AoS 3rd - Idoneth Deepkin discussion

[Frowny]

Something like a king, a turtle, lotaan and the little wizard + 30x2 thralls,10 thralls and 10 x 2 reavers would be quite good i think. Or you could do 2x20.  And that's quite a lot of build diversity with several different units. Possibly in Dom Hein for the out of phase charge+attack again, which is a very very strong ability. 

I agree that eels don't seem great, but i think there is probably also play to a multil shark list as well, since they carry buffs so well.

King, turtle, little wizard, 3x2 sharks and then a unit of thralls also seems good. Nice targets for all out defence and attack if needed and a ton of shooting.

Edited March 5, 2022 by Frowny

[DocKeule]

1 minute ago, Frowny said:

Something like a king, a turtle, lotaan and the little wizard + 30x2 thralls,10 thralls and 10 x 2 reavers would be quite good i think. Or you could do 2x20.  And that's quite a lot of build diversity with several different units. Possibly in Dom Hein for the out of phase charge+attack again, which is a very very strong ability. 

I agree that eels don't seem great, but i think there is probably also play to a multil shark list as well, since they carry buffs so well.

King, turtle, little wizard, 3x2 sharks and then a unit of thralls also seems good. Nice targets for all out defence and attack if needed and a ton of shooting.

That would be 16 shots and on average 7 wounding hits. Not exactly what I would call "a ton of shooting"


I am just now trying some list building for a tournament on the 26th and it is just painfull how little I can put on the table for 2000 points even using thralls. Also I am always either some points over or way to many points under that i can't do anything with.

[Kitsumy]

hmm i found the best buff in all tome. in last page..

 

lumineth and cities ally now.......

 

who need the nerfed tank eels with his 4 useless ethereal when u can have phoenix guard for less points with his 4+ AND 4++, absolute better in everything for less points. sure they are slower. but can take the hits on turn1 and then camp our zone objetives with the remaining members alve.

 

or frost phoenyx for a -1 to wound for everything,not only for namartis in melee

 

or could take 20 sentinels since people cry so much about them lol or sevireth to protect our squishy namarti from charges.

 

the combos are infinites with those allys.

[Orbei]

32 minutes ago, Kitsumy said:

hmm i found the best buff in all tome. in last page..

 

lumineth and cities ally now.......

 

who need the nerfed tank eels with his 4 useless ethereal when u can have phoenix guard for less points with his 4+ AND 4++, absolute better in everything for less points. sure they are slower. but can take the hits on turn1 and then camp our zone objetives with the remaining members alve.

 

or frost phoenyx for a -1 to wound for everything,not only for namartis in melee

 

or could take 20 sentinels since people cry so much about them lol or sevireth to protect our squishy namarti from charges.

 

the combos are infinites with those allys.

The frost phoenix idea is interesting and very tempting. Phoenix gard are potent as well. But the problem is that any ally is going to get shot to hell as the enemy shooting will be so limited by our allegiance ability and may not have any other targets available turn 1. I'm not sure if Ionrach is a way around this, but heck with them regardless. Dhom-haim is too powerful to drop for the sake of a Phoenix.

Also, we have our very own faction board now! We've finally made it!

[boyadventurer]

I've only been looking at things piecemeal today since I'm at work but one thing I'm not clear on: Does taking the bloodthirsty shiver count as your 3 battleline? The WHC article says you take 3 single sharks, which would imply yes to me, but the subfaction page doesn't seem to actually state *what* the shiver is.

[woolf]

1 hour ago, boyadventurer said:

I've only been looking at things piecemeal today since I'm at work but one thing I'm not clear on: Does taking the bloodthirsty shiver count as your 3 battleline? The WHC article says you take 3 single sharks, which would imply yes to me, but the subfaction page doesn't seem to actually state *what* the shiver is.

