Want more December

[Sib]

I have purchased all of the basic Raputina December themed models but need up to 55 stones for the UK GT, what should come next, was thinking of extra golem for the brawls

[Calmdown]

If you enjoy winning, dont get another Golem....its a terrible model. One at most if you want him in there for fluff.

Do you have Snowstorm yet? He's a must take for Raspy.

I also run two Desperate Mercenaries, using Privateer Press winter guard painted to match my Raspy list. They're awesome with her and they look fluffy too. Convict Gunslinger, likewise (especially once the Gencon female one comes out) is good.

To fill out your points in a brawl you want to go with either Colette and some showgirls with a Coryphee Duet, or Marcus with some beasts - both of these cover Rasputina's melee and maneuverability weaknesses.

For a 2-master 55pt brawl, assuming you want to use Raspy, I'd go with something along these lines (mess with models to get your desired number of stones):

Rasputina w/ Essence of Power

Collette

Snow Storm

2x Silent One

2x Coryphee

Cassandra

Showgirl & Mannequin

or

Rasputina w/ Essence of Power

Marcus

Snow Storm

2x Silent One

2x Shikome

2x Desperate Mercenary

1x Convict Gunslinger

[DangerousBeans]

What's so bad about the Ice golem? (apart from his horrendous speed, which is mitigated by Snow Storm and Silent Ones). I've had tons of fun with this guy! Sure enough probably wouldn't take two though.

Jack Daw could be hilarious.

[Bearded Dragon]

If you are mitigating the Ice Golem's speed with Snow Storm, then that's a large chunk of your entire army there due to the huge soul stone cost.

I played with Snow Storm for the first time last night, I think they help out tremendously with Rasputina.

[magicpockets]

What's so bad about the Ice golem?

I love playing against Ice Golems with Zoraida

[Buhallin]

The Golem makes a good anchor, hits hard, and with a minor amount of attention is incredibly tough (Essence keeping December's Touch on him).

Snowstorm looks good, but I don't know if she's an auto-include. Especially when you don't have any Gamin or Golems to help speed-wise. It does get to be a LOT of points pretty quick if you include a Golem, though. And unfortunately, I think Raspy needs a few more models to really spread the hurt around. The Silent Ones are good Mirrors, but slow, and you'll only have the two of them (although I don't think two are necessary, personally). If you're keeping Snowstorm chained within 6" to use her as the Mirror, you're giving up the speed advantage you paid so much for.

As for Brawls... Marcus and Colette both compensate for Raspy's slow speed. That sounds good in concept, but you can easily end up with two mini-crews running around who can't support each other. You might look at Ramos - especially if you pull back towards the Golem/Gamin, he has a huge amount of synergy with Raspy. You can run a December-heavy list with nothing specific to Ramos and still get a ton of utility out of him.

[Dezzo]

At first i glazed over Snow Storm too.

UNTIL i looked at his stat-card REALLY HARD.

then i realized at 25 ss, raspy + essence + gamin + silent one + snow storm is deadly.

spirit

BP 3

float

6 wk

3/3/6 rg 2

What?

[CannonFodder]

Snow storm is virtually impossible to take down without having you master do it. Even then most master can't do it in one activation.

A) Spirit halves the damage, so even a melee machines has to do 16 damage to him to kill him.

Bulletproof 3: This means all guns do 1 damage to him. I'm not aware of any printed weapon that is magical. (I haven't really looked so please don't flame if wrong). Ruling is spirit halves the damage, then BP kicks in, so 1 dmg per shot, unless a red joke flips a second severe. You need to do 9 damage for it to do 2 wds.

C) Most ranges damage spells have so even master spells get reduced. I think Ramos and Ophelia have spells that ignore armor, need to check out if other can do more. Even then I think they do 5 on a severe.

D) Built in soft cover, the makes any of the spells harder to pull of because they will need a suit in most cases.

So effectively you need at least 4 hits (for average crews) on him to take him down. On a rough estimate I'd say less than 20% of the crews out there have a way to kill him before turn 4. His biggest threat is McMourning that can one shot him from 21 inches away. He gains fast from body parts, 3 moves(5?), (0) throwing scalpel getting 6 inch extra move, then casting expert to to his spell with a severe of 10 damage, which ignores all his defensive abilities. Next biggest threat is Levy than can make him lose 1/2 life +1 dropping him to 3 wds left, but his follow up spell needs the target at 2 wds. After that Ramos or Ophelia, but they need to get around the soft cover, then cheat with a red joke on damage to take him out.

If you get swarmed by melee guys use raspy to give him +2 armor and then Dec Touch, he takes 1 (BP & armor reduce) and the do damage to the rest. But you should need to worry about that because snowstorms movement should keep him away from everything, You can move all the models 2 inches out of melee, then you MOVE UP TO 6, you can move 0 then go the other way.

My biggest concern is seeing him in a Kirai crew.

[magicpockets]

C) Most ranges damage spells have so even master spells get reduced. I think Ramos and Ophelia have spells that ignore armor, need to check out if other can do more. Even then I think they do 5 on a severe.

Don't forget Spirits take full damage from spells, so you get Bulletproof but no benefit from Spirit

[Vaff]

His biggest threat is McMourning that can one shot him from 21 inches away. He gains fast from body parts, 3 moves(5?), (0) throwing scalpel getting 6 inch extra move, then casting expert to to his spell with a severe of 10 damage, which ignores all his defensive abilities.

I don't believe McM is a casting expert. He still has monster range and damage potential.

