Dreamer Change thought

[Lucidicide]

Okay but then you;ve catapulted LCB across the board for a total of 1 attack (barring onslaught) with no means to retreat and no remaining actions on the dreamer if LB were to die or get buried.

That's really not very effective. The scary thing about the dreamer first turn attack is that he can do it and leave you no way to counter attack by retreating back to his own deployment zone. Without that he's just made himself a huge target for your whole crew.

I guess, but the point is that it's likely he'll also be dropping off his entire crew with LCB, not just himself. So even if he can't retreat fully, the comment about his strength was due to the fact that the Dreamer can force you to play his game. This is because of his ability to move almost any distance and have his entire crew there without any chance to react.

So far, in this discussion, my two suggestions:

1. Companion is broken if a model is buried during its action.

--This makes it so people have a chance to react if the bomb is coming, and possibly stop the threat by killing a Daydream or the Dreamer. It allows an activation between the long bomb.

2. A model can only be the target of Calm Dreams once per turn.

--This makes it so you can't as easily yank LCB out of combat.

Those're my thoughts.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Lucidicide
Because I made a mistake.

[pgbsamurai]

With forcing LCB/Dreamer to always come into play B2B you stop the Daydream shenanigans too. Even casting Frightening Dream you still can only base walk him a few more inches with 3 Daydreams. This also means that if you want to drop all of your nightmare on turn one the farthest you could drop them would be 17" from where you deployed. (4"(LCB walk) + 7"(Dreamer walk) + 6"(Frightening Dreams range)). That is still going to be the middle of the board first turn.

[Lucidicide]

I don't think changing the movement possibility of the Dreamer is a) the best solution or likely to happen. The fact that the Dreamer can move so far is not a surprise and never has been. I would argue that Wyrd overall is probably fine with this given that fact. Plenty of people can move far. It's a matter of what he can do once he gets there.

My suggestion makes it so people have a chance to respond before LCB and/or Nightmares show up on his head AND doesn't allow you to flee combat right away once you've committed to it.

I just don't think limiting the distance is really going to fix the issue.

[pgbsamurai]

My suggestion makes it so people have a chance to respond before LCB and/or Nightmares show up on his head AND doesn't allow you to flee combat right away once you've committed to it.

My solution accomplishes both of these as well though, and seems like a simpler solution (simpler to me anyway).

[Fetid Strumpet]

011121, You can drop off the whole crew when you pop Chompy, and you'll get two attacks with Chompy (+ however many onslaughts he can trigger using his paired claws, Cheated Cards, and SS), and with SS use that's enough to kill just about any model in the game.

[Lucidicide]

My solution accomplishes both of these as well though, and seems like a simpler solution (simpler to me anyway).

It is a good solution, and if Wyrd + players are willing to accept cutting the Dreamer's movement almost in half, I think it could work.

However, as I said, I'm not sure that reducing the Dreamer's movement is really what is overall desired. It can pretty drastically change how he functions.

Although my suggestion is definitely more complicated, it doesn't actually minimize the distance, but it does allow someone to have a chance to at least activate one model ahead of time and prevents the opponent from ripping LCB out of combat on a long bomb approach.

I guess it's a matter of what they might want to accomplish. And the answer to that may be "nothing!"

[011121]

011121, You can drop off the whole crew when you pop Chompy, and you'll get two attacks with Chompy (+ however many onslaughts he can trigger using his paired claws, Cheated Cards, and SS), and with SS use that's enough to kill just about any model in the game.

Yes you can drop off the whole crew, but you can't activate them immediately which makes the entire crew very vulnerable to any blasts or pulses the enemy has.

Are you sure Chompy get's two attacks? It looked like from the list posted he'd only get 1.

The problem is not that Dreamer can drop his whole crew on a single model and mess them up. That's his whole game design. the problem is that as is he can drop the whole crew on a single model and then disappear with no possibility of retaliation, and then repeat every turn.

[karn987]

Yes you can drop off the whole crew, but you can't activate them immediately which makes the entire crew very vulnerable to any blasts or pulses the enemy has.

Are you sure Chompy get's two attacks? It looked like from the list posted he'd only get 1.

The problem is not that Dreamer can drop his whole crew on a single model and mess them up. That's his whole game design. the problem is that as is he can drop the whole crew on a single model and then disappear with no possibility of retaliation, and then repeat every turn.

You don't have to take that Walk with LCB. It was in there to just show maximum distance. Without it, its 25"ish because Im not counting the extra you gain from the base placing stuff. With a 3" reach thats 2 attacks at ~ 28"

[Lucidicide]

OK, I feel like there are so many ideas here that it'll be impossible to reach anything close to a consensus. So I'd ask people to vote on this:

What is it that makes the Dreamer so powerful?

