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Malifaux has started to become popular in the club/shop i go to and i've gone for the ramos crew shortly after getting into it a henchman turned up and told me i had chosen a fairly dificult crew to start with. i am fine with that i like a challenge but my problem is with all the new players choosing all the most broken things to play with my last three games have been pandora then zorada/collodi and hamlin, ok so i would have had a chance against zorada/collodi but we drew shared plant evidence and collodi completed the strategy in the first turn but pandora is so annoying i almost rage quit and hamlin is just broken. i feel i wouldn't mind so much if the players had chosen the crews because they like the but they haven't they have all deliberately gone for the most overpowered stuff they can find. so far we have the dreamer, pandora, hamlin, collette, zorada/collodi, von shill, mizaki and me with ramos. the mizaki player has painted his stuff and had 2 games and is already being put off the game and i am just waiting for someone to field levitucus with jack daw, ashes and dust and bette noir. i have played about 12 games and i am starting to wonder how much my stuff will go for on ebay. the only player i actually want to play is the henchman because he always fields one of his crews that is on a decent level with ramos i find this a really sad situation i like the game but hate all the players.

Firstly, welcome to Dakka, and indeed Malifaux.

Having more experience with Ressers than anything else I won't be much use here but I'll try anyway.

For all you tactical needs head over to Pullmyfinger.com It's a very decent wiki that between that and here on dakka I've increased my rules knowledge, tactics and of course fun by ten-fold!

As for the "broken" masters, Hamlin has had a large errata recently so make sure the player is using that. As for the others I don't have much experience of either (see I told you I'd be helpful! ) but as with most things in Malifaux, it's all about synergies with other models. Things do seem overpowered sometimes but I assure you, once you crack Ramos I'm sure you'll love him!

A friend of mine plays Ramos and has found the Electrical Creations to be awesome (and a hinderence to me! ), also the mobile toolkit is always with him giving Ramos another Tome suit on his casting!

He likes to bring Lazarus along too so thats another one to look at!

Also try to remember that although you may get mullered from time to time it's actually still possible to win the encounter for getting VPs from strategies/schemes! Even if you're "tabled", you can still be the winner!

Anyway, hopefully someone one else can give you better advice but theres a start!

Welcome to Dakka and to Malifaux as a new player I sympathise with your current position.

I echo Emps advice of reading the Pull My Finger Wiki it really is a great place for tactical advise and insights, with my limited experience I can only probably give you the most obvious counters to certain masters that I have experienced.

Pandora is a very difficult master to counter as her route of attack is typically where most minions will struggle which is WP. The best counter to this is to elect to use models with a high WP (5-6) or try and spot what she is trying to achieve and spot when to focus your attention of stopping her in her tracks. I also find that taking down her crew first lessens the amount of damage that she can dish out in each phase. She also REALLY doesn't like taking damage from Blasts so I would attempt to land as many of those on her as possible.

Zoraida is a horrific master to try and deal with, honestly sometimes it feels like you're trying to nail water to a wall. Try and keep your Important Models out of LOS as she will Obey them to do something nasty. High WP again minimises her effectiveness somewhat.

Collodi's weakness is his Marionette's. Take these out as fast as possible and pretty soon he'll lose his mobility and feel rather isolated. Try not to take Constructs when facing him as he will dismantle them and use the scrap counters to make Marionette's (up to a maximum of 4) and get fast again.

Hamelin I have not yet faced when he is the Plagued although i can imagine that it is pretty irritating with a lot of Height 1 models on the table due to his Bully Rule.

What point size gmaes do you typically play and what models do you own?

On the subject of your crew I would look into either expanding to a different master and building up an Arcanist faction collection so that you have a suitible crew that you can select before each game in line with your starting schemes and strategies. Kaeris is a great henchman to include if you can spare the points as she can use the cheap Arachnids of Ramos to spread burning counters aroudn effectively.

Take a breath and let's work out the things that are giving you some issues

I guess we should start out with, what models do you own for Ramos?

1) When facing Hamelin, make sure your opponent is using the updated cards found here. Yes he's still a bit of a pain to deal with, but he's no where near as "broken" as he used to be. One way to deal with him is to go with strategies and schemes that don't require significant models. Hamelin has the nasty ability to turn things into insignificant, which can screw over your chances of getting your strategy or schemes. The other way to deal with Hamelin is go with the Slaughter Strategy, because every rat you kill nets you 2 points, even if it comes back, so expect to spend a soulstone to re-flip your strategy at the beginning of the game. Avoid taking height 1 and insignificant models as Hamelin Ignores them. This is particularly hard with you as a Ramos player because of your spiders, so you are at a bit of a disadvantage here. So if you're looking to specifically fight Hamelin, pick up some of the other M&SU models that Ramos can hire. So like Kaeris, Gunsmiths, Johan, etc... If you can, take models with Terrifying. Also remember which models you take that have Immune to Influence, since you ignore abilities and spells when you're the defender of a Wp duel.

