How does the Dreamer lose?

[valhallan42nd]

ad executioners...... no defensive triggers.... tubby eats him for lunch

Tubby has to get to him first.

[the proxy union]

double walking is a thing...

also even with high terrain density, things like lilith, mei fang, colodi, hamelin's killjoy bomb, the vikks, seamus, perdita, von shill, and ulix all have the movement/ ranged firepower/ access to Ca damage/ general shenanigans to hit dreamer hard and possibly apply enough pressure to either kill him or stop the summoning engine from getting out of control. 

as always your millage will vary with your hand, size of your SS pool, and terrain set up, but dreamer is a fragile caster and he can get popped easily unless you have 2/3 of the previous factors in your favor. and i realize that i may sound like i am throwing shade on the dreamer, my feeling towards him are the exact opposite; the dreamer is near the top of the pack for tier one masters and i have the utmost respect for his power level and how much his summoning can skew game outcomes. it is part of the reason i try to play a more aggro role in game against him. 

he will have vulnerable moments during the turn. to beat him you need to hit him then and hit hard. your opponent can castle up and play back to avoid this but then he is wasting AP by not playing for points with many of his summoned points.

just some food for thought.

-Proxy

[EnternalVoid]

Actually have been testing a few things of late with him, one of which had been including the Mysterious Effigy with the boy.  Some extra insurance should someone try some alpha strike on the Dreamer.  It has twice deterred someone from committing against the Dreamer for the turn which was nice as they did not want to take one swing, have it redirected or stopped with Aether Connection and then have me escape.  Helped another time where i had to have him walk into the open to be close enough for Accomplice on Teddy *they had Kill Protege on Teddy and he needed some serious healing*; the push had when they shot at him let me afterwards get him into some hard cover to prevent follow up shots.

[Detharious]

So with Mei Fang, the issue my opponent had was the fact that he needs markers to move around or constructs that need to survive. When I'm playing an aggressive position its hard to get close enough to the dreamer at all. It seems like if you're going after the dreamer you need to immediately reach him from across the board and kill him in that one activation or he'll escape or bring out chompy and kill the model that just attempted to assassinate him. While I don't really have the time atm to learn/play a game on vassal if people would throw out some general lists of what you would bring against the dreamer (and have previously won against him) it may help me suggest things to my friends. 

Though this brings up an issue- as the game simply states you know what your opponent's faction is before building your crew- you have no idea you are up against the dreamer. So you can't really "meta" build for him....

Its frustrating as previous games (one that didn't involve the dreamer) didn't seem imbalanced. but, playing the dreamer its like hitting the "I Win" button.

[Ludvig]

 

Purely in the interest of helping Dreamer players out:

The way you deal with models being on 1 wound is by either chain activating into them, stitches or summoning them out of los. The way you deal with belles is to keep Dreamer behind terrain or else behind a model that is directly between the Dreamer and the belle so that the belle has to take 1 action to move into los of the Dreamer and can only lure him once. If the belle succeeds and you have a low mask you can pawn the lure off on something else. If you don't then you can lure him right back with lilitu. This works when facing a belle or two. Massed belles is a different beast. 

I think Nicodem is not one of Dreamer's hardest matchups he's about par for the course. While all that you say about Nico's summons coming in stronger and Nico having better card control are true the Dreamer has a couple of things in his favour as well. Stitched togethers are at their very best vs ressers and noone runs them better than the Dreamer. Nico crews tend to have enough wp4 and 5 minions/enforcers that it's easier than usual to paralyze models with moderate to high crows from twist reality. 

Dreamer isn't autowin, but neither does he struggle just because your opponent can summon or lure. 

You have a strange way of helping new dreamer players since actions that summon models require LoS and you are teaching them to break the rules of the game. You can also only chain activate to one model so if you summoned three om them, two will always remain within 6", LoS and unhealed.

