Gremlin

[Arkham]

Gremlin



Card PDF

NAME = GREMLIN

UNIQUENESS = COMMON HERO
SPECIES = MOGWAI
CLASS = CREATURE / TORMENTOR
PERSONALITY = MISCHIEVOUS

SIZE/HEIGHT = SMALL 3

LIFE = 1

MOVE = 4
RANGE = 2
ATTACK = 2
DEFENSE = 2

POINTS = 25

PARTY ANIMALS
Once per turn, after a Gremlin's move phase, maneuver each Mogwai ally 1-4 spaces then roll a damage die against each figure adjacent to 2+ Mogwai on your team.

MISCHIEVOUS MONSTERS
Figures have -1 Defense for each Mogwai you control adjacent to them.

THE NEW BATCH
During cleanup, if a Mogwai you control was on aquatic terrain or within 1 space of a figure or token with the Food keyword this round, place a defeated Common Mogwai on your team on the battlefield.

FACTION =
PUBLISHER = WB
KEYWORDS =
SYMBOLS = LIGHT WEAKNESS

WINTER 2024: Do not expose them to sunlight. Do not let them get into contact with water. And most importantly, never, ever feed them after midnight.

Resources and Rulings
• The suggested figure for this unit is a modified Reaper figure: Pathfinder Bones Pathfinder Goblin Pyros (4)
• See this card's wiki page for synergies and strategies!

Credits
• Legacy design: Arkham
• Card art: Arkham
• Comic creators: Chris Columbus

Updates
• N/A

[Arkham]

Added Creature as a dual class.

Should be fun Creature army filler.

-Lowered Move by 1 to 3.
+Upped PA move by 1 to 3.

This should help them travel more uniformly as a crowd.

=Dropped SS callout, and instead the cap applies to all, but raised by 1 to 3.

Simpler and creates number repetition.

=No more glyph or markers, but they need to be adjacent to offer the optional boost gamble.

Streamlines the design and gets rid of extra hardware.

=The New Batch is an automatic 1 revived if they met the criteria, instead of average of 1 on 2 dice.

Simplifies

-Light Weakness added.

It's probably unimportant as they only have 1 life and low defense as it is, but offers nice theme fluff.

Overall, power wise they should be the same. A lot of lateral tweaks.

[Arkham]

After playing these guys in Freddy's game, I'm thinking they're not quite worth 25 points.

They're -5 on the point calculator for stats(not always reliable with stat extremes fwiw) thus suggesting 30 points in abilities. The problem is, 2 of their abilities are pros and cons for everyone(self, ally, or enemy), and the other 2 are fairly minor?

But I'd prefer not to drop their points from 25, unless maybe we went down to 10. Which would probably be good for army building, but would be less than ideal for real life play given how many figures you're then wanting/needing? TTS it's a non-issue.

Some possible options:

Option A: Stat Bump
-Perhaps a bump to 3 for range, attack, and defense? That would be about 15 points worth of an increase.

Option B: Point Decrease
-Drop down to 10. Would make for even easier point fillers.

Option C: Multi-Activations?
-Ditch the mass movement/Unblockable approach, in favor of full activations ala Moloids? I'm not entirely sure how this would work with Pinhead though. Maybe something like this would work well:

PARTY ANIMALS
During transition, move or attack with 1-3 Mogwai allies.

Could probably then wrap either IR or MM into that ability, consolidating a bit more.

Thoughts? Preference?

[Arch-vile]

I like the stat bump idea. I generally like commons/uncommons that don't encourage you to bring too many of them for the actually owning the figures reason.

[Arkham]

After brainstorming it a bit, I'm thinking this might be my preference:

PARTY ANIMALS
During transition, move or attack with 1-3 Mogwai allies.

Could probably then wrap either IR or MM into that ability, consolidating a bit more.

PARTY ANIMALS
During transition, move or attack with 1-3 Mogwai allies. Before this figure or an adjacent figure attacks, it may gain +1 Attack, but receives a wound if the attack does not inflict 1+ wounds.

MISCHIEVOUS MONSTERS
Figures have -1 Defense for each Mogwai adjacent to them, up to -3.

THE NEW BATCH
If a Mogwai you control was on aquatic terrain or within 1 space of a figure or token with the Food keyword this round, during cleanup place a defeated Mogwai in your army on the battlefield.

This would then let Pinhead net essentially 3 additional split(move or attack) activations with them for the cost of 1 of the skulls rolled, which would up their value a bit as options. Especially since they can choose to bump their attack to 3 for the gamble.

Would require some sanity testing, but seems more rewarding and fun?

[Arch-vile]

Seems doable. May limit how effective small batches of them are, though, if you always want to activate 4 per turn. I think you'd need wording to prevent a multi-skull Pinhead turn of activating Gremlin 1, attacking with Gremlins 2/3/4, then activating Gremlin 2, attacking with Gremlins 1/2/4, etc.

I'd probably limit The New Batch's revival to Common Mogwai, in case we get figures like Gizmo, Stripe, or the Brain Gremlin.

