vinnyt

I love how everyone pretends that any actual warscroll changes wouldn't have triggered an absolute tidal wave of outrage. Could you imagine if SDG were raised in points or altered again?! The SCE community would lose their minds. This is a benign little stop-gap approach where they're trying something new (yay!) before the actual update hits this summerish. Honestly, kudos to them for trying a new approach to competitive balancing. Nobody is forcing you to play matched play and you're free to ignore this update if you/your gaming group want. If it's too complicated for you to remember, don't use the ruleset and don't attend tournaments that do. Simple as that. If you've been playing the game for a long long long time, this update really doesn't add much complexity. It's actually not that many units. It may not be perfect, or even that good, but it shows GW is willing to think outside the box in regards to competitive AoS and I think that's a good thing.

what It's like a 60% chance that the person with priority (first turn) in any given round wins the priority roll for the next round. You just have to tie or win a single dice roll.

the tactic is engaging a target with both the king and the morrsarr unit, popping the king's ability on himself, and then saving a CP by not needing to use AoA on the Morrsarr while absolutely RINSING whatever they've engaged. Morrsarr missile is good, absolutely, but generally unsupported they'll kill a screen and then die. Deepkin do NOT do well being doubled into turn 2 without high tide to protect them, as your opponent will get to dictate combats and you can't pop the king's ability in your opponent's turn. If you're flipping tides, then sure, taking the first turn actually increases the chances of you getting priority into your high tide, which is fantastic. Plus deepkin artefacts are meh. Nothing really screams "warlord" battalion to me. Hunters is ok, but monstrous actions aren't that super impactful outside of thrall lists, as you can use AK aura to remove the need for AoA and turtle aura for a free AoD. Plus if you're dictating combat, then just make sure you've committed enough to kill whatever you're fighting despite the 66% chance of not being able to use CP in the combat phase. I imagine you'll likely use a CP for auto running, a CP for AoD, and then that's either it for the turn, or if you have spares, you can pop AoA on reavers/sharks and/or save it for the next turn where you'll want CP for redeploy and AoD (possibly battleshock/AoA but that's unlikely).

@Liquidsteel sure you can use your brain and do smart things, or just reflex take one drop every time so you can try to dictate turn order for a 40% chance to just win the game. I've never lost a game where I've doubled into top of turn 3 and I don't think that changes with the new book. If you have a king nearby, the morrsarr stabby elves are already hitting on 2s without any CP required!

you mean my lil Storm Eidolon? He's gonna run as fast as he can to keep up in almost every competitive list but I believe in him. I am always a huge proponent of 1 drop deepkin armies.

but they can't easily end their move on top of the boat. They can run over em, sure, but if there's a unit right behind and you can't fit your fat base over the boat, it'll gum up your movement. This may vary by TO, so I'd recommend checking with them so it isn't a nasty surprise, but most GT's are pretty harsh when it comes to trying to gingerly balance huge bases on irregular pieces of area terrain.

oooooh I like this list a LOT! Would pretty much always go with regular blender king over volturnos if you're only taking one. I still think nautilar is gonna end up being the most successful enclave since deepkin tend to struggle against high armor and a rend -3 turtle that can't be stopped by hunters of the heartland is just so powerful. But yeah, this book has a lot of viable builds and I think there will be even more uncovered once folks start getting some games in.

Love video reports but here's some (hopefully) constructive feedback: In general, if you have a way to present a stable camera shot over the entire table (like a ceiling mount), that's my personal preference for video report styles. That way you can speed up the action of each player on each turn and then have commentary over it all. Between turns or during big events (charges, generals dying, etc) you can switch to the handheld view for a closeup of the drama. Season of War does a great job of this. If you don't have a ceiling view, any sort of stable view over the majority of the table would be great too. I just don't particularly care for the shaky cam. For the intro, overlay the army list on the side of the screen and have a static shot of the army with narration over it describing the list, try to keep it about 3-4 minutes per army. My personal attention span is about 10 minutes per battle round for a total of at most about 2 hours (100 minutes of action, 10 minutes of pregame and 10 minutes of postgame). Ideally I'd like to be able to watch it in an hour and I think 45-60 min is the sweet spot. I'm very cool not seeing all the dice rolls for stuff that isn't super important. I personally, also find it slightly offputting when one player is speaking or describing what he did and the second player jumps in to provide additional context. An example of this occurs about 48 minutes into the video. Just try to have one person talk at a time. I do understand that these suggestions require more editing, which is annoying for sure. It's also very tough to play skaven quickly and I really did like the battle report!

