Lets Chat: Idoneth Deepkin

[Cam3lot]

1 minute ago, Drofnum said:

The offensive eels seem pretty good too, they need the charge to be really effective though.  Thralls deepstriking could also be quite good. I think its mostly just the Sharks, Reavers and Turtle that are questionable.

 

I think the army will depend on a decent amount of synergy though, so its a bit harder to plan it all out just based off videos, IMO.

Aye you're probably right on the last bit, it's just not filling me with confidence at this point. I desperately want it to do well considering I have every intention of starting them ? 

I have been looking at combining defensive eels with sisters of the thorn, reroll saves and bouncing mortal wounds on 6+ saves could be handy.

[Acid_Nine]

1 minute ago, Cam3lot said:

Aye you're probably right on the last bit, it's just not filling me with confidence at this point. I desperately want it to do well considering I have every intention of starting them ? 

I have been looking at combining defensive eels with sisters of the thorn, reroll saves and bouncing mortal wounds on 6+ saves could be handy.

Oh my gentle mathlaan I didn't even think of that... Oh.... That is just FILTHY. I love it, and thank you for reminding me those gals exist.

now to get some dolphin models to make some proper beasts for my army...

[Cam3lot]

2 minutes ago, Acid_Nine said:

Oh my gentle mathlaan I didn't even think of that... Oh.... That is just FILTHY. I love it, and thank you for reminding me those gals exist.

now to get some dolphin models to make some proper beasts for my army...

Yeah man thought of it and was like, on a big unit of eels, who have been charged so get a cover benefit with mystic shield up, are bouncing mortal wounds on 4s, could be evil.

[BillyOcean]

9 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

Reavers are abit lack lust with no rend, and not really enough attacks?? Not 100% sure because i haven't honestly spent the time to math them.

So... there is one Enclave (Fuethan?) that allows reroll 1s to hit on floodtide, and replaces ebbtide with floodtide. Do we know if the rerolls are just for melee weapons, or also for range weapons? If ranged, that would help reavers a little. Two turns of the game where they can run (8+d6") and then unleash 30 arrows rerolling 1s, assuming the run was enough to get in range. It seems ok! I'm not advocating that Reavers a great unit, but damn I love those models and I'll find a way to make them work.

I also love the Allopex model, but I don't think all the theorycrafting in the world can help that guy at 140pts .

[Drofnum]

17 minutes ago, BillyOcean said:

So... there is one Enclave (Fuethan?) that allows reroll 1s to hit on floodtide, and replaces ebbtide with floodtide. Do we know if the rerolls are just for melee weapons, or also for range weapons? If ranged, that would help reavers a little. Two turns of the game where they can run (8+d6") and then unleash 30 arrows rerolling 1s, assuming the run was enough to get in range. It seems ok! I'm not advocating that Reavers a great unit, but damn I love those models and I'll find a way to make them work.

I also love the Allopex model, but I don't think all the theorycrafting in the world can help that guy at 140pts .

I'm tempted to just take the Allopex and deal with it being not that great, simply because i love the model and want to paint one.  Then again my competitive side will come out after a few games and i will want to drop it haha.

[BillyOcean]

2 minutes ago, Drofnum said:

I'm tempted to just take the Allopex and deal with it being not that great, simply because i love the model and want to paint one.  Then again my competitive side will come out after a few games and i will want to drop it haha.

I'll definitely paint one, and probably just use him in demo games. How better to get people into the game than have them play against an awesome flying shark, and also have it not kill all their models?!

[Drofnum]

11 minutes ago, BillyOcean said:

I'll definitely paint one, and probably just use him in demo games. How better to get people into the game than have them play against an awesome flying shark, and also have it not kill all their models?!

Yeah, not a bad idea.  i tend to take less competitive lists to my club nights anyway as that group isnt really all that competitive minded.  Could be perfect for those situations.

[Acid_Nine]

Well, how would the sharks be better in our opinions?

[mmimzie]

27 minutes ago, Drofnum said:

I'm tempted to just take the Allopex and deal with it being not that great, simply because i love the model and want to paint one.  Then again my competitive side will come out after a few games and i will want to drop it haha.

