Of all the armies in Age of Sigmar, I have played Idoneth the most. I like to think this gives me some kind valid thoughts on the playstyle of the army and how it’s changed going into 4th.

So let’s breakdown the faction pack and see if it’s any good. Spoiler alert, it rocks.

1. Playstyle
2. Battle Traits
3. Battle Formations
4. Heroic Traits
5. Artefacts of Power
6. Spell Lore
7. Warscrolls
8. Lists
9. Final Thoughts

Playstyle

Idoneth are an elite army all about slowly peeling away your opponent the first two turns, then effectively ending the game turn 3 with their Tides of Death ability.

You have less dudes than your opponent with classic terrible elf saves, but big damage from your mounts and small amount of shooting.

You’ll rely on your Wizards and deepstrikes to control the board and get out of bad situations whenever the rolls don’t go the way you needed.

Position wrong and it’s over, but your speed lets you do the same to your opponents misplaced units. Even better if they’re pivotal hero’s.

Battle Traits

Idoneth have three Battle Traits. The first two are Ethersea Voyage/Raiders from the Deeps and work together. The former letting you put a regiment into reserves. The second letting you set up those units 9″ from any battlefield edge and 9″ away from all enemy units.

The whole regiment has to go into reserves but that shouldn’t be a problem if you build your list around it. It’s flexible and a fun rule, couldn’t ask for more.

The second trait is the iconic Tides of Death. Each round you get a different buff for the whole army.

Turn one is -1 to hit in shooting, as well as in combat if you didn’t charge. It’s useful for setting up, might cost your opponent a command point for all out attack if they want to pick something off with shooting turn one.

In turn two your army can run then still shoot and charge. This is amazing and a huge quality of life update from 3rd edition where you had to pick between shooting or charging.

Turn three gives your whole army strikes-first. I don’t really have to explain how good this is, do I? It’s really good. Super good. Line this up right and you can end the game. Getting the double between turn two and three can be brutal. Against melee-centric armies you don’t care if they get the double either in most circumstances. Especially in 4th edition where a bad double can be game ending.

Turn four is the opposite of two, you get retreat (without taking mortals), shoot and charge. This lets you disengage from the scraps you left behind turn three without penalty and pick up some points or tie up something else.

Turn five is the same as turn one.

Tides of Death is amazing, the only downside is that you’re made of paper, so where you fight before turn three is a big decision. One you have to make or fall behind.

Battle Formations

The Battle Formations for Idoneth are nearly all great. The builds they push you towards make a lot of sense, and feel good to play.

The first is Namarti Corps its ability Surge Forward lets you re-roll run rolls and charge rolls for Namarti (duh) wholly within 12″ of an Akhelian. Mass Namarti is a playable list, and it benefits greatly from having an Akhelian Leviadon nearby. More on that later, but this is very strong.

Akhelian Beastmasters is the second and my preferred formation. Its ability Ferocious Predators adds 1 to hit rolls for Companion weapons on your Akhelian units. Most of your damage output in this army is on the mounts. Hitting on 3s instead of 4s is a noticeable difference, and makes -1 to hit abilities not hurt anywhere near as bad. The mounts often wound better than your normal guys too so this compounds pretty fast.

The third is Isharann Council (Man, I’ve been pronouncing Isharann wrong for years). Gaining the ability Wisdom of the Deep; adding +1 to casting rolls, ritual rolls (this will make sense later), and Lurelight rolls while in combat range with another friendly Isharann unit.

You want bonuses to all of these abilities, but having to be in combat range with another of your Isharann honestly blows. Most of them are wizards and are often not grouped together. You can make it work, but it’s easily the weakest.

Lastly we have Soul-Raid Ambush and the ability Fade Like Mist which lets you at the end of your turn, once per turn, put an Idoneth Infantry or Calvery unit (Sorry Eidolons) into Ethersea Voyage Reserves. They have to be wholly within three of terrain.

Soul-Raid is really good, it ramps your mobility up and you can never have too much mobility. You’ll likely get all five battle tactics with this, and it was already really easy for Idoneth to do that. If Beastmasters wasn’t so good, I’d likely go to this.

Heroic Traits

The heroic traits are cool, the tragedy though is that you likely always take the same one.

