The_Dudemeister

Their damage output is really weak. However they play very nice with Harridans who need a big model to be wounded or slain chaff in the current turn. Even against 3+ saves you're almost guaranteed to plink off a wound, so they can make Harridans stay supercharged indefinitely Also I'm pleasantly surprised they got a 4+ save. The card you get in Arena of Shades shows them at a 5+. They're in a weird spot, along with Banshees and Glaivewraiths. On the one hand, among our cheapest units, on the other hand too situational to be a mainstay of the army. That's why I rate the ability to become battleline really low on them. But they certainly do have their uses Personally I'll try them with Lady Olynder to snipe support characters. On a 4+ save hero they'll easily deal 2 damage and Lady O hopefully deals d6(+1) mortal wounds. Hmm, makes me wonder if a second unit with Dreadblade Harrow would be worth it. As Lady O always counts as general, when she issues All-Out attack for the first Crossboos, the Dreadblade will copy it for free for the second Crossboos.

So far noone talked about the Briar Queen. For starters, both her and her retinue are now the only units left with a 6" move. Did GW forget about them when they made 8" move universal for the new tome (LOVE LOVE LOVE that change by the way!). Let's look at her 6x Chainrasp retinue though and compare them to regular Chainrasps. All other rules being equal, they have 6" instead of 8", 3 attacks instead of 2, 10 bravery instead of 8... and 2 wounds each 😳 Compared to 10 Chainrasps the 6-man retinue has a total of 19 attacks (instead of 21), 12 wounds (instead of 10). They're actually tankier without losing out on attacks really. They miss the SUMMONABLE keyword though. If they had points costs as a standalone unit, they'd be virtually identical to 10 Chainrasps. Meaning the Briar Queen alone would be costed right between Guardian of Souls and Reikenor. Her spell is still exceptionally strong with great range and with her innate bodyguard ability, she's not dying immediately anymore. Even though the whole package of them is now vastly better and actually playable for the first time, personally I'm not very excited to field them. Though after trying all the competitive options, I'll definitely put them on the table. What's y'alls opinion?

The universal triumph Bloodthirsty gives you a charge reroll to boost your chance from 28% to 48%. Glaivewraith have an innate +1 to charge for a 42% chance. Together with the small footprint of them, they make good companions for charges from deepstrike. The triumph is also only used up if you already failed the charge. So when your Bladegheists succeed first try, you can use the reroll on them for an almost 60% to get in there too. Honestly might as well take 2 units of Glaivewraiths as they're among our cheapest units so aren't a big over commitment

Dreadblade copies this Command Ability for free though. So you can get ALL the teleporting. Heck, go even more nuts. Awlrach's and then Dreadblades copy telporting happens at the start of the movement phase. After that, Dreadblade can teleport himself again at the end of the movement phase. ALL THE TELEPORTING!

I also gave it a good think and came to the conclusion that I absolutely do not miss the infamous Nighthaunt charge. Good night, sweet prince. You gave me a few chuckles Unmodified 10 on 2d6 is a 17% chance. The same as rolling a 6 on a single die. That's an impressively low chance for something that was meant to be among our main army benefits. Now getting an 8, which we need for the -1 save is already a 42% chance. And it's repeatable, stackable! In an army where everything can fall back and charge. It's not unreasonable to consider the whole army getting an extra pip of rend on every weapon. Heck, we'll even see -2 and more save on the most basic Chainrasps from time to time. More "often" than ye olde Nighthaunt charge at that Both MSU (multiple small unit) armies and big units that, together with healing, survive to abuse falling back and charging, will constantly see us getting stacked negatives to saves. The more I think about it, the more I believe we'll see quite the rise in offensive power when we actually play some games. Units like Dreadscythes with their 4 attacks without rend that don't die easily will prove way more deadly over the course of a game than the first look would suggest

How will we fight armies with good saves like Stormcast? We bring way fewer models to the table and lost almost all our mortal wound output. Not saying it will be impossible. Just that we have to drop one or the other support piece and defensive spell/relic/trait for some actual damage dealers I think that is the main factor we need to consider when building lists.