So a job the allopex can do that isn't too terrible of a job, is just as a character assasin. He packs a good amount of attacks in that rather small base that can fly and move very far. Any gabs where you can squeeze him in is a spooky places for characters to stay, and most armies while they might try to bubble wrap thier characters, tend to abandon such ideas. 

Unlike offensive eels who in units of 3 become a bit harder to squeeze in such places. agianst a 4+ save cahracter that would be something like 3.8 wounds ( ranged+melee). Not tooo bad. That with a arcane missle or something for support could kill most little characters.

Additional for the allopex there is some support it can receieve. A lore master wouldn't mind casting his buffs on the allopex, though a turtle or king would maybe be better targets. Though again said other models can't sneak in and nibble on characters. 

As for reavers i think it's not so much thier attacks or number of attacks that make them disappointing. It's more a lack of buffs or special things to make them really go off that other units couldn't already use potential to great affect.

that said if i were to take reavers it would be with thralls. I say this because while thralls have great damage out put. thier foot print limits them from beable to really focus down units all that well.  The reavers skirt this by being rangers and softening up targets for your thralls. This is more a tactical synergy than a mathmatical one. That said the reavers also gain another tactical benefit in that they are not in much danger just staying bait back and shooting from behind friends. 

Which takes me into the army, how dothey win??

I think most of our advantage is in easy to lay down -1 to hit spell on the aspect of the sea being almost mandatory in a competice IDK. 

From there we rely on our very power alliegence ability. that allows us to put damage where we want it to go. Thats really big when you compare to other armies. Think of witch elves who do tons of attacks. The problem is they have to weather damage before you get there. So some difficult to calculate amount of elves will die in every game, and those Schrodinger's dead elves are a sort of tax on that unit. While If you take a unit like Offensive eels,  what you see is what you get until the army around it is dead.

Looking at those armies taking vulkites for instance. While those vukites on thier own are good they don't need all that much extra durability from shooting to anything behind or around them.  While the defensive eels are about as durable as the vulkite out side of mortal wounds.  

So tactically, while maybe some of our math might be as plain or as powerful on the face of it. Our expected damage value is more true to the actual damage values, you'll expect to see in game. In many ways this is similar to KO where they expected damage on thier first turn of shooting is closer to the true value they end up putting out, due to limited casualties on thier damaging units. 

IDK have this effect both against shooting, and against melee. For shooting we have that forgotten rule where only the closest can be targeted, but against melee we have the Tides of Death where we out manuever most armies or just flat out cheat on turn 3/4

 

[Cam3lot]

Another factor that concerns me is that the heaviest hitting unit in the book, the leviadon, is bordering on prohibitively expensive when you consider you'll also want to take the almost mandatory Aspect of the Sea. I think we're also lacking in units with decent rend and the attacks to put that to good use.

[Hoseman]

Si I have just finished a 1600 point battle with a friend vs Nurgle Army (Glottkin, horticulous, Festus, sorcer, herald, 20 bearers, 3 drones and nurglins) and I used a mixed order army thinking on something similar to ID. Please take this as a casual play but Im going to compare my units with ID knows by now:

Glade Lord on Forest Dragon. Maybe could fit as Volturnos or a King.

Tree Lord Ancient. Maybe Volturnos if its a wizard or like an Eidolon as it is a wizard and has multiples attaks

20 Glade guard. Same stats as Reavers (but reavers save 5+). With 20 I get hit 3+ and they have once per battle rend -3 (maybe reavers get some kind of buff like that)

Tree Revenants. Similar to Thralls but thralls hit 3+

Stormcast Tempestors. Maybe similar as  Allopexes.

and some heros: Archmage (I like to use it for the shield of 6++ on 18") Mistweaver (Love the model and love his magic attak) Wayfinder and Waystrider (ranged nice rend -1 attaks)

The battle was with 2 objectives. I went Dragon and Tree Lord to one vs nurglins and Glotkin, and tree revenants + tempestors vs horticulous and drones the other. Glade guard middle on cover (5+ save) and others on cover too for support. On second turn Glade Lord on Dragon made 11 wounds to Glottkin making my friend almost cry. Glade guard destroyed sorcerer and festus. Tempestors + mistweaver defeat horticulous. Tree revenants didnt made much (when they attaked were just 2 but were usefull the teleport to take objective in turn 1). And treelord was sit on a Wildwood watching how Glade Lord destroyed GLottkin.

