AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Dauzy]

2 hours ago, Greasygeek said:

Now I know many of you don’t care much about the Lord Executioner and the Executioner Horde battalion and since I don’t care much for tournements I might be all noob about this but have any of you considered arming the Lord Executioner with the Blade of Endings? Combined with the EH battalion that turns the LE into a mean fella with 3 attacks at+2 dam for each 5+ to hit or 6 to wound? Combine that with Lady Olynder’s spell and its 4+ to hit.

Not sure about the math here but the Blade of Endings alone gives him a max damage output of 24! At rend -2. 

In all fairness the max damage hit probably happen on the samme day you accidentaly stumble upon a million bucks left and forgotten while someone discovered a cure for cancer and a simple solution on how to end global warming just by getting rid of mosqeetoes and printers. On that very day your boss will award your employee of the month and your girlfriend will tell your that she always wanted you to kiss with her twinsister. However none of this won’t steal you away from that special moment when a simple 80pt Lord Executioner murdered 12 Stormcast  in a single combat! 

For the Lord Excutioner and Execution Horde battalion case. I play Lord Excutioner with the artifact "Sword of Judgement". Thanks to the battalion on 5 + D6 Mortal wounds on Heroes or Behemoths. 

[dmorley21]

Here's a different question: what endless spells have people had success with other than Chronomantic Cogs?

In particular, I'm wondering if anyone has tried one that also debuffs bravery as I'm looking to run a Shrieker Host and would like to use something with our allegiance ability to lower enemy bravery. 

So, any thoughts?

[Guardian]

One thing I just realized, correct me if I’m wrong but the CP charge reroll doesnt allow us to reroll only one die to fish for that wave of terror...

[Neck-Romantic]

Correct, you reroll both dice

[Nevar]

9 hours ago, Guardian said:

One thing I just realized, correct me if I’m wrong but the CP charge reroll doesnt allow us to reroll only one die to fish for that wave of terror...

Sure it does, you just have to fish with both dice.  That is why Cogs is important.  +2" means you need an effective 7" charge on your deep-striking units.  The debate just becomes if you made the charge do you risk failing it to fish for the Wave of Terror.  If this was not the case, Wave of Terror would be far too powerful.

[Garxia]

I've seen a lot of Darrakar's online, but haven't seen yet one played.

Have anybody tried the Guardian of Souls with Mortality Glass? Movement spells and messing with enemies units charges is always useful, but I don't know how much.

A Guardian of Souls with nightmare lantern is an auto include (healing and +1 to wound) in all my lists, but I'm curious about his brother with the glass.

Is he worth it? Would you run the duo?

[Tropical Ghost General]

On 9/6/2018 at 3:54 PM, Garxia said:

so I'm asking  for opinions/experiences from some battlefield experienced generals here.

- Dreadblade aren't that good as solo heroes but if taken as the general they can offer some interesting teleport abilities. But they end up taking a coveted general and hero slot.

- If you have the points spare also go 30 rather than 20. The minimal extra points cost for the extra 10 is worth having those extra bodies to the unit. The larger unit has better longevity and  their 2" range isn't hampered too much by being in a larger unit.

- Myrmourns can be devastating but they need a fair amount of points spent on buffing units/endless spells to get them to be worth while, as solo they aren't great. Also even when buffed up they are a small enough unit (max of 12 ) that they can be wiped out in a turn fairly easily. I run them as I face a lot of trees and the -2 rend is worth it for that imo.

- Cogs are great at helping to get us ghosts into combat better when deep-striking, but as it buffs you and your opponent, it can sometimes be a double edged sword. If you are running grims, blades, or any of the other fast moving units we have, then they aren't really needed. There is a gross combo using the anniversary GoS model, where you can give a unit of grims (or blades or anything else with the 8" movement) a horrible first turn smack down. Use the pendant artefact and cogs and the special GoS's spell, this will give your chosen unit a 19" move (8" move+6"spell+3"pendant+2"cogs) with a +2" to their charge. Most times it means a guaranteed first turn combat.

