Brewie2018 - A new perspective

[I'm a Teapot!]

I want to share my new brewmaster experiences with you guys:

From a thematic Point of View Brewmaster has always been one of my favorite masters and with wave 5 I got some new hope for him and the errata made me invest some more time into his thematic choices. I thought: If there is a time to moonshine, it’s now!

I started that approach with a few questions in mind: 

(1) What is effective in gg18 compared to gg17? 

(2)  Which strengths does a thematic brewmaster Crew provide? 

(3)  Which elements in my playstyle do I need to change to support those strengths?

(4) Which crew options do I have? 

(Bonus) I wanted to keep it really thematic and challenge myself by respecting this limitation. 

 

After a lot of playing, testing and analysis I got to the following answers: 

(1) gg18 in general has a chance of having pools that do not require spreading out or moving to a certain point quickly. 

Some of the new strats require a lot of interacting: ply, supply wagons and symbols

Schemes like public demo, setup, take prisoner, recover evidence, guarded treasure, hold up their forces and take one for the team are perfectly doable without any killing and brewie is pretty effective in those. 

 

(2) So thematic brewie modells, to me, are tri chi models and those are brewie+wesley, fingers, the whiskey golem, shinobis, tanukis and the fermented river monks. 

Each of those have specific strengths: 

Brewie+Wesley: debuffing, healing, surviving and obey (at the right time), buffing shinobis

fingers: interacting, interaction denying, surviving, mobility, healing

the whiskey golem: surviving, mobility

shinobis: mobility (with poison synergies), resource efficiency (with poison synergies)

tanukis: healing, buffing, scheme markers

fermented river monks: activations (easy reactivate) 

The Most Common tri chi strength is the ability to efficiently heal wounds. To maximize the effectiveness of that strength I also have to prioritize their survivability because dead models cannot benefit from healing. Also I drinking problem has proven to be very effective once I completely ignored its (0) and put it on brewie himself. He is the center of the fight most of the time and due to poison synergie the golem and the shinobis want to be around him anyways and Fingers is the most important piece and benefits from double healing so so much! 

I also figuered that Fingers mastery in interaction tasks is so strong that building the crew and gameplan around it is worth in ply for information and supply wagons. Often I protect him with all my resources and prioritize him over brewie and the golem and as long as he is alive and positioned correctly I have the advantage for interacting and scoring. 

Therefore the whiskey golem has the task to soak damage and protect the crew. And the shinobis honestly seemed bad to me until I focused them to do certain schemes like public demo or fight in the right circumstances. Generally their fighting is pretty efficient if the enemy has its willpower debuffed or is swilled and/or either has hard to wound or the shinobi has swill (Wesley and brewie generally  provide that).

Tanukis have been the bonus that makes the golem great and provides another source of healing. I generally bring one if I take the golem, or sometimes more if I play ours. 

Fermented river monks only outshine shinobis in their ability to reactivate and since our activation is not needed in this playstyle I have let them at home after a few games of testing and realizing that they just don’t fit well. 

 

(3) I need to get away from „killing is the way to deny“ and I need to focus my resources on surviving and scoring. Also classic strategic elements like misdirection and resource pressuring are way more important in this crew. Generally the hard part of playing this playstyle is to keep the models from dying, but at the same time they should take damage and enemy resources and they should split the enemy forces to benefit from the major healing and scheming advantage as much as possible. 

(4) I‘ve experimented a lot and I liked the following Crews the most: 

Standard Crew: 

50 SS Gremlins Crew

The Brewmaster + 7 Pool

 - Drinking "Problem" (2)

 - Running Tab (1)

Apprentice Wesley (3)

Fingers (10)

 - Stilts (1)

Whiskey Golem (9)

 - Barrel Up (0)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Tanuki (5)

 

Public Demo Bluff Crew: 

50 SS Gremlins Crew

The Brewmaster + 7 Pool

 - Drinking "Problem" (2)

Apprentice Wesley (3)

Fingers (10)

 - Stilts (1)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

 

Mindf** Shellgame (Public Demo + take one for the team) 

50 SS Gremlins Crew

The Brewmaster + 3 Pool

 - Drinking "Problem" (2)

Apprentice Wesley (3)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

Moon Shinobi (5)

 

And no, this is not a joke. I‘ve played this a lot and those lists are effective and fun to play in the right situation. They require a completely different mindset and playstyle to how classic lists are played but for me it worked after some practice. 

