AoS 3rd - Idoneth Deepkin discussion

[DocKeule]

I would not say terrible. That was a standard profile not too long ago. (And Reavers had the same stats minus the rend.) It's more the low range that limits the value of this unit.

And being able to shoot without line of sight with a crossbow makes little sense to me. The Lumineth' ability is far fetched but this...

 

[That Guy]

2 hours ago, umpac said:

Do you mean low tide? They're 12" range anyway so not like they would care about the ritual. 2 Attacks a piece on 4+/4+/-1/1 is pretty terrible shooting, way worse than Reavers. Forgotten nightmares still apply as well. Unless they are dirt cheap or have crazy synergy with something else in the book I wouldn't be too worried about them...

Yes. And yes Forgotten Nightmares will still be in effect but to a unit that can freely teleport around the field, they can find angles easier than any army. This unit is not a joke. Also Reavers are not well supported in this tome when it comes to buffs. Who says that's the case for the Nighthaunt? If they get buffed up to a 3+ 3+ with who knows what extra abilities they can get. They can be a very mobile ranged unit that can shoot through any wall and any cover. You will not hide. Forgotten Nightmares is our tool, but they can hit a weak flank and they will.

Edited March 23, 2022 by That Guy

[Derek]

Or they’ll be sub par like slaanesh was in their latest book and nobody will care.  It’ll be interesting to see for sure 

[mmimzie]

I think where the army is now an aggressive take is the best take. This has always been the case for deepkin. The turn 3 generally is just for clean up. However, you need be aggressive turn 1 and 2 to have a real game. The new book gives us better turn 1 and turn 2 tools.

I think sharks are a little disapointing out side a full shiver. I think they have middle melee and ranged power. While the range power can overlap accross units, i think you really want the 3 sharks chomping in melee at the same time on turns 1 and 2 to make them worth bringing. I think they have real milage in fuethan, but outside of fuethan i think they'll just be there to fill out pointsl. A great arguement can be made for a king getting them to attack together (first) out side of fuethan, but i think there are better units for this. They really aren't powerful they have the overall damage output of a ranged unit. Speak of...

I do think the reavers are quite good.  Compared to the shark (which i think is the slot they compete for) shark melee+ ranged does about the same as reaver ranged alone, not including outside or personal buffs. With buff the sharks can pull a head, but not to a crazy amount.  Forgotten nightmares keeps the reavers safe enough, and while they don't get the same fuel of buffs from the previous book, they still hit really hard and many of the buffs are baked into the profile.  I also think they are one of three units that combo very well with the aspect of the sea. 

Ishlaen i'm surprised more folks don't like. I think in Ionrach with an aspect of the sea these are a perfect alpha strike unit. Charging early to get that +3 save and unrendable does matter.  I think these can go in tie up a lot of units and do some good damage. Again another aspect of the sea synergy unit, and the rend profile is more homogeneous with the eel attacks  meaning the aspect of the sea buff is more efficent on these than the morsarr varient. Speaking of against Morrsar, with the loss of range and extra attacks on the swords the ishlaen punch quite hard, harder than the sharks/reavers  against most targets. I think playing them this way means they get beaten up quite badly after the first turn, but locking down your opponents turn one out the gate is very powerful. 

Morrsarr i do think still have a place. I think these are still kings of turn 3 clean up. TThey are super fast and hit very hard on the charge. I think ionrach is amazing for these models. As they can do a standard charge turn 2 against safe targets, and get retreat and charge on turn 3. With thier speed they'll more than likely be where ever you need them to be. The 1" range sucks really bad as you'll struggle to get many in. They might be best as MSU units for good and require the king to get them attacking all at once out of turn 3. So i think all list with want eels in Ionrach you can make a unit of 6 work, out side of a unit or 2 msu eels will be strong heavy hitters. 

