Are Gremlins OP?

[Quasari]

TLDR: How do Gremlins stack up as a faction in competitive play?

 

Long version:

Me and a buddy have been playing a casual game every week at our LGS, but we've run into a snag. I own four crew boxes(Hamelin, Colette, Ophelia, and Wong) along with a few extra models(mainly Slop Haulers and Brotherhood of the Rat), while he owns four as well (Colette, Kaeris, Pandora, and Titania) plus a few extras as well. We both love the models and lore behind them. Now, I usually play Gremlins as I don't like Hamelins play style, and colette tends to be a mirror match(I really only got the Nightmare version cuz I like the Carnival aesthetic) and it's gotten to be where I do good more than I do bad playing them.

Here's where the problem comes in, because he feels like he loses more than he wins he's checked on the internet and found that Gremlins are the best. Like seriously, he says that they are sweeping tournaments and are just overly efficient. His main problems are Reckless, Heals(slop haulers and Lightning Bugs), and Dumb Luck. He especially hates Francois, which I agree is an incredibly efficient model. Anywho, he feels that I am destroying the fun in the game by playing Gremlins as they are Cheese in his opinion and he will never be able to win at a reasonable rate as long as I play them.

Things came to a head last night as on turn 2, my Francois recklessed, walked then charged. I then went on to Dueling Blade her, hit, declare dumb luck, and even with a negative on the damage flip from accuracy do max damage, straight up one shotting her. We had a heated discussion where basically I said I'll try to get some other sets that I'm interested in and I felt it was over after that, however he sent a text later that night with screen shots of http://usa.malifaux-rankings.com/ showing that the top USA player is also the top Gremlins player and that Gremlins have a higher average player score than other factions. Once I started looking at all the data presented there, I felt it showed a different picture. I told him that it was obvious the average scores were skewed by unranked accounts, that the top 8 players in that list only really includes one gremlin main, and that looking through a bunch of the reported events I'm not seeing many events that Gremlins swept. Anywho, any evidence I give him is just "confirmation bias" and I'm defending my cheese. He now doesn't want to play anymore.

Am I playing cheese?

[wizuriel]

You should pick up Collodi, Nekima and a Doppleganger and show him what a real tier 1 master can do

Short answer is Gremlin's aren't OP, but imo they are a pretty forgiving faction and good at dictating the early game (I find they tend to fall off pretty hard middle to late game especially once they start to lose support pieces). Best way for your opponent to learn to defeat them is try changing crews next game and let him use Gremlins and you use whatever crew he brings. 

[WWHSD]

If you ask over on the Gremlin faction subforum I'm sure you'll hear that they suck, never get any good models in the new books, but continually receive nerfs.

I don't think the data over on that Malifaux ranking website is particularly useful. The data is too small a sample size and not controlled for quality. Assuming that all factions are equal, whichever faction the best played in an area plays might look overpowered and the faction that the worst play plays may look in need of a buff.

[Flinroz]

The faction that is most OP is whatever faction beat me last... or at least this is how it feels. When I first got started I played vs a lot of rezzers, and they seemed like the most OP thing in the world due to just beating me by attrition.

 

In all honesty though I do feel like pretty much any faction can beat any other faction. Specific master match ups may be a different story. You guys have a very limited pool of data, and I could not give any less of a care about "ranking" sites. They are very skewed by what gets reported and how, and that comes from me both as a TO and as the person who is apparently 10th best at malifaux according to that site. *eye roll*

[dancater]

Gremlins are solid with potential great AP efficiency and several cheap but truly powerful models.

However they are vulnerable and once they fall behind the curve they can really struggle to keep up.

I suspect part of the problem is your mate has at least three crews which are considered either lower-end or higher learning curve, or both.

Colette and Kaeris have struggled and dropped to lower tier in the Arcanist faction over the last year, they can play solid games but its tricky to maximize them and even at their best they lack flexibility and have noticeable flaws compared to other masters in the faction, this will be even more pronounced with a limited model range of Arcanists for their crews.

Titania is also a controversial master, she was poorly regarded generally on initial wave release but I've heard (thought not seen) that she is powerful played well and recent releases have helped her.  At best she is good with a steep learning curve and again needs certain faction models to make her crew purr.

Now Pandora is solid and plays into a weaknesses for Gremlins.  With a solid crew selection and careful play she should be a damn hard match up for either Ophelia or Wong.  Her learning curve is also pretty reasonable.  Again though she needs some out-of-box faction models though quite badly.

