Families who play together, stay together!

Good Thursday all!

As I write this I am currently laying in a nice deep fill bubble bath after being fully discharged by my visiting nurse following on from my operation.

This is the first bath I have had in over two weeks thanks to my dressings I had which I had to keep dry and therefore could only shower and 'sponge bath'.

Anyhow, there's still much to catch up with:

To start off with, if you remember before my operation I played a game of Dreamer vs Levi. It was my first time using Night Terrors and while I loved their speed (which really comes into play when unburied by the Dreamer) having just two as comes in the pack was not enough.

Rather than spend even more money following on from Salute i decided to proxy in with another model I had sitting around; the left over hawk from my Guild Austringer. So a base and puttied arms and legs later I had this dude:


I'm confident he'll do the job until I can pick up another set.

Well then, what next? Perhaps the most important part!

A week ago last Saturday, my lovely wife finally agreed to play a game of Malifaux with me!

I set the game up using my Mali-Stripped rules, just 8SS a side, no masters, everyone has 'Use Soulstone' and no abilities, triggers or spells for the first game.

I decided to give her access to my Guild Crew while I used Gremlins.

The game went well, I did discover that I'm probably one of the worst when it comes to explaining rules, but thankfully she was able to look past that.

The second game was full rules, however still no masters. This was to try and keep the simplicity down while teaching her about some of the common rules and abilities found in the game such as Companion and Slow to Die.

Again this game went well and in no time she was rounding up my Gremlins and putting them out of their misery.

Sadly that was it for playing, however I did also pick up for her birthday her own Colette crew, complete with additional Mech Doves and Coryphee duet - without any starting Doves this works out as a 35SS crew, so once they are assembled and painted she's good to go!

I've still got two major things to comment on, both of which from the world of video games, but they my friends will have to wait...

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part 11

Happy Thursday everyone!

So usually I would be over the moon about today, as it's the day before Friday, but this week that excitement is slightly muted due to a shift I have to work on Saturday. Sure I get to have a Rest Day in Lieu because of it, but it's not quite the same.

Some good news however! Yesterday the wife and Mini Moo returned home from visiting relatives!

If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be so excited about seeing my daughter after only 2 nights absence, I'd have said that you knew nothing of me and given a mock sucker punch. But there I was for two nights in a row, sat in front of the TV and feeling lost without them both there.

But I did not let that time go to waste, oh no!

Rather than wallow in loneliness I picked up my Salute purchases and got working. (please excuse the photos, the room I took them in was dark so I had to use a flash, will take better photos when they're done)

First off we have my Night Terrors:






These dudes are standard objective grabbers for either The Dreamer or any Resser Crew. It took me a while to decide on how to base them because of a number of factors:
1). The models themselves are sculpted onto a large rock and removing them from said rock would be more tricky than is worth.
2). I want to allow for the chance that if I wanted to pick up a Resser crew, that i don't have Night Terrors looking totally out of place.

So I based them up as you can see. Sure it doesn't match the cobblestone theme of my Dreamer, but that's ok - I think of my Dreamer crew as more on 'Victorian' bases than anything, so in this instance, the Terrors are just on some rocky grassland.

Next up are my Alps:


The models themselves are pretty much unpainted at present, but instead I wanted to try making some more cobblestone bases but have them look better than my other ones. I think these came out very well.

Next up we have my modified Insidious Madness:





You'll notice the additional tentacles around the base of the model. I can't speak for everyone, but one thing I've always disliked about this model was how 2D it looked, which it what these tentacles are supposed to reduce. I can't say I'm 100% happy with the result, but if I want another one I can always proxy. Still have a few touch ups needed on the model mind.

Last but not least is The Hooded Rider:


Again this dude is largely unpainted, but his resin base is coming along nicely.
- the thing I like about this guy is that his base acts as a bridge between the rest of my crew and the Terrors.

