AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Gwendar try taking one unit of SH to 3, then take a Lord Ex and the executioner battalion. Less drops.

SHs are tough but they don't do enough damage output. The mourngul is OK, he's not great, 20 grims would give you a better option at getting some damage into the list, as you gen need a few key things in any list, objective holders, objective takers and killy units. 

[Gwendar]

@Tropical Ghost General Good idea, hadn't thought of that.

True, I guess after the investment I made into NH a few months before the drop, I just didn't want to add more to my collection. Not to mention I have no desire to run another horde/semi horde army. I may consider proxying 2x20 reapers to see how they do. As for the Mourngul, I realize a Black Coach would be a better investment, especially when you consider the healing it can put out, but frankly I didn't care for the model..far too obnoxious/too much going on for me with the over-extension past the base. Hoping the Mourngul does well enough as a 300 point distraction at the very least.

[Kirjava13]

I had a 1500 point game against Daughters of Khaine today, got beaten but after starting out badly I managed to at least pull out a respectable performance. I had:

Olynder, Reikenor, Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed, Guardian of Souls, Spirit Torment, 20xChainrasps, 20xGrimghast Reapers, 10xBladegheist Revenants, Chronomantic Cogs.

He had:

Morathi, Hag, Medusa, 2x5 Blood Sisters, 2x5 Blood Stalkers (Temple Nest), 10x Wychelves.

I agreed to playing some weird thing where we scored a VP for every five wounds we did per phase, plus the three objectives. We also ended up playing in Chamon, and the realm feature royally buggered me as we got the one that meant no weapon had any Rend. No skin off his nose, as Nighthaunt are immune to rend, but really bad for me as he was still getting saves on his girls, who with the Fanatical Faith rolls turned out to be annoyingly hard to kill.

Olynder got magicked to death by Morathi in the first turn, and I very quickly spiralled into depression. Reikenor with the Chronomantic Cogs pulled me out of that a bit though- getting extra uses out of his corpse candles is amazing, and if I can put him on a Balewind Vortex in future in addition I absolutely will. If my mate had been less absurdly lucky with his dice the Blood Sisters would have suffered tremendously.

Knight of Shrouds rolled appallingly, and spent three turns killing the Hag, while Reikenor at least had the decency to cut the Medusa down before he was also killed by Morathi. The Bladegheist Revenants appeared from the underworlds in his backlines and, over two rounds of combat, killed all his Blood Stalkers before they were killed by- yeah, you guessed it- Morathi. The Grimghast Reapers disposed of the Wychelves and a unit of Blood Sisters, but in the end, deprived of their buffs and support, they too went down. 

By the end of his turn 4, I was annihilated and he had lost everything bar Morathi and a unit of Blood Sisters. I (re)learned a few more things:

- buffs, buffs, buffs. Nighthaunt need the Spirit Torment and the Guardian of Souls so much, I find it hard to imagine a list without both those heroes. But they have to stick to who they're supporting- my Spirit Torment started out with the Reapers, then I realised he absolutely wasn't needed there and he had to float over to the centre, resulting in one turn where nobody benefited from his reroll 1s.

- Bladegheists are the kings. With a little support they can dish out so much punishment, and that ability to retreat and charge is so good.

- big units are essential. The Grimghasts were able to take a bit of a beating and still dish out a lot of damage- I have to get the last ten done!

- I think I'm owed a few more sixes at this point.

- I really don't know how to deal with Morathi, and Temple Nest is absolutely horrible to fight against.

 

[Neck-Romantic]

I find the mourn is great as a melee support, sticking alongside grims or blades, but not so great on his own. 

The troops benefit from the protective -1 enemy hit, and blades can bail from the combat and leave a (assumably) badly mauled enemy squad for the Mourn to finish off.

And Mourn + Oly = -2 to hit as well

Edited September 28, 2018 by Neck-Romantic

[kenshin620]

Random question, anyone try to fit Kurdoss on a Mortis Engine/Coven Throne (obviously without the big blood bowl!)? I think he would look cool on it, but is his throne too big for the engine?

