Raspy- tips and tricks?

[Kaeris_Main]

Hi!

I'm mostly a Kaeris player (maybe obvious), and Ramos before he was DMH. I picked up M2E Raspy since I liked that box better than the new one.

I struggled in my first game with her (3 to 5, 35 SS- Raspy, Wendigo, Ice Golem, 1 Dec Acolyte, 1 Silent One, 2 Ice Gamin) vs Basse. With his huge deployment forward in corner deployment, I really felt hemmed in. Aside from Dec and Wendy, I basically didn't leave my corner lol. The scheme pool was almost entirely non-killy and strat was Plant.

I think I'm struggling because I'm used to fast and/or flexible, and I like tricking my opponent. Raspy doesn't seem to offer much of that. I'm hoping I can adjust rather than give up and go to Colette or Mei Feng since I loved casting through the ice pillars and I ADORE the models. I'll be picking up Snowstorm soon because I like the M2E model, and later Ice Dancers for the scheming since I felt so terrible at doing it

So- advice? I'm looking for help with how to position (kept accidentally blocking Golem's path with pillars through narrow corridors, sorry my guy), best ways to apply slow to get the most out of the Golem's potential min 5, and getting the most out of her crew. I also found Raspy herself kind of lackluster but hoping that was just my inexperience with how to play her.

[CD1248]

More than any other crew I've played or seen, Rasputina can suffer from random failure-to-launch, because she and her crew are extremely resource-hungry and have very little way to recoup those resources. When it works it's because you drained more of your opponent's resources than you spent, but sometimes that can just fail to happen because you bricked a few simple duels and he topdecked a few more moderates than expected.

Raspy, conservatively, will lay claim to 3-4 cards from your hand plus 1-2 Soulstones during her activation. Her actions all rely on triggers to be good, none of which are built in, and require you to pitch a card to use them through pillars, which you want to do because she's slow and squishy. So you're allocating probably 6 stones a game, plus over half your hand each turn, to her personally.

Now the rest of the crew gets to fight over the remains, and they all want a piece because the crew either has spikey damage tracks, need suits or moderate TNs for their abilities or good triggers, or you took a Golem and he wants to Flurry. The crew can generate a SS every once in a while, but lacks card draw mechanics entirely, and their base stats and front of card abilities are good-but-not-great.

So how do we mitigate this? I have some ideas, but I'm not sure yet which are fully worth it or in what combination.

-Soulstone Miner. This guy is even more auto-take with Raspy than usual, because he requires very little resource input and gives you back those precious SS that she eats like candy.

-Mech Rider. Another one I'm reasonably sure about. It helps Raspy move, and in later turns can refill your hand with it's attack trigger if needed.

-Essence of Power. Expensive for his stats taken OOK, but he improves Raspy's efficiency greatly.

-Cassandra. She can copy Raspy's Ice Pillar action, making her a good early game pillar dropper, then she turns into a low maintenence schemer/counter schemer later in the game.

-Double Silent One. More pillars, more heals, low resource investment since they don't have great triggers and just need easy simple duels. 

-Arcane Emissary. His anti-cheat aura doubles down on Raspy's gameplan of taxing the opponent's resources.

[ShinChan]

I'm considering start a Rasputina crew, but I feel like most of the crew really requires corpse markers in order to be stay in the game or generate more ice pillars. Since the crew doesn't have any alternatives to generate them (unless killing beast, living or undead) I think that the mechanical rider is a must in every list, while also improving the general mobility of the crew. 

Any ideas or suggestions of a standard 50ss crew, that will be adaptable depending on the enemy and schemes/strategy?

[Ogid]

The Grim Feast is more a thematic thing that something than the crew really need to work. I don't think having the rider near all the game to generate corpses is a good idea most of the time.

Rasputina is very keyword independent imo. Raspy, totem and 1 or 2 Silent ones and you are all set; add other december, OOK or Versatiles as you need.

[TeaCrusader]

So my housemate is learning Raspy herself and we had a pretty savage game last night so what I'm going to say here is based on my knowledge from playing against her.

Ice Pillars are key. Remember that they aren't just 30mm blockers, they are 30mm+1" Slow fields. As an opponent, Ice Pillars lock off huge parts of the board for me, or at least make them undesirable. I was having turns where half my units were one 1 AP.

The Ice Golems Blizzard is terrifying if you can use an ice pillar for it. 50mm + 4" Aura of 2 damage Hazardous to non-December. That is a Massive part of the board and if he's already engaging something they can't just leave. Put him in a key position and hold that point.

Blessed of December is a great model, bit expensive for a scheme runner, but it's nasty enough that in my match at least i would have to pull significant models i wanted elsewhere (Like my Master) to be confident of not just feeding it.

