Your ideas how to play vs unstopable crew

[katadder]

We understand where the threat is coming from as it's only one place due to having to group to get all your benefits.

We also understand that there are 2 people in the game and it's easy to throw a spanner in the works of a couple of pigs being your damage dealers.

As said before if you are getting such great success it's probably down yo noobstomping as most of us are not scared of this crew, there are far worse ones out there 

[looka]

38 minutes ago, Lokibri said:

Possible masters that could be good at stopping this are:

Hoffman (when having big machines with armor), sonnia with area denial, mccabe with loot bags and making a BIG model disguised and finally nellie with her "run from the truth" Aura. First i also thought of perdita and trigger on the finger, but that is not an option as soon as they struck you and you have to randomize.

Other models, that are very good against this would be:

Franciso, giving +2 out is great and a flurry attack with debt will kill a war pig for sure.

Models that can stack "fees" on them will be alrightish. The problem here is "eat your fill", but it will limit them a bit.

Abuela Ortega. This is a pretty clear solution for the problem. She is tough, denies all consecutive charges and is an overall awesome model! Positioning is key, but i think this modell can do troublesome moments for the opponent! Try her!

Hofman - no (at least standard, pigs relatively easily kill armored targets, especially when there are not many of them)
sonnia  - yes (already figured out above)
mccabe - no 
nellie - yes ) (It is good against gremlins as a whole, and here can try to keep the counter-arguments, scrolling activations)
Franciso -no (dead do not flury)
"fees" - no (dead do not fees)
Abuela - no (too small aura to stop 10 inches charge)

[Lokibri]

13 minutes ago, looka said:

Hofman - no (at least standard, pigs relatively easily kill armored targets, especially when there are not many of them)
sonnia  - yes (already figured out above)
mccabe - no 
nellie - yes ) (It is good against gremlins as a whole, and here can try to keep the counter-arguments, scrolling activations)
Franciso -no (dead do not flury)
"fees" - no (dead do not fees)
Abuela - no (too small aura to stop 10 inches charge)

Well, that is not very elaborated to be honest.

And yes, the pig can charge 10'...ONCE. After that, no trigger to charge again can be announced.

McCabe has a lot of toolbox things you can equip. Cloak is useful, reactivate, nimble, fast allows me to throw a dawn serpent into your pigs or attack it often.

 

[katadder]

Hoffman can make his crew really mobile and with a pigs 1" engagement if you engage it from 2" away it's not charging you. An armour 2 possibly df6 peacekeeper will happily survive a pig and then kill it.

Pigs are quite possibly one of the worst beaters going even with reactivate. 2/4/6 with a 1" melee is really low down on the scheme of beaters. 

Bit of shooting,  bit of slow, engage them from more than 1" away and the whole thing crumbles. And guild has all these things in abundance (let alone what other factions would do to it).

It's at best a mediocre one trick list that should soon be overcome by any competent player

[Lokibri]

1 hour ago, katadder said:

Hoffman can make his crew really mobile and with a pigs 1" engagement if you engage it from 2" away it's not charging you. An armour 2 possibly df6 peacekeeper will happily survive a pig and then kill it.

Pigs are quite possibly one of the worst beaters going even with reactivate. 2/4/6 with a 1" melee is really low down on the scheme of beaters. 

Bit of shooting,  bit of slow, engage them from more than 1" away and the whole thing crumbles. And guild has all these things in abundance (let alone what other factions would do to it).

It's at best a mediocre one trick list that should soon be overcome by any competent player

Well, it is a very hardcore list that can punish mistakes very hard! But the more i think about, the more i feel like abuela is the one model that can solve this tasks for the most. One charge is fine the rest is denied.

[Rostislav]

53 minutes ago, Lokibri said:

Well, it is a very hardcore list that can punish mistakes very hard! But the more i think about, the more i feel like abuela is the one model that can solve this tasks for the most. One charge is fine the rest is denied.

If she survives first charge.

[EnternalVoid]

36 minutes ago, Rostislav said:

If she survives first charge.

That might be something to think about, if you could make it so Abeula was not easy to kill could this work?  For example with McCabe he could use his Loot Bag or Emissary pick up the Invisible cloak to throw on her and give her Disguise.  Then they would not be able to charge Abeula and her aura could potentially limit the pigs to a single charge each *Their initial charge against your other models* potentially limiting them to only killing two models, maybe 3 when they both walk and swing at the same target.  With Abeula's built in Df trigger even if they walk and attack her after their initial targets the damage spread is more like 1/3/5 making it hard for them to kill her with only 2 attacks *possible but it still prevents them from getting a whole bunch of charges on turn 1*.

