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Wave 5 Master Upgrades: Gremlins


WWHSD

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Putting these all in one easy to read post.

 

Brewmaster
A Friendly Ear (1ss): Add a mask to any duel that targets a model with poison. Grants a 1AP action that forces enemies to pass a TN12 Wk duel or take 2 damage.
A Barkeep Never Sleeps (2ss): Enemies near models with the Alcohol Poisoning ability take 2 extra daamge from poison. It also grants the abiltiy to summon Wesley if there are no friendly totems in play. 

Mah Tucket
Manifest Destiny (1ss): Friendly models with Get Off My Land can use the ability every turn. If they use it after the first turn then they may go past the centerline. If a model discards a card outside of a duel, draw a card. Mah's close attacks get +1 Rg. 
Pit Traps (1ss): After deployment place 3 30mm Pit Trap markers (not in enemy deployment zone, not close to other markers or models). Enemies that start their activation close to the marker get slow unless they discard a card. Markers can be removed with an interact action by a model in contact with the marker. Mah gets a 1AP action that allows her to drop another Pit Trap marker.

Ophelia
Useless Junk (1ss): When Ophelia discards another upgrade place a trash marker. All friendly Kin get an ability that lets them push towards a trash marker, and if they touch it then they heal and place a scheme marker. Discard the trash marker. 
Metal Lined Coat (2ss): If this upgrade is discarded with Plink! it prevents two damage instead of one. This upgrade also grants Instinctual.

Somer
Insectophile (1ss): Pig Poker gets a trigger on crows that summons a Skeeter when killing the target of the attack.
Higher Proof (1ss): Friendlies in LoS get +1Sh and may not declare triggers when they use Drunk and Reckless.

Ulix 
Throw Your Voice (1ss): Grants a 1 AP attack action that targets a non-pig. Friendly pigs that are in range can push towards the target and one of them can take a Ml action against the target.
Pig Midwife (1ss): Pigs that are summoned nearby are not slow. If a nearby pig is killed, a nearby pig can heal (both pigs need to be friendly).

Wong
Behold My Effervescence! (1ss): Grants a 3AP action that make a Lightning Jump attack against every enemy in range and Los. It doesn't randomize. Wong also gets a 1AP action that flips a card for each nearby model. Ram - heal 1, Tome - take an interact to place a scheme marker if able, Mask - Push towards edge of opponent's choosing, Crow - suffer 1 damage.
Sparkly Lights (1ss): Enemies can remove Magical from friendlies. Friendlies get Agility and Don't Mind me when they have the MAgical condition.

Zipp
The Dread Pirate Zipp (1ss): Summon a Bayou Gremlin into base contact with Zipp then bury Zipp.At the end of the turn unbury Zipp next to a friendly Bayou gremlin that is then sacrificed. While Zipp is buried all Bayou Gremlins get a 0 action that places a condition on an enemy that can force that enemy to activate when your opponent has the change to activate a model.
Supply Drop (1ss): After Zipp completes a walk, flip a card and do a thing. Rams - Place a blast marker and damage any model touching it, Tomes - Place a Piano Marker (Ht 2, blocking, impassable), Masks - Place a scheme marker, Crows - Push 2 inches. This can be done once per turn and cannot be cheated.
Conflux of Showboating (0ss): The Emissary may move through Ht 1 and 2 models. Once per activation the Emissary may force any model it moved through to pass a TN12 Wk duel or take 2 damage. The Emissary gets a zero action that allows it to prevent enemies from declaring interact actions. Like other Conflux upgrades, this is for the Emissary.

Zoraida
Powerful Control (2ss): Obey gets a double mask trigger than lets the model take a Charge action instead of a 1 AP attack. Bewitch gets a double mask trigger than let's Zoraida take an Obey action against the same target.
Poisoned Fate (1ss): Nearby Enemy models with conditions suffer 2 damage when they cheat fate. Zoraida gets a 1AP attack that deals that can only attack models with conditions. It deals damage equal to the number of cards in the controller's hand (max of 4). It has a trigger on crows that gives the target slow. 
 

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My thoughts

Brewmaster... there better then most of his old upgrades I guess. Also having a pocket Wesley is nice. Don't think there very impactful.

Mah, Manifest Destiny is a big quality of life upgrade for both Mah and bushwackers. Be nice to just have that built into mahs card. Reserving opinion on pitfall trap. mandatory fix upgrade on a upgrade hungry master is sad times

Ophelia, potentially interesting stuff, seems to be undertuned, not enough oomph to make upgrade shenanigans a strat.

