AoS 3 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[lare2]

2 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Pre-orders are up. PRE-ORDERS ARE UP!

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/searchResults?N=2070689437+3206404541

You must be on the other side if the pond mate. Just went for the book myself. Times are tough in Blighty.

[lare2]

2 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Pre-orders are up. PRE-ORDERS ARE UP!

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/searchResults?N=2070689437+3206404541

You must be on the other side if the pond mate. Just went for the book myself. Times are tough in Blighty.

[dmorley21]

Put together a blog post that collects different reviews. If you see ones I've missed, let me know and I'll add them. Figured it would be a good resource. 

 

[Causalis]

Today many reviews got released on YT, with the usual suspects like "man reads book" etc. in there. I've watched a few while painting and cobbled together a few neat synergies and combos I didn't think of at the first glance:

1: GoS + Reapers/other hammer-unit. Our lantern-bearer used to be best buddies with our Chainrasps but those now have +1 to-wound native when they charge, making his +1 redundand (they can still benefit when they are on the recieving end of a charge, of course). So I would rather pair him up with a reinforced block of Reapers or Bladegheists etc. He'll buff their dmg output even more and bringing back D6 of them with his spell is much more valuable than returning Chainrasps.

2. KoS (and by extension his steed version) with Spiteful Spirit. This is a fun combo to take in casual games. KoS can potentially get +10 wounds, making him roll A LOT of dice with the Command Trait. Are there better choices for our CT? Absolutely. 

3. Cairn Wraith + Hatred for the Living + Reaper of Sorrows. I really do believe that this little guy is a bit of a hidden gem. Sure, against low-model-count armies he won't be good but seeing how scary the new melee Snakes for Daughters of Khaine will be, it would be a shame if a lowly 115p model just dumpstered all those sweet melee ladies...

4. Lady O + Kurdoss + Banshee. Another combo for casual games or for when you really want to ****** with your opponent's CP stash. 

5. Dreadscythe Harridans + Hexwraiths/Awlrach/KoS/Coach/etc. We have a few units that do impact hits, thus empowering our Harridans. Alternatively we can shoot an Arcane Bolt or chain-activate with KoS. 

6. General with Terryfying Entity + Lady O. Lifting the veil does 1 more MW if the target is terrified. Shame that we probably can't accomplish this reliably first turn, since combats will probably only begin 2nd turn, right? Just take this combo, park the General 6" near target unit and now it is terrified and Lady O does a bit more damage. 

 

There are probably loads more combos that I didn't think of but these are the one I've got so far.

Edited May 14, 2022 by Causalis

[That Guy]

1 hour ago, lare2 said:

You must be on the other side if the pond mate. Just went for the book myself. Times are tough in Blighty.

Got myself the full circle. Bought 30 bladegheist more, awlrach, some spirit host(didn’t have too much)Book, Dice, Cards. I’m too excited man…  just after all this time finally. The necroquake might be over, but we shall burst forth from the ethereal plane with the force of a thousand moons crashing in the planet. FOR THE GREAT NECROMANCER. We shall collect the soul tax.

Edited May 14, 2022 by That Guy

[The_Dudemeister]

2 hours ago, Causalis said:

3. Cairn Wraith + Hatred for the Living + Reaper of Sorrows.

I really like Slitter.

Against elite Infantry it bumps up your damage by killing one outright with a surprisingly high chance. If you think about it, a 3-wound model dies on a 4+. It's like dealing 3 mortals before the fight without allowing a ward save. 

Against hordes, you kill the first poor soul in front of you, usually on a 2+. With that you're wedging space open to pile into, which brings only more models within 3" range.

Slitter is also so good for that because now the Cairn Wraith doesn't just do the damage against hordes only. He gets buffed by them but you can unleash the full damage against anyone else. So piling into a newly formed hole in the screen and using his 2" range can get him to the juicier targets where you dramatically trade up

[Neck-Romantic]

I mean technically he can apply all his attacks to the support hero or key target or whoever, the guys in range just up the # of attacks

[EnixLHQ]

5 hours ago, lare2 said:

You must be on the other side if the pond mate. Just went for the book myself. Times are tough in Blighty.

