Math Mathonwy

Usually "alt history" is somewhat close to the real history and not a complete fantasy. Similarly I think that Faux games are kinda "alt canon" so not completely divergent into extremely improbable. This would also allow Wyrd to, e.g., kill off characters in the fluff and yet you could continue to use them in games. I believe that Guild Ball has this approach of characters changing, dying or getting mutilated or whatnot yet the models are still allowed to be played. You might get a "veteran" version of the character to represent the changes and you naturally can't play a normal version and a veteran version in the same list but otherwise you are free to build your team in the way you like.

I think that it's a good idea to consider the Malifaux games that we play as "what-if type scenarios" and possibly historical ones at that. I mean, it isn't canonical that McMourning with Judge and Jury and Burt faced off against The Dreamer with Nekima and Vasilisa and Hannah over the position of some supply wagons in the Bayou while both were trying to set up the other side for murder and also with explosives. So the game is more about "what if such a thing happened?" In that framework you can easily have dual class Masters even after the events in the fluff.

Somer's hat is really cruel against Summoners (and others who rely on hitting high suited TNs but Summoners are by far the most common). Zipp is brutal against Neverborn as he ignores all their defensive tech, basically, and they are squishy and dislike being thrown around.

I don't think that Mah is bad. I think that she is pretty good, in fact. With the new Upgrades her only problems are being so realiant on a ton of Upgrades and Zipp doing much of what she does but better. But she can certainly put up a good fight and win against anyone. And she's a lot of fun.

No Manifest Destiny?? As for the topic, I think that Mah's strength is in positioning - both herself, her own models and the opponent's models. Her support comes from positioning and from card cycling. The latter doesn't look very flashy but is pretty amazing. I mostly ignore her chores (incidental bonus) and don't think that you need to focus your crew on melee or anything. I mean, nothing wrong about doing so and I do love using The Sow with Mah but I think that focusing on getting the holy grail of +1 Ml from Rams isn't necessarily the best plan. The 4" Melee range is enormous and her mobility let's her put it into an optimal spot which can be really debilitating.

I'm with @I'm a Teapot!on this - Effigy is fine with Brewie. Hitting on Swilled targets makes him a very nice damage dealer for his cost and Hit Me can also be useful with Brewster. The idea of using him to kill the Doll sounds like a fair use as well, though.

Do we know - will the box be normal Wyrd plastic or pre-assembled PVC?

Yeah, that does make a lot of sense! Brethren needs a Crow but Machine can give herself one by discarding a Card or a Corpse (the latter is especially relevant against Reva). I often use her to boost my movement in the first round. She is also easy to summon and the extra range for that is pretty sweet in getting her to an optimal place for the Pulse. Finally, she's a Minion which can be fun sometimes (especially with the Summon range). Oh, and finally finally, her double Crow Trigger of Card Discarding or get Paralyzed can be seriously annoying if there's a low Df target for her - it's something that often takes people by surprise. I used to rock Molly (with stuff), Machine, Sybelle (with Not too Banged Up), Carrion Emissary (Carrion Conflux) and five Rotten Belles. Sybelle and Emissary get to make Molly place 12" + base size and still have wk +1 from Emissary (Undead) and wk + 1 from Sybelle (Belle). Getting her anywhere you need her. Belles spam Lure with a still respectable Ca 7 with possible positive twists from the Conflux and then Molly summons in things like Punk Zombies to the enemy ball that has limited control over their own movement. It was pretty effective and with clever positioning the initial extra movement that you can get from the Machine is really good to jump start things.

Congrats! Very well done against some serious competition! It's a shame that two games were cut so short but both seemed like the end result would've most likely been approximately the same. Graveyard Spirit seems like a nice way to try and keep Molly alive. I've been mostly succesful with her but her durability is a bit weird and if the opponent knows how to pressure she can be very squishy. But the Graveyard Spirit is good backup, I feel. Though I'd miss summoning her own Totem, so there's that. But I'll keep the idea in mind, definitely. You seemed to have pretty good luck with your hands for summoning in the early turns in general getting lots of Hangeds and such around. Do you feel that you had good luck there or is this the norm? You did have some extra card draw but not a lot. Strong summoning hands in the early going is very powerful introducing quite a bit of variance compared to getting lousy hands.

As a reminder to all who maybe haven't seen it (or have forgotten about it), there's pics of the Graveyard Golem and Whiskey Gamin here:

I know I say this relatively often but I feel that it is always worth remembering that Collodi and the original version of Lucius came out of the same playtest for the same faction and they were both existing models that were tested extensively.

First of all, I want to note that I really appreciate you taking the time to address our concerns! Second, I think that all the nerfs that Gremlins have gotten (with the possible exception of Lenny) have been on models that I felt should be nerfed. But I also think that some of the nerfs were too ham-fisted making the models almost vanish from the tables (many were spot on - Burt and Franc, for example). Now, there have been efforts of making some of these playable again. BBB - the topic of the other thread! - being a prime example as Roosters are "obviously" the prime target for his most powerful buff. And that is certainly a way of dealing with things and I think that it is a good idea to utilize the whole tool box. Finally, I appreciate you implying that you're willing to re-visit old nerfs and maybe adjust them in the future. Stuffeds and Lenny are really sorry these days and it't good to know that there's still hope.

YOU MIGHT NOT LISTEN BUT YOU'LL HEAR!

