That Guy

I ran the Craventhrone guard today, just because I couldn’t wait. I’ve build 10 of them and ran them reinforced with a screen of chainrasps. Had the briar queen accompanying them and a krulghast. It was nice knowing that if they can shoot things, he can too. The 5+ ward en also the 5+ rally was very Effective. also played a black coach with some hexwraiths some banshees and a dreadblade. I played against Tzeentch demons and oh boy do those banshees do work now. They ate a bunch of the spells thrown at me while I advanced on them. I played emerald host, running hexwraiths on the flanks and chainrasps, with craventhrone, krulghast and briar queen down the middle with banshees going inbetween the forces. The craventhrone often received all out attack from me and they did hail down some wounds. The briar queen with her spell, made it an annoying experience for the player. When they barraged my crave throne I just lost a few and the black coach with rally brought them back. When they charged my screens, I shot them and all the time they were in range. And when they almost got to my craventhrone, I teleported them on a flank with my dreadblade behind some hexwraiths and kept shooting hahhahahah. Had so much fun trolling the enemy. Just having a ranged unit like this with the teleport shenanigans is big fun. You should have seen his face when he was in cover and I shot him through a wall. Did the craventhrone put numbers down? Nahh… not really, they chipped away, but they were an annoying distraction for him and he felt like he was save nowhere. Eventually targeting the cursed target with them was fun too. I am looking forward to the new tome. Man… I was laughing my ass of. What a joy.

I like this list, but what I don't like is the 1 shaman. In this case you'll just always lack in 1 department. Will you boost your gutrippaz or will you boost your man-skewers. When on the defense this will work well, but when you go on the offensive you have to decide where the sludgeraker beast goes and where the shaman goes. Do you double up with the beast and shaman on a unit? Do you let the gutrippaz enjoy the sludgeraker aura, while you potion the boltboyz? You are forced to make choices in this list. It could work don't get me wrong, but you have to play smart upon already having to play smart. Mork is cunning, but also brutal. With this you just need to be super cunning. Simple ork brain doesn't understand.

Carl from season of war, who uses him competitively once said: “use him as a reaction unit, he is far more effective if you hold him back first and than keep an explosive charge as a threat”. With mightiest is rightiest, once he goes in he’ll take what he aims for and you’ll likely get any charge off him. It’s good to screen him.

Love the developments my guy. Truely good work on the paintjobs. I'm still hesitating myself what I'll do. I'm a big fan of fuethan so i've been considering Orange with Lava esque / boiling waters of some kind. I'm not sure yet. I got the transparent water texture from Vallejo, so I can mix in any pigment I want. As for the sharks (which are my absolute favorite unit) I want to convert a few riding on waves or inside a wave/gulf. For the later part I want to cut up 1 of the side fins and sculpt/ find a wave fitting for the allopex bases. Then I want to reapply the cut fin on the other side of the wave. Basically I want to create the effect that the fin goes through the wave itself. I want to create several of these conversions. I just don't have any good idea yet how i would create/buy a gulf big enough and fitting for the base, while also being able to support the allopex body. As for now I was thinking of just adding like a ruins stone of some sort below the allopex, to support the body from below. If you have any ideas, or anyone. Please tell me.

I can definitely see some use for the kharadrons and maybe even the dispossessed when it comes to conversions made out of squat vehicles. Possible Squat vehicles to look forward to:

I ordered it too. Being slightly worried and disappointed so far doesn't mean I don't love the models, I did own a few banshee, but I didn't have a lot of bladegheist. The box will be a nice build. I can still see a use for all of these units, especially how deep our toolbox has already been so far. When Idoneth got their update, some people were similarly worried about some of their builds. The tomes made sub-factions interesting and opened up a plethora of toolbox options to build the armies of the Idoneth. The overall battle trait enhanced the play experience and magic, lore and even artifacts directly boosted these traits or added upon it. While I was overall pretty negative and salty about the initial info of the Arena of Shades box, I still believe Nighthaunt can definitely become competitive through the book update. It will be an exciting time and nerve wrecking one for sure. We currently aren't very frontloaded, so the pressure on the book being good is a lot bigger. Let us al pray to the great necromancer himself, for we shall need his guidance in these daring times till the book drops. That book has to make our backpack feel like it's loaded with stones.