Yep. Pacific Northwest American here. I'm glad for a game that spans geography like this one does.

[dmorley21]

19 hours ago, dmorley21 said:

Put together a blog post that collects different reviews. If you see ones I've missed, let me know and I'll add them. Figured it would be a good resource. 

 

Added some more links, including a pretty good battle report (from the first half that I've watched so far), a review on the lore and PtG, and an upcoming list tech show by Facehammer (will be half Nighthaunt, half Daughters of Khaine). 

[EnixLHQ]

I'm loving the overall very positive reviews I'm seeing. Feels good to be a ghost player right now.

Against all odds I've got a game today. It's a 1.5k point limit to see if we can get in more than one and at such short notice, but I'm excited to test these new rules out. I'm torn between choices, which is a good thing.

[Rors]

I played a game over the weekend. 2k vs LRL. Game ended in a draw.

I took a really experimental build, with 4 dreadblades and a Kos for 5 free redeploys. List also had Reikenor and the rest was some chainrasp and spirit hosts and 7 units of banshees.

I miss positioned the KoS so he was isolated from the spirit hosts and he died turn 2. Sentinels were a headache but being able to really shut down my opponents magic blunted them a bit.

By the end of the game I had lost everything but was well head of points so my opponents last turn brought it back to a draw. The army was really fragile and loosing the redeploy meant I was loosing units quicker than I wanted to. He had a cathalar that prevented backshock on a 2+ as well which really stuff up the plan. It felt like both armies really countered what the other wanted to.

Anyway my final thoughts are that myrmourn banshees are amazing, especially against magic heavy lists. That aside though, they're very easy to multicharge in and if you cast soul cage first you can just convert the 10+ rolls to extra rend. They delete stuff. However, if you don't delete it, they die horrifically fast. In the future I think they're probably better as a counter charge unit that protects your main line rather than going with 7 of them but I'll try a few more games.

Dreadblades also perform really well. The teleport means they're always where you need them and like myrmourn they're great for stacking extra WoT.

Most of my combats I was naturally getting 'strike last' on my opponent. I think if I hadn't messed up position of my KoS and kept him alive a turn longer or so I'd have won the game.

Edit: I forgot to mention. The grand strat was fright or flight and I've found it's basically guaranteed. All you have to do is move any models that could get challenged away from their objective. Thus it's impossible to have any contested. You possibly give up an objective but I think outside of a hoard of chainrasp we don't hold objectives anyway. So long as you move off the objectives last turn it's guaranteed.

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Rors
typo

[EnixLHQ]

7 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

I'm loving the overall very positive reviews I'm seeing. Feels good to be a ghost player right now.

Against all odds I've got a game today. It's a 1.5k point limit to see if we can get in more than one and at such short notice, but I'm excited to test these new rules out. I'm torn between choices, which is a good thing.

Only got the one game in. 1500 points vs Sylvaneth.

My list:

Spoiler

Procession: Scarlet Doom

Grand Strategy: Hold the Line

Triumph: Indomitable

Core Battalions: Battle Regiment

 

Leaders

Lady Olynder: Shademist

Spirit Torment

Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed

Cairn Wraith: General, Hatred for the Living, Reaper of Sorrows

 

Troops

Chainrasps 1x10

Spirit Host 1x3

Myrmourn Banshees 1x4

Bladegheist Revenants 3x10

 

Total: 1475

Battleplan: Tooth and Nail

Result: Opponent conceded at the top of turn 3.

Synopsis: Aren't we just a treat now.

I deployed with the intent of having one Bladegheist unit with the KoSoES, two Bladegheist units supported by the Spirit Torment with the sleeper meme unit of the Cairn Wraith, and Oynder with the pack of Spirit Hosts. The Chainrasps hung back to camp my starting objective to make sure I never lost it, and the Banshees stayed close to Olynder and the double-pack of Bladegheists .

Though my opponent went first and was able to pump up his casts bonus, I effectively shut down any offensive casting he could do thanks to the Banshees. Which was good, because I couldn't roll an unbind worth a damn at all. The Banshees were even better the next turn because I had gotten them close enough that when Durthu as chosen as the target for a trumped up heal spell, they were able to eat it instead.

