vinnyt

I mean, that list just kills harder than anything deepkin can bring to the table. It's why I don't like 1k as a format. A lot of nuance is lost and the game boils down to "who can kill the fastest". 6 translocating raptors with aetherwings will pretty much table any other 1k list. It's just how it goes.

1k is a totally different game than 2k but yeah, that list will slap people no doubt about it. Only change I would make would be to give the leviadon ancient since it's gonna be doing most of the heavy lifting in combat and you want to preserve that 2+ save at all costs. The rest doesn't really matter all that much. The tidecaster's warscroll spell is amazing and should probably be the priority to cast (along with mystic shield). It's 1000 points though so I have no idea what the meta is or how the game really shifts at that level.

you are allowed to mix

Well, went 3-0 at a local tournament today and took 1st place with my deepkin! I've been posting a lot recently about my philosophy with the book so it was nice to win and not look like just a raving lunatic. Here's a link to the write-up! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=MiniaturesByCarl&set=a.722248799168671 Basically it's the same story time and time again. This time it was against nurgle, cities of sigmar, and a 5 doombull beastman list. My list was: Fuethan enclave: - Eidolon of storm with cloud - Tidecaster with master of magic -soulscryer -2x10 reavers -1x10 thralls -1x3 ishlaen -2x2 sharks with 3 nets and a harpoon -Leviadon with ancient

absolutely agree. Honestly I was never really sold on Morrsarr after the Morathi changes. I do think there's a place for Morrsarr in an Akhelian king-centric list since they take up a battleline slot but I don't think they really deserve a place at the non-battleline hammer discussion. I talk a little about hammer units but here's a bit deeper analysis. There are really 4 hammer units in our army: Morrsarr, Sharks, Leviadon, and the Eidolon of the Storm. These units deal damage and in the case of the Eidolon and tortle, provide enormous army-wide buffs which is what makes one of each an auto-include. So, what's the damage cut-off for each hammer? When I'm thinking about Deepkin hammer units, I can safely assume that I will be hitting at maximum efficiency. There really isn't going to be time for an opponent to remove my synergy pieces before I'm in combat and so I run the math as though I'm in Flood Tide (rr1s to hit and mounts get rr1s to wound) and in range of the Eidolon's buff (+1 to wound). With that in mind, the math turns out roughly as follows (data is presented as wounds through a 2+/3+/4+/5+ save): Tortle does 9/13/17/21 for 380 Eidolon does 6/9/11/14 for 330 2 Sharks with 4 bites apiece do 8.6/12/15/18 for 250 6 Morrsarr on the charge not using blast do 11.5/17.3/23/29 for 390 (assuming all 6 get all their attacks, which is unlikely) 6 Morrsarr not having charged and not using blast do 4.4/9/13/18 for 390 (assuming all 6 get all their attacks, which is unlikely) So, breaking it down to the amount of points it costs for each wound you inflict (damage efficiency), you get: Tortle: 42/29/22/18 Eidolon: 55/37/30/23.6 Sharks: 29/21/17/14 6 Morrsarr on charge: 34/22.5/17/13.4 6 Morrsarr not charging: 87/43/30/22 The most efficient damage dealers we have against the most important save profiles (2+, 3+, 4+) are a unit of 2 sharks clocking in at 250 points. Although their absolute damage output isn't as good as the Morrsarr on the charge or the tortle, the sharks are much more efficient, which is the most important thing for an army that doesn't really care about sequencing combats since high tide will be turn 2. What really kills the Morrsarr for me is their relative squishiness (4+ save ew), relatively poor non-charging stats, and the coherency issues they have to deal with as a 6 man squad. The ideal situation is sort of what I did in my last battle report against slaanesh. Even had I lost the roll for priority on turn 2, what was he going to charge? The whole army strikes first and no matter what he engaged, he was gonna have to take a LOT of very high damage attacks. Morrsarr present an obvious and expensive target for a turn 2 counterpunch that just isn't necessary. There are very few situations where I think 6 Morrsarr provide more utility than another leviadon or 3 sharks. This also brings me into another fairly important topic. The General In the olden days, Volty and eels were the obvious choice. But now, we live with short boards and eels who can't get 2+ unrendable saves. It is absolutely paramount that deepkin be able to obliterate large swathes of the opposing army before they're able to establish objective control and/or start chiseling away our units. The sooner you get to high tide, the sooner you win. The other sneaky truth is that reavers are really really really really good in Fuethan near an eidolon. They do roughly 2/4/6/8 wounds with 30 shots and provide a quick speedbump/screen that will fairly reliably one shot a 5 wounds 5+ save caster. They also move 8" and get to reroll run rolls so will absolutely get where they need to go. The Tidecaster general provides both a faster high tide and battleline reavers PLUS can take master of magic as a command trait for fairly reasonable anti-magic. And, to really cement the place of the tidecaster as my preferred general, they do it for way, way cheaper. A king and 3 minimum units of ishlaen will run you 725 points. A tidecaster, 2 reavers, and a thrall unit (my preferred configuration) clock in at 455. That's a 2 shark difference for MORE utiity. The difference only gets bigger if you take volturnos and a 6 man morrsarr. Volty, 2x3 ishlaen, 6 morrsarr= 960 points King, 3x3 ishlaen = 725 points Tidecaster, 2x10 reavers, 1x10 thralls = 455 points Considering the importance of an Eidolon and leviadon, you've sort of painted yourself into a slower tempo corner with the Akhelian general, whereas the tidecaster lets you take even more hammers and escalate the game tempo to where really nobody can keep up except for mega gargants because their book is just rude.

Here's the Slaanesh report! Pretty much went exactly how one might expect. Deepkin vs Slaanesh 2k Deepkin army: Fuethan Eidolon w/Cloud Eidolon Tidecaster w/ master of magic 2x10 Reavers 1x10 Thralls 2x2 Sharks Leviadon Slaanesh Army My opponent brought his Slaanesh monster mash list full of special characters Ssyl-eske or whatever the spelling is Dyxcessa The other twin Keeper of Secrets Sigvald 2x5 cavalry battleline guys 1x10ish archers Cogs He's been running this sort of list to pretty good effect. The damage output can be pretty insane and if you don't cripple him early, the summoning spirals out of control. Deployment: We roll up Power in Numbers which is actually a scenario I haven't played before in my 20-ish games of 3.0. Not that it matters because I'm playing Deepkin and their approach to objectives is basically "murder everything immediately and then worry about objectives" He redeploys his archers and sigvald off the table. I give him first turn Slaanesh Turn 1: He does the smart thing and declares ferocious advance with the 3 monsters to get the extra point. Magic does like 3 wounds to the tortle and otherwise he pushes up to a fairly defensible position. Sigvald and the archers come in, the archers shoot a few reavers and sigvald charges and erases a reaver unit. Deepkin Turn 1: Blah blah blah ok time to erase the opponent's army. I declare broken ranks on the far right unit of horse guys. Magic gives the right eidolon metamorphosis. I move up super fast, sending the tortle to smash sigvald to death while the left shark unit and cloud eidolon move up to remove the horse screen and prepare for the counterpunch (should it happen). The cloud of midnight is basically there in case things get too dicey, but since I always strike first next turn, I'm not too worried. Shooting puts a smattering of wounds on people. Combat goes about as expected, Sigvald, all the horse guys, and the archers all die horrible deaths. I do about 5 wounds to ssyl'eske who then fights twice with the help of the Keeper of Secrets and kills a shark. Then I roll a 6 for battleshock and the other shark runs away!! Very unexpected but I'm in a great place no matter who goes next. He's pinned in that center area and can't really break out without fighting me and I control most of the objectives which means I can burn them later on for big points. He has no way to threaten my home objectives and will have to fight dearly to keep his remaining ones. But then I win priority and therefore the game because that's how deepkin work. Deepkin Turn 2: I declare bring it down on the fighty twin and then proceed to kill every remaining model except his keeper of secrets. I hold every objective and burn the far left one on his end so that his summoned unit (he has 10 depravity points) can't get that objective. Slaanesh Turn 2: He bravely suicide charges the keeper into the absurd beast pocket I've set up. The keeper dies and it's an overwhelming... DEEPKIN VICTORY So yeah, extremely straightforward Deepkin game. Once you get the movement down and make sure you coordinate the auras of your synergy pieces, it's really a very simple army to play and one that just absolutely wins about 40% of the time if you go second. Double turning an opponent into high tide is one of the strongest swings in age of sigmar and kind of a feelsbad moment to play against. This was a fairly competitive slaanesh list and it just got blown out without really any chance to counterplay

