AoS 3 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[dmorley21]

Wow, a great weekend for Nighthaunt at tournaments. 

Bill Souza took his Hexwraith spam and Big Drogg list to a 5th place finish at Da Boyz GT. His only loss was game 1 against Jordan from Season of War and his Lumineth. Another player then went 5-0 at a 24 player event called Little Bo Peep GT. I haven't seen the 5-0 list, but there's pics of the games on Twitter and it looks like a MSU list running Olynder and Reikenor. You can find the pics on Twitter under the account "PissPoorGeneral". 

[Dogmantra]

Question about coherency. How do you typically arrange your elite fighting units with 1" reach like your Bladegheists and Dreadscythe Harridans?

The safety of two ranks appeals to me but the idea of missing out on half of your fighting power in a unit feels really bad. But likewise it feels bad getting to use that fighting force then immediately losing half of it to a single wound.

[DionTheWanderer]

Had my first AoS 3 game with my Nighthunt (sic - it's Wanderer themed) army. Vs a Gotrek Living City list. Somehow managed a win by dragging Gotrek into no-man's land, then popping up with From the Underworlds on the objectives my opponent had rather carelessly abandoned. Certainly felt like the list had no staying power or hitting power, but a lot of maneouvrability, such that you could force an enemy with only a few units to waste time chewing up your small units. 

Overkill is definitely our friend. If Gotrek spends an entire turn wiping out 10 chainrasps (doing about 10 wounds of overkill) that's a turn he's not doing anything useful. 

Couple of pictures of my favourite models. 

 

 

[darkdaysdawn]

Are Ward Saves optional?  Specifically, does Reikenor have to attempt a ward save when using a corpse candle on himself?  (I thought I'd read a discussion about it here somewhere in the past, but I couldn't find it...sorry)

Thanks.

[EnixLHQ]

On 11/16/2021 at 2:38 PM, Dogmantra said:

Question about coherency. How do you typically arrange your elite fighting units with 1" reach like your Bladegheists and Dreadscythe Harridans?

The safety of two ranks appeals to me but the idea of missing out on half of your fighting power in a unit feels really bad. But likewise it feels bad getting to use that fighting force then immediately losing half of it to a single wound.

I talk about my method here: 

On 11/20/2021 at 8:59 PM, darkdaysdawn said:

Are Ward Saves optional?  Specifically, does Reikenor have to attempt a ward save when using a corpse candle on himself?  (I thought I'd read a discussion about it here somewhere in the past, but I couldn't find it...sorry)

Thanks.

Ward saves are not optional. Unfortunately, Reikenor does have to attempt to make a ward save if he damages himself with his corpse candle, and even more unfortunate, if he saves that damage the rest of the effect doesn't happen.

[Tizianolol]

On 11/15/2021 at 2:28 AM, dmorley21 said:

Wow, a great weekend for Nighthaunt at tournaments. 

Bill Souza took his Hexwraith spam and Big Drogg list to a 5th place finish at Da Boyz GT. His only loss was game 1 against Jordan from Season of War and his Lumineth. Another player then went 5-0 at a 24 player event called Little Bo Peep GT. I haven't seen the 5-0 list, but there's pics of the games on Twitter and it looks like a MSU list running Olynder and Reikenor. You can find the pics on Twitter under the account "PissPoorGeneral". 

Do you know where I can find the 5-0 list ? I cant find it

[dmorley21]

6 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

Do you know where I can find the 5-0 list ? I cant find it

 

[Tizianolol]

Guys can a champion of a nighthaunt unit use special summons for his unit? Or we need our hero?

[Ranzou]

4 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

Guys can a champion of a nighthaunt unit use special summons for his unit? Or we need our hero?

SS is generals ability. Leader can't be  general.

[spenson]

Rumours are that Nighthaunt may be the next BT after nurgle. I have great hope that we may finally get a playable army.

[dmorley21]

12 hours ago, spenson said:

Rumours are that Nighthaunt may be the next BT after nurgle. I have great hope that we may finally get a playable army.

I'm fairly plugged in to rumors, and I haven't seen anything like that. So don't get your hopes up.

And there's been a handful of good results for Nighthaunt lately at different events. So that's been nice to see. 

[lare2]

I can't remember where I saw it but I'd heard October next year. Again though, no recollection of where I got this info... might've even dreamed it. 

[dmorley21]

27 minutes ago, lare2 said:

I can't remember where I saw it but I'd heard October next year. Again though, no recollection of where I got this info... might've even dreamed it. 

That’s from 4chan. 

