AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Bayul]

On 8/12/2019 at 3:07 PM, Tropical Ghost General said:

Nighthaunt placed 71st, 79th, 92nd and 96th. Legion of Grief (not really NH but 🤷‍♀️) placed 24th and 94th.

@Tropical Ghost General Where did you find the results? Are the lists released too? It would be great if somebody could post the Legion of Grief list that placed 24th.

[Evil Bob]

On 8/13/2019 at 4:18 AM, Tropical Ghost General said:

Snip

Lady O is a pure mortal wound assassin, but the range is short. With reaping scythe she becomes half decent in combat. Her warscroll spell is awesome but she is a priority target as soon as she hits the board. If you don't use her aggressively then your not getting her points cost back. She becomes a little bit gross in a double execution horde list as the general as well, only issue there is that SHs suck plums at decent and consistent offensive output. 

Yes, because of the base size. He has a smaller footprint and a natural 6+ death save, which other units don't. And his -2 rend often reduces stuff to a 6+ or no save. Again his damage is spikey but he'll often do enough to take out those smaller to midsized heroes in a single turn. 

All of it is true.

Last Wens I played in a doubles battle.  Team Cool (Trolls and Bedsheets) verses Chaos Best Friends (Skaven and Slaanesh).

I had never ran her with the scythe spell.  It was stupid awesome.  She helped to finished off of a Keeper of Secrets in on our turn and slaughtered eight Daemonettes during their turn.  Between her and moderate chainwrasp wounds the Daemonettes were routed in one round of combat on their charge.  

In that battle she inflicted more mortal wounds than everyone else combined.  Although the mortarch almost died if not for an incredible Deathless Minions roll.  A good sniping enemy could have changed everything.  The Skaven thankfully didn’t bring any warp lightning cannons.

One thing that felt really weird was her being under the aura effects from a Spirit of Torment and a Guardian of Souls.

[Tropical Ghost General]

So played a friendly game against Gloomspite last night. Mission was scorched earth. My opponent was running a super heavy endless spell list. And in between the silly amount of mortal wounds being dealt, having negative modifiers to casting while they had positive modifiers to casting/unbinds, the large groups of grots getting auto-immunity to battleshock due to the loonshine and having so many minuses to hit (ranging from -1 up to -3, from netters, spells and spiders) I lost horrendously 😂.

I honestly can't think of how to overcome the combination of:

• opponent being able to farm a ridiculous amount of CP (got 5 in one turn alone, had potential of getting 8 in a turn 🤮)
• have battleshock immunity basically army wide
• have a silly amount of negative to hit modifiers to overcome
• being hit with countless mortal wound spells and endless spells
• having to deal with negatives to casting, whilst dealing with them having bonuses to casting/unbinds

It really was one of those games that was decided really early on, and while I could have dragged it out and potentially eked out a draw, I was on the backfoot from turn 1. It didn't help that I failed 70% of my charges (even with re-rolls) and my own attempts at CP farming, using the penumbral engine and kurdoss failed to net me a single CP for the entire game. I won the priority for turn 3 and had a group of 5 blades made the 9" charge the I could have won on objectives, but it didn't happen. I had a similar experience against Gloomspite at Blackout, and the combination of all the stuff listed above is just so difficult to have to chew through.

So anyone have any ideas on how to counter those sorts of army bonuses, as it's not just Gloomspite who can do this stuff?

[Planar]

@Tropical Ghost General

Never played against them but I guess killing the heroes is our best bet.  The fungoids generate the CPs so target them first.

Banshees that target bravery might be able to do the job from range since even the strongest heros are low bravery and low wounds comparatively 

Maybe keep a few banshees and Lady O in the underworlds and emerge them behind enemy lines to target the heroes. Banshees abilty has 10in  range and activates in the shooting phase and so is Lady's O bravery targeting  ability . So you can emerge at the end of movenet phase and then squash them with mortal wounds (hopefully)

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by Planar

[Evil Bob]

Planer is totally on target about hitting that terrible Bravery stat.  When playing FEC the Flayers just tore them apart in my shooting phase.  Harridans without a banner can knock Trolls a -1 to Hit.  A lack of banners and stuff makes it hard on the goblin blobs.

An important part of his strategy is where the free terrain goes.  An important part of our strategy is to force as much of the fighting outside its bubble.  Better yet being able to go for victory while completely avoiding it.

I like snuffing corpse candles on Netters.  It’s more fun than it should be.

