AoS 2 - Idoneth Deepkin Discussion

[Mark Williams]

4 hours ago, mmimzie said:

Was doing some back ready, and what??  

 

Can't you only use the command ability in your hero phase and the eels can only drop down at the end of the movement phase.   Meaning those eels would have to hit the table turn 2. Maybe his post Is just misleadingly written. 

 

Its definitely doable. I know I love me some eel bomb. Just the way that was written confuses me.

Huh. I thought it goes off in the assault phase. At least that’s what I’ve seen... 

[wanderingrogue]

16 hours ago, Drofnum said:

They have to be 6 inches away. A lot of the objectives are held by models within 6 so you can easily stay in the bubble, even the 3 inch ones are pretty easy to stay in the bubble. 

As for enemies you just try to get them blocking the objective in some way. Honestly the rules didn't change much with how I played them, we all knew it was going to change with how every other placable scenery works. 

they changed loads....far from "not much"

 

not being able to sit them on objectives or surround them on objectives or stack two close to gether to really make a board area basically impassable. while expected its deffo a big change.

 

on the plus side the other VERY big change is the fact that you get to place shipwrecks AFTER you know which deployment zone you have now and not before like previously.  this has huge and massivly beneficial repercussions. before you had to hedge your bets a little,place them mid table (on objectives) or stack them one side and hope you won the deployment role.

 

with that uncertainty gone you can really ****** with enemy deployment or place them in hotspots that you know fights will break out

[DantePQ]

So first Ishalean Guard unit is ready to go, first up is my all Eels build then I will add Thralls and Reavers. 

Edited September 9, 2018 by DantePQ

[DocKeule]

Hi everybody,

I have been playing IDK now for a little while and with mixed results, I did OK in casual games but I played the first tournament yesterday and the results where kind of underwealming. The event had three different sized games so I tried three completely different lists, one pure infantery, one mixed and one pure cavelley.

In my opinion the IDK are good on average but they lack some highlights and spectacular synergies that other factions have. And one of their biggest weaknesses are mortal wounds - both in output and protection against it. 

 

This is what I have bought, built and painted so far:

 

Akhelian King / Volturnos
Eidalon of Mathlann
Lotann Warden of the Soul Ledgers
1 Tidecaster
2 Soulrender
2 Soulscryer

30 Namarti Thralls
20 Namarti Reavers 
9 Akhelian Guard
2 Akhelian Allopex
1 Akhelian Leviadon
2 Gloomtide Shipwrecks

 

I would really like to not get too eel heavy. I know they are what most people seem to concentrate on but I don't enjoy that model that much (especially the building and painting) and I would like to variety on the table. Consensus seems to be that the Leviadon and the Eidalon are not really worth their points so I might take only one or none of them in competetive situations although they are the two most spectacular models.

[JackStreicher]

3 hours ago, DantePQ said:

So first Ishalean Guard unit is ready to go, first up is my all Eels build then I will add Thralls and Reavers. 

Nice colorscheme, Ireally want an affordable airbrush myself ?

[Nerdkingdan]

 

7 hours ago, DantePQ said:

So first Ishalean Guard unit is ready to go, first up is my all Eels build then I will add Thralls and Reavers. 

Just wondering did you paint the riders separatethen glue them on?

[DantePQ]

@Nerdkingdan they were painted separately

[Hankster]

22 hours ago, DocKeule said:

I would really like to not get too eel heavy. I know they are what most people seem to concentrate on but I don't enjoy that model that much (especially the building and painting) and I would like to variety on the table. Consensus seems to be that the Leviadon and the Eidalon are not really worth their points so I might take only one or none of them in competetive situations although they are the two most spectacular models.

Hey @DocKeule I don't have any advice as I've just started my IDK army. But second your question.

I do like the eels, but it seems a shame not to include the Leviadon or the Eidalon in lists since they are such beautiful models. It would be disappointing if the really cool models only worked in narrative play. 

[Unter]

On 9/9/2018 at 6:55 PM, DocKeule said:

Hi everybody,

I have been playing IDK now for a little while and with mixed results, I did OK in casual games but I played the first tournament yesterday and the results where kind of underwealming. The event had three different sized games so I tried three completely different lists, one pure infantery, one mixed and one pure cavelley.

In my opinion the IDK are good on average but they lack some highlights and spectacular synergies that other factions have. And one of their biggest weaknesses are mortal wounds - both in output and protection against it. 

