AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Bayul]

On 2/2/2020 at 6:00 AM, EnixLHQ said:

Interesting spooky list

Stop talking me into playing Nighthaunt!

[EnixLHQ]

35 minutes ago, Bayul said:

Stop talking me into playing Nighthaunt!

[Undeadly]

So! Yesterday I attended a tournament hosted a LGS, and I brought my Nighthaunt list, with Arkhan tagging along, and I must say, I was rather satisfied with how well they performed.

As for the list, here it is:

Allegiance: Nighthaunt
Mortal Realm: Ghur

Leaders
Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)
- Artefact: Midnight Tome
- Lore of the Underworlds: Shademist
Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed (120)
Lord Executioner (80)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Spirit Hosts
- Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm
Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament (360)
- Allies

Battleline
40 x Chainrasp Horde (280)
9 x Spirit Hosts (360)
3 x Spirit Hosts (120)
3 x Spirit Hosts (120)

Units
20 x Bladegheist Revenants (320)

Battalions
Execution Horde (100)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 360 / 400
Wounds: 132
 

This is a pretty traditional Spirit Host horde list, but I will say that Arkhan proved invaluable; with the new OBR Warscroll for him, he is incredible. Giving 3 units Mystic shield, or 2 shields and 1 Curse of Years is fantastic, and thats not even mentioning his ability to bring back 3 wounds for **four** units. That pretty much hit every unit I had, and made them a real pain to kill.

Without further ado, the games:

 

Game 1:

-Nighthaunt versus Skyre Skaven

Probably my favorite game, scenario was Starstrike, this was a super gambling gane; he had ratling cannons as main damage, as well as Lightning cannon and snipers; but neither proved able to kill the Lord Executioner. The Ratling cannons hurt like hell, but just couldn't kill the Spirit Hosts fast enough. And thanks to the two extra ones, I was able to lock down the Gnawholes. The Skyre player even got a vermin Lord,from his bell, but still didn't have enough to kill me. Won the turn 2 roll off, so I went first on turn 2, but my greed was my downfall: I failed all my charges, and even re-rolled the successful charge for my Bladegheists only to fail. This led to a painful counter turn of shooting, where Arkhan died, followed by a totally painful magic phase that evaporated the Bladegheists. Lost a major, but had I gotten those charges off, this could have 

 

Game 2:

-Nighthaunt VS Bonesplitterz

This was probably the easiest game, scenario was Raze and Pillage, or the one where you can burn your opponents objectives, mostly because my opponent made a lot of bad moves, and had brought Icebones and not Drakkfoot. He brought a rogue Idol, and due to, his spells, the dude flew 20" into my Chainrasps. Unfortunate for him he flubbed his attacks, and despite my bad placement of Arkhan and him getting a breath of mork he couldn't wipe out the rasps. From there, he played way too defensively, and while he did have a ****** ton of Big Stabbas, my Bladegheists and Spirit Hosts survived long enough to chew through them and burn his objectives. Major Victory

Game 3

-Nighthaunt VS Ogors

By and large the most painful match up, the mad lad ran two blocks of 12 Gluttons, and a Ethereal Amulet on Stonehorn. Needless to say, this was a absurdly hard battle that eventually resulted in my loss. Scenario was shifting objectives, and I simply couldn't deal with the blocks of Gluttons, which simply deleted anything they got into combat with. I did bait out his Stonehorn into combat with my Spirit Host blob, which destroyed him in two rounds of combat, but at the cost of him sniping out my Lord Executioner. Arkhan was probably my only chance at deleting those big squads, but Curse of Years never materialized those wounds. Major loss.

 

At the end of the tournie, I still got best sportsmanship, which felt really good, and I enjoyed all my games. As for my list, I was very pleased with how it worked with my Spirit Host part of my list. But I think the punchy part of the list was lacking; Bladegheists, while maneuverable, lacked the punch to really kill. Gluttons and big groups of Savage Orruks simply couldn't be rolled without WoT.  Chainrasps were rather lack luster; as a blob were okay at board control, but really didn't impress me. A 20 block if Dreadscythes or 12 Myrmourn might be a better answer. Arkhan was simply amazing, giving me a awesome magic game, good regen, mystic shields and magical shut downs. He is a much better choice than Reiknor in just about every situation.

Overall, my main problem was I needed damage to help bust big hordes, or more durable units to help kill thick units like Ogors.

 

[Asm00]

Can you use the OBR warscroll? Don’t you have to use the warscroll from the faction you ally with?

