Need some intel on Dreamer and Pandora for friend

[DeleteAccount]

OK, a friend of mine saw Miss Ery (I'm giving him mine in exchange for some painting goodness ) and the Dreamer box (waiting for real release date or black friday to get it) and instantly feel in love. Since he is an over eager bastard, he has also bought the Pandora box and another teddy.

 

Basically, wanted to know if Dreamer and Pandora work well with each other and if the dual Teddy thing can work. He also bought the puppet wars box (yes, eager bastard), so he is conversion material for a while too, since I assume he'll prefer to make his own flavor of Mr Tannen for the Teddy summon thing.

 

Aside from that, what else can I do for him demo and gameplay wise to ease him in? Last time I faced Pandora was during beta, so it's been a long time.

[necroon]

My two cents:

 

At 50 stones I run two teddies with dreamer off the bat and find it fairly effective. 

Usually if I bring one with Pandora it's only ever one and I find Bishop to be more effective with her although he does function in a slightly different role. 

 

The Widow Weaver (Weaver Widow?) will go very well with both masters (You can run On Dreaming Wings on it with Dual Teddy Dreamer for a bit more speed). 

 

I'd say it's a good start. Perhaps more so for Dreamer than Pandora with the Teddies but she isn't exactly too far behind. 

Have him pick up or convert a few Insidious Madness' and the Twins as they work well in both crews, too. 

[Tuttleboy]

Lots of folks add Tannen to the Dreamer when he has the summoning upgrade. If you activate him before the Dreamer and use his leave it to luck you can get a Teddy with Red Joker or 13 .  Personally I almost never use the kid without Widow Weaver and she could help Pandora, too.

[The Godlyness]

For dreamer doras box does nothing and dreamers does nothing with Dora. But the twins stitched together and insidous madness work well with both. As does coppelius. And of course works with both.

[Bodiless]

 Personally I almost never use the kid without Widow Weaver and she could help Pandora, too.

 

"Could" is a bit of an understatement. WW is ghastly in combination with Pandora - once the web markers start piling up the Pandora player practically just has to sit back and watch your crew kill itself trying to accomplish anything. (It's not quite that bad. But it's close.)

[Tuttleboy]

I love having WW in any crew that uses the enemy's Wp in duels. If I have her and 2 other Terrifying models running against crews that don't ignore Terrifying I can destroy my opponents hand and manipulate fate towards my favor a bit.

[DeleteAccount]

OK, so the gist of it is that their crew boxes do nothing for each other outside of maybe Copellius, but they both like a lot of the same expanded toys and that 1-2 teddies can work perfectly. Am I right?

[Insidiously Mad]

Pretty much ya. Although I would say that alps are good with Pandora (when summoned by Coppelius) and Baby Kade works well with dreamer (and Teddy). So although there is not a ton of cross over, there is some. Also the core additions for both crews (in my mind at least) are the same: Insidious Madness, Stitched, Teddy, Lilitu, and ESPECIALLY WIDOW WEAVER (Seriously she is phenomenal with both crews). I personally play dreamer but have been debating picking up Pandora, though might try to get hands on old metal model to save money, as I think she can be played without any of her box stuff quite easily (though it does mean missing out on Kade for dreamer as well...)

[asrian]

I have to agree with all of the above. Widow Weaver is damn near an auto-include for my Dreamer and my Pandora crew. I pretty much use Insidious Madness exclusively with both as well (I rarely, if ever, even bother with the Sorrows any longer, when I can take Insidious for the same points, and they are more resilient and faster runners). And Teddies are good with both for the above reasons.

Best of luck to you and your friend.

[Clement]

I will disagree! Because of all of the crossover, restless dreamer can do a lot of willpower punishing, and sorrows are in a great position to take advantage of that, landing doldrums hits against their reduced wp and using their aura to add yet more damage to the pile.

As an added bonus, I've used a sorrow and an alp/day dream as an objective runner in a pinch. Move the "runner" forward, then the Sorrow uses Misery Loves Company to push into base and then interacts.

[kaintxu]

One quick tactical question.

When do u guys bring chomps out?

[Clement]

Are you talking "Dreams of Pain" Dreamer or "Restless Dreams" Dreamer?

