Before I kill you Mr Bond...
Bayou has its own supervillain. A Machiavellian menace that lurks in the scrapyards with Mah and Sparks
planning all kinds of evil that probably involve holding Malifaux for ransom. Big Brain Brin certainly lives up
to his name. Though Malifaux is built around keywords and themes some models can exist well outside their
own specific space and give you flexibility in building crews. In the case of BBB the question is, how much
control do you want over your Fate Deck? Most of the time the answer to that is a resounding Yes!
There’s a catch though, out of keyword you are sinking 9 points into a model that has very little offensive capability.
So what is it about Brin that makes him worth a fifth of your available points? Well let’s quickly review his card:
Brin brings a ton of deck manipulation. He is the Bayou’s only source of Arcane Reservoir, he has Intuition which will
help you determine if it is time to stack your deck with Calculate the Possibilities. 10 cards off the top of your deck
and shuffling in 3 from your discard is a huge ability. Sometimes it will backfire and you will get a bunch of severes
but most of the time the cards will be weaks and moderates that you didn’t want to see in the first place.
He is hard to remove with the ability to use Soulstones, Protected (Bayou), and Serene Countenance. He has a unique
aura called Knew You Were Gonna Do That which lets him discard a card to ignore a trigger on an enemy model.
He has a 1” melee that hands out Slow that can obey on a trigger and if that’s not enough a friendly minion only obey
that kills them if you don’t remove a scheme marker nearby. Plus Sober Up which gives Focused, Removes a Condition
and has triggers that heal or push a model.
Villainous Monologues
So you hired in Brin to a crew now how do you use him? Well the natural instinct for a support piece with very little
capability is to play him in the backfield. This isn’t the case with Brin. This evil Mastermind is safe as long as he has a hired
thug to take the hits for him. Plus being able to turn off triggers means that he can ignore some of the more hurtful aspects
of enemy attacks. He is perfectly at home in the mid field guarding markers you need to stick around or getting close to
Slow big models and Obey them with his Sharp Wits attack. Pairing him up with a Ride or Fly With Me model like Gracie or
Iron Skeeters allows him to move up the board without sacrificing his precious AP.
Brin has I Knew You Were Gonna Do That, one of the most powerful auras in the game. By ditching a card you can shut off
very important triggers from 6” away. This is part of reason you don’t want to leave him in the backfield. Brin being near the
front line means that your models don’t get Onslaughted or Ricocheted as much.
Let’s talk about Calculate too.That’s why you came here right? Cause that ability is nuts? It looks like a strong ability. It IS a
strong ability but it isn’t the only thing he is doing. It is important to decide when to do Calculate. It is of course very strong early
on in the turn and after you have shuffled your deck. It is obviously not good to use if you only have 10 or less cards left in your
deck. But if Calculate is all you are bringing Brin for, it’s not worth 9SS out of your crew.
Sober Up is potentially strong as one of our few ways to hand out the Stunned condition in Bayou. Any enemy models that have
devastating attack triggers or obnoxious defense triggers should be worried about Brin getting close to them. Sober Up is on a
stat 7 so he is going to hit it pretty easily and the Daze trigger pushes and gives Stunned. That’s a model like Colette sitting dead
in the water and closer to your beater models. Alternately versus other Bayou it stops reckless models from getting their extra AP.
Pull the Strings is another ability that can be taken for granted. You don’t always have to spend that marker to use it. This is Malifaux
bad things happen and sometimes models are gonna die anyway. Get that extra bonus action to make them go out in a blaze of glory.
Even though it adds to his price tag, putting 12 cups on Brin can really ratchet up his control factor by taking away bonus actions
and picking up multiple scheme markers, which is worthwhile if pull the strings doesn’t have a good application when you activate him.
Just don’t forget to give him a little buddy to be a target...errr...tag along.
Perfectly Executed Plans
So where does Brin fit in outside of his home turf with Mah Tucket and her Tricksy crew? You generally want to look at crews that have 2
things
Crews that summon in their beater pieces so you can afford his 9 SS price tag
Crews that have heavy pressure on their own hand.
So right off the bat I look at Ulix and Som'er.
Ulix needs high cards to grow small pigs into large ones unless you want to take a few turns and piggy pack them up to warpigs. Which
is still good but costs you some master AP. He also ditches cards to save his own bacon (get it?). Whisperers and Slop Haulers are
constantly hunting Rams to summon piglets, and pigs have must declare triggers which can really mess you up if you hit the wrong one
at the wrong time. Brin seems like a no brainer here. Not only is Brin going to be supporting your crew but he has plenty of models
around that he can slide attacks onto making him a nearly unkillable guardian of hold your place style scoring. .
Som'er doesn’t really need the reservoir as much, his summons can be high but the Big Hat crew natively draws tons of cards over the
course of the game. Where Brin comes in handy is with Bayou Two Card. This ability allows them to cheat off the top of the deck, which
means they will eat through their cards pretty quickly. Using Calculate to remove weaks and moderates out of the deck means that your
Two Card will be running hot on a more consistent level. Plus, like Ulix, Som'er is gonna have a bunch of bodies to shove attacks onto all
with great demise abilities. The Disposable Soldier nature of how Som'er plays is fantastic for Pull the Strings as well. You don’t need to
worry about discarding a scheme marker if Som'er is just gonna blow the model up anyway or you wanna clear up space for another
summon on the next turn.
It's Alive!
One quick note about playing Brin in keyword, his themed minions are the Test Subjects, which haven't seen a model yet but are truly
amazing for their cost. Brin interacts with them in several ways. The first being that they don't die to anything but damage so if he were to
pull the strings on them, they get to keep on doing what they do. Secondly, if he gets off the Misdirected Rage trigger on an enemy target the
Test Subjects that are within 6" of them get free charges if Brin forces a cheat out of the obey. Secondly he can use his trigger on Sober up,
to get a charge on them as well.
Best Laid Plans
Ok, so if you don’t play Bayou you’ve just read a bunch of words about a model that sounds pretty disgusting and hard to take down right?
Well here’s some inside info on playing against Brin. Protected and Serene Countenance are mutually exclusive. He must choose one or
the other. The way the attack sequence is worded, Protected has to be declared as the model is targeted meaning that Focus is spent
before you flip the duel. So you can choose to spend focus after the have decided to risk the negative flip on Serene Countenance instead.
Blasts and Shockwaves are also difficult for Brin to work around. Protected requires a model to be within 2” which means he’s in blast
range. Removing his Protected targets or isolating him is also a solid strategy. He is WP 7 so he’s hard to lure but most of the time his
bodyguards are not. If Brin is exposed he will probably go down pretty easily to Focused high damage attacks.
That’s it for today, if you haven’t put Brin on the table, go get him! He will be a staple on the Bayou side of the table. Do you have any other
ways of playing Brin that I missed? Feel free to comment or message me with them or any other Out of Keyword models in Bayou you want
me to delve into. Thanks for Reading!
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