https://www.facebook.com/MiniaturesByCarl/photos/a.800128144714069/800086034718280 https://www.facebook.com/MiniaturesByCarl/photos/a.795755278484689/795740288486188 https://www.facebook.com/MiniaturesByCarl/photos/a.751228386270712/751198406273710 https://www.facebook.com/MiniaturesByCarl/photos/a.751195832940634/751168002943417 A small collection of some of my skaven batreps haha. I think I have like 6-8 on that page? I looooove skaven lol. But not as much as deepkin! It's so unbelievably good omg.

oh wow yeah it absolutely does. I'm not a huge fan of "random" things but this artifact deserves a more in depth examination. Stipulation 1: Roll has to be ABOVE target's bravery Stipulation 2: Target has to be enemy HERO Stipulation 3: Target has to be within 9" (and visible but literally nobody cares about that) If target's bravery is ...., % chance to make them asl is .... 7: 90.7% 8: 74% 9: 62% 10: 50% Here's a non-comprehensive list of the heroes you'll most likely be worried about alpha striking off your stuff. Bravery 7: Mega Gargants, Shaggoth, Breaka Boss Bravery 8: Mawkrushas, Knight Draconis Bravery 9: Frostlords on Stonehorn, Lord Celestant, Durthu Bravery 10: Archaon, Big Demons, Blender Kings (mirror match is a thing), GA Death, Karazai, Yndrasta, So, if you're thinking that you may need extra assistance against these big bois, some additional stuff to consider: Sons of Behemat is basically a 2-4 drop army. If you're a 1 drop, you'll control turn order and won't need to worry about being alpha striked quite as much. You can also reliably use a boat to control the placement of them big ol' fat based gargs. Mawkrushas are very spooky and stopping their alpha strike is super important. This is an excellent artifact against them At Bravery 10, I start to get a little jittery because I hate 50% chances. That being said, I LOVE making opponents play around stuff, and this can really mess with people. That being said, you can still use a boat to block off charging avenues for these fat based bois, and the chance to chuck down a second boat can absolutely close off entire areas of the board to armies. So I would see this more as a fun flex option to help with specifically the Ironjawz matchup if you think you'll run into a lot of those alpha strike lists. BUT BUT BUT, 20 thralls by a turtle on turn 1 with a thrallmaster nearby (something that's gonna be a pretty common sight in many deepkin armies) will already tank a juiced gatebreaker and then smack it back for a buncha wounds. Another sneaky trick out there is that it's actually super easy to give your thralls a 5+ ward save in turn 1 using Tactical Boat Deployment. If you deploy your thralls in 2 ranks, with the back rank being 1" in front of the boat , your whole unit can easily be within 6" of the boat and any enemies that hit your front rank will not be within 3" to shut down the boat, which means that your whole unit (and also army) gets a 5+ save. For bonus joy, deploy 10 reavers in that boat for a basically automatic full unit stand and shoot at +2 to hit (turtle and range bonus). If you're concerned about people moving around the boat, just deploy in a crescent to stop that nonsense and guaranteeing your little screen is at a 3+*/5+ and -1 to be wounded in cc. At that point you'll tank basically anything. Oh also the boat stops people from hurdling the thrall screen and getting into your juicy backlines. tttttttttthralls tttttttttthralls booattt thrallmaster, turtle, all your characters

Sorry @DocKeule, but @Liquidsteel is correct. The way it works is that the "fight first phase" is basically a smaller combat phase where opponents alternate units with the "fight first" ability. When those are resolved, the regular combat phase occurs, with the priority-holding player (the player whose turn it is) choosing a unit to fight, then the opponent alternating. It may be a more ambiguous in the german translation but in the english version it's pretty clear. The King is phenomenal because of this. Even rolling a 1 for the number of units effected means that the king gets to fight first (getting the bonus attacks for unstoppable fury if applicable), then your opponent gets to select a unit with that ability to activate. If they don't have one, then the regular combat phase occurs, with you holding priority. fight first phase: You go, opponent goes Combat phase: You go, opponent goes In this scenario: Fight first phase: You go, opponent has no fight first Combat phase: You go, opponent goes.

