Dreamer Summoning, Is It Too Good?

[StaticVortex]

New to the discussion but I've read most of it.

On summoning six models in two turns. That looks really resource intensive. If you're dong that reliably then you must be using most of your stones in the first two turns to get there right? Can someone who's doing this write out the sequence of play for us so we can understand the resources involved?

I have done this a few times, and it is costly IMO.  This is how it played out for me:

 

I had a rather good starting had with 4 cards being 9+ and one of them being a 12/13 which I used to summon a non-slow Coppelius. 

 

Turn one; First activation: Daydream, push one nightmare and sacrifice to give Dreamer .  Second activation: Dreamer to summon Coppelius and cheat the flip.  Second summon Lilitu, cheating the flip.  Third summon Lelu, cheating the flip, lower waking by one and accomplice into Lilitu (because of higher df) and she (and Lelu) heals 2wnd (one from herself, one from Dreamer) and she walks.

 

Three activations into the first turn and I'm down three of my highest cards from my hand.  The rest of the turn played out with my opponent moving Gremlins around.

 

Turn two (not as many high cards in hand); same as first turn, activate daydream, push nightmare and sacrifice.  Dreamer activates and reduces waking, then summons Insidious madness, a Stitched Together, and burns a stone for a positive flip to get the second Stitched (which did not come in slow) and Dreamer now becomes Chompy.  Gremlins now positioned in shooting lanes moves and kills off the not slow Stitched right off because I no longer had the cards in hand to cheat in a higher df flip.

 

Yes, in two turns, I increased my model count by 39SS, losing 6SS netting me a 33SS increase.  The way that ultimately played out was this:

Lilitu and Lelu healed nicely, one ran off on interact duty, the other engaged and dispatched gremlins.  Madness and Stitched died quickly and Coppelius only lived due to a failed terrifying check and a black joker flip for damage.

 

In the end, while it seemed like a good strategy to summon that many points of models...the cost of losing two turns that could have been better spent getting into position for VP, or AP that could have been healing up fewer summoned models was too high.  I learned a lot from the attempts though, and now only summon one (maybe two) models with the boy and support with other AP.  I've begun popping out an Alp when I get Coppelius for a blood gift (which if done right, can be given twice).

[r4st4f4n]

r4st4f4n is always so happy when he gets totally ignored by people at least twice in a discussion, that rather repeats again one, already clear, thing for the -n- time.
It means that his question was actually sooo stupid, it didn't even deserve answer.
OR, that he's just a misenderstood Genius...

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Yay! GENIUS!

(Seriously, guys, I have fun talking about a game. But when I write a total poo, please let me know...)

[Dolomyte]

I don't know of any specific counter to any summoning. kill the summoner. AOE's. and Taelor. other then that not sure.

[The Godlyness]

I sense this topic upsets you. lol

I also sense you've not read the entire thread up to this point. That's ok.

 

This thread is the discussion of whether or not the Dreamer's summoning is too good. It is not a thread of declaration nor does is it trying to get anything cuddled. Remain calm and keep an open mind.

 

oh no i am not upset.

 

I Play dreamer....alot.  and the setup it takes to make most of this happen is more than just i sacrifice a day dream i summon x models.  which you can do. really well for that matter but you only have 6 cards in your hand, 7 if you take the Primo magic just to have it die first turn (best use ever imo) ((no not really))  when i play summon dreamer i spend more ap using empty night then i do actually summoning. why you ask well that action Dilligaf's conditions and is a free obey with a push that gets you a melee strike (lets be real here only a few things shoot in neverborn) or fast? or the rarely used but super effective Heal 2 wounds.

 

if you said oh man dreamer's empty night ability is super good i would agree. But asking if his summoning is Too Good. or too powerful is neither here nor there.  its an opinion of a person who has been on the receiving end and lost horribly or on the giving end and won. both are completely biased. 

 

Main point of contention i see. summon a stitched together accomplice heal gamble. lose reactivate do it again. or win and not. 3/4/7 with no +/- ok so i give you

 

summon a punk zombie companion it. is not slow gets +++ to attacks and flurrys with a ?2/4/7? profile.  but wait they could miss yep so can stitched.

 

Another too good abilty RIFLEMAN!!!!! yeah they be good.

[Dolomyte]

I've been playing around all night and I just don't see a way to exploit it. Mechanically it requires a lot of things to go right in the perfect order to really change the tide of a game, and even then certain crews kind of hose it. Which is balanced in my opinion.

