AoS 3rd - Idoneth Deepkin discussion

[DocKeule]

Question kind of is if we or SCE and Nurgle are the exeption from the standard in 3.0.

Will we be overtaken by faction after faction of will dragons be reined in the near future.

[vinnyt]

26 minutes ago, DocKeule said:

How?

So they're actually at a 5+ save base (Rob got it wrong) but basically they're at +2 to save in round 1 if they're near a turtle (+1 for cover and +1 for turtle). If they're near a boat and getting shot at they get a 5+ ward (this goes away in combat). If they're near a thrallmaster opponents are at -1 to wound them.

So, an unwounded gatebreaker charges them and roars (ouch!) while popping all out attack. He kills about 11 through the -1 to wound aura and the +2 to save. The remaining 9 thralls do 14ish wounds back since they get +1 to hit for the gatebreaker being close to a turtle. I think that qualifies as being real tanky. You can juice their output even more with lotan/storm but I think that's plenty of output for 260 points. 

And yes, keeping them in the bubble can be tough. You will have to think about that and plan for it. Thankfully a bunch of your synergy pieces (turtle, king, storm) move much faster than the thralls and you'll just have to plan to make sure the auras work out.

Ishlaen did get less tanky and yes, we will all have to adapt to that. They also did get killier though but there's no denying that they aren't the same unit we all knew and loved. 

[Ragest]

Imo this book is the most interesting one of all we got for third.

[Rachmani]

I agree it looks decently synergistic without warscroll-ability bloat. To be fair, though. The old book aged well, so the Idoneth were kinda well written from the get go. 

I'd be very happy if a list with a good mixture of units would actually be good. I would want to spam neither eels, nor thralls or sharks. But some of everything I'd actually paint and play with.

Edit: I was literally going to type "I don't like 4+ on thralls, feels thematically wrong" and just read, that apparently rob made a mistake? Well, then I'll reserve my judgement. Looks like great book.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Rachmani

[DocKeule]

2 hours ago, vinnyt said:

And yes, keeping them in the bubble can be tough. You will have to think about that and plan for it. Thankfully a bunch of your synergy pieces (turtle, king, storm) move much faster than the thralls and you'll just have to plan to make sure the auras work out.

Again: More than anything keeping a bunch of them in the bubble is the problem. Building redundancies to cover a bigger area is certainly too expensive now.

So a core of Thralls will be almost mandatory now for a while. That will be a new concept for a lot of IDK players having a less mobile part of the army to work around. I played with 4 x 10 Thralls yesterday but 2 x 20 are probably easier to keep in the bubble. A turtle, Lotann and one or two Thrallmasters and we are already at 1.245 to 1.355 (ouch). 

Then you need something to threaten the rest of the board. Four Allopexes (660) would only fit with one Thrallmaster. And you still have nothing to take the shooting so your Thralls even make it into combat. 

Deepstriking some Reavers with a Souscryer ist also an Idea that could work. They don't get many buffs any way so we might use them away from the supporters and give our opponent something to think about in another corner of the table. But with 30 Reavers and a Soulscryer we are at 660 points again. And they desperatly need a screen to keep them going for more than one round. 

Also one would probably like to find the points for a Tidecaster or generic king...


Well I would guess in casual games we will still do OK even there the point increases will take their toll. On the bright side we will have more different lists as viable options than before.

In the competitive circuit I don't really see much chance of taking on the top armies right now. I am nowhere near a top player but I saw other guys that used to place much better struggle against newer books lately. With most buffs reduced I don't see that improving.

Other than that I just hope for some point reductions with the FAQ in a few weeks.

 

[Kitsumy]

6 hours ago, Beliman said:

had 41% winrate vs top 6 armies and increasing to 50-71% to all others (top7). 71% vs the low tier armies means that IDK were destroying them even more than the top 6...

