Hi fam.
Thought I'd chime in with my few cents, after seeing Rich do so. I'll open up with the same disclaimer that he did (errata was needed, well done to Wyrd, too harsh/not harsh enough) and a preface as to how I pick the miniatures I use in the game. I consider myself a competitive player (regardless of how successful my record on that front is another matter entirely, mind you!). I'll mainly be looking at models that are efficient in terms of AP for their cost and what role they can fulfil (this matter is fluid, as it never hurts to have a model who can switch roles). A blog post that sums up this approach better than I ever could is here - LINK. Basically, redundancy - does a model have the same (or close enough) role as another model.
The errata is here now. We have to like it and lump it - or you know, jump faction. But stuff that! Taking Reckless of them was certainly the best holistic choice to go with (keep Aaron's post in mind) over fiddling with rules elsewhere because you could use Reckless in ways to kill them off or trigger Rampaging at your leisure. Think of it like hidden tech in computer fighting games. Not cheating persay and not against the letter of the rules, but certainly against the intention of the game design.
I think it has hit their place in the faction hard. Again, the number of times I'd think 'I have 18ss spare, I'll take three' during crew selection as they were the best option meant that something had to change. They were scheme runner, flanker and potential assassination piece all in one. My main thought now is how do we do Stake a Claim (Pult, mass Bayous, whatever, plenty of ways about it). Their main spot now (he says, one day after the errata dropped so pinch of salt) could be in Collect the Bounty, where having a hard hitting minion is often more valuable than a Henchman or Enforcer. As for general use in killing enemy models or running schemes, I think we have better, more efficient choices if you are looking to assemble an efficient collection of competitive Gremlins. Going back to the link at the top of this post, they may hit differently than Francois and they may drop scheme markers differently to Bugs but is that difference enough? My knee jerk, still likely to change reaction would be not really.
And let's move onto the Ophelia debuff (let's be real, it does not effect Som'er as much and Mah was never good) in Lenny. Debatably a bigger hit to the faction than the Rooster debuff (as they still have a place), whereas I think Ophelia will now struggle to keep a foot in competitive Gremlin play. Lenny made her hit harder and Toss acted as her movement. I'm not really grasping why people are saying Lenny held her back in terms of board control as the two could pull each other around pretty easily, unless you were taking a themed Lacroix list (if you were, more power to you. Not something I'd consider as a worthwhile option). I'd wager this debuff happened because the Lenny/Ophelia combo cut out the mechanic of the gun upgrades. Why fire them, when you can instead fire the Rough Riders at 4/6/8 right? What you have now with Ophelia is the upgrade swopping and the buffing of (Merris and Francois withstanding) our less efficient elite models in the Lacroix. It is, again, a matter of efficiency of points and AP. If you want damage, other things in the faction do this more reliably.
As Ritch pointed out, I don't think this errata has opened up any choices of ours that were poor before. With the Rooster debuff, I think Merris and Bugs will see a boost in play but they were never bad to begin with. On a first look, I think what it has done is take a few pieces and cut their usefullness down considerably (because, you know, they were too good). This is all fine though - it is certainly better than playing Gremlins in V1!
