Beating Dreamer

[Gobbos]

How in the blue hell do you do it?  I ran Ressers against him today, got no VPs, and called it after 4 because I was so frustrated.  Nevermind drawing dead for Turns 2-4, but there was literally nothing I could do.  How do you do it?

 

For game reference, it was Standard Deployment, Reconnoiter, and available schemes were Distract, Bodyguard, Assassinate, & Plant Evidence.  Working with a limited stock of models, this is what I ran at 50ss:

 

Nico w/ Love Thy Master & Undertaker

Mortimer w/ My Favorite Shovel & Corpse Bloat

Bete Noire w/ Decaying Aura

2 Punk Zombies

1 Canine Remains

Graveyard Spirit

Schemes: Bodyguard (Bete) & Plant Evidence

 

vs.

 

Dreamer w/ Tantrum, Restless Dreams, & Otherworldly

Coppelius (no upgrades)

Teddy w/ On Dreaming Wings

Teddy

2 Daydreams

Baby Kade (no upgrades)

Schemes: Bodyguard (Coppelius) & Plant Evidence

 

I scored 0 points, he killed Bete the turn after she showed up and I was drawing dead at that point.  He said after I should have Bodyguard'ed Mortimer, but end of turn 3 he had LCB in with Mortimer.  He sent out the Daydreams, summoned another one, then Led Nightmare the Teddys and got in my face turn 1 pretty much.  I tried Luring Dreamer away from the crew with a summoned Belle, but his Wp is so stinking high and my flips were just pathetic.  I would have liked to stay from him more and objective run, but he didn't give me a whole lot of choices moving up so fast and Ressers are not exactly quick.

[Hateful Darkblack]

Rough match!

 

Maybe hire more Belles? It seems like you had a lot of heavy units (Punk Zombies) and not enough small fast units. The Necropunks and Canine Remains are great for Reconnoiter and you probably could have taken more of them. 

 

I would have recommended dropping the Punk Zombies (summon those instead) and taking some Crooligans or Necropunks. Then when something killed them, hello Bete Noire. Maybe you could have even dropped the Graveyard Spirit (which is great for holding territory) in favor of another Crooligan.

 

Kill the Daydreams if you can! It's a good feeling and it robs the Dreamer of a resource.

[Lucidicide]

Quick question: What was the Dreamer's point situation? Bodyguard Copp is nice, but for Recon and Plant, his crew is really a lot of heavy hitters. It looks like he came looking for a fight. Did he have a lot of points, or was he just fighting?

[The Godlyness]

He played Chompy dreamer in Reconnoiter which as a dreamer player is meh at best when summoner can just pump out models in all the quarters to score vp on.

 

you are playing nico you should have been able to out summon him. and or punk zombies flurrying on teddys make teddys die pretty easily and slowing them with rigor mortise for one attack. Belles would do wonders also to dreamer lure him or his day dreams then just hit them.

 

but i dont know how to give more advice with out a batrep or picture or what not

[Gobbos]

End of the game he only had 2 points.  I think he was just planning on tabling me and getting points from Bodyguard.  As a person he really likes Teddys and tries to play with them whenever he can from a "I'm going to kill you with a giant demonic teddy bear" perspective.

 

I am just getting started with Ressers on a limited budget, so I don't have any Necropunks, Crooligans, or Canines yet.  I have 3 Belles, which I probably should have used more, but having not played Dreamer before I didn't realize all he did.

[rgarbonzo]

Flesh Constructs are a great resource as well carrying 13 wounds means they often hang around for more than one turn. Devour works amazing against ht 1 models as well. Course nothing like summoning a fast punk zombie to kill a teddy

[Fireuser]

Nicodem out summoning the dreamer (summoner dreamer anyway) seems highly unlikely.  To get going, Nico needs more than all the other summoners (as corpses are harder to generate than Kirai's hp, Molly only needs enemies, and the dreamer of course needs absolutely nothing).  I am hoping that his avatar will be able to help him out.

[The Godlyness]

If the opponent is not playing summoning dreamer I hope a summoning master could out summon him..... in reconnoiter hold two quarters is actually easier then trying to hold 3 or 4. Also distract would be better than bodyguard on bete. Mainly cause bete might be buried or dead. Body guard on Mortimer is not a bad choice either. Needing to cross the center line is not useful to you when you want to clump up to get the most benefit from Nico. But remember need 2 or more models for distract.

[EnternalVoid]

Belles are a very viable option against Dreamer though it will generally work better with them starting in your crew.

 

The reasoning being is that the Dreamer does not want to be pulled out of position, he is safest with a couple nightmares around him.  Combine this with his Walk 7 and Incorporal and he will be dragged pretty far towards you if you can get him even once.  Of course if all possible he is not going to let you do it, afterall he has a trigger to protect himself from this sort of thing.  The problem for him though is the resource drain.  With a Ca of 8 on Lure and his Wp 7, not to mention you are the attacker and winning ties, it means he is at a disadvantage each time as he effectively has to beat your card by 2.  You get a 7, he has to get a 9.  Also he lacks a built in Mask in his Wp, meaning if he thinks he is going to need his trigger to pass off the Lure, he will have to either use a mask in hand or a soulstone.  In addition to pass off the lure with his trigger he has to discard a card.  Meaning each time he passes off the lure, he is generally burning two cards or a stone and a card out of his hand.  He is also not going to generally gamble he will flip a mask so if he lacks a mask in hand he will generally stone.  In addition should you get the trigger on lure you can make him discard another card even if he passes it off.  If you can do this early in a turn with two belles you can pretty much shut down Summoning Dreamer as you will either wipe out his hand or draw him to you where you have a better chance of killing any new summons he makes right away.

