tripchimeras

Looks like @robbobobo has you covered on facehammer GT list, the blackout GT list I never actually saw, so I am not perfectly clear on artefacts (though he mentioned Cloud of Midnight was one, but didn't specify character), but based on the podcast I can be confident that the rest was: Enclave: Fuethan Battalions: Namarti Corps Leaders Tidecaster (General) Soulscryer SoulRender Battleline 2x 10 reavers 2x 10 thralls Other 2x 9 Morrsarr Yeah, thought the same. and given the board control ability, likelihood of significant portion of army still being alive turn 3 I think increases, and once you get there, if Volt is still alive all of a sudden you can replicate the effect of being hit with a 9 man Morrsarr unit pretty easily. Definitely seems very strong, as the tourney results obviously indicate. I do wonder how he would manage to handle a slaanesh list, but I guess that is more of a problem for all our lists rather then just this one... lol

Very happy to see how much success Deepkin have been having lately in tourneys and it looks to have occurred with 2 completely different build. There's a great facehammer podcast from August discussing the namarti corp list that won an event that month, and then now with the facehammer gt looks like a pretty inventive msu volturnos build list won that one as well. I have been trending towards something similar to the namarti corp list myself, though I have always shied away from spending that last bit needed with the soulrender and corp cost. On the other hand I have always mostly dismissed the king builds as one trick ponies, but for whatever reason (lack of imagination probably) always thought of them within the context of the conventional wisdom/standard net list 6-9 man morrsarr blocks. But 7 units of msu eels, only one of which is 6 man, seems very different. I think msu in general has been on the rise lately, with the necessity of low drop coming under more scrutiny, but I think at least for me the bigger avoidance factor of msu eels was the idea that we need a big beat stick unit. But seeing that a list like this won, I am definitely realizing that my thinking may have been flawed. Especially with the extreme speed of such a list, and the fact that on turn 3 all of those 3 man eel units become beetsticks thinking a 9 man is necessary was wrong, but again I have never spent a lot of time looking at king lists to begin with. I think I am still moving in more of the namarti heavier direction (don't get me wrong still have 18 eels) more in the vein of what the deepkin player on the last facehammer podcast plays, but that facehammer gt list definitely seems really strong. If I can get myself to actually retrofit all of those musicians, standards, and champs on my eels, I might even try it in the next tourney I go to... On second thought, that sounds horrifying and painful and there is no way I am doing that haha. But for others thought I'd bring it up for anyone that missed it. Think the full list is on AoSShorts.

It just stands for any list with tidecaster as general who flips the tide to go in reverse order (the list basically runs on the concept that turn 2 is a more optimal time to have ASF then turn 3). Generally at its base its tidecaster + 3 min units of thralls or reavers and 2x9 morrsarr. The rest of the points can go in a variety of directions, either filling out more units of namarti/allies (usually eternal guard) for easier board control/objective control, a few min units of ishlaen guard, even more morrsarr, or some combination of any of these. Rest of characters generally are 1-2 soulscryers (traditionally its been 2, but with point increase might just be 1 now) and maybe a king/volturnos if you feel like it, though efficiency questionable there without his command ability working, but if you go fuethan rerolls really help.

That is some great data, really interesting. I do think that the one big issue with using ETC results, is that as competitive as it is, the team format and strategy surrounding that, fundamentally changes the strategic parameters of the game. Every team is going to include "hold" lists, and lists that are only good against certain builds etc. IE the lists tend to be a bit more scewy and role focused then you would find in an all comers tourney. That being said still some great data. I do think that also the number of optimal drops, is very much affected by the quality of book batalions. And I think the number of books with strong batalion rules is pretty small, and also mostly new books. So I think again, that is why the drop numbers are higher. The balancing act between drop count and efficiency sacrifice is a super interesting topic, and I think this generalized data, while useful isn't going to get us much closer to answering it. I think per your last couple of paragraphs the big missing data point in this type of aggregated data, is what is choosing turn priority worth in the first place? I think given your focus on ETC data, I think to improve the data set above establishing the X1 value by breaking down the ETC19 games by drop advantage vs game outcome would be the clear companion data point in this instance (I am recommending this, but not volunteering to do it myself, aren't I helpful? haha). I personally suspect, that the correlation (like the drop breakdown itself) is not nearly so strong as many of us currently suspect. The other variable that makes establising the X1 value so difficult is relative army strength. This isn't chess we are talking about, so isolating the win improvement based on turn priority from all other factors is difficult. For example I think often the strongest armies also have really good battalion options, so likely have less drops. But are they strong BECAUSE they have good battalions and less drops, or are the good battalions and fewer drops simply a function or consequence of those books general efficiency/rule strength? This is definitely one of those metrics where given our inability to collect "quality" data we have to work with volume instead as our best hope for removing the influence of a lot of these outside factors we won't have a good way of accounting for. Regardless bravo for doing this, and its definitely a fascinating look at the drop meta.

