My long drunken road - Brewmaster game recaps/Insights

[Lawgnome]

So, now that you have a little more experience with the brewmaster, how do you think you would build him as 10 Thunders?

[CannibalBob]

So, now that you have a little more experience with the brewmaster, how do you think you would build him as 10 Thunders?

 

I was reading back through Crossroads today, and there was a lot more interesting possible 10T synergies than I remember on the last read-through.  The Fermented River monks are the obvious ones, and they look quite brutal, but there are some others I never noticed before such as Sensei Yu, Yin, etc.  You could build a very interesting crew that emphasizes the willpower reduction angle that the Brewmaster has.

[Tiny]

I played my game i've gotta go to bed soon so dont have time to go over it at the moment will do it tomorrow. 

 

I've been panning for gold though guys and ive found it! Eureka! 

 

So i've been lamenting the fact that wesly needs such a huge mask to throw away on obey, even if its just on my own models and they are auto failing. BUT WORRY NO MORE.

 

So i've found a way to give brewmaster 4 ap a turn and still take wesley (not the student)

 

And its just one word Binge. Now we were taking binge from the start you think, what an idiot this Tiny bloke is why would anyone read this crap anyway you say?

 

Lets look at binge:

 

(1) pick yer poison ca 7m rst: wp rg:12/ Target model discards a ccard if able. If it discards a card other than a joker it gains one of the following effects, as determined by teh card's suit:

Mask Hooch: Target immediately performs a 1 AP action controlled by this model.

 

 

the rest you can look at the card yourself. Whats important to note here is 3 things. First, no target number so the dream for wesley. Second, it doesnt specify enemy model so the dream for targeting your own models and having them relent. Finally, it doesnt specify none master models (!!!!). 

 

Ladies and gentlemen for me this is a huge piece of the puzzle that is breaking the brewmaster. 

 

Cheap easy to cast obeys on  your own models for the cost of low masks, obviously it wont always be an option but its a really good piece of tech you can use. 

 

Go forth with this information and crush all. 

[zFiend]

Seriously, there is an alarming amount of "This master of the worst kind can get even more AP" tricks around lately.

[Dirial]

Seriously, there is an alarming amount of "This master of the worst kind can get even more AP" tricks around lately.

 

*waits for the Sonnia one*

[admiralvorkraft]

*waits for the Sonnia one*

 

Hah. Closest she gets is a Malifaux Child. Maybe a SoC but that's probably a waste. Guilds biggest weakness is our insane predictability.

 

On-Topic: That actually seems kind of corner-case (not a bad thing). I don't have the cards in front of me, but how often will you have the mask to discard that's too low to just cast Obey to begin with?

[Dirial]

Well, 3/7 of all Masks are too low to cast Obey with Brewie.

[rgarbonzo]

Not to mention that you can Binge a target multiple times even if they attack unlike Obey

[Verdeloth]

Where is the report ^^ wait all day for it

[D6Damager]

The nightmare edition whiskey golem with a range of 1 inch doesnt feel right but what do you do!  

 

Don't really understand this part of your comment. Does the nightmare version have an advantage over the normal version?

[Vidd]

Don't really understand this part of your comment. Does the nightmare version have an advantage over the normal version?

Their point is the Nightmare edition model is massive and it seems strange that such a large model only has a 1" melee range.

 

It's a good question, though - why does it only have a 1" melee range?

[McSwervy]

So my game has been suspended for a bit while my buddy finishes up his thesis defense & I have a ton of family in town.  Tried to tell him this was more important, but he disagreed.  I'll try and finish it up next week if at all possible.  

[Verdeloth]

Bummer :/ been looking forward to read your and tinys report and impression on the brewmaster. I just put my own brew box together and i belive i can share my findings and report also this sunday. Will have a game vs guild (or ress) not sure wich master he will bring

[McSwervy]

For sure, share your own thoughts!  I'll post back as soon as I'm able to.

[swellmodels]

Played 3 games with the Brewmaster. All 3 against the same opponent/Master: Lilith. All games were at 35ss. All 3 were significant losses for me.

I did progressively better in each game. By the third I was even scoring points and killing stuff.

A couple things I learned:

-all of the Push moves that the TriChi can generate look great on paper, but can be easily foiled by obstacles and other models.