[dancater]

Also agree with the others, rankings are so much garbage.  Different metas play and rate differently, rankings are a small slice of a much wider game pool and that slice is badly skewed.

Generally I think you're playing two fairly strong and relatively simple masters (Opelia and Wong) with some great crew support into an opponent who is taking masters generally considered to be weaker in their factions and/or with steeper learning curves and in need of significant out-of-box support.  This is pronounced because the Arcanist's are both generally weaker masters and their boxes and crew selections are not great cross over.

Try Pandora more or maybe check the Schemes & Stones podcast and Arcanist forums for Colette and Kaeris advice, there are players who dominate with both in their metas and finding out what they are doing will provide great insight.  Also concentrate of either Kaeris or Colette because they want different crew builds.  

Finally amazing advice to switch crews, lend him your Gremlins and play Colette, lets you use a master you have (and they share) against your gremlins played by them this will give great insight into what the weaknesses are over a couple of games.

 

[KnightA4]

Yeah if your opponent is playing the Pandora or Titania box against Wong, Ophelia and slop haulers he is missing a lot of needed Staples (while Gremlins can make good crews out of that selection).

Those NB sets are missing real dedicated beaters and scheme runners

[Dogmantra]

no

[Clement]

Another option would be to volunteer to swap crews with him so the two of you can workshop how to beat some of these things.   Francois is a classic example.   His damage output is *staggering* especially on severe (what did you one shot that couldn't spend soulstones?), but the little guy *cannot* take a beating in return with Df 4 and no defensive tech other then basic squeel (not baked in) which is easy to manage.  Generally speaking he will amble up and attempt to kill the most expensive thing he can get his mitts on, then die in return.

[Flinroz]

Everything @dancater said are things I would have said if I had more time to type things up at work. Especially about the specific masters you both have.

[(Keenan)]

2 hours ago, Flinroz said:

The faction that is most OP is whatever faction beat me last... or at least this is how it feels. When I first got started I played vs a lot of rezzers, and they seemed like the most OP thing in the world due to just beating me by attrition.

 

In all honesty though I do feel like pretty much any faction can beat any other faction. Specific master match ups may be a different story. You guys have a very limited pool of data, and I could not give any less of a care about "ranking" sites. They are very skewed by what gets reported and how, and that comes from me both as a TO and as the person who is apparently 10th best at malifaux according to that site. *eye roll*

Well that's obviously a biased opinion being 10th ranked on that website.  All kidding aside, despite the issues with reporting that's awesome John

[(Keenan)]

To the OP, what are the "extras" you guys have?  I can't speak for the Arcanists, but the NB I do have some experience with.  If he's running garbage added to a crew box it doesn't set up success.  My opinion is Gremlins aren't broken and, unless something has drastically changed recently, Ophelia is not even close to broken.  I make the recommendation to anyone playing NB if you want to win at all costs have the all-stars available.  If you want to have fun, play with models you like.  

[Ludvig]

Don't look to hard on the rankings, the problem might stem from your available models or from you getting a better grip on your models faster. Changing crews is an interesting exercise if he agrees to that. It might just confirm his thoughts though especially with the crews he has available for you (depending on what extra models he has).

Who did you kill with Francois? He shouldn't oneshot any of those masters. Francois is an often lamented model that is definitely extremely powerful but there are ways to control him. While reckless gives him a good threat range it's very possible to control who he gets to charge.

If you flip your pool a week in advance your mate could list his models and the pool and get some good advice here. There are plenty of scheme heavy pools where Colette should shine and frame for murder can be leveraged against Francois for example. 

[(Keenan)]

4 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Don't look to hard on the rankings, the problem might stem from your available models or from you getting a better grip on your models faster. Changing crews is an interesting exercise if he agrees to that. It might just confirm his thoughts though especially with the crews he has available for you (depending on what extra models he has).

Who did you kill with Francois? He shouldn't oneshot any of those masters. Francois is an often lamented model that is definitely extremely powerful but there are ways to control him. While reckless gives him a good threat range it's very possible to control who he gets to charge.

If you flip your pool a week in advance your mate could list his models and the pool and get some good advice here. There are plenty of scheme heavy pools where Colette should shine and frame for murder can be leveraged against Francois.