2) When facing dreamer, again, make sure your opponent is using the updated cards found here. As this severely limits the Dreamer bomb that you used to be able to get off and keep Lord Chompy Bits and the Dreamer both relatively safe from retaliation. Kill Chompy first if you can since that's generally the meat and potatoes of a Dreamer crew. If you kill Chompy, then the Dreamer and his pitiful Df 2 are stuck on the board. If you're facing the twins (Lelu and Lilitu), kill one of the twins, he'll either be forced to bury the second one, or let it die (as it takes 3 wounds when the other twin is not on the board).

3) When facing pandora, take models with stubborn as that doesn't get stripped away from Pandora's The Box Opens, also try to find models that do damage through blasts, pulses, or auras, as those are things that Pandora cannot defend against with all of her Wp tricks. When Pandora goes on her Pacify or Incite chain, be careful, because if she gets it off once, she can do it again later, so stop her early on, or at least do it when she's in a position that leaves her vulnerable and in the open, also models without melee attacks are great to prevent against a powerful Self-Loathing spell since the only melee attack they will have is Bash which does 0/1/2, far better than like if your Steamborg Executioner was hit with his melee attack. A thing to remember is that in a Pandora crew, Pandora can hold her own on by herself, the models in her crew are merely to make her better, so kill her first and mop up the rest.

4) Zoraida/Collodi is a dangerous combination, but the way to get around Zoraida's stuff is to keep models you don't want obeyed out of line of sight of both her, AND her voodoo doll, as Conduit can screw you up/over. Much like Hamelin, models with Immune to Influence and high Wp are great against Zoe since she needs to be able to target Wp for her rst duels. If you have Immune to Influence, she can't do that . If you're running models that can't blow up and deal damage via pulses, you'll want to bunch them up in groups of 2 or 3, that way if she obeys a model, and tries to charge or move, you'll get a disengaging strike (which deals no damage, just stops the action), and they won't be able to shoot. Much like you want to avoid strategies and schemes that require significant models with Hamelin, you want to avoid Master interaction strats/schemes with Zoey, since she's so fast you'll not likely run her down. Collodi on the other hand is a bit of a difference case, when played together, Zoey is huge support for a Collodi crew, but there are ways to stop Collodi too. When playing against Collodi, he can alpha strike over half the board, this is a royal pain and there sadly isn't much you can do, when fighting Collodi, take out his marionettes, his effectiveness is related to the number of those on the board. Kill them, you limit Collodi. If you have models with pulses and blasts, those are great as Collodi often has his dolls bunched up near him, or you can force him to fight on two fronts. I would suggest hiring M&SU models for this like Kaeris, and a few others, as they should have a better go with their blasts and pulses. Electrical Creations are fantastic in this job as well, especially since you (should) have the mobilie toolkit, and should no longer need to rely on the second Tome needed to summon a creation.

5) When dealing with Colette, kill her showgirls. If she has even a single showgirl on the board, it can be pretty tough to nail her down, force her to use all of her regular soulstones, and keep her hand size down. That way she's only reliant on her artificial soulstone, which means she can't summon doves to blow up, and it means she can really only use a soulstone once per turn, which is better than a crucial turn where she can pop all of them to keep her alive if she needs to.

6) If you like summoning and creating spiders, pick up Ramos's Avatar, it's probably the best 2 soulstones you'll ever spend, that aren't on the mobile toolkit.

7) Expand your crew. As a Ramos player you have a huge amount of models open to you. You have anyone in the Arcanists faction that you can hire into your crew, but you also have the ability to hire M&SU (Miners and Steamfitter's Union) as well. This gives you a big advantage in the hiring crews stage. I would suggest you pick up Kaeris's box, as those models are great for dealing with models that don't like blasts and pulses. I would also suggest picking up most of the constructs in the Arcanist faction as well as metal gamin.

8) Finally, and above all else, if you only have fun playing against the henchman, then keep playing him. Ask him to play crews that you're likely to face if you were to play other players. As you play, ask for tips and tricks to dealing with his crew. Alternatively, build a crew that one of the other players is playing, and ask the henchman to play your crew. I've often learned more about my crew by seeing other people play it.

