AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[DragonRider]

Hello! I just joined the community and bought Nighthaunt half of the Soul Wars box and I'm going to acquire another half. Are the Grimghast Reapers and Chainrasps still worth it? Could I convert the excess heroes into something useful perhaps? 

Is Olynder worth it or is she too squishy? I love the look of the model  How should I expand with two halves of Soul Wars Nighthaunts? Is there any "futureproof" 1000 or 1500 point lists that could be expanded in the future? I was thinking of collecting until either 1000 or 1500 points and then decide between Sylvaneth or Idoneth Deepkin and collect them at that point range. Is Nighthaunt still viable to collect as there were talk about getting the short end of a stick?

Many questions... 

I hope this is a good area to ask these questions as I'm still learning and navigating the forum.

Edited June 15, 2019 by DragonRider

[Spears]

Welcome to the forum.

Nighthaunt as a whole haven't changed much with the points. The chainrasps you will get from two soul wars sets are a solid core to work from and the heroes are so cheap having a second set is useful.

Upcoming points changes should go some way to addressing internal balance, meaning you can pick whats cool and go from there. Do you want spooky horsemen, sword wielding maniacs or even scythe handed nurses? 

[DragonRider]

Thank you!
Good thing that the second set is worth it. Might be able to pull of some conversions, like converting a couple glaivewraiths into reapers. 

Quote

Do you want spooky horsemen, sword wielding maniacs or even scythe handed nurses? 

That's the thing; I love all the models... Although I feel like Bladegheists are maybe too close in looks compared to glaivewraiths and reapers so maybe Dreadscythe Harridans or Hexwraiths? Are either of those worth it with new changes? I'd like to keep my options open and maybe attend local tournament sometime. 🤔

I was thinking of getting either Reikenor or Olynder to lead the army, then 1-2 set of Spirit Hosts and to top it all of Dreadscythe Harridans/Bladegheist Revenants/Hexwraiths. Maybe if Knight of Shrouds is enough, I could replace Reikenor or Olynder with another rank and file box. (I adore Olynder and like Reikenor though) My goal is 1000 - 1500 points at first. So far I'd have with two soul wars set:
 -2x Knights of Shrouds on Ethereal Steeds
- 2x Lord Executioners
- 2x Guardians of Souls
- 2x Spirit Torments
- 10 Grimghast Reapers
- 8 Glaivewraith Stalkers (Maybe convert even more stalkers into Reapers, don't know about unit size though)
- A 40-strong Chainrasp Horde

Edit: I like the sense of impending doom and resurrecting models. Like the feel of hordes of endless undead, I also like to apply turtle tactics in rts games and like to field "evil armies" in masses usually. That's one of the reasons I like the idea of 40 chainrasps.

Edited June 15, 2019 by DragonRider

[Tropical Ghost General]

@DragonRider welcome to the fold. 1st question about your future ghost collection, is do you want to aim for a competitive army or a fun army?

If it's competitive then you will struggle with ghosts unless you do a legions of Nagash ghost army. 

If it's for fun, then honestly pick whatever you want, pretty much all of our models hit and wound on similar rolls and do similar damage with similar rend. There isn't that much variety in terms of what the different units can do compared with how the different unit look. 

Personally I've been finding more success in games by running lots of MSUs and by taking a super mixed variety of units. Can they deal with FEC, rats, fireslayers, slaanesh and DoK, no, but no ghost list can consistently. But can they deal with all the other none bent armies whilst proving a fun experience, yes.

If you do decide to go for large hordes, then a tip to help yourself and your opponent is invest in movement trays. Anyone playing horde armies needs to accept that moving 40+ models 1 by 1 is not fair to your opponent. There are loads of places that do mdf or 3d printed ones for cheap. Also having dice separated out into trays is super useful when playing hordes. So I keep 18 dice aside when playing 3 blob spirit hosts and 10 man blobs of grims, as they have 18 attacks (as base stats), so it's super easy to get the dice rolled, rather than wasting time counting them out. All these little bits really help to speed up the gameplay and make the game more enjoyable for both you and your opponent.

[SleeperAgent]

So I saw the drops, we are in trouble. Based on the drops I will be able to fit a Tomb Banshee in. None of the battalions dropped, our named heros are still wildly overcosted.

Dreadscythe Harridans are a good unit, but with no real way to debuff bravery they are basically unplayable.

I guess we hope for drops to start happening sooner, and hope for 3 months updates. The book is just bad.

(The endless spells could be free and I still wouldn't play them)

[DragonRider]

57 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@DragonRider welcome to the fold. 1st question about your future ghost collection, is do you want to aim for a competitive army or a fun army?

If it's competitive then you will struggle with ghosts unless you do a legions of Nagash ghost army. 

