AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[LordPrometheus]

14 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

Yeah, my comment didn't come out the way I wanted. I need to clarify what I’m saying:

Some armies have heroes that they revolve around. If those heroes die, the game is lost. I’m thinking of the likes of Lumineth, Legions of Nagash, Hallowheart, Ossiarch, Seraphon, Archaon lists, etc. 

Some armies have heroes that are simply the bulk of their army. Lists running multiple greater daemons are examples. 

Then there’s other armies where the heroes aren’t the essential component of the army, they’re there for support. That’s how I view Nighthaunt heroes. They’re not the only army like that either. Kharadron Overlords and Tempest Eye are two examples that jump to mind that are fairly competitive. 

I never want my Nighthaunt heroes to die, and I never think their purpose is to die. I just go into my games knowing most or all of my heroes won’t make it until the end of turn 5, and knowing that that’s okay and that I can still win if my heroes get deleted. Almost all of the Nighthaunt heroes have great utility, and their deathless spirits bubble and ability to fish for WoT by burning command points are great. But if they get targeted and deleted, the game is not lost for me. 

Nighthaunt’s best abilities are great movement, Ethereal, Fly, Wave of Terror, and From the Underworlds They Come. None of those are hero reliant, though some are certainly boosted by heroes. 

So I just want to say that if you have a hero get shot on turn one or deleted by something like a Bloodthirster, you can still certainly win! The trick is to take 4-6 heroes so you have some redundancy and to know that your troops are the core of your army, not your heroes. 

Bottom line though is the army overall needs help.

Gotcha! That makes much more sense 🙂

[Neck-Romantic]

I remember having decent success with throwing threat saturation st opponents; bladegheist groups that bounced around inside their formations, long formation spirit host blocks bracketing them in, myrmourns packs hopping over to butcher hard targets. 

Keeping my heroes back a bit but able to impact different fights depending on what really needed to die. Knight of shrouds that could buff Myrmourns or Blades, Torments hanging with one group but tethered Chainghasts hanging with a different group etc etc.

 

Havnt played since the pandemic so havnt had to deal with the newer books though

[dmorley21]

11 hours ago, Rors said:

Just bought a collection of second hand models to make a NH army. Have an idea in mind but I have no idea if it'll work. More of a fun list than competitive but suggestion of tweaks that might improve it would be great.

- Olynder

- Reiknor

- Arkhan (Ally)

- Guardian of Souls

- 3x 10 chainrasp

- 4x 12 Myrmourn Banshees

Endless spells:

- palisade

- grave tide.

The idea is to utterly dominate the magic phase and dispell my own endless spells when I need to add punch to the Banshees, who will be the primary focus of all the healing.

 

Back when Arkhan could cast Olynder's spell, this was actually a fairly competitive build. You'd want a couple of Spirit Torments so that the Mymourns can get some re-rolls to hit. Maybe one with Midnight Tome to add to your theme. 

This list will struggle with horde units, if you make further tweaks that might be something to think about. 

[dmorley21]

Looks like the Mourngul is out of stock, and probably no more. 
 

If Nighthaunt could get something similar at some point, that would be great. Whether you love or hate the black coach (after TTS, I think it’s solid for its cost), no doubt it’s a support piece. A behemoth that could do some damage would be great and could make plenty of sense being the soul of something like a dragon. 

[Evil Bob]

On 3/2/2021 at 5:43 AM, Neck-Romantic said:

myrmourns packs hopping over to butcher hard targets. 

I have twelve of them and keep leaving them out of lists.  It’s a little embarrassing with the number of people who have sworn on getting them to work.

[Rors]

3 hours ago, Evil Bob said:

I have twelve of them and keep leaving them out of lists.  It’s a little embarrassing with the number of people who have sworn on getting them to work.

Magic seems so pervasive in the tops lists right now with kroak and lumineth being so strong that a unit that hard counters magic seems like a strong meta pick.

It's encouraging to hear that others have said they're useful, I have 48 on the way.

On that note too, I got all 48 for 24 pounds off troll trader. The whole army was cheap as chips to buy and none of the models I purchased had more than an undercoat on them or was still on the sprue.  They haven't arrived yet and I'm a little nervous about what might happen during shipping.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Rors

[Ranzou]

As for me - Myrmourns one of the most effective nighthaunt units. They are suprisingly effective in close combat, especially with attack boosts from enemy casts and Knight of Shrouds. 

Main problem is 4+ to hit, but with chainghasts it became less painfull.

Twelve of them always do their work.

Edited March 5, 2021 by Ranzou

[Aaranis]

9 hours ago, Rors said:

Magic seems so pervasive in the tops lists right now with kroak and lumineth being so strong that a unit that hard counters magic seems like a strong meta pick.

