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Why is Brewmaster a Disaster?


gozer

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I've played a few games with Brewmaster and found him to be incredibly fun to play even though I lost most of them. I understand he's universally considered "non-competitive" at best and "unplayable" at worst.

However, even playing him I couldn't put my finger on exactly *why* Brewmaster is in such a bad place. On paper he seems like a huge AP sink for the other team (DRINKING CONTEST!) and in play this strategy seems to work but clearly something is missing.

What is it about the Brewmaster that makes him a disaster?

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I'm still only learning Malifaux, and I'm trying to do it with Brewy (HAH!), and I have a similar experience to you.  I'm losing my matches, but having fun with him.  One thing though, is that I've often heard that it takes a while for any given Master to "click", and that when that time comes, it'll all make a lot more sense.  That's what my buddy with Ironsides said, and now he's caning most of us with Toni, who is also considered by some to be a lower-tier Master, competitiveness-wise.  So, maybe don't give up hope?  And maybe stick with a given core of models so as to learn how they interact in different situations.  I know it can be tempting to switch out models that have one horrible game.

The things I find perplexing at the moment are these:

- Brewy has SO many things that you want to do with him on any given turn, that it's hard to see what the most appropriate choice is.  And the Drinking Contest thing kinda gives you tunnel vision, like you feel as though you MUST do something Drinking-related with Brewmaster (ie, putting on Poison or Swill) with each AP.  I always feel like I want him to have 6 AP, like a Gremlin Tara or something :D. The other day though, I Obeyed a Swilled Joss to one-shot the Arcane Effigy standing next to him, so that worked!  Adding Binge to Brewy's options just kinda paralyses me though, as I almost always want to get Swill onto as many opponents as possible, as I feel that's what really locks models down.  They can too easily cheat the Wp duel if they're not on negatives.  This is a belt & braces approach though, and is probably why I feel as though I don't get enough out of Brewy;

- Spreading my crew out, and often finding that Wesley and Fingers are just a bit too far away from Brewy. So, Brewmaster charges up by himself and gets his drink on, then I find that Wesley can't contribute his Wp debuff, gets targeted and then killed, so I have no Brewy v2.0.  Fingers, I've decided, is probably going to work better with Brewy if I keep him in close, to chuck liberal amounts of Poison around and to double-heal Brewy and drag enemies in using "Drinking Problem". I've been trying to use him as a free-agent Interact specialist, but I think he might work better in close.

- Not getting enough Poison on non-Drinking Contest targets, for the likes of the Moon Shinobi to push towards.  I really don't know what to do with these guys. They can always push in towards the Drinking Contest bubble, but I kinda wanted them out and about, nailing Schemes and Scheme runners.  Perhaps I'm mis-using them? I might want to look at the Fermented River Monks for this instead.

- Most of all, I find that I'm trying to do too much with Brewy, as in I'm kinda wanting to get an opponent's WHOLE crew drinking in the middle. Of course, Brewy doesn't have enough AP to really lock down more than 3 models per turn?  Four, if Wesley can help out.  I'm talking about getting Swill +1 onto models, but sometimes you feel as though you might want Swill +2 on something that's got high Wp still, etc.  But that need to choose is part of what makes the game dynamic, so it's just going to be that way.

 

Any of this resonate with you?

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You Hangover onto the dangerous targets, and if anything else is nearby just let the drinking contest do it for them. Not a guarantee from their :-fate, but just being in the contest is bad enough sometimes. 

My biggest issue is spreading poison. I don't see an effective way to really spread it from the crew, so that's more AP brew is trying to use on his own. That's why I tend to bring Fingers in every Brew game. He's a fantastic healer, he usually has Drinking "Problem" (since he doesn't have a (0) to compete with the upgrade), and he can spread poison relatively effectively. 

Getting models into his aura is the most dangerous thing you can do, as long as you have ways to protect him. Mancha Roja can Challenge so they can't target Brewmaster, is how I tend to do it. 

If you have Mancha able to do that, then ignore the poison and get models in as best you can. They'll poison themselves from the contest anyways, Brewmaster just needs to survive long enough for a turn of poison. First Mate is another great hire. His menacing croak can push models in any direction, tossing them right into the contest.

In my experience, just getting models near Brewmaster is enough to make the opponent panic and spend any resource they have to get them away. Players with experience know how to stay away from him and that's their advantage, but between the first mate and fingers, that's 3 pushes a turn straight toward the big guy. Skeeters can on a trigger, but it isn't built in, so it's not reliable. 

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I haven't played brewy in a while but my two cents.

