Nevar

So my added feedback here is, maybe leave the Bladegeists at x10 and put the extra points into the chainrasp horde. I know, I know, the bladegeists are so much cooler and sweet. However, now you have swapped your problems a bit. The beefier unit of Bladegeists are now the guys in your list that you want in the thick of it and also taking the brunt of enemy damage. The extra bodies means they will likely survive longer than the 10 chainrasps, especially since the chainrasps have 5+ saves. That is the difficulty though, because that means your Bladegeists are also the ones who will lose the most power from casualties as your opponent will 100% choose to fight against them first to try and kill some greatsword guys. Again, example as if I were your opponent. I would ignore the chainrasps entirely, or focus on wiping them out in one turn. 10 Chainrasps will not do much to me other than bog down my troops, and only if I fail to wipe them out. It will be even easier to wipe them out than the 10 Bladegeists with their 5+ save. Then I would focus on wiping out Lady Olynder and just try to out score you. The bladegeists can disengage to relocate, and they are fast, you don't want them functioning as your main battleline, and I use the term battleline here not as the organization chart but in the battle sense. If they are making up your center, you leave slow chainrasps to try and wander over to objectives, and if there is a need to have them relocate, they will have to disengage from the main enemy forces suddenly leaving your enemy free to act as well. What you want to do is tie down your enemies forces with an immovable chainrasp blob (thanks to the GoS's heals) which lets Lady Olynder sit on them causing mortal wounds, while your Bladegeists are free to attack where and when you need them to, disengaging and re-engaging to where they can do the most good, including just grabbing objectives late game, jumping over the enemy lines to assassinate the enemy general/heroes, etc. Bladegeists are a hammer unit, not an anvil unit, and you seem to be putting them into that role. This also saves you actual money, as the Bladegeists will be in boxes of 5 or 10 most likely and the Chainrasps come as a set of 20 already. Less purchases for you. I think at 1000 points 20 Chainrasps are enough, and I would again highly recommend Hexwraiths over the Spirit Hosts. I own 16 Spirit Hosts myself, so I love them also, but you need numbers when claiming objectives and Spirit Hosts only count as three models even if they fight like more. Hexwraiths are also still Battle Line so you won't lose out on any other units.

Well, it depends what you mean by a Cavalry list, and what the rules are for battalions. I have never used a battalion, so the question I would ask before making those choices are can I bring duplicates of the same warscroll battalion? I have been using one massive 15 horse blob of Hexwraiths in my Nighthaunt list for the past year or so. They are especially fast with the Pendant of the Fell Wind, and I would use my KoS to rocket them forward into the mid field on turn 1 while also dropping in Spirit Hosts all around the enemy. The 15 Hexwraiths serve multiple purposes, if they pass over something they can cause mortal wounds in the movement phase, so they project a 15" no go zone around them. They are also fast enough that they can charge almost anything on the table from that position, and they can deny a lot of objectives or mass for a single heavy charge. I like them like this against my local meta, because I have a Stormcast player who uses the Vanguard Chamber and they can literally teleport around the table and also outflank to the board edges. Since I had to chase down flighty enemies like that, a massive blob of fast cav allowed me to catch ellusive targets like that in any direction with overwhelming force. However, I also found that when charging into an actual solid enemy force that did not try to flee all the time, the massive size of this unit was a hinderance. It is difficult to get the majority into combat, terrain causes problems, and with the pile in rules they are subject to being stretched out between different enemy units. With the new Allegiance abilities, I would actually recommend them in minimum 5 man units. This gives you more unit champions (free attack) and allows you to spread out and react to more things. They can still all pile into one target if you need them to, or they can go scatter to claim objectives or tie down more enemy units without getting stretched by the pile in. Likewise, our most powerful Allegiance ability is the free combat when rolling a 10+ on the charge, and with three units of 5, you get three charge roll attempts making it more likely you will get to cause damage before the actual fight phase. IF you can take the same warcroll bat twice, two of the cavalry battalions would make for a fearsome Cav list, and a mKoS with the Pendant will mean even the guys you deploy on the table and not in the underworld will be ontop of the enemy turn 1.

