AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[dmorley21]

To @Aaranis and others:

In a few test games, I've actually found it easier to get Harridans and Bladegheists into combat this edition than second edition. This is for a couple of reasons:

• The change to the pile in rules. Change the wording to be "no further than it was to the enemy unit" instead of "...the nearest enemy model" was something I overlooked a bit for Nighthaunt, thinking with the army flying it wouldn't make a noticeable difference. In my test playing (just been testing), this has made a bigger difference than I imagined. 
• Using the "sawtooth formation" as mentioned by Goonhammer or what MiniMagTray calls the "cloud formation" allows me to get just as many models into battle as before. Let's be clear - running units of 15-20 Bladegheists or Harridans in 2.0 also meant you wouldn't get all of your models into combat. 

Now, I haven't had the same luck with Hexwraiths, so I'm going from a unit of 10 and 5 to two units of 5, which is a bummer for their output. They still help when they charge in with Olynder, for instance, but they're no longer a hammer. 

I'm excited to give Nighthaunt a go in this edition, but will also be starting a second army.

I'm also skeptical that Nighthaunt will get a book this year (2021), as after 2.0 came out there was only one book - Beasts of Chaos. It seems to me like Nurgle (older), Idoneth (older), and Beasts of Chaos (almost as old and broken as their army needed their battalions to function more or less) are all possibilities to be updated before Nighthaunt. There's also the chance for a new army to leapfrog Nighthaunt's update.

When the army does get an update, I think there's some logical expectations that can be made:

• The bravery debuff will be a mirror of the one that the Soulblight Gravelords has. This would be a slight buff. 
• More subfactions based on former battalions and possibly Legion of Grief. 
• A monster. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the only model the army gets. 
• A unit to get rewritten as a monster hunting unit. My guesses here would be Glaivewrath Stalkers and/or the Lord Executioner. 

But, we'll see! In the meantime, I'd recommend playing around with the army before writing it off for this edition! I still hold that while maybe not better, the army won't be in a worse spot. It's also worth waiting to see what comes from the Day 1 FAQs/Designer Commentary/etc. 

[EnixLHQ]

1 hour ago, dmorley21 said:

• The change to the pile in rules. Change the wording to be "no further than it was to the enemy unit" instead of "...the nearest enemy model" was something I overlooked a bit for Nighthaunt, thinking with the army flying it wouldn't make a noticeable difference. In my test playing (just been testing), this has made a bigger difference than I imagined.

I totally overlooked this! I assumed it was still "closest model." Confirmed it just now in 12.2. This actually a huge change for us. This allows us to keep formation and wrap around a target unit. It also allows, thanks to flying, small leaps over edges of enemy units or screens. More importantly, it allows you to shift to a side of a target unit either closer or further away from their bulk of counter-attacks or accompanying hero. These were all tactics I was playing with back before my friends and I understood the "closest model" rule and it was probably our most understated advantage that flying allows.

[Neck-Romantic]

But still having to stay in cohesion while lapping around an enemy unit, correct? That still feels like its going to be gigantic pita

[stato]

2 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

But still having to stay in cohesion while lapping around an enemy unit, correct? That still feels like its going to be gigantic pita

Not really, move half your units models into contact with the enemy unit as far as pile in move allows, aim for a 1" spacing between them,  now move other half of the unit to fill in a second row in base contact with 2 models in front of it = coherence. Now measure which of the 2nd row are in melee range (some might be, some might not).

Im sure there will be ways to optimize pile in to get 1 more model fighting, but a few games practice will show where you can do that, and even then all the strategies etc. that people are theorizing rely on the opponents specific setup and no terrain, so i personally dont think its worth trying to think about it too hard.

[EnixLHQ]

We never got our bigger blobs fully into combat anyway, so using 1/3 or 1/4 of one now to shuffle in behind for coherency is not that much different.

[EnixLHQ]

In a rare discloser, GW goes into why everyone got a points increase (in general) and their vision of the new format.

A couple of interesting bits to me.

First: "[...] as battalions no longer have a points value, this increase will factor in those points that were used before on warscroll battalions." This suggests to me that 3.0 battletomes likely won't have warscroll battalions and the abilities they conveyed will be migrated up to allegiance abilities, subfaction abilities, or individual warscrolls.

Second: "This points rise will help battles come to their conclusion in a timely manner by reducing the size of armies once more." This tells me that they want smaller, faster games. I see this as a win both for at-home play where a single game can take up a whole day's plans, as well as the devs getting more data from more games taking place in every aspect that they gather data.

