Thamalys

Oh, I see! An interesting proposition... I have never thought about it to be honest! Ok, but then you are paying 120 pts for the Dolorous Guard "just" to give two units of (10, I guess? you mention 260 pts) Hexwraiths +1 attack? A Knight of Shroud on Ethereal Steed, which comes at 120 pts (same as the Dolorous Guard) will give you a exactly the same bonus (+1 attack on all melee weapons). Sure, that will cost you a CP / unit and keeping the Hexwraiths wholly within 18" of him it's not entirely straightforward, but still! The Knight CA can be deployed even if the Hexwraith did not charge and you get an actual 6-wound mobile character for 120 pts instead of investing in a battalion. Now, about the 120 attacks for a 260 pts battle line unit... let's take away the Wave of Terror possibility (rare to start with, but crucially it applies to any unit in the book, so...) and we have 60. Half of those are the horses, which don't do mortal wounds, hit on 4+ and wound on 5+. That's 5 points of damage against a unit with no save, so let's be honest, those 30 attacks from the horses are hard to factor into it proper. In fact, doing the math, those 60 attacks are going to deal, on average, 11.94 points of damage against a 4+ save (that's including the mortal wounds output, of course). And, you're are paying 120 pts for the +1 attack, so you are effectively paying 260 pts + 120 pts = 380 pts for that sort of output. Having said that, Nighthaunt don't deal much damage to start with, so... in terms of battleline, we are on par with the rest. Say, 9 Spirit Hosts (360 pts, similar investment as the Dolorous Guard Hexwraiths) deal on average 11.25 points of damage against the same 4+ save - but, they are not as mobile and they don't do mortal wounds while flying over things. All in all, an interesting take on this battalion... thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I did run them a few times... don't get me wrong, they are really useful. What I was trying to say is that, in terms of thinking about filling the battleline slots, I would prioritise the Rasps as opposed to the Hexwraiths. 40 Rasps is a lot of models that can't be shifted too easily (nothing compared to Berzerkers, Mortek Guard, etc. but still...) and in my opinion decently resilient big (or big-ish) blobs are a key element of any Nighthaunt list. Hexwraiths are very fast, they fly over things and captures objectives easily - great for banking victory points early in the game or, conversely, toward the end if you still have them running around. But thinking of using Hexwraiths as objective keepers... I mean, it could probably be done, but the points cost will skyrocket and whatever you do, 40 bodies is always better than 10 when the only difference is a 4+ vs 5+ etheral save (it's easier to bring back rasps than hexwraiths as well via our spells and so on). And no, I don't think Hexwraiths can be regarded as something that is there to do damage. 2-4 mortal wounds is very little output. Marginally better in DG, sure, but you don't get to charge them that often when in DG, as they have to stay within 3" of, say, a rather slowly Olynder (usually - other options are there, of course). I would never spend CPs on making Hexwraiths better in terms of offensive capabilities. For one thing, spending a CP on 5-10 models is far from being ideal (spending a CP on e.g. 40 rasps / 30 reapers would be much more cost effective), but most importantly, Hexwraiths are much faster than a spirit torment. The KoS on steed is an interesting option (he'd be able to keep up with them), but I can't personally move away from running Hexwraiths as DG and guarding Olynder - which in turns robs me from the DreadBlade/Summons combo (sad). Again, I'm not saying they're bad at all - when thinking about a potential list, though, I think of them as either (costly) objective grabbers or bodyguard for Olynder in DG, not blocks of killy cavalry and/or objective keepers!