[Rostislav]

3 minutes ago, EnternalVoid said:

That might be something to think about, if you could make it so Abeula was not easy to kill could this work?  For example with McCabe he could use his Loot Bag or Emissary pick up the Invisible cloak to throw on her and give her Disguise.  Then they would not be able to charge Abeula and her aura could potentially limit the pigs to a single charge each *Their initial charge against your other models* potentially limiting them to only killing two models, maybe 3 when they both walk and swing at the same target.  With Abeula's built in Df trigger even if they walk and attack her after their initial targets the damage spread is more like 1/3/5 making it hard for them to kill her with only 2 attacks *possible but it still prevents them from getting a whole bunch of charges on turn 1*.

2 attacks with 1/3/5 cheatable and then reactivate and 2 attacks more. But Abuella with Disguise is a very good option, thanks.

[EnternalVoid]

1 minute ago, Rostislav said:

2 attacks with 1/3/5 cheatable and then reactivate and 2 attacks more. But Abuella with Disguise is a very good option, thanks.

They will not get two attacks then the reactivation 2 more because they cannot target Abeula initially with their first activation.  They cannot charge her with Disguise so their first attack has to be against a different target they charge.  If they kill that target in the first charge they can try and walk towards Abeula to hopefully kill her with their second Activation but if anyone is left in the enemy crew they can push Abeula with a (0) making the pig have to walk on its first AP of its second activation to attack Abeula just once.  The Second pig has a similar problem as once its first charge is done it has to move to attack Abeula, then try to kill her with its second Activation.  At which point Abeula might die but you have potentially limited the death toll to 3 models *initial two charges plus Abeula*. 

You could also have Francisco gave Abeula El Mayor, so she is at Df8, it will be harder for the pigs to be certain they could kill her.  Or McCabe could use a second upgrade to make sure Abeula has Armor +1, meaning the damage spread would be more like 0/2/4 *you have Armor go first then Abeula's trigger so get the 0 damage on her on Weak*.  That could make it that much harder for them to kill her.

[EnternalVoid]

Lady Justice could also potentially throw this combo for a loop with her tactical action Restore Natural Order.  Takes a 12 to go off but it is irresistable and clears off all Conditions of those in the 8" .  She can potentially walk twice and do this for a roughly 18" threat range, but with an Investigator or other models could be moved up field before hand to insure you have range to reach both war pigs.  With that she could strip the Reactivation and Major's Teaching from the War Pigs reducing their output by a lot.  If Lady J has 9-10 activation against the 13 that the Gremlins have she has a pretty good chance of being able to strip them late enough in the turn that they cannot just be slapped back on *as 4 of the 13 activations are from the War pigs*. 

If you have something like the 5ss Guild Lawyer give her Hard to Wound first then it can make it hard for the pigs to try and remove her afterwards *A single lawyer can potentially give her Hard to Wound +2 negating Old Major's Aura and the One Pig upgrades to damage flips making it rough to get Strait damage flips against her 14wds*.

[Rostislav]

30 minutes ago, Rostislav said:

2 attacks with 1/3/5 cheatable and then reactivate and 2 attacks more. But Abuella with Disguise is a very good option, thanks.

I was talking about Abuella without disguise. Abuella with  isguise is a very good option, thanks. It can really help.

[Tris]

So, why do you take Abuela with Disguise as good advice, but any other model with disguise "can't do anything against that list"?

If I misunderstood that statement I'm sorry, that's just the eay I read it thorughout the thread.

If we're talking about making her more durable, why not get her Lead Lined Cloak?

[Rostislav]

Thanks for the feedback. There are more answers than I thought and I got some really useful hints.
But I would like to indicate a few posts that are IMHO pointless.

1. I'm not a guild player and I can beat this list 10-0.

Maybe yes. Maybe not. It doesn't matter much. I created this topic in the Guild branch because I play the Guild. Such advice is not useful.
I would like to understand how to deal with this list using guild masters + any mercenaries/models available for hiring.

2. If you pick up a counter list then you can win.

Gremlin faction is very variable and I never told that I always see this particular list. Gremlin player can also get Ophelia, Brewmaster, Zoraida, Wong. It's just that the biggest problems is specifically with this list.
In addition, the crew built to counter Mi based list usually has no chance against heavy shooting or magic list.

Plus, I do not see how to built a MI counter list for Guild that will ensure victory.
Therefore, I would like to create crews that can play on par with this and other possible Gremlin lists.

3. A strong model can Kill/Obey/Paralyze Warpig.

Definitely. Only it is better to say how this strong model will reach the atack distance and how many actions it will have after that.
For example, Peacekeeper with flurry will most likely kill the Warpig.