I think it does yes as the pitched battle profile says they are a "set" but count as separate units

[Sonnenspeer]

Ooh, I love it when you do it like that

And when you're close up, give me bloodthirsty shivers

Oh baby, you wanna dance 'til the sunlight cracks

And when they say the party's over, then we'll bring it right back

[HollowHills]

I don't think any of us should be surprised that we've seen eels get worse and other units get better. Remember how in DoK 1.0 you basically wanted tons of witch elves and the bow snakes were the worst? Then in 2.0 the bow snakes became incredible and witch elves dropped off a cliff.

I've got 30 painted eels of various kinds, but only 10 thralls. Guess what's on the menu for the next few months?😅

The only thing I can't get my head around is the turtle at 500 points. 

The save buff was nice, but so we actually need it? We're already super shooting resistant and that has gotten better. All out defense is a thing, finest hour, cover. Plus we have more than one way to fight first now.

Hit bonus on nemarti is nice, but again all out attack exists.

If you look at what you could get for under 500 points, I'm not seeing a place for it right now.

[Kitsumy]

turtle will go down for sure. since it is worse than pretome but cost much more now. heck even fireslayer tome have magnadroths doing more dmg than turtle, being hero, comands etc for 150 less points. no way turtle cost more than 400p, unless they give him back his old d6mortals on charge. not the new stomp joke

[Rachmani]

Do you guys really see no place for eels? Tank eels look like a pretty perfect first charge to me. Unmodified 3+ save, solid weapons. They surely get their turn 2 charge.

[Nerdkingdan]

2 hours ago, Rachmani said:

Do you guys really see no place for eels? Tank eels look like a pretty perfect first charge to me. Unmodified 3+ save, solid weapons. They surely get their turn 2 charge.

It’s possible eels are dead…. The issue is when the first book came out eels were fastest, most damage and most survivable point for point and it wasn’t close.  We also had no shooting, so eels were the  best in slot for everything we could do.  They had to lose that. Now the question is do eels still have a role?    I’ll have to sit down and do the math and play test it, but all the war scrolls look solid the question is the points….  Eels look over costed, however they may still have a role.   Spam likely won’t turn out.  People often think any nerf means unplayable, too early to say in my opinion.

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Nerdkingdan

[Kitsumy]

1 hour ago, Nerdkingdan said:

It’s possible eels are dead…. The issue is when the first book came out eels were fastest, most damage and most survivable point for point and it wasn’t close.  We also had no shooting, so eels were the  best in slot for everything we could do.  They had to lose that. Now the question is do eels still have a role?    I’ll have to sit down and do the math and play test it, but all the war scrolls look solid the question is the points….  Eels look over costed, however they may still have a role.   Spam likely won’t turn out.  People often think any nerf means unplayable, too early to say in my opinion

eels arent so bad, but they lost soo much dmg if u compare them with previous tome. not on scroll but on alliance abilitys and auras. per example morsar on dom hain could be 2s rerolling 1s to hit ( for charge and king) and 2s to wound rerolling everything against monsters ( eidolon and enclave). now they are 3/3 unless u spend a cp to get +1hit, and king eidolon auras only would work on raiders. so even if the scroll wouldnt get any change they lost like 20-30% dmg only for the nerfs in enclaves and auras.

 

despite that morsar is okish. but whats the use on ishlaen nos they cost the same as morsar? in aos3 everything can get +300 to saves. so 4ethereal is worse than normal 4. per example morsar on t1 with turtle will save at 3 ignoring 1 rend. so i could use morsar but dont find any use on ishlaen right now. i was hoping they would be changed to 3+armor not ethereal

[That Guy]

For anyone who likes to read about the updates:
https://www.goonhammer.com/battletome-idoneth-deepkin-the-goonhammer-review/

4 hours ago, HollowHills said:

The only thing I can't get my head around is the turtle at 500 points. 

The save buff was nice, but so we actually need it? We're already super shooting resistant and that has gotten better. All out defense is a thing, finest hour, cover. Plus we have more than one way to fight first now.

Hit bonus on nemarti is nice, but again all out attack exists.

If you look at what you could get for under 500 points, I'm not seeing a place for it right now.