I tried to take a couple different lists to highlight a few ways I think Deepkin can be played in 3.0. If you look at the lists that have been doing well in tournaments recently, there's really a few distinct power builds. Build #1: Fuethan with Eidolon, 2 Leviadons, Tidecaster general, flavor to taste. Jon Anderson took this one at the Michigan GT and it's a doinker for sure. Two tortles are just incredible in Fuethan (as is the whole army you should always take fuethan imo) and the Eidolon is basically an auto-include for the +1 wound bubble alone. He filled out the rest of the list with sharks and min battleline reavers. This list obviously wins on damage output and boy oh boy does it do a lot of it. Build #2 Fuethan with Eidolon, 1 Leviadon, Akhelian King, 5 singleton sharks, no eels Jake L'Ecuyer also took this to the MI GT and it's got the staples we love to see (Eidolon, Leviadon, and sharks) mixed up with a Very Tanky King (amulet and voidchill darkness). The King is a pretty sweet pick with the ability to tank a surprising amount of damage and the school of singleton sharks really helps lock down board control. Build #3 Fuethan with Eidolon, 1 Leviadon, Gotrek, one unit of 30 reavers, and a soulscryer. Didn't save the name of the guy who ran this list but it's another classic damage Deepkin list with the obligatory Eidolon and Leviadon but also with the early 3.0 reaver squad. Gotrek in Fuethan is probably what I would definitely do now, as Ionrach just isn't worth it since you give up all the incredible Fuethan buffs. Weak spot here is the soulscryer needing to be within 9" to curse a unit and him being outrageously squishy. All in all, it's got Gotrek, a leviadon, and an Eidolon so it's gonna absolutely ruin people. Build #4 Dhom-Hain with Eidolon, 2 Leviadons, Volturnos, and 2x3 morrsarr with a single net shark Also neglected to save the owner's name but here's our second iteration of the double leviadon damage list. This time it's even more all in on the smackdown with a net shark and 3 ishlaen to babysit objectives while you throw 2 tortles and a leviadon at people. Morrsarr definitely took a big hit in 3.0 and I personally don't like them, but when they're fast battleline that can easily wipe out screens/wizards and absolutely must be dealt with, they're pretty tasty. So, after spending too much time looking at these armies and the competitive meta, it's pretty clear that there's a pretty crystalized competitive core for Deepkin. Step one: Add an Eidolon of the Storm and a Leviadon to your list. That's roughly 700 auto-include points. Step two: You'll need at least 2 more hammer units. Personally, I consider anything that can do roughly 2 sharks worth of damage to be a hammer unit. With the extra bite and fuethan/Eidolon buffs, 2 sharks will reliably do around 10 wounds through a 3+ armor save. And by reliably, I mean your variance is almost nill across the entire army. With very few exceptions, you should be looking at 3+rr1/2+rr1 for every mount attack with the potential to use all out attack for a 2+rr1 to hit. At that point you're looking at upper 90% reliability in converting attacks to wounding hits. The only variance should be in your opponent's armor saves. But I digress. Hammer units can be things like: Gotrek, 30 reavers + soulscryer, 2 man shark units, leviadons, and/or morrsarr. It's not really super important what you pick, but you'll want at least 4 total units that can erase models from your opponent. Step three: Pick battleline. This will likely be 3x10 reavers or something costing about that amount (I prefer 2x10 reavers and 1x10 thralls because thralls actually do a huge amount of damage if they're ignored). If you like eels, then you know what to do. Personally, I'm moving ever further away from eels. They're not as tanky as they once were and I just haven't gotten good results from morrsarr. Plus battleline is (probably) what will be holding home objectives and screening your backfield. You want things that you're comfortable not throwing forward and will still accrue value. Step four: S Y N E R G Y. Ok so you've got 4 hammers that will take opponent's objectives and kill stuff. You've got some cheap chaff for screening/home objective holding. What needs to be considered now? I tend to think about board control, magic, and random bs. Board control is usually super easy for deepkin given our unbelievable speed. That being said, board control means screening out deep strike crip ****** and that's where inexperienced players straight up lose the game. On the new small board, it's extremely simple to screen out basically any deepstriker from places you don't want them to go. If you make sure that your entire army is with 18" of at least one or two other friendly units and/or a board edge (AFTER YOUR OPPONENT'S HERO PHASE), then you will never worry about deepstrike ever. Magic is our weak point. It's absolutely something that we lose against without fail. I recently learned that there are things called "universal command traits" and that I can take one on a tidecaster to let them reroll dispels. Immediate take. Lots of folks like running arcane tome on an eidolon which is a super reasonable pick and lets you guarantee that you'll be in dispel range of what you want to remove and that a cheeky flaming sword or mystic shield might happen. But I'm the kind of guy who hates rolling dice in a dice game and much prefers to just tell my opponent with almost complete certainty what's going to happen. This means that I like to tech HEAVILY against Random bs. I'm talking belakor shutting something down. I'm talking kairos spawning stuff while archie does the jillion things he does. I'm talking orruks moving every model every phase for free with 150 point pig units that are just unbelievably good. And then, of course, there's the getting double turned. There's a lot of random bs in the game and that's the deepkin kryptonite. So how do we deal with it. There are a couple ways. Most obviously is to kill it with your overwhelming speed before it has a chance to go off. Then there's my personal favorite- the cloud of midnight. This little artifact lets you ignore an instance of random bs and is a real bacon saver. Oh, I got double turned and hit with a stonehorn/mawkrusha/archaon? Pop the cloud and retreat/charge away later. Oh, you charge into a group of boltboyz? Good thing you popped the cloud so no unleashing hell on you! The cloud lets your Eidolon merrily zoom around doing whatever they want and most importantly, forces your opponent to play around you popping the cloud. Disrupting your opponent's line of play is how I classify the cloud of midnight and why I take it in all my lists. Deepkin win or lose in the first few turns so it being a one use only item has never been a problem. Plus, Deepkin are the OG play disrupters with Forgotten Nightmares, allowing you to comfortably not have to worry about shooting skew builds. Alright, so how do you put this together in an army? Well internal monologue, I'm glad you asked! Here's my current favorite deepkin list and why I did what I did. Fuethan- obvious choice for guaranteed reliability in hammer damage output and the absurd speed bonus Eidolon of the Storm w/Cloud of Midnight- second best model in our battletome and the disrupting beatstick we know and love Tidecaster General w/ Master of Magic and Arcane Corrosion- Reversing the tides guarantees I'll be maximizing my damage on turns 1-3 and on the small board it's impossible to hide from me. Honestly after they've reversed the tides and maybe cast mystic shield on the eidolon turn one, their job is to sit in my backfield, stop deepstrikers, and help cap home objectives. Plus they make reavers battleline which is actually extremely useful. 2x10 Reavers- Very fast, fairly shooty, and don't mind sitting on home objectives/dying as a screen. Since everything flies, reavers never box in my army and help provide that turn one forgotten nightmares target lock that's just unbelievably helpful. Plus they're cheap. 10 Thralls- Another chaff unit that I don't really care if they die. If they get ignored though... Against infantry I can usually get like 7 or so in combat for 22 attacks. Then I pop all out attack or have them target an enemy by the tortle and let the 2srr1/2s/-1/1 go brrrrrr as they erase most things on a native 4+ save. Or they get shot and obliterated. Oh well, they're cheap and just handy to have around. They're great to help deal with horrors. 2x2 Sharks w/3 nets and a harpoon- 2 hammer units that are extremely quick, don't bracket, and cement board control by preventing pile ins so I can cheekily engage your scary varanguard with my leviadon and you get exactly 1 guy fighting back. The harpoon is there to plink wounds off of units the sharks are gonna engage to ensure I get my extra bite. I want that bonus bite reallllly badly. And if my opponent wants to all out defense a unit against 4 wee shots, then that's a win in my book. 2x3 Ishlaen- ok so they're still pretty good. Tortle gives em bonuses to save and they're very very quick. Great for sniping objectives off of small chaff unit/5 wound wizards and also downright necessary to roadblock the Big Bads that don't spit out a thousand mortal wounds. Plus you can use all out defense to get them back to the glory days. They're fantastic second line screens and help immensely with board control (line them up sideways- you're still in coherency but your footprint is insane) Leviadon w/ancient- The best model in the army by far. All my opponents know it's coming and every time it still rampages through their army. A case could easily be made to drop the ishlaen units and a shark to take a second leviadon but I personally like the extra units for now. Plus I think the ignoring rend -1 is a large part of the tortle's survivability against most armies. Ah, who am I kidding- I'll probably take a second at some point. It's just that good. I put everything into a Battle regiment except the two shark units because I like hunters of the heartlands to stop things like roar and stomp. All out attack/defense is really important on a shark unit. Unfortunately this does take me to a 3 drop list, which is two more drops than I prefer to have. Being able to dictate first turn and threaten a double is absolutely vital for disrupting your opponent's game plan and often times they'll expect me to give them first turn (as in the Kruleboyz game) and then I'll take it instead and immediately rip through their army. So, to summarize, this army has the Damage (sharks, eidolon, leviadon). It has separate units dedicated to Board Control (eels, reavers, thralls). It deals with Magic as best it can with a rerollable dispel and through targeting wizards with cheap ishlaen/hammers. And it approaches random bs by disrupting the opponent in a number of ways (determining turn order, reversing the tides, cloud of midnight), and through insanely reliable damage spikes on turns 1-3. Things this army struggles against: Bulwarks: These are things that simply refuse to die to conventional damage. Deepkin have generally poor MW output so things that get to 2+rerollable or just 2+saves can be quite problematic (OBR, Annihilators, varanguard). Sons of Behemat are also extremely difficult to deal with since you can't cheese objectives off of them and they're absurdly tanky. You just have to yolo your hammers in there and win the slugfest as fast as you can. Otherwise using the shark nets to stop pile ins while you pin them with Ishlaen is the way to go. Nothing more annoying than me charging your varanguard bus turn one with ishlaen, tagging one model to stop pile-ins, surviving until my next turn, and then retreating 3.5" away from you so that by the end of your second turn the varanguard have moved forward 3" and killed a single ishlaen unit while the rest of your army is dead. Mortal Wounds (Magic): This has always been a huge problem for deepkin and what keeps us from joining the S-tier. We don't produce many and we don't really survive against them. Eidolon is fairly tanky with a free 5+ ward but the tortle goes down quick to nagash Arcane Bolt-a-thons. MW shooting is easily ignored. Gotrek is a great way to tech in absurd MW output but he's slow. Classic trade-off. Our magic is generally terrible and I still have no idea why Eidolon of the Sea is more points than the Storm. If you've read this all the way to the end, I hope it's proven a little helpful. Deepkin are in a pretty darn good place imo and with the right matchups I could see them winning some big tournaments. I've got a charity 3 round tourney on 11/7 coming up and I'm taking a fun double Eidolon (storm) list today against probably slaanesh. I'll try and put the batreps here but if I forget they'll be on my hobby fb page.

Deepkin vs. Lumineth Alrighty time for a classic showdown against our most hated foe! Deepkin Army: Ionrach Enclave Tidecaster General w/ +2 wounds Eidolon with cloud Soulscryer w/curse 10 Reavers 10 Reavers 10 Thralls 2 Sharks w/nets GOTREK Tortle That's right, I'm trying out one of the classic Deepkin power builds with the angriest little dwarf around. It's a one-drop list that reverses the tides and hits people with Gotrek real quick while outflanking the tortle and sharks to guarantee me a nice juiced charge for everyone (except gotrek). Lumineth army My opponent brings the Deepkin's most hated foe... Teclis... He takes: Teclis Sevireth 20 Wardens 20 Sentinels 5 Blademasters Ballista Umbral Spellportal Basically a classic castle plus Sevireth. I think I'm really quite favored here, as Deepkin love busting castles and I can guarantee that my Leviadon and Sharks are immune to damage for the first turn. He's got one extremely mobile model but I don't really have to worry about being move-blocked and can just kill everything else. Deployment We roll up Apex Predators (only leaders can capture objectives) which is actually kind of a problem for this list since Gotrek isn't a leader. I deploy so that the Eidolon and Tidecaster will be able to get two objectives and pretty much decide to not even worry about stopping sevireth from getting his. Sharks and Leviadon go into reserve and I give my opponent the first turn! LRL Turn 1ish So this picture is actually at the end of my movement phase... Here's what happened in his turn! He declared broken ranks on the left reaver unit and magics everyone for a few mortal wounds here and there. The spears shuffle up to try and keep me off the objective in the middle. Sevireth takes the top objective and then runs behind the bladelords. He shoots the left reavers to death and does like 6 wounds to the right unit. I move up, dispel umbral spellportal with my mighty deepkin magic phase. I auto run Gotrek 6" and he redeploys the spearmen 5" backwards to make me work for the 8" charge. This allows me to sneak the tidecaster onto that center objective. I then bring on the sharks and tortle, declaring his spearmen to be my target for the soulscryer. It's charge time... Deepkin Turn 1 (through the Charge phase) Eidolon, Gotrek, and the Tortle make their charges, with the Tortle also engaging the sentinels for good measure because that's how it goes. His stand and shoot does like 3 wounds to the Eidolon. Well, time for the Deepkin to do what they do Deepkin Turn 1 (the chomp phase) Annnnnd all the sentinels and wardens die horribly. I then get the double turn and we call it. DEEPKIN VICTORY That's kinda how the Deepkin play. It's just so hard to deal with their alpha strike and getting the double turn into high tide is pretty much an auto-win. I think I'll go back to my Fuethan list since that's more my style, but with a couple changes since I very much like having the soulscryer around and think that Gotrek isn't really worth taking Ionrach (although without Ionrach he's not nearly as good). MVP is obviously Gotrek but the Eidolon put in some good work too!

