Sell me on Mah

[baggined]

So I currently have the Brewmaster and Wong crews, and I'd really like to pick up Trixiebelle.  I'm just unsure whether I should look for someone selling her single or actually pick up the Mah Tucket box.  Does anyone have any opinions on what Mah does that would get me interested enough in playing her that it would make sense in me picking up the whole box?

[Dogmantra]

Mah Tucket is Gremlin Lady Justice. I mean that should be enough to sell her to anyone but apparently other people don't love Lady J as much as me.

But really what she brings to the table is totally unique for a Gremlin Master - all the other masters are either ranged killing machines, heavy support or somewhere in between. Som'er as usual can do anything and so he can kind of be the melee powerhouse, but minimum damage 1 stops him from doing amazingly well there.

Mah on the other hand is a melee beater with moderate support, and a little melee goes a long way. Firstly, she can get herself a nice big 3" melee range, letting her shut down a whole big area, and potentially she can get up to Ml8 (as well as being able to buff her other friendly Ml fighters up - a Ml7 Francois and potentially Ml8 Mancha Roja are terrifying). She can get off four attacks per turn relatively easy - with the Out For Blood upgrade she needs a Ram + Tome and an 8 to get off a charge as a (1), which is particularly easy if you stand near Lenny for the Ram. Take Know the Terrain and she can charge while engaged.

She also has some nice pushy tricks, to move her crew around as well, so she's not all beatdown. Just very good at beatdown.

[Math Mathonwy]

I have a really different view of her than Dogmantra.

First of all, I don't think that she really is the Lady Justice of Gremlins. She is full of Pushes and her Know the Terrain Upgrade means that she is a lot more versatile than LJ. She can do quite a bit of damage when needed but kinda pales in that regard in comparison with Ophelia. Mah also buffs her crew rather nicely.

Her Pushes allow her to Push her own models as well as opposing models so she can be really nice in, e.g., Turf War 

She does have quite a few weaknesses, though. People always seem to consider her to have four attacks with a 3" range at Ml 8 with positive twists but that comes at a very high cost and I really don't consider it worth it most of the time. Also, her signature crew of Bushwhackers works extremely badly with her since they all love to discard cards for various abilities.

She is a lot of fun, though, and has lots of options in approaching various challenges. I rate her highly among melee Masters but sorta low among Gremlin Masters. She should complement Brewie and Wong excellently, though.

Also note that finding someone selling Trixie on her lonesome is extremely unlikely as she is the best thing in that box by far.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Gadzooks gaming sells her as a single. At a premium price, but you can get her.

[Freman]

With all respect to Gadzooks, if you want Trixie just buy the box set.

[Kofibrake]

I agree with Math here. The sour taste in the mouth comes from the lack of usefulness from her bushwhackers. Or better said, it is not that they are useless, but if they were just Bayou Gremlins they would be better for it - cheaper and with Bayou two card. Their shooting isnt premium either, so they have a really bad time selling themselves to a crew. So far i havent used them a single time as i dont see them working not even on paper, i'm sorry.

But the absolute no no for me is that a model which competes with the Master of the crew for the card usage is poor choice for the crew. To make the best out of them, you have to use the cards in your hand, and this means your Master gets hampered. Or, if the Master goes first (though with Mah this is not a desireable option) it means that by the time you get to the bushwhackers you probably dont have any good card in your hand anymore, so again, they come up short.

[lusciousmccabe]

1 hour ago, Kofibrake said:

I agree with Math here. The sour taste in the mouth comes from the lack of usefulness from her bushwhackers. Or better said, it is not that they are useless, but if they were just Bayou Gremlins they would be better for it - cheaper and with Bayou two card. Their shooting isnt premium either, so they have a really bad time selling themselves to a crew. So far i havent used them a single time as i dont see them working not even on paper, i'm sorry

I've found (playing against them) that they're a bit better in play than on paper, since you can make use of terrain on the table and don't have to use their discard abilities when it isn't advantageous. They don't get as much done as a Bayou Gremlin, but I sometimes find it easier to kill off two Gremlins who've gone reckless than one Bushwhacker sniping my crew from behind a bush.  

I think you can probably run one or two of them, it's rare to find a minion you'd actually want three of anyway (I'm finding it hard to even motivate myself to paint up my third Illuminated, who are considered well costed) but Mah does get the short end of the spoon in terms of her base minion being a weird non-fit for her. At least they are easy proxies for other Gremlins though.  

[Hagisman]

On 12/16/2015 at 11:24 AM, baggined said:

So I currently have the Brewmaster and Wong crews, and I'd really like to pick up Trixiebelle.  I'm just unsure whether I should look for someone selling her single or actually pick up the Mah Tucket box.  Does anyone have any opinions on what Mah does that would get me interested enough in playing her that it would make sense in me picking up the whole box?

From what the Gremlin player told me about her, she is the best support master since she affects all models regardless of range and line of sight. And hits like Lady J. But this is from a non-gremlin perspective.

[baggined]

Thanks for everyone's input on this!   It really seems like I will just end up picking up Mah's crew as a whole

[Math Mathonwy]

1 hour ago, Hagisman said:

From what the Gremlin player told me about her, she is the best support master since she affects all models regardless of range and line of sight. And hits like Lady J. But this is from a non-gremlin perspective.

