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Comparing haunts to courts as a new player.


EdisonWeaver

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I am new to Sigmar!  I would like to collect a  death army and the two that really get me are Nighthaunts and Flesh Eater Courts! But I don't know enough about the game to know how they really play on the table, and I love the lore and Aesthetic of both (Might get both eventually, but I can afford one right now). 
How do they both play? And I know courts are a hoard army, but are the Haunts? Or are they more elite? (I like having fewer, better painted models overall).
I am also more interested in fun to play, over raw competitiveness, though winning CAN be very fun :)

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Hey there, welcome to Age of Sigmar!

First things first: Flesh Eaters Courts have plenty of potential to be super elite! Both the Horrors and Flayers can be battleline (the main part of your army) and you can even have an army ENITRELY out of Zombie Dragons and Terrorgeists! So, while you can just have hordes and hordes of Ghouls, there are many options to play them.

Nighthaunt have a lot more variety to them. I am not much of an expert on them (reading more into them now) but they have a mix of speed, relative durability, and some literal scare tactics. They feels like an all-rounder, doing a little bit of everything but nothing super well. They do have the benefit of anything from the Soul Wars box can also be used in a Legions of Nagash army, giving you more healing and MUCH more options. 

So, if you want hard hitting berserkers who can have a lot of speed and absolutely brutal combat phases backed by nasty buff spells, the Flesh Eater Courts are for you! 

If you want a more all-around army that has disruption, some sneaky tricks, and a variety of playstyles, Nighthaunt might be more up your alley! 

If you want lots of shooting, you'll need to find a different Grand Alliance. lol But seriously, both of these armies can be a lot of fun!

One final note: Flesh Eater Courts have a bit of an awkward problem: their support characters are all built out of the regular unit boxes (Horrors, Flayers, and Crypt Ghouls) leaving the remaining models as an understrength unit. There are some tricks for getting around this, but it will often mean some extra shenanigans, browsing Ebay for spares, and/or being good at converting models. There is a similar problem with units from the Soul Wars and other starter sets for Nighthaunt, in that they are (for weird reasons) not in the correct unit sizes... Outside of these two problems though, the two armies are cool, easy to paint, and can be rewarding depending on your playstyle. 

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To summarise really briefly:

FEC - limited model range with some horrendous sculpts (looking at you ghouls). Have a very strong/broken option in their book but aren't that grossly broken if you don't run that one option. 

Ghosts - amazingly varied models with beautiful sculpts which unfortunately all perform very similar on the table. Had one of the 1st books of 2nd edition AoS, so have suffered the effects of power creep and changes to how the rules team word abilities. 

Both are fun to play but ghosts will struggle more as more armies get updated to 2nd. FEC is cheaper to buy into as well as you can just buy the start collecting sets. 

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Haunts were a pretty mediocre army ruleswise from the moment they were released as a full faction with a tome, they lack the grinding potential of other Death armies, lack monster punch of Vampire Lord on Zombie  Dragon or Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, lack magic potential of Legions or FEC with allied Corpse Cart. ATM, when ultimately people stoped relying on Rend, haunt's main feature is very meh, their way of having 2 activations is the worst in Death GA. So, personaly, I'm not recommending spooky blankets, at least not as a starting army.

FEC are nasty, an incredible army that is very strong right now, that can be played, like mentioned here earlier, any way you like it, one would be stronger than others, but anything will perform well, from ghoul hordes to monstrous menageries, any unit in the army can hit like a ton of bricks when buffed by heroes.

 

I suggest reading and asking questions about utilising your prefered style of play with this armies in faction threads.

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Thankyou all for the wonderful responses! I think I like the look of FeC more, BUT I also plan on collecting some stormcast, and if I had haunts, id obviously be able to do both  at once with some of the big boxes. hmm.

What exactly is the OP thing in the flesh eater books? So I can  avoid it :)

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6 hours ago, EdisonWeaver said:

What exactly is the OP thing in the flesh eater books? So I can  avoid it :)

Don’t wouldn’t worry about it.  Just collect a well round force.  Anything FEC “cheese” has a counter.  The power creep will keep them in check.

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11 hours ago, EdisonWeaver said:

What exactly is the OP thing in the flesh eater books? So I can  avoid it

The most "feels bad" moments are from Gristlgore Court's general Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, backed up by another monster leading to 4 activations before opponent have a chance to fight back.

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14 minutes ago, XReN said:

The most "feels bad" moments are from Gristlgore Court's general Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, backed up by another monster leading to 4 activations before opponent have a chance to fight back.

To be honest I wish they would kill this entire 'out of activation sequence' gimmick they have going right now. Slaanesh, fyreslayers and FeC all have this ability the flat say "no, I'm going first" and just remove any actual strategy and choice out of the combat phase.

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1 hour ago, Qrow said:

To be honest I wish they would kill this entire 'out of activation sequence' gimmick they have going right now. Slaanesh, fyreslayers and FeC all have this ability the flat say "no, I'm going first" and just remove any actual strategy and choice out of the combat phase.

It has been around for ages now, the problem is not in the mechanic as much as it is in units that have access to it. And countering it is a strategy of its own.

But I agree that rules-wise it's a mess.

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