My Biggest Problem With Dreamer...

[quotemyname]

...is turn 1.

The issue basically comes down to activation control. Against every crew other than another dreamer, he faces being out-activated turn 1 every time.

After turn one, I can handle the crew fine. So I'm looking for some tips on "The Setup".

Alpha striking is fine, but in the few games I've played so far, I can't quite get my models/enough models into play fast enough. As an example, I played a game yesterday, and I dropped an alp squad turn one on the guild. I got them into great position about 2-3 inches from his front lines, and then Sonia Criid activated and blew up the lot of them. He just barely had LOS to the one in front, and that was enough. (And before you comment on this part, My opponent knew I was testing alps, and he selected Sonia Criid on purpose. Disadvantage from the start.)

One idea I'm going to try next time is flying up with Dreamer and unburying my daydreams and leaving them all under cover behind some Ht 1 terrain. Then just pass turn with them all instead of flying up. Or possibly drop a stitched and Creepy Fog to block any remaining LOS and protect the crew. The result being that I delay the alpha strike until early turn 2 when I can DEFINATELY drop everything in range. But again, the problem remains: I'm severly out activated turn 1.

So, let me hear from the crowd. How do you work your setup for turn 1? I've obviously got some ideas, but I'd like to hear yours as well. Anything you've got that might help. And I mean anything. Weird tricks, inventive use of terrain, sling shotting Dreamer up the field via the "Dreamer Shuffle", anything. Let me have it.

Thanks in advance, guys.

[mythicFOX]

I'm new to The Dreamer, so apologies if any of this is wrong. However my thoughts are...

I sometimes deploy my nightmares in a cluster around a Daydream. Then on turn one activate the nightmares one at a time before finally using the Daydream to bury the lot. That way you're not being out activated. You can also gain the bonus of having the activating nightmares take actions like 'creepy fog' / 'thing of nightmares' before they bury so that when they unbury these abilities are turned on even before they activate.

Even if you don't do this you can use your mobility to counteract their activation control advantage. If you move the Dreamer and a Daydream one way, and two Daydreams in other directions, even though your opponent knows where those models are, they don't know where your nightmares will land. They have to assume each buried model is in essentially three/four places at once, making reacting to your moves much harder.

My other point is I almost never try to engage the enemy on turn one. I try to spend at least a turn positioning before I engage. Actually I'm starting to think that I should be broadly avoiding conflict for the first two turns. This gives me more time to position for the best possible attack and also minimises the time my opponent has to kill my nightmares.

Edited December 6, 2010 by mythicFOX
SPAG

[nightgaunt98c]

Your schemes and strategies should affect what you do early. You may not need to engage the enemy at all.

[quotemyname]

I sometimes deploy my nightmares in a cluster around a Daydream. Then on turn one activate the nightmares one at a time before finally using the Daydream to bury the lot. That way you're not being out activated. You can also gain the bonus of having the activating nightmares take actions like 'creepy fog' / 'thing of nightmares' before they bury so that when they unbury these abilities are turned on even before they activate.

I...That's brilliant. Why didn't I think of that? I realize now that the burying of nightmares at the start of the battle is optional (stupid skimming abilities instead of reading them).

This will work especially well with Alps, since they don't actually need their activations to be effective!

I'm not sure what their burying ability states you can target, but if it's "target any number of friendly nightmares within 6"," the daydream can even bury itself. That would allow The Dreamer to dump it somewhere else later!

I'll also experiment with splitting the three daydreams to different sides of the board.

Oh man, you just did wonders for me. Thanks!

Your schemes and strategies should affect what you do early. You may not need to engage the enemy at all.

I do realize this. So far, the strategies I have flipped with the Dreamer have required going through the enemy. Shared turf war for example. Were I to flip something like reconnoiter for example, I may just camp some daydreams in the corners, and then ambush anything that decided to come close.

Of course strategy affects tactics. Of course. My question was in regards to the situations where one would be required to engage, how do you get around the problem of activation control turn 1?

Edited December 6, 2010 by quotemyname

[karn987]

I'm new to The Dreamer, so apologies if any of this is wrong. However my thoughts are...

I sometimes deploy my nightmares in a cluster around a Daydream. Then on turn one activate the nightmares one at a time before finally using the Daydream to bury the lot. That way you're not being out activated. You can also gain the bonus of having the activating nightmares take actions like 'creepy fog' / 'thing of nightmares' before they bury so that when they unbury these abilities are turned on even before they activate.

