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TT Brewmaster help/tactics?


KingCrow

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I'm currently in the process of acquiring TT models and just acquired a Brewmaster crew.  I know after wave 3 he was considered low tier but are there any new tactics (other than continually obeying Yasunori) that makes him fun/valid?  Any must haves/takes?  I personally really like Swill and can see using almost all the AP just casting that on an opponents crew but he seems so squishy and so I don't think I'd put him up in the thick of things very often... which then doesn't allow you to take advantage of his Drinking Contest ability.  

If there is another thread with talk about Brewie after this newest wave (wave 5), please direct me to it! Any help or tactical advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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If you're obeying Yas, isn't it only once per turn if he's making an attack? Still, you can get 3 attacks for 1 of the brewy's AP, so it's awesome value.

I've found Yin to be good value, as she can throw out poison, and has attacks that target WP. Terrifying 12 on a negative WP will help lock a few models down.

The emissary is handy too if you want to play mass poison spam. With brewy adding +2 damage when poison ticks down and the emissary adding another +1, thats 4 damage a turn that cannot be reduced.

Akaname spam is a handy way to spread it around. If you've been able to load the akaname up with poison, you potenially have a Ml 8 min damage 5 attack. From a 4ss minion. 

Fermented river monks don't seem as good as the akaname, but they will help spread the poison out. They can generate their own poison independently which the akaname can grab when they activate, their 0 action isn't a bad choice for any dodgy cards in the first few turns as you can turn them into something useful. They aren't that likely to hit unless they target someone thats already on a neg wp.

You'll need to take wesley. There's a few ways of doing this. Take the upgrade which lets you infiltrate him, then swap it for something useful like "a barkeep never sleeps" with a terracotta warrior. I can't recall if Wesley is a minion, but if he is have the TC protect him. Or, take the new upgrade and summon him in. the only catch is you lose the upgrade which is giving out the +2 poison damage.

On 9/24/2017 at 2:52 AM, Nukemouse said:

Tanuki can give the whiskey golem reactivate to get you a tanky beater with a lot of ap. Take running tab to hire it but use a teracotta warrior to swap tab for something else.

This also. Reactivating the golem is hilarious. I've used the 0ss upgrade to increase his poison. The brewmaster's aura doesn't increase the poison damage as he isn't an enemy. I'd need to check for the emissary.

Anything else that targets WP or involves poison is worth considering, or things that can anchor models in his aura- pathfinders with traps. Performers are worth a look. I haven't tried her with brewmaster yet, but lust might be worth considering too. A LRM is another choice, you can remove poison from your own models that arent immune, and can also throw out scheme markers near annoying models for the Tanukis aura to take effect.

 

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With the caveat that I haven't had a chance to try out wave 5 models yet:

Ignore drinking contest imo, it's a trap to focus on it. Only use it when they come to you or you have a fantastic opportunity to shut someone down without moving too far forwards. If you really want to use it proactively, have Sensei Yu do it instead.

I extremely agree with taking Wesley and then swapping out Running Tab with a Terracotta Warrior. He is a minion, so make sure to drop ancient protection on him. The new upgrade to summon him is okay, but more useful to bring him back since using it slows down your turn 1 and you lose out on the aura (which I'd rather have than not have even if I don't think poison is all that great).

Binge is a must have imo, if only for using low masks to "obey" your own models. Plus if you have enough of them you get around the one attack per activation Obey clause, and it lets Wesley get off obey like effects without worrying about a TN with his reduced Ca.

A Fermented River Monk is a super useful hire in 10T. Thunders sometimes struggle with activations because they just don't have particularly cheap spammable models. A fermented river monk is the cheapest way to get 2 activations and you'll get it fairly incidentally. Turn 1 have him move up and act as a target for One For the Road for both Sensei Yu and Brewmaster and bam, there's your Poison +4 for reactivate. Either use it that turn or next. He also works well to hold a position when within 3" of Brewmaster because on his turn he can just heal up, get poison and often that's enough to reactivate again. Don't expect the monk to achieve much, but he will pad out your activations very nicely in my experience and that is really worth it.