Thralls: I think these are a meme.  They have lots of potential and with the range increase they are in a great place. I think they can get some amazing things, but they are going to struggle getting the surface area they need to do thier thing. They are as slow as humans for no reason, and a turn 2 charge is going to be as much on your opponents terms as your own. I think the faction that buffs them is good and if you  want to use that is the place.  I do think they can preform well, but playing them is a lot more like playing gargants than deepkin, where you take a lot of the game out of your hands. They are an anvil unit in a way. They dictate what your opponent wants to do. They are a real threat and need to be dealt with. This combined with other units in the army will win games. 

A list I think will work well:

Spoiler

LEADERS

Akhelian King (250)* 
General - Command Trait: Unstoppable Fury 
Artefact: Arcane Tome
Mount Trait: Voidchill Darkness
Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon Eidolon of Mathlann,

Aspect of the Sea (325)*
Lore of the Deeps: Steed of Tides

Isharann Tidecaster (150)* - Lore of the Deeps: Counter-current

UNITS

6 x Akhelian Ishlaen Guard (390)*
6 x Akhelian Morrsarr Guard (390)*
10 x Namarti Reavers (170)*
10 x Namarti Reavers (170)*
10 x Namarti Thralls (130)*
CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL: 1975/2000

I think this plays to a lot of the strengths above. I think the reavers help clean up a lot of messes and give you good objective holder units. Only thing i don't love are the thralls.  They hit good turn 3 and can act as a cheap threat similar to how gotrek has been used, but take more space and hold objectives better. 

Morrsarr and reavers fight for who is reinforced and who is MSU.  Reavers together don't give you a lot and make them tougher to use, but you have the CP to spare on keeping them around.  Single unit morrsarr make great targets for the Ionrach hero action. MSU morrsarr will get more attacks in. 

Honestly, i'd likely drop the thralls in favor of allys if i had a good ally unit in mind. This or a 2nd thrall units for more board control and eel protection wouldn't be a bad idea. 

The king will likely go armor after a few more games.
 

Edited March 24, 2022 by mmimzie

[vinnyt]

13 hours ago, That Guy said:

Also Reavers are not well supported in this tome when it comes to buffs.

Reavers are super well supported in terms of buffs though. You can heal em with the Soulrender, give them additional survivability with the turtle and faction terrain, give them better output with the turtle, make them harder to wound (or even buff their terrible cc) with the thrallmaster. You can make them wound harder (in cc) with the storm or lotann. You can outflank them with the soulscryer, they get buffed by the tides in every turn of the game, etc, etc. 

 

[DocKeule]

Well apart from the void drum buffs all these effects only apply in melee and that isn't what Reavers are for. They should not be in close combat for most of the game. 



Any thoughts on the new Gur-kit? Frankly I see another round of powercreep coming. This time it is not within any faction but something any and all player could and are supposed to add to their army. And to get it you have to buy a large kit of terrain that you might or might not want to use.

Also I am expecting a lot more planned obsolescence in the future with the new season supplements. 

[Liquidsteel]

1 hour ago, DocKeule said:

Well apart from the void drum buffs all these effects only apply in melee and that isn't what Reavers are for. They should not be in close combat for most of the game.

We do have the problem of a lack of screens, however. 20 Reavers probably are going to get charged at some point, so the Void Drum makes it nice to have them still hit on 2s for Unleash Hell.

That brick of Reavers with the support Vinny mentioned is getting +1 save (+2 in Low Tide), -1 to Wound, 5+ Ward and D3 back each Battleshock, if they aren't wiped. Tidecaster could also potentially make the big threat -1 to hit before it gets in.

It's a lot of extra stuff though and I personally don't think the Thrallmaster+Soulrender would be worth it, unless you're going 2 x 20 Reavers with a Turtle, and you just play a super castle, but then you do lose some speed and board presence that bringing 2 x Allopexes instead of the second unit would provide, and that 230 points could be better spent elswhere, e.g. a Tidecaster and some Aetherwings.

[Derek]

So you guys think dom-hain thrall spam is a gimmick?  I think there’s some play there.  I’m going to be giving it a try probably in may.  

