Rors

Basically the whole rules set has been leaked so rather than worries about spoilers, why just read it and start playing with your new NH book? I feel like spoilers applies to only getting partial info, and even then, GW normally give out tons of 'spoilers' before release. What you have here is more of an unofficial early release than a spoiler IMO.

I'm also really interested to see how he plays in the new book too. He offers at range damage and utility you don't really find elsewhere as well as a ton of healing. He seems best to me healing large blocks of ghosts but it's really hard to have him and large blocks when I tried to think up a list.

Out of interest, what use/role did the glaivewraiths?

Yeah it's going to need a FAQ coz it breaks how the core books commands work. My Guess is that the Harrows can copy them but they only come into effect when the full condition is triggered. I.E. You give a unit reroll to charge when copying the general, that command sits in limbo until you declare a charge with that unit and it's triggered. You use redeploy from the general, you then give other units a copy of redeploy, those units can't move d6 immediately though, but once your opponent moves something else up and all the conditions are triggered you move immediately, or the unit you gave the copy to is also within range of the same unit that triggered your generals command and you move all of them at once... I think. Books not even technically out yet though. We have a long long wait to get an official answer.

I really hope the book either has more access to more rend or mortal wounds. This is what really holds the current book back. It would also be great if the vast hords of cults got better inclusion into the book with keyword synergies.

I think in grieving legion there's probably some kind of option where you have large units of chain rasp and you spam the 5+ ward.

You get the Harrow ability once each battle round for each Harrow because the warscroll says 'this unit'. So you use one command point with the general, potential not even there depending on what your general is, then they copy it without any more command points being spent. Could be a bunch of defense in their turn it you could reroll a ton of charges or get heaps of all out attack in yours for either one or zero command points. Honest Warhammer also noted if the boatboo is general he can teleport and take a unit with him, then Harrows could do the same. Deepstrike your whole army again every turn for one command point.

Sure but then you can't repeat the same command. You also get a warscroll baked in. If we take the old one CP is worth 50 points, it's a 95 hero, which for their base stats isn't bad at all.

I think dreadblades will be invaluable defensively. The warscroll says each unit can copy the generals command, with no restriction on range. It's each u it so you can take multiple dreadblades and copy the command more than once from my reading of it. We also have some warscrolls with free commands. That could be multiple redeploy or multiple 5+ wards. If you make the on foot knight your general and took 4 dreadblades for arguments sake, that 5 redeploys. For FREE! This army kinda feels like a combat centric KO. Lots of movement and tricks but getting double turned will often be a huge risk. I'm not sure that many dreadblades is worth the opportunity cost but it'd be worth trying. Actually, might need a FAQ now I think about it. Redeploy procs when the enemy moves in range. So the general would have to be able to issue it first by something triggering redeploy. The question is then, the warscroll states dreadblades can use it, I believe warscroll trumps book core rules.. so they'd issue it but it only comes into effect when an enemy moves into range? Or because it was procc'd by that first instance, you just move an extra 4 units even though nothing is close, or you just can't repeat that command

Okay I've looked through the second tab and you've somewhat won me over, the points efficiency of harridans once they have their buff up is more points efficient than I had thought. Especially given the buff works in both player rounds. That being said, the BG buff is a true self buf as they only need to charge, harridans need support or to fight their first round at subpar stats. Ontop of that, harridan kinda cap out there. You can't get more than a +1/+1, if you consider that you've likely invested some form of support to chip off wounds, say an arcane bolt earlier, than by fair comparison, a GoS could cast a different spell and the +1 wound aura would be in effect, you could also actually use all out attack with BG. Now we're looking at 2/2/-1/1 and for the same cost of one support character (and a command point). Perhaps 3/2-1/1 with a bonus spell like soul cage since you're not using a command point with harridans. Although the fact that you can use all out attack is itself an option they don't get. This brings me back to, unsupported, BG do better usually when they charge and they're good enough against low saves since they die quicker naturally anyway. If you've invested in supporting harridans to get their buff active (although there's support outside a small hero but it's still at some form of comparative cost) then you could also put a roughly equivalent support in for BG and get better results. Harridans don't get their buff as easily (not necessarily that hard but not as easy as just charging and with more opportunity cost) and they hit their potential ceiling early. That being said, I definitely underated them earlier and being active in both phases is double the bonus.

