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How does it work for Necrons?

It's Mortal Reign mk2, and it's in my guide. Link's in my sig or bio.

Honestly, not sure. I think DG brings a huge power boost to Hexwraiths. Even if you don't use them to keep your general up you can use their +1 attacks on a charge to fish for mortals. I think the battalion does more in practice for you than it looks on paper. FS gives you a free +1 attacks buff each round. That's huge, especially when used on a horde unit. Doubly so when you're the one counter-attacking on an enemy unit that hasn't attacked yet. This buff is our defacto most damaging one, so getting a free one is pretty amazing. And the Emerald Host nets a pretty significant debuff you can levy against the highest save enemy unit on the table, or the general, to just negate most defensive or artifact buffs. But, there has been almost no tournament play of these battalions by people way better than me at tactical planning and executing, and not a ton of mix-and-match results being posted. So it's hard to say. Personally, I'm using a list that includes DG and it's been my strongest list by a country mile.

It's not as cut-and-dry as that. Wave of Terror is an ability that can't be countered once enabled, for example, while the Necromancer's Dance Macabre is an unbindable spell that can only be attempted once per phase and only enables fight twice, which can have a counter attack occur. Low chance of WoT happening, but no limit on the units it triggers for vs a spell your opponent will almost certainly look to shut down. It's really about accident forgiveness. Nighthaunt has all these tools to leverage current battleplans, including most of our non-heroes being battleline for the extra points. But it isn't forgiving if you mess up your tactics or your opponent out plays you. Legion of Grief, however, is a slower style that has a lot of forgiveness for mistakes built in. Your opponents can muck this up for you by deliberately trying not to kill your entire units, but in general if you find yourself in a bad situation you can spend a CP and undo it, assuming your gravesites aren't camped to prevent this. And, you can place those gravesites where you know there is going to be heavy fighting to get constant heals, where NH has to put heroes in danger to match that. I prefer straight NH, but I like both. There's no clear answer. LoG was considered more competitive before the shutdown because of that forgiveness, but that was before the Emerald Host.

For early armies, yeah. Not the later ones, though. It as to do with our early power balancing. We were more of a bizzaro-Stormcast when we were first designed, and the beta-tests had us looking like a hybrid between horde and elite unit types. Dreadblades were meant to be a 2-man unit and not heroes, for example. But, they realized two flavors of Stormcast weren't going to cut it and began to adjust Nighthaunt into a more horde-type army. As rules changed and balance was attempted, they weren't going to go back and remake the sprues to reflect it. The Mortis Engine is more of a mystery to me. I seen it said somewhere that it literally came down to a lore decision, that no living necromancers could be in a Nighthaunt army due to their mutual hate and distrust, and thus it didn't make the cut being a NH model. I know GW has made similar lore decisions in the past, but that it usually involved a way to get the models back in, which we didn't get until Legion of Grief or mercenaries. In either case, it's our price to pay of being one of the two launch tomes for the AoS 2nd edition.

The BG/DH debate basically boils down to one thing. Can you charge? If you can charge, or intend on playing in such a way where charging is likely, BGs win. Not just because of their buff on the charge, but because as Nighthaunt every chance at a charge is a potential Wave of Terror. This alone makes even Glaivewraiths better than Dreadscythes, since Glaivewraithers can similarly set more situations in which to charge. In other words, charge attempts trump base damage, because WoT nets ~x2 damage, half of which has no answer. Dreadscythes are good on paper, but once again our core abilities skew the outcome. You have to commit to our major mechanics, of which I'd argue there's only two anymore, and DHs just don't fit into either of them. The two are fishing for WoT or stocking up on mortal wound generators. I'm currently a fan of the latter.

Yep. Sounds about right. Great job!

Dreadscythes are extremely good... If you don't mind spending CP on them. At base they won't do as much damage as Bladegheists. But you can pretty much match them for a CP spent on a Knight of Shrouds command ability. Pay 2 and then they become amazing. Or, pair them with a Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed and spend the 1 CP to pretty much equal the 2CP buff. You don't see this often, though, because it's expensive. Not only are you investing your really limited CP to make them perform, you're also pairing them with a valuable hero that might do better buffing a different unit (same 1 CP on Bladegheists, for example). And, the battalions that the Knights can go in are just better when you consider the 5+ Frienzied save only the Bladegheists can get.

😆 It's a good problem to have! You could always try something new and see how it works out. Give a new config a couple of tries to get the feel of it. If you hit up my guide (link is my sig or in my bio) you can see how I build around the DG. Yeah, you won't be winning any drop wars, but you might like how it plays to explode with a vengeance going second. Oh, and here's the Emerald Host if you were looking for it.

