Qrow

What units are people thinking of taking in meeting engagements? I have been throwing together a few lists but seem to be struggling to find a decent loadout. Even with the increase in points, grimghasts are tempting for early game board control

While I understand that grimghasts were being abused in LoN, it is frustrating as a nighthaunt player to have one of our best units nerfed this hard because another faction can abuse it. Nighthaunt is struggling as it is, most of the point reductions we got are a great step in the right direction, but they are just one step in that direction (come on GW, only 20 points off the mourngul?) I know it is an unpopular opinion in some circles, but I really hope they take nighthaunt units availability away from LoN, with the obvious exception of the LoG. They can already ally us in, no problem with that, but they are having to balance the much weaker nighthaunt battletome based on our units use in LoN. I'm hoping that the swiftness with which GW are pushing out the balancing of the latest battletomes indicates that they are aware of the problem they have caused. A lot of people will be upset if they do large point changes in such new battletomes (and it is entirely understandable of they will be, it isn't the players faults that GW released OP battletomes), but if GW take that frustration and critisism on the nose and accept it then at least they are willing to correct and learn from their mistakes.

The hope is that, given the quite reserved approach they have taken with a lot of units, they will be updating the points more frequently than once a year. If that is the case then it will hopefully keep getting 10-20 point drops until it hits a playable level. I think around 240ish would be the right spot for it with its current rule set, especially of the july update sees verminlords and AGKoTGs brought up to a reasonable point cost.

Where does it say that? Because I really hope that is the case

It is confirmed, and by 50 points, he is now 850.

And the butthurt will be completely justified. It isn't the players fault that their battletomes were poorly balanced, that's all on GW and they may just have to cop it for this. But, overall state of the game wise, it will be good for them to own this and fix their problem.

Too true 😋 We may also see some big changes in the latest battletomes when they release their point update in july, I feel like they have taken on the community feedback and we may see some rather hard changes to some of them. If they do nerf some of the newer tomes more egregious units, then we could feel signficantly better about the changes we just got. I mean, they are taking a big risk in updating these new tomes so quickly; the new tomes players will not be happy to get changes so quickly, especially because they know they will be seeing nerfs and point increases.

Don't worry about the questions, we don't mind answering them at all. And you didn't pick badly with nighthaunt, they may not be the absolute top allegiance in power but they are a great deal of fun, especially if you are not hyper competitively focused. Nighthaunt is my second AoS army and has quickly become my main army as they are very fun to play, there are some units that are better than others but outside of competitions it is better to play the units that you like and that you think look good. Case in point, I have been yammering on about dreadscythe harridans for ages, they aren't competitively better than bladeghiests but I enjoy them and they do have a place... just probably not in a competitive list right now. 2 souls wars boxes is probably the best way to start; 40 chainrasps you will almost always use, 2 spirit torments which are one of our best heroes, the guardian of souls is a common staple of nighthaunt lists, the knight of shrouds just got a point reducion and has a good command ability and the grimghast are amazing (though they did just go up in cost, so nighthaunt players are feeling salty about them right now). Bladeghiests are amazing btw, stick them next to a spirit torment and enjoy blending away units while healing each battleshock. If I take bladeghiests, I always take a spirit torment with them. Spirit hosts are great, especially with the 'ruler of the spirit hosts' command trait, which lets you bring back D3 MODELS each turn, which can mean 3 entire spirit host models with a good role. As always, I do suggest Reikenor. He is just amazing in my eyes, +3 to casting roles at the cost of 1 mortal wound is so worth it, if you need to get that one spell off he will be the absolute best one to do so. Plus he looks amazing and the shroudguard battalion is pretty good with him in it, cast shademist on a unit of bladeghiests in that battalion and they are just stupidly durable. A not of precaution, we can be salty here (as can all forums when we start talking about pure competitive focus), especially as the last few battletomes have seen a large jump in power over pervious battletomes, which has lead to a fair amount of salt (in my case, someone at my local club apent 15mins complaining about nighthaunt being OP, after spending the preceding half hour complaining that his new flesh eater courts battletome was "underperforming"). The new point changes will help, but quite a few of us feel that, competitively speaking, nighthaunt didn't get what it needed. Casually though, we are an absolute blast of an army and you made a great choice with nighthaunt.

