AoS 2 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Smavo]

The thing about the high drops is as I've said before.

NH players need to look at the high drop as standard. Aiming for low drops makes them take hard tax units and hence the bad performance.

 

Having high drops works in with our allegiance ability of deep strike. For every one unit we get one deep strike. So having a 2 or 3 drop army limits our deployment tactics.

 

I think as a whole the grimghast problem is null. Power gamers will always do that whether its grimghast or the new hotness. If there where better alternative choices they wouldnt be picked as frequently.  Also if the meta was slightly different people wouldnt feel like they had to pick them. They dont need nerfs as every one has something broken. Ultimately most players arnt competitive players so why should the top 1 percent dictate what gets nerfed when realistically they arnt that strong.

Death has been neglected for so long and now all I see is omg nerf death.

[Espy85]

Until a few weeks ago I played Legion of Night, I did not use warscroll battallion, I had 8-9 drops on my list. I'm used to not choosing who starts the first round and having three units in ambush, perhaps for this reason some nighthaunt mechanics are familiar to me. Honestly, I have never given importance, indeed, a high number of drops means that you know that in the first round you will be disadvantaged, so you prepare yourself for that, play accordingly. The fact of being able to take the field with some units when we want is still a good advantage, it means that regardless of who will start the first round, we will decide when to make the first move. Certain savvy opponents can be prepared for this, but it is always something they will have to deal with.

[Gwendar]

4 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

In fact most players in my meta know to target our heroes first before targeting the unit

Thanks! Luckily most of the people I play against haven't usually targeted heros, and that goes for any army I use. My Arch-Warlock is a popular target since they really dislike the d3 MW's to 3 units, despite my Stormfiends completely deleting units in one turn. I think if I play with Olynder more and keep her a bit closer rather than so far back then they'll catch on. The last guy couldn't believe it when she deleted his Daemon Prince from almost full health.

Good thing I have 2 extra Torments just laying around to use...we'll see how it goes next time. I have 2 more armies to build and another to start buying into and a lot of painting to do with all of that so I may take a break before I buy anything else for NH.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@dmorley21  might have asked this already but where are you based? I might be able to pick up an extra one and ship it out.

It is great that we did well in the GT. I was shocked at the list tbh. In my local meta it's pretty competitive. I found always going second left me with a much smaller force, as lots of my opponents can easily close that 24" no man's land (and some extra if need be). Not having the first hero phase for us as an army isn't too bad, as we can't really buff or debuffs anything, yet denying your opponent the chance to plant their standards/banners, denying them a chance to get prayers off is a huge advantage. 

Personally I don't think that our battalions are great, none of them let us get all our battleline units down in a single drop except the execution horde (which is not good battalion as it only benefits a mediocre hero ?) but a few are worth it to help to negate a unit's natural weakness, such as death stalkers for grims or glaives as they can death mark a large creature and get the +1 to hit and wound against a unit where they aren't getting their natural re-rolls. Chainguard works well for rasps as it can make them almost indestructible (as long as the GoS doesn't become a priority target ?). The only other one that is worth it is the death riders one, getting a 9+ charge bonus instead of 10+ is huge for hexwraiths who aren't a great unit, but in that battalions the hexwraiths become gross. All of the others are a bit of a trap or give benefits that don't suit the current meta (sorry to say it but shrieker host falls into the latter category). 

When the new book came out I experimented with running what I wanted and using a high drop count, but not having access to extra relics hurts when your opponent is running a big monster with doppelganger cloak or ethereal save. Granted none of our heroes are big enough to properly benefit from relics but running a single relic in an army makes it really difficult to choose how to best benefit your army. The other issue I had was keeping too much stuff off the board without a guaranteed 2nd turn lead to me losing a few games by turn 2, as so many armies can cross the gap easily that attacking completely unbuffed units with their super buffed units meant a lot died. And if the opponent wins priority as well on the second turn, it made the game very short as there wouldn't be any heroes left on the board or that many units left on the board, as a unit of 40 rasps can't be given inspiring presence if you aren't taking any battalions until your hero phase has happened and you've got your first command point. Seeing a 40 unit of rasps or 30 unit of grims get wiped out in a turn due to wounds and then auto failing a battleshock test is hard to bear. I think that GT List went under on points to bank a CP for that reason.