So what's next? Well I'm going to finish all the lesser minions over the next couple of days, and then once they're all done and varnished I'm going to get started on the rider - you see he is such a detailed model that I want to make sure I give him the attention he deserves.

After all of that, I'll probably look to painting my Sulaco model I built the other week.

However how all of this will tie in to my available time I have no idea, this is largely due to next Tuesday when I am finally having my Gall Bladder out.
- fingers crossed it will be a nice simple operation with only a couple of days bed rest needed, but I have to allow for the possibility of things going wrong.

Speaking of hospitals: a big shout out to my fellow mali-blogger and twitterer Richard Smith who by now should have his little bundle of joy, hope everything goes well man!

And that's it for now, as always thanks for reading, and see you through the breach!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part 10

Good Monday all,

So my week off is finally over and I now have to go back to work (not for long mind, as next week I have my gall bladder op, so I should be off work for most if not all of that week).

The latter part of last week was an interesting one:

Saturday was my wife and my anniversary, and we spent the morning at Salute 2012.

We got there at 11.30 and were greeted with the news that they had run out of grab bags. It was actually a real shame as I still have no idea what was in those bags.

There is one thing I feel must be mentioned; now I've been to plenty of conventions in my time, but Oh My God I have never been around so many smelly people in my time. And it was that unmistakable smell you can never miss, that of a person who hasn't washed in at least a week, uurgh!

The good news is that I stopped off at the stalls I intended to, I looked at Sarissa Precision (who had left their sign in their van so it was quite hard to find them) but decided against buying anything. I love their work, but I wanted to keep my money for other stalls. I'll probably place an Internet order instead.

Next up was a wooden laser cut cart from 4Ground



Sadly this is far too big to use as a supply wagon in Malifaux (requiring it to fit on a 50mm base), but it will still make some nice scenery for New Fairbank.

Straight after I popped to Renedra where I grabbed me some gravestones



And some great looking wooden fencing:



The only issue with these fences, they're actually quite annoying to assemble as they only seem to work in straight lines, no right angles.

After this I stopped off at the Malifaux demo tables, had a little chat with Spiku the Gremlin enthusiast and was thankfully sent in the direction of another stall I wanted to visit but couldn't remember the name of Simple Miniature Games where I picked up a number of Malufaux things as part of their Buy 4 get the cheapest free.

Of these purchases I grabbed:


Night Terrors



Insidious Madness




Alps




And the Hooded Rider.

Following on from this I wanted to pick up a nice base to show off The Rider so visited Kerr and King where I nabbed these set of 3 bases


After that it was time to head off and make our way to the hotel for check in. On route we passed through Baker Street Station, now if you've never done so, I'd advise that you visit this underground station as it has given me a great idea for a new fixed gaming board.

After check in, a quick shower and a change it was on to Gilgamesh for pan Asian cooking and the best meal I have ever tasted!

One thing I will admit, it may have only been roughly 24 hrs away from the house and all the child care duties involved, but it was a fantastic weekend.

That said however, as of today, mother and daughter are visiting grandparents/great grandparents in Liverpool until Wednesday - one night away from the baby is refreshing, but having a further 2 nights is actually depressing.

Still, gives me more time to model and paint!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Nine

Morning all!

Well it's Friday, which means the weekend is drawing close. Of course that also means my week off is nearly over.

But no matter, as tomorrow is one day I am looking forward to a hell of a lot!

Not only am I going to Salute 2012 with my significant other, but the two of us are following that with a meal in Gilgamesh Camden, followed by a hotel stay in Central to celebrate 5 years of marriage!

So how has this weekend been for me?

Let me tell you, this week off was just what I needed, my afternoons were spent with the wife and girl, with the occasional nap here and there (and what man doesn't love a mid afternoon nap?) followed by some tv and some evening/night time gaming.

