The Dreadsorrow Barrows

[TalesOfSigmar]

The Dreadsorrow Barrows - A Nighthaunt Blog

So I’ve decided to start an army diary for my Nighthaunt army, mostly for myself to look back through previous games/lists and see what I did wrong/what I can learn from using them.

I started my Nighthaunt a few months ago and then with the new edition/new models coming out it was decided to expand the army into a much bigger project. I’m going to be picking up at least one of every kit during this launch and I’m hoping to have the chance to try loads of different lists/battalions etc.

Anyway I’ll post up some pics of my finished units/wip projects through the diary along with mini-battle reports.

 

Game 1 vs Tzeentch – Relocation Orb

So my first proper game with the Nighthaunt was against my podcast co-host Steve and his newly tuned Tzeentch list. Steve’s played Tzeentch solidly for basically all of last year and this so I knew I was up against it from the off with me still learning exactly what the Nighthaunt army did. Plus I was running basically the starter set, along with some of the models I had painted up from when I first started the project. Hopefully down the line when the new models are out and I’ve got a hang of it I can go back against Steve and give him a completely different game.

I ran the following list I used the ;

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
Mortal Realm: Hysh

Leaders
Arkhan The Black Mortarch of Sacrament (320)
- Allies
Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Spirit Hosts (return D3 models to a summonable unit within 9” in Hero phase)
- Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch (when I spend a CP on a 5+ I keep it)
Cairn Wraith (60)
Knight of Shrouds (120)
Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed (140)
Spirit Torment (120)

Battleline
40 x Chainrasp Horde (280)
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
10 x Grimghast Reapers (140)
8 x Mymourn Banshees (160)

Endless Spells
Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (40)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 320 / 400
Wounds: 132

So yeah a complete mish-mash of units mostly using what I had built from the Soul Wars box and some additional bits. I was lacking in points so I threw in Arkhan just to give me a tiny bit of magic protection.

Steve ran a Lord of Change (with the 42 inch dispel range…), 2 x Tzaangor Shamans, 1 x Magister, 30 x Tzaangor, 10 x Kairic Acolytes, 10 x Kairic Acolytes and 6 x Skyfires. It didn’t help he rolled an impressive 5 x 6s, 2 x 5s, a 3 and a 1 for his stabilizers.

I kept the Spirit Torment, 2 x 6 Spirit Hosts and the 10 x Reapers in the ground to come up. Steve game me turn one knowing that if he went second he’d score 3 VPs for holding the objective this turn. Everything else moved up to the objective in the middle of the board and I kept quite a few units back to protect the counter attack of the Tzaangor. He left a big hole at the back of his deployment leaving his LoC vunerable, I popped up 6 x Spirit Hosts and the Spirit Torment and failed my charge! I used my CP to re-roll my charge and popped a 10!

To keep in range of the Spirit Torment Re-Roll 1s to hit buff, four of the Spirit Hosts went into the LoC and the other two into the Acolytes, annoyingly in two rounds of combat the four spirit hosts left the LoC on 3 wounds! Looking back if I’d just piled in the full unit into the LoC and didn’t bother about the re-rolls I probably would’ve got the extra three Mortal Wounds to take him out.

Steve’s Turn one he threw all of his magic at the Spirit Hosts in his deployment zone but with the combined Arkhan unbinding and Steve failing to roll anything he failed to do a single mortal wound. As expected the Tzaangor ran up the field rolling a natural 6 for the run. Skyfires deleted the Spirit Hosts burning most of the 6s from the Destiny Dice to kill them all in one round. People wonder why Tzeentch get so much hate sometimes, auto deleting stuff like that is the reason why! He then used another 6 and 5 from the Destiny Dice to charge the Tzaangor into everything, taking off both the Banshees and Arkhan in one turn of combat (a waste of allied units).

