My long drunken road - Brewmaster game recaps/Insights

[Dumb Luck]

He's certainly useful in the right scheme pool. Outside of that, i'm not sure if Fingers even gets a look in. Tribe is far more useful, due to Ill Omens.

[Jewomie]

What is tribe? I'm not familiar with that.

[Deluge]

Tribe = Trixiebelle I would reckon

[Tiny]

So its been awhile since my last post, been jumping around the gremlin masters a bit not sure what to do with myself before gencon. Was curious how everyone's experiences have gone with brewmaster in their metas. Also wondering how close my lists ended up compared to the guys that have been playing brewmaster from the start?

[bandages]

This thread has been an excellent source of information, and I think a stick is in order!

 

Anyway, yesterday I had my first game with Brewmaster.

It was vs Guild McMourning in Turf War. We both took Power Ritual and Protect Territory. Initially I thought this would have been an ideal set up as it ties in so well with Drinking contest.

Without going into too much detail I was on the receiving end of a bit of a pasting (10-3). Mainly due to poor play from myself; Bayou Gremlin Scheme runners got wiped off the board turn two, I focused too much on trying to lock down McMouring and Trixie and Francios were down to one wound (via some horrid Severe and Red Joker damage flips!).

Anyway, going back to Brewie, I realised this; if you are going to try and be as effective with Drinking Contest as you possibly can be he needs all of his actions to; a) come off and allow his supportive models to benefit from it in terms to LOS, charging routes etc. This means that he alone is very card intensive.

 

I would argue that, to make it AP efficient, within the drinking contest you’re probably hoping that during that turn you give at least 2 models Swill and Poison.  This leads to a bit of a conundrum, as you must choose between using your high cards to get the Swill off (Hangover) so the Poison (Swig) will be easier to apply, or using your High cards to put Poison (Swig) on so that Swill (Hangover) has a higher chance of being applied. Either way, as you’re using you’re 0 action for Drinking Contest, you lose out on using ‘One for the Road’ That means that to get poison on two models you’ll need to use Swig, the problem with which is that it is against their df which is slightly counterproductive as you’ve spent all this AP trying to debuff your opponents wp. This also means that the excellent ‘Binge’ upgrade is potentially side-lined if you are going for this set up.

 

The next issue I came across was Wesley. His ‘There must always be one’ ability is superb, but, he doesn’t do much else. He must be within 6” of Brewie, so that means that there will be some turns where he is just walking. Magical extension is an interesting one as, in theory, you’ll be using it against models with lowered wp. However, Hangover and Obey still have TN of 12/14Mask respectively, so you’ll still need 9’s and 10’s for them to go off. Binge works well, but again, only on models affected by the lowered wp. In my opinion you’re better saving a 9 card and popping ‘Swill’ on your Moon Shinobi in the hope that he has a charge lane to something juicy and guaranteeing you a series of + flips.

 

Which then leads to play style.

In my first game I played badly, it wasn’t Brewie. However, I did start to wonder if Drinking Contest was worth it at all. Perhaps it would be more effective to;

1. Ranged Hangover – Brewie hands out x3 Swill. You bring a ranged crew; Francios, Bert, Raph, Rami,  etc. and are almost always hitting and hopefully getting some decent damage. What this means is that you’re not dependent on you models being in melee range (as you don’t want to be shooting at Brewie) with the Swill target, which means you’re not too clumped for scheme markers and blast attacks. Also you have much more scope for using ‘Binge’
2. Shinobi Swill – You bring 3 Shinobi, and then Hangover each of them, giving them (Swill) + to all attacks because of Drunked Gremlin Kung-Fu, hoping that they can Charge/x2 Melee attack each time, this is efficient AP use as you’re nearly always going to be passing the Swill, rather than the risk of your opponent defending against your ‘Hangover’ cast.  The other 25-30 stones can then be spent on models that don’t even have to interact that well with Brewie; Kin, a shed load of Bayou Gremlins, Rooster riders, etc.

