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Because I haven't seen one around yet. I get lurking in the shadows is what they do but still.

Although I've been trying Word Bearers, I see the appeal in these guys too. The question being, what tricks have you been trying with these bringer of terror?

Raptor Troops are obvious. A Raptor Talon core is also obvious. Being able to guarantee Night Fight is boss, and Stealth is also very nice. A Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with the Stormbolt Plate is surprisingly amazing too, as 2+ armor and 2+ cover re-rollable makes for an amusing bully character too.

Let's talk less obvious tricks though. While the Winged Lord of Tzeentch is obvious, the Lore still is questionable. It may be better to just forego Psychic powers on such a Prince. If you want a god-specific Lore, Slaanesh remains solid overall, with a mix of buffs/debuffs and Witchfires. If you're having your prince support the rest of your army, you could arguably forego taking Wings altogether on the Slaaneshi Prince due to Fleet and +3 Run distance. Hang behind a unit of Spawn or a Rhino or otherwise, and you still get a 2+ cover save (5+ for an intervening model, +1 Stealth, +1 Stormbolt Plate, and +1 for Nightfight. 4 of the 6 Warlord Traits are really good on a Prince too. Hit and Run is a given, rerolling 1s to-wound makes sense on a model with S6 Smash as does Rampage, and re-rolling Cover goes without saying.

Curze's Orb looks hilarious if nothing else. For a regular Lord, it's probably redundant, but it's definitely nice to have if you want your Sorcerer to sling witchfires that are not Psychic Shriek (though sadly, it only lets you reroll 1s to hit and wound, but not to Penetrate armor/void shields). That being said, if you're hell-bent on running something like, say, a Plasma Obliterator, it's not the worst option in the world.

Ironically, I feel they might be a better Biker army than a Jump army. Raptors already have Fear, so getting it as a Legion tactic is somewhat redundant. Jumpers must choose between bonus movement, or rerolling charges and Hammer of Wrath. While Raptors can Jump then move, they don't get HOW. Meanwhile, Bikes get the move, re-roll charge, keep Hammer of Wrath, and gain Objective Secured, T5, and Jink with Stealth. And they get 2+ Jink on any turn with Night Fight.

And that's a key note: the Murder Talon gives a bonus cover save for *any* turn where Night Fight is active. What faction can easily bring fast-moving cover-ignoring Bikes as well as guarantee a second round of Night-Fight.

The Helldrake terror pack should be an auto-include in Night lord lists.

Raptor talon is not so obvious cause it's very unreliable as there's still no scatter mitigation and built in reserve manipulation. Also, night lords add almost nothing to raptors. They allready have fear. They allready get re-roll charge ranges when they arrive cause technically they don't use their jumppacks in the movement phase. Yep, they fall from the sky flat on their faces to use their jumppacks afterwards. They don't get +2 cover from nightfight first turn cause they can't arrive 1-st turn. All they get is stealth and re-roll charge ranges for further turns. But i'd not count on having a lot of further turns as they're still just raptors. And fear is very niche.

So, what good do we have.
Tzeench DP with re-rollable 2+/2+ cover is good.
Bikers with 1-st turn 2+ jinks and 3+ jinks for further turns are ok.
Raptors as troops for CAD.

So, in smaller games the list writes itself. DP, 2 troop raptors, some bikes and probably some ranged support. You've got a good 750-1000 list. You'll have 3+ or 2+ jink bikers that should help vs ap3 shooting. You have functional troops that can also take plazma and act like a mobile scoring unit capable of doing some damage at range. Or just go for regular meltas/flamers or keep them barebones. All up to you.

For larget games we start having identificational problems. Raptor talon is a relatively cheap core but you don't get bikers that benefit from enchanced jinks and re-rolled charges the most. And there are no bike auxillaries. So, you still need a warband and warband features 2 units of marines that are only good for sitting on objectives with stealth. The bright side is that you can just pay this 150 pts and forget about them. Stealth helps them score a bit better. They could go to ground for 2+ cover in ruins. Would be hard to get them out of there.