Which one is that? Ancient Pride: which make it so you can’t be hit on a 1-3 in combat. “Stormcast hate him because of this one cool trick.” Idoneth are squishy, this makes your hero a little less squishy. I’m a big fan of it on the Eidolon now that he has a 3+ save.

Nightmare Legacy lets you subtract D6 control from a unit you did damage to. Its fine. Control comes up a lot more than I thought it would, and in an elite Akhelian list this could come in handy. It being D6 is what, holds it back I think. I’d rather the guarantee of Ancient Pride.

Hunter of Souls gives the users melee weapons Anti-Hero (+1 Rend). It fun and fluffy. If you play against an army that needs its characters, this can be strong, but will likely be overshadowed by the other two.

Artefacts of Power

Everything here’s pretty decent and I have no real complaints. The first artefact is Armour of the Cythai which negates everything but companion weapon abilities against the user. No more Crit Mortals, or extra rend. This is generically strong and you’ll usually take it.

Dritchleech however is a bit of a sleeper hit. You subtract 1 from casting rolls for enemy Wizards within 18″. 4th edition is shaping up to be a pretty magic heavy edition with manifestations being everywhere, so making them slightly harder to cast is good. Eidolons have really big bases and are durable enough to be in positions to make use of it.

You’re still Idoneth so maybe don’t charge 12 Gluttons to get this effect working, you have other tools for that.

Delicious Morsels is helpful on paper, but I haven’t seen much success with it. Once per turn in any movement phase (so every movement phase) you heal d3 to each Cavalry unit in combat range with you. I wish the range was a bit better, sometimes you just don’t want a character stuck in combat. In addition, your eels are 4 wounds, your sharks 8, and kings are 7. D3 isn’t doing much to keep them alive if they’re already wounded. In my head, D3 just says 1.

4+ saves are a real thing.

Spell Lore

We have here the Lore of the Deeps, and it rocks my socks off. Every problem I had with Idoneth is solved by this spell lore.

Starting with the best one, Steed of Tides lets you teleport a unit anywhere on the board 9″ away from all enemy units on a 6. By the way it’s unlimited. So now you have a regiment coming in from the flanks thanks to our battle traits, and usually two other units being sneaky little fish every turn.

Take their land? No problem, Teleport your Eidolon in, who has +1 to cast, then on your opponents turn, get out.

Unit is locked in combat? Not for long. Being able to cast in your opponents turn really makes this shine.

It’s only limitation is you have to be wholly within 12″ to be the target, but that’s not a limitation that’s difficult to manage.

Arcane Corrasion, cast on a 6, subtracts 1 from Rend on a unit. This helps get a lot of your units to a 3+ when near your faction terrain(which now gives +1 to save) or when you use all out defense as even Rend 1 is scary to a fish elf.

Pressure of the Deep is cute. Pick a unit within 18″, on a casting roll of 7 roll a number of dice equal to models in the unit, each 5+ is a mortal. If we had to pick a spell like in 3rd edition this would never be played, but because you just know it, I like it as emergency pocket sand.

Warscrolls

Starting off, Idoneth are not starved for good hero’s. Let’s start with the Iconic Eidolons that I can’t shut up about apparently.

Aspect of the Storm is a melee beast with 12 wounds and a 3+ save (5+ Ward) with a huge 12 total attacks, 6 of them being Rend 2 damage 3 on the charge. In addition he gives +1 to wound rolls for Idoneth wholly in 12″, which because you’re now wounding on 4s with most thing, you won’t say no too. He also has a pocket Strike-Last to give out on a 3+, and always has retreat and charge. He’s kickass at 330 points.

The Aspect of the Sea has the same defensive profile, has a cute shooting attack and doesn’t do nothing in combat. Where he shines is that he’s a Wizard (2) with +1 to cast. His spell Tsunami of Terror subtracts 1 from save rolls from 3 different units within 12″, casting on an 8. This of course is actually a 7 because of his innate +1.

He has some cute-tech also with a 3+ no commands on a unit in combat range, and stopping control scores from being negatively modified for units wholly in 12″. He’s 350 points and has been the MVP for all of my games. Everything Idoneth wants, he does. Get one.

Bro Wizard freaking (2)!

