LoboStele: A Theoryfaux Challenge - C. Hoffman will always beat Ramos.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Others who are not LoboStele but have an opinion on either side of the debate should feel free to chime in.

LoboStele: You're pretty much synonymous with Ramos on the boards. Most people respect your opinion on him, and your grasp of his abilities.

Which is why this will be so satisfying.

I posit that, barring good luck or bad, C. Hoffman is capable of defeating any force Ramos can muster in any situation, in any Strategy.

[LoboStele]

Haha, hilarious. Not laughing at your hypotheses, but at the post in general. Great idea!

I will admit, it's a sketchy matchup, sometimes. I've had quite a bit of success vs. Hoffman with Ramos' Avatar in play though. One use of 'Override' will usually do in a Hoffman crew pretty decently, in my experience. However, I will admit that I haven't played a game with Avatar Hoffman vs. Avatar Ramos, or at least not since playtesting for book 3.

I will say there are certain things that Hoffman can do better, like Line in the Sand, simply because he has easier access to cheap non-Insignificant minions.

Personally though, since I like running Rusty Alyce with Ramos anyways, the combo of Rust and Electrical Fire chews through most Hoffman crews as well. Plus, I think Ramos' minions tend to have higher defensive scores, but comparable attack scores. Gives Ramos a slight edge.

Eh, it's all theory-faux though. Every game plays out a little different. You going to be at GenCon? We could test out the theories.

(Seriously though, I'm humbled that you would call me out like this. I consider myself a decent player, but not 'top' by any stretch of the imagination. I love being involved in the forums, and it just so happens that Ramos is my favorite, so I consistently focus on him, whether I can win with him or not. )

[Jonas Albrecht]

Eh, it's all theory-faux though. Every game plays out a little different. You going to be at GenCon? We could test out the theories.

I absolutely will. Maybe I'll get Tuesday to make a trophy.

(Seriously though, I'm humbled that you would call me out like this. I consider myself a decent player, but not 'top' by any stretch of the imagination. I love being involved in the forums, and it just so happens that Ramos is my favorite, so I consistently focus on him, whether I can win with him or not. )

You've put in the hours on him, you deserve the recognition.

[LoboStele]

I absolutely will. Maybe I'll get Tuesday to make a trophy.

Haha, awesome. I'll be working in the Wyrd booth and the gaming area on and off for the weekend, but I'm sure we can find some time.

You've put in the hours on him, you deserve the recognition.

Well, last year I felt a bit like a traitor when I played Outcasts for the Masters event. I intend to rectify that this year! Might not play Ramos all the way, but definitely Arcanists.

[Grifonetto]

Hoffman has to take a bath sometime, and he can't take his robo-suit with him. That's when Ramos strikes.

[Jonas Albrecht]

Anyway, enough niceness!

You mentioned Avatars, which is a sticking point. Ramos' is extremely good, while C. Hoffman's is something that I'd only ever consider manifesting if I was out of Constructs to ride. Nonetheless, it would be an interesting battle, so if we do get to meet up, at least one of our fights should be Avatar vs. Avatar.

But assuming it's still early in the game, the board belongs to Hoffman. One area that I can doubtlessly claim superiority in is mobility. Given access to any number of Guild approved fast constructs, I can be anywhere on the field I need to be. Ramos, no doubt distracted from daydreaming his next 3 Dimensional Chess move against the Guild, can barely make it out of his deployment zone. Furthermore, he must waste his own actions to do so. While you might have effective tools against my RoBros, it's I who gets to decide when you'll be able to use them!

[Korrosion]

Starting on turn 3 won't the Hoff be facing Avatar Ramos? I was under the impression that Ramos' avatar was an auto include and a turn 2 (all) every game?

[011121]

I'm jealous. I wish I could commit to one master enough to really master them but, like the Tick, I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.

Sigh.

[HopelessHeretic]

I personally think that this is definitely a game (meaning no side has a clear advantage.) Ramos can struggle against Hoff because dampening really hinders the usefulness of the electrical creation. But I think a brass arachnid, rusty and Ramos throwing a lot of electrical fire and rust cold mess up quite a few constructs plus large arachnids with their armor ignoring would mess them up when they close on Ramos' crew. This is a really fun match up that I would love to see.

[LoboStele]

But assuming it's still early in the game, the board belongs to Hoffman. One area that I can doubtlessly claim superiority in is mobility. Given access to any number of Guild approved fast constructs, I can be anywhere on the field I need to be. Ramos, no doubt distracted from daydreaming his next 3 Dimensional Chess move against the Guild, can barely make it out of his deployment zone. Furthermore, he must waste his own actions to do so. While you might have effective tools against my RoBros, it's I who gets to decide when you'll be able to use them!

