[The Emerald Host - Welcome to the Danger Zone]

5 hours ago, Tamachan said:

When I want to make use of the free command ability of Makor that comes with the Forgotten Scions, he has to be my general right?

No, not necessarily. The “Lord of Gheist” Command Ability of Malkor is exactly equivalent to that of any other Knight of Shroud on Ethereal Steed - he just gets to use it for free (I.e. without needing to spend a Command Point) once per battle round.

5 hours ago, Tamachan said:

in order to give Olynder protection from the Dolorous Guard battalion I would have to make her my general. Meaning that Makor would lose his command ability. Is that correct?

No. You can have Lady Olynder as your general and protect her via the Dolorous Guard while granting a Knight of Shrouds on Etheral Steed (Malkor) the once-per-turn no-cost usage of Lord of Gheists via the Forgotten Scions.

[The Emerald Host - Welcome to the Danger Zone]

59 minutes ago, EnixLHQ said:

Question is if she's worth it.

Well, I'm going to try this out, that is for sure. I just have to think about what to use to craft some Hexwraiths (perhaps the very only NHs models I actually loath. Why oh why didn't we get this Battalion with Spirit Hosts...), but I am going to try, perhaps with three units of 5. 30 wounds to leverage via that 2+ save... oh, the beautiful filth this is going to bring to the table!

1 hour ago, EnixLHQ said:

very expensive to do this.

As many pointed out in different occasions, one of the issues with NHs is that our models are on average quite pricey, as the Etheral saves are allegedly quite powerful. And they are - when talking big units where the dice average out. But when it's about heroes, you tipically have to deal with a selection of few high-damage attacks, and your Etheral save can most definitely let you down very easily. We all know what happens to our 5-7 wounds heroes when they are pitched against one of the very many high-damage units in the game: they are gone in one, two turns at bests - and our entire army relies on our heroes. All of this to say that, while I'm not going to claim that these Battalions are overpriced per se, they kind of are with respect to NHs, where every point we have we need to invest in actually bringing bodies/wounds into our lists. In order to be competitive, any NH Battalion has to make a solid difference to our list. I believe that the Dolorous Guard can do that - at least I am going to try. I have been waiting for a tanky NH hero for a long time - this is it, folks, it has to be.

There must be some additional support we can think of to transform said Battalion with Olynder as general into a proper murderball as well. A KoS on foot would be my first pick: very cheap, its CA gives a bubble (MODELS wholly within 12") of +1 to hit, not just one unit! And, you can stack it. Stick said KoS right behind Olynder, surround the two (un)dead lovers with 3/4 units of Hexwraiths, and wait for whatever your opponent is going to throw at you - 2 CP later suddenly, your crappy Hexwraiths don't look like lanky clowns at all (not to mention Olynder and the KoS benefit from the same CA as well - very effective usage of a CP, I daresay). Just a thought, I'm sure there are better options out there...

[The Emerald Host - Welcome to the Danger Zone]

Quote

I had hopes that this release may give Nighthaunt some edge

I believe that the Dolorous Guard does accomplish that - to some degree. However, involving a KoS or indeed Malcor himself (for the double battalion combo) is a possibility, but to me not the most attractive one. Even with a relic and a +1 attack, a mounted KoS' attacks have -1 rend only: against the fairly ubiquitous 3+ save, that's not much at all. The Hexwraiths, even with +1 attack each for both raiders and mounts, still hit on 4+. Awful.  I personally think that the Dolorous Guard is not meant to be used as a hammer, but as an anvil instead. As such, Lady Olynder would be my pick...

The Emerald Host, as @AidenNicol pointed out, might be of some use in > 2000 pts games - we don't see many (any?) of those to be put forward in tournaments, though.

About the Forgotten Scions: the Command ability for free sounds real good - but it costs you 140 pts. Now, some silly comparisons for us all to ponder...

10 Bladegheist Revenants [180 pts] (on the charge) + said CA for free [140 pts] = 40 attacks for 320pts. vs:

15 Bladegheist Revenants [270 pts] (on the charge)  = 45 attacks for 270 pts. (Sure, it's quite tough to get in all 15 in one go if you have them all in one unit, but you don't have to, and you have 5 more bodies for your opponent to remove - you don't have to worry about them being wholly withing 12" of your mounted KoS either, which is key).

Or.

10 Grimghast Reapers [160 pts] + said CA for free [140 pts] = 30 attacks for 300 pts. (ok, the Bell does its on thing, bear with me). vs:

20 Grimghast Reapers [320 pts] = 40 attacks fpr 320 pts (this time you can get them all in [2" range] and again you don't have to worry about the wholly within range).

And so on. My argument: 140 pts is still a lot of points, which - if compared to what you can actually get units-wise, make the Forgotten Scions much less attractive to me. Obviously, the situation changes if you use really big units - in that case, the mounted KoS CA outperform the extra models to an extent; and yet, it's real hard to enforce your big unit wholly within 12" of our beloved Malcor. 

Keep in mind that you also need TWO Dreadblade Harrows to make the Fogotten Scions work. While one DH is a NH staple, two are very rarely seen, and for good reasons: you can only have one general (and thus one Spectral Summons command trait). So effectively you are paying 90 pts on top of those 140 pts.  Yes, you' are getting a relic and an extra CP, but if that's what we are looking for, I believe some of the Battalions we already had (Shroudguard, for example) achieve the same for less point and give you and actually useful edge (in that case, more durable units).

 

18 hours ago, EnixLHQ said:

RotSH can return more models to a single unit, and for free, but she could do 1 to any number of units for a CP.

Dreadblade Harrow (or some other unnamed NH character) as General with RotSH, screened by a single unit of 6 Spirit Hosts: potentialy 9 wounds worth of models back. Each hero phase, for free.

Olynder as General with her CA, 1 CP gone each time she goes for it, and you need three different units around her (much weaker!) to do same - albeit that's guaranteed, as opposed to the DH, as he could bring back only 3 wounds of SHs if unlucky.

However, almost never you'll have three different units in range of Olynder losing a single model each. Most likely you'll loose multiple models within one unit - hence RotSH is inherently much more efficient. I have tried both of these configurations, and I do find that Olynder as a general is a bit of a no-no. Very similar problem in LoG, in fact...

Finally, I find that, with NHs, CPs are precious things to hold on to and use only when truly needed. The fact that RotSH comes for free is too good to be ignored for me...