The_Dudemeister

Joke's on us. The rules team has people who actually play Bonereapers. Their FAQ has very specific errata to make them playable for the new edition. You know, like 4 out of 6 battalion boni grant command points or let you use Command abilities for free once per battle. FAQ added the rule for Bonereapers that they get Relentless Discipline Points instead. The use of those Points is for the whole army, not just for units from one of the battalions. So it's technically even better. Would've been a darn shame if an army had to do without new core mechanics and abilities just because the new edition changed around the faction :^)

PSA: Don't use the Shyish Reaper! Even with the new Endless Spell mechanics and buffed warscroll it is not worth more than triple the price. I'm puzzled how GW only changed the numeric values (like casting value, mortal wounds etc) instead of the actual gameplay. Has anyone, including the GW rules team, actually played with that thing? With its massive base, wholly within 6" cast and mere 8" movement, there is only a narrow window where to set it up and where it lands. Specifically if at the start of your hero phase, an enemy unit is exactly between 8"-12" away from a wizard, then sure... go ahead and cast it. That is it, you only get this 4" corridor. Even in 40k where the movement phase happens before casting, that would be a helluva restrictive setup. Malus points if one of your own units is anywhere in the 4"-8" window or behind the enemy unit as then you might not even have room for the setup. You could try to go in at an angle, but that makes the window where the Reaper can fly over even smaller than the 4". It's baffling really.

It's 80% of what people talk about for the new edition, almost completely neglecting all the other myriad changes with many hobbysites writing complete articles just about that. I can tell you, it won't take long until the topic gets annoying, like the endless discussions about the double-turn. Other than that, I'm with lare2. It's a game mechanic and for better or worse, we have to deal with it... again, just the like the double-turn. It's also not a targeted nerf for Nighthaunt, let's not kid ourselves. 32mm units are THE staple for the huge majority of factions. And I can only repeat that we even have the potential workaround of our main chaff being on 25mms and one of our main damage-dealing blob having 2" range. Which puts us above most other factions in this very general new game mechanic, because those tools are completely missing for most. But yes, the new edition puts a very strange emphasis on shooting and magic and in this regard we're one of the Have-Nots. For now we have to wait at least for the early FAQ and then what the coming months show in real-world gaming terms. Theorycrafting only gets us so far.

I am totally going to try understrength units for Spirit Hosts. Pay for 6 but only bring 5. I waste a little over 40 points but the benefits are huge. Think of it as mini-Battalion

Definitely worth a read. But they themselves come to the conclusion that the coherency rules are awful. Most importantly though the article is solely about screening. It doesn't mention how it impacts piling in and getting attacks in afterwards and how wrapping units is gone even a single time. Screening isn't a problem. We haven't lost models. Split the old 20 man Conga line and make several min-sized roadblocks. The 3" bubble does the rest to screen the opponent out. Also if you're focussing on janky workarounds that we'll see in play... where is the Tokyo drifting cavalry? You know people will string them out sideways and move horizontally like crabs! GW is giving us crabs because we asked for crabs 😋 My problem with the coherency rules is that my Bladegheists have to stay in a vaguely rectangular shape even after engaging a small elite unite and me getting way fewer attacks in. That being said I still think we haven't been hit as hard as other factions. Our main screen are on 25mm. And our main damage-dealing blob is blessed with 2" range

Exactly a month ago we had the last article about Nighthaunt and they screwed that one up too. I'm now convinced that the rules team truly has no people who actively play or even care about Nighthaunt. Our army is just made for the models, the gaming part is completely neglected.

Chainrasps are our cheapest wounds and they're on 25mm bases. Both these things make them excellent screens. Even with the new coherency rules, you can string them out all next to each other without a need for a second row. Nighthaunt really love screens because we want to be the ones charging with our stronger units. Forcing the opponent to waste their charges on 95 points units when they could've wiped 300+pts and then us counter-charging is the way. Of course you can also get cheeky by deploying your Reapers 2" behind the Chainrasp screen. Opponent comes charging in, can only attack the Chainrasps. But now they're within 3" of the Reapers who will pile-in and do some cutting and slicing Ps: Funny you mention OBR. They're currently the main salt mine because they cannot use the new command point mechanic. They surpassed our doom and gloom and shame us ghosties with their advanced suffering skills 😖

Ok, enough positive vibes. We're Nighthaunt, it's all doom and gloom! Hexwraiths are the big losers. Going from 130 to 150 is their (double) death sentence. Not only were they expensive enough already to could've stayed the same cost. They are now too expensive as bodyguards when you look at wound per point, making their whole bodyguard shtick obsolete. Kurdoss only staying the same when other much better heroes like Spirit Torment went down? How does that even happen? RIP, I mean Rest In Eternal Agony my beloved Myrmourn Banshees. They're not battleline so can only ever be reinforced to 8. No more +3 to unbinding. The only change that actually makes me sad, that was very powerful. Glaivewraith Stalkers still only 4? Then how can we... haha, nah, I can't do that. Who cares about them, they functionally don't exist just like our Endless Spells Hmm, not much to cry about. Doesn't mean I won't though 🙃