The Bladegheists did respectable damage. The Scarlet Doom buff they got felt like it brought their damage back in line to what it was when they charged with a Spirit Torment/Chainghast combo from our 2nd ed book. I think that's kind of the parallel I'd draw from the procession; if you want the old BG damage this is the Procession for you. With so many units of them and the heroes I had I got off multiple WoT procs and was able to stack them or spread them as I needed. Though I only ever got one Petrify, I got plenty Shrieks and a few Stuns. I don't think any particular proc of WoT influenced the game that much, but they of course helped.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to really flex my heroes. The Cairn Wraith was very much a meme, because I couldn't roll over a 6 in order to enable his -4 rend from the artefact, and my opponent didn't bring enough units for me to have more than 5 attacks. Though the potential is crazy good, I will likely not bring the Cairn Wraith again unless I have the free points. As for the other heroes, I forgot that Olynder could deny a command, but that didn't result in much. Her presence and her Lifting of the Veil was strong enough to keep my opponent backing up. The KoSoES got one use of his free CA. On our second turn I went first and killed the unit I was targeting on the BG charge. The Spirit Torment is great, though. 3 models back every combat phase? Tasty goodness.

By the bottom of turn 2 I had wiped four complete units of 10 from my opponent's side for a trade of one unit of Bladegheists and no damage on any of my heroes. I won priority for turn 3 and my opponent conceded.

My takeway is that as long as we are super aggressive, and focused, on our turns we can weaken enemy units to the point of not taking too much incoming damage. The trick was to make sure I only engaged in two or three actual combats, basically choosing an objective or two and focusing on taking them for myself. The only hope my opponent had was to reinforce on those objectives, and that didn't end up working. I stole two objectives at the end of turn one and was in position to steal the last one by the top of turn 3.

One thing I want to mention, though, is that I think we should expect a FAQ for the Banshees. RAW, even though I only had two unbinds and they always failed, the Banshees was able to eat up all but one of my opponent's spells that targeted anything. So he was stuck summoning more Wyldwoods, afraid to cast anything else positive or negative because of how I had them positioned. I agued that the risk is that I had to have the Banshees close to the enemy to absorb the positive spells, he countered that he felt they were too much of a bait unit, requiring a disproportionate amount of points to nullify than, say, attempting to delete a unit of Bladegheists. I'm not so sure, but it was work mentioning.

[Rors]

The other list I think could be fun is some form of hero synergy mega party that gets followed by spirit host

4 combat heros; executioners to hand out -1 to wound at the start of every combat and be cheap brawlers. Maybe Kurdos to maximize beat down or  Olynder to res spirit host. Then a GoS to heal the spirit host and hand out +1 to our heros and a krulegjast for -1 damage bubble. Probably throw a terminexus for more healing/damage as needed.

The struggle would be having enough other stuff to grab objectives but it would be an insanely durable threat that would bring some crazy hurt.

[abmcdonald]

First whirl once i get the book, cards and tokens. Based on models i have:

Spoiler

Emerald host

Olyndar
Krulghast (arcane tome)
Guardian of Souls 
Carn Wraith (General - rerolls)
Spirit Torment (extra attack item)

10 Reapers
10 Reapers
10 Gheists
10 Gheists
6 Spirit Hosts
4 Myrmourn
4 Myrmourn

1 drop + extra artefact (total of 6 drops)

Another list is 1 less hero and unit but has the coach. Will play with and without to see what is the most fun.

[NotWhiteFang]

My take is that on paper it feels like Bladegheists in Scarlet Doom is one of the stronger choices for a competitive stand point. I prefer to make an "all comers" list as I want my list to be able to deal with any opponent.

Bladegheists just.. Work. They dont rely on hitting hordes and dont rely on slicing units with ward saves. The impact hits are significant and can either allow you to significantly weaken units which is great if you are having multiple fights as it reduces the damage you take from other activations and allow you to stack -1 saves to finish off units or out right lift bigger models if multiple units charge into the same target. I have seen a Maw Krusha pretty much be lifted from full health by 3 Bladegheist units charging it + Lady Olynders Veil. 