[Tropical Ghost General]

7 hours ago, Kirjava13 said:

realm feature royally ******ed me

That match up sounded squiffy. Realms are great but realmscapes are generally a bit broken, they put the game so much in favour of one side that it's takes alot of balance out of the game. The realm artefacts, spells and some of the command abilities are worth using, but in the future I'd avoid the realmscape features. 

That sucks about the lose. DoK are really good at the moment. Adding in endless spells like the pendulum or the jaws that does guaranteed mortal wounds is a good way to whittle down morathi. I got smash by a DoK list recently (1st time playing then) and pendulum got morathi down to 3 wounds before she transformed, so she only had 6 after transforming. That alone helped out loads. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

6 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

I find the mourn is great as a melee support

I took the my mourngul out in two games against lizards and LoS. In the game against lizards he did 8 mortal wounds on a stegadon and that was it. In the game against LoS, he killed 4 skeles, as he got targeted by my opponent with super debuffs, at one point he had -1 attack, -1 bravery, -1 on hit rolls, half movement, 1 dice to charge. They are OK but if your opponent knows what they do they are so easy to neuter. I've taken him out of my list now and have used the 300pts to increase my 2 units of grims from 20 to 30 and to add a GoS. It's been way more effective already, I wish it wasn't because I love the mourngul ?. 

[Neck-Romantic]

Well the offensive power of a mourn is against heavy infantry/cavalry. He cant heal in a behemoth vs behemoth slugfest, his role is as an oppresive predator that restricts the enemy's ability to hit back while MWing through medium/heavy saves IMHO

[Tropical Ghost General]

So what does everyone think the special 500th store model will be, that is available on the 20th October? 

The community article clearly shows a ghost image next to a space marine one, and says they'll be an AoS and a 40k special release. 

So is the AoS model going to be a ghost one? And a new unknown one? 

Or are the AoS and 40k models just going to be the new anniversary models? (which is also good because I have to wait until April before my local GW store birthday) 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/28/28th-sept-our-500th-store-the-openinggw-homepage-post-3/

[Neck-Romantic]

No GW stores in Alaska so I almost hope it isnt amazing; Ebay scalp prices on the GoS are nuts already..

That having been said: I'm betting an alternate Cairn Wraith if its Nighthaunt

Edited September 29, 2018 by Neck-Romantic

[Vasshpit]

I'd like to see an alternate Knight of Shrouds with a different weapons loudout and skill.

Sword and board or polearm perhaps. Two handed chain mace even.

Edit: maybe a mounted Guardian of Souls.

Editx2: what if its an updated Foot Vampire Lord to showcase where they're heading, design wise, in the future. O_O

Edited September 30, 2018 by Vasshpit

[Gwendar]

Report from todays 1500pt game against Tzeentch (no pictures unfortunately). No objectives as he was learning his army a bit (as was I) and just wanted to slug it out. Let me know how I can improve on typing up these reports as I feel like I could shorten them to make them more enjoyable to read:

My list
Allegiance: Nighthaunt
Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief (240)
- General
- Lore of the Underworlds: Lifestealer
Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)
- Lore of the Underworlds: Soul Cage
- Infernal Lantern (Artefact): Beacon of Nagashizzar
Lord Executioner (80)
- Artefact: Midnight Tome 
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
3 x Spirit Hosts (120)
Mourngul (300)
Execution Horde (100)

His list
Allegiance: Tzeentch
Kairos Fateweaver (380)
- General
Herald Of Tzeentch On Disc (140)
- Staff of Change
Daemon Prince Of Tzeentch (160)
Unamed Wizard (He may have gone over 1500?)
10 x Pink Horrors Of Tzeentch (200)
10 x Pink Horrors Of Tzeentch (200)
10 x Pink Horrors Of Tzeentch (200)
Chronomantic Cogs (60)
Balewind Vortex (40)

1st BR
He goes first, proceeds to do typical Tzeentch thing and cast a bunch of spells without targeting to generate fate points and then move everything up and that was about it.

