AoS 3 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[mmimzie]

3 hours ago, Rors said:

You get the Harrow ability once each battle round for each Harrow because the warscroll says 'this unit'. So you use one command point with the general, potential not even there depending on what your general is, then they copy it without any more command points being spent.

Could be a bunch of defense in their turn it you could reroll a ton of charges or get heaps of all out attack in yours for either one or zero command points.

Honest Warhammer also noted if the boatboo is general he can teleport and take a unit with him, then Harrows could do the same. Deepstrike your whole army again every turn for one command point.

2 harrows and bought knight varients would allow you to have a lot of free CP stuff. Redepoying 3 units would be pretty nuts.... and time consuming

[Rors]

38 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

2 harrows and bought knight varients would allow you to have a lot of free CP stuff. Redepoying 3 units would be pretty nuts.... and time consuming

I think in grieving legion there's probably some kind of option where you have large units of chain rasp and you spam the 5+ ward.

[Neck-Romantic]

Ide be spamming Discoporate regardless of the size of my units 😅

Im probably going Emerald Host or Scarlet Doom, MSU Bladegheists, Myrmourns and Spirit Hosts with all the support heroes

[lare2]

Just wondering, I know SCE have unique enhancements; do all 3rd ed. books? If so, I've not seen any for NH yet. 

In other news, I love the Lord Executioner model. Been thinking about trying to get him to work. Give him Arcane Tome, Flaming Weapon, and 3x3 Spirit Hosts. That's a little ball of death, right there. 

Edited May 7, 2022 by lare2

[Beliman]

16 minutes ago, lare2 said:

Just wondering, I know SCE have unique enhancements; do all 3rd ed. books? If so, I've not seen any for NH yet. 

Nop. SCE holy orders (special enhancements) are like a Battletrait. Some armies have crazy stuff (5-6 battletraits, mainly Nighthaunts), others have 2-3 and maybe an enhancement, heroic action or this kind of stuff

[The_Dudemeister]

58 minutes ago, lare2 said:

In other news, I love the Lord Executioner model. Been thinking about trying to get him to work. Give him Arcane Tome, Flaming Weapon, and 3x3 Spirit Hosts. That's a little ball of death, right there. 

I did that recently but also made him my general with reroll all hits and wounds. 

The reason was that I played against a buddy who plays Khorne and not very competitively at all. Our games are still more teaching lessons for him still. So even with the old book, I basically had a near 100% win rate. That's why I tried weird janky stuff with almost more heroes than regular units

Long story short, Lord Executioner destroyed several hundreds of points on his own. Even had one combat phase where he dealt the full 15 damage. Didn't even accompany him with Spirit Hosts, I meant for him to die early. But against a very casual player, he went nuts like Gotrek

Next time I'll try Cairn Wraith. I actually have no idea how many attacks he realistically gets

[lare2]

31 minutes ago, The_Dudemeister said:

Long story short, Lord Executioner destroyed several hundreds of points on his own...

Sounds hilarious! Will have to give him it a go. 

[Rachmani]

18 hours ago, mmimzie said:

2 harrows and bought knight varients would allow you to have a lot of free CP stuff. Redepoying 3 units would be pretty nuts.... and time consuming

Don’t forget that Dreadblades can only copy the General‘s command. 
You’re probably aware and are only mentioning that for the free commands, but I wanna highlight it a bit.

[Neck-Romantic]

Going to be some tactics involved on who issues what commands when youve got Harrows on the field.

Have general issue all out attack and have it copied, or Discoporate? Or reroll charge?

Theres another interesting question. Due to the wording and timing of events; CAN your general issue reroll charge and have the Harrows copy? Or Redploy either? Technically you are activating one unit at a time and declaring charges, if you copy the command and apply it to other units, its sort of out of sequence, same with redeploy. 

Edited May 7, 2022 by Neck-Romantic

[Rors]

18 minutes ago, Neck-Romantic said:

Going to be some tactics involved on who issues what commands when youve got Harrows on the field.

Have general issue all out attack and have it copied, or Discoporate? Or reroll charge?

Theres another interesting question. Due to the wording and timing of events; CAN your general issue reroll charge and have the Harrows copy? Or Redploy either? Technically you are activating one unit at a time and declaring charges, if you copy the command and apply it to other units, its sort of out of sequence, same with redeploy. 

