isn't charging into the opponent's deployment zone round 1 without some serious help but it's not like he's a Wk4 model. He gets to the center of the board reasonably quickly.  I'm not sure what you're doing with Joss that he's just standing around providing a healing aura after turn one. I typically either have him charging something round 2 or holding something like a  Symbol. 

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4 hours ago, WWHSD said:

Where's Ramos getting a 3/4/5 track from? 

Leviathan Power Core.

 

I've found myself taking Joss less and less with Ramos and more with Ironsides, but that's just because Ramos' crew tends to already be so tanky.  If you can protect Joss and heal him back up each time he reaches HtK, getting multiple Reactivates per game can make him a total monster.

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6 hours ago, MuMantai said:

I often have Joss as my main damage dealer in Ramos crews. With the help of the Captain, the Brass Arachnid and Imbued Energies he usually gets to where I need him.

So you're investing 15+ stones in support of a model that is already 10+ stones and caps at 4 damage per AP. 

Here's my fundamental issue; if you build a crew around a single model then it's getting neutered by a decent player - buried/paralyzed/bogged down/killed outright depending on tech. And then what do you do?

If I have multiple threats on the field then I'm forcing you to make choices and I can punish you no matter who you go for.

Not much gets through the pit of spiders with enough ap left to do appreciable work and Angelica by herself can free up my models to respond. So I'm spending about nine points total on support models and making up the difference with stuff that can threaten models and/or score points, and I can be aggressive with the spiders rather than trying to keep them alive to scheme.

Or that's my thought process anyway. If I wanted to alpha strike then there are other masters in faction that do it better (Marcus, Ironsides, etc.)

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4 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

So you're investing 15+ stones in support of a model that is already 10+ stones and caps at 4 damage per AP. 

Here's my fundamental issue; if you build a crew around a single model then it's getting neutered by a decent player - buried/paralyzed/bogged down/killed outright depending on tech. And then what do you do?

If I have multiple threats on the field then I'm forcing you to make choices and I can punish you no matter who you go for.

Not much gets through the pit of spiders with enough ap left to do appreciable work and Angelica by herself can free up my models to respond. So I'm spending about nine points total on support models and making up the difference with stuff that can threaten models and/or score points, and I can be aggressive with the spiders rather than trying to keep them alive to scheme.

Or that's my thought process anyway. If I wanted to alpha strike then there are other masters in faction that do it better (Marcus, Ironsides, etc.)

Here's the point: I don't build around a single model. My usual Ramos crew looks like this:

Ramos (Under Pressure, Combat Mechanic, Arcane Reservoir)

Brass Arachnid

Joss (Imbued Energies)

The Captain (Casting Expert WhatsItsName, Bleeding Edge Tech)

Union Steamfitter

Stuff

 

This is not a alpha list, it is a sturdy attrition list that plays mostly for board control.

The models do the following: Ramos is on summoning duty, and is played quite far forward, to support his crew. Joss is my main damage and gets reactivate almost every turn. If I absolutely, positively need something dead, Ramos and Joss as a chain activation will do that for me, for anything that is not a master. Captain is on repositioning duty, and a secondary damage dealer. Union Steamfitter makes scrap, at some point maybe giving the Captain some armor, and cycling cards. Spiders are annoying and outactivate my opponent, plus schemes.

Now, what happens if Joss dies? If he died to a first strike, I may have a problem, if not, he wounded or killed something to the point where he was worth his cost, even with support. The support is not useless when he dies, the Captain is still his usual awesomeness, pushing other models around or bashing heads in. The Brass Arachnid may be sad, but then he can reactivate other models, like spiders. Or attack something. Or be a walking scrap marker or magnitism target when I need it.