 

Anyway, this is far longer than I wanted it to be. As I have said this was my first game, so really these are just anecdotal musings. The other thing to say is that I really enjoyed the game, far more so than with Ophelia and Somer. I get the feeling that if you can get Brewie to ‘work’ you’ll have a lot of fun.

[Whut]

Hey Tiny if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to know your thoughts on requiring at least a semi-tanky model in your crews. It doesn't have to be Gracie but I see your list and it's made of mostly mid cost models with not so many wounds and primarily Df4. I'm a bit scared of getting shot to bits, despite Swill.

Also, have you thought of using a warpig? In theory it could be really good as with Swill and Obey for 1 AP charges you could really do some damage and keep it at full wounds.

The Sow could similarly take advantage of Terrifying, Smell fear, and the crew's many heals to be a major player.

I don't have any gremlins right now but I may be coming into some, so I'd like to see something like this work(I like piggies!)

[Math Mathonwy]

The Sow could similarly take advantage of Terrifying, Smell fear, and the crew's many heals to be a major player.

On paper The Sow looks like an absolutely perfect beatstick for Brewie. Really eagerly waiting for her release.

[zFiend]

Really eagerly waiting for her release.

 

You are very much alone in that.  

[CannibalBob]

 

 

The game was so brutal to the poor Seamus player, that I think I might only play Brewie against him again if I'm feeling like a real jerk that day!  Then again, he did ask for a rematch....   Sucker! 

 

 

I am rather surprised that he did not simply have Seamus deal with the Brewmaster himself.  I have no doubt that the Brewmaster is hard to shift when he gets to do his thing in the middle of a chunk of the enemies crew as he can extremely disruptive, but there are a few models out there that I think can be very dangerous to the Brewmaster and Seamus is one of them.

[zFiend]

I think Brewmaster doesn't really like shooting. 

[Tiny]

@bandages, I'm glad the musings are helping you out. I had a similiar journey to you from the sounds of it. Starting trying to maximise drinking contest and then moving away from it. Nowadays my brew master just hands out 3x hangovers or does a swig of shine attack when i have a high crow in hand so i get the trigger, depending on what im attacking, if they have a high df or wp i just target the lower one. For the first 2-3 turns i dont use drinking contest i use the one for the road to push into where i want to be. 

 

There's also very few ressers in my meta, so moon shinobi arent as useful, and as a result dont make it into my crew. 

 

Lately my crews have been abusing the interaction between lenny and trixiebelle. Which is at its core, lenny being within 3 inches of trixie and giving her a ram, while also being engaged with what she is hitting. So she hits them (90% of the time they have hangover on them so almost guarenteed with ml 7) auto triggers "I never" with the ram for another gremlin to hit them as well, which is of course lenny, resulting in 4 dmg minimum (1 from trixie, 3 from lenny) when she can go reckless thats 12 dmg minimum if u hit all of the attacks, no one is safe from that.

 

@Whut, I generally havent had the need to worry about needing a tanky model in the crew because the crew alpha strikes so hard you just arent in danger until you want to kill something and that generally dies in a companion activation.  

 

For example, lets say its the top of turn 2, and they've double walked something i want to kill, brewmaster will activate first and he will get first activation because you'll be cheating with trixie to make sure. brewmaster will one for the road if he's not within 12 of the thing u want to kill (one of your models or theres it doesnt matter whatever gets you there) then gives them hangovers, if its something that can use soulstones they'll get 2 or 3 swills (so they are still on negatives after using a stone, also remember its negative to all flips so if they soulstone prevent thats on a neg too). Francois then companion activates goes reckless and worst case walks then charges something within 13 inches (wk 5 + cg 6 + 2 ml) you use soulstones to prevent the dmg from dumb luck on him so he should be on at least 6 wd remaining and they should be 10ss down before they have activated on turn 2. Francois should be able to whether at least the next activation if they come at him (if not consider not doing the alpha here obviously) then trixie worst case lures him back to safety for the slop hauler to heal up again later so you can do it all again next turn. All the while your bayou gremlins are just cruising around doing schemes.