After a brief and exciting time playing Skaven, a local league has started up and everyone unanimously voted for me to play Deepkin (my prettiest and also favorite army). And since I'm a total loser who doesn't work today, I'm gonna throw up a couple batreps here and also discuss my Deepkin philosophy and lists. Overall, I think Deepkin are a solid A army. They're not the Big 4 (SoB, LRL, DoK, whatever flavor of chaos runs archie/kairos), but they've got the output and movement control to comfortably compete with most everyone else until the new Stormcast start to hit the tables in force. Without further ado... Deepkin vs Kruleboyz Deepkin Army: Fuethan 2000 points Eidolon with Cloud Tidecaster general w/ +2 wounds 2x10 Reavers 1x10 Thralls 2x3 Ishlaen 2x2 sharks all with nets Tortle Everything in BR except for sharks in Hunters for a total of 3 drops. GS is to keep more units alive than my opponent. Kruleboys Shooty subfaction Guy who bubbles out better mortal wounds on a beastie with a shocking number of wounds 2 Shamans for juicing 1 Cave troll hero who is the best character in the faction 2x6 Boltboys 2x20 Gutrippaz 1x10 hobgoblins Deployment We roll up the predator scenario and I declare the Eidolon, Tortle, and top shark unit. He declares the troll character and the boltboys. I set up with the classic "thin line of namarti with all the juicy guys right behind so they can't be shot" and he sets up his bunker but makes a huge mistake. I worry he'll notice the mistake and correct it in his pre-game move. Pregame Move Nope, instead he doubles down on the mistake and pushes up a screening line of hobgrots. This is not what you should do against deepkin for reasons that will become very clear. He elects to give me the first turn since his shooting will be completely wasted and if my army gets the double turn into turn 2 then it's basically game over. I reverse the tides and he is at -1 to wound (thankfully the eidolon buff cancels this out) Deepkin Turn 1 I pick Aggressive Expansion and move up fairly aggressively on the right flank because I knew if I could kill off the troll character then I would completely control roughly half the board. I used a CP to auto run the sharks 6" thanks to the eidolon and he redeployed his troll 6" away from them, leaving me 9" away from the troll. Unfortunately for him, he moved the troll sideways instead of directly backwards. This meant that I could charge the hobgoblin screen to leverage some additional pile-in movement and then goon the troll. That's the mistake I noticed during deployment. My whole army flies so if you want to screen me, you need to prevent me from landing. Giving me a speedbump just lets me fly over the screen and then use pile-in to engage stuff that I otherwise wouldn't be able to. PLUS I get the free movement from making the charge that I otherwise wouldn't have. Ok, so my shooting phase goes ok and I kill 2 boltboyz from the rightmost unit and stop the rightmost guttrippaz unit from piling in, just in case I get a long bomb charge. The troll takes a couple wounds from the reavers. I end up needing the extra pile-in movement with the Eidolon and shark unit to engage the troll (they both charge the hobgoblins), but I end up getting the eidolon and one shark in attack range. The thralls also charge the hobgoblins. Turns out I didn't need the shark to engage the troll, since the Eidolon absolutely erases him. The hobgoblins also die. So end of turn one I score 6 points ( hold one, hold 2, hold more, battle tactics, predator unit kill) Kruleboyz Turn 1 He also declares aggressive expansion. He moves up to capture the bottom objective and middle objective, but needs to charge in order to get the movement he needs to capture the middle objective. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't run them, but I think he really wanted to maximize his output before I get to fight first with my whole army. He shoots and removes 10 reivers and a unit of 3 eels with mortal wounds alone. Those boltboyz are no joke! He charges, gets the movement he needs to tag the thralls without engaging the eidolon, but only kills one while losing 3 gutrippaz in return. He scores 5 points (hold one, hold 2, hold more, battle tactic) And then the roll for turn 2... I win priority and we both know that's pretty much the ball game. But let's see how it goes! Deepkin Turn 2 (well, most of a turn) I declare conquer for posterity. I move up the eidolon around his flank and bring up my whole army to get ready for the mass charges. Shooting removes the rightmost boltboy unit. Charges come and I charge the back shaman with the eidolon. I end my charge movement within 3" of the other boltboy unit and my opponent insists that they are therefore unable to unleash hell. This was pretty clearly a misinterpretation of the rule, but since it didn't matter and the salt levels were rising, I let him have it. (I would have just popped the cloud of midnight at the start of the charge phase to make the eidolon untargetable anyways). At this point my opponent calls the game, as I was about to slam him with my entire army thats striking first and he had no way to really cause damage, as everything he had was about to die except ironically the shamans and leftmost gutrippa unit. DEEPKIN WIN! Yep, this is my bully list that I think is one of the better lists available to the army at this time. To be fair, this is a terrrrrible matchup for the Kruleboyz shooting army but that's what happens when you lean heavy into a skew list and why I always build TAAC. Ok, time for the second battle report.