But remeber that on turn 1 it's min. 24" between you and him. Peacekeeper has only 2" 

If gremlin sees that we are coming, then he will just wait and won't push forward. He'll start acting after we finish our activations.
If we slingshot the model into him then he can counter it.

An example of a real game.

I play Hoffman. Peacekeeper has numb to the world which is must have vs Brewmaster or Zoraida and useless here.

1. - Guardian protects Peacekeeper and moves a bit forward.
    - Skeeter flies forward and gives .

2. - Hoffman gives the Peacekeeper  Nimble, Power Loops him with Guardian (for Mi7 and Def 6), makes Emissary bury the Peacekeeper (also giving Emissary fast).
    -  Hog whisperer gives reactivation to all Warpigs and to Old Major.

3. - Emissary activates, runs 18" and unburies Peacekeeper. Peacekeeper wants to come closer, flurry and kill one of the Warpigs shutting down half of this list's attack potential and getting gremlin crew to deal with him in gremlin's deployment zone.
    - Banjonista activates walks twice and comes pointblank to Peacekeeper.

4. Peacekeeper can't Flurry now. (His walk won't be enough even if he will unengage). Charge most likely won't kill Warpig.
Peacekeeper attacks Banjonista, deals 4 damage,  Banjonista pushes 4 away. Peacekeeper comes forward, engages the Warpigs and finishes the Banjonista.

Nothing else in my list can attack Gremlins turn 1.

Gremlin gets the cards, tossing half of the deck in his hand (though getting 1 less), he pushes the Warpigs out of the Peacekeeper's engagement, gives them reactivation and on the 1st turn I lose Peacekeeper, Emissary, Guardian and almost all crew which was eaten by Warpigs. I surrender.

Guardian was killed by first pig, who charged and killed Emissary (pushing him further), after that stampeded and got to Guardian.
Peacekeeper dropped to def 5 and lost . Though still had hard to wound. 
That didn't help.

The second Warpig got to hit and to damage charged Peacekeper for (1). Hit him, dealt Severe damage (6-2) = 4, pushed Peacekeeper 4" forward (Skeeter is near), repeated it, for a total of 8 damage and 8" push, then killed him with second action (8+4 = 12) and Stampeded forward killing a Watcher. After it Warpig reactivated to kill more.


In conclusion for that game
1. If I'm sitting in my deploy, the gremlin will complete the sequence that I've written at the start of this topic and will come to me when he has half a deck in his hand, and all my activations are over. Nothing changes. 
2. I couldn't outactivate gremlin with  list that had 8 activations.
3. If I hide the rest of the crew, well I will just lose 22 SS of Peacekeeper and Emissary turn 1.

Though now I think that instead of Powerlooping Peacekeeper with Guardian I can use Hoffman to give Peacekeaper focus + fast. Also I could give him Debt to the guild. And with Debt, fast, Nimble I can potentially  kill a gremlin that will try to engage him with (1) focus attack walk, flurry and kill a warpig.

All that is needed is:
1. Good hand to hit 4 times a row.
2. No BJ
3. No RJ for Gremlin.

(which is still very unlikely ).

So please when you suggest to kill/obey/paralyze someone in Gremlin crew please tell how exactly you want it to do turn 1 assuming that he is at least 24" away.

[anencephalous]

One of the reasons I think people are flippantly theory-countering this list is they have never played against that many cards.

I play a few variations of huge card draw crew in TT and NB, and it is hard for people who have not played against it to understand how difficult it is to play against. It gets to a point where all or most of the duels go one way. Most things you do fail, and most things your opponent does succeed.

The only way to get around this is to alpha early before all the cards are picked up.

Depending on table terrain, starting hands and deck flips, it seems possible (although not probable) that several Guild line ups can alpha one of the pigs off the table in the first few activations.

That isn't a win, because there still plenty of kill on the table with good cards, but the game should at least be playable from that point.

It is unfortunate that this is another crew to which alpha-or-go-home is the best answer, given that alpha-strikes are problem already.

[Math Mathonwy]

3 hours ago, anencephalous said:

One of the reasons I think people are flippantly theory-countering this list is they have never played against that many cards.

This! That monster hand makes a real difference that is difficult to comprehend without facing it. 15 cards in hand with eight cards pruned is just bonkers and gives a massive, massive advantage. Especially on the first round when people tend to have slightly worse hands than in the later rounds on average. Coupled with the positives to damage it is the thing that makes the list.

People look at the Pig's 2/4/6 damage track and think that it won't do 12 damage per Charge when that is actually rather a common thing.

