Competitive or just Funny?

[Blacks85]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking around to decide my second faction for this game.

I was wondering...can the Gremlins be competitive too if played correctly or they are just thought to be fun?

[Math Mathonwy]

They are very competitive. Gremlins have several models which can lay claim to the title "best model of the price class" and all of their Masters are at the very least pretty good. They have the most AP of all factions and AP leads to options. They also likely do the most damage.

[Dogmantra]

Looking at Gremlins you'll see a lot of opportunities for things to go super wrong. I had an awful game the other day where in attempting to kill an enemy, a War Pig ended up charging Ulix from a trigger and hitting him for severe damage, almost killing him and leaving him open to Assassinate (amusingly if he'd died from it I would have probably won that game through denying Assassinate). And that might sound like they're not competitive because you can just get screwed over like that, but it was my fault that I had no cards to cheat with, I was pushing my luck too much and it caught up with me... and of course that very same trigger into a free charge could totally happen against my opponent if I had positioned things better, saved cards and just generally played better.

And really, that's where the skill of playing Gremlins comes in - the faction as a whole has a LOT of good stuff, like Math said, arguably the most damage and definitely the most AP in the game, but to get it there are downsides and you have to learn to work around them. I find them super fun to play because of that, and if you can get around the downsides, they're incredibly powerful.

[Math Mathonwy]

22 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Looking at Gremlins you'll see a lot of opportunities for things to go super wrong. I had an awful game the other day where in attempting to kill an enemy, a War Pig ended up charging Ulix from a trigger and hitting him for severe damage, almost killing him and leaving him open to Assassinate (amusingly if he'd died from it I would have probably won that game through denying Assassinate).

I don't think that would deny Assassinate? It only requires for the enemy leader to be Killed or Sacrificed.

But on topic, yeah, agreed. Gremlins are deceptively complicated in that there's a lot of things to juggle and you need to mitigate the chances for catastrophes. Gremlins offer different ways of doing that but you can also push your luck and have things backfire. Knowing when to push is a skill.

[Dogmantra]

Oh yeah, it wouldn't deny it at all, whoopsie, that is me thinking that Neutralise fixed that exploit

[Math Mathonwy]

12 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Oh yeah, it wouldn't deny it at all, whoopsie, that is me thinking that Neutralise fixed that exploit

I don't remember who it was but someone told a story of his opponent having his Bayou Gremlins banjo bash their own Somer to death in the hopes of denying Assassinate. And when told that it doesn't deny it he just laughed and thought that it was still a very Gremlin type of thing to do  

[Omenbringer]

13 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

I was wondering...can the Gremlins be competitive too if played correctly or they are just thought to be fun?

Gremlins are and have been very competitive for a long time (last edition Som'er in particular was even called broken). With that said they do tend have a very high learning curve (especially Som'er who I consider the most competitive master due to versatility) and more than a few staple models (though be sure to avoid Menoth Syndrome with list building and limit your self to only 1-2 rather than trying to take them all at the expense of your real workhorses i.e. Bayou Gremlins, Piglets, etc).

The best part is though that win or lose Gremlins are almost always a fun game.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Adding to the general sentiment, gremlin games involve a lot of things on both sides dying. They're definitely competitive, though their abilities (esp. dealing with the ones that damage themselves) mean that they're harder to learn than more straightforward factions.

[Nexus]

They do ridiculous damage for their points cost, they out activate the opponent, and they're amazing at running schemes.

I would describe them as "extremely competitive", and the only thing keeping them from dipping into "OP" territory is the ease with which things can go wrong with them.

[EnternalVoid]

I will echo how rough Somer can be of a master, he has a good selection of options across the board and sometimes he does not even have to do much to throw wrenches in people plans.  Last time I got to play him he basically crippled a Yan Lo crew by me winning initiative and having Somer make him discard his hand right off the bat two turns in a row.    One turn I summoned first but the other I went strait into going after the hand as I wanted to make sure it went through *the plan even if it took all 3 AP*.  Because of this his Chi growth was slowed, he could not reliable summon *still managed to top deck Toshiro's once and get it off with a SS once* and it left Izamu dead for a little while.  He also could not do lunges with his Ashigaru and could not be certain on triggers for a few other things.

The Ability to remove hands from the equation is frightful against certain masters as they rely on both Suit and Value rather than one or the other.  the thing that stopped me from doing it in the end was Yan Lo being killed as he no longer had a leader to target. 

[Blacks85]

Thanks guys for feedback.

I've played my first game yesterday vs the Guild ended up 10-4 for my Gremlins.

I thought they were more random but - in fact - they are pretty controllable.

The Lacroix sniper was definitively overpowered in my opinion. Mah Tack...hum, well...just didn't try enough to say but probably fair enough.

I will definitively play a couple of more games - one with somer looking your advices - and maybe buy a couple of masters to start

Thank you

[Omenbringer]

8 hours ago, Blacks85 said:

The Lacroix sniper was definitively overpowered in my opinion.

