Math Mathonwy

I believe that my main point got kinda lost somewhere in there. My main point is that even if you can device a list that has a sorta good chances against Dreamer, I would still bet for the Dreamer winning were the players of semi-equal skill. A hundred games against the Dreamer with the proposed Seamus list and I'd think that the Dreamer would win at least 70% of the games. When playing against the Dreamer you are always on the knife edge. Make a small mistake in the activation order or placement of the models and *boom* - you lose. Meanwhile, the Dreamer is very forgiving to play with. The tremendous mobility makes most strategies and schemes pretty easy to do and, most importantly, you don't need to commit to doing them straight away. Slower crews need to start working on those schemes and strategies straight away forcing them into unoptimal situations that the Dreamer can capitalize on. If played with some patience and even a modicum of tactical acumen, the Dreamer can bide it's time and whittle away at the enemy crew's edges while setting up for the killing pounce. Now, you might enjoy that feeling of constant pressure that the Dreamer forces on you. But that doesn't mean that he isn't an OP Master and people who enjoy balance in the game are rightly criticizing the current status quo.

The only real bad luck I had was with my mediocre hands (except on the final turn, when my lowest card was 11), Seamus failing the resist duel against Alps, and with Bete Noire whiffing. But stuff like that happens in every game. Only bad player blame luck consistently and this was certainly not a disastrously unlucky game. Huh? Soul stones and cheating eliminate a lot of luck from the most important stuff. And since the deck has one of every card, that evens out the luck factor as well. The only big thing I don't like is Red Jokers on flips, like my Ophelia hitting Ramos with a :-fate, flipping the Red Joker and doing 16 points of damage to the unlucky Arcanist killing him instantly, which is something that isn't any player's fault and just basically wins the game in a very anti-climactic way that isn't fun or fulfilling for anyone. I believe my resource managements is very good. I mean, I'm obviously biased, but I have a pretty impressive record and have played a lot of skirmish games with resource management elements and am used to thinking about them in detail and performing risk analysis on the fly. His pool was full, but still, burning away three SS is a good trade for sure (and forcing him to use a (0)Action to paralyzing the bugger or risk getting stuck. I'm confident that it was the right thing to do. I had a pool of four or five. I used them against the Onslaught, but since paired and higher Cb is such a crazy advantage, I was always cheating/using SS first and at a disadvantage. I also had to use SS to damage prevention when getting hit by Flay since LCB's minimum damage with Flay is four. Finally, I had to save a SS for the resist duel against the Alps (which I failed despite the SS, but that was relative bad luck (I recall calculating the odds of losing that duel were something like 20% so not out of the realm of possibility but pretty unlucky). Seamus was killed on my opponent's next activation, so getting the last gasp from him was rather important IMO. Especially as Undead Psychosis was my best bet of keeping most of my forces intact. As for pulling the models away, my opponent had placed them intelligently in a way that made pulling them away impossible. I did pull Coppelius as he was the only one I could pull that was of any consequence. Having two Belles would've made the positioning more difficult, but then I would have had to drop something else. Yeah, it's a valid criticism. I'm not convinced that it would've been the panacea that people are suggesting it to be, but it would've been useful. Also, I should've reflipped my strategy as the one I got (Reconnoiter? the one where you claim table quarters) was extremely difficult to pull off and necessitated less than ideal crew choices. OTOH the Necropunks really were kinda the stars of the show, so I can't fault them too much. Certainly not for the strategy I got. Dropping the Dead Rider as you suggested makes the list a lot better against the Dreamer but worse against other Neverborn. Depending on the strategy, were I playing the Dreamer, I would kill the Rider with LCB either as a one turn hit and run or as part of bombing the main group. The shafted marker can be triggered by something relatively inconsequential and when that's gone, you're in trouble. Stitcheds can be used to disrupt lures and Alps can take care of Seamus and Crookeds (as you said you'd clump them). A defensive stanced Alp is very unlikely to die to a slowed model other than the Rider (or Seamus shooting, but why would you let him do that?) since your force features so few true damage dealers. But here again you expect the Dreamer player to play stupid. He's the one holding the cards. He can stall if it's good for him or he can unleash the bomb straight away if that's better. In some situations stalling makes perfect sense. One way of mitigating the Alp bomb that gets suggested a lot is to avoid clumping your models. But since you can't pass in this game (something I have always touted as a weakness in design, but one that I can ultimately live with, mind) you need to activate something and if you're spread out, that severely hampers your game (as even spread out, you should still retain the capability of assisting between your models or else you're super easy prey for the Dreamer crew). So now you either clump up or lose the ability to effectively assist. Both are bad against Alps (and Stitcheds make assisting a lot more difficult since they can keep the fog running without activating through bury shenanigans). Also note that Alp stalling means that they will be in defensive stance making killing them far less trivial.

Would you fall for that trap a second time? A third? As making a mistake once is entirely human and we all do it, but a true counter needs to be effective time and again. You don't describe the bait, but I'm pretty sure that I could give you pointers on how to avoid such a fate real easy in the future.

Most models certainly can be. OTOH Alps have effectively infinite movement when taken with the Dreamer and their main form of attack doesn't require APs (or them taking a turn) making them extremely good at doing certain objectives (and, incidentally, the slow they spread around very effectively denies objectives to the opponent). So yeah, they are extremely good in that regard as well.

