AoS 3rd - Idoneth Deepkin discussion

[DocKeule]

If you deepstrike the Reavers I would at least give them a unit of Ishlaen to screen them so they can shoot unhindered as long as possible. 

Maybe even go Briomdar and deepstrike an additional turtle like 20 Reavers, 2 Ishlaen and a Leviadon.

[Orbei]

Good thoughts. This would be very different from anything I've played prior and would take some messing around with. I'm also wondering if Mor'phann and Soulrenders might receive buffs and become interesting with the rise of thralls. While I am not sold on the new reavers in a vacuum, a Mor'phann list where your 90 point soulrender brings back 4-7 reavers a turn is also pretty appealing. A big block of reavers in Mor'phann might be fun...

Edited January 16, 2022 by Orbei

[Adeeb]

Have they announced the battletome yet? 

[GrimDork]

7 minutes ago, Orbei said:

Good thoughts. This would be very different from anything I've played prior and would take some messing around with. I'm also wondering if Mor'phann and Soulrenders might receive buffs and become interesting with the rise of thralls. While I am not sold on the new reavers in a vacuum, a Mor'phann list where your 90 point soulrender brings back 4-7 reavers a turn is also pretty appealing. A big block of reavers in Mor'phann might be fun...

I wonder if the soulrenders bring back ability will become similar to or maybe an improved version of the rally command? Maybe on a 5+ instead of 6+?

[vinnyt]

3 hours ago, Kitsumy said:

hmmm love that u love ur sharks, but cant say they are better now, when maths never lie and they clearly shows how sharks are much worse now ( net) or a bit worse ( harpon).

it is like saying a unit got buffed doing 1more dmg, but got 1k points increase, but it got better!

maths says it won 25% wounds, and lost turtle buff, and got 33% increase in points. so it got HUGE nerf in durability, even without turtle it got 8% worse for no reason.

damagewise is even worse. it got 0 increase on net, and around 25% with harpoon, again the gains were inferior than the nerf in points.

 

so overall sharks got around 8% or 16% worse now, not counting the lost of turtle save, if not it is even worst. and not counting the captain buff since never will run them as unit with his pitiful 6ld, losing 165 or more points even on unlucky rolls isnt fun to me

I always assume that sharks are coming as a unit of 2, which is a good deal of points, but you gain a huge amount of flexibility. The point I was trying to make is that sharks can allow you to maintain a longer ranged damage output while also providing a very very hard hitting cc unit. Not sure what math you're referring to. Look at page 5 of this thread for my output efficiency calculations. Then look at my original post to see how that number has changed for SHARKS ONLY. Those numbers are only for cc so the shooting just elevates that damage potential even more.  

I'm also not commenting on turtle buff or specific synergy pieces until I see the new book, which is why there are like 50 disclaimers and asterisks scattered throughout my post. 

2 hours ago, Orbei said:

I don't understand this. A single shark and unit of reavers are virtually the same points. A shark gets 4 shots that do an average of 2 damage each if they hit and wound. The reavers get 20 shots that do 1 damage each. They both have the same to hit/wound/rend so none of those are a factor. Reavers do more than twice as much damage as sharks at range. What am I missing here?

I also don't understand why you're saying they have the best melee output in the book. They look to be squarely behind thralls and morrsarr. A 165 point shark assuming 4 bites does 3.26 damage against a 3+ save. This is really poor output. 10 thralls for 130 points do 6.67 damage assuming 1 wound targets or 8.89 damage against 3+ wound targets. Double the output for less points. Of course thralls are less survivable, slower, and have no ranged attack but in combat they are superior. Morrsarr also have higher output.. 2 morrsarr for 132 points will do 3.85 damage on the charge not counting their mortal wounds. I used a 3+ save to help out the sharks and make the most of their rend, and they still come out poorly.

To make matters worse, sharks have almost no synergy now. No turtle buff, and you can alternatively buff namarti in multiple ways including the new thrallmaster.

Sharks were really nice as a hybrid of ranged and melee output and efficient for their points. Now they are middling at everything. We're now paying a huge premium for increased ranged damage at big nerf to survivability per point and melee damage.