Now I've seen more warscrolls... We lost all our Mortal Wound output. Granted it wasn't much. But we lost all of it. Not only is Frightful Touch now autowounds on 6s. But also things like Spirit Hosts. They legit now only have 6 attacks 4+ 4+ without rend How are we supposed to get damage through? Our wet noodle arms were one of THE biggest problems.

Lady O for 340 points. Still 7 wounds with a 4+ Ethereal but also a 4+ Ward. Effectively 14 wounds. Now that she can actually use her Lifting The Veil ability to heal d3 wounds, she is actually tanky. Lifting The Veil is virtually unchanged except giving +1 Mortal wound against terrified targets. And crucially it is now in the SHOOTING Phase. Yes yes yes, move in position first, this is huge and makes up for losing Wail Of The Damned Also returning d6 slain models to every SUMMONABLE unit anywhere on the battlefield once per game is insane. That brings back so many points 😍 12" aura of blocking a unit to issue commands while the CP is still spent is neat. 33% chance is too unreliable but the effect is very strong Grief-stricken spell completely unchanged. Good, was always an amazing spell and even a 7 to cast is fair. +1 attack on main weapon that is flat 2 damage instead of d3 and - 1rend on Banshees that don't deal Mortal wounds anymore. Strange that overall, including losing potentially dealing d6 mortals once per game, Lady O might deal less damage for a 50%price hike. But she is now an amazing support piece that will be extremely hard to kill. Before, I never got to see her damage anyway with her melting before getting into range

Warhammer Underworlds warbands, including Thorns of the Briar Queen, are Last chance to buy Time to get them while they're still hot

I'm also very confused. The two options are: Either these warscrolls show the general direction of where the new codex will go. That feels scary because it just means more boring warscrolls that aren't even stronger. Or those are all designed with the current codex in mind. The sprue on the Scriptor says 2021 and it's easy to imagine how all that could've been released up to a year ago. Which is also scary as it shows a complete lack of insight of why Nighthaunt are so weak and that they didn't even think about points going down

The Scriptor Mortis does have a (pretty bad) version of that in its profile. "Once per phase, you can allocate one wound or mortal wound that would be allocated to this unit to a friendly Nighthaunt Summonable unit within 6" of this unit instead" So only 1 wound once per phase. But more importantly... do NOT do that on Crossboos. They only have a single wound and cost 19 points per piece. Do it on Chainrasps who cost literally half as much and don't meaningfully degrade the whole unit. Or on Spirit Hosts who have 3 wounds that can potentially be healed back up. Crossboos will be among the worst bodyguards even if we get a very wide-ranging bodyguard rule

There is so much to unpack here and I literally like none of it. Scriptor Mortis indeed has no additional rules other than the snazzy bookkeeping that you won't see go off in several games in a row but still costs 150 points. Yikes! Also 6" movement, so my hope of army-wide movement buffs is gone. Spirit Torment lost his reroll aura, cannot heal heroes anymore and wholly within 12" is back with a vengeance. Chainghasts got the hit-buff aura now with +1 to hit instead of rerolling 1s. Yet only when a Spirit Torment is still present. Meaning a single buff is stretched on two units, giving the opponent two separate ways to nullify it. One of the single worst game design decisions I've seen in a while Bladegheists lost their reroll when in range of Spirit Torments and Chainghasts... in the boxset that comes with Spirit Torment and Chainghasts. You can't make that stuff up Craventhrone Guard are just too weak to justify a meager 12" range. Even at 95 points for 5, there is no room for them. Also 5+ save to add insult to injury *vinyl scratches* Banshees get 2 attacks? Well well well, I take everything back. Their "unbinding" is also waaay better. Instead of unbinding within 18", you now can ignore the effects of that spell in a wholly within 12" aura. Meaning that a wizard can first try unbinding it and when he fails, we get an additional chance to not let the spell happen. Fantastic! Also they get the bonus on their roll for 3 models not for 4. Aaaalso also you have to beat the Casting Value... not the actual cast! So it's always the absolute minimum roll and they ignore all those fancy +X to casting rolls and automatically cast on a 12 and whathaveyou that newer battletomes got. AAAAALSO also also, it's a static effect they have, not an unbind attempt anymore, meaning you try to ignore the effects of all the spells in the phase no matter how often they cast stuff. We're the Anti-Magic faction now! Myrmourn Banshees, man... buy'em, paint'em, field'em.