I hope this helps


Feth me, lol ninja'd twice while I typed this out All of the above advice is solid.

firstly these are the models i own:
9 spiders
3 spider swarms
mobile tool kit
steamborg
rusty alyce
lazarus
guild guardian
electrical creation
3 metal gamin
3 steampunk abominations
large spider
soulstone miner
ramos avatar

firstly i am not reapeat NOT about to buy the crews i have faced to learn how to beat them i don't like the models and i resent that i have to buy models i don't like for my own crew especially to face these crews, that's not to say i wont add to it if i decide to keep it. secondly about starting a second crew i think i have spent enough money on ramos that i'm not about to start another, plus other than collette the other arcanist crews would have very similar problems facing the crews i have to deal with and i was told this game is cheaper than GW games if i am having to collect 2 or even more crews it could cost me even more! third i have looked at pull my finger and it has very little of any real use to do with ramos other than telling me he is nigh on useless without the toolkit and having a list of all the minions he can take. lastly i haven't used the avatar yet the main reason being i am f**ked if i know how to put it together without it falling apart again there are little or no contact (absolutly none on the ark of fire on his hands) points on it and the legs are so thin it would be incredibly hard to pin them it is by far the worst designed model i have ever come across.

My apologies if my advise came across as buy more stuff, that was not what I intended, but with some addional minions you would have more of a chance against those hard to face masters.

In regards to the Avatar, have you attempted to create your own contact points by scoring the metal on the points of contact to create a cross type pattern, this will give the glue more grip?

The best advice that I can offer without having a great deal of in depth knowledge about the Arcanists would be to pick schemes that you're likely to be able to complete. I know it sounds obvious but most people who I know tend to get caught up in trying to kill my models and by turn 4 I have completed both my strategies and schemes and can mess about for the remainder of the game.

I'd suggest Contain Power and Escape and Survive, you should be able to do well in protecting a supply wagon as well.

The reason that I suggested Kaeris as an expansion was mainly to deal with Pandora and with the models that you have listed above (specifically spiders, swarms and ss miner) you can overheat them wehn they're low on wounds to spread burning counters about the place which would add another aspect to your game play.

Alternatively where do you play, it may be worth looking into going to another club as I find that you'll always find WAAC gamers everywhere but can also find someone who can teach you new tips and tactics.

Alfndrate raises a good point as well, if you're only having fun playing the Henchman keep playing him, even a crew swap for a game or so and see if playing someone else's crew against yours gives you some further insights

I never said buy the crews you face. I was merely suggesting you play as them. Borrow stat cards, use the various books, and proxy the models if you can't get someone to lend you the crew.

Okay, just looking at the list of models you own, you've certainly got the tools to build a good Ramos crew. The reason why Pullmyfinger and all of the people in this thread have suggested the mobile toolkit is because Ramos is a summoner. Look at Nicodem who has 1 less Ca than Ramos and needs a 16 with 2 crows to cast Reanimate (his summon spell), Minimally I need a 9+ of crows to cast the spell without using a soulstone, that means that there are 5 cards in the game not including the red joker that I need in my hand to ensure that I cast the spell. Sadly, ressers don't have a totem (that I know of) to get that second crow in my Ca. So the toolkit is INVALUABLE for Ramos.

Also don't worry about starting a second crew, you've got Ramos and Levi that's 2 masters. The suggestion to pick up Kaeris's box is because Kaeris and the Gunsmiths are useful, Kaeris most so because she can use the spiders to pass out burning tokens, which gets around silly things like Wp duels, manners, etc... Even if you don't want her whole box, pick up Kaeris herself in the blister.

As for pullmyfinger, it's quite obvious that you've looked at it for Ramos, but if you look at Ramos's page, it has tips on playing against Ramos... all of the masters you're having issues with... They all have that same section, give those a perusal, the information is there we can help you find it

And with the Avatar, if you're having issues with gluing, proxy the model with one of your Steamborg Executioners. At this stage in your play, you want to learn what the models can do more than anything else, and you don't have to worry about true line of sight since this game measures base to base. As for those fiddly models like some of their new plastics and skinny models like aRamos, I'm a big fan of stuff like Zip Kicker (super glue accelerant )

Also don't worry about starting a second crew, you've got Ramos and Levi that's 2 masters

