Nightmares and Teddy Bears - The Dreamer Tactica

[Ergonomic Cat]

1 hour ago, Thana. said:

@whodares

First question: On the fence about hiring lelu in a starting crew, it's true that he's a decent bit better with his 0ss upgrade but he's also competing against other hiring options that imo, outclass him a bit. 

Second question: Torsul answered it. 

Third question: I think the NB emissary is weak for his cost and wouldn't recommend hiring him in any crew. If I was to hire him in a summoning dreamer crew I'd take the mysterious conflux because + flips to stitched together duels is better than everything on conflux of nightmare.  

Bonus Question: I think your core build is alright, I'll be upfront and say I don't love coppelius with on dreaming wings (or at all). 10ss for a min damage 1, 2 ap, squishy model is (imo) highway robbery, even if said model has walk 8 and flight. Some people do like him so I'd try him out and see how he works for you. What I found was that people would put a stronger, usually cheaper model on his flank and just kill him before he can accomplish much. Stuff like miranda and francois will go through coppelius like butter and have no trouble matching his speed either. I also think you're overestimating the value of flight on alps. They only have flight while within 6" of coppelius, can't charge and come in slow so they're mostly just going to walk the turn they come in and then the next turn double walk somewhere to be annoying by which time they'll likely be well outside of the flight aura. 

I've been putting Widow Weaver in his spot (with Handbag if you're feeling saucy) as a carrier for On Dreaming Wings.  I find I like her a lot more than Coppelius.  Also, Coppe can always be summoned if you really miss him....

[whodares]

1 hour ago, Thana. said:

@whodares

First question: On the fence about hiring lelu in a starting crew, it's true that he's a decent bit better with his 0ss upgrade but he's also competing against other hiring options that imo, outclass him a bit. 

Third question: I think the NB emissary is weak for his cost and wouldn't recommend hiring him in any crew. If I was to hire him in a summoning dreamer crew I'd take the mysterious conflux because + flips to stitched together duels is better than everything on conflux of nightmare.  

Bonus Question: I think your core build is alright, I'll be upfront and say I don't love coppelius with on dreaming wings (or at all). 10ss for a min damage 1, 2 ap, squishy model is (imo) highway robbery, even if said model has walk 8 and flight. Some people do like him so I'd try him out and see how he works for you. What I found was that people would put a stronger, usually cheaper model on his flank and just kill him before he can accomplish much. Stuff like miranda and francois will go through coppelius like butter and have no trouble matching his speed either. I also think you're overestimating the value of flight on alps. They only have flight while within 6" of coppelius, can't charge and come in slow so they're mostly just going to walk the turn they come in and then the next turn double walk somewhere to be annoying by which time they'll likely be well outside of the flight aura. 

What do you feel "outclasses" Lelu, veen with the def upgrade? I feel like he looks fairly strong. Otoh he can be summoned, so that's a factor I can't ignore.

 

NB Emissary is fairly strong in my opinion as he can plop down hazardous Terrain, remove conditions and summon changelings as well. He doesn't have huge damage, but I feel his utility is well worth it.

It's going to be a toss-up between the Dreamer upgrade and the default upgrade. It depends on whether or not you feel like using Chompy for some quick damage or not. I feel like it could be good to burst down a model that gets too close. Then again, I haven't played Dreamer yet, so I'm taking all the advice that I can.

 

Coppelius will indeed be something I will enjoy trying out. I feel like he can be a very strong model if he can get some eyeballs going and tough to take down if he gets them. I'll order them soon and see how they play.

[nishi]

how do you guys see tannen. i saw him few times used to his "leave it to luck" buff making summoning teddy possible. What immediately come to my mind was what if I flip tomes? even if i add mask with a SS I still have  -2 value for tomes and +2 value for masks. But in case I cheat masks over tomes only masks should count if i understand it correctly.

[Adran]

2 hours ago, nishi said:

how do you guys see tannen. i saw him few times used to his "leave it to luck" buff making summoning teddy possible. What immediately come to my mind was what if I flip tomes? even if i add mask with a SS I still have  -2 value for tomes and +2 value for masks. But in case I cheat masks over tomes only masks should count if i understand it correctly.

