Beginner struggling with Dreamer against Sandeep looking for advice

[MysticalCow]

Hello everyone,

yesterday I had my second game of Malifaux with the Dreamer crew and I was in a situation at the end of round two where I didn´t see any outs for me anymore. We played "turf war" and I had the "breakthrough" and the "power ritual" scheme. My opponent took the same schemes.

My Crew:
Dreamer
LCP
Coppelius
Teddy
Hinamatsu
Stiched Together
Serena Bowman
8 SS

The crew I played against:
Sandeep (+ Magical Training)
Banasuva (+ SS cache)
Fire Gamin
Fire Gamin
Wind Gamin
Shastar Vidiya Guard
Arcane Emissary
Oxfodian Mage
8 SS

I´ve never played against Sandeep before since it was my second game at all and never watched a battle report with him so I only thought about my general game plan. I would try to shield my crew turn one, use Coppelius as scheme runner on one flank for both schemes and try to bring havoc to the middle of the table with my big beaters supported by Bowman and the Stiched while popping out some Alps in the enemy ranks. This was my "basic beginner game plan". Oh boy was I about to learn some lessons 😅.

The game started and after the deployment it look like that:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YZ-bpB-PFb8a3zx-SSM8dmqtxom6eeMw/view?usp=sharing

Since my opponent placed in the middle of the board I had to guess which flank I can send Coppelius to. Looking back I think it would have been better if I had placed him on the other flank together with LCP but yeah... second game.

My opponent summoned two more Gamins turn one and fusioned (?) three of them into a Fire Golem. He placed several fire templates and stacked the burning on the Golem up to eleven.

I summoned two Alps that popped out because my opponent put Banasuva a little to far upfront so that I could lure him/her (?) but with some tricks he managed to put her back  behind the golem quite fast again. Later in the turn he placed an Ice Garmin in the space between the "wood" and the wall to secure this last gap with an ice pillar in the follwing round.

After a lot of thinking at the end of round two I conceded due to not knowing how to break through his crew or how to find a way to score my schemes.

The board looked like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eoETD5Zd83yeL7hS-ToOgs3sNsdkBMMH/view?usp=sharing

I thought it would be better to talk about the game and what I did wrong to learn a thing or two than continue to play without any plan. Maybe it was too early to give up but I couldn´t figure out how to play against this crew. He blocked all passages with fire templates and a big beater waiting behind them (or even standing in them). The Fire Golem surrounded by fire templates would have eaten Teddy if I would have sent him in and every round I would stay back and play defensively he would generate a new Golem, shoot me from behind his frontline or just swarm me with little Garmins. Since he was controlling the turf marker in the middle I didn´t see a chance anymore. My Alps did not do enough damage to threaten the golem and they got killed instantly by the Golem, the fire or his little Gamins.

My opponent agreed that also he was surprised how bad the board state was for me and told me that he neither sees a chance of getting back into the game properly for me. 

I know it was my second game and I am quite new to it but when we played the first game (Kirai against Marcus) I always had a game plan or strategy in mind. We had to end it in round 4 due to the late time during the week but chances where high that I would have won. In comparison to my first game I felt completly shut down in everything I tried to do. 

I have several questions in my mind now and wanted to kindly ask if the more experienced player could tell me what I did wrong to end up in this situation. Or did I oversee something I could have done that would have turned the tides. Is Sandeep a bad matchup for the Dreamer in general or was the crew selection bad?

P.S.: If somebody could tell me how to link the pictures as pictures instead of a link I would be thankful
P.P.S.: I´m not a native speaker so please excuse some language/grammar mistakes


Cheers

 

[diki]

I'm not a brilliant player! but I think you probably needed to read your cards a few more times!

Serena - heals and removes conditions (so who cares about a litte burning as long as she activates afterwards!), and punches people through other people, with a trigger to push them, or shoots people and can teleport them 6" (kinda 8" on a 50mm target"

Hinamatsu has a fairly decent lure.

Did Lord Chompy Bits do anything?

With those schemes why not use your ranged attacks to summon something to scheme into his back line? Insideous Madness could have pushed the golem forawrds for you to hit?

Might be worth taking Iggy into Sandeep just to strip the burning off the golem??

[j3diii]

Being relatively new myself I can tell you that Dreamer is not an easy learning curve. It wasn't until game 5 or 6 with him that I even felt like he was all that viable in my hands.

I cannot give any advice regarding Sandeep as I don't know him nor have I faced him in a game.

Teddy backed by Serena Bowman should be able to deal with burning and attack the beaters in template though. If Serena activates later, she can just remove the burning and heal the Nightmare bear. She's also tough enough with her demise to be in the thick of it.

Also, I have found Copper really difficult to play. I need a lot more experience with him for certain because I do think he can be good, but have you considered Widow Weaver/Bandy (or both) for scheme running? They are cheaper and the ability to no-flip drop Web Markers and no-flip place in B2B (not even an AP) is pretty stellar for mobility and scoring schemes. It could also get you around the fire markers easy.

Anyways, good luck. I think you just want to get more games in with Dreamer and take your lumps until it starts to make sense how to play him.

I finally just had my first game where Dreamer really clicked for me. Played Ivan in corner deployment Break the Line and scored 6-7. I misunderstood two things about the game that absolutely prevented a tie, and maybe the win.

FWIW, this is the list I used in that game. 

[dannydb]

So can't help much with dreamer but got plenty of experience with Sandeep 

 

First thing is, Sandeep, Banasuva and to a lesser extent with update kandara are key to how the crew works and generally if left alive will provide engine to take Sandeep to victory 

 

However all 3 are very easy to kill especially Banasuva and so if you apply pressure to them they are likely to go down fairly quickly, or burn through stones which Sandeep needs in order to summon. So if I was playing vs your opponents crew who seems to be setting for a fire Golem, svg and emmy to be there from line is try to slow them down with a terrorfying model (say summoned insidious madness) while your own beaters try to move past them to get at Sandeeps squishy back line. As a Sandeep played I'd be happy if you put chompy/Teddy ect in to my front line as my value engine should keep them tied while my superior schemers in windgamin ect get me points and kandara gets me cards while Banasuva provides support 

 

So in biggest trap vs Sandeep is trying to kill golems while support is still active, you will have much more luck if you target his support models first and then go if game requires go after them (you might not need to kill them to score) 

 

So for example looking at second picture, if Lord chompy double walked forward past fire Golem to charge in the following turn Sandeep will be in real trouble. 

 

The last thing to kind of do vs Sandeep is to anticipate the type of Golem Sandeep is likely to bring. Vs dreamer the fire Golem is the only one with meaningful damage reduction (the other two have armour which the majority of your ranged attacks ignore) and it relys on being on fire. If your can bring some condition removal against it it loses its damage prevention and then goes down pritty quickly to a teddy or chompy. I'm not sure what condition removal neverborn have, but I know iggy can remove burning fairly well so might be worth considering though more experienced neverborn players might know better 

 

[Chris Rivers]

The eldritch magic upgrade gives a condition removal attack to up to 2 models.  Might be useful for 2 stones each.

[diki]

If you know what games you are going to be playing (strat/scheme pool, and oponents leader) ahead of time you could post on one the discord servers asking for crew building advice.

[Hawkoon]

A bit late to the party, but Iggy with the eldrich magic upgrade is stellar at removing burning form pretty much any model. You could play him without the upgrade, but using oppurtunist with dispel magic is guaranteed to remove burning (even if you flip a BJ on the duel), and at range as well so he doesn't have to get up close. I haven't played him against Sandeep, but's he's ace against Kaeris to remove both burning and injured reliably.