Thank you, very good points. I used to craft movement trays by taking unit trays and cleaning everything, leaving only the "borders" of the tray and gluing that on a cardboard slate. Worked well by my experience and probably will do that again.
Are Nighthaunt armies really in this bad shape, that they can't be competitive without being part of legions of Nagash?
Troubling news. I believe I'll play the majority of time casually or for fun though. I don't like the LoN models that much except for mortis engine and mortachs.
MSU  means many small units(?), so I plan on fielding 2x 20 chainrasp hordes maybe with 10x reapers and probably 10x Bladegheist Revenants/Harridans  along with other units. I know almost nothing about games or rules at the moment but I've been trying to catch up by reading discussions. 

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Dreadscythe Harridans are a good unit, but with no real way to debuff bravery they are basically unplayable.

Apparently the point drop was not enough, will look into bladegheists/more reapers.

Edited June 15, 2019 by DragonRider

[Qrow]

11 minutes ago, DragonRider said:

Thank you, very good points. I used to craft movement trays by taking unit trays and cleaning everything, leaving only the "borders" of the tray and gluing that on a cardboard slate. Worked well by my experience and probably will do that again.
Are Nighthaunt armies really in this bad shape, that they can't be competitive without being part of legions of Nagash?
Troubling news. I believe I'll play the majority of time casually or for fun though. MSU  means many small units(?), so I plan on fielding 2x 20 chainrasp hordes maybe with 10x reapers and probably 10x Bladegheist Revenants/Harridans  along with other units. I know almost nothing about games or rules at the moment but I've been trying to catch up by reading discussions. 

Apparently the point drop was not enough, will look into bladegheists/more reapers.

While not optimal, harridans can semi-reliably get their effect off with the new horrorghast endless spell. For casual games I have found they are actually quite good, but they are massively benefited by running them in the legion of grief, which is essentially the nighthaunt legion in LoN

The problem is that, especially with grimghast reapers getting nerfed hard, there is not much that can outperform bladeghiest revenants with a spirit torment nearby.

 

Also, I may be wrong, but did anything get nerfed harder than reapers? 60 points more for a full squad, even witch aelves didn't get hit that hard and I felt they were way more OP than reapers. Even then though, reapers are mainly overperforming in LoN, so I am salty that we get hit because another allegiances abuses our units.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Qrow

[DragonRider]

1 hour ago, Qrow said:

The problem is that, especially with grimghast reapers getting nerfed hard, there is not much that can outperform bladeghiest revenants with a spirit torment nearby.

Also, I may be wrong, but did anything get nerfed harder than reapers? 60 points more for a full squad, even witch aelves didn't get hit that hard and I felt they were way more OP than reapers. Even then though, reapers are mainly overperforming in LoN, so I am salty that we get hit because another allegiances abuses our units.

I probably pick up some bladegheists, they do look pretty cool and some unique color scheme will make them stand out. I do feel bummed out that Nighthaunt only - armies seem to be so underpowered, I felt so sure of them before. All of this feels so complicated. I'd rather keep things simple as I'm just starting and would not like to mix and match. Did I make a mistake with 2x Soul Wars and would I get an alright list with 2x soul wars nighthaunt core and then in addition if I'll pick 6x spirit hosts and 10x bladegheists? If there are better choices than spirit hosts or bladegheists let me know. Goal is 1000 - 1500 points. 

Also regarding the last bit, where Nighthaunt gets hit because of LoN, that makes me pretty frustrated. Would much prefer them to be their own thing so to say at least in this point. Sorry for many questions but all of this feels so overwhelming at the moment.

[Qrow]

25 minutes ago, DragonRider said:

I probably pick up some bladegheists, they do look pretty cool and some unique color scheme will make them stand out. I do feel bummed out that Nighthaunt only - armies seem to be so underpowered, I felt so sure of them before. All of this feels so complicated. I'd rather keep things simple as I'm just starting and would not like to mix and match. Did I make a mistake with 2x Soul Wars and would I get an alright list with 2x soul wars nighthaunt core and then in addition if I'll pick 6x spirit hosts and 10x bladegheists? If there are better choices than spirit hosts or bladegheists let me know. Goal is 1000 - 1500 points. 

Also regarding the last bit, where Nighthaunt gets hit because of LoN, that makes me pretty frustrated. Would much prefer them to be their own thing so to say at least in this point. Sorry for many questions but all of this feels so overwhelming at the moment.

Don't worry about the questions, we don't mind answering them at all. And you didn't pick badly with nighthaunt, they may not be the absolute top allegiance in power but they are a great deal of fun, especially if you are not hyper competitively focused. Nighthaunt is my second AoS army and has quickly  become my main army as they are very fun to play, there are some units that are better than others but outside of competitions it is better to play the units that you like and that you think look good. Case in point, I have been yammering on about dreadscythe harridans for ages, they aren't competitively better than bladeghiests but I enjoy them and they do have a place... just probably not in a competitive list right now.

