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Hooooooooold off on the negativity. This reveal is not only in a vacuum, it's not even complete. A full analysis is impossible without the full warscrolls to either model, and we're going to have to wait on that. AND that's under the current ruleset. As a army with no ranged, and so barely any abilities that buff ranged units. Our next book could, and likely will in a lot of ways, upend everything we know about the faction. For example, our hero buffs from the Knight of Shrouds on foot and Spirit Torment (+1 hit for a CP, Reroll 1's to hit, respectively) are not melee-dependent. The Krulghast Cruciator's ward buff doesn't care about weapons at all, and his range is the same as the Soulhunters. The Knight of Shroud on Ethereal Steed and Guardian of Souls both affect melee only, but could be updated or traded for abilities that can later. And, for all we know, the Scriptor Mortis could give out Frightful Touch in an aura or on a target unit, since he's all about doing piercing damage. Guys, we just don't know anything yet.

Using Cities' crossbowmen as a standard to measure by these guys have: Half the range Twice the attacks -1 to wound roll +1 to rend No melee option 1 revealed ability vs the crossbowmen's 3 passives and 1 active abilities. The crossbowmen abilities are a +1 to hit for one model in the unit, +1 to bravery if a banner carrier exists, +1 to run and charge if musician exits, and the active ability to +1 to attacks if unit has 10 or more models, no enemies within 3", and the unit hasn't moved that turn. Vs this unit's ability to ignore all cover and line-of-sight within that 12" range, plus anything we don't know just yet. Hmm... I'd say unless the Soulhunters also get a stand-and-shoot type ability or some other way to buff that attack profile we won't see these in play often. I doubt anything will increase the range, as the ignore cover ability is pretty damn powerful and will remove any opponent's ability to use terrain or larger models as cover from ranged attacks making screens useless. We'll have ranged superiority in that regard, able to target anything within range. But, without a way to lower those 4+ or unless they miraculously have a 3+ save, these guys won't have a lot of impact. If I were to take a wild guess, I bet one of their yet-to-be revealed abilities will also negate the Look Out, Sir! negative modifier.

At least for the moment, the month or two left before our book comes out, you could always build a Nagash list and kind of get away with what you're looking for. Take Nagash, have him cast Reaping Scythe on his Alakanash, have another caster cast Mystic Shield on him so the rest of his spells are Arcane Bolt and then have him stomp around a bit. He synergizes really well with multi-wound NH units for model return, and is much more optimal of a wrecking ball than a mercenary gargant. If anything it's fun and is an excuse no to pre-build a list based on a meta. Just get some skirmishers and objective holders in there and see what happens.

For all we know one of the factions might be a lesser multi-hero one. I think there's precedent somewhere. Nighthaunt has always been an aesthetically pleasing model line. Painters love them, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that they make up the majority of NH sales and have done so for a long while. The reason you don't see them often on the table is their viability in a fight. There are numerous issues with NH. Ignoring all the opinions out there, the best players in the game just can't get us to the coveted 50% or better winrate that's required to be considered "competitive." We have a lot of tools, but right now it's not fully in our hands to win or lose a game, and that does not feel good to play. We're all hoping the new book fixes everything.

You wouldn't be waiting. Just like anything Nighthaunt, it's a gamble and it's more likely to pay off the more rolls you have, and this one increases later in the game. But saying it doesn't do anything until turn 4 is the same as saying our 4+ save doesn't do anything, Kurdoss' CP steal doesn't do anything, or that our WoT doesn't do anything. All are around the same probability when figuring in multiple chances at them. What's fair to say is that this ability alone isn't enough to turn a game or be worth the investment of points as is. A possible 2d6 mortals is nice, and doing it more than once with ever-increasing reliability could be devastating against an enemy centerpiece. Even if it only fires once, the average of 6-8 MWs is great, but it'd need to fire more than once to be a game-changer, I think. I don't see that happening, especially with the one round cooldown mechanic built in, but it's a tool we didn't have before. But, again, we don't know the rest of the kit. A second ability could be "spend a CP, roll again" or the unit is a caster with a unique spell that interacts with the ability. I'd just like less "this is trash" response from the community right now. We're going to need some pretty clean spectacles for when the new book comes out so that we can form good strategies, and not spend time winging that we're not the next Deepkin "oops, all eels" meta. I'm holding out hope that this tease, like in good GW form, is actually the lesser of the abilities the hero has to offer. Won't get my hopes up too much, but it's just as likely that what's not revealed yet is more impactful or has better interactions with the faction than what's been revealed so far. Good god I just want to be A ranked for once.