Don’t forget Mystic Shield as well haha. I don’t think it is needed, the problem is that he’s our only monster unless you include a wizard, but than you do take away 1 spell that could’ve been used for something else. Now with Lumineth or Cities allies that can change as well with the monstrous options available there. Like Kitsumy said, I do eye the phoenix and I might just be getting one. Love the look of the model anyways, so if it turns out trash, I can always just look at it. The thing is, it can fly and it’s fast. You can hold it back and charge it with your forces once you are ready for strike first. Honestly like Vinny mentioned, you can take a single leviadon in Nautilar together with a combined force. You’ll have it count as battleline, while you can fill up the rest with Namarti, sharks and perhaps some eels even. The 1 leviadon can in that case fully utilize it’s abilities, it has a solid armour save, which if utilized well is going to be a tough battleline to remove. The bigger shooting can complement the rest of the forces, while it gives them an easy +1save, meaning you can use all out attack sometimes instead of all out defense, when you need to defend. The single leviadon can use the nautilar monstrous rampage as well.  Having a mixed force will allow you to benefit from all of the leviadons abilities. Maybe than… and honestly only than… it might justify the points a bit… but than again.. could just play better units in a better subfaction and take an ally monster perhaps… or just use a wizard. 

[Le Chef]

7 hours ago, HollowHills said:

I don't think any of us should be surprised that we've seen eels get worse and other units get better. Remember how in DoK 1.0 you basically wanted tons of witch elves and the bow snakes were the worst? Then in 2.0 the bow snakes became incredible and witch elves dropped off a cliff.

I've got 30 painted eels of various kinds, but only 10 thralls. Guess what's on the menu for the next few months?😅

The only thing I can't get my head around is the turtle at 500 points. 

The save buff was nice, but so we actually need it? We're already super shooting resistant and that has gotten better. All out defense is a thing, finest hour, cover. Plus we have more than one way to fight first now.

Hit bonus on nemarti is nice, but again all out attack exists.

If you look at what you could get for under 500 points, I'm not seeing a place for it right now.

I would only take the turtle in Nautilar. It's a lot of points, but having something rend -3 in your army is quite valuable (especially with relatively little MW output). 

[DocKeule]

6 hours ago, Rachmani said:

Do you guys really see no place for eels? Tank eels look like a pretty perfect first charge to me. Unmodified 3+ save, solid weapons. They surely get their turn 2 charge.

I think this is a tough one. Especially in the early game it might be more cost efficient to feed the opponent a unit of Thralls in the Void Drum bubble with allout defense and in the ward-bubble from a boat. (Maybe even garrison them in the boat and throw a mystic shield on). 

 

5 hours ago, Nerdkingdan said:

People often think any nerf means unplayable, too early to say in my opinion.

I think that is very much a question of the environment. For causal games there will be a couple of different approaches that will still work and could even be more fun because IDK might snowball less often. For competetive surroundings I don't see much hope frankly.
 

3 hours ago, That Guy said:

For anyone who likes to read about the updates:
https://www.goonhammer.com/battletome-idoneth-deepkin-the-goonhammer-review/

The article is surprisingly bad in my opinion. Like some other reviews (Honest Wargamer for example) they pretty much just ignore most nerfs. 
 

8 hours ago, HollowHills said:

The only thing I can't get my head around is the turtle at 500 points. 

The save buff was nice, but so we actually need it?

The save buff was nice, but so we actually need it? We're already super shooting resistant and that has gotten better. All out defense is a thing, finest hour, cover. Plus we have more than one way to fight first now.

I would say yes especially with a Namarti-heavy list. The +1 to hit is important for your output and the +1 to save as important to keep your units alive. You can only give allout defense to one unit and is costs you one command point per phase. So one Leviadon is probaly still needed to make the rest work.

[vinnyt]

8 hours ago, Nerdkingdan said:

Now the question is do eels still have a role?

