AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[EnixLHQ]

Well, the deal is in Be'lakor. And it's less a trick than a threat that both have on each other.

As always, 2+ Tough has you covered on the lore if you'd like to hear him narrate and synopsize it. Which I do.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyIEtHBf1vpLE3BP4vSwgvtSgD1oSBhj0

Edited May 25, 2021 by EnixLHQ

[Thamalys]

On 5/24/2021 at 5:59 PM, Landohammer said:

Played a competitive game vs a really hard Lumineth List including Teclis, 30 wardens, Cathalar, 20 sentinels, and 5 blade lords

My list was 3x10 hexwraiths in dolorous guard, 20 chainrasp, 15 bladegeist, 12 myrmourn, a coach, spirit torment, and KoS on steed. Emerald host sub.

Battleplan: Scorched Earth (with burned objectives scoring a flat 2CP since that is an upcoming tourney scenario)

My opponent castled hard, took turn one and did about 10 mortals with tecnado. Between tecnado and sentinels, he ended up leaving my general on 1 wound , killing a few hexwraiths, and doing 5 wounds to the coach. Ouch

On my turn, my coach (having hit level 3 on round 1!!!) healed 3 wounds, rolled a 6 to run, and rolled an 11 to charge some sentinels in his backfield. However, because of his subfactions and shining company,  sentinels had -1 to be hit, 4+ save, and 5+ FNP. So even with the Wave of Terror I only killed 7/10 sentinels and he auto passed. Since he is castled up I move onto 6/8 objectives and scored well.  

Next turn I take 9-10 more mortals from another tecnado, lose both characters and he kills some hexwraiths with his 2+ save wardens (also -1 to hit and 5++ FNP). But he is unable to kill the coach which is now on his objective (it had 1 wound left!!) 

My turn I kill his big block of wardens, and basically pin him up in his deployment zone. Coach burns the objective he was on!  I think I am in good shape until...

He teleports (WTF they can teleport now??) onto my back objectives with 10 sentinels and burns 2 of my objectives

Next turn, I burn another objective, and by this point the majority of his army is still hard castled, but he uses Speed of Hysh to double move into my deployment zone with blademasters. He charges my 7 remaining Myrmourn on the objective.

Fortunately he rolls poorly and I make some hot 4+ saves, and I hold on to the objective to end the game.

Final score: 20-16 Nighthaunt win!

Thoughts

I have expressed this before, but I find the LRL army quite frustrating to play against. The sheer damage output of Tecnado is insane, and its particularly rough on our army since we like to clump up for auras. And of course we all know what sentinels can do. However his army overly relied on castling and here the high mobility of Hexwraiths and Black Coach really paid off. His units are extremely over-performing, but if they arent on objectives they can't win games. 

The dolorous guard + emerald host cheese wasn't as effective as I hoped. Since he nearly always had -1 to hit, I often needed 5+ to hit, and he was shrugging my mortal wounds off. However I still think Hexwraiths have a place since their speed and durability make them hard to deal with. 

I often think about leaving the Coach at home but then there are games like this where he saves the day. I know he sucks in combat, but being able to turn 1 charge/tie up a high threat unit and ****** with your opponents plans is really powerful. Myrmourn were meh. I had hoped their magic defense would do better, but they took too many casualties before they got within range and trying to dispel auto-casted spells of 10 with a +3 isn't exactly reliable. I should have deepstriked them.

 

Well done, sir. Every victory is a good one, but when you outperform your opponent in terms of movement is even better - particularly with Nighthaunt! Movement is still a very strong aspect of the game... if only we could have access to some even slightly more effective damage output...  * sighs *

[Landohammer]

Yea, frustratingly had he brought Dawnriders (which he usually does) he would have been able to dominate the movement phase as well. I did enjoy putting the Emerald Curse on Teclis though. Its a small addition from our new Subs but its super important vs God tier characters like him.

My opponent is a really good player, but he made the mistake many LRL players make: They get paralyzed by trying to make sure all of their units are doing all the insane things they can do and not actually focusing on objectives. Yes your wardens get Cathalar buffs, Teclis buffs, Aetherquartz, and Shining Company buffs. But if they aren't actually chasing down objectives then you aren't going to win.