The Akhelian King and his named counter part, Volturnos are weird.

The Akhelian King is on paper a monster in combat, and at 200 points is a steal. The unfortunate truth though is that he wounds on 4s. So he’ll either wound with everything, or nothing. More often than not it’s nothing. You really take him for his ability to let an Akhelian unit to fight right after him and his sweet 12″ move. If he was any more I wouldn’t take him.

Volturnos is much better in combat, wounding on 3s instead. He buffs Idoneth within 12″ of him with two abilities. The first is once per battle giving +1 attacks to melee weapons, amazing. The second is all game and gives +1 to hit for Akhelians in combat. This is good if you’re not running beastmasters. Lastly, Vulturnos has a cute Ward (3+) against spells.

The only problem is that he’s a maddening 270. He consistent though and is likely worth considering.

Isharann units are all really good, as they should be. Half are Wizards, and the other two are add a lot of value in other ways. The Tidecaster has a Ritual Roll ability in the hero phase, on a 3+ you get to make Idoneth not targetable by shooting attacks outside of 12″. This is huge value for an army which folds like paper.

Or you can add 1 to run and charge rolls to all Idoneth units. That’s also strong. You want to close the gap quick turns 2 and 3, and coming off the board edges and charging only 8 instead of 9 is much better.

The third ability you can choose mostly sucks. Dealing D3 mortals to enemy units that retreat. Too niche to worry about.

The Soulscryer is amazing and likely an auto-pick in all lists. You can set up your Ethersea units wholly within 12″ of him and 7″ away from all enemy units instead of 9″ from board edge and enemies. This is just so good. 20 Namarti thralls charging 7″, or dare I say 6″ with a Tidecaster will be chaos for an unprepared opponent.

If that’s not enough he has a once per turn, your hero phase ability that gives your army +1 to wound for melee attacks against target hero within 18″.

The Soulrender lets you return D3 (with +1 in the Isharann battle formation) Namarti models to three units wholly in 12″ at the end of each turn (as in everyturn). 20 man blocks rejoice.

Lotann is cool for a few reasons. The first is his adding 3 to control scores to units within 12″ of him. Super good. His other ability is +1 to cast for Isharann wholly within 12″ of his tentacles. This part is cool, but it’s a little hard to line up with how mobile everything is.

His real bonus is that he can bring any unit with him in a regiment for only 110 points. If you’re not taking a King, just bring Lotann, he’ll get you an extra unit.

Our last hero is the Akhelian Thrallmaster. He’s mostly the same as last edition. Giving Namarti Crit 2 Hits or -1 to wound in combat. He’s good guy, just trying to keep his bros healthy. He’s also gets to pick a Namarti unit to fight right after him. Thralls go brrrrr.

Moving over to the non-hero units there’s some cool stuff here and none of it is unplayable, which is good because GW refuses to release anything not a character model.

Give us crab cavalry or give us death!

Starting off with the Akhelian units Allopex are cool because they mostly wound on 2s. Both in shooting and melee. They kept the extra attack against a wounded unit, but it’s even better now because they also get the bonus if any model in a unit within 6″ was slain in the same turn. Just makes it easier to trigger.

Their shooting is damage 3 now, which I will never complain about. If they hit a Monster of Cavalry you can reduce the amount of dice they roll on the charge by one. It’s on a 3+, but its a fun rule when it comes up.

Their main issue is that they’re 190 points and not reinforceable. This is expensive, but they have a lot of rend and good damage. You’ll likely bring 1-2 in a beastmaster list. I don’t know if they are taken otherwise.

Eels are back by the way and in a big way.

Morrsarr Guard do a truck ton of mortals on the charge against units lager than them. Considering they are usually a squad of 6, almost everything has more models than them. Their downside is that they’re only 2 attacks each, so if you get de-buffed somehow, you’ll be hurting.

The Ishlaen Guard reduce attacks by 1 on a 3+ and have Ward (5+) the turn they charged. They’re durable in an army which is not. Perfection.

Eels move 14″, that alone is enough to get them in a list. And the Eels themselves are straight fire in combat. Three attacks each, hitting on 4s and wounding on 3s they have Rend 1 and D3 damage. Sometimes they spike, sometimes they don’t. But the utility on both units is amazing. Hammer or anvil, they let you pick. Morrsarr costing 170 and Ishlaen costing 180. I love them and they will make every list.