- We as an army require buffs and synergies to be truly effective. We have very few units that are self sufficient. So when it comes to heroes, you need to be maxing them out where possible, trouble is, it then creates more drops, as their is no battalion that fits in the combinations that you really need to take. I personally look at what key units I want to take and then what heroes are going to be vital to make sure that those units are maxing out their potential. Sometimes it means only taking 2 heroes, sometimes it means taking 6. It will vary depending on your personal playing style as well, but remember that heroes are required to get our death save.

- Personally the more spell casters the better. This new edition is heavy of the magic focus, loads of stuff can seriously do you over in a single hero phase with mortal wound and spell nastiness that in my opinion you can never have enough spell casters. The only issue we have is that apart from Reik, most of our wizards are pretty meh and most of our battletome spells are pretty meh. 

Overall it's worth noting that we are a mid-tier army when going pure ghosts. You can look at the results from tournaments in AoS 2.0 to see that. Sure there was a first place at Blackout, but the majority of players who aren't Mr.Warhammer (aka Ben), have been placing around the middle to bottom of the table in the end results. We aren't an easy win army with, it requires careful movement, careful charging and utilising well thought out synergies with various units buffing each other and also getting a few of those sweet 10+ charges. We have some match ups that we will always struggle with, going against other armies that summon, especially LoN lists, as part of our special uniqueness is our longevity but LoN can do it far better than we can, so in a battle of attrition we are going to lose every time as they have more options available to them. 

I personally try and play odd combos that people aren't expecting. I've been having great success in 1k games with my list that has 4 endless spells in it, 3 of which are predatory. Committing 120pts to spells that your opponent can use against you in a 1k game is really risky and some would say foolish, but so far it's been working for me. Best thing to do is just experiment and if you need to proxy models for other models, so you can test them, refine tactics, etc... My current 2k list is similar to my 1k, but with more wizards and a lot more grims and blades, as they work for my style of fast. aggressive play. I don't bother taking a KoSos, I don't bother with using a Vamp Lord or Arkhan as allies, I don't even bother with any battalions either. It's not what would work for a lot of other players but it works for me.

[Equinox]

On 9/9/2018 at 1:27 PM, Greasygeek said:

Now I know many of you don’t care much about the Lord Executioner and the Executioner Horde battalion and since I don’t care much for tournements I might be all noob about this but have any of you considered arming the Lord Executioner with the Blade of Endings? Combined with the EH battalion that turns the LE into a mean fella with 3 attacks at+2 dam for each 5+ to hit or 6 to wound? Combine that with Lady Olynder’s spell and its 4+ to hit.

Not sure about the math here but the Blade of Endings alone gives him a max damage output of 24! At rend -2. 

In all fairness the max damage hit probably happen on the samme day you accidentaly stumble upon a million bucks left and forgotten while someone discovered a cure for cancer and a simple solution on how to end global warming just by getting rid of mosqeetoes and printers. On that very day your boss will award your employee of the month and your girlfriend will tell your that she always wanted you to kiss with her twinsister. However none of this won’t steal you away from that special moment when a simple 80pt Lord Executioner murdered 12 Stormcast  in a single combat! 

I have found success with using the Lord Executioner (LE) and the Executioner Horde (EH) battalion as a solid anchor for deploying somewhere on the battlefield.  The strength of the LE w/ the battalion is not that he can hurt stuff, but that he can be a real bear to shift when kitted out right.  In quite a few games I have played with him (or her) dropping into the enemy backfield and forcing them to decide how they want to split up their forces (Grimghast with character buffs on the front).  I have also gambled with him being the general, and the ability to pull a unit or two to him (or her) has also had a positive impact on my games.   I am not claiming my experiences justify his inclusion in a competitive list, but I would argue the LE w/ battalion can be a useful combo.

 

@Tropical Ghost General In your opinion, do you think the results we are observing right now are more to do with people not playing the army to its strengths or do you believe it is more a deficiency in the overall army/battletome design?  