[EnternalVoid]

Well one other thing to think about with the whole summoning 6 models in a turn, you are also sacrificing two generally in the process.  So if you had 8 models to begin with by the end of the process you are at 10, not 12.  Ten is generally enough to out activate your opponent but not necessarily but a great deal unless they went small or have already started losing models by that point in turn 2.

 

I have to agree with Godlyness that when playing Summoner Dreamer I have tended to use Empty Night more than his Dreams of Pain.  Don't get me wrong, I might summon 4-6 models through out the game, but generally Mid and Late game I am using Empty Night to try and get done what needs to be done.  Moving once and using Empty Night to push Teddy into combat and get a free swing, followed by giving him fast, and accomplicing into him might well do more for me than spending 2 of my good cards in hand to summon two more stitched.  Again this is not to say I have not used summoning late in the game, I have pulled out an Insidius Madness late into turn 4, make sure to get the crow I needed to not be slow, and shot it off to try and get where I needed those scheme markers so it could drop them turn 5.  But I have seen other summoners do similar things late game as well.

 

I have just found personally summoning 4 or so models over the course of the game and having a functioning hand better than max summoning so far in my games.

[r4st4f4n]

I don't know of any specific counter to any summoning. kill the summoner. AOE's. and Taelor. other then that not sure.

The FreiKorps Specialist auto-clears a circle of 9" from Scrap and Corpse Markers, just by ending his Activation in that place. Dreamer obviously doesn't mind Scrap and Corpse, but Wave1 summoners do

Hans can shoot away Summoner's Upgrades, such as Maniacal Laugh, Spare Parts, McMourning's Abracadaver, Sebastian's Man's Best Friend, Nico's Empty Vessel, Yan Lo's Reliquary, Toshiro's Command the Graves, as well as Ramos' Electrical Summoning, when Dreamer's Df autotrigger is worded expressly "make a Friendly Nightmare suffer the effects" and not "the damage", as to make Hans action definitively misfire(Ping! doesn't even damage the Nightmare then).

Taelor benefits against Wave1 summoners of:

-knowing where the summoning will take place(Scrap/Corpse Marker), and move accordingly to be in range for Welcome to Malifaux

particularly, against Ramos:

-the Hammerfall taken after Welcome to Malifaux, which deals an AoE exactly to kill all models summoned near a Marker

-the plain Relic Hammer, which has a built in :+fate dg against Constructs, plus a trigger to ignore Armor and HtK

The Kid can summon his Nightmares 13" away one from another, not bound to Markers, he doesn't really worry much for any of these.

Btw, thank you for answering

[Mason]

If your Outcasts, Void Wretches can mess the Dreamer up pretty good while he's buried.  Even Karina can give him Slow or Burning +2 so that when he finally falls back to the real world, he's not at full strength. 

[StaticVortex]

I've been playing around all night and I just don't see a way to exploit it. Mechanically it requires a lot of things to go right in the perfect order to really change the tide of a game, and even then certain crews kind of hose it. Which is balanced in my opinion.

 

... 'in a perfect world', but this is not a perfect world, this is Malifaux; where bad things happen. 

 

 

[James Yohe]

I just played against this crew with Seamus and it is sick, summon, summon, heal, incorporeal and the twins, everything is shared except wounds, I think if they can heal together than they can wound together. I finally conceded after  my opponent brought out three daydreams again right after killing them. Really need to work on a better strategy to try and focus on schemes and placement. Also the poison claws, it just seems like this crew has everything, damage prevention, poison, willpower negs, I mean it just goes on and on. This was a sick crew.

 

On the other side of the coin just like any other game, I congratulate and pat my fellow player on the back. They did an incredible job putting together this crew. It was well thought out and very affective, not to mention he had some really good hands.

[Adran]

I always though Taelor was better against the Dreamer summoning than against Ramos' summoning. Dreamer Summons them all at 1 wound, and 1 at a time, so she can in theory charge each summon he does, and with her charge of 6 and 3" melee, its a huge area that she ties up.

 

Friekorps specialist is also pretty good against them, as is Lazarus. And the desperate Merc.

 

 

[StaticVortex]

I just played against this crew with Seamus and it is sick, summon, summon, heal, incorporeal and the twins, everything is shared except wounds, I think if they can heal together than they can wound together. I finally conceded after  my opponent brought out three daydreams again right after killing them. Really need to work on a better strategy to try and focus on schemes and placement. Also the poison claws, it just seems like this crew has everything, damage prevention, poison, willpower negs, I mean it just goes on and on. This was a sick crew.

 

On the other side of the coin just like any other game, I congratulate and pat my fellow player on the back. They did an incredible job putting together this crew. It was well thought out and very affective, not to mention he had some really good hands.