Even if you don't do this you can use your mobility to counteract their activation control advantage. If you move the Dreamer and a Daydream one way, and two Daydreams in other directions, even though your opponent knows where those models are, they don't know where your nightmares will land. They have to assume each buried model is in essentially three/four places at once, making reacting to your moves much harder.

My other point is I almost never try to engage the enemy on turn one. I try to spend at least a turn positioning before I engage. Actually I'm starting to think that I should be broadly avoiding conflict for the first two turns. This gives me more time to position for the best possible attack and also minimises the time my opponent has to kill my nightmares.

I was gonna say that, nice =D

I avoid Turn 1 engagements like the plague and I also tend to stay away from Alpha strikes. Call me picky, but I like to whittle away at their edges before dumping something on their master. Heck Ill often use Teddy instead of LCB to hit the master if its early in the game. At least Teddy is much tougher then LCB and if he dies it doesn't hurt so much.

Also for turn one, you can just hide? Position yourself and hide, its what I do all the time and I'm safe from 95% of all crews *shakes fist at Austringers* Let them have Turn 1 to position, you can reposition so rapidly, you shouldn't care. Or if you really want to do something, dump a Lilitu within it's Lure range and Lure something to you, eat it with a Lelu you dumped, and then have a Daydream bury them all again. Not that hard honestly. If your really worried about activation control on turn one, do like he said, leave your Nightmares Deployed on the table and power up all your abilities.

Edited December 7, 2010 by karn987

[Q'iq'el]

My other point is I almost never try to engage the enemy on turn one. I try to spend at least a turn positioning before I engage. Actually I'm starting to think that I should be broadly avoiding conflict for the first two turns. This gives me more time to position for the best possible attack and also minimises the time my opponent has to kill my nightmares.

This actually is what I do with Lilith as well. I think every master that plays the positioning game, no matter how fast, should take that to heart.

[poulpox]

This actually is what I do with Lilith as well. I think every master that plays the positioning game' date=' no matter how fast, should take that to heart.[/quote']

Agreed: most alpha strikes I witnessed in turn one turned very sour.

[Ratty]

I can normally manage a turn 1 kill with Kirai, but it does depend on what my opponent does. I would rather set up for turn 2 if they don't leave something exposed, than overextend. And I don't think I would go for their master unless they were really stupid.

[Lorenz]

what fun is it to win on the first or second turn how boring that is

[Ratty]

I don't win on turn 1. I just manage to kill something, it's best to get stuck in isn't it. Don't want to pussy foot around the enemy do you. There is nothing that puts your opponent on the back foot as an angry spirit ripping apart their Doppleganger on the first turn.

[tadaka]

Never did understand how people got to the other side of the table with kirai crew first turn. i know she can warp over 18 inches but bringing the crew with her was a bit lost on me

[Ratty]

Push forward with some Seishin and Gaki (Gaki can move 10"). Into the Spirit World with her to them. move her forward. Summon Ikiryo at 12" of her in combat, activate his (0) ability to pull Kirai and mates back into 8" of him. You can get even futher if you have a Shikome. But that combo allows you to attack something 28.5" out of your deployment zone and still get a Seishin for killing it.

If you don't need to do the walk forward. 24.5" is very often enough to get into combat. You can swirling spirit something from you baseline into the position of the Seishin you moved forward and then charge with it after Ikiryo has pulled it forward.

So it is quite easy to have Ikiryo and a Onyro or possibly a Shikome in combat munching something on turn 1.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Ratty

[Q'iq'el]

I can normally manage a turn 1 kill with Kirai, but it does depend on what my opponent does. I would rather set up for turn 2 if they don't leave something exposed, than overextend. And I don't think I would go for their master unless they were really stupid.

I think you missed my point. Kirai may need some thought given to positioning (it's a skirmish game after all), but she isn't a master playing the positioning game. She's mostly about her abilities and synergies. So is Pandora or Colette and many other masters that can bounce around the table. Insane speed and bouncy spells do not equal playing positioning game. They mean you can ignore the positioning game when it really matters.

A pure positioning master is Lilith - you have nothing but "regular" speed of your crew (fast but not bouncing around) and ability to negotiate terrain. If you want to win you have to position yourself perfectly and then charge your opponent with coordination sufficient to cripple him (otherwise you'll be losing all these glass canon Nephilim).

