Warcry - Nighthaunt discussion

[Still-young]

Nighthaunt cards:

[Lior'Lec]

     I cannot read the abilities so for all I know that may have some killer abilities that trigger on doubles or triples but baring that... Is it just me or do they seem very lackluster compared to all the other factions? Very middle of the road with average toughness and movement, but very below average hitting power (a wet noodle comes to mind).  Just comparing them to the cypher lords for example: the chaff unit gets 1 extra toughness, but at a cost of 2 fewer life (one hit wonders), plus fewer and weaker attacks. Hopefully I’m just overlooking something (and if so feel to help me by pointing it out) but they don’t seem to have any strengths going for them other than flying.

[RaiderX]

The other abilities are on their store page.

Spirit Host's ability had hit count as crit , but their Str is kinda meh. Soul Mark Prey does help, a little.

Edited July 30, 2019 by RaiderX

[Virtus-XIV]

The glaivewraith stalkers are extremely lackluster. No special abilities to speak of. I feel like an activated ability for extra movement would have been appropriate given their fluff. Something to distinguish them from the grimghast, which at 135pts vs 120 I can’t envision a scenario not picking the gringhast.

[RaiderX]

1 hour ago, Virtus-XIV said:

The glaivewraith stalkers are extremely lackluster. No special abilities to speak of. I feel like an activated ability for extra movement would have been appropriate given their fluff. Something to distinguish them from the grimghast, which at 135pts vs 120 I can’t envision a scenario not picking the gringhast.

They're kinda bad, but if you only had 120 -130 left mind as well take one instead of a Chainrasp.

[Lior'Lec]

     I agree the glavewraith seem like the worst of the worst in the pack. I recall reading somewhere that you build a  roster of 12 models to start the campaign just like in Kill Team; can someone confirm this? If so I’ll add one just to bring me up to 12 models. So far I have 2 spirit hosts, 3 reapers, 4 chain rasps, and one of each leader. I could also use the third spirit host I have kicking around but I know I’ll never use three so it seems a waste.

     If I get a rainout at work this week I intend (read: hope) to get at least one additional warband ready to play by launch. That’ll give us something to play with while I’m getting the chaos bands painted up (I’m a very slow painter) but I’m not sure who yet. Probably bonesplitters since i have most of a box ready to use and they're fairly quick to paint with an airbrush. 

[RaiderX]

57 minutes ago, Lior'Lec said:

     I agree the glavewraith seem like the worst of the worst in the pack. I recall reading somewhere that you build a  roster of 12 models to start the campaign just like in Kill Team; can someone confirm this? If so I’ll add one just to bring me up to 12 models. So far I have 2 spirit hosts, 3 reapers, 4 chain rasps, and one of each leader. I could also use the third spirit host I have kicking around but I know I’ll never use three so it seems a waste.

  

Roster 20 guys, Warband 3-15.

[pseudonyme]

Edited

Edited July 31, 2019 by pseudonyme

[bonesaww666]

After reading the cards and rules, i think nighthaunts universal fly ability will be handy. 

High Toughness is also nice, but they will struggle to land wounds, dogpiling units and using maneuverability to corner weaker elements will be key.

Flying in a game where other people have to walk, climb and jump around obstacles is not to be underestimated.

Your enemies will have to walk around even freindly units, where you can maneuver freely about your own, it will make them very reactive to the ebb and flow of games. 

I wish we had a ranged unit, but I understand why we dont, being able to fly to the top of a ruin while your enemies climb to engage your banshee would be pure shenanigans.

[exliontamer]

23 hours ago, bonesaww666 said:

I wish we had a ranged unit, but I understand why we dont, being able to fly to the top of a ruin while your enemies climb to engage your banshee would be pure shenanigans.

Yeah...that would be awful 😉

 

[Evil Bob]

On 7/30/2019 at 11:02 PM, Lior'Lec said:

     I agree the glavewraith seem like the worst of the worst in the pack. I recall reading somewhere that you build a  roster of 12 models to start the campaign just like in Kill Team; can someone confirm this? If so I’ll add one just to bring me up to 12 models. So far I have 2 spirit hosts, 3 reapers, 4 chain rasps, and one of each leader. I could also use the third spirit host I have kicking around but I know I’ll never use three so it seems a waste.

     If I get a rainout at work this week I intend (read: hope) to get at least one additional warband ready to play by launch. That’ll give us something to play with while I’m getting the chaos bands painted up (I’m a very slow painter) but I’m not sure who yet. Probably bonesplitters since i have most of a box ready to use and they're fairly quick to paint with an airbrush. 

 

On 7/31/2019 at 12:01 AM, RaiderX said:

Roster 20 guys, Warband 3-15.

