The NEW Dreamer Lists

[Calmdown]

Being as there is now no longer an obvious best couple of Dreamer lists, look at all of the stuff that's now viable! I'm sure a lot of people played lists like this before, but pre-cuddle, they were sub-optimal. Now they're great!

Combat:

Dreamer (7ss)

Primordial Magic

2x Stitched Together

2x Lelu

1x Lilitu

Slaughter:

Dreamer

Primordial Magic

2x Night Terror

3x Stitched Together

Coppelius/Teddy

Objective Grabbing:

Dreamer (8ss)

Primordial Magic

3x Night Terror

2x Lelu

1x Lilitu

Terrifying:

Dreamer (7ss)

Primordial Magic

3x Night Terror

Insidious Madness

Coppelius

Teddy

Growth:

Dreamer (5ss)

Primordial Magic

Nekima

Young Nephilim

3x Terror Tot

The possibilities are endless.

And his avatar is pretty worthwhile now too...

Avatar Dreamer:

Dreamer (7ss)

aDreamer

Arcane Effigy

3x Night Terror

2x Stitched Together

2x Insidious Madness

*one list contained in this post was a joke

[Darios]

no more Daydreams? Jup the Jojo is nefed but they are not actually bad now

[Ratty]

From what I've seen Daydreams are more essential now not less.

[karn987]

From what I've seen Daydreams are more essential now not less.

Exactly. They have become even more critical then before even if one of their primary uses is now shafted a bit. Without Daydreams, all those list have very large flaws to them and are a lot slower then they could be.

What the Daydreams did for the Crew (ie not the Dreamer/LCB) has not been effected by the Errata/cuddle. Instead, what they did for the Dreamer & more specifically LCB has been heavily effected. They can still pull off a long bomb strategy and many of the pre-existing play styles are still intact, they just carry a heavier cost now then they did before.

But the perception shift is the real kicker here. Because his previous best strategy (long bomb) is now a little slower and more costly, it makes strategies focused around his crew a lot more favorable. To say that Daydreams were not an integral part of this is basically madness. Their roll and responsability has grown as any list focusing on his crew will require about 2 of these little buggers to maxamize his mechanics and the potential speed of the crew.

So as my mantra has always been, you want Daydreams with the Dreamer. Hands down, they are the best use of your SS/totem slot.

Edited March 22, 2012 by karn987

[Rathnard]

Ooh, I'll be keeping an eye on this thread!

From what I've seen Daydreams are more essential now not less.

I have to agree.

Back in my 40k days I would take a Dark Eldar army with two webway portals (WWPs allowed you to bring out parts of your army from a template placed on the table partway through the game). Half the reason I took two was because it prevented my opponent from easilly guessing where my army was coming from, and it worked out pretty well in that respect.

From my perspective, taking Daydreams is like taking Webway portals. If the only model in your crew that can deploy nightmares is Dreamer, then your opponent will have an easy time predicting where those buried nightmares will be deployed from. But by having a Daydream or three around the flanks, you can throw Nightmares at your opponent from almost any angle.

There's also the fact that a daydream can pull back or bury LCB if needed, so I think one way or another, Daydreams are still a great option for Dreamer crews.

[I opened the box]

*one list contained in this post was a joke

Only one? This is why getting lists off the internets fails. What schemes are you recommending with these awesome lists?

P.s. UR just jellis of my Meta!

[Calmdown]

Daydreams do not really do anything for the Dreamer particularly now that he cant do himself. Lets break down what they can be used for:

Summoning Chompy or a Nightmare (with Call Nightmares)

Summoning a single Nightmare (with a Magical Extension'd Frightening Dream)

Burying Chompy

The first of these requires sacrificing the Nightmare, the rest require them being in combat range and every Dreamer player knows that a Daydream in range of basically anything is almost guaranteed dead.

The ability of Daydreams to drop Nightmares on your opponent is not amazing, but it is a useful bility; dropping single Nightmares is not a particularly fantastic use of two points. In addition, they still require a 6 to cast FD which can and does eat cards. Then finally they require the Dreamer to actually be on the board; once LCB is deployed, their utility (through Lead Nightmare and Calm Nightmares) is very limited.