[lare2]

21 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

That’s from 4chan. 

Rubbish then 👍

[pnkdth]

14 hours ago, spenson said:

Rumours are that Nighthaunt may be the next BT after nurgle. I have great hope that we may finally get a playable army.

NH do have some play and it would be interesting to see if there will be players who pick up on the 5-0 lists. To be concrete, there is something to a Hexwraith + Lady O list + assorted Bladegheists/Dreadscythes. Both as MSU or the double coach list with bigger units of Hexwraiths. I'm personally intrigued by the potential of the Krulghasts in these kinds of armies since it adds resilience in addition to healing.

We always have to be careful with 'old accepted truths' since the game is quite different and it would appear the processions haven't actually been properly unlocked till recently. That said, it depends on what you mean by playable. Since I'm not saying I expect a Nighthaunt meta to sweep the tournament scene but on the other hand the lists put forth are interesting and encouraging to hold us over for awhile.

Though a new tome would be awesome! Let's hope the AoS Dataslate and points adjustments add some new options. Something that would make sense for NH is unit cost reduction for the many support leaders out there are. They're not hard to kill and should be costed appropriately since they function more as unit upgrades than impactful units in the their own right.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying everything is awesome because a few 5-0s achieved by great players. The army is struggling for a reason(s).

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

I'm fairly plugged in to rumors, and I haven't seen anything like that. So don't get your hopes up.

And there's been a handful of good results for Nighthaunt lately at different events. So that's been nice to see. 

I have not seen a concrete rumour to this effect, but if we are pattern seeking, then the 2nd ed release schedule suggests that the first 4 books of a new edition are one per Grand Alliance. That means Death could be up next. Plus, there are a few Nighthaunt rumour engines still around. Nighthaunt don't seem like they will get a large model release in their next update (the range is pretty large and fairly new), but these images could conceivably be a big, high wounds hero, like a Guardian of Souls on a Ghost Ship:

 

Spoiler

I would say chances are good that Nighthaunt get a new tome soon, but we don't really have  anything concrete to go off of.

[Liquidsteel]

Nighthaunt need a proper monster/behemoth hero.

Possibly a dual kit that builds a hero and generic or something.

[darkdaysdawn]

I have a Nighthaunt Patch proposal for casual games with friends (as in, we own our stuff and can play how we want, but wouldn't expect such a patch to be official):

Why not change Ethereal to read:  "Ignore negative modifiers when making save rolls for attacks that target this unit.", as opposed to ignoring negative AND positive modifiers?  Or make it even simpler, "This unit ignores Rend from enemy attacks"?

This would allow us to use cover, garrisons, All Out Defense, Mystic Shield, and Their Finest Hour (i.e. the obvious list of buffs we currently can't use but everyone else can).  Thematically, if an ork and a ghost are both inside buildings, both should be harder to hit, because they're inside buildings!  Thematically, 3.0 and Ethereal as implemented make no sense at all.  A shield is a shield, mystical or physical -- it blocks stuff and doesn't care what is standing behind it.

I don't see an easy we could abuse this -- I don't see any spells, abilities, or universal enhancements that we would be able to use other than the same core rules (listed above) that everyone else can use too.

Statistically, the new Mystic Shield is more powerful than the v2.0 implementation, so not only did we lose defensive buffs in 3.0 but everyone else's defensive buffs got more powerful (reroll 1's to Save is not as good as +1 to Save roll -- the former offers a 6.25% Save improvement whereas the new 3.0 buffs offer a 12.5% improvement to Save likelihood, based on a 4+ Save characteristic).

I don't think this would be unbalancing -- we're already totally out of balance.  But perhaps I haven't noticed some ramifications that would be problematic, which is why I'm posting for feedback.

Edited December 17, 2021 by darkdaysdawn

[dmorley21]

9 hours ago, pnkdth said:

NH do have some play and it would be interesting to see if there will be players who pick up on the 5-0 lists. To be concrete, there is something to a Hexwraith + Lady O list + assorted Bladegheists/Dreadscythes. Both as MSU or the double coach list with bigger units of Hexwraiths. I'm personally intrigued by the potential of the Krulghasts in these kinds of armies since it adds resilience in addition to healing.

We always have to be careful with 'old accepted truths' since the game is quite different and it would appear the processions haven't actually been properly unlocked till recently. That said, it depends on what you mean by playable. Since I'm not saying I expect a Nighthaunt meta to sweep the tournament scene but on the other hand the lists put forth are interesting and encouraging to hold us over for awhile. 

