Ramos ideas-If your going to mainfest Ramos, do it properly!

[M_Ruckuss]

Hi. I have spent a long time thinking about what crew to take with Ramos. This is not a definitive list of course (it never can be in this game) but what I have done is run with a list I like the look of, and worked out some pretty cool stuff it can do. As the title suggests, I have tried to optimize the benefits of manifesting Ramos early in the game (which you should not always try to do I agree-this is just pointing out what can be done!). It is also fair to say that all good plans fall apart as soon as the (battle) [skirmish] begins.

I have drawn on the ideas and conversations I have had with others, so if you recognise elements of your own experiences in here, particularly if you have communicated them to me, please consider yourself acknowledged!

The List I have chosen as my allcomers list, and to use with this tactic is the following:

Ramos 35ss

Ramos: Cache 5 (+ 3 Cache)

Avatar (2ss)

Toolkit: (3ss)

Rusty Alyce: 10ss

Large Steampunk Arachnid: 5ss

Soulstone Miner: 6ss

X2 Steampunk Arachinds: 6ss

The following tactic assumes that you will be stationary and unhindered for the first 3 turns of the game, so it is fair to say it is not foolproof or for use against all crews! I have named this tactic 'SMM' or 'Salvage’, Mine and Manifest!', and intend to use in in conjunction with my 'Spiderbomb' tactic where possible. This is just my take on RamosI hope you enjoy the read and would love feedback.

Digivolve and Spiderbomb

Phase 1-Gain mainifest requirements and prepare

Deployment: Place Ramos in base to base with the mobile toolkit and the LSA. Place the SS miner in base to base with the toolkit and the LSA. Place Rusty Alyce within 3 and copy Ramos cast. Ensure that this nucleus is tucked safely out of LofS, preferably untouchable for at least the first 2 turns of the game. Steampunk Arachnids can go pretty much anywhere sensible.

1. Activate LSA and skip.
   
2. Activate mobile toolkit. Give +tome to Ramos.
   
3. Activate Alyce and use boosted cast to cast burnout on the LSA and the toolkit.
   
4. Reactivate LSA and skip.
   
5. Activate Soulstone Miner. (all) Mine Soulstone
   
6. Reactivate Toolkit and cast (2) Weld Together on Soulstone Miner
   
7. Activate Ramos. (2) salvage under fire to gain a scrap counter. (0) action to summon a spider (using salvaged scrap counter), and then casting (+1) to summon the electrical creation.
   
8. You still have the electrical creation and x2 spiders to activate.
   

Phase 2 –‘Salvage’, ‘Mine’ and Manifest!

1. Activate Electrical Creation
   
2. Activate LSA and skip.
   
3. Activate mobile toolkit. Give +tome to Ramos.
   
4. Activate Ramos. (2) salvage under fire to gain a scrap counter. (0) action to summon a spider (using salvaged scrap counter), and then casting (+1) to summon the electrical creation.
   
5. Activate new Electrical Creation
   
6. Activate Alyce and use boosted cast to cast burnout on Ramos and the toolkit.
   
7. (Reactivate Toolkit and cast (2) Weld Together on Soulstone Miner if necessary. )
   
8. Activate SS miner. (1) action to go defensive. (0) action + discard a soulstone to gain melee master. Melee master (+2) (using a crow on the strike s) to kill both the toolkit and the LSA and gain 2 soulstones. Then (1) action to bury the miner, keeping defensive stance and melee master
   
9. Ramos reactivates, discarding the effects of burnout and (all) avatars up either picking up the x4 scrap counters in base contact now or when he leaps over them next turn. (I would love to know which he can and cant do
   

The net gain of your x2 turns of shenanigans (which many players use to manifest Ramos without achieving much else):

• Your Soulstone Miner is still at full wounds (as long as you did not black joker your healing flips!), is buried with defensive stance and melee master and can tunnel 8* a turn, and continue to hit and run all game if you wish.
  
• Not including the soulstone your miner discarded to gain melee master you should have gained +2 souslstones and +4 scrap counters for aRamos to use.
  