I would say you were low on bodies. For objective running Hexwraiths will do better than Spirit Hosts, as they are naturally much faster and will have more numbers for contesting objectives against other small objective running units. Spirit Hosts are three guys, 9 wounds. Hexwraiths are 5 guys, 10 wounds. Spirit Hosts have 18 attacks, Hexwraiths have 10 good attacks plus a bunch of horse attacks. They will likely do similar damage as the Spirit Hosts are relying on 6's but Hexwraiths have generally good attacks and can mortal wound on 6's. Also, I love the Bladegeists and they will likely do alright, but again, they are low on bodies. With only 10 you run the risk of them all being destroyed before you can revive them with the Guardian of Souls. They are 1 wound unless I am crazy, and on a 4+ that means they will only save against half the wounds coming in. Someone causing five or six unsaved wounds won't bother you because the GoS can easily bring them all back, but if they focus their damage they can likely remove your Bladegeists. That lantern on the GoS is amazing since you can literally return 2d6+3 models a turn, but you have to have a unit still there to target. You would be better with a Chainrasp horde or barring that a larger unit of Bladegeists. Without mathhammer I can't tell you exactly where the breaking point is, but your GoS will make people cry if you have a unit they can't kill because he always brings back minimum five bodies a turn on his own. If you do that he will also become even larger of a threat and draw more attention away from Lady Olynder. Right now if I was playing against your list, I would focus on destroying your Bladegeists, then Lady Olynder, and ignore your GoS entirely. The reason being is if I destroy whole units, your GoS becomes nothing but a wizard with a fancy lamp.

I love her model. I love her abilities. I will likely never use her in a list. She is cheap for what she does and is very good so this is not an inditement of her as a unit. It's just her Command Ability like you point out requires a command point to bring back models. Key word is models, so it is amazing if you have a swarm of Spirit Hosts, and your opponent is dumb enough to not focus their fire on one unit at a time. With the new rules we can kind of control that because they no longer have the option to not pile in and fight, but our opponents can also just fall back if they think they can't do more than kill a spirit host or two they know you will just replace. It is alright on Hexwraiths as they are 2 wound models, but she is not really fast enough to keep up with a headlong cavalry charge. Lady Olynder is at her best up in the front lines of a massive scrum dealing mortal wounds out to multiple enemy units and keeping as many friendly units inside her bubble. The problem is the units best at that kind of fighting are Chainrasps, Grimghasts, Spirit Hosts, Bladegeists, Harridans, etc. Nearly all of those are 1 wound models. Returning 1 of them is not terrible, but is it worth a command point? If you have a bunch of under strength Spirit Hosts, the answer is heck yeah! If you have a bunch of dead Chainrasps or Grimghasts? No, not really. You probably want to use the Command Point on your mKoS or someone else. She is still awesome doing what she does, but I would not use her as my General, and since I will be playing mainly a speedy list I will be relying on the mKoS and The Grimhailer most likely.

In Nighthaunt, if you roll a 10+ on a charge roll you immediately get to attack as if it is the combat phase out of normal turn order. Then you can still be selected to fight again during the fight phase, meaning if you roll a 10+ to charge you effectively get the effects of the Danse Macabre spell from LoN for every unit that rolls a 10+ charge. Keep in mind this does not require that you move 10+", only that you roll that high. Most units will only have a 1/6 chance of getting this effect before being locked in combat and grinding away in a melee. Glaivewraith Stalkers get bonuses to charge, and if they have a drum they can fallback and charge again. This means Glaivewraiths not only keep their charge bonus on all of your turns and can use their fall back to charge other more important units or penetrate deeper into enemy lines... but they can also fish for 10+ charge rolls every turn. So you will get between 4-5 attempts to get a 10+ charge over the course of the game assuming they survive all the battle rounds. Their attacks are not too terrible looking on their stat line so they are not likely to draw much attention, but as someone who played Pheonix Temple for a long while I can tell you range 2" hitting on 3 wounding on 3 with no rend and one damage will pile on wounds faster than people think. My Pheonix Guard had almost the same offensive capabilities and they could drag down almost anything with the sheer number of saves they forced on targets. I am not saying the Glaivewraiths are amazing, but they are a lot better than their statline would have you believe right away. At least in Nighthaunt, they are probably not worth it in LoN, but in their proper Allegiance they are cheaper version of the Bladegeists that you can add in for hero hunting and double combat phase fishing.

Cairn Wraiths also give you a low profile hero that grants the 6++ to models around him. His benefit is he is cheap, doesn't do anything so crazy to draw enemy ire, and still does give some boosts.

Forget that, you can have all of your 'slow' units in the underworld and just teleport them all into position. Then teleport one to your general to reinforce a flank that needs help.