Moreover, the desired playstyle for Dreamer is now that he drops Nightmares himself, as you're more likely to want to 'bomb' than you were before to maximise the use of your crew (previously unnecessary with Chompy slingshot). Being able to drop multiple Nightmares 13" plus base size away from the Dreamer is really all you'll ever need.

Primordial Magic can channel Frightening Dream 9the main use of Daydreams) just as well as a Daydream can, but has +1 Ca and importantly, Arcane Reservoir. The only real reason to run Daydreams would be if you wanted to be able to run two of them, though the need to do that is very questionable.

But ultimately this comes down to a simple truth that a lot of Malifaux players don't understand: cards in hand win games, and now that Dreamer doesn't need Daydreams to be optimal, he can take advantage of Primordial like every other Neverborn master can.

[wrabbit37]

I like having the Daydreams. I can't rely on having a high Tome in my hand to bring Dreamer back out and keep LCB safe. Daydreams are the only reliable way to do that.

Without Daydreams, I need a high Tome every turn I am attacking with Chompy. Any player who MUST get a trigger off on a specific hit knows that you either have the high card in your hand or you aren't going to get the trigger. With Chompy's new method, you need it every turn.

With Daydreams, you are free from needing the Tome on the last hit.

If cards are paramount in your eyes, why wouldn't you take the totem that relieves your reliance on them?

[Ratty]

I think you may have missed a few things.

Daydreams do not really do anything for the Dreamer particularly now that he cant do himself. Lets break down what they can be used for:

Summoning Chompy or a Nightmare (with Call Nightmares)

Summoning a single Nightmare (with a Magical Extension'd Frightening Dream)

Burying Chompy

Should be

• Summoning Chompy or, a Nightmare or, LCB and Multiple Nightmares by discarding cards. (with Call Nightmares)
  
• Summoning a single Nightmare (with a Magical Extension'd Frightening Dream)
  
• Burying Chompy
  
• Lead Nightmares
  

The first of these requires sacrificing the Nightmare, the rest require them being in combat range and every Dreamer player knows that a Daydream in range of basically anything is almost guaranteed dead.

This is not really true, Day Dreams can still be effective quite far away as a LCB retrieval method.

A Daydream can reliably bury Lord Chompy Bits from 14" away, by Leading Nightmare twice followed by a Calm Nightmare. If you start the Dreamer within 6" of the Daydream you can companion them and therefore...

1. Make the Dreamer Fly
   
2. Move Once
   
3. Bring in LCB
   
4. Charge with LCB
   
5. Use extra Melee Strike
   
6. Use Daydream to Lead Lord Chompy Bits Back
   
7. Use Daydream to Lead Lord Chompy Bits Back
   
8. Bury LCB
   

There is also a more dangerous method that can bring him back much longer distances. But it involves getting the All Done trigger off which is not gaurenteed unless you have a decent Tome, and sacrificing the Daydream.

But if you don't take Daydreams you can't use any retrieval method. You just have to hope for All Done and that you have enough Nightmares around the Dreamer that he can survive.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Ratty

[Rathnard]

Arcane Reservoir is great and all, but without Daydreams you're really limiting your options in-game.

The PM might be able to cast frightening dream, but it's far too slow to be useful with it. Simply put, for 2SS and your totem slot the Primordial Magic gives you +1 card, and that's it.

Daydreams, on the other hand, allow you to do more with your crew. Without them you limit the tricks and angles of attack you have with the Dreamer, which by extension makes him much easier to counter by your opponent. +1 card is not going to help with that.

Without Daydreams, you can't push your LCB around or swap him back to Dreamer if All Done isn't an option. And even if the cost is high, having a Daydream around at least gives you the option to boomerang Dreamer back to safety after he's done his thing. Like I said, the cost may be high, but I'd still gladly exchange a 2SS model and half my hand to wipe out an 8+SS model.

And I'd still maintain that unburying a single Nightmare is worth while. The Stitched is a pain in the arse to deal with (short of any possible errata) and so long as you're not daft enough to let your opponent focus in it, any of the higher cost minions are viable threats on their own. And you know, there's often some objectives to fulfil too.