 

This is what I have bought, built and painted so far:

 

Akhelian King / Volturnos
Eidalon of Mathlann
Lotann Warden of the Soul Ledgers
1 Tidecaster
2 Soulrender
2 Soulscryer

30 Namarti Thralls
20 Namarti Reavers 
9 Akhelian Guard
2 Akhelian Allopex
1 Akhelian Leviadon
2 Gloomtide Shipwrecks

 

I would really like to not get too eel heavy. I know they are what most people seem to concentrate on but I don't enjoy that model that much (especially the building and painting) and I would like to variety on the table. Consensus seems to be that the Leviadon and the Eidalon are not really worth their points so I might take only one or none of them in competetive situations although they are the two most spectacular models.

Hello! First things first, IDK are very strong, and while eels are mandatory if you want to be competitive, you don’t have to go mono-eel.

The Leviadon and the Eidolon are both useful models, probably overcosted, but you can certainly incorporate them. The Allopexes also, to an extent.

You’ve got some seriously poor units though, that are basically dead weight. Disclaimer: I feel your pain. Big fan of the Reavers and Lotann, sad that they are hot trash.

The soulrenders only really get close to worthwhile regen with Morph’ann Enclave and the Batallion, and even then they are poor. Lotann (memes aside) is more or less unplayably bad, as are Reavers.

If you want a cheap screen, ally in some Khinerai Heartrenders for 80 points per 5 models. These can deploy off the board and deep strike to take objectives or screen charges.

Reavers will do 1-2 wounds at long range into a 4+ save, and have a good chance of doing 0 damage to anything higher.

Thralls are excellent, but I’d advise splitting them into 3 units of 10. They are extremely squishy and only have 1” range. This means if you DO get them into combat, you aren’t getting full benefit. If you take any significant casualties furthermore, you are losing a fair chunk to battleshock. This is mitigated by multiple units that are also more tactically flexible.

Way I see it, you can keep your Allopexes and Leviadon, even your Eidolon, but you can free up 580 points, over 25% of your army, by dropping the Reavers and Soulrenders. This saving would enable you to split your thralls into 3x10, and fit in 9 more eels.

You could then end up with something like this:

Leaders

Akhelian King (240)

Eidolon of Mathlann, Aspect of the Sea (440)

Isharann Soulscryer (100)

Isharann Tidecaster (100)

 

Battleline

10 x Namarti Thralls (140)

10 x Namarti Thralls (140)

10 x Namarti Thralls (140)

 

Units

9 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (480)

1 x Akhelian Allopexes (140)

5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (80)

 

Total: 2000 / 2000

Extra Command Points: 0

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 108

You probably have to make a choice between Eidolon and Leviadon in most games, otherwise you'll have close to 1k of your army tied up in two models.

This list is probably too squishy for me, and if I was taking Eidolon I'd probably not take King or Allopex, and put the savings into more eels, but this is the skeleton of what a stronger list could look like with your models.

[whispersofblood]

So I played this list on the weekend.

Volturnos

EoftheSea

9 morrsarr

3*3 ishlean

20 thralls

Lost in the final round to Thrice-fold list but that is a story for another day.

In the age of 10 man evocator, 20 man sequator and such lists 9+ morrsarr get the business done. Even with Volturnos dead they killed 20 sequator to the man with just their spears. 

The damage on Ishlean is wildly inconsistent and not to be relied upon. The same unit that suprise killed a lord Arcanum on gryphcarger struggled to kill plague bearers. 

Volturnos is soft. Extremely soft, you have to be very careful as a few bad save rolls and he'll be gone. His big base is definitely a weakness of the model. 

Thralls are excellent character assassins. -1 and dmg 2 is plenty to kill 40 mm heroes. 

When they don't get to apply their battle stances they are pure wastemen however.

Eidolon is just a poor choice. His cost is not reflective of his abilities in the slightest. I took ethereal amulet, and Ionrach. He didn't tank, he didn't kill,  he didn't cast, he didn't even unbind. I had plans to replace him as soon as I finished the first game of the day. Really poor ruleset, it was particularly offensive after being on the receiving end of Guo who at 80 pts cheaper do all of the above, ultimately move just as fast and pump out mortal wounds in multiple phases. 

I'll post up my planned list going forward when I get a chance to type it out.

[Unter]

Yea its frustrating, Aspect of Sea ends up being jack of all trades master of none. Even poorer in current meta where serious magic armies like Nagash practically guarantee you aren't getting his spells off.

[DocKeule]

7 hours ago, Unter said:

The Leviadon and the Eidolon are both useful models, probably overcosted, but you can certainly incorporate them. The Allopexes also, to an extent.

Thank's for your reply. Looking back I would have probably bought just one Allopex in case I wanted to field the batallion.  They look cool but their stats aren't something to write home about. The provide reliable rent but at a much too small output I think. 