He's a hero. So under current rules he'll give out Deathless Spirits. He's also a source from which commands can be given. We don't know attack profile, wounds, save, additional abilities of which our heroes usually have two, or if Frightful Touch is part of the armament. As of right now he'd be a hero that would need to be on the battlefield at the start of the game for maximum impact. He can't go into Underworlds if Sentenced is the ability you brought him for because we wouldn't be able to see an enemy hero from there. However, the ability has no range, so as long as you deploy him in line-of-sight to whatever hero you want to mark even if it's table edge to table edge, the ability is valid. From turn 2 on, as long as this hero and the chosen enemy hero is alive, roll a die and hope to get under the current turn number. Do so, instant 2d6 mortals. Can't choose a new hero until the previous one is dead, and when you choose a new one the damage potential doesn't happen until the next turn. At first blush, looks like a hero you'd park on an objective to get free damage on a high-profile enemy target. If he's cheap, he's instantly better than the Cairn Wraith or Tomb Banshee in most cases, unless you were looking for a throw-away hero. But here's the interesting bit; it says that even if the game was going to end the ability can still fire. Meaning that when you go to tally up your end of game points, you roll one more time, and if that roll resulted in the death of the marked unit you would earn those points. The game ending would not prevent you from scoring on your opponent if that hero was worth points. In conjunction with the new Prime Hunters and Prime Targets mechanic (at least until our book comes out), that could net you up to an additional one to three points depending on the interaction. Seeing as how we often tend to lose games by that many points, this guy might be the reason you win. If that hero was the only monster slayed for you that round, that's another 1 point. If it secured a Grand Strategy win for you, that's more points. Your last Battle Tactic, another point. How often this would make or break a game remains to be seen, but the potential is there and it's a sneaky one. And if you can hide this guy safely, it's also a highly likely one.

I love him. But I'm also a fan of the murder castle formation with a Terminexus. No one beats me on attrition.

Sounds like you had a typical NH experience.

We spitballed our homebrew bravery mechanics quite a while ago on the 2.0 thread. We had some good ones. One was having an alliance ability that if an enemy unit suffers battleshock while within the range of our -1 modifier then an additional amount of models ran that was the difference between the rolled amount and the total needed, minimum one. So less to do about the actual bravery and more to do with model loss. It hit high bravery units disproportionately, though, in that bravery 10 units were also usually 2 to 4 man units. It also forced your opponent to spend CP. Another was since we were an MSU army during the days of mega-units, if we had 2+ NH units in range of the same enemy unit, that unit had a -2 instead of -1. Simple, yet effective. But not effective enough. And if you bumped up the max to -3, it was game breaking. Probably one of the best though, and oddly kind of balanced at the time, was this one: Whenever a NH unit engaged an enemy unit for the first time in the game and had to roll a battle shock test, both players would roll it for the enemy unit and the worst roll would be used. In addition, an additional model would run in that turn. So, in other words, it was meant to operate as the "shock" factor of engaging with our scary ghosts and served to work like a more reliable Wave of Terror once you factored in the model loss. It also meant that even if the enemy unit retreated, it still had engaged a NH unit for it's first time and the deaths can pile up out of combat. It allowed you to strategically choose which enemy units you wanted to engage with and when, as that buff only lasted for the first round of contact per enemy unit. I'm sure whatever is in the new book will be better. They have actual people paid to come up with and test rules, and NH has to be someone's favorite army among the rules staff. We'll just have to wait and see.

The problem with Bravery shenanigans has always been how to balance it. Either you can reliably mess with high bravery opponents but unfairly devastate low bravery ones, or you're limited to be balanced against the low and mid only to be useless adjust the high. Legion of Grief tried to balance that by making bravery mechanics mutually exclusive from your other load out choices. You had to lean in hard to access the most useful mechanics, but that meant you were also less capable of handling scenarios where your plans fell apart. No one likes true RNG games, and so both experiments resulted in defaulting back to more tried-and-true tactics. If we want Bravery to be more than a trick, it'd have to be balanced against both high and low bravery armies, reliable to use, but not your only win condition.