[rancor709]

I actually see both sides of the argument. Tactical flexibility vs known properties in the fate deck. To mecalmdown is arguing for known property being less resource intensive and proving hire consistency. Pm playstyle will be using that extra card to up the chances of high tomes in hand or up the occurance in the deck to keep chompy safe. Who in the new style is more of a finisher. I.e. he only joind

s battle towards the end after the crew has eaten. Or to break the odds his way.

The daydream tactical flexibility is as it should be a significnt investment in resources to do some escaping or calling forth. And ratty rathnard have explained that style well. Both work, but i wont argue eithther is superior.

[marshimartian]

It's possible I missed it, but it seems no one mentioned the biggest implication of the bury errata. When a model is removed from play, anything it buried is placed within 3". I don't believe it was optional either.

So, on the one hand, you have to watch your vulnerability a little more, as a crew like the Ortega's could alpha strike, kill a daydream, and then have free range to kill all the nightmares that daydream buried.

But, why not use the daydream as a bus? Everyone gets on (buried), the bus goes across town, then the bus explodes (use call nightmare for chompy, and get evryone else for free/ take a shooter to kill your own daydream/ or hope your opponet is stupid enough to kill the daydream)

Not exactly a slingshot, but an effective bomb for sure.

[Ratty]

marshimartian. Only if it says so in the Bury ability.. the Daydreams one doesn't.

[karn987]

It's possible I missed it, but it seems no one mentioned the biggest implication of the bury errata. When a model is removed from play, anything it buried is placed within 3". I don't believe it was optional either.

So, on the one hand, you have to watch your vulnerability a little more, as a crew like the Ortega's could alpha strike, kill a daydream, and then have free range to kill all the nightmares that daydream buried.

But, why not use the daydream as a bus? Everyone gets on (buried), the bus goes across town, then the bus explodes (use call nightmare for chompy, and get evryone else for free/ take a shooter to kill your own daydream/ or hope your opponet is stupid enough to kill the daydream)

Not exactly a slingshot, but an effective bomb for sure.

Nope that was a typo by Kel. Go check out thepost again and notice the edit at the bottom:

Last edited by Keltheos; Yesterday at 06:40 PM. Reason: Brain fart. Removed the killed = unbury models bit.

The Action/ability that buries the model would have to stipulate that now.

[Calmdown]

The Stitched is a pain in the arse to deal with (short of any possible errata)

I'm expecting that soon too tbh

I disagree with most of the points you guys are making. You're pointing out lots of the benefits of Daydreams but you're losing out on raw power for flexibility (raw power by virtue of losing a card, which is a big deal, and by spending 2 points per Daydream). You dont severely limit your angles of attack because the Dreamer's 13" move+drop still covers the majority of a 3x3 board, particularly for a good player who's positioning is good.

You're also missing out on an important fact; to do all of these things, you need to expose your Daydreams. An exposed Daydream is a dead Daydream. All of these tricks are basically one-offs.

I think a couple of comments Rath - "+1 card and thats it" and "+1 card isnt going to help with that" show that you don't value cards in hand particularly. Along with soulstones, cards are the things that win games. Even more so than models and crews, in a lot of cases. When you break down a game of Malifaux, it comes down to a very finite number of actions which are either successes or failures; the ability to increase your number of successes vs failures is huge, and that is why almost every competitive list tries to run 8ss in its cache. Adding a card is *huge*.

At the end of the day it comes down to what Rancor said - tactical flexibility vs likelihood of success. Imho, you get more out of known quantities than you do out of flexibility. Maybe it's a playstyle thing for me, but as far as I'm concerned flexibility only gives you the position to win games, you still need a crew that can follow through with it, and the better your crew is at doing that the more games you win.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Calmdown

[karn987]

I'm expecting that soon too tbh

I disagree with most of the points you guys are making. You're pointing out lots of the benefits of Daydreams but you're losing out on raw power for flexibility (raw power by virtue of losing a card, which is a big deal, and by spending 2 points per Daydream). You dont severely limit your angles of attack because the Dreamer's 13" move+drop still covers the majority of a 3x3 board, particularly for a good player who's positioning is good.