Luckily on our tournament tables this list isn't a problem since there's so much clutter that you can't really Push or Charge with the 50mm Pigs...

[Ludvig]

31 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

This! That monster hand makes a real difference that is difficult to comprehend without facing it. 15 cards in hand with eight cards pruned is just bonkers and gives a massive, massive advantage. Especially on the first round when people tend to have slightly worse hands than in the later rounds on average. Coupled with the positives to damage it is the thing that makes the list.

People look at the Pig's 2/4/6 damage track and think that it won't do 12 damage per Charge when that is actually rather a common thing.

Luckily on our tournament tables this list isn't a problem since there's so much clutter that you can't really Push or Charge with the 50mm Pigs...

Would have liked to see this list on the table you got stuck on in my last tournament.  Incidently I think your Collodi could handle this with lots of pigs charging their own handlers. Charging for a one is a lot less fun when the enemy is controlling you.

[Platov]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

This! That monster hand makes a real difference that is difficult to comprehend without facing it. 15 cards in hand with eight cards pruned is just bonkers and gives a massive, massive advantage. Especially on the first round when people tend to have slightly worse hands than in the later rounds on average. Coupled with the positives to damage it is the thing that makes the list.

People look at the Pig's 2/4/6 damage track and think that it won't do 12 damage per Charge when that is actually rather a common thing.

Luckily on our tournament tables this list isn't a problem since there's so much clutter that you can't really Push or Charge with the 50mm Pigs...

I think, most players in this thread should, at least once, play against this roster, controlled by not-newbie gremlin player. It will give more understanding, than pointless talks. As for me -i'll find some time, and i'll ask our best Levi player to face this roster, and i'll see, if he can 10-0 me. Ofc, I will make a little report in this thread.

[Ludvig]

Throwing down on vassal should really be the default for this kind of discussion. I would love to read the battle reports! 

The listbuilder gets to choose the pool and the challenger gets to choose the vassal map? 

[Platov]

Just now, Ludvig said:

Throwing down on vassal should really be the default for this kind of discussion. I would love to read the battle reports! 

The listbuilder gets to choose the pool and the challenger gets to choose the vassal map? 

I'm not the author of this list. And, to tell the truth, i don't even know how vassal works, never tried it, and, to tell the truth, don't want to. I prefer real games, and I'm going to play one. Not to prove anything. I don't like the concept of "proving", or braging about how "I gonna 10-0" somebody. It's kinda presumptuously and dumb, no offence.

I never told that this list in ubeateble, I only told that most of people here don't understand, that it's much scarier than it looks on paper, i've tested it for 10+ times(for Guide-writing purposes, not noobstomping), with diffirent players(again, not newbies), and i won all 10+ games. I want to test it against Levi, because i have lost 3 of 4 games against that opponent, so obviously, he is better then me, and now im curious if he will find a way to counter this list.

You should really ask @looka, he's better player then me, and maybe he will agree to play vassal game.

[Rostislav]

9 hours ago, Tris said:

So, why do you take Abuela with Disguise as good advice, but any other model with disguise "can't do anything against that list"?

If I misunderstood that statement I'm sorry, that's just the eay I read it thorughout the thread.

If we're talking about making her more durable, why not get her Lead Lined Cloak?

There were suggestions about "Take 4-5 models with disguies and stop his charges".  So we are building a list only to prevent charges. If we see Wong or Ophelia we can shake hands and surrender.

But Abuela with McCabe is useful not only vs Warpigs.

[Adran]

21 hours ago, looka said:

reading all this, I understand that most of you simply do not imagine what gremlins in general (
even after you explained that this roster can I see very strange statements about the order of activations about the strings and so on (

that part of the guide that you threw off at the beginning of the post is a guide for beginners.

this roaster can be used by a variety of options that are not included in the guide so as not to complicate the beginners understanding of Somers as a master and not to overload the text

 

this is a very diverse roster, and you see only a strict sequence of activations(how sad it is, given that you were told almost everything)

unprepared person meeting with this roster in 1 time in the tournament gets the same emotions as from the first meeting with victoria



here sounded good ideas how to resist this roster playing for the guild, but its main danger is that you still do not understand how it works

A few things. - Whilst I agree the list does look like it is not very activation dependent, there is a fair amount that is. You want the pigs to start in Majors Aura, you probably don't want to send them off before they have re-activate, the crier as a card cyler is pretty important as in the get you bro as card draw, because Pigs with an average hand are only doing 4-6 damage in  an activation before damage reduction. 

So whilst I can see that the ideal set of actions listed, is not completely required to power up the list, there is a fair amount that is needed. 