 

So far I have had fun with

Lady Olynder - Shes a beast on her own and can withstand a lot of damage, especially when she can heal with the Veil ability. Not too sure about the spell but so far I have taken the Tether (teleport) spell. 

2x Dreadblade Harrow - One is a general with Lightshard (+1 attack once a game to all units wholly within 12") for that burst damage moment, and then Cloaked in Shadows. I wish I could make one the Knight of Shrouds on Steed but sadly points dont allow.

20x Bladegheists

20x Bladegheists

10x Bladegheists

5x Hexwraiths - Amazing screen or objective grabber etc. 30" run with a CP is insane or a 24" retreat from combat mid game. 

Black Coach - Not too sold on this guy and the proper competitive choice would probably be to swap him for another 5 Hexwraiths and another 10 Bladegheists. Its just an amazing model and fun to put on the table. Hes tanky especially when he gets the 4+ ward and can somewhat hold up a flank on his own. 

 

All of this is exactly 2.000 pts on the dot and it all fits into a 1 drop battle regiment. 

The funny thing about the list is that you can deploy, but at the end of your turn 1 the entire army can be sitting completely elsewhere. Lady Olynder can teleport with her spell. Dreablades can teleport at the end of the movement. Bladegheists can be put in the underworld and pop out anywhere. Hexwraiths got the potential for a 30" flying move so can get anywhere. Coach can also go anywhere at the end of the movement. 

 

Lady Olynder counts as a general so she can either issue +1 hit or 5+ ward and the Dreadblades can duplicate the effect so 3 units are affected by it.  

Edited May 16, 2022 by NotWhiteFang

[lare2]

8 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

The Spirit Torment is great, though. 3 models back every combat phase?

You've only just made me realise it's in the combat phase and not yours. That's mint. 

[theophaniel]

Hello ! I haven't posted here yet. But I though you might like to read about a 2k Game I played This weekend.

List:

---

1    guardian of souls    (Lightshard of the harvest moon, seal of shyish) *
1    knight of shroud on steed    (Lingering spirit, pendant of the fell wind, general) *
1    olynder    (Shademist) *
2    chain rasp    2x10 *
2    grimghast    20 **
2    spirit host    2x6
2    bladegheist    2x10 ** **
1    Lifeswarm   

wardlord *
Hunter **

Emerald Host
Hold the line
1990/2000

---

I was playing against SCE. Stardrake, 2*2 fulmi, 10 liberators, 2*2 Drakes, And the dude that gives Charge reroll AOE forgot his name.

Battleplan: Tectonic interference

 

Rough overview:

T1

He gave me t1, I pick the Stardrake + 2 units of drake with emerald host. I ran to the central objective with Olynder spirit grimghast, took one flank obj with dreadblade && KosOeS and one of the spirit host screened by 10 chainrasps, and the other flanks Ambush with 2*10 blade && 10 rasp to sit on the objective. I had one of the bladegheist unit almost kill a drake  with a lucky charge. but leaving it on 1wound allowed the unit to clean the unit as I missed all saves.....

He moves up, cleans almost everything on alpha objective  ( 10 rasps  and leaves one remaining bladegheist) with 1 fulmi fulmi drake and  Stardrake. When we save we are tanky as hell ) Moves up with about everything I feel he is overexposed.

T2.

He take the initiative. I'm left hoping I can tank everything. with my "deathstar" He shoot + charges The stardrake, 2*2 fulmi +   10 liberatoron the middle objective where I have OLynder, 20 ghast  6 spirits and the GOS.

-> I honestly didn't expect to lose so "little". I manage to leave 1 model  on each unit of spirit and leaving Oly on 2 wounds, And only 2 surviving ghasts.

On my left flank the Kosoes and the dreablade grind on the second drake unit. Taking 1 wound... We are really resilient. The Dreadblade being able to copy the discorporate and the 5++ ward is awsome and allows us to really spread this 5++ ward all over the army.

On my turn Things go bad. I fail the lifeswarm, I fail the GoS spell. I Only manage to get 3 models on the ghast and all the spirit hosts. The stardrake -1 to cast is really hard when our caster like being close to the fight. I feel like I wanted midnight tome. D6 from olynder + 2D3 from lifeswarm + D6 from the Gos could have turned the game.

