Tourney Report from NC

[Mxbedlam]

Hey swamp dwellers! 

This weekend I went over to a tournament at Game Theory in Raleigh, NC.  I had decided to solo Brewmaster and see how he did, especially after the podcast coming out, I needed to prove that i knew what I was talking about. Time in the shop was limited and rounds were very tight. We had 7 hours to play the full 3 round tournament, so I leaned on what i knew best over a master like Somer or Wong who can take time to play. 

Round 1: Playing vs a guy named Jon from up in the VA meta. 

Wedge Idols.

 Detonate Charges
Harness the Ley Line
Hold Up Their Forces
Outflank
Take Prisoner

He took Yan Lo, Soul Porter, Chiaki, Dead Rider, Archie, Manos and Izamu. 

I brought: Brew (coffee), wesley, Trixie, Golem, Fingers, Popcorn Shinobi and Tanuki. 

I knew I wanted to get brewie in the middle and drag as many people in as possible. I was worried about Archie as he's a very difficult model for the crew to deal with. My opponent played pretty aggressively and dropped Izamu, Manos and Yan to the middle very quickly. On turn 2, Brew went first and hit Yan really hard, so much so that he needed to flip a Severe on a Stone to survive. He did... Yan escaped with 1 HP left and healed back up to 7.  Meanwhile Popcorn rolled around using breath of fire to poison chiaki and kill the soul porter. Archie failed to hit the shinobi.  

On turn 3, Yan killed brewie from range. Whiskey golem killed Manos. I finally managed to get my first Hold Forces point. 

Turn 4 we were almost out of time. He scored Outflank, I got my second Hold Forces and First Harness.  We ended up 5-4 in a very tight game that probably wouldn't have gone well for me with one more turn to play. 

 

Round 2: 

Reckoning on Corner

Harness the Leylines

Claim Jump

Assassinate

Vendetta

Dig Graves

He brought: Colette, 3 doves, Angelica, Greed, Swarm (Diesel Engine), Show Girl, Mannequin, Silent One (magical training)

I brought: Brewie (coffee), wes, Cooper, Golem, Porkchop, Emissary, Akaname, Tanuki. 

So I knew I couldn't kill Colette easily and my crew wasn't very geared towards Vendetta so I took Claim Jump on the Porkchop because of its ability to jump around and heal itself. I took Harness cause on a diagonal center line its just easy.  I knew I'd have a hard time stopping his Harness but he wouldn't be able to take down my stuff easily either. 

Turn 1 we shuffled stuff around, nothing big. Envy shot at Whiskey GOlem who just healed back up thanks to Cooper. Cooper summoned a gamin.  Turn 2 emissary steam rolled over the mannequin and showgirl and back out of the way of the steam arachnid. The arachnid chaged the Golem and didn't do much damage. Cooper healed him up and shielded him then summoned a gamin. Opponent realised he messed up and realised the golem now had vent steam protection from his arachnid but tried to get off shots anyway only to miss. Brew master punched the arachnid into spare parts. Colette came in,  hit the porkchop then buried. Porkchop grabbed an akaname scrap and healed up. Turn 3 Colette tried to deny my harness the leylines but thanks to hitting the Tanuki resist trigger I got to drop another marker. Emissary steam rolled to eat two of his markers.  Gamin raced to the corners. Markers went everywhere. I scored my Harness and claim jump. 

Turn 4 we had 5 minutes, decided to do 3 activations each. He scored 1 for reckoning, 1 for harness and 1 for vendetta. I scored 1 for reckoning, 2 for claim jump and 1 for harness. Getting me the 4-3 win. 

Round 3

Flank Turf war

Break through

Deliver Message

Power Ritual
Search Ruins

Vendetta

He took: Dreamer, Chompy (Inhuman Reflexes), 2 Stitched (Ancient Pact), Daydream, Serena Bowman, Zoraida

I took: Brewie (Coffee), Wesley, Popcorn, Emissary, Cooper, Akaname, Golem, and Rami.

My goal here was to use the Emissary and Popcorn to get Power ritual for me and then go threaten things in the backfield while Brewie gummed up the works in the middle. Rami is a powerful tool to wipe support models off and flip markers at range. Zoraida really messed up these plans. She spent the whole game double obeying the EMissary to steam roll away and the board was such that he couldn't really get away from her, nor did I want her to be uncontested out there causing havoc. I spent 2 turns just trying to figure out how to deal with the combo of Dreamer Z and finally by the 3rd turn I had a handle on it, but we'd played to time thanks mostly to my having to stall through figuring things out. Ray brought this list mostly to prove how disgusting it is, and I have to agree. I think if we played again it would be a much much closer game but I don't know that I would have been able to win regardless. I ended up 6-2 loss and getting mid table with 8th place out of 16. 

