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My first (Ramos) Crew


Hand_of_Vecna

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My local store's first Malifaux is having it's first Malifaux tourney at the end of July and I'm ordering my figures. The games are going to be 30ss but, you can bring up to 40ss to the table to build a crew after you know your scenario and your opponent's master. Here's what I'm thinking right now.

Main group

Ramos

6 steampunk Arachnids 18ss

Rusty Alyce 10 ss

Brass Arachnid 2 ss

Should I have 1 less arachnid to have some extra soulstones?

What should my alternate figures be?

Joss?

Gamin, for cheap non insignificant models and a strong self destruct when ramos triggers it?

More spiders, so I can field a all arachnid army if I want?

Also my wife and I will be playing alot of games with proxies to get ready, aside from anything we run into in casual play at the store are there some specific crews I should prepare for?

Oh, I'd really appreciate quick responses, I need to call my store and cancell my ramos starter/order blisters (I ordered the starter before I realized I had much better options than the steampunkborg).

Edited by Hand_of_Vecna
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Ramos is my favorite master, and I cannot recommend a saber tooth cerberus enough. It is wicked fast and the best arcanist option for treasure hunt. It is also pretty good in combat as long as it has a high amount of wounds left.

I would also pick up a set of steam punk abominations just in case alyce needs to summon.

The steamborg is not the super powerful being that everyone expects it to be but it can be really useful. It is a threat that the opponent has to deal with sometimes at the expense of their mission. The hard part about the borg is getting it across the table but once you do no one is safe cause he could knock aside to get at a master or decapitate to instant kill and do damage even if they discard. He is a powerhouse but can't sand against an entire crew by himself.

Good luck at the tourny!

-Heretic

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First off welcome to the madness that is Ramos! Soo much fun playing him!

To new Ramos Players I always want to point out Renegade Steamfitter Johan. He becomes crazy good with ramos or joss and is overlooked alot becasue he is found in the outcast section of the book.

A few highlights on Johan

First off he gets +2 to his CB for both his hammer and his gun if he is within 3" of ramos or Joss or any other member of the M&SU Group. this makes him have a CB 7 for his 3"inch range hammer! His hammer has a 3/4/6 damage that ignores Armor! His gun becomes CB 6 with a ten inch range and its dameage is 2/3/4 not bad, and adds much needed range attacks to Ramos list.

Also Johan is 1 point cheeper in ramos list so you dont have to pay his mercenary costs. So he will just be 6 points to add. he also has hard to wound and slow to die.

But having a 3 inch reach melee is awesome, and with a CB of 7 its even better, though him in as Ramos body guard and he will work well!

But for 30SS this is my Ramos list

Ramos

Brass arachind 2

Rusty Alice 9

Jihan 6

Steampunk Arachnid 3

Steampunk Arachnid 3

Steampunk Arachnid 3

Add the rest of the SS to give me a SS cche of 6.

At 35 I add a December Acolyte.

But the list will change depening of the stratergies and schemes.

My Ramos list has seen the follow models in its crew and they worked well for the game i was playing, there ones are ones not listed in the above list,

Hans

Student of conflect

Convict gunslinger

Misaki

Also to keep in mind, like what HopelessHeretic adding beasts in your list can give it much needed speed. I also recomend the december acolyte add some more range but he starts the game ferther in so you can get to your scheems and objectives quicker.

Hope this helps,

Andrew

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I like the force you spelled out Timelapse, the one issue I see is in having everything but my spiders super close to Ramos.

Jonoah-3" for combat boost/bodyguarding

Rusty Alyce-3" for extra cards

Brass Arachnid-6" so I can reactivate Ramos

Seems kinda vulnerable to AoE's. Then again I guess it can steamroll/blast just about anything that comes at it. If I face a force with tons of AoE I can always switch out for more spiders.

So generic strategy if unthreatened; move ramos up 3", scrounge, attempt spider creation, move everyone else around Ramos, blast if possible try to reactivate ramos to make another spider. And if threatened turtle up blocking charges to Ramos, blast, activate arcing screen, if possible reactivate Ramos after the threat is neutralized to create another spider, heal and summon electrical creation.

As I said I'm allowed a 10ss side board to switch to, should it just be more spiders or should I go with Gamin or something?