As always, they ask for feedback via AoSFAQ@gwplc.com.

[EnixLHQ]

I asked Ben and Sam over on Twitter how certain abilities factor into the weights their calculator use. He indicated they could release an article about it if there's enough interest.

Head over to my thread here and chime in if you'd like to see something like that, and share it with anyone else who would, too.

[JLee]

I wish to double check my reading comprehension of the 3.0 core rules. For the new rules regarding stacking triggered abilities (ex, mortal wounds on 6s vs exploding hits on 6s). Does this mean that the combo of giving a Cairn Wraith the shadow blade is now useless? Now having to choose either the shadowblade D3 mortal wounds vs the Frightful touch 2 mortal wounds on 6s, instead of having D3 +2? 

[dmorley21]

2 hours ago, JLee said:

I wish to double check my reading comprehension of the 3.0 core rules. For the new rules regarding stacking triggered abilities (ex, mortal wounds on 6s vs exploding hits on 6s). Does this mean that the combo of giving a Cairn Wraith the shadow blade is now useless? Now having to choose either the shadowblade D3 mortal wounds vs the Frightful touch 2 mortal wounds on 6s, instead of having D3 +2? 

That's correct. So that build is no more. With how much harder it is to get artefacts, I think that build would be pretty rare to begin with in this edition. 

[JLee]

40 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

That's correct. So that build is no more. With how much harder it is to get artefacts, I think that build would be pretty rare to begin with in this edition. 

I wouldn't say its hard to get artifacts for nighthaunt. Could easily run double warlord battalions, all of our heroes are less than 10 wounds. Still good to know. 

[Equinox]

Basic question.  In 3.0, can you still build a Death Grand Alliance army?  The wording in the free rules focuses on the use of the term faction.  I also see that some of our previously faction specific battleline units (e.g. spirit hosts, hexwraithes, etc...) are now just battleline without the faction restriction.   

[EnixLHQ]

13 hours ago, Equinox said:

Basic question.  In 3.0, can you still build a Death Grand Alliance army?  The wording in the free rules focuses on the use of the term faction.  I also see that some of our previously faction specific battleline units (e.g. spirit hosts, hexwraithes, etc...) are now just battleline without the faction restriction.   

May I ask why you'd want to? Grand Alliance Death (and Destruction) tend to be very weak compared to Order and Chaos.

This is even more so in that the new Soulblight Gravelords book changed all the power keywords to include the faction, and that'll be the norm going forward. Most of their abilities won't work.

[Ranzou]

Can someone explain me Ghur's batallions?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/15/ghur-basically-eats-your-objectives-with-the-rules-in-the-new-generals-handbook/

I'm mostly unterested in Hunters of the Heartlands.

Just take two units and it will be complete batallion with great ablitiy - to counter new moster rules.

Won't it be great idea to take 30 reapers and 30 rasps which are immune to roars?

What should I do to take this battaion? Or I just say "I'll take it" and thats all?

[Pyrk]

You can just take it.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

16 hours ago, Equinox said:

Basic question.  In 3.0, can you still build a Death Grand Alliance army?  The wording in the free rules focuses on the use of the term faction.  I also see that some of our previously faction specific battleline units (e.g. spirit hosts, hexwraithes, etc...) are now just battleline without the faction restriction.   

From what we have seen, it looks like you can't build Grand Alliance armies anymore, at least for now. Factions now seem to be defined by sharing a faction point table, not keywords. Until we get rules that explicitly allow Grand Alliance armies to pull units from different factions points tables, that option seems currently unsupported.

[dmorley21]

Well Bladegheists and the Black Coach can now issue commands per the day 1 FAQ. So slight buffs there. 

[Ranzou]

While all other main named characters gain Warmaster keyword to be "always generals in addition" Olinder doesn't.

That's a shame.

Nagash is the weakest Warmaster, lol.

[LordPrometheus]

59 minutes ago, Ranzou said:

While all other main named characters gain Warmaster keyword to be "always generals in addition" Olinder doesn't.

That's a shame.

Nagash is the weakest Warmaster, lol.

NH keep getting screwed for literally no reason

[dmorley21]

1 hour ago, Ranzou said:

While all other main named characters gain Warmaster keyword to be "always generals in addition" Olinder doesn't.

That's a shame.

Nagash is the weakest Warmaster, lol.

20 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

NH keep getting screwed for literally no reason

Very few models got this ability from what I'm seeing. I don't think Lady Olynder is quite in the same tier as Morathi, Nagash, Alarielle, Teclis, etc; still it would have been nice, especially for The Emerald Host. 