Leave it to luck ONLY applies on the suit of the card. Not suits you are addign to the duel. 

You Use  a 10 of tomes and have spent a soulstone you are on a value of 8 .

You use a 10 of crows and spend a soulstone on masks you are 10. (likewise for rams)

If you use 10 masks and have spent the stone you are 12. (If you haven't spent a stone you are  12, I only had the stone for consistancy)

it only applies to the card you use as you use it, so if you cheat, you entirely remove the old card from consideration and only use the new card. 

[nishi]

41 minutes ago, Adran said:

Leave it to luck ONLY applies on the suit of the card. Not suits you are addign to the duel. 

You Use  a 10 of tomes and have spent a soulstone you are on a value of 8 .

You use a 10 of crows and spend a soulstone on masks you are 10. (likewise for rams)

If you use 10 masks and have spent the stone you are 12. (If you haven't spent a stone you are  12, I only had the stone for consistancy)

it only applies to the card you use as you use it, so if you cheat, you entirely remove the old card from consideration and only use the new card. 

thanks for clarification, in that case it is even worse than i thought. For summoning teddy I just have to have a 13mask no matter what.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, nishi said:

thanks for clarification, in that case it is even worse than i thought. For summoning teddy I just have to have a 13mask no matter what.

That or the red joker (counts as the 14 of the suit of your choice). The teddy summoning is very unlikely to happen consistently.  As long as you're happy with that, then it can be fun. And there will be games when you summon 2 teddies on the first turn, and games when you never get the cards to summon a teddy all game. 

 

[Treehouse]

Tannen also makes it easier for Dreamer to get his other summons, for example a Madness for a 7. Though that is only the.case for actual masks, not stoned or daydreamed ones. 

If you go the Tannen route, take Wings of Darkness(you should, anywasy, imo).  actually, with the daydream cuddle, you can even get away with hiring primordial magic for the extra card and sacrificing it later if you need daydreams.  

 

Or use it to help you score claim jump on turn two, if you are going to sacrifice it anyway. 

[Somnicide]

I admittedly just skimmed a few pages on this topic, but didn't see much on the Tantrum/Shooty version of Dreamer. Can anyone point me to a good resource on that style of Dreamer play post errata and book 4?

[santaclaws01]

5 hours ago, Somnicide said:

I admittedly just skimmed a few pages on this topic, but didn't see much on the Tantrum/Shooty version of Dreamer. Can anyone point me to a good resource on that style of Dreamer play post errata and book 4?

That style of dreamer wasn't really affected much by errata or book 4. Also he's likely to change quite a bit tomorrow with the release of the book 5 upgrades.

[Somnicide]

13 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

That style of dreamer wasn't really affected much by errata or book 4. Also he's likely to change quite a bit tomorrow with the release of the book 5 upgrades.

Thanks - hmmm wondering now if I should wait to start him. I completely forgot it was already August...

[whodares]

15 hours ago, Somnicide said:

Thanks - hmmm wondering now if I should wait to start him. I completely forgot it was already August...

If you want to order him, I wouldn't wait too long. I've been waiting for mine for 3 months already with no set date in sight yet.

Summoning Dreamer will always be a good master, so you can't go wrong with that.

Shooting Dreamer is something I haven't seen yet, but I feel like that can be very meta- and matchup-dependant.

If Shooting changes with the new cards, that can only be a buff, because almost nobody plays him that way (that I've seen).

[Somnicide]

9 hours ago, whodares said:

If you want to order him, I wouldn't wait too long. I've been waiting for mine for 3 months already with no set date in sight yet.

Summoning Dreamer will always be a good master, so you can't go wrong with that.

Shooting Dreamer is something I haven't seen yet, but I feel like that can be very meta- and matchup-dependant.

If Shooting changes with the new cards, that can only be a buff, because almost nobody plays him that way (that I've seen).

I have the metal box but thanks for the heads up! Yeah summoning is always decent, extra AP wins games. I absolutely LOVE Asami because she has the different play styles she can do which makes her crazy flexible and keeps her interesting. I am hoping for the same with Dreamer.

