Grab the Big Hat

Well, I did it. I took the plunge and pulled out the Gremlins tonight for the first game. Slaz was over the house and we were throwing down for a fun game, so I put all the V2 cards in sleeves and pulled out 30 stones of gremlins.

Now, I have a limited selected of Gremlins to choose from at this point. Skillless Brian is still painting up my Kin and I have not put together McTavish or Lenny. In addition to that, I have no idea what I am putting together to play gremlins, I just figured I would toss together a crew. This left me with a basic set of Book 1 gremlins to pick from. For a 30ss game, I ended up going with this:

Outcasts Crew - 30 - Scrap
Som'er Teeth Jones -- 7 Pool
4 Giant Mosquitos [8ss]
Bayou Gremlin [2ss]
Bayou Gremlin [2ss]
Hog Whisperer [5ss]
Piglet [3ss]
Piglet [3ss]

The strategy was Distract and I was facing Colette. I grabbed Eye for an Eye and Stake Claim for my schemes and we were off. I did not track the turns of the game so well as I should have, so really I can only give an overview of the entire game. The first turn took an easy 40 minutes to play out as I spent time trying to figure out what the heck the models did. I give full credit to the number of Gremlin players out there who make it look easy.

I had no idea initially how I should start the turn. I flew one mosquito 20 inches across the board to start and block off the performer coming in on my right. I did not expect to have range on the Coryphee in the beginning, so I did not try that. Slaz did some swapping around and made a SS with Colette. It was at that point I realized that the Gremlins Luck ability to force the opponent to discard cards had no resist on it. Holy crap. I shot another Skeeter up the board and used magical extension to cast the spell at Cassandra, forcing Slaz to drop 2 of his remaining 3 cards. Slaz was not amused. He moved forward with one of the Coryphee, setting up to jump the second one forward, dance together, and smack around my crew. I took advantage of Skeeter/Somer companion and simultaneously activated my 2 remaining skeeters and Somer together. Skeeter #1 moved 10 inches over to sit next to the Coryphee. I scanned Somer's card for what to do, and came across the second no-resist spell, Pull my Finger. I used it, flipping what I needed, and Slaz had to burn a stone to resist the damage. Skeeter 2 moved up and did the same thing, at which point I learned that Skeeters are not gremlins. While it forced another SS burn for Slaz, I also hurt my own skeeter. Need to be more careful next time.

Then I used Somer for what I expect is a typical first turn. He used Git yer Bro on a gremlin to summon another gremlin, then used it again on the same gremlin, replacing the gremlin with another copy and drawing 2 cards. Somer went reckless and used the spell again on the other gremlin, ending the turn with 3 gremlins and +2 cards. I had to cheat both of the summon spells, but overall not horrible.

So, between trying to figure out pigs and figure out Somer and figure out gremlins, I felt like I was struggling with an aneurism throughout the turn. It was frustrating. Once that was out of the way Slaz decided to start engaging me and I got to throw some pigs around. Pig Charge is interesting, but not amazing. The Hog Whisperer was interesting, but was not reckless. I made my pigs fly on turn 1, but after that he just really sat around and tried to smack things with his pitch-fork. I was able to use BACON!!!! once and resummon a gremlin from a pig, allowing Somer to then turn that gremlin into 2 new gremlins. Not a bad swap up overall when Somer was running low.

So, I ended up spending most of the game sitting in my end of the board taking attacks from Colettes crew and trying to whittle them down. Irresistable is hell to get through with WP 4. Harmless, likewise miserable to push past. Shooting... nah, I would rather charge and hope for a ram to hit something really hard.

Then I hit the next epiphany. On one of the turns I ended up with Somer and a Skeeter both near the Coryphee duet. Across 4 activations I dropped PMF 3 times, and swumg Somer's weapon once to end up killing the Coryphee. It came down to forcing Slaz to make choices on SS healing between the Coryphee and Colette. In the end, the choice went in my favor and I took down the dancing pair.

So, that left the face off on turn 6. Colette and a Dove close to Somer. Somer at 3 wounds remaining, and the Hog whisperer full. Somer activates and goes reckless, running away from the Dove and getting 15 inches across the board. That damn Gremlin moves quick! Then the Dove activated and flew over to the Hog Whisperer (who was camping out on the claim jump) and magician dueled him. Red Joker comes up but the Dove ends up 1 Wd shy of killing the gremlin. Collete runs into my deployment zone, and we flip for the game to go on and it ends. Colette reflips, and it still ends. I end up with 0 points for Distract, 2 points for E4E, and 2 points from Stake Claim.  Slaz ends up with 1 point from Power Ritual and 2 points from Distract, but 0 from Assassinate. I end up winning 4/3.

I learned a couple things. Somer is the king of unresistant spells to kill your hand and do a little damage in a pulse. Gremlins are speedy little bastards when they need to be. I have a lot more to learn about Gremlins.

I am not sure how much I will be playing them. I can see them being a lot less fun over time as the crew is a bit frustrating for me. From time to time, however, I can see pulling them out.