Also, with the updates, the only units in our army that can't issue commands are Myrmourn Banshees, Chainghasts, and the Mourngul (assuming it stays). 

What does everyone think about our endless spells now? 

[LordPrometheus]

1 minute ago, dmorley21 said:

Very few models got this ability from what I'm seeing. I don't think Lady Olynder is quite in the same tier as Morathi, Nagash, Alarielle, Teclis, etc; still it would have been nice, especially for The Emerald Host. 

 

I haven't had the chance to view all the FAQs. Did any other Mortarchs get this ability? Or was it just the God characters?

[CaptainSoup]

So the FAQ dropped. Not much going on in the document which is a shame but not surprising. Key takeaways I see are:

• Clarified Kurdoss's command ability to only take the command point given to the enemy warlord. This is fine I guess. I don't think many of us were hoping he'd be a good CP farmer anyway.
• Bladegheist can issue commands to themselves. A nice party trick, but since you'd be running these guys with a chainghast anyway it seems like a moot point.
• Black Coach is a TOTEM now. If the Coach happens to be near a blob of ghosts while on its rampage around the board this may prove useful. Better to have than have not I suppose.
• BONUS MEME - The mention of the Temporal Translocation spell being in a model you can't get anymore, but then not tell us what the actual ability does. Thanks GW.

They also updated our endless spells:

• One thing to make note of for those who haven't noticed from the Core Rulebook is the removal of any mention of realm rules. I personally like the removal as it was something no one in my area ever really used in the first place. 
• Shyish Reaper - Roll 2 dice instead of one to see if it breaks armor saves and deals D3 Mortal Wounds instead of one. Buffs that come in spades, for Nighthaunt? In this economy? You love to see it.
• Vault of Souls - Buffed to only need 10 Mortal Wounds taken by models before exploding, but has a 16% chance to outright fail. Despite the buffs needing to roll 10 6s is still a tough pill to swallow, and with the game making sure you go MSU this edition, there are even less reasons to bring this spell along.
• Mortalis Terminexus - Hasn't changed much, but when you hasten time there is a 16% chance to outright fail. So a slight nerf to a spell no one used anyway. It would have been nice to add a way to bring DEATH models back instead of just healing them, making this spell much more useful. Oh well. 

Overall it is what it is. Not really any nerfs and only slight buffs so that's something I guess, but then I don't think any of us were expecting nerfs to begin with so any nerfs hurt that much more. 

Some are suggesting to take advantage of the Allied system and bring Mannfred since he is a capable hero and a monster that can take advantage of both the new hero and monster abilities so he won't die easily. This would mean we have something to make use of the monster secondaries that are coming from the GHB. The fact that GW is making armies with no Monsters be forced to ally units just to get access to certain parts of the rules still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Edited July 2, 2021 by CaptainSoup

[dmorley21]

18 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

I haven't had the chance to view all the FAQs. Did any other Mortarchs get this ability? Or was it just the God characters?

Only Mortarchs in Ossiarch. The ones in Soulblight don't get this ability, and if you take Nagash in Soulblight, you don't get this ability. I assume this is to represent how highly militarized Ossiarch is. 

[Sception]

15 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

Only Mortarchs in Ossiarch. The ones in Soulblight don't get this ability, and if you take Nagash in Soulblight, you don't get this ability. I assume this is to represent how highly militarized Ossiarch is. 

Nearly all the Soulblight unique heroes already count as extra generals if you run them in their own bloodline, and nagash always counts as an extra general in any bloodline.  They didn't get the 'warlord' ability added because they effectively already have it.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Sception

[CaptainSoup]

Also looks like WarCom is going to be doing another preview stream tomorrow during the launch of the new edition. I would imagine it'll be packed with new models for the upcoming SCE and Descrution tomes, then maybe a little teaser trailer revealing other models to come, which would hint at what other battletomes will be released in the near future.

Place your bets! 

[JustAsPlanned]

1 hour ago, CaptainSoup said:

Also looks like WarCom is going to be doing another preview stream tomorrow during the launch of the new edition. I would imagine it'll be packed with new models for the upcoming SCE and Descrution tomes, then maybe a little teaser trailer revealing other models to come, which would hint at what other battletomes will be released in the near future.

Place your bets! 

I reckon we have a slither of an eighth of a millionth of a chance of being the first post-Dominion BT 😛 

But in all seriousness, I reckon there’ll be something similar to what they did with the 40k one, where they show off little glimpses of new models. Whether we’ll be one of them is yet to be seen.