I would expect this list to be very scary if someone faced it for the first time without realising what it was going to do. I would expect it to be just Scary against an opponent that understands it. It is a very strong alpha strike list, but there are a reasonable range of counters, several of which have been mentioned here.

Having read about it here, I would still expect a player who understands it to be able to outdo a lot of my attempts to block it the first few games, but I would be very surprised if I was wiped out the first turn, as it is certainly capable of against an up-prepared player. 

But I also do believe you are committing the same error that you accuse others of.  If you don't think its vulnerable to a 1 turn alpha strike because its still quite back, then you haven't seen the same level of threat that I have. I've seen Sonnia light up models in their enemy deployment zone which can easily kill mosquitos (Not a huge risk ito this crew, but its still a risk) I've sent "re-activating" warpigs into enemy crews on the first turn because they didn't expect it (one thing not suggested here, but that may help is using a Mosquito as a stampede enabler, moving it up to a place where the pig charges it for its first AP, and able to set up its stampede trigger into someone else.)

I'm also not sure that the hitting power you have is going to be great against things like the peace keeper that combines hard to wound with armour. I really can't see a re0-activating war pig with positive flips to everything actually killing 1 (In the pigs ideal circumstance, it charges, gets 2 attacks, then stampeded to something easy to kil, and then charges back to the peace keeper, but I'm hard pressed to see those 7 attacks (You start activation 2 engaged with the peace keeper) doing more than 10 damage and that costs you quite a lot of your well crafted Hand to make it happen even that well. Granted that's a model that is one of the worst targets for you to hit, so you will try to avoid it, and you may well have the movement to do so, but every time your opponent puts this kind of block, you are losing some of the raw power. 

 

My conclusion is that this list will be devastating against an un-suspecting opponent. and against an expecting opponent, the list may do well, but there are certainly several ways that it can go wrong, and the list is set up for 1 good turn and relying on the enemy not being able to do anything in the rest of the game because your good turn crippled it. 

There may well be more depth to it, and I might be underestimating the power of the hand, but since 9 of the cards you draw are coming off you getting your bro, I think that is its weak point. If you "only" cycle 8 cards and draw 2 others, then you have a good hand, but not enough to consistently create the havoc you want, and I think that if your turn doesn't work, then you don't have the depth on a turn where you have no extra card draw or cycling to compete even with a badly damaged list. 

I think I give it more credit than others, but it is a one trick pony list. Its a very good trick, probably with the potential to be more devistating that a well placed Viks bomb, but it still relies on the 1 trick (of having a huge hand to send re-activating war pigs into the enemy crew  and consistently hitting and doing moderate or better damage). 

[Haagrum]

As an aside, and getting back to the original point of the thread... what about Hans plus something to hand out Fast  (Student of Conflict, if need be) to shoot the upgrades off the pigs?

1. Make Hans Fast.

2. Hans uses "Smile, You Son Of A...", then tags both War Pigs (which are apparently being porcine shields) and knocks One Pig Against The World off both.

This set-up has the advantages of:

A. Not being a counter-list.

B. Being viable generally (if you think Hans' ability to remove upgrades is situational, you're right, but when you do, it can be lethal). Francois without Stilts? Check. Skeeters without upgrades? Check. Sammy LaCroix with Wong? Check. The discard-to-miss effect only applies if you're shooting at Som'er.

C. Providing a direct counter to multiple methods of running this list.

Sure, it's far from perfect, but a reliable method for taking plus flips off the War Pigs is worth trying.

[looka]

4 minutes ago, Haagrum said:

2. Hans uses "Smile, You Son Of A...", then tags both War Pigs (which are apparently being porcine shields) and knocks One Pig Against The World off both.

Hans is a great idea, But I would be more scared of his ram trigger )) it is really a very strong counter

[Haagrum]

37 minutes ago, looka said:

Hans is a great idea, But I would be more scared of his ram trigger )) it is really a very strong counter

I'd forgotten about that one! Yes, the Disarm trigger could really pull some teeth (tusks?) out of this list, particularly with Reference The Field Guide to guarantee the Ram.

That'll teach me to comment without having the stat card in front of me...

The main issue will be getting Hans in range to fire without needing to Focus.

[Tris]

19 minutes ago, Rostislav said:

There were suggestions about "Take 4-5 models with disguies and stop his charges".  So we are building a list only to prevent charges. If we see Wong or Ophelia we can shake hands and surrender.

But Abuela with McCabe is useful not only vs Warpigs.

Agreed, I'm all against tailoring a list against a very specific master unless I'm absolutely certain I'll face that master - but, as a suggestion, what about the idea of a disguised Peacekeeper for example to block charge lanes for the pigs?