In summary I think it's very positive and hopeful that such a varied list did so well at the GT, but there are a few things that are worth bearing in mind, such as what special rules were in place for the GT as they can negativity or positively effect all factions, making  factions that normally smash face into little kittens. Also the list he took (and same for Ben's list at Blackout) are not easy list to play well. It works for really good, high skilled players, but how does the common ghost fair running these sorts of lists and do they achieve the same or similar results. (This is true of all factions and the lists that do well at tournaments)

*Edit: Having just read through the GW GT rules pack and it seems that realms and realmscape features were in effect. No 'non GW sanctioned conversions' were allowed with armies. There was also something about summoned units not counting towards kill points but looking at the score sheets it looks like that might be true, which is quite a big thing, as you could summon units and not worry about giving away points for doing so. *

I'd like to see some of the battle reports if any exist to see how he played the army, as it's not how I personally would run a ghost horde yet it did so well and the more I can learn from those better than me the less I'll have to rely on spamming grims to stand a chance in my local meta. 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Tropical Ghost General

[Neck-Romantic]

Got my first game in with Reikenor and Olynder...

I went first and proceeced to fail to cast Cogs with +3, every single unit failed to charge, then Reikenor AND Oly got killed off in turn one!

Remaining 2x6 SHosts and 2x10 Revenants (having lost Shroudgard 5+) then somehow managed to carve a rediculously bloody swathe through my buddy's Stormcast with just a single GoS and lone STorment working feverishly to keep them all (alive? No... on their feet? No...) on the table!

The game was a tie on points each round and very close until the bottom of turn 4, when, with the Stormcast's back broken, his Evocators wiped out, and no characters remaining, my opponent graciously conceded the field.

Revenants stole the show by being able to be exactly where they needed and bringing some serious pain in the process despite losing their 5+++, immediatly bought another box to take them to 2x15 (now to puzzle out how to squeeze their points in)

All in all feeling quite comfortable with the list after still winning comfortably after losing both major characters, getting double-turned twice, and rolling only a single 10+ charge all game long.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Neck-Romantic

[Vasshpit]

@Cursed

Hey, sorry. I'll get ya a quick recipe when i get home from work tonight. ?

[Tropical Ghost General]

@Neck-Romantic I've also found that our 'big' heroes don't tend to have much impact on the game, I've been leaning more and more to not bothering with the named characters and spending the points on lesser heroes and more 'foot' soldiers.

I've also been trying to work on a 'no battalion' super variety mix and it's proving lots of fun but I'm not sure on how viable it will be. ?

[Neck-Romantic]

@Tropical Ghost General

Hmm.. the way I saw it was if it performed that well without the big names... imagine how well it would if theyd lived!

[Tropical Ghost General]

10 minutes ago, Neck-Romantic said:

imagine how well it would if theyd lived!

That's true. I might try and find me a new local meta as I've mentioned in other posts, unless I run them away for the whole battle, none of my named heroes make it past turn 3, and the plain heroes are usually dead by the end of the game. It would be nice if FW did a new ghost hero model, that was like 14 wounds and could survive a single hero phase of magic shenanigans  

[Vasshpit]

@Tropical Ghost General

Have you had much exp/success with Harrows?

[Tropical Ghost General]

Just now, Vasshpit said:

Have you had much exp/success with Harrows?

As stand alone heroes, No success, don't hit hard enough and too squishy. 

But as a novelty general and using the teleport ability to summon units, Yes, they are great, only trouble is is that is relies on having a mediocre model as a general. Before the BC came out I had a game with stuff proxied, and using the general to teleport over in front of a unit, then using a CP to teleport a BC, who needs a 9+ to get a double attack was awesome. I am working on a pure riding army at the moment, but it's going to be a long project, will have maybe 2 x BCs in the list, running two death riders battalions.

[Vasshpit]

That was my thoughts as well. I'm also working on a calvary heavy force as I'm really liking my HW conversions. 