Alrighty! Battle report time! Our heroes! Deepkin are my favorite army by far and I'm super happy to bring them back out in 3rd edition and see how they do! Fuethan Enclave: Eidolon of the Storm w/ cloud of midnight Volturnos Tidecaster general w/ +2 wounds command trait 10 Reavers 10 Reavers 10 Thralls 2 Sharks with nets 2 Sharks with nets Leviadon w/ancient Emerald lifeswarm 1985 points and a 1 drop! Grand strategy is keep battleline unit alive Alrighty so this is the ol' "reverse tides and everyone dies" approach. New small board means it's pretty easy to run the big hitters across the table and smash people real good like. If I can't do that, this army dies pretty much immediately- no magic is real bad. Reavers are quite good this edition and 2 units of 10 lets me sit em on my home objectives and not really worry about getting utility out of them. 8" move and reroll runs means they're super good at cheeky objective sniping and their bows aren't ~bad~. Eels don't really have a great place in this list- I tend to be the alpha strike and sharks are waaaaay better than morrsarr. Plus I generally get to say who goes first if I have to go first to wipe someone out, I definitely will. Opposing Army Our hated rivals and also an army I like quite a bit. Whereas you may know I like the "Larry and friends" approach, my opponent brought the bunker bois painted in a beautiful fall theme. Gnarlroot Glade: Treelord Ancient w/extra cast artefact Durthu Warsong Rev w/Chalice Branchwraith 5 Tree Revs 5 Tree Revs 20 Dryads 6 Kurnoths w/Scythes Spellportal Spiteswarm Gladewyrm hoooo boy, lots of spells and save stacking. My worst nightmare... Deployment We roll up apex predators and I pick the Eidolon, Leviadon, and the far right unit of sharks. He picks Durthu, the Warsong Rev, and the Kurnoths The second unit of reavers is deployed into the now garrison-able boat! I obviously have fewer drops and graciously allow my opponent to take the first turn! … TURN 1 He declares Aggressive Expansion and we both fail to generate CP. His hero phase is notable for him making new Treelord Ancient woods, casting throne of vines on the branchwraith, then casting umbral spellportal, spiteswarm, having mystic shield unbound, and finally failing to cast the warsong boomspell (phew!) He bubbles out the +1 save and the spiteswarm bubbles out the +1 save too. Movement involved the usual Sylvaneth trickery as he threw the Kurnoths onto the far left objective and a unit of tree revs onto the far right objective before moving up the dryad screen and shuffling the characters up behind it. His Kurnoth fail the 9" charge into the left sharks. He scores 5 points. Deepkin turn starts with me declaring Conquer, him not getting a CP and me dispelling the umbral spellportal. I then cast lifeswarm and it gets ready to maybe help with the middle scrum that's about to develop. In the movement phase, I notice the shark-sized gap between his two kurnoth and the dryad screen and CP my sharks to run 6" for a casual 20" plunge into his backfield. Otherwise everyone runs up real far. Eidolon goes to engage the Dryad screen with the turtle right behind him. Right side sharks move up too and the reavers run to get real close to the Tree Revs on the right side. I steal back the center objective and the far right one. Shooting phase sees me kill 3 tree revs, do 3 wounds to the Kurnoths, and stop the Dryads from piling in. Chaaaarge phase and my dice decide they don't wanna. The left sharks make an excellent charge into his exposed Warsong and the Eidolon hits the dryads. The turtle and second unit of sharks fail their respective 5" charges even with a reroll and the line sort of stalls a little. In combat my Eidolon kills a mighty 4 dryads but the sharks do the deepkin thing and erase the warsong with the help of all out attack. Who knew that 2's rerolling ones to hit and wound with 6 attacks, -2 rend and 2 damage would be so good?!!? Plus the guys on the back are 12 attacks at 2rr1s/2/-/1 which lets me cut through the 4+/4+ save warsong no problem. I score 5 points It's a tie game at 5-5 going into turn 2 and the Sylvaneth win priority! TURN 2 He nominates my poor Namarti Thralls for Broken Ranks and we both fail to generate CP, as is tradition. He casts gladewyrm and can't summon any dryads thanks to my sharks blocking out the woods by his branchwraith. He also dispels my lifeswarm. He moves up his Kurnoth their whole 5" to get within range of my poor thralls, but a cheeky redeploy pulls them way back. Otherwise Durthu and the Treelord Ancient get ready to do unspeakable things to my poor left sharks. He also flings over his other 5 Tree Revs to try and kill the reavers on the far right objective, which would give him control. Shooting is pretty unremarkable. The sharks take some wounds. He whiffs the long bomb charge with the Kurnoths which is a HUGE relief and guarantees my wee thralls live to do nothing for another day. The tree revs also make their charge into the reavers. Durthu makes the sharks strike last and erases them from existence. However, the reavers strike first and kill a couple tree revs, only losing 4 in response and keeping me in control of the left objective. The Eidolon does marginally better and kills like 8 dryads. He scores 1 point for holding the back left objective. My turn starts and I see an easy bonus point for Broken Ranks and declare the 2 man tree rev unit as the target. Hero phase is a thing that exists for other, non-deepkin armies. Movement phase involves me moving the leviadon over to goon some poor innocent tree revs for that sweet sweet bonus point. I also realize that I should probably try and kill some predator units with my predator units and that the Kurnoths seem a little out of position and also on an objective I would like to have. So stuff starts to move down towards them. The thralls move towards the Kurnoths to taunt them but also screen out the objective a little bit. Shooting plunks a Kurnoth and the reavers ERASE the 3-man unit of tree revs. Charges go better this time and the Leviadon kills the Broken Ranks target for the bonus point! The Eidolon finishes off the dryads, finally. I score 6 points (hold one, hold 2, hold more, battle tactic, monster bonus) Score is 11-6 going into turn 3 and I get the double! TURN 3 We're back to Flood Tide and I declare Savage Spearhead since he burned the left objective and the huge territories in this scenario make it real easy. Everyone comes on down to bully the Kurnoths, specifically, the Eidolon and predator Sharks come to bully them to try and get some bonus points. Not really much else happened except I killed all except 1 and scored another casual 5 points. He starts off by declaring conquer and making Durthu/the TLA +3 move/charge. Since the Eidolon has the cloud of making Durthu useless for a turn, he decides to bully some Thralls and also maybe Volturnos. As he does so I declare another redeploy and chuck Volty behind his endless spell, making it really really hard for them to charge him. He does summon some Dryads and teleport them to the center objective to ensure that I have to come shift them. And then he predictably erases the poor thralls who never hurt anyone. BUT he can't get to Volturnos. Meanwhile the Eidolon/Shark team kill the last Kurnoth, getting me a bonus predator point. He scores 3 points and I score 1. Score is 17-9 going into turn 4 and I win priority! TURN 4 I've got a comfortable points lead and figure I just need to hang on for a little while longer so declare ferocious advance with volturnos, the tidecaster, and the bottom reaver squad. They run to get me the bonus points while the leviadon, eidolon, and shark unit prepare to kill 10 dryads harder than anyone's ever killed them before. They do so and the turn ends with me scoring 3 points. My opponent realizes he's gotta score big this turn and declares Monstrous Takeover. Durthu continues to wisely avoid the Eidolon bait and instead murders a whole bunch of sharks despite my use of redeploy. The TLK does like 3 wounds to the Eidolon who slaps like 4 wounds back. He scores 4 points (1 objective, 1 battle tactic, 1 killing a predator unit) At this point the score is 20-13 and we call the game. DEEPKIN VICTORY AFTERTHOUGHTS This was a really good game! I was pretty pleased with my deepkin list in general, but I really don't think the lifeswarm is worth the investment when I have just absolute trash magic. The Eidolon is still an unbelievably good model, but frustrating in how it's an ok brawler but has an incredible buff. It's tough to pick his combats well and the Cloud of Midnight is pretty much an auto-include to give you a get out of jail free card if he gets caught out by a double turn. Volturnos is another model that might actually not be hyper necessary. I never used his super juice ability and with Fuethan, the whole army rerolling ones for turns 1 and 3 seems like it may be sufficient. Especially when you're reversing the tides and not benefitting from battleline eels. 260 points is 2 more sharks and I can't help but think that might be a better investment. All out attack exists and the Eidolon doesn't actually benefit from Volty's aura. I also actually didn't miss eels. 3+ unrendable doesn't go nearly as far as 2+, and with the tides being reversed, I'm all in on the alpha strike which means that the Ishlaen screen isn't really helpful and Morrsarr output isn't nearly as consistent as the sharks. Deepkin also suffer from not being able to bring ~the nonesense~ that top AoS 3.0 armies can utilize. I don't get unkillable god monsters that nuke armies by themselves and can never die. I don't get to auto-kill stuff with destiny dice while churning out spawn through unblockable 6MW spells and altering dice rolls. I don't get to shut down units for phases while bringing 50 model resurrectable battleline units. Deepkin output suffers greatly in this new edition of save stacking and MW spam but I really think they've got potential. I'll be absolutely playing them in the future and will keep you all updated!

Honestly, if you run the math, Volturnos does roughly the same amount of damage as an Akhelian king with polearm on the charge and far more damage if you aren't charging. I also find that Volturnos/the King aren't really frontline brawlers. They're great for wizard sniping but definitely not gonna solo blocks by themselves. It's also tough to overstate the importance of the rr1 aura, especially during High Tide. An extra 6" radius is enormous. The Volturnos/Storm Eidolon combo is less than 600 points and guarantees insane reliability on turns 1 and 3 if you're not reversing the tides. Like unironically the vast majority of your damage dealers should be hitting on 3s rerolling ones and then wounding on 2s rerolling ones. I've also found that the Cloud Eidolon is still unbelievably versatile, especially with his retreat and charge ability. Pulling the ol' bait and switch works against a huge number of opponents, and if they don't take the bait, you still get the benefit of throwing the Eidolon into their backfield with the ability to pop the cloud at any time. And, of course, Ishlaen are absolutely amazing. I value sharks more than Morrsarr now, as stopping pile-in is an unbelievably good ability and 2 sharks have way more consistent output and survivabilility than 3 Morrsarr for only 55 additional points.

oof I've never played a 3K game but at that point I'd consider kragnos to be almost mandatory since you'll for sure be seeing monsters. Otherwise, just whatever tickles your fancy!

SO, everyone keeps saying, oh this is the monster edition, oh we like monsters, oh you need monster heroes, etc, etc. Well that may be true but I don't play SKAVEN to not run unwashed hordes of rats. That's right, it's time for another Battle Report!!! 2000 points versus Stormcast with the new Dominion goodies. Our heroes: Bombardier general w/ Deranged Inventor and MMWP Engineer w/warp spark generator and MMWP Plague Priest on Furnace w/ Curse 40 Clanrats in Hunters 20 Clanrats 20 Clanrats 6 Stormfiends in Hunters 20 Plague monks 10 Plague monks WLV 1990 points, 3 drops, and a crispy 110 rattos (total wounds: 171ish) Our dastardly, mostly unpainted foes! Hammers of Sigmar: Yndrasta Gav New character with Dog Friend Banner boi of rezzing models 3x5 Liberators 2x3 Annihilators 10 Evocators 3 Praetors We roll up the classic scenario with 3 central objectives and one's an alpha. DEPLOYMENT He puts both annihilators, Gav, banner guy, and evocators in deep strike. I knew he was gonna put guys into deepstrike and as a KO player, I knew that denying cheeky deepstrikes was the clear path to victory. I also knew that with a huge part of his army off the table, I would be able to swarm the objectives with a ridiculous number of bodies, as is the skaven way. I give him first turn and the far left objective is worth double! TURN ONE He picks Ferocious Advance with the Yndrasta bunker He starts by rolling a 2 to run the leftmost liberators which means they aren't in range to cap the alpha objective which means that he has to bring down an Annihilator unit to make sure he gets the 2 points. They kill like 6 rats and don't bother the Furnace with the Deepstrike shenanigans. The furnace redeploys towards them. Otherwise stuff just moves up to get objectives and runs for the battle tactic. The right Gnawhole draws first blood by killing a liberator by being deadly. I start by declaring Ferocious Advance and then immediately casting MMWP and WLV as is tradition. WLV punks some clanrats and some liberators. Furnace fails to curse the annihilators. The Furnace never got a prayer off all game so yeah. I then swarm tf out of the objectives while chaining out the plague monks to stop cheeky deepstrikes and keeping the 10 man monk unit back to screen out the DS while also being a gnawhole threat. In the Skaven phase, the Stormfiends forget to use all out attack but still kill the central liberators and like 1.5 Annihilators. Then the Furnace charges the Annihilators and removes them from the game with d3+4 mortal wounds. I easily score all the objectives.and my battle tactic with the big block, engineer, and rightmost clanrat unit. Score is 6-6, alpha objective goes to the center, and stormcast win priority for turn 2! TURN 2 Stormcast declare Savage Spearhead. Hero phase is nonexistent beyond him dispelling my WLV with a heroic action. He decides to escalate the pressure by bringing on the other unit of Annihilators to push the left objective. They kill a few more rats with the deepstrike bomb thing. Otherwise he moves up the right liberators and the Yndrasta bubble. He misses Yndrasta's shot and the charges begin. He charges the Annihilators into the Furnace, Liberators into the 20 plague monks, and the Liberators into my right clanrat unit. He decides to not charge Yndrasta into the clanrat block because the MMWP stormfiends would really really really really like to Unleash Hell on her and the charge would take her out of Praetor range. Him waiting to declare if she would charge meant that the annihilators don't have to eat the shots since I was saving that reaction for the Yndrasta charge. Combat starts and he goes with the Annihilators first and they show why -1 rend is kinda useless by doing 4 wounds to the Furnace. The Furnace then does the classic "roll a 1 for the Censer" thing and does no damage back. The Liberators kill like 4 plague monks who then kill 3 liberators back. The right Liberators kill 4ish clanrats and lose one in response. He scores 3 points (1 for left objective and 2 for battle tactic). I choose Aggressive Expansion for the auto points since I control 2 objectives on the centerline already. Hero phase is lame and I only cast MMWP. Vortex fails even with a spark reroll. I decide to get up in there and pin Yndrasta so she can't kill my general or be annoying. Movement phase involves me retreating the plague monks to screen my back line while bringing in the Clanrats to steal that objective back. Otherwise it's pretty uneventful. Stormfiends eliminate another 1.5 Annihilators and also all the Praetors. The Warlock engineer kills a liberator with his pistol!!!! I charge the clanrats into the Liberator/Annihilator combat just in time for the plague furnace to bonk the annihilators for like 4 wounds, leaving one wounded one left. The leftmost liberators kill like 3 clanrats who then kill another one which is cool. The right-side slap fight continues but I outnumber him like 10:1 so I don't even care. Yndrasta, absolute goddess of the Stormcast kills 6 clanrats. I get 6 points, the alpha objective stays in the middle and the score is 12-9 skaven with stormcast winning priority for turn 3! TURN 3 Alrighty this is it, the turn where the Chosen of Sigmar sweep away the vermintide in righteous lightning! He declares Conquer for the middle objective. Hero phase is boring. Yndrasta gets ~value~ by bringing back a free Annihilator which is cool. He brings down Gav, the Evocators, and the Banner boi to finish off the big brick o' rats. He shoots like 3 rats to death and then CHARGES with everything at plus a million rerolling charges. Well the Stormfiends get to use that Unleash hell and plink off 2 Evocators. However, the Evocators show why -1 rend is useless and some All Out Defense on the clanrats means that between them and Yndrastra, only like 20 die, leaving me with 11 wee rattos. BUT, he sneakily brought the evocators within 3" of the fiends and blasts them for 7 mortals. The fiends take this kinda personal like and pile in, killing 2 evocators since MMWP is still active. The Furnace wipes out the annihilators and the left clanrats kill the last liberator. It turns out that he has (2+2+6) bodies for objectives which is less than the 11 rattos and 2 stormfiend "bodies". So he scores 0 points for the turn. At this point we call it since I'll score 6 points easily by retreating out of combat and holding that center objective. I'll also easily shoot the evocators to death with the Fiends and then it's Yndrasta vs literally my whole army. SKAVEN WIN!!!! WRAP UP Ok yeah this list is way better than the Thanquol list. The Skryre twins are awesome and do what they do with practically unlimited warpsparks. They also cast very very well and are soooo cheap. Plague Furnace is actually really good. The Battleshock bubble was EXTREMELY helpful and the mortal wounds in CC basically mean it wins vs elite units. 4+ armor 5+ ward is sliiiiightly squishy but you should just shoot whatever can punch through that easily. This list has the bodies to swarm objectives AND screen out any deepstrike. The Stormfiends are extremely good as always. I think 6 might actually edge out 9 for me because 9 seems like overkill almost all the time and having 40 bodies in front of them mean that I don't really have to worry about stuff just blowing through my screen. All out defense clanrats for a "4+" save is insanely good. I think I just play this list as is for next time! Who needs Verminlords?