You're also missing out on an important fact; to do all of these things, you need to expose your Daydreams. An exposed Daydream is a dead Daydream. All of these tricks are basically one-offs.

Emphasis mine, but that bolded part right at the start... is the entire counter to your arguement. The Daydreams are many times more flexible and diverse in their use them the PM. The PM only brings you 2 advantage over the DD and that is the +1 card and +1 Ca. Otherwise, it has a small list of what they do better then it.

To expose a DayDream is not a dead Daydream, that statement is flat out false. They can survive through many means including burying each other to get out of danger once they've done their job. Never mind the whole discussion of threat saturation and an action or two spent on getting a DD that has done it's job is well worth it if they don't touch your bigger nightmares by trade. DD's make fantastic little distractions and traps if you learn how to take advantage of them. If I have to lose a DD to pull off something I consider more then worse the loss, then by definition... it was worth the loss. Some times the best strategy is to lose the model for a great gain.

By comparison to the angles of attacks you can have with Daydreams, yes you do limit them. You could have a single source of attack angles, or up to 4. That choice and flexability is invaluable for a Master and crew designed to make surgical strikes. That 1 extra card is of questionable value at best because the arguement remains that it's worth is nealry completely random and that extra card could consistently be say a 2 or something like that. It's useful, dont get me wrong, but it's not worth the trade off by a long shot.

Then you have the notion of LCB's own survivability which is lowered by not taking DD's. Without them, you are really relying on getting a high :tombs on your last attack every turn. That's not a good strategy by any means, its relying on luck. With them you have ways to pull him back from danger, position him cleverly, and flat out remove him from danger. If it costs you 1 DD to be able to use LCB to his full offensive capability? Then so be it, it's more often then not well worth the trade off (ie LCB is going to kill or at least seriously wound more SS worth of models even before you look at the tacticle aspect of it).

I think a couple of comments Rath - "+1 card and thats it" and "+1 card isnt going to help with that" show that you don't value cards in hand particularly. Along with soulstones, cards are the things that win games. Even more so than models and crews, in a lot of cases. When you break down a game of Malifaux, it comes down to a very finite number of actions which are either successes or failures; the ability to increase your number of successes vs failures is huge, and that is why almost every competitive list tries to run 8ss in its cache. Adding a card is *huge*.

What win's games is smart playing, not SS or Cards by themselves. A smart player realizes and can take advantage of the options present by DD's over that of the PM. Movement is extremely powerful and your +1 Card could be a Red Joker, but it will not save you if I out play you and out manuver you. That is what DD's fascilitate, that is the heart and soul of what this crew is and has been.

To put it more into the way your looking at this, DD's give you more chances at performing those actions then a PM ever will. Your +1 Card is good, but if you never get to maxamize the use of it then it's nearly irrelivant.

At the end of the day it comes down to what Rancor said - tactical flexibility vs likelihood of success. Imho, you get more out of known quantities than you do out of flexibility. Maybe it's a playstyle thing for me, but as far as I'm concerned flexibility only gives you the position to win games, you still need a crew that can follow through with it, and the better your crew is at doing that the more games you win.

But +1 card is not a discreat or even reliable increase in your crews ability to perform when needed, and that is the heart of this. If it was say, always adding a face card to your hand.. then fine, you can argue this a lot easier. But while the chance is random, and you have a very high likely hood of ending up with a card that does little to nothing ot help you along... the vastly greater reliably of the DD's along with their flexibility, tricks, and tactics they bring along make them easily a better choice for the Dreamer. The Dreamer was simply built to be played with Daydreams, anything else at the moment is cutting off some of his potential. They simply give you more.

Now if you want to talk about individual play style, then by all means. You preference is your own.

Edited March 22, 2012 by karn987

[rancor709]

Huge point you just made calmdown. Malifaux typically hinges on few key duels, properly iding those duels and being the winner ultimately wins you the game. If you go back over your games you'll find a key turn or small series of duels ultimatly is what the gaome came down 2.

