Nighthaunt Battle Reports

[Aren73]

Anyone seen/have links to good Nighthaunt bat reps? Ideally looking for ones featuring quite elite Nighthaunt lists, played in competitive as opposed to friendly games. 

Getting ready for first tournament with Nighthaunt and trying to consume as much related material as possible

[kozokus]

Hello,

Have been in a small 3-round 1500 point 16-human tournament recently (and won it).

The average level was quite low yet it offered some challenge.

The list was : 

1 Harrow with pendant of the fellwind General ruler of the host

1 Guardian of souls with lantern  with soulcage

2 spirit torment

1 Vampire lord

30 Grimghast

2X10 Chainrasp - mostly chaff and obj grabbers

20 Bladegheists

the geminids

1500 all round

Here how it went : 

 

round1 Tzeentch a lot of a lot of tzaangors, some skyfires,tzshaman some acolytes and a curseling on duality of death. The Beast of Chaos battletome was out yesterday and we agreed to not use the updated warscrolls from it.

Tzaangors can reliably make 24" runncharge with destiny dices, and that is what he did, but there was only 20 tzaangors hitting bladegheists (due to long charge and terrain) and 5 where left. I resurected D3 back with a torment, then it was my turn, failed all my spells, resurected D3 with the harrow and teleported him to engulf the grimghast to make them 11mov and throw them against the gigantesque horde of tzaangors. By luck i made a 11" charge and quickly cut all the tzaangors without effort. The rest of the game was a hero hunting on both sides. He killed all my heroes easily with spells and shootings but i forbid him the acess to the points due to board presence. In the end, i won by a small margin. There was an epic duel between the Harrow and the curseling to note.

 

Round 2 Idoneth with volturnos a scryer and 21 Morsarr in 4 units - Take and Hold. My opponent is a tough one and each time we faced before i only won due to pure luck luck-my best souvenir is a mirror match of vanguard wing against him.

Everyone love to hate this scenario.

He gave me turn1 and i turteled like a boss as he was keeping a 6 morsarr unit in flank attack and did nothing on his turn.

He won the roll and gave me the initiative for turn 2. As i also play deepkin intensively i knew that i was going to die in turn 3 if i sayed in place. So i teleported the harrow and summoned 30 grimghast near his point and failed the 9" rerollable charge on volturnos - bet lost. On his turn he circled my grimghasts with 3 and 6 morsarrs while the rest was advancing. - he poped his flanking unit near his objective. He made a mistake by activating the bad unit out of his two which allowed me to minimize the loss from his second activation by removing intensively grimghasts on the right side. On my retaliation i cut only one morsarr on his 3man unit with my 8 remaining grimghast. Then luck happened and he rolled 6 and rerolled 6 on his battleshock test with the -1 to bravery from beeing a bedsheet his remaining two fled and my unit was free to move. Then i won the initiative, charged volturnos with 8+D3 grimghast and the harrow, cut him and outnumbered his objective. by one member. End. No luck involved. Has he won the initiative i would have lost.

 

Game 3 Against a Stardrake Fulminator list on moving objectives- i really like this one.

I deployed by screening my units with Chainrasps and gave him the first turn. Surprisingly he put all his Fulminators in the sky and deployed right behind my lines where he shot my exposed heroes and butchered all of them except the harrow that was on a very far corner. Then i cut all his unsupported fulminators in half, Took the double turn, finishing them and seized all the objectives. Realising that his mighty stardrake couldn't do anything to recapture an objective and that he wasted his mastercard in futile herohunting, he scooped. As we discussed after, i told me that he thought my heroes where much more important like in LON, which was wrong and he played bad.-Not the best exemple of game.

Thoughts on the list:

The vampire lord is by far one of the best building choice i made. I don't think i can leave home competitively without. All he casted was shield and that is a very good spell for Nighthaunts.

The Harrow is a very nice hero that is very annoying for the opponent, forcing him to keep his objectives well guarded. Hard to play without now.