The twins are good, no doubt...don't forget that they share conditions....ALL conditions.  Which can be exploited (Madame, RBelle) give one poison, the other gets it unless they discard (condition or card drain...ewe) 

 

Lelu and Widow Weaver are the only two with poison...it is not a core feature of Dreamers crew...his WP debufs can be, depending on what is around (daydreams, insidious madness, widow weaver).

 

With Seamus' back alley ability and flintlock, I'd think he alone would make keeping the rather fragile nightmares alive a bit of a challenge.

[kross1]

Use sinister rep, I've the ca action several times to kill the Dreamer.

[kross1]

Use sinister rep, I've the ca action several times to kill the Dreamer.

[The Godlyness]

The twins are good, no doubt...don't forget that they share conditions....ALL conditions.  Which can be exploited (Madame, RBelle) give one poison, the other gets it unless they discard (condition or card drain...ewe)

 

like distract. or cursed object.  makes for good times give away free vp some times.

[Hateful Darkblack]

Or Burning.

 

Or The Hanged's Glimpse the Inevitable.

[Sevorin]

Yeah, I was going to say, bring hanged with Seamus. Hand out "cannot be healed for the rest of the game" condition. 

[The Godlyness]

But dreamer can and should remove that. Cause you know he can. And gets to cast it again.

[Sevorin]

Yup, with resources (books: through cards, ss), and AP that wont be being used to summon, unless there's an ability somewhere I missed that gives him books without using cards and ss?

[Stupid Bob]

I'm quite new to Malifaux, though like many I'm a transplant from other mini war games.

 

I chose Neverborn and Dreamer to start with because of the aesthetic and fiction...that poor little boy!

 

I have very little frame of reference, as I've only played against a handful of different players/crews (Seamus, Perdita, Viks), but have read quite alot about how other Factions and Crews work...and I really have a hard time understanding how the Dreamer's summoning is any more "powerful" than any other summoning ability. 

 

As others have already noted, the resources used to summon AND make the summoned model not immediately dead are significant. The 'luck' required to pull the cards needed to summon the 'bigger guys' early enough in the game for them to make a difference is significant as well.

 

Also as others have said, I find that a few summons early then spending AP more on Empty Night gets more done than trying to Summon and heal-up even more things!

 

All that being said, I've gotten kicked around a fair amount even with super lucky summons. Summoning things and being able to do something constructive with them are very different things. I submit that a player that's able to do that (consistently) is a player that will do well with whatever crew they pick up. It's an old tired line, but a lot more has to do with the player than with the crew, right?

 

Also want to point out that I think Summoning is felt as more effective in lower SS games. Summoning Lelu/Lilitu in 35ss game is a lot more of an issue than in 50ss. Percentages matter!

[Somnicide]

But dreamer can and should remove that. Cause you know he can. And gets to cast it again.

 

Which means that dreamer is activating near the end, rather than early, when you probably want him to be.

[The Godlyness]

You guys activate him early? I do so late 80% of the time so the models I summon don't die. And have free reign of the map.

[hypoking]

All summoning really, is best saved until as late as possible.

[E.T.A. Hoffman]

No way you summon late game. You summon ALL game! And turn 1 and 2 are you're best turns to fully heal up your summons before they get to involved in combat.

And what's with this 'Dreamer not being where you want him?'

 

Turn 1) Daydreams push your models up 4-8" each. Summon your models 6" away. You deploy 6" + 6" + base size (1") youre 13" up the board when you summon, half way point of the board is 18", you're 5" away from center. Plus those models can walk once on their activation or twice if you trigger not slow.

 

Turn 2) Dreamer takes a walk of 7 or eve 8 with the upgrade and your incorporeal. Summon 2 more models. Turn into LCB. LCB walks twice just to position you. Now your 6 + 7 + 8/10 (forget if lcb is wk 4/5) that's 21/23" where'ever you need. OH wait! Did I forget you also summon LCB 6" + base size (2ish") so you're 29/31" to where you wanted to go!

 

Recap, you summoned 5 models! And you moved 29/31" by turn 2. You're crew is middle of the board on the start of turn 2. Not saying you moved all this far because you wanted to you know not lose the Dreamer turn two or have your summons not heal. But, you see how the Dreamer is not even a little hindered by staying back a two turns? You could even go for the extra summon and just be 22/25" inches up -I would-.

[StaticVortex]

It almost sound effortless, as if there is no cost to be concerned with, and that the opposing crew is resigned to leave your crew alone.  This is completely possible, to be sure; though in my experience, the benefits do not outweigh the cost and I find alternative options more to my liking.