 

If we're talking Restless Dreams, then your gold standard will be to activate Dreamer late in the turn, and get him up to 4 waking over the turn to get Chompy out and rolling (and then self sacrificing) asap.  This can be tricky because you can only hit full waking if you spam cast summons and Sh actions (no walking)

[kaintxu]

Is The summoning big his worth it? I ask because they only come in with 1 live.

I'm an arcanist player and want to start with Neverborn, and I like the dreamer but have no idea how he plays yet.

So do u sacrifice cho oh in the same turn u summon him?

[Mason]

I usually just get Chompy out turn 2 or so, and then keep him out to distract the opponent for the rest of the crew and to murder things.  I only sacrifice him if he's close to getting killed or in a bad spot. 

[Ozz]

Generally i find it best to just hope your opponent kills him for you, ideally letting you get two activations from him first, as it does not much to hurt you, but uses their cards and AP to remove him.  However, unless i know they are going to kill him, i would generally sac him (with the summoning Dreamer) on his second activation.

[Kadeton]

I'm liking the sound of the Chompy-focused Dreamer (no point letting that Nightmare model languish in a box), but I'm wondering: how do you keep the Dreamer alive?

From the other side of the table, I've found it relatively easy to kill a summoning Dreamer once you've done the hard work of chewing a path through his endless stream of Nightmares to his hidey-hole on the other side of the board. A Chompy Dreamer does this for you, by coming forward to get Chompy stuck in.

What tricks do people use to keep the little guy alive once he's popped back out close to the enemy? He seems very vulnerable to blasts and pulses, for a start.

[asrian]

As I've only played a few games with Dreamer thus far (just starting with him), I can confirm that he is vulnerable to blasts, but then, that is his main weakness. I played against a Sonia crew with him, knowing this. Main way I took her out was to get his Waking to 3 on the prior turn, as well as have other crew models advance in anticipation of the oncoming battle, then on the following turn surprised her by double walking (14" incorporeal through terrain), summoning an alp right on top of her for further support (and to potentially dish out slow or to use as a defense trigger target for Dreamer in case Chompy bit it), and that put me at Waking 4 so turned in to Chompy (place within 6" so basically just moved up 20" in a turn and did a summon), and put him in engagement with Her to shut down her blasting the crap out of me.

[Kadeton]

Heh. Neat trick - I guess my question is more... what did you do after that? Chompy isn't hard to take down, and that pops the Dreamer out with only an Alp for company. How do you survive at that stage?

[asrian]

As I said, I was moving other models up on the turn prior (was a Reckoning game...Mature Neph and Nekima flying in/hitting different flanks) and Two Teddies getting pushed by the Three day dreams I summoned on the Prior turn up the center, then using their Gobble You Up, or Charges if those failed to close ranks and take pressure off Dreamer.

Basically played "Hide and Seek" with my crew until I could all out blitz the opponent.

[Gorbad]

Tessy works quite well with Pandora, if you run the right build. Because he gets to make an attack when an end fails a Wp test within 6" you can have a large area around Pandora be absolutely lethal to enter. I still have to test my Pandora+Poltergeist+2 Teddies (and other stuff) crew but for games that require you to dominate a particular area that could be a really strong crew.

[Malsqueek]

The two of them basically share pretty much any model beautifully. Anything good for one fits nicely with the other.

[darkhawk]

Nobody talked about the Doppelganger

 

Basically it's a great model for all neverborn crew, because it could be what you want on the table.

With pandora, it gives you another WP test (manipulative), but I tend to use it for copying misery loves company with an action 0 and score some schemes (distract/deliver a message, plant explosive...). As you can make some interact actions in engagement, you also deny it to your opponent. And it gives you the right to cheat initiative which is great when you're playing with a crew based on activation control.

 

For the dreamer, I'll play my first game tomorrow to a tournament, so I can't tell you a lot for now. Strats & schemes are hidden and I choose to put it in my two list as a scheme runner. Coppelius is great too for that job but I could summon it, contrary to the Doppel'.

[Malsqueek]

Coppelius is probably the most beastly scheme runner in the game. I use him as my Teddy alt when I don't feel like running Teddy.

[D_acolyte]

I like Teddy, insidious madness and Lilitu with both. I have not used Lilu this edition yet but he looks like a good cheep flanker. For Pandora I like adding in the children woes, especially Kade with my puppet war Teddy next to him. With dreamer I  sprinkle some stitches to taste, I wish he could still use night terror. I need to pick up some more madnesses. I have not used the weaver widow yet.