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As for a side board I would add a few strange things first off the convict gunslinger could be good, so could Hans. But other then range attacks witch you now got some in you list, the only thing this list lacks is speed

I would really look at the December Acolyte because he can deploy farther in game and something fast list like saber tooth or the rattler.

But for my money I would get 2 December Acolytes for there from the shadows ability. they will be key for Strategies like reconnoiter and they will be handy for sabotage. If you need people all over the board the December Acolytes are good for that and they can heal themselves via killing so they can hang out a bit on there own.

Hope this helps,

Andrew Haught

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I read about a trick with the arachnid swarm that I thought could be used when speed was of the essence (ie treasure hunt).

Activate Swarm move 4 plus move 4 total movement 8.

give swarm reactivate, with this force I have two models that can grant reactivate.

Reactivate swarm move 4 and split total movement 12

individual slow Arachnid moves forward 4 total movement 16

arachnid reactivates since the arachnids all inherited reactivate from the swarm and it moves again bringing it's total movement 20 and one more action to move another 4 inches (that's two feet) or activate for treasure hunt or sabutage.

Next turn He can make his way back to the other two arachnids to reform the swarm or the swarm could be reformed with a new spider Ramos has made in the mean time.

A December Acolyte could be useful in the right scenario. Also I wouldn't mind getting the model because I wouldn't be surprised if my wife made a Rasputina crew in the near future.

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Oops just read the errata looking for something else. It seems I can't interact using a insignificant model.

Ya so December Acolyte will be pretty much a necessity for treasure hunt. If I roll tresurehunt I can put an Acolyte in the nearest piece of terrain to the center and then another in the terrain piece I want to sabotage then grab objectives and retreat to one corner of the table and that's 6 VP as long as I can keep one non-insignificant model alive till the game ends.

So for my treasure Hunt I could go

Alyce-10

2 december Acolytes- 12

either Jonah or 2 spiders- 6

Ok I see on problem, for this tourney (unless the rules change) I'm limited to 40 points to construct my 30 point crews from. Hmmm I could run only 2 spiders in my standard crew and with 3 extra soulstones I can confidently drop a card on my first turn to create my first swarm with.

It seems a reasonable price to pay for near auto-win on treasure hunt against most crews.

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Something to always keep in mind is that you dont build your list until you know what you have to do to get VP. On missions in the turnament i broght Ramos to I focused on just the Strategies and Schemes and really thats what you must do to win the game.

So when the strategie is Reconnoriter and you are playing ramos you have to think about holding the table edges and what whill help you do that.

Here the list i would bring,

Ramos

-Since he your master

december Acolyte 6

december Acolyte 6

- To hold and hide in the farthest two table edges

Steampunk Arachnid 3

Steampunk Arachnid 3

Steampunk Arachnid 3

- to grab another table edge. Rember to not swarm them till they are in place, this is because they have DF 6 when there not swarmed but if they get hurt swarm them to self repair.

Johan 6/Steampunk Arachnid + brass 5

Now to take Johan I would have to be worried about fast armies and want something to guard Ramos, for the other i would have the one spider, brass and Ramos to deploy in a well defended area and just start making spiders and sending them out in packs of three, if you lucky you will make 2 a turn with the brass.

For schemes i would take sabotage x2. But remeber that the december Acolyte cant deploy with in 12" of an objective like the thing you select for sabotage so make sure that you can get to it quickly.

Now the list changes alot for other strategie but this is the one most ramos players (IE me) have trouble with and the this is the list i use for that mission.

The problum with bring both Johan and alyce in this list is what you said the fact that they are tied to Ramos and you need to spread out if you want more points. Killing your opponet in this game means most likely you will not finish and get all the VP by the end of the game, by focusing on getting VPs you will have a better chance at winnig.

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Am I misreading something in Reconoiter? I read that you need a model in each quarter not each corner so I could steamroll into the center and just have four figures in the middle with each fully in one quarter. Then just play king of the mountain with the middle of the board. Keep Ramos in the quarter farthest from the opposing main force, hold his actions until their needed and prioritize heal, new spider(important to get enough for 1 or more extra swarms), buff.This could easily serve a double function of stopping alot of strategies by the opposition.

