Help me beat dreamer

[tadaka]

Plain and simple I suck at dreamer so I am going to post my most recent games here and hope I get tactical advice on fighting him. So here goes let me know what I did wrong.

Game details

12 Inch corner starting area.

My mission destroy evidence.

He needs to claim jump

He sets the claim jump marker to left hand side

I set my evidence in an L shape as far as i can away from his. First being just inside his deployment zone second 8 inch away along wall and last 8 in toward center at 90 degrees making the L

Special set up has the game as a forest so cant see more than 3 inches where there is nothing on the board.

Turn 1.

He moves the dreamer center of the table And sets down his 3 day dreams. They form a line across the middle of the table

I move all My forces along the right hand to try and make my way around him to my objectives. My goal is I can get my 4 vp for schemes if he does not come to me i will force him away from his own goal. Bodyguard and soulless life. I ate the hound and make me a second waif.

As I start moving to right he moves the center daydream and then summons eye ball freak for a total of about 10 inches. He is behind a building and I cant see him. The far right daydream moves forward just out of reach of any attacks i could make.

Turn 2.

I win flip and get to go first. Forest kills me activating Levi is useless as eye ball boy is behind a building and It would take all but levi casting expert to get to him. I could make one spell at him but cant kill him. The daydream is an option but I have the same issue. I decided I had a good card in my hand and a couple of soul stones I would use my waif I was able to summon 6 inches forward and kill him.

Waif moves forward I burn card and soul stone. I pull like crap other guy gets the red joker and waif achieves nothing.

He activates day dream shoots waif killing her. Summons chompy Between levi and second waif. Levi and waif get crushed with 2 attacks (onslaught) and he moves chomp away from the rest of my forces.

Chomp is about 8 inches away I can move forward with both and get in hand to hand or run away from him. I cant shoot with alice as even if I move once I cant see past the forest. Steamborg moves up and would have hit chomp but ss makes him miss. I Defence alice put down the 2 damage to any one who ends in 3 inches.

Eye ball freak flys over building 2 shots alice.

Turn 3 he gets initive and chomp ate the steamborg.

GG

Enlighten me please and thank you.

Edited November 5, 2010 by tadaka

[tadaka]

Asking my co gamer to post any thing he thinks needs to be changed from his side.

[Sandwich]

Man, I don't know how to play Levi but I'd say it was that Forest that got you.

You're a ranged crew, Chompy is melee and half of his crew can fly.

I wouldn't take it to heart as there's really not much you can do when you can't range as Levi. :[

[karn987]

Yeah Tadaka, the forest killed you that time. Not much you could really have done against it besides hunker down and hope you can live through the first set of attacks coming at you and strike back afterwards. That was less of the Dreamer tooling you, but the Terrain doing it =).

You were basically playing in the Dreamers best case scenario and the worst case scenario. So from the start... I think you were a bit hosed. I don't recall off hand... but where does determining the terrain fit in the order of picking your crew? Is it before Master/Crew selection, or after?

But to the point of this thread... all forest boards make the Dreamer very happy. It's going to be a very very hard fight with nearly any crew in this situation. Lilith may be able to pull it off and a few others, but most crews are going to go down hard ><

[tadaka]

Well thanks for that. If any one else has any thing else to add please do so. I had not planed on making that fight a combat report but sure as hell pissed me off

I figured it was the last game I had played so I would start from there.

Please let me know if you think of any thing else. I will update this post with my next try taking in to account any thing that comes and see If I cant figure this out. I actually came up with what I think will be one hell of a cheeseball tactic to smoke dreamer crew so I will give that a try for my next game.

Karn, Most of the time is is an after thought. Even still i have to pick a faction not a master. I don't play any other outcasts so if I pick them levi is what I get.

Edited November 5, 2010 by tadaka

[Ratty]

But to the point of this thread... all forest boards make the Dreamer very happy. It's going to be a very very hard fight with nearly any crew in this situation. Lilith may be able to pull it off and a few others, but most crews are going to go down hard ><

Kirai would love an all forest board.. No LOS for ranged powers and all the spirits would move normally.. it would mess up charges but I could live with that.

[Guy in Suit]

Yeah, I dunno what you do in that situation.

I NEVER send a waif in to try anything, but I see how that set up frustrated you. Maybe you send your steamborg in to destroy the building? (Where you playing it as breakable?)

Best thing to do would be to get a Viktoria crew! Ronin LOVE themselves some woods!

[gunpowder saint]

spend 3 points as Levi and take the Watcher

bam!

Big Bad Nightmares start at there end of the field and they march their ass to you the hard way

:hat:

[karn987]

spend 3 points as Levi and take the Watcher

bam!

Big Bad Nightmares start at there end of the field and they march their ass to you the hard way

:hat:

If I remember the Watcher correctly, it only stops them from deploying that way. Dreamer can bury every single one of them again for 1 ap and then move on >.> So it slows him a little.

