Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've never been a real competitive player, always building armies to a fluffy theme or based on figs that I think look cool. As a result my tournament record is abysmal. Now in general I don;t really care. I attend tournaments to play with new people and see a ton of painted armies. However, just once I'd like to see how the other half lives and build an army with competition in mind. I love the Nighthaunt miniatures and would like to put together a 2000 point force. What's the most competitive build with this army? What units should I focus on? Are there any I should avoid?

Well first off I'd warn you that Nighthaunt arent an especially competitive army.

That isnt to say you can't build a decently strong army, you absolutely can! But, you cant really go toe to toe with the strongest lists. It sucks, but there you go. They just don't really have answers to an optimised Bonereapers lists, and will be outpaced by optimised summoning armies.

So the first question to ask is: are you ok with not being able to smash tournaments, but instead bring an optimised Nighthaunt build that should do ok for pickup games?

If yes, we can look at the best options Nighthaunt has and go from there!

If no, you may want to look at a different army. If you are especially keen on Death, then Bonereapers would be a decent option.

I'm ok with them not being the best. I don't need to go 6/6 in a tournament, more like 3/6 or even 2/6 would be way better then I usually do. A decent army for pickup games would be great as well.

NH is a very nuance army mix with a couple elite units and some heavy chaff units.

You really want to have a couple units to hit hard along with lots of small heroes to help your chaff units and 1 big hero to buff your hard hitting unit.

They need to play both aggressive and passive at the same time, unlike some armies that will do 1 or the other, they really need to do both (kinda like how skaven can do it). You still want your chaff to get up in there, but still able to hold objectives. Using them as meat shields, holders, and zoning out spaces, you will have a couple other units running around them as a hard hitting unit, and then your chaff can also either clean up the mess, or just has back ups.

The problem with NH is that their hard hitting units has a low chance to actually hit hard, you'll want to take the battalion that makes you fight twice on 9+ to charger rather than 10+, this is the best way to get that better chance for you to deal enough damage to matter. Save your CP for re-roll charges and always try to get a unit to double fight, if you are not able to then you most likely will lose 1/2 if not most of that unit. You'll always want a back up unit too. This is why you need to be aggressive with you Chainrasp, b.c if you failed to double attack at least you can soften the hits back at your or hold them in place so you can retreat and charge again.

They are a very fun and rewarding army when you get them to work, but they take a lot of work to make them... well work.

There are a few units you can take as your big hitters and a few different heroes, look over and make sure you know which ones you like better. For example, do you like DSing and charging, or do you like Retreat and charging better? B.c depending on that will depend on the hammer unit you take and the heroes to go with them.

Regardless you'll for sure want Chainrasp, at least a unit of 40 then 2x10 mans for now, the other thing is, you can just forgo the 2-3 hard hitting units and do the Horde Chainrasp list, as they can be buffed up a lot for melee, that is a harder list to play and is much easier to be counter, but its also crazy sight to be seen with 4x40 of those guys on the take with 3-4 heroes and another 2-3 10mans DSing to surround the opponent (its s 200 model army lol), its a very long game army too and i don;t recommend as a starting list. But just something to thing about.

I am personally looking at buying this army myself b.c i've always loved them, and i didn''t buy them at the start b.c i was rebuilding my BoC, but they are done now (over done honestly), tho i'll still have to wait 6 months b.c of work/covid problems.

A more competitive way of running NH is to run them with Legions of Nagash allegiance and skip the units that cannot be used there.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
A more competitive way of running NH is to run them with Legions of Nagash allegiance and skip the units that cannot be used there.

The command ability to resurrect a destroyed unit alone makes this a very nice option!

I once had to kill a 30 man unit of grimghasts twice, and was halfway through it a third time when the game ended. Fun.