[DocKeule]

3 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

We do have the problem of a lack of screens, however. 20 Reavers probably are going to get charged at some point, so the Void Drum makes it nice to have them still hit on 2s for Unleash Hell.

They would hit on 3+. You get -1 to hit on "unleash hell"

Other than that I don't think a Thrallmaster would be worth his points buffing only Reavers at all. A Soulrender might be if there is enough left for him to bring back models to for enough turns.
 

34 minutes ago, Derek said:

So you guys think dom-hain thrall spam is a gimmick?  I think there’s some play there.  I’m going to be giving it a try probably in may.  

That might work in scenarios with few objectives in the middle of the table where you don't have to work the whole table.

Still on one hand this only works under the condition that you get the first initiative and that your Thralls delete the first target they fight against (and not get decimated or even destroyed before they can fight a second time.) 
 

[Siorra]

12 minutes ago, DocKeule said:

They would hit on 3+. You get -1 to hit on "unleash hell"

You get -1 for unleash hell yes, but you also get +1 for Void Drum and +1 if they're within 9", which they have to be for Unleash Hell to trigger. So they're on a 2+.

[umpac]

40 minutes ago, Derek said:

So you guys think dom-hain thrall spam is a gimmick?  I think there’s some play there.  I’m going to be giving it a try probably in may.  

Probably going to be fun to play and I could easily see thralls seeing some play, but the dom-hain thrall all-in is probably not the strongest. You have stupid damage but they are still fairly slow and very fragile unless its turn 3 or you're camping a ship. Foot slogging glass cannons usually don't fare well in this game, but there are exceptions so maybe thralls is another one. My main issue with them is that there are so many things that needs to go right:

1. Succeed with the charge roll 

2. Kill their first target (which to be fair is going to be easy)

3. Have a second kill target in range, that you want the thralls to go into

4. Succeed with another charge roll. The chances of making one 7" charge is 60%, the chance of making two is 36%. Rerolling the charge ups the chances a bit but you can only re-roll the actual charge and not the combat charge.

5. Kill the 2nd target while most likely being out of thrall/lotann/etc buff ranges (which they will do no problem if most of the unit is intact by this point).

6. You need to either be in turn 3 or close to a king to give you ASF or you might get walloped by the 2nd target activating first.

7. All of this is mute if you don't have the priority.

Thankfully Thralls are good now so even if you don't get the big wombo combo and double smash half your opponents army off the board in one turn they can still do work. I think one of the best parts about them is not having to go all in on them, you can just take 2x20 and a thrall in dom-hain and fill the rest with sharks, reavers and eels. That way you have a solid army regardless and every few games the thralls just goes nuts and insta-wins. 

[Lithdaydora]

I played a friendly game against my friends Coalesced Thunderlizard Seraphon last night on Savage Gains using this list:

Spoiler

Enclave: Dhom-Hain
Grand Strategy: The Creeping Gloomtide

LEADERS

Akhelian King (250)* 
General - Command Trait: Unstoppable Fury 
Artefact: Arcane Tome
Mount Trait: Voidchill Darkness
Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon

Eidolon of Mathlann, Aspect of the Sea (325)
Lore of the Deeps: Counter-Current

Eidolon of Mathlann, Aspect of the Storm (355)

Isharann Tidecaster (150)* 
Lore of the Deeps: Steed of Tides

UNITS

20 x Namarti Reavers (340)*

10 x Namarti Thralls (130)*

10 x Namarti Thralls (130)*

10 x Namarti Thralls (130)*

1 x Akhellan Allopexes (165)*
Razorshell Harpoon

CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL: 1975/2000

I don't know Seraphon all that well, but he had a Slaan, Skink priest, a Bastiladon, a Engine of the Gods, three units of two Salamanders, three units of skinks as screens, and probably something else I am forgetting.

He was also a two drop and won the roll off, so made me go first. I picked the Low and Flood tide rituals, as I knew I'd be the one doing the advancing in this game. I turtled with everything apart from the shark and the Storm Eidolon, which moved up to barely within 6" of the left middle objective, and ended the turn.