[gunpowder saint]

If I remember the Watcher correctly, it only stops them from deploying that way. Dreamer can bury every single one of them again for 1 ap and then move on >.> So it slows him a little.

the way I see it, if your playing a fairly arrogant LCB you can get him so flustered because of the Watcher that he forgets to use that ability lol

Psychological Warfare man lol

[tadaka]

Just a question I am not bashing any one. Am I the only one who cant stand when people say play another master as a tactic. Yes I know playing another master can work. I am not a fan of this game turning in to a big game of Rock Paper Lizard scissors, Spock. In my personal opinion its a bad thing to get used to saying. Lots of new players in my area. They get beat up by a master I cant just say hey your master sucks go buy this guy. Dude gets crushed I should be able to tell him hey this is how you fight chomp with marcus. IMHO every master should have a solid chance vs another master. Now I am cool with recommending a model to try but here try a whole new crew is just bah.

[nilus]

Well Malifaux was kinda written as a game to allow you to mix and match your masters per game. Per official rules you don't even draft your crew until after you know where you are fighting and what your strategy is.

I understand that for new players this is kinda tough as people usually want to focus on one master to start but as you start moving into the competitive A game area you need to start considering that some masters are just not good at certain things.

That being said, the Dreamer is a perfect example of a Master who is not great at a lot of Strategies.

Edited November 5, 2010 by nilus

[nilus]

As far as how to shutdown the Dreamer using Outcasts(generically, I don't have any good levi strategies).

If your goal is just slaughter then take VonShill and a crap load of Trappers. Deploy the trappers on the board strategically so that the dreamer can not easily hide anywhere and if he pops out a swarm of death on one of them at least two other trappers can draw LOS to the first one position.

[Q'iq'el]

Just a question I am not bashing any one. Am I the only one who cant stand when people say play another master as a tactic. Yes I know playing another master can work. I am not a fan of this game turning in to a big game of Rock Paper Lizard scissors, Spock. In my personal opinion its a bad thing to get used to saying. Lots of new players in my area. They get beat up by a master I cant just say hey your master sucks go buy this guy. Dude gets crushed I should be able to tell him hey this is how you fight chomp with marcus. IMHO every master should have a solid chance vs another master. Now I am cool with recommending a model to try but here try a whole new crew is just bah.

Look Tadaka, there are compromises to be made. This is a cheap game to get into and a game which doesn't require too much painting and crafting to get going. Where's business in that? Why other companies make bigger and bigger armies and every new edition requires more models?

Malifaux is great in that you can start small, play with the best of them and as you go deeper into the game, you get new masters, new models and slowly become less restricted in your gameplay. But if you are with one master and basic crew only, you are quite like a Warhammer guy with 500 or 1000 worth of troops - you can play some games, but you simply don't have enough toys to play against everything.

The game has been designed to match your crew to the game you play. You don't always have to change master - more often than not it's enough to change the crew. But it means you have to own multiple possible versions of your crew before you are fully all-comers player.

Before that make sure your opponents give you some levay and don't bring a crew designed to beat everything you have.

By the way, according to the basic rules of the game, you have equal influence over the terrain to your opponent. That too is a balancing factor. If there's a piece of terrain, like the forest you mention, which skews the game horribly, place it in the corner or by the edge. Get it off the way. Or ask your opponent to play without it.

Tough luck if it is a fixed table, but even then you can house rule the forest to be some other kind of terrain.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[tadaka]

Q the whole board being a forest was a random effect on the game. We did not slap a huge forest down and call it good.

Point of the tread was to look at what I posted and point out what I did wrong so sorry I got side tracked all back on to how to get better and be happy

Edited November 5, 2010 by tadaka

[Ratty]

The probability of getting a forest on a Location flip is very low you have to get a Location that has it and then flip for a forest. It really isn't going to be a common occurrence.

[tadaka]

Rat I know this. I am not saying this is every game. It was a game and the point is does any one see what I can do better based on what info I provided.

. For the most part this battle sounds like bad luck. That's covered any thing else I should change to improve?

[karn987]

Rat I know this. I am not saying this is every game. It was a game and the point is does any one see what I can do better based on what info I provided.

. For the most part this battle sounds like bad luck. That's covered any thing else I should change to improve?

Crew selection against the Dreamer as a bit poor, but you already mentioned that.

Otherwise there isn't much here for us to go on. This game you posted about was a one of those edge cases and not very good data to work from. If you had a more standard game we could give you more info. But from this, it boils down poor crew choice against the Dreamer and the terrain and well, the forest board.

[tadaka]

Ok Battle plan for try 2.

1. Don't get crap forest special.

2. Try new crew

Ash and dust

Alice

1 SAP

3.Proft?

