The Ring of Nightmares - Dreamer Strategy

[quotemyname]

Stumbled upon an interesting strategy during a game the other day when I was playing the Dreamer. Since it's very clear that positioning is KEY for Dreamer, I just thought I would share one effective positioning strategy I've come across:

The strategy is named in the thread title. Here is the short version of how it came about:

- Most of dreamer's crew has been burried. Dreamer and nearby daydream remain on the field (at minimum).

- Dreamer uses Frightening Dream with Trigger, and unburried the lot of his crew nearby the main force of my opponent. In this case it was kirai. Note: This includes unburying chompy-bits and thus removing dreamer from play.

- chompy is placed within three inches of high priority model (master, hench, etc.) I.E. Kirai.

- Other nightmares are placed surrounding Chompy's base entirely. Hopefully about .5" away from his base. (keeping anything with a reach of 1" away from attacking him).

- Chompy attacks high priority models with claws, finishing with All Done trigger.

- Daydream companion activates, and replaces Chompy with Dreamer if necessary (insurance plan).

Outcome: Chompy did his duty. Though Kirai wasn't killed, she took a good chunk of damage. Everything else that activated nearby was crippled by the four alps surrounding Dreamer. Attacking Dreamer in retaliation is difficult as you basically have to kill just about every Nightmare near him to get the bugger.

Result: Kirai's player forfeited a few activations later.

Ring of Nightmares:

1. Use Dreamer to unbury Chompy and surround him with other unburried Nightmares. Ideal crew consists of Alps and Stitched Together (Alps punish models that try to activate nearby. Stitched can use Creepy Fog and prevent attacking models from seeing some, or all of the ring, depending on placement). Other models are certainly useful especially if they have terrifying, etc.

2. Ideal placement leaves surrounding model bases about half an inch from chompy. Why? If for some reason you have to leave him in play, models with 2" reach can still attack him over your HT1 models (and will be highly tempted to do so). However, if by step 1, you've taken Alps, those strikes will have to be within an inch of an Alp. Anyone trying this will regret it.

3. Include a daydream in the ring. They are reasonably defensive if attacked. Despite only 2Wd, they're hard to get rid of. If it does die, simply use it's dying ability to unbury another daydream (good luck killing the second one during the same activation when you have all this other stuff to worry about).

4. Despite the outcome of events, you may end up wanting to bury some or all of the nightmares that are currently in play. Use the daydream that's part of the dream to Magical Extension the Dreamer's Calm Nightmares. You can bury the entire ring, including the daydream itself if you would like.

5. Attempt to pull this off late turn. Alps are effective without having to activate. Blow their activations early on other portions of the map. Bury them with a Daydream, and unbury them with the Dreamer later. Do the same with stitched, only Activate Creepy Fog before you bury them. It's annoying to have a crowd of nightmares suddenly spawn in your midst. It's worse when you don't have LOS to any of them, because the fog comes up as soon as the stitched do!

It's simple to pull off, unfair to your opponents, over all, it's a mean trick. Just the type of strategy us Neverborn like

I'd be interested in hearing any comments/reactions.

Until next time,

-Q

Edited December 13, 2010 by quotemyname

[karn987]

Good thinking quotemyname. Not only can you base block for Dreamer/LCB, if the Dreamer is the center then Shadowy Form is going to be hard to over-some after you some how manage to draw a clean attack on the Dreamer.

Alps with this are very mean as they will cause slow and additional wounds. But they are a bit squishy, so some medium priced but tough models like Stitched Together and Teddy make great meat tanks against attacks to.

Also consider adding in some Terrifying models if your against living models and popping a Madness's negative flip on Wp duels ability and watch the fun. =D

[LoboStele]

Don't do this against anybody with :blasts spells, like Sonnia or Casandra. One of the last games I played with Colette against the Dreamer, I wiped out all his Alps and a Daydream on the first activation of Round 2 with Cassandra's Breath Fire and enough cheating/SS use to get the Severe damage. Granted, if you bury Chompy and put the Dreamer back in the middle, at least he's immune, but either of those spells will wipe out Alps in no time flat. Of course, my opponent pounced at the beginning of the round toward me, not the end of the round, so that is a big difference compared to your recommendations here.

I too would be worried about how squishy the Alps are, but if you run at least one Stitched with Creepy Fog activated, it should give you at least a fighting chance.

[quotemyname]

Cassandra and Criid both have good Wp and spells. They are high on my list of models to watch. If they're on the field, I'm iffy about running alps in the first place. If you don't know you're going to go up against them, however, you can still make this work:

It becomes imperitive that you drop the ring on THAT model. Not near them. ON THEM. The outside of the ring (and preferably the Alps they would try to nuke) should be within an inch of any model with :blasts. The hope is, since most of those spells have the symbol, they'll be dead before they've reloaded, to paraphrase V for Vendetta.

Criid or Cassandra would activate, take some damage from Alps, (because I doubt even masters can resist Wp > 12 with :-fate:-fate), and IF they are still kicking, they can't cast until they've gotten out of Melee range. For a model that's Slow, prospects are dim. Granted, Criid has (+1) Casting Expert, and Cassandra has (+1) Nimble, so for both it IS possible. (As an aside, you could always leave chompy unburried and use his 3:melee wicked paired 10 inch claws as an additional deterrent to models that attempt to disengage). I would expect that they would have blown significant rescources trying to keep them alive already this turn that you can count on their ability to cheat/soulstone enough to kill the entire ring to be quite limited.

In summary, you raise good counter points, and things to watch out for. Yes, Nightmares are squishy, but no force clumped together is going to stand up long to concentrated attacks and :blasts. The Alps don't need to survive, though it would be nice if they got an activation in before they do die. And the Stitched won't go down in one turn. My point is, that even if you lose some of your models doing this, your opponent is going to have suffered more because this placement is such that all of your models are at a prime location for all of their effects to activate. The idea is to cripple your opponent so they can't mount an effective counter. Alps are weak, and :Blasts kill weak models. However, I wouldn't call Cassandra nuking my Alp squad an effective counter attack, if she just lost most of her wounds, and maybe a showgirl or two in the process. The damage has been done. The bottom line is Dreamer spends as many points on a whole Alp Squad as Colette does on only Cassandra. If one or two die, I'm not that upset. If Colette loses Cassandra, however, she's in for a world of hurt.

[LoboStele]

Don't forget, Cassie's Breath Fire can count as Rg 2, so she can still cast it anytime. And yeah, Criid is a lot easier to lock down, not to mention that Chompy often has a decent chance to just gobble her up in one go-around thanks to her low Def and a good enough hand with Onslaught triggers.

[Wodschow]

Criid or Cassandra would activate, take some damage from Alps, (because I doubt even masters can resist Wp > 12 with :-fate:-fate), ...

You can boost it with Soulstones still, so it should happen well over 50% of the time.

You should also watch out for Sonnia's Inferno. Not just her Flame Burst.

Edit:

I also think you're being a tad too overprotective with your LORD CHOMPY BITS. He might be a little squishy compared to other Masters, but you can still burn SS to mitigate the damage. I wouldn't bother about the half inch protection you're talking about.

Edited December 13, 2010 by Wodschow