The wording exactly is "Add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of melee weapons used by units from this battalion that have made a charge move in the same turn." This means that once you have satisfied the conditional of making a charge move, that unit will have +1 attacks in all phases until the turn ends. So, yes, a WoT proc would have +1 attacks, and would carry over to the combat phase after. Personally, I prefer anything I can control the benefit of. Wave of Terror is a huge, huge increase in our damage and is our defacto best ability. But it's also very rare, even with Deathriders. Too rare, at least, to reliably use when you need it. You often end up spending CP just at chances to roll for it. In contrast, a solid +1 to attacks whenever they charge is definible, predictable, and only requires you can charge to make it happen. Also, the horses get this bonus, too. Since the power of Hexwraiths come from rolling 6s you are looking at either throwing 16 dice (5 models, 2 attacks each, 3 for the leader, all getting +1 attacks) with DG on every charge, or a potential 22 dice (5 models, 2 attacks each, 3 for the leader, attacking twice as a unit) with WoT Deathriders charge at 28% chance each attempt. That would average out to 6 wounds (2-3 mortals) you can count on vs 9 wounds (6-7 mortals) you might only get half of. Oh, since you might want to spend a CP either way, spending it on All-Out Attack increases the wounds to 7 on average for a DG unit. If you had a Knight of Shrouds that CP would average 8 wounds. A KoSoES would average 9. But all of these would only happen during the combat round.

Updated with a sample list Mortal Reign mk. 2. Have fun with this one, it's my favorite!

Apologies if this has already been asked or touched upon, but is there a way to make multiple page breaks work? I just put a bunch in my blog and only the last one works in creating a second page.

*looks at his 32 Glaivewraiths* Man, I put so much work into my Hexwraiths, but I'd be lying if I didn't want to do the same conversion.

I think it comes down to a sort of mob mentality. Like high school cliques or the popular clubs. Either you're in or your're not. And when you're not it's easy to look down at you. It certainly takes more energy to see someone new, or who plays differently than you, and openly accept them and play with them. Games take longer and the player often needs assistance, at least for the newer ones, and it requires the other player(s) to change their mental gears back and forth. You're also taking a risk; that player may end up socially different or incompatible to you. It's so much easier to stay with your in-crowd and shun/spurn anyone who doesn't make the effort to get on your level. And that makes it easier to see anyone who brings a perceived advantage to the table as unworthy, because they haven't earned it or don't deserve it. Not only that, but that sense of belonging and collective outsider shaming is an addictive high. A well-documented one. It takes really strong people to stand up to that and try to make the gaming experience great for everyone. And that makes everyone here doing that for themselves and others really great people.

This has got to be the best looking hexwraith I have ever seen.

Yes. The entry is titled Emerald Host, but it includes the actual Emerald Host, as well as Dolorous Guard and Forgotten Scions.

It's all legal! I was away for a while and didn't update this guide to reflect their momentary removal from legal matched play, but that's moot now. Emerald Host is completely legal to play.

For visibility and clarification: Legendary Battalions: Update "So we sat down and had a good, hard think and realised that a ready-made solution was right in front of us, at least in terms of White Dwarf. Digital back issues of White Dwarf containing Tome Celestial content are available to purchase, and so we have updated the General’s Handbook 2020 designer’s commentary to provide a comprehensive list of which publications can be used in Pitched Battles (2020) without your opponent’s permission. This now includes all Tome Celestial content preceding the 1st of August 2020, so anyone who has laboured over painting the Emerald Host or Vokmortian’s Tithe Legion can now rest easy as their army doesn’t require an opponent’s permission to play against. And any Tome Celestial rules released after this date are in the same, fully-supported boat – good news for anyone frantically painting squigs for the Jaws of Mork!" General's Handbook 2020: Designer's Commentary, October 2020 "Q: When choosing an army for a Pitched Battle, what publications can I use without my opponent’s permission? A: You can use the warscrolls for units with a Pitched Battle profile listed in the General’s Handbook 2020 (excluding those listed in the Legends Pitched Battle Profiles section) and the warscrolls for units with a Pitched Battle profile in a publication that has a release date of August 2020 or later. In addition, when choosing your army, you can use rules from any of the following publications and any that have a release date of August 2020 or later: Tome Celestial: The Emerald Host – White Dwarf December 2019" So, yes, Emerald Host battalions are back. Still likely won't see them in the AoS app, but they are legal once again. Now I look like a seer for not updating my guide to take them out! Just like I had planned! All along. Yes. Of course. because I knew it... mmhmm. /nod

