The January Errata and the Bayou

[Math Mathonwy]

So yeah, we got, arguably, hit most.

Deservedly so.

Brewmaster only got a clarification, essentially. I wish that "canceled" had the addendum that "the AP is spent" but I haven't checked whether the rulebook defines cancelling.

Lenny doesn't add Rams to Masters anymore. I've previously noted that I found Lenny not ultimately necessary for Ophelia and I've played her without him to allow for more freedom in moving her about and all in all not having to worry about Lenny being Lured or Pushed or Obeyed or whatever. But that said, he was certainly a powerful combo for Ophelia - especially on certain tables. Mah also loses quite a bit here as Lenny was a valid boost to let her get the "free" Charge easier and to help her damage. Somer is also hit a bit, I guess, but he has his Skeeters so not a big loss. The other Masters didn't care all that much about the Rams, anyway.

Roosters lost Reckless. This makes them far less of an auto-include. Especially in Scheming role. Brewmaster and Zoraida will still love them to pieces but other Masters can now consider different options. Well, OK, Z and B can also consider other options but I think that their Obey (and Binge) makes Roosters still a very good model for them. Still, they are very squishy so they did feel the Reckless damage pretty severely. Of course this now also means that they can't trigger Rampage as easily.

So yeah, how does this affect you?

As for me, I know that Mah won't be as Roosterriffic as she used to be. They are still a valid choice but Burt and Franc and Slop Haulers look even more enticing for her. Oh, and no Lenny but he wasn't an autoinclude anyway so no big loss. Ophelia, yeah, as said, I didn't consider Lenny an autoinclude for her and now far less. Still, Lenny makes Young LaCroix into absolute killers so it isn't like I will shelve him permanently with her.

Now you.  

[cryion]

Lenny.. I dunno, fine with me.

Roosters... made sense. Kind of a pitty. Still pretty decent tbh. But imo scheme running required the 3rd AP (did some testing without Reckless when the whispers reached me). I dunno, they are still walk 7 after all. More testing will be done.

[Dogmantra]

Lol literally after I just posted about how I liked to use Lenny with Mah + Old Cranky in another thread

I'm not a huge Lenny or Mah player in general tbh, so it doesn't affect me super much, although it is kind of a shame. Liking the Brewie clarification though (more for Sensei Yu than anything, although also for the fact that technically before you had to keep taking the Wp duels until you succeeded one). Lenny will probably mostly be relegated to my Brewmaster kill crews where he is appreciated both for his Bayou Gremlin buffing and his immunity to conditions.

I've used Roosters but never a ton, but I think they'll still be great, they still have Bayou Two Card and 1AP charges, with both a strong melee and a decent ranged. Maybe now that people won't call me out for "using such a broken model" they'll see more play for me

[Somnicide]

I am actually kind of glad that I can use the Roosters and not feel like I am punching my opponents in the privates all game.

[wizuriel]

I think the rooster rider cuddle was justified. They were literally defining that price range for Gremlins.

 

The Lenny cuddle I think hurts. With the Lenny cuddle and Lucius buff I think Mah might be the weakest master in the game now. Outside of Som'er not sure will be taking him in many lists. The damage reduction and movement are still nice, but he is too slow to keep up with elite crews  outside the Lenny + Gracie combo (which is expensive but fun). 

[James Dyson]

I don't expect the changes to drastically change how I'm currently playing Gremlins.  The Brewmaster clarification will help, since he's one I'm still trying to unlock.  As far as our cuddles, I had only been running Lenny with Som'er lately, as I prefer a more mobile playstyle for Ophelia and Mah.  I found that trying finagle the activation order (and a lot of Trixie's AP) getting Lenny and Ophelia/Mah up the board and in range of each other was an awful lot of trouble.  Especially as I'd often throw Mah in far away from Lenny for the remainder of her time on the board.  The Ophelia bunker of Lenny/Trixie/Cranky was deadly for sure, but telegraphed what I was going to do with her pretty hard.

The Rooster Riders changes are a bit more interesting, and I think I'm a lot more likely to bring Lightning Bugs now in their place.  Still 3 AP, a decent Ca with handy triggers for cheaper seems like a solid choice.  

[Omenbringer]

Over all I really like these changes.

I figure Lenny is the biggest but I never really used him for that any way so it doesn't affect me as much as others I guess. Very glad to see the Rooster Rider adjustment, they really shouldn't have gotten published as they were.

I do wish the Elevation rules would have received some attention though. Perhaps next year...

[Bengt]

9 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

I wish that "canceled" had the addendum that "the AP is spent" but I haven't checked whether the rulebook defines cancelling.

