Flippin' Wyrd George

So we've seen a change to the aura (now 8" and +3 poison)

What do we think? +3 poison seems fair as it will be not be auto slow on any attack with poison +2. Looking forward to see how it translates on the table.

Sign me up please

 George

23 minutes ago, DuBlanck said:

At that point is the Brewmaster player not expending as many AP dragging that model in as he is invalidating?

It's not that simple. Actions are traded, but my 1 action for your 1 actions mean very different things when you have to take into account positioning and subsequent activations.

59 minutes ago, Mayt said:

I have spent a lot of games playing Brewmaster during 3e and the majority of the time with relative success, being honest this makes me super happy as I was one of those players that tirelessly tried to make it work for 2e and it just never fully synergised properly. However last night I played a crew that stunned me and quite honestly it was a total shutdown to both the synergies and the auras. a lot of the play style depends on the triggers and bonus actions building up poison slowly. so in summary use stunned against Brewie.

 

I also recognise this is off topic.... on intoxication. If the opposing crew cant get on top of the effects, it becomes to oppressive in my opinion when tied with the two inch engagement.

 

 

I must admit, as someone who watched this game on the table next to me Brewmaster was entirely shut out the game with Von Schtook's stunned. But that seems like an issue with how the stunned condition interacts with Brewmaster rather than Intoxication.

12 minutes ago, bedjy said:

So you're never going to counter-pick your opponents ? What if you need range actions, condition removal, scheme manipulation, corpse removal ? Mei Feng crew is already easy to counter pick. 

Perhaps I over exaggerated in that statement haha.

But I would not hire anything non-construct other than counterpicks. But even these would be picked sparingly.

3 minutes ago, bedjy said:

I've played against a construct crew (Hoffman) and never could use Vent steam, since it was more painful to me than to my opponent...

Well, as I said before, I have never hired any non-construct other than Willie because I see no reason to add that layer of awkwardness for yourself in a vent steam crew. And I don't think I ever would.

8 minutes ago, bedjy said:

His healing potential is at range, so he would have to go in if he wants to heal anything.

Ha! 

Sparks heals 2 right? So: Sparks enters vent steam, takes 1 damage, then takes an action to heal a friendly model 2, taking 1 further damage. That's abysmally bad. 

At this point I feel like we are going in circles and over complicating something which is quite simple.

I have made my point: after you consider the sheer amount of poison Brewmaster applies, even after condition removal, an 6" aura on Intoxication is too crippling. 3" is much more appropriate. I'm not suggesting a huge overhaul of his card and mechanics, just a small, simple, change that makes the game more accessible and enjoyable for the opponent.

11 minutes ago, WildRose94 said:

but he would loss the ability to increase it by removing scrap as you are changing the rail drive action which he shares with the rail workers, so either he will need a stat increase or the action needs to be renamed. agree with construct, as he, sparks and willie really suffer from friendly vent steam at the moment.

True, that is problem, but to be honest I don't think I'd ever be using the scrap for a simple stat +1 as the scrap is far more useful for other models in the crew, especially after you take into account how much your opponent is likely to tailor to include scrap removal and make it a much more sparse resource (something we are not seeing so much of at the moment as every is learning their own stuff before focusing on opponent counters).

Willie is ok as non-construct, as the ranged element means he can run relatively independently, position wise, to the rest of the crew. Can't speak for Sparks but imagine its not so bad as he hangs back a fair bit as support. Neil Henry really suffers from it though.

I have yet to hire any non-construct other than Willie because Vent Steam is too table controlling for your own models to be anything other than construct. I don't want to have to worry about it.

6 minutes ago, WildRose94 said:

I assume you would also increase Neil Hennry's rail driver to stat 7 then as well?

No, but I'd love Neil to be a construct as that's the only reason I wouldn't hire him at the moment. I don't see the need to increase his stat.

But I appreciate the problem on wanting to change the way the action works on the Rail Workers but not on Neil.

12 minutes ago, WildRose94 said:

Are rail works in an irrelevant spot? Even though their at the same cost as the metal gamin they do very deferent roles. The gamin are a tanky set up the rails model where as the worker is more offensive model dealing out the damage. I'll agree that the survivors look a bit irrelevant.

In the games I've used the Rail Worker it has been underwhelming, and I have always wished I had a metal gamin instead. Agreed they are more of a beater than the gamin, but haven't been reliable when I have hired them. If the crew had more burning I'd definitely hire them for the stunned free action.

I'd love to see the Rail Worker raise to 6 stones, gain a wound and change Rail Driver to:

Quote

 

Rail Driver,1",  Stat 6, Rst Df

You may remove a Scrap Marker within 3" of the target, if you do so, target gains burning +1. Target suffers 2/4/5 damage.

           Dismantle for parts: Enemy Constructs only. Place a scrap marker in base contact with the target.

 

I think that would be enough to make me hire them.