Regardless it is going to be a challenge with a book that is more inline with AoS 1.0 against a book that is AoS 2.0 compliant.

[Neck-Romantic]

I know we arent the biggest fan of him anymore but a Mourngul anchoring a group of harridans can shut down a lot of the games lower bravery spammier units. Keep him surrounded and take the charge, then ghost through them to slap their support heroes around

Edited August 24, 2019 by Neck-Romantic

[dmorley21]

@Tropical Ghost General

I haven't played against Gloomspite yet, but it seems like they have very different builds. I've seen grot hordes, squiggles based forces, endless spell spamming lists, and troggoth lists. 

If a list is running one massive unit of grots, I'd recommend a Death Stalkers battalion and a KoS on foot with Pendnant of the Fell Wind. You could then have Reapers hitting on 2's and wounding on 2's against your chosen unit with re-rolls to hit. So it won't hurt as much with their to hit modifiers. 

Bravery shenanigans is another option as others mentioned. Tomb Banshees, Olynder, Mourngul, Endless Spells... there's options there. 

Minimum sized units could be used to hero hunt. 

You could also run a magic heavy list. Take Arkhan as an ally. Reikenor. Olynder. A Guardian with Wychlight Lantern. Sending a Purple Sun at a unit of 60 grots seems like it could be fun. 

Just some ideas from someone who hasn't faced them. 

[dmorley21]

A Nighthaunt player went 3-2 and finished 20th at EGGS. Anyone know the list/playstyle used?

[punkycloud]

18 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

A Nighthaunt player went 3-2 and finished 20th at EGGS. Anyone know the list/playstyle used?

Ha, that was me, came close to turning one of them loses into a win but lost out on the last roll of the game when opponent needed a to win the priority roll and get a 5 on 2d3 when burning objectives. I ran a mobile mmu list using dreadblade to teleport units round the board with an atherquartz broach to keep the cp topped up. Used the condemned battalion to turn the rasps into mini beatsticks, brought a vamp for +1 attack cp, KoS for another +1 attack cp, coach (cos it looks cool) and cogs to held get the post teleport charges off. 

[dmorley21]

@punkycloud

Awesome to hear and congrats on doing so well!

I'd love to read a more detailed write up if you get a chance. List/tactics/quick game summaries. It's always good to hear about NH having some success!

My biggest question is how you spend your CP.  Between teleporting and fishing for WoT, and the +1 attacks, that seems pretty CP heavy. Also, besides Condemned Chainrasps, what made up your main forces?

[Neck-Romantic]

With Tithe of Bone bringing what looks to be durable deathrattle quasi elites to the board is anyone else eyeing them to see Death 2.0 power creep?

Edited August 28, 2019 by Neck-Romantic

[punkycloud]

11 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

@punkycloud

Awesome to hear and congrats on doing so well!

I'd love to read a more detailed write up if you get a chance. List/tactics/quick game summaries. It's always good to hear about NH having some success!

My biggest question is how you spend your CP.  Between teleporting and fishing for WoT, and the +1 attacks, that seems pretty CP heavy. Also, besides Condemned Chainrasps, what made up your main forces?

I tend to run a mmu list, more staying power than MSU and more flexible than hoard. Other blocks included 20 reapers and 10 bladegheists. Artefacts were aetherquartz broach and fell wind pendant. 

I don't fish for the 10+ charge, it’s just a nice bonus and I don’t factor it in my decisions. I tend not teleport of buff anything first turn to create a cp stockpile of 3 or 4 for turn 2. Then if there is something juicy turn 2 I will cast cogs, if cogs doesn't go off I will weigh the risk / benefits. If I’m teleporting to charge something I will buff reapers or blades with shademist and +1 attack. I then teleport them over. Depending on if I roll a 5+’s I'll take support heroes over and maybe the KoS for the additional +1 attack, I want to always have at least 1cp remaining to reroll charge in case I fail to get the 7.

I always teleport dreadblade out next turn, either to take something else with him or just to hide him. The list lives and dies on how long the dreadblade is effective. Nighthaunt have the best movement in the game with teleporting, excellent standard movement, fly, fell wind and cogs. You need to leverage this strength to make up for the shortfall in raw damage (I compensated for this somewhat with +1 attacks & condemned).

I took a similar list 4-1, playing for the tournament last month demonstrating that this isn’t a blip and nighthaunt can compete, you just need to play the mission and dance around your opponent.