Oof. 6 out of 44 models... Looks like I might pass.

I know they're coming, I'm wondering just how many. As in, I already have 10,000 points of Nighthaunt, I have everything else in droves. If the box only contains one of the new hero (likely) and only one full unit of crossbows I might go the eBay route. Especially if they offer no other ways of getting those models.

Crossing my fingers that there's enough of the new units in the box to warrant getting it.

Reapers are battleline.

I think the Spirit Hosts might be a bit of a trap. Even with Nagash and a ST the damage profiles of our units hasn't changed. Hosts will do more damage against high-save targets, Reapers against hoards, Bladegheists against targets they can charge at, and Harridans have staying power and so will do more damage where you can't otherwise keep model count up. If you start enforcing units, Reapers are probably the best bang for the buck, being both a battleline and also attacking over each other so you have more swinging while maintaining cohesion. And Harridans are a good pick now if you have a ST with them for exploding hits and model return if you have plenty elsewhere on the board, like with Nagash. I'd bet we'll see more lists heavy in those units. Nagash and ST; Reapers to pal with Nagash, Harridans for the ST. And the rest either being Hexwraiths in an Emerald list or Chainrasps in a Comdemned list. And if you're worried about casting, Oly can still come in either, or take Reikenor for a more consistent cast.

People have unbilt models? *looks as his 32 Glaivewraiths*

Maybe I'm dumb, but where is the FAQs in the app? I see the changes when I look at Nagash or Emerald Host specifically, but nothing notified me of a change and I don't see a FAQ page. Latest update seems to be December.

I made my own. Drew up a template, jiggered in stolen battletome resources, inserted warscroll details. Laser printed and laminated. Yeah, way cheaper than the decks, and also easy enough to replace when a rule changed. But, I still want the official ones this time around.

I'm going to raise some angry spirits myself if I miss out on the cards this time around...

I think you're right. The ST/SH murderball was a core component of the murderball setup of 2.0. Decent mortal wound output (though I would have liked to see how 9 hosts are arranged during a game), and constant 1-2 wound heals from the ST so there's no gap for bringing back the force. Hexes likely objective hunted and maybe hero assassinations (not likely at this level). Chainrasps? 3x10 makes me think those were the objective holders or fighters to supplement the SHs. And, of course, Nagash does Nagash and with the spell portal does it from half a table away in the early game.

This one? Went 4-1.

I wish I was more active in games right now, but I don't have any experience with Naggy to offer. But, from a very noob perspective on him and his play style with us, I think if we shifted the army into a more mobile/martial force it would compliment him. Nagash has spellcasting down pat. You don't need another caster at all unless you're up against Teclis or that dead frog. Maybe one for the Terminexus. So what if you put in all martial heroes instead and focused on buffing one or two attack lines? Two Spirit Torments and a Dreadblade general, mayhaps. And then any troop that benefits from the RR1s. Reapers? Harridans! Use Nagash as a tether between the blobs?

Those NH ones look like Reikenor's candles with a spell book. Probably the altar for a caster.

No. "Pick a friendly Nighthaunt unit."

Some notes: Nagash is being considered a needed model for NH in the current meta (they reference this thought as coming from the larger community as well as "insiders"). Monster, tons of wounds, stave stacking, tons of damage if he uses Reaper's Scythe, multi-wound model return, and tons of interactions with NH spell lores. People who "think about rules" are "reviewing Nagash receiving bodyguard saves" meaning GW is aware and currently reviewing (Tom and Coach stress TO overrule as baseline for this right now). Nagash fits Emerald Host over Reikenor's Condemned mostly due to multi-wound model return. Nagash benefits Hexwraiths and Spirit Hosts more than Chainraps, for example. Tom prefers 5 or less unit sizes for cohesion reasons, which elevates Emerald Host lists in his opinion. Tom is incorrect about Lady O being a general in his list for most of the video. He corrects himself after they start talking about the list itself. He then suggests Black Coach instead of her. And lots of hints of "new subfactions," "new rules," and other mispeaks and hand-tilts that might suggest new NH rules incoming soon.