Fairly sure The maths from thag spread sheet doesn't include the extra attack BGs get on yhe charge. On my phone right now so hard to double check. Fair point about harridans being less charge dependant though

Didn't notice that. Thanks

The other thing to keep in mind is harridans buff comes into effect if a model was removed not if a model has a wound on it. In a lot of cases throwing an arcane bolt won't trigger the harridans buff.

What's the general consensus on the Big Bad himself. In DOOM you could take Negash GoS 30 Blades 5 Hex 5 Hex Pick and endless spell. Give the GoS that artifact that brings half a unit back on a 4+. Keep him in the underworlds so he can't be sniped until you need him. Shove Negash and the 30 Blades into opponents face. Between his and the GoS healing and the multiple ways to get a 5+ ward they will be a deathstar that is very hard to remove and deletes stuff all over the place. If somehow they do remove the 30 blades, on a 4+ you get half them back. It's gimmicky and not very reliable but will often boil down to; roll a 4+ and auto win game. Odds are if they are able remove the blades they've lost most their force doing so or have an equally silly combo that works at range, in which case you have a 4+ to stay in the game. It's not the kind of list I like to run personally as it's point and click, they either have a solution or you win. I don't think it'd go 5-0 at a tournament because if it does get countered there's not much you can do but you'd have an over 50% win rate just for showing up. Likely a powerful new player list that does well on the mid tables but struggles to get the trophy. '

@Benlisted I don't see how you came to the conclusion that they are point for point the best. Bladegeist get an extra attack on the charge. 3 attacks on 3/3/-1/1 is better than 4 attacks at 4/4/-/1 at any save value. As unsupported units, harridans will bounce off a lot of stuff. Harridans will do better output on a turn when they are charged but I'd rather be charging. Harridans need their targets wounded to come ahead so you're either investing in other units to do damage or using emerald host at which point you can't guarantee how many troops will be targeted and your giving up on killing support heroes. It's also worth mentioning a clever opponent can turn off their bonus through healing. Against say a 3+ save 3 wound unit, you charge harridans in, 5 can attack, you do 2 wounds past the armor (average dice), your opponent has 3 wounds per model so no buff take place for next turn. They survive a little better because of the -1 wound effect but they are the ones who will be getting ground down. If you did get better than average dice and took out a model, on your opponents turn, any access to healing will negate the bonus. I've seen mention of crossbows to support them, if you did this you need to factor it that you just paid for them to support harridans, which greatly reduces the efficiency to get the extra damage. Oddly they also have synergy with bladegeist in the DOOM sub-faction with their mortal wounds in the charge phase.. but you could also just take another unit of bladegeist for extra mortals. I don't think the unit is bad on the whole, if they could be ported into other books they'd be insanely useful for a lot of them. Within the Nighthaunt book though, they really don't seem to support a role that you can't do better with other units besides winning more to overkill chaff (and even then, only on the turn you didn't charge or after investing extra points in supporting them). Happy to be proven wrong, I personally like the models, but I don't think the maths supports them.

I had forgotten about reapers but someone did some excellent math earlier. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wl0LUdJnvMAR0OJx4c-Fg4Y8b4MUcnaOfQMbQvq_iqc/edit#gid=911596184 Harridans are dealing 0.028 wounds per point out against a 3+ save where reapers are doing 0.027, units with less saves tend to have more models so that favors reapers in that regard although damage per points gets better with less save in raw stats in favor of harridans. That being said, bladegeist are doing 0.029 and banshees are doing 0.040 against a 3+ save. If you look across the stats there is always a better option than harridans, unless you're fighting something with no save or a 6+. Even against a 6+ harridans are only better if the opponent doesn't use all out defense or mystic shield. The problem there is that low save units aren't a problem to kill, so even if harridan do it better, your other units will do it just fine. Investing points into a unit that excellent at killing expendable chaff just deprives you points that could be used to kill stuff that harridans can't deal with. Bladegeist will smash a unit of goblins just fine and can also threaten units with a decent save.. harridans can't really make that boast. But yeah, reapers aren't great either by comparison with the rest of the book. I'd put glaives, reapers and harridans in the 'fun' bucket when considering list design. Against very specific match ups like savage whaagh or other nighthaunt (because ethereal completely changes the calculations) there could be room for harridans. Outside of that, I think the maths from that link shows that they are weaker as an option in 99% of the match ups you'll have. As an afterthought and to be balanced: Pink Horrors are a really powerful unit that shows up in competitive lists and would be a great target for Harridans to munch through. That said, I still think it's too niche to be a competitive choice if you were heading into a tournament hoping to win all your matches.

