Raiding Bournemouth

We are just a few days away from the South Coast Series GT held in Bournemouth. The lists are out for all attendees and it's time to dive into my hopes for raiding the Dorset coast!

List Recap!

Allegiance: Idoneth Deepkin

- Enclave: Dhom-Hain

- Grand Strategy: No Place for the Weak

- Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders

Isharann Tidecaster (150)*

- General

- Command Trait: Master of Magic

- Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)

- Lore of the Deeps: Counter-current

Akhelian Thrallmaster (110)*

Battleline

20 x Namarti Reavers (340)*

- Reinforced x 1

10 x Namarti Thralls (130)*

10 x Namarti Thralls (130)*

Units

2 x Akhelian Allopexes (330)*

- Razorshell Harpoon

- Reinforced x 1

2 x Akhelian Allopexes (330)*

- Razorshell Harpoon

- Reinforced x 1

Behemoths

Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*

- Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations

Purple Sun of Shyish (70)

Core Battalions

*Battle Regiment

Total: 1990 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 3 / 4

Allies: 400 / 400

Wounds: 82

Drops: 1

General Play

There are two ways to build an effective army in Age of Sigmar. Do one thing better than anyone else, or compete in every phase of the game to get an edge.

An example of the former would be gargants. They don't have an effective magic phase, shooting or even reliable damage. However, they have better durability and control on objectives than pretty much any other army. They pose one question, can you kill me before I get ahead on points?

The latter type is something like Seraphon. They don't have as much magic threat as Tzeentch, but they do have a strong phase. The shooting isn't as good as Lumineth, but it's reliable damage. Combat won't smash you off the board, but they generally do more than they take. They also have enough durability and numbers to reliably contest primaries.

My Idoneth list largely falls into the second kind. It takes a little bit of everything available to our army to provide a flexible swiss army knife. This does mean I'm unlikely to have many games that result in massive victories, but hopefully it makes me more competitive in difficult match ups. Shutting down one aspect, such as better unbinds or anti shooting tech, doesn't shut down the other threats within the list.

Deployment

Generally the key to deployment is to create effective screens with the 2 X 10 Thralls and your boat terrain feature. This ensures a 5+ up ward for your screens and prevents early combat or shooting pressure. Placing the reavers within range of the ward, and to unleash hell, is also desirable. However, don't risk them getting caught in combat early.

Focus on maximising that 26 inch turn one threat range to put early pressure on. Especially if they have the choice of turn.

Against a combat army placing the incarnate as far forward as possible is likely to be useful. Against a shooting army consider placing it out of range where possible.

When playing magic armies do your best to unsure the Tidecaster is able to attempt unbinds. Mind the ranges and avoid "clumping" units into a castle that could be vulnerable to area spells.

The list has high movement and like most IDK should peak in turn 3. Don't be afraid to play it safe and stay in the game early doors.

Hero Phase

The standard play within my own hero phase will be to cast the Purple Sun toward my opponent. As mentioned in my previous post I have an 82% chance of succeeding the cast. It's going to be difficult for opponents without an auto unbind to reliably prevent this.

The second cast is then generally reserved for a mystic shield onto the Incarnate. Turning that save into a 3+ and allowing some counter to rend with all out defense. This makes an already tanky unit into a real problem.

Where an opponent does have this option to auto unbind, or other unbind buffs, it may be wiser to cast mystic shield first. They are unlikely to use their tools to unbind a shield if the sun is available.

In such cases you should consider whether it is worth casting the sun to get them to use the unbind tech, or if it's simply best to move on.

Counter current should be used when an opponent has a high threat melee unit within range. Halving charge distance can be devastating. Even if they are able to get 3 away, you only need a 4 on redploy to make a charge entirely impossible.

Gaze of Ghur struggles due to range issues, but may be helpful for countering specific large units or gargants.

Lastly, the warscroll spell should be reserved for chip damage when other options aren't needed.

Remember! Think before you cast. If you're playing an opponent who can benefit from you casting or unbinding your casts, weigh up whether it's better to pass off an unused cast than risk the counter.

Movement and Shooting

In the first turn the focus is on making the minimum movements required to prevent falling behind and to avoid wasting shooting.

If going first use the sharks to target something they are statistically likely to kill or hamper to your benefit. Such as pinging off a support hero, or clearing a screen.

If the reavers can get in range then it's usually worth it, but be careful of being double turned. Aimless shooting across the army is unlikely to be useful. Staying in for 5 turns is more important than doing as much as you can as fast as you can.

Moving thralls and Reaver's away from the boats early is only beneficial if you have a specific plan or need to do so, for example to cap a primary or to block a particularly dangerous unit.

Although they are your screens, the thralls are still a threat. Make your opponent has to invest to kill them.

Bonus Tip! The Bait and Switch.

All out defense is generally your opponents best defence during the shooting phase. A simple trick can be to get both your priority target and a second unit in range. Make a big show of measuring distances to the second unit and declare your weakest shooting into this unit. Hopefully your opponent will pop their AoD allowing you to focus down your actual priority.

Charging and Combat

Getting the Incarnate into combat early is often a solid choice, especially if you are unlikely to go down a level in that first combat.