Then there’s the big man himself. The Akhelian Leviadon. Let’s start by making it clear that he is 500 points, 1/4th of your list is turtle-man.

What does he do?

A ton of damage, and all Idoneth have Ward (5+) wholly within 6″. I don’t think you take this guy in any list but the Namarti horde centric ones. He’s just slightly too expensive. I don’t think you’d be upset to bring one regardless. He’s tanky on 16 wounds, 3+ save and gets his own ward aura with 11 damage 3 attacks between his melee and range. He’s super fun.

Lastly we have the Namarti. The Reavers are 12″ range with 2 shot bows. These shots have Crit (Auto-wound) and Rend 1. So they’ll do something even if just a little. They really shine with their ability to always run or retreat and still shoot. Letting you redeploy and still covering fire. It takes a tiny bit more than random chaff to deal with them.

Thralls got a mega-downgrade now getting a bonus only against monsters, which increases their damage to 2. I don’t know. Take them in 20s or don’t take them. Wounding on 4s sucks.

Lists

List 1:

Triptide (1970 points)
Akhelian Beastmasters
Drops: 3

Spell Lore – Lore of the Deeps
Manifestation Lore – Krondspine Incarnate

General’s Regiment
Isharann Soulscryer (120)
• General
Namarti Reavers (130)
Namarti Reavers (130)
Namarti Thralls (120)

Regiment 1
Eidolon of Mathlann, Aspect of the Sea (350)
• Ancient Pride
• Armour of the Cythai
Akhelian Allopex (190)
• 1x Razorshell Harpoon
Akhelian Ishlaen Guard (180)
Akhelian Ishlaen Guard (180)

Regiment 2
Akhelian King (200)
Akhelian Allopex (190)
• 1x Razorshell Harpoon
Akhelian Ishlaen Guard (180)

This is the main list I’ve been running. Ishlaen are crazy survivable and I like them MSU to roam around and be annoying early game before the rest of my army collapses on the enemy turn 3.

My favorite part of the list is the Soulscryers regiment. You just drop the Reavers around the board early to grab Battle Tactics and disrupt wherever you need and find the perfect thrall charge with the Soulscryers 7″ deepstrike ability.

I have yet to score low with this list and I love it.

List 2:

Namarti Spam (2000 points)
Namarti Corps
Drops: 3

Spell Lore – Lore of the Deeps
Manifestation Lore – Morbid Conjuration

General’s Regiment
Volturnos, High King of the Deep (270)
• General
Akhelian Leviadon (500)

Regiment 1
Akhelian Thrallmaster (130)
• Hunter of Souls
• Dritchleech
Namarti Thralls (240)
• Reinforced
Namarti Thralls (240)
• Reinforced
Namarti Thralls (240)
• Reinforced

Regiment 2
Isharann Soulscryer (120)
Namarti Reavers (130)
Namarti Reavers (130)

If you’re going to run the turtle, this is how you do it. You can likely find space for a Soulrender to get a lot of resurrections, but then you have no Wizards and hence zero teleports. Maybe the Thrallmaster isn’t worth it, but we’ll have to test more and see.

Final Thoughts

Idoneth are an army which win in the movement phase regardless of your big turn 3 shenanigans’. You can do most tactics with little worry and some of the harder ones such as reclaim the realms as early as turn 2. The best part is that it’s usually risk free if you set it up correctly.

However that’s the hard part, because again, if something looks at you funny that’s normally enough to break your bones.

Idoneth are super rewarding and the skill ceiling for big brain plays is impressive. Now if only I could find a way to fit Aspect of the Storm in for that +1 to wound. Man I hate wounding on 4s.

That’s everything today. If you’re wondering why I didn’t touch on manifestations it’s because I think the game is still finding its feet. If anything is going to get changed it’ll be those. If not, I’ll update the article at some point after the first balance pass so stay tuned for that.

tl;dr: Purple sun or Krondspine, because duh.

Thanks everyone.

Man I take a lot of pictures of the Eidolon. Remind me to get some eel and shark pictures later to replace half of these.

Drink water, eat your food groups, think about others around you.