Oh btw the tournament is won based on total points over three games so getting 5-6 VP a match is much more important than preventing my opponent from scoring. Oh and we get a total of 2 schemes over the course of 3 games. I plan on making both sabotage and running no scheme against a strong opponent assuming I've scouted most of the competition so I can focus on getting 4 VPs from my strategy and hopefully cost a strong player some points.

Edit:

40ss pool

Johan-6

Alyce-10

brass arachnid-2

(2) steampunk arachnids-6

(2) december acolytes-12

Edited by Hand_of_Vecna
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Am I misreading something in Reconoiter? I read that you need a model in each quarter not each corner so I could steamroll into the center and just have four figures in the middle with each fully in one quarter.

Yes. By the book, Reconnoiter and Claim Jump are the same Strategy, except that with Reconnoiter you don't need to care about enemy models and have more freedom about where your models can be.

We have proposed a house rule for the Reconnoiter Strategy in that there is a minimum distance from the center for a model to count as occupying a table quarter. That way the Strategy has something of its own instead of being "Claim Jump Lite".

The scenario system is fun at start but it doesn't really work after a few games. The Strategies are not in the same scope at all (Slaughter vs. Reconnoiter, you kidding?) and the same Schemes (Bodyguard mainly) get picked every single game.

If the only thing that matters is your own Strategies and Schemes I would definitely get a fast hard hitter (basicly: Steamborg) in your crew. Getting Assassinate or Slaughter as your Strategy against a speedy Master will majorly suck otherwise.

-Ropetus

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well yes you can hold your ground in the middle of the table and have an all out attack, in that case I would take Alyce, brass, Johan and (Joss, 3 spiders or hans) and get ready for a fight. Where as if you jump around and go for the sabotage your opponet might have to work at getting you into battle witch could mean VP points for you. I like the idea of making as meny spiders as i can and flinging them into the fray and keep my DA guys out getting VP points.

BTW be carful with alyce when playing vs armies with obay, her burn out spell can be used to help kill some of your larger heath level models, In one of my earlyer games Zoraida the hag used her voodoo magic and got obay to work almost every turn on Alyce.

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to be honest these all sound like good ways to go but if you are just starting out Ramos is a strong simple army

one steamborg, two swarm, all out of the box. I also recommend these boosters... a swarm, an electrical creation, brass arachnid and some small bases (to make the swarm into three spiders) it would not hurt to eventually pick up one more swarm for the spiders...

that is a good start to a new Ramos army

after that adding Joss, Johan, Rusty Alyce, and some steam punks (for aylce)

dont forget when you swarm it counts as summoning meaning it gets slow for that turn

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Damn, I've had a hell of a day and I've tried to write a post in this thread twice.

Ropetus, I hadn't thought about how difficult it might be to face a evasive crew if I had the slaughter strategy. If they pulled Treasure hunt I wry and stould field an acolyte to steal it and make them come to me. If they had reconoiter the best I could do is get reactivate on an arachnid swarm even if I had to cheat it then send it to one corner getting a ton of potential move/attacks with splitting and getting to reactivate the individual arachnids. At the same time I could send Ramos and Alyce another way with Alyce Reactivating Ramos if necessary to get him in range to spam his blasts. I could also send Jonah to a weaker corner or keep him in the middle to stop/slow a move across the middle.

It's less than perfect but, I think it's pretty good considering that I would have to take models out of my sideboard to add anything else. That and it's a strategy for the worst possible combination of strategies.

Thanks for the warning about Alyce, TimeLapse, I'll be on the lookout obey masters and either switch Alyce out or take steps to seperate her away from my big models if I feel like I can't suceed without her.

Lorenz, I agree the Ramos starter is quite playable. In fact upon my first reading that is the exact force I wanted to field. However I am a very obsessive gamer and I love to disect games to make better characters/armies etc. Though one of my favorite things about Malifaux, aside from every Master being awesome, is that each master is playable with just their directly fluff associated minions.

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dont forget when you swarm it counts as summoning meaning it gets slow for that turn

No it doesn't. Its a 'replace' and not a 'summon'.

You place the swarm in base contact with any of the three spiders its replacing and it gets the highest general AP remaining amongst the three spiders its replacing. Then it completes the activation using that general AP.

So if one of the spiders had not activated before swarm together was used, you now have a spider swarm with 2 general APs that completes the activation immediately.

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