However, if you could lose the incarnate early don't be afraid to hold back and utilise your range and movement advantages to force the opponent to commit their own resources.

Against strong combat armies, like Waaagh or BoC, IDK can lose a lot of points turn 4 / 5 if they've engaged too soon.

The no retreat aura from the incarnate can be a really potent way to trap key parts of your opponents army out the game, and give you more time to whittle away with shooting.

The rest of the punch comes from the sharks and thralls. Getting the thralls into a high value target is generally a good option, but only if you are certain they will attack first.

Likewise don't risk the sharks being bogged down or killed off early. They are your most mobile unit and provide the best board control you have. Getting to turn 3 with your best combat units able to go in where they need to is important to every stripe of IDK army.

Battleplans

Here are the battleplans for the weekend.

Mission 1 Head On Collision

Mission 2 The Prize Of Gallet

Mission 3 Won’t Back Down

Mission 4 Lurkers Below

Mission 5 Turf War

For most of us this will be the first time playing significant games with the new GHB. That means everyone is likely to be less familiar with battleplans and scoring tactics. As such I've put attention into building a balanced list that aims to reliably score both primaries and battle tactics during the game.

Head on Collision

The defining feature of this battleplan is that objectives cannot be controlled from set up or during battle round one. This makes it extremely difficult to score battle tactics (note book tactics are not in use).

If going first you can only score four, all of which are difficult.

Barge through (savage spearhead), which is going to be very difficult unless you are capable of making two difficult charges and surviving.

Desecrate requires you to control a terrain feature at least partially within the opponents territory. Again, this is very difficult unless a large terrain feature and high movement units allow you to do so.

Head to head requires you to defeat an enemy Galletian Vet (GV) unit with your own GV, again extremely difficult for many armies and with ways for your opponent to counter.

Lastly, destroying a unit with an attack made by your chosen general. Again very difficult to achieve unless you are willing to throw a big monster general forward turn one.

As such going second is likely to be very preferable as battle tactics become much more achievable if your opponent is forced to move forward to score their own points.

As a one drop I will have at least a 50% chance to choose turn order, and with rituals and screens, am in a good position to weather an alpha. However, if I do take first turn the ability to push the movement 14 Allopexes forward with the incarnate to support (reroll charges for instance) does make capturing a terrain feature or pushing into territory more achievable.

Otherwise this battleplan is fairly standard.

The Prize of Gallet

The theme for this season seems to be battleplans that start slow before escalating into the mid-game. This plan fits with objectives activating gradually.

The approach here is broadly similar, remain in the game while attempting to frustrate opponent battle tactics. Use shooting to chip away at the opponent before pushing into combat late 2 and early 3.

Won't Back Down

This battleplan could be very favourable or very difficult depending on the match up.

The 5+ and 4+ rally for normal units and GV respectively is favourable to our sharks, thralls and reavers. Maintaing a castle that allows reavers to return on a 4+ seems to be a good approach.

Armies such as NH and DoK who pack a lot of potent GV are going to be very difficult on this match up. The BoC approach of over committing and eliminating a single unit at a time is likely to be the best approach.

Shifting that 30 Bladeghasts or 10 bow snakes is going to be a real task, so let's hope for a favourable draw.

Lurkers Below

A fairly standard approach battleplan that funnels everyone to the middle. Due to the automatic win condition I suspect a single large push that capitalises on High Tide may be the best approach.

Turf War

My least favourite battleplan from my initial reading.

No reserves doesn't harm my list, but it's not a particularly good mechanic. Likewise funnelling both armies onto two objectives is going to make clever plays more difficult.

As this is the last plan in the pack it's possible (I hope!) That we will be competing on the top tables.

A positive draw here would be to face Nighthaunt who are going to have to risk moving forward into shooting and cannot use their underworlds abilities to get those big damaging early charges.

The worst draw would be Seraphon. Thunderlizard sitting on both objectives is going to be really hard.

Final thoughts

We are going to see a lot of purple suns. We're fairly well positioned to unbind with a +1 and reroll, but there are several armies that are much better at casting.

In such cases our best choice will be to spread out and avoid the risk of multiple units being impacted. Keep the slower moving nemarti central will splitting the sharks on either side. High movement can let you regroup later, but splitting at least means you won't have both units of sharks at -1 to save and risking autodeath.

As I've said before I expect to face Nighthaunt. An interesting quirk of this match up is that thralls become the best combat unit in our army.

As such I won't be afraid to use the higher value sharks as screens if it means the high quantity thralls can counter charge into those big scary units.

Sylvaneth are the wildcard pick. The new book seems strong, but we're not certain how they will play.

My aim for this match up is to push and play very aggressively. When playing a new book your opponent will often have a carefully thought out plan of how they want to play. Flustering them, making them to react and disrupting their plans can throw them off. The lack of experience with a list and book comes into play when things start to become chaotic.

Lastly, Seraphon. What to say? They are so strong and especially good against IDK. My hope is the change to scaly skin might allow sniping off the skink and Slann support, but we will see!

See you next week for a post tournament recap!