• You should have been able to stack you hand due to Alyce’s draw ability
  
• You have summoned an additional 2 steampunk arachnids and an electrical creation.
  
• You have enough scrap counters to summon x2 large steampunk arachnids or summon 1 and make x2 extra melee strike. ( I will complete this post by adding in my 'spiderbomb' tactica at some point.
  

Spiderbomb

The tactic I about to describe is highly situational, and is better against formation style crews.

Avatar up, ensuring aRamos has plenty of scrap counters. Use a Mask (0) to Leap Ramos (as late as I could into the turn, so my last activation) into the heart of opponents crew. You can use 4 rather scrap counters to summon x2 LSA for two (1) actions and the use (+1) to melee expertan opponent for few wounds. The x2LSA then activate and proceed to munch away with x4 attacjs between them.

Gaining the first activation of the next turn is crucial so SS if necessary, as the results can be spectacular. Activate Ramos and used his (2) action to hit with every construct in your crew before melee experting and then discarding another 2 scrap counters to hit twice again.

Again, thanks to those who have directly or indirectly contributed to these ideas, feedback welcome and hope it has been a good read.

Edited January 30, 2012 by McDoogle

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Probably best all comers list for sure when wanting the manifest option. Play by play is interesting, half the time you could follow that, the other half the time you will be playing defensively.

What would you different against the hoff or viks or any other fast crew who can threaten you at end of turn one beginning of turn 2

[M_Ruckuss]

Probably best all comers list for sure when wanting the manifest option. Play by play is interesting, half the time you could follow that, the other half the time you will be playing defensively.

What would you different against the hoff or viks or any other fast crew who can threaten you at end of turn one beginning of turn 2

I suppose the first way to try and combat these crews is to use spiders and the electrical creation to tie up opposing models, and be prepared to shoot with Ramos turn 2. Alyce can also shoot and has her rust ability, so I think I should be ok.

This happened when I played a game v von schill recently- he got very close very quickly and it was somewhat worrying. I went ok though. More playtesting it needed before I can give a definitive answer.

Edited January 30, 2012 by McDoogle

[CannonFodder]

I was thinking of the fastest turn one and I find the following the better. I haven't tried it or doubled checked it, so tell me if this doesn't work

Ramos

Tooolkit

Max SS

Anything you want.

Turn 1,

A) Activate Toolkit, and give Ramos :tomes, Make sure it ends it activation in base contact with Ramos

Use anything to kill the toolkit. It will die when Ramos manifests but you want the scrap counter in contact with Ramos.

C) Activate Ramos,Pick up scrap: Summon Arachnid & Electrical creation, Double move.

D) Finish turn

From when I first played Ramos I always regretted not moving him up turn 1 and going for a scrap. Now with the need on turn 2 to (All) Manifest, you lose 2 turns just getting Ramos to manifest. at least my way you get moved up a little. If you are lucky you can move up and make the second manifest requirement., But you opponent would need to play sloppy, and you can't risk it without a red joke in your hand for damage flip. Still not sure about manifesting turn 2, I think its better to aim for turn 3. Less AP to change might be worth it.

Edited January 30, 2012 by CannonFodder

[Ebonstar]

I am also finding that in certain situations, a turn 3 or even turn 4 manifest is worth considering, it just depends on whether you're playing offensively or defensively with Ramos early in the game.

I think the sequence above is extremely efficient, you just need to make sure that you are out of LoS and unreachable for 1+ turns to pull it off. Sometimes though, all that weird "passing" activations freaks people out, so they might even be hesitant to charge you before you get it all done.

[M_Ruckuss]

I am also finding that in certain situations, a turn 3 or even turn 4 manifest is worth considering, it just depends on whether you're playing offensively or defensively with Ramos early in the game.

I think the sequence above is extremely efficient, you just need to make sure that you are out of LoS and unreachable for 1+ turns to pull it off. Sometimes though, all that weird "passing" activations freaks people out, so they might even be hesitant to charge you before you get it all done.