Following what I learnt in this tournament I’m probably going make a couple of tweaks. While I love the coach; great centre piece & great movement it’s too swingy and tends to not make back its points most games, great distraction unit though. Also the KoS command ability is inferior to vamps version requiring it to be used every combat phase, this can lead to the vamp costing 1CP but the KoS costing 3cp for the same output. In their place I’m thinking of adding Lady O as a monster / hero assassin (shove her in the aether and wait for the right opportunity to gank something), 5 more blades to make the unit 15 (better at holding objectives / better longevity) and 4 banshees (Lady O screen). Could make it 8 banshees and not take the extra blades and will probably experiment with both setups.

I'll try and write a tournament report but life and stuff……………..

Edited August 28, 2019 by punkycloud

[dmorley21]

9 minutes ago, punkycloud said:

I'll try and write a tournament report but life and stuff……………..

Totally understand, but thanks for the write up! Hearing information like that really helps.

How big are your units or Condemned Rasps? Just 20?

[punkycloud]

3 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

How big are your units or Condemned Rasps? Just 20?

Yeah, two 20 units, kept a chainghast unit with one and Spirit Torment with other, at least in early game. 

[Incineroar87]

What are the differences between MMU and MSU lists in their strengths and weaknesses ?

[Sauriv]

I've heard about msu before but what does mmu stand for? 

[Rod]

3 minutes ago, Sauriv said:

I've heard about msu before but what does mmu stand for? 

multiple small units, multiple medium units?

 

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Rod

[punkycloud]

2 minutes ago, Sauriv said:

I've heard about msu before but what does mmu stand for? 

Multiple medium units

[punkycloud]

Mmu is basically an increase in unit size from msu but not maxing unit sizes. 20 rasps instead of 10, 10blades instead of 5. U have less units on board than msu but those units have a little better staying power. U still gain some of the benefits similar to msu, more units than standard, multiply screening options. Plays differently than msu and hoard style lists

[Sauriv]

54 minutes ago, punkycloud said:

Multiple medium units

 

49 minutes ago, punkycloud said:

Mmu is basically an increase in unit size from msu but not maxing unit sizes. 20 rasps instead of 10, 10blades instead of 5. U have less units on board than msu but those units have a little better staying power. U still gain some of the benefits similar to msu, more units than standard, multiply screening options. Plays differently than msu and hoard style lists

Ty, this is actually how i like to play but i didn't know what it was called. 

But i play with spirit hosts so what do i know?!

[Vasshpit]

Hey guys.

I've got a size comparison request. Could someone please post a pic of Kurdoss and a Mortis Engine next to each other for this fella?

[dmorley21]

More list talk... a Nighthaunt player finished 11th at NOVA with this list:

Harrow w/ midnight time

KoSoES w/ balefire blade

2 Torments

Reikenor

3 x 10 Chainrasp Horde

1 x 30 Grimghast Reapers

2 x 10 Bladeghesit Revenants

2 x 5 Bladegheist Revenants

1 x 4 Myrmourn Banshess

Shroudguard

 

What are everyone's thoughts on that list? It's not for me, but I really like the list design apart from the artefacts. Having one big block as a threat to draw fire/attention from your smaller units seems like it could be worthwhile. 

[Bayul]

 

16 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

It's not for me, but I really like the list design apart from the artefacts. 

Why not? Which artifacts would you take?

[Planar]

I like it a lot. I think most of us have given up on getting models back through ressurection and thus MSU make much more sense.

I had great success with multiple units of 10 rasps. They harass and steal objectives very effectively. 

Also the balefire blade on the KoS means he intented to put him on meelee and not simply use him as support. He becomes Dmg3 with that artifact

My only objection is that I just cant get 30 reapers ever to work. For me 20 is the number I managed to get most utility from.

[dmorley21]

Just now, Bayul said:

Why not? Which artifacts would you take?

I'm not a fan of the Bladegheist models, so I don't plan to buy more than the 10 I already have.  However, their mobility with the retreat and charge is really good. 

I always take Pendant of the Fell Wind. The movement bonus just really amps up the mobility of our army, and can win games. So I'd take that over the blade.

Midnight Tome is great and is a solid option as a second artefact. That, Aetherquartz Brooch, and the Guardian Lanterns are all good options.

However, I think overall the list is great and it did really well at NOVA. I'll definitely be borrowing some ideas from it.