Sonnia Criid vs The Dreamer 35ss

[FearLord]

My Crew:

Sonnia Criid

- Avatar of Conflagration

Samael Hopkins

Witchling Stalker

Witchling Stalker

Witchling Stalker

Guardian

Watcher

Strategy: Slaughter (Shared)

Schemes: -Bodyguard (Sonnia Criid) – announced

-Breakthrough – announced

Cache: 7ss

My opponent’s Crew:

Dreamer / Lord Chompy Bits

-Day Dream

Coppelius

Insidious Madness

Insidious Madness

Night Terror

Night Terror

Stitched Together

Stitched Together

Strategy: Slaughter (Shared)

Schemes: -Kidnap (3 Witchlings)

Cache: 8ss

Notes:

My first game trying out Sonnia and also the Avatar rules having just picked up her Alternate and Avatar last week). The main purpose of the game was to try out her Avatar, so I was pleasantly surprised to flip shared Slaughter (which I normally don’t particularly care for) as this would allow me to concentrate on getting the manifest requirements and using the Powerful Avatar of Conflagration to kill whatever I could.

After Sonnia and the Avatar, I took Samael and 3 Witchlings both to try out and because there was a fair amount of rough ground on the board. I was also planning on using the Witchlings as cheap targets for Sonnia’s spells.

I rounded out the list with a Watcher, which could help me with a number of schemes and if nothing else could move fast enough to hide itself away and avoid giving up points for the Slaughter Strategy. I also took the Guardian, as Sonnia and Samael were both high priority targets who would be much harder to take out with the Guardian’s protection.

I was surprised to see my opponent’s list considering the strategy – I assume the intention was to avoid too many high priced targets, but with plentiful cheap models both versions of Sonnia could be counted on to deal some serious damage. The Stitched Together were a pain to see though, as their ‘Does not die’ really screws with the Slaughter strategy…

Scheme choices were fairly easy – Bodyguard on Sonnia seemed sensible as I would be trying to prevent her dying anyway, and I could use the Guardian to assist with this. Breakthrough also looked like it could be fairly easy as Dreamer Crews tend to come forward without leaving much in the deployment zone and the Watcher could easily get there safely.

Deployment (all directions from my point of view)

We flipped Diagonal deployment and I deployed first, figuring that I would not glean much from my opponent’s deployment. My crew were all set up close to the centre of my Deployment Zone in a line along the ridge of a hill, with The Guardian, Samael and Sonnia in the Middle, the Witchlings off to the right and the Watcher alone on the left.

My opponent placed the Dream alone in the centre of his deployment zone behind a large formation of rock.

Turn 1

I won the Initiative and used the Watcher’s ‘Forewarned’ ability to check the top to cards. As they were a 4 and a 5, I placed them both on the bottom of the deck. The Dreamer went next, using ‘I can fly’, flying forward towards the centre of the board and using ‘Frightening Dream’, getting the ‘All my friends’ trigger and placing all the Nightmares down within 6” of him. He finished off his activation by summoning an extra Day Dream with ‘Daydreaming’.

The Guardian used ‘Disrupt Magic’; cast ‘Protect’ on Sonnia and walked forwards off the hill towards the mass of Nightmares. One of the Insidious Madness zoomed forwards and shot at the Witchling on my far right, taking off 2 wounds. The Witchling used ‘Disrupt Magic’ and declared a charge in response, but found that the swirling spirit was ½” out of melee range. A Night Terror charged him in turn, but failed to hit.

Sonnia saw a chance to kill two Nightmares with one stone and used her ‘casting expert’ to unleash a ‘Flame Burst’ at her own Witchling. I cheated in the tome and used a soul stone to ensure I was winning by a wide enough margin to cheat for severe damage (although I actually flipped severe so it wasn’t a necessity). Both Nightmares were caught by a single blast and the others couldn’t stretch to any more models despite the ‘Explosive Burst’ trigger. The Madness was obliterated instantly and the Night Terror was reduced to a single wound (as was my own Witchling, thanks to ‘Magic Resistant 2’). This also put me 6/10 wounds on my way to fulfilling her 1st Manifest requirement!

Sonnia followed up this success by attempting to cast ‘Violation of Magic’ on the nearly dead Witchling, but I failed to get the tome I needed, despite using a soul stone. Wanting to get the spell off, I used another Soulstone to activate ‘Forbidden Lore’ and recast the spell with my final AP, killing the Witchling and summoning a new one into some rough terrain further up the board. The first Witchling killed the Night Terror with its ‘Immolating Demise’.