It depends on the objectives. Extremely fast cavalry with fly can obviously reposition to seize more objectives quickly. They have less models for a grinding contest over a single location so they will not as easily win a shoving match over a centrally contested objective if you think of it that way. You have to play more like 'water' so to speak with all fast cavalry and not commit into a grind unless you need to. The game's actual objective decides this, but if you are going to have other large units that can grind it out, then filling your battle line with horses is by no means an issue.

I got a lot of free Grimghasts from the Soul Wars since everyone was rejecting them. I have like 16 of them, that is just enough to glue them onto Hexwraith horses to make 'new' Hexwraiths. Yee.

Chainrasp Horde is a blobby horde unit. Think of them as the Nighthaunt equivalents of Skeletons. They rely on buffs to do any damage. Grimghast Reapers is also pretty blobby horde unit but more elite. You can imagine them as Nighthaunt's Grave Guard, less reliant on buffs but still like them. Spirit Hosts are multi-wound high attack models that rely mostly on MWs to do damage. Not easy to revive, but can also benefit from buffs and are hard to lose models at once to begin with. Hexwraiths... cavalry battleline that love Mortal Wounds... Cavalry battleline...

I already own 15 Hexwraiths, and mKoS... Dreadblade Harrows are icing on that cavalry cake. I need five more Hexwraiths and a Black Coach and I know what Battalion I will be running. Have the mKoS with a Pendant in that formation... damn they will be blazing fast.

Keep in mind, Bladegheists are just better, but they are also more expensive and they are not Battle Line like Grimghasts. I think I will field both, Grims to fill battleline, and Blades as actual assault units.

The Soul Wars box gives you three of the best heroes. It also gives you 20 Chainrasps. The Lord Executioner, Grimghasts, and Glaivewraiths are mostly useless in the numbers they gave us. I like the Grimghasts but for some reason they felt like giving us... 4. I am not ready to completely write off the Glaivewraiths, as they are cheaper and able to do the charge fishing that Bladegheists can do. Charging every turn heavily increases your chances for free combat phases by rolling a 10+. Glaivewraiths don't have rend, but they throw a bunch of attacks and reroll when on the charge. They have similar damage output to units like Pheonix guard, and you can definately drown enemies in dozens of rendless wounds.

Bladegheists are outstanding. They are like Glaivewraiths and Grimghasts in one unit, plus they get benefits from charging. The ability to cut apart enemy units, then fallback and charge again makes them extremely good. One of the Battalions also give the Bladegeists a 5++ instead of the 6++ and rerolling all attack rolls. Plus they move 8" naturally. These guys are terrifyingly good if they roll 10+ to charge also, AND since they can full back and charge, there is no reason they shouldn't be rolling charge rolls every charge phase, letting you fish for extra combat phases every time. Golden man... golden.

And this is my point. I think the Guardian of Souls is awesome all around. One of the best new Death models all together. If I was going to play attrition Death though, my point is I would use a Legion instead. Reason being I can still bring a GoS, Necromancers, Chainrasps, etc. Dance Macabre on a horde of buffed up Chainrasps would be disgusting. You can even use a Spirit Torment in LoN and ally in Chainghasts if you wanted. Add in Grave Sites and you can have 2d3 minimum from grave sites in the middle around the main hordes, plus d3 more guys back for all of your death wizards, plus access to Nagash's spells including Dance Macabre, PLUS d6 from the Guardian of souls. Potentially you could be returning 7d3+d6 Chainrasps a turn with 1 Spirit Torment, 1 Guardian of Souls, 4 various Death Mages, and 2 Grave Sites. Better yet, if somehow that horde of Chainrasps get killed... you can summon it back at a grave site and repeat. Having your idea is outstanding in Nighthaunt, I just think not leveraging the actual Nighthaunt allegiance abilities when you can already use the units in LoN isn't getting the full bang for your buck so to speak.

Can work obviously, but looking over the Battle Tome the thing that stands out to me is not our ability to regain wounds. It is not our ability shrug damage. It is not our Mortal Wound abilities. Of all the features we have that sets us apart from the rest of death, it is our overwhelming speed. Our good infantry move 8" naturally. We have the Pendant of the Fell Wind still, which ups that to 11" movements to our more elite infantry, and blazing speed to our Hexwraiths. While the GoS and his lantern is outstanding as well, he is one model with one lantern and our units can only get hit by him once a turn. So yes, he can revive 2d6+3 chainrasps a turn, but he can also get killed in one fell swoop. I have 60 Chainrasps right now, and I think I am going to use them in a Legion of Nagash list instead. LoN has far better revival abilities than Nighthaunt, including the ability to summon up an entire new horde of Chainrasps if they are somehow killed even with the grave sites and deathly invocations AND Guardian of Souls used in LoN. I would suggest you consider your ideas inside the confines of LoN if you are looking to build a regenerating horde of chainrasps.