[Kadeton]

I assume Thana meant summoning them out of LoS of the enemy.

Chain-activation limitations have always seemed like a problem for summoner-Dreamer to me for exactly that reason (unless you're summoning both Twins).

I've also found that without Restless Dreams, Lord Chompy Bits really isn't that great at killing stuff. YMMV! I much prefer the aggressive Restless Dreams + Tantrum Dreamer to the more passive Dreams of Pain + Otherworldly version.

[Ludvig]

 If you can hang around the back and summon with impunity without the enemy ever reaching you I would consider two possibilities: 1 the enemy hasn'tmade a very competitive list / 2 you are actually using a bit too much LoS-blocking terrain or have placed it badly.

I would also like to hear from the Dreamer players how they fare against Sonnia since I feel she can negate a lot of the Dreamer'sstrengths. For example she can hit stuff 8" away from her original target, it's hard to spread out with more than 8" between each model in your crew. I mentioned her earlier but no-one seemed to pick up on that comment, are you (any and all Dreamer players) finding her so easy to counter that you didn't bother responding or did the comment get lost?

[Palooka]

How are you refilling your hand with cards? I noticed that was one of your gripes - and to my knowledge the only way to refill your hand with those models is the Roll the Dice on the Stitched.

[Detharious]

How are you refilling your hand with cards? I noticed that was one of your gripes - and to my knowledge the only way to refill your hand with those models is the Roll the Dice on the Stitched.

Game of Chance with Stitched (I run 2 starting, occasionally summon more), Widow Weaver lets me draw a card each time an opponent fails any horror duels around her and I can usually get 1 or 2 Horror Duels on her own activation alone, along with wings of Darkness upgrade on Dreamer.

[Malkyr]

Did your group play other miniature groups before Malifaux? It sounds to me like maybe you are just a better player then your friends. Big fish in a little pond happens quite often in small groups and that is where you see the overall "meta" of competitive games become meaningless. As I'm sure you are aware Dreamer is by no means considered broken on the Malifaux tournament scene (in fact Levi is the only Master you really here that applied to in the whole game).

Are your friends picking schemes that play to their strengths and work well against your playstyle? Are they focused on VPs are just chewing up your summoned models in a meaningless attrition meat grinder? Finally are you sure that your group is playing the rules correctly (like summoned models getting Slow)?

[Palooka]

How are you refilling your hand with cards? I noticed that was one of your gripes - and to my knowledge the only way to refill your hand with those models is the Roll the Dice on the Stitched.

Game of Chance with Stitched (I run 2 starting, occasionally summon more), Widow Weaver lets me draw a card each time an opponent fails any horror duels around her and I can usually get 1 or 2 Horror Duels on her own activation alone, along with wings of Darkness upgrade on Dreamer.

You can only use Game of Chance once per turn, can't you? And I applaud you if you're managing to get people to fail horror checks, it never seems to happen when I play.

 

[Detharious]

Did your group play other miniature groups before Malifaux? It sounds to me like maybe you are just a better player then your friends. Big fish in a little pond happens quite often in small groups and that is where you see the overall "meta" of competitive games become meaningless. As I'm sure you are aware Dreamer is by no means considered broken on the Malifaux tournament scene (in fact Levi is the only Master you really here that applied to in the whole game).

Are your friends picking schemes that play to their strengths and work well against your playstyle? Are they focused on VPs are just chewing up your summoned models in a meaningless attrition meat grinder? Finally are you sure that your group is playing the rules correctly (like summoned models getting Slow)?

I've played Warmachine prior, and the others have played significantly more than me. Though one of them has recently come to this forums for help and has told me he has found some things and gotten help that should make it a more fight. I've also learned a lot coming here. Though we haven't had another chance to play lately.

You can only use Game of Chance once per turn, can't you? And I applaud you if you're managing to get people to fail horror checks, it never seems to happen when I play.

Really I rarely even use it because Gambling has such a huge power spike in damage...