Instead of your first 2 sharks why would you ever not just take 2 SDG? What am I missing?

look at page 5 of this thread for my efficiency damage calculator. Thralls are quite reasonable now, absolutely no debating that. My take also has a nice all caps disclaimer of how I view this in my style of play. You do 9 wounds to that 10 man thrall unit and their output is much different. You do 9 wounds to a shark unit and the output remains the same. That's a very important thing to consider. Also SDG are like super crazy good. They and fulminators are not good for comparison because they're just blatantly insane. 

Sharks receive their buffs IN THIS BOOK CURRENTLY by existing in an army with army wide buffs requiring minimal babysitting. I've posted multiple battle reports here showing how well they do their job. 

IF FORGOTTEN NIGHTMARES REMAINS THE SAME. you have to screen your hitters with something. That has traditionally been thralls, reavers, and ishlaen. Now, for me, should sharks not be battleline, that will be thralls and ishlaen. Reavers have become too expensive to act as ablative wounds which means the "bucket" I lump them into has changed. Now they're synergy sniping pieces that can threaten objectives. FOR ME, I tend to build to a 1-2 drop, make my opponent take first turn, lose most of my namarti to their first turn, and then aggressively move up, try to shoot out fragile synergy wizards, and then hit them with multiple sharks/eidolon/turtle. I reverse the tides, WHICH MAY BE GOING AWAY, and use shooting very sparingly past turn 1, since for turn 2 I want my damage dealers in combat. A double turn into turn 2 has yielded me a 100% win rate in 3.0 against a wide, wide variety of armies. I try to build my lists so that I can begin every game with a roughly 40% chance of just winning automatically. 

IN A SLOWER TEMPO ARMY, reavers are extremely valuable as part of Howl's Moving Castle builds. I see that sort of build as likely being 30 thralls plus new character, 20 reavers, turtle, and then whatever else fills in the gaps. The 60 thrall, 2 turtle, 2 new character build is also a fairly spicy one. 

In a very aggressive tempo build like my preferred style (WHICH MAY NOT BE YOURS AND THAT'S TOTALLY OK), sharks have received an important upgrade to be both more survivable, issue commands to themselves, have a champion model with an excellent bonus (+1 to hit is extremely valuable in an army which may be able to juice attacks with volty/king), AND now have a weapon that requires an opponent to pop a CP to protect a 5+ save wizard or else lose that model a not insignificant proportion of the time. Plus using harpoons to prevent pile ins means that you're able to get much more advantageous combats. If you don't like sharks, I just see that as proof that this book allows for multiple competitive compositions and that therefore, is probably a fairly well-written book, which is all I ever wanted. 

Y'all may want to read the all caps/bolded bits of my posts because they tend to be fairly important to my overall point. 

[DocKeule]

1 hour ago, GrimDork said:

I wonder if the soulrenders bring back ability will become similar to or maybe an improved version of the rally command? Maybe on a 5+ instead of 6+?

It would even be kind of OK if it worked in every battleshock phase instead of just your own.

[Orbei]

46 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

My take also has a nice all caps disclaimer of how I view this in my style of play.

Its fine that you like sharks for your style of play. I like them currently too. However, stating that they do more damage than reavers at range or have the highest damage output in close combat in the army does not seem to be true. They have worse damage per points than thralls, reavers or morrsarr with the known changes, assuming everything else stays the same. The only thing they have going for them is that they don't degrade as they lose wounds as you've said, but you sure are paying an up front premium for that. They have also gone down in terms of survivability, not up. They received a 25% increase in wounds and a 32% increase in points.

Also, there is really no need for all the bold and caps. When someone disagrees with you it doesn't mean they are missing what you are writing. They are just looking at the information and drawing a different conclusion. If sharks continue to work for you, awesome. I'm glad you're excited for them. I'm looking forward to thralls.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Orbei

[Kitsumy]

yes. im not saying shark be useles, only saying u were wrong saying it got better now. and explained with numbers how it got worse in everything.

 

sure it isnt so bad. and have some uses. but none can say it is better now when it is clearly worse in everything.