That's the opposite of being in the middle of table.

no thats the meaning of medians, u take all results not only the best and ignore the bads. in general it has around 50-52% winrate. pretty normal. and the other important stat, 5-0, and 4+ show them as midtier army, so in conclussion idk was a midtier army.

 

top army rigth now are sc, nurgle,cities,seraphon, aand after them maybe dok,orcs,some flavour of daemos of chaos, ad then after some more armies u got idk. not deserving a tome like this at all....

 

and like i said. people who dont care aboutvbalanced tomes and only care about winnng can be happy, tome is ****** balancewise but thralls builds will be far better than actual builds. im sure of it.

when "tank eels" are squisier than "dmg eels" u start wondering about the balance on tome ( yes 4 ethereal is worse than 4base that can be uograded easy with turtle,cover,mystic shield,cp generic etc) and even cost the same. not saying ishlaen be useless( dont want to cry so much) but whats his use now?

but call me stupid, but i prefer to be midtier playing a bit of every unit than being top playing 1-2 units

Edited March 5, 2022 by Kitsumy

[Rachmani]

I agree with the last part, but am not sure that a balanced approach won’t work.

Thralls, as good as they look are not eels in terms of speed etc.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the book it turns out that the book has deep pockets.

[vinnyt]

16 minutes ago, Kitsumy said:

in general it has around 50-52% winrate

 in aos 3.1 we were third in overall winrate at 56%, behind seraphon and DoK

We were always a bully army that would blow out weaker books and struggle into the top tier. Has this book changed anything? Maybe, maybe not. Off the top of my head, looks like at least 4 archetypes deserve some testing: 

Nautilar Turtle

Nautilar/ionrach combined arms 

Fuethan Sharks/Reavers

Thralls/Namarti spam

 

They've all got strengths and weaknesses and it's gonna take actual "models on the table" playtesting to see which is most dominant but all of these seem interesting to me and there are a LOT of spicy tricks in the book (plopping down an impassible shipwreck you can garrison with reavers and easily cheese a battle tactic with seems... good). There's some real depth here and I wouldn't be surprised if a left field approach goes 5-0 somewhere. 

[That Guy]

Caught up with all the posts and watched the honest wargamer vid. I must say, when it comes to the points it’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s clear that they wanted power to shift in some units and tone some down(eels & levi)while glowing up others(namarti). Even though… levi and eels did get some power shift to either be killier or shootier. I think it’s too early to instantly judge the book. It’s going to be rougher to make old builds work with the current point hikes, but i guess they just want us to adapt to newer builds and perhaps tone down our abusive ones. Our new toolbox has plenty of synergy shenanigans through the Isharran boosts and abilities. The Akhelian king now does something unique and is not just a cheaper, weaker version of Volturnos. Both eidolons have their place, turtles buff sharks again. We have traits and artefacts for every type of hero and our subfactions allow for very diverse builds because of their specializations. I think it’s a fresh new start. I agree that Namarti / Shark lists look very juicy right now, but eels will also still have their place. In fact i think the killer eels might have something going for them with volturnos on the charge. I expect some point drops in the future, but you know what? The rules are well written, the points are the easiest to update. I think we’re going to be fine.

On that note friend of mine started the army as well just now. I wonder what you guys think i should suggest to him. He bought a King set and asked me what is wise to start with, now with the new rules. The Akhelian King or Volturnos. He owns a bunch of eels now, sharks, namarti and a turtle. Nice balanced list. What do you guys think?

Edited March 5, 2022 by That Guy

[Orbei]

Watched Rob's video. 

Dhom-hain is crazy. Just wow. The rituals are also incredible. Namarti spam appears to be the way forward. There isn't much to say about this because it's so obviously strong. Almost every rule in the book has synergy with namarti. Its like every page in the book is yelling "take thralls!"

I kind of like the new aspect of the sea. Seems better than before at least, but I don't know if the improvements will justify it being picked, especially since the tidecaster is almost certainly going in my lists. I think there is still a place for the aspect of the storm when using thralls. Lotann can't be everywhere at once. The eidolonn is a little more fighty than before and will buff those thralls. Don't take him with eel builds.