Absolutely fantastic. I've spent the last... don't know how long, why is it half past midnight already?... time looking through points changes of other armies. There are some massive increases all across the board on some of the worst offenders. We're talking single heroes going up as much as a full Nighthaunt list. The new minimum sizes for Bladegheist and Harridans (and the latter going down from 180 to 160) are just the cherry on top. This is a BIG buff to our ghosties. Especially after the last GHBs did us so dirty Also worth noting how much our Endless Spells went up. I smell new warscrolls for them. Untill then, who cares if something that noone took went up from 20 to 85, really?

Including by me in this very thread. Oops 😏

Rules rules rules There are SO many things that I can immediately make good use off. 😍 First of all, listbuilding with the new, free(!) Core Battalions is really nice. Nighthaunt spam units (now that we don't bunch them up to big blobs) and we can easily spam our many baby heroes that go as low as 60 points. Take the Vanguard battalion. 1 hero and 1-3 regular unit and gives a once-per-game reroll to charge. I'd get that one 3 times and then I'd put the remaining 3 heroes and troops into the Warlord battalion for an extra command point and a second enhancement. The enhancements are neat and I'm excited to hear what combos yall find for us. My first pick will be for my Guardian of Souls to reroll a casting roll per phase and a 5+ Ward save. I've kicked the GoS out of all my lists for a long time because his spell is unreliable and with the shooting meta I never get to play him long enough to make enough points back. [EDIT]The following text is booboo. For the sake of the answers to it, I'll leave what I've written but it gets the tiny Comic Sans treatment Another change is that whoever deploys first HAS TO start the first turn. Spamming 6 heroes and many troops, we can reliably always go second. Going first became really bad for Nighthaunt anyway. Even with deepstriking we have very unreliable first turn charges, we have no shooting and no magic reaches the enemy. Rushing up to the objectives also worked less and less because the damage output and shooting of most armies just made that a suicide mission what was once our main way of playing the game. Now with very reliably going second, we can deploy defensively wit that in mind and use our speed and fly for counter-charges. Alongside the several rerolls from battalions and I think this tactic will be the dominant playstyle for us.

With Nighthaunt being 95% battleline (more or less), we will auto-score this without having to build our lists around it 😍

The new Warcomm article that brings us up to speed with the lore mentioned this. Do we know anything about it from Be'Lakor's book or is there something new coming?

I hope it's not too telling that they couldn't find other people to feature in their article than a playtester with a wrong list and a guy whose list consists of 700 points of heroes to support min-units of Chainrasps and max unit of Glaivewraith Stalkers. Kinda wanna see him playing that list in a livestream against Lumineth and co 🙃

Half Orruk, half Godbeast. But physically and mentally only the strongest part materializes in the offspring. So it's just more Orruks

That's Nighthaunt's real terror ability! You'll find this exact sentiment several times in this thread. It's an interesting psychological effect and I've been on the receiving end of it too. The threat of just popping up in the backfield is real. Over the course of your next games I bet you'll also hear your opponents ask if you have any more in the underworlds left and if not, visibly starting to position way more aggressive again. Like a sigh of relief, "finally I can frigging move"

Roll 2d6 against bravery in a 18" aura. Every point over each target unit's bravery equals 1 mortal wound. As per usual... But when this test rolls under the current bravery, set the bravery characteristic to the result of the roll for the rest of the battle. This spell would work as it always does against low bravery armies from the beginning. Death, Daemons etc are spared by the first barrage of mortal wounds but from that point on might be as spooked as a cowardly little snotling. And it's a lasting effect so all other bravery shennanigans don't need to be modified too much. By round 3 all opponents will have low bravery For example Nighthaunt against Tzeentch. Reikenor casts that spell and rolls a 6 on his 2d6. Kairic Acolytes with native bravery of 5 get a mortal wound (or 2 when close enough). Flamers', Pink Horrors' etc bravery gets set to 6, setting them up for a punishing shooting phase from Olynder, Tomb Banshee and a scary morale phase. And next turn will either earn them many more mortal wounds or their bravery gets pushed below 6. Either way something good comes out of such a spell. And it's steong enough to genuinely build your army around. Harridans, Tomb Banshees and whatnots will be back on the menu.