[vinnyt]

On 1/16/2022 at 2:30 PM, Orbei said:

Its fine that you like sharks for your style of play. I like them currently too. However, stating that they do more damage than reavers at range or have the highest damage output in close combat in the army does not seem to be true. They have worse damage per points than thralls, reavers or morrsarr with the known changes, assuming everything else stays the same. The only thing they have going for them is that they don't degrade as they lose wounds as you've said, but you sure are paying an up front premium for that. They have also gone down in terms of survivability, not up. They received a 25% increase in wounds and a 32% increase in points.

Also, there is really no need for all the bold and caps. When someone disagrees with you it doesn't mean they are missing what you are writing. They are just looking at the information and drawing a different conclusion. If sharks continue to work for you, awesome. I'm glad you're excited for them. I'm looking forward to thralls.

I use the bolds and caps all the time, not just when people disagree. It helps break up the monotony of the text and draws attention to the important bits that may be overlooked if one skims through the paragraph. 

 

On 1/16/2022 at 2:43 PM, Kitsumy said:

yes. im not saying shark be useles, only saying u were wrong saying it got better now. and explained with numbers how it got worse in everything.

 

sure it isnt so bad. and have some uses. but none can say it is better now when it is clearly worse in everything.

hmmm, clearly worse in everything...

 

So, here's a quick recalculation of that aforementioned damage efficiency table that nobody looked at. 

With that in mind, the math turns out roughly as follows (data is presented as wounds through a 2+/3+/4+/5+ save) WITHOUT ANY BUFFS. We don't know what buffs exist in the new book so this is purely a statistics exercise. Again, NO BUFFS. This is a change from my other table to help level the playing field in anticipation of buff changes in the new book.

Tortle does 6.1/8.6/11/13.5 for 380 in CC and at RANGE 1.2/1.8/2.4/3

Eidolon on charge does 5.3/7.4/9.6/11.7 for 330

2 Sharks with 4 bites apiece do 5/7.3/9.7/12 for 330 in CC and (if using 2 gatlings), 2.4/3.6/4.5/6 at RANGE

6 Morrsarr on the charge not using blast do 7.8/11.7/15.6/19.6 for 390 (assuming all 6 get all their attacks, which is unlikely)

6 Morrsarr not having charged and not using blast do 3/6/9/12 for 390 (assuming all 6 get all their attacks, which is unlikely)

20 Reavers all within 9" (which is unlikely) do 7.4/11.1/14.8/18.5 at RANGE and 1.2/2.4/3.7/5 in CC

Thralls are good and more efficient at full strength in melee so they're not a part of the conversation here. 

So, breaking it down to the amount of points it costs for each wound you inflict (damage efficiency), you get:

Tortle: 62/44/34.5/28 and since we don't care about their ranged specifics rn, their net efficiency is: 52/36.5/28.4/23

Eidolon: 62.2/44.6/34.4/28.2

Sharks: 66/45/34/27.5 in CC with a ranged efficiency of 137.5/91.6/73/55. Their net efficiency is: 44.6/30/23/18.3

6 Morrsarr on charge: net output is 34/22.5/17/13.4 since there's no range

6 Morrsarr not charging: 130/65/43/32.5

20 reavers: 45/30.6/23/18.4 at RANGE with a net efficiency of 39.5/25.2/18.4/14.5

So, to summarize. In pure CC, the unwounded turtle and 6 charging morrsarr are more efficient than 2 sharks. BUT, when you add the ranged output of the sharks to look at the net efficiency of the unit in damage per point, the sharks become much more efficient than the turtle and roughly the same as 6 charging morrsarr. If the morrsarr do not get the charge, they are functionally paperweights.   

THIS WILL CHANGE WITH THE NEW BOOK

To conclude, saying that sharks are clearly worse in everything is incorrect. Sharks do have worse damage per point than reavers (at range only) and thralls, but they have far more flexibility and do not degrade nearly as quickly. That's the tradeoff you make with namarti and why I didn't include them in my original table. Namarti don't get to choose their fights like the units I compared. Sharks are paying a premium for the wounds, the increased shooting potential, the new champion/ability to command themselves, and whatever else might be in store. I'm not saying that thralls and reavers aren't good, but they are used in different roles. The fact that sharks can act efficiently in multiple roles is extremely valuable. 