I'll be honest here, my Sulaco I show cased on Monday, that's exactly as I left it, instead my evenings have been spent playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution for a second play through (I can not stress just how much everyone NEEDS to, playing a little of Darksiders for a second run (I've been feeling very Horsemen of the Apocalypse recently, but more on that in due course) and last night, me, my wife and 2 Guildies did a run at the Black Temple in WoW:



Now for those who don't know, this is a raid in WoW which was released a good (4?) years ago and even now is still quite a challenge if you only have a few people in your group, especially one boss who can in theory stun a whole small team until their all dead, not fun.

Thankfully the adventure was a success and we came away with the knowledge that most of the encounters are quite simple for us now, which is very good as the boss of the raid has some things that I want!

In parenting news, the MiniMoo is finally beginning to master rolling onto her tummy and then back onto her back, this is really good news as its one of the first steps on the way to her being able to crawl.

So as I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is Salute, and after reading through some pages I know of some deals I'm defiantly going to be taking advantage of (4 for the price of 3, that sort of thing) and a chance to win a foam bag too! Thankfully for the latter I'll be getting my wife's entry do that's 2 entries! Whoop!

So I mentioned earlier that I've been very much in a horseman mood recently, and this is manifested in playing Darksiders:



Part of the reason behind this is that I've been thinking of experimenting with my Dreamer crew and picking up a Hooded Rider:



This is for a number of reasons, 1 I like the model, 2 I really want to try and convert him to look more like War from the above picture and 3, the idea of using a semi fast, semi tough non nightmare opens up a lot of possibilities for my crew:

You see at the moment my crew feels like its very vapoured for the first turn or two. There's very little I can do other than move day dreams and the dreamer so that I can unleash hell in later turns. So far this is find, I love that my opponent doesn't know what my plans are and that I can adapt my plans at the last minute, what I don't like is how boring it makes the first turn of two.

This is where the hooded rider comes in! He is relatively speedy, can move to grab objectives and or fill gaps in the board but he can also be used as an added distraction.

You see in theory he can cause a nuisance and will need to be dealt with, but in theory he should force the opponent to think twice, do they send a decent model or two to deal with him, or instead hold back for the Nightmare assault. Either way there is a gamble but I think it should make things more fun for both me and the opponent.

Anyway I'd love to hear your thoughts, have you ever used something similar? Did it work out for you? If not, any advice?

Anyway that's enough from me, I'll be sure to try and run some tweets tomorrow from the show and will be writing a full report in a few days time.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Seven

Happy Easter Sunday all!

Wow what an interesting number of days it's been for me.

It all started on Thursday, where after work I came home and found to my enjoyment a beta key for the new World of Warcraft expansion: Mists of Pandaria.

Trust me in time I'll do an initial feedback for this, but right now I have a few more pressing matters to talk about, namely The Secret World



Now for those of you who don't know this is an upcoming MMO set in a modern day Earth. The theme of this game is focused around the supernatural and conspiracy theories.

Anyway, Pre orders are now live for this, and if you order it from Amazon(like I did, this applies for other retailers too but I didn't use them and therefore can't properly vouch for them) then you get access to the beta weekends which start on May 11th, some fun stuff like ingame tshirt and ring and a wolf companion to help you bring the smacks own to some nasty zombies! And of course, there's no deposit, so if you try the beta weekends and don't enjoy it, you can cancel your order and not have spent a penny!

So with this I started thinking of a character (part of the preorder is the ability to reserve a name of your choice), and I came up with the following - with the help of my inspirational wife.

Steven Corn, before the apocalypse Steven was a simple tech geek, his spare time was spent playing FPS and Playstation, and during the day he worked for the NYPD as a tech support operative, but on occasion he would dust off his weights and pull a few reps, he never knew why, but in the back of his mind he knew he had to stay in top physical shape, that something was going to happen, and he would have to be ready for it.