Um he has Ramos and Lazarus the robot doppleganger

Sorry thought it said Levi lol. He has most of the other pieces to that crew >_<. Same difference lol, no need to start a second crew atm

kaeris yea i was thinking of getting her but honestly i'm not sure i should be spending money on a game where i only enjoy playing against one or two people. and i'm not a big fan of having to research my opponents crews they don't need to look up mine to win! as for leviticus i am not sure i want to put his crew together sure i have half the starter but he looks like like i need to get loads of stuff as the starter is almost as under powered at the ramos one. i guess i am getting really tired of playing a crew then finding out i don't have the things i need to deal with them ramos is starting to seem really crap i've had about 12 games and i know the stuff i have pretty well yet the hamlin player came along with a whole 2 games experiance and s**t on me 8 points to 2. I took:

Ramos
steamborg
guardian
2 metal gamin
2 spiders

we drew shared slaughter and i chose bodyguard ramos and grudge on a rat. killing the rat is all i achieved the steamborg and guardian is a very solid combo but because the rats are impossible to kill and just keep handing out plague tokens which all his models use they never had a chance. after they both died (producing no scrap but more rats because they were too close to hamlin) i had to use ramos to try and kill hamlin because he had also chosen bodyguard, so i do just that but oh no he has 12 w and will come back if i kill him anyway! hamlin then precedes to walk up to me an kill me in one go. i don't think i really did that much wrong (apart from not taking lazarus) and yet i was beaten easily by a novice surely you can see why this game is frustrating me part of the reason i don't play GW games any more is the whole dont have the models/build the wrong list you lose thing.

When I start playing any game, I lose a lot until I get used to it. When I started playing Warhammer 40K, I won the first game I played (probably because the guy was teaching me the rules and showing me how to play, so he was pretty much fighting both sides of the battle) but then lost every game I played for 4+ months. I wanted to play a lot, so I played in 4 consecutive competitive leagues that were a month or more each. It got to the point where I was not enjoying the game, because I don't like losing at all. I was tabled more times than I care to remember. I really should not have tried to play such competitive games right at the start. My advice to you is to play more for-fun games for a while. Learn what works and what doesn't. Play smaller games, so you aren't stuck with a really bad crew for a 4 hour marathon game.

Advice:
It looks like you have a pretty good selection of models for a Ramos crew. The Electrical Creation can be pretty cool, and even when it's not doing a lot of damage it can frustrate your opponents plans because it damages things that it moves through and does damage as it dies (or you can use burst to kill it and do even more damage).

Since you have such a good collection (and not excited about spending more money, which I completely understand), then strategies and schemes is the next place to focus.

One of my favorite strategies (and by favorite, I mean most hated because I play against Ramos not with him) is Escape and Survive, since you can "scatter" each spider swarm to end up with 3 models instead of 1. That means your opponent has to kill more models (or concentrate on your swarms early). Read through the strategies and find ones that work well with your play-style and crew, for those times when you have a choice.

Since Ramos doesn't need as many soulstones, it is worth it to maximize your crew and also choose 2 schemes to help increase your VP. Bodyguard is a good scheme, and you might as well announce it. Your success relies on Ramos being alive, and your opponent is probably going to go after Ramos anyway, since he is pumping out spiders every turn, so why not announce. If they weren't planning on going after Ramos, then this alters their plan (which their crew may not be setup for anyway) and they have to go through all your minions to get to Ramos. If they were planning to go after Ramos, then it did not hurt you at all to announce it. Again, read through the schemes and see which ones fit your play-style (and what you enjoy).

Determining the winner is, mostly, not determined by the number of models still alive. It is determined by the number of VP, so it is possible to lose most (or all, depending on strategies and schemes you and your opponent chose) of your models and still get more VP then your opponent and win by a decisive margin. A lot of people don't think about this, especially when they are used to playing other games that are mostly decided on number of points of models left on the table.