The other Night Terror charged this newly summoned Witchling, but fell short. The new Witchling charged in response (we forgot on this turn that our newly summoned models were slow), getting a nasty critical for the damage. The Night Terror clung to life, thanks to ‘Hard to kill’, its spirit body no protection against the magical Broken Rune Blade.

Coppelius floated twice towards the new Witchling and used ‘Melee expert’ to attack. The duel was tied, but rather than take the negative 2 damage flip, he used his ‘Remove eye’ trigger to deal 2 wounds and take an eye counter. The attack also left him with ‘poison 2’. The Witchling was forced to take Wp check when Coppelius gained the eye counter because of Coppelius’s ‘Deeply Disturbing’ rule, but he passed. Coppelius finished his turn off by using ‘Savour Delicacy’ on the Night Terror, restoring it to full health with 2 healing flips…

One of my other Witchlings walked twice towards the ongoing battle, keeping some Ht 1 rocks between him and the majority of the Nightmares. The remaining Insidious Madness walked up and took a shot at him, inflicting a single wound. The last Witchling moved up and took a shot at the Madness, but missed. A Day Dream walked forwards and tried to shoot the Witchling behind the wall, but missed. Samael walked forward off the hill, tried to cast flaming bullets, but failed and took a shot at the Madness but missed. The other Day Dream walked forward and shot at the Witchling, but also missed.

The Stitched together were both too far away to do anything this turn, so both just advanced up. The Guardian Pushed base to base with Samael at the end of the turn.

Turn 2

I lost the flip for Initiative and Coppelius attacked the poisoned Witchling. His attacks weren’t especially powerful though and only succeeded in bringing the Witchling down to its last wound and gaining another 2 eye tokens. He was reasonably satisfied however, as the poison on the Witchling would kill it as sound as it activated.

Sonnia started my turn for me, using ‘Forbidden Lore’, walking forward off the hill and casting Violation of magic’ on the poisoned Witchling, killing it and summoning a new one in the space between the foremost nightmares. The ‘Immolating demise’ dealt 1 wound to the Night Terror and 2 to Coppelius. Sonnia followed this up by casting ‘Flame Burst’ on the new Witchling, again getting severe damage. This time, the ‘Explosive burst’ trigger was used to great effect, and the spell hit both Day Dreams, the Night Terror, the Insidious Madness and one of the Stitched together. The Night Terror survived on a single wound, thanks to its ‘Hard to Kill’ and the Stitched took 3 wounds, but the Madness and both Day Dreams were obliterated. The Witchling took 3 wounds as well thanks to ‘Magic resistant 2’. In total, Sonnia had dealt over 10 damage to enemy models with this one spell, so had easily completed her first Manifest requirement.

With far less friends to play with the Dreamer used ‘I can fly’ and soared across the board landing close to Samael and Guardian. He then used ‘Nightmare Friend’ to unbury Lord Chompy Bits in melee with both. The powerful creature used his ‘melee expert’ to smash into the tall construct, dealing 1 damage and inflicting ‘poison 2’ with his Six-inch teeth. He managed to get his ‘Onslaught’ trigger to inflict another point of damage. He also attempted to summon a new Day Dream with ‘Dreamer’s Daydream’, but failed to cast it.

The Witchling behind the rock charged into the heavily wounded Night Terror (passing the terror check needed for entering Coppelius’s melee range) and finished it off. A Stitched together ambled towards the Witchling engaging Coppelius and used ‘Gambler’ to burn through my hand and used ‘Gamble your life’ to inflict 3 damage on the Witchling. The Freshly summoned Witchling used his 1AP (remembered he was slow this time!) to walk forwards, engaging both Stitched.

The Second Stitched used ‘Gambler’ on the Witchling engaging him, forcing me to cheat to win the Wp duel. It also used ‘Gamble your life’ but lost, inflicting 3 wounds on himself. With no Neverborn left to activate, I went through my remaining models.

The Watcher flew 14” towards the Dream’s deployment zone, long abandoned by all the Nightmare’s. Samael attacked Lord Chompy Bits, but I needed to use my last high card to pass the Terrifying check, so he missed twice. The Guardian was also fairly useless, hitting only once for 2 damage, and taking 2 from its poison, but healing 1 with ‘Self repair’. The last Witchling bravely charged Lord Chompy Bits, but missed after the monster used a Soulstone to raise his duel total.

Turn 3

I lost the initiative flip again, but my opponent had flipped a 13 so I wasn’t likely to beat it... Lord Chompy Bits went first, moving slightly (while keeping in melee range of all 3 models engaging him) to bring Criid into range of his claws. He then attacked Samael with his remaining AP, killing him. His ‘Delight in Pain’ ability healed him to full wounds.