My turn, I mystic shield 6 Spirit Hosts in front of Olynder and GoS, Executioner casts Reaping Scythe which was a mistake since he wouldn't be getting into combat that turn anyway, so I gave him a free fate point. I bring out my Mourngul in his backline and then proceeded to get 2 10+ charges with the Mourngul into a unit of Pinks and the other 6 Spirit Hosts on the left into another unit of Pinks+His herald (where they would be the entire game due to only ever killing all but 1 horror every combat phase). Mourngul killed all but 2-3 Pinks in charge phase combat, no damage was taken thanks to that wonderful -1 to hit from the Mourngul and the fact Pinks hit like wet noodles anyway. He uses destiny dice to auto-pass battleshock on both Pink units and bring more back.

2nd BR
He wins priority, only gets ~3-4 spells off that I failed to unbind and fails the rest. He retreats his Herald back to where the unnamed wizard is behind a unit of 10 pinks, and then summons 10 Blue in front of my 6 Hosts in middle. Blues + Pinks shoot and kill 1 host in middle unit, all of his other shooting was directed at the Mourngul/Left side Host unit who took no damage. Charges his Daemon Prince into those 5 Hosts w/ Olynder & GoS behind them and decides to charge Kairos and another Pink unit into the Mourngul. Daemon Prince actually does decently and kill off 1 another host and puts a wound on another. I decide to swing back with the Mourngul into Kairos and take him down to 8 wounds and hits back to bring my Mourngul down to 6 wounds. His Pinks do a whole bunch of nothing while my 4 Hosts unit brings the Daemon prince down to ~4 wounds left. More fate dice shenanigans to replenish Pinks.

My turn, I lift the veil on his Daemon Prince and finish it off with 5 MW's. Shield + Reaping Scythe are re-cast and I spend 2 CP to bring back both dead Spirit Hosts to the middle unit and heal the other with GoS. I move everything into charge range and bring my unit of 3 Hosts in the back to charge the unnamed wizard + herald on disc, which they do with another 11 and put a couple of wounds on the Herald and Mystery wizard. Executioner charges into Pinks and piles in to be in range of Kairos. For combat, Mourngul swings at Kairos again doing no MW's and bringing him down to 3, Kairos swings back while being at -2 to hit thanks to Executioner debuff + Mourngul and takes the Mourngul down to 3 since I began to only roll 3's to save for the rest of the game. Lord Executioner finishes off Kairos and the 3 Hosts unit finishes off the Mystery Wizard + Herald on disc, leaving him with no Heros left to summon...speaking of...

3rd BR
I win the roll off, but I notice that he rolled another 9 destiny dice, which I called him out for but he said Tzeentch re-rolls a fresh set of 9 dice every turn which I knew was not the case. I knew he had already lost at this point so I went with it, but I definitely should've pressed the issue further so it doesn't happen to anyone in the future. He was also under the impression cogs gave +1 spell cast to EVERY wizard, rather than just the one that manipulates the cogs, but luckily he didn't do this the entire game anyway. Anyway, he tried to summon in more, which I told him only hero's could do as he was under the impression that any Wizard (thusly, the Pinks) could summon. Once he checked his GHB to see that only Heros could summon, he knew he had lost but decided to finish up this round.

The rest is pretty self-explanatory as the Hosts and Mourngul finish off the Pinks and Blues and he calls it at the end of my turn.


End thoughts
Overall, it was a fun game despite no objectives. I printed off a few color coded cheat sheets to use to remember all of the auras, allegiance abilities etc, but found that I still forgot to look at them from time to time and forgot some rules, like the Host unit in the middle getting the +1 to wound from the GoS. My opponent is a great dude and really look forward to playing him again, but he may want to read up a bit more on all the rules beforehand for Tzeentch. He's mainly an IJ player, so all of the stuff going on with Tzeentch was a little overwhelming I think and some rules were unintentionally misread, especially when he hasn't played much AoS lately, especially 2nd edition so I knew he wasn't attempting to cheat or anything.