I'm a guy who got into the hobby because my friends love the game and showed it to me. They knew me well enough to show me an army that fit in my aesthetics perfectly and I fell in love with it instantly. My friends are the type of players who play for the love of the game, who love to toss ultra-competitive lists at each other and muse we could go 3/2 (at least) in tournaments, throw together fluffly lists just for a what-if, play narrative games to relive lore moments, craft our own narratives, and play stupid stupid lists that violate all sorts of rules, all just to have fun. These are the players you want to surround yourself with. Players who love to play and don't care about win records or the best builds. I'm also a guy who has felt that pain that comes after putting a considerable amount of time and monetary investment into an army, who became attached to it, and the got sidelined, tabled, ridiculed, and told I was wrong for wanting to play it. My army is Nighthaunt. And I have been laughed at for telling others I love them. And I mean literally laughed at. It's become a sort of a meme or unspoken rule among the greater AoS collective that you can love the way Nighthaunt models look, but you can't love to play them. They are only there to paint and look pretty or hold up as a shining example of power creep or some other GW failing. And it gets frustrating. It narrows down your potential playing group encountering people like this. And it drains you when you have to constantly fight against it and tell yourself to stay positive. And what's worse? When you do well and they have to tear you down for it. But ultimately the choice is yours who you play with. You can simply choose to not play with the negative players, even if they are your friends. You might change their attitude, too, if they see you always playing with positive players and having fun. Ultimately that's what I did, I just stuck to playing with people who made every game a laughing roaring good time. And win or lose we'd BS over the highlights, the things we did well and our screwups. Oh, and take breaks. When things get to you it's okay to step away for a bit and regroup. Give it time and grow your personal playerbase.

When the list is built around that mechanic, I agree. It's a lot of fun to teleport around and pull units along for the ride. Mortal Reign is a different strategy, and in terms of a win ratio greatly beats out any spirit-taxi list I've made. It beats out any other kind of list I've made. At least it did prior to losing Dolorous Guard. The point of the Mortal Reign list is to make a murderball of Spirit Hosts and the Spirit Torment general with Ruler of the Spirit Host command trait and Pendant of the Fell Wind. 9 SHs re-rolling 1s in every phase they'd make an attack (good in WoT and both combat phases) to fish for MWs, bringing D3 bases back with Ruler, and spot healing itself or a damaged SH base every battleshock, all moving at 9". You can Underworlds the whole lot, or start with them on the board, but either way once they are chasing an enemy they're going to kill them despite most protections. Mind your ST positioning within that group and he'll keep the ball alive. Yes, objectives are the name of the game, but if you can't take the ones your opponent's taken or defend the ones you have you'll still lose. And against a meta of magic and ranged you want a threat that is too large to ignore and to focus on rather than your objective takers. Everything else in the list is already fast enough to be elsewhere on the board you need. Even more so if you Underworlds them. The Dreadblade is just a tax for keeping Hexwraiths in the list and still scoring a battalion for the extra CP and artefact. A teleporting hero that you don't need is great for providing coverage or quick-caps without risking your win condition.

Good catch. Fixed. Well, kinda. Updated the counts which really hurts the Chainguard overall. I think it makes Deathriders the better option.