But on that note just don't take eels. They look pretty bad. 

Sharks back to 8 wounds at 165 points is a cruel joke. So now they are just 35% easier to kill than old sharks. Still not monsters. low model count on objectives. The shark output no longer benefits from several abilities which don't effect mounts. Being at 8 wounds it can get the save bonus from the turtle but not the +1 to hit bonus reserved for namarti, so poor synergy. This has been beaten to death already but new sharks really break my heart. 

I don't understand the turtle points. It went up 120 points. The sharks which each have 1 harpoon went up 40, and the harpoon is what you're paying for. Turtles have 2 harpoons so I could see an 80 point increase to match, even though I think it's a bad deal and would much rather have the old turtle. But what justifies the extra 40? Its hard to look at this thing and justify 500 points. 3 of them is a joke list and will get crunched. I mean... If you put down 3 turtles and your opponent puts down 3 mega gargants do you just concede?

I think the thrall build is going to be very strong, but I don't see many other options being viable here. The akhelian units seem outclassed both internally and externally, and points for almost everything other than thralls seem to be too high.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Orbei

[vinnyt]

4 minutes ago, That Guy said:

What do you guys think?

build the king with a polearm and volturnos' head so you can use it as either. It's too early to say for sure which one is best (I personally like the polearm king)

3 minutes ago, Orbei said:

But what justifies the extra 40?

It's a totem that can issue commands in an 18" radius and can get -3 rend on jaws and fins for a monstrous action while being conditional battleline. It's a bit pricey (should be about 450 imo), but is still a super good synergy piece that's also reallllly good into the mirror match against someone who went all namarti crazy. 

[woolf]

hmm so both eels got nerfed, attack eels only do blast on charge and defence cant get modifiers to save. And they weren't that oppressive to start after the stacking of cmd ability of +attacks was removed in 3.0. seems to me they should really be back around 140pts max, 190 is crazy (compare eg bloodknigts or gore gruntas lol)

[That Guy]

30 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

build the king with a polearm and volturnos' head so you can use it as either. It's too early to say for sure which one is best (I personally like the polearm king)

He wants Volturnos seperately eventually. I think i will suggest him the generic king. Now with the shenanigans it can pull, the new traits and artefacts. I think it will be a fresh build box for him, while Volturnos is more of a static inclusion in that sense. 

32 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

It's a totem that can issue commands in an 18" radius and can get -3 rend on jaws and fins for a monstrous action while being conditional battleline. It's a bit pricey (should be about 450 imo), but is still a super good synergy piece that's also reallllly good into the mirror match against someone who went all namarti crazy. 

Only in Nautilar. Honestly I think Nautilar is a trap if you want to seriously compete. For casual fun with friends it's amazing. but dropping 3x 500p into turtles, won't cut it. Like Orbei said. They drop 3 mega gargants and you are pretty much done. Not having a ward save on them and having below 20W will just absolutely gut them. Against low rend and not a lot of mortal output, they can shine, but against those... oof... I think they get clapped. Still really cool to see though. I wonder what people will pair with them with the leftover 500p.

[Kitsumy]

48 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

build the king with a polearm and volturnos' head so you can use it as either. It's too early to say for sure which one is best (I personally like the polearm king)

but but but volturnos head is hugly as ****** for me, so i instabuilded king with awesome fishhelm. why dont build king and say it id volturnos with some common sense using a helm on a war? haha

[DocKeule]

1 hour ago, vinnyt said:

It's a totem that can issue commands in an 18" radius and can get -3 rend on jaws and fins for a monstrous action while being conditional battleline. It's a bit pricey (should be about 450 imo), but is still a super good synergy piece that's also reallllly good into the mirror match against someone who went all namarti crazy. 