Before I respond to this I just wanted to say that I do agree with others that all flying deepkin lists are unfairly lambasted, when fliptide is probably stronger, yet because of the balanced look fliptide will definitely take less heat despite that. However, if you are worried about that guy, want to stick to the all flyer theme, but don't want to be lambasted, you can do it. Doing things like taking multiple turtles, Eidolon, some sharks, a full akhelian corps will go a long way towards making the list something most people will not have a problem. There are always going to be sore losers who complain, but anyone who knows enough to feer eels also probably knows the other stuff are not strong, so I doubt would complain. I also think if you are running full akhelian corp and/or multiple super expensive flyers you are naturally going to be winning less games, and thus far less likely to be taking much slack. But all that being said I do think flip tide is our most "balanced" list, and by coincidense also our best list. So answering your other questions from these posts, I think both Fuethan and Dom-Heim are the 2 strongest conclaves regardless of list construction. I think they are somewhat interchangeable personally as far as flip tide goes, I do think fuethen has great synergy with it in that you can run and charge turn 1, but the rerolls to hit that dom-heim provides are so strong, particularly in a flip tide list where you may not be bringing a King that it really is a toss up. I think if you run flip tide with a king, you go Fuethen, but if you run flip-tide without a king you really could go either way. When you are not running tidecaster as general though I think its Dom-Hiem every time. For your second question basically, if you want to include namarti, tidecaster should be your general 100% of the time in a competitive context imo (obviously if you just want to have fun take whatever you want and don't even worry about it). I think they can be really good, but generally eels are better then namarti, and getting the benefits of fliptide out of the tidecaster is the best way to justify them competitively. I think whether you take thralls or reavers is a toss up, I have always been a thrall advocate, but recently (in part due to a conversation on this very thread), I have been experimenting a lot more with reavers and really liked them more then I did on paper. Right now my loadout is 2 reavers, 1 thrall unit. Rest of the time you are going to want King as your general, to avoid having to pay the "namarti tax". Think both work, and neither a king list, or a flip tide list are going to do you wrong, I think in casual play both can be very very strong, and competitively both will keep you in most of your games at least middle of the pack even with a non-optimized list as long as you have some eels. Last thing I'd mention is that if you do like your all flying sea creature theme, but want to be able to use something like fliptide, or just want to avoid hate from opponents, you can give your tidecaster the thermalrider cloak from aqshy, giving him flying and significantly higher movement and model him flying, then take reavers instead of thralls and with their increased speed and with their massive movement for a non-flyer they fit the theme pretty well. Hell even though its not a particularly strong conclave, if you really want that thematic heft make your enclave Briomdar, so the reavers ignore terrain and you could model them as flying as well, because at that point for all intent and purpose they are. I always find myself writing book long posts, so I apologize for that haha. But TL:DR as always take what you want and don't worry about haters, especially if you are just playing casually it really won't matter a ton as long as you take a few eels at least.

EDIT: Changed my mind decided not to post on this topic yet again, after the previous disdainful response I got, making clear my opinions on this subject had warn out their welcome. As you directly responded to me though, if you are actually interested in why I think its unbalanced, look at my last post in the deepkin order forum, think it covers my thoughts pretty well.

What is the difference between the tourney suggestions in GHB19 and a seperate published tourney pack, containing basically the same thing? One would assume what they included in the GHB IS what GW thinks a good tourney should look like. If they removed the bold on top stating it is optional, I guarantee you it would be used exactly 0 times more then it already is going to get used. Just like the realm rules as have been clearly stated, are not optional, yet very few tourney's use them. The US has never followed GW rules very closely in their tourneys, and for that matter neither has continental Europe given that in 8th edition when the US was all comp all the time, the 2 comp systems most used in US were both created in mainland Europe. I think its really only ever been the UK that has often tried to play the game "as intended" for events, and this makes sense, given its GW's home base, the number of prominent players and organizers who seem to have personal relationships within GW and the only country you can find any significant number of GW sponsored tournaments. Even then from what I have seen online most AoS tournaments in UK are not using realm rules and are at least lightly modified. So really not sure what an "official GW rulespack" would do to begin with, considering GHB19 basically released one, and no one is going to use it. What does "officially recognized" even mean? Is GW going to start running tourney circuits where events must register and prove use of their tourney pack is in effect with player rankings in each country with regional and national championships etc? Because that is the only way they get any traction on something like this.