1) He hates condition removal, super badly. Johans a merc, and a lot of factions have it sprinkled around to the point that it might be in their list even without your opponent soul reading that brewmasters coming.

2) Killing is still the best crowd control and we do that pretty well.

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Perhaps this doesn't quite apply as well on Gremlins, but the way I play him is never around poison or drinking contests and all about swilling. If you can swill 2-3 threats anywhere near you, you control what happens to them. Add to that the Obey and the odd turn of binging 80% of their hand and your opponent will struggle to have a model in the thick of it they can rely on. And anything that's on a :-fate or two to everything will die if you put the effort in. Getting suckered into the poison game is a mistake. Drinking contests are fun when they go off - made easier by the swills - but not something you should focus on. The swills drain AP, the binges drain cards, and the obeys allow for swift tricks if you have need of them suddenly. The Brewmaster has a 12" range. That's a 25" bubble. Poison and Drinking contest are just... I mean, if it happens it's good times and that's nice and all, but if you're putting Brewwie's resources into it you're wasting :-fate's and binges and obeys. 

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I agree with the above. Also, couple all the :-fate Brewie gives with some other controll piece and two-three quick, damaging models - not like there aren't any in either Gremlins or Thunders ;)My favorites for this at the moment are Ama no Zako and the Whiskey Golem.

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8 hours ago, Tokapondora said:

Perhaps this doesn't quite apply as well on Gremlins, but the way I play him is never around poison or drinking contests and all about swilling. If you can swill 2-3 threats anywhere near you, you control what happens to them. Add to that the Obey and the odd turn of binging 80% of their hand and your opponent will struggle to have a model in the thick of it they can rely on. And anything that's on a :-fate or two to everything will die if you put the effort in. Getting suckered into the poison game is a mistake. Drinking contests are fun when they go off - made easier by the swills - but not something you should focus on. The swills drain AP, the binges drain cards, and the obeys allow for swift tricks if you have need of them suddenly. The Brewmaster has a 12" range. That's a 25" bubble. Poison and Drinking contest are just... I mean, if it happens it's good times and that's nice and all, but if you're putting Brewwie's resources into it you're wasting :-fate's and binges and obeys. 

It fully applies to Gremlins. My advice would be to try Brewie a time or two by skipping everything that gives Poison and using the Drinking Contest only as a defensive measure without running full tilt to the middle of the enemy force to party-party.

But I also agree with Hoyled that no other Master is as completely trumped by a random Chiaki appearing in the opposing force.

Though I'm not sure that anyone considers him "unplayable" - that's certainly an exaggeration.

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As others mentioned just try to forget drinking contest and give out swills. Use brewmaster and his totem for -flips, obeys and binge. For example hand out 2 swills to 1 or 2 targets (2 if its a sturdy model), obey a model with a One ap cgarge (rooster for example) and chain activate into francois. Than try not to smile too much while your opponent is crying. Chain activation is great for this since the enemy could just walk away with the swilled figure.

Other great figures are the sparks and whiskey golem tag team. Sparks can make the golem fast and occasionally armor 2. The golem's wave 4 0upgrade lets It heal half the time it hits the Enemy. With nimble and fast the golem can engage/charge almost anything on the board and his df trigger and self heal from attacking keeps him alive for a while. Also you can obey him to Attack something and heal :). Sparks also has a 8 aura that can deny the enemy's condition removal, healing, etc. Until they try to target friendly creatures.

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Probably Brewmasters biggest problem, is when you look at his card and crew you see an obvious way to play them, and that way isn't actually very good, so people struggle when using them. Other masters which struggle like this include Tara and Ironsides, you try what appears to be the way to play them, it dioesn't work and you see them labeled as bad, so don't really hunt into ways to make them work. But the ways are there, if you are prepared to hunt (or now just look to what other people have done whilst hunting)

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I focus on Drinking Contest and do just fine.  His actual AP is handing out Hangovers, just to things nearby him.  His contest is a (0) action, so no matter how you play him there's no reason to not use it.  His other (0) is good on turn 1, but even if you're using him to debuff, you don't want to use that (0) to get him into engagement range anyways, so getting a contest going is literally not detrimental to you at all.  Forget about poison, if you get something near him with Swill +1, they'll poison themselves from the contest, almost a guarantee.  I tend to put Binge onto Sammy, that way I have Jinx available if it becomes beneficial to use.  Only 2 cards to discard instead of 3, but that way Brewmaster isn't wasting AP to do it so you can maximize the amount of Swill on a turn.

