AoS 3 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Neck-Romantic]

I would also change Wave of Terror. Its too much of an all or nothing.

 

I would replace it with NH units that make a succesfull charge move deal impact hits to represent they do not 'charge' across the intervening space, but simply appear in the midst of enemy formations in the blink of an eye horror-movie style.

 

Wouldnt neccesarily have to be MW's, but d3 mortals or regular wou ds pet unit, maybe 2d3 if they roll a natural 10 or for larger beasts

[Neck-Romantic]

I also agree with @Beliman in that I would prefer a thematic approach, that ties the army together as being frightening and intimidating

[That Guy]

14 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

I've never been into the bravery shenanigans with Nighthaunt - I'm much more into the Wave of Terror and Legion of Grief builds. I started a Google Doc with changes I'd make to the army... but with the new book on the way and life getting busy I doubt I'll add much more. But here were what I had so far:

Battle Traits

Deathless Spirits

Roll a dice each time you allocate a wound or mortal wound to a friendly Nighthaunt model from a unit wholly within 12” of a friendly Nighthaunt hero or wholly within 18” of your general or a friendly Nighthaunt totem. On a 6+, that wound or mortal wound is negated. 

Aura of Dread

Subtract 1 from the Bravery characteristic of enemy units while they are within 6” of 1 friendly Nighthaunt unit. Subtract 2 from the Bravery characteristic while they are within 6” of 2 friendly Nighthaunt units. 

Legions of Grief and Spectral Hunters

You must decide if your army will be a Legions of Grief army or a Spectral Hunters Army. Record your choice on your army roster. All Nighthaunt units in a Legions of Grief army gain the Legions of Grief keyword. All Nighthaunt units in a Spectral Hunters army gain the Spectral Hunters keyword. 

Legions of Grief

After territories have been chosen but before armies are set up, you can pick up to 1 point on the battlefield within your territory and 1 point within your opponent’s territory to be Lanterns of Grief. Each Lantern of Grief must be more than 1” from all terrain features and objectives. 

Instead of setting up Nighthaunt Legions of Grief units on the battlefield before the battle begins, you can place it to one side and say that it is set up in the underworld as a reserve unit. You can set up 1 reserve unit in the underworld for each Nighthaunt Legions of Grief unit you already have set up on the battlefield. 

At the end of any of your movement phases, you can set up 1 or more of these units wholly within 12” of a Lantern of Grief and more than 9” from all enemy units. At the start of the fourth battle round, reserve units that are still in the grave are destroyed. 

In addition, if a Nighthaunt Legions of Grief unit is wholly within 12” of a Lantern of Grief, it can heal D3 wounds or return an amount of models with a combined wounds characteristic equal to or less than the D3 roll. Also, add 1 to Deathless Spirits Rolls while a friendly Nighthaunt Legions of Grief unit is wholly within 12” of a Lantern of Grief. 

Spectral Hunters

If you make a charge roll of 10+ for a friendly Spectral Hunters Nighthaunt unit, it can fight immediately after you complete the charge move. This does not stop the same unit from being picked to fight in the combat phase of the same turn. 

Deathly Processions

You can pick 1 of the following subfactions for your army (core rules, 27.2.1). All Nighthaunt units in your army gain the keyword of the subfaction you picked, and you can use the allegiance abilities for that subfaction. If a unit already has a different subfaction keyword on its warscroll, it cannot gain another one. This does not preclude you from including the unit in your army, but you cannot use the allegiance abilities for its subfaction. 

The Emerald Host

After each army finishes deploying, choose an enemy unit on the battlefield. Roll a dice for that unit at the beginning of each battle round. If the roll is equal to or less than the battle round number, reduce that unit’s save characteristic by a number equal to the current battle round. If the roll is not equal to or less than the battle round number, reduce that unit’s save characteristic by 1. 

Reikenor’s Condemned

Each friendly Reikenor’s Condemned wizard can elect to deal D3 mortals to itself at the beginning of the hero phase. If it does, it can add that value to its casting rolls. Myrmourn Banshees are battleline. 

The Craven Host

Craven Host units can retreat and charge or shoot. Craventhrone Guard are battleline. 