Somer: Insectophile makes me just want to spam out mosquitoes and fart at people, which is cute but not better then normal somer stuff. Higher proof seems like a nice upgrade to pick against low wound higher defense schemers.

Ulix: Throw your voice: meh. Pig Midwife: Yeeeeessssss

Wong: Ill take behold just for the off chance of 4 plus shots. The other one I'm still considering but its interesting

Zipp: Dread Pirate Zip: I like it, it adds an interesting change to Zipps play, I think its the best upgrade we got design wise. Supply drop is a no. The emissary upgrade is actually good, its plays up to the speedy hard hitting in your face  nature the model wants.

Zoriada Powerful Control: Yes always Poisoned Fate: Depends on build

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On 8/18/2017 at 7:10 PM, Hoyled said:

My thoughts

Brewmaster... there better then most of his old upgrades I guess. Also having a pocket Wesley is nice. Don't think there very impactful.

Mah, Manifest Destiny is a big quality of life upgrade for both Mah and bushwackers. Be nice to just have that built into mahs card. Reserving opinion on pitfall trap. mandatory fix upgrade on a upgrade hungry master is sad times

Ophelia, potentially interesting stuff, seems to be undertuned, not enough oomph to make upgrade shenanigans a strat.

Somer: Insectophile makes me just want to spam out mosquitoes and fart at people, which is cute but not better then normal somer stuff. Higher proof seems like a nice upgrade to pick against low wound higher defense schemers.

Ulix: Throw your voice: meh. Pig Midwife: Yeeeeessssss

Wong: Ill take behold just for the off chance of 4 plus shots. The other one I'm still considering but its interesting

Zipp: Dread Pirate Zip: I like it, it adds an interesting change to Zipps play, I think its the best upgrade we got design wise. Supply drop is a no. The emissary upgrade is actually good, its plays up to the speedy hard hitting in your face  nature the model wants.

Zoriada Powerful Control: Yes always Poisoned Fate: Depends on build

Mostly agree, this is an accurate analysis. Overall these upgrades are a bit lackluster: they don't do enough to make our most struggling masters more viable (Brewie, Ophelia, Mah) and don't add much to the already strong ones (Zipp, Somer, Wong). Ulix, who was sitting kind of in the middle, got the best of the bunch, I think!

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whats worse is most of our upgrades are 1 or 2 abilities per card(that are mediocre at best) , neveroborn get 3-4 abilities per card at 1 ss cost.

the favoritism is quite stunning

Also they brought back decaying aura as an "aura" even though it was consider a huge NPE when resers had it

guess who got it... Neverborn. 

Its the year of the Neverborn my bayou gremlins, 60-70 % of players per tournament. will be purple ( sad days, time to go and drink my bayou shine in the corner)

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I do not think this is favoritism.  Seriously I do not.  If these upgrades prove to be lack luster *more on this further down* I suspect it was more lack of ideas or problems with what Gremlins already have.  I know this is an unpopular opinion but what already exists with Gremlins might have been the problem.  Maybe because of what was already present, in models or upgrades, they could not come up with ideas that fit.  They could have been ones that threw the balance off due to existing model or upgrade selection.  Or they were to strong at the beginning of testing and faces multiple revisions before the current point.  Or they could not come up with good ideas on what directions they wanted to take things and despite their best efforts they might have failed *Again More below on this*.  I HIGHLY doubt this is favoritism.  Seriously.  Wyrd has show they put effort into trying to do things that are healthy for the game, even if they are unpopular decisions. 

Now something of a history lesson, when the Wave 5 masters came out, Sandeep was labeled as the weakest by many right out of the gate *though Parker got throw there not long afterwards but Sandeep was kept low on the charts*.  First there was a lot of shouting about Titania, then about Nellie, then Reva, a hair of Zipp mixed in here and there, and THEN Sandeep.  Now he is being praised as a top tier tournament master.  Simple put all we are doing now is making a guess, perhaps an educated guess but still a guess, about what these upgrades will mean to masters.  There will be obvious stuff, there will be stuff that later surprises us, and there will be stuff that just takes time to show its true colors for better or worse.

 

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side and sometimes it just looks that way when you are looking across the breach at it.

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It's probably more due to the fact there are fewer Gremlin players than there are other players. And that translates into fewer testers.

Anyway I think Mah got an absurdly good deal out of this. I'm calling Mah as a new force to be reckoned with. Well, maybe not but I'm calling her as much better now.

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31 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

It's probably more due to the fact there are fewer Gremlin players than there are other players. And that translates into fewer testers.

