What are the key play styles of gremlins? Pt 3 The Brewmaster

Last but certainly not least is the Brewmaster. His style of play on his base card is very different from either Somer or Ophelia.


He is more of a passive controller but of the up-close variety. His base attack does no damage but does poison the target. When used in conjunction with his (0) action Drinking Contest this is a good way to try to keep Brewmaster safe from harm. He can Hangover models to make them suffer negative flips on all duels and flips until the end of the turn. This Attack Action has a range of twelve inches so he can do it from range as well as up close and personal to make that big scary model that is threatening him a lot less threatening. Now why would those models be less threatening? The answer is in his Intoxication ability that states that all enemy models lower their willpower by the current Poison value up to -3. This allows Brewmaster to create a bubble of about three inches that he can control. The three inch bubble comes from his (0) Drinking Contest that makes enemy models succeed on a TN 12 willpower duel or take Another Round, heal 1/2/3 damage and gain more Poison.  The Brewmaster is a master that I highly recommend bringing his totem all the time. The ability to drop a models willpower by four (-3 from Brewmaster and -1 from the totem) and the fact that his totem becomes the Brewmaster, should he be killed, is amazing. The upgrades I normally always take with him are Binge and Hold Their Hair Back. With the Binge upgrade, it allows you to control your adversaries hand by making them discard a card and get different effects based on what they discard. This Attack Action has a willpower resist so it can make it easy for Brewmaster to drop a models willpower and then make your opponent discard cards. Hold Their Hair back allows Brewmaster to Paralyze anything that has the Poison +3 condition or greater. So if you are facing the lovely Dr. McMourning you can paralyze the Flesh Constructs easily.

 I’ll share the funniest moments I’ve had with the Brewmaster as written by Sevorin, also was the first game that I “got” what he was supposed to do.

Nicodem + Maniacal Laugh, Reaper Grin, Undertaker,

Mortimer: Corpse Bloat

Sybelle: Not too Banged Up, Bleeding Tongue

Rotten Belle x3 (Pink, Blue, and Red)

Graveyard Spirit

Scheme's selected: Assassinate, Line in the Sand (announced)

Brewmaster: The Good stuff, Binge, Liquid Bravery,

Moon Shinobi x4 (M1, M2, M3, M4)

Fingers: Dirty Cheater, Drinking Problem

Apprentice Wesley

Scheme's Selected: Bodyguard, Power Ritual (both unannounced)

Nicodem's (My evil) Plan:

I've only played against the BM one other time, he didn't seem too difficult to kill, so I giggle manically thinking about ending this little drunk. I set my crew up with plans to hit the center and work towards getting Line in the sand.

Brewmaster's Plan

My opponent set M1 to his own far right corner, and his other Shinobi's to his far left. BM, Wesley, and Fingers all set up in center. His plan is to drop Power Ritual Markers and have BM, Wesley, and Fingers try to harry my crew while his little twae-kon-dodo's get their objectives.

Turn Sequence

Turn 1: Brewmaster wins initiative.

M1 drops marker, advances straight forward with the corner of the board in front of him in mind. M4 on the other side does the same. M3 moves ahead of M4 and M2 double moves diagonally towards the center. Wesley, and Fingers all move towards the center as well.

Pink Belle begins to move towards M1, determined to stop him from performing his little drunk rituals anywhere near my crew. Blue belle and Red belle double walk diagonally towards the right side with the idea of stopping the other 2 drunk Shinobi from performing their little "power ritual" as well (relieving themselves in the corner?). Sybelle double walks behind them for support.

Brewmaster sees an opportunity to play a little with the fat Madame and double moves toward center, gets her in his sights and uses "Pick Yer Poison", I'm not too excited about any of the choices, so I go with Hooch. Sybelle suddenly decides the two belles (or is it 4? She's seeing double now) in front of her aren't doing their jobs and yells at them (Shriek). Confused, the belles get hit from behind hard (sever flip). Red takes 5 dmg, Blue takes 3 dmg.

Mortimer rips his spleen out onto the ground, grunting in pain. The Graveyard spirit next to him soothes him a little. Then he digs a hole next to the spleen and finds a corpse!

Nicodem raises two zombies with a maniacal laughter, and summons a fully healed hanged (saccing both zombies and drawing 2 cards). He then gives the Hanged fast, and moves up behind a pillar. The Hanged triple moves into base to base with the Brewmaster.

Turn 2: Brewmaster wins Initiative.

Brewmaster activates and yells, "Don't worry boys, dis stuff isn't scary!" (0 action +2 wp 10" bubble) and shows his boys how it's done. He grabs the Hanged and forces whiskey down his throat (Swig of Shine), then uses Hangover on him. The Brewmaster then tells the Hanged ,"See that fat, tipsy, old lady over there? Talk with her about the beyond (Obeys). The Hanged (who at this point feels quite inebriated) decides this little fella ain't so bad, so does what he says (Whisper from beyond Sybelle), but due to the fact he was hung over (neg flip) he misses Sybelle. The Brewmaster finishes out by giving the Hanged liver damage (1 dmg).

Mortimer digs through his body again looking for another spleen. Apparently finds another one. Graveyard spirit once again pats him on his head while he whimpers in pain. He then gets to work with his shovel looking for another corpse.

Fingers, encouraged by The Brewmaster's bravery, walks forward and smacks the Hanged while giggling incorrigibly (Hanged goes to poison 5), and then walks away (hanged misses).

