The Dreamer Strategy

[Natty]

I finally got my book this weekend and the immediate strategy I came up with for The Dreamer (which will be my new master because Pandora is boring) is the following:

The Dreamer
3 Stitched Togethers
3 Daydreams

Add in a teddy or two depending on list size. Try to make sure you start with 7 or 8 soulstones because you never want The Dreamer to die and you will need those to keep him alive.

I like the idea of starting with the totems because they give you the extra soulstone for hiring nightmares and you will need lots of the totems for the following strategy. Summoning them all the time doesn't look to be that resource efficient since you need those soulstones to make sure the Dreamer never dies.

Here we go:

Start with nothing on the table but the dreamer. First couple turns you just get him into position to unleash your Stitched Together bomb.

Make sure that you have a place to hide the dreamer whenever he comes back out. You need to never lose the Dreamer for this strategy to work. He can't die. Also, every time you put your nightmares on the table, you put out on or two of your totems about 6 inches behind them.

Throw out all your Stitched Togethers and start gambling your life away. When a Stitched Together is "killed" he stays on the table, gets reactivate, and you gamble your life away with him again and again.

Activate the Dreamer or your totems last. Make sure that at this time it is the Dreamer on the table and not Lord Chompy bits. Any Stitched Togethers that would be sacrificed during the end phase, you instead bury them so they aren't around for the end phase.

Next turn you activate your Dreamer or Totems and put all of the Stitched togethers back on the table, and maybe summon or unbury more totems. Note that at this time the Stitched Togethers will still be sacrificed during the end phase (because that effect never went away, it just hasn't occurred yet).

Activate all your Stitched Togethers and gamble your life away. If they lose the wp->wp duel, it will "kill" them, but who cares because this just gives them reactivate and you gamble their life away again and again. Then bury your Stitched Togethers before the end phase.

Rinse and Repeat.

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Flaws to the strategy:

Your models will be sacrificed or not be on the table the last turn of the game. This will make some strategies very hard to complete.

Stitched Togethers require offensive wp duels to work. If your opponent is playing a construct army with a lot of immune to influence, then you are basically screwed.

You HAVE to keep the Dreamer alive. In order to rebury your Stitched Togethers with your Totems, the Dreamer needs to be kept alive. This means effective use of terrain and saving your soulstones for survival purposes. This also means that you don't get to offensively use soulstones to kill people with Lord Chompy Bits.

[Natty]

Note that the Teddys are really needed to flush out the list and kill any immune to influence models because you can't always have Lord Chompy Bits killing everything. He is too breakable for throwing up in the front lines. I feel like this list will work best in a 30 or 35 soulstone game so you can include a Teddy or two.

Other models could be used besides Teddy but I feel that he is the best Nightmare beatstick and you don't want any more models that go off of willpower stuff.

[Lucidicide]

Note that the Teddys are really needed to flush out the list and kill any immune to influence models because you can't always have Lord Chompy Bits killing everything. He is too breakable for throwing up in the front lines. I feel like this list will work best in a 30 or 35 soulstone game so you can include a Teddy or two.

Other models could be used besides Teddy but I feel that he is the best Nightmare beatstick and you don't want any more models that go off of willpower stuff.

I don't have my Book 2 yet, can you share the wording on Gamble Your Life?

[Natty]

I don't have my Book 2 yet, can you share the wording on Gamble Your Life?

I don't have the book here at work but the main idea is that you make an opposed wp->wp duel against someone within 6 inches as a (1) action (not a spell or attack, just an action) and the loser takes a 3/4/7 damage flip that can be cheated (it hits yourself if you don't win the duel). It isn't a regular attack so the duel totals don't matter.

[wrabbit37]

(1) Gamble Your Life: Target an enemy model within 6" of this model with a Wp->Wp Duel. The loser of this Duel suffers a Dg 3/4/7, which may be Cheated.

Sounds like a pretty good strategy. And it doesn't need to be the full focus of the list either. Running just one or two Stitched Togethers to toss out as little bombs wouldn't be a bad thing either.

[Lucidicide]

Stitched Together are really good at manipulating your opponent's card and hand. They are definitely strong when taken in numbers. You can probably get off a couple of losing Gamble Your Life without losing the Stitched as well.

[wrabbit37]

Stitched Together are one of my favorite new models in the Neverborn collection. Between Gamble Your Life, which can knock a chunk out of your opponent's life (or yours), their spell which can trigger Slow, and their Gambler ability which can really swing the card advantage your direction, they're just a solid model. And not too expensive either. Low Defense, so not hard to kill, but there's a 1 in 4 chance they'll hurt you back when you hurt them.

[Natty]

their spell which can trigger Slow

I honestly dislike almost everything about this spell. It ignores armor but has wp resist. Most things with armor are constructs that are immune to influence and ignore the spell. The damage on it is weak compared to Gamble Your Life and they both are defended against with wp, but with gamble your life you don't have the disadvantage of casting (where you don't get to see their resist flip until after you cast).

The slow trigger is the only thing I like about this spell. Sure there is no chance to hurt yourself, but that is what these little invincible Kenny Rogers are for!!!

[Natty]

Sounds like a pretty good strategy. And it doesn't need to be the full focus of the list either. Running just one or two Stitched Togethers to toss out as little bombs wouldn't be a bad thing either.

I actually don't intend to run this list at all because I think it would be very annoying to play against so many unkillable minions.

As the quote I heard this weekend goes: "Playing Malifaux is like sex, if you opponents aren't having fun then don't expect to be playing many games."

I don't know that this strategy would be very fun to play against so I intend to only take 1 or 2 Stitched Togethers and do the trick in moderation.

[Nutcase168]

I honestly dislike almost everything about this spell. It ignores armor but has wp resist. Most things with armor are constructs that are immune to influence and ignore the spell. The damage on it is weak compared to Gamble Your Life and they both are defended against with wp, but with gamble your life you don't have the disadvantage of casting (where you don't get to see their resist flip until after you cast).

The slow trigger is the only thing I like about this spell. Sure there is no chance to hurt yourself, but that is what these little invincible Kenny Rogers are for!!!

Just remember a construct by itself is not immune to influence. Only the Peacekeeper, Hooded Rider and Teddy in book 1 were immune. A couple of the new ones are, but not all. And you still have a lot of other factions which aren't immune.