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curious what more seasoned AOS players' thoughts on the new Idoneth deepkin battletome are.

it seems like most of the units have had their offense significantly improved, but it still feels weirdly like idoneth are playing a super outdated book comparative to some of the newer ones.

There's almost none of the various rule systems that have been added since 1.0 AOS - as far as I can see, not one single character has a command ability of any kind, theyre all either auras or 'once per game' abilities ala 1.0 warscrolls, there's still no Endless Spells despite Idoneth being one of the best faction candidates for their inclusion. There's still weird stuff like the Soulscryer being a Priest but having no prayers outside of the default ones, and the army having a thing where a bunch of their defensive and offensive abilities run into the modifier cap. It's turn 1, so everyone's in cover +1 to save, but you brought a turtle which is also +1 to save, which means it doesn't do anything, whoops! oh, and you've also brought ishlaen guard, who you can't increase their save anyway, double whoops!

Almost every positive change on every unit is just "moar damage". The namarti I can say are a bright spot, as they got a couple critically needed boosts (thralls finally with 2" range weapons and the gap in their special ability being changed to just 2W models instead of 2W and 3W, and Reavers with actually decent shooting out at 18" so that they actually function as a ranged unit). Octopus Man being good is obviously good, because everyone loves Octopus Man. But is this typical performance for new battletomes being updated, is there really no more concerted attempt to bring outdated books in line with new editions' mechanics?

Characters have generally lost warscroll command abilities for the most part in AoS 3.0, with GW instead letting you pick from a list of faction command abilities.

Unless you're Maggotkin, in which case, I dunno. Actually, I have no idea if they reversed that decision after Orruk Warclans and Stormcast, haven't fully looked at Fyreslayers or Idoneth yet.

I've been paying attention to the general metagame by looking at tournament results and Idoneth either haven't hit their full swing yet or don't have a swing in the current state of the game. I'm not sure if I've seen an Idoneth list break top 10 yet? But people smarter than me with analysis have suggested that Idoneth will be a sweeping storm...

 Rihgu wrote:
Characters have generally lost warscroll command abilities for the most part in AoS 3.0, with GW instead letting you pick from a list of faction command abilities.

Unless you're Maggotkin, in which case, I dunno. Actually, I have no idea if they reversed that decision after Orruk Warclans and Stormcast, haven't fully looked at Fyreslayers or Idoneth yet.

I've been paying attention to the general metagame by looking at tournament results and Idoneth either haven't hit their full swing yet or don't have a swing in the current state of the game. I'm not sure if I've seen an Idoneth list break top 10 yet? But people smarter than me with analysis have suggested that Idoneth will be a sweeping storm...

the new idoneth appear to have no faction-specific command abilitites at all, as far as I can tell. none come with the subfactions, none on the warscrolls, none in the special rule section of the book.

Maybe that doesn't matter - certainly, the core command abilities are pretty good on their own, and the basic statlines of their various units do seem pretty strong. Just something that stood out to me as weird and somewhat outdated about their 'new' book.

i am looking forward to seeing if Nautilar with 2 turtles works well, though. I've had 2 Leviadons since I traded for this army, and I love the models dearly but there's been no reason ever to use them. But, I dunno, those razorshell harpoon launchers and that damage output does seem pretty dang tasty now...

From our games so far:

This book has some OTT units in there... The Akhelian king being one of them.

It's also a downright hard counter to shooting list and I don't like this type of "balancing" in Warhammer. The game will look balanced when you stare at the stats center, because in tournaments, you'll have something that falls neatly within that 40-60% winrate "fat middle".

But in player groups with regular opponents/players, this book is absolute poison as it just makes some match-ups forgone conclusions that take 3 hours to resolve.

It's good that there's more than 1 valid choice now... But from a balance point of view, they just elevated a ton of units to the level of the eels and while the internal balance has been fixed, this books seems like the top-end for the external balance so far.

No aos3 warscroll that i know has command ability. Orrun　book has 1(?) I think.

And not every book has endless spells. Orruks don't have. Cos don't have. Ogors don't have.

 Elmir wrote:
From our games so far:

This book has some OTT units in there... The Akhelian king being one of them.

It's also a downright hard counter to shooting list and I don't like this type of "balancing" in Warhammer. The game will look balanced when you stare at the stats center, because in tournaments, you'll have something that falls neatly within that 40-60% winrate "fat middle".

But in player groups with regular opponents/players, this book is absolute poison as it just makes some match-ups forgone conclusions that take 3 hours to resolve.

It's good that there's more than 1 valid choice now... But from a balance point of view, they just elevated a ton of units to the level of the eels and while the internal balance has been fixed, this books seems like the top-end for the external balance so far.