That was my thought as well when reading the new card, you just know someone will wonder exactly what "cancelled" is supposed to mean. The rulebook only uses cancel (and derivations) when talking about  + , and Fast + Slow.

@Aaron Perhaps you could sneak in a comment about AP on the card?

[Je ne c'est LaCroix]

I just bought 8 Rooster Riders 

[katadder]

they're still good, just no longer auto include good

[daniello_s]

Roosters still can kill enemy scheme runners nicely and then follow up with scheme running themselves. At least now they are not almost auto-include in each Gremlin crew.

[Nikodemus]

4 hours ago, Je ne c'est LaCroix said:

I just bought 8 Rooster Riders 

You own 8 great models. Why the frownies?

[Beardminis]

I'd like to preface everything that follows with that I feel the errata to be well handled and very positive. I like the format and the way it's been done and equally the reasoning behind it, if you've not listened to the Malifools podcast interviewing Aaron on the changes I can recommend it, equally the conversations I've had with Aaron in person reflect that he and his team to be considered and considerate. Malifaux continues to be the best game I've ever played as a direct result of this consideration.

 

I do find myself this morning feeling that my pool of models to choose from, in particular masters, to have been narrowed this morning. Which feels counter intuitive to what an errata should do.

 

On Roosters I completely agree with the changes, for 6ss they did things they shouldn't be able to do. Without reckless they will continue to be fantastic, they will still be in the bag and frankly will probably see just as much table time. I just won't be able to everything in one turn with them, which is fine.  Will still need to protect them from snipers turn 1, will still get wherever they need to be all told. 

 

Lenny changes feel like it hurts both Mah and Ophelia for reasons that have already been posted.  I now can't see a reason I'd take Ophelia over Wong or Somer for ranged dmg and crew support, with sky pirates Ophelias  upgrades matter less as I can achieve similar things with other models.  Equally Mah has fallen lower in my priority and I'm not sure when I'd use her now all told. What was a subjectively weak choice for me has now, ostensibly become weaker.  

 

Which is shame all told, I'd like erratas and FAQ to result in me having harder choices to make, a wider variety of models to internally debate.  For me (and of course ymmv) those choices have now diminished.

 

Lastly I find myself with buff envy all told, which isn't great. For every change we had to be taking something away from us when every other faction gained something, no matter how small, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

Again, kudos to the game development team I think there are some wider reaching and subtle changes here which will enrich and greatly enhance people's game play. I just feel a little distant and left out from it this morning.

 

[Fetid Strumpet]

Every faction gained some thing? Explain? I don't find that to be the case at all.

[Beardminis]

Every other faction has received a buff, to name just one for each. No salt, but it is true. Many received more. 

guild: lucius

resser: tara

arcanist: Ironsides

neverborn: black blood shaman

Outcast: montressor

ten thunder: misaki 

 

 

 

[wizuriel]

I think calling Tara a buff for Ressers is stretching it. The real buff was to the nothing beast which is an outcast model that Tara can hire in Ressers (imo)

[Beardminis]

I'm sure there are Rezzer players who are looking forward to giving her a try now whether that's down to her hiring rules or to the changes to her Dead of Winter upgrade, how subjectively that will improve matters for her I don't know but objectively that is an improvement for Rezzer Tara. 

[Four_N_Six]

Yeah, but they took hits, too.  Some of them pretty significant.  Dreamer can now only guarantee 1  a turn for his summoning, which severely slows down how much he puts onto the table.  I prefer Chompy Dreamer anyways, but still.  Most people prefer to summon with him, and this takes a huge chunk out of what he can do.

As far as we're concerned, I'm good with it.  Never bothered buying roosters so I never ran them with Mah.  The Lenny thing hurts how I play Ophelia, but she's one of my lower totem pole masters, anyways.  I hardly ever run her, so removing Lenny means I'll probably just never run her.  I don't typically use Lenny in anything else, so I don't know how often I'll have him on the table anymore, either.

[Je ne c'est LaCroix]

8 hours ago, Je ne c'est LaCroix said:

I just bought 8 Rooster Riders 

 

3 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

You own 8 great models. Why the frownies?

 

40 less AP per game =

[Beardminis]

25 minutes ago, Four_N_Six said:

Yeah, but they took hits, too. 

Oh for sure, which is all good. Swings and roundabouts right? But when it's all roundabout, not so much. 

[Dumb Luck]

Hi fam.

Thought I'd chime in with my few cents, after seeing Rich do so. I'll open up with the same disclaimer that he did (errata was needed, well done to Wyrd, too harsh/not harsh enough) and a preface as to how I pick the miniatures I use in the game. I consider myself a competitive player (regardless of how successful my record on that front is another matter entirely, mind you!). I'll mainly be looking at models that are efficient in terms of AP for their cost and what role they can fulfil (this matter is fluid, as it never hurts to have a model who can switch roles). A blog post that sums up this approach better than I ever could is here - LINK. Basically, redundancy - does a model have the same (or close enough) role as another model. 