-Binge and Stilts are pretty great, sometimes Hold Their Hair Back.

- Don't let the Primordial Magic make Fingers Insignificant. It happened in 2 out of 3 games.

- I hate Lilith.

- I need to focus on stopping my opponents "Scheme Runners". That'll hopefully force Lilith to expose herself, so I can get her drunk/Deliver Messages/etc.

[Sketch201]

I played Brewie and crew for the first time about a week ago.  OH.  MY.  GOD!!!!   It was against Ressers (Seamus crew + Bette) and we played Turf War, and I took deliver a message and distract as my schemes ( I think, it's been a while). I kept his ENTIRE crew locked down for pretty much the whole game!  He kept trying to get out of the suck-bubble (drinking contest) by luring Brewie out of position, but I kept binge-ing him back into the middle of Seamus's crew with Wesley (I love that little jerk!).  Every time he'd manage to finally pass a WP check to get out of the drinking contest, either Brewie's obey, Finger's "Open Bar" from the Drinking "Problem" upgrade, or a lucky obey from Wesley would put them right back in the middle of it!  Taking Drinking "Problem" on Fingers is definitely the way to do it, BTW, it keeps Brewie's zero action free for the contest and keeps shoving people right back into it if they manage to escape.

 

Also, the Moon Shinobi were absolute money against Belles!  Hard to Wound giving them positive flips for damage was pretty brutal.  IT also screws with your opponents head a little, having to reverse the cards they would normally cheat in on an attack duel when defending against them.   In retrospect, I shouldn't have actually killed anything that game, because it let him summon Bette and another few Belles out of the drinking contest bubble (I got them into it quick enough though).

 

The game was so brutal to the poor Seamus player, that I think I might only play Brewie against him again if I'm feeling like a real jerk that day!  Then again, he did ask for a rematch....   Sucker! 

[Math Mathonwy]

The game was so brutal to the poor Seamus player, that I think I might only play Brewie against him again if I'm feeling like a real jerk that day!  Then again, he did ask for a rematch....   Sucker!

I think that if you don't know what to expect, Brewie can be really unpleasant (almost as unpleasant as the Vickies) but once you understand his mechanics he isn't all that difficult to play around. Also, Seamus should be one of the best crews to take against him what with Belles and Doxies allowing you to get out of the bubble and Seamus having an easy time of one-shotting Moon Shinobi.

[McSwervy]

I think that if you don't know what to expect, Brewie can be really unpleasant (almost as unpleasant as the Vickies) but once you understand his mechanics he isn't all that difficult to play around. Also, Seamus should be one of the best crews to take against him what with Belles and Doxies allowing you to get out of the bubble and Seamus having an easy time of one-shotting Moon Shinobi.

 

That's been my understanding too. If you have a crew that can generate a lot of pushes you should be in a decent spot. It doesn't help you from being at negative flips for everything, but it does kind of cancel out the drinking contest for certain models.

[Tiny]

Sorry guys been a bit slack reporting in on my games. Since my last post i've played 6-8 games with the drunken one himself. And wow has my crew changed A LOT!

 

When i last posted i was trialling McTavish and a few other different things, I've since dropped mctavish, because he's expensive, not a gremlin and 3 shots for 10 points doesnt go as far as other options. What i've taken instead of him is raphael (7) and either rami or burt (both 7) so 4 more points for an extra activation and comparable dmg AND they are gremlins.

 

I'll give you an example reckoning crew ive been using and go through the choices. Imagine gun for a lady on trixie as apparently she's still not showing up as a henchmen on the crew creator, so obviously 1 less stone.

 

Gremlins Crew - 50 - Scrap

 

The Brewmaster -- 4 Pool

 +Dirty Cheater [1]

 +Stilts [1]

 

Apprentice Wesley [3]

Burt Jebsen [7]

Francois LaCroix [7]

 +Dirty Cheater [1]

Raphael LaCroix [7]

 +Gremlin-see [1]

Sammy LaCroix [7]

 +Binge [1]

Slop Hauler [5]

Trixiebelle [8]

 

 Brewmaster:  So the main change here is he no longer has binge. This is because ive shifted the style in which i play him, before i was IMO trying to be too cute and lock models down, which while effective for a turn or 2 doesnt necessarily win you the game. I would always find myself falling way behind on attrition and by turn 3 or so i had 2 models left. Sure they couldnt kill brewmaster, but i couldnt do any damage myself. In most cases i found this worked against the path to victory. Now the lock down is just a tool in the tool box that is brewmaster.

