adapting the army during deployment

[Calisson]

In order to play, you must  first muster your army from the miniatures in your collection.

You can continue setting up units until you have set up all the units you want to in this battle, or have run out of space. This is is your army. Count the number of models in your army – this may come in useful later.
Any remaining units are held in reserve, playing no part unless fate lends a hand.

As I understand, it is open lists, from which to select units deployed.
This allows you to guess if the opponent might wish to play the single-model-sudden-death-WAAC, or elite, or mass.
It is up to you to have in your muster units to give appropriate answers.

During deployment, you can keep in reserve (i.e. not take at all) all but one unit if you wish.
This, with alternate deployment, should allow you to counter in the early deployment the single WAAC model, especially if you play second.
Hey, you could well come with your army of DE and your army of O&G plus Nagash, and decide after battlefield is set which one you will use!

After all, there seems to be a potential for army list building (what are the tools I wish to have available, not knowing the opponent?),
and some deployement finesse: adapting "tit for tat" to what I see from opponent's already deployed troops, which will fight, and his reserve, which may fight or not participate to the battle.
There will be two phases of deployment: alternate deployment, and once one opponent says finished, the other one has full leisure to adapt to what he sees on the table - with the available surface of the table as limit.

[Daeron]

In a weird way this may impact the deployment order as well as the models you bring.
- If you're going to counter a single model WAAC list, you best face it off with a good anti-model. So I expect high profile models to be a good choice for a first drop.
- If your opponent goes for a low model count, and calls "stop", then you are still at liberty to drop any model you want to, to counter possible sudden death scenarios.

Assassination:
- The player triggering the sudden death can choose the mission, but the other player can choose the target. I expect a tanky character to be a good counter for this.
- It should be quite possible to deploy a swarm or living shield to protect the target.
- You can still drop any workable counter to the assassination model(s).

Blunt:
- If your opponent wants sudden death, a tanky swarm or defense mob is a good choice. You can use it to deflect the sudden death.

Endure:
- Here I'd opt for as many models to counter the sudden death as possible. Make sure some shooting is available and perhaps a caster.

Seize Ground:
- This is going to be a tough one, but again I'd go for a tanky swarm unit.

So in short, to build a list that can handle a sudden death scenario, you'd need a tanky character, mobile troops, tanking troops and preferably some ranged damage. Which pretty much sums up all the options. Luckily, you are at liberty to actually do that. In theory you could drop the whole model range.

It looks like having some defensive options and a way to control the opponent's movement is important. Defense comes a lot harder in this game, with a single save roll as protection. I would recommend higher wound models in a unit. 2 wound models would lose only half the models for the same amount of wounds suffered, and will feel the sting from battleshock only half as much. It may prove more important than the actual bravery.