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by vinnyt
embarrassing math mistake

[Orbei]

37 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

I use the bolds and caps all the time, not just when people disagree. It helps break up the monotony of the text and draws attention to the important bits that may be overlooked if one skims through the paragraph. 

Its challenging to read your posts with the formatting you use, which may cause people to skip or gloss over what you write. The mix of white highlighting, bold, and caps in this latest post is pretty off-putting. 

37 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

hmmm, clearly worse in everything...

I think you're missing what Kitsumy is saying and should go back and re-read both of our posts. They are worse off as compared to before. Consider: the base melee profile did not change but the points increased by 32%, so they are less that much efficient in melee. Does the champion alone make up for this? The net did not change but the points increased by 32%, so the net is functionally 32% worse. If you want a net you have to pay for how much better the harpoons now are. The wounds did not increase proportionately to the points increase, so they are less survivable. The only improvement is that they are now a more efficient shooting unit, but everything else suffers as a result. 

Also, consider the scenarios when your shark doesn't get to shoot because it's stuck in combat at the start of a turn. This is obviously not what you want or plan for but this will happen over the course of games. In these situations all of the points you're paying for better shooting are doing diddly squat. The problem is that the shooting was always a bonus, a nice little complement to the more important melee damage. Now they're nearly equal in terms of potential output and the price you're paying for that output. To get value from this unit it needs to shoot and then charge, and it's pretty likely to get stuck in combat.

37 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

To conclude, saying that sharks are clearly worse in everything is incorrect.

You were the one saying sharks do more damage than reavers at range, which your numbers above show to be wrong. You also said they have the best output per point in the book, yet we seem to agree that's not true either. Thralls have significantly higher output.

Thanks for providing your math again, that is genuinely helpful when looking at the options. Sharks just don't look appealing to me anymore when I consider these numbers. I'm hoping the book has some additional synergy in store for them because I love my sharks.

[13_rolls]

12 minutes ago, Orbei said:

Its challenging to read your posts with the formatting you use, which may cause people to skip or gloss over what you write. The mix of white highlighting, bold, and caps in this latest post is pretty off-putting. 

1 hour ago, vinnyt said:

I've found @vinnyt analysis, presentation, and passion nothing but excellent in this thread. It's made playing IDK much more enjoyable for me. As always, loved the comparative analysis above and hope you continue posting as for me, it's been aces.

[vinnyt]

29 minutes ago, Orbei said:

Also, consider the scenarios when your shark doesn't get to shoot because it's stuck in combat at the start of a turn.

You know you can shoot in combat if you're engaged, right? You just have to shoot the unit you're fighting. Which is probably the unit you'd like to kill. And if you kill that unit in the shooting phase, you can then charge that turn too. You don't sacrifice one for the other. What you DO get to do is split up the overall shark output between multiple targets which is VERY tasty. Oh, and now unleash hell gets actually scary if you try to charge the sharks (especially a unit of 3). Shooting output is much more valuable in Age of Sigmar than cc output and giving sharks more of the better output is a net gain.

31 minutes ago, Orbei said:

I think you're missing what Kitsumy is saying and should go back and re-read both of our posts. They are worse off as compared to before. Consider: the base melee profile did not change but the points increased by 32%, so they are less that much efficient in melee. Does the champion alone make up for this? 

No, I think you guys just aren't understanding the math. That's why I look at the damage per point as a universal measure of damage efficiency. It helpfully lets you compare across points changes, profile changes, whatever you want. You can even split it up into melee or ranged if you want. I prefer the net damage efficiency as a measure of output in its relation to points. 

Old sharks combined shooting/melee: 5.63/8.3/11/13.6 for an overall damage efficiency of 44.4/30.1/22.7/18.4

New sharks: 66/45/34/27.5 in CC with a ranged efficiency of 137.5/91.6/73/55. Overall damage efficiency is: 44.6/30/23/18.3

NEW SHARKS WITH HARPOONS ARE EXACTLY AS EFFICIENT AGAINST ALL TARGETS 

It's crazy how that turned out, almost like GW intentionally did some very similar math...

What sharks lost in melee output per point ratio they made up for in shooting output. Oh, they also have more wounds now and can command themselves, which is more difficult to quantify. I'm not discussing nets in this post because you can't really quantify the importance of stopping pile in moves, but yes, they became less efficient as a function of points. 

