AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Qrow]

For those that have tried them, what have you had more fun with: the executioners horde or deathriders battalions? 

Additionally, what artifact and/or command traits are you giving the lord executioner in the executioners horde? I am considering either the blade of judgement or blade of endings to make him more killy.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Qrow

[Evil Bob]

No experience on the Executioner Horde but I’d imagine making him the General with Ruler of the Spirit Hosts might be a thing.

Death Riders is a mobile anvil.  Try to get to an objective first or tie up someone you don’t want charging you first.  Yes GW went there.

[Tropical Ghost General]

Execution Horde is amazing. 

My current tournament list for this year is built around making the ultimate tarpit. The formula is:

Dreadblade (or other model) General with Ruler of the Spirit Hosts, Lord Executioner, 9 x SHs, 3 x SHs, 3 x SHs. Use the extra relic from the battalion to give the Lord Ex the Gryph-feather Charm relic from the realm of Ghur. This makes him an additional -1 to hit. Use the big blob of 9 SHs to tag along behind the Lord Ex, never engaging, just keeping at least one or two within 3". The Lord Ex tags on the very corner of a big killy unit or big monster. With the bonuses from the Executioner Horde battalion, Gryph-feather Charm and 'Look Out Sir', the Lord Ex is -3 to shooting, -3 for heroes in combat and -2 for regular units in combat. 

As most rerolls happen after modifiers, if a unit normally hits on 3+, with the -2 to hit modifier, 3s and 4s hit but don't count to successes and can't be re-rolled. So the unit hits on 5s and only reroll the 1s and 2s.

Add into the mix the fact that the Lord Ex has a 4+ ethereal, a 5+ to mortals and a 6+ death save. If you are playing with the dangerous terrain rules (which is pretty standard) on mystical terrain you'll have another 6+ shrug on top of everything else. 

In a recent game against DoK, 30 fully buffed witches (in turn 3, so rerolling hits and wounds), it took an orgy of slaughter and 2 and a bit rounds of combat to kill the 5 wound hero!!!!!

Most opponents will not want to properly pile into the Lord Ex for fear of also tagging in the 9 SHs. Any SHs that die can get revived by the general with RotSH ability. So your opponent has to choose between retreating, being stuck for multiple turns trying to take out the Lord Ex or tag in all the SHs as well. 

The other 2 x 3 SHs can be used for backfield objective holding/screening, etc... Having less than 9 SHs helping the Lord Ex is too fragile to getting taken out before reviving enough models back. 

The whole set up for the Lord Ex, 9 SHs, 2 x 3 SHs and the battalion is 880pts. It fulfills the 3 battleline requirement. SHs aren't very good at killing but are tough to get through. This ultimate tarpit formula held up DoK for 2 whole turns and they can normally mince through anything. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

Death Riders is great if all of the units weren't massively overcosted. Rumours are that we can expect to see 20% points drops across the board, maybe more. 

Hexwraiths need to be in units of 10 minimum, ideally in 15. To do a single dreadblade, black coach and 2 x 10 hexwraiths with the battalion is 1150pts. You don't have your 3 battleline or any wizards in that either. If you run the hexs in 15s it's 1470. It's waaaaay to expensive for fast units that can't quite punch hard enough to auto-delete units, even with a 9+ WoT. 

Basically as soon as we see points drops you can expect to see Death Riders being used as the building blocks for most lists because it's got so much potential, especially if you give the dreadblade 'pendant of the fell wind', take GoS with mortality glass and cast cogs. Hexwraiths with 12"+3"+6"+2" (23") move with a +3" to the charge, getting WoT on 9+. Or a 2nd level black coach with a 14"+3"+6"+2"+d6" (25"+d6") move with a +3" charge, getting WoT on 9+.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Tropical Ghost General

[Tropical Ghost General]

So in an attempt to keep things active, let's create 2 discussion points, 1 hypothetical and 1 tactical. 

Hypothetical: Forbidden Power seems like an update for DEATH in general. What are we all hoping for? Personally I'm hoping for a decent buff and debuff endless spell that we can use and a source of reviving. 

Tactical: Total Commitment (the one with no reserves), how much does this change your general battle plans? And what do you do to compensate? Personally it messes up my normal plan of action big time. I end up playing a very defensive game early on, sacrificing chaff to get points early and then use our flying and speed to be super aggressive from turn 3 onwards. 

[Qrow]

40 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

So in an attempt to keep things active, let's create 2 discussion points, 1 hypothetical and 1 tactical. 

Hypothetical: Forbidden Power seems like an update for DEATH in general. What are we all hoping for? Personally I'm hoping for a decent buff and debuff endless spell that we can use and a source of reviving. 