Death Riders

Death Riders units with mounts gain +1 to charge. In addition, if they are Spectral Hunters, the Spectral Hunters ability is activated on a 9+. Black Coaches are battleline. 

The Sorrowmourn Choir

The Deathless Spirits ability is activated on a 5+ for Dreadscythe Harridans and Myrmourn Banshees. Dreadscythe Harridans are battleline. 

Execution Horde

At the beginning of each battle round, select an enemy unit. Friendly Execution Horde attacks against that unit are +1 to hit and +1 to wound. 

I like your take on it all. Spectral hunters needs a buff though. Under Deathriders that’s way too unreliable. On top of that Legions of Grief just offers way more to the army even if you would run speedster units. I would start spectral hunters at 8 and boost to 7 in deathriders. Include it to have impact hits based on your charge roll. It needs more than just ASF, you literally only benefit in your turns and it’s still not very reliable. Allow them to “hunt” a unit giving them run and charge vs a chosen unit. Or give them bonusses against a certain type of opponent unit chosen at army deployment. It needs some oomf before people will even consider taking it over Legions of Grief

[Neck-Romantic]

They really need to just make Glaivewraiths out anti-monster bois.

Smallllll unit size tho so theyde need some tweaking, but its a niche they could fill

[Boggler]

Wave of Terror

When a unit charges. If that unit ends its charge within 1" of any enemy unit. Those enemy unit make a morale test. SUbtract 1 from the roll for each model in the unit that charged. If failed, D3 models flee. If solo, that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.

[Neck-Romantic]

@Boggler  so impact hits with extra steps. But the -1 per model charging is a bit much; better to rely on any collective (and newly implemented) bravery debuffs themselves to add setup and synergy.

 

Or, ya know, just cause impact hits like I suggested : P

 Maybe make it so an enemy unit only ever suffers impact hits once per round so its less spammy and spreads us out

Edited March 30, 2022 by Neck-Romantic

[dmorley21]

3 hours ago, That Guy said:

I like your take on it all. Spectral hunters needs a buff though. Under Deathriders that’s way too unreliable. On top of that Legions of Grief just offers way more to the army even if you would run speedster units. I would start spectral hunters at 8 and boost to 7 in deathriders. Include it to have impact hits based on your charge roll. It needs more than just ASF, you literally only benefit in your turns and it’s still not very reliable. Allow them to “hunt” a unit giving them run and charge vs a chosen unit. Or give them bonusses against a certain type of opponent unit chosen at army deployment. It needs some oomf before people will even consider taking it over Legions of Grief

The idea would be that it's no longer unmodified. So Cogs can modify it. Death Riders could. The unique command ability could guarantee one. Then other units could give charge boosts. 

Neither here nor there though; we're getting new warscrolls Saturday and a whole new book likely next month. 

[That Guy]

39 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

The idea would be that it's no longer unmodified. So Cogs can modify it. Death Riders could. The unique command ability could guarantee one. Then other units could give charge boosts. 

Neither here nor there though; we're getting new warscrolls Saturday and a whole new book likely next month. 

The thing is from 1 you always benefit massively and if you play around lanterns even more. From the other you need to modify it to have a slight better chance of benefitting from it at all. I don't know hard choices to be made. We all just want the actual rules to drop. Saturday we'll know the Arena of Shade rules, because of influencer reviews, so that will be a nice appetizer.

[Boggler]

1 hour ago, Neck-Romantic said:

@Boggler  Or, ya know, just cause impact hits like I suggested : P

If those impact hits cause whole models to flee in the same way as Battleshock then we're on the same page.

There would have to be some way to give Nighthaunt a bonus to the roll.

I won't care if my opponent loses a Gore Grunta, Dragon, Annihilator...

We're terrifying yes or no?

Are people terrified by the pool noodles we seem to attack with?

[Jabbuk]

So when do we think we'll see the standalone models of the crossbow men and the new hero for sale? Do you guys have an idea?

I'm debating if I'll buy the new box or not, especially if the book comes out later... I already have 20 Bladeheist Revs, 2 Spirit Torments, 2 Chainghasts and 12 Banshees. I don't see the models that are included in the box as useful to me.