Thankfully the Chainrasps were tagged with one guy and did exactly what they were intended to do they tied up the Tzaangor for the next few turns. Along with the Geminids making them -1 Attack and -1 to Hit they were stuck there all game until turn four when the Geminids finally were moved away from them. Though as the Chainrasps took out Tzaangor after Tzaangor the Shaman’s spell just replenished the unit with more Tzaangor and the Magister was adding extra Chaos Spawns to the battle every turn. Was crazy how much extra summoning they can do now for free.

What it did mean was that the orb relocated around to the open left hand side where I had brought up my 10 x Grimghast meaning I could score without much problem, that was until the Skyfires came across and went into combat with the Grimghast. Though my 4+ save skills came in meaning I could pin them in place. Next 6 Spirit Hosts dropped and once again popped the 10 for the charge meaning they went into the Skyfires and with the initial 30 attacks (only 5 got into combat) did 10 Mortal Wounds! Next combat and the Skyfires were reduced to one model with 2 wounds left. Being -1 Bravery and losing four models I thought that was the end of them…. Until Destiny Dice made him autopass the battleshock using his 1…

The Spirit Torment made a 9 inch charge into the LoC who had 3 wounds left and somehow Steve managed to roll the 6 for his save to stop the D3 damage going through! Steve then retreaded the Skyfire and with Fold Reality brought the whole unit back rolling a 6 for models back. They then shot and charged into the Spirit Hosts taking them off the table and then proceeded to sit on the objective each turn to win the game 14-8.

MAJOR LOSS

So yeah a few mistakes here and there and more destiny dice playing a big roll in how the battle turned out. If they weren’t apart of the game, things like the Tzaangor making a 11 inch charge turn one, Skyfires deleting the Spirit Hosts and then passing battleshock etc would’ve turned the battle massively. We even said after the game that if the LoC went down turn one it could’ve change the game massively. I felt I was missing a couple of extra wizards but with the massive unbind range of the LoC I’m not sure whether they would’ve done much to be worthwhile in this game.

Spirit Hosts in blocks of 6 can be lethal though, looking forward to using them in more games, although with all the new toys, I have a feeling there will be quite a few games when they’re not used.

Next game tonight against either Seraphon, Khorne or Skaven. Going to tweak the list and run some Hexwraiths this time I think. Can see me dropping the Knight of Shrouds on foot as he needs to be your general for his command ability which obviously never got used.

 

[TalesOfSigmar]

So here's some shots of the army so far....

 

 

[Neck-Romantic]

Nice thematic models

[TalesOfSigmar]

On 7/5/2018 at 1:05 PM, Neck-Romantic said:

Nice thematic models

Thanks very much hopefully once the whole army is painted in the same scheme it'll look really effective on the table!

 

Game 2 vs Seraphon – Places of Arcane Power

So a treat to have two games in successive days, not sure how I managed to wing that! This time was against another fellow club mate Rich who was testing his Seraphon list for the tournament I’m running next Saturday.

I tweaked my list around a bit from the night before and ran the following.

Allegiance: Nighthaunt - Mortal Realm: Hysh

 

Leaders

Arkhan The Black Mortarch of Sacrament (320)

- Allies

Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed (140)

- General

- Command Trait : Ruler of the Spirit Hosts

- Artefact : Lens of Refraction

Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)

Spirit Torment (120)

 

Units

40 x Chainrasp Horde (280)

6 x Spirit Hosts (240)

6 x Spirit Hosts (240)

10 x Hexwraiths (320)

8 x Myrmourn Banshees (160)

 

ENDLESS SPELLS

Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (40)

Looking back through the Malign Sorcery I felt the lens was a lot more useful than a potential CP back on a 5+. I wanted a big unit of Hexwraiths to quickly get up the board, I did consider dropping the Geminids for the Shackles and Quicksilver Swords but I didn’t have them built and ran out of time before the game to build them up.

Rich had a Thunderquake starhost so he had Kroak, Astriloth Banner, Engine of the Gods, Starpriest, 3 x 10 Skinks, 2 x Bastiladons, 1 x Salamander, 1 x Skink Handlers, Balewind and Spell Portal.