Pink Belle lures M1, thinking about getting her claws into that little bastards, she lures him again and BJ's it. Moon Shinobi 1 yells, "Is that all ya got?"and charges the Pink Belle doing 5 dmg.

Nicodem starts laughing again and two zombies rise. He summons a Punk Zombie, gives it fast, and tries to Decay his Pink Belle. The Moon Shinobi becomes the target instead, but still gets a severe, doing 3 damage to M1, and healing the Pink Belle 2.

Wesley focuses and uses Pick yer Poison on the Hanged. Doesn't work, the hanged is drunk enough!

The Punk zombie moves, then charges the little bastard who is beating on the Pink Belle, kills it dead.

Red Belle lures in the Moon Shinobi (M2) that is trying to make his way to the center to give Fingers, Brewmaster, and Wesley some back up. They each attack savagely, putting some damage on him, and he pushes away.

M3 and M4 take off towards the opposite corner, so they can perform a ritual (again, I think they are just drunk relieving theirselves in the corners).

Blue Belle Lures Fingers into her clutches, and the clutches of the Red Belle next to her. The pounce on him when he gets near (low damage) and he pushes back to where he was (trigger).

The Hanged is pretty much too inebriated to do anything, deciding he likes his new drinking buddy, The Brewmaster and the Hanged stumble over each other singing.

My opponent declares Bodyguard on Fingers

Turn 3: Nicodem wins initiative.

Nicodem looks over to Sybelle and starts chanting (gives Sybelle fast), continuing his chanting he looks to the Punk Zombie (same) he then moves up to get closer to the action in the middle and stops behind a large rock (3" up and diameter). He laughs again, and more zombies rise (2).

(at this point my partner, who was recording what was going on as well, stopped writing, so the paper I have from him is blank after turn 2. I will try to remember what he did as best as I can).

The Brewmaster activates and Picks Yer Poison on the Hanged. At this point, I decide the Hanged doesn't matter much, other than tying that middle up so I pick Grog (suffer 4 damage). He 0's +2 wp, and gives Hangover to the Hanged. I'm unsure what his other action was.

Sybelle activates and charges The Brewmaster. I spend a stone for a crow, and in my hand I have a 13, 13, and Red Joker (with other cards). I saw my opponent already used a Red Joker, only had 3 cards and 1 stone, I knew I had him. I hit, and do 2 damage, he discards two cards. 2nd attack I stone for a crow, he cheats up, I cheat to equal and pray the BJ doesn't show. It doesn't. The Brewmaster dies (Assassinate accomplished). But never fear! Wesley sees his hero go down and decides he is now The Brewmaster! He charges in to Walks up to Sybelle and uses Drinking Contest and hangover on Sybelle.

The Punk Zombie moves up towards the middle, places a Line in the Sand, and moves closer to the new Brewmaster. 2 Zombies move (one closer to Nicodem, and one next to the new Brewmaster).

The 2 Moon Shinobi (M3 and 4) move down to the corner.

The Hanged (finally coming out of his drunken stupor) whispers twice on the new Brewmaster, pulls a success both times (passing his wp checks). Fingers recklesses, heals himself and realizing the sh*t just hit the fan, gets the hell outta dodge (heads towards the corner with M3 and M4 to keep himself alive).

M2 charges Red Belle, killing her.

Pink Belle walks, drops a Line in the Sand counter.

Blue Belle double walks to middle.

Mortimer walks forward and takes 3 damage, dropping another spleen (ok, this guy has a lot of spleens).

Grave spirit pushes up to base with Morty (at this point I realize I have not been using him to make my opponent discard a card! My opponent is out of cards so thats all he does).

The Hanged dies to poison.

Brewmaster scores for Bodyguard. Nicodem scores for Assassinate

Since this is turning out pretty long I will summarize the rest of the turns.

Turn 4: Nicodem wins Initiative.

Alas poor Wesley, we knew him well. And we still know him. He's that zombie, right there. Wave to him. (Yes. My Zombie killed the new Brewmaster).

The Shinobi in the corner, with Fingers, drop a Power Ritual (or just relieve themselves in the corner).

Nicodem Summons a new Belle with 2 zombies (card draw gives me a 13 of crows), then summons a Hanged hoping to send them out to search for that little slippery bastard that got away (Fingers). Blue Belle tries to move forward (he was at 18 and 1/4 inches away!! Booo) and Lure...no more Too Banged Up (cause Sybelle died to Moon Shinobi 2) and I ended up luring Fingers in such a way that it caused him to go out of LoS from the rest of my models (they were too far away, anyhow).

Nicodem scores for Recon. Brewmaster scores for Bodyguard.

Turn 5: Brewmaster wins initiative.

Nothing to point out here considering my models were too far away to try to kill Fingers, and I had no LoS to be able to lure him, so it wasn't happening. I moved everything towards Finger's general area just in case we got a turn 6.

Nicodem scores for Recon. Brewmaster scores for Bodyguard.

I flip a 5 for possible turn 6. Game ends.

Highlights

The Hanged being completely hammered made for a lot of laughs from both of us. Moons Shinobi against hard to wound models make them just go nuts. Fingers and Moon Shinobi kept pushing out of combat with Belles and Sybelle (My opponent only flips high masks for defense apparently, we got a good laugh out of the amount of masks he flipped...it was ridiculous).

Outcome

Nicodem: 8VP (Recon 2, Assassinate 3, Line in the Sand 3)

Brewmaster: 6 (Bodyguard 3, Power Ritual 3)

Nicodem wins.