I enjoy this playstyle of Nighthaunt, but I think I will need a few more games to see how they perform against other lists, and my 2k list has a bit more healing in it as well. The Mourngul did his job exceptionally well as a distraction and managed to almost kill his most expensive model, so that was worth it to me, but I really think people underestimate the Hosts. Would units of 20-30 Reaper blenders be killier? Definitely, but I enjoy the endless healing aspect, assuming I can keep my Heros alive. Had he actually been able to get some spells off, things could have went a little differently for him.

[Tropical Ghost General]

4 hours ago, Gwendar said:

. Would units of 20-30 Reaper blenders be killier? 

In short, yes. 

Nice report, it's my belief that the more battle reviews we have from players, the more we can learn as a group.

If you're going to start with writing them up then have a look at how others are done. There are a lot out there and unless you play one of the factions featured in the report they are normally not that interesting. So study up but definitely give it a go, photos are a must as well. I started doing my own with ghosts back in 1.0, but due to not having everything painted I stopped, will probably start again when I get my current force painted/nearly painted. If you want I can link the one report I did to give you some ideas for doing your own stuff. 

Tzeentch are a janky army to play against and I've only played one player who has played them correctly and he's a friend as well. If some odd stuff happens in games against Tzeentch I also double check with my mate and it usually turns out that my Tzeentch opponent wasn't just playing them wrong, but was playing them really wrong ?. If in doubt call it out. I had a local 1k tournament, 4 games in a day, where I suffered some janky play by a lizards player in game 3, I thought it was wrong, but didn't want to be 'that guy' calling it out. Because of losing that game I placed 10th out of 12, had I won I would have placed at least 5th, maybe higher as it was Swiss pairings, It takes a while to fully learn an army and all it's units off by heart and we all make mistakes.

If you can, try and get that list to go against another faction with fnp saves, such as nurgle or LoN. It would also be worth testing it against a more combat focused list, like Khorne, deepkin or DoK. As the list works on staying power and against Tzeentch we can out combat them fairly easily, we just suffer to the magic onslaught. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

9 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

No GW stores in Alaska 

I'm going to grab a lot (if possible). Am happy to send one across the pond if need be (no scalp cost). 

 

5 hours ago, Vasshpit said:

maybe a mounted Guardian of Souls.

10000000x awesome if that was the case. 

[Neck-Romantic]

I would love a sword and board since we have no shield weilding units yet, rerolling ethereal save anyone?

[Tropical Ghost General]

Re-roll save, give him midnight tome, cast cogs and slow it down. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

But it would be good to have a version that didn't require that combo just to do it

[Neck-Romantic]

Right. You can make an Executioner really tanky; tome+shademist, cogs. Reroll save at -1 hit -1 wound 5++

Edited September 30, 2018 by Neck-Romantic

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Neck-Romantic especially if you stick him in the executioner horde battalion as well. 

[Neck-Romantic]

I would actually be surprised if the 500 store model was NH, as we just got the AoS 2.0 box set AND a Shadespire band... but Im all for it if we do

Could be a sculpt that didnt quite make the cut for the release but they had a limited mould made or something.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Neck-Romantic

[Tropical Ghost General]

If it wasn't for that image on the community post I'd have said SC without a doubt, but I'm remaining ever hopeful ?

[Gwendar]

7 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

In short, yes. 

Nice report, it's my belief that the more battle reviews we have from players, the more we can learn as a group.

If you're going to start with writing them up then have a look at how others are done. There are a lot out there and unless you play one of the factions featured in the report they are normally not that interesting. So study up but definitely give it a go, photos are a must as well. I started doing my own with ghosts back in 1.0, but due to not having everything painted I stopped, will probably start again when I get my current force painted/nearly painted. If you want I can link the one report I did to give you some ideas for doing your own stuff. 