I decide to remove threats and go for the risky play and hope for the init as I'm in a bad place. I charge everything in the stardrake  with a lucky 6 wound from olynder during the shooting face. I leave It on 1hp...

BUT. Emerald host comes and saves the day, cleaning the stardrake and one drake. We have a lot of MW available in this list. sadly the drake exploding wipes olynder.

T3. He takes the initiative. From there On, not much to say. He cleans too much for me to recover. And I manage to finish 21pt to 32.

Takeaways:

- We don't like getting double turned at all....

- Fly + charge and retreat + pile ins + redelply allow for really tricky moves denying redeploy, or even some piles ins (I was ably to force the stardrake to only hit on a spirit unit moving models over others army wide is brutal.

- Fist time playing -> forgot too many rules and tricks. Like the +1 wound of olynder on her shooting when against terrified and various other mistakes....

- I'm really wondering If I don't want to run the 2*10 bladegheists as one unit.... We want stuff to stick to be able to bring it back on a double turn.

- You want to stack Wave of terror as much as possible with little heroes. They are tanky if you get a spirit host unit in, and getting a strike last and at least one -1 to save is essential to our damage output

- I made a mistake putting the 5++ ward spell on the Gos.... he can't use the D6heal and the ward.

- Forgot the negating command on 5+ of olynder. Probably didn't help.

- Keeping tracks of all the buffs / debuffs can be challenging.  Between Grief stricken, Shademist, Pendant, the GoS aura, etc...  bring tokens... lots

- Between the Kosoes & the dreadblade, I didn't feel command point starved. The 5++ ward spell also frees a lot of command points on you main blob and Feels mandatory.

Bottom Line:

I really like this list, between emerald host, and olynder I can dish a lot of MW over the game. Stuff feels really resilient. I'm probably going to run the bladegheist as a 20 unit. for the big heal turns that lifeswarm + Olynder + Gos can provide. ( I probably need midnight tome to ensure it instead of the lantern. I feel it's good on paper, but really positionally challenging and situational, we do grind well already.

I probably want Cloaked in shadow instead of Lingering spirit as command point. Being able to tie in units without being able to be targeted with the Kosoes could have made really tricky pile ins for the SCE, not being able to attack with a lot of things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lare2]

1 hour ago, NotWhiteFang said:

Knight of Shrouds on Steed but sadly points dont allow.

Love the list. Think I'll try it. If you really want the KoSoES, maybe:

Lady O – 340

KoSoES – 155

Dreadblade – 145

Bladegheists x20 – 350

Bladegheists x20 – 350

Hex – 160

Hex – 160

Black Coach – 335

1995

[That Guy]

2 hours ago, abmcdonald said:

First whirl once i get the book, cards and tokens. Based on models i have:

  Reveal hidden contents

Emerald host

Olyndar
Krulghast (arcane tome)
Guardian of Souls 
Carn Wraith (General - rerolls)
Spirit Torment (extra attack item)

10 Reapers
10 Reapers
10 Gheists
10 Gheists
6 Spirit Hosts
4 Myrmourn
4 Myrmourn

1 drop + extra artefact (total of 6 drops)

Another list is 1 less hero and unit but has the coach. Will play with and without to see what is the most fun.

I have the suggestion of joining together the Grimghast reapers to benefit from their 2" range weapons and also being able to affect the whole bunch with a command ability. And then split up the spirit hosts in 2 MSU groups. The value of them being bigger than 3 models has significantly dropped the moment they lost old frightful touch. It's better to have them as MSU now in order to have 1 additional Wave of Terror charge ready. It won't affect their bodyguard capability either. In fact now you can easier spread them to go with 2 different heroes dedicated. The only downside is that command abilities won't be great for them(you honestly don't want to use those on them anymore anyways) in MSU and I guess their output is split and survivability is less if you get hit super hard on their unit. You are very dependent of stun results of wave of terror charges for them anyways and on top of that, if they shoot or charge your spirit hosts, that's a job well done for the spirit hosts too. Death by a thousand cuts is done better by chainrasps and especially Dreadscythe harridans. You buy them to bodyguard and to be meatbags.

