Ari and Needlebreath

Nice easy, quick index for players learning The Dreamer and wanting to know what schemes to take him with / against. Tell me what you think!

Started doing the Scheme Pool advice. If anyone has any questions they definitely want addressed, please ask now!

Waldgeist are up. I don't know what CTRL+___ I hit, but I closed the window after an hour of writing Baby Kade's entry. My heart hurts.

Rewrote it. Yaaaayy~

I just posted my own guys here, or at least the links to them. 

Envy, Gluttony and Wrath, Pride, Lust, Sloth, and finally Greed.

;w; Opinions are always welcome, I've never posted any models on here before. On the forums here, at least.

I have a quick question for all you Dreamer players out there. Looks like it might be coming up later in the guide, but i'll go ahead and ask anyway since I'm just getting into dreamer...

 

does he like to activate early in the turn, or later? Does this change depending on the two main upgrades? I can see LCB focused dreamer going early in the turn, but what about summoning dreamer? Or do you go early(ish) depending on when you want to time empty night on a specific model?

 

=]

 

For the most part, even when you are playing Lord Chompy Bits, the Dreamer should activate in a way that maximizes his Pleasant Dreams healing. If you're playing Summoner Dreamer, for example, and plan on summoning 3 models in one turn, or plan on ending with Waking +2 for some reason or another, you should activate him later so that his healing is the most effective. In the same vein, if you're having models go defensive and hold points, perhaps its better to move him sooner and get him into a position where that helps. In the same way, you should plan on activating him in a way that replacing him with Lord Chompy bits doesn't make you bang your head because you suddenly lost a powerful healing aura. Don't activate him early if you don't have to and lose out on that!

Of course, as a support master, it's all about context. You don't ever really have to activate him soon, like Nicodem, because his buffs are either during his activation or are static. You either activate and throw out condition removal / push / heal / free attacks / fast or you simply exist close enough to heal. The skill of using a support master is being able to recognize the right place to activate him in all the many different contexts. 

 

Teddy updated, end of the thematic models. :3 Hooray!

In general I found Lelu to be a good beatstick (though without much resilience) and Lilitu to be a more versatile one with her Lure and Rg 4' in Melee.

 My opponent played really well and made up for being outactivated with some good plays. He forced   flips  and I had no way of countering them. Also, I forgot that Torakage ignore Disengaging Strikes so my brilliant idea of popping Chompy among three of them was not so great after all.

I summoned one Stitched in and Accompliced it to Gamble your life but it was unsuccessful and I had no high cards to cheat the result. It got Reactivate but went down seconds later.

I also took Tuco, mainly because of the terrain. There was a nice tall building from which he had a good view on the center (as you can see in the pic below). I was really pleased with him as he took down two minions and used his Lure-like ability quite well.

 

 The former doesn't work well for this crew as minions can go down pretty quick... The Strategy was Reconnoiter. I don't play too often (once or twice a month) but I look forward to using Dreamer again, maybe with Restless Dreams this time.

 

As far as suggestions for more content in the Tactica are cocerned, you might consider adding a section in which you'd describe problematic situations for Dreamer and suggestions for dealing with them. Off the top of my head, I can think of: Raspy, Sonnia, Armored enemies.

 

-Lots of snips, no context lost-

A section for problematic situations I can do, especially since I have a lot of hand with playing The Dreamer against Sonnia Criid. I can tell you that the big thing is usually, with far range masters, is to distract them. If Make Them Suffer is in the pool, summon or hire enforcers as much as possible. If you're playing Dreams of Pain, summon models to let them kill, satiate their bloodlust while you accomplish other schemes. If you're playing Restless Dreams, use your Daydreams to push and get right up in their face. Don't let them just freely destroy you, make someone get in their way so that they have to deal with them.

Thank you very much, I'll definitely use your input >W<

I have this topic bookmarked for when the Twins/Stitched/Madnesses come out in plastic, as until they do there's waaaaay too much that needs model repping....

I can't wait for the Insidious Madness plastics! The renders looked so good ;^; And thank you for the bookmark C: I'm glad you like it

A great write up, thanks for taking the time and putting all the effort into it. I actually played my first game as a Dreamer (summoner) and it was a huge difference. Before I played with Guild only.

Managing resources was a challenge, I had a great hand turn 1, brought the twins and killed Misaki turn 2. Unfortunately, after that I had terrible cards on hand (despite stoning each turn) and had hard time doing anything. I also made a mistake with placement after bringing Chompy in,should have played more defensively.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun running Dreamer and I look forward to reading more here.

Thank you! I'm glad it helped someone out in an actual game. C: is there anything I didn't expand on enough? Anything, besides other models of course, that I haven't included enough information on?

I know that I mentioned Summoner Dreamer is very resource intensive, but I'm glad you managed it! :3 And how did you like the twins? May I asked what they did, besides just outright killing Misaki? And did you take any Stitched together?

Edit: Sorry if I'm asking too much! ^^; I just wanna know what I can improve on or help with!

No more putting things off. My sister and I just got moved in, signed back up for college, started a Tumblr... everything is nice and in line to continue this. I'm really sorry if I've been away for too long. :c I updated Coppelius and will be finishing the rest as soon as I possibly can. I have quite a bit more free time now, especially after having been down at Gen Con myself, so expect me to be far more active than I have been!

I would disagree with your comparison between Dreams of Pain and Restless Dreams a little.

 

-snipped-

 

6ss is a huge swing, and really does make this a real choice IMO.