 

It was a very fun day, I think I proved that Brewmaster is a force to be reckoned with. I was one Zoraida away from taking second place (top player, Cody, had a huge diff that I couldn't touch even if I'd won). I felt very confident about my scheme choices and my list building and would probably play the same lists over if I were to do it again. 

[Steve-El-Tragger]

Thanks for your report. 

I am wondering what the coffee on brewy is for. Do you take it for Diversion or do you use it to load brewy full with focus turn 1?

[Mxbedlam]

Its 90% for Diversion, but Mark Territory came in handy in round 1.  Basically, 3 poison on a model within 4 inches of Brewie means they get 1 Action when they activate Period. Its how you play him as a hard control master. He and Trixie lure people in, or he just goes balls to the wall in on them and locks at least 2 models down.  With 1 Action and the incredible amount of healing in the crew, it means Brew can be aggressive and still stay safe.  Mark Territory means that Brew is safe from Detonate and the 2nd point of Deliver a Message as well.  If the scrum is in the middle of the board, he can help deny Harness the Leylines too. 

[Maciej]

@Mrbedlam

I am very happy you wrothe this report. Gave me a lot of new instingt on brewmaster. So far I considered him the weakest of my masters (him or Wong). I really like the idea of 10 cups of coffee on Brewmaster. 

I am surpirsed though you consider his Intoication usefull. Usualy when I play him my enemies usualy take 2x condition removal (2x tanui vs TT or Serena Bowman/Eldrich Magic in NVB) which renders my posion useless if not immediately used by Blood Poisoning. 

 

[OracleToronto]

34 minutes ago, Maciej said:

@Mrbedlam

I am very happy you wrothe this report. Gave me a lot of new instingt on brewmaster. So far I considered him the weakest of my masters (him or Wong). I really like the idea of 10 cups of coffee on Brewmaster. 

I am surpirsed though you consider his Intoication usefull. Usualy when I play him my enemies usualy take 2x condition removal (2x tanui vs TT or Serena Bowman/Eldrich Magic in NVB) which renders my posion useless if not immediately used by Blood Poisoning. 

 

 condition removal can be brutal - though usually the amount of ap and points the opponent has to spend to make that big of a dent on your poison tends to balance it out. MY most hated opponent is Lady J. Her conditional removal bubble is super powerful. Especially as its not her bonus action so she can leap in do a 4" pulse that strips the conditions off of all her models and yours! (minus Lady J herself). 

Last game against her I decided to mitigate how much I relied on poison and instead built the "mostly construct" crew. Only to find out she has a bunch of anti summoning tech as well making Cooper far less effective (she also tends to deny you dropping corpse or scrap markers when you die). So I thought "fine I will still build a construct crew but instead of relying on Whiskey Gamin I will bring Sparks, Porkchop and a survivor. That way I can use "bombs in your belly" on my my Whiskey Golem and Porkchop and litter the board with produced scrap markers from Porkchop and the Survivors (as well as Akaname) This will give me some "ride the rails" shenanigans as well as vent steam and scrap markers creating a ton of hazardous terrain which means I can slowly shred their health when they activate.... or so I thought. It turns out Lady J has easy access to corpse and scrap removal through her Exorcists. 

 

To date that is the only Malifaux game that I conceded in Turn 4 because I had no options to use any of the tricks or tech I brought. Don't get me wrong Brewmaster himself is a great counter to Lady J herself, as he can get locked up with her and she can't get the poison off of herself so it becomes fairly easy to get 3+ poison on her making her activate slow with no bonus action while within 4" of Brewy (the 12 cups of coffee is a must!)

 

  

[Mxbedlam]

On 10/5/2019 at 12:49 PM, Maciej said:

@Mrbedlam

I am very happy you wrothe this report. Gave me a lot of new instingt on brewmaster. So far I considered him the weakest of my masters (him or Wong). I really like the idea of 10 cups of coffee on Brewmaster. 

I am surpirsed though you consider his Intoication usefull. Usualy when I play him my enemies usualy take 2x condition removal (2x tanui vs TT or Serena Bowman/Eldrich Magic in NVB) which renders my posion useless if not immediately used by Blood Poisoning. 

 

Kill the condition removing models first. If you tie them up or pull them into the intox bubble, they only have 1 AP and a LOT of healing and condition removal are on bonus actions. Knowing your opponent's crew is pretty crucial to proper control play. 

He is in no way the weakest master in the faction, I don't think he's in Mah, Z or Somer's class but he is very tough and difficult to deal with if your opponent doesn't have a proper plan.