It is a quite successful list, even when it may seem a bit one-dimensional. I like it :)

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I agree that Joss is no longer a 100% autotake like he used to be. I also have been taking him less, because, you are right, a 10 stone henchman with a severe damage of 4 really sucks. But I think he does still have legs in the right situation. If you need to sit and hold your backline, or sit in the middle for something like show of force, he is difficult to remove in most cases. And there are definitely games that I miss him when I don't take him. While capping out at 4 damage, apparently Ramos and Levi teamed up building his arc axe, because it ignores damn near everything short of soulstones. Shutting down the right defensive triggers can be huge in the right matchup. Unfortunately you often don't know you need that until it is too late

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1 hour ago, cbtb11235813 said:

I agree that Joss is no longer a 100% autotake like he used to be. I also have been taking him less, because, you are right, a 10 stone henchman with a severe damage of 4 really sucks. But I think he does still have legs in the right situation. If you need to sit and hold your backline, or sit in the middle for something like show of force, he is difficult to remove in most cases. And there are definitely games that I miss him when I don't take him. While capping out at 4 damage, apparently Ramos and Levi teamed up building his arc axe, because it ignores damn near everything short of soulstones. Shutting down the right defensive triggers can be huge in the right matchup. Unfortunately you often don't know you need that until it is too late

It might be the people that I typically play against but it's rare to not be dealing with some sort of annoying trigger or to need to deal with models with Hard To Kill.

The thing that I like about Joss is that he doesn't really need cards to do his thing. He's usually on :+flip flips to attack unless I get him too far out from Ramos and because of his relatively flat damage track I rarely worry about doing more than tying Defense flips. He's sturdy enough that I usually only cheat Defense flips against non-damaging effects. The 3/4/4 damage track isn't usually an issue because it's got a high minimum damage and ignores so many defensive abilities.

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I find myself (and others) playing Joss in Ramos who benefit from the extra scrap.  That’s what tips the scales for me every time. 

I didn’t see this posted yet but it’s too critical to over look.  

The biggest boon If Joss gets one target that is up field then Ramos can usually cast spiders that are already engaged.   And that is awesome for control. 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, azgadil said:

I find myself (and others) playing Joss in Ramos who benefit from the extra scrap.  That’s what tips the scales for me every time. 

I didn’t see this posted yet but it’s too critical to over look.  

The biggest boon If Joss gets one target that is up field then Ramos can usually cast spiders that are already engaged.   And that is awesome for control. 

 

 

 

i prefer playing Large arachnid over joss because lower SS and also being a tank. 

 

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Scrap generation isn't really an issue now that the Steamfitter exists. They talk about it in a recent Schemes and Stones but it's just, turn one win initiative with Seize the Day and activate the Steamfitter, cycle in the card you won initiative with, dump two cards for your first scrap, weld metal plates to people, etc.

My Ramos crew is 90% fixed ;

Ramos - 7ss
 Seize the Day
 Arcane Reservoir
 Leviathan Power Core
Envy
Angelica
 Practiced Production
December Acolyte
Union Steamfitter
Soulstone Miner
Mobile Toolkit

The last 5ss is either a Performer or the Arcane Effigy and Imbued Energies on Envy depending on Strats/Schemes/declared faction. The Firestarter with or without Bleeding Edge Tech can sometimes fit into one of the enforcer slots with a little bit of juggling.

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18 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Scrap generation isn't really an issue now that the Steamfitter exists. They talk about it in a recent Schemes and Stones but it's just, turn one win initiative with Seize the Day and activate the Steamfitter, cycle in the card you won initiative with, dump two cards for your first scrap, weld metal plates to people, etc.

My Ramos crew is 90% fixed ;

Ramos - 7ss
 Seize the Day
 Arcane Reservoir
 Leviathan Power Core
Envy
Angelica
 Practiced Production
December Acolyte
Union Steamfitter
Soulstone Miner
Mobile Toolkit

The last 5ss is either a Performer or the Arcane Effigy and Imbued Energies on Envy depending on Strats/Schemes/declared faction. The Firestarter with or without Bleeding Edge Tech can sometimes fit into one of the enforcer slots with a little bit of juggling.

Without any Henchmen, how are you powering up Leviathan Power Core? Does Ramos tend to spend stones for :+flipflips or do you rely on your opponent to spend stones?

The long out of stock Envy has a very appropriate name BTW. 

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