I understand getting the tunnel vision on Drinking Contest.  Every Brewmaster player falls into that trap initially.  However, if you use it to lock down even 2 big models and keep them swilled, then that's a couple of models you don't have to worry about for the game.  The trap is trying to get all of the enemies stuck drinking.  It can happen, and has, but it's not very likely.  You're better off picking 2 important targets and holding them down.  Locking down a master with it for 1 AP a turn is well worth it.

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I play both Brewmaster and Ironsides.

They're both sneaky control models. Their cards look like they should be doing action A, when really they're better at D. The best use I've gotten out of Closing Time crew is using the Brewmaster to hand out hangovers to the Moon Shinobi, who then cheat to tie in duels. If an enemy model comes near the Drinking Contest range, great. Once they're there, I can obey/binge them to make my opponent suffer with better chances of success, but does this get me scheme or strat points? Does this deny my opponent theirs?

This is the biggest hurdle to "unlocking" a master in my opinion: figuring out how they contribute to the strat/scheme game.

It's not enough to lock down models, it's not enough to project an aura of "avoid this area or lose models/activations". You need that aura to be somewhere important. Like guarding a stash. This is using the master to work the strategy, which means I need to use members of the crew to work the schemes. Fingers is a great scheme runner, so is anyone with reckless and regen/heal abilities, but what makes him shine is being both Chatty and Don't Mind Me. He denies interacts while taking his own even when engaged. If you're using him to support the strategy, he's not running schemes, so you'll need another scheme running fiend. Who that is depends heavily on whether you're playing Gremlins or Ten Thunders Brewmaster.

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Brewie was my first master, followed by Colette. Somehow I still have friends =P

The biggest trap I see in a Brew Crew is to try and get everyone in the Drinking Contest. As a few others have said, it's more about picking your targets and keeping them there. I usually end turn 1 with Brewie scooting up the field, (0) One For The Road on something meaty they brought a little forward, and poison punching either that or something else nearby. First activation of turn 2, Swill those things, put up the contest, and Swill something else or Binge to taste.

I never focus on poison, per se, but I find those first few models stay put, and re-poison themselves with the contest and from there on Brewie is either swilling things or poisoning the occasional newcomer sent by Trixie's gremlin lure or Fingers/Whiskey Golem holding Drinking "Problem".

The key point I found early on is crew selection. Some theme is good, but too much will ruin your game. Fingers is amazing - in an interact/scheme heavy pool. I know a lot of folk don't rate Whiskey Golem, but I find it's a matter of how you apply him: send him after small to medium-sized targets with the understanding that he's sending models with a generally low willpower towards the contest with Drinking "Problem". Once there, they will be stuck and not running schemes (or in the case of Chompy, not eating your face. Keep a card for You'really Drunk Go Home ready in those cases). Even if they don't get there, they're out of position and usually in a prime state to be hunted by the support crew floating around; moonshinobis and such.

I tend tof feel Brewie is lacking a truly heavy beater, but fitting Burt or Francis shouldn't be too much of an issue. I also keep meaning to try him with roosters. In Thunders I like him with the dawn serpent, a fermented monk (they make great scheme runners that can handle themselves) and Sensei Yu with either Wandering or Low style, and Yin.

After crew selection, @spooky_squirrel is spot on: locking down/debugging models is good, but you have to do it at the correct spot to win games. Reconnoiter/Interference? More models stuck in the middle means fewer to hold quarters. Turf War/Extraction? Precisely the opposite. Let Brewie keep their crew from getting points so yours can get more. Put Stilts on him to get a ht3 aura so it's harder for them.to block it with their models. 

Oh, and beware of Take Prisoner.

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22 hours ago, gozer said:

"non-competitive"

So not to duplicate what others have said I'll simply state that the brew master is not noncompetitive he is niche.

Malifaux is not a game designed for one master vs the world.

You choose your master and crew after seeing the schemes and strategies, some masters are more adaptable/flexible while others specialise.

Brew Master is in the later category and functions best when you can rely on his strengths.

Specifically his bubble of control/area of effect.

When the strategy and schemes don't allow you to use this effectively you are using the wrong asset in the faction (like a short guy trying to play a reach game against a taller opponent).

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2 minutes ago, Four_N_Six said:

Brewmaster can be competitive in the right scheme pool.  If it isn't a kill heavy crew, problem solved.  I wouldn't bring him in a kill heavy pool anyways.

I have lately actually been thinking whether this is going a bit wrong about it all, really. I've done the Brewie thing where you take Fingers and Sammy and Wesley and Trixie and suddenly you are in a situation where over half your list plus your Master is basically incapable of hurting the enemy. This seems like it would be great for non-killy pools and I've won games with such a set and so on but I have began to think that Brewie with a killy list would shine in killy pools. Why? Because debuffing enemies, which is what Brew does (interestingly a super rare Master archetype in Malifaux, btw), is a lot more powerful if your opponent is fielding a compact list made up of powerful individuals.

