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Been messing around with him in my local game store (Seattle) and at home with some buds, who have all been playing 10+ years and 2 of which have won local tourneys...so needless to say, stiff competition.

I'm doing the 3 sets of LF's (with ML and PC....I have 2 LC for 2K point games or vs. Mech). couple of sets of grey hunters in rhinos with the banner and wolfen and melta guns....3 Land Speeders with HF/MM and 1 set of scouts with a Melta and 2 PP.

anyway, so I have 3 rune priests and have been messing around with them to see how best to use them, but 2 in rhinos with the GH's and sacrifice a melta and have them shoot out of it and give the GH's better leadership (I don't like that 3 kill points are in each rhino set though). Putting the RP's with the lF's and doing MH with all of them and then LL/TR/JOWW and different wargear to protect against deep striking and keeping the LF's healthy.

SO, with that background....I love the randomness that is NJAL's Turn+D3 Lord of Tempests. He is SOOO overcosted, without the termy armour upgrade he has no invul (except vs psychic powers) and only 2 wounds. He's more expensive then 2 rune priests....all that, blah blah blah.

I played 3 games with him, in a Land Raider with a few guards inside and EVERY SINGLE GAME Lord of Tempests has done massive damage.

Last game vs. Necrons he got Howling Cyclone, a group of immortals with a HQ fleed and my scouts had come in that turn too and were in his backyard and they ran right into them....280 pts right there.

Game before that vs. Eldar (I was first luckily) I got driving gale the first two turns and me and my bud figured out that it made him miss at least 15 shots (he blade stormed) and gave my LF's 2 more rounds of shooting, where they got 5 KP's. Also, later in the game Vengeful Tornado popped one of his vehicles.

Game before against Blood Angels he JOTWW Mephiston in turn 4 after getting the LR popped and Driving Galed the first turn, which helped.

My question, NJAL SEEMS like such a fail...but I haven't lost with him yet. Seems like Lord Of Tempests is more valuable then one would think on first glance. Does anybody else share a similiar experience with him?

Cheers from Seattle!!!

I love Njal...used him in every list when I played SW.
His only real failings are that he is a support character who needs to advance to the centre of the table if not further so as to be effective in the late game (justifying his Tempest)
As well, if you go second Lord of the Tempest has almost no effect for the first few turns.

He was in the tournament winning list of the player that won both NoVa's and Adepticon 2012. He provides one of the best anti-psycher abilities in the game (3+ cancel). And he has game changing shooting abilities in the late game. And he even helps shore up a weakness in SW armies with his majesty saga.

Truth be told I am surprised more people don't use em. Keep in power armor and bury him in a large Grey hunter squad and move him to another as needed and let him tear crap up late game.

good stuff. thanks fellas, just wanted to make sure that it wasn't all luck and timing that made him so good, at least with how I play.

And to speak to his strengths...3+ Nul is insane, I've actually played 4 games with him...the first was against GK's, dude got SOOOO pissed when I nulled almost everything..lol. I won that game too BTW . Saga of Majesty is cool, like you said..helps the lousy 8 lD of hunters.

Also, a nice little trick I'm doing is that I have my 2 rhinos in front and LR with Njal in back. 1st turn...12 inches, pop smoke on all. Gets Njal to the middle of the field. Then another 12, pop your hunters out of the rhinos and then have Njal cast storm caller and give everything a 5+ cover. All 3 vehicles and the hunters that just popped out to shoot whatever. Just helps your hunters not get AP'd off the board before they get a chance to charge in rd 3 and gets njal to the border of their deployment zone and then he starts to rape.

But yeah, if anybody else has some insight on how to use him or his particular strengths I'm interested to hear it.

Njal has been nerfed greatly by the new BRB FAQ. Now he can't use his Lord of the Tempest special rule if he is in a transport. He needs to disembark first in order to use it...and then he needs to have LOS to his opponents to affect them. That means he will be vulnerable to return fire.

Njal isn't bad because of his rules. Nullify on 3+ is great, the tornado stuff is all great although a bit random and access to all powers is nice. The problem is that he is overcosted. As such, it is no big surprise that he is able to do stuff when you bring him, after all, he is good. The question is, could you have done better by spending those points on something else? The answer is probably yes over the long run. He is min 235pts, right? That is a lot of pts that could be spent on something else. If you are only taking one HQ, you can deduct the 100pts for a normal runepriest, as you would have taken that anyway, which leaves you at 135pts. Enough for a harrasment unit of thundercav, a long fang squad, a scout squad with WG, two razorbacks etc.

I can see him being worth in larger games and in footslogging armies

Well excuse me if I am wrong, or am simply missing a rule, but I believe you are fielding 4 hq's? Rune priests are also HQ, so with 3 of them and Njal, I think that you are a bit over the limit.
Again, if I'm wrong, then sorry

jy2 wrote:Njal has been nerfed greatly by the new BRB FAQ. Now he can't use his Lord of the Tempest special rule if he is in a transport. He needs to disembark first in order to use it...and then he needs to have LOS to his opponents to affect them. That means he will be vulnerable to return fire.

I'll need to go check out the new FAQ then, I hadn't heard either of those things....if that's the case he's unuseable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

atribix wrote: Well excuse me if I am wrong, or am simply missing a rule, but I believe you are fielding 4 hq's? Rune priests are also HQ, so with 3 of them and Njal, I think that you are a bit over the limit.
Again, if I'm wrong, then sorry

Space Wolf Shenanigans....you can have 4 HQ's.....

jy2 wrote:Njal has been nerfed greatly by the new BRB FAQ. Now he can't use his Lord of the Tempest special rule if he is in a transport. He needs to disembark first in order to use it...and then he needs to have LOS to his opponents to affect them. That means he will be vulnerable to return fire.