4 hours ago, bedjy said:

Would it be possible to move some of the 5Ss model to other costs ? A range from 4-6 would be a lot more interesting
I'd say :

• Metal Gamin 4Ss : -1 armor
• Survivor : 5Ss (also proper cost slot for Mah) I'm currently not a huge fan of the model, but I don't know what they'd need. Maybe Railwalker to start with.
• Rail worker 6Ss : +1Wd, maybe +1 Mv or another 

Would be sad to see metal gamin change, I think he's great as he is. Rail Workers and Survivors are ones to look at.

11 minutes ago, Paddywhack said:

yeah...not so much.... Resurrs have a Nurse who has a 3" range and costs 7ss out of theme. The only other non-master options is Francis who, without Urami, you're paying 7SS for Dispel Magic and that's about it. I'm not as familiar with every faction, but I know there are others that only have one or two models with Condition Removal and it seems like they are often very short range now. So even if I bring a Nurse, there is a good chance that she might be in the Aura as well in order to try and remove Slow. 

I keep seeing this argument, but I don't think there is as much condition removal as there used to be, especially without Mercs from m2e. 

Also, as seen in my game, three potential condition removals per turn was not enough.

But we are getting away from the point of the thread: not that Brewmaster gives out too much poison (he should), but that the Intoxication synergy is oppressive.

58 minutes ago, wizuriel said:

It was more if something had poison and was around brewie a dead model is better than a slow model. This was also before they buffed poison so I was using blood poison a lot to just kill models.

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

Most of his damage comes from his drunken strength trigger and that is based on poison on him.

I think this is where the differences occur. My opponent was ensuring that my models stayed poisoned at all points during the game, rather than going for raw damage, giving huge control making my crew slow. I urge you to try this, its extremely oppressive played well.

25 minutes ago, retnab said:

As someone who actually played Mei Feng vs Brewmaster right near the end of CB, the aura didn't trigger once against me. However, I was bouncing all over the place so avoiding Brewie wasn't too big of an issue for me. In the proposed solutions above if needed then changing it to triggering off Poison +3's got my vote

I am surprised by this. Did the Brewie player not lure your poisoned models into his aura? Did they not move Brewie into position to apply the slow? Its very easily done. The problem I had with Mei's crew is, whilst I could escape, I was using my only available AP to get away (which then could have been lured back by Brewmaster).

8 hours ago, I'm a Teapot! said:

I’ve played a lot of Brewmaster.

Brewie is so synergie based that if u want to play him it’s as your leader 99% of the time. Every faction has a good access to condition removal and brewmaster is fully condition based. This is one of the largest windows for counterplay against a crew mechanic that is even possible in the game. 

Even Kaeris has less counterplay because she doesn’t need to Stack burning on her models and the enemy and pyre markers do provide burning while with brewie its all on ap to hand out poison.

Brewie is in a very good spot while the Enemy doesn’t actively Use condition removal, in a good spot if he manages to kill the condition removal models early and in a mediocre to bad spot while the enemy knows what he is doing and protects his condition removal.

The aura is a pretty ok tool for tarpit scenarios but far away from oppressive. Killing key models one by one is way more effective than tarpitting the whole enemy team and trying to tank it, like the m2e aproach was. If you get stuck in Brewies aura with to many models in the current strat and scheme set and you can’t manage to put enough pressure on Brewie before all your models are totally drunk, I suggest you should think about different approaches to counter his crew ingame and while hiring. 

Foundry is one of the most mobile crews in Malifaux and they can even escape the Brewie bubble vis ride the rails. 

There are tons of ways you can play so Brewie and his debuffs are far from oppressive.

Mechanis based on conditions are a problem for the master/models using the mechanic, not the enemies. Conditions have such large counterplay against them in m3e it’s easy to use them against new m3e players and very very hard against players who know how counter hiring works in m3e and bring a correctly built crew to deal with Brewie. 

I would absolutly love to see brewmaster or mcmourning as the declared leader of my opponent in a tournament. Hiring is so obvious and straight forward against them. 

I considered counter play heavily in my hiring pool. I deliberately hired the Arcane Effigy and Forgeling which have condition removal, Envy and Willie which have ranged damage and the rest of my crew had access to ride the rails or armour +2 which greatly reduces the effect of poison damage. I used condition removal every turn and, despite this, my opponent was still able to put extreme poison pressure on by constantly reapplying the condition through Brewmaster, splash triggers and other models in the crew. By turn 3 Brewmaster was in the middle of the board and had splashed poison, one way or another, onto the majority of my models, meaning that most of my models were slow. They had the choice between escaping by ride the rails (to a location Brewmaster could have followed up to), or standing there and trying to make good use of their 1 AP vs. a now df7 wp7 master. The 13" diameter bubble of slow was very oppressive, I don't know how you can defend this as anything otherwise.

Something has got to give. I am not saying there needs to be sweeping changes or anything drastic, but a slight reduction on Intoxication gives a little more breathing space from the chokehold Brewmaster currently can have on the board. Perhaps my game showed an extreme example of what's possible, but I hired and used counterplay and it had real minimal effect.

