Sergrum

I agree with Joel except i think Wong in the right circumstances is easily tier 1 (or at the very least above the others in that "middle" tier). There is little reason (from a TOP end tourny perspective) not to just know the big 3 at the moment (Somer, Zipp, Wong). Ophelia as many people have said is just a poor/lesser version of the top masters. Mah, she needs helps and maybe one day she will get it, but right now, same thing as Ophelia. She doesnt do much more damage then a normal hench, shes card hungry, and the big 3 all provide something more tangible then her chores and whatnot. Ulix, i think can work, its just big pigs are below par compared to their gremlin counterparts. I wish he had other abilities besides his summon that i found worthy. Typically his "obey" is very limited (2" and MI), only gives + flips. One of the worst of all the "obey" abilities on top of having limited/kinda shitty models to do it on.

Somer's suits only works on gremlins/pigs so makes gators even more :(.

What i've seen played/play is 2 situations. 1. You take the bacon bomb action yourself- you are sacrifcied 2. You are killed and then take the bacon bomb action before dying then you are technically already dead and would ignore the sacrifice part. If you are always sacrificed by the action it gets a bit fishy for things like hunting party/reckoning where piglet would be pretty much unkillable to score off of

Slop vs LB for healing... besides turn 1 of somer healing the slop is almost always more reliable. LB needs a mask (which is easy when somer is summoning turn 1), but later in the game is much less reliable (they can come at a premium for many masters Df triggers) on top of needing to center on a model to take the damage. Slops are still amazing when not healing so i think that is something to consider as well.

2 Stuffed piglets, maybe going towards something else 7ss range. Old cranky is in a unique spot. On paper, he has so much upside. 3 nice auras, card cycle, can drop scheme markers. On the table i find some crews just dont take advantage of his buffs to make him worth it, and i'd argue his card cycle is the only thing keeping him in the conversation for some of my crews.

Pick the master you like the most and go with their box. I think in general there are very few must haves that only come in crew boxes. Most of the good stuff is sold on its own. Somer IMO is the best crew box as his base crew uses all the models in it, most of the other masters hardly use whats in their box.

if you're playing Mah, you've already conceded that you're going to be doing things sub-optimally ;). I do wish her chores were more "balanced" in a sense that the other 3 wouldn't be so grossly situational/bad (2 involve your own models dying) that its pretty much a "find/hope for a ram" type ability.

I have pretty much used earl 100% as a schemer and usually ignore the rest of his card. In that sense, for 3ss hes a better buy that a bayou most of the time. I can def see leaving him at home if he isnt going to be needed in that role. In strats like squatters/stake i think hes easily worth his weight even if hes only dropped off up the field by Zipp turn 1 and left there. Dont think I'd take cranky tho. To be quite fair i find him good but i think overrated at times.

If a Swine-Cursed switches forms at at beginning of activation does it still benefit from Old Major's Rile em' Up? "Rile 'em Up: Other friendly Pigs which begin their Activation within A(4) gain + to Attack and damage flips which are generated by Attack Actions resulting from the Charge Action for the duration of the Activation." Argument for yes is - It satisfies both conditions when it's actually making the attacks. It is- - A friendly Pig - Began its activation withing 4" There is nothing about it gaining a condition when it activates just the 2 requirements when charge attacks happen. EDIT: I am saying if you switch from Gremlin to Pig you get the + as you satisfy the 2 conditions at the time of the attacks.

Great to hear Joe. Did you run the same list every game? What models you end up taking the most?

Besides the Pigapult (which still isnt bad) i'd say this list would work just fine :P. Dont think you can convince your opponents it's all for "fun", if it works itd just be frustrating to play vs. Used the tax for the first time today. I can def see some potential in some situations. I ran him with Wong as opposed to zipp. and felt he filled a nice role.

Maybe its the fact that im more aggressive in my playstyle that makes me love Burt/Frank Roosters more.

Glad to see people finally coming around to the stuffed spam. What did you end up doing with gracie, hauling around the taxedermist? Surprised by the ronin. I just dont see how they are better then Burt, especially in your crew. Besides their (0) and disguised everything they do Burt does better, as well as benefiting from being able to be saddled and immune to stuffed piglets explosions.

Nice job on the win. What was the fixed crew?

Trixie- Try not running any upgrades on her (maybe dirty cheater), and spend all her AP trying to push key models away (with high crows if you have them) and pulling your own key models. If you want to heal/shoot use another model.

Look at bushwackers then look at a rooster... then put your bushwackers in a box never to see daylight

Good to hear. Back on topic. Some of my gremlin lists lately have just been brute force. I rarely use earl burns for his heal/suits, i typically just fly him to the center line with zipp and he drops convict markers. Roosters scheme/kill. Burt kills,frank kills. Zipp annoys. Stuffed activate control/annoy/kill. No super special combos, most ap sent walking/Scheming/Killin. It's really just about positioning and picking the right attacks. I've started to wonder if 1/2 the combos gremlins have are worth the effort and models it takes to do them.

I personally find him too expensive, perhaps in Head Hunter that also has 2-3 scheme marker strats? I never give him a fair shot to be honest. 10SS for no damage, man i just want to kill everything! Hard to run schemes if all the enemy is dead! He's one of those models that i look at the card, and im like ok lets try him, and i don't know how to fit him in to my current builds easily.

"Rampage: When this model has the opportunity to declare an Action, if it has two or fewer Wounds remaining, it must declare a Charge Action against the closest legal target which it is not engaged with. This Charge Action may be made while engaged. This model gains + to Attack and damage flips during this Charge Action. If there are no legal targets, this model may declare an Action normally." To me it seems very specific case where the charge must be caused by the rampage ability and not from a stampede.

Excited to see how Zipps does for you at nationals. Are you 2 going to be on teams for Daffcon?

I just cant get into the First mate anymore. Ever since replacing him for 5 stuffed piglets ive been so happy with zipp. I do agree on 1 iron skeeter, 2 feels very meh to me and not worth the cost for what it does. I am surprised by the amount of gremlins that go against the grain of good stuff. As a faction it hasn't exactly performed to a top level, at least not to the point where there is a flagbearer for the faction. Something like Neverborn (which everyone and their mother plays/wins with) i can see the sense of wanting to "being different". To me, Gremlins have a poor internal balance. Much of it has to do with reckless and just good solid abilities vs specialized abilities. In the end i see things and go "why would i take that over burt/rooster in 95% of cases"

Opehlia and Mah both have good and bad things about them Mah is way more card intensive to get to maximum damage output. They are different yet similar in a weird way. In the end its an argument of preference, if you want real power you take Somer/Wong/Zipp and leave both these masters at home

Interesting, are no roosters a thematic choice or because you dont think they are good enough? I've been playing a lot of Zipp lately. Use the First Mate a couple games, tossed him to the side recently. Lot of , Zipp. Earl. Skeeter, Burt, Frank, 2xRooster, 5x Stuffed and some upgrades. Its like thematically you want sparks and mech porkchop in there, but feel outclassed by the others. Love reading your stuff!

Do you tend to run roosters/mass stuffed piglets (for activations)?