Absolutely will cede early mobility to Hoffman. Though I think late game that can hurt him. Basically Hoffman and Ramos are opposites in this area, particularly if Ramos' Avatar is included. In turns 3-6, Ramos can be INCREDIBLY mobile with his Avatar in play, popping out Large Arachnids 3/4 of the way across the table, not to mention Leap. Hoffman moves incredibly well on the first couple turns, but once the Peacekeeper/Warden gets killed, Hoffman kind of tends to get left out in the open, IMO.

The one thing I have not liked about Hoffman is that it's often easy to attack the Constructs around him, thus avoiding having to deal with Soulstone flips, and kill them, leaving Hoffman for last. In doing so, you severely weaken the Hoff, and he kind of ends up being left with only Machine Puppet on himself, which is decent, but far from being able to win a game with it. Whereas with Ramos, the longer you concentrate on killing his Minions around him, the more time you give Ramos to Manifest, or gather more scrap, or summon more stuff, or whatever. On that same token though, if you go after Ramos first, you stand a decent chance of taking him out, and then you can deal with the Minions later. Good luck doing that with Hoffman.

It's really interesting, but this discussion has really made me realize just how opposite they are as Masters.

As for the Electrical Creation....eh....I mostly use it in my Ramos crews just for an extra activation and to give the opponent a little something to be worried about. The exploding aspect of it really isn't that big of a deal to me. You could still get the 1 Wd for moving through Hoffman or his pieces, so that could work well, since they all tend to huddle close together.

Come to think of it, that would be the other place where I think Ramos might have a slight edge: Activations. Not tough for Ramos to have 4-6 Small Arachnids on the table allowing Ramos, Rusty, and some other heavy hitter to activate last in the turn after Hoff has burned through all his pieces.

[Jonas Albrecht]

In total agreement there. While I think the Watcher is superior to the SA, I cannot summon them, nor can I create scrap with the ease that Ramos can.

But that will rarely matter.

My machines may be smarter targets than Hoffman himself, the option to create complex Protect chains, coupled with the abundant healing available, means that while you are going to hit my crew, you're going to watch your gains fade like summer camp memories. Plus, because I'm too infatuated with the Mobile Toolkit not to take it, I have the option of blowing up a Construct, and then blowing up the pieces it drops. In certain strategies, this minefield effect makes victory almost a guarantee.

[Poltron]

With no intention to remove the manliness of this duel between two great robot lovers, I'm going to give my 2 cents as a Ramos player (and fan)

Ramos still have access to one of the best armor piercing crew around (Ramos, gunsmith, LSPA, SS miner, Rusty, etc) so the Protect chain effectiveness can be reduced quite quickly.

With a peacekeeper, Toolkit and a guardian following the Hoff, you're talking about a lot of SS that can only be in one place at a time, and you can't move too fast because the guardian has to keep up with the rest to be an effective protect chain. On some strategies it can be easy to predict where Hoff is heading and wait for him with an anti-armor apocalypse of doom.

I agree on Watcher vs SA for speed, but if the SA is sitting on top of an objective, Watcher won't be able to remove it from there without help (most objectives can't be interact while in melee and are also on the other side of the board) and that help will be easy to see coming, again because of the cost of a Protect chain and its limited field of action and activations.

If I had to pick 1 strategy where I would put all my money on Ramos, it would be shared Claim jump for sure. Some will hold greater challenges, but I'm sure it wouldn't be impossible, after all, it's Ramos we're talking about!

Gentlemans, proceed!

Poltron

[LoboStele]

LOL i love this thread

En garde! Have at ye! And all that...

Protect Chains....ahh yes. You see, my fail-safe for that is simply to just always go after whatever has the lowest Df score. Thanks to Hoff's towering robots, it's not unusual to be have various targets due to Ht differences. So picking targets is relatively easy (and if you want to block everything by putting the Peacekeeper up front...OK!). Just hit whatever is the lowest with Ramos' Electrical Fire or Rusty's Rust (lol), both at a Ca 8 I might add, and in most cases, if I get a 9 or higher, the best you can hope to do is tie. I'll gladly just whittle away. Even with a protect chain, if your constructs are taking 8-10 damage per turn from just 2 of my models, not to mention whatever the Arachnids, Steamborg, SS miner, etc. might be dishing out, then the Wds won't last long.

Oh...and Paralyze trigger on spider swarms....My favorite.

[011121]

Question-

I can see how you can create a protect chain but what I don't see is why. If I'm reading it right it passes on wounds so you can't keep passing damage to get the effect of everyone's armor. So what's the point? Is it just to spread the damage around more?

[osoi]

Splitting wounds around helps a lot. Hoffman can SS to reduce and the Guardian can heal plus the Mobile Toolkit can heal as well. Lots of models with only a couple of damage points brings them back to full health a lot easier than one that is almost dead. Its a nice brick that doesnt lose much offensive output due to Hoffman's Machine Puppet ability.