 

Only one leader as well just in case anyone got confused.  

The local club ran Warcry play-throughs at Gencon so we were playing the base game Wensday night in an effort to get ready (with only a week to assemble and paint set us back).  GW kept us in the dark on the card packs or we would have had old stuff out as well.

I think Nighthaunt is in a great spot, better than LoN since some victory conditions require mobility and/or others end by round three or four.  Using the abilities is going to be vital since the bedsheets can’t comfortably rely on a strength of 4/5 like other factions hard hitter specialists.  Saving the Wild Die on the first round might become a habit depending how the Battle Plan card flips pan out.

Considering how important Spectral Summons is likely to be I’ll be sticking with the Extoller as my leader.  That extra survivability is serious business.  Other Reapers have the area-ginsu-chop ability.  It was pretty devastating several times with the Iron Golem Deathmaster during Gencon.  The two inch reach should make for some interesting range-game or disengage shenanigans.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Evil Bob

[Bademeister]

Maybe i underrate Nighthaunt, but i think they are not as good as FEC and LoN. 5 Tougthness is great, but every single modle hitting on 5+ because of a low Strength of 3 is pretty meh.

Reach of 2" should be very interesting. Outpositioning the other factions by unsing the terretory, flying on a higher place and hitting in 2" range thus you can't hit back. 

Nighthaunt won't win any "kill all shields" or "kill XY" matches. the damage output is to low. even if you use  the Firgthful Touch (tripple) for Spirit Hosts. It's a +3 damage per hit ability. that's not much for a tripple. LoN got something equal for a double, same for FEC. Even the Quad is pretty meh compared to other.

[bonesaww666]

The Quad is quite lethal given the right circumstance, I did 5 damage to 5 enemy units, it's really not that hard to line up.

Nighthaunt will require planning to do well with, you need to maximize your maneuverability and pick fights you can easily overwhelm the enemy in.

Engage units with 1" range and they can only make one return attack, as they will have to move into combat with you, smart positioning will allow you to gang up on them once they do.

The game is fun, I wonder if it will have legs though, had they included more units from each faction, not just the blessed few, it would give the game more variety.

[AmurayiWestgate]

Someone explain to me please why the Chainrasp ability is supposed to be better than the universal "Onslaught" which has no requirements.

Edited August 16, 2019 by AmurayiWestgate

[Lior'Lec]

     @AmurayiWestgate It isn’t, while the Nighthaunt are fun to play thanks to their unique mix of maneuverability and resilience their abilities are overall kinda meh. You’ll find yourself focusing mostly on universal abilities with the Reaper’s and Spirit Host’s abilities firing off at times and the occasional quad used to bring back a fighter. Now if the ability was FAQ’d to grant multiple/all minions the bonus or an escalating bonus based on the number of minions then it might be worth using but as it stands I haven’t found any point in using it yet. It’s essentially onslaught with an extra restrictions of minions only and with another minion within 3”. 

     Essentially the best way (I’ve found) to play Nighthaunt is to focus on the objectives while using your high resilience to tie up the enemy. 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Lior'Lec
Just added a tag to my response

[N1SB]

Thank you all for your advice.  I'm still new to the game (in fact I'm mostly a 40k player) and I've won my 2 games thanks to your experience sharing.  I'm writing now just to add data points on what was said.

+++ what's been working exactly as you guys said +++

Survivability of Spirit Hosts (to play the Objective) - yes, they're Toughness 5 but I find it's mostly due to them being 30 Wounds.  I'm noticing a lot of the missions where the Objective is a fighter of your choice, and his job is to Survive.  Spirit Hosts does that well.  But that is considerably enhanced by...

Spectral Summoning with the Extoller of Shyish (who's also very survivable) - in case the Spirit Host Objective dies...you can summon him back (edit - with limited Wounds back based on your Triples).  Resurrecting fallen units is already awesome, but (to our understanding/reading of rules-as-written) doing so with a fighter who's an Objective is like a force multiplier.

Putting this together - some missions just require your opponent to kill a fighter who's an Objective.  If you make it a Spirit Host, that's a lot o' killin' that needs be doin'.  Then you have the Extoller who can bring them back, which effectively means he has to now kill BOTH to guarantee a win.

+++ what worked better than I expected (though still not great) +++

Spirit Hosts were better at killing than expected - because they crit for 4 dmg.  Yes, like everything we got they're only Strength 3, so you're going to need a 5 or a 6 roll to wound...that turns out to be a lot of crits since they do have 6 attacks.  I was fighting the Unmade and I killed about half their warband (their stilt-wearing leader and all their Toughness 3 guys), and I was trying to play defense...but perhaps that's what Nighthaunt is meant to be good at.