I'd say that 40 Chainrasps is a slightly more solid choice than whatever amounts of Hexwraiths. The latter are not bad at all, but even as Dolorous Guard they lack any proper punch, which is a shame given how quick they are - that's my only problem with them. They are effectively overcosted in Nighthaunt - this has been said multiple times, but they really should be pointed differently according to wether you are fileding them in Nighthaunt (I'd say 130 pts) or Legion of Nagash (160 pts is fair in that case, bringing back whole blocks of 30 Reapers is still a very powerful mechanic). Note however that Bladegheists are not battleline (not sure if that's what you were saying/comparing?). Also Bladegheists need a Spirit Torment nearby (the good ol' "wholly within" nonsense does apply...) to re-roll all of their hits (3+). Reapers are largely self-sufficient instead - if engaging units with 5+ models - especially in big blocks of 20-30. The 2" reach is a massive plus - try to get 20 Bladegheists in... different roles, of course. I just think that Reapers still have a place, albeit, as battleline, nothing beats 40 chainrasps. It's an objective game after all. Kurdoss... I never managed to get it work (most likely my inability to select the right targets, but this King is a slow one and needs support to do stuff). It's a hero with zero support abilities for the rest of your army and with a very swingy melee mechanics that failed to deliver in most cases. Stealing CPs ona 5+ is nice, but it's not enough. He did come down on points, which is great, butI'm still not a fan. The model is such a joy to paint, though! So true. I have given mine (Soul Wars box...) to my 3-year old so that he could "paint" them in a very cheerful rainbow-like color scheme... they'll never see a tabletop, I am afraid. Or maybe it's all a ruse, and GW is secretly working to a new Battallion where they hit and wound on 2+...

Cheers mate, same here - so weird to not be able to talk to people... crazy times! Always happy to take the trip to Poole for a game or two, with some luck we'll manage to catch up at some point. Meanwhile, let's keep rocking these Dragons

I've managed to roll some dice during the weekend - a very small tournament divided in non-interacting "clusters" of 4 people each. Probably the way forward, until we get rid of the Plague... a discussion for another day, perhaps; for now, I am just massively grateful to the TO who persevered and made it happen - legend. Anyway, Legion of Blood. Three games in (two major losses, one major win) I thought I share with you a few thoughts. The Games The List: VLoZD (general, Aura of Dark majesty, Orb, Pinions), Vhordrai (Vile Transference), Necromancer (Overwhelming Dread); three units of 5 dogs, 2 units of 5 Blood Knights, 20 Reapers, cheeky Bat Swarms (2000 pts on the nose). Game 1 [against Khorne, 4 units of 6 Bloodcrushers and a Deamon Prince, Startstrike] - Very, very, very close. We run out of time and played it out quickly - made a couple of silly mistakes (I blame the hurry, but really I can only blame myself) and lost it by a couple of points. The tools were there - no question, the problem was that in two different occasions my opponent will have tabled me if he did get the double turn (which I consistently negated to him throughout the game). Game 2 [against Deepkin, you know which list, Total Conquest] - tabled in turn 3, classic. I genuinely did what I could, but I have only that many screens against stuff that flies (which flies itself some 16" and then charges in your face). The tools were not there, but the same holds for most factions out there against eels anyway. It could have been a different game if I had won the priority for turn 3, but hey - that's Deepkin, that's always the case. Game 3 [against Bonereapers, Katakros, two Crawlers, 10,10 and 40 Mortek Guard, The Better Part of Valour]. With this one I had the opportunity to keep my battle line (the dogs) in the grave until I managed to delete the two small units of Mortek Guard (the 40-man one... no point), and at that point the points were in my favour. Definitely a good battleplan for this list (very fast, can delete things quickly if no screens are around) The Units The dogs are amazing - so much utility for 70 points... they win games, those furry buggers. Vhordrai... it is a terrific distraction and when it connects (it needs his spell off, otherwise it can and will bounce and a 7 to cast is not great) it's mayhem, but... I don't know, guys. I know I claimed that given the latest points drop The Prince is now a viable option, and he is, but maybe another VLoZD is equally good - and I need those 20 pts more for my next list (to squeeze in a Coven Throne!). His command ability, while amazing on paper, it's really hard to use in an objective game -if you have two dragons in one place, chances are you are doing something wrong. The Necromancer is virtually useless. Yes, his spells are great, but he is very slow, he can't keep up with the Reapers - which you should always suicide in turn 1 and get back in turn 2, that's how you change the tide, they loose points you don't , easy as that. He also dies very quickly and it's 130 points. He's going, the Reapers are largely self-sufficient and are not meant to do a ton of damage or to stick around for very long. The bats are great for what they do, but a -1 to hit is not going to do miracles against a shooting list - 80 pts... again, not sure. Blood knights are phenomenal, if very difficult to manoeuvre. I think that a blood knights-based list (6 units of 5?) would be competitive, I just can't bring myself to convert more than the 10 I have at the moment. The issues Cover. AoS is very loose in terms of terrain, and in most cases we don't get any practical opportunity to get our units in cover - something we desperately need with e.g. Blood Knights Drops. Being consistently out-dropped is a problem, as if you try to mitigate the double turn you loose a ton of damage potential. Solutions? Perhaps Castellans of the Crimson Keep really is the way to go, although you pay quite a few points for that and most factions still have much better options to go down to 2-4 drops. That's it. Comments/suggestions welcome - I know that the hopes for a new Soulblight battle tome are on the rise, but let's work with the tools at our disposal for the time being... any thoughts?