 

Wesley: This totem is still the greatest with brew, although recently ive been toying with the idea of Old cranky with brew as the extra wp and the positive on df flip would certainly come in handy, especially in the more elite crew that i feel brewmaster excels at running. Wesley generally will hand out a hangover on something and either put a scheme marker down or just move into a safer position generally. 

 

Francois: I initially discounted francois when i was trying to do solely a lock down sort of crew, but with the new style of play i use with the brewmaster he is absolutely money, companion and his ridiculous dmg output mean he is a stable in the crew. Honestly i was a bit disappointed he made himself such a staple because i really wanted to have a gremlin master that didnt crutch on francois so hard, but it turns out brewmaster isnt that master.

 

Raphael: This is a gremlin i feel is overlooked and its a shame because he is so insane. He's crazy resilient with armour and hard to kill. Has a great dmg output with dumb luck on his sh5 gun which gains + dmg flips if he's on 4 or less wds. The reason he has the gremlin-see upgrade on him is because it pairs so so well with brewmasters (1) drink/heal action on the front of the card. Raph can go crazy one with dumb luck go to hard to kill, take a drink and heal, gain a poison, use the (0) to remove teh poison and shoot again without fear of killing himself. A really nice synergy.

 

Sammy: She has been a recent inclusion only with about 2 games played with her. She pairs so well with brewmaster its a lil crazy, first of all she holds binge now for me, because my brewmaster is just enabling dmg output from his crew, binge ended up working against what i wanted to do, which is obviously hand out negatives to flips and have my crew blast your crew out of their boots. Her jynx's into the brewmaster lock down bubble mean that even more stones or cards need to be used to just do what you want, the take a morale duel when you activate near the model one is especially brutal. She gives teh crew a ton of options herself, she cant give the brewmaster 2 more ap in a turn (2 binges into brewy and him discarding masks, for a total of 6 hangovers handed out a turn, 3 from brew, 2 from binge, 1 from wesley). Not to mention she's really surivivable (df 7 wp 6) and bayou 2 card means she doesnt really impact your hand at all.

 

Burt: As i said previously burt is just strong with brewmaster, cracker jack timing is really nice, but i use it far far less, its more of a once or twice a game thing for me now rather than every turn get the enemy crew stacked up. He's taken more for his dmg output and slippery pairing so well with trixie.

 

Trixie: Trixie is a staple in this crew, no matter what the mission is, no matter what the board is, she is always in. Ill omens in a brewmaster crew is so obnoxious you cant not have it. Brewmaster wants to go first every turn, no question. Ive had trixie in for about 9 games first and i can count on one hand the amount of times ive gone second in a turn. You need that first activation to lock down threats and enable dmg. She also has a great syngery with brewmaster with he regular melee attacks also, her mask and ram triggers to push gremlins into melee with the target she is on and then make them attack now it doesnt specify non master on this, so you can push the brewmaster in to attack something and then if u burn a stone or a crow card you are handing out yet more negative flips, not to mention poison. 

 

Finally trixie has great synergy with burt, (if anyone played menoth in warmachine it reminds me of that knight unit that could share wds around so you had to do like 40 dmg before a knight fell over) where they both have abilities that can shunt attacks over to someone else, ive found myself many time having them both next to each other and just bouncing attacks back and forth until i have a chance to activate a slop hauler or other healing, meaning they survive far longer than they should. Also ive shunted the attacks to a model thats engaged in melee meaning the shooter now has to randomise who is hit making it even more frustrating trying to kill them.

 

Slop hauler: Another model i initially wrote off as unnecessary in the crew, but have since come back to. My problem i was having with the slop hauler is the crews i was building werent gremlin and pig heavy (mctavish, performer, whiskey golem) after going back to the drawing board in crew selection and coming back with far more gremlins, the slop hauler is worth its weight in gold, often times healing 18 + wds in a game, much to my opponents dismay. Also bare in mind if they get targeted by the enemy and have 2 wds left when they activate, they can go reckless do a feed piggies for (2) to heal everyone around them, then use brewmasters heal for another healing flip, all of which they can cheat with bayou two card. Obviosuly you need to be in position for this, but generally following brewmaster around means they are the safest as everything within 12 inches of him is locked down with negative flips. 