Tactical: Total Commitment (the one with no reserves), how much does this change your general battle plans? And what do you do to compensate? Personally it messes up my normal plan of action big time. I end up playing a very defensive game early on, sacrificing chaff to get points early and then use our flying and speed to be super aggressive from turn 3 onwards. 

Tactical: I love and almost always include a dreadblade harrow in my lists, usually as the general. So I find that using his teleport and then spectral summons to bring along a unit makes my list more flexible than others in total commitment. Then again, I feel that I underutilize reserves, so my normal plan does not rely on it too heavily.

 

Hypothetical: more revival would be great, though my other club members would disagree. My hope would be some way to protect out heroes, especially named ones. My main bane are lightning cannons and other things that don't role to hit, since the skaven update I have found it impossible to use Olynder or Kurdoss properly. Maybe something that lowers the range of weapons, like an AoE that reduces range if you shoot through it.

Edited April 22, 2019 by Qrow

[Greasygeek]

On forbidden powers. Though I have seen the death looking spells or whatsnot I don’t get why death in general needs an update?

 

[Qrow]

Also, thanks for the opinions on the executioners horde and deathriders battalions. I ended up going with deathriders for two reasons; executioners horde only benefits the one model which would be sniped by mortal wounds in my meta, and I love hexwaiths and want them to be good. Hopefully they do receive a buff or cost reduction in the generals handbook 2019, when is the years GH expected to arrive?

Additionally, what would be better for deathriders, two squads of 10 hexwraiths or one squad of 15 and one of 5?

Edited April 22, 2019 by Qrow

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Greasygeek Death isn't in need of a massive update, but the main book, LoN, was released prior to AoS 2.0, so while it s still doing well at tournaments it isn't without some big flaws. None of the units really got updates to the warscrolls, and since it was released we have faction specific terrain pieces and spells which they haven't had yet. GW don't tend to go back on themselves, so they will never admit that the ghost spells are awful, so as the current narrative for Soul Wars is still focused around our Lord and Saviour, Nagash, it is probably a way of giving Death some extra bonuses so they don;t have to worry about doing faction specific spells or terrain.

[Tropical Ghost General]

1 hour ago, Qrow said:

when is the years GH expected to arrive?

It's around late June/early August time.

Tactical: Dreadblade as a general is a must. I'm struggling to see why you would take anything else at the moment when we have the ability to draw multiple units towards where the general is.

Hypothetical: Revival would be a game changer for us. It's why ghosts do better in LoN, due to the reviving. I've given up taking large units due to the lack of guaranteed healing and the CP required to stop the larger units running from battleshock. Also agree a way to give our heroes some more staying power would be nice.

On the Death Riders, basically you want both units to stay alive as long as possible. Giving the dreadblade general RotSH command trait, teamed up with the  black coach will help a lot to keep reviving dead models. Units of 5: Pros - Smaller size means no battleshock and can get into tighter areas when attacking. Cons - Will die very quickly and lack enough punch to delete targets. Units of 10: Pros - Will be really unlikely to succumb to battleshock, Can tie up most things and survive a round or two of combat. Cons: Will still die if attacked by a big nasty, may struggle to get each fighter into range to attack. Units of 15: Pros - "What is dead may never die" basically they will survive a long time with the BC and the general reviving models. They should be able to mince through large blobs of hordes. Cons - They are going to be a big target. You'll need to keep CP spare for battleshock. Not every fighter is going to be able to get into range. 15 hexwraiths is a large footprint on the board.  Summary: If it was me I'd run a blob of 15  and a blob of 5 and see how they fair in the game. You'll be able to gauge whether you need to bulk up or trim down the units more quickly by taking the two extreme options rather than going in the middle.

You really should try the Lord Ex blob though if you get the chance, as he has a 5+, then 6+ against mortals. It's genuinely been such a game changer for me having an almost indestructible tarpit.

[Neck-Romantic]

Ive always thought we just needed a retinue unit with the classic "these guys take wounds instead of the hero" andwe would be set.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Neck-Romantic Having a way of passing off the wounds onto the troops would be great. 

Tbh I think a big help would be a general immunity to battleshock. Fluff wise it makes no sense that an army that causes fear is so susceptible to it. As more and more of the newer books are giving options to make units and entire armies immune to battleshock, maybe they might add it that ghosts don;t get effected. It would allow us to take big hordes and not worry about losing 10+ models to battleshock or having to spend CP to keep them on the board. Having that would be a great substitute to having such limited healing/reviving. The weakness to battleshock is what has made me take lots of MSUs now. I rarely go above 10 models in a unit because it's not worth it, we lack enough guaranteed potent healing/reviving to keep the big units alive when they lose numbers and needing to keep CP in the bank just in case we bottle isn't worth it. Also having lots of MSUs forces your opponent to split their focus and their attacks.