Edited September 12, 2018 by Equinox
Added question

[Kirjava13]

2spoopy4me

[Tropical Ghost General]

18 minutes ago, Equinox said:

In your opinion, do you think the results we are observing right now are more to do with people not playing the army to its strengths or do you believe it is more a deficiency in the overall army/battletome design?  

This is going to be long, so apologies for that.

 

I think there is a certain element of it still being early days with us ghosts for sure. But if you sit down with the battletome and compare like for like with other armies we are definitely lacking in a few areas. Now I know that all armies can't all be the same or all have similar qualities, but there are some parts that make it a lot harder for playing pure ghosts on a competitive standing.

For example out battalions seem more fluffy than efficient. The shrieker host seems OK unless you have a lot of bravery 7+ in your meta, which is at the moment a lot, but thematically it's awesome. The lord exs is reliant on taking a lot of spirit hosts, which are great tarpits, but the damage output isn't great. I have seen mathhammers and charts showing the potential, but to be honest, anything hitting on 5s, wounding on 4s, with no rend and no natural re-rolls or extra attacks, etc...isn't great. Again thematically it's a great battalion, but in a competitive sense, the bonus it gives isn't that good. The BC battalion would be awesome, if hexwraiths weren't so underwhelming, but yet again from a fluff point of view the battalion makes sense.

Another issue we have is with minimal drops. With the battalions there are a lack of named characters that you can take in them. A lot of other factions can take battalions with their names characters, or with more than one hero in them, yet we don't have any that allow more than 1 hero. This makes creating a minimal drop list a lot more difficult. If you add onto that the fact that we don't have any expensive big gribblies, like a VLoZD or Maw Crusher, then it's harder to spend the points on fewer drop units. And I know we are meant to be a horde army, but are longevity compared to LoN is laughable. I think giving ghosts gravesites is OP, but the lack of summoning hurts in games when opponents can easily bring an extra 500pts-1000pts on per game. It comes down to the attrition thing again, we are good at attrition, but we are not the best, and not by a long shot.

We are really dependant on heroes as well as an army. Without our death saves we are not great. Sure we have a 4+ save, that ignores rend, but so many units in the game either cause no rend or ignore -1 rend themselves. There isn't much that has -2 rend and above, so our special uniqueness with our ethereal save isn't actually that special. Most of my friends know now that you target the characters first and then the rest of the army will crumble really quickly after that hero support is gone. I've had a fair few games where once the heroes have been one shotted, then the big units aren't getting the death saves, aren't able to heal, aren't able to come back. It's why I've given up on rasps a bit as well, as without the hero support, a 5+ save is easy to start seeing those big units whittle down. And I know that the ethereal save has it's benefits, but it's not an OMG!!!! ability in this current edition, especially when access to mortal wounds is so abundant. Once again in my local meta, most of my friends just mortal wound the hell out of the heroes in the hero phase before finishing them off the the rest of that turn. Now I do like that all of the heroes can benefit from Look Out Sir, but not having any big hero I think does make it difficult to give the army some staying power on the board.

I was playing ghosts in AoS 1.0, and what I liked about them was the pure vanilla aspect, they weren't the hardest or the toughest, they were the strongest or the biggest, but they weren't the weakest either, it's like they were a neutral army. No special buffs or bonuses, but no major weaknesses either, proper middle of the road, which made them a really tactical army to play with, as you didn't have any fancy parlour tricks to help you win. I also play LoN and since 2.0 I have left them on the shelf as they are just a bit too easy to play with, the summoning back units and awesome units available, the strong magic casters, the super cheap and sturdy battlelines, compared to ghosts it feels like there is less of a challenge. Now ghosts in 2.0 have sort of retained that vanilla aspect, but at the same time, you'll never win tournaments consistently when you face armies than you decimate you in turn due to special rules (looking at you deep kin turn 3 ?).

One thing I have found with the majority of the online ghost community is a reluctance to accept that we might not be top tier as well. There is almost a fanatical refusal to believe that any unit (other than glaivewraiths) might be bad or that GW might have made the rules for the older models a bit naff so that it would drive sales for the shiny newer stuff (shock, horror, I know!!). I think this rose tinted view can be damaging, because you only learn to overcome your weaknesses by identifying them, so if you refuse to accept that the chainrasps are a points trap then you'll never spend time trying to figure out how to overcome the issue they have.