Wow, really?! Considering the extra attacks from our Allegiance Abilities, with Dread Knight on a VLoZD is usually quite effective! Anyway... I can't think of anything solid, here, I am afraid. Some other Legions have artefacts that can give you +1 to hit and +1 to (not on the maws/claws, though, they don;t apply to the mount!) wound, namely: Grand Host of Nagash, Amthyst Shard (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound) Legion of Night, Vial of the Pure Blood (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound) Soulblight, The Saccharine Goblet (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound) There's also a quirk Command Trait from GA Death: GA Death, Predator of the Shadows (command trait, +1 to hit and wound if in cover - but a VLoZD is too big to benefit from cover in the first place, so...) Sticking with LoB, though, the only additional buffs I could think of are: Ally Lady Olynder, she can cast Grief-Stricken (the target has a -1 to hit, whover attacks the target with a melee weapon gets +1 to hit against them) Use a Vampire Lord (to give the VLoZD +1 attack, albeit that's 2 CPs spent there if using Dreadknight as well) Use Vhordrai! His own spell gives him a +1 to hit and +1 to wound and if you give him the re-rolls (Dreadknight) as well it becomes an absolute wrecking ball As I said, though, I never found myself in a position where a VLoZD with Dreadkinght on did not deliver... re-roll eveyrthing is super-powerful, and with the amount of attacks we get in LoB, we can delete most things! Can you name a situation where your VLoZD under-performed? I mean, one where he was supposed to do well - say, getting rid of 40 Mortek Guard is not doable whatever the buffs...

I agree - when Realm Artefacts were a thing, you could do seriously nasty things with DG in other Death factions as well, not just Nighthaunt... those were the days!

Their price tag is (allegedly) very steep, even for plastic addicts such as ourselves... we'll have to see!

Personally, I don’t believe Wave of Terror is a mechanic to rely on or indeed to try to maximise by e.g. the usage of MSUs. It triggers on an unmodified roll of 10+ with 2D6, that’s a 8,33% chance, i.e. less than one in ten. Conversely, base damage is always there, and because Wave of Terror triggers so rarely, base damage is what matters. Would you take 4 units of 5 Glaivewraiths or a unit of 20 Bladegheists? I’ll take the latter all day, Glaivewraiths will do close to nothing even if they do get a Wave of Terror. Just my thoughts, of course.

You can definitely play Nighthaunts in any setting you can think of, from narrative games up to ultra-competitive tournaments. At the moment, the consensus is that they are not especially competitive at the moment - that is, they are not as strong as some other factions out there. Having said that, I personally think that if you like the models (of course you do, what’s not to like? Arguably one of the coolest aesthetics in the whole of Age of Sigmar IMHO) than go for it! Nighthaunts are a bit tricky to master, as you want to win your games via clever positioning / movement and focus on the objectives - as opposed to wipe your opponent’s units off the table (we re not great at dealing much damage). Having said that, this is the faction I enjoy playing the most in the whole of the Death allegiance - I don’t bring it to tournaments anymore, but unless you are jumping into the game with a very competitive mind frame, I only have good things to say about our beloved ghosts. You’ll find quite a few posts on this thread sort of complaining about where this faction stands in the great scheme of things, but while they’re are not wrong, don’t let them bring you down - ghosts are fun!