Yeah, my build runs the -1 to hit but that's just because my local meta isn't big on the spells. I think the lantern is just as good and it really just depends what you expect to see. How I justify it to myself is that the lantern is situationally useful while I know the -1 to hit will always be useful. Plus the heroic action to dispel a spell exists and is pretty darn good if you're like me and always fail the 4+ to generate another CP. But yeah, lantern is a super reasonable choice.

Thanks! Honestly this army doesn't really fight people on multiple fronts so saving a CP for battleshock immunity is all I needed. You can see in the report that I pretty much never had to worry about rolling for battleshock but if things had gone a little differently then things might have been dicey. That being said, the only battleshock I'd be concerned about would be the stormfiends and the big block of rats, so I'm not sure including the immunity would be worth the price of a bell/furnace in this list. I wish I owned jezzails. They seem real good haha

That's right, it's time for a SKAVEN battle report! One Stormfiend and the shackles are missing from the picture. My listThanquol w/WarpgaleWarp Bombardier general w/deranged inventor, MMWPWarlock Engineer w/vigordust, MMWP (yes I know I can only attempt to cast one per turn)40 Clanrats20 Clanrats20 Clanrats6 StormfiendsWLVSoulsnare shackles 1965 points Battle Regiment and hunters (40 clanrats, fiends)Grand Strategy: Keep wizards aliveOk so this here is my attempt at a "Control" skaven list.General idea is to prevent the enemy from moving while WLV, shackles, and stormfiends cause an obscene amount of damage and clanrats suicide onto objectives. I'm still working on this list quite a bit and it's not optimized by any means. My opponent brought Fyreslayers, including Thanquol's most hated foe... GOTREK!!!! Will the Horned Rat's finest get revenge, or will this be another in the long list of ignominous defeats... His list: Lofnir Lodge GOTREK Battlesmith with 12" ignore spell aura Runesmiter (deepstriking) Runesmiter 10 Auric gun guys (deepstriking) 5 Auric gun guys 5 Auric gun guys 10 Vulkites 10 Hearthguard berserkers with poles 10 Hearthguard Berserkers with poles So basically his army pretty much ignores one of the two ways I can deal damage by shrugging all my endless spell damage. I also don't really have any shooting beyond the stormfiends to dedicate into shooting off the anti-magic guy and I'm not sure it's worth devoting them to killing one character. We rolled up Apex Predators. I picked the stormfiends (for actually killing stuff), and the 2 engineers (for hiding to deny points). I figured Thanquol had a big ol target on his back and I'd rather not have him give up 2 points if killed (monster and predator). He picks Gotrek and the 2 Berserker units for obvious reasons. So, going into the game, I knew this was gonna be a super tough matchup with him ignoring spells and deepstriking. But he doesn't have a lot of anti-magic beyond that so I knew MMWP was likely going off each turn. I needed to box him in the middle and delete stuff or else I would be toast once a cheeky heroic dispel got rid of shackles and he was able to punch through the 40 clanrats. I get 5 warpstone sparks and make him take the first turn. DEPLOYMENT Turn 1 He declares Ferocious advance with his heroes. He pops the movement rune and moves everyone up. He surprises me by immediately bringing up the aurics/battlesmith and unloading 20 aurics into Thanquol. 11 wounds later I am very very scared of Fyreslayer shooting. No charges since he ran and he scores 5 points. I'm on the back foot but know I need to get the movement blocks going. I declare kill a battleline unit and point at the 10 Aurics in front. Thankfully I heal 3 on Thanquol and cast WLV and warpgale on Gotrek, effectively pinning him in place. I then cast shackles in front of the clanrats and MMWP on the fiends, with the help of a warpstone spark. Throughout the entire game, my opponent passed easily 80% of his ignore spell rolls, so I'm just gonna mention the few times I do sneak wounds through. The fiends open up and their inaugural volley erases the 10 Aurics. However, I only get 3 points since I can't get to the right objective and the center is full of dwarves. End of Turn one and it's 3-5 Fyreslayers. But then, in a classic AoS move, I get the double turn. END OF TURN 1: Turn 2 Time to score! I select conquer for my battle tactic. Thanquol heals some more and my opponent makes one of his two huge mistakes- choosing to use his heroic action to dispel the WLV instead of the shackles. I move up the right clanrats to steal the objective from the vulkites. Magic is boring since the endless spells are up and thanquol gales Gotrek. The fiends shoot the rightmost berserkers and kill 8 of them. I score 5 points. My opponent picks Aggressive Expansion and uses his heroic action to heal Gotrek who had taken 3 wounds from all the chip damage from spells he'd been receiving. He fails to dispel shackles but rolls 4/8 6's to rally his Berserkers which are now back to over half health. He moves his vullkites to shoo off my clanrats on the rightmost objective who redeploy 5" backwards. Otherwise he sort of just shuffles. around to block me off that middle objective. By putting the shackles where I did, he won't be able to actually finish a charge move without his unit being on top of the spell which means that only Gotrek can actually charge me and he is half everything so the 8" charge is impossible. Shooting kills some clanrats. He charges 11" into my clanrats and wraps em up good with the vulkites who kill 9 clanrats. BUT, he charged so far he forgot to actually capture the objective he was running me off of... so he fails his battle tactic and only scores 1 point this turn. Sneaky sneaky rat tricks. Score at the end of 2 is 8-6 Skaven. I win priority for turn 3! END OF TURN 2 Turn 3 I declare Aggressive expansion (I know I'll automatically get it since I still hold the rightmost objective thanks to his overenthusiastic charge). Hero phase I bring back up WLV and actually manage to kill his deepstriking battlesmith with the shackles! I also chip 3 more wounds onto gotrek from the multiple spell procs and warpgale which takes him to 3 remaining. Movement is boring. Shooting is less boring. I kill the hearthguard unit netting me a bonus VP from my apex killing one of his! I score 6 points He declares conquer for the easy 2 points and fails to dispel shackles again. Movement is a wash, with him pulling the vulkites onto the objective and otherwise kerfuffling around. He didn't want to pull the last hearthguard brick over to the left objective because he knew I would just move the clanrats to the center and take that one from him since he wasn't able to kill enough of them with shooting and couldn't get into combat with em. Shooting killed a few more clanrats. No combat. He scores 5 points Score is 14-11 skaven. I win priority again! END OF TURN 3 TURN 4 I declare Monstrous Takeover for the easy thanquol grab. I know I need to get that center objective for the additional points this turn so I choose to dispel WLV and throw my clanrat block up to snag the objective. I also manuever my left clanrats to ensure that it's an impossible charge for his berserkers and hit them with warpgale so they can't come steal my left objective. Stormfiends only kill 3 Hearthguard since I ran out of warp sparks. I score 5 points but know that's the last turn I'm gonna be able to contest 2 objectives... He starts his turn and declares broken ranks. He dispels shackles and shoots like 8 more wounds off of Thanquol who had been quietly healing in the corner not bothering anyone. So he's back on 11 wounds taken. Gotrek blends the clanrat block. He scores 5 points Score at the end of 4 is 19-16. It's coming down to the wire. I win priority for turn 5! END OF TURN 4 Turn 5 Coming off this lucky priority streak I realize that he only has one priest remaining and that he's taken 2 chip wounds from all the spells. I declare savage spearhead for an easy 2 points with Thanquol and the back clanrat unit easily being in the weird opponent's territory of the scenario. I cast a bunch of spells and the stormfiends go "brrrrt" into the last priest and kill him. At this point we call the game. I would get 3 points for the turn. I figured the 10 berserkers and Gotrek would probably kill the stormfiends for the apex predator point and he would get his savage spearhead battle tactic which would give him a total of 6 points. So final score would be 22-22, a tie?!?! BUT NO! Grand strategy kicks in and final score is 25-22 skaven!! Thanquol gets his victory over Gotrek in an extremely close game. END OF TURN 5 (as we're halfway putting models away) Postgame Throughts: Ok so that was a bit of an unusual game where my opponent could happily ignore my magical damage output which is a huge part of this list. However, his lack of dispels meant that I could easily cast MMWP and not have to worry about the stormfiends not being juiced up. I did get seriously lucky with the double turn and subsequent priority rolls and my opponent did make 2 huge mistakes so I'm aware this wasn't a victory easily replicated. That being said, here's my analysis and grades of my units for anyone interested. Thanquol (B): He is excellent at casting WLV and warpgale. But I can cast those with any grey seer and it's an absolute joke that Gotrek is only 30 points more. The warpfire throwers were pretty wasted against my opponent but as my only monster and also general, he's not really tanky enough to survive concentrated removal. For 405 points, I feel like I could replace him without losing too much efficiency and add some more bodies. But, warpgale is an insanely good spell for what this army wants to do and Thanquol is really the only reliable caster for it. Warlock Bombardier and Engineer (A-): Did exactly what they needed to do but often I didn't really have spells for them to cast since they were pretty far in my backlines to ensure the stormfiends got MMWP. I think I'll definitely swap out vigordust for the esoteric warp resonator for the free warpstone spark each round. Stormfiends really need the spark to do damage and I need to do whatever I can to properly buff them. Bombardier did about 3 wounds all game with his rocket but hey, damage is damage. Clanrats (A)- Yeah they do exactly what they're supposed to. 40 of em can survive quite a bit of shooting and the +2 to running means they can scuttle around super well. You know em, you love em. Stormfiends (A): They killed 10 Aurics, 13 Hearthguard, and a Runesmiter. They clearly are the stars here and the MVPs of the game. Only issue with them is that I ran out of warpsparks on turn 4 and that's absolutely crippling for their output. Obviously a star unit but you really have to sink resources into them to make 'em worthwhile. Warp Lightning Vortex (B-): Tough game to be a WLV. It's a great spell that still blows enormous holes in your opponent's army. Pinning them with clanrats and then just booming away is excellent against any buff-heavy bubble army that doesn't ignore spell effects on a 4+ Soulsnare Shackles (A+): The real MVP's of the game. Adding an extra layer of protection for the Stormfiends while ensuring that the clanrat brick continually threatens to push up for objectives is unbelievably huge. Unfortunately there are multiple points of failure- I can fail to cast it, it can be dispelled, or it can be dispelled in the opponent's turn. For armies that don't do a lot of magic, it's amazing. But I'll definitely keep messing around with it. All in all, this army did pretty well against a really very competitive Fyreslayer list. Being able to make Gotrek move roughly 4" a turn and keep him out of my army until turn 4 was game defining. The threat of unleash hell with Stormfiends is also a big mind**** for your opponents, even though without the warpsparks, the fiends don't do a whole lot. I think for the next game I'm gonna consider dropping Thanquol and trying to get some more bodies in there. 2x10 plague monks would be excellent gnawhole jumpers while being able to actually threaten small units. That leaves me like 250 points to mess with...

