New player - Ramos and Kaeris

[Metalhed]

Greetings Wyrdos

I have just started playing Malifaux after spotting some minis online and discovering the Terraclips sets. So I brought in some boxes to the local store here in Joburg, South Africa.

The game has really taken quite well here. We brought in basically one of each masters box and they mostly sold out in just over 2 weeks. Some guys went crazy and picked up 2 or 3 masters.

So I have managed to put a few games under my belt. Mostly, with Seamus as I painted up him and Lady J (well she is in progress) for the store as teaching sets for players. But my true calling is to the Arcanists. So I was torn between Rasputina and Ramos. But Rasputina sold first so with Ramos I went. Added in a Kaeris set cos she is just plain awesome.

Had my frst game with them last night. The scenario was distract and I was up against a Perdita crew, basically the starter set with an executioner and the enslaved nephilim. I was a little worried as Perdita is incredibly fast and versatile.

I ran the following crew:

Ramos + mobile toolkit

Kaeris + student of conflict

Arachnid swarm

2 x arachnids

It really looked like I was gonna be outgunned.

I selected holdout and stake a claim (announced)

He elected stake a claim and breakthrough (both announced).

So I knew he was gonna come running at me due to the schemes and strategies. We were on a terraclips board with a fairly big building in my side of board and 2 medium sized ones in his. There was also a big shooting corridor running down the middle of board, where he set up Nino, Nephilim, Santiago (I think - tough as nails bugger) and Executioner.

On his right he had Perdita, Loco and the combat Ortega.

I set up Kaeris and Student plus the swarm ready to head down the corridor.

Ramos held back in middle to spew out models and guard the Perdita line. Well out of line of sight.

Basically Perdita ran down the flank with her friends. Ramos made an extra spider to build a swarm and it tore through Papa Loco. I was wary of Perdita and her Df 8, so I bombed her with Electrical creations and controlled detonations. With the help of some spiders and that lane had been cleared. With no further henchmen he could not claim his strategy.

In the middle Nino came forward too far in the first turn and Kaeris fried him. I split up the swarm and surrounded the building I had staked to ensure I had plenty of activations and could grab it at any point. He hid inside the two buildings and Kaeris was forced to go and fetch him. Ran a spider into the building then overheated it to give Santiago a burning token then I knocked around 5 wounds off him with the Immolate. He went gutso on kaeris with a butt load of shooting taking her down to 2 wounds.

Ran a spider into him and knocked off his last wound. This prevented the executioner from charging me. The following turn and final we played the executioner gutted the spider and got a Kaeris nukedown. I felt a little bad as I used ignite and had 2 negative flips - Queen, Queen, King. That wasted most of his hand and she picked him off with another ignite and immolate.

At this point it was a done deal as I got all my schemes and strategies, vs his two announced. It was a great learning experience and I loved the way Ramos and Kaeris came together. They were able to operate at opposite ends of the board. Ramos loved having people come to him and only moved twice the entire game.

So some questions:

What other models do you recommend for this pair?

What schemes are easier to achieve?

Which masters do you see being a big problem?

At the moment the main regular players would field:

- Perdita

- Pandora

- Lilith

- Dreamer

- Leveticus

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Bentley Cat]

large steampunk arachnid work well so do gunsmiths, i always take one of each with ramos and they rarely let me down

[Tograth]

Hi there Metalhed, great to see you.

I was down in SA quite recently (february). Family commitments meant that I could do as many demo games etc as I would have liked, but its great to see that there were some other folks down there who were interested as well

With regards arcanists, I'm in the same boat. I started out with Marcus, and quickly expanded into Tina and Ramos. Ramos is currently my favourite, and theres a lot you can do with him.

One thing you will find quite fast with him is that he is ridiculously slow, at least before he manifests into his avatar, and it sometimes pays to use models that can counteract this to some degree.

Kaeris with the student is a really good way to go for ranged damage support, and the toolkit means that you dont need to worry about the all important tomes. Remember to use Surge as often as you can with her and Ramos - It really helps to cycle through the crap cards you will inevitably draw.

With regards the crew above - I saw that you used an arachnid swarm and 2 extra spiders. The swarm tends to be fantastic, but I would actually suggest deploying them individually to start with. This gives you an advantage in activation control, as well as meaning that your movement can actually be increased by the base size of the swarm as follows:

swarm together means that you replace the active spider and 2 other spiders in base contact with a swarm. Now, the term used is Replace, which is a specific term. It means that you place the new model in base contact with one of the models being removed, apply all wounds and affects, and continue the activation with the remaining AP from the active model.

However, saying the above, I tend to avoid starting with the swarms. The mechanical rider is a SS cheaper, and almost as killy. Since you are going to be summoning more spiders in anyway, you can get the best of both worlds - a very fast moving reliable model for schemes and combat, as well as the swarm (for its great combat potential and paralyse trigger).

With regards schemes, Ramos tends to do well with the arcanist specific Sabotage scheme, when he has a fast moving model like Kaeris of the Mechanical Rider to go get it. Holdout works, as does Grudge (3 casts of Electrical Fire with a Ca of 8 will ruin anyones day).