 

WIth that being said my last game i had lenny in which meant i could alpha then jam up the pieces i wanted to faster and have the survivabily with lenny's aura and slop haulers heals. Lenny also means that raphael and francois absolutely go off at range. The crew was:

 

brew   w/ 5ss

+ stilts

Wesley

Bayou grem x2

Francois w/ dirty cheater

Lenny

Trixie w/ dirty cheater

Raphael

Slop Hauler

 

it was squatters right, prot terry, assassinate, outflank and take prisoner. 

 

I have thought about using the warpig with brewmaster i havent had a chance to do so just yet, as i was cycling through different combinations of crews and my zoraida list abuses them. I call it my bacon and eggs list because of warpigs and rooster riders and zoraida basically just abusing the 1 ap charge (which is a tactical action so u can keep doing it on the same model if ppl didnt realise). Although thinking about it the warpig hitting things on negatives could be pretty disgusting, i'll attempt to play it in the next couple of games, maybe a turf war if i flip one. 

 

As for the sow, a lot of my gremlin crews are waiting for her, she will shift the look of gremlin crews quite a bit i think.

 

As for brewmaster not liking shooting thats fair, early if you dont position well, but hangover being 12 inches and most guns being 10 or below (excluding the snipers of course) means you generally arent getting 2 shots at brew and if you are then that would generally be poor positiing on the gremlin players part or a poor target choice in the alpha. Just my 2c.

 

So how's he being received in everyones metas?!

[zFiend]

So does he have a weakness? 

[Math Mathonwy]

I call it my bacon and eggs list because of warpigs and rooster riders and zoraida basically just abusing the 1 ap charge (which is a tactical action so u can keep doing it on the same model if ppl didnt realise).

That's pretty debatable due to Obey's wording. Essentially it boils down to how the rules handle that "due to" clause as the Attack was due to Charge but the model wouldn't have Charged if it hadn't been Obeyed. If it ever makes the FAQ, I'm utterly surprised if it is ruled that you can Obey multiple 1AP Charges.

 

So how's he being received in everyones metas?!

As you have probably noticed, with abject terror in ours even though he hasn't hit the table yet

(Painting him at the moment)

 

So does he have a weakness?

Lucius!

[Adran]

So does he have a weakness? 

Just Listerned to the latest Before we begin, and it appears that the brewmasters weakness is Red joker initiiative flips.

[Tiny]

Of course, obviously im 

 

So does he have a weakness? 

Yeh obviously im giving you the "if the unexpected doesnt happen you'll be fine". Losing initiative hurts so bad as everything ends at the end of turn. So they take out trixie things start going downhill pretty fast. Same as most gremlins you start taking out the support pieces and the wheels fall off. I originally had brewmaster pegged as the dud of the faction tbh, the more i play him the more i love him though. I dont think he's the dud (hi mah) but he's no teeth. 

 

So things that hurt a lot, mccabe with promises basically silver bullets the entire machine with ease. Most things with positive flips or ignoring wp during their activation are huge pains as you have to put more resources into killing them or locking them down. Hard to kill models can be a bit of a pain to remove as well as I generally come in with 2-3 big hits so dont really want to waste those. Especially with brewmaster giving out the heals to enemies as well within 3. 

[bandages]

Tiny, if it is OK with you?, I'd like to also post my Brewmaster findings here as I go through the games and understand his nuances.

 

So I had two games with Brewie this week, both against the same opponent and subsequently the same master: Sonnia. Needless to say I was worried about her blasts,especially around the Drinking Contest area.

I planned to play one game with a very thematic crew; 2 Shinobi, Golem, Wesley, Trixie, etc. and really try to build up the Drinking contest at every opportunity to see how well it would fair. 

In the second game I planned to take only Wesley and then base the crew around having one or two models at +2 Swill, then bringing a ranged crew to put as much hurt as I could.