Then the shit hit the fan, his friends started disappearing and he began to hear rumours of animal attacks and gruesome murders, he knew in the back of his mind that there was more to it than that, so with his pilfered security codes he snuck into the NYPD's contraband store and 'borrowed' a few things, a 10mm, a 12 gage and a rather interesting looking sword, the type of thing he'd seen in an eastern martial arts movie. He would take on his persona from the online world, for now the world needed him, they needed Mr S. Corn! No, they needed Skorn!

Ok ok maybe I got a little carried away, but you see this weekend I've been doing something I haven't done in a LONG time.

On Thursday my wife and I logged into WoW for the first time together since December, and as a celebratory treat we loaded up Blackwing Lair again and brought down Neffy in classic lvl 60 mode:



Then on Friday we did some PvP and I bought myself a level 80 WotLK dagger to use as a transmogrified skin for my current ugly dagger, and then yesterday we loaded up Aion which of course is now free to play and had a jigg around that (I forget how beautiful that game is).

Then to finish off yesterday I loaded up Deus Ex (first time since December) and played some more of that, it's just as engrossing as I remember!

Now tonight my regular Malifaux partner is coming over and for the first time since its completion, I'll be putting Chapel Hill to use!

All of this thanks to the Mini Moo's enforced 1900-1930 bed time!

I am hoping tomorrow to either play some co-op ResE5 or Hunted, should be fun!

And on that note, I leave you all, take care and keep on gaming!


- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Nightmare's Friend

Good Wednesday everyone,

It's your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley here with another page of inane ramblings at a time in the morning unknown to both students and Jeremy Kyle contestants!

So first things first, tomorrow's Geek Dad will be put off for a day, instead I'll be running Geek Dad on Good Friday: this is because on Thursday night my wife and I are looking to both log on to WoW for the first time since our Mini Moo was born, as such it will be interesting to see how that goes.

In the meantime, I've been thinking of how to expand my Dreamer crew and how it can fit into my 1 purchase a month plan:

So currently I have the starter pack (Dreamer, Chompy, Coppelious, 2x Stitched) Teddy, and 3x Daydreams, and the plan is as follows:

May: Insidious Madness
June: Night Terrors
July: Alps
August/September: Weaver Widdow & Wicked Dolls
October: Avatar Dreamer
November: Second Teddy

And I believe this completes my options, clearly things may change depending on release dates, but that takes me up to December and with it the option of starting a new crew, I'm thinking Pandora as she can use 1 of my teddies, Coppelious (and with him the Alps through summons) and the Insidious Madness so that should mean that I'll already have some choices when I get her going, unlike my Dreamer who at the moment feels a little gimped through lack of choice.

And with that, if you will excuse me, I'm going to now take a power nap before my train pulls in at Finsbury Park and I have the fun 35 min walk to work.

(Two more days till the bank holiday weekend!)

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

To Play or Not to Play? That is the question!

Good Tuesday all,

I would like to start off today's post with an explanation of yesterday's end:

The rules in my house regarding my hobby are simple: I'm allowed to make one purchase a month. The value of this purchase is flexible, but it should include no more than 1 box, or 1 box plus accessories.

This 'allowance' was agreed between my wife and I after 9 months graft to get my money out from the red and into the black.

You see, when it comes to money I am rubbish, I always have been and I always will be, so we've created these rules to stop me maxing out my entire payslip on models and not allow for bills and mortgage.

-if anything, id say the current set up is very generous, because my wife is now on statutory pay, she has even less to treat herself.

The reason it's been so long is for one reason: advanced purchases!

You see at Xmas my wife bought me the Dreamer's crew. I knew I would need Day Dreams and a Teddy to make it playable, but that counts as 2x purchases which covered December and January.

Then in January I picked up some GorkaMorka stuff off eBay, that covered my February payment meaning nothing till March's pay.

Since then there have been countless trips to B&Q for modelling supplies, SSX and other things, we're being nice and combining all of that into one purchase.

This means nothing till April, which works for me as there should be plenty at Salute I want to grab.