Positioning on the Golem is really key. The thing is very slow so it getting held up for a turn can be the difference between me getting to a place on the board early, or never getting there at all.

I wouldn't think plant explosives was a particularly good strategy for Raspy, while she holds dominion over huge swathes of the board she doesn't advance out of those areas easily. So that might have factored in.

Definitely recommend two Silent ones. More Ice Pillars is horrible.

 

Hopefully after a few more games you'll find you really do gel with how she works!

[DuBlanck]

I'm surprised y'all value the extra Silent One so much - after the first turn six-Pillar set up, what are they spending AP on? The attack is lacklustre, and I've rarely had need of the heal.

I can see maybe swapping one in in place of an Ice Dancer when her services are not required.

Perhaps I'm just not meeting terrain destruction as much as you - if they are getting aggressively removed all game, saving Tina's AP can be worthwhile I guess.

[Ogid]

All their abilities may be used through pilars; that's up to 17.2'' ranged attack or healing range; which goes very well with the Artillery style of Raspy.

The base damage isn't that great unless they already have slow, but they have a built in mutilate trigger (slowing enemies half table away is very useful, even having to pay 1 card for it) and they may always use focused to easily reach moderate/severe for the blast or 4(5 with slow) damage. Plus they are attuned and can generate SS killing things near of a pilar. I find them very good for their cost.

This for example is a pricy core but Raspy, the 2 Silents and the Essence of Power will give a stat 7 Raspy and stat 6 Silents with the Empower aura. Some card draw to pay for triggers will come in handy but that's a lot of long range threat covering most of the board.

[TeaCrusader]

Also having the ability to put more Ice Pillars on the board means you can more readily use them for the abilities that consume them. I don't know about you but I'm always wary of consuming my markers under the concern that i might want it there in a minute (Mostly a psychological issue I think but it's good to be able to use those abilities without messing up your board control).

Also dropping an ice pillar in the midst of a bunch of unactivated enemies is horrible. And both Raspy and Silent ones can cast Ice Pillars through Ice Pillars.

[hemgath]

Last two time i play raspy it was has a second boss with Sandeep...
Win my 2 games, Idols VS Tarra and Reckoning VS molly. The reckoning was in wedge and i put my gunline near the edge... really surprises may adversary...

My list (3SS):
Sandeep
Banasuva
Essence of power
Kandara
1x ice gamin
1x S. Miner

OOK
Raspy
1x Silend one + Mag. Train.

Concept:
Pillar at turn 1 (2 from SIlent and some times 2 from raspy for cover the map with 3 of them and 1 near raspy)
Use banasuva mantra for put more of them (1 from gamin 1 from banasuva)
Use Kandara for card draw with mantra (take car to sumon new elemental at 6' from Kandi)
Sandeep (via guru) + raspi + Silent has gunline (with the EOP)

Protect this gunline with a transformed ice golem... if needed.

FInaly with the miner i have just the SS i need... for some + onslaught when really need them

 

[Ogid]

2 hours ago, hemgath said:

My list (3SS):
Sandeep
Banasuva
Essence of power
Kandara
1x ice gamin
1x S. Miner

OOK
Raspy
1x Silend one + Mag. Train.

Pretty much this. As long as Rasputina has some help with the Ice Pilars, she doesn't really care that much how the rest of the list look like.

Sandeep has to be quite good as a main master for her in a double master set up. He has good card draw with Kandara, can generate a lot of Pilars, has the Essence of power in keyword and summons to keep other models away from her or to scheme (wind gamin). Plus the Banasuva is an amazing totem that may also toss her forward or into a safe place if needed.

[zavros]

Here's a general question. For Ice mirror, am I able to wait and see my flip before discarding to declare triggers, or do I have to discard when I declare the action?

So far from my games with raspy, Her abilities are fairly strong and the shockwave is actually pretty good with the range you get out of ice mirror. She is very good at sapping away ap from your opponent and making them do very awkward things with their activations.

I think you always want at least 1 silent one to help setup pillars for raspy and other models. Everything they do is useful and having a pocket heal can be clutch for the amount of armored models I bring.

Blessed is reasonable at doing objectives and hunting schemers but I've found steam arachnid swarms to be better in general at doing the same things but being tankier and less dependent on trying to focus hit things.

Ice golem is a great tanky model to block for raspy and threaten areas of the board with his aura. I don't think there's anything bad about the model other than how slow it moves.

Her other in keyword models are fine but unfortunately in arcanists you have really good versatiles that just do so much more for their cost. It feels like you really want to take 2 soulstone miners every game because she is so stone hungry and they have the mobility to do most objectives. 

Magical training is a must use upgrade, I usually put it on a miner or steam arachnid swarm.