Lastly, don't be afraid to proxy models to play different masters, crews, etc. I wouldn't do this right away, just keep it in mind for after a few more games. I know you are not excited about buying more models, but in a few months that will probably fade, especially as you get a few wins. One of the cool differences about Malifaux, versus other games I've played, is the ability to select your crew after you know the strategy to accomplish. Find another master that is better at strategies where Ramos is week (and can hire some of the models you already have). This gives you the ability to change Masters and crew based on the strategy you want to accomplish. Mei-Feng may be a great model to try (proxy), since she is very mobile and can hire some of your models that you already have. I have not played against Mei-Feng or with her, so not sure, but might be fun.

findas wrote:
kaeris yea i was thinking of getting her but honestly i'm not sure i should be spending money on a game where i only enjoy playing against one or two people. and i'm not a big fan of having to research my opponents crews they don't need to look up mine to win! as for leviticus i am not sure i want to put his crew together sure i have half the starter but he looks like like i need to get loads of stuff as the starter is almost as under powered at the ramos one. i guess i am getting really tired of playing a crew then finding out i don't have the things i need to deal with them ramos is starting to seem really crap i've had about 12 games and i know the stuff i have pretty well yet the hamlin player came along with a whole 2 games experiance and s**t on me 8 points to 2. I took:

Ramos
steamborg
guardian
2 metal gamin
2 spiders

we drew shared slaughter and i chose bodyguard ramos and grudge on a rat. killing the rat is all i achieved the steamborg and guardian is a very solid combo but because the rats are impossible to kill and just keep handing out plague tokens which all his models use they never had a chance. after they both died (producing no scrap but more rats because they were too close to hamlin) i had to use ramos to try and kill hamlin because he had also chosen bodyguard, so i do just that but oh no he has 12 w and will come back if i kill him anyway! hamlin then precedes to walk up to me an kill me in one go. i don't think i really did that much wrong (apart from not taking lazarus) and yet i was beaten easily by a novice surely you can see why this game is frustrating me part of the reason i don't play GW games any more is the whole dont have the models/build the wrong list you lose thing.

Malifaux is a far more complex game than other famous games, I think with maybe Infinity being more complex, learning what your opponent's models can do is the nature of the game. Albeit, this is a part of any game. You can ask to see your opponent's army list, or stat cards, or ask for an overview of what they do, etc... Malifaux is no different. There are ways to learn about your opponent's models, whether it's through playing them, looking up their stats, or reading the pullmyfinger article on them. I routinely look up strategies on pullmyfinger when I get stomped by a master that I don't know. This past weekend I played against Marcus, I've never played him. I knew kind of what he could do, and my opponent was upset when I told him that his model was nerfed and didn't play like he thought it did, but that still didn't stop him from beating me 6 to 2 when time was called. I looked up how to deal with Marcus, and I have a bit of an idea on how to play against him now, but now I just need to actually face him again (it was an out of towner, so I probably won't see him for awhile). And maybe they don't need to read up on your master because they already did read up on him, it's always a possibility. I mean I played against a Ramos crew with my Lynch crew, turn 1 he ran his Steamborg Executioner down the side of the board, I moved my Beckoner up, lured him closer, gave him Brilliance, and then pushed myself away into the forest, I then moved an Illuminated and Stitched within 6 inches to use their ranged attack or ability (Scintillating Cloud and Gamble Your Life respectively), and then pushed a Depleted closer and then charged him in, I failed the charge, but I still had done 7 wounds on him in a single turn. The next turn I activated a model and killed him. With those scrap counters so far out of place, Ramos was never going to be able to use them, so I focused fire on a single model, taking it down and out of position for Ramos to use it. I did basically the same things with Kaeris, a Metal Gamin, and a Gunsmith. Eventually Ramos took a Hungering Darkness to the face 2 turns in a row and died rather easily because he had nothing to attack me with, and was left with his own devices.

As for the research thing, just looking at Ramos's article, I know that I should bring/do the following things against him:
1) Bring things that Ignore Armor (such as the Stitched Together's Deepest Fear spell)
2) Ranged attacks with Rg more than 10 inches (since that's the max melee range of Ramos's stuff for the most part)
3) Focus fire on things to take them down quicker.

And that's all within 5 minutes of looking at that page. Research is your friend in this Findas, don't fight it


Edit: As to your woes with Hamelin, three questions:
1) What was his list?
2) What in his list have you faced before?
3) Has he faced anything in your list before?

If the answer to question 2 is nothing, and the answer to question 3 is yes, you might want to think about doing some research.

ok i will stick at it for a bit i don't like the look of Mei Feng but maybe i can can run kearis as an alternative but i'm still not convinced about this game. its one thing to loose a lot of games and learn from your mistakes and another to lose and feel like there is nothing you can do because your models are under powered and your opponents are overpowered malifaux seems inherently unbalanced. and given most of the people i play with come from a warmahordes background with its seemingly unending one upmanship of bigger more powerful models and new releases i doubt they will ever play a balanced game if they can avoid it.