I have a tournament next weekend, and my first round opponent is bringing LRL and its the same exact battleplan. So I am hoping I can pull this off again. 

[lare2]

4 hours ago, Landohammer said:

I have a tournament...

Be awesome to hear how you get on👍 Good luck!

[EnixLHQ]

9 hours ago, Landohammer said:

Yea, frustratingly had he brought Dawnriders (which he usually does) he would have been able to dominate the movement phase as well. I did enjoy putting the Emerald Curse on Teclis though. Its a small addition from our new Subs but its super important vs God tier characters like him.

My opponent is a really good player, but he made the mistake many LRL players make: They get paralyzed by trying to make sure all of their units are doing all the insane things they can do and not actually focusing on objectives. Yes your wardens get Cathalar buffs, Teclis buffs, Aetherquartz, and Shining Company buffs. But if they aren't actually chasing down objectives then you aren't going to win.

I have a tournament next weekend, and my first round opponent is bringing LRL and its the same exact battleplan. So I am hoping I can pull this off again. 

Good luck! Here's hoping you a strong showing.

 

[Landohammer]

Final practice game before the tournament. Nighthaunt vs Nurgle

I continued on with my 30 hexwraith +20 revenant+coach dolorous guard/emerald host cheese. My opponent had approx 100 plaguebearers, two new BR characters, and Glottkin.

Battleplan: Focal Points

He outdrops me but takes turn 1, and uses a nurgle tree to run/charges a unit of 30 plaguebearers into my screen. He doesn't do much damage but now he is on 4 of the 6 objectives on the top of 1.  

I get aggressive and charge glottkin with coach and revenants, and charge two units of 20 plaguebearers with hexwraiths. I beat up the Glottkin pretty hard, but his new BR characters makes my own 6's do mortals back to me, and so the coach takes half of its own wounds . Hexwraiths REALLY hurt from the -1 to hit, but manage to kill about 20 plaguebearers off the board after battleshock. I score a few points but am now locked in combat with pretty much every unit. 

On his turn he kills the coach with the Gottkin shooting attack but is so bracketed he can't do much else. He buffs his block of 30 plaguebearers with several CA and spells and wrecks my 10 revenants and guardian of souls. Elsewhere the hexwraiths have lost their momentum and are in a grind vs plaguebearers (never a good place to be). 

On my turn I finish off the wounded Glottkin with a lucky arcane bolt and retreat  with my hexwraiths, doing about 9 mortals between all three units with my flyover attack. I put him into a position to stay on objectives or charge me.

He doesn't take the bait and keeps scoring. His allegiance let him heal d3 plaguebearers a turn and he occasionally rolls a lucky 1 battleshock to get d6 back. He also manages to summon 20 more plaguebearers somewhere around turn 3-4. I do some counter charges and kill a few but I just cannot keep up with ever growing number of plague bearers, and the -1 just absolutely hamstrings my hexwraiths damage out put. 

Nurgle win 25-17

This was a grindy game and I really missed my chainrasp blocks, but overall I think I did as well as could be expected. Plaguebearers are a really good counter for NH, since our army is almost universally hitting on 4+ and the new characters bouncing mortals on 6's to hit REALLY hurt when you are throwing 100 attacks with a hexwraith charge or 31 attacks rerolled with Revenants.

I think I am gonna drop the Guardian of Souls and Chainghasts for Olynder. I know she is a bit of a glass cannon, but I'm hoping she can help put out some mortals if it comes to a grind, and her Grief Stricken spell could have really helped out with all the -1 to hit running around. 

 

 

 

[lare2]

I know we haven't seen anything yet really but... looks like our heroes are still gonna be super susceptible to sniping. 

[lare2]

The logic behind Krulghast having the Totem keyword has just been revealed. Not too shabby. 

[EnixLHQ]

4 hours ago, lare2 said:

The logic behind Krulghast having the Totem keyword has just been revealed. Not too shabby. 

I'm really happy about that. You can fit whole units wholly within 18". The Deathless is still wholly within 12" from him, though, unless that changes in a new book.

[JustAsPlanned]

Krulghast stock just went up, it seems!

[Maxo Bug]

This also helps us quite a bit, I think!