33 minutes ago, 13_rolls said:

I've found @vinnyt analysis, presentation, and passion nothing but excellent in this thread. It's made playing IDK much more enjoyable for me. As always, loved the comparative analysis above and hope you continue posting as for me, it's been aces.

thanks! I don't plan on stopping any time soon haha. There are gonna be a lot of interesting takes with the new book so I'm just trying to get ahead of the doom and gloom. 

[Orbei]

12 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

You know you can shoot in combat if you're engaged, right? You just have to shoot the unit you're fighting. Which is probably the unit you'd like to kill. And if you kill that unit in the shooting phase, you can then charge that turn too. You don't sacrifice one for the other. What you DO get to do is split up the overall shark output between multiple targets which is VERY tasty. Oh, and now unleash hell gets actually scary if you try to charge the sharks (especially a unit of 3). Shooting output is much more valuable in Age of Sigmar than cc output and giving sharks more of the better output is a net gain.

Thats a good point. The problem is when it's not your turn. They're much worse at fighting in the opponent's combat phase because the shooting isn't doing anything. The output on your turn including shooting is the same as the old output, which is pretty decent. 

15 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

No, I think you guys just aren't understanding the math.

There isn't a need for this is there? Honestly, I do understand it and it doesn't look good. Your math still doesn't explain your earlier statements does it? Anyway, I like your enthusiasm for the sharks and do appreciate your general IDK positivity. You haven't sold me on them by a longshot though. They are less survivable than before, worse in combat, have less ranged output than reavers, way less damage per point output than thralls, and are less efficient than some mix of the two. If I could pick old sharks or new sharks I'd happily keep the 125 point ones. 

[vinnyt]

1 hour ago, Orbei said:

Thats a good point. The problem is when it's not your turn. They're much worse at fighting in the opponent's combat phase because the shooting isn't doing anything. The output on your turn including shooting is the same as the old output, which is pretty decent. 

There isn't a need for this is there? Honestly, I do understand it and it doesn't look good. Your math still doesn't explain your earlier statements does it? Anyway, I like your enthusiasm for the sharks and do appreciate your general IDK positivity. You haven't sold me on them by a longshot though. They are less survivable than before, worse in combat, have less ranged output than reavers, way less damage per point output than thralls, and are less efficient than some mix of the two. If I could pick old sharks or new sharks I'd happily keep the 125 point ones. 

They're comparatively worse in the opponent's combat phase but objectively better than before. 

And as for my tone, sometimes things get lost in translation online, and apologize for any offense, My frustration is not with disagreement over subjective things, but rather things like "worse at everything" where new players may be disheartened. Just expecting everything to be 32% better is a very reductive look at an extremely dynamic game.

My assessment of sharks is very subjective (which I pointed out time and time again), but overall, to me, them surviving a codex change with unchanged damage efficiency and a more range-skewed overall profile is an enormous boon. Will they be meta? Nobody knows, the book isn't out yet. Are they bad? Absolutely not .Even the new 3" coherency opens up a lot of ways to control the board and I think people are gonna be very surprised at how effective that can be. 

In general, I'd like this entire thread to be the polar opposite of the doom and gloom stormcast one where everyone complains all the time that their army doesn't have 40 overpowered warscrolls and everything is them being persecuted by gw. There are going to be big changes to deepkin and the gut reaction is to have a strong dislike to anything that isn't an overwhelming buff. That's why the damage efficiency metric is so useful. But nothing is as helpful as playing lots and lots of games, recording them, and reporting them to the community so that we can all learn from each other. 

[Kitsumy]

2 hours ago, vinnyt said:

 

No, I think you guys just aren't understanding the math.

im the one saying this, im economist so i did my maths in 5 seconds of watching the scrool so i did those numbers, roughly on my head without any calculator. and i saw ur numbers, but i dont really liked them since counted some buffs.

 

for me old shards did 7,1 dmg with 1rend average ranged plus melee sure so 0,056 dmg per point.

new one has 8,8 dmg with 1,3 rend average so 0,053 dmg per point.