I think that simply counting nerfs and buffs isn't very useful. The nerf on Metal Gamin was certainly way more devastating than the nerf on Francisco (to pick non-Gremlin examples). No one hires Metal Gamin anymore while Francisco's nerf didn't affect his popularity one bit. It would probably be better to count the nerfs that turned a staple into a niche pick (though that is naturally way more subjective).

Two seems like it would be the least amount of silly things in any faction - would you agree?

Hah! That's brilliant Yeah, this is key, I agree. Any favourites? Aeslin might get crushed by pianos, though.

The key difference between Reva and Zipp is that Reva doesn't mess up your positioning actively. She might do it passively by dropping Corpses into certain parts that you then want to avoid but she doesn't force you similar to Zipp. Also, e.g., Pandora's defense trick works against Reva. Also, I'm not sure that emptying Zipp's hand is any more important than emptyingWong's hand or emptying Rasputina's or Colette's or Marcus's or Ramos's hands. Making the other player discard cards is very powerful almost no matter the Master. As for Dreamer - maybe it's just skill or playstyle but I've never experienced or seen Zipp have trouble killing Dreamer. The sample size isn't huge, though, so I might very well be wrong.

I disagree that all Wave 4 Masters are somehow problematic. I think that even Nellie and Sandeep who are certainly at the very top of the power curve pose less problems than Zipp for the Neverborn. I mean, they might have an edge, most certainly, but they can't erase all Neverborn Masters off the table with the ease of Zipp. As for the Dreamer idea - yeah, hiding inside Chompy is valid but the problem there is that Chompy is somewhat squishy and needs to get stuck in. And when he pops out the Dreamer, Dreamer is toast. Removing cards from a hand is always very powerful. I disagree that it somehow affects Zipp or other Wave 4 Masters more than normal - I would argue that Summoners and Masters with powerful Actions with TNs like Obey and such are far more severely impacted. It's worth noting that you will be usually faxing Gremlins as opposed to Zipp so it might be Wong or Somer you run into instead so tooling too hard against Zipp might backfire. I've also found that shooting is pretty ineffective against Zipp as he can make great use of terrain and can use SS to counteract Focusing. He also has a good Def and quite a few wounds not to mention the general Gremlin access to healing. McTavish isn't bad but the Trapper+Changeling gunline is usually pretty easy for Zipp to avoid. He is susceptible to indirect damage that bypasses his crazy Df/Wp Trigger so Black Blood bombing for example can work but it has a short range so is again difficult. And Neverborn kinda lack in other kinds of indirect damage unless I'm forgetting something big (which I certainly might be!).

Yeah, Trixie isn't bad for it but her mobility boost is a bit limited in that she only has three Actions in general so if she Walks ahead and then Lures, that's only one extra Walk of movement. Also, she often likes Pushing the Swines when they are in Pig form so might not have time to Lure Wong all that much. She does help but doesn't solve the movement problem wholly.

I'm secretly a double agent - I want to hear all the futile plans for countering my Zipp and then devise counters against them! Did I just type that out? Oops! I need to think of something to distract you! Ooh, I got it! Here goes: In all seriousness, I've been shamed to stop playing Zipp, so I'm kinda asking for a friend. No, wait, that wasn't serious! In all actual seriousness, I might be encountering Zipp while playing Neverborn myself.

Pandora just dies to Zipp. Collodi gets thrown out of her bubble and damaged harshly by Zipp and then the rest of the Gremlins dismantle her as she's away from her safety net. Her Upgrade built to counter stuff like this doesn't work against Place. Dreamer dies to Zipp even faster than Pandora. Lynch, Lilith, and Zoraida are also very susceptible to Zipp's attacks. Lucius is a tiny bit more durable but probably toast as well. Titania? Does her new Upgrade work against Zipp? If it does, I suppose she has game. But yeah - Zipp's extreme mobility and the ability to bypass nearly all defensive tech in the game makes him an ideal assassin against the low Wd count Neverborn Masters who have extremely limited access to healing. How do you cope?

Wong's Df Trigger is just a basic Squeel so it only works against Enemy Attacks. But Gracie (or Old Major) with a Saddle is a great way to transport Wong for long distances. Gracie is also a fine target for Glowy.

When I look at my other factions (all except Outcasts and TT), everyone else got way, way more cool stuff than the Gremlins in Wave 5.

I think that they are ok as well. But I can see people thinking that they are not and I don't think that these tournament results prove things one way or another. And yeah, typoed, meant Wave 5. Mah has definitely gotten a lot of love lately (her amazing new Upgrades, Wrestlers, and the new cheap Survivors). I wonder whether Brin really works well against NB. He is so very squishy and NB are pretty good at projecting violence into specific parts of the battlefield. Have you seen him used?

I feel the need to point out that it is ML (or Ml) not MI. From "melee". As for the conversation itself - I dunno. I find it a bit early to say one way or the other (as some have pointed out, the meta is still very fresh) but OTOH I severely doubt that well-played Gremlins would be incapable of winning tournaments under GG18. I mean, I believe that the argument has always been that they are now lower tier and I'm not sure that two or three events disproves that. Personally, I'm not sure that we are weak or anything but we have been getting quite a few nerfs and our Wave 5 is pretty low-powered stuff compared to what other factions are getting which is a bit of a bummer.