He shuffled everything forwards, did a few mortal wounds to different units, but nothing crazy, and got a unit of Salamanders within 12" of the shark, killing it. However, he had brought all his Salamanders too close to the screens, something I was keen to take advantage off. He won the roll off for turn 2, but he didnt want the chance of a turn three double so he let me have the turn.

With some really good run rolls everything went up the field. One unit of Salamanders were wiped out in the Reavers shooting, and my king, a unit of Thralls, and the Storm Eidolon slammed into his ranks. The King popped his ability for himself and the Thralls. The Thralls wiped the skink screen, then got the Dhom-Hain charge into a unit of bigger lizard bois the Engine had summoned, wiping them as well. The King wiped a unit of Salamanders with ease, and the Eidolon wiped most of the third unit of Salamanders, which then died to battleshock as my friend forgot to save a command point for it (I don't think it would have mattered at that point anyway).

This sort of decided the match, as he had very little left, but we played till the end of Round 4 where I had managed to table him. The extra 6 VP's from the Salamanders definetly gave me a tidy lead which he couldnt come back from.

All in all, I really liked my list, I felt like I could get places quick with the Eidolons, Shark and King, making them threats while my Thralls pushed up. Reavers are really good, just a single unit was very effective. The Storm Eidolon is not very good (the -1 damage from Thunderlizard made it even worse) but was able to be a big pain, stuck things in combat and forced shooting on him instead of anything else, and with finest hour and the 5+ ward he was surprisingly tanky. I also just really like Eidolons, so want them both regardless.

It was great fun, I'm really enjoying the new book!

[Derek]

@umpac  you would fight first on your second charge in turn 3.  Since asf is active the entire round.  I’m excited to get my army to the table.  Just waiting on the rest of it to get built by the local commission guy.  Soon very soon lol

[umpac]

15 minutes ago, Derek said:

@umpac  you would fight first on your second charge in turn 3.  Since asf is active the entire round.  I’m excited to get my army to the table.  Just waiting on the rest of it to get built by the local commission guy.  Soon very soon lol

Yeah, that's what I said (though maybe a bit clumsily written), and that's part of the problem. Without ASF you risk charging a new target just to get your butt kicked, so you need to get buffed by a king or be on turn 3 to properly use the ability. If you don't have priority turn 3 you miss your window.

[mmimzie]

6 hours ago, Lithdaydora said:

He won the roll off for turn 2, but he didnt want the chance of a turn three double so he let me have the turn.

I think this lost him the game here. He he let you go first I feel confident his army would have done to you, what you did to him this game.  Reaver and thralls with no tanky support they'd all die about as fast as 50 clan rats. 

I think the list is quite neat all else aside. You might consider giving the storm boy the book.  Its less useful on the storm boy, but it makes the model more of a threat. 

 

8 hours ago, Derek said:

So you guys think dom-hain thrall spam is a gimmick?  I think there’s some play there.  I’m going to be giving it a try probably in may.  

It can win games as the list above does. However, you lose tactical control over the game. It's why gotrek never really took over. Even at the peak of his powers.  Thralls are a bit better and worse. Better in that they are cheap, and worse because they die to anything about as quickly as clan rats, but they cost about twice as much.  I think one or two units of 10 should be in about every list (because the math works that way most of the time).  It's a good unit to force your opponent to move around them. 

[Derek]

Thralls are the same points as clanrats and do way more damage, and benefit from a ton of buffs.  Might not be the same unit size in that thralls are 10’s and clanrats are 20 but I’ll pay 390 points for 30 thralls that will kill stuff anyway over 60 clanrats that won’t kill a thing without a ton of support being poured into them.  

[DocKeule]

This is pretty clearly a win for the Thralls at least raw.

60 Clanrats (if the all get into combat) get 61 attacks, 3+ 3+ (for the unit size) not rend. 
30 Thralls would get 91 attacks 3+ 3+ -1. 