I think quick silver is probably the weakest subfaction because harridans are probably our weakest combat option (ignoring glaives). Their output is best against units with a 6+ save and those units tend to not be priority targets, also, even though they're best against 6+, the nature of it being against a bad save means everything else is still good against those units too, where as harridans drop off sharply against a 2+ save. We're also in an edition where everyone has access to all out defense so really, they're only good against no save units. The subfaction really doesn't help because if you're not getting through armor who cares about wards. I guess they have merit against savage orks but that's way too niche. I can see play in all the others. Spamming bladegeist either in big blocks with all the defensive buff or in MSU is definitely powerful. With so many teleports and access to heals, someone will build a competitive list that just denies your opponent from ever leaving their deployment zone. Emerald host is personally my favorite. You can tech into it and look to assassinate heroes or just build whatever you want as a strong list and the faction bonus can still be really impactful without you building around it at all. It's that versatility that I like. All the other factions encourage a play-style, Emerald Host lists can be anything, although obviously it leans you towards not playing into the style of the other subfactions. Although I think Emerald host could possibly be a better home for harridans than quicksilver because ensuring you have that chip damage on units is probably more empowering to them than ignoring wards. That being said as a side note, I just don't rate harridans in this book. They're not bad as such, just not as good as the other options. The only circumstance where they come out ahead is one where you're already slaughtering expendable models, so you give up on effectiveness in most combats to win-more against expendable chaff.

On another note, I think there's probably a lot of fun to be had using KoS, Boatboo and dreadblades. They can run around and do their own thing, then boatboo can teleport himself and the KoS to 9 away from a target and the dreadblades teleport themselves. KoS uses a command to reroll charges and the deadblades can copy it for free. You could really surprise an opponent and repeat the trick on a new target each turn. Pick off characters or flip it so your 'weak' flank is suddenly doing a pile on to a unit they thought was safe. You opponent will be forced to castle or let you constantly bully anything left exposed. In a game where you have to reach out and take objectives this seems like a strong trick to me. You could take a KoS, boatboo, and four dreadblades for a hypermobile psudo deathstar style approach that always projects power where you need it. The damage isn't enough to just throw it at anything but odds are you'll be pulling off enough charges to threaten any basic block or character anywhere on the board. I think outside of janky combos the dreadblades free copy the generals command is amazing. Even getting multiple 5+ wards is strong.

Glaivewraiths warscroll says they only get +3 to charge is it was a NORMAL move that ended them closer, so they don't even work for the one teleport combo that they seem designed for. In what looks like a really strong book, they really are such a bizarrely weak option. Myrmourn are ridiculously fragile glass hammers but for WoT spamming they seem like the best option to me. There's a 16% chance of rolling a 10+ per charge, so you want to be casting soul cage as even with 3 charges, the odds are just below 50%. You have an 81% chance of getting some rend off three units though. At rend 3 Myrmourn will just wreck so many elite units and heros. They don't worry about coherency and can easily wrap around a target to get 100% efficiency from each model. While probably being among the most fragile units in the game, a d3 heal is up to 75% of the unit back. The high value per wound goes both ways, it's a riskier to loose but more reward to return. This will probably mess with the opponent, do they overkill the unit with archers or split fire? If they splitfire and don't kill both units off entirely, it's very easy to have them both back at full health. Any army list that can pump out high volume shots or damage 4 is going to ruin their day though. It's definitely a high risk/reward unit. With an 81% chance of getting at least 1 extra rend and assuming you cast soul cage or roll a 10+, charging 3 units in will do 12 damage against a 2+ save and 14 (against a 3+ save. That'll wreck a zombie dragon or mawcrusher and against a unit with a 4+ save it's 17 damage, at which point they will loose anything left over to battle shock. - keep in mind no other buffs are added, no guardian of souls or all out attack or Olynders spell.. this is basically the floor not the ceiling for their damage potential. Comparatively, a 3 units of chainrasp cost more and while far more durable, won't do all that much to a 3+ save even if they do get an extra rend, and it's too statistically low of a chance too count on stacking rend. Bladegheist want to be in crimson doom in units of 30 with the defensive buffs up so they're not spamming WoT. Harridans definitely benefit from WoT but in units of 10 you loose a lot of output if you try to multi-charge because so many models won't get within range to fight. It's also getting really expensive to spam again. You'd probably go with a single harridan unit and some cheaper support characters to trigger WoT more times. Spamming WoT might not be the best approach anyway though.. Likely more of a great but slightly random boon to have then something to try to intentionally stack to the heavens for competitive play.