I have an Idea to deal with dreamer on this I will cover how it worked out. Thanks to all who helped on this so far.

[Q'iq'el]

From the objective point of view, as a designer you can try to balance every crew and master to be able to fight every other and fail (because everyone fails at that to a lesser or bigger degree), or create conditions where players balance the crews the way they like.

The later solution is better, but it gives the player with more models advantage over the player with less models. The former solution isn't free of that problem either - a player with 3000 points of Warhammer figures will always be able to field an army with an advantage over someone with 1000 points of models, when they play a 1000 points battle, simply because he has more options to choose and thus a better optimized army.

So think of it this way: Malifaux is easy to enter and start, but it still takes some time and some investment before you become a full fledged player.

Until the point where you have 2~3 masters to chose from (go with the masters of the same faction or masters who can use each other's minions if you want to save on models) you have to tweak the system.

So for example:

- Rather than flip for encounter location, pick up one that gives equal opportunities to both sides. At the very least agree to reflip the particularly lopsided areas and conditions.

- Make sure you have enough terrain and let the new player pick up the terrain first. Also explain to him possible advantages/disadvantages of each piece of terrain.

- Make sure the player with bigger selection of models doesn't purposely create a crew to beat the other master. Technically speaking you should know what Strategy your opponent has when you hire, but you shouldn't know what master and minions he or she is going to use.

The last one is very hard to achieve in club conditions, because people gladly share what they want to play before the game start. And if they are newbies, everyone knows what they have and there's nothing they can do about it. No better way to deal with it than being fair and selecting a crew for your strategy and trying to ignore the knowledge about the opponent's master and crew.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[karn987]

@Tadaka: I would drop Alyce, in my experience with her vs the Dreamer, she doesn't do to well. She is one of the powerful models cursed to be slow thanks to the lack of any ____ expert ability and she is easy prey for his crew.

Instead try 4 SPA's with Ashe's and Dust. This is a nasty combo as a correctly used A&D can tip the game easily. But it will take some time for you to get used to A&D, his learning curve is close to Levy's, so make sure you got your head around him before you expect results.

Also, whats your idea? Lay it out for us here and we can help you work it out. Many of us know the Dreamer or Leveticus and some us know both from both sides.

@Q'iq'el: Most of hte time when I play I do very similar things actually. We usually dont flip for random terrain because that can create many unbalanced situations which lead to games like Tadaka's. It can be fun to do this still, but its usually assumed that we wont. (Plus we dont have half the terrain it would call for at the LGS >.>).

Edited November 5, 2010 by karn987

[tadaka]

Well I'm going to try and interrupt the alpha strike before it gets to me. I personaly all ways take a cheap model to get my second waif first turn. Most of the time that's a dog but i am taking a SAP for a reason.

My issue is With the alpha strike when I can take it those are the games I win. Levi is great most games(ie no forests) at killing off the nightmares when they are not on top of him.

Set up

I will try and get him to come over toward a side of the battle ground as best I can. The closer to the side of the map the better.

First turn

So If I can Alice will reactivate both the sap and the ash/dust. If not I will just make sure I can give reactivate to the ash and dust. Burn my Waif activation just to make him waist one given dreamer will probably not have many first turn. Then I will move up the SAP with a charge 2 times if reactivate pans out to a max of 10 inches.

Then Ashes and Dust will 0 action push up and kill off the spa. This will give me 6 to 10 inches free movement for the ash. It will also give Levi a corpse counter to get my second waif. Then Ash and dust will fly across the board with 2 goals depending on what options I have.

First goal. Kill any day dreams I can. Second would be to kill dreamer. Ideal plan is for last action of second activation is move the ash/dust toward best table edge but at the same time Get him far away as I can from any thing that can hit him. If he dies o well if he don't i am going to use 0 action to kill him. Move the placed model 2 movment for 12 more inches the heck out of there. Now with any luck I would be well out of range of the other side and in place to reform next turn.

Basic hit and run tactic.

I know this is not fool proof but Eh sounds fun if nothing else.

This may end up getting pushed to second turn if the table is a far corner thing and just go for placement on the first turn.

As a side note. With the Instant activation what happens to the rest of my action points if he pops out the chomp?

Edited November 5, 2010 by tadaka

[Guy in Suit]

Are the full terrain reules even recommended for competitive play? We only ever use basic terrain 9/10 games. The fluffy stuff is just too much of an influence.

[tadaka]

Most of the time we don't. It just worked out that game we tried it

[nilus]

Are the full terrain reules even recommended for competitive play? We only ever use basic terrain 9/10 games. The fluffy stuff is just too much of an influence.

Depends on the tourney. I tried a couple using the special events randomly and it ends up being too random .

I prefer to do set Strategy and special features each round. Usually custom ones that don't really favor any crew.