So, i think that probably the best way is to run a warband with naked marines in the back, maybe get a rhino or two for screening, tankshocking and dirge caster purposes. Than get 5+ strong biker units with mellee weapon champs as you'll likely be jinking for 2+ cover and roll forward to engage in mellee with weaker foes + try to avoid tougher ones. Get a 2+ re-rollable DP. Make him a psycher - this will help and eat up more points. Lord and sorc will be bikers and make use of okish NL artifacts too. Spawns to fill the slot. This should be enough for a 1500 game. If you want to go higher, you can either use a raptor talon or cad with raptor troops and another biker sorc.

I've been saying since the first day of leaks that the Night Lord rules are a mess. On first glance they sound solid and fluffy, but in execution it really falls apart. The problems I have with it are that you are basically funneled into taking a Chaos Warband + Aux Spawn (+ Prince most likely), and in doing so, there is no creativity in list building. The benefits contradict themselves. There is no synergy in the choices you take + the special rules gained. Some examples:

1) Raptor Talon Core to unlock +1 cover saves on the first turn where the Raptor Talon Core isn't even on the board.

2) Stealth for being a Night Lord is useless when fighting at Night because everyone gets stealth, and two stealth rules do not stack.

3) Practically forced to take a Chaos Warband to have a list that doesnt totally suck and actually utilize the +1 cover saves, primarily on bikes. So at this point the Night Lords Raptor Talon "benefit" as a core choice is actually a hindrance because if you want to take a Raptor Talon, it doesn't fill the Aux selection, so youre taxed a further 30 points for a chaos spawn.

I could list more but they become a little more subjective. Two modifications would have helped both the power and the creativity levels of playing Night Lords. First, Stealth should be replaced by +1 cover save for VotLW as a base stat. Second, the Murder Talon benefit should have been Terror, where all units in the game, including fearless units, would have to take a fear test at -2 ld. Suddenly this opens the door for creating a unique aura Ld modifier list with Heldrake formations and warlord artefacts (especially a deepstriking 6" raptor chaos lord debuff).


In the end, unless you are tailoring against non fearless armies, I think it comes down to the fact that you need to utilize the following to justify playing NL:

1) Bikes with +1 cover and stealth
2) Daemon Prince with 2+/2+ cv
3) NL Artefacts.

I would say most lists are going to look something like:

Command

Daemon Prince

Chaos Warband

Biker Lord
CSM x2
Crappy Elite choice
Havocs (1-3)
Bikes x3

Followed by a single Spawn, a Raptor talon and Spawn, or a Heldrake formation.

 Night Lords wrote:

2) Stealth for being a Night Lord is useless when fighting at Night because everyone gets stealth, and two stealth rules do not stack.

Isn't night fight a straight +1 cover? Means that nightlordion has +3 cover 1-st turn or +2 cover vs night vision?

Night fight is stealth for everyone. The NL detachment bonus gives them an additional point of cover on top.
Also the NL inherent stealth means you still get it against night vision attacks.

Well, you could use cheap-ish raptor talon + spawn as allies for your other detachment for added survivability 1-st turn. Might matter for khornate warband on bikes.

I forget, can a Plasma Obliterator take a Comms Relay? I'm still amused by the imagine of a Lord manning one, re-rolling the 1 for Gets Hot, and re-rolling all 1s to-wound.

Plasma obliterators are quite disappointing simply due to being buildings and costing so much. Very fragile vs anything that can damage them. Building damage table is very punishing. Whenever i see buildings on the tabletop (other than VSG) they usually either get one-shotted turn 1-2 or last all game. But the more they cost the more likely you'll see them one-shotted. Also, plazma obliterator does not ignore cover and is just a massive blast which is not much better than a large blast.

Your lord's gona be safer and do more on a bike with a fist rather than in a massive fortification with an enormous gun. That's how tabletop is now.