 

A few key things I‘ve learned about the tri chi clan: 

- df7 Defensive whiskey golem with reactivate are so good for soaking enemy resources and then healing back to full hp while attacking in the second activation. 

- once the tarpitting job is done, the golem has insane speed and can score a sneaky covert breakthrough in turn 4&5 

- fingers main job is denying and annoying, if that is working he can score aswell

- swill on a few key targets can be the key to surviving but in some situations swilling a shinobi with either Wesley or brewie can be worth it. 

- always feed the enemy bad choices! If he attacks brewie, Wesley is there as backup, if he attacks fingers he is in a position to squeel, survive and then heal to full again and go back to denying/annoying. The golem should be on df7 and therefore be a bad target choice aswell. Moon shinobis can be a bit more safe due to their mobility and they are also a bad choice because they can push away from atks and the enemy should be engaged by brewie and the golem asap so gunfire doesn’t threaten the shinobis anymore. 

- healing back to full can be really demoralizing for your opponent! Make sure you heal that whiskey golem or fingers right after he dropped him to 1 or 2 wounds and he will instantly feel bad for putting resources into that attack while healing 6-10 wounds is really easy for the tri chi. 

- drunken Kung fu gives weak and moderate cards a good use and takes away pressure from your hand but only really works well on poison debuffed targets. Your aiming on 3-4 dmg per moon shinobi attack and you want them to hit with ml5 against debuffed wp2-4! 

- don’t play this against TT because you need swill and squeal as a defensive mechanic and tt has easy + and ohugaru... 

- if you play against hanged, swill them and kill them ASAP (this might be one of the times you actually need to kill) 

- load the golem with poison turn 1 so shinobis always have a target for their (0) and the Tanuki can heal/reactivate him any time 

- always reckless with fingers, since a single heal often heals a lot more then 1 wound. 

- do Not rely on initiative and drinking contest or poison damage. Poisitioning and tarpit models with df7/def6 combined with huge card investment are the way to survive the first activation of you lose initiative. 

- mind f*** can be a strong tool in certain pools! With 9 moonshinbis, scoring public demo and or take one for the team aswell as covert breakthrough, etc. is pretty easy while it confuses your enemy to the max! Make sure to be able to tell your shinobis apart tho! 

 

 

[daniello_s]

Then you meet Dr. McMourning and your poison will work against you but general idea seems fun.

[DanteJH]

Yep, totally agree with a lot of this, I think brewmaster is horribly underrated and underplayed. I like that you’re using drinking problem and the moon shinobi, I think they’re actually very powerful options that get overlooked. What I don’t agree with is trying to reactivate things with the tanuki, I’ve found it’s always too much of an investment to reactivate the whiskey golem (though he is a great model and I take him in most of my crews period) when they could be doing some of their other fantastic actions.

I take brewie exclusively in marker heavy pools to make use of the tanuki, fingers and abuse pay up. Instead of taking drinking problem on brewmaster I recommend taking it on the golem or fingers to make use of the 0’ action and also let brewmaster get the benefits. Pay up is brutal when you’re taking 2 tanuki in a marker heavy pool around brewmaster when he heals double, I regularly have him suck up 4 markers to heal 8 damage.

[Cadaver_Junkie]

20 hours ago, daniello_s said:

Then you meet Dr. McMourning and your poison will work against you but general idea seems fun.

Just take an Akaname or two against ressurectionists- I don’t really have any more difficulty against McMourning than other masters when I can move poison around so easily. 

[Runeman]

9 hours ago, DanteJH said:

I take brewie exclusively in marker heavy pools to make use of the tanuki, fingers and abuse pay up. Instead of taking drinking problem on brewmaster I recommend taking it on the golem or fingers to make use of the 0’ action and also let brewmaster get the benefits. Pay up is brutal when you’re taking 2 tanuki in a marker heavy pool around brewmaster when he heals double, I regularly have him suck up 4 markers to heal 8 damage.

This doesn't work. The heal from pay up is not a healing flip, so it isn't doubled. 

[I'm a Teapot!]

18 hours ago, DanteJH said:

Yep, totally agree with a lot of this, I think brewmaster is horribly underrated and underplayed. I like that you’re using drinking problem and the moon shinobi, I think they’re actually very powerful options that get overlooked. What I don’t agree with is trying to reactivate things with the tanuki, I’ve found it’s always too much of an investment to reactivate the whiskey golem (though he is a great model and I take him in most of my crews period) when they could be doing some of their other fantastic actions.