Do you guys have any idea at all when the standalone kits could come out?

Edited March 30, 2022 by Jabbuk

[Neck-Romantic]

I want a thematic, fair fight, with some dirty tricks and scary tools. 

Not an OP steamroller that no one wants to play against.

[Landohammer]

7 hours ago, Boggler said:

Wave of Terror

When a unit charges. If that unit ends its charge within 1" of any enemy unit. Those enemy unit make a morale test. SUbtract 1 from the roll for each model in the unit that charged. If failed, D3 models flee. If solo, that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.

You have to be careful with D3 models fleeing. That becomes insanely too powerful on units of monstrous infantry/cavalry like Kurnoth Hunters, Eels, or Bullgors. I would rather not have anything tied to leadership, as its extremely swingy based on matchup. 

Wave of terror should be kept the same but subject to modifiers, and scarier and/or larger units should get bonuses. For example reinforced units, Harridans, and the Coach should get bonuses. Regardless we should get some kind of control over it bc as it stands its too random for competitively play.

 

 

54 minutes ago, Jabbuk said:

So when do we think we'll see the standalone models of the crossbow men and the new hero for sale? Do you guys have an idea?

I'm debating if I'll buy the new box or not, especially if the book comes out later... I already have 20 Bladeheist Revs, 2 Spirit Torments, 2 Chainghasts and 12 Banshees. I don't see the models that are included in the box as useful to me.

Do you guys have any idea at all when the standalone kits could come out?

The most recent example was the Thousand Son Infernal Master. The Hexfire box came out around August 2021 but the model just came out this month . So You are looking at about a 7-8 month delay.

My logic, is that the Scriptor and Crossboos purchased separately will be within ~$5 of the entire NH half of the Arena box. I also have no need of the extra models, but free models are free models. (The DOK side can be easily flipped on ebay for cost).

 

 

 

[EnixLHQ]

1 hour ago, Neck-Romantic said:

I want a thematic, fair fight, with some dirty tricks and scary tools. 

Not an OP steamroller that no one wants to play against.

Quoted for truth.

[Jabbuk]

1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

The most recent example was the Thousand Son Infernal Master. The Hexfire box came out around August 2021 but the model just came out this month . So You are looking at about a 7-8 month delay.

My logic, is that the Scriptor and Crossboos purchased separately will be within ~$5 of the entire NH half of the Arena box. I also have no need of the extra models, but free models are free models. (The DOK side can be easily flipped on ebay for cost).

That's good to know, thanks. 

[Boggler]

1 hour ago, Landohammer said:

You have to be careful with D3 models fleeing. That becomes insanely too powerful on units of monstrous infantry/cavalry like Kurnoth Hunters, Eels, or Bullgors.

Maybe. But so what. It's rock paper scissors. Someone always has to be on the losing end. We're terrifying right?

Gloomspite got majorly screwed over with the introduction of Mortek Crawlers. That is still a problem. Who cares though right? We want to be a balanced fair fight? Right?

A terrifyingly fair army that has tools to deal with:

Ranged Mortals.

Alpha T1 mega damage.

Hordes of wounds.

We'll see I guess. If we're not steamrolling one of those categories we won't be doing much.

Personally I don't want to go back to 60+ Chainrasps but if I have to to compete then so be it. If we are hybrid Horde/Alpha then it'll be ever better.

[Rors]

Having them play in the terror space is a unique and cool place for them that's thematic both as night haunt and as Death. Bonereapers are immune to fear and Night Haunt are the scariest, it feels like opposite sides of the same coin.

To make it viable they need more abilities/imoacts based on LD and ways to mess with stuff like command points.

Something like any unit with 6 of NH unit must pass leadership test to be able to give or take commands.