[whodares]

14 hours ago, Somnicide said:

I have the metal box but thanks for the heads up! Yeah summoning is always decent, extra AP wins games. I absolutely LOVE Asami because she has the different play styles she can do which makes her crazy flexible and keeps her interesting. I am hoping for the same with Dreamer.

As someone who came from Ten Thunders, let me warn you that The Dreamer and Asami are (in their current implementation of book 4) VERY DIFFFERENT.

While Asami always had a good solution by throwing a Yokai at something, The Dreamer has a different, more long-term type of summoning.

Due to the fact that The Dreamer's summons are here to stay, they start off with 1 wound and usually need 1-2 turns inside his aura before they are really ready to go out. There are exceptions to this (looking at you Lelu/Lilitu), but for the most part, this rings true.

 

What I've read so far from the upgrades sounds like a good buff for some of the other Dreamer playstyles. It will be hard to tell though, until I've seen the actual card with all the wording on it. The chain-activate from into/out of LCB sounds like something that could be awesome for summoning Dreamer as well.

[Adran]

On 17/08/2017 at 9:34 AM, whodares said:

If you want to order him, I wouldn't wait too long. I've been waiting for mine for 3 months already with no set date in sight yet.

Summoning Dreamer will always be a good master, so you can't go wrong with that.

Shooting Dreamer is something I haven't seen yet, but I feel like that can be very meta- and matchup-dependant.

If Shooting changes with the new cards, that can only be a buff, because almost nobody plays him that way (that I've seen).

I personally think "Shooting" Dreamer is the stronger dreamer, but is less adaptable so requires more thought to play well. 

[santaclaws01]

45 minutes ago, Adran said:

I personally think "Shooting" Dreamer is the stronger dreamer, but is less adaptable so requires more thought to play well. 

The lack of adaptability is what makes it the weaker version IMO. There's nothing that Shooty dreamer does better than summoning dreamer other than being able to get chompy out in 1 turn if Chompy hasn't already activated. The upgrade to give shooting expert and surround by nightmares isn't a limited one, so summong dreamer can use it just as well, if not better because he can have more durable nightmares out than shooty dreamer can replace.

[whodares]

1 hour ago, Adran said:

I personally think "Shooting" Dreamer is the stronger dreamer, but is less adaptable so requires more thought to play well. 

I've heard it a few times already that some consider Shooting to be better. I haven't found any reason so far to actually believe it though.

Could you explain to me why you feel like he is the better one?

As Santa also said, I feel the lack of adaptability is the big weakness holding back Shooting from standing on par with Summoning.

There are always the schemes and strats that change and might give preference to the other playstyle, but I'm speaking in general terms right now. I don't see Shooting being a general equal or better choice than summoning right now, except on very specific scheme pools.

[Adran]

Firstly, its partially a mental step. If you've spent a large number of points on the ability to summon, then you feel you need to summon. So you typically reserve high cards and stones to allow you to get your summons off. You're also typically just hiding Dreamer away, so get little use from Chompy, and you often lose the tempo because you need the hires to stay near Dreamer to begin with to heal up. 

Patrtially its my play style, but I am happy to trade 1 of my opponents master AP (And high card) on a summon, with one of my AP from almost anywhere to remove that summon. 

Typical advantages to Summoning dreamer - You don't need to actually hire a good crew, you plan on summoning to fill in gaps.-But if you don't spend your time trying to summon then you can be using the Dreamer Ap to have a primary effect on the enemy, rather than just the passive of summoning in more. You can hire a good crew and use Dreamer to support it. If you want chompy every turn, then you need to be playing shooty dreamer, even if you don't need to shoot every action., And Chompy can be a huge powerhouse as a free model each turn. 

Because of the ease of adapting your list during the game, its easier to play Summoning,  you can cover your mistakes better. But if you don't make the mistakes in the first place, your extra hiring and AP will probably have a greater effect in the game.