Hey ghost friends. I have adapted my most winningest list into two post-Dolorous Guard flavors. I haven't played much since the FAQ to really know which performs better, but they both have their pros and cons. Give each a try. I would love to know which ends up working better against what opponents. General Pros Everything other than the Black Coach is either a Leader or Battleline. So, yeah, maybe we can squeeze out a few more points on those battleplans that give role bonuses. Both lists come in less than 2,000 if you don't make any alterations, which may net you a Triumph. /shrug General Cons: With the loss of Dolorous Guard we lose some firepower with the Hexraiths. That extra attack on the charge adds up when you're swinging for MWs. Worse, thanks to point changes and needing some extra bodies for the other battalion choices, we also lose the extra CP the original list offered. And also lose the Endless Spell. To get either of these back you'll have to sacrifice some wounds on the table. Mortal Reign: Deathriders Mortal Reign: Deathriders Pros Keeping the Hexwraiths despite the Attacks loss means we're still staying true to the theme and power of the original Mortal Reign list, which was its ability to generate all the MWs needed to take down any enemy type. Make up for the Attacks loss by scoring WoT on a 9. Black Coach also gets WoT on a 9, and both this and the Hexwraiths also get +1 to the roll (still need a nat 9 for WoT) so you can get into combat early. Might be a viable strat against high-ranged enemies. Mortal Reign: Deathriders Cons Out of all the units that could use WoT on a 9, Hexwraiths and the Coach get it. Not really the units you want in combat right away without support, and they will for sure leave support behind if you're not planning ahead. Point tax! Grab that Dreadblade Harrow, but since the point of the list is a fast murderhobo blob of Spirit Hosts he's not going to be your general. Early cap potential, Deathless save bearer, throw-away hero that your enemy may think is important, but all worth less than a 50 point CP. Mortal Reign: Chainguard Mortal Reign: Chainguard Pros Guardian of Souls and Chainrasps are a classic combo, and provided you can get your Spectral Lures off you can generally keep them around. If you can spend a turn casting on Reapers instead, your damage output should remain high. Even if all you do is get them close to a ranged enemy to pose as a threat, those wounds will be a round to chew through at least. Reapers and Reikenor are a very nice pair to take down hoards or to double-line up against anything else. With their 2" range you can have Reik behind a screen of Reapers and still have most of them swinging. This list has an extra CP. Mortal Reign: Chainguard Cons Reapers do MWs in a convoluted way, and aren't reliable. The extra Chainrasps also don't do mortals. Sorts of deflates their damage potential against high-save targets or anyone with a save-after-save. Be prepared to think on your feet and throw these against enemies just to buy time, or use them for objective camping. The entirety of your Chainrasps combat- or objective-holding potential comes down to a GoS's 6-CV spell. Be sure to try to exhaust your opponent's unbinds first. In the best case scenario Spectral Lure can be your 4th spell, but unless they think Wraithstorm/Lifestealer, Soulcage, Grief-stricken, or Shademist to be spells worth fizzling out, you likely won't exhaust the unbinds. To fit the Reapers the Chainrasps have been reduced to 20 apiece. Now they will play a different role than simply Olynder's screen and an immortal objective contestor. Who's to say if that's a good idea?

Nighthaunt, as a faction and in a competitive sense, is not that bad. We're called "trash-tier" by, mainly, those that don't want to take the time to really learn the tricks and tactics needed for a legitimately "hard mode" faction. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you insist on playing Nighthaunt you're playing the Dark Souls of AoS (yes, truly, let's compare the two) and that should be a sense of pride. It is for me, for sure. I've learned so much sticking to Nighthaunt. But, if you give those who call us "trash tier" a listen, they sometimes come up with some pretty good points. One in particular is how we have no reliable answer for a hard-hitting shooting or magic phase. No single army in AoS is so perfectly balanced that they can take on every other army with the exact same chances of winning. That's not possible, nor should we lie to ourselves that it's a goal we should strive for. But, most armies have enough tricks or are centered around abilities that give them tools to answer as many potential outcomes as needed against most armies. An army with a hugely strong hero phase will also generally mean a strong unbinding ability. Armies with strong shooting phases usually mean enhanced potency if they stay and fight it out. Armies with strong combat phases usually mean they can reliably count on their combat effectiveness. And, lastly, armies with strong movement usually get their movement through actionable abilities. Any one of those strong phases usually means weaker other phases for balance, and that makes sense. We don't have this balance. This is why we're hard mode. I have a rant below. I wrote it, deleted it, and then wrote it out again. I'm going to hide it under the spoiler tag so you don't have to read it. And you probably shouldn't. But I'll make this point here even if you don't: I have tried to stay positive about NH for over a year now, doing my absolute best to get both community and GW feedback on how to excel with the faction only to be constantly ridiculed and literally laughed at for it. I have put together a guide so that others can benefit from the work I put in. And now? Now I think I need to take a break and step away from it all. This FAQ was just the last straw for me. Maybe I'll chime in again if they start talking about a new book or something, but after this I don't have a lot of faith. Tomb Kings became OBR, if we're being real. If we have to wait as long for NH to become something, I think I'm done with the game. I just can't keep fighting this brick wall. I need a break. See ya around.

This complicates things for no communicated or foreseeable reason. House rules? In order to stand a competitive chance we have to convince our opponent we need the pity? We have to wait for some non-existent tournament to set the standard? Suppose that's not too hard to convince a friend we need help, right? I'm sure through all the snickering from the local tablemoths at the game store (that we can't gather at) they'll let the battalions though... This doesn't feel right. I want to be hopeful that something is coming for us so that all of this make sense, but I haven't seen anything from GW to get the hype up for anything new. This feels like a gut punch, and as we're reeling I'm wondering why they hit us. Let alone so hard.

https://aosshorts.com/age-of-sigmar-faqs-complete-version/ Page 9, left column, last entry.