AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Tropical Ghost General]

I love it when a lot of work goes into a conversion. I think chains would look awesome. 

[Espy85]

I have not been able to find the right chains yet, I'll probably have to buy them in some jewelry stores. Now I'm about to start a new project to make a ghost ship that I will use as a black wagon in the matches of WHFB (With my friends we often do campaigns with the sixth / seventh edition). Then I will start a new Palanquin, because in the campaign path to glory I play the legion of Blood and I want to deploy it as much as possible. Then I want to create a gheist inspired by Pharus Thaum of the new Soulwar, to be used probably either as Mourngul or as Knight of Shrouds, depending on the dimensions.

[Tropical Ghost General]

Yeah jeweller's chain for the win, I'm using it to fix my broken chainghasts. Using superglue to solidify the chains.

[dmorley21]

On 11/7/2018 at 5:08 PM, Tropical Ghost General said:

The harridans also really pulled their weight, a lot more so than I was expecting. I ran them in a unit of 10 as well. Again if they had the support of a torment and were in 15+, they could be a really horrible unit. Having the guaranteed 3 attacks and not needing to have charged to get that bonus attack meant when the unit was still engaged in combat during the opponents turn, they still put out a lot of damage, especially when rolling 6s on the wound rolls. I'm definitely going to invest in some more for future games. They work a lot differently from the blades but can be just as effective, if not more so at times. In my game tonight, they outlasted the 2 units of blades by 2 turns, which is a lot. 

So in summary: The best support unit option for blades and harridans is the torment, the difference in how those units perform with and without that torment support is like day and night.

I felt similar when I played my first games (1k) with a unit of 10 Harridans. They were quite good, and didn't necessarily need support. I wished for Bladegheists at times just because with the ability to retreat and charge I could have taken out support heroes pretty easily had I had them instead, but the Harridans worked well without support.

I do wonder if we focus too much on getting our troops support heroes; when our support heroes are squishy, expensive, and difficult to keep things lined up so they can support anyway.

On 11/8/2018 at 4:54 AM, Tropical Ghost General said:

The other school of thought with myrmourns is in minimum units of 4 and deepstriking in to maybe unbind a spell. It's basically an 80pts gamble to get a +1 to an unbind for a unit that will 100% then die that turn. The average damage from attacks in an unbuffed unit of 4 being 0-2 if you are lucky. I think they excel against other mediocre magic armies, like SCE, but against super magic armies like Tzeentch and LoN, they become so neutered against the greater magic shenanigans.

I'd have no problem taking both a unit of 12 myrmourns and a unit of 4. In my limited experience playing AoS and playing WHFB for years before, the advantage of small units is that they tend to get ignored by opponents, especially if you set them up to be away from objectives and the rest of your army. Opponents don't necessarily want to commit to dealing with them and not dealing with more pressing matters. Maybe that's just the opponents I play though.

On another note...

Let's talk about Glavewraith Stalkers. I've been completely overlooking them as it seems like they're outclassed in almost every way by other units. However, I'm starting to think I was looking at them wrong.

First off, they're a unit that doesn't need support heroes. With a drummer, they can retreat and charge. If they charge or get charged, they get to re-roll their attacks. Quick math, but a unit of 4 then statistically scores 6 hits, 4 wounds. This means each model ought to deal a wound in combat. Now granted, they have no rend so a lot of those wounds will be saved. But, they seem like an ideal unit to hunt down the lesser characters of other armies, which is kind of their point in the fluff. For instance, when I played LoN, they would have excelled at hunting down my opponent's Necromancers and Wight King.

What are people's thoughts on this use for them? I've seen people say they used them to sit on objectives, but has anybody ran them to hero hunt?

[Tropical Ghost General]

3 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

do wonder if we focus too much on getting our troops support heroes;

The only reason for this is how drastically different units perform when supported compared with unsupported. It's frustrating that the buffing units are so squishy, which is why the coven throne is so good. 

3 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

What are people's thoughts on this use for them?

Glaivewraiths suffer from 2 key issues (considering their points cost), speed and rend, which they lack either of. Taken in death stalkers, they are unit tax for the battalion, so they become the key choice for deploying to babysit on objectives  for board control in your own deployment zone and for allowing the grims to underworlds. As a stand alone unit 0 rend can in some cases actually improve the saving throws of units, look at skelebobs with shields, they go from 5+ to 4+ when hit with 0 rend attacks. If a unit gets sn average of 4 attacks through, it's not enough to kill smaller heroes, especially if they are LoN heroes, as they'll have death saves as well. 

In my opinion they work similar to chainghasts, as cheap(ish) objective holders and late game guerilla ambush objective takers if the objective is held by a cheap chaff unit, such as skinks. I had a unit of 8 miraculously kill 5 black knights in a single round of combat, but it was such lucky dice rolls on my part and horrendous saving throws on my opponent's part. 

I honestly believe that small heroes assassins for us is either Lady O, or 5 blades or 5 harridans. 

[dmorley21]

4 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

I honestly believe that small heroes assassins for us is either Lady O, or 5 blades or 5 harridans. 