This is true, and ties in to @EnternalVoids point as well. During Wave 1 and 2, Gremlins were very under tested because they were the new faction, there were not many metal models, so a lot of proxying was needed. This all led to them not being tested as thoroughly as other factions. This leads into his point about how right now, despite a lot of griping from the Gremlin community, there's a lot of really good stuff already there that was not tested as well as it should have been. This throws off internal balance which we already see and know about. But it also makes testing new upgrades hard, because buffing an underperforming thematic choice for a master might have undesired consequences with other unit interactions.

Honestly, I feel that Gremlins in particular are harder to design upgrades for because of their lack of specific keywords or thematic abilities. You can design a Nephilim specific upgrade for Lilith because they all have Black Blood (with the exception of 2 models) and the Nephilim keyword. You can design an attack like Black Blood Tendril because that is a universal ability. You can design an upgrade to teleport Nightmares around, because there's specifically keyworded models so you know what will be affected. This does make it challenging the other way - you need to consider these models with anything that specifically targets them, but this is easier to pick up in testing rather than hard to write it in the first place.

With Gremlins, three masters and their thematic choices have keywords, one doesn't have it himself but is designed around one, and three are completely generic. It's hard to write an upgrade to work with what might be Mah Tuckets thematic choices like Bushwhackers or Rooster Riders, because they're just Gremlin (and in the Rooster Riders case, Rooster). It's hard to write something to buff Gremlin Academics like Lightning Bugs, because they're just Gremlin. You can write an upgrade to specifically target a unit, like So'mers upgrade targeting Bayou Gremlins, but that's not futureproofed in the way targeting Showgirls or Nightmares or models with Black Blood is.

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I would say bushwackers are close to original oxfordian mages in tearms of power ( still worse but follow me on this)

They made upgrade to fix mages book 3 and book 4

they did not give anything to bushwackers

oxfordian mages get played often, bushwackers sit on the sprue in my bin box for last  2 years.

C'mon wyrd, lets buff gremlin under performers instead of cuddling the only playable choices they have!

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Sammy is also a problem. No other Faction has to worry about a Henchman carrying the Master-specific Upgrades and not caring about Limited status. You could go around it by making the Upgrade give stuff to "Leaders" or whatever but if you're going to go around Sammy, why have her in the first place?

As for favouritism, I think that Dogmantra is correct in that it isn't favouritism per se but more the lack of players and playtesters. Last open beta the Gremlin side was rather quiet though I must say big thanks to the people who had time to test stuff! The models got way, way better as the beta went on. In fact, I think that all Gremlin models started basically unplayable and turned into, if not truly competitive, then at least into something that you can put onto the table and not feel bad.

Justin used to start at the other end - making stuff way too good and then toning down. Which seems like an approach that would favour factions with less testing being done.

I dunno, may be just crazy talk.

I do agree with Loki that the lack of keywords makes things more messy but I'm not sure that future proofing is all that huge a concern - I mean, how many books can they release before they do a more comprehensive relook at the existing stuff (so 2.5 or whatever)?

I also think that there's maybe a bit too much doom and gloom going the rounds here currently. I think that all our Masters aside from Somer and Brewski got good stuff that will see play and make the Masters stronger. And even Brewski's might come into their own if he gets more efficient ways of spreading Poison sometime in the future.

Did the other factions get even better stuff than us? Perhaps but I'm not yet convinced. And if they did, I don't think that the difference is huge and someone had to be last.

Now, that said, I'm super excited for Mah but the rest don't make me hop up and down in excitement. Quite a few Masters in other Factions got really, really good deals (Yan Lo and Misaki, for example, holy crap!) that really change things up. Ulix, for example, got good stuff but it won't make him play differently. Somer didn't need much but I wish they had made an alternate play mode for him, even if it was worse than what he currently does. I think it was Dogmantra who suggested making him more of a melee Master with an Upgrade and that would've been fun (drop the gun for a better melee attack or something - not competitive but different).

So I can understand some disappointment (indeed, I feel it a bit as well) but let's not end up wallowing in misery as I don't think that there's need for that quite yet.

(I really don't remember Sandeep being seen as weak at any point - didn't someone do amazingly well at the Gencon tournament with him straight out of the box? And at least here our meta's consensus was always that he's amazingly powerful.)

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1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Somer didn't need much but I wish they had made an alternate play mode for him, even if it was worse than what he currently does. I think it was Dogmantra who suggested making him more of a melee Master with an Upgrade and that would've been fun (drop the gun for a better melee attack or something - not competitive but different).