 

7 hours ago, Unter said:

You’ve got some seriously poor units though, that are basically dead weight. Disclaimer: I feel your pain. Big fan of the Reavers and Lotann, sad that they are hot trash.

The soulrenders only really get close to worthwhile regen with Morph’ann Enclave and the Batallion, and even then they are poor. Lotann (memes aside) is more or less unplayably bad, as are Reavers.

 

I think Lotann could have some value in an Namarti heavy list if you manage to keep him in the center of the army and all Namarti units in his bubble - maybe more in a defensive and stationary scenario (not exactly the IDK's strong point). As for the Soulrenders: I had a match against Khorne demons and held a bottleneck on the table with 30 Thralls and two Souleenders, bringing back anyone the chaos-dudes killed round after round. Again this is probably more valuable in a stationary situation while in other cases the Thralls tend to be glass cannons and break pretty soon. A unit of 10 is usually gone after a melee with nothing left to bring models back to.

Reavers I am not sure about. Under 9" their output is not too bad and especially in tournaments in our area you usually have a lot of mission objectives to hold. You could park them on the objective and have them do at least a little with their shooting. Better that having to leave an eel trio there that would be much more useful in the front.

[whispersofblood]

Honestly unless you are buying endless spells I don't feel IDK magic is really that frightening. 

[mmimzie]

The best i think you can get out of  IDK magic is via ionrach as we have hard to get off spells. getting your key spells off 7 doesn't mean you always gets it means it's gonna fail when you need it most. The +1 to cast helps make that edge. From there the reroll out of the AoS makes him abit more reliable. However if you are gonna run Ionrach i dont know that i'd invest much or at all in our spells. 

From there spell wise the only thing i'd care about would be the -1 to to hit debuffs and potentially the AoS heal if you have something else big worth healing up. Malestorm also isn't too poor. 

[Drofnum]

Abyssal darkness on a AoSea covers a pretty big area.  I can generally have it covering my 3 units of eels and King reliably.

[DantePQ]

I think our playstyle doesn't suit how magic works in AoS. Majority of lists work around chaaring and destroying charged unit. All those debuffs to hit are fine but we're not that tanky to take advantage of that. That's why I don't see many merits in taking Aspect of the Sea as he isn't that great spellcaster. 

You got to take Ionarch to make magic work and then invest heavly in Ishalean Guards or some allied Mages with nice spells.. That's why I fallen in love with Aspect of the Sea as he is quite reliable and can't be tied in combat, also unlike Morssar he can take a charge or you can activate him later.  

[Hannibal]

On 9/11/2018 at 3:30 PM, whispersofblood said:

Lost in the final round to Thrice-fold list but that is a story for another day.

 

I´d like to know more about that list. Could you share it?

[whispersofblood]

20 hours ago, Hannibal said:

I´d like to know more about that list. Could you share it?

It wasn't anything to ground breaking. 3*10 plague bearers and 6 flies. 

But, plague bearers are excessively resilient for their points. I put like 600 points into 10 models and killed 5. 

Too much in the army stacks on top of already good profiles. It's probably the best book available right now. 

[Hannibal]

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

It wasn't anything to ground breaking. 3*10 plague bearers and 6 flies. 

But, plague bearers are excessively resilient for their points. I put like 600 points into 10 models and killed 5. 

Too much in the army stacks on top of already good profiles. It's probably the best book available right now. 

Well, I'm just painting my third GUO to be able to run thricefold befoulment and I really can't see a list that seems to work. I'm surprised that 3 GUOs + 3x 10 Plaguebearers +6 Drones is causing headaches, because on paper it doesn't seem to be that strong. 

[Drofnum]

2 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

It wasn't anything to ground breaking. 3*10 plague bearers and 6 flies. 

But, plague bearers are excessively resilient for their points. I put like 600 points into 10 models and killed 5. 

Too much in the army stacks on top of already good profiles. It's probably the best book available right now. 

10 Thralls shred 10 plague bearers in my experience.  I play against a guy who regularly runs 2 x 10, my 10 thralls will clear a unit off the table in one round pretty regularly.

[whispersofblood]

7 minutes ago, Drofnum said:

10 Thralls shred 10 plague bearers in my experience.  I play against a guy who regularly runs 2 x 10, my 10 thralls will clear a unit off the table in one round pretty regularly.

The problem is getting a Mv6 unit into the back field. 

 

50 minutes ago, Hannibal said:

Well, I'm just painting my third GUO to be able to run thricefold befoulment and I really can't see a list that seems to work. I'm surprised that 3 GUOs + 3x 10 Plaguebearers +6 Drones is causing headaches, because on paper it doesn't seem to be that strong. 