That said, I've requested 2 days leave for the end of this week, if I can wrangle it (it requires HR getting a data report to me on Wednesday rather than Friday, not easy) then I should be making a trip to Stevenage HobbyCraft. I have no idea how this will fit into the budgeting - I'm sure my wife will be more than happy to let me know after reading this - but there is one thing in particular I've set my eyes on:


They're 1:72 scale, which from what I have read is marginally bigger than GW minis, and as Malifaux is marginally bigger than GW it should be perfect, but I want to see it for myself before I purchase.

Anyway, my thoughts today are of a suggestion a friend on Facebook made, it was about World of Warcraft and arranging some sort of Guild Catch Up.

You see, WoW has been playing on my mind a lot recently, and my wife and I have discussed this in great detail.

It's not that I hate WoW, I don't! As a game I love it, and I have many fond memories there, it's just with the current content Cataclysm, I have very little to do.

You see this expansion has been more difficulty focused than any other before it. Because of a vocal minority, the game has been staggered to make even the easiest of end game tasks very difficult and requiring constant team synergy.

Sure, I know what your thinking: "what's wrong with a game requiring skill?" nothing! I just don't want to have to spend 2 hours planning and running a heroic run after I've been out for 12 hours at work.

The way I see it, I get paid to work, my hobbies that I pay to do, they should not feel like a job.

When I first started playing in TBC? That didn't feel like work. WotLK? That wasn't work either, plus the theme of Northrend and ol' Lichy Poo himself was fantastic.

But Cataclysm, with it's 'IM DEATHWING! I'M A FLAMING DRAGON OF BEARDY HOT MAGMA' yeah it gets old.

So what do I do? I miss playing with the guild, but with my free time existing only in short - baby free - blocks, do I really want to spend my free time playing a game I really don't feel the desire to play?

I think I'd rather wait till Mists of Pandara expansion myself.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Chapel Hill: Complete

Good Friday all!

Well it's been a long time coming but Chapel Hill is finally complete!



In order to show case this I would like to cover from start to finish the entire project. Please remember this is the result of two weeks work that cost only a combined total of about £5 in materials.

Step 1: Cut out the flat plateaus from hardboard.



Step 2: From newspaper and masking tape create the general shape required.



Step 3: Create paths with cardboard



Step 4: Cover the whole thing in paper masche



Step 5: Paper masche onto a hardboard base which is cut to size along with ridges for paths



Step 6: Craft fences out of matchsticks with the strike cut off and attach tree skeletons to their desired location



Step 7: Glue basalt to the plateaus and paths, all the while gluing unused cat litter to the base



Step 8: Remove the trees and spray paint the whole thing a dark brown



Step 9: Holding the spray can at a distance spray the whole model with a lighter sandy colour



Step 10: using a sandy coloured emulsion paint, dry brush the entire unit, being sure to get all the lovely creases in the rock surfaces and each grain of basalt



Step 11: Glue trees to place, paint the fences by hand as you would painting 'wood effect' on a mini, attach lichen to trees to make leaves and floor for bushes and static grass/long miniature grass.

And your done!

And now for the guided tour of Chapel Hill:


Here we have Overkill and The Executioner on the 1st Tier while Lady J and Austringer overlook the town.



The path leading to the 2nd tier













The entire of tier 2 including fence close ups




The back of the hill including the path connecting Tier 2 with Tier 3



A shot showcasing a crevice in the side of the hill


And there we have it! I realise as I am sat on the train commuting to work that there are a few features I should have taken proper photos of, the sideways growing tree and the overgrowth at the front for example, but hey why not instead see if you can come to The Titans War Games Club located in Finchley North London and I'll see if I can bring it along!

For now, thanks for keeping up with this project, I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed doing it, and now back to the drawing board for another project!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Limits of the Imagination

This morning I woke up, climbed out of bed, checked on the little one and then popped into the bathroom to freshen up ready for the day ahead.

