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Hey all, I'd like to follow the trend with other threads in this sub-forum and start a Nighthaunt Tactica to centralise all the tactical advice, list building etc. in one big thread, so that a new player can find information easily just by reading this thread.

I'll start with a few questions myself, as I'm still starting in AoS (played one 1000 pts game exactly):

- Your favourite Battleline units ? I like the Hexwraiths, especially backed up by a Knight of Shrouds on Steed for more attacks, but they don't have a great battlefield presence. Their speed is good though, I use Pendant of Fell Winds to have a 15" troupe near the KoSoS. Chainrasps look reliable when using at least two units of 20, but I feel like they rely on Battallions to be really useful. Grimghast feel more independent with their built-in rerolls but Bladegheists do the job even better. As for Spirit Hosts, they look great too, albeit there's too few models to reliably contest objectives.

- A must-have Battalion ? As I love Bladegheists I'm thinking having 2x10 Bladegheists with a KoSoS in a Shroudguard for the added durability, as they're quite flimsy otherwise.

- A must-have unit ? People seems to like the 8 Myrmourn Banshees setup, to DS them near the enemy Wizards, do you confirm ?

I'm too worn out these days to really go into much detail but I'll throw a few brief notes in:

-Always take Master of the Spirit Hosts command trait. Always.

-Knight of Shrouds on Steed usually isn't as good as allying in a Vampire Lord, or as good as the one on foot.

-Unless you have a really good reason not to, take a Guardian of Souls with the Beacon artifact for bringing back extra dudes.

-Pay attention to the range of your buff bubbles and bring redundancy and/or character healing. Having a spirit torment or extra guardian of souls works well.

-Chainrasps are among the best battleline in the game, and among the best units overall, simply due to the math of stats vs point cost.

-Pay attention to which abilities return entire models to units; something that returns d3 models could be bringing back d3 chainrasps, d3 hexwraiths, or d3 spirit hosts.

-A unit of 6 spirit hosts is an extremely strong choice due to the above.

Nighthaunt have a number of mobility tricks but most notably is their ability to place so many of their units in reserve.

The Dreadblade Harrow for example is a Hero that can teleport around the battlefield in each of your movement phases so long as he is not within 3" of an enemy unit. An ideal model to keep around in case you end up playing an objective based game where heroes are particularly important.

Make him your general with Spectral Summons and you can move even your slowest unit across the board in the blink of an eye. This works even if that unit is in combat.

Finally, consider a relic such as Pendant of the Fell Wind. Have a load of units you want to speed up? Teleport your Dreadblade within 3" and give them all an extra 3" of movement.

He's otherwise rubbish in combat, but in objective games he really shines.

Thanks for the great tips guys. Yeah it seems the Vampire Lord is interesting because of the unit healing ability and being a wizard, otherwise he's a bit more expensive and doesn't interact much with the army. For example he doesn't count as being a Nighthaunt hero for the purpose of the 6+++ to Nighthaunt units within 12" if I'm not mistaken ?

There's a thing I'm struggling with when list building, it's with how many heroes I'm including. I feel like there's a handful heroes that are absolutely necessary like the Guardian of Souls, Spirit Torment and at least one variation of KoS. At 1000 pts I'm having a hard time not taking these three and that's already a lot of points in 3 models.

Which brings me to another problem I've encountered in my first game: splitting the army. The game I had was with two objectives, one in each deployment zone. If we controlled both at the end of the round we won. I played against Seraphon and as he had abilities to teleport units (feels like this army can do too many things for my taste by the way) I had to leave a unit to control mine, and it was my 20 Chainrasps. He turtled on his side and so I had to suffer shooting and a few charges before being close enough to his own objectives but by then I didn't have much alive anymore and so lost. With everything requiring to be within 12" of a Hero it feels like my movements are really restricted and I have to move into one big block.

I know this is a Nighthaunt tactics, but I think it is worth mentioning the option of running Nighthaunt as Legion of Nagash. Either Legion of Grief, or one of the others.

You gain the ability to bring back a whole unit for a command point (disgusting on 40 Chainrasps), and of course your Vampire Lord will hand out the 6+++ then.

 Aaranis wrote:
Thanks for the great tips guys. Yeah it seems the Vampire Lord is interesting because of the unit healing ability and being a wizard, otherwise he's a bit more expensive and doesn't interact much with the army. For example he doesn't count as being a Nighthaunt hero for the purpose of the 6+++ to Nighthaunt units within 12" if I'm not mistaken ?