With buffs it gets a little mushy. Thralls could have +1 to hit with the turtle, +1 to wound with Eidolon or Lotann, re-rolling ones and exploding sixes with Thrallmasters. That is vicious.

Clanrats could get an extra attack each by a Clawlord, another one using Skaven Brew (once per game), could fight after being slain with a spell.

So (in both cases probably) it would come down to who could attack first.

[mmimzie]

I'd say the clan rats win because they have double the wounds and can put out the same damage if your investing heavy in both. I'd also say you'd get more of your points worth of clan rats actual piling in and fighting than you would thralls. With half the wounds thralls can be easily ignore with a few mortal wounds.

Thralls are better as a stand alone unit. Which is why i say they are great 1 or maaaybe 2 of in any list.   I'd say every deepkin army will have atleast one thrall squad

With a list full of other important threats that matter earlier  the thralls can take thier time moving up the table, and be primed to be in a good spot turn 3. 

Thralls are cheap enough that they never break the bank. So you can "waste" the poinst for a unit that won't have a meaningful impact until turn 3. They are very similar to morrsarr, except morrsarr can be made more relevant turn 2 due to speed and ionrach. 

[Derek]

First game with deepkin took the nautilar 3 turtle list.  Bat rep to follow.  Game was against clan moulder skaven.  

[Derek]

So mission was the vice.   My list consisted of:

akhelian king built to be the blender king

1 akhelian allopex 

3 akhelian leviadons 

My opponent’s list was 

3x master moulder 1 was the general 

1 unit of 6 rat ogres with the rabid trait

giant rats,  I don’t remember how many.

3 hellpit abominations they all got the bonus to wounds trait.  

2x3 stormfiends

 

i took turn one and did little to nothing since we were spread so far apart I picked monstrous take over for my battle tactic, scoring 4 points for the turn.  

my opponent chose ferocious advance with his 3 hellpits.  He moved forward with his army, holding 2 objectives and completing his battle tactic for 5 points.

for the roll off I took the turn and chose broken ranks for my battle tactic but I failed to kill 1 squad of giant rats,  my dice rolls were awful for my shooting for most of the game to be honest. Failing my battle tactic I scored 2 points for holding objectives

his turn 2 I don’t remember his battle tactic but he moved forward some more and after a little shooting from his units he charge his unit of rat ogres into my king and my allopex,  I popped the kings ability for strike first and wiped the rat ogres before they got to do anything and he rolled to bring them back with the moulder ability and successfully brought them back.  He scored his battle tactic and held 2 objectives for 4 points Score is 6-7 at this point.  

Round 3 roll off I win the roll off and take first turn.  I proceed to move everything forward far enough that I can make as many charges as possible,  I choose bring it down for my battle tactic.  I charge in my akhelian king and 1 leviadon everything else fails to make it into combat, the leviadon uses the nautilar monstrous rampage and I get stomped on by a hellpit abomination on my king,  he is brought down to 1 wound between round 2 shooting from the stormfiends and being stomped.  I immediately choose for him to activate forgetting the deepmare impact hits and finding that I am within 3 inches of 3 units because my opponent kept all of his hellpits base to base with eachother.  My king proceeds to do 21 damage to one hellpit abomination killing it outright,  the hellpit explodes and takes my kings final wound.  My leviadon piles in and proceeds to wipe a second hellpit from all of his attacks and takes 3 wounds in return between the 1st hellpit exploding and the 3rd one slapping me.   Scoring my battle tactic holding 2 objectives I score my 5points for killing a monster
 

opponents turn 3 he chooses bring it down for his battle tactic and fails to complete the tactic and doing any damage to my leviadons would prove to be very difficult for my opponent.  
 

battle round 4 roll off gives me the turn again,  I believe that skaven never getting a double turn at this point in the game hurt my opponent very much.
 