1. Movement distance - 25"+ in one turn with the entire crew

2. Guerilla warfare - Ability to go into combat and do your thing, then get out of combat without reprisal.

3. Unreactability - The Dreamer can largely do large chains of activations without letting you go inbetween

4. A combination of the above, but no one thing in particular.

I guess the question in my mind becomes whether or not there's (A) a specific ability of the Dreamer that people think needs to go away OR ( whether it's the combination of abilities.

And if it is ( the combination of abilities, is this something that (B1) can be mitigated by not allowing all those abilities to happen on the same turn OR (B2) is it something that can only be mitigated by reworking the abilities.

My impression is that it's B - the combination of his abilities. As such, I feel like B1 would be the proper approach -- not allowing him to do everything at once: move, attack, and withdraw all before the opponent does anything.

Overall, I think B2, changing his abilities, would upset a lot of people and be much harder to balance.

[LoboStele]

I think the ability to attack AND retreat within the same action is what makes him so powerful. Any other model in the game has to make some sort of a commitment, and has to stand and take a beating for at least 1 activation on the opponent's side before getting swapped out or brought back to safety somehow.

I do like some of the ideas presented in the thread though. You guys are coming up with some good ones. I'll have to think on it a bit more before I can give any better opinions about things. Plus, I gotta run right now...gotta be somewhere!

[Cats Laughing]

I think I saw earlier in this thread a suggestion (maybe by Fetid) that the All My Friends trigger require control cards to be discarded for each Nightmare unburied by the trigger.

I think this might be a reasonable suggestion. It still allows the Dreamer to drop off his entire crew in your face, which seems to be the intent of the Dreamer, and zip back off again, which might also be intended (unsure), but limits his crew's output after the mass-unbury by denying him the ability to cheat fate. Alternatively, the Dreamer can unbury a smaller number of crew members and retain some ability to cheat fate.

On the otherhand, this mechanic would moderately reward a poor control hand (a draw of nothing but low cards) and leave the Dreamer vulnerable to control hand interference (like Somer). it also doesn't do anything to the LCB yoyo attrition game (where LCB comes flying in, kills something, then gets ported out). However, I feel that yoyo isn't as dangerous without his crew also being thrown out in an opponent's face. Losing a model a turn without being able to strike back is annoying but something that you'll face with a Guild player running Nino.

Making the Dreamer vulnerable to control hand attacks might be a worthwhile weakness to give.

[Ozz]

Before i make my post, i am just going to say that i play the dreamer, but i am by not means the best player, and do not yet fully understand all his rules and such. I intend to be helpful, and make comments to ether learn or be constructive, so please if you disagree with my comments, be constructive as you destroy what i say:) But here is what i think on this thread:)

The master of dreams stays, but change the daydreams, dreamer can have a max of 3 BUT can HIRE only 1,

This comment i have said my self somewhere a few days ago, and agree with, means no changes required to stop the turn one chompy attack and retreat, ofc it can still occur later in the game, but by then your opponent has had more time to spread out, and you dont need so much to do it and its a little more predictable where it will happen, ect. Allows a little control and uses 2 - 4 of the dreamers stones, if the player wants 2 - 3 daydreams.

As for the Discarding cards to summon more nightmares, i hate this idea personally, when i first started the dreamer, i used to always summon with the sacrifice a daydream, as i had not read everything properly. And basically, it meant that i had no cards to do the dmg i wanted OR to protect the models i needed. It gives you lots of attacks, but no choices in what happens to anything, so in my opinion that would be a bad way for things to go.

A change that could be made is to Swap frightening dream to a 0 action, then like what frustrates me now, inflict dreams, the daydreams just can not cast the spell. Can still take them out of trouble, and sacrifice them selves to summon the models, but can not do it for an average card.

Second way things could change that i thought about was to split the spell (frightening Dream) into two, have one to summon all "generic" nightmares with the All my friends Trigger. And a second spell, perhaps as a 0 action (stops daydreams making him without being sacrificed) to summon chompy and with a trigger to summon 2 - 3 friends with him, if you wanted to. Ofc the "generic" is to mean non chompy nightmares there. This means you get your bomb, or chompy and a few friends. Will need to make the spells a 1 or the other per turn, otherwise it makes little to no difference depending on what type of action it could have been.