Thanks for the input. 

[Neck-Romantic]

Only success Ive had with a Harrow was summoning a Mourngul ... and it was a very wacktacular situation.

[Vasshpit]

I thought running two with a cp heavy build would be great for just moving things exactly where you want them.

Might be fun. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

2 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

very wacktacular

lol. I really do hope that FW do another model for Death, we have one and it's currently floating somewhere between meh and garbage. 

FW models for Grand Alliances: Chaos - 35 (soon to be 36 with new mega dragon), Destruction - 13, Order - 7, Death - 1. ?

Edited October 16, 2018 by Tropical Ghost General

[Neck-Romantic]

Honestly just a points drop to about 200, maybe 250 and the Mourn would be really solid. 300 is just too much to justify it still.

But yeah with the incredible quality of the sculpts these days I would quite interested in what FW could come up with for NH

Edited October 16, 2018 by Neck-Romantic

[Vasshpit]

@Neck-Romantic

Gasp,  at that points cost players won't be tempted to buy the new shiny Black Coach behemoth.. ?

Speaking of, does the -1 to hit stack with multiple Mourns?

Edited October 16, 2018 by Vasshpit

[dmorley21]

On 10/15/2018 at 6:51 PM, Smavo said:

The thing about the high drops is as I've said before.

NH players need to look at the high drop as standard. Aiming for low drops makes them take hard tax units and hence the bad performance.

Having high drops works in with our allegiance ability of deep strike. For every one unit we get one deep strike. So having a 2 or 3 drop army limits our deployment tactics.

There's definitely merit to the first part of what you're saying, as the list from the GT showcases. However, I was under the impression that if I a run a 4 drop list (Death Stalkers, Shroudguard, GoS, Chainrasps) that I could deep strike part of the battalions and thus 5 units in that particular setup so it wouldn't harm the deployment tactics too much.

17 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@dmorley21  might have asked this already but where are you based? I might be able to pick up an extra one and ship it out.

It is great that we did well in the GT. I was shocked at the list tbh. In my local meta it's pretty competitive. I found always going second left me with a much smaller force, as lots of my opponents can easily close that 24" no man's land (and some extra if need be). Not having the first hero phase for us as an army isn't too bad, as we can't really buff or debuffs anything, yet denying your opponent the chance to plant their standards/banners, denying them a chance to get prayers off is a huge advantage. 

Personally I don't think that our battalions are great, none of them let us get all our battleline units down in a single drop except the execution horde (which is not good battalion as it only benefits a mediocre hero ?) but a few are worth it to help to negate a unit's natural weakness, such as death stalkers for grims or glaives as they can death mark a large creature and get the +1 to hit and wound against a unit where they aren't getting their natural re-rolls. Chainguard works well for rasps as it can make them almost indestructible (as long as the GoS doesn't become a priority target ?). The only other one that is worth it is the death riders one, getting a 9+ charge bonus instead of 10+ is huge for hexwraiths who aren't a great unit, but in that battalions the hexwraiths become gross. All of the others are a bit of a trap or give benefits that don't suit the current meta (sorry to say it but shrieker host falls into the latter category). 

...

I'd like to see some of the battle reports if any exist to see how he played the army, as it's not how I personally would run a ghost horde yet it did so well and the more I can learn from those better than me the less I'll have to rely on spamming grims to stand a chance in my local meta. 

I cut off a lot of your post to make it more manageable. I'm located in Michigan in the US and thanks for the offer but don't worry about it. I'm still trying to build up to a 2k force, so I really shouldn't be throwing money at pretty replacement models as that's all it seems that it is at this point.

I agree that the battalions are lacking. The one I can't quite get a feel for on paper is Shroudguard. After facing 4+/4+ Phoenix Guard, I like the idea of unrendable 4+/5+ but worry that Reikenor (who I would take) is just too squishy.

I'd also love to hear some battle reports or even just a quick summary of the strategy used.

13 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

Got my first game in with Reikenor and Olynder...

I went first and proceeced to fail to cast Cogs with +3, every single unit failed to charge, then Reikenor AND Oly got killed off in turn one!