[LordPrometheus]

2 hours ago, Asm00 said:

Can you use the OBR warscroll? Don’t you have to use the warscroll from the faction you ally with?

It's not an "OBR" warscroll. It's his ONLY warscroll. The newest one printed supersedes all previous versions.

I've just picked up a small Nighthaunt army and was immediately noticing that Arkhan looks really good on paper for them. Glad to hear he works well in practice too!

[Undeadly]

2 hours ago, Asm00 said:

Can you use the OBR warscroll? Don’t you have to use the warscroll from the faction you ally with?

As Lordprometheus said, Arkhan doesn't actually have the OBR keyword; he only gets it if he is part of that army, otherwise, he is simply a Deathlord like Nagash. Unfortunately, that means he can't heal himself as an ally, but hey, with 16" move, you shouldn't be worrying about him too much.

Now, what really makes me wonder is how do I counter tough armies that can really take a beating? So far, Chainrasps have been somewhat so-so; they're great for board control as a blob, but they are simply too weak to kill things. For an alternative unit, I can either get 20 Dreadscythes or two units of 8 Myrmourn for the same price as 40 Chainrasps. That may mean I loose out on the cheap bodies, but both those units are far more lethal than Chainrasps, and have that lovely 4+ save.

Thoughts?

[Jabbuk]

Not sure if this was discussed in the past, but how good of a deal is the Craven King box set to flesh out a Nighthaunt army is currently? I see a lot of builds with Spirit Hosts around, etc. I really like the King's model though and I was curious how you guys saw that box set (at least there's no Glaivewraith Stalkers in it)

 

[Asm00]

Ok great, that’s good news !

[SleeperAgent]

26 minutes ago, Undeadly said:

As Lordprometheus said, Arkhan doesn't actually have the OBR keyword; he only gets it if he is part of that army, otherwise, he is simply a Deathlord like Nagash. Unfortunately, that means he can't heal himself as an ally, but hey, with 16" move, you shouldn't be worrying about him too much.

Now, what really makes me wonder is how do I counter tough armies that can really take a beating? So far, Chainrasps have been somewhat so-so; they're great for board control as a blob, but they are simply too weak to kill things. For an alternative unit, I can either get 20 Dreadscythes or two units of 8 Myrmourn for the same price as 40 Chainrasps. That may mean I loose out on the cheap bodies, but both those units are far more lethal than Chainrasps, and have that lovely 4+ save.

Thoughts?

I love my Mourngul for 280. Sometimes I even run 2. My mobile army of a hero with pendant of the fell wind and multiple blobs move as a unit, but people fear the Mourngul deep strike. But if you run KoSoES then Myrmourn Banshees. The +1 attacks is insane value. Harridans just don't do enough against too many armies. Against anyone but Destruction they might as well not have the -1 to hit. They're gonna need a new book with LOTS of bravery debuffs before they become worth it in NH imo.

[Undeadly]

4 minutes ago, SleeperAgent said:

I love my Mourngul for 280. Sometimes I even run 2. My mobile army of a hero with pendant of the fell wind and multiple blobs move as a unit, but people fear the Mourngul deep strike. But if you run KoSoES then Myrmourn Banshees. The +1 attacks is insane value. Harridans just don't do enough against too many armies. Against anyone but Destruction they might as well not have the -1 to hit. They're gonna need a new book with LOTS of bravery debuffs before they become worth it in NH imo.

Eh, you have to remember, the Harridans give -1 bravery themselves, and that unless they have a banner or rule, most armies give their bonuses to bravery only in the BS phase. Goblins, Clanrats, Freeguild and more are all in that range. You make a really good point about the Mournghoul, which is a option I hadn't even considered. That -1 to hit can be brutal, and could provide a even better way to debuff my enemy. But that leaves a lot to be desired as for model count; running a Mournghoul would make contesting objectives nearly impossible.

I feel like between the 3, the Mournghoul is probably the trickiest of them, with the Dreadscythes so cheap for a semi-elite troop blender. The Myrmourns would most likely be the deadliest, if however, also the most fragile.

[The_Dudemeister]

2 hours ago, Undeadly said:

Now, what really makes me wonder is how do I counter tough armies that can really take a beating? So far, Chainrasps have been somewhat so-so; they're great for board control as a blob, but they are simply too weak to kill things. For an alternative unit, I can either get 20 Dreadscythes or two units of 8 Myrmourn for the same price as 40 Chainrasps. That may mean I loose out on the cheap bodies, but both those units are far more lethal than Chainrasps, and have that lovely 4+ save.