There's a thing I'm struggling with when list building, it's with how many heroes I'm including. I feel like there's a handful heroes that are absolutely necessary like the Guardian of Souls, Spirit Torment and at least one variation of KoS. At 1000 pts I'm having a hard time not taking these three and that's already a lot of points in 3 models.

Which brings me to another problem I've encountered in my first game: splitting the army. The game I had was with two objectives, one in each deployment zone. If we controlled both at the end of the round we won. I played against Seraphon and as he had abilities to teleport units (feels like this army can do too many things for my taste by the way) I had to leave a unit to control mine, and it was my 20 Chainrasps. He turtled on his side and so I had to suffer shooting and a few charges before being close enough to his own objectives but by then I didn't have much alive anymore and so lost. With everything requiring to be within 12" of a Hero it feels like my movements are really restricted and I have to move into one big block.

You do need to move about in blocks generally speaking, with a few units as objective guards. 10-man chainrasps work well. The key in the scenario you described would be to leave one unit in a circle around your objective to block him teleporting to it, then ram the rest of the army down his throat. Alot depends on what he was running though.

How do people run Lady O? I'm thinking having her appear behind their lines with some Myrmourn's to cause havoc with casters?

 Stux wrote:
I know this is a Nighthaunt tactics, but I think it is worth mentioning the option of running Nighthaunt as Legion of Nagash. Either Legion of Grief, or one of the others.

You gain the ability to bring back a whole unit for a command point (disgusting on 40 Chainrasps), and of course your Vampire Lord will hand out the 6+++ then.

I've read the rules for the Legion of Grief, it seems very morale centred. But yeah bringing back a whole unit is appealing, however losing the bonus attack phase seems like a hard trade-off, Nighthaunt seems costed for their Ethereal ability and the 10+ charge attack. So, less appeal for deep-strike charges as you can't blitzkrieg a unit as effectively.

Definitely looks like an interesting option to me though, don't really have much experience playing after all.

I'd love to hear people's opinion about Hexwraiths in pure Nighthaunt, they fill the Battleline, bring speed and mortal wounds, and are a good candidate for the +1A ability.

One thing I noticed though, based on maths the Bladegheists are our best blender unit. They're really easy to buff too, just a Spirit Torment gives them reroll hits. Give a unit of 10 +1A and on the charge we're looking at 40 attacks.

Hey guys, had a few games these days with this 1000 pts list:

- KoS on Steed; Ruler of the Spirit Hosts
- GoS with Lantern; Shademist
- Spirit Torment
- 20 Chainrasps
- 2x5 Hexwraiths
- 10 Bladegheists

Lost against a pretty nasty FEC list, but it was illegal since he was actually playing 1050 pts so I won't continue on the subject, won against Gloomspite Gitz, 2x60 Gobs with 3 Chaman Heroes, and today won against a hardcore SCE list comprised of 15 Evocators, Gavriel, and 2x5 Liberators.

The latter was quite unbelievable, I didn't know what Evocators did, so I deployed in a big mass with my whole army (save the Bladegheists in reseves), turn two he strikes the Evocators + Gavriel, give them +6" for the charge, and swiftly proceed to kill my 2x5 Hexwraiths, my GoS and my KoS, leaving my Spirit Torment at 1W left. I just killed 2 Evocators with my Chainrasps and the Spirit Torment.

Come my turn, I pop the Gheists, charge, 10" charge, so I manage to kill Gavriel on the go and a few Evocators, then in the actual combat phase I kill a few more with them. He retaliates, kills the Spirit Torment and the 10 Gheists, I scrape a few more wounds with the Chainrasps, and then he rolls a 5 for Bravery and the rest of the unit flees. I only have my intact 20 Chainrasps alive, and his 2x5 Liberators camping his own two objectives. He concedes because he can't win.

So morale of the story: Bladegheists don't mess around but generally don't live after their slaughter (or get focused early when not in reserves). My GoS never hearled ONE SINGLE MODEL EVER in all my games, either he failed his cast, got dispelled or died young. His +1 to Wound aura is really ace though. I'm thinking either trying the GoS with Glass next time, or in the long term playing one more Spirit Torment, because this guy healed like 9 Chainrasps in 3 turns against the Gobbos while packing a decent punch.

I've found Nighthaunt to be quite fragile, but they have a really nice mobility that won me games. The ability to teleport a unit near the general allowed me to bring my 2 Hexwraiths near my General and 9" from the Gobs, then I healed them 3 models with Ruler of Spirit Hosts, placed them nearer, and manage a 10" charge that mowed down more Gobs and secured me the objective. Best move I've ever done in a Warhammer game.