[dmorley21]

After parsing through a lot of battle reports with the new rules (here, Facebook groups, Discord servers, the couple YouTube ones I found and posted, etc.), it really seems like NH need an anvil or distraction piece so that the rest of the MSU army can do its thing. I'm seeing/reading a lot of players just having their units straight up deleted. As long as you have a threatening anvil that you can keep the one alive, it should allow your other units to do what they want to do. The trick is finding something that will actually draw your opponent's attention. Let's look at some examples, starting with heroes:

Lady Olynder w/ Spirit Hosts. 

She's tanky, she does a lot, and giving her some Spirit Hosts really increases her ability to tank. My concern is that from what I have seen and read, opponents will just let her do her thing or fight her if the opportunity presents itself. They're not going out of their way to come at her. 

Kurdoss w/ Spirit Hosts

He does a lot of damage for this army, but in the big scheme of things he's not going to be confused with a Gatebreaker or Fulminators in terms of output. If you run him in conjunction with a Lord Executioner... then maybe. But I don't see an opponent targeting that IMO. 

Nagash

Yeah, Nagash will be the focus of your enemy's attention more often than not from my experience. If you have a 1000 pt list you like, just add Nagash. He does go down though and certain armies can take him down in a single turn. The other thing about Nagash, is he can turn a unit into a 4+/4+ pretty easily (Seal of Shyish + his command ability). His command ability also pairs really well with the Black Coach... but yikes at that points sink. 

 

I think that's realistically it as far as characters go. You could argue Mannfred or Big-Drogg... but in my experience opponents ignore the former and at this point I feel like every army can handle a single Mega. As for units:

 

30 Chainrasp Horde

Even at 30, these ghosts just aren't going to be seen as a threat. However, you can deepstrike them right in front of your opponent and 30 wounds at a 5+/5+ might be able to stick around a bit. 

20 or 30 Grimghast Reapers

I think this is the unit best equipped for this purpose. With their 2" reach and rend, they'll actually be considered a threat. A large blob will be able to go to work and will be something your opponent needs to deal with. I think they really want a Spirt Torment / Chainghast combo to be at their best, which really adds to the cost. 

20 Harridans 

This can work because they are -1 to wound when they charge in. However, outside of their subfaction and your opponent having wards, I just don't know if they'll be viewed as a threat and that's a significant points sink to not work they way you want them to work. 

20 Bladegheists

You would only ever consider this in Scarlet Doom, but I think Scarlet Doom either wants a blob of 20 or a different large blob for the Bladegheists to dance around. 

Black Coach

With its ward save, it can take a hit. And it's the type of piece that your opponent might spend more time on than they really should. However, without having easy access to healing, it will go down.

 

All said, I think you're going to either want a unit of 20/30 Reapers, or if you have the appropriate subfaction a unit of 20 Bladegheists or Harridans so that you can run the rest of your army MSU. 

Thoughts?

[Darkrich]

34 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

All said, I think you're going to either want a unit of 20/30 Reapers, or if you have the appropriate subfaction a unit of 20 Bladegheists or Harridans so that you can run the rest of your army MSU. 

Thoughts?

Yes. I have a pretty mean game group. Longstrike dragons, Morathi bow snakes, Seraphon, IDK. All good players. I played two games so far against IDK and Beast Claw Raiders. If you have a 10 man unit of something worthwhile, it's dead.

The IDK was a standard Morphann list with 30 thralls, 3x 10 reavers, turtle and aspect of the sea. We move just slow enough that turn 1 charges are out and deepstriking and relying on 9's is hard. Of course he moves fast enough to move and shoot you with 60 shots hitting on 2's or 3's. And if you charge he unleashes hell on 2's. And of course high tide is rough. I tried a battle regiment this game and gave him first turn to try and double but failed. My biggest players were a chainrasp horde of 30 models which killed all the thralls after the thralls killed my grimghasts, olynder and the emerald host curse. All the cool toys were shot and crippled or killed. 

