Joss

[Arcadies]

Help me understand Joss better.

I know about the charge for 2 power counters bit. What other power counter management tricks are there?

Also, I feel like I'm just plain using him wrong. He seems rather lackluster for the point cost and I would much rather take a convict gunslinger.

[Melnibonean]

I'm also keen to know about him as I'm looking to put together a Ramos MS&U list.

[enderwiggin]

I found the Ramos tactica thread to be helpful in this regard.

Thread here. http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7597&highlight=steampunk+abominations

I'm just pulling all the relevant stuff from that, but it sounds like it works. I don't currently run Joss myself yet, but I look forward to trying him out.

Joss is a much nastier threat and yes he is squishy if you leave him hanging out there. Use cover as that will mitigate a huge amount of damage coming his way. Keep in mind that negative fate prevents cheating. The trick with joss is to keep adding armor until you are ready to charge. Armor 1 or 2 is nothing to scoff at. Add to that the ability to reactivate if you can keep him in cover and his threat becomes a real nasty proposition. Joss has Paired Axes so he is at a +1 fate to hit all the time. Then he gets +1 damage if you want to use Brutal. I usually go for Discharge at 1 or 2 depending when I charge. Then with Brutal his weak damage is 5. Add to that that you are at fate +1 on the hit and there is a good chance that you won't need to cheat. It's not uncommon for Joss to also flip or cheat a Tome to bump weak damage to 6. At this point anything past weak damage is sauce. But 8 or 9 damage is really really nasty on the charge with the fate +1 to damage.

You use Power tokens every turn. Armor 1 if you wish. Or charge for movement instead of walking twice to get the two then put up the field. On the turn you go nuts all you need is 1 token! The cat has paired axes and Brutal with a tome in his CB. That's base 4 damage! You hit you do 4 damage. If a spider is in cover the attack flip is fate -1. That means NO cheating. Negative fate makes it so you can not cheat. Df 6 with no cheating is going to stop most attacks intheir tracks if the target can still cheat. (And it can)

I quite like this next portion. The last straw, so to speak.

Tactica: Joss, Part II

Why Joss is amazing:

So, follow the advice I offered above, and on the second turn he should be activated near the end of the turn, hoping something gets within 8" so he can charge it. However, he does have 2 power tokens, so even if something is further away, thinking it's safe, consider some Joss loving. He activates (gains a power token) and charges for 2AP (his fourth power token). He's 12" up the board. He's not done: he activates Overload and dumps 2 wounds and 3 power tokens (leaving 1) and he reactivates.

On his reactivation (hopefully he's already one of the last models to activate this turn) he now activates (=2 power tokens) and charges something within 8" of him now (=3 power tokens). He could have activated Discharge for more damage with the 2 or saved them for after the attack for a Force Field of 3.

he's crazy strong. Better than the Steamborg, if you ask me.

Hopefully those helped some.

[Japache]

Also remember that he can keep up with spiders and their arachnid ability, so you can cast arcing screen with the Brass Arachnid to give Joss more durability. His Df now equals Lilith & if you knock the target down to 2 wounds, they can't retaliate w/o dying.

[MadArcanist]

From what I've seen of Joss, the only thing squishy about him is that he has 8 wounds. Def 6 is nothing to laugh at, I honestly wish I had 6 def on most of my guys (coming from a guildy who DOESN'T play Perdita XD), But coming on the "What can beat Joss" the biggest thing you gotta worry about over on this end is Samael getting you in his sights. Other then that, if played correctly it takes a lot of focus to actually take Joss down... The only time I've done it is with a good couple hits from a Steamborg Executioner.

[HopelessHeretic]

I have not tried out joss yet in favor of the steamborg or rusty alyce. Joss is under priced at 8 stones since he can reactivate with out a duel and has huge damage output. The reason I has passed him buy thus far is because he triggers on tomes. So many things in a ramos list want those tomes. Ramos needs the 7+ for his electrical creation the 8+ for creating more spiders and the brass arachnid needs the 11+ for stoke. All of those are better than the +1 damage of brutal or the extra power counter from open current. Both alyce and the steamborg use rams (decapitate and headshot)

Not that I am harping on joss who is a great edition to any ramos crew it is just that personally I would only field him in larger games or along side alyce so you have more cards.

-Heretic

[tenabrae]

All of those are better than the +1 damage of brutal

Once you add brutal and the +3-4 from discharge... it's not a waste at all... With a good damage flip (and a reactivated model can usually go later in the turn when the enemy's hand sucks) Joss can deal a pretty good killing blow.... He comes with a tome so that's +5 or 6 on a bottom end of 2... his damage with brutal/discharge become 7/9/11 (I usually find i'm discharging 3) ... that's pretty decent damage.

[Nutcase168]

Joss is 9 stones, not 8.