To most people this is probably a really usual start to a usual day. That was sadly not the case for me, oh no.

When I got into the bathroom I looked into the mirror and was met by something very unsettling. It appears that the morning prior, when I had trimmed my beard, I appear to have shaved off a massive chunk from the beard itself straight down to the skin and had spent all day walking around with a completely stupid and mis balanced beard!

This would have been fine if not for 1 major factor: I don't remember doing it!

Now I do have a history of sleep walking and all manner of other REM Sleep Disorder activities, and so I wouldn't be surprised if I did in fact sleep-shave!

Anyway, this wouldn't do, and so I spent the next 5mins trying my best to make the other side of my face match this side so I can grow the beard back out. I'm not happy with the results, it's not what I want for a beard, but it looks better than it did, and so for now until it grows back it will just have to do.

"What does this have to do with your blog!?!" I hear you cry! Well let me tell you:

About 3-4 weeks ago I was finishing off my Dreamer crew, this included Coppellious. The paint scheme I was going for was a slimy green skin with white hair and a dark purple jacket.

It should have been pretty easy, nothing adventurous, but for some reason I just couldn't get the skin tones right.

Eventually I gave in and gave him regular flesh colours and it worked infinitely better:


Am I happy with this paint scheme? No I'm not! But it's better than what it looked before hand.

This got me thinking, why did I let it get so bad in the first place? It wasn't my painting ability, I can paint better than that every day of the week, and twice on Wednesdays!

No the reason was because the painting scheme was uninspired, it was a bland choice instead of an inspiration from my imagination. For some reason that I can not explain, whenever I tried to imagine Coppellious and what he would look like, I always drew a blank.

And here my friends is where I really started to worry:

You see, it's one thing to have your paint jobs limited by your own talent, I deal with that every time I pick up a brush, and it can be overcome with practice, tutorials and more practice. But how are you supposed to overcome your limitations, when it's your own imagination that is holding you back?

So far the only problem I've had this with us Coppellious, and who knows, maybe I just struggle to imagine a squid faced German boogy man, but in about a months time I'll be picking up some more models, and in the back of my mind I can see ol' squid face laughing in anticipation.

I guess we'll have to wait and see...


- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Random Thoughts on the Upcoming Releases

Evening all, so I've been sitting on this thought since I saw that April's releases have already been announced.
Now I know I don't own any of these models, and I'm sure in person they look very different, but I just can't hold it in.
So as you all know my current crew of focus is my Nightmares, so with that in mind, let's look at the Neverborn releases for 2012 so far:


So here we have 2 sculpts for The Hag. They're great, if you play her.
In March (note there were no Neverborn in February) we have the following:


The Spawn Mother and Gupps, great sculpts, but they have a real Zoraida theme to them in my opinion. That's 4 sculpts to the Hag.
Now we have April:


That's 2 sculpts to Lilith, great models but still no nightmares.
Finally we have:

Now this dude's look is so specific, if you are going for a certain theme it will be really hard to fit him in.
Now come on, where's the Nightmare love?
- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxleyww

Dreaming Experiences

Good Monday everyone, it's cold, it's early and it's Monday and your dearest Doctor Loxley is feeling very grumpy indeed.

But anyway, time for a bit of feedback from the week end:

On saturday I played my first game with my dreamer crew.

It was 30 SS comprising of the following:
The Dreamer / Lord Chompy Bits
Coppelius
Teddy
Stitched Together
Daydream
Daydream
Daydream

As you can see this left me with 1 SS making a pool of 6.

My friend played Ressers, McMourning infact, complete with some doggies, a belle, a convict gunslinger and some punk zombies.

We were playing shared treasure hunt, which I knew straight away would put me at an advantage, all I had to do was get to grips with The Dreamer's mobility.