The new point changes mean you can't take a full 40 block of skeletons and a necro in a 2000 point game anymore, which is disappointing, especially as it is over the 400 limit by 10 points. I can't really see myself taking merc options in any of my lists, but I do think it is an interesting addition to the game and I hope they expand upon it.

While not optimal, harridans can semi-reliably get their effect off with the new horrorghast endless spell. For casual games I have found they are actually quite good, but they are massively benefited by running them in the legion of grief, which is essentially the nighthaunt legion in LoN The problem is that, especially with grimghast reapers getting nerfed hard, there is not much that can outperform bladeghiest revenants with a spirit torment nearby. Also, I may be wrong, but did anything get nerfed harder than reapers? 60 points more for a full squad, even witch aelves didn't get hit that hard and I felt they were way more OP than reapers. Even then though, reapers are mainly overperforming in LoN, so I am salty that we get hit because another allegiances abuses our units.

Agreed. I'm happy Kdaai fireborn didn't go up in cost, and I'm sad drazhoath didn't go down. I just do find it strange that there are zero changes, I wasn't expecting many, but I did expect more than zero. Especially seeing that, from the sound of it, monstrous arcanum is getting an almost complete cost rework.

Down by 40, they are 200 now, so you could take 10 for 400 as an ally

While I do understand the lore behind nighthaunt being in LoN, it was a terrible terrible decision gameplay wise. The problem is that if they remove nighthaunt from common availability in LoN now, people will feel understandably frustrated; it should simply never have been in there in the first place. Because of this nighthaunt will always be held back by LoN, anything that could be powerful for us will have to be judged on its power in LoN and they will almost always be able to make it stronger than us. Maybe the new LoN battletome will make nighthaunt allies only and GW will just take the flack in their stride, with LoG they now could do this and still claim that LoN has access, but it is limited to one faxtion within the allegiance. But dear lord do I hope that more frequent point changes are in the works, because 280 is still WAY to high to justify the mourngul, it is still 20 points higher than a verminlord and nowhere near as good.

No point changes of LoA is a little dissappointing, I was hoping to at least see a reduction for drazhoath, he was overcosted before the latest battletomes and is now a joke when compared to verminlords and other similar models. Kinda feels like forgeworld just got lazy and didn't even look at LoA or TH.

Too blurry for me as well, but from what I can make out it looks like they have not changed.

Forgot to add grimghast reapers 160/420

From what we can make out: Kurdoss at 200 Harridans 80/280 bladeghiest 90/320 Hexwriaths 140 Dreadblades 90 Knight of shrouds 100 Knight of shrouds on steed 120 Olynder 230? Reiknor 170 Coach 240? Chainghasts 70 Myrmourns 70 (no horde discount) Shyish reaper and vault of souls 20

Yeah 160/ 420. Which I have to admit sucks, because they were mainly abused by LoN

And sadly, only a 20 point drop for the mourngul. Still, these changes seem good to me for the most part, at least we saw hardly any point increases. I know at least one DoK play who will be very sad

At 20 points, while not optimal at all, the endless spells may at least be seen occasionally.

Alleged spread of the GHB2019 has been shown on a german add, image is attached. I hope it is real, because those are some nice point drops for nighthaunt (except the reapers, ouch... expected, but ouch)

That looks like a 420 next to the grimghast reapers to me... ouch but sadly expected. Kurdoss at 200 Harridans 80/280 (YES) bladeghiest 90/320 Hexwriaths 140 If this leak is real then I'm a pretty happy camper

Where did you get the leak from? Because I want to believe

Ahhh thank you. I wonder if they are going to FAQ the LoN invigoration aura to be written how it is for LoG; rules as written state the LoG can choose 1 unit within 9" of A gravesite and bring back 1D3 models, instead of 1 unit within 9" of EACH gravesite, effectively losing 3D3 models returned each hero phase. I was surprised when LoN got access to all nighthaunt units, while it makes sense lorewise, it has created a weird situation where nighthaunt units are better outside of their own codex.

I have only recently started playing LoN, I was pure nighthaunt untill the legion of grief came out and have been enjoying the change of playstyle. What about LoN needs FAQing? I have faced very few people that play them, the only really egregious thing I have seen is grimghast reaper spam.