Similarly, scheme heavy screams Titania from NB.  

[Ludvig]

If you played the strat where minion kills give less VP than henchman kills with dig their graves in the pool Titania would probably give you considerable trouble. Francoisis good but gets evenvetter qhen the scenario rewards indiscriminate killing or killing with a henchman. If the scenario requires you to set up a henchman with scheme markers he instead becomes a liability, especially against Titania or Colette.

Unless his master is immortal (like Colette can be) he shouldn't be standing where Francois can charge her. You sre allowed to premeasurebin this game and it's almost impossible to win without knowing your opponent's impirtabt threat rabge so he should have moved his master turn 1 and measured where Francois could charge her and tried to adjust to that. Losing your master early game is also far from an automatic lost game so it's no reason to give up. Francois should be extremely overextended and won't be healed i time to save him.

New players often forget to focus on VP. Francois probably needs to die before he clears the table but after that it's back to VP. 

[WWHSD]

2 hours ago, Flinroz said:

They are very skewed by what gets reported and how, and that comes from me both as a TO and as the person who is apparently 10th best at malifaux according to that site. *eye roll*

That doesn't speak highly for the rest of the Malifaux players in the US.

[dancater]

Another point made which needs to be clarified.

Malifaux is an "odd" war game, the rules and scheme/strat victory method means winning games is different to most other war games.  This can be surprisingly difficult to adjust to, my friends and I have all struggled.

Its easy to get really disheartened with scheme-y crews as they get slaughtered by offensive crews.  Your model count plummets and you feel like you are getting wiped off the table, mainly because you are, you opponent has lots of models they hit a ton and you've got almost nothing left, Gremlins because of both the cheapness of certain models and the significant hitting power they have can really magnify this.  

Its intensified because Titania, Colette and Kaeris are all scheme dominant masters with less emphasis on destroying an opponent and while Pandora can destroy crews its a tricky method and not straight smash mouth assuming you're relying mostly on her crew box.  Each of these masters can run out-of-the-box in faction beat-sticks (for example Howard Langston in Arcanist and Nekima in NB) but the master and general crew direction is not sledgehammer to face.

This can result in playing and by turn 3 being nearly wiped out, demoralized and playing either as if you've lost or simply conceding when the reality depending on scheme/strats and position is totally different.  I have played a 50SS Viks crew vs Perdita and been down to 3 models end turn 2, 1 model end turn 3 and tabled turn 4 in a game I won 9 v 6 at game end in turn 5 based on schemes and strats (Perdita's crew lost 2 model out of 7). 

Again a problem here may be Gremlins playing into much more scheme oriented crews and the fact you folks are still quite new to the game.  

[Quasari]

36 minutes ago, (Keenan) said:

To the OP, what are the "extras" you guys have?  I can't speak for the Arcanists, but the NB I do have some experience with.  If he's running garbage added to a crew box it doesn't set up success.  My opinion is Gremlins aren't broken and, unless something has drastically changed recently, Ophelia is not even close to broken.  I make the recommendation to anyone playing NB if you want to win at all costs have the all-stars available.  If you want to have fun, play with models you like.  

The only real Gremlin extra I have is slop haulers, though I do have the PVC Aionius I throw in every once in a while for shits and giggles.  IIRC he's really only got Teddy as an extra for NB, though I believe he's also got a Collodi box, but he's never brought any of em. Arcanists he's got Mechanical Rider and Coryphee as extras. He's also got Tara. Really he did a bunch of trades for stuff he liked while off loading some CSM from 40k, so he's got a mixed bag. He really like Arcanists and Neverborn though aesthetically.

 

37 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Who did you kill with Francois? He shouldn't oneshot any of those masters. Francois is an often lamented model that is definitely extremely powerful but there are ways to control him. While reckless gives him a good threat range it's very possible to control who he gets to charge.

It was Cassandra. Honestly that game last night wasn't much as we were playing lower SS as we didnt have as much time and it was henchman led>.< I know the games balanced for 50ss so playing lower will have some imbalances.

[Bazlord_Prime]

I second, third & fourth all the advice to try switching crews for a few games so that your friend can get a taste of what the Gremlins are like. Once you play with them, you realise how tricky they can be. I know it may be difficult to convince your friend to do this - especially if he thinks that Gremlins are irredeemable cheese - but it's a universal constant that you won't understand a situation fully until you experience it from both sides, right?

