Nighthaunt Updates

[Mortarch]

Hi folks,

 

so, as most of you will likely have seen, in the next GHB there will be Allegience traits etc. For Nighthaunt as a faction. When you couple this with the sweeping points adjustments being planned, we could be in for some interesting things.

What would you like to see in the upcoming book? What do you expect to see? What allegiance abilities would address the current drawbacks of Nighthaunt? Etc. Feed me your thoughts!

 

Personally, I would like to see:

- the Mortis Engine become Nighthaunt... purely so the start collecting box was fully in faction (won't happen though, as there isn't warscrolls changes planned).

- Would like the Hexwraiths to come down in points to 140. And also to be Nighthaunt battleline. 

- The mourngul, well if it haaaapppened to come to 280 points, I wouldn't complain (??). No, in honesty, it's fine the way it is.

- Blackcoach discontinued and eradicated from memory. Useless without earned levels, and no wizards in faction. End of.

- For an allegiance ability, would like to see a "set up as an unseen spectre... " and then place within 3" of a terrain piece or some sort of set up based/ in lieu of summoning ability as there currently isn't an wizards in the faction.

- Alternative allegiance ability: on death of enemy model, set up a spirit host into an existing unit with 9"... or spawn a new unit with reinforcement points.

 

This is the closest thing to a release Death have gotten since Flesh Easter Courts. I am crushingly excited.

M

[Kugane]

The unseen spectre thing would be really cool, especially if Nighthaunt can use it at will. In fact, if they leave the Mortis Engine as-is, and make it so Nighthaunt work a bit like Gutter Runners, there could be some really nice tactics, using the formation of the Malignants box set... Ambush the opponent and then pull your troops back out.

[Bademeister]

There should be a very good Allegiance Trait. Deathless Minions and Ruler of the Night are very good and need other options.

Something like: Range attacks targeting units of the Nighthaunt Allegiance only can land a hit, if the attacking unit is within 9''.

If a Unit of the Nighthaunt Allegiance make a saveroll of 6, the attacking unit touches the could mist and suffers 1 Mortal Wound.

A nice trait would be: Nighthaunt Units cause Fear to every non Death Unit within 3''. In Battleshock phase allways remove 1 Model from that unit (for Units with more than 1 Model).

Maybe a Trait that give Banshees and Cairn Wraiths the Wizard Keyword and a unique Spell. something like: Thick Mist. Target an enemy Unit. On 6+ the target can't shoot in the next Shooting Phase.

[Sception]

If you're hoping for the Mourngul to stay at the current price, let alone get any cheaper, well, I kind of doubt it.  It has a reputation.  The same sort of reputation settra and necroknights had.  And a worse reputation than royal sphinxes or necrosphinxes.  I fully expect the big ghost to shoot up 100 points or more.  As much as 200 points wouldn't shock me at all.

[swarmofseals]

12 hours ago, Sception said:

If you're hoping for the Mourngul to stay at the current price, let alone get any cheaper, well, I kind of doubt it.  It has a reputation.  The same sort of reputation settra and necroknights had.  And a worse reputation than royal sphinxes or necrosphinxes.  I fully expect the big ghost to shoot up 100 points or more.  As much as 200 points wouldn't shock me at all.

I really hope that GW does not take this approach to balancing. The Settra and Necropolis Knight nerfs were deserved if they are also nerfing other hyper efficient units. Generally though I think GW is nerfing the Tomb Kings because they caused a stir and really don't want an OOP army being a top tier list. 

I was really surprised to find this, but the Mourngul is actually not very good. It's a very scary warscroll, but it's simply not efficient by any measure on offense or on defense. I thought the Mourngul was OP as well and was really surprised when I did the math. I would be more than happy to back this argument up with statistics if you want to see them.

[fued]

statistically its not amazing.

 

practically its quite strong vs a lot of things.

[someone2040]

4 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I really hope that GW does not take this approach to balancing. The Settra and Necropolis Knight nerfs were deserved if they are also nerfing other hyper efficient units. Generally though I think GW is nerfing the Tomb Kings because they caused a stir and really don't want an OOP army being a top tier list. 

I was really surprised to find this, but the Mourngul is actually not very good. It's a very scary warscroll, but it's simply not efficient by any measure on offense or on defense. I thought the Mourngul was OP as well and was really surprised when I did the math. I would be more than happy to back this argument up with statistics if you want to see them.

Not that I've faced one or have one, but I'd say that Mournguls get a lot of flack because it does a bit of everything while being frustrating good on the defense.

I mean, here's the thing. At 400 points, it doesn't hit that hard, or have that many wounds.

But on the defensive side of things, you just take a look at all it can do:

3+ save, ignoring rend.

4+ save against mortal wounds

Heals D3 wounds if it kills any models

Enemies subtract from hit rolls if near the Mourngul.

Potential deathless minions save as well.

It's literally got 4-5 defensive mechanisms that make it a pain to fight against.

Not a huge amount of armies have access or want to access a lot of shooting attacks, which means most armies have to deal with this thing up close.

Armies that don't have mortal wounds potentially have to deal with at least a 3+ save ignoring rend, potentially a 2+ save ignoring rend.

Even if you have mortal wounds, the thing still gets a save.

And then, if you don't kill it, it most likely kills something back and heals wounds.

 

So whether or not it's appropriately pointed at 400 points, it's one of those things that is just rubbish to play against. You either have an answer or you don't, and if you don't, it's the most frustrating thing in the world to play against.

 

So the issue isn't probably in the points, it's in the design of the warscroll. The thing would probably be a lot more interesting to face if it's save was like a 5+. 4+ at best, lost or reduced it's mortal wound save (can't remember if there's a fluffy reason in monstrous arcanum why it should be good against both physical and magical attacks, usually the way you kill ghosts is with magic...) and it got more wounds instead to compensate.