[Tali182]

The real question is, is this enough for the Mourngul to be considered again, that would be great (TBH I still use him anyway as I think he is fun)

[Btimmy]

4 hours ago, Maxo Bug said:

This also helps us quite a bit, I think!

Less than you might think. Currently the state of the game is such that either a hero is completely dead or untouched. It's very rare to have some form of chip damage on a hero. Normally if a hero is taking damage they are either being hit in melee or shot, and in both cases any good opponent will know to focus them down completely. Our "tankiest" hero has what, 7 wounds? That's not exactly difficult for most armies to most armies to deal in a single turn. 

[JustAsPlanned]

8 hours ago, Tali182 said:

The real question is, is this enough for the Mourngul to be considered again, that would be great (TBH I still use him anyway as I think he is fun)

I mean, this IS the Age of Beasts. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a plastic Mourngul with better rules.

[lare2]

Maybe Black Coach will pick up the monster keyword? Would obviously love it to get the hero keyword as well. 

[dmorley21]

12 hours ago, Btimmy said:

Less than you might think. Currently the state of the game is such that either a hero is completely dead or untouched. It's very rare to have some form of chip damage on a hero. Normally if a hero is taking damage they are either being hit in melee or shot, and in both cases any good opponent will know to focus them down completely. Our "tankiest" hero has what, 7 wounds? That's not exactly difficult for most armies to most armies to deal in a single turn. 

It's definitely a boon for running an Emerald Host army with Lady Olynder, but for all of the other heroes I would agree with you. It's unfortunate the positive save items don't help Nighthaunt and that there's no monster in the battletome (I'm aware of the Mourngul and allies), but overall I'm liking what I'm seeing so far.

The new way of using command points is great. It means we will no longer have to deepstrike a hero with a unit that we want to have access to re-rolling charges. We'll also have to wait and see, but it might mean that any hero can use Spectral Summons, which would be great. 

The new way of using predatory spells makes something like Geminids or Purple Sun really interesting to take with Reikenor. I particularly like the idea of taking a second endless spell with Cogs, as most opponents that have an auto unbind only have one and making them have to choose between Cogs or a double tap from a Purple Sun is really valuable. 

Whenever a new battletome comes our way, at this point I would be expecting a Mourngul type of replacement. In fact, I'd guess most books might receive a single monster model update in much the way that most books in 2nd edition received a single hero and terrain piece update. I'll be disappointed if that's not the case. In the meantime, has anyone painted up a Gatebreaker to look ghostly and be taken as an ally? 

I also wouldn't be surprised if Glaivewrath Stalkers get a new warscroll that makes them our anti-monster unit. It fits their fluff to a degree, and would carve out an ideal roll for them to actually be considered in the army. 

As for the Black Coach, sorry @Bayul about arguing with you a couple weeks back - I wasn't in a good place. I hope it gets improved, and hope it gets a new keyword. I'm doubtful it gets the monster keyword, but I could see it becoming a hero or a totem. 

[Bayul]

2 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

As for the Black Coach, sorry @Bayul about arguing with you a couple weeks back - I wasn't in a good place. I hope it gets improved, and hope it gets a new keyword. I'm doubtful it gets the monster keyword, but I could see it becoming a hero or a totem. 

What? No, this was a harmless dispute between nerds. I even told my girlfriend about the silly arguments I am having in this forum. I don't expect anybody to agree with my preposterous ideas for warscrolls. I hope you feel better and that the new warscroll wll be valuable for both of us.
 

[EnixLHQ]

3 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

As for the Black Coach, sorry @Bayul about arguing with you a couple weeks back - I wasn't in a good place.

 

20 minutes ago, Bayul said:

What? No, this was a harmless dispute between nerds. I even told my girlfriend about the silly arguments I am having in this forum. I don't expect anybody to agree with my preposterous ideas for warscrolls. I hope you feel better and that the new warscroll wll be valuable for both of us.

One of many, and hopefully many more to come. We're no Nagash, no held grudges here, I hope.

We're all going through something. So I genuinely hope that everyone who is sees a better place on the other side of it and works to get there. Me included.

