Gremlins vs. The Dreamer Help Help Help

[anewbre]

One of our best players uses the Dreamer as his master and I was hoping for some tactical advice. In our last game, he flew into a building (no roof) but out of my LOS on his first turn. On his second, he flew closer unburied 2 Teddies, and other nightmares that will power dueled my young LaCroix to death, turned into Lord Crompy bits which proceeded to rip apart my crew. I was running Ophelia, Pere Ravage, Francisco, 3 young LaCroix, Rami and the rest were Bayou Gremlins. I did manage to kill one Teddy but after Ophelia was ripped apart by Lord Crompy Bits and Pere failed his terror test (and his rally flip - damn that black joker) it was pretty much all over. Because this was a tournament I was limited as to which models I could recruit for my crew, but I do own all of the different Gremlin models so what would you suggest?

I thought about a pigapult launching 3 piglets/stuffed piglets on that first turn when he flies into range and out of LOS, but wouldn't he just burn soulstones to defeat my attack or prevent damage and then still fly into my grill and dump his terror causing, will power dueling badness into my kin? Of course having him use 3+ soulstones on the first turn might make a difference.

[Serigala]

And although you can take the Pigapult (as it is a Gremlin) in Ophelias crew, you can't take any pigs. You can take a Taxidermist to produce them in game.

[Dumb Luck]

It was worse when the Alp Bomb existed. Before Peaches, we had literally no answer to Alps or Coppelius.

Skeeters could be pretty hot at sniping out Daydreams, I guess?

[anewbre]

I figured that I would take Som'er as the master to get the pigs and Ophelia as a henchman to make a smaller gunline work.

[Kael Hate]

1. Shank the Player while he is pulling LCB from the box.

2. Whisper in his ear "While the game take place in MalifauX, we be livin on ol' earth"

3. Walk away humming the well known tune from Deliverence.

My other fave option.

Shout him a coke if he goes gets it.

Hit the dreamer with your IrodaPro Butane torch or other extreme heat source while he is away.

Not much else you can do against the Dreamer from my experience. It even sounds like your Dreamer Opponent is playing weaker than he has too.

Play bigger games. The more points on the table offsets the dreamers ability to powerdump.

[Omenbringer]

The Gremlin Taxidermist and Stuffed pigs might work as an effective counter to the Dreamer.

Additionally, I would recommend against taking a pigapult and Ophelia in the same list (she is great but eats to many Soul Stones for a pig heavy or balanced list).

[Dumb Luck]

Oh, this! Great idea. Explode over him!

[skyhawk]

I run a somer list and a friend who usually plays zorida/colladi (who i have teamed up with for 2v2) just got the dreamer...we played a scrap. Luckily i just got mctavish + damage flips on nightmares and critical strike. so when LCB dropped into my deployment zone i took crack shots with mctavish, blew gremlins up with yall watch this, and kept the rest of her crew at bay with my pigapault launching stuffed piglets...hitting sever damage with a stuffed piglet out of the pigapult is awful for any crew to take its 7dmg with 3 blast.

so in a nutshell mctavish and the pigapualt worked pretty well for me

...dont forget the skeeter casting a gremlins luck because the dreamer with no control hand means it has to spend soulstones and those are something that you dont want the dreamer/LCB to hve

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[Spiku]

You wont beat a semi competant the dreamer with an Ophelia crew. He can free paralyse Ophelia, and copelliussudousous will paralyse someone like Rami.

The way I have been beating LCB has been in games where I have had terrain suitable to spam 2ss models and the pigapult to block off being summon bombed on. Pigapult is entirely necessary vs LCB as it will give you the ability to "keep up" with him, as well as drop skeeters to pull my finger on daydreams.

Som'er + skeeters + pigapult is the core.

In high soulstones games I'd have Ophelia and Rami in there for companion bombing; with half a dozen 2ss models to fill in the games. McTavish is brilliant for blocking LoS to your models or stopping people dropping things in, but he does underperform a bit compared to grmlins with built in synergies.

Avatar Som'er also lets Ophelia ignore the auto para, and the +flips help you with terrify =3

[Finnegan]

Spiku's got the right idea there. I must, however, add the caveat that against an Insiduous Madness' Psychopathic Episode coupled with Coppelius' Night Stalker and Teddy's Smell Fear, sheer numbers won't do the trick - they're pretty much all going to die. If your opponent fields Madnesses against Gremlins, you know he's just aiming for a quick win without any pretence of fairness. So yes, Avatar Som'er all the way!