But thats my opinion

[whodares]

On 18-8-2017 at 3:04 PM, Adran said:

--snip--

Thanks for the explanation of why you see it is good. Some of the things you see as downsides of Summoning are something I see as upside of him though

 

On 18-8-2017 at 3:04 PM, Adran said:

Firstly, its partially a mental step. If you've spent a large number of points on the ability to summon, then you feel you need to summon. So you typically reserve high cards and stones to allow you to get your summons off. You're also typically just hiding Dreamer away, so get little use from Chompy, and you often lose the tempo because you need the hires to stay near Dreamer to begin with to heal up.

This is true. I prefer to keep The Dreamer safe and away from the fights. I do want to counter the "little use from Chompy". Nobody said I can't use chompy to go crazy on a model if I see the time is ripe for it. You can also use Chompy as a powerful repositioning tool as you can get 2 chompy activations if you don't use him up straight away.

Keeping high cards might not be that accurate after turn 2 as well. I'm usually not taking Tannen with me, so I don't have to hold on the Red Joker or 13 of Masks. This only leaves Lelu, Lilitu and Coppelius as "real" high card summons. Stitched is borderline high, but I have found a love for the Bandersnatch lately. Thanks to Bandersnatch, it becomes really easy to keep your activation advantage as he becomes buried. So holding onto a 9 and/or 10 for Stitched doesn't sound too bad.

On 18-8-2017 at 3:04 PM, Adran said:

Patrtially its my play style, but I am happy to trade 1 of my opponents master AP (And high card) on a summon, with one of my AP from almost anywhere to remove that summon. 

I don't mind that either. The way I play The Dreamer is more like attrition warfare than anything else. If you use that 1 (or 2 if you get unlucky) AP on getting rid of my summon, that's AP not being spent on getting VP, holding me back properly or going after my real threats. I like it when people hit on that 2hp stitched and need an entire activation due to HtK on him. It allows me to keep the activation advantage even harder and even lets me go in with Chompy for some fast melee.

 

On 18-8-2017 at 3:04 PM, Adran said:

Typical advantages to Summoning dreamer - You don't need to actually hire a good crew, you plan on summoning to fill in gaps.-But if you don't spend your time trying to summon then you can be using the Dreamer Ap to have a primary effect on the enemy, rather than just the passive of summoning in more. You can hire a good crew and use Dreamer to support it. If you want chompy every turn, then you need to be playing shooty dreamer, even if you don't need to shoot every action., And Chompy can be a huge powerhouse as a free model each turn. 

My usual starting crew consists or Widow Weaver and 3 Daydreams. I also like taking a Teddy or some other big beatstick, but that is more dependant on schemes and strat. That leaves me with plenty of stones to get some more "strong" models and closing the activation gap on Turn 1. Well, unless I'm against Gremlins, that's a bit of a different setup with more small models to go for.

 

On 18-8-2017 at 3:04 PM, Adran said:

Because of the ease of adapting your list during the game, its easier to play Summoning,  you can cover your mistakes better. But if you don't make the mistakes in the first place, your extra hiring and AP will probably have a greater effect in the game.

But thats my opinion

In my opinion, the power that the Shooting Dreamer + LCB bring is not coming close to the power of out-activating as attritioning your opponent. Not making mistakes is impossible. Everyone makes mistakes. I feel like the Summoning Dreamer allows you to better bounce back from those mistakes than a Shooting Dreamer. If the Shooting Dreamer makes a mistake and loses an important model, you can almost call it game over. If thesame happens to Summoning, you just switch to Attrition style. Only other summoners can really keep attrition warfare in check and that is because they can also summon in new models.

 

But again, thanks for explaining it to me. I can see why you feel Shooting can be better than Summoning, but I think our playstyles are too different to have a real "clean" comparison.

On another note, how do you feel about the new upgrades? Incoming new Melee Dreamer playstyle?

Play Dreamer, he can do it all!

Shoot you in the face.

Punch you in the face.

Summon a Bandersnatch INSIDE your face.

(note, these are all mutually exclusive).

[santaclaws01]

11 hours ago, whodares said:

Thanks for the explanation of why you see it is good. Some of the things you see as downsides of Summoning are something I see as upside of him though

 

This is true. I prefer to keep The Dreamer safe and away from the fights. I do want to counter the "little use from Chompy". Nobody said I can't use chompy to go crazy on a model if I see the time is ripe for it. You can also use Chompy as a powerful repositioning tool as you can get 2 chompy activations if you don't use him up straight away.