+1 to cast is also very good.

They are artifacts like any other, but they can only be used on the Guardian of Souls.

Mortis Engine already gives you three, and the official tomb banshee is awesome. Plus there are the Myrmourns as well. Not saying you are wrong, but there are a lot of Banshee conversion fodder and I wouldn't want to buy a whole box of those things for a couple banshee conversions.

Luckily the Harridan-gaunts are not particularly interesting so I can not buy them. I didn't like their models anyways. Same with the glaivewraiths. Oddly, with the full spoiling of the Nighthaunt, they are definately much more speedy than they are durable. They won't die to a stiff breeze like Daughters of Khaine, and are still more in the durable direction of Death in general with replenishing units, but GW talking about how they win by attrition I think was a red herring. They will do better at attrition than a lot of armies, but they seem to excel at shock and awe more than anything else.

That is pretty good shooting... especially for Undead.

If someone doesn't let you use the Soul Wars unit profiles then they are just being jerks. Quick math says in the Soul Wars box each Grimghast Reaper is worth 15 points. In the General Handbook 2018, each Grimghast is worth 14 point, the ability to be even cheaper if you get the full horde discount. Taking the Soul Wars point costs is actually giving yourself a disadvantage, and if you opponent doesn't allow you to use that unit size profile they are just being vindictive.

Were these mentioned by word of mouth or was there some sort of printed image? I only ask because they also have said other things that we jumped into hype about that didn't turn out to be exactly the case.

I play Necrons now, and the new codex came and went and I safely escaped any 'overpower' event. Now with the no Deep-strike on turn 1 rules I am left with one of the few armies that can teleport into turn 1 charge range with 10 Lychguard and no one expects it because Necrons already got the "Meh they suck" pass from the wider community. One of the only times in my gaming career I was happy to see no super awesome new model releases to cause everyone to jump onto my band wagon. As to painting our Nighthaunt, I really enjoyed the ethereal scheme, and I played all spirits in another game called "Kings of War" by Mantic. I have to admit I switched from Pheonix Temple to Nighthaunt last year because I got a new job that did not allow a lot of painting time. I both loved Nighthaunt models back then, AND really wanted an army I could get the best bang for my buck in painting time. So I buckled down, accepted that I chose a faction with only like 6 units to choose from, and started playing them exclusively. Now... maybe a year later my ghosts are getting a massive expansion and amazing new models. Super pleased, but also had apprehension that Nighthaunt might be too powerful and draw in everyone who wants to WAAC. I was secretly hoping Nighthaunt would be good but not great so that the attention would pass and I could go back to sitting with a mostly good but ignored army like I am doing with my Necrons. Sort of like Legions of Nagash did. I know that is not something I should say in the GA: Death forum... but in my local area at least there was a lot of Hype for LoN, but when it released a lot of people used Azyr to think up cool armies they would switch to, but none of them actually ended up doing so because their Stormcasts/Nurgle/BeastClaw/etc. were still 'better' in their eyes and the attention shifted off of LoN in my meta. LoN is an amazing Battle Tome, but I am glad I don't have to fight a hundred mirror matches a week now. Hope the same ends up happening with Nighthaunt.

That is the unfortunate side of playing 'the new hotness'. For example I have a full 2000+ pts of Nighthaunt already and have been playing them a while now. With the new release there is going to suddenly be a bunch of NH players crawling all over my stores. Where before my army was unique in it's all ethereal paint job and strange dedication to an under supported mini-faction... I will just be another guy wearing the same T-shirt as everyone else. I don't say that to sound like a hipster, I just mean you have to do what you like and ignore the trend. The excitement for Nighthaunt will pass and most of the people who are all suddenly going to be playing Nighthaunt will move on soon, and you will be left with what you are going to be playing. Paint them how -you- are going to enjoy them, and don't let the current wave of scrutiny change your mind. This happened to my Tau Empire also, I played them since they were released and there were some several years of the "Dark Times" where only Necrons and Tau hadn't had a new codex. My army was refreshing and interesting to people because no one played Tau because they 'sucked'. Then came the Days of the Taudar where everyone and their dog had Tau suits all over the board and everyone was talking down to me about not playing Tau right or painting them in the right colors. Those times passed as well. Unless you are one of those wave riders, the wave should not alter your preferences.