 I choose the battle tactic for 2 units to be wholly within your opponent’s territory and score it with 2 turtles for 3 points I have a hold of the center objective and use my leviadon currently in combat to retreat and charge back into the 3rd and final hellpit once I retreated from the hellpit I used my 3rd leviadon to shoot it and my allopex to shoot it as well and successfully killed it only for it to come back to life with 5 wounds remaining due to its ability.   A second leviadon charges a unit of giant rats and kills them with a stomp, and also drawing in the revived unit of rat ogres into combat.   My leviadon that retreated charged the revived hellpit and wiped it out in the combat phase and it did not get up or trigger another ability.  
 

Opponent’s turn 4 he charges my allopex and kills it quickly with 3 stormfiends.  And fails his battle tactic of bring it down.  
 

round 5 my opponent finally gets the double turn and this is where his dice go blazing hot.  He chooses conquer for his battle tactic and then proceeds to make 4 different charges all with 9+ on each roll for his unit of storm fiends a master moulder and 2 remaining giant rats that I neglected to kill and his general charged another of my leviadons.  Unfortunately for him my dice were raging hot as well.  I chose to stomp his general and used the nautilar monstrous action on my center leviadon He chooses his stormfiends to fight first and proceeds to bring the leviadon they’re in combat with  to 4 wounds from 12.  I kill his general and then his second master moulder proceeds to do 2 more damage to my seriously wounded leviadon and I proceed to kill the giant rats with the harpoon off the leviadon and kill 2 stormfiends from the rest of the attacks off the leviadon.  
 

conclusion of the game shows a successful first outing for me and my nautilar turtle list.  Final score was 17 to 13.  Had a ton of fun with the game.   Was not overly impressed with the allopex but I think that’s due to not being in a bigger unit and my dice being fridged when it came to rolls for his shots and his combats.  I’m going to swap the allopex for a tidecaster so I have access to rituals.    I’m sorry the pics are not in turn order but I do hope you enjoy the few pics I have.  

Edited March 26, 2022 by Derek

[Derek]

After playing this first game.  I feel I’ve found my love for the army,  I have only ever played against idoneth a total of 3 times since the book first released in 1st edition.  And while I didn’t face the typical meta choices that most likely would have destroyed this list,  there is something to be said for -3 rend on damage 3 and 4 attacks.  And the highlight of this game for me was the king getting off 21 damage was bummed I didn’t get to swing with the rest of his profile as I had declared I was going to attack 2 of the 3 hellpits in that combat phase but it tickled my heart to see him go ham and wipe out a hellpit no issues.  

[GrimDork]

1 hour ago, Derek said:

3x master moulder 1 was the general 

1 unit of 6 rat ogres with the rabid trait

giant rats,  I don’t remember how many.

3 hellpit abominations they all got the bonus to wounds trait.  

2x3 stormfiends

I don’t think this list is actually legal. For giant rats & rat ogres to be battleline all other units have to be moulder, so the stormfiends make the list invalid.

Thanks for sharing the report!

[Lithdaydora]

1 hour ago, Derek said:

his turn 2 I don’t remember his battle tactic but he moved forward some more and after a little shooting from his units he charge his unit of rat ogres into my king and my allopex,  I popped the kings ability for strike first and wiped the rat ogres

Sadly, I believe you can only use the Kings ability at the end of your own charge phase. Great report though, hope it was fun!

[Bossy]

1 hour ago, GrimDork said:

I don’t think this list is actually legal. For giant rats & rat ogres to be battleline all other units have to be moulder, so the stormfiends make the list invalid.

Thanks for sharing the report!

Stormfriends are moulder and skryre so the list is possible but not opti because in m'y opinion stormfriends needs to be boost to be usefull

[GrimDork]

1 hour ago, Bossy said:

Stormfriends are moulder and skryre so the list is possible but not opti because in m'y opinion stormfriends needs to be boost to be usefull

My mistake!

Think I was getting mixed up because they are only battleline if everything else is Skryre.

Edited March 26, 2022 by GrimDork