The second game against beast claws. Again I find we move just slow enough to not do turn 1 charges and with screens I can't deepstrike charge things that matter. So we get charged. Eating frostlords on the charge is never fun. I won this game, but it was off the back of 20 grimghasts and 30 chainrasps backed by a krulghast and GoS and Olynder. The curse is also great against his many monsters.

I think we need blocks of units and use our hero's to get MSU charges on the target. A 10 man unit of bladegheists either has to hide in the back to countercharge or eat 5 mortals from a frostlord charge, then 6 mortals from metal cruncher and die.

[theophaniel]

Agreeing on everything @Darkrich !

  Quick question:

23 minutes ago, Darkrich said:

My biggest players were a chainrasp horde of 30 models which killed all the thralls

Do you think the damage output loss and save loss of 30 rasp worth is vs running 20 Grim worth it ? I feel we indeed need the anvil and the question of 20 grim vs 30 rasp is the right one... short of running both.

---

Really wondering about the black coach. I feel there is a world where we can run it up AND activate it's 4++ ward in the first turn. Or even without the 4++ if we can cast shademist on it ? I hardly see where we might want the coach instead of a pack of 20 reapers / 20 bladegheist. Especially since the coach only count as 2 on objectives.

[The_Dudemeister]

56 minutes ago, dmorley21 said:

it really seems like NH need an anvil or distraction piece so that the rest of the MSU army can do its thing. I'm seeing/reading a lot of players just having their units straight up deleted. As long as you have a threatening anvil that you can keep the one alive, it should allow your other units to do what they want to do.

This is something that I also immediately noticed. We essentially play games with what would be around 1650 points lists in the old codex. While there are some potent additional defensive buffs, they do not make up for the many wounds we lost. Especially not against shooting, charge impact hits and getting double turned.

 

What we did get however is much better healing of units that haven't been wiped. That brings us to an interesting conundrum. Wave of Terror wants to shoehorn us into a pure MSU playstyle, while the lethality of the game and our good resurrection clearly ask for reinforced units. There is no good middle ground so we need to find out what is the overall better approach.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of our experimental journey with the new battletome, a unit of 30 Chainrasps becomes one of the tournament-staples that we build around. I kinda hope not as I would like a different playstyle for me personally. And in the old battletome, 30 Chainrasps and 20 Reapers were the core of my builds that virtually never let me down. And those 2 units almost didn't change at all, except that they can be supported, defended and healed even better and do a tad more damage. So I'm hoping more than anything else, that I can play around all the other cool new toys and tricks instead of sticking to the ol' reliable.

 

[Loyal Tripper]

Hello my fellow thralls of Lady Olynder.

I had the pleasure of cracking out my Nighthaunt for a competitive battle over the weekend against the Maggotkin of Nurgle. 

List:

---

Lady Olynder (Seal of Shyish) *

Knight of Shrouds on Steed (Hatred of the Living, Lightshard of the Harvest Moon) *

Guardian of Souls (Shademist)(Arcane Tome) *

Spirit Hosts 1x3 *

Chainrasps 1x20 **

Myrmourn Banshees 1x4 

Grimghast Reapers 1x20 **

Bladegheists 1x10 **

The Black Coach

Lifeswarm

1985/2000

The Emerald Host

Prized Sorcery

Warlord*

---

My Opponents list was a one drop consisting of:

Bloab Rotsawned

Lord of Afflictions

Blight Kings 2x10

Beasts of Nurgle 2x1

Pusgoyle Blightlords 1x2 

2 Nurgle Trees

Battleplan: Tooth and Nail

The Game ended in a tie with me winning the breakers. It came down to the last turn and I lost my grand strategy.

I am at work so I will not write up a turn by turn but will if people are interested. I will just provide my thoughts.

The Good:

Lady Olynder: She was incredible. She punched way above her weight class. With Spirit Hosts she lived longer than expected. Seal kept her chainrasps alive and her once per game heal was insane bringing me from 4 chainrasps to 8, 1 Grimghast (with lifeswarm and GoS in tandem) to 12 and 2 Myrmourn to full. I probably waited 1 turn longer than I should have which made me lose out on the hosts as well. Her mortals were insane, her debuff spell is good as always. For me she is an easy auto-include. Better positioning (a mistake on my part) would have had her live all game.