Some wording edits with the above and my proposed additions in blue:

PARTY ANIMALS
During transition, up to 3 Mogwai allies that have not moved or attacked this turn may gain either a move phase or attack phase. Before this figure or an adjacent figure attacks, it may gain +1 Attack, but takes 1 wound if the attack does not inflict 1+ wounds.

MISCHIEVOUS MONSTERS
Figures have -1 Defense for each Mogwai adjacent to them, up to -3.

THE NEW BATCH
During cleanup, if a Mogwai you control was on aquatic terrain or within 1 space of a figure or token with the Food keyword this round, place a defeated Common Mogwai on your team on the battlefield.

[Arkham]

We could go 1-2 more Mogwais, for a total of 3, with both a move and attack phase, if we feel 4 is too many. Cool either way though. I do like encouraging it to have to be different ones doing the things on that turn, makes sense.

One neat feature of this, is it offers a quick way to sacrifice them for Pinhead in a dire need of resurrecting someone in a pinch. And in general, makes using them feel more fruitful than just mass movement or single unblockable. Feels like drafting more of them is worthwhile whereas before I'm not sure it was.

[IAmBatman]

Looks like a fun direction.

Army is now "team" btw.

[Arkham]

Version tested:

Spoiler Alert!

NAME = GREMLIN

UNIQUENESS = COMMON HERO
SPECIES = MOGWAI
CLASS = CREATURE / TORMENTOR
PERSONALITY = MISCHIEVOUS

SIZE/HEIGHT = SMALL 3

LIFE = 1

MOVE = 3
RANGE = 2
ATTACK = 2
DEFENSE = 2

POINTS = 25

PARTY ANIMALS
During transition, up to 3 Mogwai allies that have not moved or attacked this turn may gain either a move phase or attack phase. Before this figure or an adjacent figure attacks, it may gain +1 Attack, but takes 1 wound if the attack does not inflict 1+ wounds.

MISCHIEVOUS MONSTERS
Figures have -1 Defense for each Mogwai adjacent to them, up to -3.

THE NEW BATCH
During cleanup, if a Mogwai you control was on aquatic terrain or within 1 space of a figure or token with the Food keyword this round, place a defeated Common Mogwai on your team on the battlefield.

Gremlin x6(150)
vs
Moon Knight(150)

Result: Moon Knight unwounded.

Gremlin x8(200)
vs
Daredevil(200)

Result: Daredevil with 2/4 wounds. (2 life)

Gremlin x8(200)
vs
Kraven(200)

Result: Kraven unwounded.

Gremlin x12(300)
vs
Green Lantern Hal(300)

Result: Green Lantern with 1/4 wounds. (3 life)

Hmmm...

May need to go back to the drawing board, because they still feel pretty weak. We could go both move and attack, but even then, I'm not sure that would have changed these results much if any(I tried to stay cognizant of how often they were even in range to have been able to attack).

Their low movement, range, attack, and defense, in conjunction with stripping each other's defenses in swarms(which is near unavoidable), as well as allowing adjacent enemies a +1 to their attack against them(they're so easy to kill, it's almost always going to be low risk), and the very situational go out of your way attempt to get 1 back a round... They just feel like more effort than they're worth.

I guess we could up the stats on top of the changes proposed already. That may help, just not totally sure. Or else, maybe make the +1 to Attack or Defense reduction specific to enemies, not allies, but that loses a bit of the chaotic theme.

It's also possible Pinhead using them in combination with other threats on the field could help their effectiveness when the heat isn't directed at them as much. But I'd think we want them to at least be moderately ok on their own, too.

Edit: Ran a quick game vs Mole Man and Moloids with them getting the 4 full move and attacks just to see how that would go.

Gremlin x8(200)
vs
Mole Man(100), Moloids x10(100) (200)

Result: Mole Man unwounded. 6/10 Moloids remaining.

[Arch-vile]

Sounds like upping the stats might be good in addition to those changes? Dropping the ability for adjacent figures to get the +1 attack is another idea (or even just restricting it to allies).

Could also go further back to the original design and just make the movement and damage die both happen. For low attack dudes, autowounds give them a useful niche.

After a Gremlin's move phase, maneuver all Mogwai allies 1-3 spaces, then you may choose a figure adjacent to 2+ Mogwai you control and roll 1 damage die against it.

[Arkham]

Yeah, I suppose that could be fine.

There's an animated series that was released earlier this year, so I'm going to watch through it to see if any inspiration or clarity sparks. One thing of note, their movement probably should be put back to 4, they're certainly not slow.

We could probably just ditch the attack gamble aspect altogether.

Going back to mass swarming plus unblockables would likely be fine. Perhaps go a hair bigger with it:

PARTY ANIMALS
Once per turn, after a Gremlin's move phase, maneuver all Mogwai allies 1-4 spaces then roll a damage die against each figure adjacent to 2+ Mogwai on your team.

Still carries the possible self harming friendly fire risk to it that was intentional and thematic, while allowing more of the swarm usefulness.

Could up their Defense to 3 since they are commonly stripping each other's Defense while moving around. Or allow 2 respawns per round. One or the other.

Those might be enough.

[Tornado]

Sounds like some good tweaks. I would lean slightly towards 3 Defense over double spawn but either is probably fine.