Surely, she can rush forward and reach some opponents turn 1, with her Fast and range, but that is not the way to survive and win.

I don't know enough about The Dreamer yet, but he does seem like a positioning master, at least a hybrid one.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Q'iq'el

[Ratty]

I think you missed my point. Kirai may need some thought given to positioning (it's a skirmish game after all), but she isn't a master playing the positioning game. She's mostly about her abilities and synergies. So is Pandora or Colette and many other masters that can bounce around the table. Insane speed and bouncy spells do not equal playing positioning game. They mean you can ignore the positioning game when it really matters.

I would disagree with that, I would consider positioning the most important aspect of playing her, you need to set up your models in such a position as to give her options. She can't just appear somewhere she needs to have a model there to move too. She just plays the positioning game faster than a lot of master. What most masters will do in 2 turns, she will do in 1 (I think of her as having a two stage turn, the first half will be setting up the ambushes, the 2nd will be using the placement you set up in the 1st half to bounce your second attacking stage off)

[Q'iq'el]

I would disagree with that, I would consider positioning the most important aspect of playing her, you need to set up your models in such a position as to give her options. She can't just appear somewhere she needs to have a model there to move too. She just plays the positioning game faster than a lot of master. What most masters will do in 2 turns, she will do in 1 (I think of her as having a two stage turn, the first half will be setting up the ambushes, the 2nd will be using the placement you set up in the 1st half to bounce your second attacking stage off)

Well, that will be mostly an argument over terminology.

But what you say means, IMHO, she plays the synergy game (needs other models in place) and the positioning isn't hard for her (she needs it, but she's fast and easy about getting it done).

For her to lose the models she needs for synergy would be the hindrance.

For me a master playing the positioning game is the master to whom positioning is the major preoccupation. Killing doesn't come hard to Dreamer or Lilith. Hiding is relatively easy for them too. The Dreamer can bring, if I understand correctly, a synergized crew, which makes him hybrid, but the Master himself can kill, maim and win with no support, just like Lilith. For those masters the crew exists to conduct a clean strike - everybody fights at once, with priority targets, because if they fail to reach them, the master will be exposed and likely die. That is a master playing the positioning game - you do not win through synergy, but by beating terrain.

You can think of it as the challenge - where it lies? What is the focus? If you can move across the table in one turn, the challenge isn't directly in the movement and positioning, even if it is involved indirectly.

[tadaka]

Intresting I guess I just thought of it as more of a dreamer sort of alpha strke where you get attacked by mutiple models turn one. I am sure this tactic would be an intresting trick vs some crews. I think others would just eat the spirit you summon out before it could act. O well I guess thats some thing that would depend on the game.

Thanks for the info.

Push forward with some Seishin and Gaki (Gaki can move 10"). Into the Spirit World with her to them. move her forward. Summon Ikiryo at 12" of her in combat, activate his (0) ability to pull Kirai and mates back into 8" of him. You can get even futher if you have a Shikome. But that combo allows you to attack something 28.5" out of your deployment zone and still get a Seishin for killing it.

If you don't need to do the walk forward. 24.5" is very often enough to get into combat. You can swirling spirit something from you baseline into the position of the Seishin you moved forward and then charge with it after Ikiryo has pulled it forward.

So it is quite easy to have Ikiryo and a Onyro or possibly a Shikome in combat munching something on turn 1.

[Ratty]

Intresting I guess I just thought of it as more of a dreamer sort of alpha strke where you get attacked by mutiple models turn one. I am sure this tactic would be an intresting trick vs some crews. I think others would just eat the spirit you summon out before it could act. O well I guess thats some thing that would depend on the game.

Thanks for the info.

The trick is to out activate the opponent, If you have more models on the board you can summon after they have done all their activations. This is quite easy to do if your starting with 5 Seishin and the Lost Love, that's 6 2 point models. Even if you don't out activate the opponent you can activate Kirai late in the turn and use her is to pick on models that have already activated and are in a position that can't be easily supported (in a building, out on a flank) etc.

[tadaka]

Understood. Personaly I dont often have some one run me out of activations I tend to play crews with high model count. Like I said tho depends on the crew your fighting.

I have noticed more and more alpha striking action going on with crews. I kind of wonder if wyrd should tone down movement some. lots of alpha striking crews kind of mess with the movement being a vital roll in the game.