Anyone remember what a Tomb Banshee is? We've talked for almost 200 pages in this thread about great and not so great units like Glaivewraiths. Tomb Banshees are so far off the grid that they're not even part of our discussions. I'm almost inclined to check if they're actually part of the Nighthaunt line and I'm not bullshitting myself here. I want Tomb Banshees to be amazing! I want Tomb Banshees to be effectively one of the strongest shooting units in the game. Geedubs has shown with Seraphon Salamanders or Tzeentch Flamers that they're very ok to give oppressive shooting to cheap units. And I want bravery debuffs to be so harsh that every opponent needs to constantly keep spare CP for passing morale tests lest they want to get SPOOKED by us! James Workshop, make it so!

I'd love to keep our shocktroop theme going that we have in the lore. So instead of a passive reanimation that let's us camp on a backfield objective forever, how about active regeneration? How about we rip the life essence right out of everything we kill? Every damage we deal heals/resurrects us. A full unit of 30 Grimghast Reapers deals a boatload of damage... but then again, they have nothing to heal. Now what if they'd been attacked first and are now only 10 spooks strong? On the counter attack they deal a few wounds and heal that amount. 10 Spooks deal 4 damage to an elite unit with a 4+ save, so they'd be at 14 again before the battleshock phase. Or if they're engaged against their favorite opponent, a horde unit with a 5+save, they'd deal 8 damage. So back to 18 out of 30 spooks we go. At this rate an opponent better reinforces their horde unit against our main horde-blender! Striking us first doesn't cut it at all anymore. 3 Spirit Hosts more or less reliably deal 3 mortal wounds and one damage to most targets. So a medium-sized SH blob has a good chance to get one back every combat phase if they weren't wiped even after getting damaged. It's noteworthy that this mechanic doesn't allow for wiped units to come back so we'd be still very distinct from regular DEATH. We do what we do in the lore... fight very aggressively in a sheer endless horde. Backfield objective campers have no life essence to stea... repossess. So they don't get any better healing than we already have right now. We have to be aggressive by nature. All that doesn't help against shooting at all. But this needs an overhaul anyway. Give us a -1 to hit (that stacks with Look Out, Sir) and wound or something. I mean... shooting ghosts. Say that out loud. Shooting... ghosts. Come on, Geedubs!

Hmm, maybe with more than a few tweaks... but I kinda don't really see that working out in AoS. A little context for those who don't know how it works: After a unit finishes their attacks against Necrons, you immediately roll a number of dice equal the wounds lost by that attack. So if 10 Bladegheist or 5 Hexwraiths were killed, you roll 10d6. On a 5+ you get that wound/model back. Let's say you rolled 3x 5+, then you'd get 3 Bladegheist or 1 Hexwraiths back. First problem should be immediately apparent. It's worse for Hexwraiths and attrocious for Spirit Hosts. You lose 1 Spirit Host, then you roll 3d6 and need all three 5+s to get one back. A much bigger problem gameplay-wise is how it works after every unit finishes their attack. In 40k that works fine because someone who wants to kill your Necron Warriors shoots with 4-15 units at it (if they really mean business). Unit sizes are way smaller and you have several times the number of units. So it works as intended bouncing your Warrior blob from 20 down to 8, up to 12 after the first volley. Then from 12 down to 2, up to 6 after the second volley. And so on. In AoS we mainly have the fight phase and there usually only are engaged with 1 or 2 units. So with an ability like Reanimation Protocols it would mean that you either wipe the unit in one go or never kill them at all... ever. If you thought Petrifex Elite were unhealthy for the game, this would be several magnitudes worse in AoS. Death Gravesites can at least directly be countered by clogging up the areas and it uses up CP as a very scarce ressource that you might need for bravery in the first place.

Here it is: Bonegrinder warscroll

I still can't get over how the Bonegrinder lost "Jump Up and Down" for a few neat mortal wounds. When Forgeworld made the new rules and they gave him 35 wounds, was is it that ability where they drew the line and thought "Nah, the occasional d6 MW against hordes would make him OP"? Pic unrelated, but while we're already ranting... 😂

Super excited for Mega-Gargants and I hope they become a meta pick. Every army can ally in one of them and because GW really likes pushing new models, they might be "quite good". From today's warhammer-community article two things immediately came to mind. First, virtually all their attacks are rend -2 and -3. So no matter how OP their offensive capabilities are, they're at least less effective against us. Second, they have 35 wounds. Spirit Drain! You want a roundabout 6 mortal wound spell on a casting value of 4? Because that's how you get a roundabout 6 mortal wound spell on a casting value of 4.

I found this in the Designer's Commentary of the Core Rules Our WD battalions are safe. Thanks for coming to my Spook Talk

Goonhammer has a very interesting Retrospective of the 5 years of AoS. Starting with the jarring beginnings