Looking at Ramos

[Ageral]

I am looking at picking up Ramos and just wanted to post what I was thinking of getting to get some feed back on it.

So far in my cart:

Ramos box

Arachnid swarm x 2

Electrical creation x 1

Joss x 1

Brass arachnid x 1

Thoughts, suggestions?

From what I have read about him he really likes spiders, then some more spiders. That electrical creations can be good, and Joss is a powerhouse when used correctly. Then the ability for the brass arachnid to give reactivate seemed pretty good to me.

I guess the one thing I am wondering about is 12 spiders too many? I figure you would only start the game with a couple of swarms, but I would need enough models so I could summon them.

Anyway, what do you think?

Edited April 7, 2011 by Ageral

[LoboStele]

I usually start my games with somewhere between 3-5 individual spiders. I like the extra activations early game, especially if up against crews like Pandora or Chompy. Then you can swarm them up later.

If you use magnets, you can make your spiders modular, and then you don't need to buy so many blisters.

Personally, what you have listed there is almost exactly what I started with though. I didn't do my Spiders with Magnets, but if I had to do them again, I probably would in order to try and save myself a few $.

[Ageral]

Yea I was planning on using magnets so I will cut it back to 9 spiders. That seems a little less crazy. Besides I think I would be hard pressed to get 10 on the table at once. Although I'm sure I could if I really tried.

But between the 9 spiders, Joss, Executioner, and the Brass Arachnid I think I have a couple of options to play around with at least.

[Jonas Albrecht]

One more EC, you're going to have more than one out. Maybe even two more.

[Skippy]

One more EC, you're going to have more than one out. Maybe even two more.

Isn't the EC Unique ? So you can only have one ?

Or am I getting it totally wrong ?

[Vitzh]

No you are correct.

[Ageral]

Yup, just checked the book, they are unique.

[Kaane Feinwong]

Yea I was planning on using magnets so I will cut it back to 9 spiders. That seems a little less crazy. Besides I think I would be hard pressed to get 10 on the table at once. Although I'm sure I could if I really tried.

But between the 9 spiders, Joss, Executioner, and the Brass Arachnid I think I have a couple of options to play around with at least.

You'll probably be blowing up a few spiders as you go along so you'll be able to recycle those. 9 should be just fine.

The new Hoffman box set has the Guardian and Hunter, which Ramos can use as well.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Yup, just checked the book, they are unique.

Whaaaaaat?

Does that mean you can only use one per game?

[Kaane Feinwong]

Whaaaaaat?

Does that mean you can only use one per game?

Nope, just one on the table in your crew at a time. After it goes boom you can summon it again.

Edited April 9, 2011 by Kaane Feinwong

[Wodschow]

It means you can only have one in play at a time.

Edit:

Dubidubidub..

[i_was_like_you]

I fielded Ramos against 'Dora the other night, and had some interesting results. I'll post a more detailed entry separately.

Of note for this thread, though, Teddy had charged my Steamborg Executioner, but black jokered on the damage. Steamborg flurried for three separate hits, followed by melee expert for a fourth, leaving Teddy with only one bit of stuffing left. Electrical Creation wub wub wubbed its way through (or now based contacted) Baby Kade and a Sorrow, then wubbed through Teddy to deal that last point of damage. Gotta love it when merely taking a walk action can dish out damage.

-------------------------------

Why oh why can't Construct Spider be a (1) instead of a (0)? Making one spider a turn, at the cost of a scrap counter (which in turn may cost me (2) for Salvage Under Fire or (all) for another construct to Search for one) is a bit sluggish. At (1) with enough scrap counters, Ramos could have summoned a whole new swarm of them every activation, summoning two swarms a turn if Brass Arachnid managed to reactivate him, and netting one extra spider per turn from Brass Arachnid also summoning one.

And on that note, why can't Lilith, Mother of Monsters, summon Terror Tots, most likely at the cost of blood counters?

Edited April 14, 2011 by i_was_like_you

[LoboStele]

Why oh why can't Construct Spider be a (1) instead of a (0)? Making one spider a turn, at the cost of a scrap counter (which in turn may cost me (2) for Salvage Under Fire or (all) for another construct to Search for one) is a bit sluggish. At (1) with enough scrap counters, Ramos could have summoned a whole new swarm of them every activation, summoning two swarms a turn if Brass Arachnid managed to reactivate him, and netting one extra spider per turn from Brass Arachnid also summoning one.

And on that note, why can't Lilith, Mother of Monsters, summon Terror Tots, most likely at the cost of blood counters?

