Dreamer Things?

[Obeisance]

I'm considering buying Dreamer/crew, for something different. Also pretty models.

So there's two ways of playing him, right?

Aggressive Chompy and Summoning?

Can I get some sample 50ss lists for both?

What do you take and summon?

[EnternalVoid]

While he has two different limited upgrades I would say he has more than two ways of playing him, just you are generally taking one upgrade or the other.  There if your two examples but I have also seen a slight summoning/heavy support Dreamer.  They might be variations but they are both valid ways to play him.

An Aggressive summoning Dreamer is dreamer with Dreams of Pain.  He tends to take 2-3 daydreams for to sacrifice for the Mask to Dreamer's summons.  Under the new errata the extra mask goes away once he uses the summon off Dreams of Pain so it only gives you the double mask once for that now.  Often people also take Tannen in this list for his Leave it to Luck action so that any Mask cards they get can be worth +2 value for summoning.  Generally people that go this route plan to summon as much as possible with what resources they end up with.  Some people take Wings of Darkness in this route as well so that when they stone for cards they draw 3 rather than 2 to get a better chance at drawing good summon cards.  The Twins are popular summons in this list as they can heal off each other being healed thus quickly gain wounds after summoning.  Insidious Madness are often summoned for scheme running.  If you get a 13 of Mask or an RJ it is possible to summon a Teddy.  After that people often summon stitched for their damage output or Daydreams to restock.  Starting crews can vary but generally have a core of the daydreams, Tannen, and a good pool of stones for helping summoning.

Aggressive Chompy Dreamer is of course focusing on they upgrade Reckless Dreams and making use of the additional activation from Chompy.  The upgrade Tantrum is almost always taken as well as it grants the Dreamer Range Expert and another shooting action.  Generally from what I have seen with this people with first turn spit out 3 models, often using a Daydream for the Mask, then summoning two Alps and a new Daydream.  They then set up for next turn either by leaving their Dreaming at +3 or used Tucked in to get to Dreaming +2.  Some people use Lilitu in this list to walk first turn then Lure Dreamer forward to get him up field more early.  If the enemy was overly aggressive the dreamer might even get a shot first turn to get Dreaming +4 and get Chompy out.  In either case the end goal is generally to get Chompy out as often as you can to use those extra AP.  Either by summoning or by using the Surrounded by Nightmare Sh attack after putting a few friendly nightmares around them.  If the enemy is not engaged and near Daydreams some will use the Twisted Realty Sh attack to get the Unhinged trigger and paralyze.  Generally though this list will focus on surrounding enemies with nightmares like Alps, damage from Surrounded by Nightmare, and then Chompy's three attacks.

A variation of the summoning Dreamer that I have used myself is a Dreamer that generally only summons a single model a turn.  It then uses its other AP on Empty Night to support its models and tucked in to keep Waking low.  This sort of list you generally don't see Chompy much as you instead are using Dreamer as a healer and support.  For me this list tends to use less Nightmare models in the initial hire as Empty Night and his healing can affect other models *Empty Night being minions*.  I take Corrupted Hounds, Bloodwretches, and even Illuminated plus Daydreams as a chunk of my starting crew.  I then summon the additional nightmares in, most often Stitched Together to be my second wave of sorts while giving the right buffs out to my guys.  A fast Bloodwretch can be an amazing charger while a corrupted hound with Empty Night's Journey trigger is surprisingly solid.  An Illuminated can easily go from 1wd to full or near full with the Dreamer's healing aura.