I winced at the loss of my most expensive minion, especially as he hadn’t really done anything yet, but at least Sonnia was ready to tear him a new one with her Avatar form. She had to take a terrifying test, but I had a card ready to cheat... when I flipped the Black Joker. I used a Soulstone, only needing a 7 to pass, but I got a 6... Instead of blasting the hell out of Chompy, Criid tried to flee but was trapped in melee and took 4 damage thanks to ‘Wicked’ (she passed 2 wounds to the Guardian... Not the best activation at all...

One of the Stitched damaged itself with ‘Gamble for your life’, but then killed the Witchling engaging it with a melee attack. The ‘Immolating demise’ killed the attacking Stitched (which remained in the game thanks to ‘Does not die’) and brought the other down to 2 wounds.

The Guardian had a much better round, hitting Chompy for 6 damage between his 2 attacks, taking a wound from poison, but healing 2 with ‘Self repair’. The other Stitched walked towards Chompy and tried to free up Coppelius with a ’Gamble your life’ on the Witchling he was engaged with, but it backfired, taking its last wound (again ‘does not die’, keeping it around).

The Witchling engaged with Chompy finished him off with a nasty critical hit. The Dreamer placed himself 6” back towards his remaining nightmares. Coppelius killed the Witchling he was engaged with, healed the damage he took from ‘Immolating demise’ with ‘Savour delicacy’ and floated closer to the Dreamer.

The Watcher flew another 14” taking him into the Dreamer’s deployment zone. The Dreamer failed to cast ‘Inflict Dreams’ on Criid, and missed with his ‘Twist Reality’ attack on her. The closest Stitched reactivated and walked toward the last Witchling and killed him with a severe flip from ‘Gamble your life’. The other Stitched was too far away to do anything. Both were removed at the end of the turn, but annoyingly didn’t add to my total for the strategy...

I wanted to play another turn, so that I could bring in my avatar out (and finish crushing the Dreamer!) but sadly we had to call the game for time.

Final score:

Me:

-Soulstone cost of enemy models killed or sacrificed higher than my opponent (24 v 20) 1VP

-Soulstone cost of enemy models still in play is less than half the cost at the beginning of the game 1VP

-Kept Sonnia Criid alive 2VP

-Had more models in the Dreamer’s deployment zone at end of the game

2VP

Total 6VP

My opponent:

-Soulstone cost of enemy models still in play is less than half the cost at the beginning of the game 1VP

-All 3 Witchlings out of play at the end of the game 2VP

Total 3VP

Victory for Sonnia!

Once again, ran out of time, and annoyingly before I was able to manifest. Fate clearly wasn’t on my side there though, as I flipped the only card in the deck that meant I would have failed her terrifying check...

Still, interesting game and plenty of new models tried out. Sonnia’s standard form proved to be immensely powerful, blasting apart most of my opponent’s crew on her own. If not for an untimely Black Joker, she’d have done even more damage...

The Witchlings were also great, doing plenty of damage in life and death and proved to be surprisingly resilient with Sonnia recycling them...

Samael was the only disappointment really, not living up to his potential, although I feel like I need to try him some more, because he looks great on paper...

The Guardian and the Watcher were great as always...

A big part of this win was down to so many cheap low wound nightmares all dropping together in a neat little group for Sonnia to blast to pieces.

[Fading Memory]

Did you allow your opponent to hire Night Terrors? Because The Dreamer is not allowed to hire them.

Other than that, nice victory. That massive blast you pulled off must have been sweet to see.

[WEiRD sKeTCH]

Did you allow your opponent to hire Night Terrors? Because The Dreamer is not allowed to hire them.

From the Night Terror's Card:

Dark Dreams: Crews containing The Dreamer may hire this model at no additional cost.

As seen on the card fixes page here.

Edited September 27, 2011 by WEiRD sKeTCH

[FearLord]

Did you allow your opponent to hire Night Terrors? Because The Dreamer is not allowed to hire them.

Other than that, nice victory. That massive blast you pulled off must have been sweet to see.

Yeah, as Sketch has pointed out, the Dreamer can actually hire Night Terrors now - and Terrors they are!

As for the Massive blast, it was invigorating to say the least! I've been playing for a little while now, but had never done so much damage with a single action before - the swarm of low wound models amplified the impact to some extent, but it was enjoyable removing so many models at one fell swoop...

[GamerGaeth]

Don't be fooled by Samael's poor performance this game. He's a complete beast against the right models. Being able to properly apply him comes with practice.

