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Insectophile


wobbly_goggy

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I've read a few disparaging or dismissive comments about this new upgrade, and I'd like to try and balance this with some positive ideas. Disclaimer - I played this for the first time in an experimental game playing Interference as the strategy.  My intention is to encourage people to think outside the box or look for the potential value of everything.

OK, so here goes, here's what I gave Som'er:

Insectophile, Family Tree, Can O'Beans.

Healing? He has a slop hauler next to him. He is also accompanied by a Taxidermist.

Each turn (ideally) he summons two gremlins, then kills one with his Pig Prodder to summon a Skeeter. (last night I started with two as well).  To make sure you summon the Skeers or Som'er use 'Do it like dis' to give crows or masks as appropriate. Som'er draws two cards for a gremlin dying and the dying gremlin also drops a corpse marker which the Taxidermist turns into a Stuffed Piglet.

So far so normal. BUT WHY WOULDN'T YOU JUST SUMMON A PIGLET??

There are a number of reasons. Peons can be annoying. Really annoying to your opponent. Especially if it can fly 20". Remember that in Interference (which is what I played last night), engaged models do not count. With an extra two or three activations generated by this move, you should be out activating your opponent, so well placed Skeeters can engage enemies that have activated and deny points. Peons also count for nothing when Bounty Hunting. 

Of course they're Df7 with Ml6 and + to disengaging strikes. Basically, they're amazing.

Did I mention there's no limit to how many you can have? You can hire 2, but they have no rare value. The sky is the (horribly buzzing) limit with summoning skeeters. Hold them back in reserve and then annoy the hell out of your opponent, or send continual road blocks to slow them down. Remember, even if they get swatted, the effort needed to take one down by even decent models is far more than their SS worth. And those skeeters WILL get killed, but when they do, they'll drop corpse markers which your Taxidermist can make use of...

I managed to summon a gremlin and a skeeter every turn in a five turn game. That's seven skeeters over the course of the game including the 2 I hired. 

This is before mentioning their normal tricks - Pull my finger all over the place, loads of 'Quit Screwin' around!' auras all over the shop... yes please

And whilst your opponent is getting annoyed with your skeeters and wasting time killing them, you're achieving other objectives.

Remember folks, Malifaux isn't just about killing your opponent, especially when you're playing gremlins... your own chaps are a resource to be used ruthlessly!

Any inaccuracies please let me know, any thoughts more than welcome! 

 

EDIT: just remembered this is a great way to get access to more models /totems even if you have hired old Cranky and he's been killed.

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Out of curiosity how are you managing to kill Bayou Gremlins consistently with 1AP from Som'er due to min damage 1? Hoping for lucky flips or is there more going on under the surface?

I don't think this upgrade is bad. I think it provides something Som'er already sort of has, but in a slightly different and probably improved way, so it usually gets left on the shelf because people want to bring 3 upgrades on him already.

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6 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

Out of curiosity how are you managing to kill Bayou Gremlins consistently with 1AP from Som'er due to min damage 1? Hoping for lucky flips or is there more going on under the surface?

I know how one of my opponents did it after turn 1, he would use Git your Bro on a Bayou gremlin with 3 wds left from the previous turn so that it would take 2 damage leaving it at 1wd left for the skeeter *did the same thing before for piglets*.

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On 11/11/2017 at 12:55 AM, Dogmantra said:

Out of curiosity how are you managing to kill Bayou Gremlins consistently with 1AP from Som'er due to min damage 1? Hoping for lucky flips or is there more going on under the surface?

I don't think this upgrade is bad. I think it provides something Som'er already sort of has, but in a slightly different and probably improved way, so it usually gets left on the shelf because people want to bring 3 upgrades on him already.

Easy - 'git yer bro' takes 2 damage off each. So you just need moderate. (remember I summoned one gremlin and one skeeter each turn, so a couple of times I whacked him twice for the skeeter). Rather than relenting, Som'er and the gremlin both flip. If you've got terrible cards, the gremli cheats down (you're getting two cards for killing him) and Som'er cheats up a bit if he needs to

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On 11/11/2017 at 12:55 AM, Dogmantra said:

I don't think this upgrade is bad. I think it provides something Som'er already sort of has, but in a slightly different and probably improved way, so it usually gets left on the shelf because people want to bring 3 upgrades on him already.

Exactly. I'm not saying it's the best thing ever, but in certain strat/scheme pools, it could definitely have a place

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1 hour ago, wobbly_goggy said:

Easy - 'git yer bro' takes 2 damage off each. So you just need moderate. (remember I summoned one gremlin and one skeeter each turn, so a couple of times I whacked him twice for the skeeter). Rather than relenting, Som'er and the gremlin both flip. If you've got terrible cards, the gremli cheats down (you're getting two cards for killing him) and Som'er cheats up a bit if he needs to

hm, needing moderate puts me off a bit, I'm totally cool with one master AP to get a skeeter, but two is starting to stretch it imo. I suppose a more guaranteed (other than BJ of course) way would be to add in Lenny, and have your Skeeter boy go drunk and reckless near him to start for 1 extra damage. Although is that worth the extra stones for Lenny? Hmm, who can say.

I do also think that in general Som'er's melee gets a bad rep. Min damage 1 is pretty awful, but 4/5 moderate/severe is nice, and if you have Sammy hold Encouragement, you can get double positives on charge attacks fairly cheaply. I also like it against models with Hard to Kill, because it lets you fairly reliably get fresh piglets (or skeeters with this upgrade)

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50 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

hm, needing moderate puts me off a bit, I'm totally cool with one master AP to get a skeeter, but two is starting to stretch it imo. I suppose a more guaranteed (other than BJ of course) way would be to add in Lenny, and have your Skeeter boy go drunk and reckless near him to start for 1 extra damage. Although is that worth the extra stones for Lenny? Hmm, who can say.