Now. Francois is a d*ck. Every Faction has models like that. Your friend will just have to learn to get over it, & deal with them (as we all have to do). Nekima is scary. Killjoy is scary. Hungering Darkness, Joss, etc. Frank's thing is he's cheap - but he's also Df4 with no tricks like HtK, Armour, etc. Your friend could throw cheap models in to tie Frank up. Make him Slow. Shoot him down at a distance. Lure him in to get smashed, or push him away so he can't charge... There are always options.

Finally, it's a stressful game to learn, so don't let all this get to you. It's a very fun & rewarding game as well! There's so much stuff that looks like complete BS when you're facing it, and when it's new, that it's easy to forget that all of YOUR stuff also looks like complete BS to your opponent - it's just that you're used to it, so it seems awesome & totally fair ;-) i always find it useful to keep reminding myself that everything in the game seems to break the rules somehow, so there's no point getting worried about any of it!

[dancater]

Yeah and while Cassandra is a solid henchman her strongest ability is Understudy which kinda relies on a master.  Outside that she is OK but not great.  

Compared to Francois who is a cheap, fast, fragile brick to the face with prejudice.  Francois is a one shot missile but in a small game with henchman leaders he'll mangle Cassandra with an alpha-strike 9/10, not a good basis for faction power comparison at all.  Try the same fight Francois vs Joss might be interesting or Francois vs Carlos.

Mech Rider is a good model but you need summons to maximize it and while I Fire Gamin can be summoned I'd rather Steam Arachnids.  Coryphee, I hope you mean a pair because one is meh kinda average what you need is the Duet, then they shine - but they are while deadly still a finesse piece and very expensive.  If your friend loves Arcanists then they really could use the Ramos box because the Steam Arachnids, Howard Langston and Joss are all invaluable to Colette and Kaeris.  For Colette Carlos and Angelica are really useful. 

Its really hard to say this faction is OP compared to that one on a narrow range and selection.  Go out and buy Brewmaster or play mostly box set Mah Tuckett in Gremlins Brewie needs certain models, has a steep learning curve and can be hard countered and Mah while much better post Book 5 upgrades struggles with her box. 

[dancater]

Or you could play the Viks and see what the death whirlwind they can produce does to Gremlins if they get inside your crew with a Vik of Blood slingshot.  After that you'll look at the plastic Gremlin wreckage and go wtf, you'll believe its unbeatable until you work out how to stop it - kinda because that is Malifaux someone will keep cutting up your paper until you bring a rock and currently you Arcanist-NB friend is kinda short on those factions Gremlin based rocks.

[Bazlord_Prime]

See the above for my take on the Ranking Sites statistics. You've got it right - your friend needs to stop calling "confirmation bias", and actually spend time digging into the numbers. Gremlins are not - in aggregate - OP in the competitive scene.

[anencephalous]

Gremlins have been one of the better factions over the last few years. Despite being less popular than other factions, thye have placed highly in plenty of events. The general consensus seems to be their top 2-3 masters are as good as any in the game. The faction is also famous for having bad internal balance - some good models but also plenty of nearly useless models.

With the latest edition and the 2018 changes, I would expect them to drop away from the top a little bit, but that is just speculative.

Other people have made good comments about the specific master choices, but one thing I would add is, do you have enough terrain?

If you are winning with two of the Gremlins best shooters, you might want to add more blocking terrain to the table. People have different ideas about how much terrain is good, but if you play with something approaching 50% table cover, you are going to have a much tougher game.

[PolishSausage]

Just wanted to add that 2017 master upgrade book (and models) gave gremlins 0 new options and fixed none of the issues we have.

There is a reason for extremely low count of players in the gremlin faction, because majority of options are inferior to what other factions have.

Now what gremlins have always been known for is their luck mechanic, if you keep hitting the jackpot every game they might appear powerful.

 

The only reason some of us still play the faction is diversity, I do not want to be Neverborn/Outcast/10T who have been tournament powerhouses and continuously receive the most/best upgrades together with an assortment of models that provide them new up-to date choices.

 

Ultimately what I am trying to say, is that you should not feel bad for playing the crew you are (because you are definitely not power gaming, not even close).

Instead tell your friend to "get good".

[Ludvig]

He has kind of a tricky combination of models to work with. The coryphee should work well with Colette, as long as you don't ignore armour they should pull their weight and cause you some trouble.