[Qrow]

While battleshock immunity would certainly help us, I would much prefer if they got rid of immunity altogether, except for inspiring presence. It has become much like bravery tests in 40k, basically meaningless for 90% of armies, if an army has the ability to ignore battleshock beyond inspiring presence it should be extremely expensive and rare, otherwise it invalidates the phase.

For example, one of the regulars it my local club plays skaven, and between his 26" ignore battleshock for 1 command point ability and his 13" ignore battleshock for free on the plague furnace, the one major weakness that skaven are supposed to have is just completely negated. Hell, I play chaos dwarfs as well as nighthaunt and despite how overcosted Drazhoath the Ashen is, his command ability still makes him almost a must take.

If ignore battleshock for free/1 command point for the entire army was not a thing, both the shrieker host and our -1 bravery would actually make a difference and the 10 bravery of nighthaunt would be way more impressive.

Edited April 22, 2019 by Qrow

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Qrow I wish that shrieker host could work 😩. I do feel that GW are making lots of strong options easily available in most of the new books. I feel that the power creep is not going to be kind to us.

[Qrow]

5 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@Qrow I wish that shrieker host could work 😩. I do feel that GW are making lots of strong options easily available in most of the new books. I feel that the power creep is not going to be kind to us.

Agreed, the power creep is troublesome. I have had a few great games with shrieker host, mainly in casual games with members of the club that aren't at all interested in the competative side of AoS. I think it would be genuinely decent if battleshock wasn't so ignoreable, denying inspiring presence and rerolling lucky ones can be pretty brutal. Also the models look great, though I do think almost the entire nighthaunt range looks fantastic...

However, I would kill for dreadscythe harridans harrowing shriek to work on 6 bravery, not less than 6. That small change, in addition to our native -1, would still leave most elite infantry immune to the effect, but would make most battline infantry fall prey to it.

[Garxia]

They can have better rules than us... but nobody can compete with our miniatures, we have the best model range in whole AoS! 😀

 

About deploying in the Underworlds, what units do you usually leave there?

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Qrow I played SCE the other day. I took harridans and was thinking that I might have a chance to use their ability, but the player took a chamber that gave the entire army +1 bravery, so they didn't get to use it once. In a perfect world I would ask that nighthaunt causes -1 bravery to each unit in 6", as we could then bravery bomb so many of our abilities that are reliant on low bravery, but that will never happen 😂.

[Tropical Ghost General]

2 minutes ago, Garxia said:

About deploying in the Underworlds, what units do you usually leave there?

This will vary depending on the mission and the opponent (yay, super vague answer).

Generally I like to leave 1 hero and 1 killy unit in the grave. Depending on whether I need to screen against my own opponent's deep strike type ability, I will also put some chaff in the grave as well. As we have to bring everything on by turn 3 it's not as flexible as I wish it was. I normally look at putting a fast unit in the grave as well (whether that also doubles as the killy unit or not), because being able to drop in a unit behind terrain or out of reach, knowing that the 8" or 12" move will help to close the gap is great. 5 blades are a great unit for hidding in the grave, due to their pure ambush nature. Keeping a hero to drop in is a must as it allows you to re-roll that 9" charge and aim for the 10+ WoT.

What units are you generally taking?

[Qrow]

6 minutes ago, Garxia said:

They can have better rules than us... but nobody can compete with our miniatures, we have the best model range in whole AoS! 😀

 

About deploying in the Underworlds, what units do you usually leave there?

Myrmourn banshees pretty much always start in reserve for me, it is the safest way to get the within the 18" range for unbinds while still having the full 12 models, they also hit like a truck so you want them to hit where you need them. A couple of chaff units for late game objective grabbing or harrassing can be good, like 10 man chainrasp units.

I have dropped a 30 model reaper unit from reserves before with great effect; but as Tropical Ghost General said, if you are dropping something important, always leave a hero to go with them for charge rerolls and the possible 6+ death save.

Additionally, if you are planning on reserving a hard hitting unit, consider taking the chronomantic cogs, as the +2 charge range is massively helpful.

[Tropical Ghost General]

Cogs is a double edged sword. I've stopped taking it due to the fact that it's great for us, but it then buffs your opponent and getting double turned by your opponent who is getting that much extra movement than they would do normally is painful 😂. We are generally a lot faster than most of our potential opponents anyway and we can cover the ground without the need for cogs. Playing games when both players bring them is really fun though, having +4 to move and +4 to charge is hilarious.  