Don't worry, it seems like Skaven are up to get the summer chaos book! I've been playing mostly rattos while waiting for the deepkin book to come out and lemme tell ya, the difference between the books is night and day. Skaven are gonna struggle mightily to deal with the new deepkin, but what else is new haha. Here are 4 "shells" that I think reflect the various archetypes well and that I think could be solid STARTING points to look at the new deepkin. Some of these are for sure more competitive than others and I'm gonna bold my favorite one. If you're relatively new and just trying to throw some stuff on the table at 2k, I think these lists are pretty solid out of the gate. Everything is in battle regiment and a one drop except for the Namarti list which is a two drop List 1: The Turtening Nautilar Enclave Aspect of the Sea general w/ endless sea storm and countercurrent Akhelian King with polearm, voidchill darkness, and potion of hateful frenzy Leviadon with Ancient Leviadon 20 Reavers Lifeswarm 1975 points List 2: Namarti Dhom-Hain enclave Akhelian King general with voidchill darkness, unstoppable frenzy, polearm, and potion of hate Thrallmaster Tidecaster with countercurrent Lotann 20 Thralls 20 Thralls 20 Reavers Leviadon with Ancient 1985 points List 3: Feeding Frenzy Fuethan Enclave Akhelian king with polearm, potion of fury, and voidchill darkness Tidecaster general with tide reversal and countercurrent Lotann (he's gonna be running as fast as he can) 3 Allopex with Harpoon 3 Allopex with Harpoon Allopex with net (shiver) Allopex with net (shiver) Allopex with harpoon (shiver) 2000 points on the nose! List 4: Combined Arms Nautilar Enclave: Akhelian King general with unstoppable fury, polearm, and voidchill darkness Tidecaster with gloomtide and countercurrent 10 Reavers 20 Thralls Leviadon with ancient 2 Allopex with Harpoon 2 Allopex with Harpoon (you can make this unit 2 dragons if you want/own the models) 1990 points Annnnnd now for some quick numbers. Regular unbuffed tortle in combat vs non-monster: 6.52/9/11.5/14/15.9 Jacked nautilar chad turtle in combat vs non-monster: 10.04/12.5/15/15.44/15.9 The BLENDER King: This guy is a real sleeper hit that's gonna punk people sooooo bad: Akhelian king general with unstoppable fury, polearm, maaaybe potion of hateful frenzy but you don't really need it. All numbers will be calculated as though he had the potion for maximum blendage and is by one unit. 10.22/13.75/17.28/18.7/20.2. So, one of the many, many combos in this book is to chuck this fella and a turtle into any target you so choose, pop the king's command ability, roll a 1 because of course you will, target the ability on himself, and then do a casual King asf followed by normal turtle activation to kill kragnos/basically one shot a mega assuming you shot at it a little earlier. As is tradition for the deepkin, I believe you really wanna bully people by sending in multiple units at once- the two hammer theory. Now, with a blender king, you can also guarantee that BOTH the hammers get to fight first. This is truly wild and leads to some absurd damage output. Another thing that may keep morrsarr more relevant than people might think is that they're one of the few units that unconditionally benefit from the New Eidolon of the Storm and the Akhelian King aura, meaning you can get them hitting and wounding on 2s without any sort of CP or triumph investment. Is this gonna be enough to make them competitive? Maybe? I'm not really sure, tbh. All I can tell you is that on the charge, near a king and the eidolon, and without using their blasts, they're gonna do 7.53/10.48/13.4/16.4/17.7 damage which seems like a lot for 195 points that you can take multiple of as battleline, make asf with the king command trait, and then use ionrach to give them retreat and charge as a heroic action. We all know their unbuffed stats because they didn't change so no need to repeat that here. But I hear ya, you're saying "vinny, why don't you talk about sharks, you filthy shark apologist?" Well ok here we go. Unit of 2 unbuffed sharks (outside the champion) in combat with the bonus bite: 5.44/7.6/9.7/11.9/12.9 and at range: 2.4/3.6/4.7/5.9/7.11 (not using all out attack or anything). This looks awfully similar to numbers I've posted in the past so no need to rehash it since their offensive profiles didn't change. This is actually pretty darn good considering their relative tankiness and ability to just chill in combat and not have to worry about things like charging. And being able to shoot 5 wound, 5+ save wizards to death from 24" always brings a smile to my face. Thralls are a special case because they're special boys (and girls!). They're tanky little rascals when near a turtle and thrallmaster, that lose about 11-12 on turn 1 to an unwounded gatebreaker with aoa who roared them. Then the 9 remaining smack him back for about 14 wounds. God forbid you actually charge the gargant/any target because the damage is comically high. Oh, then you can get the free* charge in dhom hain and do it all again. Good thing a unit of 20 costs an astronomically high 260 points or I'd be worried the book might have something actually competitive here. Oh, and they get a nice 5+ ward if they're by an unthreatened boat. So... yeah you might see some of these around. We already know that reavers go brrrrt so no need to bonk that dead horse. They can garrison up all cozy in a boat if you want them to be much much tankier. Plus now you can chuck a boat on the board at the end of your first movement phase (with an artifact) if you want your reavers to have an even better home. Lotann is insanely good and you'll want to buy him immediately. They gave him the old storm aura which means he turns sharks into absolute blenders. You just gotta run him real fast up the board to keep them within 12". Oh also his ability to activate a tide ritual for a single unit is wild. You can just give thralls a flat 5+ ward no questions asked. I think this is probably a long enough post at this point, and I'm sure many of the expert players here have already run these numbers and know all about these builds, but if you're looking at getting into/returning to deepkin and thinking about how to build a list and what unit options may be useful, I hope this proved helpful.