16 Banshees would need the +1 attack buff to become a little stronger than the Harridans, which is extremely unreliable or costly to do all the time. Harridans are unconditionally strong and have 4 more bodies for the same price. You already have dispelling covered with Arkhan, which would've been the main reason to prefer the Banshees. Well that and if your local meta has a lot of units that reroll saves where the extra rend becomes exponentially more useful.

Anyway, here I compared the damage-output of some units you can get for 280 points. Keep in mind that this is just mathhammer. The jump from Chainrasps to Bladegheists for example is much bigger damage-wise, because when do you ever get all 40 Chainrasps in attack range?

Edited February 10, 2020 by The_Dudemeister

[EnixLHQ]

2 hours ago, The_Dudemeister said:

16 Banshees would need the +1 attack buff to become a little stronger than the Harridans

12 to a group, max.

I kind of get into this in my guide: If you're using Bladegheists as your baseline the Dreadscythes will do more if you give them any buff you can, but Banshees will blow them out of the water with their own built-in buff. It's the risk-vs-reward of using the unit.

If you pal a KoSoES with Banshees and are able to get +2 to attacks, whooooooooo boy. And a Vampire Lord? I'd like to see those numbers. But you're putting so much threat in a small space that it's very likely to get hard-targeted until very much dead.

Chainrasps, if in the The Condemned battalion, starts to rival these numbers if you're able to get a fair number of them swinging.

Edited February 10, 2020 by EnixLHQ

[EnixLHQ]

I went to the tool and visualized everything between the units in question. The graphs assume the following:

• 20 models to each unit
  • Except Banshees who have 12
• All models can hit

Look at that throughline at 30.

My takeaway: If you are NOT bringing max units for anything except the Banshees, and relying on the buffs on the warscroll card alone, Banshees are better for the points. No buffs at all? Bladeghests. Can bring some buffs (KoSoES, VL, KoS)? Dreadscythes for +hit, Banshees for +attacks.

Spoiler

 

Edited February 10, 2020 by EnixLHQ

[EnixLHQ]

Updated my guide with a new magic section Spells in the Wake of the Necroquake, and added a new magic-related tactic to Architectures of Torture.

As always, feedback welcome! I'm sure I got something wrong, so please don't be afraid to point it out and help me stay accurate.

[The_Dudemeister]

Great write-up again. Only thing I'd change is the wording for shademist as it's not really an aura effect.

Oh and you could mention the initial extra boost to spell-range when you cast Balewind Vortex. You cast it 1" away from you and add the huge base of that thing because it is now treated as your casting model. That's an additional 5" you can sneak out of it on top of the innate 6".

Also when it gets dispelled, you set up a whooping 6" away from it. Because it's a set-up and not a move, you do not count as retreated. A great way to get your caster out of a fight they can't win and move to prepare a charge to where they can. Bonus points if you let your Myrmourn Banshees do the dispelling. I just love everything about the Balewind Vortex 🙂

[tvih]

20 hours ago, Jabbuk said:

Not sure if this was discussed in the past, but how good of a deal is the Craven King box set to flesh out a Nighthaunt army is currently? I see a lot of builds with Spirit Hosts around, etc. I really like the King's model though and I was curious how you guys saw that box set (at least there's no Glaivewraith Stalkers in it)

Kind of in the same boat. As it is I haven't played yet and I have the Soul Wars contents only with another 20 rasps coming in the mail. WarCry Nighthaunt warband box, another 4 banshees and Reikenor are more or less certain purchases. And Olynder at some point. On the fence about the battleforce. King is indeed a good miniature, but I'm accumulating sooo many leaders. Plus not such a fan of Hexwraiths or Harridans model-wise. Same with the apparently-popular Spirit Hosts. I definitely want Bladegheists and more Reapers as an option for battleline wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing (model-wise, I'm not sure how good they're considered).

I had considering the SC Malignants and Skeleton Horde boxes (the latter would of course include hexwraiths/black knights again) at some point in the future for a possible Legions of Nagash Death list, but considering the above tournament report... how do these allies work? Is it that you can take a single ally leader without penalties (while staying Nighthaunt) or something? I guess I really need to unwrap the darn rulebook instead of just painting :P 

Overall I'm worried about how leader-heavy all my planned lists are looking. One recent one had 830pts of leaders in it despite not even including Craven King. Oof.

[Jabbuk]

8 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Updated my guide with a new magic section Spells in the Wake of the Necroquake, and added a new magic-related tactic to Architectures of Torture.