[LoboStele]

Yeah, you spread around the damage and keep your opponent from killing models. Thus you still have activations and actions next turn. It works sort of well, but it is a strategy that is kind of like a countdown clock, IMO. You keep some models around longer, but once stuff starts dying, it wouldn't be unusual to lose 3-4 models in one turn.

[rancor709]

this is a most interesting thread as I play both of the robot masters I think I'd have to side with Hoffman having a slight edge in most games, however with Avatar I'd say this becomes more of a very slight edge. Both Crews can take pain, in the form of aramos resummoning and the durablity of the protect chain with hoffman. Add in the fact that keeping all minis within range of hoffmans dampening will hurt the ancillary damage that exploding spiders and electrical creations can do. Top this off with Hoffman being able to over take any machine within 4 inches to do his bidding means you can't keep too much around ramos or risk his tools being used against him. So I'd say given equal player skill, hoffman should have the edge most games in this match up, which is supported in the fluff as well.

[LoboStele]

FWIW, I've probably only blown up spiders maybe twice in 2 years of playing Ramos. IMO, if you're using Controlled Detonation or Self-Destruct, you're already losing the fight. So Dampening wouldn't ever really bother me.

[Jonas Albrecht]

LOL i love this thread

En garde! Have at ye! And all that...

Protect Chains....ahh yes. You see, my fail-safe for that is simply to just always go after whatever has the lowest Df score. Thanks to Hoff's towering robots, it's not unusual to be have various targets due to Ht differences. So picking targets is relatively easy (and if you want to block everything by putting the Peacekeeper up front...OK!). Just hit whatever is the lowest with Ramos' Electrical Fire or Rusty's Rust (lol), both at a Ca 8 I might add, and in most cases, if I get a 9 or higher, the best you can hope to do is tie. I'll gladly just whittle away. Even with a protect chain, if your constructs are taking 8-10 damage per turn from just 2 of my models, not to mention whatever the Arachnids, Steamborg, SS miner, etc. might be dishing out, then the Wds won't last long.

Oh...and Paralyze trigger on spider swarms....My favorite.

Yes, I've met scores of people who seem to think that ignoring armor is the way to take me down. The they are forced to reckon with the notion that to get these awesome spells off, they need to be within range of my Peackeeper. I promise, one round will not be enough for you to finish the job, and then it's time to face the reality of Hoffman activating, Machine Puppeting a Harpoon Strike to get Ramos in range, and then Linking in to let it finish the job.

Question-

I can see how you can create a protect chain but what I don't see is why. If I'm reading it right it passes on wounds so you can't keep passing damage to get the effect of everyone's armor. So what's the point? Is it just to spread the damage around more?

Because with all the healing Hoffman has access to, pooling your crew's wounds makes for quite a bulwark.

Hell, you ever seen the look on a Lady J player's face when they charge you, SwordStyle up and everything, and are unable to take down your Ride? It's amazing.

[DarcXON]

Hell, you ever seen the look on a Lady J player's face when they charge you, SwordStyle up and everything, and are unable to take down your Ride? It's amazing.

I didn't know that Lady J could ignore armor....Oh wait she doesn't! Lobo's example has you taking more wounds than a Lady J hopped up on crack cocaine! I would dare say that after one turn of low cards hitting your Peacekeeper for more wounds than you have Soulstones your offensive power would drop drastically. Ramos still has the advantage.

[Jonas Albrecht]

I didn't know that Lady J could ignore armor....Oh wait she doesn't! Lobo's example has you taking more wounds than a Lady J hopped up on crack cocaine! I would dare say that after one turn of low cards hitting your Peacekeeper for more wounds than you have Soulstones your offensive power would drop drastically. Ramos still has the advantage.

Lady Justice may not be able to ignore armor, but she can pound out a lot more than 12 damage in a turn. It's that protect chain that saves me. Every time. And you'll note, that wasn't an answer to a question LoboStele posed.

[DarcXON]

Lady Justice may not be able to ignore armor, but she can pound out a lot more than 12 damage in a turn. It's that protect chain that saves me. Every time. And you'll note, that wasn't an answer to a question LoboStele posed.

She can only dish those wounds out only if she is using Critical Strike and ONLY if she has the cards in hand or lucky on the flip. She also only gets to attack three times. Granted that this is theory-faux but it has been established that by flipping more cards the chance of the getting the red joker is increased (and so is the black joker I know). So now we take that fact and add in the number of attacks between Rusty Alyce and Ramos, and BAM you got yourself an extra 4-6 damage. Lady J would have to have the joker in hand, and the odds of that are a lot lower my friend. Ramos still ahead

[Jonas Albrecht]

Sure, on this mythical turn where I've allowed the slow Ramos to begin his activation within attacking distance.

[DarcXON]

Sure, on this mythical turn where I've allowed the slow Ramos to begin his activation within attacking distance.

This would be the average turn three for Ramos, so yes you have.

[Jonas Albrecht]

This would be the average turn three for Ramos, so yes you have.

Oh so it's Avatar Ramos now?