Now while I write all of this negative stuff, I must make clear that I love playing with ghosts, I think the challenge of playing them is great, I like the overall simplicity and no thrills aspect of the army, the lack of relying on OP magic, little to no shooting and other stuff as well. But I'm also a realist, and there has been lots of games where the battle was really unbalanced before any dice were rolled or units were deployed. And yes opponents struggle with their first few games against ghost players, because like any army you haven't faced before, they aren't going to know the little tricks and traits that ghosts have the first few times of playing them, but after a few battles, those aspects that made them hard to beat are all too easily countered. We are also an army of 'maybes' in that if we get a 10+ charge it's great, if we can get our mediocre spell casters to cast spells and not have them unbound it's great, if we can get a decent roll on the healing it's great, but there is no certainty to it. You can't plan you battle based on getting those 10+ charges or spells to actually go off, you factor it in, but you can't expect it to happen, and while it is a game of chance with dice, etc..., with ghosts there is very few guarantees that you can make with battleplans, unlike a lot of other factions, were a treelord can sit on an objective and you know that he'll hold it for at least two turns, etc..we have very few things like that that we can rely on as a consistent battle strategy. 

Overall we are not bad as an army, that's why I say we are middle tier. When things go off as they might do, then we wreck face and we wreck face hard, and it's gross and you have to apologise to your opponent for destroying them so brutally, but when things don't go to plan we get steamrolled over all too easily. We are a chancer's army, you have to take much bigger risks playing with ghosts, if it works your laughing, if not the payback is not nice. I think not having summoning hurts and not having that big gribbly that will guarantee you holding an objective for at least 2 turns hurts, the mourngul could fill the gap, but not in it's current state. Our strengths come from our rapid movement and our ability to hit hard and fast, but we also die to a stiff breeze. And it's all these things that keeps me loving playing ghosts, because it's a big challenge, how do you solve the puzzle of building a decent 'all comers' pure ghost army (no allies). we have a really decent toolbox to draw from but it's not the best and I think as all the newer battletomes come out we will see that power creep and we unfortunately will sink a bit further down the standings. But this is just my opinions and others may have different views on our strengths and weaknesses, but their metas may be easier or harder or more stormcast focused, etc...

[Vasshpit]

2 hours ago, Kirjava13 said:

2spoopy4me

Mines on the way!!! Chose to Ebay it and payed a little over double but it was my Bday gift to self. 

[Vasshpit]

@Tropical Ghost General

Great post! On point, I believe. 

I'm converting up some Hexwraiths now to bring them more in line with current look and i know they're not the greatest but why do you think they're bad? 

I keep looking at Harridans and think they may be overly overlooked. I'd like to get some play in with them. 

Also I was thinking about underworlding most of my heros. Keeps them safe and pop them up where they're going to bring the most pain....

[Chainsaw]

I just play this fun monster mash list that I've never won with every game:

 

Lady Olynder

Neferata, Mortarch of Blood

5x Hexwraiths

5x hexwraiths

5x Hexwraiths

Mourngul

Mourngul

Black Coach

[Tropical Ghost General]

1 hour ago, Vasshpit said:

Great post! On point, I believe. 

Thanks @Vasshpit I try and spread my miserable vibes wherever possible ?

So hexwraiths aren't super bad, they have -1 rend, they hit and wound alright, and they are multi wound models, which we lack as an army, (I really think that harridans and blades should be 2 wounds and go up a bit in price to justify the extra longevity), but the hexwraiths are expensive for what they do. They do have the benefit of getting some hero support now, as in AoS 1.0 they were too fast moving for the heroes to keep up. Their special Spectral hunters ability (that makes them expensive) is so situational and can be easily countered with how your opponent places their models, to prevent having the room required to do the move to cause the model wound. It's also a 5+ for each hexwraith rather than a 5+ each model they pass over, which would be a much better version of the ability. They don't get any bonuses to charging either, which is a shame as they can benefit from the special GoS spell to move out of combat and use Spectral hunter, then charge and use it again. If they took a slight point drop or their hunter ability was changed to models crossed then they would be definitely be a consideration to take, but just like with a lot of our other units, points to damage output is just not there. 

