Minions in Brawlmachine - listbuilding is hard

Yeah, the FA1 limitations when we have such a tiny model selection on the Warbeast front and the banning of a full third of Farrow Warlocks makes things a bit awkward. Most lists I've written begin with a Void Archon in WWFF and then pick the Warlock, but I hear the Void Archon may be heading for the ban list. I have actively started writing lists without one just for some variety. Still our options are set to expand dramatically when the Vengeance of Dhunia theme goes live, so we have that to look forward to.

Helga1 is great fun. It's the right point size for her, letting her toss Defender's Ward on herself and pretty much face tank just about everything most lists can throw at her at that point level. I don't think she wants infantry though. Run her in WWFF where you can grab a couple of the jumping/teleporting solos for maximising the utility of her Feat. Flugwug is a must, and she'll be hurt more than most by losing the Void Archon. Totem Hunter is a great piece for her as well should you find the points.

Azazello and Helga2 also deserve mentions. At this point having a Warlock capable of dropping a heavy on their own goes a long way to skewing how piece trading plays out. Helga2 will probably shine most once the new theme actually drops, there aren't enough points for her to do anything too crazy to play the kind of list she normally runs in WWFF, but even as things are right now you can load up on a lesser Warlock and one of each heavy and use her to bully pretty effectively.

I haven't tried Carver just yet, but if I were going to it would look like this:

Minions
[Theme] Will Work For Food

[Carver 1] Lord Carver, BMMD, Esq. III [+28]
- Battle Boar [7]
- Road Hog [15]
- War Hog [14]
- Gatorman Soul Slave [5]
Dhunian Archon [0(6)]
Gremlin Swarm [3]
Maximus [4]
Farrow Bone Grinders (min) [5]

Basic thinking is that Quagmire goes on the Gremlin Swarm and it runs to engage an important enemy model and lock it down somewhere where the opponent won't be able to get to it (stealth and incorporeal are hard enough, and then the Dhunian Archon blocks the first attack that does hit to make things even more problematic). You shouldn't need to worry about infantry too much, between Maximus on Feat turn and the Battle Boar and Road Hog you should be able to remove basically anything. And you will hopefully be able to pick off the hard targets piecemeal with your heavies while the Gremlin Swarm does its thing. The Bone Grinders allow you to score circular zones, hit pretty hard on Feat turn and actually quite hard against warbeasts, are alternative Quagmire targets once the Gremlin Swarm dies, and if nothing else can be cheap body blockers whose deaths heal your high armour warbeasts thanks to the Dhunian Archon. And of course the Dhunian can manage the Fury of the heavies a bit to help out there.

...huh, now that I've written that I actually quite want to play it. Guess I know what I'll be running next time.

I would probably swing for Boomie3 over an Axer myself. You avoid the damage animus vs threat extension animus dilemma, and can save Helga's Attuned Spirit for making sure Flaming Fists gets onto everything important. Plus he's a touch cheaper. Battlegroup selections get a lot more flexible too. You can actually run three heavies, if you want to, for one!

Honestly a Slag Troll as a specialist choice could be one of the most compelling "heavies", once you see that you're playing into Warmachine Otherwise I don't think a Mauler is necessarily a bad idea. The War Hog may not desperately need a damage fixer, but the Road Hog frankly does.

No, they only count as Minion beasts (with the theme force allowing the Farrow Warlocks to run them in spite of the "Farrow Warlock" special rule. No shenanigans there.

The shenanigans I was thinking of were the Axer getting Overtake from Carvers feat, but the feat is "Farrow models".

You can cast Rush for free

Aye, it's set up to allow basically any synergy you can think of, barring a) Carver's Feat, that's still just Farrow, and b) Azazello's Henchman unit will also need to stay Farrow.

You can run Swamp troll and give on fo them swarm to get them to 16