Som'er Crew... HELP!

[Reako]

Hey all!

I'm new to malifaux and looking for some help.

I'm mostly a hobbyist, but lately have been enjoying the local tournament scene for AoS.
With that it is time for a new challenge. I have picked up a bunch of gremlins and gotten almost everything. Where I am stuck is what to take, and then what to do with it on the field.

I played against a Rasputina frozen list and just got melted!

I'm looking to play Som'er and Wong, but I'm painting Som'er first, so that is what I'll play first.

Any and all advice appreciated!

 

[Dogmantra]

The upside is that Som'er is fantastic and can do anything well, but the downside is that he can do anything well so there's no one simple answer for how to play him.

One of his strengths is the ability to summon more Bayou Gremlins. You can focus on this as your main use, or you can just do it at the start, but it's often a good idea to do so because Family Tree costs 2ss, so if you only summon one Gremlin you've made a net profit of 1ss. You'll probably want some Bayou Gremlins to start with anyway because having lots of models is very powerful, and Bayou Gremlins are very good at dropping scheme markers to complete objectives.

If you want to focus on summoning, I'd suggest Som'er, Skeeters, a Lightning Bug, a Slop Hauler and at least 3 Bayou Gremlins as part of your starting crew. You use "Do It Like Dis!", preferably with a Skeeter first* in order to discard a mask, so that all nearby gremlins get +. This means that you only need an 8 or more to summon, and you can probably manage to get it off three times, once on each gremlin, getting you three more. They should all have taken 2 damage, so you then use your Lightning Bug to attack Som'er and declare its Yippee trigger, which will heal all six Bayou Gremlins back to full at the cost of a couple of wounds on Som'er. You can then use the rest of your crew to get into position. One other trick is to swing at Som'er with some of your Bayou Gremlins or Skeeters and use the built in mask from Do It Like Dis to push him up 4", getting him a bit closer to the action without spending any of his AP. On later turns make sure you have some Bayou Gremlins nearby to summon off, and you will probably want to use your Slop Hauler to heal instead of the Lightning Bug because it is a bit less risky.

* the reason you cast Do It Like Dis! with a Skeeter rather than Som'er is because it's a (0) action on Som'er, so you only get one chance, so if you flip the Black Joker you are screwed out of a turn of easier summoning, but if you do it with a Skeeter, you get two tries per activation, plus Som'er's (0) if you need it. It's a rare occurence, but it has happened to me before and it sucks.

For a more incidental summoning, I'd go with just 1-3 Bayou Gremlins and a Slop Hauler as the core. Just use Som'er or a Skeeter to Do It Like Dis for a mask on turn 1, then summon a couple of extra models and ignore the Family Tree upgrade for the rest of the game unless you have nothing else to do with him or you're starting to get really outnumbered.

Really they're just two variations on a theme. Another good trick to use with Family Tree is to summon a Bayou Gremlin from a Bayou Gremlin that has already taken some damage. You kill the original, but you summon a replacement, and Som'er's Survival of the Fittest ability lets you draw two cards when a nearby Gremlin dies.

 

His other big strength is his gun. It's only Sh5, but it can do ridiculous amounts of damage with his ram trigger. The general strategy is to use Do It Like Dis, discard a ram, and then take several shots which now have the absurd damage track of 4/4/8. It costs you a wound per hit, but that's why you bring the Dirty Cheater upgrade, letting Som'er heal a wound each time he cheats during his activation. A good combination with this is to bring Sammy LaCroix, who has the Good Student ability. This lets her attach an upgrade that is normally restricted to the master leading the crew. You then give her Som'er's Encouragement upgrade, which means that when Som'er declares a shot, he can take a wound to gain to the shot. This lets him ignore cover, and makes him more accurate against enemies out of cover. It's an incredibly powerful combo that can dish out silly amounts of damage, and I tend to bring it in nearly every tournament game.

 

These are the two main things Som'er brings to the table in my opinion, although you can also use him as more of a support master, I find the direct approach tends to work best for me. Of course, if you are using things like Do It Like Dis to buff Som'er, you might as well make use of it with the rest of your crew too.

 

Speaking of the rest of your crew, some fantastic models to bring with him:

• Bayou Gremlins, they're cheap models who can achieve objectives pretty easily and obviously you need some for Som'er to summon more
• Slop Hauler, a staple of any Gremlin crew, you're going to be hurting yourself so you need a way to heal back up
• Lightning Bug, another extremely useful model, they can basically do anything. They work as good close or ranged fighters, or like a more durable Bayou Gremlin for achieving schemes. They can also help to heal up summons with one of their triggers.
• Burt Jebsen, he's already a silly good fighter, but Som'er is likely to be handing out Rams via "Do It Like Dis!". Burt synergises very well with this, as it gives him +1 damage on his melee attack, and automatic access to his defensive trigger.
• Merris LaCroix, she has two purposes: firstly she protects against damage, which can be very helpful when facing e.g. Rasputina if you are clumped up. Secondly she is absurdly good at certain schemes. Anything that requires you to drop scheme markers on the opponent's table half she excels at because she can move 15" a turn with flight and still drop a marker at the end of it.

There are plenty more, but if those five were the only models I had access to, I would find it more than sufficient for most situations.

[Reako]

That is an amazing reply! really helpful.

I really like Merris model so I will definitely add her in.

Thanks for the help!

 

[lame0]

Yeah to add to the above he has one of the stronger Ca actions in the faction with bigger hat than you. Due to encouragement & bayou two card it becomes a simple task to take apart an opponent piece by piece. ( Especially of you are denying the opponent hard by taking away their hand....summoners and the like.)

 Sammy w/ encouragement makes the likelyhood that you get it off super high. (Even vs wp 7 it's good.) 

Imo Somer is a turn 1 summoner that then gets so many options going into turn two and beyond. Bigger hat than you, his gun, his two zeros (both amazing) and occasionally summoning a few extra bayous.

To help fit extra stuff in the list I like to take a taxidermist instead of the third bayou because he still let's me summon three models turn one. (Summon three times but kill one of the summoned ones by summoning off of it. This gives you a corpse marker to summon a stuffed/flying piglet.) I think this strategy has gotten better with the new wave because now I get double duty out of the lightning bug healing since it heals the two damage off of a flying piglet if I choose to take it over a stuffed. The other nice option is that if you just plan to summon a stuffed piglet then the healing from a slop healer is sufficient and let's you take a more consistent healer (do it like this for mask isn't always up). 

My current go to list is: 

50 SS Gremlins Crew
Somer Teeth Jones + 4 Pool
 - Family Tree (2)
 - Do Over (1)
Skeeter (2)
Skeeter (2)
Francois LaCroix (7)
Sammy LaCroix (7)
 - Encouragement (2)
Burt Jebsen (7)
 - Dirty Cheater (1)
Gremlin Taxidermist (7)
 - Dirty Cheater (1)
Slop Hauler (5)
Bayou Gremlin (3)
Bayou Gremlin (3)

10 models and it goes up to 13 by the bottom of turn 1.