 

so yeah, it do less dmg with sligthy more rend, so against no save it lost dmg, and against 5 or better save it may be the same.

 

aand on net. it only lost dmg. i think none cant deny that right?

 

on defense it had 12 effective wounds if u count armor so 0,096 wounds per point. 0,106 with turtle.

now it has 15 eff wounds so 0,090 wounds per point. cant have turtle.

 

so yes, i never said shark is useless and our worst unit. but it is worse than the version prior this box. since new one is worse on defense side and offense side it is the same at best with dmg harpoon and worse with net. so in general it was nerfed since it is worse than 125p version. simple as that

[vinnyt]

The rend values didn't change for any of the shark profiles so I'm just gonna skip over that part since I don't know what your mental math was for that. Can't use turtle buff for sharks without new book in theoryhammer-ville. What you can use is the fact that sharks can now issue AoD to themselves. Plus they're a better target for mystic shield, can take more damage before losing efficiency, blah blah blah

Remember here that low numbers are better. It's like golf.

So with that math, old sharks had 12 effective wounds at 125 points for a wound efficiency value of 10.4.

New sharks have 15 effective wounds without AoD for 165 points for a wound efficiency value of 11. BUT, if AoD, they have a value of 9.9. So you either lose a minimal amount of effective wounds, or gain a minimal amount of effective wounds without needing a babysitter. Either way they're basically the same. I just value the fat bois since they appreciate mystic shield more and can tank more mortal wounds before dying. 

So basically new sharks are roughly as survivable and roughly as efficient as before, just with a more ranged skew to their output, which I value extremely highly. 

If turtle keeps the exact same save buff, then the math changes. But as of now, the turtle doesn't exist in new book theoryhammer-topia. 

[Nerdkingdan]

1 hour ago, vinnyt said:

 

In general, I'd like this entire thread to be the polar opposite of the doom and gloom stormcast one where everyone complains all the time that their army doesn't have 40 overpowered warscrolls and everything is them being persecuted by gw. 

So as someone who played only deepkin in AOS 2, I recently picked up stormcast, I am very happy with what we know so far.

I think when new stuff is released, and old stuff revised, the people who are negative are quick to rush to the forums.    While those who are generally positive don’t.    For example when deepkin was first released people rushed to the forums to complain how their battle line was no where near as good as the overpowered thralls.   I remember one review claiming thralls were better than other armies elites, and how bad that was.   2 months later thralls are garbage….

Now that deepkin is getting the revision people will be negative about it.   I for one can’t wait to see more, and agree with you on your initial review.   
 

 

[Skreech Verminking]

2 hours ago, Nerdkingdan said:

I remember one review claiming thralls were better than other armies elites, and how bad that was.   2 months later thralls are garbage

In a beast of chaos army, they would be probably the best unit😝

[HollowHills]

Just stopping by to casual mention that many playtesters have been using sharks and Team England are changing their DoK player to an IDK player for this year...

[JackStreicher]

Overall the changes seem fine. I am not sure about the Reaver costs, seems like they would fit right in at 150-160 pts.
The Sharks are fine as well. They could drop another 10-15 points and they'd be perfect imo.

I am looking forward to our new rules!

[boyadventurer]

IIRC the units in Dominion were costed a lot higher in the box and the points dropped a bit with the tome. Since it doesn't look like our book is imminent either, we might see a similar circumstance here.

 

[JackStreicher]

40 minutes ago, boyadventurer said:

IIRC the units in Dominion were costed a lot higher in the box and the points dropped a bit with the tome. Since it doesn't look like our book is imminent either, we might see a similar circumstance here.

 

Used to be the same with Daughters iirc

[azdimy]

Only Slaanesh had points cheaper in their boxes than in its BTs

[DocKeule]

To be honest though that was 2nd edition that hat a completely different underlying trend than third. Pretty much everything went um with the GHB 2021 and the new Nurgle tome followed the same road.

[Geoffreyvt]

A question for the experts. I'm looking at IDK as my next army. Totally love the look of namarti and the Armour of the eel riders. But I'm not that into the Eels themselves, nor the sharks tbh. 

Anyone has seen some nice alternatives or conversions for the eels or sharks? Anyway, looking to buy the new box set to get started on the infantry side of the army.