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46 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I have lately actually been thinking whether this is going a bit wrong about it all, really. I've done the Brewie thing where you take Fingers and Sammy and Wesley and Trixie and suddenly you are in a situation where over half your list plus your Master is basically incapable of hurting the enemy. This seems like it would be great for non-killy pools and I've won games with such a set and so on but I have began to think that Brewie with a killy list would shine in killy pools. Why? Because debuffing enemies, which is what Brew does (interestingly a super rare Master archetype in Malifaux, btw), is a lot more powerful if your opponent is fielding a compact list made up of powerful individuals.

This is what I am planning to do with Brewie when I get him. He and Wesley both seem to be about 12" from the enemy so they can use hangover and binge to debuff models. This would then allow for the likes of Mancha, Burt and Francois to do lots of damage to models. I basically see a a Brewie turn to be handing out Swill on three models and then having our beaters go in and kill those models.

If I have read Binge right it allows you to turn a low mask in your hand into a 4th AP for Brewie by having Wesley use binge on Brewie. This would give you a 4th hangover without the Ca penalty or give Brewie some movement.

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In my experience the brewmaster only makes use of drinking contest in two models, tops. There's no way for him to spread poison effectively around, you need to be very careful with him like you would on an assasin master. Choose one or two extremly dangerous models and go to town with them, because unless the enemy crew is full of low willpower models (ulix pigs, or some resurrectionist crews) the drinking contest aura is laughably small and inconsecuential, and the brew has nothing aside from that in the way of defenses. Not only that, but you need the rest of your crew to be useful outside the brewmaster or else bogging two models won't matter at all, and you're already spending 8 ss or more in trixiebelle, always, wich doesn't do a lot of damage, and probably a performer.

Maybe I'm just bad at this but, despite being my favorite master, I find his crewmaking much more restrictive that some other masters.

58 minutes ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Brewie with a killy list would shine in killy pools. Why? Because debuffing enemies, which is what Brew does (interestingly a super rare Master archetype in Malifaux, btw), is a lot more powerful if your opponent is fielding a compact list made up of powerful individuals.

I have used him that way and it's pretty good. Althoguht I always have a hard time against summoning crews when I go that way.

I would also say that his upgrades are not... very good... like at all. Only Binge and I don't see that upgrade as powerful as other people do. Thinks like "The Good Stuff" shouldn't exist. XD

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7 minutes ago, Macumazahn said:

In my experience the brewmaster only makes use of drinking contest in two models, tops...

I would also say that his upgrades are not... very good... like at all. Only Binge and I don't see that upgrade as powerful as other people do. Thinks like "The Good Stuff" shouldn't exist. XD

I agree with you about picking two-ish key models and locking them down, with the caveat that pushing low Wp minions and such into the bubble and letting them lock themselves down has worked for me in the past (especially in interference and reconnoiter).

I generally agree on his upgrades lacking luster. I generally take Binge with the idea that even if I don't use it much my opponent will chuck cards quick so I can't get rid of them. In gremlins I put Drinking "Problem" on Fingers of the Whiskey Golem to give them a (0) that helps get more thing out of position/into the Drinking contest. Really wish it didn't specify *other* friendly model doubles the healing. 

Really think more single faction TriChi models would give more reason for Running Table, though I think with the terra-cotta warriors in TT it will see some more play. 

Anyone else keep looking at the Good Stuff and Hold Their Hair Back and think you're missing something right in front of your facell that would make them...at least decent? I know I do. Though I guess I haven't re-checked them with regards to book 4 yet...here's hoping. Though honestly,  Stilts and Hide in the Mud do just fine in Gremlins, with Misdirection and Recalled Training  performing well in TT, in my experience. 

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Hmm.  Brewmaster with the Swine-Cursed?  They have Magical built in, so he can debuff a heavy hitting target, and a single Swine-Cursed can probably take it down while ignoring its armor or hard to kill.  Plus the :-fate will put it at a huge disadvantage to hit the Swine-Cursed in retaliation.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'll start off by saying that I'm not that good with brewie, sinceI have low experience with him, but yesterday I tested out in my group with our henchman the new gaining grounds 2017 and noticed that although they're kinda oriented mainly toward the new masters brewie might have a good chance to come back! Might be too soon to be sure about it, but his capability of de-buffing and denying comes really handy in a lot of strat/schemes, since they lowered drastically the number of schemes oriented toward killing. Also, I did a match against a Titania and managed to tie up the match even tho I had for the entirety of the game awful cards, with fingers and Raphael being the Mvps of the match.