I can't play without Torments and they synergize very well with Bladegheists 2 was ok. Resurrecting 4D3 models by battleround was annoying.

I cast Geminids only once but this is a very nice assurance against not having the initiative - you cripple the ennemy if he gets the forst turn.

The flee and charge from the Bladegheists was gamebreaking against Tzeentch. Beeing to jump over his units and assassinate something was huge.

 

Recent additionnal friendly testing game 

Olynder Reikenor Guardianofsouls Torment

20 Rasps 30 Grim 6 Spirithosts

20 Bladegheists 12 Banshees

VS

Morathy, Slautghterqueen on cauldron, 2 hag

30 + 10 sisters of slaughter + 30 Wytches

2X5 heartrender.

 

On Orb of power, i LOVES this scenario.

He gave me turn1 and i timidly advance the spirithosts to the objective while puting grimghasts on the left and  olynder on the right - to summon Reapers if needed. After all the obj was going to be on one of thoses sides. On his turn he charged my ghosts with the 30 sisters but only too few where here and he only made 5 wounds on the pack. 1-3 

Turn 2 the obj whent on the grimghast side and he gave me the initiative i circled the objectives with the grimghasts and scored 1 while the rest of my army ran toward it. The bladegheists and reikenor killed all the sisters. On his turn he poped 5 heartrender in my back and charged the grim with them and the Wytches. The wytches killed 29 grimghasts, and with the move after shot and the pile in he was able to take the objective back. Morathy joined the dance and killed all the Bladegheists. 2-6

Turn 3 he gave me the initiative again!  i circled the objective with the Spirit hosts that went full again thanks to olynder. I charged the Wytches with the banshees (with +1A from having a dispell) and cut 20 of them, but they died in return. On his turn he disengaged with his 10 remaining sisters and charged my spirit hosts and re-took the objective 9-3 I scooped.

Thoughts :

Don't throw Olynder in battle against a cauldron. Never. 

12 Myrmourn a pure pain for the dispell and much more dangerous than expected.- ill keep that idea.

Keikenor is both very interesting for his +3 to cast and hard to field for only a 1-spell hero.

I am not sold on Olynder other than the Rule Of Cool™, yet 2 casts is good for 240 points - I missed ruler of the host, i don't think making her general is good.

I missed my vampirelord and my general harrow.

a 6 pack Spirithost is much more tanky than i thought just because of his small footprint for the price.

 

Voila.

 

 

[kozokus]

Afterthought 

If you are looking for content I suggest you to listen to telltellnoob on YouTube. He is  very interesting to ear have a video for every unit and bataillon in the book (that he even remake when an error is pointed!) and have a bit of humility and common sense  when presenting his work (things that some podcasters lack by a huge margin).

He won't teach you anything if you already carved through the book like a worm but sometimes he will make you consider something you haven't. 

 

I think that the most most most important thing when playing nighthaunt is positioning.  Something hard to describe in a tactica and that you will learn the hard way. More than list building.

[kozokus]

Just to add a small one, 

I was very intriged by the master list with the shrieker host.

As i had the models i decided to try it in a friendly game, testing the new gloomspite gitz

Shifting objectives on no realms with no spells - vanilla.

Me the untouched list = 

DreadbladeHarrow general

Banshee with amulet of fellwind

Vampire Lord

GoS with lantern +1 to cast

Reiknor

Knight of shroud on "foot"

10, 20 and 20 chainrasps

2X12 Myrmourn banshees

2X5 Harridans

Shrieker host

Cogs and pallisade

 

Him : 

the loonking general

mangler, boss

a cave shaman

3X5 herds

3X10 armored squighopers

1 mangler

the squig-pigs

the atomic mushroom

the squig bataillon

1 extra CP.

 

None of us where expecting anything in this game so there was no real plan involved.

He gave me the first turn and i deployed everything except   unit of myrmourn and the 10 chainrasps.