 

Game one was Turf War. I took Body Guard on the Golem (knowing it was not a wise move! just wanted to see how he'd fare) and Muder Protege on Samael. Initially the Drinking contest worked reasonably well in the turf war bubble, locking down a Stalker and Fransicso, but Sonnia simply focused and was able to get off some pain against the cluster of my models in the middle.

However, on turn four, My opponent flipped a 13 on initiative, which I didn't have in hand to ill omens, and all hell broke loose. Sonnia, using ancient runes, was able to +flip her flameburst attack and with nothing decent in my hand, she got a straight flip for damage which she then cheated in a Red Joker, Killing Trixie, Brewie (Even though stoned for the damage reduction but only flipped 1!), wesley and Francios! the fact those three blast markers can be placed 2" away was very nasty.

Luckily I'd managed to push out a stalker from Turf war, Trixie's Lure, so I was on for full points on Turf war and the Golem was on for 3 points for Bodyguard.

By the end of turn five, going defensive with the Golem and popping the Ironbound condition (+2 def) meant that I was still above 1/2 wounds on him and on for 3 points I 'd hidden a Bayou gremlin behind some hight 3 wall, I was winning 7-6, but my opponent flipped a 12 and the game went to turn 6, Golem got hammerd, ending in a 6-7 loss.

 

Lessons Learned:

 

1)The Golem is now way near as bad as he is made out to be, his melee is respectable and with the Ironbound condition, defensive trigger and armour +1 he can do a decent job of surviving a few attacks. However, in my opinion he is a target, and that +2 def is a must. Yeah, you could get wesley or Brewie to Obey him to do it but that's a waste of a potential hangover cast as far as I am concerned. Which means than If you need him alive for a turn or more, you have a  1AP model (He has nimble, but you want him in the thick of it right?)

2) The Drinking Contest is brilliant but, very conditional. I wouldn't advise at all that you build your offence around it, if there is a potential for it to happen and you have the cards fine otherwise, you're much better off handing out Swill 3 times.

3) Wesley dies. I listened to the very informative Schemes and stones Podcast by Mike Brandt on the Brewmaster and he stated that a good Brewmaster player knows how to hide Wesley, well i am clearly still not getting it as he is the number 1 target for my opponents. The fact that he has to stay within 6" makes it seem like you should be able to hide him behind some terrain, but really to get the most out of him you need to be benefiting from the Tipsy Aura (3") and the ability to cast magical extension on a target, which means he'll most likely be within 2-3" of Brewie. Something I need to figure out.

 

Game two was Reckoning, I took Frame on Francois and announced Protect, which he also announced, Bodyguard was in the pool and I think he took line in the sand.

The intention with this game was really to see how much debuffing Brewie could put out on two models per turn, and subsequently if I could kill them and how well a predominately ranged crew would work.

I brought; Lenny, Shinobi, Wesley, Francois, Raphael, and Burt and had 6 stones remaining mainly for drawing more cards, No upgrades. This game was a bit of a whitewash.

Lenny tossed up Raph and Francois 8 1/2 inches, Trixie then double walked and Lured Lenny to form a potent gunline in the middle and gaining all those rams. Francois let off a few reckless shots wounding a few different models then Nino Fired back at Francois, and he lost a few wounds, then Sonnia, seeing that Francois was wp7 for ancient runes burnt stones and high cards to 2 shot Francios, I even burnt a stone to give the impression I wanted him alive, by then end of turn one had all three points for frame. Brewie then double Hang Over-ed Sonnia, Raph went reckless and ended up putting a total of 20 wounds into Sonnia, he killed himself in the process, but it was well worth it and as it was on turn one, so he didn't get the points for reckoning. From then on Burt with Lennys Aura and a Moon Shinobi with +2 Swill and Trixie wiped out most of his crew, and on turn 4, with just Samael left, he retired from the game.