I didn't find this to be at all true in 8th edition where there were nearly no major tournaments that did not use extensive Comp (at least in the US), and the tourney scene was extremely well developed at that point in time imo. Nothing wrong with a little variation from tourney to tourney to keep things interesting, and generally over time the best tourney packs shine through, and gradually most shift towards very similar rules (rules GW never seem to get the fyi on).

I mean its called screaners and bubble wrap. Yes, easier said then done, but if you don't have a list that can take the initial punch its pretty essential. And as to the cause and effect, I would argue that the cause was gambling on your opponent not getting the double turn and losing, not your opponent getting the double turn. There are surely instances and situations where there is nothing you could have done, just like there are situations where in a game without double turns there are dice rolls that effect the game that there is nothing you could have done to stop them. But USUALLY there are cause and effect reasons leading up to the double turn that go far beyond a single dice role. Either your deployment didn't factor it in, or your list building was flawed, or you played too aggressively turn 1, or a road block unit that should have been able to hold an additional phase got blown up in a single round. All of these can lead to getting blown up in a double turn, and many are only going to see the double turn as the culprit when many times smaller things previously are the real issue. That being said there are plenty of bad army books, the game is certainly not perfectly balanced, and I am sure there are books that just do not have the resources to do anything about alpha strikes/double turns at all. But these armies are the issues in and of themselves, not the fundamental game rules.

I think its great, and without it AoS would be a far less tactically rewarding game. Due to rule simplification and the removal of things like flanks and introduction of 360 degree line of sight etc, double turn is one of the biggest strategic elements. I think if you strip that away you are looking at mostly just push hammer. The fact that I don't always know who is going to go next and exactly what they are going to be able to do, is one of the only limiting factor to my movement decisions. 360 degree line of sight eliminates the concern for flanks and "am I going to be able to see them to charge next turn" etc. Objectives are the other aspect that helps give meaning and to prevent "push forward", but alone I do not think they are enough. That being said I think they have a super steep learning curve, and I am only now starting to figure out how to use them as anything other then that "random swing event" a lot of people seem to confuse them for. So I get how especially if you are completely new to the hobby, and/or don't have experienced players in your gaming group to show you the ropes, that it would get very frustrating very fast, and just seem like this totally random thing completely out of your control. And it is right up until you learn about screeners, speed bumps, bubble wrap, and the concept of restraint and that massacring your opponents army as rapidly as possible is not necessarily the point or the best strategy.

I think you far oversimplify the effects of realm rules on lists. Some of them are pretty extreme, and very few army books put emphasis on every phase of the game in equal measure. Sure I can make a deepkin list with some magic and shooting and infantry, but none of them are particularly good. In fact I think the best builds in almost all armies do not go COMPLETELY skew, I don't think king eel spam is the best deepkin build, I think the more balanced flip tide is. It doesn't change the fact that Eels are the beating heart of both lists and if there was a realm that prevented flying and/or deepstrike it would significantly hamper the tactical options in both cases, particularly if my oponent was completely unaffected by the rule. Over the course of many games, who cares, and yeah its a good challenge to see if I am good enough to overcome it. But if it is table 1, round 5 of a tourney between 2 presumably closely matched players, do you really think I would be wrong to be pissed about that? Even if the book were stronger Karadron are always going to be a shooting heavy army, a balanced list in a world they have a few more options might have some combat units, but the beating heart of their list is going to run on shooting. Ulgu is going to bone them even if they take a balanced list, maybe against a significantly worse player at least in that dream scenario where they at least have SOME combat options they might be able to win, but not at a top table of a tourney. And that is not how you want a tourney to run/end.

I mean sure that is totally fair, and in the past I have certainly done a lot of that too. But I think that is not the case for everyone, I'm just saying that the realm rules/terrain rules as a balancing force, do actually make sense in many cases, just not for tourneys. So if you are a tourney player primarily obv, that means you never prob are going to use them, which is fine. I don't really use them either, but I can see their value in a different situation.

I think there is a BIG difference between a tournament and any other type of play competitive, matched, or otherwise. If I am playing competitively with friends, in either some sort of campaign, ladder league, or just 1 off's all of these rules add tactical ripples to the game and can make things more interesting. In particular I can see why GW would say they balance the game because they can help a lot of underpowered books in some of these matchups against the power armies, particularly those that are scew lists. And in this environment of "competitive" play, singular losses are not huge deals (not that they ever really are, but I hope you know what I mean). In the aggregate, across realms the better players are going to win more games, and the lists built to withstand the most variation of opponents are going to win more games, even if occasionally you run into a scenario completely stacked in your opponents favor, where there is essentially nothing your army book could have done to compensate regardless of the army you assembled. Those situations are going to just seem like a fun challenge, and even if its basically an auto loss its one game among friends, or within a much larger campaign, that can easily be made up for later. Tournaments, however, are a very different beast. First of all the number of games in a tournament are limited you are generally looking at 5 in a 2 day event. To win that type of tournament you have to go undefeated plain and simple. Most people who play tournaments want to be based primarily on player skill, player skill includes 3 things, list construction, deployment, and gameplay. Luck is the limiting factor here, and the one you want mitigated as much as humanly possible in a tournament. As much as the realm rules, terrain rules, and terrain set-up rules are good balancing acts in aggregate, they create this balance in a pretty random and very uneven way. While it's easy to say "bring a more balanced" list as a response to complaints, it is not nearly so strait forward. Different realms are almost always going to benefit certain types of armies more then others, increasing the "luck of the draw" aspect of who wins the tourney even more then already exists. People want pre-set "balanced" terrain for the same reason, you don't want to have to get lucky with which tables you land on. This is why many serious tournaments (at least back in the days of 8th edition) would literally publish terrain packs with 6 types of tables so everyone knew what variations were possible, and in events that don't do this, terrain almost always is pre-placed in a more or less balanced format, this usually means at least 1 or 2 line of sight blockers but also areas with decent line of sight for shooting lists. The point of all of this ISN'T to encourage scew lists, though perhaps that is an unintended consequence. The reason for this is to limit randomness and luck. In a 5 game tournament, if I lose 1 game due to bad realm rules that greatly advantage my opponent (this is totally possible even if you are taking a balanced all comers list), I have just lost my chance at the tournament even if I win all of my other games because the format was not even. It doesn't matter that "real wars are not balanced" this is not casual gaming where role playing and immersion is paramount, this is a tourney where people want to pit skill vs skill, not see who can be the luckiest. GW games already have plenty of luck in a tourney setting (why many don't think they are good tourney games to begin with), but there is enough skill normally, at least in my opinion, to make them worthwhile. I think things like realm rules, realm spells, and player set up terrain really begin to push the game towards a really bad tourney state, while incongruously also pushing the casual game in a more balanced direction (though personally I think the GHB19 terrain rules are an abomination even after the faq, realm rules are cool though).

Eel spam is if possible more OP in meeting engagement then it is in 2k from my experience so far. Which granted has been over a limited period of time. That is the short answer. My long answer reasoning is below should anyone care to read more, though I have been told elsewhere on these forums that I am obsessive in my posting about the format and only post negative "dribble", so please do ignore if you share those opinions, though I will re-iterate that I do really enjoy the format at the end of the day. Additionally I will do my best to keep this solely focused on the tactical implications for our power builds and remove any bias or complaints about the format itself unless it specifically pertains to our lists tactics: Meeting Engagement is all about movement, and we have that in spades. Our high movement compensates for the tiered deployment which forces most armies to be splintered in different places, but for us its little hindrance. The other big thing is that in a normal 2k game it can be difficult to get to turn 3 in-tact for the big ASF turn + king powers (one of the reasons why I prefer fliptide), but in meeting engagement turn 3 is by design the killing field turn where everything is finally out on the table, making it all of a sudden ideal for ASF. Additionally something eel spam can struggle with is objective control, but with the introduction of kill points this significantly mutes the impact, because most every turn against most lists we are going to be winning kill points with fewer models with more wounds, which are all hammers, we have a distinct advantage. Not only that because of the split deployment and our super fast movement we can gun it to objectives that in a normal game our opponent would either have coverage for on turn 1 or b. have counter's in the area making it inadvisedly risky. Generally the best way to counter eel spam/alpha lists is to strategically deploy so all of your best killers are bubble wrapped and the only thing for eels to charge are disposable chaffe, or something that gets them tangled in a web of combats forcing them to get stuck into combat which morrsarr don't want. However, Meeting Engagement specifically targets a players ability to do either of these things. The lower point values inherently mean that screener/chaffe units are likely the first units to get the boot in list design to make the smaller point level, and the tiered deployment forces your army to be split up and apportioned across different areas of the board (at least in most of the scenarios). This causes the perfect storm for eel lists where we can have our opponent nicely separated into bite sized chunks for us to do with what we will. Even when screeners are present, it is next to impossible to screen coming into deployment with such a small deployment strip, which means eels that came on a turn earlier and gunned it towards that deployment zone can have their pickings of whatever comes out. The turn mechanics also work to our advantage. The single biggest way competitive players use and twist turn mechanics to their advantage is through screaners and combat denial, things that are very difficult to accomplish in meeting engagement for many of the reasons I have already outlined. This means that in order to control for the double turn (unless you are going bold and just trying to play the dice gods on it) movement is really the only decent way to control it. Make sure you are out of a double turn charge range. Since we are going to out move vast majority of other armies, we are better equipped to try this then most. Last of all the number of armies that have access to high movement alpha strikers that hit like hammers as battleline units are very small. This means that we are going to be one of the few armies that can bring almost any power projection to bear on turn 2 through non-hero/behemoth means, since only battle line units can have size increased in phase 2. This is a huge boon for us. I think a king/volturnos is the auto include for a power gamer in meeting engagement. I have yet to solo eel spam in it, because non of my friends have an army that can compete in the format the way we can, but even without going full eel spam, I have found it to very much be easy mode for us against most lists. Are we at the tippy top of the meta in Meeting Engagement, where as we are probably somewhere around #5 in 2k? I am unsure, that def will take time to find out, but I can say this, there are not a lot of armies that will be able to match us. Likely just things like Morathi lists are going to give us trouble (this is a random thought of an example, haven't played one in meeting engagement nor given it thought, so could be a bad example).

You don't need to leave deepkin to be less competitive. Try things like taking the turtle, the eidolan of the sea, and the shark at the same time. I'd recommend buying a couple more boxes of the infantry so you can go eel light too. Nothing says fluff like tangled up units of 30 namarti haha. If you are still winning pretty much all of your games and are taking few eels, and investing huge amounts of points in single models that should make objective capture more difficult, I think you may need to consider why you are beating your friends. Is it truly the lists being taken or are they playing push hammer while you are actually strategizing? Do they really only care about painting and narrative? If your gaming values don't mesh, perhaps you need to look at finding a more competitive group, but if they do want to get better at the game, it sounds like you have sound list design instincts so maybe just learn their books a bit and try to help them build better lists (and convince beastclaw raiders player to buy a new army). if an infantry heavy deepkin list with all of the unoptimized characters etc can't at least give them a fighters chance, I am not entirely sure you're solution is to plop down ~$500 on a compendium army in an effort to keep things balanced. Sylvaneth and stormcast should be fine against a non alpha list (new sylvaneth might be fine even against eels I haven't read book yet), beastmen will be fine against an unoptimized deepkin list if they have tzangor I would think, Beastclaw are screwed against everyone until they get a new book though imo. EDIT: One more idea. Have you guys considered switching armies for a game or two? Like you play nighthaunts and they play your deepkin? Don't know how good friends you are, but if you are I am sure you can trust one another with your models for a game. Think that can be a great way to better understand what opponent is going through, and diagnose issues for both of you. Also will make them happy to drub you for a game if the lists really are that out of whack.

I could see usecase for 6 ishlaen + turtle maybe? I think the big thing is, if the first thing you do in deployment is declare the soulscryer is going into the warp your opponent has to deploy like he's about to get things shoved down his or her throat, even if you don't end up taking anything with him. Its not the most powerful combo on earth, but I certainly wouldn't want a 2+/3+ unmodifiable unit of ishlaen bottlenecking my entire battleline for 2-3 turns while my opponent goes around claiming all the objectives and filling me up with arrows. The other thing to remember is, just because you put them in reserve doesn't mean you have to do an aggressive alpha strike. There is value in having that flexibility in deploying 2 important pieces wherever you want on the board 1st or second turn too. Why not warp them immediately to an objective they might not have been able to fly to turn 1, or wait to see how deployment plays out completely and who gets first turn etc, before committing arguably your most important hold units or whatever. Just because the combo is usually used to transport death to the enemies doorstep, doesn't mean its the only useful use for it. Remember that deepstrike also just means your opponent has another calculation to make on his early turns that is largely out of his control; that is good for you.

Yep, a lot of these speak to the problems with it in terms of balance. I think the perfect example of what I am talking about is the double turn mechanic. I know a lot of people give it a lot of grief, but it is a central strategic mechanism to the 2k tourney game, and actually encourages strategic play when people aren't too busy pretending it doesn't exist and just praying to the dice gods it goes their way. However, one of the central mechanics used to control for double turns and mitigate risk is setting up screens. However in a 1k point game, you have very few units and in most armies almost nothing to screen with, you throw in tiered deployment and it becomes even more difficult to make use of screens to mitigate risk in the turn mechanics of the game. At 2k pretty much every single army (at least every army that is remotely competitive) has a means of mitigating/exploiting the risk in double turns. At 1k this list dwindles significantly. You now are left with an extremely swingy situation, where having higher move models then your opponent is the best way to mitigate double turn risk. Often times you will find yourself reverting to the way many casual players treat double turns at 2k pt levels, this is not a good thing. Similarly alpha strike/ high mobility fast movers can often be dealt with by means of successful screaning, unit sacrifice. Again we run into an issue where very few armies can continue to do this at the reduced point level, and with tiered deployment that ability drops even lower. Just because your alpha strike unit alpha strikes turn 2 now, instead of turn 1 does not really make a difference on the game, only this time there is nothing in place to protect that juicy general that just got dropped onto the board edge by your opponent, because his base took up the full deployment area and it was physically impossible to screen him.

I think this is an oversimplification. Is 2k a particularly balanced format? No. But does it mean that because that is the case we should throw balance out the window and not care about it? I mean if you care about the strategy/tactics/list building aspects of the game the answer here is again No. So with that in mind, as subjective as this stuff is, I think that the gulf in balance between meeting engagement and 2k pitched is about a mile wide. Its not about the community being "used" to it. I think here what you are really talking about is meta, not balance. Is the meta of meeting engagement different then that of 2k pitched? Slightly, yes. I think meeting engagement is very new player friendly and I would highly encourage it as an entry point to the game. But that is not because its balanced, its because it provides the APPEARANCE of closeness, when games are really not very close. It also allows you to take sub-optimal choices and see them survive play long enough to feel like you at least got to see them do something, in a way that can also be difficult in pitched battles, particularly against a stronger list. None of this, again, has anything to do with balance. It does have everything to do with learning curve. Ultimately I think the re-introduction of kill points as a significant objective component of meeting engagement alone is a balance killer. You have instantly, just given significant deference to a very specific type of list, in combination with the tiered deployment forcing units to deploy all over the place and potentially late, you have unwittingly created a game that is extraordinarily heavily weighted towards hyper fast hammer units that can be taken as battleline. There are a couple specific books that do this very well, and the benefits imparted on them by this dual mechanic FAR outweight any balancing the tiered deployment potentially could have imparted on the game to compensate for the inadequacies of 1k pitched. This is not even bringing into the equation the fact that point values are weigted for 2k games, and many are out of sync at the smaller point levels. Again I completely agree with you that a hyper competitive culture, in which casual play is demonized is toxic to a game and its player base (see warmachine). But it doesn't mean we shouldn't be honest about the balance/competitive state of the various modes of play. I had a blast with meeting engagement at the start, and I enjoy being able to pick-up a game of it if my 2k game finishes earlier then my friends or whatever, but my enjoyment has significantly decreased the more loopy and abusable I notice the ruleset/scenarios are. EDIT: Re-reading this post, it is more negative towards meeting engagement then I intended. Can't say enough that it is a fun/good idea, and I am sure it will see plenty of play. I just don't think it is a great tourney option, nor do I think it needs to be. I know a lot of ppl prefer faster games, and this is a great option for that, I just don't think it is a tourney solution, unless you can engineer a lot of self policing of army lists in said tourney/are clear that it is a casual thing, or are willing to introduce comp.

This is also a good point. When talking about online wargaming discussion, you are mostly going to be covering the competitive/hardcore enthusiast crouds. Groups much more likely not to take issue with spending 3 hours on a single game. Its going to be a very skewed group proportional to the rest of the gaming pop I think. I don't think you need worry about finding games at the very least. Whether it catches on at tourneys, again, I think is less likely on the whole, but I am sure smaller local events and narrative/casual focused ones will definitely latch onto the format, particularly if people are showing up that might not normally be at the larger regional/national level ones.

The problem is that it isn't competitive. Its about as unbalanced as1k pitched was before it, just in slightly different ways. Its never going to be a go to tourney format for competitive players without significant changes. I also suspect that warcry is cutting into its popularity/# of discussions about it right now. As different as they are they fill the same "change of pace"/smaller/faster game void within the AoS hobby. I suspect once warcry has been out a bit you will see more discussion around meeting engagement again. Overall, I think its a fun mode of play, and great for a change of pace. But I think 2k will continue to be the dominant form of the game, at least on discussion boards and competitively, with Meeting Engagement being the change of pace play option, rather then the other way around as it sounds like you would wish it. I can understand why, but frankly the balance is pretty damn horrific, and now that I've played a decent number of games of it my enthusiasm for the format has dropped precipitously. But it shouldn't matter, play the way you want to play, and I have no doubt there will be meeting engagement events around going forward, most especially at the local "1-day" event level, regardless of whether it is competitively lacking.

Interesting, yeah I can see that. I do think I would always want at least 1 unit of thralls, as is I almost always use 1 unit as a suicide bomber, unless the opponent has nothing they can bomb well and have had success doing that. The second 2 units usually are objective holders/backfield units unless I need them for screening/speedbumps and while there have been a couple of times their killing has been the only reason I have held an objective, you guys def are convincing me to give reavers more play. So definitely may switch out my second and third units of thralls next few games for reavers and see how it goes. Still maintain, getting back to the original point that prompted this, that 10 man thrall units are great haha!

I only own 30 thralls, and have never tried more then 40 (proxied a unit). The one or two games I have taken a unit of 20, they have gotten in each others way, struggled with staying within bubbles, and with the 1" range been too large to get optimal attack power in combat. Anecdotally, the battle reps I've seen where large thrall units were taken, and from talking to other deepkin players, I have also not heard of large units getting a lot of success. Certainly you can try it, but I would stick with min units. If you were taking units of 20-30, yes I think you probably are going to want Mor'phann, and multiple soulrenders but I have only tried a morphann list in a 1k game (the time I tried 40 thralls) and it was a bit of a disaster for me. The reason I like the 10 man thralls over the 10 man reavers (no need to choose 1 or the other though in a flip tide list at least, take 2 reavers and 1 thrall if you'd like), is because when they are holding an objective more power is needed to route them out. They also are chronically under-estimated, which is a strategic boon, and when they are not under-estimated, it is again good, because your opponent becomes weary of getting into combat with them especially on the ASF turn. I also think they are a good compliment to the Morrsarr, I like to time charges between them on turn 2 (can be tricky to pull off) often to some spectacular results where I whipe out both the whatever the Morrsarr charge, and remove the unit that could have locked them up on the opponents turn as well. When this is not possible I use them exactly like I would reavers, and again while they are not as good at it, personally I think their viability in combat makes up for it. I haven't used reavers as much though, by no means think they are bad, just like thralls more. So if you have more success with them, why not stick with it if you like the results. I think the big thing with their shooting for me is that in my experience the things there shooting is going to do damage against, Thralls are going to do much more in combat. Maybe if you max out flip tide battle line on reavers though, there are some character sniping opportunities that make it worth the switch idk. I don't use reavers nearly as much, because of my "theory hammer" on it, and theory hammer only gets you so far. So you very well could be right that, especially against your list of opponents, reavers are going to be more effective for you. EDIT: Honestly talking with you about this, has reminded me that the 2 reaver units that have mostly been collecting dust on my shelf need a little more use. Looks like my next couple of games are going to have 2 units of reavers replacing 2 of my thralls, and I will see how I feel again after that.

So first of all the lists you mentioned you going against, are both near the top of the meta (or at least they were pre faq's and GHB 2019), and neither is a super advantageous matchup for us to begin with. Fyreslayers turn into a bit of a slog-fest from what I have seen, which appears to be what you experienced. Slog fests are not ideal for a glass cannon army like ours, but eels are fairly durable, and our superior mobility definitely gives us an advantage. You won the game, so I wouldn't exactly say you didn't fair very well, and you won it exactly how I think most armies are going to win it against fyreslayers when they do, running containment on the deathstar, and out maneuvering them to take big objective leads they can't make up with such limited units/mobility. There is a great battle report from Riptide GT (the last major event Deepkin finished first in that is listed on Honest Wargamer) of the Deepkin player playing a similar fyreslayer list to the one you played, to a similar result (though his eels I don't think got quite so destroyed, because I believe he got the charge in). He basically had to hold up the deathstar while rest of his army claimed objectives. You can find the battle report if you are interested on the Dimensional Cascade youtube channel. I also think you illustrate here in your post, another reason why taking some thralls are not a bad idea, when you face something your morrsarr cannot just smash through having those extra bodies to help you win a prolongued objective game can be invaluable. So concluding my prolonged response, sounds like you played it correctly, and while it may have been frustrating you couldn't deel with his deathstar, you won, and that's the beauty of strategy in AOS, you aren't always going to be able to win a toe to toe fight, but you don't need to. Did you win the game against DoK? I may have misread but didn't see it mentioned. Again I think we get spoiled by Morrsarr sometimes. As your first game showed, we don't always need to pound opponent into dust to win. I think DoK is also a significantly worse matchup for us then Fyreslayers, I think we have few good tools to deel with morathi, and tall those extra saves mean our eels are almost always going to get stuck in with them in prolongued combats, which is exactly what we want to avoid. I think you hit the nail on the head with your troubles surviving to turn three to have something for vulturnos to buff, and not really having a good way forward to get eels to make it to turn 4. This is the exact reason why I am strongly in the flip-tide camp for what our best build is. It is just far more versatile, and gives us a lot more options for these very scenarios where we run into hard as rock opponents our eels are not going to be able to blow through like they normally do. I think the king/vulturnos command ability is largely a trap for us, I think it is overkill 80% of the time and the other 20% when its not, getting your unit in tact to turn 3 and hitting turn 3 on the charge to boot, is quite the difficult task. I think instead in those matchups instead of trying to bang our heads against the rock wall, we should be using our superior mobility to play avoidance and just try to out objective opponent. This is where things like setting up screens, bottlenecks, and sticking things like Ishlaen into hopeless combats that they none the less have a shot of surviving a few rounds become the name of the game. Its hard to commentate on another's game without seeing the circumestances but I think the one thing you may have tried differently, was not sticking the morrsarr in so quickly. I think we are very tempted to do so (I know I am), but taking the time to do some quick math beforehand and realizing there is a high probability they are going to get stuck in, and will not be charging again anytime soon may mean you don't make that charge even if there is something juicy there. Morrsarr can hold/take objectives just like everything else. Though in this case it may have been worth it for the hag kill, but maybe once you kill the hag it would have been worth retreating even though its a lost round of combat? Covering their retreat with a lesser unit might have in the long run given you more resources idk. In general though I really don't think we are in a bad spot, and while your games may have been frustrating they actually both sound quite close and evenly matched, which is exactly where we want to be against these books at the top of the meta(I think Fyreslayers are about a coinflip maybe with a slight advantage towards us, and DoK are maybe a little more advantaged towards DoK, but again we have options, at least before GHB 19, hard to say with new changes how it will all play out). So I'd say you are doing well, I think maybe the takeaway is try to use flip-tide and see if you feel better with that (also soulrender probably not best use of 80pts unfortunately, as much as I enjoy the model and wish its ability worked as intended).

I mean it really all depends on a number of factors. How competitive are they playing being the main one? The other big one being, are you guys list building specifically to scenario and opponent, or taking all comers lists? If its the deathstar Fyreslayer build, tourney DoK, and SCE melee alpha, yeah youre namarti list is probably going to lose a high number of those games. But if Fyreslayers aren't taking that 1 build (I'm honestly not sure I even know what a non-deathstar fyreslayer list looks like haha), and SCE plays balanced, and DoK takes some of their less optimal stuff, you probably are fine I'd think. Unless lists are competitive, in general I have also found that a single unit of 9 morrsarr affords you the ability to pretty much take whatever you want, within reason, for the other 1500pts and still be able to compete. So yeah if your friends are competitive gamers, at 2k points you probably need min 15-18 eels with at least 9 of them morrsarr (i think rule of thumb is 9 per 1k in my mind), but otherwise I wouldn't think a namarti heavy list is destined to failure before dice are even rolled, it just might be more of a finesse win, with a lot of close calls when you do win.

I mean, of those 4 lists 2 of them are made up almost entirely by 2-3 wound models which is literally Thrall kryptonite, and 1 is one of the most OP/durable armies in the game. Thralls should be getting you a lot of use only against goblins of those 4 matchups, as long as you avoid getting them stuck into the 2 wound squig like units, they are going to do LOTS of damage there (last time I played against gloomspite a sandwiched a unit of 60 between a thrall unit and morrsarr, and the results were quite entertaining). So yeah I can see why you don't like them, as 3/4 of your games are pretty damn terrible matchups for them. The key for thralls is picking your spot, because you are only going to get the 1 chance. There are plenty of games (like a lot of yours I would think) where you are going to be leaving them in your backfield to hold/guard objectives or act as overpriced screener, but I haven't found that to be a problem, you need bodies on the field to project board control, and while reavers are marginally better at that roll, just because they have the shooting, they also aren't going to surprise anyone in combat who forgets to bring the hammer to knock out one of your objective, like thralls can. But then there are going to be games where your thralls do crazy heavy lifting (like killing gheists etc) where you would be lost without them, which more then makes up for the reavers slightly stronger role in board control. At the end of the day I think they provide a list much more versatility then strait eel spam. There are matchups where you will wish you had them if you had only taken eels, and even when they aren't great, they are good enough not to be a liability as long as you don't expect wonders out of them, and play them conservatively as a result. I don't think there are a lot of use cases for ever taking more then a min-battle line worth of thralls in competitive builds, but I think they are quite nice, and taking 3 units of 10 in conjunction with 2 units of eternal guard and all of a sudden your eel spam has some bodies behind it for a fairly reasonable price allowing you to still take several big blocks of eels if you wish (and allows you to ASF turn 2 as a very big added bonus).