2 souls wars boxes is probably the best way to start; 40 chainrasps you will almost always use, 2 spirit torments which are one of our best heroes, the guardian of souls is a common staple of nighthaunt lists, the knight of shrouds just got a point reducion and has a good command ability and the grimghast are amazing (though they did just go up in cost, so nighthaunt players are feeling salty about them right now).

Bladeghiests are amazing btw, stick them next to a spirit torment and enjoy blending away units while healing each battleshock. If I take bladeghiests, I always take a spirit torment with them. Spirit hosts are great, especially with the 'ruler of the spirit hosts' command trait, which lets you bring back D3 MODELS each turn, which can mean 3 entire spirit host models with a good role.

As always, I do suggest Reikenor. He is just amazing in my eyes, +3 to casting roles at the cost of 1 mortal wound is so worth it, if you need to get that one spell off he will be the absolute best one to do so. Plus he looks amazing and the shroudguard battalion is pretty good with him in it, cast shademist on a unit of bladeghiests in that battalion and they are just stupidly durable.

A not of precaution, we can be salty here (as can all forums when we start talking about pure competitive focus), especially as the last few battletomes have seen a large jump in power over pervious battletomes, which has lead to a fair amount of salt (in my case, someone at my local club apent 15mins complaining about nighthaunt being OP, after spending the preceding half hour complaining that his new flesh eater courts battletome was "underperforming"). The new point changes will help, but quite a few of us feel that, competitively speaking, nighthaunt didn't get what it needed. Casually though, we are an absolute blast of an army and you made a great choice with nighthaunt.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Qrow

[Tropical Ghost General]

@DragonRider don't be disheartened by the news that we aren't the strongest book, I only mentioned it to make sure that you are aware that we are not a top tier army. We can win events and we can smash opponents, but we are what it considered a solid 3-2 army (3 wins to 2 loses over a 5 game tournament).

The points drops that have happened were written 6 months ago, so before the release of the newer and bent books (like rats, FEC, etc...), so adjustments were done based on what was an issue at the time in the meta, hence Nagash going up in points (which is stupid decision but what can you do). While they make certain choices more of an attractive option, as others have mentioned we have a few core units that just out perform everything else. Harridans can be great, but not without substantial hero support, they wiff hard when running solo. Blades even though more expensive now, are still the better choice hands down.

The advantage of running ghosts at the moment is that you can literally take what you want in a list, as it all generally performs roughly the same, we have no reliable tools to deal with the current 'Activation Wars' going on with the newer books, so we have to take a seat out until GW make some more universal changes to the game or changes to individual warscrolls. 

More recently I've been taking super fluffy lists with 15+ drops, endless spells and a wide mix of units and been having loads of fun with it. As long as you are not expecting to smash your opponent in your games, then you'll not be disappointed with running a ghost army. I've found we work best as a hit and run, MSU skirmish type list that harasses and causes disruptions really well. 

Also it's worth noting that being moany and grief stricken about the current state of ghosts is merely most of us trying to emulate the very nature of nighthaunt themselves 😂.

[Qrow]

6 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@DragonRider don't be disheartened by the news that we aren't the strongest book, I only mentioned it to make sure that you are aware that we are not a top tier army. We can win events and we can smash opponents, but we are what it considered a solid 3-2 army (3 wins to 2 loses over a 5 game tournament).

The points drops that have happened were written 6 months ago, so before the release of the newer and bent books (like rats, FEC, etc...), so adjustments were done based on what was an issue at the time in the meta, hence Nagash going up in points (which is stupid decision but what can you do). While they make certain choices more of an attractive option, as others have mentioned we have a few core units that just out perform everything else. Harridans can be great, but not without substantial hero support, they wiff hard when running solo. Blades even though more expensive now, are still the better choice hands down.

The advantage of running ghosts at the moment is that you can literally take what you want in a list, as it all generally performs roughly the same, we have no reliable tools to deal with the current 'Activation Wars' going on with the newer books, so we have to take a seat out until GW make some more universal changes to the game or changes to individual warscrolls. 

More recently I've been taking super fluffy lists with 15+ drops, endless spells and a wide mix of units and been having loads of fun with it. As long as you are not expecting to smash your opponent in your games, then you'll not be disappointed with running a ghost army. I've found we work best as a hit and run, MSU skirmish type list that harasses and causes disruptions really well. 

Also it's worth noting that being moany and grief stricken about the current state of ghosts is merely most of us trying to emulate the very nature of nighthaunt themselves 😂.

Too true 😋

We may also see some big changes in the latest battletomes when they release their point update in july, I feel like they have taken on the community feedback and we may see some rather hard changes to some of them.