GoS: Another auto include for me. The warscroll spell was great as always. The unbinds in Maggotkin were even so it may be less effective against real magic but the value for me was his aura. +1 wound is amazing and came up huge in this game. 

The Black Coach: A big surprise for me. I honestly only included it because I just painted it and wanted to try it out. It never did its impact hits which was hilarious (charged in all 5 turns of the game) but it was insanely durable. I probably should not have blasted out the mortal wounds because 4+ ward is honestly probably stronger than the mortals. Especially against Nurgle where you take mortals at the end of every turn and it is pretty hard to refill against that army. Maybe not an auto take for me but pretty close. The teleport honestly kept me in the game because he was able to yeet across the board to grab me the nurgle home objective and that army is not fast enough to compensate. 

Bladegheists: These guys were nuts. A unit of 10 even with 1 inch range was outperforming the grimghasts by a large margin. By turn 3-4 there were no longer units of a size where grimghasts got the extra attack but these guys were just as effective. The GoS had them on 2s, 2s and they were blending. I think going forward a unit of 20 is a staple for me regardless of my subfaction.

Allegiance Abilities: These are incredible now. Retreat and charge was as busted as expected. I got the magic christmas land scenario of applying all the debuffs on 1 target (Olynder, Coach and Rasps into a blight King unit). It ripped that unit apart which was incredible considering they are one of the toughest anvils in the game (Would have taken out a gargant as well). At the same time I got one later that was just -3 to hit which was less exciting. Auto wounding is very underappreciated I think as well. Our insane movement is also even more insane. The new allegiance abilities make me a happy ghost. 

The Bad:

Knight of Shrouds on Steed: I swapped this last minute because I figured I needed a combat hero. A combat hero this guy in not, at least against nurgle. He basically did no damage to blightkings and died immediately in return. His only value that combat was providing an additional charge debuff and the shard, both of which could have been on a cheaper harrow who also has more utility at only a wound less. I wasn't impressed personally and will go with a harrow in my next game. 

Grimghast Reapers: These things do not hit well any more. The nurgle player had a relic preventing command abilities within 7 and these guys NEED all out attack or chainghasts. The extra reach was great but didn't make up for the hitting on 4s. They had a good initial charge when the blightkings were still big but quickly were outclassed by the blades for the rest of the game. Their only saving grace in this game was being a durable anvil but that could be said for any of our 4+ infantry so these will get replaced with blades for only 30 pts more. 

The Emerald Host: I went into the game thinking this would be great. And against other armies maybe it would be. But between rolling only 2 targets and the nurgle resilience this did nothing. The hero was able to recover more wounds than he was taking and the blightkings died on Turn 2. I personally think I will be going scarlet doom because you can apply the mortals where you need it that turn. They also can help with battleshock as emerald curse does not. 

The Ugly:

Everything else: Everything else was fine and I think I need more testing to come to my conclusions. I think the lifeswarm is an include for me when I cant fill the points (we have no cheap, cheap stuff) but I would not prioritize it. The hosts were good but I just don't know yet. They kept Lady alive but they also make her very expensive and don't do literally anything else.  Chainrasps were chainrasps. I want to test the Myrnmourns more. They completely shut off his +1 caster and I made the mistake of charging them to get more debuffs. They then died to a breeze. I think I want to try 2 units of 4 hovering around protecting from magic. 

Thanks for reading my crazy long post!

[Darkrich]

2 minutes ago, theophaniel said:

Do you think the damage output loss and save loss of 30 rasp worth is vs running 20 Grim worth it ? I feel we indeed need the anvil and the question of 20 grim vs 30 rasp is the right one... short of running both.

So I may be biased at this point, but 30 chainrasp horde are my favorite unit. And I feel their damage output is actually really good in reality. So many attacks hitting and wounding on 3's is significant. If I had to choose, it's chainrasps over grims. I run both grims and chainrasp in the end, though I may switch grims to bladegheists to see if it changes anything.

I haven't tried the new coach yet. The fact that I can't heal it worries me and it's damage isn't spectacular for 335 points. But it can do concentrated mortal wounds which is good. But our ethereal save is so swingy. One bad roll and the whole model goes.