because I don't agree that pretty much everything has been nerfed. namarti, sharks, king, ionrach, unstoppable fury, juiced rituals, etc, etc. Also I gotta say that the discourse on this site does not reflect what's being discussed in the deepkin discord groups. For some reason y'all are real doom and gloom. guess we'll see when people who are good at the game start playing them in tournaments. I agree but everyone was real salty (pun intended) when they went up to 10W so this should be a net buff in their eyes. If I could do the monstrous action on every turtle in the army, then 2 miiiiight be a decent skew build. But you're totally right- one is optimal imo. comparing anything to dragons is kinda foolish since they're just insanely good. Only other monster I'd consider taking is a frostheart phoenix.

But they didn't and they won't give us monster mounts. It's insane to me that we didn't even get a new non-hero unit but thems the breaks when you're not stormcast. This is gonna be like nurgle where everyone freaks out about points increases and then we start winning tournaments. New Deepkin is a POWER book with multiple super interesting archetypes. I think it's gonna become apparent fairly quickly how strong this book can be.

Dragons, Frostheart phoenix, ghur battlemage, etc, etc The depths of our allies is insane. So many outrageous combos available.

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!

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

build the king with a polearm and volturnos' head so you can use it as either. It's too early to say for sure which one is best (I personally like the polearm king) It's a totem that can issue commands in an 18" radius and can get -3 rend on jaws and fins for a monstrous action while being conditional battleline. It's a bit pricey (should be about 450 imo), but is still a super good synergy piece that's also reallllly good into the mirror match against someone who went all namarti crazy.

in aos 3.1 we were third in overall winrate at 56%, behind seraphon and DoK We were always a bully army that would blow out weaker books and struggle into the top tier. Has this book changed anything? Maybe, maybe not. Off the top of my head, looks like at least 4 archetypes deserve some testing: Nautilar Turtle Nautilar/ionrach combined arms Fuethan Sharks/Reavers Thralls/Namarti spam They've all got strengths and weaknesses and it's gonna take actual "models on the table" playtesting to see which is most dominant but all of these seem interesting to me and there are a LOT of spicy tricks in the book (plopping down an impassible shipwreck you can garrison with reavers and easily cheese a battle tactic with seems... good). There's some real depth here and I wouldn't be surprised if a left field approach goes 5-0 somewhere.

So they're actually at a 5+ save base (Rob got it wrong) but basically they're at +2 to save in round 1 if they're near a turtle (+1 for cover and +1 for turtle). If they're near a boat and getting shot at they get a 5+ ward (this goes away in combat). If they're near a thrallmaster opponents are at -1 to wound them. So, an unwounded gatebreaker charges them and roars (ouch!) while popping all out attack. He kills about 11 through the -1 to wound aura and the +2 to save. The remaining 9 thralls do 14ish wounds back since they get +1 to hit for the gatebreaker being close to a turtle. I think that qualifies as being real tanky. You can juice their output even more with lotan/storm but I think that's plenty of output for 260 points. And yes, keeping them in the bubble can be tough. You will have to think about that and plan for it. Thankfully a bunch of your synergy pieces (turtle, king, storm) move much faster than the thralls and you'll just have to plan to make sure the auras work out. Ishlaen did get less tanky and yes, we will all have to adapt to that. They also did get killier though but there's no denying that they aren't the same unit we all knew and loved.