Yes, against magic heavy armies. Sadly the top tables are still ruled by armies that don't use that. Against Seraphon and Lumineth although those often benefit from spells cast upon themselves. Since the aura of a banshee unit is 12" wholly within, it means you pretty much need to be in their face to stop those. Against offensive spells it's the greatest ever I admit. Just keep these little details in mind.

Here it is. The full review of the box. TLDR; Open the salt banks, it sucks for us, sort of. Banshees became awesome, but ofc situational, since they are anti magic. Torment is the bring back guys heal guys unit now. Chainghasts dissapointing +1 to hit buff, but only if the torment is also on the field and only for melee(…what?). Scriptor Mortis as feared is the unreliable RNG machine with bodyguard ability vs other units that we feared he would be. Bladegheist lost their re-rolls(ha…), and than the crossbow unit, we basically knew all about them already. The melee profile sucks(duh), 4+ to hit(ah… this would be nice for the chainghast buff, but wait, that’s melee only!) The champion adds +1A to his melee profile(LOL… what?). The banner is cool, it allows the unit to rally on 5+ instead of 6. For people who hesitated to get the box, only get it if you like the models or if you want to gamble on the battletome being good. Sorry that i’m being negative, so far it’s just trash, i can’t say anything else about it.

Solid units, u can do the Ionrach strat with your 6 morrsarr and king. Do know when you go over 3 heroes, you will be forced to at least a 2 drop army, since the 1 drop will only take 3 heroes. I would think about what you really like to do here. There's a lot utility in these lists. If you go namarti heavy, the tidecaster is nice (you can drop a second boat through the artefact and you can double dip the high tide and low tide rituals), if not, Lotann often is better. Both could work, but you do fight for points here. Since you go for the Eidolon of the Sea, you might want to consider getting a turtle at some point. The combo of turtle with eidolon is pretty great in terms of sustain and healing potential. It will take a big chunk of your list, but every single unit bar the eidolon will benefit from the turtles abilities. You could consider running a Nautilar list with 1 turtle in that case and it's special monstrous action, while having namarti fill up the rest of the battleline slots. Nautilar is a great place for a mixed list, so is Ionrach. You can always switch out a character for the Thrallmaster, but you are running too little Thralls to do that imo. Unless you 20 blob a thrall unit I guess. Yeah, for you i'd suggest Ionrach/Nautilar. You'll have fun.

The thing is from 1 you always benefit massively and if you play around lanterns even more. From the other you need to modify it to have a slight better chance of benefitting from it at all. I don't know hard choices to be made. We all just want the actual rules to drop. Saturday we'll know the Arena of Shade rules, because of influencer reviews, so that will be a nice appetizer.

I like your take on it all. Spectral hunters needs a buff though. Under Deathriders that’s way too unreliable. On top of that Legions of Grief just offers way more to the army even if you would run speedster units. I would start spectral hunters at 8 and boost to 7 in deathriders. Include it to have impact hits based on your charge roll. It needs more than just ASF, you literally only benefit in your turns and it’s still not very reliable. Allow them to “hunt” a unit giving them run and charge vs a chosen unit. Or give them bonusses against a certain type of opponent unit chosen at army deployment. It needs some oomf before people will even consider taking it over Legions of Grief

It’s actually a list that would have a lot of backhand tools. It’s not bad lol. Just too bad the storm only buffs the riders and that the leviadon Namarti buff gets lost into the void. On the other hand, the leviadon will literally buff everyone but itself and the eidolon with it’s void drum. Might want to consider the aura boost mount trait on him. The only real issue i have with this list is that everything is MSU, meaning you will benefit minimally from the akhelian ASF if he rolls 2/3. On top of that other command abilities will be kind of shite… too. Also aren’t the Eels battleline under the king as general, meaning you can run the sharks as 3? Meaning my previous point will be completely gone.