Would be interested in seeing the table you played on as most times "Snipers" are called OP it has to do more with terrain density than anything else. Not saying that is necessarily the case here, but I have rarely found Rami overly great myself.

[SpiralngCadavr]

+1.

If ranged superiority is feeling broken, it's probably too low terrain density.

...Which isn't to say that you should never have avenues where a shot can go down the table, but Malifaux is very high terrain density compared to most other games. Infinity is probably the only one I've seen compare.

[Omenbringer]

Does anyone know if the "free" version of the rules manual has the new higher terrain density recommendation or the original low amount?

[solkan]

1 hour ago, Omenbringer said:

Does anyone know if the "free" version of the rules manual has the new higher terrain density recommendation or the original low amount?

As far as I can tell, it's the same between the printed rules manual and the free version:

Quote

The standard table size for a Malifaux encounter is 3’ X 3’. Anything from a 3’ square of floor to space on the dining room table will suffice. Many players use a terrain mat from a local gaming store, while others build elaborate gaming boards with permanent terrain features.

Terrain should be plentiful, but not dense, on the table. It is recommended that players should place enough terrain to cover about twenty-five to fifty percent of the table. This depends largely on the size of each individual piece of terrain, but a good general rule is to cover roughly a third of the table with terrain.

instead of the "50 to 70 percent" on page 27 of the Quickstart Rules.

 

[Omenbringer]

Wonder how much effort it would be to go in and correct that as the 25% side of the table can cause some serious balance issues.

[D6Damager]

Gremlins are definitely fun for me, but that is really a subjective attribute depending on what you enjoy in a war game. As far as competitive, I think we are a strong faction overall and certainly have all the tools to get the job done. I don't feel like any of our masters are pushovers.

That being said, although they place high, I don't see Gremlin players winning any major tournaments (and they seem to be well represented in tournament play... at least here in the USA). If you want to be super competitive then Outcasts is probably where you should be looking IMO.

[wobbly_goggy]

Why can't they be competitive AND fun?
They can be super difficult to use correctly, so as a beginner you can expect to get trounced occasionally. 
They also have tons and tons of options - they're not a crew you can always look at and say - 'they're shooty' or 'they're attacky' - which makes can make them more difficult to learn, and to anticipate (again for newer players using and facing Gremlins).

 

Definitely fun!
Highlights for me:
-the look on your opponents face when you start dropping gremlins all over the table (hiding, engaging, whatever you need) for Reconnoiter.
-BAYOU TWO CARD! Literally the best rule in the game. Bayou Gremlin about to die? Crap Hand/don't want to waste it on a lowly minion? Bayou Two card! It's often win/win - the gremlin dies (big whoop) or he bangs out some insane save, forcing your opponent to chose to waste decent cards on a 3 SS model.... awesome. If you have no idea what I am on about, drop everything and go and read up on it!
-pigs! Going nuts! Everywhere!
-dumb luck! 
-Somer forcing his opponent to discard their hand then drawing back up when gremlins die near him
-Ridiculous amount of Ulix summoning and healing 

Basically they're great for frustrating and annoying people. 

DOWNSIDE! - Cost. No fixed game style + tons of options = you'll need tons of models. Like... loads.

[Dumb Luck]

I think Rami has definitely had a boost in the new scheme pool. With Hunting Party, he is a good call for a cost effective Enforcer who can grab points from across the board.

Yo, Omenbringer - what about V1 Somer was considered OP? I've had more people moan about the V2 flavour, myself.

[Omenbringer]

6 hours ago, Dumb Luck said:

Yo, Omenbringer - what about V1 Somer was considered OP? I've had more people moan about the V2 flavour, myself.

It was your side of the pond that was the most vocal about V1 Som'er and his potency before the edition change, culminating in a lengthy thread about how OP'ed he was. Personally I believe it was due more to the skill of the players piloting Som'er's crew coupled with his versatility than any OP interactions (especially considering the real OP interactions that existed in the game such as Hamelin, the Dreamer, Collodi, etc.).

From what I recall the complaints largely revolved around Get Your Bro being used as a card draw mechanic, that wasn't the only things that were complained about though. It started with the Infinite Red Joker draw (very near the release of the first book was fixed by changing the Skeeters), then the Infinite Skeeter Summons (which remained throughout the edition though was a tactic that was largely repressed by the Gremlin player base) and finally the Get Your Bro card draw mechanic. Sad thing is he really didn't need any of those to be competitive last edition. What is unfortunate about this is that a lot of the changes to Bayou Gremlin's, the Hog Whisperer, Skeeters and Som'er were reactions to these things, though didn't really address the core complaint with the card draw. If anything they made it even worse by adding in Bigger Hat than You and the often lamented Bayou Two Card.

[Math Mathonwy]

14 hours ago, Dumb Luck said:

Yo, Omenbringer - what about V1 Somer was considered OP? I've had more people moan about the V2 flavour, myself.

Aside from the various infinite engines, I believe that this is the seminal thread about Somer being OP in first edition:

 

[Goopy]

Gremlins are the most OP faction out there. Hands down.