35ss Ramos - hints and tips for a simpleton

[mattspooner]

Gents,

Have played a few games of Malifaux and am about to embark on a 35ss league. I have Ramos as my primary Leader and have the following available -

Ramos

Large SP Arachnid

Steamborg

lots of SP Arachnids (magnetised so no problems there)

Mechanical Rider (proxy)

Mobile Toolkit

Brass Arachnid

Electrical Creation

Rusty Alyce

Any 'gimme' thoughts for crew building? Likely to end up facing most of the other factions and masters through the league and no fixed lists so can flex the list based upon opponent and scheme/strat. Thinking of making a proxy for a Guild Guardian and maybe Lazarus (although have yet to his rules).

[Cunning]

Dont have a lot of experience with Ramos but I can tell you one thing.

You need to get his avatar. It really speeds him up as his normal version is very slow indeed.

[Barnaberible]

Lol, and you take the mick out of me for reading Colette tactica....

[Barnaberible]

Ok, not much action on here but here's my thoughts from a non Ramos player.

Spiders seem a safe bet, they usually give me trouble and Ramos can use them for various purposes, don't forget the arachnid ability to allow them to move up quicker. The steamborg is tough but usually gets singled out.

I guess use the rider if you need more mobility (I have never used any of the riders so can't comment)

Further options are gunsmiths and kaeris for a bit of a ranged mix em up, Johan who will come in as a cheap hitter and I would always consider von schill up against ressers.

For what you have I would go with

Ramos, toolkit, spiders and steamborg for a Killy list and swap in the rider for a more mobile list.

It would be interesting to hear thoughts from Ramos specialists as to the crew choice as he is the next master on my list to start using.

[Sholto]

I think you have the core of a "classic" Ramos list there. However, there are two other main ways of playing Ramos - the Avatar (Ramatar!) and Kaeris.

Looking at the models you have, neither needs much in the way of additional models. Going the Avatar route usually involves summoning at least two Large Steampunk Arachnids at a time, so you might want another one of those. Going the Kaeris route turns Ramos into a crew that runs up to you and then explodes, setting everything on fire. The only model you might add is Joss. I have never tried him (might proxy him soon), but he would make the perfect bodyguard for Ramos in a Kaeris crew. Ramos would be slow and vulnerable, but having Joss next to him would be a serious deterrent.

[Metalhed]

I think you have the core of a "classic" Ramos list there. However, there are two other main ways of playing Ramos - the Avatar (Ramatar!) and Kaeris.

Looking at the models you have, neither needs much in the way of additional models. Going the Avatar route usually involves summoning at least two Large Steampunk Arachnids at a time, so you might want another one of those. Going the Kaeris route turns Ramos into a crew that runs up to you and then explodes, setting everything on fire. The only model you might add is Joss. I have never tried him (might proxy him soon), but he would make the perfect bodyguard for Ramos in a Kaeris crew. Ramos would be slow and vulnerable, but having Joss next to him would be a serious deterrent.

Thanks for the info, I seemed to have ended up following the Kaeris list you described above, except I have never used Joss. Why would you recommend him? He just seems pretty expensive to include with kaeris as well. What other minions would you recommend?

In my last game I ran:

Ramos + toolkit

Kaeris + student

Mechanical rider (for speed)

Large Steampunk arachnid

Fire gamin

I was playing against Pandora, the Twins and some annoying spirit things.

The gamin was useless but everyone else was great. Think I will trade the gamin for a spider. Obviously I could trade out the rider for Joss, it just seems that the rider is more able to assist with long range strategies and schemes and Joss may end up getting ignored.

[Poltron]

I usually play 3 types of "core" list with Ramos, depending on strategies and terrains you change it a bit.

For me, Avatar Ramos is always worth the 2 SS. The pros beat the cons almost everytime. Same with the Mobile toolkit, worth his 3 SS. Dont forget he's also one of the only significant totem, which in some case could be handy Kaeris is good, but you need a lot more SS when using her than you normally do with Ramos, so no auto include for me.

So my "core" lists looks like this:

ARamos + Toolkit 5SS + 6 Cache

Kaeris + Student 12SS

1x Spider Arachnid 3SS

SS Miner 6SS (or gunsmith or fire gamin or 2 other spiders to blow up with Kaeris spell.)

Large Spider Arachnid 5SS (mainly for easy scrap, can also be blown up with Kaeris)

For games where you can stay on your own side of the field and wait for them:

ARamos + Toolkit 5SS + 4 Cache

Rusty Alice 10SS

Guardian 8SS (If you feel Alice can be safe without it, change it for anything less costy)

2x Large Steampunk Arachnid 10SS (Use them only for scrap, aiming for Desolation Engine and swarms)

Construct only, "in your face" type of list, you want to Avatar quickly to give +1Wk/Cg to everyone:

ARamos + Toolkit 5SS + 5 Cache

Mechanical Rider 8SS

2x Large Steampunk Arachnid 10SS

SoulStone Miner 6SS

Steampunk Arachnid 3SS

Again, nothing set in stone, each time you get a new battlefield/strategy you got to tune it to your liking, but thats pretty much the 3 most used "core" list of mine.