Umm....because it would be unbalanced to summon 9 points of models every single turn? Trust me 1-2 spiders per turn (depending on your hand and Reactivate) is more than enough. Might not have felt that way against Pandora, but honestly, she's probably the toughest matchup for Ramos most of the time.

And, on a side note, Constructs can't do an (all) action to search for Scrap. Only Scavengers can.

[i_was_like_you]

Umm....because it would be unbalanced to summon 9 points of models every single turn? Trust me 1-2 spiders per turn (depending on your hand and Reactivate) is more than enough. Might not have felt that way against Pandora, but honestly, she's probably the toughest matchup for Ramos most of the time.

And, on a side note, Constructs can't do an (all) action to search for Scrap. Only Scavengers can.

Glad to hear it's one of his worst matchups since I managed to squeeze a victory out of it. It came down to Ramos vs 'Dora at turn 5. I won initiative and managed to flip red joker for my WP duel to be able to target her, then capped her with Electrical Fire for her 2 remaining wounds. Ramos was only still alive because 'Dora had grown weary of Counterspell and switched to mind effing Kaeris instead, the turn before. We were only doing a head to head, no strategies or schemes, to try to save on time.

That's what I meant. But it would make sense that more Constructs were Scavengers, though, like how so many Undead are also Graverobbers, not that they are able to search for corpses anymore. It makes sense that Malifaux would be littered with scrap. Littered with bodies is pushing it.

But on that note, Ramos could use flying construct that is the equivalent of Nicodem's Vulture, being able to use Bring Back, at the least, and Eyes and Ears would be great as well. Anything to extend his range in a hurry, even at a penalty, just like Rasputina can do with so many of her models. The game ended with 13 scrap counters on the board, only a few of which were within Ramos's 6" range for either Construct Spider or Combat Mechanic.

Mobile Toolkit's going to be fun, but Kaeris will be reaping the benefit of that second tome just as much, if not more often than Ramos himself. Add that to the + to damage flips she gets from Essence of Power's Empower, and she'll be quite the mobile artillery piece.

[CannonFodder]

personally I can't wait to try a brawl with colette and ramos with mobile tool kit. for a couple reason.

1) Colette with extra book on casting gets triple book when burying real easy. so you give her the book from the mobile toolkit swap her position with another show girl, bury one, then reactivate and bury 2 more if you have the book in your hand.

2) her mechanical doves are constructs that leave scrap tokens. so if you keep one near her, you sacrifice dove instead of a a soul stone to summon a spare dove, you get a free scrap token for a (0) action. Or even the swap a showgirl with a dove, then sacrifice the dove is great but as a side effect you get more ammo for ramos.

3) if you add kaeris she can also get extra Book to make it so her gun can fire 3 times for a (1), repeat then do the ability to damage or paralyze all the models with burning counters.

currently though I find ramos sub par, he is too reliant on the Book symbol and the games he gets them he is laughing, but the rest of the time its a struggle.

[LoboStele]

The toolkit only adds the :tomes for Ca, not Cb, so it doesn't help Kaeris THAT much. Still, allows you to cast Accelerant with a 6 of any suit, which is pretty solid. But it doesn't help her at all with her trigger on normal ranged attacks.

[MadArcanist]

2) her mechanical doves are constructs that leave scrap tokens. so if you keep one near her, you sacrifice dove instead of a a soul stone to summon a spare dove, you get a free scrap token for a (0) action. Or even the swap a showgirl with a dove, then sacrifice the dove is great but as a side effect you get more ammo for ramos.

currently though I find ramos sub par, he is too reliant on the Book symbol and the games he gets them he is laughing, but the rest of the time its a struggle.

Last time I checked The doves don't drop counters since they are insignificant....but the only place it says it in is Book 1....the RM doesn't seem to have it in the characteristic's description.

And Ramos is more of a support master. he lets his crew do most of the work and he takes the credit for it. In terms of what he does he is rather strong when it comes to the Arcanist masters, he just doesn't have a very aggressive play style like Rasspy, Marcus, or Collette

[i_was_like_you]

Last time I checked The doves don't drop counters since they are insignificant....but the only place it says it in is Book 1....the RM doesn't seem to have it in the characteristic's description.

And Ramos is more of a support master. he lets his crew do most of the work and he takes the credit for it. In terms of what he does he is rather strong when it comes to the Arcanist masters, he just doesn't have a very aggressive play style like Rasspy, Marcus, or Collette

You're correct that the doves won't leave counters, but for the wrong reasons.