Let us all know how it goes (both the tournament and practice game)! I personally like the mancrushers since having them stay back in your territory doesn't feel as bad as having a mega do that. They also let you do very cheeky objective snipes and are shockingly quick with run and charge near a mega. But, tbh, I also only own 3 magnetized megas and 9 mancrushers so playing with 4 megas isn't something I have any experience with. I'd definitely run taker tribe without any hesitation. AoS 3 is interesting in that monsters got both way killier and also way tankier. Don't forget that you can pop finest hour on all 3 of your megas in addition to all out defense which will put them on a 3+ ignoring the first point of rend. Oh, also, don't be afraid to not charge or seek out engagements. Sons can do a lot of damage, but that won't win you the game. You just have to keep stuff alive and on your objectives. Do NOT CHARGE A KO IRONCLAD. KO should be an auto-win if you make him kill you instead of try to kill him- Last Word and Unleash hell will actually melt your megas since it's like 2 free shooting phases. Only thing to watch out for is maneuvering your huge bases (honestly not too tough but watch for things like endless spells preventing you from ending your move on an objective like you want to. Otherwise magic is mostly annoying rather than threatening. The Nagash bomb is funny but you can unironically beat him to death with the 5+ ward finest hour'd gatebreaker. Armies that ~could~ cause problems: DoK with Morathi and Gotrek- lots of output with models you can't kill. Just outscore them and be sure to use finest hour on the garg they tag team. Gotrek is slow slow slow. Kick objectives away from him. If your opponent splits up morathi and gotrek then he's already lost since neither can realistically solo a mega in one turn. Counter Garg Garg build- this is the one I would take to any tournament. It's my Sons list but with Kragnos instead of the Gatebreaker (the warstomper gets the ward save) and you also only get to take 2 mancrushers. Kragnos gives you a shot to pretty much insta-gib an opposing garg and the list still generally plays super well in 3.0. I will say that this list is vulnerable to non-garg lists since kragnos only counts as 5 models and 16 wounds doesn't go as far as 35. 9 Stormfiend Skaven- This one is pretty damn scary in general. Immediately kill the engineer who casts MMWP and try to stay out of 12" range of the Stormfiends. They can only really threaten one garg at a time but until you kill their support they will absolutely ruin you. Good players will run a screen about 6" in front of the fiends so if you charge it the fiends get to unleash hell and wipe the unit. So just charge with a mancrusher first. You might think you can just throw a mega in the block and win, but even a fully juiced gatebreaker will only get about 15-20 wounds which kills about 3 stormfiends and none of the rattling guns. But if you kill the engineers then you win- the fiends aren't a big deal then. Double Cabbage Ironjawz- probably actually the toughest matchup. Juiced cabbage can kill fairly reliably a mega in a turn and only gets more efficient. But if you kill that model or it whiffs for a phase, it only counts as 5 models so you'll still get to deny for a turn. The Cabbage with -3 rend is the only one that can actually do damage through the +2 save you'll always have (all out defense and finest hour). Otherwise just try not to roll badly. 2 cabbages and kragnos is very very scary. But! They're getting a new book soon so who even knows what will be happening. Kruleboyz are nothing to be worried about as of now- need to see the rest of their warscrolls though. People think Archaon is scary but he really isn't. Double activating him with all out attack into a finest hourd and all out defensed warstomper with no defensive tech does (on average) a whopping... 17 wounds... You won't hurt him back but who cares. You win on objectives. Just kill the marauders and varanguard with the other megas and try to shoot off the little buff characters. Gotrek is actually pretty scary but slow enough to be maneuvered around. Redeploying a mega gargant outside his reach is something you should always budget a command point for. If he wants to eat mancrushers while you keep holding objectives that is 100% good for you. He can only be one place at a time and always be kicking objectives away from him Lumineth sentinel spam is irrelevant since doing 10-15 mortal wounds means nothing to us and if you charge them the whole block immediately dies. Lizardmen are kinda maybe tricky? Just kill their monsters and let them sprinkle 20 mortal wounds throughout your army while never taking objectives from you. All their nonmonster tech is really just designed to efficiently kill hordes/support characters. They ain't ripping through a mega. Haven't played flesh eater courts in 3.0. They're probably fairly scary but they're also pretty fragile so just hit em hard. They do 18 mortal wounds to a mega, you don't really mind. They're still something to watch out for- again, redeploy is your friend. But yeah, those are just some things off the top of my head that I'd be considering when taking Sons to a tournament. Granted, the Ironjawz and FEC are pretty off-meta but I can almost guarantee you'll run into 9 stormfiends and archaon. Remember to kill the engineers and you'll be totally fine.