[Neck-Romantic]

Oh I like that

[That Guy]

Here it is. The full review of the box. TLDR; Open the salt banks, it sucks for us, sort of.
Banshees became awesome, but ofc situational, since they are anti magic. Torment is the bring back guys heal guys unit now. Chainghasts dissapointing +1 to hit buff, but only if the torment is also on the field and only for melee(…what?). Scriptor Mortis as feared is the unreliable RNG machine with bodyguard ability vs other units that we feared he would be. Bladegheist lost their re-rolls(ha…), and than the crossbow unit, we basically knew all about them already. The melee profile sucks(duh), 4+ to hit(ah… this would be nice for the chainghast buff, but wait, that’s melee only!) The champion adds +1A to his melee profile(LOL… what?). The banner is cool, it allows the unit to rally on 5+ instead of 6. For people who hesitated to get the box, only get it if you like the models or if you want to gamble on the battletome being good. Sorry that i’m being negative, so far it’s just trash, i can’t say anything else about it.

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by That Guy

[The_Dudemeister]

There is so much to unpack here and I literally like none of it.

 

Scriptor Mortis indeed has no additional rules other than the snazzy bookkeeping that you won't see go off in several games in a row but still costs 150 points. Yikes! Also 6" movement, so my hope of army-wide movement buffs is gone.

 

Spirit Torment lost his reroll aura, cannot heal heroes anymore and wholly within 12" is back with a vengeance.

 

Chainghasts got the hit-buff aura now with +1 to hit instead of rerolling 1s. Yet only when a Spirit Torment is still present. Meaning a single buff is stretched on two units, giving the opponent two separate ways to nullify it. One of the single worst game design decisions I've seen in a while

 

Bladegheists lost their reroll when in range of Spirit Torments and Chainghasts... in the boxset that comes with Spirit Torment and Chainghasts. You can't make that stuff up

 

Craventhrone Guard are just too weak to justify a meager 12" range. Even at 95 points for 5, there is no room for them. Also 5+ save to add insult to injury

 

*vinyl scratches*

Banshees get 2 attacks? Well well well, I take everything back. Their "unbinding" is also waaay better. Instead of unbinding within 18", you now can ignore the effects of that spell in a wholly within 12" aura. Meaning that a wizard can first try unbinding it and when he fails, we get an additional chance to not let the spell happen. Fantastic! Also they get the bonus on their roll for 3 models not for 4. Aaaalso also you have to beat the Casting Value... not the actual cast! So it's always the absolute minimum roll and they ignore all those fancy +X to casting rolls and automatically cast on a 12 and whathaveyou that newer battletomes got. AAAAALSO also also, it's a static effect they have, not an unbind attempt anymore, meaning you try to ignore the effects of all the spells in the phase no matter how often they cast stuff. We're the Anti-Magic faction now!

Myrmourn Banshees, man... buy'em, paint'em, field'em.

[Neck-Romantic]

Perhaps these warscrolls were developed solely for arena of shades... the first tome changed some stuff up from the first battlebox too 😬

[Vastus]

Wow, didn't even change the Spirit Torment or Chainghasts in price. I'm most disappointed in the Bladegheists change though. I was hoping for more differentiation between the our infantry options, but so far they have only lost an ability and that's it. Banshee change looks dope though.

Hopefully there's some interesting battle traits and/or sub-factions.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Vastus

[Ragest]

58 minutes ago, Vastus said:

Wow, didn't even change the Spirit Torment or Chainghasts in price. I'm most disappointed in the Bladegheists change though. I was hoping for more differentiation between the our infantry options, but so far they have only lost an ability and that's it. Banshee change looks dope though.

Hopefully there's some interesting battle traits and/or sub-factions.

Interesting subfactions is not what 3rd is about, so all the money on heros and command traits to save this.

[Neck-Romantic]

Gettin a bit worried from all we've seen so far, ngl

[Jabbuk]

.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Jabbuk
Merged posts

[Jabbuk]

2 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

Perhaps these warscrolls were developed solely for arena of shades... the first tome changed some stuff up from the first battlebox too 😬

Even if they were.. I mean they don't even compete with the DoK content of this box

So like... The previews are out.. Wow! Those NH scrolls man... WOW! I mean.. I don't even..

I'm trying to think what REALLY strong allegiance abilities they will come up with that could counter balance all of those nerfs and sideways changes... 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Jabbuk