Yes, I stand corrected. My mistake originated from this FAQ... ... in that, in my mind, this implied that when you retreat and/or run you’re still doing a single normal move. My bad, sorry!

Some great posts, folks - thanks! To me, the LoN battletome felt like a taster session, an attempt to roll out a few ideas to see what could possibly click with Death players. But then, OBR came in and - incredibly - I was and I still am massively unexcited about the entire faction. Genuinely, I don't really know why. More importantly, though, the advent of OBR really put some spanners in the works as it concerns what the future of LoN is. Personally, I feel every Legion has the potential to fill in a dedicated battletome. FEC is a good example - the model range and the rule variety is not huge, but it does work. I don't personally like FEC (love the rules, I can't get myself to like th aestetichs, though). Now, of all the Legions, my very biased opinion (I play chiefly Legion of Blood) is that something merging Solublight with Legion of Blood and Legion of Night will not only make a lot of sense (the relationship between Mannfred and Neferata is not quite linear but it does exists and can be easil developed much further. Arkhan? Boring. Vampires? Yes please) but it will provide a prime opportunity to revamp the vampiric range. Blood Knights, Vampire Lords of various denomination, bats (yes, bats. bigger and better bats, please), heck, even a new kit for a Zombie Dragon (what we have is great, but whatever revision is going to sell like crazy - dragons, folks, nothing is better than dragons) or the Vargheists (which look quite great already) would all lead to a win-win situation for GW and us. Nighthaunt are Nighthaunt - period. The attempt to make them better via Legion of Grief never captured my favour - we need a new book for the ghost which actually works, in a way different and distinct from the Gravesites mechanics. I don't know what, but something else (extensive list of suggestions in the Nighthaunt thread here on TGA...) What I would like to see in a potential, new Solublight battletome is: - A salary increase on my side, because if they do revamp the range I'm going to buy everything twice. - The development of the Bloodlines into more complex, flavourful allegiance abilities. All models allowed in every bloodline, but different bonuses for each. That would make a lot of sense lore-wise (Mannfred's retinue is a very different beast compared to Neferata's) and will open up more options, with hopefully more than one being competitive - something that we have seen happening with OBR, where the entire book received a lot of hate for quite some time. - The option to choose a list build that ranges from hordes to elites. The models are there, we just need sensible rules. - A sensible, simple and viable system of both allies and, for the love of the Great Necromancer, battalions. The ideas are there, they just suck, at the moment. - Vhordrai to lead a dedicated Bloodline (because if the coolest of the whole bunch, and that's to say something) - Revised warscrolls for the Mortarchs : lore-wise they are impossibly powerful, and yet on the table the die to a stiff breeze. Make them outrageous, and up their points accordingly. Teclis-level (ok, too much - something in between) - Revised warscroll for the truly elite units in LoN, such as Morghasts or Vargheists. They should be terrifying on the table. I never truly cared for DeathRattle units (but I know people that do!) and I do think that OBR was effectively meant to replace them. It might indeed be argued that, say, a unit of mortek guard looks very different from a unit of skeleton, but I would expect a 2020-revamped skeleton to look like a mortek guard. Most importantly of all... let's hope we'll see this famed battletome some time soon - there are only so many poses in which I can arrange my Zombie Dragons...