Tzeentch are a janky army to play against and I've only played one player who has played them correctly and he's a friend as well. If some odd stuff happens in games against Tzeentch I also double check with my mate and it usually turns out that my Tzeentch opponent wasn't just playing them wrong, but was playing them really wrong ?. If in doubt call it out. I had a local 1k tournament, 4 games in a day, where I suffered some janky play by a lizards player in game 3, I thought it was wrong, but didn't want to be 'that guy' calling it out. Because of losing that game I placed 10th out of 12, had I won I would have placed at least 5th, maybe higher as it was Swiss pairings, It takes a while to fully learn an army and all it's units off by heart and we all make mistakes.

If you can, try and get that list to go against another faction with fnp saves, such as nurgle or LoN. It would also be worth testing it against a more combat focused list, like Khorne, deepkin or DoK. As the list works on staying power and against Tzeentch we can out combat them fairly easily, we just suffer to the magic onslaught. 

Right, that was more of a redundant question than an actual one, that's why I followed it up with a "definitely". I may try bringing a proxy group of 20 next time for my 2k list by dropping a chainghast and spirit host unit, I really think that would solve my 'no-hammer-for-the-anvil' situation.

But thanks! I typically do photos, I just completely forgot to bring my work phone that I take pictures with. I wouldn't mind reading up your old report though, I tend to ramble with my reports so I'm trying to clean them up with each new one that I do. Some of my Skaven ones are just ridiculous.

I play another guy that uses Tzeentch pretty often, although I typically use my Skryre army in doing so. But he has a solid grip on his rules, so that's why I knew this guy was doing things very, very wrong. I feel the same about not wanting to be 'that guy' especially when we were having a good time regardless. The local AoS scene is nowhere near the 40k scene (as usual) so I take whatever games/players I can get and try not to scare any off, which unfortunately has also caused me to hold back in my competitiveness which is not good preparation for tournaments that I plan to attend in the future.

There is a FLGS tournament at the end of every month, so I will possibly be bringing them to the one in October or November, and we have a DoK player so that will be an interesting matchup. Thanks for the help!

[Espy85]

Olynder 240

Tomb Banshee 80

Knight of Shrouds 120

Guardian of Souls 140

Hexwraith 160

Hexwraith 160

Chainrasp 80

Dreadscythe 320

Dreadscythe 180

Myrmourn 80

Myrmourn 80

Chainghast 80

Shrieker Host 140

Soulsnare Shackless 20

Suffocating Gravetide 30

1PC extra. 1990 pti

We try again, despite what I think of the army, but I'm stubborn and until I find a way to play do not give up.

The idea is to focus on the shrieker host going down where it is needed.

On the field I will field the two of Hexwraith, the chainghast, the KoS, the guardian and the Tomb Banshee, this last will be general with the stroke to recover d3 models. OLynder and the rest of the shrieker goes in aip.

The list tries to be malleable, the chainghast will have to deal with the most numerous units, exploiting the d3 ranged attacks and the possibility of doing even six or seven attacks in close combat, the banshee within 6 "then it should ensure a test of The two other heroes will share the hexwaraith units that are going to take the targets, with the dreadscythe from 10 ready to come to the aid of one of the two Olynder will be surrounded by Myrmourn and will fall into the opponent's territory to have suffered 4 dispell, but above all to use his spell on an opposing unit and hurl himself against the last unit of dreadscythe from 20 that would hit and wound at 3, with -1 of rend and double damage possible in case of 6 to hurt, I will also bet on the endless to slow down the opponent and lower the bravery opponent again, to keep the dreadscythe protected, which in that case would cause a -1 to hit.

[Luke1705]

How have people been finding the bladegheist revenants? I really like the fall back and charge, but I wonder if only 1” reach with 32mm bases has been tough to deal with

[Neck-Romantic]

@Luke1705

Excited to get a game in with mine; just finished 2 10x and Reikenor