Malifaux is balanced as you can tailor your crews to cover the weaknesses of your master or to take advantage of the weaknesses of your master. Malifaux is also balanced on a faction by faction basis, there is always 1 master in every faction that is a decent counter to another master. Want to counter Pandora? Bring models with Stubborn, nothing says good morning like a Wp 10 or 11 Von Schill crew, trying to pacify that crew is a pain, I burnt 7 soulstones that turn .

The problem you're encountering is that you want to stick with a single master (I totally understand you, for the longest time Rasputina and Somer Teeth Jones were my masters of choice, until I traded my entire gremlin army (1 of every gremlin box and blister) for LCB, Pandora, and Viktorias). Now Pandora, Lynch and LCB are my competitive masters with Nicodem and McMourning as my goof around masters. I tend to win or draw most of my non-competitive games because I know my crews extremely well, and I've only been playing Malifaux on a weekly basis since mid September, before that it was maybe 1 game every three months. Don't give up on Malifaux, it's a fun game, and it's very easy to get good just remember to play the objective and to learn what your opponent's models do.

And don't sound so dour about it. I know it sucks when you get beaten by "newer" players, especially when you're having a hard time winning in general... This is my life when it comes to 40k... I can't seem to get a 6th ed game to last past turn 3 before I'm tabled.

Also, you didn't tell us what was in his list

well alfndrate given my experience with the steamborg you have nothing brag about killing it in two turns its not difficult to put down in fact the only way it survives till turn 3 is if it didn't get anywhere neer combat or has been surgically attached to ramos ass it was killed by 3 rats and a rat catcher in one turn by hamlin. the hamlin player had:
hamlin

2 rat catchers
1 stolen
5 rats
nix

*sigh* I wasn't trying to brag, I'm merely trying to show you the experiences of someone else playing against Ramos, because the first time I played against the Steamborg he ripped through my Viktoria's box (Viktorias and Bishop), while Taelor and Johan were busy with Ramos, arcing screens, electrical creations and spiders/swarms.

Target priority is a big deal in every game, knowing what will cripple your opponent's force more is a huge.

Like my first target would have been The Stolen, followed by the Rat Catchers, followed by Nix then Hamelin. Once the Rat Catchers are gone you have less to worry about the rats with. If there are no Stolen on the board, then Hamelin doesn't have anything he can use to come back to life with, and Nix is a bit of a hurty little bulldog, so I'd want to get rid of him eventually, but it's less important than the things that make Hamelin's crew annoying.

Note: Get rid of the Stolen if you can, AFTER Hamelin has activated.


Also: How often do you use Triggers? Decapitate on the Steamborg is fantastic as it forces Hamelin's player to discard cards or soulstones (if they have use soulstone), or lose the model. He might not care about that on a rat, but do it on something else and you'll force him to either deplete his hand or lose important models to his crew.

personally i find the decapitate trigger highly overrated if its a case possibly doing high damage or making my opponent discard 2 i tend to go for the damage especially against hamlin as at one point he had 11 cards in his hand so discard 2 means nothing to him. also your advice about taking out stolen and ratcatchers is sound but hard to do in practice ramos crews have no way to move enemy models and although you can pass over the rats when there are many he can position them so you cant end a move close enough to a model to attack.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I do forget surge sometimes



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and you asked what we had faced before i had no experiance of any of his and he none of mine

findas wrote:
personally i find the decapitate trigger highly overrated if its a case possibly doing high damage or making my opponent discard 2 i tend to go for the damage especially against hamlin as at one point he had 11 cards in his hand so discard 2 means nothing to him. also your advice about taking out stolen and ratcatchers is sound but hard to do in practice ramos crews have no way to move enemy models and although you can pass over the rats when there are many he can position them so you cant end a move close enough to a model to attack.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I do forget surge sometimes

I don't see how it's highly overrated, you're not ignoring damage for the chance to kill them. You do the damage and trigger Decapitate and either you deal damage and they discard cards/soulstones, OR you kill the model.

As for the rats and not moving past them, then you kill the rats. You place the newly summoned rat in base contact with the one that has just been killed, if there is no room to summon it in base contact, you can't summon it.

Also, Soulless have 1 wound with a Df and Wp of 4... hitting them with a spell like Electric Fire or blowing them up with an electrical creation, who are spirits I believe, so you can just pass through things, which means they take 1wd of damage as the creation is moving through them...

I mean you have the tools... I just think you're seeing only the negatives :-\

Ok i didn't know decapitate works like that that is a massive difference i was told it is either or. i know i am being negative but i honestly don't think i would have been able to get ramos close enough to the soulless he is so slow its his worst drawback he is supposed to be a summon/support master but he is rarely close enough to anyone to help is there any way to speed him up?

