Dreamer vs. Yan Lo

[jovialevil]

I've played about a dozen games of Malifaux and have brought The Dreamer to the table twice.  I've also played Mah, Wong, McCabe, Pandora, Von Schill, Viktorias.  This report is from a game that I played in about a month ago, but I took notes at the time.  I decided to post it because it seems there's still a fair bit of discussion on the Neverborn forum as to whether Lucid Dreams or Stitched Together are too powerful.  Personally, I thought Lucid Dreams was extremely strong.

 

My crew:

Dreamer (6 stones)

LCB (IR)

Coppelius

3x Daydream

2x Stitched

1x Alp

1x Insidious Madness

 

Opposing crew had Yan Lo, Porter, Izamu, Chiaki, Toshiro, 2x Ashigaru, 2x Gokudo.

 

Strategy was Corrupted Idols, scheme pool had Outflank, Search the Ruins, and others (it seems we both picked these two, as they seem relatively easy to score). The board had a pretty typical amount of blocking terrain, some high-vantage hills with caves beneath, but no concealing or severe terrain.

 

First turn the idol appeared at the west side of the board.  A daydream and insidious madness approached it, with the daydream perching safely on a mountaintop.  An alp moved to the center of the board and was liquified by Izamu -- 5 SS to remove a card from my deck & distract Izamu for one turn.  A stitched charged in to engage Izamu, mostly hoping to keep him from moving off to wreck the rest of my crew.

Everybody else on my team moved up the east side of the board.  Dreamer focused, summoned an Insidious Madness, then gave Chiaki adversary, stoning for the trigger in order to teleport LCB (& the new Madness) to the Ancestors' backline.  LCB was engaging Chiaki (who'd already activated) and Toshiro (who hadn't).  All told, this was a foolish decision -- it's a horrible idea to attack Yan Lo's ancestors before killing the minions, and The Dreamer could've targeted a Gokudo for all of that instead.  And wouldn't have needed to use focus, even.

Coppelius dropped a scheme marker for Search the Ruins. 

LCB focused and hit Chiaki.  Again, foolish.  Worse, I then cheated the RJ for damage, killing her.  Her soul landed on a Gokudo.  Yan Lo resummoned her, trading one of his AP for 2 from LCB, and teleporting the Gokudo to a much better position (right next to the west idol).

By the end of the turn, Ancestors have control of the west, Nightmares have control of the east.  Yan Lo has grown a little stronger.  Dreamer has removed 9 cards from the deck, and still has 8 models with Lucid Dreaming in play.

**

Turn two, the idol dropped in the center.  A stitched abandons the Dreamer to stab himself in the chest for 3.  Sensing an opening, a double-focused Gokudo charges the unprotected Dreamer, using a focus on each attack to punch through Serene Countenance.  Dreamer had no Nightmares to slough attacks onto ... but the Gokudo flipped poorly and did no damage.

Two daydreams moved in to protect the Dreamer, then Coppelius used his ranged attack to kill the Gokudo.

The western Insidious Madness stabbed itself for 2, leaving itself at 1 health remaining.  But then Yan Lo killed it and commanded an Ashigaru to stab itself for 3, putting the marker cleanly onto the Ancestors' scoring side.  Dreamer summoned a Madness and the western Daydream, still perched safely atop a hill, tried to unbury it on a Gokudo, but the Gokudo had cover and the attacks narrowly missed (well, they missed by a mile, but I had an 11 in hand and the Gokudo flipped cards that were too high for me to cheat past, which unfortunately also allowed the focused Gokudo to cycle cards, since he was cheating second).  A freshly summoned Ashigaru (really, the Dreamer's turn one play was terrible -- I forgot to mention that killing Chiaki also created a corpse for Toshiro to summon aid with.  The Nightmares would have been in a better position if LCB had simply passed his first turn) tried to get away from LCB to stab itself and deny the Dreamer a strategy point, but it had its Mv reduced to zero by LCB's disengaging strike.  A few activations later, when I realized what the Ashigaru's plan had been, I mentioned that it would've have been able to interact after disengaging.

Yan Lo and Chiaki both dropped scheme markers for Search the Ruins.  I believe Izamu was pulled away from the southern Stitched by the Soul Porter, then charged the center Stitched but missed a few times.  One of the misses was due to a high card that had previously been exiled by Lucid Dreaming.

