brewmaster tips for 10t

[Skitt_Happens]

Running tab is in there primarily for Wesley. Would I pay 5 stones for a significant minion who can copy the master's abilities, adds a further -1 wp and give another life to my master? Probably, yes. I started trying to build a list without Running Tab, but Wesley is so good I think he's worth it on his own. There are still plenty of stones left so you could take a moon shinobi or two, and once in a while the heal seems handy.

Yup, Samarai w/ favour of earth seems a good bet if you have 3 extra stones to burn.

Hyperthetical: if you weren't to take Wesley, is there any benefit to taking the Kamaitachi over the child? The push is always handy, but can anyone yhink of any other benefits?

[Eclipse]

Wesley is significant??? Omg, if this is true then it changes things significantly (uh... Yeah, I know).
As for Kamaitachi, you do not gain anything from his Auras unless you bring multiple models with discardable upgrades (Recalled Training, Servant of 5 Dragons, Smoke Grenades; the less useful Broken Promises and Dragon Stone). The crews Brewmaster runs does not require Burning on the enemy models, either (although if you have the Emissary this could be useful - what was Brewie's Emissary upgrade again? I don't have the book with me right now/). The Kamaitachi is not significant, so the speed can be used mainly to keep up with other models and eventually tie up another model for an AP or two when desperate. The most useful ability in this case would be the (0) discard/push your master or a minion it's walk. Now THAT is amazing, especially if you intend to use Drinking Contest a lot.
Edit: Holy Baboons, I just checked and Wesley is indeed Significant and thus can run schemes! I had assumed that since he is a 3ss Totem he would be Insignificant like many other totems... Thanks for sharing this!

[Boomstick]

On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2016 at 3:07 PM, Lawgnome said:

I've found that Brewie works best as a ranged debuffer when playing TT.  The drinking bubble just isn't reliable enough without Trixie.  You don't really need to focus on poison, since the debuff bubble is only 6".  If you can get a single hangover off on a priority target, your other models (such as the sniper) will have a much easier time wiping them away.

Just got my first Thunder Brewie game in last night and found Brewie to indeed be a master debuffer (puns and double entendres very much intended). I didn't put up drinking contest even once, and didn't focus on poison though One For The Road made for a good push/-2 Wp-->Binge combo.

If you were to angle for a standard poison Brewball, I don't think the loss of Trixie is as huge an issue as it could be so long as you plan for it. At most they get one activation, which even if its a beatstick to Brewie's face, take Misdirection and either deflect it or (if you stone for the mask) turn it into You're Drunk, Go Home. For added protection, slow the biggest worry in the Brewball the turn before so it carries over.

[Boomstick]

But I digress. In last night's game I did focus on Binge/Swill Brewie, and found him incredibly fun. I even think my opponent (frustrated though he was from an uncooperative deck and my negative flips) had more fun than he would have vs a standard Brewball.

The game was Headhunter, with Convict Labor, Take Prisoner, Mark for Death, Show of Force, and Public Demonstration.

My crew:

Brewie - Binge, Misdirection, Blot the Sky
Malifaux Child

Sensei Yu - Wandering River Style
Yin
Thunder Archer x2
TT Brother
Wastrel

My opponent took The Kin box with a gator and Slop Hauler attached. His first time playing Ophelia, but he's used to Perdita.

I selected Take Prisoner on Raphael, and Public Demonstration on my archers and wastrel, figuring if I lured Raph over with booze and kept him engaged & on negative flips he'd be easy to lock down, and with the Kin there'd be no worries about getting the wastrel near a head honcho while the archers stayed within 4" of Raph while Brewie had him engaged. It worked out very well, though I did miss out on the wastrel's point due to being engaged with the gator and unable to push out. My opponent even admitted he didn't see Take Prisoner coming because he thought I was doing just enough to keep Raph irrelevant while dealing with bigger threats like François and Ophelia.

Admittedly, I was helped a lot by my deck giving me exactly one over his attack flips for most of the game. The gator didn't even kill my wastrel. Lost the TT brother to an angry François and Yin on turn 3 to a lot of concentrated frustration on his part.

With the Malifaux Child & Brewie binging and swilling, I left it to Yu and Yin to manipulate the field via pushes, slow, negative flips to Wp & Ca, and terror checks, as well as Yin's ability to keep a model from walking or charging, which helped keep François from being more devastating. Then the archers made things into pincushions.

Game ended with a 5-2 Brewie victory, with me picking up no heads, instead just making sure they were all within someone's engagement bubble so they couldn't be claimed. As I said, immense fun, and really helped me wrap my head around TT as a faction.