All valid points, folks. That is very true... I used to run that battalion with decent effect, but both Reikenor and the Knight of Shrouds on Steed only have 6/7 wounds - when they are gone, the 5+ shrug goes with them, and at that point... An interesting comparison that for some reason I've never thought of... against zero rend, the Phoenix Guard must be vastly superior than the Bladegheists in Shroudguard (the difference between a 4+ and 5+ shrug is big), but against anything with rend... not sure at which point the scale tips in favour of our Bladegheists (can't be bothered to do the math), but - crucially - the toughness of the Phoenix Guard is in-built while our Bladegheists need to stick close to Reikenor/Knight of Shrouds on Steed in order to get the 5+ shrug. In my experience, it doesn't take much at all to wreck 10 (or even 20...) ethereal wounds in a single go (at which point our healing potential is mute), notwithstanding a 6+ or even a 5+ shrug. Gravesites, we need gravesites...

Fair. I'm not questioning Dreadscythes are good - they are (now. eventually. after a few rounds of point changes...). As a counterpoint to your preference in terms of playstyle, though, I personally still prefer Bladegheists; not so much because of the damage (these days, we are laughing stock anyway in that regard) but because of their incredibly useful ability to retreat and charge. Like everything Nighthaunt, Bladegheists fly. They can retreat (8") AND run (nothing prevents you from doing that, a possibility often overlooked!) AND charge - think of the crazy board control that you can achieve with an ability that is inbuilt and basically comes for free. That's just my preference of course - I find that investing in movement shenanigans is more efficient (with Nighthaunt, I mean) than trying to increase our damage output.

An interesting one. My thoughts: - 240 points in battalions sounds like a bit too much - that's 30 Rasps, there! - My suggestion would be that of dropping the Dolorous Guard: this is because you want your DreadBlade Harrow to zip around the board and making good use of Spectral Summons (the one combo that makes NHs half-decent) but it's going to be very tricky to bring the two units of HexWraiths (the two that make up the Dolorous Guard) along for the ride. This battalion works very well with Olynder as a general, but with a DreadBlade as general... I'm not sure it's the best choice. - I would personally drop the Dolorous Guard and two units of HexWraiths to include instead something with a bit of damage output. Chainrasps and HexWraiths have ZERO punch... Hope this helps!

Yep - not much we (or indeed, the majority of other factions as well) can do, really... perhaps taking the MSU approach to the extreme - so as to provide some form of target saturation?

AH! That, my friends, is EXCELLENT news. To be 100% clear, when they say: they obviously include all the battalions in there, not just the (fairly useless) Emerald Host? It's the Dolorous Guard I want!

I would also add that, compared the overwhelming majority of forums dealing with any game, from tabletop gaming to online gaming, I found this place to be characterised by a very positive, very respectful attitude, with most of the complaints being thrown at GW as opposed to any actual player. And even then, while there might be things that we are presently frowning upon in terms of specific factions and game balance, I think it is fair to say that most of us acknowledge the fact that, overall, GW us giving us a fantastic, ever-changing game, supported by an incredibly friendly community. My experience ranges from friends to the local shop and included tournaments as well: some of the players I came across might be moaning about their factions (I am one of them when it comes to Nighthaunt) but I don’t think that makes them or me a negative presence in this forum or indeed elsewhere. Suggestion: when a given thread gets bogged into some pessimism, try to lift it up by either some banter or a fresh topic: some of us might be a tad bit grumpy, but we are always ready to jump in the banter/hype train in no time. Unless we’re talking Nighthaunt, of course - in that case, the grumpiness is justified 😜

Plastic, please. Although at this point I'll happily accept quite literally every material known to man, from 6061 aluminium alloy to balsa wood - as long as their insane price tag drops by a factor of (at least) 2. New Blood Knights is my dearest hope - with some luck, Nagash GW won't disappoint...