[Buhallin]

Snow storm is virtually impossible to take down without having you master do it. Even then most master can't do it in one activation.

Eh, doesn't really have to be a master, just a big magical hitter or a fast plinker. Taelor, Misaki, and Johan all fit the bill, and Hans will be unpleasant as well - the Viks would be a nightmare for him. Several of the Ortegas could cause a lot of havoc with their repeating triggers as well - even if they only do one point of damage with each hit, multiple hits will add up quickly, and they'll likely ignore the cover.

Ironically, the biggest threat may actually be Rasputina herself. Blasts will go right through the Bulletproof/Spirit, with no reduction at all.

I'm honestly torn on whether I'd use her with Kirai. A lot of what she brings to Raspy's crew, Kirai already has, and he loses a lot of his synergies if he's the only ice cube in the bunch. Most importantly, though, I find Kirai runs best with a larger number of models - more potential for movement opportunities and hit-and-fade... 11 stones is a pretty big chunk of her crew.

[CannonFodder]

Eh, doesn't really have to be a master, just a big magical hitter or a fast plinker. Taelor, Misaki, and Johan all fit the bill, and Hans will be unpleasant as well - the Viks would be a nightmare for him. Several of the Ortegas could cause a lot of havoc with their repeating triggers as well - even if they only do one point of damage with each hit, multiple hits will add up quickly, and they'll likely ignore the cover.

Ironically, the biggest threat may actually be Rasputina herself. Blasts will go right through the Bulletproof/Spirit, with no reduction at all.

I'm honestly torn on whether I'd use her with Kirai. A lot of what she brings to Raspy's crew, Kirai already has, and he loses a lot of his synergies if he's the only ice cube in the bunch. Most importantly, though, I find Kirai runs best with a larger number of models - more potential for movement opportunities and hit-and-fade... 11 stones is a pretty big chunk of her crew.

You just listed one crew that can do damage to him, but they need to actually get in melee range. with the exception of Vikis none of those can cover the 12+ inches of range and attack without being exposed. If a complete crew, then yes snow storm is in danger, but as a merc they are easy targets for Raspy. Hans is probably the best guy to take, the long range and armour pricing will do 2 damage per shot, 2 shots per turn. But that is where Ice pillars come in. Hans can't move and shoot to get around them without losing half his abilities.

As for Kirai, I would, take Snow storm in less than 50 SS games. But being able to move you entire crew 2-4 inches is nice, she gains access to Ice pillars & :blasts. being in melee snowstorm can get a lot of extra instead of pulling people for its (0)s.

[Dezzo]

Tried Snow Storm yesterday against Hoffman. Got beatdown real bad as I over-extended SS without giving him D.Touch.

My friend killed S.Storm with his Peacekeeper + Hunter + Hoffman reactivation combo.

From that game, depending on strategy and scheme chosen, the first turn's sequence for S.Storm should be:

1. activate raspy: d.touch snow storm + silent one. casting expert: ice pillar (depending on situation)

2. activate silent one: move. northwind

3. activate snow storm. move. (use his (0) abilities) or shoot or beat.

target priority matters. do not leave snow storm within range of any master. he has superior mobility because of spirit/float and wk 6. use that to pressure and dictate your opponent's play while threatening with raspy's perfect mirrored d.curse.

[sephiroa]

i played snow storm against lilith the other day, he was fighting nekima, and even with the spirit I was getting smashed, lucky 4 me, snow storm has eat your fill it's one of those tiny little notes i just love, use flurry, and try to cheat as high as you can, nekima can't do nothing, and if you have bite of winter active, nekima went down, and hard, and I got my snow storm back with 8wd

even taelor and johan (altough they have some annoying abilities) can take some serious damage from snow storm if they couldn't take it down in 2 strikes. and crews like the ortegas can outshoot him, but these are things you know your oppononent can do, I won't be so stupid to let them do these tings ice pillars, dec touch, dec curse, biting chill, snow storm isn't the only model standing on the field

[CannonFodder]

:footinmou

I'm eating my words now.... I played a 25 point vs Kirai yesterday. and Snow storm got killed turn 2.

We had angle deployment so we were able to make things effectively closer start. Kirai did her usual and out actioned me. and end of turn 1 long ranged summoned a Shikome after I could do anything. Made it into melee and attacked once. Then he won activation on turn 2 and killed him. In the entire game I pulled 2 cards over 10, so cheating was not an option.

I believe if had a couple better cards I could have survived.

[Dezzo]

I know how you feel. In the game I mentioned above, I conceded on the start of turn 3 simply because my drawn hand was rubbish (all cards below 5) and I burned through ALL of my soulstones (about 4) to try and gain the initiative but FAILED... and all I needed was at least a 7 but I drew 1,2,2 and black joker.

LoL

I had all of Hoffman's (including him) crew within range of D.curse and I had a good chance of blowing most of them up but when I failed the initiative on the last soulstone flip, I shook hands with TalonRaven. :cussing:

[sephiroa]

well, it's still a game and sometimes you need some luck, snow storm died only 1 time with me, and that was because teddy had with his bite and flipped 2 severe's, did a 5 wd's, and my brother had cheated his red joker when i flurried with snow storm, note: my highest card was 11, his cards where 4 11+ and red joker.

the tactics, cards, luck and skill from the player are important.

some models can suck one battle, and in the next battle they whipe your enemy from the table,,

but still i love snow storm hard to take down, and at some point,, they always want to try and kill the big juicy thingy