Also, since I'm already writing this down, this post and the other one from Four_N_Six  made me really curious about trying out Killy brewie and wanted to know a couple of things:

Do you ever use fermented river monks? And is it good to pick a whiskey golem? Haven't had yet the chance to try him out with his new upgrade.

Also how about moonshinobis? To me they look really good mainly because of their front card (the push saved me a couple of times yesterday and the :-fate transformations is awesome) and they absolutely rock against hard/impossible to wound heavy crews (so they might be a good pick against resser), but, while they are more resilient, I really have hard times leaving roosters home for picking the drunk ninjas (I might be biased by the fact that I love rooster's models :) ), although I would love to find more often a space for a ninja or 2 in my list.

Thanks for whom who will answer in advance :) 

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I like Moon Shinobi a bit, but haven't used them in a while.  They can be effective, but my focus is getting Swill onto enemies, not my own smaller models.  I haven't tried fermented river monks, mostly because I don't own them.

Whiskey Golem I love.  I usually run him with Mah Tucket, but in a kill focused Brewmaster crew, he'd probably do great.  He hits hard enough while at the same time giving out a little poison, just in case they survive, which makes it easier for Brewmaster to hit them with Hangover the next round.  He can heal himself, extremely effectively if someone in the crew has Drinking "Problem," and in a pinch he can get his armor up to 7.  Combined with Nimble for the extra walk and his 6" movement, and I'd call him quite the nice add to this type of crew.

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3 hours ago, EpicWaffle said:

I'll start off by saying that I'm not that good with brewie, sinceI have low experience with him, but yesterday I tested out in my group with our henchman the new gaining grounds 2017 and noticed that although they're kinda oriented mainly toward the new masters brewie might have a good chance to come back! Might be too soon to be sure about it, but his capability of de-buffing and denying comes really handy in a lot of strat/schemes, since they lowered drastically the number of schemes oriented toward killing. Also, I did a match against a Titania and managed to tie up the match even tho I had for the entirety of the game awful cards, with fingers and Raphael being the Mvps of the match.

Also, since I'm already writing this down, this post and the other one from Four_N_Six  made me really curious about trying out Killy brewie and wanted to know a couple of things:

Do you ever use fermented river monks? And is it good to pick a whiskey golem? Haven't had yet the chance to try him out with his new upgrade.

Also how about moonshinobis? To me they look really good mainly because of their front card (the push saved me a couple of times yesterday and the :-fate transformations is awesome) and they absolutely rock against hard/impossible to wound heavy crews (so they might be a good pick against resser), but, while they are more resilient, I really have hard times leaving roosters home for picking the drunk ninjas (I might be biased by the fact that I love rooster's models :) ), although I would love to find more often a space for a ninja or 2 in my list.

Thanks for whom who will answer in advance :) 

As noted, I've lately been of the opinion that a killy Brewie is way better than support-heavy Brewie.

I usually take two or three Roosters since they are superb against Swilled targets due to their speed, volume of attacks, Bayou Two-card and silly damage track. They can also be Obeyed and Mask-Binged efficiently due to the Rooster Charge.

Moon Shinobi really don't compare but they aren't bad as such. I take them whenever I'm not trying to take the best crew ever since they are fun and versatile. The Nurse combo with Zoraida makes them amazing bulwarks.

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1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

As noted, I've lately been of the opinion that a killy Brewie is way better than support-heavy Brewie.

I usually take two or three Roosters since they are superb against Swilled targets due to their speed, volume of attacks, Bayou Two-card and silly damage track. They can also be Obeyed and Mask-Binged efficiently due to the Rooster Charge.

Moon Shinobi really don't compare but they aren't bad as such. I take them whenever I'm not trying to take the best crew ever since they are fun and versatile. The Nurse combo with Zoraida makes them amazing bulwarks.

Got ya, than from what I understand you use the same criteria that you use for elite Somer right? You fill up the holes with what you need for the rest of the scheme/strategy pool and than Brewie support the crew while the others do their job

 

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  • 2 months later...

Didn't want to make a new thread for this, but the talk of all this errata stuff got me wondering about one of my favorite masters.

So, assuming Wyrd wants to be nice and make Brewmaster competitive for us, what changes would he need while still keeping with his theme?  I'm thinking of a Lucius style overhaul, but I don't really have many ideas on what to do that would keep his contest a focus while also making him useful in a lot of tournaments (I've tried a few times, never seems to work).

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