Uploaded wrong image size. Oops. Anyway, Ethereal remaining the same and some units like Chainghasts getting down to 5+ without getting more wounds is an interesting choice

In case you were wondering what the loop at the front of the crossbow does... that's a stirrup, used to slide your foot in. Where are my legs, GW? I've been promised legs... WHERE ARE MY LEGS?

Reikenor 145 Kurdoss 160 Black Coach 200 All got exactly 20pts cheaper

I'd assume it's a very aggressive list. The two 10-man Chainrasp units as backfield objective holders. Their protection exclusively being that the opponent can't divert firepower to them if the rest of your army marches forward. Crucially for that to work, nothing goes into the underworld. Which in this particular list I wouldn't do anyway. The 30-man Chainrasp unit is the one being directly babysat by Spirit Torment with Shademist and Guardian of Souls. The subfaction's Command ability would be used in the first turn for 6" extra movement, so both heroes have to advance to keep up. Personally, just for the first turn, I'd also really reinforce that big blob with yet another hero just because it is so menacing, immediately threatening the whole middle of the board. Black Coach would be a good pick due to his speed and yet another source of resurrection. Such a big points investment far up the board also forces the opponent's hand. They either try to evade the center, which is not a good idea, or they engage with a big points investment themselves. At which point they're in range of anything that you set up beforehand from the Mega-Gargant to Lady O. I'd like to know how he split the flanks. Though this list is versatile enough to have tons of options depending on the opponent. For example against many opponents the Mega-Gargant can hold a flank on his own. Against melee-centric lists I'd just park the Mourngul between the Mega-Gargant and the Chainrasp-blob in the middle Shooty lists, I assume, need to be bum-rushed by Mourngul and Black Coach. In this meta you don't really have much choice other than sacrificing good assets for the chance to stop their shooting. But I can totally see how the one loss would be against a shooty list where that didn't work out

I hated the idea when I wrote it. But you just made it sound really cool 😁

Hope? How dare yee enter the Nighthaunt thread with HOPE! With Soul Wars gone, of course it's just an alternative GoS sculpt to buy as a single model. For twice the price and half the abilities. He's just a spoopy lamp with movement 0" now

The newest Rumor Engine shows a Nighthaunt model. It's happening! Guardian of Soul's upside-down lantern

Nighthaunt's obvious thorny tendril imagery aside. That's the Guardian of Soul's lantern but upside-down

All our FeelNoPains (Deathless Spirits, Krulghast's aura, Lord Exec's save against mortals) now stack with the Amulet of Destiny from the Core book which gives a hero a 5+ Ward 😍 It's interesting that Ward saves do not replace FeelNoPains of all sorts as the new generic term for it, or even mechanically. I think most of us assumed that this was the case. You specifically roll the ward save before Deathless Spirit etc, cementing it as a new mechanic

I love the new bracketing. I'd even consider the first 6 damage taken as inconsequential, which is a big deal Having a monster that still does it's thing virtually unimpeded after having been stomped to less than half health would be so amazing... if he was priced more realistically. It's infuriating to me just how close the Mourngul is to true greatness. But instead we have a 300-point tax as our only monster in the faction

Oops, played that wrong then in all of my 3rd ed games. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Bummer! On the other hand I haven't used my Hexwraiths' fly-over attack after retreating. I only checked that ability for my Tzeentch Screamers where it specifies normal move. But for Hexwraiths it doesn't, which is awesome.

And now Monster is also a unit header for the Linebreaker and Battle Regiment Battalions for which you don't actually need Monsters but Behemoths. So the Black Coach who is a behemoth and not a monster is a monster for purpose of those battalions. 😵

That's not what I said. Read my post again. This! I love it so much. It's an especially great change on flying units. One of my favorite changes that NH benefit from more than the average army. Together with heroic recovery testing against bravery... oh man, imagine we would actualy debuff bravery in a meaningful way and make healing borderline impossible for other heroes