Fair point! Here’s my rationale. The list is made of three chunks, two of which are very fast (VLoZD/Vhordrai + 1 unit of wolves + 1 unit of blood Knights) and almost always start on the flanks. This way it’s very hard to take advantage of Vhordrai’s Command Ability, but that’s fine, as it’s really rare you have enough CPs for that - while you can use two more deathly invocations on the central block, which is the slow one and contains the Grims, the Necro, the Cart and 1 unit of wolves to screen. The Necro is there to cast Dance Macabre (with a +1 from the Cart) and send the Grims to their deaths (again) ASAP. This is because I want the opponent to waste resources on them as opposed to the two fast-moving chunks and I find that it takes them a couple of turns to die - which allows you to bring them back by turn 3 or so. Always be super-aggressive with your summonable stuff - it’s one of the few strengths we have! Both the Necro and Cart always run (they’d never charge anything), so they usually do manage to keep up with the Grims if needed. If not, no problem - they are there to give the +1 to cast (which has a very decent 18” range and it’s sorely needed to cast Vhordrai’s spell which casts on a 7) and cast Overwhelming Dread on a 4 (amazing spell for that CV!). One can argue that the dynamic duo is not essential to the list and I do agree - if you ditch both Necro and Cart you can put in, say, some more Grims, and you don’t really care about not being able to give them the 6+ shrug (as they’ll be back). Also, gravesite still work even in the absence of heroes nearby, so the healing is still strong. An army with only two Leaders but 10 more bodies... I mean, it could work - I’ll have a ponder. Thanks!

Alright, so I did manage to roll some dice over the weekend - a gazillion thanks to @TimM85 who managed to organise and flawlessly run a lovely 2-day event (the Waaagh warm-up ) during this crazy times. As such, I thought it worth to share the performance of my list: VLoZD (Aura of Dark Majesty, Orb of Enchantment, Amethystine Pinions), Vhordrai (Vile Transference), Necromancer (Overwhelming Dread), three units of 5 dogs, 2 units of 5 blood knights, 1 unit of 20 Grimghasts and a corpse cart - 2000 pts on the nose. Easy peasy. Keeping in mind that I hadn't play any AoS game since... well, the onset of The Plague, really (March? Bloody hell, that's grim...), I am very happy with myself. I ended up 3 - 2, which I'd say it's decent for Legion of Blood these days. A few thoughts: - The two games I lost were both against Cities of Sigmar (and against two lovely guys as well, I should say- didn't think it was possible to enjoy the game as much against those lists, so fair play to them!): different flavours (Living Cities and Tempest Eye), but similar idea, i.e. a metric ton of long-range shooting. As we all know, it's an uphill struggle for us to counteract "proper" shooting lists. And I am talking bucketloads of dice, some of which with rend -3 (hello, IronDrakes...). - The loss against Living Cities [battleplan: focal points]: it was close (lost by 1 point in the end, albeit I had almost nothing left on the table). No regrets, I think I played quite well, forcing my opponent at the very back of the table with a double-dragon alpha-strike that deleted phoenix guards and puny free guild humans alike (go dragons!). It took him 5 turns to claw back the objectives in my deployment zone... and without a double turn, who knows? Happy with that. The reality is that playing cagy against an army half of which can deep strike 9" away from you and then move and shoot is simply not going to work, so forcing the opponent to deal with the dragons in their territory was the only sensible thing I could think of - and it (almost) worked out. Should we invest in even more alpha-strike potential? I don't think so, but please let me know if you think otherwise. - The loss against Tempest Eye [battleplan: shifting objectives]: I got utterly, decisively tabled by the end of turn 3. Again, no regrets - I did what I could. Being double turned (note that I could not do anything to prevent that, my opponent out-dropped my by 1 drop, I had 10, he had 9), the two dragons were both deleted in one go via a frankly outrageous amount of Tau-like firepower. The battleplan allows you to deploy out of range of some of the shooting (not all of it - hello, Frigate...) and I did take advantage of the battle line +1 victory point conditions to establish a solid lead in turn 1. However, the opponent had bodies as well, so eventually you have to commit - and when you do, there is no salvation from the shooting, as deleting dwarvish units takes more than a single all-in charge even for our deadly vampires. - Being almost always out-dropped is a real issue, as getting double-turned is HUGE for every LoN army (most of our big monsters can withstand almost anything for one turn and then heal, but not for two turns in a row ). I did consider the obvious battalion choice for my list, i.e, Castellans of the Crimson Keep, but 150 points it's a lot to pay for reducing your drops - to a number (in my case, ~6-8) which is still very high compared to a lot of what's out there. - Against combat-focused army, we do have the tools. The manoeuvring requires some finesse (that's what I like about LoB) but both the damage and the speed are there. The problem, really, is that the meta is clearly shifting toward a lot of ranged threats, against which we have very little to offer. To make things worse, not a single piece of terrain on the weekend could provide actual cover for e.g. my blood knights. Similarly to what has been done for 40K, I think that the game has to evolve so as to mitigate shooting and long-range threats in general, with dedicated rules for specific pieces of terrain. At that point, an entirely shooting-oriented build will be sub-optimal and (perhaps) combat armies can hope to get up there with the big scary lists. - Seraphons came out on top. No surprise there. I guess I am not the only one to be annoyed by the usual "new battle tome = six months of very powerful stuff until the next FAQ/book" situation. I understand they have to sell models but really, can't we just to forbid new battle tomes in tournaments until they get FAQd into normality? (I know that's silly, ok? A man can dream...) Slaneesh (insane summoning), Tzeench (flamers nonsense), Bonereapers (petrify autotake), now Seraphons - come on now... - I had a fantastic time and it was so good to play AoS again. Sadly, from today even small tournaments are going to be impossible to run (aside for very small mini -leagues) in the UK so that's a bit sad. I've heard about the "SuperSeries" thingy (there's an ongoing trend here on TGA as well about that) which is all well and good, but it looks to be limited to a specific circle of people I have no access to, so no dice there. That's it - happy to elaborate on any of the above and curious to hear your thoughts about it as well, of course!