 

Honourable mention

 

Rami: His sh 5 usually means he's only a minion killer, which is a shame compared to what he used to be in 1.5, but putting negative flips on big boys means he gets to relive his former glory again putting a big hurting on tougher models with a combination of his 3 shots and dumb luck trigger. 

 

 

Fallen brothers

 

McTavish: I was so excited to use him i thought i had figured out a nice bit of tech with brewie when i found him, he was enabled by using a gremlin lure from trixie to push him up the field and i had either wesly or a bayou put a scheme marker ahead of that push again so he could push to it and get a 3rd shot, so he was basically shooting from turn 1 three times. This sounds amazing on paper, as does his df 6, in reality he's going to be targetted and i dont have much in the way of heals for him, i can heal him with brew's aura but that means he's not shooting with his ap (and at 10ss he needs to be doing a lot of work as he's 20% of my crew). He regularly lost shoot outs with opposing snipers (katanaka mostly, and im aware how amazing they are, seriously someone fucked up there making them 7ss) and when he generally costs 3+ stones more than them its hard to take so couldnt justify him any more. I may go back to him again now im playing brewmaster with this different style, but i'll need to get more activations in the crew before i do that.

 

Performer: I gave her more than a fair shake, something like 8 games i believe, in all sorts of different variations of brewmaster crews, she was best when used with trixie, i wouldnt take her in a crew without trixie ever. Trixie targetting a model with swill with her buy me a drink action, means you can easily get 10+ poison on the target, which the performer obviously will then generally one shot. The problem with that is it's more often than not just trying to be far too cute, meaning it'll work once and when it does you'll feel amazing but the majority of the time you're spending so much ap and getting models into positions they dont necessarily want or need to be in just for the chance at doing that dmg. She is also not a gremlin so heals and triggers in the crew dont really work out for her. And finally my brewmaster crews are more elite so theres very few minions so when she dies (I say when because she has 5wds and only manipulative as a defensive ability) nothing will benefit from the reactivate as the minions are generally off running around the sides doing schemes for me. Wesley can benefit from the reactivate and has in teh past but then that just makes him a bigger target for the opponent, not what you want.

 

Whiskey Golem: I loved this model, i was so sold that it was just what brewmaster needed, and in some situations i think it still is. The problems it has is its so expensive (again its at least 20% of your crew with no upgrades) so it needs to get stuck in to earn its place in the crew, it is fully capable of doing a ton of dmg, the problem is the amount of outside ap you need to put into him to either walk him into safety or activate his smokey finish df boost. I loved playing him when he was in the crews, but now he's not i find i dont miss him at all. If he was a gremlin i'd definitely take him in the crew, but he's not so his survivability suffers greatly.

 

Fingers: This guy was the main reason i was so excited about the brewmaster box as i got to play this really annoying model in all my gremmy crews! I'm sorry to say that at least for the brewmaster crews i find he has no place he's again 10ss which is 20% of my crew which is doing no dmg, not handing out negatives, and just basically doing what brewmaster does but badly and at a huge cost. He does nowhere near enough work to come remotely close to his 10ss cost i dont know how heavily the guys at wyrd priced scheme denial and manipulation in book 1 but compared to the book 2 onwards models that do the same, he is left firmly in the dust. His healing may have a better place in a zoraida crew but in a brewmaster crew he just doesnt do anything, he hands out poison which is great, but poison doesnt kill people, and if it does, it doesnt count as you killing them for reckoning etc. If he was 7 or 8 points you could possibly justify him but at 10 and with the drinking problem upgrade being 2ss its just way too much cost for way too little work.