[izikial]

I'm looking to try ama with hidden agenda and smoke bombs and a couple of orian, and the emissary

emissary buff for focus blasts or poison damage and when able gives the neg flips

obviously there is the paralyze devour which is alot more consistent on a neg flip opponent

ama wants to focus for big hits meaning big blasts

orian get the free focus and can make a second focused hit, not sure what els to throw in but that only comes to 32 with misdirection on brewie so I have a bit of room to adapt

[Eclipse]

3 hours ago, izikial said:

I'm looking to try ama with hidden agenda and smoke bombs and a couple of orian, and the emissary

emissary buff for focus blasts or poison damage and when able gives the neg flips

obviously there is the paralyze devour which is alot more consistent on a neg flip opponent

ama wants to focus for big hits meaning big blasts

orian get the free focus and can make a second focused hit, not sure what els to throw in but that only comes to 32 with misdirection on brewie so I have a bit of room to adapt

You could use something reasonably fast and tough to Misdirect to like, say, Heaven Samurai? The Whiskey Golem? Alternatively keep Brewmaster close to a gun platform and debuff from afar - like Earth Samurai/Fuhatsu? Fuhatsu would be even better at holding Hidden Agenda, too. With Ama no Zako you might want spend some stones and AP on Devour, which does no damage and does not trigger Hidden Agenda - she would also appreciate the upgrade that Paralyzes. Fuhatsu loves to Focus, too (and he needs to, he is a big buffoon). Overall sounds pretty fun and pretty close to Ten Thunders in Spirit. And if you take Running Tab and Wesley you have another life for Brewie. Low on activations, but decent number of stones in the pool and sounds quite fun. I wish our meta could go back to trying fun crews like this.

[Eclipse]

I finally got to play with the Brewmaster on Friday and had a blast with him. I was facing Perdita and the Ortega family during Extraction (Gaining Grounds 2016 strategy, played with normal schemes regardless - ALitS, Make Them Suffer, Assassinate, Protect Territory, something else). My schemes were Make Them Suffer and Protect Territory (revealed) while my opponent also took MTS with Assassinate as second. The crew I fielded was the following:

Brewmaster - 3 cache
+Running Tab 2ss
+Misdirection 2ss
Apprentice Wesley - 3ss
Whiskey Golem - 10ss
+Recalled Training 1ss
Fuhatsu - 10ss
+Recalled Training 1ss
+Hidden Agenda 0ss
Sensei Yu - 9ss
+Fermend River Style 2ss
Oiran - 5ss
Oiran - 5ss

I made quite a few mistakes such as: Placing Sensei Yu at the wrong spot during deployment (so 2 hits and 4 poison less from Brewmaster); forgetting to trigger 'Hidden Agenda' when dealing damage with Fuhatsu on the first turn to give my Oiran Fast and Focus; forgetting to use Brewmaster's (0) actions and to copy them with Yu for the first two turns - a huge thing to miss; forgetting Sensei Yu's 'Brutal' ability which would have saved him from a Flurry and a glorious demise at the hands of Francisco (who he kung-fued and then poisoned to death in return). Despite all this tactically the game plan worked out quite fine. I parked Fuhatsu at a chokehold threatening to shoot at any Ortegas that get close to the informant marker forcing my opponent to try and get rid of him - and boy does Fuhatsu take punishment like a boss, he lasted until the Guild's last or so activation on turn 5. Once again proved that his (2) Sweeping Fire action is fail - it would be a different case if I could cheat the low to mediocre four (!) cards I flipped. As the Ortegas swarmed and tried to take down my mobile gun fortress Sensei Yu dove in and gave them a hail of flips (and if I had played more clever he would have also given the Slow and Poison due to Brutal as well as pushing away models from Fuhatsu). Finally he succumbed to attacks at the end of Turn 4 or start of Turn 5 after activating. From then on it was easy for the Golem to dive in and give some smacking (it had also killed a Watcher that sneaked inside my defenses). The Brewmaster couldn't do much in this situation, but he did not need to do much either - giving an Obey once per turn, giving Swill to Yu twice and hiding to deny the obvious Assassinate proved to be enough as he ultimately survived, albeit at 4 Wd. The Oiran did as expected - hid behind cover, one of them charged the Watcher mentioned above to deny LoS to my Brewmaster, the other Lured a Pistolero to get shot to death by Fuhatsu. All in all a very fun game despite all the things missed - for which I rightfully punished myself as I messed up with measuring the second Protect Territory marker and couldn't complete the scheme, losing 4-5.
I might be a bit rusty and the Brewmaster might be diffucult to play, but I feel there is potential that I still haven't tapped into. Trying to correct the list this is what I came up with:

Brewmaster - 3 cache
+Running Tab 2ss
+Misdirection 2ss
Apprentice Wesley - 3ss
Ototo - 10ss
+Call The Thunder 1ss
+Smoke and Shadows 1ss
Fuhatsu - 10ss
+Hidden Agenda 0ss
Sensei Yu - 9ss
+Fermend River Style 2ss
Oiran - 5ss
Oiran - 5ss

This way I before having to take punishment with Fuhatsu I can rely on a dedicated meat shield that now has access to healing and Slow in the crew. In addition the Smoke Bombs can control the board and shooting lanes quite potently while the occasional teleport can be useful for schemes. Also need to learn to stack Yu with Poison and Swill as well as try to paint an enemy model with Swill then evaporate it afterwards. Fun times await when trying to make sub-optimal models work!