Gambling Man
This model's Boomer action loses the "Thinkin' Luck" trigger.

This model gains the following ability:

Make Your Own Luck: This model's Ml Damage Flips ignore all :-fates, but may not be cheated except with Bayou Two-Card. Damage Flips cheated this way suffer an unignorable :-fate.

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15 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Gambling Man
This model's Boomer action loses the "Thinkin' Luck" trigger.

This model gains the following ability:

Make Your Own Luck: This model's Ml Damage Flips ignore all :-fates, but may not be cheated except with Bayou Two-Card. Damage Flips cheated this way suffer :-fate.

rgtl.gif

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4 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

It's probably more due to the fact there are fewer Gremlin players than there are other players. And that translates into fewer testers.

Anyway I think Mah got an absurdly good deal out of this. I'm calling Mah as a new force to be reckoned with. Well, maybe not but I'm calling her as much better now.

Agree with this. Mah should be played more often with her new upgrades.

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5 hours ago, PolishSausage said:

I would say bushwackers are close to original oxfordian mages in tearms of power ( still worse but follow me on this)

They made upgrade to fix mages book 3 and book 4

they did not give anything to bushwackers

oxfordian mages get played often, bushwackers sit on the sprue in my bin box for last  2 years.

C'mon wyrd, lets buff gremlin under performers instead of cuddling the only playable choices they have!

Pretty sure Oxfordian mages got nothing in Wave 3. They started with the 3 (0) upgrades in book 2. I think you're confusing them with Samurai who gained their 3 (0) upgrades in book 2 after they were published in book 1 . Not saying your point isn't valid, and Bushwackers couldn't do with something to make them better (at least good enough to see the table occasionally) but we haven't seem a mage recieve 2 buffs in that time 

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On 8/18/2017 at 5:37 PM, WWHSD said:

Brewmaster
A Friendly Ear (1ss): Add a mask to any duel that targets a model with poison. Grants a 1AP action that forces enemies to pass a TN12 Wk duel or take 2 damage.
A Barkeep Never Sleeps (2ss): Enemies near models with the Alcohol Poisoning ability take 2 extra daamge from poison. It also grants the abiltiy to summon Wesley if there are no friendly totems in play. 

 

I'm actually excited about these. It may be because I'm a new player and not on the competitive scene. I've been running Brewie with only one upgrade recently and if I can add these abilities and just summon Wesley this seems like a win for me (or start with him and play him a little more loose). Adding the mask? Suddenly my obeys have gotten easier to get off freeing up stones or higher masks in my hand. I dig that. The extra poison damage... Isn't that one of the big complaints with his basic crew? Not enough damage? Of course I'm sure you all have WAY more experience than me so you may be seeing something I'm not but at least on the surface they address some of the things that have held me back with him a touch.

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6 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

Gambling Man
This model's Boomer action loses the "Thinkin' Luck" trigger.

This model gains the following ability:

Make Your Own Luck: This model's Ml Damage Flips ignore all :-fates, but may not be cheated except with Bayou Two-Card. Damage Flips cheated this way suffer an unignorable :-fate.

This would be awesome synergy with the lucky emissary. Obviously still worse than a range 12 4/4/8 with blasts but it would at least make for some lulz.

Also @PolishSausage in general bushwacker/moon shinobi/rooster riders (lol) would all be very playable without needing a cost adjustment(maybe roosters to 7ss) if you add reckless. It's not even that they would be great but at least I'd see a reason to take a bushwhacker or a moon shinobi for an extra point over a lightning bug or slop hauler. I mean a direct comparison would be Pere and honestly even if bushwacker & moon shinobi had reckless I would probably still lean toward Pere (he's charge 8 with reckless and a 2/3:blast/5 :blast :blastml attack with critical strike and has a situationally game altering gun.) Even Merris does more damage than them, ignores cover, has reckless, has an amazing aura and schemes like no other. 

But again overall just getting them closer would be a start.

I do totally agree with you about neverborn though. Tatiana, Zoraida, Dreamer, Pandora, Lucius, Lilith and Collodi all got interesting upgrades. Of those Collodi got stuff top level players won't necessarily use but giving him a cc attack that's pretty darn good (but worse than the best attack in the game which happens to be on his card.....) Does work out to not getting much. 

Dreamer, Tatiana, Lucius and Zoraida got the best upgrades but only Dreamer's new build and Tatiana's seem to be tier 1. Still an amazing outcome for them. Netting them now 6 master builds that are super strong.