Some folks are for sure gonna run them in ionrach near a king. They're one of the few things where his hit buff aura will make a big difference and being able to give them high tide/retreat and charge out of turn is pretty huge. You can slam them into zombies, then retreat them out of combat and charge into back line stuff. Running 3 morrsarr with a Blender King is less than 450 points and they will absolutely mince stuff together. 

This book is absolutely competitive.

 

List mk 1: Nautilar Enclave

 

King with polearm, unstoppable fury and voidchill darkness

Tidecaster with countercurrent and gloomtide summon

 

10 Reavers

20 Thralls

Leviadon with ancient

 

2x2 Allopex with harpoons

 

I have a strong screening core of 20 thralls that'll be on a 3+* save turn 1 while the army can't be shot from more than 12" away. Countercurrent and Riptide are incredible spells. Plopping a gloomtide midboard messes up a lot of infantry-blob armies or BOC armies that can't easily move around it. 

The King, sharks, turtle, and thralls can all blend things in cc with extraordinary reliability. The turtle being -3 rend for a monstrous action means it can go toe to toe with the big boys. Between shooting and cc, this army passes the garg damage check.

Shooting is good enough to put wounds on stuff to enable sharks and also to put the fear into any 8ish wound characters. 16 shots at 3/3/-1/d3 and 20 at 3/3/-1/1 from 24" is pretty good. Depending on how the thralls do, I might even ditch them for more reavers.

 

This is just a rough draft too, there are just so many options in the book!

 

[Liquidsteel]

23 minutes ago, vinnyt said:

 

List mk 1: Nautilar Enclave

 

 

 

First draft for me was the same, but dropping 2 x Sharks in favour of the Eidolon of the Sea.

You can also split the Thralls if choosing a different enclave, for whatever reason.

[That Guy]

Full on open book review. All is bare for us to see: 

Also SCE Allies means in lists we don’t want the turtle we can take a unit of 2 SCE dragons. We are not strong against magic, they are. Our mortal output is now limited. They have fireballs. They are monsters. They have massive output and they are 160 below a leviadon. That’s an extra hero for us boys.

[vinnyt]

Dragons, Frostheart phoenix, ghur battlemage, etc, etc 

The depths of our allies is insane. So many outrageous combos available. 

[DocKeule]

That's where I would tap out. I can accept the whole allies thing when it is grounded in lore but as a tool of list optimizing I hate it.

Also that aspect has been changed that often in the last couple of years. I won't throw money at GW for units I otherwise cannot and would not want to play.

[Rachmani]

I‘m with you on that one, but SCE are their own little matter. Maybe they sort themselves out and the options end up way less good in the future.

[HollowHills]

I can't do allies in my lists. I play Idoneth because I want to use my Idoneth.

Agree the options seem strong.

[That Guy]

For me those reasons are exactly why I can and will play them. I own many forces since I love a wide range of miniatures. When i like the look of a thing and they can fit within a certain fluff scenario for me, I will get a box and give it a swing. If they are also competitive, that's a bonus. I can totally see the phoenixes and dragons fly amongst the many sea creatures of the idoneth within the ethersea. Now if I will build stormcast eternals on top of those dragons, or an high elf on the phoenix... that's... something I might change although i have no problem with true allies amongst the idoneth either.

[DocKeule]

22 minutes ago, Rachmani said:

I‘m with you on that one, but SCE are their own little matter. Maybe they sort themselves out and the options end up way less good in the future.

I would guess so once they have skimmed the dragon money.

It is just silly now. You can't even charge them because even two dragons have a decent chance to take out 8 Thralls, two eels or a shark before you can even swing. That will have to change at some point.

[The World Tree]

47 minutes ago, DocKeule said:

I would guess so once they have skimmed the dragon money.

It is just silly now. You can't even charge them because even two dragons have a decent chance to take out 8 Thralls, two eels or a shark before you can even swing. That will have to change at some point.

Here speaketh someone who hasn't used dragons! Those breath attacks do nothing.

(joking aside, the damage spikes they have are obnoxious)