[Lucidicide]

Huge point you just made calmdown. Malifaux typically hinges on few key duels, properly iding those duels and being the winner ultimately wins you the game. If you go back over your games you'll find a key turn or small series of duels ultimatly is what the gaome came down 2.

And if you have more flexibility, you can better determine which duels those are and what cards are in your hand when you have to make them. If you have just more power your opponent gets to choose the time and place of those duels.

There's a counter-argument!

[karn987]

And if you have more flexibility, you can better determine which duels those are and what cards are in your hand when you have to make them. If you have just more power your opponent gets to choose the time and place of those duels.

There's a counter-argument!

Exactly

The entire crux of his arguement is that you get a variable increase in your ability to win a single duel during the course of a turn. Unless you have the luck of the Devil and consistently pull the Red Joker with this extra card, it's always going to dwindle in comparison to the options and the abilities the DD's present you with.

That ability to determine where and when those fights/duels happen is very powerful in a game like Malifaux. Especially when you consider that the Strike and Return combo for LCB still exists and hasn't lost any actual potency. But even besides that, its more models that can drop out your nightmares and they don't force you to risk the Dreamer to do it. Would you rather risk the Dreamer, or a DD? Pm is only Wk 4, it's going to fall behind and not be in position at the critical moments like a DD can (or at least has a much harder time of it).

Edited March 22, 2012 by karn987

[Ratty]

Even if you were just looking at quality of hand. Without having Daydreams to protect LCB you must throw in a High Tome every time you attack with him to get All Done to trigger. An extra card will slightly improve your chance of having the card.. but as the chance of getting a High Tome with that one extra card is about 1/10. It's only going to pay off every second game. The Daydreams remove that reliance on All Done, so you are probably going to save a High Tome at least twice a game, allowing you to use them for other more important duels.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Ratty

[rancor709]

I just think its great to be able to have legtimate discussion on dreamer that doesnt involve cheese. Personally i would play both styles of play as they both have merit. Its compelling as my primary factions are so suit reliant i tend to have and crave flexiblity. However i like having control and limiting the variables having the extra stones not tied up in dds and having an extra control card brings. Really its a chocolate vs peanut butter fight both are good.

[Calmdown]

Huge point you just made calmdown. Malifaux typically hinges on few key duels, properly iding those duels and being the winner ultimately wins you the game. If you go back over your games you'll find a key turn or small series of duels ultimatly is what the gaome came down 2.

Absolutely. It's also the reason why Malifaux involves massively more amounts of luck than dice games. I'm going to step out of this particular part of the argument now though, because it's evident that we fundamentally disagree on what makes a winning crew, and most of you have about as much ability to acquiesce to my points as I do to yours so we all know where this will end up In actual fact, this is a topic I've wanted to discuss for a long time but I knew it'd go exactly like this....

Even if you were just looking at quality of hand. Without having Daydreams to protect LCB you must throw in a High Tome every time you attack with him to get All Done to trigger. An extra card will slightly improve your chance of having the card.. but as the chance of getting a High Tome with that one extra card is about 1/10. It's only going to pay off every second game. The Daydreams remove that reliance on All Done, so you are probably going to save a High Tome at least twice a game, allowing you to use them for other more important duels.

That assume that you will always want to bury LCB once you've deployed him. That's no longer the playstyle that will win games. Chompy is now going to have to facetank hits, and have friends with him to help, and in return you get 1 extra AP to spend on attacking things that was previously reserved to guarantee an All Done. Good job he still comes with the second highest master SS cache in the game.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Calmdown

[Kadeton]

I love the fact that we can now have actual discussion about variant playstyles for the Dreamer, with multiple viable options.

[mattbird]

+1 for Primordial Magic being key. Especially with Stitched Together on the board.

[dgraz]

I think it must be personal preference. Raw power and flexibility are just two different styles. Some people just play better using different tactics - there are no cookie cutters here.

If raw power and card dominance were the best all the time, then Rasputina should be a "Tier 1" master. If flexibility were the best all the time, then Marcus should be a "Tier 1" master. (Funny that the one's that sprang to mind were both arcanist.)