Yeah I was going to say this myself. Njal's expensive, but in a larger game (1850+) he's worth it. The 3+ nullification is invaluable against GK and other psychic-reliant armies, and his 2 Psychic Powers per turn is handy as well. Lord of the Tempests has been rather hit or miss for me though - he can't use it inside a transport, he doesn't really do anything for a while if he goes 2nd, and he doesn't tend to do much even then (if you even remember to roll for it or apply the results). I also always forget to use Nightwing. But yes, he's an awesome character, if expensive.

jy2 wrote:Njal has been nerfed greatly by the new BRB FAQ. Now he can't use his Lord of the Tempest special rule if he is in a transport. He needs to disembark first in order to use it...and then he needs to have LOS to his opponents to affect them. That means he will be vulnerable to return fire.

I checked the RB FAQ and the SW FAQ...I don't see this, where specifically is it at brotha/

Lord of Tempests specifies only units in LOS. BRB specifies:

BRB FAQ wrote:Q: Can models embarked upon a vehicle use its fire
points to draw line of sight to a unit to use special
rules or wargear (other than shooting)? (p66)
A: No.

This coupled with the fact that half of the effects don't work at all if you don't go first, I'd say you're using him wrong if he's winning every game for you.

I have only faced Njall and don't know anything about him other than what he threw against me.

I despise Jaws of the World Wolf: 'Oh I'm sorry, looks like your pricey HQ unit is gone.'

Surely so long as he kills some prominent chap with that ability, he can make a great chunk of his points back? This is ignoring all the other stuff he does...

Only time I faced him he died from Perils on his turn then took a HB round on my turn. I made my opponent look up his W value just to be sure a character that costs as much as a LR has 2 wounds.

ugh, I was using him wrong...assumed that LOT would work inside of a vehicle. Explains why he was at least WORTH his points, he's obviously not now I guess.

Putting him out in the open to be able to use it, with no regular invul is bad news. Especially because you need to get him in the middle of the field to be effective. Ok, glad I posted this...no more Njal...

and yes JOTWW is an awesome power, especially against TAU and Necrons....66% of taking things off of the board (at least in the current edition)


SOOOOO, new question....

Put a rune priest + 9 hunters in a rhino...do this 2 times and have them going down the board JOTWW or MH or LL everything in 1500 points and occupy the enemy long enough to let my LF/LS destructo do it's job. For over 1500 points, do this 3 times, replace 1 hunter in each with a WG PF/CM.

Then round my list out by putting WG's in a LR with PF/Special Stuff/standard deathstar unit that gets 40 attacks on the charge out of the LR.

Good plan?

I don't think the FAQ breaks him (although it certainly is a nerf), his powers aren't great until late game anyways and by then he's bound to be demeched. Just use his psychic powers and 3+ null from inside the rhino (perfectly legal) until late game.

winterman wrote:I don't think the FAQ breaks him (although it certainly is a nerf), his powers aren't great until late game anyways and by then he's bound to be demeched. Just use his psychic powers and 3+ null from inside the rhino (perfectly legal) until late game.

this was a really good insight. I played with my new Njal list tonight vs Blood Angels...1500 points, basically.....I put him in a rhino w/grey hunters along side another rhino w/grey hunters. All I did was try to get him to a safe spot on the other side of the board, still meched...by round 3.

1st turn (got initiative)....12 pop smoke on both

2nd turn...6 on both, Njal cast JOTWW on a librarian and 4 dudes behind him, 2 dudes died. Then cast Storm caller and gave him and the other rhino a 5+ cover save at the bottom.

3rd turn....6 on both, Njal got nullified x 2 by the librarian, bottom of the round his rhino gets popped and 3 Grey hunters die on ensuing fire saved 4 out of 6 Saves + 1 Autokill from a KraK. Passes leadership

4th turn, Njal and co go forward 6 and tuck themselves in between two buildings and BOOM....roll a 6 and chain lightning goes off. 4 of his units affected, roll a 4....roll 14 out of 16 wounds....he saves 6, kills 8 dudes for approx 150 points

5th turn, Njal's troupe surives bottom of the 4th round of shooting thanks to cover and some bad scattering by my opponent (and the fact my scouts and Land Speeders are causing issues and absorbing attention/fire). His troupe is down to 2 guys and him now. He moves forward an inch and JOTWW some of the dudes devastators, taking 2 out. Then AGAIN...I roll chain lighting....4 units affected, I roll a six...and wound 24 times, don't roll a single 1. I wipe out 2 squads and he's left with only 2 squads on the board, 1 in combat and the other one fleeing and within 6 inches of my scouts...he resigns. I win 8 kill points to 1 (only the rhino). Wiped out close to 200 points on that turn.

IMO, Njal is brilliant. It's kind of backwards that you have to sink 260 points or whatever into an HQ only to use him in a support position and spend alot of energy protecting and placing him...but if you do it right, he's insanely good. The 3+ Null by itself is probably worth 50 points in terms of what it absorbs vs a 4+.

Thanks for the help and insight fellas, Njal rocks hard...I'm glad more people don't use him...it's fun to educate people by wrecking their face.

Cheers from Seattle!

GD

Droppod squad with Njal works well.