AoS 3 - Nighthaunt Discussion

[Vastus]

22 minutes ago, MotherGoose said:

Random one for you ghost boys...

So Terminexus actually doesn't return models, but you can get Lifeswarm instead. I think Nighthaunt don't have the level of recursion of SB, but if you add all the different sources up it can become quite a lot.

The main source of recursion that you've missed are the Spirit Torments, which will return 3 wounds worth every Battleshock phase. A unit cannot benefit from more than 1 per turn, but if you bring multiple you can regenerate multiple units of course.

If you want to make a list based on this, I think you can do so. Just bring Olynder, a Guardian of Souls with MoM (and Midnight Tome to guarantee Lifeswarm), one or two Spirit Torments and the Emerald Lifeswarm.

You also need some blocks of units which depends a bit on your subfaction and if you want to adjust for the upcoming season, but Chainrasps are always a cheap option which means you can easily get two blocks of 20 and have points left over. If you go Scarlet Doom you can go Bladegheists of course, but you won't be able to fit as much support (Spirit Host, Banshee, Dreadblade Harrow etc). Would've recommended Reapers before, but reach seems to be less relevant in the upcoming season.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Vastus

[MotherGoose]

6 minutes ago, Vastus said:

So Terminexus actually doesn't return models, but you can get Lifeswarm instead. I think Nighthaunt don't have the level of recursion of SB, but if you add all the different sources up it can become quite a lot.

The main source of recursion that you've missed are the Spirit Torments, which will return 3 wounds worth every Battleshock phase. A unit cannot benefit from more than 1 per turn, but if you bring multiple you can regenerate multiple units of course.

If you want to make a list based on this, I think you can do so. Just bring Olynder, a Guardian of Souls with MoM (and Midnight Tome to guarantee Lifeswarm), one or two Spirit Torments and the Emerald Lifeswarm.

You also need some blocks of units which depends a bit on your subfaction and if you want to adjust for the upcoming season, but Chainrasps are always a cheap option which means you can easily get two blocks of 20 and have points left over. If you go Scarlet Doom you can go Bladegheists of course, but you won't be able to fit as much support (Spirit Host, Banshee, Dreadblade Harrow etc). Would've recommended Reapers before, but reach seems to be less relevant in the upcoming season.

Ah yes I remember looking at the torments, that is cool. 

Shame about the terminexus... so it's better for characters/spirit hosts or using as a bomb to enemies. Seems a little pricey but would be fun to try, feel like lifeswarm is probably the better option.

Yeah I've toyed with some lists and seems like 2x20 ghasts is my goto base and then sprinkle in some blades etc.

Cheers!

[The_Dudemeister]

29 minutes ago, MotherGoose said:

My question is - how do they play in comparison to my other armies

As a fellow Necron player, that's easy to answer: Canoptek Wraiths

 

4+ Invuln, fall back and charge, high movement, "fly". Sounds familiar? Now imagine an army full of Wraiths (or Harlequins for that matter) and you basically get the jist of it.

 

FEC and Soulblight with their generic lists play more like fully supported 20-man Warrior blobs where you can reasonably out-attrition your enemy. If you can sit on an objective and let the enemy come to your beefed up castle, that's the dream.

While Nighthaunt/Wraiths are fast, higher-quality wound models that charge right up there in the front. You reasonably heal a bit here and there and get a model back. Not to the same extent as FEC and Soulblight, but every brought back model is also a bigger deal.

 

It's a slightly different take on undead style armies but still fits right in there

[MotherGoose]

1 hour ago, The_Dudemeister said:

As a fellow Necron player, that's easy to answer: Canoptek Wraiths

 

4+ Invuln, fall back and charge, high movement, "fly". Sounds familiar? Now imagine an army full of Wraiths (or Harlequins for that matter) and you basically get the jist of it.

 

FEC and Soulblight with their generic lists play more like fully supported 20-man Warrior blobs where you can reasonably out-attrition your enemy. If you can sit on an objective and let the enemy come to your beefed up castle, that's the dream.

While Nighthaunt/Wraiths are fast, higher-quality wound models that charge right up there in the front. You reasonably heal a bit here and there and get a model back. Not to the same extent as FEC and Soulblight, but every brought back model is also a bigger deal.

 

It's a slightly different take on undead style armies but still fits right in there

Yea tbh that describes it so well! They sound fun and different to my current armies, so would feel fun having different styles even though they're all death.

[EnixLHQ]

10 hours ago, MotherGoose said:

Random one for you ghost boys...

Thinking about collecting Nighthaunt. I already collect Soulblight, FEC, and Necrons in 40k... you can probably see a bit of a theme. I like 'undead style armies, love the new rules for Nighthaunt, seem super cool and thematic.

My question is - how do they play in comparison to my other armies who have a lot of 'tankiness' in terms of models coming back to life, whole units coming back etc.

Nighthaunt, from what I can see, only have the one hero (not including Olynder) who can regularly bring ghosts back - the little wizard dude, can't remember his name, and the mortalis terminexus endless which is quite pricey.