Yeah, i'm curious to see how that all pans out myself. The "nope, cant shoot me except within 12" turn 1" does seem pretty crazy comparative to other options. I guess my question would just be - how much more power does that actually put in to counter shooting, and how much do i care that a hyper-skew list like all shooting in AOS (where no army out there actually does not have melee units that they can use) has a hard counter?

You'd think if your list is "only one thing" you should expect there to be some kind of hard counter available out there, to that one thing. If you make your whole list revolve around a super-character with a 0+ super-boosted save, someones gonna dunk them with 20 mortal wounds. If you make your whole list a lot of slow infantry with fragile support characters holding them together, someones gonna bring bows and arrows and shoot those support characters and then play keep-away with you.

If your list has one long-range artillery piece in it, I dont know how likely I am to go for the ritual that just turns that one unit off for one turn, I might just be OK with letting you fire your thing into my turtle or somesuch. And its not like Forgotten Nightmares didnt exist before, and Idoneth certainly werent wiping the floor with stuff like KO and LRL when they were meta.

As a KO player, most of my shooting happens within 12" anyways. Sure I have some longer ranged options but I would just have to adapt my strategy a little against Idoneth it sounds like.

I like it. There are some rough edges to smooth, but I think the mechanical basis of the army is well designed. It delivers on both theme and gameplay quite well. An important thing to note about Idoneth is this is an Elf army; it needs a lot of finesse. Just running units into the enemy, even using mobility to pick juicy targets, is liable to fail against a decent opponent. Idoneth need to hit at the right place and at the right time, with much of the army's mechanics and gameplay being used to support that.

The stat creep is very real, but unlike 40k it came with point increases as well. This is part of GW's overall push to keep army size from getting too large and posing a practical obstacle to gameplay (they learned from WHFB 8th how badly that backfires, I think). In the first battletome eels were 140 and 170 points respectively; now they are 200. A Leviadon was 310; now it is 500. They did with with the Nurgle tome as well, with a lot of units getting massive stat buffs (though in that case not all of it offensive) but similarly massive point increases. It has worked quite well in practice.

As others have mentioned, they are eliminating most warscroll specific commands in favor of the core ones and/or army-wide ones. I think they have gone a bit overboard and could have left a couple scattered around, but overall it is good for the health of the game. A lot of commands were either worse or redundant with the core commands anyways, and many were just a way for armies to ignore the battleshock phase. Also worth noting that some commands which were previously auto-take auto-use got baked into stat lines instead.

I will say IDK got shafted with artifacts. The Isharann chart is decent, but the Alhelian and Eidolon artifact charts are both wallpaper. Not technically useless, but so utterly inferior to other choices that they might as well be a background on the page. Fortunately between the core artifacts and Isharann chart the army as a whole has enough solid choices to draw from that it isn't hobbled by this, but it still sucks.

Honestly? Feels the same lol. Yes the King is slightly better but over all the army has 1-2 less units, the Leviadon is +180pts, Allopex are up too, Thralls and Reavers are better in general and Eels don't really feel stronger IMO.

Over all the power level for the army feels the same to me just in a slightly different form and from less over all units.

Personally I hate their Faction rules, Relics, and Command traits, they really did them dirty with them. They feel like their are there to hyper tailor your list in a bad way.

Yeah, I'm curious to see whether the Leviadon is something I can actually base a list around, personally.

The list I'm considering is:

Nautilar (Battleline Leviadons, also Leviadons get a special monstrous rampage that turns one of their weapons Rend -3)

Leviadon 500 (mount trait - ignore Rend -1)
Leviadon 500
Lotann, Warden of the Soul Ledgers 115 (Rune of the Surging Gloomtide: Summon a Shipwreck within 12" at the end of first movement phase)
Akhelion Thrallmaster 110 (General, Lord of Storm And Sea: no battleshock within 12")
Namarti Thralls 130
Namarti Thralls 130
Namarti Reavers 170
Akhelian Allopexes 165
Akhelian Allopexes 165

Basically against a slower opponent I'd try to hang back and shoot to delay and get me closer to High Tide, against a shooty opponent I'd move forward, drop a boat mid-board and set up the archers inside. Try to use the more defensive turtle to tank and hopefully allow the Thrallmaster and Thralls to get into combat for the traditional big turn 3.

Now that the turtles can actually be main battle pieces, sending them forward for a minimal engagement turn 2 seems more viable and I'm not feeling like im in a hardcore hurry to get in. If I were up against a super mobile monster-killing alpha strike type list like an all-dragon party, I'd probably screen with Namarti out front around my DZ gloomtide and hopefully have just enough bodies to get by and keep either turtle from getting alpha struck off the board.

Reading the commentary, boy am I glad I didn't waste my money on this book.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Reading the commentary, boy am I glad I didn't waste my money on this book.

I'm also glad you didn't.