As for what i think (from what ive read) makes the Dreamer most OP is being able to get chompy into your deployment zone and kill a model and get him back to your own without you getting to respond, never done this, dont know exactly how it works, dont want to as ill probably start using it if i did. I tend to leave him there once he has been put out and people get their chance to kill him, and i get frustrated by Df 4 as he takes so many wounds even with a SS to protect him.

Im sure i had more ways he could change but i have forgotten them now, i hope some of this is useful:) If it isn't, please explain why, as i said, i ether want to be helpful, or learn why what I've said is useless or impractical or whichever:)

[011121]

What is it that makes the Dreamer so powerful?

1. Movement distance - 25"+ in one turn with the entire crew

2. Guerilla warfare - Ability to go into combat and do your thing, then get out of combat without reprisal.

3. Unreactability - The Dreamer can largely do large chains of activations without letting you go inbetween

4. A combination of the above, but no one thing in particular.

Collodi can do #1 and I don't think anyone would say he's overpowered. Plenty of people can do 3. 2 is the only one that's unique to the Dreamer. The combination of course only helps him but if you're looking for the one thing to take out to keep the whole thing from being overpowered I think 2 is the obvious choice.

[Dolomyte]

No!

Let me repeat that: no!

I have nothing against the Nekima and Alp changes. But there is no need to change anything else for the time being.

I come from a Magic: the gathering background and always had the deck I played cuddled. I stopped playing.

I'm not a competitive player, I play for fun. But the fun stops when the crew you've invested in changes to unplayable.

You mean cuddled as the sets cycle out year after year? They've only banned like 2 cards in the last 6 years.

[Dolomyte]

I think the ability to attack AND retreat within the same action is what makes him so powerful. Any other model in the game has to make some sort of a commitment, and has to stand and take a beating for at least 1 activation on the opponent's side before getting swapped out or brought back to safety somehow.

I do like some of the ideas presented in the thread though. You guys are coming up with some good ones. I'll have to think on it a bit more before I can give any better opinions about things. Plus, I gotta run right now...gotta be somewhere!

I can companion chain the showgirls, attack you with both the duet and cassandra, and then get all of them to safety, leaving you a mannequin to attack. not just chompy bits has ridiculous threat range. All book 2 masters, cept hamelin, are really fast.

The dreamer is tough, but now his attacks all require duals. the problem with alps was they were deadly without even needing to activate. now his models have to actively kill you, instead of just doing it automatically.

[Cats Laughing]

Note: I'm commenting for discussion purposes and the flesh out the idea.

As for the Discarding cards to summon more nightmares, i hate this idea personally, when i first started the dreamer, i used to always summon with the sacrifice a daydream, as i had not read everything properly. And basically, it meant that i had no cards to do the dmg i wanted OR to protect the models i needed. It gives you lots of attacks, but no choices in what happens to anything, so in my opinion that would be a bad way for things to go.

The inability to cheat fate(for offensive or defensive purposes) if the Dreamer drops his entire crew in your lap would be the mitigating/balancing factor of allowing him to do that.

There are still ways around using your entire hand. You could:

-Drop less than your full crew, thereby keeping a few cards in your hand for cheating. For instance you can drop just a Lelu-Lilitu pair for 2 cards and still have 4 in hand.

-Use daydreams/alps/other cheap unburied models to stall until near the end of the turn, allowing you to dump your entire control hand at the end of the round and redraw a full hand for the following turn

-possibly other ideas I can't research now as my books are not here...

Additionally, you can choose how to manage the discard, dumping only low cards. Should you draw a hand full of low cards, then there is very little lost by dropping your whole crew and discarding your entire hand. You do lose the possibility to bluff and defense against things like "Headshot" however.

Another thought is that you could modify the idea of discarding cards on the "All My Friends" trigger to be some ratio other than 1-1. Perhaps you could unbury 2 Nightmares for each card discarded, or 3 Nightmares for every 2 cards. On the otherhand, more "exotic" ratios like 3-2 do cause some issues when you want to determine how many cards to discard when the ratio points to a non-whole number.

Discarding cards for the mass unbury might not be the best idea, but I think it's something that could be looked into.

[sinistercats]

One thing I'll just point out- in most of the tacticas- Nix's and Karn's specifically, the way they suggest battling the crew is go after the Daydreams. To me that suggests they might be the OP part of the chain..?

Just wanted to point that out conceptually.

Back to lurk mode....

[Adran]

What is it that makes the Dreamer so powerful?