If they do nerf some of the newer tomes more egregious units, then we could feel signficantly better about the changes we just got. I mean, they are taking a big risk in updating these new tomes so quickly; the new tomes players will not be happy to get changes so quickly, especially because they know they will be seeing nerfs and point increases.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Qrow if they adjust the points of dragons and stuff too much in FEC after saying that everyone should buy 5 dragons because you can run 5 dragons, then that's going to suck plums and cause some serious butt hurt

[Qrow]

Just now, Tropical Ghost General said:

@Qrow if they adjust the points of dragons and stuff too much in FEC after saying that everyone should buy 5 dragons because you can run 5 dragons, then that's going to suck plums and cause some serious butt hurt

And the butthurt will be completely justified. It isn't the players fault that their battletomes were poorly balanced, that's all on GW and they may just have to cop it for this. But, overall state of the game wise, it will be good for them to own this and fix their problem.

[DragonRider]

Once again, thank you! I feel very good about my purchases now. I don't mind if we're not the strongest and 3/2 is plenty in my book! I expected much worse  
I will look into Reikenor and Olynder at later date, but I'm going to make due with Knight of Shrouds on steed and pick Bladegheists for the same money that would have went to Reikenor. All in all, Nighthaunts are easily my favorite looking faction at the moment and that should be all that matters anyway. So having 2x Soul Wars right now, I'm probably expanding with 2x Spirit Hosts boxes(6) and Bladegheist box(10). 

In any case, painting all these models will take eons.

[MrRoff]

Is papa Nagash really going up in points? Is this confirmed? And by how much? 

[Qrow]

1 minute ago, MrRoff said:

Is papa Nagash really going up in points? Is this confirmed? And by how much? 

It is confirmed, and by 50 points, he is now 850.

[dmorley21]

Mannfred dropped to 380, which makes him a potential ally for 2000 pt games. He's got good speed and his command ability seems useful. What does everyone think about him? 

 

[Evil Bob]

We really shouldn’t derail the bedsheets thread with too much general Death and Death related accessories.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@dmorley21 Mannfred is still overcosted at 380pts but am incredibly good ally to take. I've been waiting ages to be able to ally him in. His command ability is amazing as the units don't need to be wholly within either. And he's a beast in combat. I know he's an idiot in the lore but the fact he's under 400pts makes me very happy. 

[ACBelMutie]

I was told Nighthaunts units will be Nighthaunt exclusive, except Hexwraiths and Spirit Hosts, is it true?

Greetings

[Tropical Ghost General]

13 minutes ago, ACBelMutie said:

I was told Nighthaunts units will be Nighthaunt exclusive, except Hexwraiths and Spirit Hosts, is it true?

Greetings

From the recent points leaks it doesn't show any NH units in LoN, but until the FAQ after the GHB19 release (so 3 weeks away), it's impossible to know for sure. It's super unlikely that they will remove the original errata that allowed LoN to take NH units as that would be a super ****** move on GW's part, after letting people buy the models for them to suddenly not be usable. 

Currently all the units from Soul Wars can be taken in a LoN army and until the errata is changed it will remain that way. 

[Mikeymajq]

Did our Coach drop in pts btw? Or the dreadblade harrows?

Super glad of the hexwraith pts drop. And KoS. (I run a Deathriders list)

Still won't fix the army, but it should help.

 

[ACBelMutie]

2 minutes ago, Mikeymajq said:

Did our Coach drop in pts btw? Or the dreadblade harrows?

Super glad of the hexwraith pts drop. And KoS. (I run a Deathriders list)

Still won't fix the army, but it should help.

 

Black Coach 260 points and dreadblade harrows  90 .

Greetings

[AverageBoss]

Have the start of a NH list with the new points. Any ideas on what to fill the remaining 180 points with? I suppose 10 more Grims and a 20 point Triumph bid could work out.

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
Vampire Lord (140)
Dreadblade Harrow (90)
Reikenor the Grimhailer (170)
Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)
5 x Hexwraiths (140)
5 x Hexwraiths (140)
20 x Chainrasp Horde (160)
10 x Grimghast Reapers (160)
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
5 x Bladegheist Revenants (90)
5 x Bladegheist Revenants (90)
Black Coach (260)

Total: 1820 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 140 / 400
Wounds: 113
 

[PFI]

6 minutes ago, AverageBoss said:

Have the start of a NH list with the new points. Any ideas on what to fill the remaining 180 points with? I suppose 10 more Grims and a 20 point Triumph bid could work out.

6 x Spirit Hosts (240)

 

are spirit hosts worth it now? you might get better value with lord of the spirit hosts but hexwraiths being only 20 points more have double the move, 1 more wound, easier to regenerate models if you have to roll equal to or higher than wounds, more attacks with a better profile, even though less chance for mortal wounds, rend -1 is nice, better battalions.

Spirit hosts could've dropped 20 points too