16 minutes ago, retnab said:

He is this gangly looking guy running around shirtless, he's not exactly the image of durability  Giving him back Terrifying would be nice though

Low TN Terrifying could be a thing. He only takes a couple of hits to drop once you're through it.

Had loads of fun with Willie today, though my opponent took Take Prisoner on him so he had free reign. The Shockwave is amazing if you can get it within 3 or more enemy models. Would however like to see a way to apply more direct damage. The actions did feel a bit meh but I think this was because he wasn't getting in the thick of it, so couldn't make the most of Set Charge. Will probably see some playtime vs low mv crews and masters with resist triggers.

Looks extremely fragile though with 7 wounds, df 5, no armour and no HTW/HTK. I'm concerned Willie needs more protection.

4 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

 

Maybe engaging at range? Most of his defense relies on  poison, so at range DF 5 and 12 wounds isn't that spectacular. I know not all crews have a significant range component. You're drunk go home is pretty strong, but maybe focused charges when you can get them.

Engaging at range seemed like the obvious counter, but when your opponent is savvy enough to get around ranged models by luring them in whilst giving them poison (even through concealment), there isnt much more you can do.

I tried blocking the aura with large models as well ( I hired 4 50mms) but its too easy for brewmaster to move around it.

Hi all. I've just had a game against @Mayt's Brewmaster with my Mei Feng, which was for the most part balanced, but I found the interaction of poison and Intoxication to be a real oppressive experience. I'd be curious hearing any other peoples opinion who have played vs. Brewmaster. This is not my first game vs. him, and I've watched a couple of others, but in every game Intoxication has had a real negative effect on the opponent. Here's the ability.

We know Brewmaster's crew gives out poison relatively easy to enemy models, as it should. But in the game I just played, even by taking two instances of condition removal in my crew, I just got overwhelmed by the sheer amount of poison the crew gave out, and consequently slow, due to Intoxication. My models were unable to affect the game from about T3 onwards as any poison removed with condition removal was easily reapplied, and as we know only having one action is severely crippling to any model, let alone the majority of a crew. As there is no other way to remove poison I was left pretty helpless. Has anyone else had a similar experience?  6 is huge on the table, particularly on a model that is psuedo defence 7 with a low TN heal -- very hard to shift off the table. My opponent and I both agreed that had he been more familiar with 3rd as a ruleset, it would have been an absolute trouncing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted to see Brewmaster on the table and getting used much more reguarly than 2nd ed, and I think he is in a really good place theme and gameplay wise, but I am concerned that Intoxication is a little too good with the sheer amount of posion the crew gives out. This is the only thing I'd consider looking at. Perhaps the numbers on Intoxication could be tweaked: 3? 

What do you think Gremlin players, and those who have played vs. Brewmaster? Naturally I am expecting some opposition from Gremlin players 😂 but am curious to hear what the community thinks.

1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

His one hit is going to be a focused attack, so he'll probably be dealing 4-6 points of damage each hit.

Malifaux is dead in my part of the country. I don't think there's been a game since the end of the closed beta. I don't suspect I'll be able to get in another game before the beta ends.  
 

Isn't two attacks better than focus? 😂

Jokes aside, you can still put a focused attack on a negative to damage with a stone so it shouldn't be a total disaster. My immediate reaction to the update was omg Colette is unusable, but after digesting it she is still hyper defensive and going to be a pain to deal with. 

I'm most disappointed about the missing crow on her attack. Wish it had a built in crit strike or something instead so the option for low dmg was there.

I think im the TBC, was pretty sure I put my name on the ticket!

8 hours ago, retnab said:

What do people think of Willie? He looks okay, but I never find myself grabbing him in my games. That said, can Set Charges be made into a "may"? I can imagine being in a scenario where I accidentally blow up markers I need because a clever opponent walks over to it when Set's up.

I think he looks ok. Didnt get a chance to use him, but the shockwave makes me think he will be hired in certain matchups.

Agreed @mythicFOX & @retnab

15 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

That’s obvious, and not what I was asking. That stops the Healing and Ice Pillars from working. That change to Ice Pillars is a massive nerf to Rasputina and Silent Ones and indirectly  December crews as a whole.

I don’t see a problem with being able to draw range and LoS for Interacts, Assists, and the Feast action through the pillar. None of that seems game breaking to me. 

Game breaking, probably not. Abusable, possibly? I haven't played enough Raspy to make an informed decision.

I just don't like the idea from fluff perspective that a model can eat something through a pillar of ice.

2 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

I’m not sure how you could change Ice Mirror that would prevent Interact, Assist, and the Feast ability from working while still allowing Ice Pillar creation and Healing to happen through the Ice Pillar.

"May take non-close attack actions" would do it. Ice Pillars at 21" and healing at 16" was a little ridiculous anyway 😂