1. Movement distance - 25"+ in one turn with the entire crew

2. Guerilla warfare - Ability to go into combat and do your thing, then get out of combat without reprisal.

3. Unreactability - The Dreamer can largely do large chains of activations without letting you go inbetween

4. A combination of the above, but no one thing in particular.

You're right, unless there is any consesus over what any dreamer problem is, we're talking at cross purposes.

I think it is clearly 4, as there are other crews that do the first 3. Whists its possible there are crews that do 4, I think the expenditure that they require to do them all is much much higher than the dreamers.

Whilst the daydreams facilitate the Dreamer playstyle, their restriction doesn't stop any 1 of the 3 areas. It does make them less effective (possibly because they are having to put more resources into getting to the same position).

The advice is to target them as they are often the easiest target, and their absence will make the dreamer have to work harder.

[Ozz]

The inability to cheat fate(for offensive or defensive purposes) if the Dreamer drops his entire crew in your lap would be the mitigating/balancing factor of allowing him to do that.

There are still ways around using your entire hand. You could:

-Drop less than your full crew, thereby keeping a few cards in your hand for cheating. For instance you can drop just a Lelu-Lilitu pair for 2 cards and still have 4 in hand.

-Use daydreams/alps/other cheap unburied models to stall until near the end of the turn, allowing you to dump your entire control hand at the end of the round and redraw a full hand for the following turn

Clearly there are ways around the discarding cards being a problem, if you think before you act:) It is just something i personally do not like to discard cards without using them. As you said, if you get a bad hand, then its all fine and good, throw them away and it makes little to no difference to the turn, but if you get a really good hand, you may only have 2 cards to throw away, but want to put 3 models out. And yes you still can, but if you have a red Joker and 3x 13 in your hand (this has happened to me on multiple occasions) you want to keep them, it makes the cards you have sat in your hand affect what models are in play.

It is just an idea, that i personally dislike, i tried it at the start of my dreamer life with the daydreams, always did it wrong and did not like the results. It was largely due to my own mistakes and lack of thought though, i will admit that.

[karn987]

Took a bit of a back seat to see where things would go... lots of good ideas and it's great to see thought and discussion really starting to pick up!

OK, I feel like there are so many ideas here that it'll be impossible to reach anything close to a consensus. So I'd ask people to vote on this:

What is it that makes the Dreamer so powerful?

1. Movement distance - 25"+ in one turn with the entire crew

2. Guerilla warfare - Ability to go into combat and do your thing, then get out of combat without reprisal.

3. Unreactability - The Dreamer can largely do large chains of activations without letting you go inbetween

4. A combination of the above, but no one thing in particular.

Yup that's definitly a good way to put it. But even then, I would narrow this down to 2.

His Movement Distance, and the Guerilla Warfare.

Now the Guerilla Warfare is just simply how his meta plays out and tweaking that will be very very difficult. Nightmares are low Df with Average Wds and few of them will last long when left on the board.

The movement distance is not a bad place to cut though if your going to cut some where I think. The idea is to trim down the long bomb's range while still making it viable for the Dreamer (himself) to go the 28"ish a turn. The reason for this is so he himself can still be the speed demon he is and facilitate the guerilla warfare, but so that his maximum drop range in 1 turn is cut down a bit.

The second side of this though is the Nightmares themselves. Many of them were designed with the intent of being vulnerable when left on the field. Every Nightmare but Stitched Together is rather easy to down in a single turn. The biggest reason for this is their Df and general lack of solid mitigation or avoidance. Now this is not to strike up and arguement about this... we've been over this in many threads. We've been over this in several threads and they are indeed vulnerable when left in the open. But this is the reason why they have the bury and unbury in a single turn, because Nightmares left out in the open have this tendancy to die really fast.

So losing the ability to bury and unbury as a whole simply won't work. He relies on that to get his extra burst of speed out and many times his Nightmares rely on that to stay safe. Neither do I think he should have to discard cards for All My Friends or should it be changed to 1 per Mask. Those aren't the real issues here. Yes All My Friends is potent, but it is also one of the most important things to making him viable beyond the first turn strike trick.

Modify unbury mechanic

There was the interesting idea of making his unbury mechanics a B2B one, but then that can get to messy I think... instead cut the distance down to say 3" then. It doesn't make much of a distance mathwise... but mechanicall that is a huge. Reason? Currently I can be on one side of a house and dump Nightmares on the otherside of it. My Daydream or Dreamer is perfectly safe now and you've just got a face full of Nightmares. Another possible way to handle this is make it so he needs LoS to where he places the Nightmares. Long time Dreamer players should know exactly how big of an impact this would really have on him, even if left at 6" range. You start having to place them all in LoS and the Dreamer or Daydreams are suddenly left a lot more exposed.