 

 

 

How the crew plays now

 

So i've said a lot about how im playing the brewmaster far more different than i was. So i'll give you an example of a start of a turn. I'll win initiative because of trixie, i'll activate brewmaster depending on what i want to do this turn i'll either use one for the road to push brewmaster into a better position to hand out hangovers or if im already locking up 1 or 2 models then i'll be using drinking contest. Also, i'll use one for the road to get poison on a particularly high wp model and push me to within 6 inches so my -wp aura hits them so i can hand out hangovers easier.  Now lets say i want to kill a henchman this turn, i'll hand out 2 hang overs onto them so they cant stone to get a straight flip which they can then cheat. Then i'll throw out another hang over on a secondary target im attempting to kill this turn or something that im worried about coming at me with a bunch of attacks, so they either miss all those attacks or focus and only get one attack, so im robbing them of Ap basically. After brewmaster has activated francois will companion and drop whatever the primary target was for the turn and generally have an ap left to walk away to safety or shoot at the secondary target.

 

Later in the turns sammy can just use binge to obey francois to move to safety or do more dmg. Often she will just it on brewmaster for yet more hangovers getting handed out, then raphael/rami/trixie then all pile on shooting attacks into that until they fall over, generally not being able to defend themselves as they are on negatives and cant cheat. 

 

So as you can see ive traded the entire crew melee lock down to locking them down at range with hangovers which also enables my crew to pour dmg into them. I've found that its best to start the drinking contests around turn 3 when theres too many targets to just take out and you just lock them down in the 3 inch bubble, when you do this you'll be using your melee strike more and either using a high crow or burning a stone to get the swill trigger.

 

Anyway hope this rambling made sense, i was falling out of love with brew as i couldnt seem to win a game, after the switch to a full gremlin crew, he is destroying all in his path! Hope it helps!

[Math Mathonwy]

First of all, thank you once again for the awesome write-up - much appreciated!

Then a comment: I think that McTavish can still be nice - with an Obey you can get two Focused shots out of him per turn and that's just a lot of damage that can be projected very efficiently since he has good range, ignores cover and doesn't randomize into melee. I'm not saying that you are wrong in taking Raphael and Rami instead (Raphael might be my favourite Gremlin) but McTavish can be really good depending on the layout of the terrain and shouldn't be dismissed entirely.

[zFiend]

I played Brewie and crew for the first time about a week ago. OH. MY. GOD!!!! It was against Ressers (Seamus crew + Bette) and we played Turf War, and I took deliver a message and distract as my schemes ( I think, it's been a while). I kept his ENTIRE crew locked down for pretty much the whole game! He kept trying to get out of the suck-bubble (drinking contest) by luring Brewie out of position, but I kept binge-ing him back into the middle of Seamus's crew with Wesley (I love that little jerk!). Every time he'd manage to finally pass a WP check to get out of the drinking contest, either Brewie's obey, Finger's "Open Bar" from the Drinking "Problem" upgrade, or a lucky obey from Wesley would put them right back in the middle of it! Taking Drinking "Problem" on Fingers is definitely the way to do it, BTW, it keeps Brewie's zero action free for the contest and keeps shoving people right back into it if they manage to escape.

Also, the Moon Shinobi were absolute money against Belles! Hard to Wound giving them positive flips for damage was pretty brutal. IT also screws with your opponents head a little, having to reverse the cards they would normally cheat in on an attack duel when defending against them. In retrospect, I shouldn't have actually killed anything that game, because it let him summon Bette and another few Belles out of the drinking contest bubble (I got them into it quick enough though).

The game was so brutal to the poor Seamus player, that I think I might only play Brewie against him again if I'm feeling like a real jerk that day! Then again, he did ask for a rematch.... Sucker!

Seriously not looking forward to brewmaster hitting on our meta.

[rgarbonzo]

Ranged Swill is a great way to play Brewmaster!

[Math Mathonwy]

Seriously not looking forward to brewmaster hitting on our meta.

Says you! Come on, you're as flithy as they come! Won't even use Guard with Lucius since they aren't good enough. Bah I say, Bah!

[zFiend]

Says you! Come on, you're as flithy as they come! Won't even use Guard with Lucius since they aren't good enough. Bah I say, Bah!

Haha! To be fair your suggestion was 12 of them.

[Jewomie]

I think it's pretty interesting that Fingers is falling out of favor as a gremlin player. I think he is almost required when playing brewmaster as a 10T master. Maybe because he isn't competing with Ralph when I run him.

I'm scared that running brewmaster is going to lead to me joining the green army... I caught myself looking at the Kin box set and at Bert after reading your write up

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?????