As always, feedback welcome! I'm sure I got something wrong, so please don't be afraid to point it out and help me stay accurate.

Love your guide @EnixLHQ. Very useful for me who is essentially a NH noob. Perhaps consider a section in your guide about list building. Giving some basics of the strategies behind different list building. Would be really useful I think.

Also, perhaps consider another thing to increase your visibility. You could link your blog in your post signature. In the past few days I had to search the thread to find it while I saw some of your posts and thought it would be much easier if you would link to it at the end of your posts. I think your blog would benefit from it.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Jabbuk

[Spears]

16 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

My takeaway: If you are NOT bringing max units for anything except the Banshees, and relying on the buffs on the warscroll card alone, Banshees are better for the points. No buffs at all? Bladeghests. Can bring some buffs (KoSoES, VL, KoS)? Dreadscythes for +hit, Banshees for +attacks.

 

I'm not sure its quite so cut and dry. 

15 Bladegheists with a Spirit torment come in at 390 points, 12 Myrmourns + A Knight of shrouds on steed and a command point comes in at 380. 

The damage output of the Myrmourns is greater if you can setup an unbind and a KOS buff, but not massively so unless you are hitting mortek guard.

The trade off for this is the reliability and consistency. To get the above damage output the bladegheists simply need to have charged, the banshees need to have dispelled something, be within 18 of the kos and spend a command point. So by definition the banshees cant put out this damage the turn they drop in.

Lets assume we are stuck in combat, this time the bladegheists haven't got to charge and the banshees didnt get their attack buff. The Spirit torment is now the only buff still in play, and it makes a big difference as seen below.

Obviously the banshees having a whacking great unbind chance brings a lot of power that is hard to quantify but their reliability and lower wound count brings some non trivial downsides.

 

[LordPrometheus]

So I played my first game as Nighthaunt last night, 1750 points against FEC with two Terrorgheists. I made a couple of mistakes, and my opponent rolled INSANELY well (his Tgheists did somewhere around 50 MW by the end of it), but I felt like I was in it, even with his free Feeding Frenzy. Here's the list I ran:
 

Allegiance: Nighthaunt

 

Leaders

Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed (120)

- Artefact: Pendant of the Fell Wind

Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)

- Lore of the Underworlds: Shademist

- Infernal Lantern (Artefact): Beacon of Nagashizzar

Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief (200)

- General

- Lore of the Underworlds: Soul Cage

Spirit Torment (120)

 

Battleline

20 x Chainrasp Horde (160)

20 x Chainrasp Horde (160)

30 x Grimghast Reapers (420)

5 x Hexwraiths (140)

5 x Hexwraiths (140)

 

 

 

Battalions

The Dolorous Guard (120)

 

Total: 1720/ 2000

Dolorous Guard was incredibly useful with Olynder. She managed to survive two rounds of Tgheist attacks with her ability, and she and 20 Chainrasps managed to kill a Tgheist by turn two. My Grimghasts took out half a unit of nine Crypt Ghouls before getting feeding frenzied to death.

Sadly, I made a crucial error in charging most of my Hexwraiths into the other Tgheist (still in range of the Lady), and they just got deleted before doing any damage. In the end, my opponent won by destroying all my units.   I also failed almost every one of my spell rolls. 

Bottom line, I had a blast and did a ton of damage with the ghosties. Maybe next time I'll play against an army without 10 bravery so my debuffs actually mean something lol. It seems like a tough matchup, but winnable with better play and my opponent not rolling insanely hot.

Edited February 11, 2020 by LordPrometheus

[EnixLHQ]

7 hours ago, The_Dudemeister said:

Great write-up again. Only thing I'd change is the wording for shademist as it's not really an aura effect.

Oh and you could mention the initial extra boost to spell-range when you cast Balewind Vortex. You cast it 1" away from you and add the huge base of that thing because it is now treated as your casting model. That's an additional 5" you can sneak out of it on top of the innate 6".

Also when it gets dispelled, you set up a whooping 6" away from it. Because it's a set-up and not a move, you do not count as retreated. A great way to get your caster out of a fight they can't win and move to prepare a charge to where they can. Bonus points if you let your Myrmourn Banshees do the dispelling. I just love everything about the Balewind Vortex 🙂

I have to remember that when I flavor up the text that sometimes I'm referencing an actual effect that's in the game. I'll take out the word aura and replace it with something else.

Great ideas about the Balewind. Shamelessly stealing.