One thing I did see is that you used your small spiders to grab stake a claim. Unfortunately, the small spiders are insignificant, meaning that they arent the greatest for schemes and strategies (many of which require models to be significant to interact etc). Swarming them together into the swarm helps though, as the swarm itself *is* significant.

With regards hard masters - Ramos tends to be very vulnerable to fast moving melee masters who can come in and attack Ramos from outside his own threat range. With Ramos' defence of 2, he really doesnt like taking any sort of melee attack, as chances are you will need to SS and cheat just to defend, even against a regular melee beatstick.

Saying that, remember that models need line of sight to charge. If needs be, you can screen Ramos with other models, or use terrain to your advantage to give yourself cover.

Taking all of the above in mind though, there is one thing that I would without a doubt recommend for any Ramos player looking to expand, and that is to pick up his Avatar. It is slightly pricy, but the model itself is beautiful, and the way it improves Ramos makes it more than worth it.

With the Avatar, ramos looses some of his crew support abilities, and casting expert. In exchange, he becomes much faster, more mobile, more durable, harder to hit, better at summoning, much better in close combat, and much more capable all round.

I cant off the top of my head think of *any* situation where aRamos is not worth the points.

[Metalhed]

Cheers guys.

Thanks for all the info. I will read in detail. The avatar does look good - waiting for all the guys to get used to the game and then we can add them.

Damn, must have missed all the info in the excitement of battle. Oh well, live and learn. Luckilly in that game we called it and I would have had time for Kaeris to grab it - even though it wasn't my plan. Good to know.

Will look into the rider.

Played against Pandora today. Damn that was a brutal encounter.

Pandora came up the flank with 3 sorrows around her. Kaeris brutalised them with some explosions, wiping two and leaving pandora on 3 wounds. Lelu and Lelitu brutalised the middle of table. A couple of electrical creations tore Lelu down after Kaeris black jokered him for damage.

Eventually I was left with Ramos (half wounds) and Kaeris with no student (fled and left her to some madnesses). And he had 3 madnesses. But we were doing shared escape and survive and neither could get it. I got one VP for sabotage and 2 vp for announced kill Lelitu. And he had 2 VP for announced schemes.

Pandora is a tough little nut to crack.

[Tograth]

hmm. One thing with the electrical creation as well, is that its Unique. This means that, while you *can* try to summon one again, it'll auto fail if the first one is still on the board.

Pandora is indeed very tough to deal with. A good way to deal with her is by using kaeris to first stick burning counters onto one of the sorrows, followed by her spell that generates blasts. Since blasts do no target, you dont need to test to hit pandora, and theres no way for her to prevent the damage other than using soulstones to reduce it.

a couple of casts of that can really knock the winds out of pandoras sails. As well as that, remember that Incite and Pacify will only allow pandora to push if the opponents models are targetted. This means that, while she is still mobile, you dont need to worry about her pushing off of her own models for it. Another thing to remember is that it only takes a single passes incite or pacify to stop the chain and stop pandora from moving around.

[*Jack*]

Firstly, welcome aboard the good ship wyrd, and secondly, I think it's awesome you decided to stock malifaux

Kaeris and ramos are a pair I'm using quite often recently, both leading their own crew and as a pair. I think there's a lot of synergy, whilst both are very good casters, ramos is good for buffing your own crew, and kaeris uses her magic offensively. Normally, it would be quite card intensive to have these two, but with the MTK on ramos triggering surge every spell he casts, and kaeris's card/wound tricks, and surge on accelerant, you can cycle through cards to get the ones you need.

What synergises well with ramos in constructs (obviously). Specifically, the LSA, both as a cheap melee minion, and the fact its 5ss for 3 scrap counters. Other minions worth of note are the steambourg, though too expensive if you're taking kaeris too, and steampunk arachnids. I feel normal arachnids are quite expensive for objectives, as you need to invest 9ss to make them significant. Thus, I'd probably go with a pair of LSAs, and a MTK as your totem. Pump out an electrical creation and some spiders in game, and you should be flying.

I've not got much worth out of the student of conflict for Kaeris. Sure, fast is nice, but its hard to keep up, fragile, and VERY expensive. I think with kaeris, you need to be maximising accelerant, as if you've spread enough burning counters, its the most efficient spell to use. For the times when you really need to kill a model, immolate is great, if costly, in terms of cards and stones. Maybe an essence of power would sync well with all these spells and their damage flips? I think some fire gamin would be beneficial, just to get the most use out of accelerant.

Shoutout for gunsmiths too, they are very nice.

The pair work well with stones, ramos needs few if you're keeping him out of the way, leaving them for Kaeris, who gets a lot of use out of them (Stick one on accelerant, suddenly, no-ones actually able to resist).

Good luck

[Metalhed]

Cheers guys

Yeah for Pandora I was targetting the sorrows and getting Pandora in the crossfire. With only 8 wounds it doesn't take too much to scare her off.

I have been focusing on ignite and immolate, will need to give accelerant a look.

I noticed the electrical creation restriction. Found him quite useful for the touch and detonate combo. This helped in my game vs Perdita due to her Df 8.

You guys have given me lots to think about. The 'smiths look good, but with Kaeris and Ramos seems too much. May give them a spin with just Ramos soon.