So turn 1, after deploying just the Deamer and his Daydreams, I was lucky to win the initiative, The Dreamer gained flying, flew out onto the table, unburied a stitched in base to base contact with the treasure, transformed into LCB and walked back. Then his first companions Daydream activated, pulled back LCB, turned him back into The Dreamer and then moved into a defensive pose in front of The Dreamer. I then proceeded to manuver my remaining daydreams through companion further up the board in a spread out motion. All of this within 1 activation.

Next up, my friend pulled out McM, who after chopping up some friendly pups managed to get enough body parts to summon a Rogue Necromancy, ran up the board and summoned this beasty right next to my stitched.

Now I don't play Ressers, so I'm unfamiliar with the Rogue Necro, but I've faced it once before and it literally ate everything I had.

Next up was my stitched's go to activate, and after gambling with his life, winning and flipping a Red Joker for damage followed by another severe (that's 14 points of damage!) the rogue Necro fell.

The rest of the turn was pretty quiet, just moving into position by the Ressers, while I sat back and wished I had unburied more of my crew. In the end however I would be glad I didn't.

Turn 2, after losing the initiative M cM summoned a flesh construct, something I had a feeling would prove a problem later on, he also nabbed the treasure right from under my stitcged's feet. I knew I had to eat his face, however Chompy was still untested and I knew how nasty McM can be up close.

So it was my activation, activated Dreamer with a Day Dream, gained flying, flew up the board, transformed into Chompy and was about 3" away, which was perfect for my claws. Chompy then proceeded to make his 2 General Actions tearing away at McM's flesh, followed by a third Melee Expert attack. Now McM was still alive, but with only a few wounds left.

And so the companioned daydream activated, pulled back LCB and turned him into The Dreamer again before taking up a defensive position.

This was followed by a hound charging up, because of The Dreamer's shadowy form he was forced to attack the Daydream and not his intended target of The Dreamer himself, but he did kill the daydream, thus taking me down to 2, and after the SS heavy fight against McM I only had 3 left, that meant I could only later summon 1 more, I had to be careful with my other daydreams.

Next up I knew I was in a bit of a pickle, the dreamer undefended and next to an undead snarling mutt, but I still had 2x daydreams left, so 1 daydream proceeded to unbury LCB next to him, turn him into the dreamer and then unburying Coppelius further up board.

This simple action allowed me to pull The Dreamer out of harm's way. I was amazed how quickly I could pull the dreamer out of trouble and across the board, next up a few other things happened, teddy was dumped on the bell, Coppelius pulled out an eye of the punk zombie and ensured his poison would kill him next turn, and then we moved onto turn 3!

Luckily I won the initiative, and I knew there was only one thing to do. At the end of the last turn, the flesh construct had moved into Melee range with the daydream and The Dreamer, this guy could pose a problem if he got off a disengaging strike. So The Dreamer flew right to the edge of the Construct's range (1AP), turned to LCB and in doing so became out of his range, LCB then summoned a Day Dream before moving up into McM's face again, all the while ensuring he was within range of the new day dream's convert back power, just in case.

He then proceeded to munch munch munch on McM's face until he was nothing more than a pile of corpse counters and a treasure token.

Long story short, it was not long after this that my opponent knew that there was nothing he could do and so surrended to my crew.

It was a good game, and I have tried and tried to figure out why things went the way they did:

How pivotal was the red joker in dealing with the rogue necromancy on turn 1?

What would have happened if the Rogue Necro hadn't died like that?

Was there anything else the McM crew could have done to stop me?

Was my victory caused through me playing a good game?
Or
Is McM actually not a very good crew to take against The Dreamer?
Or
Is The Dreamer as truly OP as everyone says?
Or (and this is what I hope)
Did I just 'get' the dreamer? Was it his play style and me just merged as one allowing us to make every road lead to victory?

I like to think it was the latter.

I intend to play more with him, and against different masters and with hope will be able to shed more light on the matter.

In the meantime here are some pictures from the game: