Reinholt

I would suggest prayer-style mechanics seem very likely, given they did exactly this with the Fyreslayers who have a similar duardin no-mages issue. It's the obvious solution from a mechanics perspective, and exactly as stated, would fit either the Navigator or Endrinmaster well to give them more of a place in many lists and make all the leader choices viable. With that said, even now with the points cuts in GHB, I am finding the Kharadron are no joke if you are careful with how you build a list... freeing up 10% of total points with the cuts across the board was huge, as shooting has that snowball effect where when you hit a critical mass, it really starts to hurt.

Interesting! Can you tell me more about why you picked the split you did for the main body? I've basically not played the Endrinmaster in ages, what was the motivation? Also, what skyport and stuff were you running? Thanks for the intel; glad to hear you did well.

On the topic of the hobby being about the models, this is why Cities of Sigmar is my favorite reveal: Many of my friends who have armies with beautifully painted or converted older models which they love now have some assurance they can continue using their stuff. Good on GW for both preserving relevance of past things and pushing out new things. It's a delicate balancing act and I appreciate they are trying to make it all work.

Because the points come at the cost of more other stuff (Eels, etc.) Also, why do you think you would not use the other hero abilities? I have found the deep striking to be clutch for getting units to where they want to be when playing against Idoneth.

The other advantage of having skywardens out there (and I tack them on because they don't eat transport capacity for the Frigate) is that depending on the game, they can be adequate objective grabbers and/or troll your opponent if things open up as they are one of the few things in our book that can move on their own. When you drop the frigate itself, 2x Thunderers, 1x Skywardens, it's like the marbles hit the floor and they can fly in all kinds of directions depending on your needs. Which also requires a lot of thinking about where you drop them... my biggest mistakes are usually my own when I deploy them!

Rumor holds there is only one more order book coming out this year, and given free peoples don't have a book, the new Aelves are rumored, and Kharadron are horribly in need of an update (plus Idoneth just got updated in GHB19), I feel pretty good about it having some staying power. Every single other issue that you bring up is correct, and I agree, however, so... if someone wants to do it, I think you get to play it for a while and can feel good about that, assuming it works with the new Sylvaneth as well. Downside: it may eventually go away and it's not super competitive.

In 1250 locally I have been running basically this. One Frigate with thunderers (and often Sky Wardens, now that points have dropped, or Endrinriggers). One Ark blob. Often one other objective grabber as well if I can squeeze something in. Khemists to season. It does well. I'm not a great player; I don't play as often as I want. But you have a lot of answers and a lot of control, and I think people aren't usually ready for a surprisingly mobile very intense shooting army in terms of how they think about the meta. I'm not saying you are top-tier here, but it's playable and can do well.

My main friend who plays Idoneth just tilted his list that way, to throw another log on this fire. You can also run them in different sizes. Morr's really want 9, though 6 is sometimes workable. You can run Ishlaen Guard at 3-6 and they work.

A single shark is not necessarily a bad purchase now at 120. It depends on what you have in your list, but that's the cheapest non-hero you are squeezing in so sometimes if that's the points you have it makes a nice flanking / objective grabber that is obnoxious enough someone has to deal with it. I don't see a use case for more than one (does anyone else? curious...) but I can see one.