I do also think that in general Som'er's melee gets a bad rep. Min damage 1 is pretty awful, but 4/5 moderate/severe is nice, and if you have Sammy hold Encouragement, you can get double positives on charge attacks fairly cheaply. I also like it against models with Hard to Kill, because it lets you fairly reliably get fresh piglets (or skeeters with this upgrade)

Yeah I get that. In Interference where I tend to play him hanging back anyway, it's not a waste of AP unless someone has shot over quickly  and is up in his face 

As always depends on strats and schemes...

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1 hour ago, Dogmantra said:

hm, needing moderate puts me off a bit, I'm totally cool with one master AP to get a skeeter, but two is starting to stretch it imo. I suppose a more guaranteed (other than BJ of course) way would be to add in Lenny, and have your Skeeter boy go drunk and reckless near him to start for 1 extra damage. Although is that worth the extra stones for Lenny? Hmm, who can say.

I do also think that in general Som'er's melee gets a bad rep. Min damage 1 is pretty awful, but 4/5 moderate/severe is nice, and if you have Sammy hold Encouragement, you can get double positives on charge attacks fairly cheaply. I also like it against models with Hard to Kill, because it lets you fairly reliably get fresh piglets (or skeeters with this upgrade)

To be fair I can't think of any summons off hand in this game that go off on a low card. With do it like dis Somer doesn't need the suit and with bayou 2 card and encouragement shouldn't be too hard to get to a straight flip to get the moderate and the summon does have a nice pay off. 

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Oh defo, it's just that in the case of an attack based summon where you need moderate, there are more moving parts and it's difficult to guarantee because the "TNs" depend on what you flip rather than static numbers. You know you need an 8 for Git Yer Bro, but to get the 6+ margin between attack and defense you could need to cheat the attack up, the defense down, or both depending on what you flip and your hand, plus a moderate damage just to be safe. I think it's probably not as much of a risk as it feels to me, but I tend to prefer a sure thing; if you play a bit more fast and loose it probably works quite well. Encouragement is a good idea.

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13 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

I think it's probably not as much of a risk as it feels to me, but I tend to prefer a sure thing; if you play a bit more fast and loose it probably works quite well.

Fast and loose?! Sir, we are gremlins players! Surely we should be playing in character!!! And we've always got Bayou Two Card to help us out :D

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Just looking at her stat card, skeeters wouldnt be good for tieing up perdita. She can push out of the engagement before doing anything with relocate, or her totem can give her pushes. Not to mention her gun is sh 7 so it's equal to skeeters def, and since she's engaged her min dmg goes to 3. I think perdita could deal with them easily enough.

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40 minutes ago, Finalscene said:

Just looking at her stat card, skeeters wouldnt be good for tieing up perdita. She can push out of the engagement before doing anything with relocate, or her totem can give her pushes. Not to mention her gun is sh 7 so it's equal to skeeters def, and since she's engaged her min dmg goes to 3. I think perdita could deal with them easily enough.

That's just  master....same could be said of anyone who can push out of combat :) 

she also needs to be able to activate to do that, if she's been already and then gets engaged...? Perdita crews can sometimes be easy to out activate with gremlins.

Not saying it's perfect, but worth considering depending on the circumstances, ie strat, scheme, opponent

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23 hours ago, Finalscene said:

Just looking at her stat card, skeeters wouldnt be good for tieing up perdita. She can push out of the engagement before doing anything with relocate, or her totem can give her pushes. Not to mention her gun is sh 7 so it's equal to skeeters def, and since she's engaged her min dmg goes to 3. I think perdita could deal with them easily enough.

Thats all true, but there are 2 points - Firstly, a crew is more than just the master, so you can use them to stop someone else, and secondly, if Perdita is trying to kill your Skeetars, then she isn't doing as much elsewhere, which still isn't too bad for you. And I'll happily trade a high card from my hand to waste one of her AP, or one of her high cards

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Devil's advocate-

Comparing to just summoning 3 Bayous.

3 Bayous- Need- 1 mask, 3 8+, 3 bayous, 1 Do it like dis

Skeeter Summon- Need, mask, crow, 2 8+, 9+ (stuffed), and to make sure you get a moderate on the attack (cant really quantify)., possibly 2 do it like dis

So clearly the 2nd needs more of a perfect storm of cards. Lets say both are successful. What do you get for your effort.

3 bayous (1 extra SS for upgrade) vs bayou, Skeeter, stuffed, 2 cards. Given the increased card intensity we can say the 2 cards are a wash (mixed with the extra SS). So now we are looking at 3 models vs 3 models. Its hard for me to say the Skeeter/stuffed vs 2 bayous is even an upgrade. Depends on the need for significant models to do schemes/strats. 

"cute" is the best word i can use to describe it. Too many moving parts to rely upon and there will be plenty of corpses (and in better location) for the taxidermist so the benefit of the "extra" stuffed piglet is turn 1 at best.  I dont think doing this turn 3+ does much and Somer shooting is usually stronger. 

I think the people who do it to get a piglet waste AP as well, so not really knocking the skeeter version, just like sammie summoning i think AP is best spent differently 

In the end, i dont think id ever consider doing this in tourny and find the 1ss for the chance at a skeeter (when i could just get a piglet in its place) is mediocre .

If you enjoy it, and pull it off I am sure the extra skeeters can get annoying for the enemy. 

 

 

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