Do you feel the hits when your elite ghosts die, such as Bladegheists? One of my favourite things about soulblight is how it never feels too bad losing some Grave Guard, as they will come back anyway (unless fully destroyed - which still may come back half strength). Do ghosts have anything similar to this that I've missed?

I'm going to try some games on TTS and get a feel for them before I commit, but thought I'd come here too!

And to add on to what the others have already said really well, we do have a guide that gets into every ability and synergy we've got. Give it a look. And, since you're new to the Nighthaunt your feedback on it would be valuable.

https://www.ablucem.com/atnt

[Sception]

22 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

The only way to avoid having units that take +1 damage from the Bounty Hunters battallion is to have no Galletian Veterans at all.

That, or keep your gelatin vets in aura range of a krulghast cruciator, no?  Nighthaunts seem pretty unique in having a support option that reduces weapon damage in an aura.  Heck, I could see running multiple cruciators for the season, but for my desire not to double up on the exact same hero model.

 

[Liquidsteel]

The Krulghast has been putting in a shift for me already so far, and yes you are completely correct that he will now also work against previous damage 1 stuff that will be packaged in Bounty Hunters.

I'm gonna stick with 1 for now but I think 2 is a solid choice.

[EnixLHQ]

Guide update!

• Did you guys catch that Reikenor's candles no longer target enemy models? Because I didn't. That's been updated throughout the guide.
• Shadows Edge mistakenly had its trigger as a 6 to hit. It's 6 to wound. Rewrote the paragraph containing that interaction and consideration.
• Reworded Vial of Manticore Venom to better illustrate its use.
• Battle Regiment mistakenly said 1 Behemoth or Artillery when it's 0-1 Behemoth or Artillery.
• Clarified the Knight of Shroud's attack-in-tandem effect.
• Mentioned that the Black Coach's Soulreach Grasp's range coincides with its Evocation of Death ability, giving it a safe(ish) way to get a level or two.
• Fixed several typos.

As the Nighthaunt Taketh - Beginner's Guide

[The_Dudemeister]

9 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

• Did you guys catch that Reikenor's candles no longer target enemy models? Because I didn't. That's been updated throughout the guide.

Oh no, that's a considerable nerf. One of those that isn't nearly bad enough to reconsider anything about him but will be felt in several games nonetheless. Makes me sad 🙁

[Domowoj]

9 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Guide update!

• Did you guys catch that Reikenor's candles no longer target enemy models? Because I didn't. That's been updated throughout the guide.

It can still pick enemy units, but not models specifically.

[The_Dudemeister]

I have a use for Covetous Familiar!

It's perfect for a hero that is close to Harridans. Doesn't even need to be directly babysitting them or be engaged with the same enemy unit. It's 6" for Harridans to smell the blood of the living and Covetous Familiar deals a guaranteed mortal wound (instead of something like needing a 2+ roll). 

 

For allies I can also recommend the Coven Throne. These fine ladies have the Malignant keyword, come on James...

Anyway, everything it does is completely self-sufficient and doesn't need other Soulblight units to function. She brings a very strong spell to the table that makes her untargettable for one unit that opens itself for all kinds of shenanigans.

 

Now she also has 25 weak attacks. Nothing to write home about. But than there is her Command Ability, holy smokes. +1 to hit, +1 to wound and +1 to save. In Soulblight that would bring her attacks to an okay level, so they rather use it to buff a real combat unit. In Nighthaunt however she fights against units that get several minuses to save. And as they are debuffs on enemy units, her being an ally doesn't matter. I tried bringing her to friendly games just to accidentally see her soundly outdamage Kurdoss and a beefed up KoS combined. Oops

(On a more cynical note. I will never forgive Legions of Nagash back in the day using Reapers so much more efficiently than we ever could. Which forevermore raised their points costs while we continued to head down to the 3X% win rates. Now it's our time to make better use of their own units.)

[Taaaff]

12 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Guide update!

• Did you guys catch that Reikenor's candles no longer target enemy models? Because I didn't. That's been updated throughout the guide.
• Shadows Edge mistakenly had its trigger as a 6 to hit. It's 6 to wound. Rewrote the paragraph containing that interaction and consideration.
• Reworded Vial of Manticore Venom to better illustrate its use.
• Battle Regiment mistakenly said 1 Behemoth or Artillery when it's 0-1 Behemoth or Artillery.
• Clarified the Knight of Shroud's attack-in-tandem effect.
• Mentioned that the Black Coach's Soulreach Grasp's range coincides with its Evocation of Death ability, giving it a safe(ish) way to get a level or two.
• Fixed several typos.

As the Nighthaunt Taketh - Beginner's Guide

Also, the core rules state you “can” roll a ward roll for each wound or mortal wound, meaning Reikenor can choose not to ward save his own corpse candle for that sweet +3 to cast now.

[Rors]

Night haunt can play a more grindy style of game with models coming back if you lean into it but they're not focused around it. Our characters in particular can be super grindy when body guarded by spirit host who you can also bring back. That's probably the most soul blight akin play style in the book of you want to be resummoning stuff and playing an attrition game.

On the whole, the army is more reliant on using debuffs and mobility for defense. It's a more techy army that uses rules over it's warscrolls for both offense and defense.

