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I am starting a Nighthaunt army and looking for tips/suggestions. I have the following models....

*Reikenor
*Spirit Torment
*Guardian of Souls (Nightmare Lantern)
*Guardian of Souls (Mortality Glass)
*Spirit Hosts x 3

I am not the biggest fan of painting a ton of “troops”. Is there a way to be successful with Spirit Hosts as my Battlelines? Any other models I should pick up that are good?

Pay attention to healing and summoning abilities and spells we have. There's a huge world of difference between "return D3 wounds worth of models" and "return D3 models". (Example, the first one, would have to roll a 5 or 6 if you wanted to return 1 Spirit Host; there's no returning a Host with only 1 or 2 wounds).

So if you want to run Hosts, you want to field them as minimum 6-strong so they're not easy to take out. You'll want to take advantage of the Command Trait Ruler of the Spirit Hosts (returns D3 models) and the Black Coach's ability to return D3 slain models as well. The Trait plus one or two Coaches, plus a Mystic Shield buff, could mean that your Spirit Hosts will literally never die.

On that note, don't try and cram in "too much". You'd rather take one big block of 12 Spirit Hosts, and throw all your buffs onto that one unit, than to take 2 units of 6 and split your buffs between the two.

Nighthaunt NEED their heroes, with a passion. A lot of scenarios use them for objectives (try and make as many heroes Wizards, or have Artefacts), a lot of our buffs proc off heroes, and ours are hella squishy. I usually recommend 5 minimum at 2000 points, and a good rule of thumb is at least 1 hero per unit to keep up Deathless Minions (or whatever the 6+ FNP save rule is).

You may not want to paint numbers, but Grimghast Reapers are the bomb, and you're going to want 20 to 30 of them.

Bladegheist Revenants are also the bomb.

Like...hella.

Units of 10 Chainrasps are good filler, they're cheap, and add numbers for Underworld Deployment (although remember to balance out, you don't want to have TOO many deployment drops).

All that being said, point for point and by the math, Chainrasp Hordes will out-damage almost anything in our book. If you can get past painting Troops, two blocks of 40 are really REALLY good.

If you're taking Reikenor, you're basically taking Chronomantic Cogs.

I actually am not a fan of the Spirit Torment, and would rather take the Knight of Shrouds on Steed (KoSoS) or an allied Vampire Lord for more attacks, and/or a KoS for +1 to hit. The math is approximately the same, but more attacks means higher damage output, and the Spirit Torment doesn't work on Grimghast Reapers (which you're going to take), because they already reroll hits against target units with 5+ models. You know what Reapers really like? +1 Attack.

Myrmourn Banshees are a good tech unit, and can be used to bully around a Wizard.

Your support characters are cheap and powerful; spirit torment providing re-rolls of 1 to characters & re-roll all hits to bladegheists is a nice buff and he can heal units or heroes in the battleshock phase, and he is pretty great in melee too. Guardian of Souls w/lantern is your main wizard, has a great spell to return slain models, and has an extremely powerful aoe buff from the lantern. Guardian of souls with mortality glass is similarly powerful but requires more finesse so it may take some experience before you get the best use out of him.

Spirit Hosts work decently as battleline, they just are not as potent as reapers or chainrasps which are somewhat undercosted at the moment. A black coach works exceedingly well with 6-man spirit units because its healing ability returns d3 slain models (as in, d3 whole hosts) rather than d3 wounds. The battalion with three spirit units and an executioner is not bad (not particularly good either, but if you are running three units anyways probably worth taking for all the side benefits battalions bring).

The Knight of Shrouds on horseback is cool, but the one on foot has a much better command ability and I would always take him over the mounted version. The +1 attack is nice but not as strong as it seems because it is only one unit and all the nighthaunt combat units already have 2 attacks anyways; 12" bubble of +1 to hit is stronger by a huge margin. Further, you want your units wholly within 12" of your heroes anyways for torment/guardian/allegiance buffs. On that note, pay very close attention to your 12" auras as your units have to be WHOLLY within, if even one model is out you do not get it. Be careful not to charge out of range.

The Shadespire warband is fantastic for its point cost.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

The Knight of Shrouds on horseback is cool, but the one on foot has a much better command ability and I would always take him over the mounted version. The +1 attack is nice but not as strong as it seems because it is only one unit and all the nighthaunt combat units already have 2 attacks anyways; 12" bubble of +1 to hit is stronger by a huge margin.

Debatable. For the most part, I agree with you. The problem is the wholly within. Given that our heavy hitters are on 32mms, and will be taken in max-strength, the odds are VERY unlikely you'll manage to get more than one of those big units wholly within 12", and so in practice, you're compare the +1 to hit buff on one unit to +1 attack buff on one unit. Obviously +1 to hit is better situationally over +1 attack the more heroes you can get within that aura.

And if you want +1 Attack, an allied Vampire Lord gives better value since the +1 Attack lasts until your next Hero phase, as opposed to the Knight of Shroud's only working for the one phase.

Where +1 Attack has immense value is buffing Myrmourn Banshees. At 1 attack apiece, 4+/3+ to hit and wound, their damage output is kinda meh despite the D3 damage. 12 Banshees manages 6 hits, 4 wounds with only 1 attack apiece. Rerolling 1's only nets 1 extra hit, and only 0.67 extra wounds. 12 Banshees with +1 to hit only nets 8 hits, and 5.33 wounds.

