Captain Joystick wrote:I don't know Idoneth well enough to be definitive but here are a couple of things I notice off the top:
Allegiance Abilities: both armies employ a table of upgrades that change as the game turns roll on. The nature of those buffs are geared roughly towards what the army is probably going to be doing during that round. The big difference is Idoneth ones are bigger buffs individually but only apply on that turn, while
DoK's are cumulative, re-rolling ones on pretty much everything by turn 5.
It's also worth mentioning that
DoK has units that can boost their abilities as in making the turn number higher than it actually is for that point.
The only way to manipulate Tides of Death is:
a) Tidecaster as your General, you can reverse the table and start with the Ebb Tide(Fall Back and Shoot/Charge as normal) ability active at the start of the game rather than Turn 4 like normal.
b) Taking a Phalanx(the 'big kahuna' Warscroll Battalion--this is going to be at least 4-5k points, minimum) lets you mess with it a bit. It's such a big formation I don't know it off the top of my head and my book isn't handy.
In contrast, Idoneth seem to be more rounded (if only just) with more protected ranged options and a main battleline with a better save, wound roll and rend. Not hitting quite as hard as DoK individually but able to stick it out better.
At least that's my first impression. I'd like to know what Idoneth players think.
Full disclosure: right now, my Idoneth force isn't table tested. I've been devouring this book nonstop and worked out a full list, but the person I usually play with hasn't been around for us to get a game in.
With Idoneth, we have some ranged options but our ranged stuff(Allopex, Reavers, and Leviadons) tend to the usual "decent number of shots but no Rend and low Damage" end of things. We have a few things with decent ranged--but for the most part it's not really going to be a huge deal with this army. We have some absolutely
brutal close combat stuff with some very interesting rules and mechanics, but by and large we're going to be playing the positioning game and making use of the Fly rule rather than playing a (no pun intended) turtling match.
Depending on how the new edition shakes out and persistent magic works as well will be a big potential deal.