This alone would not be enough I know, but take this in issolation for a minute.... thoughts?

Limiting the long bomb

This is definitly worth giving a lot of thought to IMO. The biggest complaint I've seen over and over and over (till my head spins to be honest) is about that first turn rush and strike with LCB. Now half the people who hate it have no issue with it if he couldn't hide himself after. The other half just hate it all together.

So lets say it was enough to just keep LCB from returning suddenly to the safety of his Deployment zone etc. What would need to be done to stop this? Remember, its that final Daydream that pulls this off. That 2nd use of Frightening Dreams by the Daydreams is what makes this work.

So one suggestion that seems to do the trick is something like this:

Blah Blah cool name: This model may not use Magical Extension to cast a spell already cast by another Friendly Daydream this turn.

Suddenly LCB can't return. The best that can be done is he is turned back into the Dreamer with Calm Dreams and that still leaves him rather vulnerable. The Stitched Together trick won't work if your opponent knows how to get around Shadowy Form (just get out of range of the Stitched and in range of the Dreamer). So now if you wish you use that power rush, your in a very tenuous position and you could very easily lose your Master.

From my view as a player of the Dreamer for well over a year, this will hurt him. This weakens him in several ways. He no longer can protect his crew quite as well because instead of having 4 potential points to bury/unbury your models from, you only have realistically 2 per turn (unless you sac a DD for an unbury, but that is fine! Thats 2ss gone for it). His speed goes down, and he gets forced into more tough situations where he has to leave his Nightmares on the board.

Thoughts? Would this really work well enough to call it good? Especially to the frequent Dreamer victims, how often do you see your oponents Daydreams casting the same spell as each other in a turn?

Edited October 13, 2011 by karn987

[Eddie]

You mean cuddled as the sets cycle out year after year? They've only banned like 2 cards in the last 6 years.

I played vintage. There is no cycling there. only restricting and banning. Wizards practically destroyed that format with all their restrictions.

Edited October 13, 2011 by Eddie

[LoboStele]

I can companion chain the showgirls, attack you with both the duet and cassandra, and then get all of them to safety, leaving you a mannequin to attack. not just chompy bits has ridiculous threat range. All book 2 masters, cept hamelin, are really fast.

To be fair, you can do this with the Showgirls, but I don't think the damage potential is nearly as high as with LCB.

At this point, I think either the suggestion on limiting the use of Magicial Extension similar to Avatar Colette's rules where two different Daydreams could not cast the same spell seems like a good one.

I do also like the idea of having to discard cards in order to summon Nightmares. I definitely think you should get 1-2 for free though. So maybe something like you have to discard 1 card per Nightmare after the 2nd one. Gives you the freedom to un-bury a couple for free, but then costs you beyond that. Doesn't completely break the system, but slows it down a bit. Obviously, would need some varied testing to see what level of card discarding would be appropriate.

[nilus]

So lets say it was enough to just keep LCB from returning suddenly to the safety of his Deployment zone etc. What would need to be done to stop this? Remember, its that final Daydream that pulls this off. That 2nd use of Frightening Dreams by the Daydreams is what makes this work.

So one suggestion that seems to do the trick is something like this:

Blah Blah cool name: This model may not use Magical Extension to cast a spell already cast by another Friendly Daydream this turn.

I think this might be the key. its not the long bomb that is the problem as much as its the yoyo back effect. There are a lot of crews that can do combos that push a single model up all the way to the others deployment zone(Obey chains, Lucius, Viki sister swapping, etc). But none of them can then roll that model back home.

Truth be told the Dreamers long bomb is the longest but its only doable with a master. It would change from an always do action to a situational one you would have to really weight the advantage of. I think it would be good.

[Lucidicide]

Can I just say that this thread has some real discussion going? Pretty epic.

[Ratty]

I think this might be the key. its not the long bomb that is the problem as much as its the yoyo back effect. There are a lot of crews that can do combos that push a single model up all the way to the others deployment zone(Obey chains, Lucius, Viki sister swapping, etc). But none of them can then roll that model back home.

Truth be told the Dreamers long bomb is the longest but its only doable with a master. It would change from an always do action to a situational one you would have to really weight the advantage of. I think it would be good.

I think I could manage longer with Kirai actually. use Datsu-ba to walk a Insidious Madness, move 2nd Insidious Madnes forward, move 1st Insidious Madness forward. Into the Spirit World to 2nd Insidious Madness, Swirl to 1st Insidious Madness summon Ikiryo. 44" forward.