szendroib

Actually in our local meta gremlins are one of the strongest factions. I think what you described was true in wave 1. Gremlins died left and right and none of your models survived the whole game. A lot of things happened since than. You don't even have to use models with negative triggers anymore, we have so many overpowered models in our faction. Last time for example I placed 2nd in our tournament with gremlins, and I usually place around that level. I think the root of your problem is that most of the crews you described are using uncontrollable models as their core. Ulix uses the pigs and I would guess you use the bayou gremlins for Somer (I almost never take them, they are very unreliable). The other problem might be (I know no one likes to hear this) that you haven't grasped the nuances of Malifaux yet. Things like proper hand management, positioning, etc. I assume this because if you would people would cry when you hire Francois and burt at the same time, and that's only just the beginning of a crew (also you know that Francois doesn't have to activate his trigger, right? He shouldn't die while killing a minion). What I would suggest is to forget about the minion spam playstyle and try the - drumroll - elite gremlin army. I would suggest 2 masters for this playstaly: 1. Wong - just hire McTavish and give him the magical condition. Also hire a bayou even though I just said you shouldn't, but his only job will be to place scheme markers for Mctavish to use his 0 action (and keep low rams to cheat in). Next step is throwing Wong's totem into the bin since she is ugly and burt can use the same enemy pushing ability she can, but he is a melee monster in the same time. Add Old Cranky as a totem and Francois with stilts (to cancel his self damage one time) and you are set. Fill the rest with something that helps your game. Merris for scheming, Gracie or Mancha for beating. Lightning bugs as minions. Wong crew is especially great against Arcanists and Ressers since your magical figure rips them apart with ease. Lightning bugs can also ignore armor. 2. Somer - Somer elite list is very fun aswell. I like to take my 2 totems with him and abuse the triggers as much as possible. The figures are mostly the same as with Wong (I don't use McTavish with him that much without the magical condition). Let's check the triggers: - Mask trigger makes almost your whole team get their def triggers, no one will want to charge you and waste their APs when you can push away after the 1st hit. Mask also lets Lightning bugs get their healing blast automatically. - Ram trigger makes your damage output explode. Somer gets huge shots with blast, Burt will have +2 damage from his crit trigger AND an auto def trigger if the enemy doesn't hit him, Gracie gets +2 damage and becomes a monster, mancha gets +damage flip (and he is quite survivable if you make him def 7), Trixie gets her auto trigger to her melee to let a friend make 1 additional attack (and you are full of beaters with huge damage, that could be 3 extra big attacks per turn). This is usually so much fun, but positioning is key. With gremlins you usually want to attack first to maximize your damage since they can't take the beating as much as other factions. There is a trick with somer to hand out mask with one of your totems and shoot him with your bayous or something (but don't hit him), so he pushes up the board and when he activates give him ram, so he can shoot the enemy on turn 1. Either with 3 min 4 damage shots or 1 big focused shot for 8 damage and 2 blast markers for 4 damage. - Crow trigger is a little weaker than ram but it can lead to fun games. Basically what it gives is an infinite shot trigger for Francois. While you hit the enemy you can than always make one more attack after it. If you attack something with low def you could kill it with 1 AP. The other use of the crow trigger is handing out slow. Lightning bugs will slow the enemy with every hit. Trixie will slow the enemy with every push from 18 away. So they have to push their charge value away and than walk back from their 1 ap loosing their whole turn. I hope it helps a little, I would try these 2 crews instead of the usual unreliable minion builds. You can use your soulstones to keep your henchen alive since you will have more henchmen in these games.

Ah this somer slow list sounds really awesome, have to try it :). Also about triggers: ram usually makes your figures hit harder and mask makes them activate their def triggers :).

As others mentioned just try to forget drinking contest and give out swills. Use brewmaster and his totem for -flips, obeys and binge. For example hand out 2 swills to 1 or 2 targets (2 if its a sturdy model), obey a model with a One ap cgarge (rooster for example) and chain activate into francois. Than try not to smile too much while your opponent is crying. Chain activation is great for this since the enemy could just walk away with the swilled figure. Other great figures are the sparks and whiskey golem tag team. Sparks can make the golem fast and occasionally armor 2. The golem's wave 4 0upgrade lets It heal half the time it hits the Enemy. With nimble and fast the golem can engage/charge almost anything on the board and his df trigger and self heal from attacking keeps him alive for a while. Also you can obey him to Attack something and heal :). Sparks also has a 8 aura that can deny the enemy's condition removal, healing, etc. Until they try to target friendly creatures.