You say that you kept the context, but then you ignored it in your reply :confused: All in all it seems that your whole reply was in bad faith and unfair towards Fetid, which is a shame as you're usually very courteous and seem to give the benefit of the doubt in your answers.

Aye, this is big and no one (else) seems to have mentioned it yet. You can stall by activating all three Alps well out of range of the opponent, then bury them and bomb with them basically anywhere on the battlefield. Those three activations of stalling mean that the opponent is seriously hard pressed to keep their models ready to dismantle the Alp bomb no matter where it lands.

Ah, I haven't played Slaughter against Dreamer (yet) and had completely forgotten about that rule. Thanks for pointing it out! When you do get the chance to try the Avatar again, be sure to post your impressions!

Hans??? That's a pretty unique suggestion. I'm not at all convinced that there is a situation where I would ever even consider taking Hans for the Guild. I wouldn't call them "great due to Pine Box". It's an extremely situational ability that seems to only ever see use as a delivery system for Guild's own models when you have Lucius or someone else to speed up the Marshall. I mean, yeah, DMs are great, but Pine Box is not the reason.

Me am stoopid.

I may be mistaken, but I counted five Witchlings dying throughout the match plus Samael, so your opponent's score should be 28? Also, didn't you kill two Insidiouses, two Night Terrors and two Daydreams? Isn't that just 18? Again, I may very well be mistaken (don't have the book handy). Great report, though! Very fun to read - great level of details!

So, in effect, l2p, n00b. As for your balancing, Dreamer comes from the best faction, is the best Master and has a very good crew. He works extremely well in basically every strategy and has access to and tools to perform in the best schemes in the game. So how did those balance him out? The idea that stuff being overpowered is impossible by default out of some divine guidance or something is extremely silly. The fact that there are lots of variables can mask imbalances to some extent, agreed, but pretending that they don't exist is an ostrich form of defense.

Don't have my book handy but doesn't Necrotic Machine do horrid damage as well with the poison? It seemed like a very robust Totem to me.

I would like to see a damage dealer there - howabout Bete Noire to fit the theme?

It's semi-tough and pretty mean in close combat and costs 5 SS. Compared to Johan it's cheaper and tougher but damage is way lower (except against heavily armored targets). Melee Master is better than Flurry, though, so that evens it out a bit. I mean, I would take Johan instead, but since he is unique, if I were to feel the need for a second melee combatant, I think that LSA is an OK choice. The Cut Away action is a complete red herring, though, as hitting the target instead for 2 wounds minimum that ignores said armor is way better unless you plan on hitting the target with other models for something like four to six more times. Cut away really should inflict slow or something in addition to lowering armor. I think you definitely should. Kaeris needs Soul Stones and can put them to very good use.

Ah, 4" instead of 3". Mea culpa.

I've won due to serious mistakes on the part of the Dreamer player and me bringing my A-game. Have never won when Dreamer player has been on top of his game and Dreamer is the only Master I've lost to in a year.

I'm at a disadvantage since I don't have my book handy, but I thought that it was a 3" obscuring aura and that would mean that the Stitched is withing 3" of the obscuring stuff so visible (similar to Rasputina's obscuring aura). Am I mistaken? (I tried to ask this once before, you know.)

How? You can always see the Stitched through his own fog (as I already pointed out but you decided to ignore). Unless I'm mistaken, but I don't think I am. You are apparently wrong in multiple ways, here. I suggest reading up on the Stitched. Very, very few of those are capable of seriously threatening the Dreamer. It's funny that you remember the SS when talking about Nico but not when it comes to the Dreamer who has a bigger cache and a better way to use them for defense.

I parsed this as talking about killing the Stitched:

I think that's a huge number (~30%). YMMV.

I can have a perfectly horrible game where I win extremely handsomely. I gain very, very little pleasure from beating someone utterly in a way where he doesn't stand a chance of coming out on top. The same is true the other way around (losing with no chance of victory), as well, mind, but with my mind-blowing skillzors it is a rare situation. But really, the key to a fun game is meaningful interaction between the players. Alp bomb tends to kill this. Infinite lure chains tend to kills this. Pandora can kill this. To illustrate the points, try taking Seamus and nothing but Guild Autopsies against a Dreamer list. Did you have fun? OK, now the natural (and correct) reaction is to blame the crew choice. Don't take Seamus and nothing but GAs. But that game is how some people experience some match-ups.

That part you quoted doesn't mention survivability at all, but rather maneuverability. So responding to it with an example of how Nico is more survivable than Dreamer seems completely random. Fetid posited that Dreamer is "very survivable" - countering that with "but Nico is more survivable and here is how" is completely random. Most models can be killed. Stitched can't be. Unless... ...I have somehow misunderstood how Does not Die works. I thought that Stitched remains on the board and you can still target it (though for no effect) therefore shielding the Dreamer completely. If Dreamer has his back against the wall and the Stitched is in front, killing him is impossible. Unless I have understood something incorrectly (entirely possible, mind, especially as I still don't have the book at hand). I'm not at all convinced that Nico really is tougher than Dreamer. Mobility is an extremely effective defense that you discounted wholly in your analysis, for example.