Another point probably worth mentioning is there's multiple ways to get 5+ wards spread across units. Combine with the healing we do have and you could definitely play hoards of rasps that are very hard to remove, although you will feel their loss more than with soul blight if you do loose them.

[EnixLHQ]

5 hours ago, The_Dudemeister said:

I have a use for Covetous Familiar!

It's perfect for a hero that is close to Harridans. Doesn't even need to be directly babysitting them or be engaged with the same enemy unit. It's 6" for Harridans to smell the blood of the living and Covetous Familiar deals a guaranteed mortal wound (instead of something like needing a 2+ roll). 

 

For allies I can also recommend the Coven Throne. These fine ladies have the Malignant keyword, come on James...

Anyway, everything it does is completely self-sufficient and doesn't need other Soulblight units to function. She brings a very strong spell to the table that makes her untargettable for one unit that opens itself for all kinds of shenanigans.

 

Now she also has 25 weak attacks. Nothing to write home about. But than there is her Command Ability, holy smokes. +1 to hit, +1 to wound and +1 to save. In Soulblight that would bring her attacks to an okay level, so they rather use it to buff a real combat unit. In Nighthaunt however she fights against units that get several minuses to save. And as they are debuffs on enemy units, her being an ally doesn't matter. I tried bringing her to friendly games just to accidentally see her soundly outdamage Kurdoss and a beefed up KoS combined. Oops

(On a more cynical note. I will never forgive Legions of Nagash back in the day using Reapers so much more efficiently than we ever could. Which forevermore raised their points costs while we continued to head down to the 3X% win rates. Now it's our time to make better use of their own units.)

That's a good take. Both of them, really. I'll read through it and add them to the guide.

3 hours ago, Taaaff said:

Also, the core rules state you “can” roll a ward roll for each wound or mortal wound, meaning Reikenor can choose not to ward save his own corpse candle for that sweet +3 to cast now.

Is that true? I'll double-check and if so I'll add it to the guide.

[EnixLHQ]

Confirmed everything, so updates made:

• Reik can choose to not roll a ward
• Covetous Familiar has a nifty use
• Coven Throne gives you an excuse to use that Mortis Engine you never got to before

[Rors]

8 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

Confirmed everything, so updates made:

• Reik can choose to not roll a ward
• Covetous Familiar has a nifty use
• Coven Throne gives you an excuse to use that Mortis Engine you never got to before

Sorry, it's probably in the chat thread but I can't find it. What's the interaction between mortis engines and coven thrones and how does this relate to night haunt?

[EnixLHQ]

20 minutes ago, Rors said:

Sorry, it's probably in the chat thread but I can't find it. What's the interaction between mortis engines and coven thrones and how does this relate to night haunt?

They don't. It's just a hold back from before Nighthaunt were their own army. In Legions of Nagash all vampire, undead, and ghosts were together, and so the kit that could be built to be the Mortis Engine, or Palanquin, or Coven Throne were put together based on what you wanted to play. The Mortis Engine was very much aesthetically and power-wise a great unit to have with other Malignant ghosts.

Once we got our own battletome we expected the Mortis Engine to come along with it. We got the Black Coach instead, which is beautiful, but always missed that this thing couldn't be used in our army.

Now that Soulblight is their own book, we have allies in the faction, but the warscrolls have to be a benefit on their own since a lot of the abilities won't work between fractions. And the Mortis Engine sucks outside the Soulblight. But the Coven Throne is pretty good.

[Ranzou]

Pitched Battles 2022-2023 – Season 1 are out.

Zero changes for Nighthaunts.

[Bayul]

So the Warscoll Builder is wrong about the points for Grimghast Reapers.

[Vastus]

Just looked through all the Endless changes. There's some clear standouts like Purple Sun and Cogs, although Quicksilver Swords is pretty nice too and on-theme for Quicksilver Dead. The other one I want to shout out is Lauchon. A mere 30 points to yeet your wizard wherever has some useful applications.

But what I really want to mention is a less useful and much funnier application. If you stick an Arcane Tome on a Cairn Wraith, you can possibly yeet the guy into the middle of an enemy castle and get a ton of attacks and let him go ballistic. Is it a good use of such a valuable artefact? No. Is it competitive or reliable? No. But it sounds incredibly amusing for more casual games.

[EnixLHQ]

Credit AoS Coach:

[Rors]

I don't think that tiny points change to reapers is as impactful as the new season changes. They seem to be stuck in a really awkward space. You pay for the extra reach on their weapons which is now redundant but they're also really well suited to smacking hoards. However they're also great targets for bounty hunters to smack right back..

I can't work out if this is a good or bad season for them.

Same goes for cairns who will love hitting large units but those large units now also get to attack him in two ranks.

[dmorley21]

Reapers didn’t actually change… Coach used Warscroll Builder, which was wrong. 

[Ranzou]

12 hours ago, Vastus said:

Just looked through all the Endless changes.

Where can I find those leaks?

[EnixLHQ]

9 minutes ago, Ranzou said:

Where can I find those leaks?

https://youtu.be/XXHllCxSqLo

AoS Coach, once again

Edited June 22, 2022 by EnixLHQ