So I think ID will be a nice army. Thralls can make a very good damage if we can protect them till they arrive. Reavers at first I hated that profile but with run + shoot on turn 2 and retreat and shoot on turn 4 we can be behind thralls supporting them and that 30 dices are a very good thing. If King or Volturos are similar to Glade Lord I will try to take both on my army, and I think they will be similar because for sure they will get 3 attaks, some nice buff and nice deffense. Treelord ancient is a must in my sylvaneth or mixed order lists, so it will be Eidolon (both has one similar ranged attak and eidolon has one more on mele, plus 2 more spells and the healing option... great). And for the allopexes I think they're not so bad as we are saying, that ranged weapon wil make maybe a wound sometimes but the melee aspect is great.

And then we have shipwreck, that we can put the two parts where we want to give us that 6++ save without using 120 points on archmage, and we got that mortal wound option.

It's true I made good dices and my friend fail some important attaks but that army on my mind is what I will go:

King or Volturnos or both

Eidolon AoSea

Thralls + Reavers together

Allopex (one or two)

3 deffensive Eels + 3 offensive Eels

Shipwreck

This will go 1680points so rest to spend maybe more eels, mistweaver and something else. I think it will be a nice army. with Leviadon goes 2080 points so I shoud take king or Volturnos out.

[Austin]

7 hours ago, BillyOcean said:

So... there is one Enclave (Fuethan?) that allows reroll 1s to hit on floodtide, and replaces ebbtide with floodtide. Do we know if the rerolls are just for melee weapons, or also for range weapons? If ranged, that would help reavers a little. Two turns of the game where they can run (8+d6") and then unleash 30 arrows rerolling 1s, assuming the run was enough to get in range. It seems ok! I'm not advocating that Reavers a great unit, but damn I love those models and I'll find a way to make them work.

I also love the Allopex model, but I don't think all the theorycrafting in the world can help that guy at 140pts .

I’ve been trying to understand the allopex dislike. A lot of good points made about army role, but do we really think that the allopex should be the same cost as a Lion Chariot (100 pts). I mean just take a look at other units like that and plz help me understand how GW could have costed the shark chariot at less than 120. Maybe 140 is too high (though I’m not sure of it), but 80 or 100 is a bit crazy. 

[mmimzie]

7 hours ago, Cam3lot said:

Another factor that concerns me is that the heaviest hitting unit in the book, the leviadon, is bordering on prohibitively expensive when you consider you'll also want to take the almost mandatory Aspect of the Sea. I think we're also lacking in units with decent rend and the attacks to put that to good use.

I totally hear you there. The Leviadon isn't really a hard hitter for sure. It's more the king (with command trait artifacts)/ Offensive eels/ thralls are the biggest hitters we have. 

Say a BoLs battle report against daughters. It definitly ilistruated the power the tide table. I don't know if the list was legal how the played it or not doing the pts of what isaw in my head, but reguardless He basicly used a 10 man squad of thralls to great affect against some daughters of khaine.

One test case no  not really being the beat all, but that said i think the jam is definitly going to be stalling as hard as you can for turn 3, and then swinging the game. Something the Defensive eels and turls can kind of give to you. Using thier bodies  to hold back the flames, before you swoop in when a king riding high tide + hateful fury potion and Offensive Eel doing something like 70-90% more damage with the king's command ability. 

As you say the turtle is in a questionable spot.  It's either amazing or terrible. IN exchange for it you could bring osmething like 2 more units of defensive eels, and depending on howmany hanging pts you had another wizard or something. That said the turtle does help with that turn 2. Definitly the list economy feels very tight, that said -1 to hit from aspect and turtle cover threw turn 2/3 seems to go a long way toward letting you ride that high tide. 

[Rollcage]

Just having a listen to some of these deepking units and combinations but a 400 pt allied size detachment could be

 

1 Soulscryer

10 Reavers

10 Reavers

 

That gives you a movement phase teleport for 2 units that can potentially do 3 shots a model for 60 arrows. Rerolling 1's as well. Like a small cunning ruck that can teleport into position

[stratigo]

11 hours ago, Cam3lot said:

Aye you're probably right on the last bit, it's just not filling me with confidence at this point. I desperately want it to do well considering I have every intention of starting them ? 