Cheers guys - good to know I have been playing this correctly for the past 3 years 😜 So yes - it's official: the FAQ is just wrong. Great. 🙄

A quick question about the latest Designer’s Commentary for Legion of Nagash, the latest version of which is dated July 2019 (that’s what the GW website is telling me, meaning no updates at all for LoN in Dec. 2019? I genuinely don’t remember but sounds weird to me?) The Commentary discusses an aspect of the Deathless Minions alliance ability (i.e. our beloved 6+ shrug...) but it talks of a 12” range - see picture attached. The battle tome says 6” and I have always played it as 6” as there is no change I could find that FAQ the 6” range to a 12” range. So. Is this just a case of GW ****** up their own FAQs or am I missing something stupid? Thanks for your help, folks!

Well... "strong" is perhaps a bit of an overstatement when it comes to Nighthaunt (NH) these days. As you righteously pointed out, range is king in the current meta (in the form of either shooting or magic) and NH have very weak magic and zero shooting worth its price (you don't bring Chainghasts for their shooting). We are pretty pathetic in melee as well, with the "Etheral Tax" (i.e. the points you pay for your models all having an ethereal save, which doesn't win you games, trust me, not against the nonsense out there) being a huge hinderance still. A few of the most competitive builds (which fare pretty bad against almost everything these days, but hey...) are based around the following strengths: - Movement shenanigans. Grab a Dreadblade Harrow as your general to leverage the Phantasmal Discorporation + Spectral Summons combo (neat, but the Dreadblade can be easily sniped), make the most out of From the Underworld they come - technically, using multiple small units (MSU) so as to maximise the chance of Wave of Terror (but building on this alone is silly and small NH units lack the punch and die immediately), choose fast units only (i.e. Hexwraiths and Grimghast Reapers as opposed to Chainrasps) - Big blobs of relatively though units. 6, 9 or even 12 Spirit Hosts are nasty things to deal with (especially if the above mentioned Dreadblade Harrow as a general as the Ruler of the Spirit Hosts command trait). Blocks of 30 Reapers are still great. Blocks of 40 Chainrasps are also great, particularly if leveraging the Chainguard battalion. Problem is, our healing is nothing compared to Legion of Nagash and we can't bring back whole units either, so... - Trying to go for some actual damage. Lady Olynder, the Morngul, the Grimghast Reapers and the Bladegheists Revenants are the "heavy" (not really) hitters you have. With some support they can be ok, but most factions out-power you no matter what - and, for half the points you pay, as you need a bunch of support heroes to generate some damage. Heroes that have 5-7 wounds and who give "wholly within" auras/bubbles, which at this stage is plainly idiotic, really. The Black Coach is not really a heavy hitter but it's now very cheap - with that amount of wound and the buffs, I think it's a staple now (if only I could be bothered to buy one, let alone paint it...) Other people may have additional suggestions, but you'll find that the mood is overall rather grim when talking about NH at the moment - and I count myself into the circle of the optimists. Where to start? To be fair, the last 2-4 pages of this very thread sum it up nicely. @Landohammerand @Greasygeek are both spot on. To me, the most frustrating thing is the lack of damage across the board and the sub-optimal healing potential compared to Legions of Nagash. I am favouring Soulblight