 

[Ogid]

38 minutes ago, zavros said:

Here's a general question. For Ice mirror, am I able to wait and see my flip before discarding to declare triggers, or do I have to discard when I declare the action?

After you see the triggers, consider it as an extra cost for the trigger. I asked that a while ago: 

 

[ShinChan]

On 11/24/2019 at 5:38 PM, Ogid said:

The Grim Feast is more a thematic thing that something than the crew really need to work. I don't think having the rider near all the game to generate corpses is a good idea most of the time.

Rasputina is very keyword independent imo. Raspy, totem and 1 or 2 Silent ones and you are all set; add other december, OOK or Versatiles as you need.

Well the crew, and specially Rasputina can make use of those free  and the Ride with me is going to be helpful to save some AP to the slowest models of the crew.

Thanks you all for the advises, I won't plan to play her as a second master (or dual master at all), so here is what I think I'll buy (and use) for my first games:

• Rasputina
• Wendigo
• Snow Storm
• Ice Golem
• Mechanical Rider
• Silent One
• Soulstone Miner
  • Magical training
• 6ss

What do you guys think? Maybe too few activations?

 

[Ogid]

For suits with the Rider for Raspy I'd go with masks. That would give her an Onslaught/Swift Action, Silents Swift Action triggers and Blessed an Onslaught/Pouncing one. But I'm not that sold with bubbling her that hard; if you try something like that, let us know how it goes! I could consider tomes but for that I'd include at least one Mannequin (focused+2 for her).

About the list... elite with only 7 models; but it may work in the right pool. Also starting with few models make easier to wrap your head around her playstile, seems ok. I'd change either the golem or Snow for a second Silent with the Essence, but that's playstile preference.

[ShinChan]

On 11/24/2019 at 5:38 PM, Ogid said:

The Grim Feast is more a thematic thing that something than the crew really need to work. I don't think having the rider near all the game to generate corpses is a good idea most of the time.

Rasputina is very keyword independent imo. Raspy, totem and 1 or 2 Silent ones and you are all set; add other december, OOK or Versatiles as you need.

I was missing Snow Storm there, so 7 models  I've already edited the post. 

I was thinking about  Since almost everyone can use them to deliver Slow and the Silent One to have the pulse in the trigger The rider also provides some situational card draw with her attack.

Sadly I have to wait until the release of the new box to test her, for niw is just theorycrafting to prepare the buying list. 

[Ogid]

14 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

I was thinking about  Since almost everyone can use them to deliver Slow and the Silent One to have the pulse in the trigger The rider also provides some situational card draw with her attack.

Try it out! I think the mask would work better because they can inflict slow easily enough with the Silents and Raspy (shockwave) at long distance (plus it'd be better use a SS to get the slow in one attack versus clumped models and then 2 Onslaught with Raspy); the ones with chill triggers are usually mele ones that won't be able to attack different models or stay that easily in range of the pulse; but that's me, maybe for your playstile it'd work. Maybe with a few gamins to trigger frostbite or with a Mannequin for the focused...

BTW, take in count is a pulse; the rider doesn't get the suit.

[SunTsu]

On 11/24/2019 at 10:38 AM, Ogid said:

Rasputina is very keyword independent imo. Raspy, totem and 1 or 2 Silent ones and you are all set; add other december, OOK or Versatiles as you need.

After playing her twice, I feel the same. I hope this is wrong, because if not it means that Rasputina is a very poorly designed master at the moment.

I cannot say I am a super expert of m3e Rasputina at all, but my feeling at the moment is that she is absolutely underpowered, cause several anti-sinergies built in the crew itself and its mechanics, combined with the fact she can be so easily countered by almost all factions, so picking Rasputina is a very black swan instead to be simply situational...

I hope I will be able to review my idea playing her, but at the moment I am really disappointed about her.

[Ogid]

I wouldn't go that far... she needs some support from her keyword and support her own models quite well, however she may branch out if needed; that's good design imo. Right now the Archanist versatile pool is very strong, so it's logical that lists with just enough keyword models to make the master work and then versatile powerhouses are popular (and she is also quite SS hungry so the miners fit her quite well). I guess that will get adjusted over time.

Neither have I that much experience with her, so I'm not sure how good she really is (I'm not the archanist player in my meta). She is predictable: cover, pilar removal and condition removal will be picked versus her; but slow and staggered are very powerful conditions, she may threat almost the entire table from turn 1 and destroy clumped models, plus Ice Shield make her tricky to dive and she has good models in her keyword... She seems fine.

Maybe the only problem I see is she doesn't shine that much as a leader. Kaeris "leader only" ability is much better and Mei Feng may pick models from other 2 factions. For example, Sandeep feeds her the cards she needs to pay for the triggers and ice pilars very easily; and losing the Wendigo and Harsh Winter isn't that bad (taking in count she also get the Banasuva and summons in return)... so maybe a more powerful or an extra "leader only" ability/action or some buffs to the Wendigo could suit her if she needed a little buff. But that's more a general impresion; as I said I'm not that into Archanists.