I'm reminded of a quote from Amy Tan's short story, "Rules of the Game." The quote is, "Strongest wind cannot be seen."

I bring this up because a) I'm a teacher, and b) I feel like Lady Olynder is a terrible smell hero assassin because she's such a presence. I know that if I was facing an army that featured Lady O, I'd make her a target. Meanwhile, if I was facing an army with two units of 4 Glavewraith Stalkers, I'd probably just ignore them until they got in my way.

You have some merit about the Harridans and Bladegheists. However, that's also 30 more points for one more trooper.

Granted, they're still not the greatest; but maybe they do have a use.

[MrRoff]

Don't wanna interrupt here but I have another noob question:

Does: Nightmare Lantern: Add 1 to the wound rolls for melee weapons wielded by friendly NIGHTHAUNT models that are within 9" of this model. Stack if you have 2 Guardian of souls? 

Googled but didn't find an answer 

Thank you ❤️

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by MrRoff

[mrbedlam]

pretty sure two instances of the same ability don't stack

[MrRoff]

Pretty sure, or totalt sure? 

Just wanna know for sure! 

[Binkbinkplx]

3 hours ago, MrRoff said:

Don't wanna interrupt here but I have another noob question:

Does: Nightmare Lantern: Add 1 to the wound rolls for melee weapons wielded by friendly NIGHTHAUNT models that are within 9" of this model. Stack if you have 2 Guardian of souls? 

Googled but didn't find an answer 

Thank you ❤️

 

It does stack for each Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lanterns you have wholly within 12” of  the unit. Not sure where you got the within 9” tho? Must be old.

[MrRoff]

6 hours ago, Binkbinkplx said:

It does stack for each Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lanterns you have wholly within 12” of  the unit. Not sure where you got the within 9” tho? Must be old.

Oh, really? That's good to know! 

Yeah I just noticed that they've changed it to 12" on the aos app, I just copied it from battlescribe 

[Spears]

On 11/5/2018 at 8:02 PM, Tropical Ghost General said:

He's so good. I'm at a stage where I might have to break my purest roots and start bring in allies. 

Yeah I wasn't a fan of the skeletal look so did a quick conversion to make him fit the asthetic.

 

36 minutes ago, MrRoff said:

Oh, really? That's good to know! 

Yeah I just noticed that they've changed it to 12" on the aos app, I just copied it from battlescribe 

I think the soul wars cards and the online ones are wrong for the Guardian of souls buff and spell range, also the executioners wound ability.

[MrRoff]

But you should trust the Warhammer AoS app right? 

[Tropical Ghost General]

11 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

I feel like Lady Olynder is a terrible smell hero assassin

Fully agree that she is big presence, but she can dish out 2x3d6 mortal wounds in a turn, with 1d6 once per game.. Most armies don't have mortal wound saves as well. None of those mortal wound attacks are susceptible to look out sir either. Now I am not a massive fan of Lady O, she's way too expensive in points and way too squishy, but she really is an assassin character more than anyone else in our army, as she needs no hero support, can be deployed within range for her shooting and has a small enough base size (compared to a small unit) that she can worm her way into range for small character sniping. If you want a 7 wound or less hero dead, and s guaranteed dead, she's the lady to do it. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

31 minutes ago, Spears said:

Yeah I wasn't a fan of the skeletal look so did a quick conversion to make him fit the asthetic.

Really good conversion. Big fan

[Vasshpit]

@Spears

Fantastic work! You got a blog or anything?

[dmorley21]

11 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

Fully agree that she is big presence, but she can dish out 2x3d6 mortal wounds in a turn, with 1d6 once per game.. Most armies don't have mortal wound saves as well. None of those mortal wound attacks are susceptible to look out sir either. Now I am not a massive fan of Lady O, she's way too expensive in points and way too squishy, but she really is an assassin character more than anyone else in our army, as she needs no hero support, can be deployed within range for her shooting and has a small enough base size (compared to a small unit) that she can worm her way into range for small character sniping. If you want a 7 wound or less hero dead, and s guaranteed dead, she's the lady to do it. 

You make very valid points. Maybe I'll purchase her one day... after I finish having a playable 2k list. I wish she was in a battalion.

And on that note...

I'm not sure how Errata/FAQ's typically work, but come December, we'll be halfway through this season of AoS. So a bit of wish listing, but if they were to make a few small, realistic tweaks for Nighthaunt, what would you all like to see? Here's mine:

• Make it so Shroudguard gives the hero the 4+/5+ as well. Pretty self explanatory... after all the Blades are supposed to be guarding the hero.
• Make the Black Coach a Leader. This would be a game changer, and make the model go from rarely used to frequently used IMO. It would be our most durable character, a solid choice for general, and would be something that could really take advantage of some artefacts that our army can't take advantage of currently.
• Make Deathmages allies. This makes sense for fluff reasons - and the Mortis Engine really looks like it ought to be Nighthaunt. Both Necromancers and the Mortis Engine would be useful allies.