12 Banshees with 24 Attacks will net double the hits (12) and double the wounds (8), turning them from a nuisance to a threat.

It's why I think the Vampire Lord with +1 Attack absolutely has a place, partly because his ability is within 15", not wholly within 12", and +1 Attack works everywhere (statistically speaking (and especially on big units), you net more hits and wounds overall by simply increasing the volume of attacks, vs +1 to hit:

20 Bladegheists with 40 attacks
Hit on 3+, net 26.6 hits
Hit on 2+, net 33.33 hits

Give them +1 attack, for 60 attacks
Hit on 3+, net 40 hits

30 Grimghast, with 60 attacks
Hit on 4+ with rerolls, net 45 hits
Hit on 3+ with rerolls, net 53.33 hits

Give them +1 attack, for 90 attacks
Hit on 4+ with rerolls, net 67.5 hits

Obviously given a choice, stack ALL the buffs. But if I only had to pick one, I would go with +1 Attack over all the others, because the math just works out to more damage over any other buff. And with the Vampire Lord, you're not beholden to having to park characters in the thick of a unit to proc the buff. It's the most tactically flexible and easy to pull off, with immediate and great results.

I was just comparing one knight of shrouds to the other. But even comparing to the vlord...

Thing is, units are already keeping in a 12" bubble for guardian of souls, spirit torment, and even allegiance 6+ fnp so it isn't really a cost to that command ability; they will be there anyways. +1 to hit has great synergy with the torment, and all of the army's main damage dealers already have 2 attacks. The hit buff is only one phase but it is every unit within range and, significantly, is stackable. That means chainrasps/reapers can go to hitting on a 2+ re-rolls against anything (rather than just 5+ model units) thanks to spirit torment, allowing them to overcome an enemy unit in one round that might have taken them multiple with a longer-lasting buff. This may seem small on paper but I have seen it win games more times than I can count where +1 attack would not have. Finally, hit bonuses cancel out hit penalties while extra attacks do not. And there are a lot of armies with hit penalties out there now, not to mention realm spells & monster heroes with gryph-feather charm.

Knight of shrouds will also fight better since he benefits from all the other nighthaunt support. His armor ignores all rend and the vlord will not have 6+ fnp from allegiance nor be able to give it to nighthaunt units. Healing favors the vlord but not as much as it may initially seem between allegiance & torment healing.

What the vlord actually offers is great support; if the knight goes down or his command ability isn't great for the context his is an excellent backup. He is a wizard without a warscroll spell but can cast realm spells and mystic shield is very good on nighthaunt units. He has deathly invocation. In a choice between one or the other the knight on foot is a probably going to be the standout for nighthaunt allegiance simply because he enhances a 12" doombubble that is already the go-to tactic. If the knight wasn't 40 points cheaper it would be a different matter though.

Edit: Whoops, I was thinking the vlord was 160 points instead of 140 really either-or at that point.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I was just comparing one knight of shrouds to the other. But even comparing to the vlord...

Thing is, units are already keeping in a 12" bubble for guardian of souls, spirit torment, and even allegiance 6+ fnp so it isn't really a cost to that command ability; they will be there anyways. +1 to hit has great synergy with the torment, and all of the army's main damage dealers already have 2 attacks. The hit buff is only one phase but it is every unit within range and, significantly, is stackable. That means chainrasps/reapers can go to hitting on a 2+ re-rolls against anything (rather than just 5+ model units) thanks to spirit torment, allowing them to overcome an enemy unit in one round that might have taken them multiple with a longer-lasting buff. This may seem small on paper but I have seen it win games more times than I can count where +1 attack would not have. Finally, hit bonuses cancel out hit penalties while extra attacks do not. And there are a lot of armies with hit penalties out there now, not to mention realm spells & monster heroes with gryph-feather charm.

Knight of shrouds will also fight better since he benefits from all the other nighthaunt support. His armor ignores all rend and the vlord will not have 6+ fnp from allegiance nor be able to give it to nighthaunt units. Healing favors the vlord but not as much as it may initially seem between allegiance & torment healing.

What the vlord actually offers is great support; if the knight goes down or his command ability isn't great for the context his is an excellent backup. He is a wizard without a warscroll spell but can cast realm spells and mystic shield is very good on nighthaunt units. He has deathly invocation. In a choice between one or the other the knight on foot is a probably going to be the standout for nighthaunt allegiance simply because he enhances a 12" doombubble that is already the go-to tactic. If the knight wasn't 40 points cheaper it would be a different matter though.

Edit: Whoops, I was thinking the vlord was 160 points instead of 140 really either-or at that point.

Oh don't get me wrong. They're both good tech support pieces! (I have the foot KoS and a VLord in my Nighthaunt list).

The problem with the KoS on foot is that his aura only procs while units remain wholly within 12". That means he needs to be in the thick of things, and some poor charges or positioning could suddenly leave you outside of that tiny footprint. Given multiple objectives and not always being able to commit every character to buffing one big blob of bedsheets, I find it very rare I'll get more than 2 characters supporting/buffing a unit.

In theory, you're right. Let's stack all the buffs, because they're all great.
In practice, I find having to triage certain benefits that just, overall, will perform more consistently than others.

And for me, the +1 Attack from the VLord will always beat out the foot KoS aura.