I think harridans are good but the Shriek ability only being bravery 6 is pointless. There is very few chances to bravery bomb really well in pure ghosts, but in LoN using Legion of Blood and taking the harridans as allies they can then be really effective. There is a few other ghost powers that rely on your opponent's bravery to be effective, but so much stuff now is bravery 7 or more, which makes there ability pretty redundant most of the time. They are a really good unit at clearing chaff, but then grims can do the same job and do it better. I do think that they have some merit but we don't have any bravery bombing spells. If you take them in a LoN LoB list, then paired with some black knights, a terrorgheist and a wizard to cast overwhelming dread and you get a -3, potentially a -4 to the bravery. That means that the harridans can potentially effect bravery 10 models and the terrorgheist can do it's death Shriek more effectively as well. But we just can't make those sort out combos with bravery bashing work, which is what the harridans could really do with. 

The only thing with underworlding your heroes is that their buffs and abilities aren't being used when they aren't on the table. If they aren't using their buffs then why are they in the army, it's a waste of points. Underworlding or 'rising from the grave' definitely is useful but it's like deep striking in 40k, it's easy to screen against and it forces you to take Cogs to help guarantee those charges are successful. 

[Kirjava13]

23 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

I try and spread my miserable vibes wherever possible

Our very own Mortarch of Grief ? 

[dmorley21]

1 hour ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

I think harridans are good but the Shriek ability only being bravery 6 is pointless. There is very few chances to bravery bomb really well in pure ghosts, but in LoN using Legion of Blood and taking the harridans as allies they can then be really effective. There is a few other ghost powers that rely on your opponent's bravery to be effective, but so much stuff now is bravery 7 or more, which makes there ability pretty redundant most of the time. They are a really good unit at clearing chaff, but then grims can do the same job and do it better. I do think that they have some merit but we don't have any bravery bombing spells. If you take them in a LoN LoB list, then paired with some black knights, a terrorgheist and a wizard to cast overwhelming dread and you get a -3, potentially a -4 to the bravery. That means that the harridans can potentially effect bravery 10 models and the terrorgheist can do it's death Shriek more effectively as well. But we just can't make those sort out combos with bravery bashing work, which is what the harridans could really do with.

You're right about the shriek ability not being really feasible, but I still think they are underrated. They always have 3 attacks, and their attacks can do 2 damage. That's pretty nice. 

However, their battalion abilities are crazy good. Preventing Inspiring Presence and making your opponent re-roll rolls of one in the battle shock phase  along with being able to deep strike and fly makes taking out any specific unit really easy when you consider the amount of damage they can do. I think there's a lot of potential there. 

[Neck-Romantic]

I agree about the battalion, if their shreik wasnt restricted to bravery 6, and the harridan models werent so wacktacular I would probably go for it.

[Tropical Ghost General]

1 hour ago, dmorley21 said:

their battalion abilities are crazy good

I'm inclined to disagree. It's only useful against other horde armies and the points tax in units that you have to take, doesn't make it worth the pay off, as tomb banshees are just bad ? and myrmourns are so squishy that in units of less than 12 they aren't really worth taking. 

I agree that harridans have some merit but when you have to squeeze as much potential from the points available, blades will win hands down everytime ?. 

I am toying with running some harridans with a torment, GoS and a mourngul, let the mourngul give -1 to hit, the banshees potentially make it -2 to hit. Then the torment and GoS is giving re-rolls and +1 to wound. Would make for an expensive but agrivating castle to work your way through. 

[Espy85]

With endless like suffocating and purple sun you could try damage bravery of target for -1 to hit of dreadscythe abilities. The myrmourn is good for dispell,  2×4 is well. Dreadscythe is very good with knight of shrouds command ability, you can play 2x10 and pile in with other unit.