Keeping high cards might not be that accurate after turn 2 as well. I'm usually not taking Tannen with me, so I don't have to hold on the Red Joker or 13 of Masks. This only leaves Lelu, Lilitu and Coppelius as "real" high card summons. Stitched is borderline high, but I have found a love for the Bandersnatch lately. Thanks to Bandersnatch, it becomes really easy to keep your activation advantage as he becomes buried. So holding onto a 9 and/or 10 for Stitched doesn't sound too bad.

I don't mind that either. The way I play The Dreamer is more like attrition warfare than anything else. If you use that 1 (or 2 if you get unlucky) AP on getting rid of my summon, that's AP not being spent on getting VP, holding me back properly or going after my real threats. I like it when people hit on that 2hp stitched and need an entire activation due to HtK on him. It allows me to keep the activation advantage even harder and even lets me go in with Chompy for some fast melee.

 

My usual starting crew consists or Widow Weaver and 3 Daydreams. I also like taking a Teddy or some other big beatstick, but that is more dependant on schemes and strat. That leaves me with plenty of stones to get some more "strong" models and closing the activation gap on Turn 1. Well, unless I'm against Gremlins, that's a bit of a different setup with more small models to go for.

 

In my opinion, the power that the Shooting Dreamer + LCB bring is not coming close to the power of out-activating as attritioning your opponent. Not making mistakes is impossible. Everyone makes mistakes. I feel like the Summoning Dreamer allows you to better bounce back from those mistakes than a Shooting Dreamer. If the Shooting Dreamer makes a mistake and loses an important model, you can almost call it game over. If thesame happens to Summoning, you just switch to Attrition style. Only other summoners can really keep attrition warfare in check and that is because they can also summon in new models.

 

But again, thanks for explaining it to me. I can see why you feel Shooting can be better than Summoning, but I think our playstyles are too different to have a real "clean" comparison.

On another note, how do you feel about the new upgrades? Incoming new Melee Dreamer playstyle?

Play Dreamer, he can do it all!

Shoot you in the face.

Punch you in the face.

Summon a Bandersnatch INSIDE your face.

(note, these are all mutually exclusive).

Actually, Tantrum, the upgrade that makes Dreamer Shooty, isn't limited.

[Obeisance]

Hey guys,

Haven't played on a year and I'm thinking about coming back. Possibly Neverborn for a fresh start.

Apparently Dreamer gets a new upgrade that lets him chain into Chompy in the new book.

You think aggro Dreamer is decent?

What would that style of list look like at 50ss nowdays?

There a pic of the upgrade somewhere?

[emiba]

No pictures I'm aware of but it's described here:

 

[Obeisance]

Growing Up seems pretty decent. +4 HP, cg7 and an ok melee attack.

But is it worth it?

Being able to hide and shoot vs having to be in your opponent's face and let them dictate your waking..

[le_sphinx]

2 hours ago, Obeisance said:

Growing Up seems pretty decent. +4 HP, cg7 and an ok melee attack.

But is it worth it?

Also this upgrade doesn't allow to damage Dreamer while he is buried. This reduces one of his weaknesses against particular builds. IMO it worth to mention this buff as well.

Combining "growing up" and "sleep cycles" could be the key.

[santaclaws01]

7 hours ago, Obeisance said:

Growing Up seems pretty decent. +4 HP, cg7 and an ok melee attack.

But is it worth it?

Being able to hide and shoot vs having to be in your opponent's face and let them dictate your waking..

How is hitting them with the cricket bat letting your opponent dictate your waking but not hitting then with a Sh action?

[MrBrasidas045]

On 5/15/2017 at 8:51 PM, whodares said:

NB Emissary is fairly strong in my opinion as he can plop down hazardous Terrain, remove conditions and summon changelings as well. He doesn't have huge damage, but I feel his utility is well worth it.

I will agree with this, additionally you can play him with the Mysterious Conflux upgrade if you want to play Summoner Dreamer