3 hours ago, Jabbuk said:

Love your guide @EnixLHQ. Very useful for me who is essentially a NH noob. Perhaps consider a section in your guide about list building. Giving some basics of the strategies behind different list building. Would be really useful I think.

Also, perhaps consider another thing to increase your visibility. You could link your blog in your post signature. In the past few days I had to search the thread to find it while I saw some of your posts and thought it would be much easier if you would link to it at the end of your posts. I think your blog would benefit from it.

I hint on list building a bit, but it could stand to have it's own section. I'll definitely work on that.

 

1 hour ago, Spears said:

I'm not sure its quite so cut and dry. 

It's not, but when you try to mathhammer everything you eventually find yourself down there rabbit hole.

In all my games I've brought Dreadscythes twice, and Banshees only when I know my opponent is going to use magic a lot. Otherwise it's just as many medium units of Bladegheists as possible. In the end they more than make up for their points by being simple and straight forward, and reliable.

The problem with crunching numbers is the same as planning out D&D sessions as a DM, or trying to tell your version of that one story that your friend also knows: other people get involved and ****** the whole thing up in unpredictable ways.

53 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

So I played my first game as Nighthaunt last night, 1750 points against FEC with two Terrorgheists. I made a couple of mistakes, and my opponent rolled INSANELY well (his Tgheists did somewhere around 50 MW by the end of it), but I felt like I was in it, even with his free Feeding Frenzy.

Bottom line, I had a blast and did a ton of damage with the ghosties. Maybe next time I'll play against an army without 10 bravery so my debuffs actually mean something lol. It seems like a tough matchup, but winnable with better play and my opponent not rolling insanely hot.

Sounds like a tough matchup. I bet if you were to play the exact same game again it would go differently for you. Still, sounds like it was a tough game and if you had fun playing it then it was a great one.

[Jabbuk]

I'm trying to make sense out of the 4 Grimghast Reapers that come in the Soul Wars box. I mean, in what world can you actually make use of those? I've tried to look for various combinations to buy on GW's website to equal them to a unit of 10 but to no avail. Has anyone figured it out? It seems every box comes with a unit of 10, the Craven King, 10 as well, etc. Am I missing something?

Edited February 12, 2020 by Jabbuk

[SleeperAgent]

12 minutes ago, Jabbuk said:

I'm trying to make sense out of the 4 Grimghast Reapers that come in the Soul Wars box. I mean, in what world can you actually make use of those? I've tried to look for various combinations to buy on GW's website to equal them to a unit of 10 but to no avail. Has anyone figured it out? It seems every box comes with a unit of 10, the Craven King, 10 as well, etc. Am I missing something?

It was just a poorly designed box. You get 5 glaivewraiths which come in units of 4, 4 ggr which are units of 10. You get 8 stormcast sequitors which comes in units of 5, 3 evocators which are units of 5, and 5 castigators which come in units of 3.

[EnixLHQ]

A buddy of mine who's been in the game for years and years once told me he thought Soul Wars was a beta box. That it takes a long time to get sprues made, but a lot less time to make books. He figured that back when they designed the box those were going to be the unit sizes with our own elite units, just like Stormcast ended up being, but deadlines be deadlines, so it shipped.

If true then then I could see the designers realizing having two of the same army with different skins wouldn't do a well as what we eventually got. Can you imagine a 4-model Casta-Reapers?

[EMMachine]

6 hours ago, SleeperAgent said:

It was just a poorly designed box. You get 5 glaivewraiths which come in units of 4, 4 ggr which are units of 10. You get 8 stormcast sequitors which comes in units of 5, 3 evocators which are units of 5, and 5 castigators which come in units of 3.

Yeah, until January 2020,  you basicly needed 1x Soulwars + 2x  Tempest of Souls for the Nighthaunt to get the Grimcast Reapers on 10 Models.

Now you can use 1x Soulwars, 1x Tempest of Souls and the new Warcry Nighthaunt Warband

 

[Jabbuk]

3 hours ago, EMMachine said:

Yeah, until January 2020,  you basicly needed 1x Soulwars + 2x  Tempest of Souls for the Nighthaunt to get the Grimcast Reapers on 10 Models.

Now you can use 1x Soulwars, 1x Tempest of Souls and the new Warcry Nighthaunt Warband

 

That's still way too many stormcast models to sell only to get a rounded number of Grimghast I guess I'll just use them as test models. It's like they did it on purpose that you can't complete them. If they had put them in a group of 5, it'd be much simpler.