Fingers is my Secret weapon. Every time I placed him on the board in a competition he won me the game. He is a super sneaky vp machine. I guess the real trick is to know when Merris is enough for scheming and when to hire the big gun :). Or both.

Hello! I really like this podcast, I think it's a great start to understand Yan Lo. Don't forget that it's just one (or two) way of playing him, so don't forget to try different things that suits your playstyle with him :).

I personally don't enjoy summoning Somer, it's too much busy work and flipping left and right, plus most of your figures are the same puny (but useful) ones. However accidentally Somer is great with anything that requires a trigger, which is almost all gremlin models. If you want a more aggressive elite crew on the cheaper side, you should buy Ophelia box (Francois for every crew, Lenny for summoning Somer), Burt, slop haulers, and probably Merris for a start and you might proxy Trixie with the female young lacroix since her box doesn't worth it just for the 1 model. Some nice tricks include shooting Somer with your own Bayou gremlin and miss to push Somer into position so he can focus shoot with 1 or 2 focus in 1st turn. Or he is great against any resser masters by forcing them to empty their hands. Good luck with summoning anything :). There are more nice tricks with Somer's bullying build but thats an other topic, just wanted to offer you an alternate (and more fun imo.) purchase path if you want to play Somer.

I really like to play mancha in my melee beatdown style crews alongside francois and burt. They are quite potent together, I either play them with Somer to hand out rams (crit for burt, + damage for mancha, and if I remember right extra attacks from trixie). Other master he is good with is Wong with an other model being magical. He can put the enemy on - flips for def for magical mctavish or burt to finish off the models. I think he isn't your usual beater, you can't expect him to tank the enemy (maybe used his taunt abiluty once this far), but he is a gremlin afterall, none of them can take a beating. Here is what I think are his pros / cons: PROs: - huge threat range of 13" if positioned well, on more open maps it is a huge worry for the enemy - awesome triggers, especially ram (+ flip for damage) and book (- flip for defence for the enemy) - great buffs from 0 action, I think def 7 is the best since attack 6 is more than enough to land hits, but immunity to paralyze is awesome against selected enemies. +Wk is probably for turn 1 or last minute scheme placement. - can carry Mud toss, but since he won't live too long and likes to charge around from his 2 aps it's not the best fit CONs: - No real survivability -> as I said I like +def on him and when I play melee beatdown I use almost all my SS to keep my henchmens alive since gremlin masters are quite good in surviving (Somer/Wong) or staying away from the action - very easy to overextend with him due to huge charge -> try to charge in after the enemy activated most of his figures and try to grab initiative with trixie to get +def and attack again.

So much talk about beating Wong himself but in reality Wong isn't too scary against arcanists, he can't ignore armor, so most of the time he will deal 1-2 damage. As a gremlin player Wong is my autopick against arcanists but it is because of the magical condition that gives a big bruiser armor ignore and + damage. So I think wong isn't the real threat, it is the magical McTavish/Burt/Lazarus/etc and the lightning bugs. If you have enough armor and you spread out Wong won't be that scary. Especially if you use hard cover, than he can only attack once (with focus) if he wants to blast. So my advice would be to try to counter him with positioning and focus on the armor ignoring units of his.

The reason I like them is that they can do what most other factions can, but with a fun twist. We even have constructs now, Trixibelle is a reverse belle, etc. I also think we have the most creative abilities (or at least up there with neverborn) in the game and I really like the combo potential of these crazy skills. The next thing is that most gremlins can work good together, I can use most of my models with most of my masters and not feel handicapped. Other factions have more restricted unit selection for their masters. As a gremlin player I can pick up a blister/starter, throw it in with the others and potentially have a crew with some synergy. Last but not least I just love our AP pool. Almost all models have reckless/melee expert/nimble/1AP charge. It feels great to do so much more things with my figures than the enemy.

I Think that brewmaster is better off using swill+beatdown than his control aura. The aura style just folds most of the time and the Enemy comes out with max hp and some poison on them. I really like swill into francois chain activation. It isually equals a dead big Enemy a round. Also advice for Burt: If you can charge in, usually do it. He is much more scaryer in melee than in range. This style also doesn't really requires trixie but she can help a lot. i would also add sparks to the growing list of figures (wave 3). His big aura can stop enemies removing conditions or pushing out their friends to safety. If you hire sparks a construct would be the next logical step. A fast whiskey golem who can be binged or obeyed is no joke for the Enemy. Wouldn't play in any other team probably but this way with upgrades he could walk 6 and Attack 5-6 Times a turn. i might have wandered a Little off with sparks and golem but its a fun denial aura + Super fast beater combo. instead of the construct path you can use trixie and mancha as additional beaters. Trixie can give melee beaters additional actions with her ram trigger. Against swilled enemies low rams can trigger it aswell. You can use most rams as extra melee attacks and low masks as self binge extra ap. Its a lot of hurt against swilled enemies.