Really think GW dropped the ball with adjusting SoB for 3rd edition. They pretty much win uncontested outside of very specific counterbuilds (Kragnos). The ability to kick objectives while guaranteeing that you'll basically lock your opponent out of scoring for the first 3 turns while maxing out battle points is just something that doesn't seem balanced. Here's my list for reference: It's Taker tribe for guaranteed objective control and 3 drops so I can generally dictate who goes first. Kraken Eater w/ -1 to hit command trait Gatebreaker w/ 5+ ward save artifact Warstomper (Battle Regiment) Mancrusher (Battle Regiment) Mancrusher (Battle Regiment) Mancrusher (Battle Regiment) 1995 points Grand Strategy: Keep battleline alive for automatic 3 points. Not even a debate. You're not gonna table me and everything is battleline. Turn 1: Ferocious advance for auto 3 points (usually with 2 mancrushers and the warstomper), I kick a home objective on my weakest flank towards the center while running the megas onto my opponents objectives. The mancrushers are vital here to hang back and cap my home objectives if I'm going first. If not and I have control of my home objectives, then I just chuck everything forward. Turn 2 is savage spearhead for auto 3 points. After that, I cycle through destroy battleline unit for 3 points, bring it down for 3 points, and then usually the 5th turn doesn't matter but it's a cinch to pick up any of the other ones. Usually I do monstrous takeover wherever their monsters aren't. What's also insane is that the bonus VP for killing monsters is capped at one per turn, no matter how many monsters they kill that turn. This means that in almost every scenario, you'll give up at most 3 VP from this while likely getting at least 1 from the opponent. So, now that I think it's pretty well established that your additional battle tactic points should fairly well offset the possible points you'll give up by being an army of monsters. If your opponent is running 3+ monsters you might even come out ahead (Gatebreaker vs Treelord lol). What this really means for scoring is that by preventing your opponent scoring for 1 turn while maximizing your own points will put you up by an enormous margin. I've played probably 10 games of 3.0 and every single game has been pretty well determined by me scoring 7ish points to my opponents' 3 points for one turn and then just getting battle tactics. You can see some of my battle reports on the Sylvaneth page (not fun for my local meta to play against Sons anymore) Ok, let's go scenario by scenario. Marking Territory: Auto gargant win- controlling objectives is what we do and there's no way an opponent can outcompete 135 "models" of objective control Savage Gains: I get 4 points for controlling your objective and you can't let me go first or else I plop 2 megas on your objective and guarantee the win. Any disproportionately high objective scoring mission hugely favors gargants and this one is no different. I expect my opponent to get at most 3 points at any time during the game while I should easily score 5-9 without any trouble. Fewer objectives means that losing a mega or 2 doesn't matter since the mancrushers can easily outcompete most everything. First Blood: Three midline objectives means I put a mega and mancrusher on each one and you somehow have to fit 45 models worth to contest it on each one. Turn 2 I kick my kraken objective towards the center to even further consolidate or away from a spooky enemy. This one is a little tough to score savage spearhead but since I'll be getting 3 points every turn while my opponent gets 1 at most, it's not a big deal. Power Struggle: Only scoring points for controlling objectives for consecutive turns is so favorable for us that it's unfair. This is where I'd even consider 2 kraken eaters for kicking. I've only played this once and by running 2 mancrushers across the entire table, I've been able to completely shut down my opponent's scoring. This is one of our weaker scenarios though, since you'll only ever get 3 objective points per turn. But this also means that scoring 3 points to your opponent's 1 point is a huge deal. Also where the unbalanced nature of monster bonus points for battle tactics is clear. For this scenario, denying your opponent's grand strategy at the cost of some objective play is completely reasonable and something to ask yourself at the start of each turn. Survival of the Fittest: Ironically this is one where we win by objectives and not by killing. Opposing predator units are likely killier than the megas but you know what? They only get one point for that while objectives are worth 3 per turn. So sure, kill all my megas with your predators while losing none in return and I'll still win on objectives and battle tactics (I have never lost all 3 megas and don't even think it's possible to do so if you remember that fighting is super optional in this army). 3 midline objectives also mean you have an enormous advantage with the 3 "squads" of 45 "models" Tectonic Interference: It's like survival of the fittest except even more predictable and easy to win. Just kick a flank objective towards the center and go sit on it to win. That's it. That's all you have to do. Huge territories mean savage spearhead is automatic and as always, objective control spiralling early game is the key to success. Apex Predators: Extremely favorable. Megas are leaders. They move onto objectives. That's it. You win. Your opponent may have one leader that can bully a mega and steal an objective from you. But you know what? You've got 2 more and they're on a clock. And that clock is HEAVILY in your favor. Vice: Very interesting one but also one that's skewed towards you. Just move the megas to where your opponent's objectives will be while keeping one in the middle for turns 4 and 5. Mancrushers cap initially and then run to score battle tactics while you just freeze out your opponent's scoring. I have a sylvaneth battle report which shows how doing this severely skews the game in your favor. Tooth and Nail: Very loseable. That's right. This one can actually be a little tricky. You're still heavily favored, but it's not as automatic as usual. 4 Objectives with controlling them only being worth an additional 1 VP means it's harder to mathematically win before the megas could theoretically die. Haven't played this one with gargs yet. Might need to actually see how they do here. Feral Foray: Similar to Tooth and Nail but much easier to win. Huge territories mean savage spearhead is easy. Kickable objectives to stop opponent burning/enable your burning means you just run up, burn, and move on. You only need to control 2 objectives to max out points (2 for 2, 1 for more than opponent), which means the mancrusher suicide burn (which happens after you score VP- so at the end of your turn) is an easy tactic. Plus then your opponent has to move through/around the mancrusher to try and threaten other objectives. An ideal turn would be you controlling 4 objectives and then burning the most threatened one. You score 3+1 to your opponent's 2 (at most). Next turn you rinse and repeat so you score 3+1 but now they will only have 1 objective and if they somehow drag a second off of you, you're still up 8-4 which is an insane margin when you consider you probably have the battle tactic bonus point or 2. Power in Numbers: Easy win. You sit on your objectives for 4 turns while threatening theirs. If they go for a quick burn you just wait like one turn and then mathematically win. Example: They see you coming with the mancrusher snipes and torch their objectives on turn 2 for a total of 6 points. You know they can definitely take one objective off of you and maybe a second. So when it seems like maybe a mega is in trouble or in a bad engagement. You burn it on turn 3/4 for 4 points. If you can keep one till turn 5 (easy for SoB, like so so easy), then the 8 points there is untouchable. Veins of Ghur: Another super favorable one. 3 kickable objectives that can't be removed and get more valuable the later you sit on them means that you can easily react to a crappy objective placement and then just sit and win. Ok, I hear what you're saying- "It's so easy to kill a mega gargant, everyone can do it." This is hilariously untrue. Many armies straight up can't realistically kill a mega in a turn. Just flat out no. Thanks for playing nighthaunt, KO, etc, etc. All out Defense on a mega is BRUTAL. Let's run some numbers. This here is Gotrek in a single activation (I know he gets 2) in which he pops all out attack and I pop all out defense on my kraken eater (who is -1 to hit). On average he does 28.3 Wounds which means I still hold an objective. In my turn I leave combat and still hold an objective. If he doubles me, then sure he gets that point for one turn. Until I move a mancrusher on it on my turn and retake it. Oh, and against the gatebreaker he does less than 20 wounds, even hitting on a 2+ (that 5+ ward is disgusting). These megas are not easy to kill and will absolutely provide a huge (scoring) roadblock for any opponent while straight up locking out certain armies from even competing against them. So, in conclusion, I've talked a lot about mathematically locking opponents out of the game with early objective play so here's what that would look like. Scenario is, let's say First Blood. I'm playing against a fast army that can one shot a mega with a Big Bad while also having no monsters for me to kill and I can't kill the Big Bad (so has pretty insane output). I'll also purposefully refuse to give myself the chance to double turn because that's just unfair with gargs since 2 uninterrupted scoring turns is game over huge win. I'll go first. I declare ferocious advance and get all 3 objectives with 2 mancrushers and a stomper on the one nearest his power center, gatebreaker and mancrusher on the one next closest, and kraken on his weakest. I score 6 points. Opponent turn one. He is gonna kill a mancrusher but not the warstomper with his Big Bad but can't take any objectives from me. I'm not gonna let his big bad kill 2 mancrushers in a single activation and I'll easily screen the warstomper with a mancrusher. He scores 4 points (kill a monster, battle tactic with a monster because why not) I'll give him the double turn because sure, why not. He kills the warstomper and takes that objective through 15 mancrusher wounds. He scores 4 points (one objective, kill a monster, 2 point battle tactic) My turn. I easily kill a battleline unit of his since savage spearhead is hard to score. Kraken eater kicks objective away from his big bad. I score 6 points (2 objectives, more than him, battle tactic with monster) His turn 3- I remove his objective and his Big Bad kills the gatebreaker and somehow captures the objective through 15 ablative mancrusher wounds. He scores 4 points (kill a monster, has an objective, battle tactic) My turn 3- I happily do whatever, kick my objective even farther away while FAILING A BATTLE TACTIC and pretending to not be killing any of his other monsters I score 1 point. (objective) For his turn 4 I assume i just have my krakeneater left and maybe a mancrusher. He won't be able to reach them with the Big Bad since I've been kicking objectives all over the place. He scores 3 points. (objective, BT) My turn 4 I declare savage spearhead with the krakeneater and mancrusher easily getting into his territory while kicking the objective. I score 4 points (one objective and battle tactic with monsters Turn 5 repeats itself except I'll give him the krakeneater kill. He'll score 4 points since I still have that mancrusher left and then my final turn plays out and I score 3 points since I held on to monstrous takeover and that kicked objective for the endgame. Final score is 23-22 me winning despite getting doubled in turn 2 with an opponent who is killier than Gotrek without taking any other monsters and also not having to worry about his general dying. In that absolute worst case scenario, and I mean I can't think of a theory-hammer army where this could realistically occur, I still win. If at any point I snipe a monster of his, I get 2 additional VPs. If at any point he doesn't one shot my defensively-teched megas, I "get" two points by denying him a monster kill and likely an objective. If he misses out a battle tactic at any point, I win. If I miss a battle tactic at any point, I still win. Sons of Behemat are insanely good this edition. I fully expect to see them dominating most tournaments until something changes.

I like my unit of 5 but you gotta be careful because they give away the Broken Ranks battle tactic very easily. They don't really kill anything but they can absolutely get in the way.

that's what I said but then he pointed out that I have to target the closest deepkin unit with the shot (since it was made by a missile weapon) and that the army books overrule the BRB so I said ok.

oh damn! Thanks for pointing that out! Thankfully it really wouldn't have made any difference since he was still out of range to resurrect people until after another round of combat which would have easily seen that unit destroyed.

Coming in hot with another battle report! A local player has been talking up his Namarti horde list for weeks on end, how good they are, how unbeatable he is with them, you know the drill. And then he beat a newer sylvaneth player and began talkin all sorts of smack about our beloved trees. This could not stand. And thus, Larry and Friends decided to avenge our fallen comrades and give those pesky thralls a good what for! Sylvaneth Army: Harvestboon Glade Alarielle Durthu- General, Silent Sickle, Seek New Fruit Branchwraith- Throne of Vines 5 Tree Revs 5 Tree Revs 5 Spite Revs 3 Kurnoths with Scythes Treelord Treelord Deepkin Morphann Eidolon of the Storm with Cloak of Midnight Tidecaller with Arcane Corrosion FOUR SOULRENDERS including the underworlds warband Akhelian King w/ item that does d3 mortals once per game 30 Thralls 20 Thralls 10 Reavers 10 Reavers Allopex with Net Gun So, I play Deepkin. They were the army that got me into AoS. I've played 40+ games of Deepkin. I know this list is terrible. You probably know this list is terrible. But this guy is super annoying and who knows, maybe I'm a total idiot and he's the greatest general since Eisenhower Deployment We play the one where there are 3 shifting objectives. I deploy fairly aggressively since I have absolutely no respect for the survivability of thralls. I know I'm gonna make him go first and move up in order to score any sort of points before the treelords and Larry obliterate his entire army. Only thing that scares me is maybe if the eidolon and a thrall unit get in touch with Alarielle. But that's super low on my concern level. Turn 1 He goes first and declares Kill my Spite Revs for a battle tactic. He moves up pretty aggressively but is rightfully wary of my monsters. This results in him only capping the center objective. Reavers are still not good and only kill 3 spite revs through +1 to their save. Otherwise he doesn't really do anything. My turn is super simple. I make some more trees, kill 4 reavers with Metamorphosis, summon 10 Dryads, miss with Larry's spear, run Durthu and the boys to get my Ferocious advance with extra bonus point, and capture all the objectives. End of Turn one and it's 7-1 Sylvaneth. He gets priority for turn 2. He decides that now is the time to advance and get some points. He picks conqueror battle tactic for an easy 2 points and moves up to get those objectives! He throws the King and shark into a treeman, moves the left namarti to sit on the objective, uses the Underworlds warband to screen out the Eidolon, and makes the 10" charge with the 30 man group into my hunters and summoned dryads. I cheekily stand and shoot with Larry to kill the underworlds warband that was irritating me. King and Shark fail to kill a Treelord. Thralls kill 10 dryads and 2 Kurnoth and lose 5 back. He then realizes that Soulrenders have to be wholly within 12" to bring back thralls at the end of battleshock and that by throwing his monstrous unit 16" up the table, he managed to prevent them being healed. This would have made absolutely no difference. My turn starts off with Larry killing the rest of the central reaver unit with metamorphosis. I bring a tree rev squad up to steal the objective from the Eidolon because Larry has to go kill some thralls real quick. She misses with her spear, as is tradition. Larry, Durthu, and unengaged treeman do some charging. Durthu whiffs like crazy and only kills 12 thralls. The treeman kills the shark. The king and second treeman keep slap fighting. Larry and the Kurnoth champion kill 20 Thralls. Larry roars so no auto pass battleshock for them and the entire unit is gone. Things are going exactly according to plan. Score is 14-7 Sylvaneth He wins priority for turn 3, the Deepkin turn-a-palooza Turn 3 He decides to kill a Treelord and abandons the right flank, bringing the Eidolon over to smack around my little Durthu grove. I pop finest hour on Durthu in his turn. He does kill the Treeman which is neat, but has totally abandoned the center and right flank. And hilariously, when the eidolon charged the treeman, Durthu used stand and shoot to kill the last 8 thralls. My turn I just start picking off the soulrenders while scoring max victory points and chucking the other treeman across the table to get the bonus point for savage spearhead. Oh yeah, I use Alarielle's summons because it's fun and idk, maybe he'll try and push back towards the center? Annnnd then I double turn him and we call it. Final Score: 21-10 (although in reality, this was a huge blowout) The trees were avenged and all is right again with the world. I tried to give him some polite, helpful advice afterwards about maybe taking a Leviadon and fewer soulrenders. Also maybe dropping the King if he's insistent on pushing namarti hordes. But in response I was told that really, what he needed was to use the Aspect of the Sea instead of the Storm because Alarielle's magic is what barely won me the game and that the 8 thralls could have easily killed Durthu in a single activation which means the only reason I won is because Durthu killed those thralls with unleash hell. I'll let you all draw your own conclusions.