It's encouraging to hear that others have said they're useful, I have 48 on the way.

On that note too, I got all 48 for 24 pounds off troll trader. The whole army was cheap as chips to buy and none of the models I purchased had more than an undercoat on them or was still on the sprue.  They haven't arrived yet and I'm a little nervous about what might happen during shipping.

48 seems a bit excessive lol, I never played more than a unit of 12 and found them really good, you do have to build a bit around them though. They shine against magic of course, but add a Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed and/or a Vampire Lord as Ally and you rapidly have a lot of strong attacks. They're susceptible to -1 to Hit though, having rerolls is important. Important to know, a unit of 12 will always do more damage with +1A than +1 to Hit, assuming they're hitting at 4+ base, so having this KoSoES is important.

[Rors]

Yeah 48 is more for the sake of meme.

Kight or a vampire seem like good options. Nighthaunt do seem comand point hungery though off first impression.

I think the lauchon endless spell could be interesting too. Buff with a night, teleport then 12 inches forward, then use them to dispell it. You loose d3+1 models but if positioned right you can probably get those back. That gets then to 3 attacks a model and a threat range of 27 inches on average. Could always chuck cogs in the list too and surprise long bomb a unit turn one. Flying makes them harder to screen off too.

[Aaranis]

Yeah it is CP expensive. I ran them in a Legion of Grief list though, back when we could get 2CP on a 5+ each time we used a CP with the right Artifact and Warlord Trait. Here you'll want to save 1 or 2 CP to target your main threat and hope it works. I killed a KoS with Banshees so it works !

[Neck-Romantic]

Myrmourns are tied with Bladegheists for my favorite sculpts/effective units on the table.

Nighthaunt have such amazing sculpts all around, its such a shame to be languishing without a book for so long

[EnixLHQ]

Huh? What? AoS? What's that? Sounds like a fun game. Too bad I don't have a battletome for all these models I've got.

[Evil Bob]

1 hour ago, EnixLHQ said:

Huh? What? AoS? What's that? Sounds like a fun game. Too bad I don't have a battletome for all these models I've got.

Considering at the launch Games Workshop made a big deal about us being able to use our old models I do feel rather betrayed.  There used to be an Empire Unit that was basically a mob from poorer city districts with a crazy assortment of weapons.  It’s not even on Legends.  Very disappointed here.

[Rors]

I have a hoard of milita on square bases with the old bretonian peasants bits used to convert up models and add more diversity.

They were always trash but I love the concept of basic humans in high fantasy settings. Literally humanizing your expendable troops adds a sense of pathos to the game.

 

Anywho, the concept for my night haunt Amy will be that they came from a religion that had a more typical 'heaven' in which they lived in the clouds. Because of this they didn't actually go to the death realm but a place between the realm of death and light. They believed themselves beyond the reach of Nagash, however, eventually he was able to trap them when their realm was closest, sunset. He froze them in time so that his legions could march through the horizon and into their realm to concour them (it's high fantasy and magic).

Thus I'm painting them all in sunset colors, reds, pinks, oranges etc.

I was wondering if anyone has anything like that they could share? I saw some 'vapor wave' night haunt that kind of come close to what I'm imagining. Maybe this should be in the hobby section rather than here though.

Edited March 7, 2021 by Rors

[EnixLHQ]

7 hours ago, Rors said:

I have a hoard of milita on square bases with the old bretonian peasants bits used to convert up models and add more diversity.

They were always trash but I love the concept of basic humans in high fantasy settings. Literally humanizing your expendable troops adds a sense of pathos to the game.

 

Anywho, the concept for my night haunt Amy will be that they came from a religion that had a more typical 'heaven' in which they lived in the clouds. Because of this they didn't actually go to the death realm but a place between the realm of death and light. They believed themselves beyond the reach of Nagash, however, eventually he was able to trap them when their realm was closest, sunset. He froze them in time so that his legions could march through the horizon and into their realm to concour them (it's high fantasy and magic).

Thus I'm painting them all in sunset colors, reds, pinks, oranges etc.

I was wondering if anyone has anything like that they could share? I saw some 'vapor wave' night haunt that kind of come close to what I'm imagining. Maybe this should be in the hobby section rather than here though.

Custom lore? There's a few members of our community who have done write ups or other media about it.