I agree entirely, actually. Rereading it, it was less than fair on the limited upgrade. I'm actually very thankful for your way of putting it, as it let me explain it quite a bit better.

As well, I added in the Lord Chompy Bits section, cleaned up the comparison between the two limited upgrades and took a spot-cleaning brush to wipe as much of that bias-gunk out of the text where I could find it.

As always, feedback is both welcomed and appreciated. <3 Thank you to Joel and Insidiouslymad for their posts, in particular!

 

Edit: In addition, I also added more to the section on Lelu and Lilitu, with suggestions and, ahem, reminders on some useful tactics.

Finally got back into a good place for this, especially with the Beta having me play 4 or more games a week. Plus, a little encouragement is always nice.

Lelu and Lilitu added, with Chompy coming tomorrow.

Too dark? I can make it lighter. My display shows it fine, but I'm not the one reading it.

Alps, insidious madness and stitched together <3

After reading a lot of the other threads here about The Dreamer, I feel like my personal dislike of LCB style Dreamer is unfounded and unfair. I removed the lines insinuating that, and will expand the section tomorrow/tonight. 

I'm sorry. Understanding what, exactly, you're trying to say is difficult. Let me give it my best and if I'm incorrect, please explain.

 

The biggest issue, I think, is that you and I seem to be on a disconnect. I understand that resource management is an important skill to learn. My first post was saying that I should go back into the first post in this thread and make a larger section specifically for managing the resource of your hand. I'm not arguing against you, saying you're incorrect, talking about balance or anything of the sort. Stupid Bob asked me to expand, in the tactica, an explanation on how to manage your resource of cards in hand and how to offset the cost of summoning. My plan of action was to go back and add this explanation to the current existing tactica. 

 

I agree that resource management is a vital skill to learn, which is what I said the first time, and also why I'm going to add a larger section for simply that.

 

If the only point you were trying to make is that the more you summon, the less cards in hand you will have to twist fate later on in the turn or even the match, then you, I and Stupid Bob have all been on the same page and agreeing with each other this entire time.

 

I mentioned that I would also add a section on effectively using the Stitched Together to get more cards and offset the difficulties of summoning, but that was apparently missed. 

Something you touch out but has really been pretty clear to me is how trying to Summon affects what cards you have available to Cheat with for your fighty guys.

 

I'm always thrilled when I get those high cards and immediately begin considering what I can summon and what I need to summon...then I see that I'm likely going to have a tough fight or two on the upcoming turn and want to have some cards to cheat with to help win those fights.

 

Very often I find myself having a great hand, summoning lots of cool things, then getting my teeth kicked in when my opponent's meanies have high cheat cards available and I don't.

 

This really became apparent to me when I started experimenting with Jacob and Woke Up With A Hand. It's nice to have high cards available for Jacob to shoot someone in the face with his Brilliance Bazooka!

 

Forgive me if it was touched on in there, but I thought the lack of high cards to actually fight with a significant consideration when playing Summony Dreamer.

 

Thanks for an awesome article! Loving it!

 

To be fair, I did mention that as a strength of Lord Chompy Bits style Dreamer, in that you don't need high cards to summon as well as fight and defend. But I could have put that more in the open, and you're absolutely right. 

 

 

True... But then if you play any crew your resource management is an important part of victory/failure/effectiveness... Bare in mind that once you've got round to summoning your awesome 15ss summoned boost to your crew, the crew is still working off the same hand size and to that extent, can still only cheat the same number of times. So of course a lot of your summoned horde isn't going to get the support...

Seems fair to me considering how effective a master he can be when used effectively... Serious crew boostage from turn 1

 

The idea isn't that it is fair or that it is a skill to learn, he just wanted me to be sure to explain it for those people who are very new and aren't aware of it. And there is going to be an entire section of the Stitched Together's usage to set up a pit of webs and leech cards off of a hapless opponent. There is certainly more than just six cards against six cards in a game of Malifaux, even more so when you get some shenanigans going on.

Added the Weaver Widow and took Conorrooney88's advice and added a section at the beginning of both her and Vasilisa that highlight when you would want to hire them. 

Added Vasilisa!

Be wary. Summoning masters, even if you're only aiming at Alps, get more powerful the less stones you're allowed to bring at first. At least in my experience. 

Summoning 14 points of models in a total of 50 is much different than in a total of 30. 

Added Daydreams. I know there was another thread I skimmed through asking how to use them so, if I didn't explain anything well enough, please let me know!

 

Cost - No daydreams! (As soon as you summon 1, you lose the student)

4 6+ masks (or stones to add masks)

Some degree of activation control.

Actually, it was changed right near the end of beta. It now requires a 7+, not a 6+. 

I'm sorry to everyone watching that I haven't updated quicker. This week was a transfer to a new job, my anniversary and my SO's birthday and I got a tattoo. So, I've been a bit busy!

Tonight or tomorrow I will be posting full sections for Daydreams, Vasilisa and Alps. :3

@ Stitched Madness 

You've got it. I was saying that specific rule (Cannot gain the Waking +1 from shooting attacks if LCB has already activated.) is in place to prevent summoning Lord Chompy Bits twice in one turn. [Now, technically, if you use something to give The Dreamer fast, such as a Student of Conflict, then summoning four times, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't get to summon a new Lord Chompy Bits, which is why I used the word inhibit, not prevent.]

Oh, a quick question for anyone: Is there any model I've not listed that you'd like discussed in this tactica?