 

Honestly beyond those specific tips I find the most effective way to play Brewmaster is swill and kill. Put something on negatives, then attack it with a nasty hard hitter like The Lone Swordsman or Yasunori or Burt Jebsen. The biggest trap of all is too much support. Try not to overdo it and limit yourself to something like Sensei Yu, Wesley and maybe one other cheap or mid cost support model, otherwise you just won't be able to get any kills.

 

EDIT: I forgot the other tip which is to always play Fingers in headhunter.

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Yin is my one auto include because the :-fate lasting until her next activation allows Brewie and Yin to permanently keep any annoying unit (master) on :-fate's. Also Terrifying is nice, especially when you can obey units into it for an easy paralyze. Ama No Zako comes with her own obey and terrifying, further complimenting that, and her paltry Ml5 is offset by models being on a :-fate to Df, which suddenly makes that 3/5/7 a lot more scary. With the new upgrades Wesley just got a 3 SS discount. Sure it costs a 0 but that 6" Brewie push isn't 3SS good. Yasunori is naturally, especially with 2 SS Wesley and Binge existing, an absolute powerhouse.

The key to the Brewmaster is realizing fast that poison isn't good and that it should never be your focus. It happens - brilliant, but beyond that you're just wasting AP and worse yet SS on various levels of set up that leaves you with less pay-off than Swill>Charge>Parade a bleeding corpse around. The Brewmaster may be squishy and not very scary, but the crew you're taking with him should be. By being in range of the Brewmaster your opponent should be placing themselves in range of at least 2-3 8+ SS beaters, with the possibility of a :-fate or two on any unit around. That alone should provide sufficient threat. Also remember that a fast Brewmaster and a Wesley 12" near a Yin'd model can mean draining up to 5 cards and a completely crippled unit. With Obey, Swill, Binge and Drinking Contest the Brewmaster has a wide variety of ways to hinder your opponent. It's a decent toolbox that touches on plenty of areas of play. The downside to this is that everything he does requires or is set-up. Even his Obey requires a suit, which that new upgrade did nothing to help because all it did was introduce more set-up.

Wyrd has had 4 waves to fix the Brewmaster, one of which allowed them to provide actually useful upgrades, but they've shown to simply not get the Brewmaster. They'll keep trying to push poison, which means desperately fiddling with all the weakest parts of his card while leaving all the things that allow him to be "barely functional" in the dark. All poison does is using more AP to do less, even after 5 waves. And they can't release the actually overpowered Tri-Chi units the Brewmaster would need to make poison viable because at that point other masters will do far better with them than the Brewmaster ever could. With his current actions the Brewmaster can use 1 of his AP to affect either the action, hand or flips of a unit. It's not much but it's what he does and what he's reasonably serviceable at. It is then up to your crew to capitalize on the point of weakness you've just created. Take a strong and self sufficient crew that only uses the Brewmaster as a support piece and be sure to take him only when the schemes permit bubbling up within that 12" sphere of influence.

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McMourning has no problem with using poison, i don't think poison itself is the problem, its that brewie isn't that good at it. Douglas gets to give 2 or more poison out at range usually at least 4, brewie gives maximum 2 out in real close range. Douglas causes foes to take the damage when activating, brewie doesn't. Brewmaster could have got some upgrades to make poison work but he didn't, even marcus got a better poison upgrade in the form of an AOE pulse of poison 1-2 at range, which is a great way of applying lots of poison to foes.

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On 9/25/2017 at 2:10 AM, Dogmantra said:

EDIT: I forgot the other tip which is to always play Fingers in headhunter.

Holy smokes is Fingers' stock going up in GG18.