Sure, both times I have tried this tactic I have had a wood or similar piece of terrain to hide behind so I would assume this as part of it (I will change the deployment section of the tactic to explicitly state this) and yes, you need to be all but untouchable or at least the first turn, if not then the first 2, to get this to work. It also means you will have less time to complete you objectives, so schemes must be chosen VERY wisely and strategies completed efficiently. The passing of the activations is a deliberate par of the tactic, think of it as using a knight in chess to lure pieces out. Ramos and the funkier pieces in his crew get to move last and adapt to the enemies movements (as do the x2/3/4 spiders and electrical creation/s I either start with and bring into play. You can swarm together with the spiders to gain even more activations, forcing your opponent to position models carefully lest you beta strike him with a group of models you can activate all at once.

It is entirely possible to kill the LSA arachnid in turn 1 and speed the process up. The beauty of the longer method is a net gain of +2ss, 4 scrap counters (or x2 LSA) and x2 summoned arachnids. That alone is a net gain of 10ss (18-8 for the toolkit and original LSA). And that is not even mentioning the awesome stack of cards you should have been able to amass and a melee master SS miner that can, in theory, hit and run for most of the game.

[Ebonstar]

I was using a more primitive version of this with the SS Miner adding an extra SS, then netting another one with siphon, but I was getting lucky and always had some enemy over-exposed, lol.

Also- I think it's a key point for Ramos players to understand that single spiders can really be valuable in certain situations vs the mentality to swarm up as soon as possible. I struggled to learn this early on (used to the amazingness that is Coryphee Duet), but now there's some good reasons to want to just run single SPA's at times.

[M_Ruckuss]

I was using a more primitive version of this with the SS Miner adding an extra SS, then netting another one with siphon, but I was getting lucky and always had some enemy over-exposed, lol.

Also- I think it's a key point for Ramos players to understand that single spiders can really be valuable in certain situations vs the mentality to swarm up as soon as possible. I struggled to learn this early on (used to the amazingness that is Coryphee Duet), but now there's some good reasons to want to just run single SPA's at times.

I agree. One exampl is Latch on, a superb ability- I had to take down a freikorps specialist and as my entire crew wee wp 6 or below I was on a negative to hit- if it wasnt for latch on with 3 or 4 spiders lowering his defence I would have seriously struggled to remove him from the board (as aRamos was otherwise engaged at that point!)

[Rayhan]

Curintly i like to run my Ramos crew as such

35ss

Ramos(avatar)

Brass Arachnid 2ss

Rusty Alice 10ss

Steamborg 10ss

Steam punk arachnid x2 6ss

cache

1first activate Ramos salvage under fire summon a Spider cast electrical creation

2second activate brass arachnid attempt to cast stoke on Ramos..if successful attempt stoke on steam Borg

3456

then move the now three spiders around as you see fit to burn some time and see what the enemy's doing (electrical creation can move as well depending on situation)

7Activate rusty Alice Burn out the Brass arachnid(if you havent gotten a stoke of yet you have two more potshots at it)take a shot if enemy is in range our move around and activate Bag of tricks

8reActivate Ramos salvage under fire summon another spider and cast one other spell(our walk up and electrical fire if enemy is in range)

9 10 Reactivate brass arachnid do what ever activate spider do what ever(with correct summoning placement you can swarm him if you want)

Second turn

This is the fun part

1st Activate Brass before Ramos do what ever you need, but keep him nearby for the scrap

2nd when you activate Ramos either summon another spider and kill the Brass arachnid(combat mechanic works well(our if you can get your second manifest requirement)

3rd activate Rusty Alice Burn out on Ramos and do what ever

4th Reactivate Ramos all act to Manifest(upon manifestation he is replaced with his avatar form thus not having to take the wounding effect of the BURN OUT)

OUR if you have the second manifest requirement (our if your very close to it) cast a spell with your Spell casting expert(even another electrical fire to meet the requirements).then manifest as a 2act,then 0act leap and punch some one with Melee expert