 

Naturally being a Ht1 little bugger he is going to try and get out of LOS as much as possible to avoid this, but this means you are reducing where he can move safely and how he has to play.  In addition as Belles have Companion if you have two close enough together you can have them go back to back to increase the likelihood of a heavy resource drain.  With Nico I would consider having him activate before them and using Rigor Mortis to give the Belles fast to either let them move to see him or get more Lure attempts.  Or have Nico activate after them first turn and give them fast for second turn so you can try to shut down his cards right away.

 

Now this is far from an auto win, his aggressive approach means if you don't stem some of the beaters then you will be stuck on the back burner.  My suggestion might also be to look into getting Hanged.  Teddies and Coppelius are not fans of Hanged as he not only can do alot of damage to them but he can make it so they cannot be healed till the Dreamer strips the condition on them, which means you are forcing him to activate Dreamer first and he is casting spells that are not summoning.

[cdhay]

Also don't get frustrated. You have played 1 game against the dreamer. For the first time playing against any new master it usually ends in a loss. Don't be so hard on yourself. As you play more games against him you will find there is plenty you can do against him

[PolishSausage]

simple: hire lazarus and stick decaying aura on top, blast onto dreamer and watch him take wounds with no prevention

[Nicodemic]

My suggestion is just one of a few ways and involves proxying 2 guys (which hopefully your opponent is cool with) this is assuming he is being aggressive again.

So for the Teddies one model I love to summon or charge in are Crooked Men, save a high crow and with their trigger and the Teddies low defense you can paralyse them. You might not be able to paralyse both but nico+2punk zombies should chew through them fast, The Dreamer will remove the paralysed condition which means he won't be LCB thus leaving him open for another trick...

This is where our second proxy model comes in, some good old Mindless Zombies, hey don't laugh I'm serious!

Nico loves these guys and Dreamer doesn't. When Dreamer is trying to remove paralyzed from the Teddy(ies) run one or two within 2" of Dreamer (if Dreamer cares about teddies being paralyzed he will be within 6" to remove conditions which is easily within your 8" of movement if you activate the MZ within 6" of Nico... which you should like always), the MZ has a pitiful Df of 3 and no HtW and is undead which makes him an awesome target for some Decay spam from Nico and because of the MZ's stats mentioned above should get you Moderate Damage which means blasts that ignore incorporeal and triggers while not killing your MZ!

Dreamer will have to burn stones to survive if you did it right, so just press your advantage and force him into doing things he may not want to do.

Oh also Corpse Bloat on MZ's.... its beautiful...

[Mason]

The Students are really good against Dreamer, as they can turn off his triggers for a turn, which really limits just what he can do on his activation and makes him really, really easy to put into the ground.  With Nicodem, those would probably be my summoning focus against the Dreamer, all other things being equal. 

 

Otherwise, as mentioned above, Bete's really not a great choice for Bodyguard, as it's hard to say whether or not she's going to be on the board for Turn 4 onward, and if you don't camp a 10+ card in your hand, it can be hard to keep her alive. 

[DeleteAccount]

The Students are really good against Dreamer, as they can turn off his triggers for a turn, which really limits just what he can do on his activation and makes him really, really easy to put into the ground.  With Nicodem, those would probably be my summoning focus against the Dreamer, all other things being equal. 

 

Otherwise, as mentioned above, Bete's really not a great choice for Bodyguard, as it's hard to say whether or not she's going to be on the board for Turn 4 onward, and if you don't camp a 10+ card in your hand, it can be hard to keep her alive. 

Keep in mind he can pawn off the Student's 0 action into another nightmare, so you'll need to attrition the turn a bit.

[Stadon]

I played one Nico vs Dreamer game against Summoning Dreamer.  That was a long, long game that we had to call the turn before we conclusively determined a winner.  My answer to Dreamer as Nico was Dead Rider to make Wp attacks less effective and Shikome Bombs to clear out annoying models.  A fast Shikome took down Chompy once or twice.  They are my answer to darn near everything when I play Kirai or Nicodem.  They are a crappy hire, too expensive for their poor survivability, but absolutely amazing to drop in the enemy's face.  

[zFiend]

Hannah does some seriously horrendous things to the Dreamer. Taking away his suits, it's a bit harder to flip the mask needed to bring out even the lowliest Daydream.. No Daydream, no Waking.. My Dreamer still has nightmares of Hannah. 

[The Godlyness]

Day dreams need a 7 of anything. A mask could summon an alp if desired. But if Hannah is next to dreamer dreamer is out of position imho

[Kadeton]

But if Hannah is next to dreamer dreamer is out of position imho

Nothing says "Out of position" like a couple of Rotten Belles!

[The Godlyness]

I see what you did there Kadeton.

[zFiend]

Nothing says "Out of position" like a couple of Rotten Belles!

So true.

[Wake of Godzilla]

Add in the Belle's and summon in your punk zombies - that should give you a better element of board control and allow you to pick out a few of the enemy as you need to. When you can afford it pick up some dogs or necropunks and either a shikome or a hanged for summoning a big hitter and I think you will feel a lot better off.

 

Hope it helps and good luck!