I think the thing that makes me more salty is the fact that not only did they get better upgrades but they got really great New models that fill niches that they didn't have before. 

Side bar I was so disappointed in the new stuff that I was looking over models like sparks and stuff to see if there was something else that I was missing that made them more playable.....Hopefully it works out the same for the new models (secret tech lol)

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  I agree that since gremlins have the least number of players and playtesters it seems like the other factions got great upgrades and ours (besides Ulix's and Mah's) are meh. We should be as vocal as we can, without being outright negative of course, about what we'd like to see for our underplayed faction. 

 There's a ton of potential for cool looking models to get buffs come January's errata. There's been a lot of out cry against reckless so I'd say maybe that's not the direction they would like to go. Maybe moonshinobi can synergize better with Brewie by giving out free poison or having a less impressive drinking contest of their own?  Maybe bushwhackers get a card cycling effect like Mah's new upgrade? Maybe slightly overcosted but cool looking  models like Mancha Roja or the Whiskey golem become cheaper or get extra loving like Montressor did? 1 inch melee on Whiskey Golem??

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3 minutes ago, anumberone said:

  I agree that since gremlins have the least number of players and playtesters it seems like the other factions got great upgrades and ours (besides Ulix's and Mah's) are meh. We should be as vocal as we can, without being outright negative of course, about what we'd like to see for our underplayed faction. 

Overall I think that most players have been more impressed with the upgrades that factions other than the ones they play received. There were some cool Arcanist upgrades that open up some options to their masters but outside of Ironsides, there's nothing that jumps out as obviously increasing the power levels of any of the maters. The big buff for Ironsides is something that she probably should have had from the get go (some automatic Adrenaline generation) and not be forced to take an upgrade to get.

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2 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Overall I think that most players have been more impressed with the upgrades that factions other than the ones they play received. There were some cool Arcanist upgrades that open up some options to their masters but outside of Ironsides, there's nothing that jumps out as obviously increasing the power levels of any of the maters. The big buff for Ironsides is something that she probably should have had from the get go (some automatic Adrenaline generation) and not be forced to take an upgrade to get.

I play guild and I think guild got some borderline broken shit to be honest :) 

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7 hours ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Sammy is also a problem. No other Faction has to worry about a Henchman carrying the Master-specific Upgrades and not caring about Limited status. You could go around it by making the Upgrade give stuff to "Leaders" or whatever but if you're going to go around Sammy, why have her in the first place?

As for favouritism, I think that Dogmantra is correct in that it isn't favouritism per se but more the lack of players and playtesters. Last open beta the Gremlin side was rather quiet though I must say big thanks to the people who had time to test stuff! The models got way, way better as the beta went on. In fact, I think that all Gremlin models started basically unplayable and turned into, if not truly competitive, then at least into something that you can put onto the table and not feel bad.

Justin used to start at the other end - making stuff way too good and then toning down. Which seems like an approach that would favour factions with less testing being done.

I dunno, may be just crazy talk.

I do agree with Loki that the lack of keywords makes things more messy but I'm not sure that future proofing is all that huge a concern - I mean, how many books can they release before they do a more comprehensive relook at the existing stuff (so 2.5 or whatever)?

I'm glad you helped shape wrastlers into something with a niche. I have the sinking feeling that stacking multiple sources of ping damage is going to become very popular in my meta, very quickly... -_-

(Maybe Mancha Roja isn't great for regular play but I have a very healthy respect for him in henchman hardcore. Maybe not with the wrastlers unless you brought two of them and Lenny for wrasslin' crowd control, but still, don't underestimate how badly your opponent's plans can be mucked up by rebounding into the opposing deployment zone.)

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4 hours ago, Adran said:

Pretty sure Oxfordian mages got nothing in Wave 3. They started with the 3 (0) upgrades in book 2. I think you're confusing them with Samurai who gained their 3 (0) upgrades in book 2 after they were published in book 1 . Not saying your point isn't valid, and Bushwackers couldn't do with something to make them better (at least good enough to see the table occasionally) but we haven't seem a mage recieve 2 buffs in that time 

Don't have book on me but:

book 2 they came out with their own upgrades to interact with the master/henchmen (ironsides) upgrades.

They were cost 6 so everyone complained

 

Book 3 they got a 1ss reduction upgrade down to 5ss, they suddenly became great!

Book 4 they all got a free 0 upgrade that lets them prevent even more damage.

 

there is a lot of models that we have that need a free 0 upgrade, although that does not always work.

(warpig still will never be hired) 

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