I think those three changes are all reasonable and would all be boons for the army. What are everybody else's thoughts?

[Kurrilino]

15 hours ago, MrRoff said:

Oh, really? That's good to know! 

Yeah I just noticed that they've changed it to 12" on the aos app, I just copied it from battlescribe 

Don't listen to people.

Modifiers don't stack  if created by same source. You can have 294 lanterns but just get it off 1 x

[MrRoff]

13 minutes ago, Kurrilino said:

Don't listen to people.

Modifiers don't stack  if created by same source. You can have 294 lanterns but just get it off 1 x

Sigh... 

Does someone have a rule quote from this? 

Is it also Tru you can't cast the same named spell from different casters? 

[Binkbinkplx]

30 minutes ago, Kurrilino said:

Don't listen to people.

Modifiers don't stack  if created by same source. You can have 294 lanterns but just get it off 1 x

Its not from the same source, its from  different Guardian of Souls, the ability specifically reads "Add 1 to wound rolls for attacks made with melee weapons used by friendly Nighthaunt units that are wholly within 12" OF THIS MODEL. that means if a unit is wholly within 12" of multiple models, then it benefits from +1 Wound for each unique Guardian of Souls. 

If it say that models wholly within 12" of "A" nightmare lantern get +1 Wound, then it wouldn't matter how many lanterns, it would be just +1 Wound

 

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Binkbinkplx
Example of only 1

[Binkbinkplx]

20 minutes ago, MrRoff said:

Is it also Tru you can't cast the same named spell from different casters? 

Quoted directly from rules:  A WIZARD can attempt to cast spells in its own hero phase. You cannot attempt to cast the same spell more than once in the same turn (even with a different model).

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Binkbinkplx
Spelling

[Tropical Ghost General]

12 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

What are everybody else's thoughts?

Yes to hero in shroudguard getting 5+.

Yes to Black Coach getting the hero keyword. 

No to deathmages. Necromancers and grims are too strong, as shown via LoN grim spam recently. As much as I'd love it to happen but I don't think changing/adding allies will help to address our issues. 

Yes to named characters, especially Lady O having a 3+ ethereal save. 

Yes to changing Terrifying Entity command trait to use 2d6 rather than 1d6.

Yes to changing our endless spell, mortalis terminexus being able to revive as well as heal d3. 

Yes to hexwraiths getting a 20pt decrease.

Yes to having some form of bravery debuff, maybe from one of our endless spells. 

Yes to battalions having 2-3 with unit choices. 

Do I honestly believe we'll see any changes in the next AoS FAQ to bedsheets other than grims getting a points increase and losing their horde bonus, no I do not. As the models are part of the new core set, there will always be players of spooks, so a low player count will never happen enough to cause need for any changes to our book. The only way will see any changes is when all the other 'out of date' factions have their new battletomes and spooks get less and less representation at major tournaments. Only when GW see the low meta attendance at tournaments from one of their 2 core armies will we (maybe) see GW rules team take any steps to patch the holes in the book. To summarise, to get more attention from GW you need a community wide protest of refusing to use the army, but the book isn't in that bad a state to warrant such extreme action and also it would be impossible to make such a well orchestrated action take place ?. 

Edited November 12, 2018 by Tropical Ghost General

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Binkbinkplx is right with regards to the GoS @MrRoff and @Kurrilino. The GoS gives +1 to wound for models within 12" of itself, not 12" of the lantern. But as lots of our units already wound on 3s and 1s always fail, having a +2 (or more) to wound is a waste.

He's also correct that in matched play you can only cast spells once per turn, regardless of how msny wizards you have with the same spells. 

[Vasshpit]

Chiming in with a vote for: changing the foot KoS +1 to hit from a command to an aura. 

Didnt it use to be that?... O_o

[Espy85]

Hi guys. as I said on Sunday I played against tzeentch, and it went wrong, not because of the magic, however. it was played in ulgu with the spell cast at 6 inches. I deployed 3x10 chainrasp 2x20 bladegheist 1x8 myrmourn 2x4 chainghast, reikanor 2 guardian and 1 general kos.
he deployed 2x9 enlightened, 2x10 tzangor 1x10 horrors, 1 tzangor shaman 1 ogroid and a summoner.
in the first round assault the two units of enlightened with the bladegheist and a unit of chainghast, I suffer a resounding massacre. I lose both the chainghast that a unit of bladegheist, the other I save only 5. at this point only thanks to the movement I can keep the game alive until the end of the third round, where I am below 2 objective points, but in the 4th without more units on the table my opponent stretches by 8 points and the game ends.
the problems are those, always those, little resistance and low damage output. without the wave of terror bonus we do not hurt a fly, let alone 4-wounded monsters. in the first charge I did 20 injuries, I killed 4 enlightened, the remaining 5 in the counterattack destroyed the whole unit. we hope in the faq, only they can save us.
I hope there will be a way to change the result of wave of terror, or lower it to an 8+, provided that 10+ is not possible. would serve a second save to 5+ or 6+ independent of Heroes. and the black coach hero, ed need a black coach hero.