Starting a Death army

[RaritanAnon]

So it took me a while (you may recognize the million threads I posted in on choosing an army) but I've settled on Death. Specifically Nighthaunt and Deathrattle. So this would be either Nighthaunt Allegiance or Legion of Sacrament/Night, or Grand Host, for Deathrattle. I've basically decided I love just about every model they offer, even the Mourngul and whatnot. It's just a matter of deciding which path to start my 1000pt army on. I've done my homework for the most part, but it's hard to figure some stuff out without playing the game.

Which do you suggest? I'm mainly concerned about 

• Competitiveness
• Fun to paint
• Complexity/Tactics
• Model Variety
• Expansion into 2000pts etc

Any help on this line would be appreciated, and I can throw down my sample army lists, if anyone is curious. Even though they sorta look like everyones 'starting out 1000pts list' lol

[Elmir]

A block of 40 spearletons will be a solid starting point and will be a staple in many 2000p lists. 

A necromancer is just brilliant and works well with both the nighthaunt and deathrattle stuff.  I  always start off from those 2 things, and I think they'll serve you well for many lists in the future too. 

If you are set on including mostly nighthaunt, you will need to accept running lots of big skeleton blocks OR default to Grand host of Nagash to get Grave guard as battle line. 

So I'd go either full blown deathrattle at first via Grand host if 100% skeleton spam isn't your thing, or go full hog nighthaunt (although you'll be stuck having to fix up lots of battle line anyway if you want to go back to LoN lists. 

[RaritanAnon]

23 minutes ago, Elmir said:

<snip>

Yeah that was my plan at first, because it seemed like I could get almost everything Deathrattle/Grand Host I wanted in the Blood Queen box. This is my lost for that idea. 

Allegiance: Death
Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade(120)
- General
- Trait: Lord of Nagashizzar 
Necromancer (110)
- Artefact: Ossific Diadem 
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Necromancer (110)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spears
10 x Grave Guard (160)
- Great Wight Blades
2 x Morghast Harbingers (220)
- Spirit Halberds

Total: 1000 / 1000
Allies: 0 / 200
Wounds: 77
 

I'm just not 100% sold on skele-spam. And at the same time, I don't really know how to run Nighthaunt past 1000pts without just spamming, either. LoN opens up options for Nighthaunt, but it kinda forces me to get a bunch of non Nighthaunt stuff, too. 

[RaritanAnon]

And then my Nighthaunt list

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
Knight of Shrouds (120)
- General
- Trait: Cloaked in Shadow 
Cairn Wraith (60)
- Artefact: Pendant of the Fell Wind 
Cairn Wraith (60)
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
5 x Hexwraiths (160)
Mourngul (350)

Total: 990 / 1000
Allies: 0 / 200
Wounds: 51

I'd have to drop the Mourngul and fiddle with adding some Dire Wolves or skeletons and whatnot. 

I think if I do Nighthaunt, I'm sort of stuck with 1000pts, it seems. Which isn't bad. It just requires a lot of fiddling and losing out on the Mourngul etx

[Sception]

1 hour ago, RaritanAnon said:

So it took me a while (you may recognize the million threads I posted in on choosing an army) but I've settled on Death. Specifically Nighthaunt and Deathrattle. So this would be either Nighthaunt Allegiance or Legion of Sacrament/Night, or Grand Host, for Deathrattle. I've basically decided I love just about every model they offer, even the Mourngul and whatnot. It's just a matter of deciding which path to start my 1000pt army on. I've done my homework for the most part, but it's hard to figure some stuff out without playing the game.

Which do you suggest? I'm mainly concerned about 

• Competitiveness
• Fun to paint
• Complexity/Tactics
• Model Variety
• Expansion into 2000pts etc

Any help on this line would be appreciated, and I can throw down my sample army lists, if anyone is curious. Even though they sorta look like everyones 'starting out 1000pts list' lol

Nighthaunt aren't in a great place as a stand alone army right now, though it's entirely possible that they'll see a separate battle tome later this year.  Nighthaunt still makes for fun starting out 1k lists - knight of shrouds, 2x cairne wraith, 6 spirit hosts, 5 hexwraiths, and a mourngul is a fun and good 1k point army.  At higher points values, though, they suffer with a lack of unit variety, larger heroes, wizards, etc.  And the recent changes, in particular the nerf to ethereal, don't help.

If you're equally happy with skeletons visually, I'd go with a legions of nagash army.  No huge reason to commit to a particular legion unless you have some thematic affinity to a particular character, they all share the same units so as your collection expands you can shift your legion allegiance from game to game as you try new things.  A legion list also lets you mix some nighthaunt units in with your boney boys, so best of all worlds.

For a starting skittle leaning legion force, you could do worse than a wight king, 2 necromancers, 40 skeletons with spears, 2x10 skeletons with swords (or 1x10 grave guard with great weapons if you commit to grand host), and 2 morghasts (harbingers with halberds unless you eventually plan on running Nagash, in which case archai with halberds).

In general, Legions of Nagash is just the funnest, most up to day, and most competitive death army currently around.  Tomb Kings and generic death have been hurt badly by changes over the last year, nighthaunt is aching for a book of their own, Flesh Eaters are painfully out of date due to being one of the early battle tomes, and soulblight suffers from blood knights desperately needing a hefty points drop.  Legions on the other hand have up to date rules, great spell lores, a variety of allegiance benefits to try out, and grave sites, which are narratively engaging, mechanically effective, and just a lot of fun to play with.