Sorry for english.

[Guardian]

Hexwraiths special rule has so much potential, but its very limited due to it being only in the movement phase.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Espy85 I had forgot about using endless spells to bravery bomb. The jaws would be a better option than the purple sun, as it's a cheaper and more consistent. 

 

[Tropical Ghost General]

So question to everyone.

Looking at the current previews for the new Beasts of Chaos battletome, what are people worried about with this revamped faction?

For me the ability to make up your own battalion from chosen units  and then being able to pick the buffs seems pretty scary, as it could lead to some really frustrating match ups. Also, the marks of chaos and summoning looks like it could be brutal.

They also seem to be able to heal and deepstrike as well, which is pretty gross alongside everything else, and makes me wonder if they are basically going to make those things more of a generic set of abilities for a a lot more factions going forward.

[Kirjava13]

If their units stay as they are, stats-wise, I'm not especially scared. I've fought Brayherd once already and it was my easiest game so far. They die easily, run away a lot and can't get through our spooky ghost armour. I think it'll be a'ight.

[Inferno]

3 hours ago, Guardian said:

Hexwraiths special rule has so much potential, but its very limited due to it being only in the movement phase.

You still can use item which gives + 3" movement. 

[dmorley21]

16 hours ago, Vasshpit said:

 

I keep looking at Harridans and think they may be overly overlooked. I'd like to get some play in with them. 

 

11 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

I agree about the battalion, if their shreik wasnt restricted to bravery 6, and the harridan models werent so wacktacular I would probably go for it.

 

11 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

I'm inclined to disagree. It's only useful against other horde armies and the points tax in units that you have to take, doesn't make it worth the pay off, as tomb banshees are just bad ? and myrmourns are so squishy that in units of less than 12 they aren't really worth taking. 

I agree that harridans have some merit but when you have to squeeze as much potential from the points available, blades will win hands down everytime ?. 

There are numbers earlier in this thread that showed that Harridans without buffs do better than Blades on turns when Blades don't charge. 

As for the models, I don't mind them and definitely don't hate them like others. And I love the fluff for them and the banshees. 

I agree that the battalion tax is a lot. I wish it was 1-2 units of Harridans and Banshees. Right now my plan is 20 and 5 Harridans and 12 and 4 Banshees.

I plan on putting midnight tome on my Tomb Banshee which should make her useful. I also love her for nostalgic reasons when I first started playing in WHFB 6th Edition and my buddies played O&G and Skaven. But still, an 80 pt caster with a shooting attack has uses.

At least I know my Nighthaunt army will probably be a lot different than what I play. 

7 hours ago, Espy85 said:

With endless like suffocating and purple sun you could try damage bravery of target for -1 to hit of dreadscythe abilities. The myrmourn is good for dispell,  2×4 is well. Dreadscythe is very good with knight of shrouds command ability, you can play 2x10 and pile in with other unit.

Sorry for english.

Yeah I plan on using Gravetide in my 2k list. 

3 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@Espy85 I had forgot about using endless spells to bravery bomb. The jaws would be a better option than the purple sun, as it's a cheaper and more consistent. 

 

Do you think Jaws is better than Gravetide?

40 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

So question to everyone.

Looking at the current previews for the new Beasts of Chaos battletome, what are people worried about with this revamped faction?

For me the ability to make up your own battalion from chosen units  and then being able to pick the buffs seems pretty scary, as it could lead to some really frustrating match ups. Also, the marks of chaos and summoning looks like it could be brutal.

They also seem to be able to heal and deepstrike as well, which is pretty gross alongside everything else, and makes me wonder if they are basically going to make those things more of a generic set of abilities for a a lot more factions going forward.

I'm not too worried about them. They've always had deep striking abilities historically, but Nighthaunt can do it much better with fly. Their headstone won't lower our ethereal saves. And while the herdstone can protect them from battle shock, the range on turns 1 and 2 is limited. And their naturally low bravery is a juicy target for Tomb Bamshees.