I have been looking at combining defensive eels with sisters of the thorn, reroll saves and bouncing mortal wounds on 6+ saves could be handy.

Unless deepkin points are just absolutely messed up, deepkin have the strongest looking allegiance abilities in the game. Stronger than even tzeentch, which is nuts. Frankly your units have to be bad on cost effectiveness or else the army will be just ridiculously overpowered, which is real bad for the meta.

 

 

[DantePQ]

18 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Unless deepkin points are just absolutely messed up, deepkin have the strongest looking allegiance abilities in the game. Stronger than even tzeentch, which is nuts. Frankly your units have to be bad on cost effectiveness or else the army will be just ridiculously overpowered, which is real bad for the meta.

 

 

Nope, Tzeentch ability is far the strongest. Nothing beats manipulating multiple dice rolls in dice rolls based game. 

Sure Deepkin will be strong and their ability is really strong but they have major flaws I don't see them doing well against DoT or Fyreslayers, even with Forgotten Nightmares Clown Car could be troublesome,but it's up to positioning. Then there are armies like DoK or LoN - Witches with Bucklers and Martyr's Sacrifice will be a nightmare for Deepkin,and LoN could soak up up hammer unit damage. 

I like the army a lot they seem very cost effective but on the  other hand they dont have units that can fill multiple riles - you want hammer it won't have much protection, you want tarpit it won't have much damage output. 

[stratigo]

9 minutes ago, DantePQ said:

Nope, Tzeentch ability is far the strongest. Nothing beats manipulating multiple dice rolls in dice rolls based game. 

Sure Deepkin will be strong and their ability is really strong but they have major flaws I don't see them doing well against DoT or Fyreslayers, even with Forgotten Nightmares Clown Car could be troublesome,but it's up to positioning. Then there are armies like DoK or LoN - Witches with Bucklers and Martyr's Sacrifice will be a nightmare for Deepkin,and LoN could soak up up hammer unit damage. 

I like the army a lot they seem very cost effective but on the  other hand they dont have units that can fill multiple riles - you want hammer it won't have much protection, you want tarpit it won't have much damage output. 

If the game isn't decided by turn three, deepkin win. That's pretty strong. And you're immune to shooting. Also pretty strong. Imagine that in combination with a balewind. That'll be real annoying.

 

The clown car will not beat these allegiance abilities if it is matched with overly cost effective units. The Clowncar still has a shooting component that is largely nullified.

[Richelieu]

15 hours ago, stratigo said:

If the game isn't decided by turn three, deepkin win. That's pretty strong. And you're immune to shooting. Also pretty strong. Imagine that in combination with a balewind. That'll be real annoying.

 

The clown car will not beat these allegiance abilities if it is matched with overly cost effective units. The Clowncar still has a shooting component that is largely nullified.

I do not think it would be difficult for the clown car to play around the nightmare ability.  It doesn't make shooting useless, it just makes sniping exceedingly difficult.  There is only a single ID unit that ignores rend and if you invest too heavily in them to protect against sniping, then you handicap your offense substantially.

Clown car can easily position itself to either avoid the Ishlaen or if it must fight them, then dump the arkanauts out to broadside against them first, eliminating the unit to then allow the longer range, higher rend balloon boys to target the units behind. 

Bottom line is, this game is played by people.  Good tactics, strategy and execution are a much bigger determinant of victory than the army you're playing.  Hence @DantePQ contention that the ability to ignore the luck aspect will always be the strongest allegiance ability.

[christophe]

I love 90% of the models. For the turtle, I like the animal design a lot but I am really not convinced by the structure on top. Not organic enough, too massive and squared... For the kings, I would have prefer something closer to a real sea-horse. I am not convinced by the head and arms of the beast. The body of the unicorn is very  fine details-wise but the tails are just tubes with no textures...      And please GW, in few year, release a kraken !!   a behemoth with tentacles pretty please...