[choocheelo]

About month ago i had a game with my death army(fec + neferatas blood court + spirit hosts and mourngul) vs tzeench host and nurgle rotbringers. The game is done by 2 models. Mourngul and Neferata. There been a something like openplay vith points. 5k vs 5k. Mr.Mourgul stay near Neferata and disable blightkings ability, flamers shooting and anything else that "on hit 6+...". Tzeench casts all his magic to try kill my big ghost. Like: cast, 6 mortal, 4+ save, deathless save.. none damage. Or 1-3 gamage. Ok.. kill any model near.. d3 heal.. full mourngul. My opinion is: that model is OP but we must be an OP in melee, because we have no shooting. Who said: you have shooting. From whom? Flayers? Terrorgeist? Do you see in meta many units with bravery 6 or lower? Vlozd can nice shoot to battleline only.

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[swarmofseals]

 

19 hours ago, someone2040 said:

Not that I've faced one or have one, but I'd say that Mournguls get a lot of flack because it does a bit of everything while being frustrating good on the defense.

I mean, here's the thing. At 400 points, it doesn't hit that hard, or have that many wounds.

But on the defensive side of things, you just take a look at all it can do:

It's literally got 4-5 defensive mechanisms that make it a pain to fight against.

Not a huge amount of armies have access or want to access a lot of shooting attacks, which means most armies have to deal with this thing up close.

Armies that don't have mortal wounds potentially have to deal with at least a 3+ save ignoring rend, potentially a 2+ save ignoring rend.

Even if you have mortal wounds, the thing still gets a save.

And then, if you don't kill it, it most likely kills something back and heals wounds.

 

So whether or not it's appropriately pointed at 400 points, it's one of those things that is just rubbish to play against. You either have an answer or you don't, and if you don't, it's the most frustrating thing in the world to play against.

 

So the issue isn't probably in the points, it's in the design of the warscroll. The thing would probably be a lot more interesting to face if it's save was like a 5+. 4+ at best, lost or reduced it's mortal wound save (can't remember if there's a fluffy reason in monstrous arcanum why it should be good against both physical and magical attacks, usually the way you kill ghosts is with magic...) and it got more wounds instead to compensate.

"A pain to fight against" describes basically every good unit in the game. If a warscroll is good at something, it will be a pain for your opponent to deal with.

Mourngul has a points per effective wound of 11.11 against attacks of any rend and 16.67 against mortal wounds. It has a WDR (a measure of offensive efficiency) of .0354. This does not factor in the hit debuff, however, which realistically improves its melee defense by around 33% in most cases. So lets adjust those defense numbers to 7.4/11.33 in melee. 

Dire Wolves (without a Corpse Cart), on the other hand have a points per effective wound of 3.33/4.17/5/5 (vs rend 0/1/2/mortal wound). They have a WDR of .042 when not charging and .056 when charging. Liberators have points per effective wound of 4.17/6.1/8.06/10 and a WDR of .0533 (against targets with <5 wounds) and .0711 (against targets with 5+ wounds). 

When I did that math for the first time I was stunned. Dire Wolves without a Corpse Cart are more than TWICE as efficient defensively as a Mourngul against both rend 0 and mortal wounds in melee. They're only 78% better against rend 1 and 50% better against rend 2. And they are also better offensively by 19% (not charging)/58% (charging). Meanwhile Liberators are far better against rend 0, substantially better against rend 1, a little worse against rend 2 and a little better against mortal wounds while being 50%+ better on offense. Liberators! 

Yes the Mourngul can heal, but in order to close the defensive gap with Dire Wolves it needs to heal like 4-6 times over the course of the battle. And that's just to pull even in melee. It's even worse against shooting. And even then it'd still be worse on offense.

 

Basically, I agree with the premise that the Mourngul takes a lot of flak for mostly psychological reasons. People see that warscroll and see that a lot of the tried and true methods of killing something are not going to work very well. It's scary, I get that. 

 

Ask yourself this though: would you rather face a Mourngul or 6 units of 5 Dire Wolves? A Mourngul or 20 Liberators? A Mourngul or a 40 skeleton block with spears supported by a Wight King with Banner?

Despite the fact that all of those are mediocre units that basically nobody would argue are overpowered, I would overwhelmingly prefer to face a Mourngul every single time. 

6x5 Dire Wolves or 4x5 Liberators are going to cause me headaches all over the battlefield and take a hell of a lot more resources to overcome than a Mourngul. I can just tarpit a Mourngul and get a huge temporary advantage in points at every other spot on the battlefield. A Mourngul doesn't threaten my ability to take objectives. If I can mass shooting I can take out the Mourngul very efficiently, while these other units would likely take several turns of resources to deal with. 

[Bradifer]

Mourngul is an unkillable behemoth that slowly eats multi-model units.

That has been my experience with him.

Sure he won't die, but he never earns his points back, and cannot win an objective at the same time.

I would rather see him changed than just a points change.

I would like to see the Necromancer be able to be included in any mono-faction army, i.e. Deadwalker, Nighthaunt, Deathrattle, Deathlords. I would also like his ability to target nighthaunt as well.

[Sception]

I'm not arguing that the mourngul /should/ be nerfed.  I'm just saying that i expect it /will/ be nerfed.  I didnt think the points increases for the necrosphinx or royal warsphinx were justified either, but i understand why they happened.

[Furious]

The Mourngul is only scary if you let it be scary. The worst part of it is the hit debuff. Don't let it get to the bulk of your army and it's 400pts wasted.