Another exciting game against some Slaanesh! This is pre-FAQ so forgive some minor rules inconsistencies. I've got a few more battle reports ready to post over the next few days so hopefully that's ok with y'all! My list is: Harvestboon Alarielle Durthu, silent sickle, seek new fruit Branchwraith 5 Spite revs 5 Tree Revs 5 Tree Revs 3 Kurnoths with scythes Treelord Treelord Deployment: We played the Vise scenario where you start with 4 corner objectives which converge on the center until you have only one center objective for turns 4 and 5. His army was: Glutos Sigvald Dexcessa Lord of Pain 3x5 Painbringers 1x5 Slickblade Seekers Whirling blade endless spell I knew I would have the mobility advantage and could easily pressure either flank to try and go up early on points. I was concerned about his killiness and the huge amount of minuses to hit I would have to go through. As such, I deployed fairly centrally with my big hitters- making sure to have some trees handy for teleporting near where the objective would go. He gives me first turn Turn 1: Turn one was pretty straightforward. I run with the trees to get the 3 easy battle tactics, summon 10 dryads, summon some trees (he wasn't in range to unbind anything). Alarielle hits Dexcessa for 6 damage from the spear He heals dexcessa a bit and summons the insane mirror thing which dings 4 spite revenants and 3 wounds off Durthu. He then moves up pretty aggressively so I redeploy my summoned dryads deep into the woods so no charges or combats. Turn 2: I win priority for turn 2 and start acting out my plan. 10 more dryads are summoned and that's the last magic I see for the rest of the game (awful dice). I teleport the previously summoned dryads and a treelord over to cap his objective and get me 3 easy battle tactic points for savage spearhead. (him and alarielle). Alarielle summons 3 sword kurnoths to force his painbringers to stay away. Alarielle does 6 damage to the slickblades and durthu fails his long bomb charge into glutos. His turn starts with the spinny death blades doing 5 damage to alarielle, killing a dryad, and wounding the treelord. He then brings Sigvald out of deepstrike and pushes that flank HARD. Sigvald and some painbringers murder all the dryads, Glutos puts like 9 wounds onto Durthu. However, Durthu spends a command point to fight at top bracket and absolutely starches the slickblades (who were striking last). He then jumps out of combat. I have 3 objectives and sylvaneth grows their lead to 11-7. Slaanesh gets the double turn Turn 3: He fails to cast the endless spell again and ends his movement phase at an awkward 11 depravity points. Dexcessa is still real spooked of Alarielle's spear so heals again and keeps running. He summons 3 fiends at the table center and keeps pushing through that flank. Sigvald murders some innocent tree revenants for the battle tactic while Glutos realizes that a 2+ save Treelord is really hard to kill and only puts like 6 wounds on him. There's an awkward moment where the painbringers fail a charge with no CP reroll available and Sigvald has to kill the tree revs instead of Durthu. He didn't feel like risking Durthu making the painbringers strike last, murdering them, and then running away. Alarielle heals 3 wounds on 2d6 and we do no magic whatsoever. Ok time to start pushing towards the table center for turns 4 and 5. Spite revs move to block off Sigvald from pushing the table center while Durthu escapes to safety. Other than that I just run towards the center while taking the time to smash his terrain and miss Dexcessa with Alarielle's spear. Scythes charge in and kill 2 fiends for a smattering of damage in return. The mighty treelord rolls like a champ and survives Glutos again with like 3 wounds remaining, pinning him in place and keeping me the objective (with the help of the wee spite revs) I hold on to the three objectives and the score is now 16-10 Sylvaneth. Turn 4 Slaanesh go first. I'm able to unbind the mirror spell and that's all that's relevant. Sigvald sees red and smashes the branchwraith into kindling. He also goes into alarielle with the back painbringer unit and the lord of pain. Alarielle stand and shoots- dealing 5 damage to the lord of pain. Dexcessa decides to try and murder the Treelord for battle tactic points and goes to join Glutos in that fight. She does 2 wounds to the Treelord who has had enough of this and kills her with a single blow. Glutos then kills the heroic treelord. The Lord of Pain does like 7 wounds to Alarielle who kills him in response. The Painbringers do like 3 more for a total of 12 wounds on Alarielle. The other painbringer unit in the woods comes to join the Kurnoth party and they kill 2 with the help of the fiend. The Kurnoths whiff horribly in response. He sneaks the center objective on his turn. Ok, so my turn here we go. Alarielle heals a mighty 5 wounds and does no magic, running up to help out with the battle tactic of killing a battleline unit. Durthu also advances and prepares to obliterate the painbringers. The Treelord moves up to attack the other painbringers as insurance for the battle tactic. Spite revs fan out to corral Sigvald away from the center objective. Everything goes to ****** immediately. Alarielle misses her spear throw and then rolls a 3" charge. Durthu charges (with the help of a reroll), does 0 WOUNDS to the painbringers and retreats in shame. The Treelord misses his monster stomp and only kills 3 painbringers. The Kurnoths kill the fiend but whiff on the painbringers AGAIN. So I end up not getting the battle tactic at ALL, but I do hold the center objective. Score is 19-15 Sylvaneth. He wins priority for turn 5 Turn 5: Only thing of note here is that he summons a Keeper who rolls a 10" charge, tags the dryads, consolidates into Durthu, and does 15 mortal wounds to him, netting him 4 victory points. But, that still wouldn't be enough, as the 10 dryads outcompete the Keeper for the objective and next turn I would just disengage the Dryads and bring over alarielle with the Treelord to camp the objective and win the game. Final score was 26-22 Sylvaneth!

Sure! Hopefully this format works ok. My army: Harvestboon glade Durthu (general) w/ silent sickle Alarielle Branchwraith w/ Throne of Vines 5 Spite revs 5 Tree revs 5 Tree Revs 3 Kurnoth hunters w/scythes Treelord Treelord Deployment: Deployment is also pretty simple- I deploy my big tree bois to get the easy 3 battle tactic points turn one while the spite revs get ready to buy me some time. Otherwise the tree revs hide away and alarielle goes center so she can zoom to wherever she's needed The next pic is after turn 2: First turn was super uneventful. Alarielle summoned 20 dryads to block off the center objective and stop the ogors from sweeping over the center to threaten the far right objective. Meanwhile one treeman teleported to help with the center while treeman #2 and Durthu prepared to go bother the middle irongut unit that had been eating shooting. The leadbelchers had also died a horrible durthu-related death. Score at this point was: 10-8 sylvaneth! And then sylvaneth get the double turn into turn 3! Turn 3: Big turn here- the Kurnoth hunters, treelord, and durthu go into the stonehorn and ironguts to try and take them both out and basicallty lock my opponent out of the game. I killed the ironguts, but not the stonehorn, who managed to survive an improbable number of attacks. Durthu ran away to avoid getting beaten up in return but otherwise my strategy of forcing him to bring all his stuff to the center while letting me guarantee the far right objective and letting me threaten to steal the left objective seemed to be working. He then pulled some tricksy tricks and killed the treelord with irongut impact hits, allowing his stonehorn to kill the three kurnoth, which was annoying, and the ogor monsters counting as 10 let him keep the center objective on his turn. Score is 16-14 sylvaneth. Getting the bonus battle tactic point is critical. And then he double turns me! Turn 4: His ironguts, firebelly, and stonehorn converge on and kill durthu with impact hits. He also pulls up the slaughtermaster to prevent sneaky tree revenant shenanigans. However, in doing so, the tree revs decided to go super saiyan and just murder the slaughtermaster after making a 9" charge. In other news, Alarielle miscast her first cast, missed with her spear, missed her impact hits, and then whiffed her attacks on the stonehorn who simply wouldn't die. Then the treelord just bonked him on the head and FINALLY killed him off. This gave me control of all the objectives for 4 points, 3 points for killing his monster with a monster, and 1 point for a monster kill. To be fair, he scored 3 points for objectives, 3 for battle tactic and 1 for killing a monster. So score at bottom of turn 4 was 24-21 Sylvaneth. And then I double him again and we call the game! SYLVANETH VICTORY!

Honestly I love the Treelords in 3.0. They basically guarantee you so many battle tactic bonus points, help steal objectives, help screen durthu, help add some shooting threats, and with titanic duel and alarielle's reroll wounds, can really threaten monsters. Plus Alarielle heals them d3 every hero phase automatically plus for a CP they can fight at top profile. They're just so flexible and cheap now. Giving up 1 VP when they die is mildly annoying but honestly they're tanky enough to require a lot of actual resources to deal with and can quickly teleport out of trouble if need be. I think a lot of people are sleeping on the Treelords. Even in this game, they were able to hold up my opponent's entire left flank for a turn, reinforce the center to help me keep that objective, and finally kill the stonehorn. Just a great unit!