Brewmaster - The Best Bartender in Malifaux!

The second dual faction Master, The Brewmaster, unknown in Malifaux until he and his Tri Chi (in Greek letters it is XXX, why did I not notice this before?) Gremlins came over the mountains with Shine that exceeded even Somers. So powerful is his Shine that he could take over the Bayou if he was interested, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. What is he here for?

Abilities

Brewmaster, the shiny new master in the Gremlin faction is a cool master to play because he and his “base” crew are so counter intuitive. Brewmaster is all about control, even more so than Zorida. His defense of 5 keeps him in the fight and he has an Ophelia-esque willpower of 6. Brewmaster is a Ht 2 master and as such devour has to be set up against him. Brewmaster must be part mountain goat as well with a respectable walk of 5 and charge of 6. Now onto the cool things Brewmaster brings to the table, Intoxication, that causes enemy models to reduce their Wp stat by the amount of Poison they have, up to a maximum of -3.  This is a great ability since there are many ways to get Poison going in his crew. One of the best abilities is his Another Round, which allows ANY model to take the On The House action a 1/2/3 heal and Poison +1. This is a 3-inch bubble around Brewmaster and you would think that allowing any model to get a free heal would be bad, but as we will see, often enough, they don’t stand a chance. The last thing on the front of Brewmaster’s card is his trigger on defense, You’re Drunk Go Home; it requires a mask and a tome so you have to stone to get it since he has no built in suits onto any of his stats.  This trigger is powerful, after an attack action fails; the attacker is placed into its deployment zone.

Actions

Onto the Brewmaster’s attack actions the first one is Ml 7 (making Brewmaster the strongest Gremlin in melee) and does no damage just gives out Poison +2, even when used as a disengaging strike. On a Crow, you will give out the Swill +1 condition (yes they stack); giving the unlucky recipient of the attack negative flips to all duels and flips. His second action is Hangover, giving out the Swill condition at a 12-inch range on a Ca of 7 with no gun icon so no randomization as well as being able to use it in melee! His last (1) action is an Obey, really, we all should be familiar with this but for those Obey virgins here is the explanation. Obey is a Ca 7, TN 14 Mask attack that lets you target a non-leader enemy model and force it to do a (1) action of your choosing. If you use the obey to force a model to attack, then that model cannot be Obeyed again on the same turn. Note that Brewmaster does not have the Mask built into either his cast, so you need a Mask in hand or a Soul Stone to make this action happen. Brewmaster has two (0) actions the first one being One For The Road, a Ca 7 that gives out Poison +2 and gives Brewmaster a 6” push towards that model. His last action, and only tactical action, is his (0) Drinking Contest. Drinking Contest is the bread and butter action on the Brewmaster’s’ card. Until the end of the turn, enemy models within 3-inches must succeed on a Wp 12 duel or take the On The House action instead. This combined with Wesley can lower a models Wp by a maximum of 4 and then force them to either spend cards cheating the duel or heal and gain more Poison, thus keeping the Wp low for the Brewmaster and his crew to be able to tee off on the model.

Upgrades

Binge

This Upgrade give Brewmaster another attack action at Ca 7 with no randomization and able to use it in engagement range. The great thing about this is that your opponent must discard a card and depending on what the suit of the card is, determines the effects of the spell.

• On a Mask, you get a (1) AP action that you control. Basically, another Obey except this one is not restricted by the attack clause. 
• On a Tome, the target gains the Inebriated condition and loses all suits printed on its Ml, Df, Wp, Ca and Sh for the rest of the game!
• On a Crow, the target gains the Paralyzed condition
• On a Ram, the target suffers 4 damage

As you can see, since this can target any model, it can be an effective way to rid your opponent of cards since the only cards that have no effect are the Jokers. Also, remember that this is a (1) action, so Wesley can use his Magical Extension and you can drop 4 cards from your opponents hand per turn.

Hold Their Hair Back

This gives Brewmaster as attack action that swaps the Poison +3 on a model for Paralyze.  Again, he has a Ca of 7 with a 10-inch range but the resist is defense instead of willpower. This is important to remember since almost all of the Brewmaster’s attacks target Wp. The key to this is to spread poison about and then hit up to 3 enemy models with Paralyze, possibly 4 with Wesley. This is a lot easier to say than to do since the opponent won’t just let you poison their models willy-nilly!

Running Tab

This gives the Brewmaster the Pay Up (1) action that allows him to discard all scheme markers within 4-inches and heal an amount of damage equal to the scheme makers discarded.  While this can be a good ability in a scheme marker heavy scheme pool the real reason to take it is for the Kegger ability that allows Brewmaster to hire any Tri-Chi models regardless of its faction. This one upgrade allows Brewmaster to hire his entire crew even when declared as Ten Thunder since he is the only dual faction model and everyone else is just Gremlin.

The Good Stuff

This upgrade gives Brewmaster a Ml 5 attack that does 1/2/4 damage but gets a positive to the attack and damage if the target has poison. This gives Brewmaster a reliable way to put out damage but at the cost of spreading the poison around.

Overall

Overall, the Brewmaster is all about controlling the opponent whether through giving them negative flips, through Poison, and through his (0) action of Drinking Contest. What Brewmaster brings to the table is the ability to not only support his crew, but also the ability to interrupt the enemies plans with his Obeys, and Binge. Park Brewmaster in one spot and just start flinging the Shine around. Let the Shinobi do the heavy lifting of damage and objective taking, they are great at both.  Fingers is a model that really fits in well, being able to target models and give them Poison +3 on one attack is a nice setup to Paralyze the model with Brewmaster. Don’t forget about the Whiskey Golem! His presence in the crew as an escort for Wesley and the Brewmaster works well with their Wp dropping auras and will help to keep him on the field as well. Keeping him within 6-inches of Brewmaster means that any model that attacks the Golem and has the Poison condition is forced to pass a Wp 15 duel at negatives to their Wp for the Poison, or gain more poison and end its activation. Brewmaster and his crew can be a tough nut to crack, but they are also a tough crew to get the hang of. Most people are concerned with the damage dealing potential of a model, and as we have seen, the crew actually doesn’t do a ton of damage.  The play style is so different from the Kin and even Zorida; in fact, I don’t think that there is another crew that plays this way. So if you want a refreshing change of pace and a ton of fun alcoholic references then pick up Brewmaster, guaranteed to have fun no matter what!