Yeah it's going to need a FAQ coz it breaks how the core books commands work. My Guess is that the Harrows can copy them but they only come into effect when the full condition is triggered. I.E. You give a unit reroll to charge when copying the general, that command sits in limbo until you declare a charge with that unit and it's triggered. You use redeploy from the general, you then give other units a copy of redeploy, those units can't move d6 immediately though, but once your opponent moves something else up and all the conditions are triggered you move immediately, or the unit you gave the copy to is also within range of the same unit that triggered your generals command and you move all of them at once... I think.

Books not even technically out yet though. We have a long long wait to get an official answer.

[Jaskier]

My first impression is if you're leaning into big blobs you'll usually be saving the command-copy for Discorporate, but if you go the normal MSU route the other commands like Redeploy are a lot more enticing simply because units of 3-10 ghosts will get blown away by serious pressure with or without the 5++. The flexibility to use it on what you need is its strength, so identifying when to use it - i.e. analysing if it is worth using in a given situation once an opportunity is presented and whether 'saving' it for later in the battle round would be a better use of it - is definitely going to be key. 

[Kadeton]

8 hours ago, Neck-Romantic said:

Theres another interesting question. Due to the wording and timing of events; CAN your general issue reroll charge and have the Harrows copy? Or Redploy either? Technically you are activating one unit at a time and declaring charges, if you copy the command and apply it to other units, its sort of out of sequence, same with redeploy. 

The important thing to note is that the Harrow doesn't copy the ability immediately. Instead, it gains the option to use that same command for free at any point during the same phase. The normal timing requirements for using the command still apply.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Kadeton

[Neck-Romantic]

Orly

[elescapo]

Got my first game in tonight with the new tome, vs. an "optimized casual" Stormcast list.  My list was just what I have painted, which is basically the Soul Wars box plus a few additions. Both of us were incredibly impressed with Nighthaunt performance.

I haven't seen much discussion about the new Spirit Torment warscroll.  At 115 points, he's one of our cheapest heroes, yet he easily had the largest impact on the game.  He carried the entire center.

I suspect that many people didn't notice that they changed his warscroll between Arena of Shades and the battletome.  He no longer as the "enemy model must die" trigger.  He just puts 3 wounds of models back every combat phase.  I had a single unit of 10 Bladegheists in my center, and he put 15 models back in that unit over the course of 3 turns--easily paying for himself twice over.  He was also carrying an Arcane Tome and casting Seal of Shyish, so he was creating utility beyond just the healing. 

Some other observations:

• As others have said, we hit incredibly hard in our turns.  The warscroll stats are deceptive.  In practice, everything in the army has at least Rend -1 or -2.  We generate a lot of advantage by lining up against an exposed unit or weak flank, and then hitting as hard as we can with every available unit.  Even rolling low on charges didn't feel that bad, as it was completely shutting down All-out Attack and similar abilities.  I was reliably stacking -3 or -4 to hit.
• Knight of Shrouds on Steed is a surprising beatstick.  I put him in support of the Bladegheists, and he did that job exceedingly well.  The Sword of Stolen hours ability is great.
• Lord Executioner is a decent little fighty hero now.  I made him general with Hatred of the Living, and he was reliably cutting through 2+ and 3+ saves.
• Nothing felt bad.  Everything had a use, even the 4 Glaivewraith Stalkers.
• I was running 2x 20 Chainrasps, and I think it would have been much better and more flexible to split them into 4x 10.  Going into the new tome, I was worried about limited Reinforcement Points, but now I find myself uninterested in using them at all.

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by elescapo

[Rors]

Out of interest, what use/role did the glaivewraiths?

[elescapo]

12 minutes ago, Rors said:

Out of interest, what use/role did the glaivewraiths?

The charge bonus meant that the added an almost guaranteed trigger for Wave of Terror to one of my fights. 
 

I still think they are too expensive, but the scroll isn’t bad. 

[Maxo Bug]

6 hours ago, elescapo said:

The charge bonus meant that the added an almost guaranteed trigger for Wave of Terror to one of my fights. 
 

I still think they are too expensive, but the scroll isn’t bad. 

I thought the same at first, but then I saw wave of terror is activated with unmodified charge rolls, so they will most likely charge, yes, but not necessarily giving an improved WoT.

Again, on an unrelated note, I think the Stalkers are still missing the 2 wounds per model. Makes sense lore-wise, and would make them a better option for the points, even with their stats as they are.