+++ what worked not quite as well as I expected, but it might be my list +++

Flying - to my understanding you can only fly with your 1st action (edit - I've been deceived), so I can't disengage and fly away.  And it turns out a lot of other factions have some flying ability.  It's still useful!  It's just not quite as good as I imagined at 1st (and perhaps my expectations were wrong), not quite the competitive advantage I expected.

+++ TL;DR +++

As said by others, play the Objective, especially when you're the Objective.  Then, you might not think you're good at killing, but I found Warcry to be a high casualty game where nothing EXCEPT US are that great at surviving anyway; we can punish people going after us aggressively even if we're not the best hunters, but we're certainly not good prey either.

I share this in the spirit of being helpful because I'm enjoying my 1st warband of ghosts...but I'm having so much fun I'm reading these threads for a 2nd one.

Edited August 19, 2019 by N1SB

[Sleboda]

10 minutes ago, N1SB said:

Spectral Summoning with the Extoller of Shyish (who's also very survivable) - in case the Spirit Host Objective dies...you can summon him back. 

True, but (and maybe you realize this, but I'm seeing that many people don't) remember that when you bring a model back, at best he will come back with six wounds remaining, not full health.

[N1SB]

Thanks for pointing that out because I should've mentioned it because it's easily misread, but it's having to grind through basically 50+ Wounds (30 for the Spirit Host, 20 for the Extoller, then a few more when you rez) at Toughness 5 that's a huge burden for an opponent.  I also happened to have spaced those 2 fighters spaced apart, and that's how I ended up winning, by forcing the opponent to split his warband (I actually fulfilled my victory conditions with a Spirit Host who only had 2 Wounds left).

It's one of those cases my opponent noticed his problem (or my true power) before I did, as he's trying to fight against it.  It was pretty cool.

I happen to be using an Extoller with a few Spirit Hosts and a Glaivewraith Stalker, but I'm also wondering about a box of Easy-to-Build Chainrasps with (a) Dreadwarden(s) to have a similar thing, except as a horde.  I don't know, just something I'm thinking about.

[Lior'Lec]

     @N1SB You’re not exactly correct on the flight. While you’re correct that it cannot be used on a disengage action you can use it on every normal move action, not just the first. The strength of the flight for Nighthaunt comes from the fact that every fighter inherently gets the ability while other factions only have 1-2 fighters with the runemark or must rely on ability dice.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Lior'Lec
Didn’t notice the “at best” comment; adjusted my reply

[N1SB]

Thanks for pointing out the thing with Flight because it might have been a genuine misreading or an opponent deliberately misinterpreting it for advantage.  That would have impacted both games.  I'm going to have a talk with the guys, this is something the whole local meta's been getting wrong...perhaps deliberately.

Edit - I had followed up and understood the nature of the confusion in the meta.  It was an honest misinterpretation, thanks for correcting us.

Edited September 1, 2019 by N1SB

[Bryan I Guess]

Just bought into Warcry today. Gonna play NH because I had the Chainrasps from Nightvault, my friends are willing to let me use the Briar Queen as a Dreadwarden, and all I had to do to build a full warband was buy one box of Spirit hosts. SO my super budget list of NH is as follows. . .

 

Dreadwarden

5X Chainrasp

2X Spirit Hosts

 

And thats it. I plan to eventually buy a box of Grimghast and some Glavewraiths. My question is; am I gonna have fun with this list? Does NH just not function without Grimghasts or is this actually a relatively efficient list?

[Nevar]

I would skip the Glaivewraiths unless you really like the models.  They are not impressive in Warcry or Age of Sigmar.

[cooleyo]

On 8/27/2019 at 11:51 PM, Bryan I Guess said:

Just bought into Warcry today. Gonna play NH because I had the Chainrasps from Nightvault, my friends are willing to let me use the Briar Queen as a Dreadwarden, and all I had to do to build a full warband was buy one box of Spirit hosts. SO my super budget list of NH is as follows. . .

 

Dreadwarden

5X Chainrasp

2X Spirit Hosts

 

And thats it. I plan to eventually buy a box of Grimghast and some Glavewraiths. My question is; am I gonna have fun with this list? Does NH just not function without Grimghasts or is this actually a relatively efficient list?

One less chainrasp and have an Extoller instead. Re summoning is just crazy good.

[Bryan I Guess]

Can't the Dreadwarden resummon as well? Thought it was just a leader ability.

[Hannibal]

1 hour ago, Bryan I Guess said:

Can't the Dreadwarden resummon as well? Thought it was just a leader ability.

I think that´s true.