My next game will likely be against a Mei Feng so if someone has some ideas on what he can bring to the table to decimate me at 50 SS I'd appricate it. (and tactics as my only big recommendation to them so far is 'kill dreamer asap')

[Palooka]

Sorry, I meant Roll the Dice. You can't use it to generate dice more than once a turn.

[Kadeton]

My next game will likely be against a Mei Feng so if someone has some ideas on what he can bring to the table to decimate me at 50 SS I'd appricate it. (and tactics as my only big recommendation to them so far is 'kill dreamer asap')

It really depends on what the Strategy and Schemes are, but in general Mei will want some small, tough constructs (Metal Gamin and Steam Arachnids), one big fast beater (Howard Langston), and some mid-range utility (Johan, Soulstone Miner, Large Steam Arachnid etc). Ranged attacks are nice if you can get them, but mostly you'll be relying on Armor and healing to win fights. Try to stick to M&SU Constructs where possible, and synergise with things like Johan's mass healing and Bleeding Edge Tech to keep them up and running. Vapormancy will be a really useful upgrade on Mei.

Don't stress about taking out the Dreamer - while he's just sitting in the backfield using his high cards on summoning he's not much of a problem. Go for the objectives, and kill anything that wanders out of Dreamer's bunker to stop you. Widow Weaver is a top-priority target if she's around - she'll have to separate from the backfield Dreamer to control an area of the board, so send in Mei and beat the snot out of her (Weaver basically can't do anything to Mei). Similarly, anything that ignores Armor (a Teddy with Retribution's Eye, for example) should die as fast as possible.

Stitched Together are annoying for their random damage spikes off Gamble Your Life. You can use Mei to hunt them - she can engage from outside their effective range, she can kill them pretty easily, and she can Vent Steam to totally mess up their attacks. (Vent Steam also protects against Lilitu's Lure, Widow Weaver's ranged attacks, Insidious Madnesses' Whispers, etc... you should have at least one Vent Steam up at all times, and they do stack if you really need to shut down the enemy.)

Once you feel like you've got control of the objectives and are on track to win the game, you can either bunker down and keep control against the trickle of summons from Dreamer, or go after him directly. If he comes out of his bunker to stop you before then, kill him with Scalding Breath or just beat him up. There's no need to go charging into him where all his strength is concentrated - that's a bad way to die. The Dreamer's not going to score any points by sitting in his deployment zone, so force him to come out to you then kick his teeth in.

Hope that helps!

[Eclipse]

If you are against 10T Mei on the other hand your buddy might want to focus more on the Burning synergy - not as a source of damage, but as an enabling device. He won't have access to this many Construct models, but he won't need them - three should be enough. Komainu are in faction, while Mei can bring in Metal Gamin and the Rail Golem to the Thunders. A horde of Rail Workers or Komainu and Ten Thunders Brothers or, say, High River Monks, will do the trick. Kang isn't nearly as golden here as he is vs. undead/constructs, but is still solid.
Mei is immune to Paralyzed, which is a great help vs Neverborn (Terror duels do nada). Ram her into the Dreamer bubble and place some blasts to obliterate the little Nightmares the Dreamer uses as meatshields. She needs a single Construct nearby - to be able to walk away so as not to eat Lord Chompy AND Stitched in the face. On Wings of Wind looks like it would be great on her as far as non-Master-specific upgrades go, Misdirection as well if she intends to stay engaged in the nightmare mosh pit. Etc.
Hope this helps your friend. Have fun!

[katadder]

only played dreamer once myself and that was using Levi. tbh Levi/Alyce just kills all his summons and summons abominations off them so I had activation control. even managed to summon an abomination right next to dreamer which with his nice aura really messes up the dreamer until hese dead.

if summoning dreamer though just keep the pressure on (when playing arcanist mei feng i like a kang/joss double team with joss putting a negative on all casts in his aura)