Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm a fairly recent convert to Malifaux and am having a hard time grasping all the various dynamics of the game. I picked up the Ramos starter kit at Gencon, as well as the Rail Golem and Lazarus, and mashed them all in one list in the hopes of doing some damage.

I have been repeatedly crushed.

Generally, I consider myself to be of above-average skill in wargames, and granted, it's a new system for me (have only played three games with this crew), but I can't help but wonder what it is I'm doing wrong. So I'm kind of looking for help and advice here on how to use these models. The models I've got, for anyone unfamiliar with the Ramos starter kit:

Ramos
Steamborg Executioner
6 Steampunk Arachnids (I have Necron Scarabs that I've been using as proxies for the Swarms)
Lazarus
Rail Golem

If it helps any, I've primarily been facing Gremlins (Som'er Teeth, Warpig, Mosquitos) and Pandora (Sorrows? Woes?, Teddy, the little girl with the teddy bear, and the little boy with the scissors). Against the Gremlins, my tougher models get crushed by the Warpig while my master and spiders get drowned in Gremlins (and I can't cheat, because his Mosquitos wipe out my Control Hand), where Pandora shuts down my big guys by spamming Willpower tests.

Without getting carried away I will say this.

1) You picked a moderately difficult master to start the game with. He is a buff master, and the spider swarms force you to make decisions during the game as to whether to form them up or leave them as swarms. I woud suggest reading everything you can about your crew models on: http://pullmyfinger.wikispaces.com/Ramos

2) Remember that winning in Malifaux is not about killing figures.....killing figures is a means to winning in Malifaux. Always remember what your schemes are and that is your focus. If killing a model works toward that end, then thats what you do, if having your figure run around the board yelling "Help me baby jesus" or "Shake and Bake, Shake and Bake" does it, then THATS what you do....

3) As far as beating the goblins, one thing you need to know is THEIR rules. Im not saing your opponent is cheating, but goblin have alot of rules that help them kill you, at the cost of their own as well. For example; a mosquito suffers three wounds the first time it activates, this means he can only destroy a completey one time or partially beggining on turn 2. Its a tricky mechanic to manage, just make sure the wounds are being tracked on the skeeters. If a goblin goes reckless to get an additional attack, it suffers a wound. If it gets the dumb luck trigger (double damage) it suffers half those wounds itself. If your playing against sommer remember that his hand size is reduced by one. I have been a long time gremlin player (Sommer and LaCroix) and they are stronger than most people think, but they have alot of self inflicting wounds stuff and alot of rules, and you need to know them as much as he guy playing them.

Well, PullMyFinger seems like a good resource, but there's nothing on the Rail Golem and not much on utilizing the Lazarus with my other units. I guess I was hoping someone would have some practical experience on how best to use these guys with my Ramos crew.

As far as your second and third points: my problem is that I'm getting consistently tabled by turn three or four. I'm trying to make a play for objectives/schemes, but it's hard to do when I have to concentrate on just surviving. Granted, some of it's bad luck and I know more of it's inexperience, but I had thought my models would be more....durable. AFAIK, my gremlin player seems to be playing his models legally. I've looked over his cards (I even had a sample game with them once). His general strategy is to hide Som'er Teeth behind BLOS with a few of his boys and a mosquito or two. The mosquitoes heal up and spawn more of themselves, then on the second and subsequent turns go to town on my control hand.

The funniest/most effective strategy i've seen a ramos crew use against the gremlins is to get them to shoot themselves to death. You see, when they miss they shoot their buddy instead of you. With a ramos crew, this is extremely exploitable.

What you do is this: Keep your arachnids apart. I know they aren't durable, but their defense goes from a 4 to a 6 when not swarmed. Keep ramos in the backfield, using him as a model factory. Hug cover with all of your spiders, keeping in mind that you can do this easily while still advancing, thanks to arachnid and pass through. Also, this has the advantage of minimizing damage from the warpig. Warpig's damage is beefy enough that it can take out a swarm in a turn, but if you keep spread out, it can make it harder to do appreciable damage. Instead of losing a steampunk arachnid swarm (9ss), you'll lose a steampunk arachnid (3 ss or a free summon). if your objectives require you to have significant minions to interact, you just swarm up once you reach the objective, and then break apart once you no longer need to be significant. An additional advantage is that some schemes or strategies require you to kill a certain number of non-insignificant models, which you can deny your opponent by having only ramos as a non-insignificant model.

I saw this strategy work well at my flgs, with the ramos player's crew looking something like:

Ramos
10 Steampunk Arachnids
Totem

PrinceOfMadness wrote:
Well, PullMyFinger seems like a good resource, but there's nothing on the Rail Golem and not much on utilizing the Lazarus with my other units. I guess I was hoping someone would have some practical experience on how best to use these guys with my Ramos crew.

As far as your second and third points: my problem is that I'm getting consistently tabled by turn three or four. I'm trying to make a play for objectives/schemes, but it's hard to do when I have to concentrate on just surviving. Granted, some of it's bad luck and I know more of it's inexperience, but I had thought my models would be more....durable. AFAIK, my gremlin player seems to be playing his models legally. I've looked over his cards (I even had a sample game with them once). His general strategy is to hide Som'er Teeth behind BLOS with a few of his boys and a mosquito or two. The mosquitoes heal up and spawn more of themselves, then on the second and subsequent turns go to town on my control hand.

The reason why the Rail Golem and Lazarus don't have much information on them is because they're really new, when you got them at GenCon, you really got them before street release. There was a henchman that had managed to get his railbox crew built, painted and based before the tournament he was in on Saturday, with LED lighting from the inside of the Rail Golem, but that's a story for another day. The two models are new, and as such the player base as a whole hasn't gotten a chance to really dig their teeth into them. I personally don't know much about those models because I don't play arcanists (or constructs in general since Lazarus is an outcast model... though I think he was in book 3... I should check this lol sorry).

The other thing to remember is that you don't automatically lose when tabled unless you're playing Slaughter, which imo isn't a fun game type for Malifaux.

One thing you might look into getting to add to your crew is an electrical creation, one of our Ramos players uses them to great effect. Another to look at is the tool kit which will help your casting and allow you to auto trigger Surge which will help out the hand that you do have. Last bit of info, when you are first starting Malifaux it often pays to stick to smaller games 15-25SS, this lets you concentrate more fully on just a few models and learn their full capabilities.

I agree with MudgeBlack, learn to play smaller games first. Once you get the hang of your master and a small crew, then, start going to larger games.

I am not sure with Ramos, on how to use him, but, I have played against him. He can be tough, but, those spider swarms are just tough to take out. I usually try to win against him without really engaging unless I have too.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

One thing I've apparently been doing wrong is treating the spiders exclusively as mobile bombs. Double move and Disruption Field until they get close enough to explode, no more spiders. How should I move Ramos? Is it better to keep him with my tougher units or just let him camp out the backfield? He's obviously intended in a support role, but he's got SOME offensive capability - should I simply treat him as a Spider factory, or should I utilize that offensive power when I'm able to?

Anyone have any tips on dealing with Pandora? The Teddy and (Sorrows? Woes?) aren't too bad, but the kids and Pandora are blasted hard to kill, especially with Pandora neutralizing my immunity to Willpower duels within 12" (basically the max range of anything in my list).