these days, even for friendly games - not because they are more competitive (they have their own problems) but at least some units can kill something. I went through the "let's hone my movement finesse" phase... it made me a better player overall, I think, but the NH mechanics are so out to date that it is very painful to try and play them as they should be played. Which is to say, making the most out of their movement, playing the objectives games, getting tabled turn 4 (perhaps 5) hoping you have managed to secure a hefty enough lead on points. The truth is, movement used to be very good - when AoS was mostly about melee. Now, movement is still important of course, but there are many more ways to counteract it and a number of stupid board-wide threats that movement will do nothing to mitigate. Sure, you can start with half your army off the board... but trust me, it's not that much. We are not in a good spot. NH are excellent when playing to have fun, they really are. If you are thinking tournaments... either you are a very, very good player who has mastered movement to the nanometer or you are probably better off with, say, FEC. Hope this helps - I hate to sound that negative, but it is what it is. Tournament-wise I'm going 100% Legion of Blood this year - and I'm not even feeling guilty in looking my two big boxes of beautiful ghosts (ok, maybe a little).

First things first, well done on bringing the Little One into The Hobby! I had a similar conundrum in terms of balancing two lists when I brought my LadyWife into the Endless Plastic Tunnel not long ago. In that case it was 40K (she saw the Sisters of Battle and went "yeah, those ones" - can't really blame her, can I?) but here are some pointers: - Avoid MSU (i.e. lots of small units) as they slow down the game a lot. In your case, try to group in larger units Liberators, Castigators and Sequitors if the little one is ok with that. One unit of 8 Banshees instead of two of 4 would also help (also, you get a +2 to unbind this way...) - It's very hard to balance two lists without being willing to make any changes to them. I think you are in a good spot with yours, but if you can try to convince the little one that some modifications might be needed - it should be enough to tune your Nighthaunt while leaving the StormCasts as they are - that'd be ideal. - I put together a list (see below) which looks very similar to your starting point. I assume that the Knight of Shrouds you are referring to is the one-with-the-horse, right? That's what you get in Soul Wars. If that's the case, drop the Stalkers (even against a 8-year old they don't make any sense) and get 5 Hexwraiths, which are super fun to play with and against. - In the hands of two equally skilled players, this Nighthaunt list should do marginally better, in my opinion, compared to the StormCasts, on the basis on the superior mobility of your units and the lack of synergy in the StormCast list (Astreia is not the big scary monster she should be). Having said that, you have an ethereal save (Nighthaunt) against some actual shooting, so... terrain aside (use some!) it should be fairly close. - Play a first game making very clear that this is just to assess the balance. The Little One will improve with time in any case, so that's something else to keep in mind. - In my case, I had a really hard time (for two months in a row!) with my Drukahri against the Sisters, as my competitive mind built an utterly disgusting list for LadyWife. In time, though, I adapted to her play style and switched a few key units. At the moment we are having very close, fun games. Best of luck to you!