[Spiku]

Pfft, what the hell do you know about this match up Finnegan.

Anywho, as you will recall, my point about numbers is to place them in such a way, preferably with terrain as well, that you can't summon them -inside- the bulk of the group. I've never deployed in a fashion that would allow you to drop coppelius on anything of value since our first game together.

Specifically one of the ways I beat Finn here was to deploy in such a way that McTavish, the Pigapult, and a mosquito blocked any way to deploy with fear reaching to anything of value in my crew; it also means they could not fear anywhere due to blocking each other, and had a wp10, a stubborn, and a wp6 model all blocking the way out.

Luckily we were playing Line in the Sand too, so I just Som'er summoned and flung gremlins where they had to be; Ophelia passed her df > 11 too, which was nice. We had a very interesting activation war trying to deactivate/activate one of the dynamites which involved him forcing his stitched to die to get reactivations, and me summoning/flinging new gremlins and mosquitoes to stop him being able to deactivate.

But yeah: Avatar Som'er = + 1Wp and ++ to Wp flips. He is useful, but Lord Chompy Dicks will EAT him due to his Df4.

[Calmdown]

If you dont hugely outskill the Dreamer player or get very lucky, this is pretty much an unwinnable matchup.

The best advice would be, if you're playing proper rules and not declaring your master beforehand, pick another master. Viks and Von Schill are both very good against the Dreamer with the right crew, and good against the other Neverborn masters too.

[Omenbringer]

Specifically one of the ways I beat Finn here was to deploy in such a way that McTavish, the Pigapult, and a mosquito blocked any way to deploy with fear reaching to anything of value in my crew; it also means they could not fear anywhere due to blocking each other, and had a wp10, a stubborn, and a wp6 model all blocking the way out.

Though base blocking is a great way to go against preventing some of the Dreamers shenanigans, gremlin crews wont last long against LCB. His Ht and 3 allow him to attack over the Skeeters. Also Mctavish and the Pigapult will usually be priority targets of the Dreamer crew anyway so putting them up front to base block for Some'r or Ophelia just allows LCB to destroy those key pieces easier.

But yeah: Avatar Som'er = + 1Wp and ++ to Wp flips. He is useful, but Lord Chompy Dicks will EAT him due to his Df4.

Dont forget Avatar Some'rs size increase which means he will have only two models in the crew that can block LOS to him, the Pigapult and Warpig (Mctavish is Ht 2 so LCB can attack over a bases blocking Mctavish to get at A Some'r). Also the :+fate WP flips are nice but more cards flipped means more chance that the Black Joker is going to pop up.

[Spiku]

with 4 being the most common wp, I'll take the risk of a black joker; I'd fail the test far more without the flips, than I would with the flips.

The point isn't Ht blocking, it's making it so he can't reach much of anything valuable; even if he can reach over the mosquito, if he is unable to move through bases of other models, he has to deal with those. Anything to buy me time to start the factory going; especially as you can summon 6" out from your position.

The problem here is that anything mentioned can easily be counter theorised by LCB's superiority on a one to one basis, it would more require demonstration.

Unfortunately, unless you're playing that guy who announced Neverborne, but only has The Dreamer, you've no way of knowing it's time to buy 3 pigapults and wall yourself off.

Also I've never known McTavish to play out how he reads like he would on paper, because no one is that stupid. Apart from Finnegan.

[Finnegan]

I resemble that remark

I must, however, point out that the madness' and coppelius' relevant abilities are auras, so terrain is not going to help a lot against them. And if the gremlins that surround Som'er die of fright, that leaves room for the Dreamer to unbury some nasties next to him. On the other hand, if you make sure to activate the models that aren't in range of the auras before those that are, you should out-activate the Dreamer, then you can spend your last activations having some of your gremlins die of fright and drawing a ton of cards from Som'er, which should prepare your hand nicely for next turn.

[Spiku]

You don't exactly out activate the dreamer though; because he can choose to bomb on first activation. If you recall though, in two of our games I deployed using a corner; so that aura aint getting me where I was and you'd have to stagger unbury.