I take brewie exclusively in marker heavy pools to make use of the tanuki, fingers and abuse pay up. Instead of taking drinking problem on brewmaster I recommend taking it on the golem or fingers to make use of the 0’ action and also let brewmaster get the benefits. Pay up is brutal when you’re taking 2 tanuki in a marker heavy pool around brewmaster when he heals double, I regularly have him suck up 4 markers to heal 8 damage.

I think that the golem really profits from his additional ap because he can nimble get df7 and atk and in his second activation when he got wounded, he can heal up again.

[DanteJH]

25 minutes ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

I think that the golem really profits from his additional ap because he can nimble get df7 and atk and in his second activation when he got wounded, he can heal up again.

I think it’s interesting that you mention the df 7 as you have to reset it when he reactivates meaning it becomes a lot less efficient or you go for maximum efficiency and leave him on df 5 for a little while. I think you’d only really want to reactivate him to abuse his movement because think about it, you’re using 2, maybe 1 ap with another model to give him the poison needed and then you need to use the tanuki ap to reactivate him.

My point is takes multiple ap over multiple activations to do it, and if he’s already in combat, you won’t get to use nimble and only get one extra ap if you want to barrel up. Now I’m not saying you couldn’t manage it and I’d still use it to abuse his movement or if I had angry drunk on him. 

Interested to know, how do you get the poison on him? I use fingers

[Jesy Blue]

18 minutes ago, DanteJH said:

Interested to know, how do you get the poison on him? I use fingers

Normally I put Barrel Up on the Golem and just let him go to town..... but that's just me.

[DanteJH]

9 minutes ago, Jesy Blue said:

Normally I put Barrel Up on the Golem and just let him go to town..... but that's just me.

I’ll take it you don’t boost him to df 7 much? My problem with that is that assuming you attack twice every turn and get the trigger every time, you’ll still need to wait till turn 3 because the poison will tick at the end of every turn and that’s still with the assumption that you consistently hit the trigger on every attack. How do you do this?

[the tick]

Brewmaster's (0) One for the Road can get some poison on the Golem early. I've also deployed my models so that if Wesley drops a scheme marker at the start of his first activation there are at least two models in base contact with that marker. The Tanuki have a front of card ability that puts poison on things that activate in base contact with scheme markers. It's real gimmicky but it's one way I've found to get 3-4 poison (between One for the Road and the Tanuki) on the Golem turn 1.

[DanteJH]

16 minutes ago, the tick said:

Brewmaster's (0) One for the Road can get some poison on the Golem early. I've also deployed my models so that if Wesley drops a scheme marker at the start of his first activation there are at least two models in base contact with that marker. The Tanuki have a front of card ability that puts poison on things that activate in base contact with scheme markers. It's real gimmicky but it's one way I've found to get 3-4 poison (between One for the Road and the Tanuki) on the Golem turn 1.

I like that idea a lot actually, might get someone else so drop the marker though, don’t want to leave Wesley behind!

[Dogmantra]

This is the gremlin forum, but One For The Road to get Brewmaster and Sensei Yu pushed up a bit, plus drop Poison +4 on a model is a trick I like to use when bringing him in 10T, usually on a fermented river monk. Now that Tanuki are out you can use it on anyone really I guess for the reactivate.

[Jesy Blue]

Brewmaster and Wesley use Obey to make WG attack again, triggering Barrel Up again, getting more poison again.

(I also sometimes use Yu to push WG and give him poison)

Late game can use Akaname to take poison away from other people and just put it on WG so Tanuki can reactivate him.

[the tick]

15 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

This is the gremlin forum, but One For The Road to get Brewmaster and Sensei Yu pushed up a bit, plus drop Poison +4 on a model is a trick I like to use when bringing him in 10T, usually on a fermented river monk. Now that Tanuki are out you can use it on anyone really I guess for the reactivate.

That's nice to hear! There's a local slow grow league starting in the midst of my solo Brewie period, and I'm planning to run him in 10T so these tricks are good to hear for both sides.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the Akaname. They're fairly good at putting poison on things at range but what really catches people off guard is there potential to get up to Ml 6 or 7 if they're attacking something with poison.