One of my favorites is this: Bloodhaunt

Shout out to Duskwalker <- Check out their IG

I have custom lore for my version of NH, too, though not so succinctly presented like Duskwalker's. Mine are a sect that rose up through the underworld into Hysh and became corrupted by the realmstone there. It shined a light into their souls revealing to the mindless ones just enough awareness to start seeing the torment they are locked in, and for the ones who could still think on their own it drove in maddening shards of light into them that reflected their bleakness back into them and shattered their minds. They screamed in new pain and agony and the scism broke them, but also Nagash's hold on them, both freeing them and plunging them into the quasi-realm between Hysh and Ulgu, near to the obscured place Slaanesh is held. There they roiled in the darkness until they could claw themselves out, using their madness as a guiding light. The Enixian Nighthaunt, the Light that is not Light, the Penumbral Stalkers, the Ethereal Dusk, are thrice-cursed and seek to quell their discordant voices by drowning Nagash and all who serve him in the cacophony they now know.

Dramatic, I know. Needs some streamlining, too. But it's come a long way.

 

[Yeknomious]

I'm just glad we are getting that new hero model. I know it's not much but it is something. We'll get a new tome this summer hopefully. I'm still building/painting my army and also in lockdown which won't lift for another month yet anyway : /

[Neck-Romantic]

I wonder if it will be a -1 hit aura with the Mourngul going out of print

[dmorley21]

3 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

I wonder if it will be a -1 hit aura with the Mourngul going out of print

The Mourngul appears to be back in stock, though a second aura like that would be welcome. 

[Nasrod]

Dreadblade Harrow - 90 (General)

Big Drogg Fort Kicka - 490

 

Chainrasp Horde x 40 - 280

Chainrasp Horde x 40 - 280

Chainrasp Horde x 40 - 280

 

Dreadscythe Harridans x 20 - 260

Dreadscythe Harridans x 20 - 260

Glaivewraith Stalker x 4 - 60

 

2000/2000

 

"Are you even having fun?" Asked the opponent. The Nighthaunt player had taken the double turn, with no combats declared, yet they had been there for 35 minutes.

 

For a moment, their eyes welled with glistening tears, eyeing a far off dream. "Fun," they began to muse, before falling silent. "I almost remember what it was like to have fun."

 

The opponent considered an apology, before hearing, "Okay, time for combat! Charge roll coming, aaaand...yes, a 7! So I charge with this 40 man block of Chainrasps into your Hearthguard Berzerkers, and we'll assume a long string formation such that only 2 of your 20 diaper boys can actually fight."

 

--

For real though, bog down threats through defensive tarpits and obnoxious footprints, use Fort-Kicka to have something able to fight a force off an objective, use the Harridans to blend and contest non elite objective holders.

Dreadblade Harrow for teleport shenanigans I suppose, but if you are playing against an opponent that can't kill him turn 1? Then I am very happy that your friend just woke up from their 2 year long coma and is playing Age of Sigmar with you again.

[Thanos-se]

Hello. I have one question. In order to determine the attack characteristic of a Chainghasts unit , you must roll a D3 for each model seperately right? You don't roll one D3 and then multiply it with the numbers of models.

[EnixLHQ]

4 hours ago, Thanos-se said:

Hello. I have one question. In order to determine the attack characteristic of a Chainghasts unit , you must roll a D3 for each model seperately right? You don't roll one D3 and then multiply it with the numbers of models.

Yes. Separately.

[Bayul]

Psst, don't tell anyone, but I secretly wish that Nighthaunt will be broken for a couple of months after the release of a new battletome to make up for the last 2 years.

[Neck-Romantic]

Oh nooooo not that 

[Btimmy]

I don't think you would actually want that. The army quickly becomes a boogie man and people in this hobby love to complain.  I saw it with my OBR when they first released and PE was allowing us to have multiple viable army builds. It is also the case now with Seraphon and KO , which can lead to an unfun play experience for the opponent. Plus, when/if GW does correct it, the most likely correction would be one to horribly overcorrect and leave the army in a bad spot until the next battletome. I personally would much prefer a battle tome that has multiple builds of medium high strength and allows for a good amount of army building variety. 

[Evil Bob]

16 minutes ago, Btimmy said:

Plus, when/if GW does correct it, the most likely correction would be one to horribly overcorrect and leave the army in a bad spot until the next battletome.

In all fairness Nighthaunt already came pre-nerfed and one steady constant in both 40K/AoS is how if they released garbage they don’t fix it between books.  So the option might very well be having something playable for a few months verses something that was never playable at all.  I lived through that as an Imperial Guard player during the Matt Ward era.  Imagine an army that was varying degrees of garbage for over a decade.

I’m hopping Nighthaunt doesn’t end up like SCE either.  GW keeps releasing new models for them without ever fixing the army.  Just encouraging people to buy the new stuff and push older content farther into the closet.  Those poor sods.