reverse order comments – dashboard settings not effective

I’m working on a custom theme based on underscores. I noted the comment order was not the order I wanted. I need the most recent comment at the bottom. I checked the settings in Settings->Discussion Settings. With the checkbox checked next to bread comments, I tried newer or older comments at the top. Nothing seems to have any effect. It’s one of those frustrating cases where WordPress seems to be ignoring my setting and code. I’ve also tried the reverse_array trick, but that is usually for getting the comments in the current order I have them in. And it doesn’t work.
Where should I look? is there an object I can output somewhere that will give me a clue?