I think everything above 400 is ridiculous. Manfred von Carstein who's shooting and melee profile is astonishingly close to the Leviadon (we are talking about the new D3 shooting) but who has magic, command abilities and several other shenanigans on top is at 380. That to me is halfway comparable (with Manfred still being stronger). 500 points is just a joke.

And the totem thing is worth next to nothing since all our units but a single shark can give themselves commands any way. The only thing that this gives us is that the turtle could wander off on it's own and give itself order. But that will barely ever happen since you want your Leviadon in the center to support other units.

Edited March 5, 2022 by DocKeule

[Rhetoric]

On first glance my major dissapointment is Ishlaen Guard.  They were an MVP unit for most of the first tome and then going up to the same cost as Morrsarr seems not right at the high cost.  
 

Also, there is no sub faction that is clearly the Akhelian Guard build.  This book is clear that we are paying for the sins of the past of eel spam lists.  
 

that being said there is so much to this book. It is DEEP.  So many Once Per Game shenanigans and ways to boost the rituals.  The Dhom-Hain allegiance ability is nuts.  People are going to be terrified to play this army because of how much variability there will be instead of watching out for High Tide on Turn 3.  
 

it’s going to take a lot of games to find the right build.  

[vinnyt]

9 minutes ago, DocKeule said:

Manfred von Carstein who's shooting and melee profile

shooting? Manfred is super good, agreed. 

 

23 minutes ago, That Guy said:

Honestly I think Nautilar is a trap if you want to seriously compete.

you don't have to take 3 turtles in nautilar. You can just take 1 if you want. It's a pretty good enclave if you're trying for a combined arms approach. That monstrous action is insanely good and one of the only ways we have of taking down monsters with 1+ saves. Kings can help with it too, especially if you use their command ability. 

 

 

[DocKeule]

3 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

shooting? Manfred is super good, agreed. 

My mistake. I was somehow thinking the first one was shooting.

[HollowHills]

Thralls are 5+ base.

Overall I'm happy with the book. I agree points seem a little high, but points are the easiest thing to change. I'd rather have slightly too high points on units than rules that aren't ever likely to be viable on the warscrolls.

Turtle will go down in points eventually, but our build variety should be solid for all of 3.0.

[JackStreicher]

1 minute ago, HollowHills said:

Thralls are 5+ base

The honest Wargamer regerred to them having a 4+ save. Might have been a mostake though.

 

Ionrach and Dhom Hain are my favorites. The weakest seems to be Briombar (if the scryer truly lost his bonus to charges)

[DocKeule]

1 minute ago, JackStreicher said:

Ionrach and Dhom Hain are my favorites. The weakest seems to be Briombar (if the scryer truly lost his bonus to charges)

That could still be interesting to jam some shooting into the opponen's flank. Just think about 20-30 Reaveres a turtle and one unit of Ishlaen Guard to screen them. 

Problem with that of course is we are talking 1255 points.

[JackStreicher]

2 minutes ago, DocKeule said:

That could still be interesting to jam some shooting into the opponen's flank. Just think about 20-30 Reaveres a turtle and one unit of Ishlaen Guard to screen them. 

Problem with that of course is we are talking 1255 points.

You‘d be out of range for the free +1 to hit with a lot of Namarti which means You‘d need a Turtle as well -> 1755 pts 🥲

[DocKeule]

The turtle was already included. The target has to be withing the bubble for the +1 to hit. That would be doable.

On the other hand the more sensible approach would probably be just to give "allout attack" to the Reavers.

Edited March 5, 2022 by DocKeule

[Rachmani]

Too slow!

Edited March 5, 2022 by Rachmani

[Reuben Parker]

So unless I’m mistaking the reviews (and will confirm when have book) thrall blobs are back on the menu. Which I’m super happy about as I liked to play 30 man blobs back in 2nd edition. 
 

now 2” reach and using a king and ritual I believe can constantly give them a 5+ ward and strikes first. Throw in some rally / soul render healing and they can both be an anvil and hammer.