Slop haulers are must haves for Somer/Ulix summoning crews and a Kin focused Ophelia crew. But I feel like the mindset that they are a necessity comes from Wave 1 where a lot of gremlins kept hurting themself and most of them (Kin for example) had Def 4. Wave 2 introduced much more durable models and I had to realize that slop haulers were a trap just as much as they are a huge healing help. If you want to stay in their healing bubble your team becomes seriously slowed down. Personally I found that a fast and melee focused (Francois, Burt, Mancha, Gracie, etc) hit team works better in our meta than a slow gunline. Also this made my team building more flexible. I still take them when I know I will definately need them, but most of the time I take Lightning bugs instead. If it is a necessity it could worth to attak your own lesser model just to heal 2 hp on 3-4-5 other figure. It's totally unreliable on enemies unless you have a big mask in your hand. But on the flip side it has range 8 and the lightning bug could still do 2 more actions.

I still think that the poison and 3" aura style is a trap for brewmaster (not that I'm any expert or something). The bubble strategy falls apart as soon as you loose the initiative flip and you find yourself amongs an angry horde of enemies missing only 1 hp because of the lot of healing actions they had to make. And it will happen even with Trixie sometimes as gremlins. I prefer to hand out swill to the enemy and than beat him while he can't really defend against it. That said I've yet to play him as TT but I think Yin is an awesome choise for brewie because of her wp attack and debuff. I would definately take 1 or 2 Komainus aswell since they will love attacking against the reduced Wp of the enemy (they also have a built in synergie if they stick around Yin) Other model I would definately bring is a pathfinder. He and his traps are pretty fun by default but if you add in swill the enemy will stick around them for a long time and get attacked every time they fail a disengagement with - flip (since they ended a move action near the trap). There is a good chance they will get slow because of the Wk test with - flips, then if they go defensive to have normal flip for disengagement they can only (maybe) disengage that turn and end their activation. I also eyed with the smoke grenade upgrade, for 1 ss it could add a lot to your group. Either put it on Brewie (if its allowed) because he can be easily killed from afar or put it on the Whiskey golem. You will have 2 models (him and Yin) with - flips against attacks (only ranged for the golem) so you can safely hide behind them while you advance to your position. If you get into melee range you can drop the upgrade to hide for a turn from shooters and possibly charges. Recalled training is a super awesome upgrade, and since brewie isn't too upgrade heavy he can use it in a turn when he drew a bad hand but still has to activate first (Ca7 and + flips could balance out the enemy's better hand). I'm not sure TT has any models with companion but swilling an enemy and chain activating a beater is always a nice killy combo. Other than these models I'm not sure I would have any must includes. Master Yu or Lust is always a nice support/control piece. Dawn serpent could be fun but I think it is a little too expensive for what it is. You also cant upgrade it to help it perform better. If you want to use it for poison dispensing then Fingers is better at it (he also hands out 3 instead of 2 if you go the paralyze or performer way) and he gives a lot of utility/healing/slipperiness aswell. If you want ranged damage you also have cheaper and better options.

Tried whiskey golem with Sparks this week and its quite fun. The fast makes him much more useful. You can walk 12 and attack 3 times or walk and attack 4 times, or the extra ap is good for activating the +2 def. Not overpowered or super competitive but it leads to a pretty mobile beater. I think it would be a nice pairing for brewmaster aswell since Sparks has a denial aura (hostile workenvironment) that prevents enemies from removing the swill/poison or pushing them away from brewmaster.

I can't argue here he is not a tarpit. I kind of meant he is a better one at it than Whiskey golem (since Master wrote he use whiskey golem as a tarpit). Only reason is the 3 ml range VS the 1 :).

He has a nice attack but with a very low range. I usually find that for 10 or 12 ss (with upgrade) there are way better models in the faction. Mancha for beatdown, Fingers for schemeing and healing duty, McTavish for tarpit, and Gracie for durability and mobility (despite her Wk4). Whiskey golem also requires one additional general ap to get staying power because you will want to activate fine craftsmanship after his activations. So he works well with Brewmaster, Zoraida and any crews with Sparks in it. Maybe a magical whiskey golem with sparks would make him useful? Having 4-6-7 damage with possible poison and built in ignores with fast and 3 general ap (flurry and one more attack/fine craftsmanship) Quite scary but he would be focused down instantly.