Edited December 8, 2010 by tadaka

[karn987]

Understood. Personaly I dont often have some one run me out of activations I tend to play crews with high model count. Like I said tho depends on the crew your fighting.

I have noticed more and more alpha striking action going on with crews. I kind of wonder if wyrd should tone down movement some. lots of alpha striking crews kind of mess with the movement being a vital roll in the game.

It's also all about how you play the army to.

I play the Dreamer as a Hit and Run style list, never commiting to the Alpha Strike unless I know it will win for me (which is a rare thing to know it will work). Same with Kirai, I play her and know a lot of people who play her like traditional Res. Basically out numbering you over time and bringing you down, she has an advantage in that her spirits are incredibly tough for their points and their damage.

But it's how you play it to Tadaka, not just how they were designed. Out of this new book we received 1 100% movement based crew (dreamer) and 2 crews that have it as a theme but not a major one (Kirai and Colette). Meaning that the Dreamers central theme is movement and board control where as for Kirai and Colette they can do it, but their central theme lies elsewhere. The Henchmen are mostly not movement based (Looking at you Collidi) so for the next set of stuff, we probably won't see much more of it.

Honestly I don't think it's a problem *shrugs*. Really the issue is over-exposure to the new stuff which happens with any games new release.

Edited December 8, 2010 by karn987

[karn987]

I don't win on turn 1. I just manage to kill something, it's best to get stuck in isn't it. Don't want to pussy foot around the enemy do you. There is nothing that puts your opponent on the back foot as an angry spirit ripping apart their Doppleganger on the first turn.

And I bet it feels good to get that little bugger and get back control of your initiative ;D

[mythicFOX]

Understood. Personaly I dont often have some one run me out of activations I tend to play crews with high model count. Like I said tho depends on the crew your fighting.

I have noticed more and more alpha striking action going on with crews. I kind of wonder if wyrd should tone down movement some. lots of alpha striking crews kind of mess with the movement being a vital roll in the game.

What you're talking about is power creep. It's something Wyrd will have to address at some stage. Partly as a commercial consideration around direction. Wargames have three ways of driving sales;

• Power Creep
  
• Increasing the number of models needed to play
  
• Making old models obsolete
  

IMHO the latter is preferable, provided they go obsolete after a fixed length of time the community is aware of rather than arbitrarily.

[Wodschow]

@mythicFOX: Not sure about Power Creep, but the masters added in Book2 have a much higher level of complexity compared to the average of those in Book1, this alone makes them interesting and appealing to me.

I suppose you're right though, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the two next books. I think Avatars might end up being must-haves, but I hope they won't - really curious as to how they'll work, like really!

@karn: Hmm.. One of the rare occasions on which I don't agree with you.. Colette is 100% about movement, well maybe not 100%, but still more so than the Dreamer imho. But yeah, wutevar..

[mythicFOX]

@ Wodschow

I'm more than happy not to open the "are book two models more powerful" can of worms.

I'd been thinking Avatar forms were something masters gained during the game, at some sort of cost / under certain conditions, for a limited time.

So maybe I discard five soulstones to replace my master with my masters avatar form until the end of the turn.

:focus:

Has anyone tried keeping a Day Dream back in their deployment zone to act as an anchor / emergency exit.

Just sitting there unburying nightmares to regen, and LCB to pull the dreamer out of dodge?

[wrabbit37]

Has anyone tried keeping a Day Dream back in their deployment zone to act as an anchor / emergency exit.

Just sitting there unburying nightmares to regen, and LCB to pull the dreamer out of dodge?

A very interesting idea - I haven't tried it before. I don't know if you'd want to keep him so far back as it would take a bit longer to get back into the fight, but I could see something like sending the Daydream to a control point and the rest of your army to fight against the enemy and keep him from achieving his scenarios. At the end, the Daydream brings up LCB and claims the point.

Interesting idea on how to use the Daydreams as a safety valve - I'll have to give it a try.

[Ratty]

And I bet it feels good to get that little bugger and get back control of your initiative ;D

Hell yeah stupid Doppleganger.

@karn & wodschow: I consider Kirai a movement crew too. she can be played as a traditional resser, but the last 3 games I haven't summoned anything but Ikiryo as I find when given the choice between summoning a slow Onyro or moving a model that hasn't activated into position, movement is almost always a better choice (doesn't use a high card you could use in combat and gives you more attacks).

Edited December 8, 2010 by Ratty