zaterdag 25 januari 2014

Gremlin dissection: bayou gremlins

In this dissection we have a look at the humble bayou gremlin. He is really the bread and butter of the faction and I’ll try to explain what tactics can be used in conjunction with this minion.





The stats
This minion is fairly average in his stats. There is nothing that jumps out at you and it should because you are paying only 3 soulstones for this critter. He is one of the lowest costing significant models that is also very versatile in what it can do on the board. He only has 4 Wounds and a WP of 4. He has a WK of 5 and a Charge of 7, which can give him a 13’ threat range if needed.
Overall, you get what you pay for cannonfodder to use when needed.


The skills
He has an interesting ability: Bayou Two Card. This allows him to cheat the top card from his deck. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you don’t want to spend a high card to cheat a low flip, why not use this ability to improve your duel. You can get lucky and draw a 13 of rams or get a 1 of crows.
Remember that you can Cheat Fate here and so can also cheat you damage flip if you wanted to (and can of course)

The next one is Drunk & Reckless. This ability gives you 1AP at the expense of 2 wounds. You have to declare it at the start of your turn, so think before you start to move. I normally don’t have a problem with my opponents if I do an action first and then say I’ve taken this ability, but in tournaments you need to watch out and try to remember it.

You can reduce the wounds however with the help of Lenny. More on this later.

The last one is High Pitched Squeel. This is a defensive trigger on a mask which lets you push away after a Ml attack. Normally the gremlin is dead after the first strike, but it’s still a fun ability to have.


The actions
He has 2 actions.
The first one is Boomstick. It has a Shooting of 4 and a Rg of 12. The damage is a low 1/2/3(blast), but that’s not all the shooting attack does. He has 4 triggers on his gun and you need to declare a trigger if possible. So, You’ll always have to use one and this can be an disadvantage as well.
The triggers that you need to declare are all suit related. One is the Dumb luck trigger which allows you to deal double damage and you suffer half. Another one is Whoops, Ricochet which deals 1 damage to friendly gremlin within 12 and LoS(so if you can’t see anything the trigger doesn’t go off). The next one, What if … more powder?, gives you more blasts on your attack. And the last on, I got ‘im, Pa!, pushes you 3’’ toward the enemy target.

The second attack is a basic Ml attack of 4 (Banjo Bash) and a range of 1. The damage is a low 1/2/3. There are no triggers. It can be useful if you only need to do 1 Wd on a model before it is dead, otherwise you know that your bayou gremlin isn’t on the board at the end of the next turn.


The tricks
It’s a minion, so you can’t take upgrades with this model.

The upgrades that work with this model is: Show off
This allows you to take a 2 action and make a casting flip. If you succeed everything in a range of 2 suffer 3 pulse damage. This is a nice one to give to Lenny since he is Ht 3 and I’ll only use this if I’ve got a lot of gremlins at my disposal. You need to sacrifice the model afterwards. So it can be a help in reckoning if you see that your gremlin is about to die. Blow him up before your opponent has the chance to kill him / her.


The looks
I really like the look of the new models. I am going to buy the new box set because you need to differentiate between the models. I own all the old bayou gremlins twice, so if I have 4 other gremlins, then there will be no more discussion about who was summoned and who had some wounds ect.
I like the attitudes of the models as well. They look vicious and mean, a bit less cartoony than the old models (which I find a bit sad).


The playbook
You can see the gremlin in a few different ways.
First he can be a resource. You need them to summon more gremlins with Somer. So you will need at least 2 or 3 to get the summoning train on the rails. And if you lose one early you need to have a backup or two just in case. So stock up on this little minion.

Secondly they can be bought to out-activate your opponent. They are cheap; so if you buy of them then you only have spend  12 points. If you buy 8 you’ve only spend 24 soulstones. These 8 models are probably more than your whole opponent’s crew.

Now why do you want lots of these gremlins? Well in certain scenarios like reconnoiter and stake a claim you need the models to achieve your objectives. The same can be said for certain schemes like plant explosives or breakthrough. All you need to do is spread out a bit and your opponent needs to divide his troops in order to deal with your VP scoring threat.


Another thing to think about is that these models are fast. It isn’t ap

parent in their profile, but with the ability to gain an extra AP you can move 15’’ on the board. That’s almost half of the table turn 1. You need to take 2 wounds but in the next turn you can lay down a scheme marker on the center line or interact with terrain or other models in the enemies half of the table. That alone is huge. You have mobility and speed to counter any model that threathens to come close. In a last resort, run him in and let him explode or tie the model up for a turn (use defensive stance then) so he can’t make that move that was crucial for that turn.

Last thing to remember. Lenny. He is so good with these Bayou Gremlins. He can give them an automatic ram in their attacks which inflict double damage. He reduces their drunk and reckless ability to only 1 WD. He can chuck these models up the board (you can't take interact actions this turn though), and let them move up to 25'' up the board. So he is really a key piece when you use a lot of Bayou Gremlins.

Hope this helped you fellow greenskins out there. See you next time.

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