Hello my fellow thralls of Lady Olynder.
I had the pleasure of cracking out my Nighthaunt for a competitive battle over the weekend against the Maggotkin of Nurgle.
List:
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Lady Olynder (Seal of Shyish) *
Knight of Shrouds on Steed (Hatred of the Living, Lightshard of the Harvest Moon) *
Guardian of Souls (Shademist)(Arcane Tome) *
Spirit Hosts 1x3 *
Chainrasps 1x20 **
Myrmourn Banshees 1x4
Grimghast Reapers 1x20 **
Bladegheists 1x10 **
The Black Coach
Lifeswarm
1985/2000
The Emerald Host
Prized Sorcery
Warlord*
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My Opponents list was a one drop consisting of:
Bloab Rotsawned
Lord of Afflictions
Blight Kings 2x10
Beasts of Nurgle 2x1
Pusgoyle Blightlords 1x2
2 Nurgle Trees
Battleplan: Tooth and Nail
The Game ended in a tie with me winning the breakers. It came down to the last turn and I lost my grand strategy.
I am at work so I will not write up a turn by turn but will if people are interested. I will just provide my thoughts.
The Good:
Lady Olynder: She was incredible. She punched way above her weight class. With Spirit Hosts she lived longer than expected. Seal kept her chainrasps alive and her once per game heal was insane bringing me from 4 chainrasps to 8, 1 Grimghast (with lifeswarm and GoS in tandem) to 12 and 2 Myrmourn to full. I probably waited 1 turn longer than I should have which made me lose out on the hosts as well. Her mortals were insane, her debuff spell is good as always. For me she is an easy auto-include. Better positioning (a mistake on my part) would have had her live all game.
GoS: Another auto include for me. The warscroll spell was great as always. The unbinds in Maggotkin were even so it may be less effective against real magic but the value for me was his aura. +1 wound is amazing and came up huge in this game.
The Black Coach: A big surprise for me. I honestly only included it because I just painted it and wanted to try it out. It never did its impact hits which was hilarious (charged in all 5 turns of the game) but it was insanely durable. I probably should not have blasted out the mortal wounds because 4+ ward is honestly probably stronger than the mortals. Especially against Nurgle where you take mortals at the end of every turn and it is pretty hard to refill against that army. Maybe not an auto take for me but pretty close. The teleport honestly kept me in the game because he was able to yeet across the board to grab me the nurgle home objective and that army is not fast enough to compensate.
Bladegheists: These guys were nuts. A unit of 10 even with 1 inch range was outperforming the grimghasts by a large margin. By turn 3-4 there were no longer units of a size where grimghasts got the extra attack but these guys were just as effective. The GoS had them on 2s, 2s and they were blending. I think going forward a unit of 20 is a staple for me regardless of my subfaction.
Allegiance Abilities: These are incredible now. Retreat and charge was as busted as expected. I got the magic christmas land scenario of applying all the debuffs on 1 target (Olynder, Coach and Rasps into a blight King unit). It ripped that unit apart which was incredible considering they are one of the toughest anvils in the game (Would have taken out a gargant as well). At the same time I got one later that was just -3 to hit which was less exciting. Auto wounding is very underappreciated I think as well. Our insane movement is also even more insane. The new allegiance abilities make me a happy ghost.
The Bad:
Knight of Shrouds on Steed: I swapped this last minute because I figured I needed a combat hero. A combat hero this guy in not, at least against nurgle. He basically did no damage to blightkings and died immediately in return. His only value that combat was providing an additional charge debuff and the shard, both of which could have been on a cheaper harrow who also has more utility at only a wound less. I wasn't impressed personally and will go with a harrow in my next game.
Grimghast Reapers: These things do not hit well any more. The nurgle player had a relic preventing command abilities within 7 and these guys NEED all out attack or chainghasts. The extra reach was great but didn't make up for the hitting on 4s. They had a good initial charge when the blightkings were still big but quickly were outclassed by the blades for the rest of the game. Their only saving grace in this game was being a durable anvil but that could be said for any of our 4+ infantry so these will get replaced with blades for only 30 pts more.
The Emerald Host: I went into the game thinking this would be great. And against other armies maybe it would be. But between rolling only 2 targets and the nurgle resilience this did nothing. The hero was able to recover more wounds than he was taking and the blightkings died on Turn 2. I personally think I will be going scarlet doom because you can apply the mortals where you need it that turn. They also can help with battleshock as emerald curse does not.
The Ugly:
Everything else: Everything else was fine and I think I need more testing to come to my conclusions. I think the lifeswarm is an include for me when I cant fill the points (we have no cheap, cheap stuff) but I would not prioritize it. The hosts were good but I just don't know yet. They kept Lady alive but they also make her very expensive and don't do literally anything else. Chainrasps were chainrasps. I want to test the Myrnmourns more. They completely shut off his +1 caster and I made the mistake of charging them to get more debuffs. They then died to a breeze. I think I want to try 2 units of 4 hovering around protecting from magic.
Thanks for reading my crazy long post!