Best competetive ghost themed allegiance?

[PFI]

So whats the best way to run ghosts? Nighthaunt or a legion from a competetive sense?

Im thinking sacrament or night and i bet sacrament beats out night here.

I get that nighthaunt has regen and good regen at that but sacrament has way better since heroes and gravesites would be plenty on top if the endless legion ability which is grandslam.

Nighthaunt has double attacks but so does vanhels and would be more reliable on the one unit you want. Magic dominance would be better with the battalion and then just take the units you want as a hammer.  You can take a ton of the ghosts since they are in the army list and you could ally the one or two units you coukdnt take. Youd have to take 3 units of chain guys for battleline but lets just be nice and say you can make dogs look ghosty too.

Even Arkhan and mortis engine  have ghosts..

So from a competetive sense if i wanted to run a ghost themed army, prove to me why it wouldnt be as a legion and why nighthaunt is the way to go.

 

[Nullius]

Main reason is deepstrike, which essentially negates your oponent’s Deployment unless they have an equally flexible (or superior in the case of Stormcast) deepstriking mechanic. And deepstriking is more powerful the better the player is that uses it. Also, a couple of formations from nighthaunt would have to be bought entirely out of your allies allotment in a Legions of Nagash, so that’s also a consideration.  All that taken into consideration, and measured against superior magic and unit ressurection in LON is an open question. But I suspect the sheer board control offered by 3 deepstriking hordes of chain ghasts is going to prove impossible for most armies to contend with. We will, however also see top tier LON lists based around nagash and Arkhan (or both) with mostl night haunt filling in the rest of the list.

[Sception]

Pure Nighthaunt have a very good deepstrike mechanic, better than Legion of Night.  But they don't have gravesites.  I think it's too soon yet to say what the most competitive way to run them is.

[Nevar]

I don't know if it is too soon to know, it is just likely that no one has yet done the mathhammer and the testing to know yet.  We have the rules at this point to run all the tests we could need to see what is most cost efficient and the like.  However, a lot of the difference between Nighthaunt and Legions of Nagash is contained in play style.  Nighthaunt has all the tools to play as a fast moving 'glass cannon' version of death, even if our glass is ethereal and not nearly as weak as say... Daughters of Khaine.

Nighthaunt can deep-strike which is nice, but we also move faster than other death units with army wide 'FLY' allowing use to also ignore terrain for the most part.  We also get benefits for the act of charging.  On the other hand we do not have tough muti-wound infantry outside of Spirit Hosts like other factions have, so our defenses rely on ethereal for the most part, and maintaining our damage output is tied to keeping our units to larger numbers.  We can revive models like all death can, but not nearly as well as Legions of Nagash.

So, if you want to play the attrition game, Legions of Nagash is just better.  The Guardian of Souls can return d6 wounds worth of Chainrasps in Nighthaunt... but you can also bring him in Legions of Nagash and also benefit from grave sites and other means of healing.  Likewise, Legions of Nagash can literally just summon whole units of fast moving ghosts that you can throw into the meat grinder, where Nighthaunt has no access to summoning.

Nighthaunt will be, in a competitive sense, a much more 'finesse' way to play Death.  As in, every single move you make is important because you need to be the one launching charges, not receiving them.  You need to be positioned correctly so that you cause damage faster than they do, since you can't return whole units so suicide squads are less viable and you have to be much more calculating about your trades.  These are all true for any player of any army, but they are much more 'risk/reward' with the Nighthaunt alliance.  If you don't get your 10+ charges at least a few times a game, then you would have been strictly better off with Danse Macabre in Legion of Nagash.  If you do not use your deep-strike to good effect, you would have been better with the attrition game with Legions of Nagash.  Because both can use the same units, it is about leveraging the Allegiance abilities, and the Nighthaunt ones are potentially way more powerful than Legion of Nagash, assuming you play it right, AND you have some dice luck.  Legion of Nagash will continue to be far more stable and reliable as an Allegiance.