I casted the cogs but used it on the GoS (no need to be that fast yet) healed reinkor for his one wound lost but got diepelled on everything else, shield, mist and pallisade. I went forward with everything and deployed the 10 chainraps in front of him to slow his advance. I screened everything with the other 40 rasps. I score 5.

On his turn, he began by casting the mushroom, on a 11 and rolled 18" on the range, put him right inside my army and killed 12 rasps out of 30, 5 myrmourn, 3 harridans and 1 HP on the KoS OUCH! And then casted a bunch of spells that was dispelled. Then he charged with 20 boingrotz and killed all my chainrasps on the left and killed 10 on the right with the normal mangler (the mangler boss rolled a triple1 on his movement and was out of anything). I had almost no retaliation. Due to positionig, he scored only 2 points.

Turn 2 the moon when over the loonking, the mushroom activated again, killed 4 more banshees, 2 boingrotz and a single harridan-horrible. I won the initiative ant took the turn.

I quickly eated the mushroom with the banshees, loosing one in the process and resurecting a total of 8. Failed to cast mists, pallisade and shield. This time, i popped the +2 movement on the table with the cogs and burned a CP to get another +1 A on the myrmourn. I disengaged the remaining 10 chainrasps that where fighting the normal mangler to overflow an objective, ready to die from the nearby boingrots then popped the 12 remaining myrmourn in his back. The Tomb banshee cried, but failed. Then i Charged with reiknor, for a 11, getting extra attacks. wiping 3 Boingrots, then made a rerolled 9 charge with the deepstriking banshees on the boingrotz. The extra attacks on the myrmourn made them whipe all 20 Boingrotz on the left O_O (with +1 to hit as well and +1 to wound), the deepsriking banshees then had no target. I score 5

On his turn he tried to re-cast the mushroom and other spells but the myrmourn quickly eated the spells, getting extra attacks. The mangler boss decided to move and charge and whiped a unit of 12 myrmourn. The rest of the turn saw all my remaining Rasps beeing eaten by boingrotz and a fierce combat between harridans and a mid-life mangler (which is his worse state). he scored 2

Turn 3 the moon was high, i won the initiative.

I eated my own cogs with the banshee, loosing 3 in the process and getting 4 resurected. I made a very long charge with the remaining myrmourn which allowed me to recapture the main objective and killing the last 10 boingrotz in a single swing. I avoided any other combat except for reiknor that charged the loonking but only wounded 3 times. I score 5

On his turn the boss mangler charged the vampire lord and the KoS hat where guarding an objective but god greedy and left them at 1 wound each. All my myrmourn got destroyed by some Squig herds. I only have a bunch of heroes and a single harridan left, he still has the pigs, all his heroes and all the herds. He scored 5. 

Turn 4 the moon left the board. He took the initiative.

Basically, he was too far behind to win the game as it is was still possible for me to score some additionnal points even if he scored 10 more, but we continued until the end of round 5.

 

Afterthoughts.

-The Shrieker Host is...Interesting. In the whole game, my opponent rerolled a single 1 for Battleshock  and loosed like 4-5 models due to unavoidable battleshock. This was low mostly because he had a very elite army and most units where whiped instead of demoralised. In fact, what i really liked about this is that unlike other bataillons, that require setups/positionning/spell beeing cast, this one is ALWAYS active just by you beeing there, and even the Tomb banshee produce the effect which as the same range as the -1 BRV debuff.

-Wave of terror happened 3 times, Reiknor, the Guardian of souls and a unit of 5 harridans.

-Speaking of, harridans a very underrated. Still not optimised but not as bad as people that never played them tells you they are.

-I can't play without the pendant of the fell wind. Nope.

-The +1 to cast lantern was amazing. I need a bataillon to have them both.

-Units of 12 banshees are fragile as paper but they hit like a tons of truck with 1-2 correct buffs. Plus dispelling at +3 is disheartening for the opponent.

-The vampire Lord is a premium choice.

-The cogs are overrated but hard to replace correctly.