It’s funny because I was actually super down on Hexwraiths in 3.0. I was running a unit of 5 and a unit of 10 in Death Riders/Emerald Host for a hot sec and they were soooo good. 
 

Then 3.0 happened and I only ran 2 units of 2 as bodyguard and all they did was die. 
 

I’m interested to try them with a different mindset. 

1 hour ago, darkdaysdawn said:

I have a Nighthaunt Patch proposal for casual games with friends (as in, we own our stuff and can play how we want, but wouldn't expect such a patch to be official):

Why not change Ethereal to read:  "Ignore negative modifiers when making save rolls for attacks that target this unit.", as opposed to ignoring negative AND positive modifiers?  Or make it even simpler, "This unit ignores Rend from enemy attacks"?

This would allow us to use cover, garrisons, All Out Defense, Mystic Shield, and Their Finest Hour (i.e. the obvious list of buffs we currently can't use but everyone else can).  Thematically, if an ork and a ghost are both inside buildings, both should be harder to hit, because they're inside buildings!  Thematically, 3.0 and Ethereal as implemented make no sense at all.  A shield is a shield, mystical or physical -- it blocks stuff and doesn't care what is standing behind it.

I don't see an easy we could abuse this -- I don't see any spells, abilities, or universal enhancements that we would be able to use other than the same core rules (listed above) that everyone else can use too.

Statistically, the new Mystic Shield is more powerful than the v2.0 implementation, so not only did we lose defensive buffs in 3.0 but everyone else's defensive buffs got more powerful (reroll 1's to Save is not as good as +1 to Save roll -- the former offers a 6.25% Save improvement whereas the new 3.0 buffs offer a 12.5% improvement to Save likelihood, based on a 4+ Save characteristic).

I don't think this would be unbalancing -- we're already totally out of balance.  But perhaps I haven't noticed some ramifications that would be problematic, which is why I'm posting for feedback.

This is good, but Nighthaunt don’t need a patch in casual games IMO. I find they do quite well against weaker lists or players that aren’t super competitive due to the combo of Fly/Ethereal/Movement Shenanigans. 

[darkdaysdawn]

7 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

 

This is good, but Nighthaunt don’t need a patch in casual games IMO. I find they do quite well against weaker lists or players that aren’t super competitive due to the combo of Fly/Ethereal/Movement Shenanigans. 

Casual where I play still means Gotrek, Nagash, Archaon, etc.  And the new Kruleboyz and Stormcast books are really terrible to play against. Ethereal = "Ignore Rend" so far makes games much more enjoyable and much closer. Played against SC this evening, and we both had more fun (else SC would have likely tabled NH in 3 rounds, based on previous games). 

I like the house rule so far. I don't want to build a Hexwraith list just because our book sucks. That's not very fun, IMO. 

If anyone else would care to try this house rule, I'd be interested to know if it feels balanced or OP. Thanks. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by darkdaysdawn
Asked for testing and feedback

[darkdaysdawn]

I would like the new Soulblight Deadly Coordination ability for Nighthaunt please!  That sounds really fun, especially for NH since we have so many fun by fragile heroes.  Soul Cage is kinda cool, but it's not guaranteed to go off, and if you've already closed range the previous turn and the spell fails, your hero/wiz is probably in trouble.  Deadly Coordination would be like Mini-Soul-Cage-Lite.  Ghastly Coordination? 

PS:  This would make my dream of having a Cairn Wraith with the Reaper of Sorrows or something lead a unit of Reapers, without losing the Cairn Wraith in the first combat, a reality.  Just seems like a fun combo, especially from the Underworlds in enemy territory for a battle tactic!

Edited December 18, 2021 by darkdaysdawn
added more

[Bayul]

What yould a Nighthaunt list with Nagash's new warscroll look like? https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/XTPR7PzBSVcNAAOd.pdf

[lare2]

Get in there!

[lare2]

Huh, saying that... after having read the warscroll, I don't think he gets the standard 6+ ward. 

Death Magic Incarnate combined with KC, that's a unit with a 4++ right there. Think I'll try that on 30 Grimghast. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by lare2

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

7 minutes ago, lare2 said:

Huh, saying that... after having read the warscroll, I don't think he gets the standard 6+ ward. 

Death Magic Incarnate combined with KC, that's a unit with a 4++ right there. Think I'll try that on 30 Grimghast. 

He weirdly doesn't seem to get the ward, but I suppose in Nighthaunt he will be the only target for both Mystic Shield and All-Out Defense, so I guess he'll be at a 2+ ignore rend -1, 4+ ward against mortals by default.