[Maxo Bug]

7 hours ago, elescapo said:

(...) Both of us were incredibly impressed with Nighthaunt performance.

I haven't seen much discussion about the new Spirit Torment warscroll.  At 115 points, he's one of our cheapest heroes, yet he easily had the largest impact on the game.  He carried the entire center.

I suspect that many people didn't notice that they changed his warscroll between Arena of Shades and the battletome.  He no longer as the "enemy model must die" trigger.  He just puts 3 wounds of models back every combat phase.  I had a single unit of 10 Bladegheists in my center, and he put 15 models back in that unit over the course of 3 turns--easily paying for himself twice over.  He was also carrying an Arcane Tome and casting Seal of Shyish, so he was creating utility beyond just the healing. 

Some other observations:

• As others have said, we hit incredibly hard in our turns.  The warscroll stats are deceptive.  In practice, everything in the army has at least Rend -1 or -2.  We generate a lot of advantage by lining up against an exposed unit or weak flank, and then hitting as hard as we can with every available unit.  Even rolling low on charges didn't feel that bad, as it was completely shutting down All-out Attack and similar abilities.  I was reliably stacking -3 or -4 to hit.
• Knight of Shrouds on Steed is a surprising beatstick.  I put him in support of the Bladegheists, and he did that job exceedingly well.  The Sword of Stolen hours ability is great.
• Lord Executioner is a decent little fighty hero now.  I made him general with Hatred of the Living, and he was reliably cutting through 2+ and 3+ saves.
• Nothing felt bad.  Everything had a use, even the 4 Glaivewraith Stalkers.
• I was running 2x 20 Chainrasps, and I think it would have been much better and more flexible to split them into 4x 10.  Going into the new tome, I was worried about limited Reinforcement Points, but now I find myself uninterested in using them at all.

 

I really loved to read this. The Spirit Torment is by far one of my favorite models (the Crawlocke the Jailor model, that is) and I'm happy to see he's still relevant and a good pick for our lists. I did notice the change (again, one of my faves) but didn't know how significant is on the table, still have to try the new rules proper.

Regarding the deceptive damage, I'm glad to read that what I thought was true, and even better than expected.

Nice to know that Executioner and KoSoES are good too. The ability to heal, AND increase the wound characteristic with the Sword of Stolen Hours sounds too good.

And lastly, what I did miss, was that Chainrasps' Chilling Horde ability does not have the "More than 10 models" to be active. That's nice for MSU! Still, in their particular case, there's maybe safety in numbers, still.

[EnixLHQ]

It's happening!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/05/08/sunday-preview-witch-aelves-spectral-hordes-and-the-defence-of-the-north/

Edited May 8, 2022 by EnixLHQ

[Maxo Bug]

12 minutes ago, EnixLHQ said:

It's happening!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/05/08/sunday-preview-witch-aelves-spectral-hordes-and-the-defence-of-the-north/

Wow, that was quick! Came here to say that, haha.
Look, KoS on steed and GoS are being packed with the Soul Wars Spirit Torment to sell separately!

[Neck-Romantic]

Still some odd stuff in this book.

Glaive and Hexwraiths have 1" range with two-handed polearms. Torment going from D3 damage to 1 while GoS goes to D2. 

Not complaining, as most of these were tradeoffs, but these changes dont make much sense.

[lare2]

Really nice to see the Craventhrone available so soon. Wasn't expecting that. Know they're not the best but still want to pick them up. Expecting them to be ca.£30.

 

[elescapo]

19 minutes ago, Neck-Romantic said:

Still some odd stuff in this book.

Glaive and Hexwraiths have 1" range with two-handed polearms. Torment going from D3 damage to 1 while GoS goes to D2. 

Not complaining, as most of these were tradeoffs, but these changes dont make much sense.

Spirit Torment does 2 damage with his Shacklegheist Chains. 
 

Their continuing reluctance to give 2” reach to weapons that clearly deserve it is baffling, though.  

[Neck-Romantic]

Oh good, the post I have shows D1 but its a bit distorted.

[EnixLHQ]

1 hour ago, lare2 said:

Really nice to see the Craventhrone available so soon. Wasn't expecting that. Know they're not the best but still want to pick them up. Expecting them to be ca.£30.

 

I still want them and the Scriptor Mortis even if they never see competitive play. I can't keep saying I have the entire NH army if I don't. Inching ever closer to that 10k game my local GW manager wants to have with me.