 

 

Lessons Learned:

 

1) +1 Swill is good, but +2 is truly amazing. Against Sonnia, her flipping 3 def cards, was allowing me straight damage flips each time. I would say that from now on I will try and x2 Hangover on my number one target and Hangover & One for the road another. If I get the opportunity, and the stars align, i'll try drinking contest, but It just feels like there is less orchestration required with the ranged Swill approach.

2) Use Wesley to pop Swill on the Shinobi, Yeah you need an 8, but It's more reliable than trying to swill an opponent. Don't be snobby about a 7" Tiny Green fists of fury charge, attacking on positives, with the potential of cheating down to equal you opponent's def score for double negative flips to be double positive on damage. I found, when charging, it to be a very consistent 6 overall damage. And, during your first turn with the Shinobi, Seriously think about taking the on the house action, it'll give you 2 poison, but in essence it'll be a 5" push at the end of turn one and two, which might allow you to do some better things for charge avenues and LoS.

3) This is more of a Gremlin lesson than a Brewie one, but I think the real key is getting as many reckless models in a crew as possible. 3 AP with Raph, Burt, Francois and Trixie really makes a huge different, especially against swilled targets.

 

 

Other anecdotal observations:

 

1) Trixie. When you can get the best out of her; Ill Omens, Slap with Lenny/Franc next to her, Turf war to Lure opponents out, she's great.

But, there are times when; your opponent flips a 11+ for initiative and you need those high cards for handing out Swill, You have to use an AP to move into a decent position to get the most out of the gremlin Lure and Opponent Push, buying her Gun upgrade makes her 9 stones which is 3 Bayou Gremlins or a Francois with Stilts and Dirty Cheater, she just feels like when other enforcers/henchmen die she gets worse. Again anecdotal to my own games, but something I'll have to work on.

2) Binge. When I first saw it I thought it was one of the few overpowered Gremlin upgrades and an absolute must. However, It seems that, more than any other Gremlin master I've played (all of the plastic ones) Brewie needs all of his AP (for handing out Swill) for his crew to work effectively. In theory you might have a situation where you somehow get your opponent to throw away a Tomb for the Booz trigger (Looses all in built suits for the rest of the game) or a Crows for Paralysed, but in practice, you'll still be wanting to go first with Brewie, and subsequently you're opponent will probably have a full hand to choose an effect of thier choosing. Yes Wesley could use it but at CA4 it has the potential to be unreliable.

3) Brewie is so much fun. Even when you loose, his mechanics generally allow for a tactical game.

 

Apologies for the the wall of text, this wasn't the intention, but hopefully it helped someone who might be thinking about taking up Brewmaster.

[Astrella]

So does he have a weakness? 

Keeping your crew scattered out seems to be a good idea, if he can't lock down a big chunk of your models he's a lot weaker. Stuff that buffs willpower / clears conditions to get rid of poison helps a lot as well. Models that push other models to get them out of the bubble help too. Just trying to burst him down with ranged power works as well since he doens't have much special defensive wise.

[Brewie]

This thread was a good read.

 

Any more solid practice and/or observations that you have discovered about brewy and his crew?

[Eclipse]

Seeing as the Brewmaster often wants go near the enemy models it is often easy to shoot him dead before this. Stilts for example helps with this as an emergency save button, as well as giving you as Ht.3 Brewie aura... Having solid ranged support helps a lot, too. If you Swill an enemy model it will be easier to shoot them rather then spend AP to get in their face to beat them up.

[Bazlord_Prime]

I'm looking over which Gremlin master to take with me into a set-list 35ss noob's tournament, and it's either going to be Wong or The Brewmaster.  Reading this thread has been massively helpful - thanks all.

One thought about giving ranged defense for Brewie - would a 6ss Bayou Bushwhacker be too extravagant?  (0) Action to put out a 3" Soft Cover aura?

[anumberone]

 I'd consider two bayou gremlins and  putting Hide in the mud on Brewie before going with a Bushwhacker if you're doing a fixed list at 35 stones. Just more bang for your buck.