aRamos: The plan & the Failure

[CannonFodder]

aRamos crew 35 SS

Ramos (+ avatar / 6 SS)

Mobile Toolkit

2x SPA (Spider)

2 Large Steam-punk Arachnid

Rusty Alice

The Plan

Turn 1: Mobile toolkit is in base contact with Ramos, and does Set defence & gives Tome. Large Steam-punk arachnid uses melee expert to kill Mobile toolkit (Set defence can select worst card) With that and Easy to wound you should be able to get a cheatable flip and use a moderate if needed. This give Ramos a scrap and Tomes. Then Ramos activate Needing to cast (1)summon spider then (0) Electrical creation. Uses last 2 AP to move up. The summoned SPA is supposed to be next to the other 2 SPA for a Spider Swarm. Rusty Alice Moves within 3 inches of Ramos for a bonus at end of turn.

Turn 2: Rusty alice activates Giving Ramos reactivate, which lets him doe a normal activation, then reactivate to do a (all) to manifest. From there the plan is to adapt as needed.

The Failure

Turn 1: Mobile tool kitdoe sits thing, LSP works. Ramos activates, moves twice, get the Summon Spider, but on the Summon EC flips a Black joker. I risk an SS to get an 8. Failed. Rusty Alice moves up.

Turn 2: Lose INI, opponent has McTavish activate and takes 3 shots at Rusty Alice. I use most of my hand, But Alice is down to 1 Wds left. She activates, Fails first attempt at giving reactivate, tries again, Failed so I use my last Tome (11) to make it work. Now as the turn is progressing I see a lot of Tomes go by. I activate Ramos, I need him to either summon a EC or a Spider. (2) for a scrap, try for EC, Failed even with a SS (no Tome), Repeat with Spider, Failed again no Tome even after an SS.

At that point I forfeit because Ramos with 1 Wds has no chance to survive, Normally I prefer to play until turn 5 minimum before I roll over, but when fate stacks the deck against you its less painful. It left us enough time for a second game.

[Jewomie]

I feel your pain brother... i hate when you have a plan and the deck stacks against you...

sometimes it feels like the cards were out to get your from the start...

but as they say, "In Malifaux bad things happen"...

even at it's most dismal... i love this game. haha

[Tograth]

a couple of things to remember when using rusty Alyce:

when casting spells she has the option of using her casting of 6:crows or using ramos' casting of 8:tomes.

this means that to cast Burnout, you only need a 7 of any suit.

trying to do enough damage in one shot to kill the MTK or a LSA is the wrong way to go - you are better off using the toolkit to controlled detonate (to simply give you the scrap and not have to waste cards on stuff), or use Rusty Alice to Burnout both of them so that you only have to do weak damage to kill them off.

To maximise your SS and your attach potential, I would recommend swapping the second LSA for a soulstone miner. The reasoning for this is that it can mine soulstone first turn (giving you a SS), and then second turn it can (0) overdrive, kill the MTK and LSA (both on 1 wound due to burnout) using :crows in the attack to gain 2 more SS, and then burrowing.

with aRamos, you want to avoid *ever* using Salvage under Fire. Yes, you might be at a slight early disadvantage by killing off the LSAs, but the fact is that as soon as Ramos manifests, he can drop a $$$$$$$$pot full of models each and every turn.

[CRC]

If your goal isn't to build models or convert from LSA to spiders, you can just controlled detonate a random spider and rebuild it. That'll half-fill your avatar requirement and leave you the MtK to help in T2.

T2 it should probably CD itself for the scrap before Ramos manifests.

Btw, I'm no longer convinced that the T2-reactivate-manifest is the right choice. Waiting until T3 gets you two more Casting Expert actions, and another (0)...

[CannonFodder]

For Rusty Alice I was using Ramo Ca, and missed. Best card I had was a 6, and kept flipping 1s.

and as for killing the mobile toolkit a LSA only needs a moderate to kill it, with the Mtk easy to wound make needing a straight flip on damage real easy.

With everything I need to have a 7, 8 (for summoning), and an 6(moderate) for cheating the damage on Mtk first turn. I just was not planning on a badly time black joker.

[CRC]

Yeah, it's hard to plan for that card. Just take solace from the fact that your opponent will have days like that too.

(However, when things are going that badly, is the wrong time to Burn Out Ramos. Just play normally, the avatar will come in a turn or two...)

(Edit: actually, was there a compelling reason to activate Alyce first? Because you could have first activated Ramos to try to satisfy the manifest requirements, failed, and then known to not Burn Out him...

In fact, I'm probably going to make that a general rule for myself. Never Burn Out until the manifest is guaranteed.)

Edited March 16, 2012 by CRC

[CannonFodder]

(Edit: actually, was there a compelling reason to activate Alyce first? Because you could have first activated Ramos to try to satisfy the manifest requirements, failed, and then known to not Burn Out him...

In fact, I'm probably going to make that a general rule for myself. Never Burn Out until the manifest is guaranteed.)

I thought of that, but with Alice so close to death it was now or never. It wasn't too hard to my opponent to move someone arround the building and take a shot, and with my hand it was not something I could defend against.

[Tograth]

We're you using surge any time Ramos cast?

[mythicFOX]

Firstly I want to say this is meant by way of supporting criticism of your play, not a personal attack on you.

You weren't unlucky here, IMO you made several key play errors and cost yourself the game.

Turn One, had you summon EC before you walked you could have simply recast summon EC and played on as normal. You chose to leave yourself exposed to the Black Joker.

Having failed to meet your requirements you then left Alyce in a position to be killed by McTavish, forcing you to use your hand to defend her.

In the second turn you choce to force the Burn Out, knowing you couldn't be sure of making the requirement for a T2 manifest, you could have just played on as Ramos and aimed Manifest later in the game.

Even having burnt out why (2) Scavenge, (0) Summon Spider, (1) Summon EC? That gives you two shots at hitting the :tomes ? Had you attempted (1) Summon EC three times that would have given you an extra shot at that :tomes

Like I say, not an attack on you. I just want to underline to players out there that often 'bad luck' is actually an excuse for making the wrong choices in the game.

Edited March 19, 2012 by mythicFOX

[Soundwave]

There's a few turn 1-shenanigans out there, but I think that the key is to realize when they just won't work (due to flips or whatnot) and it's time to abandon them in favour of playing the rest of the game "normally". Overcommitting leads to bad stuff.

That, and for most part, turn 1-shenanigans tend to be a bit boring, imo.