[Metalhed]

Thanks Poltron

When you talk of blowing up spiders with Kaeris, are you referring to Overheat to hand out burning tokens or are you trying to blast them with ignite or both?

I can see both being useful.

[Bruglyother]

I think a lot of the advice you have here is pretty good. I will say though that you should not feel the need for the avatar. Yes, there are some strats where it can be real useful, but I have done quite well without it in many games.

If you check out my blog below, I have several Ramos battle reports, which include my lists.

I am not a fan of Joss at the scrap level. I think if you are looking for a bodyguard, Johan does it better for less. In larger games, the two of them make a decent kill team though.

I like running a list with lot's of spiders and one or two beaters. It allows me to play the activation game, waiting out my opponent, and then pouncing with the beater. Do not always feel the need to swarm the little guys together. They can be quite useful in their small size. I had a group of small ones shut down Kirai in one game simply by being nearby with their anti-magic bubbles up. Very hard for her to summon anything when she can't cheat.

[Poltron]

Yeah both are useful. You can Ignite a spider or gamin just to cheat it down to get a easy severe so that the blast hands out a lot of burning token, without having to beat the high defense of a enemy model. You can shoot in a melee with your own guys and with the auto trigger of Ignite aim for both of them. Even if you hit twice your own guy, you aim for the blast anyway. Token, token, token!

Overheat is really good with gamin, it creates 2 pulses, one from the gamin, and one from the spell, again handing out a lot of tokens/damage around. The beauty of Overheat is you can kill an almost dead construct who's stuck in melee/near enemy in cover, then Accelerant(big group)/Immolate (single target) for only 2 actions. With a student giving you fast, it's quite deadly.

Edit: And I'm a big fan of Bruglyother's tales I've learned a lot reading from those.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Poltron

[morpsele]

From what i have seen (Poltron is my biggest opponent) The list that Poltron gave is really good. He Forgot to tell you that even if you don't have the electrical creation on the filed at the start you have him and almost always one spider more then you start on the first turn.

You just need to out activate your opponent and alot of the time you can take controle of the game.

And Bruglyother is saying something good the little spider are great. They have some nice defence and can cause a big pain in your opponents but. Don't forget that they are 6 df and 6 wp so alot of you opponent trick will be a little bit down from them. And lash on can cause some probleme to guys with high defence.

And don't underestimate the fact that you can blow up your spiders and electrical creation without any rst on the opponent side so i can cripple alot of army without you sweeting.

Just my 2 cent has an opponent of Ramos

[Bruglyother]

I forgot to mention this nasty trick. Against Kirai, drop an EC in the middle of them. They will scramble to kill it before you get a chance to blow it up yourself. The reason being is that if they kill it, even in the middle of a pack of spirits, it will only cause 1 wd to each model caught in the blast. But if it blows itself up, it's 3 wounds to each spirit caused because the explosion is now magical since it is a spell. The added bonus is that since EC has df 6, it's not the easiest thing to take out.

[bfrench]

Granted I'm very new to Malifaux (re:I bought the Kaeris box because she's an amazing model and am now trying to flesh out the crew with Ramos), but I don't understand the reasoning behind using overheat on the spider when you could use ignite. Overheat seems like a waste of AP when you could auto trigger with ignite and get a second shot off for free. Words of wisdom are much appreciated.

(I got my teeth kicked in by Leveticus in one game last week, but managed to squeak out a 5-4 victory over him in the second game)

[Poltron]

The biggest difference is that Overheat doesn't have a resist, its your own guy you're blowing up. So it's really good against enemy with high defense (a swarm of Giant Mosquito, Lilith, Perdita comes to mind). They wont be able to avoid the burning token, they cant even flip against it.

Follow it up with Accelerant, nobody can try to resist all that damage coming their way.

Also it can bring a lot more Burning token on the table. A 3" pulse can go a long way. It's a spell so you could move twice and still be able to generate tokens with Casting Expert. It can be cast in combat, without been afraid to hit your own guy (well you're blowing it up afterall ) It can hit somebody in cover without having to Focus shot.

With 1 shot of Ignite you could at most put 2-3 burning token at range 10, less if you shoot in a melee with your own guys in it.

Dont get me wrong, blowing your own guy isn't always the best idea, and Ignite is a wonderful weapon, but Overheat gives you a way to kill an expendable or badly wounded model and make him pretty useful against specific situation. The more enemies around it the better it becomes.

Hope it helps!

[bfrench]

Thank you so much for the clarification! I've been pondering on that myself. I may just have to start and new thread and get some help with designing my 35SS.