Decapitate doesn't say to either kill or deal damage, so you do both. Whoever told you it's either or has no ground to stand on as RAW it doesn't say you kill the model instead of dealing damage.

I'm assuming that the Stolen was way in the backfield to prevent it being a target, which is something you'd have to deal with. If he's far too out of place, then move on down the target priority list.

Ramos is slow yes, but the way to speed him up is to Manifest his avatar, which can be done on turn 2 with the right cards. On the first turn, use (2) Salvage Under Fire to gain a scrap counter, use your (0) action to summon a steampunk arachnid, and then use your (+1) Casting Expert to cast (1) Electrical Creation, this takes care of your first requirement of casting Electrical Creation or Construct Spider twice. Then if you want, you can manifest on turn 2 by using (all) which uses all of your action points. aRamos is a lot faster than regular Ramos and is summoning beast. So you could summon faster constructs and use them for board control.

The other way to do this is the following:
Second Turn Manifest with only Ramos and Mobile Toolkit

This advantage this method provides is that it will allow Ramos to forgo the use of (2) Salvage Under Fire to create the scrap required for (0) Construct Spider and spend those 2 General AP doing other things such as moving farther into position.

Deploy Mobile Toolkit and Ramos base to base.
Mobile Toolkit activates
Mobile Toolkit first casts Lab Equipment on Ramos to provide an additional Tomes to his Ca
Mobile Toolkit uses Magical Extension to cast Combat Medic choosing itself as the killed target. The ability states that the Construct is killed and not sacrificed. Normally killing a model will allow the destroyed model to drop the appropriate counter.
Due to originally being in base to base contact with Ramos, the Scrap is immediately picked up by Ramos when dropped.
Ramos activates
Ramos casts (0) Construct Spider using the Scrap from the recently killed Mobile Toolkit
Ramos casts (1) Electrical Creation
2 General AP is left over to do with as he wants, since he already satisfied one Manifest requirement.


Depending on circumstance you still may want to decide to use Salvage Under Fire to create the Scrap so Ramos can use it in his future Avatar form.


Once in his avatar form, aRamos has a wk/cg of 5/8, he can make his cg his wk with a use of (0) Innovative Design, or with (0) Leap he can move 8 inches with Flight...

So he does get considerably faster in Avatar form... might be time to build that model

yea i guess so its gonna be a bitch i really do need to figure how to pin it

findas wrote:
yea i guess so its gonna be a bitch i really do need to figure how to pin it

Score the metal, get zip kicker or something like that, and or put a little green stuff around the joint


Also if you're interested, I believe we're gonna be starting a Malifaux VASSAL league for beginners and people that want to try new masters

what is zip kicker? and what is a VASSLE league? also what is LCB?

zip kicker is a glue accelerant made by the same people that make Zap a Gap super glue. Vassal is a program that creates a virtual tabletop that loads modules, you can play almost any game on it and Malifaux has it's own official module. and an LCB is Lord Chompy Bits.

um i guess i i'd be up for the assol thingy maybe

http://www.malifaux.com/Ramos.php

This stuff is really not a "Beginner" type of army, but you have more options in that list of stuff there that you need to explore.

Drop those constructs behind the enemy, as well. run in and dogpile, or tie them up with melee, and then drop a few mines while they are occupied.

Leviticus, and Rusty Alice are great add ons, as well. You can take a couple of those chicks that he uses to come back with and pop them up around on the board and have levviticus pop around and harrass the opponents plan while you use ramos as your hammer in the Hammer / Anvil approach to sapping them out. Leviticus weakens, Ramos hits, and hits hard.

Pandora sucks as an opponent, as well. Get her tied up as fast as you can with something to keep her occupied, then drop her crew members, then spawn those arcan constructs around her, and make that one go defensive, almost in turn two. Audacity, audacity, audacity.

for a defense play, set up someone in front of, but not too close ( around 3-4 inches), as a screener. Let them be your sacrifical lamb, then you have manuver room, while they are dealing with that one.


Hope that helps.

Grot's advice on Pandora is pretty solid, the only thing to watch out of is that none of her abilities are ranged attacks, so she can use Pacity/Incite, etc.. and push herself away from you and you won't really be able to do anything about it really.

Though if Pandora is in melee, she screwed something up majorly...