They won't leave counters if you have sacrificed them, no model does. That's the difference between killed and sacrificed.

Insignificant, on the other hand, does have three things to keep in mind:

RM p. 50 (hard copy), (1) Drain Souls: Leaders Only. Sacrifice up to three friendly models within 6", ignoring LoS. The Crew's Soulstone Pool gains one Soulstone for each model sacrificed. Each time a leader takes the Drain Souls action, every non-leader model in the Crew receives a cumulative -1 Wp for the remainder of the Encounter. Models with the Insignificant Characteristic cannot be sacrificed by Drain Souls.

RM starting on p. 90 (hard copy), certain Strategies specify that Insignificant models do not count toward the Victory condition.

RM starting on p. 100 (hard copy), certain Schemes also specify that Insignificant models do not count toward the Victory condition.

However, if someone is running Hamelin the Plagued and / or Nix, their ability Nihilism gets around this. Nihilism: While this model is in play, friendly models lose Insignificant. If this model is in play at the end of the encounter, no friendly models count as Insignificant.

So Hamelin the Plagued can sack any of his Soulless non-Insignificant Insignificant models through Drain Souls, gain Soulstones for them, and still generate more Rats to replace them. And all of his models are counted towards Victory conditions for Strategies and Schemes, unless you can kill both Hamelin and Nix before the encounter's over. He's less fair every time I look at him.

[Jonas Albrecht]

So how does the Mobile Minefield strategy work? Two Miners, an MT, and 6 Spiders. The Miners get Sabotage accomplished while the Spiders swarm the field, dispersed and in cover until its time to move up and explode. Ramos cranks out a Spider and an EC each turn.

[LoboStele]

I've never found Controlled or Self-Detonation to be all that successful. The spiders are just SO good in Swarm format with the self healing and natural to damage flips. Plus their :crows trigger for paralyze is awesome.

The soulstone miner definitely seems cool, and the fact that he gives you an activation, and could re-coup half-it's cost by the end of the game by mining soulstones isn't too bad. Great for grabbing objectives for the most part, but you've gotta remember that it stays Insignificant for 1 round after it unburies. So, could be tough to pull off Sabotage with it.

I find that the Ht 1 of the Spiders makes them really tough to hit most of the time anyways.

[Jonas Albrecht]

I do think the swarm is amazing at Minion killing, but the Masters I play against have little trouble inflicting the 12 wds needed to take it down. For as much as I dislike Lady J, she can 2-shot them effortlessly. Against Masters, the tactic I want to test is ECs to whittle them down, autodamage from spiders to finish them off.

[LoboStele]

Well, I do have to be honest that I saw one of the best uses of Self-Detonation yesterday, when my buddies were playing. Ramos' crew was getting pretty well hammered by Chompy/Pandora (was a Brawl). For a moral victory, one of the Spider Swarms Self-Detonated for it's 3 Dg pulse, taking out all of the Alps, and dropping a bit of damage on a few other models as well. So, it was a 9 point for 9 point trade. Didn't help Ramos win the game, but at least it made a difference.

That's my problem with those abilities though. They often seem like last ditch efforts.

And sure, going after a Master with the Spider Swarms isn't always that great, and it certainly depends on which Master you're going after. For instance, I wouldn't try to go after Perdita with a Spider Swarm, with her 8 Df. But that's what I use the Steamborg for most of the time. Plus, you wait to attack the Master till last in a round, if possible, when your opponent has already used most/all of their cards. With the Swarms, you can usually easily force your opponent into blowing some Soulstones with some Triggers here and there. You might not actually end up doing much damage, but you drain their SS pool, which can be almost as important.

[Jonas Albrecht]

That's valid. Though I still want to keep some spiders around, to aid the swarms.

Also, Lobo, what do you think was Ramos' biggest asset from Book 2?

[LoboStele]

That's valid. Though I still want to keep some spiders around, to aid the swarms.

Also, Lobo, what do you think was Ramos' biggest asset from Book 2?

Eh...Mobile Toolkit is the only thing I regularly use. The Large Spider is interesting, but I don't think it's better than the smaller Spiders. Unless you just want them for scrap counters.

I haven't really played with the Miner too much, but I think there are some possibilities there. I have played it once or twice lately, but can't really talk about it....

I really think that Ramos needs some more 4-5 point models that are Significant though. Right now, if you only play Ramos, your options are pretty limited for Significant models for certain Strategies.

[Jonas Albrecht]

I love the MT...

I'm giving mine R2-D2's color scheme.