[Qrow]

13 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@Qrow I played SCE the other day. I took harridans and was thinking that I might have a chance to use their ability, but the player took a chamber that gave the entire army +1 bravery, so they didn't get to use it once. In a perfect world I would ask that nighthaunt causes -1 bravery to each unit in 6", as we could then bravery bomb so many of our abilities that are reliant on low bravery, but that will never happen 😂.

I have one list that is infamous in my club, is combines the -1 to hit from the harridans with the -1 to hit from the mourngul, and the -1 To hit from olynders spell when I can get it off. It is in no way competative, but my god is it stupid when it works. I would love to get neferata in there too, but it is already point starved.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Qrow that's basically my Lord Ex bomb but one that can hit back. 

[Greasygeek]

4 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@Greasygeek Death isn't in need of a massive update, but the main book, LoN, was released prior to AoS 2.0, so while it s still doing well at tournaments it isn't without some big flaws. None of the units really got updates to the warscrolls, and since it was released we have faction specific terrain pieces and spells which they haven't had yet. GW don't tend to go back on themselves, so they will never admit that the ghost spells are awful, so as the current narrative for Soul Wars is still focused around our Lord and Saviour, Nagash, it is probably a way of giving Death some extra bonuses so they don;t have to worry about doing faction specific spells or terrain.

I do agree on these points however reading the community article again it says repeadetly that the forbidden powers is a bunch of endless spells meant for all factions to use. Apperently even the floating head of Nagash (that will forever be known as the Lord of undeath emoji), is just as effective for Stormcast to bowl around as for Nighhaunt and LoN. 

While I hope that you are right, I suspect that the whole storyline about forbidden powers ends up being a way for Order and other foolish alliances to harvest some of that massive amathyst magic unleashed by Nagash. You know turning his super weapon against himself (oh the ironi!).

On the Ghost end/pointless spells. Sure they suck and we could go for an update but it only takes for a few rules erratas to fix them. The idea about them atent to bad they are just to plain weak and expensive. All could be fixed in the app and we see warscrolls constantly changing if just by a few words. 

LoN never got a scenery piece but they are damn sure close to having one. I mean they have graves. Only counters but still functioning very well should I say. Once again would it take much more than a few lines of changed text to declare the sigmar mausoleum as the LoN scenery. Many people use these already I believe.

So it still seem odd for me if Forbidden powers are meant to compensate for Things that could be fixed so very easily. 

 

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Greasygeek preaching brother, preaching. The ghost hourglass spell, just add heal/revive models with wounds total to d6. Redo the Garden of Morr as the generic LoN and ghost terrain piece. Allow for healing/reviving or battleshock immunity and give it sinister, done. Forbidden Power is a mystery at the moment. They've announced separate endless spells other than the ones from Forbidden Power as well, so what it will be who knows, it even comes with a generic terrain piece all armies can use, so most will have 2 that they can now use, lol. 

I'm in no doubt that Nagash will lose, and SCE will win and behold all was well in the lands (yawn) but that was always going to be the case. Would be nice if they did a campaign like malign portents where the outcome was decide by the players themselves but that's not a good marketing strategies for the countless years of releases that they have ready to go. 

[Greasygeek]

Generic scenery?! How do we know that? To be honest I find the amount of generic spells, bobs n bits somewhat 2D. As I feared some of these has become insta buy for many armies and as a result its usually a matter of who has the biggest chrono cog (pun intended). Have also faced quite a few yahoos on the field wielding the Ghurstrike. I love the idea about endless spells but I dislike when the lists devolve because of it. It reminds me of back in the old warhammer days were every general had the Black Amulet and all weak heroes was force fed a Heart of Woe and then sent on a suicide mission.

But on forbidden powers, assuming its all about endless spells my guess would

be for the half bridge spell to be some sort of transportation device. Like the umbrael spell portal for units.

I wonder what the skeleton boat does, except help hopless romantic chainrasps finally take the Banshees on a date.

Good fix for the Mortalis Terminexus but  it could be even simpler. Just by removing the word ‘predatory’. Now you have a healing device that you may turn into a mine when danger is lurking.

Or for the Vault of Souls. On top of my head I would say, remove the 6+ per model to give a MW and change it to units within 6” suffer D3 MW. Now it actually make sense to use it every now and then. So far I used it a few times, hust because I oove the model and NEVER have I been able to inflict more than 3-5 wounds tops. Neither have I been able to stop

my opponent from advancing through it. Its simply too weak.