[touchdown]

Has anyone tried Kandara for card draw? Add an Essence of Power and a couple Ice Gamin or Golem and you could get quite a few cards.

[AskM3L8r]

This wasn't my best idea but I  won against Euripides. I usually start with Snowstorm,  Blessed of December and Silent one.  There weren't many ice pillars because each crew used them for something. I used the Dancer to move his pillars on him into choking up the terrain.  This was my 3 game as a Raspy in M3. The Euripides play ran her on me in prior games.   SS Miner was a bit double edged.  I don't regret bring it for it's versatility . I'd prefer the stones in place of the miner but the miner helped claim and deny scheming points.

(Pictures from the fight are on my profile)

Raspy  (Arcanists)

Size: 50 - Pool: 1

Leader:  Rasputina (Vintage)

Totem(s):  Wendigo

Hires: Snowstorm,  Blessed of December, Silent One (Magical Training), Ice Golem, Soulstone Miner (Soulstone Cache), Ice Dancer

 

Euripides Crew (Neverborn)

Size: 50 - Pool: 5

Leader: Euripides

Totem(s):  Primordial Magic

Hires:  Thoon ,2 Cyclops , 2 Geryon, Gigant

[Ogid]

Raspy vs Euripides has to be a fun chicken game, both needing and being screwed by Ice Pilars XD. Could you give us a quick overview of the game? Also, why SS chache in the miner?

[AskM3L8r]

43 minutes ago, Ogid said:

Raspy vs Euripides has to be a fun chicken game, both needing and being screwed by Ice Pilars XD. Could you give us a quick overview of the game? Also, why SS chache in the miner?

SS Cache wasn't well thought out. I thought it would be of use.  Even the miner was a last minute change. 

 

Standard Deployment - Plant Explosive 

Schemes: Power Ritual,  Claim Jump,  Assassinate, hold up their forces, Take Prisoner 

Raspy - Power Ritual and Hold Up - I scored 1 point on each scheme and got credit for 1 planted explosive. Got the hold up at the end of turn 2 Ice Golem on Euripides and SS Miner on a Troll. Got the Plant and power ritual with Blessed of December . 

Euripides - Assassinate and Claim Jump - Thoon buried Rasputina and turned her into an ice pillar (I loved the irony) for the second point but never got the first point.  Claim Jump was denied from the troll that SS Miner had engaged.

Storm and Ice Golem were sitting on the center line making it difficult to move pass for Euripides and company. They beat Ice Golem to hell and survived because of the Silent One healing twice. Turn three won initiative on a Red joker and consumed Euripides Pillars to heal Ice Golem the rest of the way. 

Ice dancer was moving pillars around on him. Before she got killed she planted an explosive but it was picked up soon after

We had to call time half way through  turn 3 - In the end the only fatalities were Ice Dancer and Rasputina.   

Rasputina was buried with 2 explosives- i had read she could deliver the message through ice pillars so figured why not try explosives. 

I have more pictures on my profile here are a couple.  

[SunTsu]

On 2/13/2020 at 5:24 PM, touchdown said:

Has anyone tried Kandara for card draw? Add an Essence of Power and a couple Ice Gamin or Golem and you could get quite a few cards.

I did. It was pitiful. 😅

My crew was: Rasputina, Wendigo, Snowstorm, Kandara, Ice Golem, Ice gamin, and don't remember if another gamin or a Soulstone Miner.

Don't remember exactly my opponent's crew, but he had Von Schill and totem, plus The Midnight Stalker, a Drachen Trooper, a Freikorpsmann, an Engineer and a Librarian for sure.

The problem was that I had to use most of those elementals activations to concentrate in order to let the draw engine going on, and finally since in this crew the concentrate it's not a bonus action, it resolved in having some "dead" models on the table. It resulted simply too much expensive and with low efficiency.

On the other side, the Drachen trooper was a monster, able to both counter almost alone my ice pillar game and dealing a lot of damage to my models.

[Ogid]

On 2/14/2020 at 7:19 PM, AskM3L8r said:

Rasputina was buried with 2 explosives- i had read she could deliver the message through ice pillars so figured why not try explosives.

A note here, she may draw LoS and Range through Pilars (so deliver is legal); but I think that doesn't apply to actions that require base to base contact as those aren't using a range (base to base contact =/= range 0'')

 

[SerZaka]

There was a whole long topic during beta about Rasputina and another model (the shadow spider I think) and the possibility of dropping scheme markers from the Pillars (or the shadows of the models for the spider) and the conclusion was negative , you can't do that