As an example, I blew through a Mature Nephilim in one activation with him. Brought it from full wounds to dead in two shots.

[cerealkiller195]

When i saw your list I was scared that you might of handicapped yourself somewhat for the main mission by picking Sonnia. Only because the summoned Witchlings could of worked against you VP wise.

Samael is great but I tend to use other models more since either they are cheaper or they are both mobile and shooty (i'm lookin' at you Ryle). Yes the damage output isn't as high as Samaels with other models. But they at least have ways to get around or defensive buffs that can help them out.

[Fading Memory]

From the Night Terror's Card:

As seen on the card fixes page here.

Hmmm, I had not seen that on the updates. I know what I'll be picking up soon.

[Math Mathonwy]

-Soulstone cost of enemy models killed or sacrificed higher than my opponent (24 v 20)

I may be mistaken, but I counted five Witchlings dying throughout the match plus Samael, so your opponent's score should be 28?

Also, didn't you kill two Insidiouses, two Night Terrors and two Daydreams? Isn't that just 18? Again, I may very well be mistaken (don't have the book handy).

Great report, though! Very fun to read - great level of details!

[Cunning]

Sonnia killed most of the Witchlings so that wouldn't have counted towards the total.

[Math Mathonwy]

Sonnia killed most of the Witchlings so that wouldn't have counted towards the total.

Me am stoopid.

[FearLord]

I may be mistaken, but I counted five Witchlings dying throughout the match plus Samael, so your opponent's score should be 28?

Also, didn't you kill two Insidiouses, two Night Terrors and two Daydreams? Isn't that just 18? Again, I may very well be mistaken (don't have the book handy).

Great report, though! Very fun to read - great level of details!

Hi!

Thanks for taking the time to read - I like to give as much detail as possible as it provides the most scope for tactical discussions and provides some interesting points for new players.

As pointed out, Sonnia killed the first 2 Witchlings so they didn't count (indeed it was only when we re-read Kidnap that we saw that I hadn't screwed him over by killing one of my Witchlings myself...)

As for my score, you're correct that I scored 18 for Minions, but I also killed Lord Chompy Bits, who is worth 6 in a Slaughter as part of a "multiple model Master"...

[FearLord]

When i saw your list I was scared that you might of handicapped yourself somewhat for the main mission by picking Sonnia. Only because the summoned Witchlings could of worked against you VP wise.

Samael is great but I tend to use other models more since either they are cheaper or they are both mobile and shooty (i'm lookin' at you Ryle). Yes the damage output isn't as high as Samaels with other models. But they at least have ways to get around or defensive buffs that can help them out.

I wasn't too worried about the Summoned Witchlings as I planned mainly to use them as anchors for my Flame Bursts and then replace my damaged Witchlings with fresh ones.

I agree about Samael - I'm not sure about him yet - I'm a big fan of Ryle though, as can be seen from some of my other reports, but I was trying mostly everything new this game (apart from the Watcher and Guardian which are fairly close to auto include for me at the moment...)

[Math Mathonwy]

As for my score, you're correct that I scored 18 for Minions, but I also killed Lord Chompy Bits, who is worth 6 in a Slaughter as part of a "multiple model Master"...

Ah, I haven't played Slaughter against Dreamer (yet) and had completely forgotten about that rule. Thanks for pointing it out!

When you do get the chance to try the Avatar again, be sure to post your impressions!

[Cunning]

Hi!

As for my score, you're correct that I scored 18 for Minions, but I also killed Lord Chompy Bits, who is worth 6 in a Slaughter as part of a "multiple model Master"...

But that doesn't count for shared slaughter does it?

[FearLord]

But that doesn't count for shared slaughter does it?

Its in the description of Shared Slaughter, so I don't see why not...

[Cunning]

I thought master killing was a separate part of shared slaughter.

[FearLord]

Ah, I haven't played Slaughter against Dreamer (yet) and had completely forgotten about that rule. Thanks for pointing it out!

When you do get the chance to try the Avatar again, be sure to post your impressions!

Well, I'm hoping to get another game against the same opponent this week, so hopefully I'll actually get the chance to use the model this time - I think he may be planning to proxy the Dreamer's avatar as well, so it should be interesting!

[Fading Memory]

I thought master killing was a separate part of shared slaughter.

Nope. Masters are worth 10 points. For masters like the Victorias and The Dreamer that have 2 models, each model is worth 6 points. It helps create some sort of balance in a very chaotic strategy.

[FearLord]

I thought master killing was a separate part of shared slaughter.

You score one victory point separately for your opponent having no leaders in the game at the end, but you also add their soulstone (10 or 6 for each part) as normal for a slaughter...