It's entirely possible that nighthaunt might get their own book within the next 6 months and that you might find yourself regretting your decision when they do, but right now skeleton-leaning legion armies are the way to go in death.

EDIT:  I find it very amusing that while I was posting my suggestions for thousand point starting lists for nighthaunt and legions you entirely independently of me posted basically the exact same lists. 

[RaritanAnon]

17 minutes ago, Sception said:

<snip>

EDIT:  I find it very amusing that while I was posting my suggestions for thousand point starting lists for nighthaunt and legions you entirely independently of me posted basically the exact same lists. 

Haha I noticed that too. This is my alternative list with some knights and a corpse cart for +1 to cast and reroll Invocation. Also, the Wight on a horse! 

Allegiance: Death
Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade(120)
- General
- Mount: Steed
- Trait: Lord of Nagashizzar 
Necromancer (110)
- Artefact: Ossific Diadem 
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Necromancer (110)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spears
10 x Grave Guard (160)
- Great Wight Blades
5 x Black Knights (120)
1 x Corpse Cart (80)

Total: 980 / 1000
Allies: 0 / 200
Wounds: 81
 

[Sception]

That list also looks fine, though the harbingers will be a closer aesthetic fit with your skeletons than the corpse cart, and will hit a lot harder than those black knights.  Still, hard to say no to +1 to cast on your necromancers.

[RaritanAnon]

56 minutes ago, Sception said:

That list also looks fine, though the harbingers will be a closer aesthetic fit with your skeletons than the corpse cart, and will hit a lot harder than those black knights.  Still, hard to say no to +1 to cast on your necromancers.

Plus I can get nearly the whole army in the Blood Queen box. Thanks a lot. Not super fond of wanting to run like, 120 skeletons at once, but a brick of 40 will be very hard to kill. I kind of want to run some Dire Wolves as the Goblin spider riders, without the rider. I think spiders fit skeletons more than zombie wolves. 

[TheOtherJosh]

4 hours ago, RaritanAnon said:

Which do you suggest? I'm mainly concerned about 

• Competitiveness
• Fun to paint
• Complexity/Tactics
• Model Variety
• Expansion into 2000pts etc

Competitiveness - Death (with the Legions of Nagash) is nicely competitive. Has some fun twists and is very caster heavy. 

Fun to paint... hmmm ... it can be substantially more monochromatic ...  lots of bone. There are fun models to paint in the lineup. But at least there aren’t loads of metallic suits of armor. Lots of dead things ... ghosts. But not as wide a variety as Chaos or order. 

Complexity/Tactics - It’s in a solid place, and you still have Flesh eater Courts if you want some alternatives. It isn’t point and click easy, but there are a wide variety of tactics available. (Including loads of new options in Malign Portents and the new LoN book.)

Model variety - Perhaps not as wide a variety as chaos or order (two of the largest factions) but there are a wide variety of options. But there will be a whole bunch of horde style battleline to paint.  (Unless you take Nagash as your general and go for Morghast as battleline) ... you have a smaller selection of battleline, but a wide variety of options for leaders ... and a whole bunch of those are behemoths. And some nice centerpiece units to work with. With a couple limited exceptions (bats and fell bats) almost all the models are recent and nice looking sculpts. There is only one Forgeworld Unit (mourngul) available ... and it has limited use unless you’re playing Nighthaunt or Soulblight.

There are plenty of options to get you to 2k. (Nagash is 800 points by himself, as an example ... and some of the behemoths are 400-480 points) However you don’t have artillery.

[Sception]

Re: painting deathrattle.  Its a lot of models, and xan get monotonous, but has the kind of detail that works well with washes and drybrushing, so can go a bit more quickly than you might otherwise think.

And don't be afraid to try a weird scheme with them.  You're not locked into pearly white just cuz you're painting bone.  Grey skellies, dark brown petrified bone, freshly flayed wet bloody red, ghostly ethereal greens, glowy necromantic purples (the lore goes on and on about amethyst colored death magic, but you hardly ever see any art or models try to bring that to life), maybe black bones with any bright color showing through between, etc.

It's easy to get skeletons looking good with a normal boney white, but its the armies that make weird, different choices in their color cheme that people remember after they've played them.

[RaritanAnon]

1 minute ago, Sception said:

Re: painting deathrattle.  Its a lot of models, and xan get monotonous, but has the kind of detail that works well with washes and drybrushing, so can go a bit more quickly than you might otherwise think.

And don't be afraid to try a weird scheme with them.  You're not locked into pearly white just cuz you're painting bone.  Grey skellies, dark brown petrified bone, freshly flayed wet bloody red, ghostly ethereal greens, glowy necromantic purples (the lore goes on and on about amethyst colored death magic, but you hardly ever see any art or models try to bring that to life), maybe black bones with any bright color showing through between, etc.

It's easy to get skeletons looking good with a normal boney white, but its the armies that make weird, different choices in their color cheme that people remember after they've played them.

Yeah I've been mulling over my color ideas for a bit, looking at tutorials and whatnot. I like the idea of 'ghostly' skeletons and the like, but it looks a little too samey across the whole army, imo. That may be the 'kinda wanna play Nighthaunt' in me talking though lol. If I did that, I'd still do the weapons/armor as something metallic, of course. I can't just paint an army one color and be done. I've not actually seen a 'ghost skeleton' army done, yet, which I find kind of odd.

I think if I was going to go standard, I'd go with something like this. With nice purple effects and really old looking armor. I also really like the old brown-looking bone color he went with. Not sold on the glowing eyes though lol.