[lare2]

Bored at work thinking about the new coherency rules and how it might affect Nighthaunt. The main thing that keeps coming to mind is Chainrasps in blocks of 40. I'm used to the coherency rules as I play 40k as well. I also play Poxwalkers quite a lot, which are limited to a max unit of 20. I never have any concerns at all getting the full amount into combat. With these new rules though, I think I'd struggle to get more than that into attack with Chainrasps. Got me thinking that perhaps max units really might not be the best way to go in 3... which also got me thinking that, when combined with the lack of horde bonus, it could be another indication that hordes are on the way out. We might be aiming again for an MSU shift in the meta. 

[dmorley21]

I think I’m one of the few that still runs Cogs every game, but I’m bummed to see it get weaker. Still usable, but I suspect there will be new tricks to try. 

[Landohammer]

Tourney update! List was: Olynder, KoS, ST,  30 Hexwraith, 20 bladeghasts, Coach, 10 chain rasps, dolorous guard and emerald host.

Note: tourney used realm rules but did not announce all battleplans ahead of time. 

I will keep this short, so this isn't too long of a novel.

Game 1. Scorched Earth. vs Lumineth

I out dropped him and cursed his battle cattle. He goes first and plinks off some models with balistas and sentinels. Very mild turn for LRL so I push up hard and send the coach into his battle cattle to try and shut off his -2 to hit aura. Coach rolled Wave of terror, does decent damage but dies to return swings. I deepstrike Olynder into his backfield and she screams some wounds off of sentinels, wardens, and balistas, and actually makes a WOT charge into a ballista. (wow!). 

I score the double, finish off the battle cattle with hexwraiths, and charge pretty much every unit in my army into his sentinels, dawnriders, ballistas and an exposed Cathilar. Long story short, he didn't prepare for the double turn and I pushed on him hard for a brutal win. Nighthaunt win 34-8

 

Game 2. Better Part of Valor vs Seraphon

This was interesting. The scenario only allowed battleline to hold objectives, and you don't keep them if you leave. So my 900pts of hexwraiths were basically stuck babysitting objectives. Thank goodness I brought a 10 man squad of chainrasps. However my opponent only had skinks for battleline.

I outdrop him, he does some heavydamage with double firing bastiliadons and kroak, but I hold on and push the coach into a skink squad killing 9 out of 10 skinks on one objective. (he autopasses though). I score the double, and clean up the skink, and double charge a unit of 20 skinks with hexwraiths and revenants, wiping them out. 

He is able to keep his last unit of skinks alive for a turn, but once I reach them, he can no longer score. We play it out for fun and Nighthaunt win 24-2

 

Game 3. Blades Edge vs Soulblight Gravelords

The double turn giveth, and the double turn taketh. My opponent outdrops me and capitalizes on his double turn to clean up half my army. I send some fairly solid units into his blood knights, but he pops an item that gives them a 5+FNP and he has lots of -1 to hit all around. So I just keep bouncing off his units and am unable to kill anything meaningful.

I hold on to objectives with all I have, and its a close game in terms of VPs, but he tables me on turn 4 and scores big his last turn. Soulblight win 14-8

 

So I ended up placing 4th out of 22 players with 66 VPs. I actually had the 2nd most amount of VPs at the event and ended winning best painted.  I was very happy with how the list performed and had a great time.

Takeaways:

The new Soulblight Gravelords are really strong. Especially with all Blood Knight Battleline. Those guys do insane amounts of damage and can take a lot of punishment. Also, any army with reliable -1 to hit hurts us bad.

I was really impressed with how the Coach performed, as he was crucial in all of my wins. He never did much damage, but he could threaten units on turn 1 and tie up resources.

Olynder was fantastic. Her spells were always "must-stops" and her scream probably did 20+ mortal wounds over the course of the entire event. I think deepstriking her solo is a sneaky way to use her and it really paid off. 

 

 

[The_Dudemeister]

With Nighthaunt being 95% battleline (more or less), we will auto-score this without having to build our lists around it 😍

[JustAsPlanned]

So, because each GA has had an article so far, do y’all reckon it’ll be our turn for one?

[Pyrk]

Hopefully, though the S2D article today was disappointingly light on any new content.

[EnixLHQ]

On 6/8/2021 at 8:28 AM, dmorley21 said:

I think I’m one of the few that still runs Cogs every game, but I’m bummed to see it get weaker. Still usable, but I suspect there will be new tricks to try.

For those wondering.

Edited June 10, 2021 by EnixLHQ