In all honesty, Ishlaen have never been bad and they still aren't. The thing is, defensive gameplay isn't our gameplan, it never has been. You took Ishlaen for cost efficient objective holders. Sure turtle will still be tanky and so will the ishlaen. It's just that our wincondition shifted even more towards crippling opponent armies and decide the game at round 3. We do not play for late game, we lose at late game, unless we can just keep running towards far away objectives. Because of these reasons, Morrsarr and Sharks are more popular. With sharks you have staying power through wounds, while always having output, be it in or out of combat. The Morrsarr Guard are reliable to get the charge of, we are super fast, if not the fastest. As you can see above, while Ishlaen indeed do pack the punch, they do not pack as much of a punch compared to the Morrsarr. The Morrsarr are made to cripple. They are your 2nd turn torpedo. While sharks and all the other stuff will be your turn 3 objective contesters and final blows. They will survive and finish it. It's still early into the new book, but as we see on paper, Thralls are the most amazing unit we have. Fully supported and an absolute powerhouse, but yet people seem to be dissappointed in this thread, yet people like their eels, and sharks and kings more. Why is that? It's because Thralls don't play the Cripple into the sweep game as well early on in our Tides as the faster units do. Thralls play around staying power and explosive engages. They need to have initiative or if not, be around a boat. It's a much harder and more difficult to pull off strategy and depending on how your opponent plays around you, could very well go into turns 4-5. I am not writing the Namarti playstyle off, in fact i'm experimenting with it as much as I play Fuethan. It just plays way more into what Khorne(poor poor chaps) wants to be compared to what our most succesful gameplay has been so far.

Honestly i've been thinking about it and I agree. Her impact should be the biggest of all units under the Nighthaunt, under Nagash. It would do her good to get a better ward and more wounds too. Also crank up all her abilities. You shouldn't feel bad for taking her without a bodyguard unit and she's supposed to be 1 of Nagash's generals. Currently in terms of her impact she acts more like a slightly overtuned named hero, but not a mighty mortarch. In terms of the bravery mechanic around the army, I like keeping it since it's flavourful. It won't be as good against demons and other death units, but they are naturally less scared. What i'd like to see is a mechanic that hurts them too however. Perhaps it can work slightly like a nurgle infection counter, but with cumulative effects. The more terror points you build up the more different things

I’d love to see them have bodyguard rules. It was always awkward to go emerald host and dedicate hexwraiths to an on foot general like olynder for example. It took away the potential of the unit, because they can’t always use their movement to the fullest effect in that case, or use their offensive buffs well. Craventhrone bodyguard would give us a dedicated on foot unit, while hexwraith could be more focused to be dedicated to cavalry heroes and being more offensive again. Also, Olynder warmaster please.

We’ve always been a tricksy army and my biggest wish with the new tome is that we stay that way. It is an iconic way of play for the nighthaunt. If anything i hope we maintain 1 of the strongest spell lores and our movement shenanigans, especially teleporting around. The new boatguy gives a positive light on that, but i do hope there is more in the tome to amplify these tricksy plays. Out of all the armies i own, honestly nighthaunt and lumineth have been the ones i could dig deepest in the toolkit of gameplay, now recently i can add Idoneth to that, which gained an incredible book as well. So far not a single 3.0 book has been dissapointing. People had their reservations on the nurgle units as well and they turned out to be fine. If anything i would say the ork sub factions other than ironjawz came out to be the weakest, but even than Kruleboyz still do their thing. Let’s not talk about bonesplitterz. Our army always benefitted big time from tricksy play, combined with a lot of utility and synergetic buffs and don’t forget there’s going to be some new sub factions too. I understand the information shared about the new units have been slightly lackluster, but that might be an indication that our tome will have some very powerful abilities for our army. I suggest to keep your judgement reserved for when we know more about the battlebox(which btw will include updated rules for myrmourn, bladegheist, chainghasts and spirit torment as well) and for when the tome drops. And even with the battlebox, look at Fury of the Deep. Those Allopex sharks were raised to 10 wounds and when the tome dropped lowered to 8 wounds again. In all honesty until we know the tome rules and had some games in, we just can’t write anything off as of yet.

When i read the post, i got the feeling we might lose spectral summons. I hope not. If that’s not the case we can have 2 units teleporting per turn perhaps, or maybe if you make boatboy the general he can bring 2 units(or more) with him. I also feel like he might get some assassination tool. I hope it will be a “model” instead of a hero ability. He’s totally going to do impact hits as well. Hopefully he’ll be a solid buff piece. He looks cool af, so i want him to be really strong.