he doesn't really help out reavers all that much. Super good with Thralls though. And hey, everyone complaining about sharks being 10 wounds should be overjoyed that they're back to 8 wounds! I think this is a book with several very cool lists. Thralls are absurdly tanky now and cascading Dhom Hain charges means the enemy has to be careful how they engage em. Sharks are also pretty darn good and on a 2+* save turn 1 near a turtle. Nautilar turtles with -3 rend will obliterate stuff. Reavers are still extremely good. 20 right behind a 3-man shark unit means that enemy alpha strikes just get shot to pieces with their stand and shoot. You also get to chuck down a second boat which is fun and possibly super good to stop enemy charges. Eels aren't great but they're not unplayable trash. The other great thing is that any balance update for deepkin can easily just be a simple points adjustment as opposed to a big rules rewrite. Namarti builds are viable, shark builds are viable, combined arms builds are viable, turtle builds mehhhhhhh, The amount of rend -1 shooting we can bring is almost comical and the battle tactics are reasonably achievable. ?? The buffs: Thralls need to be fighting an enemy ww 12" of a turtle for +1 to hit Thralls need to be either ww 12" of a super fast eidolon or lotan for +1 to wound We need priority for cascading charges in dhom hain Thralls need to be ww 12" of an insanely fast king for the free high tide Thralls need to be ww 12" of the thrallmaster at the start of combat. At that point they have been given THE JUICE and will blend whatever they want. They're also at a 4+ save base which is wild. Honestly, I'll probably not even bother with the eidolon to start. Something like: King Tidecaster Thrallmaster 20 thralls 2 Sharks 2 Sharks Turtle Lifeswarm Thralls are on a 2+* save turn 1 and can't be shot at from >12", they're -1 to be wounded in cc, I've got 24 shots at 3/3/-1/d3. I can happily commit multiple units to combat on my turn and fight first with all of them, possibly getting 3 first strike activations in a row. Lifeswarm helps against nurgle chip wounds and the king is basically a roving hunter killer missile after he pops the tide buff. Could be easily convinced to drop thrallmaster and lifeswarm and increase the thralls to 30, assuming that their untargetability to shooting and 2+* save can get them through the alpha strike while easily screening my whole army. Alternatively, something like: King Tidecaster 3 Sharks 3 Sharks 1 shark 20 Reavers Lifeswarm 1955 This list shoots an absurd amount and then shoots some more. Up to 28!!!! shots at 3/3/-1/d3 (one unit is 12 shots at 2/3/-1/d3 thanks to aoa) and then 40 shots at 3/3/-1/1. Stand and shoot is also 40 shots at 3/3/-1/1 so you'll blend most non-kragnos things. Oh yeah also it throws 6 sharks into you and pops the king for asf to guarantee both get to fight first (you asf one, then activate one in your turn). 1955 likely gets you the +1 to wound triumph so make your reavers 40 shots at 2/2/-1/1 for a turn with AoA and see what you can do with that. Bait out an AoD on a different unit and then erase some dragons. If you've ever wanted to shoot a GUO off the table in one turn, this is the army for you. Or you can do the namarti spam and roll people with a bunch of thralls/turtles (in nautilar) because -3 rend on a turtle is basically a giant "murder whatever I touch" sign and namarti are cute lil blenders now. This book is like the opposite of stormcast. You can't just look at the warscroll and immediately be like "oh yeah that's super good". There's a lot of nuance and interaction with rituals and tides and subfaction abilities. The artifacts and command traits are actually pretty good and even the eidolon of the sea might unironically be worth a look. We have OPTIONS now. Sure things are different, but we knew they would be.

Sorry, looks like he deleted the podcast. Here's the youtube:

Thralls are insanely good. This book is very good.

Sharks are back at 8 wounds lmfao

we can't all be stormcast lmao. It's gonna be fine. This book has a lot of cool stuff in it and I think there are a bunch of hidden gems and synergies. The +1 to hit doesn't but the juicing on high tide does!