I think 10T Brewie is going to have a lot of value in this set as well, especially if you're playing along the lines of Swill and Binge, with appropriate models for the effort. I've never had Brewmaster's aura do more than deny an area for a while, but I've had Binge win me games. Swill lets you work with your own positives more effectively, because a AV of 5 on a positive is still getting overbid against a 7 that flips/cheats a 13. Putting your victim on a negative makes things work so much more smoothly for you.

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4 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Putting your victim on a negative makes things work so much more smoothly for you.

My thoughts exactly and thus why I can't wait to try out Brewie!!

5 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Holy smokes is Fingers' stock going up in GG18.

With being able to switch out that 2 SS upgrade using the Terracotta warrior, its actually ok to bring Fingers along.  Still paying 10 SS for an ok control model but it can definitely hurt in certain situations.

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Fine. Wyrd trying to push poison with the Brewmaster (who this thread is entirely about) is a bad thing, because as it is now it is not only a completely dysfunctional part of both his card and his factions, but getting poison to work is directly draining resources and attention away from the only part of his playstyle that is actually working. Be it AP or SS, playing poison requires an investment that runs counter to how he's currently best utilized by a mile. They're not trying to buff him with his card's strength in mind; they're desperately trying to push something that will override the one established part of his card. It's like trying to improve someone's handwriting by designing the perfect specialized left handed pen despite them being right handed. 

And important to note is that it's actually pretty much all Tri Chi models being very sub-par in anything related to poison. And at least for TT, it's a lack of any model that's particularly amazing at poison. And to get that to change in any significant fashion they'd need to make some very OP poison models, which again will work much better with masters that aren't the Brewmaster.

They could've added some general triggers to Swill or whatever, added an actual built in suit to some of his duels or even just given him a fun new debuffing action; each of which would've smoothly been a handful of pluses to augment his existing playstyle. With what we got I'm starting to suspect no one at the Wyrd offices has actually even seen a Brewmaster played. All these upgrades have missed the mark so completely that I hope they see the position the forum takes against all his developments as a hint that maybe, just maybe, they should address it from a different angle.

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Akaname, Yin and Ferments have no issue poisoning people. Expanding his anti wp aura to a much larger size would be a simple way to make his debuff style play better with the poison support. I agree wyrd had handled everything awfully but hardly because they pushed poison too hard, they pushed nothing at all. His upgrades did nearly nothing for him and I suspect if they had been swill focused they would still have been bad. Poison is not a scapegoat for wyrds perception that brewie is much better than he really is.

Also an upgrade can support both, like a trigger on swill to make the target take a walk action. You could make them walk into drinking contest or trigger brewies poisoning disengage or simply reposition them. Or walk them into yin and paralyze them but who am I to judge?

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Never said there's no way to poison models. I said there are no good poison oriented models. Yin is by all means great (like I said, closest thing to an autotake for me) but that has absolutely nothing to do with poison. Mainly because there's very little that actually does something good with poison. And it's exactly the poison that's the issue because if you want to play poison you'll be spending SS on units that poison and use poison and their AP on finicky poison effects, rather than hiring strong standalone units that can also capitalize on Swills and Obeys and Binges. You'll have to center around more and more set-up at the cost of his other actions.

It's not building on what he has, it's building alongside it hoping it might surpass what he's doing right now. He has a playstyle. In going for poison they're trying to build up an entirely different playstyle that will only ever be used if it completely outshines his initial forté because of the dedication and resources it takes to make poison in any degree usable. That is why poison is a mistake. Because it would take the release of various very strong poison models, very strong upgrades or changes to Brewie and a complete abandonment of everything he does now to make it viable. If it takes completely ignoring what a master does and going for something entirely different to get to where you want, you might as well just design a new master.