It's kind of frustrating to me. Idoneth were the first "purely Age of Sigmar" army I spent money on. I love the aesthetic, I love the lore...but whoever is writing the rules just seems to be constantly phoning it in!

Well, that's your opinion. I am glad you've bowed out of them because they clearly made you miserable from the start, and their mechanics haven't changed from what they were the first time.

Do the Idoneth/3.0 books in general not have little Open Play Ruse/Twist tables like the White Dwarf updates do?

If so, what a weird little half/third of a page to skimp on.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Reading the commentary, boy am I glad I didn't waste my money on this book.

That's odd, I thought you'd be hugely into it as someone doing a namarti-centric build.

Reavers are actually usable at range now, making them not just 'basically the same as Thralls because you have to be within nostril-licking range for them to do anything', you've got a new thrall-specific leader that brings the Akhelian character type without needing to field an akhelian king, Octopus Man is good now, Soulreaver is buffed, Namarti get the much-needed 2" range melee weapons and have a smaller hole in their window of effectiveness (you now just have to avoid W2)

You can even just straight up declare "I will not be shot turn 1. You will not shoot me with your entire army."

Having played with and against the book a few times now - I think it is great.

Every unit has a role and function, a variety of the enclaves have interesting applications. A few units are slightly too expensive, but not in a significant way.

It also feels nicely balanced.

I've played a few more games now and honestly the more I play the more I like it.

There's one unit though that I'm just ...not getting atm. And that's the Soulscryer. Just what exactly is this fellas purpose? He seems CRAZY weak for 150 points. Why would you bring him over basically any other Ishlaen unit option?

It's a Priest and can outflank with up to 2 other units(both of which contribute to why it's 150). If either of those abilities fit your needs, then that's why you bring it.

 Platuan4th wrote:
It's a Priest and can outflank with up to 2 other units(both of which contribute to why it's 150). If either of those abilities fit your needs, then that's why you bring it.

And there's always narrative reasons to consider. Not everything needs be an optimized tourney lv matched play game.
For example; In our current PtG I have two units in my Stormcast roster who're more for story than anything else. The Farstriders - I'm using them to do the Thondian scouting action. If I were aiming to optimize things I'd choose a cheaper unit (gryph hounds or aetherwings) to do this. But a group of adventurers seems like a waaay more thematic choice.
And then there's the Curse Breakers. If I take the quest Defend Realm I deepstrike them in on turn 3 to count for quest points. Seems appropriate for a trio of sort-of wizards to port in to help complete the task. again, I could do this cheaper/or with a better unit....
So I can imagine there's something more narrative oriented in the Idoneth book.

 Platuan4th wrote:
It's a Priest and can outflank with up to 2 other units(both of which contribute to why it's 150). If either of those abilities fit your needs, then that's why you bring it.

Sure, he's a priest but idoneth dont have any unique prayers...also 150pts to outflank a couple units and then...I dunno, drop a ward6+ on something and maybe in the next turn (cus he's gonna be over 9" away) try to curse something seems exceedingly steep comparative to what basically every other character brings to the table now that he's missing his old +3" charge thing.

i guess they made his incredibly gakky shooting attack stronger now. 8 shots 3+/4+ and Rend -1 now, so I guess you could use him to sneak some Reavers in to snipe some people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
...I suppose you can give him the artifact that lets him summon a shipwreck so he can teleport in turn 1 screaming ADVENTURE!!!!! and drop off a unit of reavers and something defendy standing in front of the shipwreck.

IDK what. Ishlaen Guard? a shark or two?

The ability to outflank in from reserves is quite powerful, and a source of curse makes him a potential threat to anything.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Well, that's your opinion. I am glad you've bowed out of them because they clearly made you miserable from the start, and their mechanics haven't changed from what they were the first time.

Right, you are right that the mechanics have not changed by much. Except you can now turn that to 11 with the new rules of course when you the right type of hero.

And the fact that in the old book, the internal balance was horrendously off. But rather than dialing down the eels a bit, while bringing up the rest, they seemed to have opted to bump almost all units up to the levels of the eels (and sometimes beyond) from the previous book. That is an incredibly hard thing to cope with when you are using an older book. In a way, the internal balance was fixed! But it was fixed by making everything very strong in this army. It's good to see more balanced IDK lists out there... It's not quite as fun if you are a player (in a given community) with an older battletome that just gets your teeth kicked in regardless of what army the IDK player brings.

I mean, it'll look decent enough in competitive stats... But the IDK are absolute poison in our local "very casual" scene, simply because virtually everything is good.

All those buffs carried significant point increases, you can compare the values between the two battletomes if you like. I seriously doubt IDK will be doing well in the tourney scene. They are a finesse army with a high skill ceiling so I expect experienced players to net some wins here and there but their raw power just doesn't compete with what top tier armies are putting out.