New Nighthaunt player

[DirtyNurgle]

Hey guys,

I have a Legion of Nagash army which I primarily play and suppliment with a lot of Nighthaunt (Chainrasp, Reapers, etc). 

A couple of my friends collect Stormcast and donated their Nighthaunt and then recently they bought me the Sorrowmourn set has a bday gift (thanks guys).

Below is list of everything I currently have:

Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed (120)
Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief (200)
40 x Chainrasp Horde (280)
20 x Chainrasp Horde (160)
8 x Myrmourn Banshees (140)
9 x Spirit Hosts (360)
20 x Hexwraiths (520) (Black Knights proxy)
10 x Dreadscythe Harridans (140)
20 x Grimghast Reapers (320)
8 x Glaivewraith Stalkers (120)

Total: 2360 / 2000
Wounds: 186

What would you recommend I purchase to suppliment this army to make it semi competitive? (I know Nighthaunt aren't in the best place right now). Guardian of Souls seems like a must.

Any list recommendations that can take advantage of most of the above?

Thanks.

[Liquidsteel]

You should definitely look in to Reikenor and a Spirit Torment.

[Sception]

Well, you've got the core foundation of battleline stuff down, and that can be the biggest barrier to starting nighthaunts if you don't live in an area with access to the Mortal Realms magazine.  So you're in a good spot.  The main thing you're missing are some of the standard support heroes.

• Knight of Shrouds on steed
• Dreadblade Harrow
• Guardian of Souls
• Spirit Torment (with chainghasts!  Don't forget the chainghasts!)

From that list, you can go ahead and get the dreadblade harrow box, that's the only way to get those anyway.

...

From there, though, you have have some tricky decisions vis a vis the soul wars box.

If you can convince your stormcast playing friend to split a Soul Wars box with you, that might be worth considering.  It will include the knight of shrouds, guardian of souls, and spirit torment, plus 20 more chainrasps, which you could conceivably use, though 60 may be enough already.  The downside is it comes with 5 more glaivewraiths, which is a non-standard size of a bad unit that you already have more of than you want, and it comes with 4 grimghasts, which are completely unusable in matched play, and an executioner which isn't great and isn't the best model available for an executioner even if you decide you want one.  And the spirit torment doesn't come with chainghasts, which you really want if you're going to run one, and the chainghast models only come packaged with another (better) spirit torment model anyway, so if you're not handy with conversions then the torment might as well not be in the box in the first place.

That said, if you ~are~ handy with hobby work, then you can convert the unusable 4 grimghasts into chainghasts, which makes both them and the spirit torment usable.  IMO this tips the entire set into the 'worth it' category, though just barely, and begrudgingly, since again the executioner and torment are not the best available models for those heroes, imo.  not by a long shot.

 

If your stormcast friend isn't interested in splitting a soul wars box, or if you don't fancy converting the grimghasts, then getting some of these heroes becomes more hasslesome.  There's a much better spirit torment box that comes with chainghasts, but it's frequently out of stock.

The Knight of Shrouds on ethereal steed was never released separately from the soul wars box.  You can buy it on the secondary market, but it's pricey enough that splitting the soul wars box may then be the better option if it's available to you.  The dreadblade harrow box non-sensically comes with two of that hero, when you'll likely only ever want one, so you could try converting one of those into a knight of shrouds.  Mostly just need a fancier helmet.  But if you're handy with conversions then the soul wars box again becomes a better deal.

The Guardian of Souls also never really got a separate release.  There was a store exclusive model, but that's really hard to come by now.  It can also be purchased on the secondary market out of the Soul Wars box, and is usually a bit cheaper than the knight of shrouds, so if you're willing to convert the Knight from a spare harrow, then go this route.  But if you're otherwise going to get both the knight and the guardian on ebay, then again you're probably better off with the soul wars box.

.....

All of that's a lot of hassle for a few staple heroes that should be as easy to get as just going to the store and buying them.  Collecting Nighthaunts is such a needlessly frustrating endeavor.  Honestly, if you mostly play home games then you might be better off buying random ghosty models from other miniatures companies and save yourself the hassle.

Anyway, once you have your staple heroes out of the way, then the last few things to maybe consider are:

• Reikenor the Grimhailer - a neat model and the best caster in the faction, particularly for endless spells
• Chronomantic Cogs - either buy on the secondary market or scratch build your own out of green stuff & small gears - a nice endless spell that works well with deep striking nighhaunt melee units, something cool for Reikenor to cast
• Bladegheist Revenants - a slightly better but not battleline version of Grimghasts.  A nice solid melee elite that you'd like to have access to, though not an urgent priority as you do already have a bunch of grimghasts.
• Black Coach - a terrible unit.  just absolutely the worst.  A real shame.  But it's a ~fantastic~ model, and no Nighthaunt collection would be complete without one.  Personally, I recommend re-basing it on a knight titan oval base, which is a much better fit for it aesthetically, as personally models that hang way over the edge of their bases are a big pet peeve of mine.  It's not like you're going to actually be fielding it anyway so it's not like strict adherence to tournament legal base sizes really matters in this case.

[DirtyNurgle]

Wow thank you for the amazing reponse, I didn't expect anywhere near this near this level of detail.

I went out an picked up Reikenor and the Dread Harrows - the rest I believe I actually have as I was given two entire sets of Nighthaunt from the Soul Wars packs. One is unassembled and in a bit of mess so I'll need to go through and check them out.

Are the Nighthaunt Endless spells worthwhile? They seem kind of niche - extremely power vs. 1 wound, high save hordes but not sure how often you encouter them.

Thank you again, awesome response.

[Sception]

I'll leave the judgement on the endless spells to those who have more experience running them.  As for the soul wars stuff, do a careful inventory of their sprues.  There were several starter boxes of varrying size in the soul wars line.  Only the largest of those boxes, "Soul Wars" with no subtitle, had the heroes in question.  Depending on which boxes your friend got you may or may not have them already.

If you do, that simplifies things.  Though again, if you do have them, then you'll likely want to convert spare grimghasts into chainghasts.  Just assemble what you have on the sprues and do a careful count to see how many you have.  Grim grimghasts are purchased in batches of 10 in game.  If you actually end up with 18, then you'll want to look into ordering a couple individual models on the secondary market, where as if you end up with 24 you'll want to convert 4 into something else.

[Btimmy]

Endless spells for NH are a big no go. Would recommend converting them into something else if you ended up with them somehow. The hourglass one could be potentially a Cogs proxy for example with a little work. 

[punkycloud]

If u want to leverage our best tricks then dreadblade harrow is a must in my opinion. 

[dmorley21]

As others have mentioned, a Spirit Torment, especially with the amount of Chainrasps you have, is a must. 

Also, you'll want to purchase Broken Realms: Be'Lakor so you have the rules to the two new subfactions. 

I'm glad to see you picked up the Harrow and Reikenor. Nighthaunt's endless spells are not worthwhile, but Reikenor is great at casting endless spells. Chronomantic Cogs is great as it makes your troops you deepstrike much more likely to get a charge off, It can alternatively turn Reik into a double caster with a re-rolling ethereal save. Purple Sun and Geminids are also great spells for him to cast. 

[Avatar Rage]

I would recommend trimming the fat a bit with your units. Dropping your Hexwraith count down would be the easiest thing to do and impact you less than any of the others. Hexwraiths are great at getting up close and bog down your opponent’s high rend units. But they move so much faster than the rest of your army it will be difficult to maintain your buff bubbles.