Aside from not being reliant on buffs to have the best output against most/important targets, I think a benefit of banshees is that they don't just have the best point for point output, they also come in smaller and cheaper units. The core wave of terror buff leans towards MSU and banshees do better MSU than other units. Harridans are more expensive to set up for a multi-charge and you won't get all of them in most of the time. 2 units of banshees is a lot cheaper than 2 units of harridans and it's way easier to 100% from the unit without loosing some due to not being able to reach over one another.

M6 with 5 wounds and a 5+ save makes them very vulnerable to anything with range. I think their main drawback will be getting riddled with projectiles. We haven't seen what the new Chaos marks will do yet or how much they cost or if there's any additional rules support for them. Still, looking at them as is, my gut feeling is Timmy trap.

I think bladegeist will only be good in their themed sub-faction but within that, I think they can definitely be super competitive if you build around them. Outside that.. meh. A unit of 30 will do an average of 10 mortal wounds on the charge, before combat, that's bonkers. There's also multiple ways to get a 5+ ward. If you factor that in, they go from being the least point efficient combat unit to extremely scary. They'll wreck everything they hit with 10MW each charge phase and with a combo of a 5+ and healing they'll be really tanky. It'll be a list with two wrecking balls of bladegeist with most of everything else being something that combos to support them. Side note: does anyone else find it odd that the two sub-factions that are specifically themed around particular units have their main artwork as something else? Scarletdoom is the bladegeist sub-faction but their main art features a harridan and quicksilver is meant to be the harridan sub-faction but the artwork is a banshee. Just feel like the art department and rules team weren't talking to each other.

I have 48 Banshees from a list that was previously a joke fun build I made for cheap out of second hand models I got. I'm over the moon with the new Banshee Warscroll. Some of the best output in the book AND amazing tech against magic! Really fragile but with some many MSU banshees I think I'll often proc the 10+ to hand out strike last. Points have gone up so I might not be able to spam all 12 units but I'm really keen so see how it goes. I think my nighthaunt went from being my joke meme fun list to potentially being 'that guy' at the club and I'm loving it.

I couldn't agree more with this. The game is best when you play to objectives and the lethality of units is a component towards achievement of objectives not an objective itself. While everyone goes nuts for high damage combos as they're really good for your personal army, they're a problem for game design. The game should boil down to choices made by player skill, not listing building the combo of the month. Having a few options that are really Smashy is fine but they should have a strategic drawback, be it lack of projection or also being fragile. Power combos like morathi and the bowsnakes are terrible because by they require no skill to use and often just remove units with little interaction between the players. That said, I don't see any problem combos like that in this book yet (although it's early days). I'm very glad there's nothing that just deletes units without any need for competent player choices.

I think this book has heaps of damage. No inspiring presence means we need to consider that we'll often be removing additional MODELS not wounds through battleshock. One subfaction just straight up does mortal wounds every turn. Banshees are glass hammers, 105 for 8 attacks at d2 rend2 will hurt. Multi charges take debuffs on units and we should be multicharging every charge phase. Coach is a missile. We don't have a unit that is a fulminators comparison but I think this army definitely has the ability to cause chip damage across multiple phases. Hero phase damage, charge phase damage, combat, shooting, battleshock, we don't have amazing output in any of them but we do have a way to have consistent damage in all of them.