The errata is here now. We have to like it and lump it - or you know, jump faction. But stuff that! Taking Reckless of them was certainly the best holistic choice to go with (keep Aaron's post in mind) over fiddling with rules elsewhere because you could use Reckless in ways to kill them off or trigger Rampaging at your leisure. Think of it like hidden tech in computer fighting games. Not cheating persay and not against the letter of the rules, but certainly against the intention of the game design.

 I think it has hit their place in the faction hard. Again, the number of times I'd think 'I have 18ss spare, I'll take three' during crew selection as they were the best option meant that something had to change. They were scheme runner, flanker and potential assassination piece all in one. My main thought now is how do we do Stake a Claim (Pult, mass Bayous, whatever, plenty of ways about it). Their main spot now (he says, one day after the errata dropped so pinch of salt) could be in Collect the Bounty, where having a hard hitting minion is often more valuable than a Henchman or Enforcer. As for general use in killing enemy models or running schemes, I think we have better, more efficient choices if you are looking to assemble an efficient collection of competitive Gremlins. Going back to the link at the top of this post, they may hit differently than Francois and they may drop scheme markers differently to Bugs but is that difference enough? My knee jerk, still likely to change reaction would be not really.

And let's move onto the Ophelia debuff (let's be real, it does not effect Som'er as much and Mah was never good) in Lenny. Debatably a bigger hit to the faction than the Rooster debuff (as they still have a place), whereas I think Ophelia will now struggle to keep a foot in competitive Gremlin play. Lenny made her hit harder and Toss acted as her movement. I'm not really grasping why people are saying Lenny held her back in terms of board control as the two could pull each other around pretty easily, unless you were taking a themed Lacroix list (if you were, more power to you. Not something I'd consider as a worthwhile option). I'd wager this debuff happened because the Lenny/Ophelia combo cut out the mechanic of the gun upgrades. Why fire them, when you can instead fire the Rough Riders at 4/6/8 right? What you have now with Ophelia is the upgrade swopping and the buffing of (Merris and Francois withstanding) our less efficient elite models in the Lacroix. It is, again, a matter of efficiency of points and AP. If you want damage, other things in the faction do this more reliably.

As Ritch pointed out, I don't think this errata has opened up any choices of ours that were poor before. With the Rooster debuff, I think Merris and Bugs will see a boost in play but they were never bad to begin with. On a first look, I think what it has done is take a few pieces and cut their usefullness down considerably (because, you know, they were too good). This is all fine though - it is certainly better than playing Gremlins in V1! 

[Math Mathonwy]

Thank you for weighing in, everyone, much appreciated!

I am a bit surprised by the amount of people who apparently thought of Lenny as an autopick for Mah (less so for Ophelia). I've used Lenny with Mah but I didn't generally find it tremendously more powerful than other options for those points. Now, I'm sad that we lost the option but I don't think that it impacts Mah's overall power level much at all.

3 hours ago, Dumb Luck said:

I'm not really grasping why people are saying Lenny held her back in terms of board control as the two could pull each other around pretty easily, unless you were taking a themed Lacroix list (if you were, more power to you. Not something I'd consider as a worthwhile option).

Since I've been saying that and I haven't seen anyone else say it (might've missed/forgot - if so, sorry!) I'll take this one. Our meta has a lot of terrain (way more than what I see on the UK tournament reports) and also a lot of "trick" stuff. Having a 40mm based Lenny that you try to keep near Ophelia isn't always trivial. This goes double when the enemy has stuff that can exploit that Wp 1 to move Lenny willy-nilly to where-ever they fancy moving him. Using your Ooh A Girl on Lenny every turn is also pretty limiting in and of itself (if you happen to even have LoS to him after the opponent is done running around with him). Or maybe you need to have Ophelia some place and you use your movement tricks on her. Hauling Lenny around will put a much bigger strain on your movement tricks.

I've certainly have had good results with him. But I've had good results also without him as well.

But all that said, it is entirely possible that I simply suck at using Lenny and maybe others use him far better.

[Dumb Luck]

Ah right. Terrain could certainly be a thing. You'd need a really clogged board though!

[Somnicide]

2 hours ago, Dumb Luck said:

Ah right. Terrain could certainly be a thing. You'd need a really clogged board though!

Not as clogged as you'd think. I dropped him because of this. We don't have insane amounts of terrain but do try and limit lanes. This was a corner deployment game.

 

 

[Dumb Luck]

Hard to say without playing a game on it, but I'd still chance old Lenny on that board. He was just that good.