Aye, and getting her into Melee when she doesn't want to is the key. You have to really show your class on that one. Don't be afraid to lose someone, your just needing to figure for yourself who you want to give up. My advice? Throw in one of those spawners on her and then follow though while she / her player is dealing with your balls move. People who play Pandora fall into a false sense of security, because of how she/ her deck plays. Usually, she's going to be the one trying to dictate the board.

Here's Wierds write up on her, though I have a few issues with this one. ( I started out playing this crew, so in a sense I got to cut my teeth on the game with her. Right away, I felt that there was something "Off" about her.)

http://www.malifaux.com/Pandora.php

I didn't like her very much after about three or four games. I find her a little crazy to shuffle around cards and pull in sorrows on. I used around five of those sorrows and pushed them right in, not being afraid to lose them, then followed up with Kade/ teddy special. ( The giant bear is like a steamroller. Kade is a second follow on to keep models tied down. You can mix and match that combo though, depending on how you want to support that fight.)

Sorrows suck you dry/ keep you occupied, while your too busy trying to figure out who will come in next for the kill.

(In chess its called a gambit.)



One thing you need to know right off is that whoever plays a Pandora is going to try to set the tone for you. You shut that down, you can own her. She starts adding in and getting her people stuck in, you fall back and double around, while you sap her strength on games. Make her/ her player throw down hard card, and then follow through with what I said before, pop up around her side, then get into melee her in with a spawner. She's dealing with that, you push forward and remove pawns. Then you sick in one of those side snacks, like an arachnid, or a mine and bleed her out. You have to play it her way and dictate the fight. If anything you push her hard and make the player sweat it out, while you misdirect the efforts, and come in for the kill.
2-1/ 3-1 should weaken her enough for a finishing move from Ramos...

Try to throw something on her and keep her occupied, though.

Grot's post is well written, and contains good info, though I would caution Grot 6 that we're trying to help Findas find his footing in the game, not scare him off with comments like, "Of course that player's going to come back and try to call you cheese, or cry a little harder, but honestly, she's broken at this point and in need of an errata of her own." (Fyi, she has been errata'd, you can no longer do both Pacify and Incite in the same turn, which allowed a Pandora player to control the game even more).

As a Pandora player myself, there are plenty of ways to deal with her, the biggest way to do so is avoiding targeting her. Hit her with blasts, pulses, and auras. If you can avoid targeting her, you take away her biggest defense, which is the fact you need to beat her in a Wp -> Wp duel (opposed Wp duel) to target her, or to use models with Stubborn. My most difficult fight has been against Von Schill because of their Wp buffs.

Also, if someone is getting into Melee with me they have to beat my Wp duel (if they don't do that, I get to push 4 inches away and deal 1 damage, bam no more melee). Then they'll have to kill off my sorrow, and hope I'm out of soulstones. On the next turn I'll Pacify my way out of melee with them, hit them with Project Emotions, Dementia (in case they survive the turn), and then a Self-Loathing to follow things up, and then go about my business as normal. Pandora is very hard to pin down in melee, and like I've said before, she can handle things on her own, but she's far from broken.

And no matter who you play, they're going to try and set the tone, because if you control the flow of the game your opponent has an uphill fight.

Also I would personally sooner trust pullmyfinger over Malifaux.com because the former is updated monthly.

But it's not a big deal, Findas I suggest trying some of the suggestions that are in this thread, and keep playing, or you can take Grot's advice and believe that everyone you play is playing broken masters because they want to play the cheesiest list they can. Just remember, Neverborn are glass cannons, they can get the alpha strike and deal some damage, but they go down fast with their low Dfs and average wounds.

I'm sorry if it comes on a little strong, I honestly didn't mean to try to sound condisending if that how it is honestly being taken as.

Taking it a step back, in reading of the other posts from the OP, he is saying point of fact that he is indeed playing against power gamers. They are playing hard core lists there and he is playing Ramos. As to someone saying one or the other, I'll pull back on the overtone, because quite honestly I found this info out the hard way myself, in playing with pandora. I honestly didn't see that errata, but i'll go back and check that out. ( I stopped playing her after around a couple of games. Like I said, I found her... not to my liking.)

Findas, I didn't mean to come off giving you impression "Saying" that they are broken. Just that it will be what you hear when you pounce her.

My impression was that Findas didn't know how to play against some of the type of tricks that Pandora is capable of.

My advice was not that "everyone has a broken list and they are all cheesy." My advice was to push in and get her stuck, then punch her hard as a followup. that you sacrifice a snack, and use the followup and kick her teeth in.