Well, one of my wishlist points(a Charon/ferryman hero) is now reality. Unfortunately this is the boat rumor. No behemoth/monster for us so far. 🥲

Yes. And yes Forgotten Nightmares will still be in effect but to a unit that can freely teleport around the field, they can find angles easier than any army. This unit is not a joke. Also Reavers are not well supported in this tome when it comes to buffs. Who says that's the case for the Nighthaunt? If they get buffed up to a 3+ 3+ with who knows what extra abilities they can get. They can be a very mobile ranged unit that can shoot through any wall and any cover. You will not hide. Forgotten Nightmares is our tool, but they can hit a weak flank and they will.

Well well well. Look at the negativity. Boys let me reach a hand out to you to pull you out of the water. Well maybe i accidently let go. Someone needs to play devils advocate. The unit counters several armies battle traits and core mechanics The unit can likely deepstrike and immediately shoot The unit can likely teleport to a general The unit will likely have more abilities, they only shared 1 so far The unit will have a melee profile, just like any other unit The ability allows you to treat it like a short range artillery unit There will likely be a sub-faction that supports them 1: Idoneth Low Tide full counter, Kruleboyz covered in mud full counter, Sylvaneth forests? Full counter. I'm sure there's more. 2: Currently you can deepstrike ghosts, maybe these will be able to as well, being able to drop down a flank and immidiately hail down some shots. 10 of these with all out attack from a critical flank will hit hard. This faction is known to have a lot of stat buffing heroes, they'll likely get some support in that. 3: We could have 1 of the most mobile ranged units in the game, especially with a dreadblade, showing up behind flanks, and even shooting hiding units. Technically nothing can hide from this unit. 4: There's probably more to them than this ability, we also don't know what their command does for them. 5: Enough said. It will be bad though. 6. It can shoot on anything in range, through anything. There is nothing that can block their sight and they remove cover on top of that. You are not safe. 7. This might be the biggest impact on them. Perhaps they can be battleline for a unit of 15, if they get buffs, they could become terrifying. It will likely be a sub-faction under Kurdoss Valentian.

The new crossbow unit of the nighthaunt counters our low tide. even with ritual.

Very nice! I use that one as well actually.

Wild. This bro is going the Nautilar route first. I like the water and the sand. Did you use water effect to shape it? Also… 3 turtles. Don’t feel bad about wanting to run a list like that. I see you consider Lotann and the Tidecaster with them. Also look at the Eidolon of the sea. Yes that’s another hefty points increase, but you can benefit from a ridiculous amount of healing. Have some magic defense, which is your biggest weakness and you can use the spell combo with the nautilar monster rampage for a nasty save destroying wipe. You could also throwing that one turtle in a tanky unit. Target the sea Eidolon on a save stacker and throw the other turtle on that one. Another option ofc is going Tidecaster with perhaps 2 units of reavers. No one needs to tell you, you need bodies. Could do Lotann with 2 sharks as well, but you’ll be wasting command trait and artefact. Honestly feel because of points i feel reavers are the way to go here with a Tidecaster. You add bodies, and add to your shooting, turtles can screen reavers, you can take rituals to support namarti or just for the turtles. You can drop a second boat far up the field, i think you’ll enjoy it. Make sure you benefit from getting bonus VP on battle tactics. That’s your best shot of winning.

There will always be counters that shut down strong abilities. It’s healthy. In case of the stormcast, she can do it once per game, you can cast multiple turns. Targets like stonehorns, bastilladons, leviadons, kragnos(although he has an incredible shrug, if you get it off… you wipe him off the board.) usually monsters with incredible saves already. Deny them that build up and get your rends off. But honestly anything that can stack save roll buffs is a good target. Our army will never be dominant in magic our strongest is the sea eidolon who is somewhat solid paired with the command trait, but there’s many other armies who can literally dominate us in the magic phase. In your case def build both types of eidolons, you won’t regret. The storm still has a place.

It is changed, the app is correct. Now it’s just an extra weapon to swing with, without negatives. Oh…, well uh… oh… You could just swap the storm with a sea i guess. You would have 2 big bubbles of 10 bravery which is solid. And if you absolutely want to cast every spell available to the tome, this could… pull it off. It would be the most magic heavy this army can get. I think 1 storm is a bit better, because you can combine them with buffing up your namarti for combat and battleshock together. You are lacking a thrallmaster here or a Lotann. It is nice to get that 2+ to hit and 2+ to wound. The storm is also slightly more tuned towards combat, the sea really likes to be a lover rather than a hater. Although he would be a hater if you count his debuff potential.