[DantePQ]

@stratigo

It doens't work that way, it as @Richelieu said it's about execution - you got to have enough targets to win with turn 3, against good player you won't be able to get much units (also deepkin are pretty elite so getting your units unharmed to turn 3 is quite a feat) into combat and as I am DoK player I would be more then happy to screen myself with Marty's Sacrifice buffed Buckers Witches - good luck with them with Deepkins. 

Sure Deepkin could have one close to unwinnable match up with DoT and hard with Clown Car. Against other armies like DoK, LoN it could be hard but winnable as it's down to postionioing, strategy and execution but Deepkin have obvious flaws your opponent can capitalise on. 

I still think 3x30 Thralls will be the best competitive build but as you got to take Aspect of the Sea with them there is little points left to work with  

[Cookiez]

2 hours ago, Richelieu said:

I do not think it would be difficult for the clown car to play around the nightmare ability.  It doesn't make shooting useless, it just makes sniping exceedingly difficult.  There is only a single ID unit that ignores rend and if you invest too heavily in them to protect against sniping, then you handicap your offense substantially.

Clown car can easily position itself to either avoid the Ishlaen or if it must fight them, then dump the arkanauts out to broadside against them first, eliminating the unit to then allow the longer range, higher rend balloon boys to target the units behind. 

Bottom line is, this game is played by people.  Good tactics, strategy and execution are a much bigger determinant of victory than the army you're playing.  Hence @DantePQ contention that the ability to ignore the luck aspect will always be the strongest allegiance ability.

Yup, the ID are strong on paper, but the army has crucial weaknesses and one mistake can make your game a nightmare. Also surviving till turn 3 doesn't mean autowin.  

Without 9 shield eels it's gonna be hard even against clown car. The only (?) opening i can see working for now is starting (because, you know, KO wants double turn), casting shield on eels and positioning them in front, so the enemy can't omit them. Having 2+ ignore rend on turn 1 and 3+ ignore rend turn 2 is too much for KO (you can take the cover spell for 2+ on the the second turn). The rest should be easy with those -1 to hit everywhere. But again - one mistake and you're toast.

Changehost is pretty much gg from the beginning, but the rest is doable after coming up with some top lists we can get.

[Richelieu]

I know my previous post sounded doom and gloom about ID, but I was serious when I said it is down to the player.  I think ID have some excellent tools and in the same token that a good player will be able to defeat ID, a good player will also be able to win with ID.  I think there are even some good options for defeating changehost.

[HollowHills]

I'm not  100% sure what people expected.  ID have two good allegiance abilities balanced by the fact they are both very predictable for opponents. Cost wise everything seems about right, thralls are actually cheaper than I expected. I would have liked to see lotan at 80 because of how tough wholly within is to benefit from and that he is a named character. I feel that the allopex isn't great but you make it cheaper and it probably becomes too good.

 

If ID were designed to defeat the best current lists in the game such as changehost et al you have the definition of power creep. It makes existing armies not in the top tier even weaker by comparison and just puts a new imbalanced army list on top. ID look beatable and winnable,which is what you want. GW can balance other armies by increasing or reducing costs, not by making new armies equally over powered. 

[Austin]

5 hours ago, DantePQ said:

@stratigo

It doens't work that way, it as @Richelieu said it's about execution - you got to have enough targets to win with turn 3, against good player you won't be able to get much units (also deepkin are pretty elite so getting your units unharmed to turn 3 is quite a feat) into combat and as I am DoK player I would be more then happy to screen myself with Marty's Sacrifice buffed Buckers Witches - good luck with them with Deepkins. 

Sure Deepkin could have one close to unwinnable match up with DoT and hard with Clown Car. Against other armies like DoK, LoN it could be hard but winnable as it's down to postionioing, strategy and execution but Deepkin have obvious flaws your opponent can capitalise on. 

I still think 3x30 Thralls will be the best competitive build but as you got to take Aspect of the Sea with them there is little points left to work with  

I am really thinking about going Thrall heavy. Will definitely have to test actual games first before laying down that sort of money for Thralls. But I think it’s totally reasonable that units of 30 Thralls will be quite good. 

[Aezeal]

Hey as a non idoneth player I'm wondering if you also feel their elite swordsmen (well they are apparently basic for you.. but elite infantry for most other armies) are a bit underpriced compared to others... or is that incorrect?