For five books the Brewmaster has had one direction border on viable while Wyrd has been tossing wave after wave of vaguely related "patches" his way. And throughout all these patches none of them have stuck because Wyrd has this notion in their head that neither the Brewmaster's actions and upgrades nor his themed models can support. Sure, if they five waves ago decided to actually create an entirely different Brewmaster it could've worked. If they then also gave him better models in the past five books we could've been in a brilliant place poison-wise. But poison started broken when the Brewmaster came out the way he did, and at this point enough bad models have been released to safely say we've moved well past the point where we can fix that. There's an errata coming up this January and I hope to god Wyrd takes some notice and decides to try and actually play with the Brewmaster's current tools, rather than alongside or even against them. Poison could've been viable if the Brewmaster was designed entirely differently. He wasn't. It's time to recognize that and move on.

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What I am suggesting is that the new tri chi models are cohesive and do work well, they just lack a unifying force in brewmaster. Like lucius brewmaster needs to change, his thematic models arent the problem he is. Right now shenlong does a better job of being brewmaster than brewmaster and uses his thematic models better.

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I saw an idea about using the new Gwyneth model with Brewie.  Put some Swill on a few key models and then use Gwyneth's ability to place them in base contact with her, preferably within Brewie's aura.  This helps to get his tarpit stuff going quickly.  You could even bring some Illuminated to put Brilliance on those models to already have the enemy models at negatives on the duel and not have to worry about Swilling them for that turn. 

But yea, poison is kind if a "hey cool" thing when it happens with Brewie, but not a valid tactic. 

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1 hour ago, Nukemouse said:

What I am suggesting is that the new tri chi models are cohesive and do work well, they just lack a unifying force in brewmaster. Like lucius brewmaster needs to change, his thematic models arent the problem he is. Right now shenlong does a better job of being brewmaster than brewmaster and uses his thematic models better.

Good point about Shenlong imo, and it's something that hurts Brewmaster in Gremlins too. TT Brewie has it a bit better because he can bring Fingers while Shenlong can't, and Fingers is obscene in certain situations (seriously if y'all haven't seen him in Headhunter you are missing out!). All the other Tri-Chi models (except Wesley) don't really fill any sort of unique niche that's worth paying for Running Tab and bringing them in*. I'd prefer a focus on his cross faction hiring over poison.

*I'm yet to see how Tanuki perform and they could be the answer for the Gremlin side, and you could make an argument for Moon Shinobi in 10T but Shenlong/Sensei Yu can replicate Drunken Gremlin Kung Fu too.

12 hours ago, KingCrow said:

Still paying 10 SS for an ok control model but it can definitely hurt in certain situations.

Fingers is waaaaay more than ok. People seem to underrate him because he does exactly two things and he's expensive for a model with pathetic damage output, but boy howdy he is the best schemer in the game absolutely.

 

 

I mean if we're also talking about issues with Brewmaster I think it goes a bit deeper than poison not being great. I think it goes ultimately down to the fact that he can shut models down quite well. Ca7 is pretty dang reliable for an action that drops all your stats by ~2 and prevents cheating. The issue is that with 3AP he can drop it onto 3 models and shut them down for a turn. OTOH, Misaki can kill a model or two with her activation and shut them down permanently in a way that doesn't require her to go early in the turn and is immune to condition removal. And that's Misaki, generally considered a weaker master. It's not as bad in 10T as it is in Gremlins where Wong or Som'er can blast multiple models off the table, but there are so many things that can counter Brewmaster's shutting down that just don't counter a bullet to the face.

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22 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

People seem to underrate him 

 

seriously there's people that find fingers underrated?

lol

fingers is a MUST have on every game, regardless of strategy/schemes

 

and you can use Brewmaster to put a model on negatives -> charge with reckless fingers (9" threat range) and putting poison +9 on the target (plus some poison on :pulse4" ) -> lure with a performer (against a -3WP :-fate) and get your 9 damage
 

if you find another model to put big amounts of poison on another model (in gremlin you can Trixiebelle's buy a Drink on a:-fate to get 10+ stacks of posion) you can kill big target with only support model (and thus doing other things if killing is not worth it)

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