He's a good player who played the list a ton. But, 6 drones take up a lot of surface area, and if you get +2" move on the chart, plus bell on Guo, plus midfield tree, +auto 6" run. Doesn't leave a lot of room on the board to avoid getting turn 1 charged by 67 attacks or so. 

Depending on the mission having that unit on your home objective turn 1 and 3 GUO between you and the other ones is pretty much a death sentence. 

In retrospect I should have tried to absorb them with my 9 man unit since it's not a lot of rend attacks.

[Drofnum]

2 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

The problem is getting a Mv6 unit into the back field. 

Soulscryer?

[Hankster]

On 9/11/2018 at 6:45 AM, Unter said:

Hello! First things first, IDK are very strong, and while eels are mandatory if you want to be competitive, you don’t have to go mono-eel.

 

Hey @Unter what sort of list do you run? I'm still building my army, and right now I'm focused on Akhelians. I'd be intersested to hear everyone's thoughts.

Currently I have:

Voltrunos / Akhelian king (not sure if I should build Voltrunos or the King - Thoughts?)

Soulscryer 

Tidecaster

6 - Morrsarr 

6 - Ishlaen

2 - Allopexes

I'm planning on adding more eels and either an Eidlon (probably storm) or a leviadon. 

I plan to get an Akhelian focused army up and running as it's easier and the eels and sharks are cool models. Plus I like the idea of having a very fast army to grab objectives and get charges in. Down the line I may make a second Namarti focused army. 

Would it make sense to get the Leviadon so I can take the Akhelian battalion? Does it really make that much of a difference to have a two drop army? I'm really tempted by the Eidlon since it looks so cool and the Leviadon seems a to have really high point cost in AoS2. 

Any thoughts on if Voltrunos or the King is a better choice? The anti-magic shield sounds pretty cool, but I don't really like the eye patch. 

Last question, any thoughts on fighting Beastclaw, other than stay away and focus on objectives? 

[Yoshiya]

3 hours ago, Hankster said:

Hey @Unter what sort of list do you run? I'm still building my army, and right now I'm focused on Akhelians. I'd be intersested to hear everyone's thoughts.

Currently I have:

Voltrunos / Akhelian king (not sure if I should build Voltrunos or the King - Thoughts?)

Soulscryer 

Tidecaster

6 - Morrsarr 

6 - Ishlaen

2 - Allopexes

I'm planning on adding more eels and either an Eidlon (probably storm) or a leviadon. 

I plan to get an Akhelian focused army up and running as it's easier and the eels and sharks are cool models. Plus I like the idea of having a very fast army to grab objectives and get charges in. Down the line I may make a second Namarti focused army. 

Would it make sense to get the Leviadon so I can take the Akhelian battalion? Does it really make that much of a difference to have a two drop army? I'm really tempted by the Eidlon since it looks so cool and the Leviadon seems a to have really high point cost in AoS2. 

Any thoughts on if Voltrunos or the King is a better choice? The anti-magic shield sounds pretty cool, but I don't really like the eye patch. 

Last question, any thoughts on fighting Beastclaw, other than stay away and focus on objectives? 

Both King and Volturnos are good so go with what you want. I agree that I'm not actually too keen on the Volturnos model so I simply replaces his head with one of the regular ones (requires a bit of cutting to get it to fit well) and then not putting the banner behind him (doesn't really fit with the helmet crest). I've found its a nice midpoint that lets me use the model as both.

As for the list, I'm personally aiming for a very similar list except I'm also taking a Kharibdyss for rule of cool (planning on using the Merwyrm model as it's awesome and in theme and the only set of rules I could find that would work well with the model). Really I think Idoneth armies are pretty dependent on your local meta. In a casual meta like mine the two Allopexes and a Leviadon would work perfectly fine but in a more competitive scene you'll likely be told to drop both and just take more eels.

Personally I find the latter makes for a pretty boring army no matter how strong it is so go with what you want I really don't think anything in Idoneth is terrible, it's just not particularly well balanced internally with a heavy skew towards eels for competitive play.

Also, if you're like me and can't afford to change armies up on the fly, I'd advise going too heavily with eels. The way competitive lists are effectively "take all the eels!" I predict at least minor point increases on them in the next GHB (I know it's a while away but for people like me it can take almost a year just to get an army together considering I also play Slyvaneth).

[Hankster]

1 hour ago, Yoshiya said:

Kharibdyss

A kharibdyss, eh? That is a cool idea. Personally, i hope the Deepkin get a Kraken unit or even a Kraken spell model at some point. That would be uber cool. 

For now I think I'll seen how what I have plays, but it'll be hard not to get a leviadon and try to make it work since the model is so cool. 

What is the meta you usually play against?