Once again I kept the two units of Spirit Hosts, the Spirit Torment in reserve and this time also kept the Banshees off the board. I was given first turn and I used my CP to use Arkhan’s +6 ability to cast the Geminids straight over the front of the Skinks and the Engine. Annoyingly I didn’t realise Rich had the Lens artefact too so stopped D3 wounds meaning I only killed a couple of Skinks and that was it.

My Knight of Shrouds moved to hold the corner objective backed up by the Hexwraiths, the Guardian of Souls and Chainrasps went into the middle and Arkhan followed to hold the objective. I kept Arkhan out of range of the Lens artefact meaning he very quickly died from multiple Celestrial Deliverances and was finished off by the Bastiladon (I really cannot wait to get rid of him and get more Nighthaunt units). The rest of my army pretty much shrugged off the spells as I reduced each D3 by the correct amount and those that did go through I made my Nighthaunt save.

I popped up six Spirit Hosts in front of the middle objective to block off any counter charges, I was hoping I could drop a 10+ charge to fly over the defensive line of skinks straight into the Engine and double attack it but failed the charge. In fact I didn’t make a single 10+ charge all game though I could roll a 9 like it was going out of business!

Bastialdon charged the Spirit Hosts blocking the mid objective but in turn actually blocked it off for the Engine to make any move onto it, he failed his teleport too meaning he couldn’t move or charge with it that turn anyway. Looking back I said if he got the next turn he could’ve just charged in the Engine and started scoring. Over the next three turns the Spirit Hosts took out the Basti at the cost of two bases from combat/shooting.

Second Spirit hosts popped up on the side hoping it could charge the exposed Engine but again failed the re-rolling charge (I rolled three twice). The Banshees popped up against the Starpriest scoring the far objective and had to get through 10 skinks before reaching the Starpriest and killing him.

The Hexwraiths left the Knight of Shrouds to himself and flew around the back, murdering the other two units of skinks in one turn of combat and then went into Kroak on the Balewind! They did eight wounds to him on the charge but then Rich managed to roll a 1 for battleshock to keep him alive! The rest of the game the Hexwraiths kept tying up Kroak but slowly but surely started losing models from the spells. They still had four guys left at the end of the game.

With the Knight of Shrouds exposed on his own the Engine of the Gods teleported nine inches away and failed it’s charge. My turn I used my CP to use the command ability to relocate a unit and brought the six spirit hosts that failed the charge last turn across the other side of the table to protect the Knight of Shrouds, failed the charge but got the double turn to then move forwards and do 8 mortal wounds and one normal one from the spirit hosts leaving the engine on one wound.

Engine with only one dice rolled a 6 to do D6 Mortal Wounds and then rolled a 6 against the Knight of Shrouds however the Knight saved the important one wound to keep him scoring. Astriloth banner teleported across and rolled a 5 so it could move and charge same turn. Fluffed all his dice and then the Knight of Shrouds killed him and Spirits finished off the Engine and Rich conceded!

MAJOR VICTORY 17 – 10

 

A great game which I was sure I was going to lose having the far weaker heroes with artefacts and wizards of the two. But that 4+ ethereal save followed by 6+ Spirit Save is just amazing for most of the army, Bastiladon shooting was nullified by this and combats just saw enemies bounce off me.

Wasn’t that keen on the battleplan as there’s no other ways of scoring, if I didn’t take the Lens of Refraction I would’ve lost probably all of my heroes turn one and auto loss the game. Should’ve had it where anyone can score but Heroes with Artefacts and Wizards auto capture against normal units, at least that way certain armies have a chance in that game.

Looking forward to the new book arriving tomorrow along with the Mortarch, Crawlocke the Jailor and Chainghasts and the full unit of Grimghast Reapers. In the meantime it’s time to get this starter set painted up!