At the end of turn two, Yan Lo was even stronger than before ... but the Nightmare deck had removed 17 cards, with a new average flip of 8.8.  Dreamer had 2 points (strategy & search), Yan Lo 3 (strategy, outflank, & search).  We drew for the next turn and planned to reconvene in a week for the second half of the game (for which my notes are sketchier).  Dreamer drew BJ, which he will never, ever let go of -- with the black joker in hand, Nightmares will be able to cycle through their deck repeatedly each turn and hit RJ over and over.

**

Turn three, things soured for the Ancestors.  The idol appeared at the middle west, which was good for them, because Yan Lo and a Gokudo were in range.  The Gokudo stabbed itself to shift the idol onto its scoring side, angled slightly into a cave because there was blocking terrain close to the spawn point.  Then the Dreamer used RJ to summon a pair of alps.  The western Daydream had been holding that side of the board alone for the Nightmares, but two good flips later the Alps had joined it.  They wouldn't be able to stop the Ancestors from scoring the strategy this turn, but one moved into position to interact with the far west idol next turn.  The first turn's summoned Insidious Madness (who'd spent turn 2 dropping a scheme marker for Search the Ruins) also charged over to win control of this side of the board.

Izamu again failed to kill the center Stitched.  LCB stabbed himself near the center idol, moving it impossibly far into the Nightmare's scoring side.  All Ashigaru on the east died, some scheme markers were placed, and Coppelius moved in to engage Toshiro.

Turn three ended with Yan Lo at full power, but with 28 cards removed from the Nightmare's deck.  After being used to summon alps, RJ appeared on two damage flips that turn.  Nightmares 3 VP (scored Outflank), Ancestors 4 (scored strategy).

**

Dreamer summoned aid then marked Izamu as an adversary, teleporting LCB.  Yet again that western Daydream (clearly the Nightmare's MVP) unburied aid in the west.  Chiaki falls with no minion nearby to slurp up her soul.  Stitched kills the Soul Porter (I believe this is the only time Fiendish Gamble was used all game.  On the forums, people say that this ability is too strong.  It didn't feel overly powerful ... cards weren't being subbed in from the exile zone, so it seemed fair that it was such a high damage tactical action because it could've backfired and caused the Stitched to kill itself.  But the Stitched was very unlikely to fail, because the average flip from the Nightmare deck was probably 10+ at this point, and the average flip from the Ancestors was still 7).  Then LCB kills Izamu.

Nightmares 4, Ancestors 4.  Ancestors have only Yan Lo & Toshiro in play. Nightmares deck is down to 13 cards, one of which is the RJ.  Black Joker still in hand, obviously. 

**

Turn five, the Nightmares squirrel around for a while.  Yan Lo attacks but can't hurt anyone without cheating, and this turn drew a high 10.  Average flip from Nightmares is 11.4.  They would like to be on negative flips for damage, though, because then they could hit RJ almost every attack.

Nightmares 7, Ancestors 4.

Apparently the game felt very demoralizing on day two (turns 3, 4, & 5).  Ancestors couldn't win duels without cheating.  I'd thought it was close after turn 2, with only a single Daydream holding the western flank, but being able to unbury minions where you need them is extremely powerful.  Lucid Dreaming felt absurdly strong.  Maybe things would have been different against a crew that was better at obliterating models on turn one, but I played quite foolishly and, because my flips were soon so high, was not punished for my folly.

I also think that if someone were playing the Dreamer well, they'd want more card draw.  It seems really, really important to get the black joker into your hand.

 

 

[Ogid]

Ty for the report and kudos for that crew building; high minion count is perfect versus a crew like Yan-Lo Most. Plus a lot of people play low LDs crews, it’s good to see some high minion count report.

Some comments about the game tho. This game was the perfect scenario for a heavy LD strategy and Yan-Lo digged a hole for himself with his crew selection; he picked a lot of defensive and low mobility models unable to threaten Dreamer or Daydreams. That may be a good idea versus most crews, but Dreamer has 2 scaling mechanics LDs and summoning, when not pressured early he can outscale Yan-Lo in late game with a very thin deck; specially if as you said, he can get the BJ in his hand. Yan-Lo needed to be aggressive in this game with Manos and some versatile/OOK. A dreamer with a high LD list is vulnerable early, if that window isn’t taken; it become a late game monster. Yan-Lo just tasted his own medicine.