Her non-LOS-needing support is rather minor in effect, though. I most certainly wouldn't classify her as the best support Master by a long shot. Heck, I would argue that Somer and Zoraida are better support Masters than Mah (but they do it in a different way) but then there's of course stuff like Colette which utterly blows Mah out of the water. Luckily Mah hits quite a bit harder than Colette  

[Kofibrake]

She seems to be the opposite of Support, since she seems to prefer to run independent from the rest of her crew (insert bushwhackers lack of synergy shennanigans). Her buffs tend to be personal or iffy (as in, the crew has to act close by to a character that tends to go deep into enemy territory on her own)

[Math Mathonwy]

Just now, Kofibrake said:

She seems to be the opposite of Support, since she seems to prefer to run independent from the rest of her crew (insert bushwhackers lack of synergy shennanigans). Her buffs tend to be personal or iffy (as in, the crew has to act close by to a character that tends to go deep into enemy territory on her own)

Well, she does Push her crew around a lot which is a nice form of support.

[Clement]

Pushing is a very useful but tricky form of support for people to wrap their head around.  (see Yan Lo.  Placement shenanigans are amazing, people tend to think him weak.  Not the point though).

One thing that occurred to me is I think all of her supporting/moving tricks aside from "Do It Right!" don't specify Gremlins....  so she should be able to ably support Pigs, Mercs, whatever.   That's a broader base then Som'er can help, he's Gremlins and Pigs only.

Speaking of Do It Right.   It's, in particular, a great way to manage Rampaging Roosters.  I'm also toying with it as a way to convert the Lass into a suicide charger/buffer by having her deliberately fail an attack so she can confer an upgrade and a  to all melee attacks to all gremlins regardless of LoS or range for the turn.  That's *really* good for a 4 ss model.  Still have to play around with it though.

[Pryokon]

"Do it Right" does specify Gremlins.  A Gremlin has to fail and only Gremlins get the buff. 

However, what it doesn't specify is that the attack has to be against an enemy.  If you want, you can give the Little Lass the Lead-Lined Apron, so that when you kill her for Do It Right, it's effectively only 2 stones to give everything else paired for the turn.

Mah was really waiting for the Roosters, since there weren't any other melee gremlins to speak of besides Burt, Francois and Mancha.  The Bushwhackers aren't really melee, the Moon Shinobi have anti-synergy with Do It Right, and all the other melee minions are pigs and gators.  Mah's stock is gonna rise with the Roosters.

[Pryokon]

Also, Do It Right only specifies that you fail a MI action.  The Little Lass doesn't need to even attack anything.  She can just fail "Aim for the Sore Spots" since it uses her MI stat.  Just make sure Mah can see her.

[Math Mathonwy]

9 minutes ago, Pryokon said:

Also, Do It Right only specifies that you fail a MI action.  The Little Lass doesn't need to even attack anything.  She can just fail "Aim for the Sore Spots" since it uses her MI stat.  Just make sure Mah can see her.

That's just such an utterly cruel image. Holy crap!

[Clement]

11 hours ago, Pryokon said:

"Do it Right" does specify Gremlins.  A Gremlin has to fail and only Gremlins get the buff. 

 

That's what I said...    Nice trick with the lass though.

[Pryokon]

8 hours ago, Clement said:

That's what I said...    Nice trick with the lass though.

Yeah, I misread your post.  You said "all her tricks aside from Do It Right" and I totally missed the "aside".  The tome result on "Chores" also specifies gremlins, but you're exactly right when it comes to Horrible Hollerin', Let Mah Handle This, or the rest of the Chores.  Could be useful on some mercs and definitely pulls double duty on the Lucky Emissary, since it can hand out 2 Chores results.

[D6Damager]

On 4/6/2016 at 6:00 AM, Kofibrake said:

I agree with Math here. The sour taste in the mouth comes from the lack of usefulness from her bushwhackers. Or better said, it is not that they are useless, but if they were just Bayou Gremlins they would be better for it - cheaper and with Bayou two card. Their shooting isnt premium either, so they have a really bad time selling themselves to a crew. So far i havent used them a single time as i dont see them working not even on paper, i'm sorry.

Just replace the Bushwackers with Rooster Riders and problem is solved.

[Clement]

On 4/6/2016 at 3:00 AM, Kofibrake said:

I agree with Math here. The sour taste in the mouth comes from the lack of usefulness from her bushwhackers. Or better said, it is not that they are useless, but if they were just Bayou Gremlins they would be better for it - cheaper and with Bayou two card. Their shooting isnt premium either, so they have a really bad time selling themselves to a crew. So far i havent used them a single time as i dont see them working not even on paper, i'm sorry.

But the absolute no no for me is that a model which competes with the Master of the crew for the card usage is poor choice for the crew. To make the best out of them, you have to use the cards in your hand, and this means your Master gets hampered. Or, if the Master goes first (though with Mah this is not a desireable option) it means that by the time you get to the bushwhackers you probably dont have any good card in your hand anymore, so again, they come up short.

They're better off then you'd think, though 3 is certainly overkill.   At range they're frustrating models to removed for crews that traditionally don't do a lot of  actions (neverborn).  If the enemy gets close, they can reposition themselves or the enemy to break the engagement so the shooting can continue.

Playing possum is used sporadically when a bushwacker gets stuck in the open or needs to defend a more valuable piece.  Usually once a match or so.

 

Though yeah, 3 of them with Mah specifically, is a lot.

 

[Dogmantra]

I doubt I'd take bushwhackers at all with Mah, but I do like one when I want a sniper who can handle themselves in melee better than Rami but don't want to shell out for McTavish. Getting to ignore cover is pretty neat and I've had success killing masters who just weren't hidden enough. Don't often use them, and when I do they don't normally get to discard cards for soft cover.

[steel762]

I played her with bushwhackers last night. They did nothing for her what so ever. But Mah was a killer in melee with lass at her side.