Wow! I played 3 games and had no problem casting Cogs. Glad you still managed to have a good game!

12 hours ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@Neck-Romantic I've also found that our 'big' heroes don't tend to have much impact on the game, I've been leaning more and more to not bothering with the named characters and spending the points on lesser heroes and more 'foot' soldiers.

I've also been trying to work on a 'no battalion' super variety mix and it's proving lots of fun but I'm not sure on how viable it will be. ?

I still think that Reikenor + Cogs are musts if you plan to deep strike. Though, it's another reason why lowering your drops and getting the first turn is so important as he is pretty easy to delete if someone really wants to.

1 hour ago, Vasshpit said:

@Neck-Romantic

Gasp,  at that points cost players won't be tempted to buy the new shiny Black Coach behemoth.. ?

 

The poor Black Coach is such a cool looking model but I just don't see how it's worth its points. It should have been a hero and either a spellcaster or summoner IMO.

[Wartoy]

I am just now getting into Nighthsunts.  I am new to AoS.  I love playing Themed lists.  Instead of me buying a bunch of models I won't use I am looking for themes to consider building.  Help me out folks.  Come up with some cool themes!

Edited October 17, 2018 by Wartoy

[dmorley21]

7 hours ago, Wartoy said:

I am just now getting into Nighthsunts.  I am new to AoS.  I love playing Themed lists.  Instead of me buying a bunch of models I won't use I am looking for themes to consider building.  Help me out folks.  Come up with some cool themes!

The  best solution is probably to choose a battalion and run with that as a theme. 

[Neck-Romantic]

@dmorley21 The Coach is quite versatile and its battalion isnt bad at all; plus its cheaper than the Mourn

[Ashes]

Does someone have experience with the Blade of Dark Summons artifact from the core book?

Once per battle, in your hero phase, you can set up a SUMMONABLE DEATH unit wholly within 12" of the bearer and more than 3" from any enemy models, and add it to your army. The models in the unit must have a combined Wounds characteristic of no more than a
2D6 roll.

Even if it’s luck dependent I really want to give this a try. As the unit can charge directly after been summoned this could make up for a nice surprise for my opponent.  

[Scurvydog]

Oh how I wish harrows were not heroes but an elite cavalry option (with adjusted stats and points). I just can't justify buying more of them just to make hexwraith conversions, as hexwraiths are already bad as it is. They have a niche use in hero objective capture scenarios and that is about it.

 

I also have great difficulty finding a place for the lord executioner, I love the models, but comparing the name to the 3 attacks 1 damage axe is just sad. Using his battalion and possibly -1 to be hit artifact to stack up to -3 to be hit by heroes might make him a trolling hero, locking up a bloodthirster or something which then hits on 6's, but I don't see any consistent use for him. Anyone got ideas for this guy?

[Scurvydog]

2 minutes ago, Ashes said:

Does someone have experience with the Blade of Dark Summons artifact from the core book?

Once per battle, in your hero phase, you can set up a SUMMONABLE DEATH unit wholly within 12" of the bearer and more than 3" from any enemy models, and add it to your army. The models in the unit must have a combined Wounds characteristic of no more than a
2D6 roll.

Even if it’s luck dependent I really want to give this a try. As the unit can charge directly after been summoned this could make up for a nice surprise for my opponent.  

This would be an amazing artifact in the nighthaunt book, but as it requires death allegiance you are losing a lot to get this, which in the end on average is just 6 wounds worth of models, probably 6 bladegheists for max value, which is very unimpressive for the price of an artifact and losing allegiance abilities.

[Ashes]

 

4 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

This would be an amazing artifact in the nighthaunt book, but as it requires death allegiance you are losing a lot to get this, which in the end on average is just 6 wounds worth of models, probably 6 bladegheists for max value, which is very unimpressive for the price of an artifact and losing allegiance abilities.

Ah, very good point. I somehow was the opinion I could chose from that table, too, without losing allegiance. Guess the point that warscroll builder lists it as an option even when Nighthaunt allegiance is selected confused me. 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Ashes