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So, here we go: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/08/02/legion-focus-night-lords-aug-2gw-homepage-post-2/

Legion Trait: -1 to enemy leadership (up to a total of -3). As mentioned in the article, this stacks with icons of despair so you could massively reduce enemy leadership. I can see some synergy with this and guns that wound based on leadership (cerberus springs to mind).
Stratagem: 1cp for -1 to hit chosen unit. Pretty good.
Warlord Trait: Reroll any one of the rolls made by your warlord per battle round. Not bad. Like a free command reroll. Except, you can reroll a whole charge roll, not just a single die.
Psychic power: wc 6. +2 S and +1 A for a chosen unit. This could be brutal for an assault unit. Khorne berserkers with this... ouch.
Relic: melee weapon. +1 S, ap -3, d3 damage. Gives your lord an extra attack. As mentioned in the article, the psychic power and this could make your lord pretty scary.

Psychic power only affects one model, save it for Characters in combat to make the most of it. Assassinate the enemy leaders and watch the rest crumble.

Damn, you're right. Skim-read a little too fast.

I can see the appeal in buffing a Heldrake in a pinch. S7 -> S9 means you wound T4 on 3+ -> 2+, T7 on 4+->3+, and T8 on 5+ -> 3+.

Still doesn't make it any less scary, 6 Strength 7 ap-3 attacks, additional attacks on 6's and reroll 1's. Reroll failed wounds and D3 damage, you're talking a very dead character based off most statistical outcomes and even most special characters will definitely be left severely crippled at best.

This article also has GW confirming that a minus to hit is distinctly detrimental to plasma.

Welp, I take back all the positivity from the Iron Warriors thing. This one is incredibly fluffy and useful compared to the IW one.

If I were to be a Real Stickler, you can "Possibly" also technically nullify Overwatch using the Legion Stratagem as the only requirement is a shooting attack. Use a large unit of raptors, Multicharge x number of units, use 1 CP to nullify most overwatch due to the -1 to hit. Then follow in with the killers on the tied up units to get the job done.

I'm really glad the NL relic is a big nasty weapon. This guy was looking pretty silly on the battlefield lately with nothing to represent his weapon.

Tristanleo wrote:
If I were to be a Real Stickler, you can "Possibly" also technically nullify Overwatch using the Legion Stratagem as the only requirement is a shooting attack. Use a large unit of raptors, Multicharge x number of units, use 1 CP to nullify most overwatch due to the -1 to hit. Then follow in with the killers on the tied up units to get the job done.

Overwatch is never modified, always and only hits on a 6

I imagine the Night Lords will do Obliterators and Mutilators better than Iron Warriors now, since they can do Tzeentch, and stack In Midnight Clad with Changeling's aura.

jcd386 wrote:

Tristanleo wrote:
If I were to be a Real Stickler, you can "Possibly" also technically nullify Overwatch using the Legion Stratagem as the only requirement is a shooting attack. Use a large unit of raptors, Multicharge x number of units, use 1 CP to nullify most overwatch due to the -1 to hit. Then follow in with the killers on the tied up units to get the job done.

Overwatch is never modified, always and only hits on a 6

Damn, At least it might keep overcharge plasma at bay or similar style weapons so your guys are more likely to survive.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Welp, I take back all the positivity from the Iron Warriors thing. This one is incredibly fluffy and useful compared to the IW one.

I'm not seeing it tbh. The warlord trait, psychic power, and relic do all work together to create a potentially deadly combat lord, but compared to a demon prince he'd still be lacking. Not to mention he could benefit from the IW relic and likely others, but not this one.

The legion tactic runs the same issue things like fear did last edition, we are already seeing morale based abilities made irrelevant for many armies and lists, a trend that will likely only continue to escalate. The tactic is your big always on ability, you don't want it accomplishing nothing against certain armies.

The stratagem is the best part, good for keeping a key unit alive a bit longer but not much else. Depending how timing ends up actually working and if the plasma thing pans out.

While I can't say any of the legions have impressed me greatly so far, night lords strike me as the weakest. IW tactic is about the same (same armies will generally ignore both), but they have a much stronger warlord trait to build around, as well as a better relic. The EC tactic is fairly versatile, with a solid stratagem and the warlord trait/relic still being up for grabs.

So far I don't think there's a unit that is innately immune to morale, and all require character buffs. This will require you to pick your targets but if done right can potentially collapse entire armies at the right moment, which fits the NIghtlord's MO.

Not saying this is a great tactic, but compared to the IW one this is much more in line with the fluff, and offers some tactical choices other than "shoot everything that moves".

As usual the Tau are going to be obliterated by this barring commander spam. With every release we have less and less reasons to take troops it seems. The morale debuff is huge for Tau. We're quite nearly getting close to automatically lose a unit status.

Tristanleo wrote:
Psychic power only affects one model, save it for Characters in combat to make the most of it. Assassinate the enemy leaders and watch the rest crumble.

It sounds good on any special weapon sergeants too.

Diabolic Strength bumps an Exalted Sorcerer's staff up to S8... One point closer to the model being usable, I guess.

As for actual Night Lords stuff, everything in this article looks either good or great.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
So far I don't think there's a unit that is innately immune to morale, and all require character buffs. This will require you to pick your targets but if done right can potentially collapse entire armies at the right moment, which fits the NIghtlord's MO.

Not saying this is a great tactic, but compared to the IW one this is much more in line with the fluff, and offers some tactical choices other than "shoot everything that moves".

There are a few units (deathwing comes to mind). The units who are so due to character buffs are also fairly common, and CSM as a whole lacks any means to remove them outside a single psychic power or charging said character if they left him really exposed. So that's at least a handful of armies the tactic will do almost nothing for. The fact that these armies tend to be the competitive ones well... it's basically like having fear across your army in 7th edition while playing in a space marine heavy meta. It isn't technically worthless but it isn't going to be useful much of the time, and those times it is doing nothing are the ones where you need every advantage in the first place.

It's fluffy, in the sense that terror tactics are a thing nightlords use. It's not fluffy, in the sense that basic guardsmen and even renegade infantry are not going to care one bit. It'll work well against SM armies though.

Again, not quite the steamroller we were expecting, but at least it's something fluffy with counterplay. the IW ended up being a literal copypaste of the IF one and doesn't have much in the way of counterplay.

If nothing else, this at least gives hope that the other legions will get something interesting if not powerful.

TBH I'd just like an edition where CSM as a whole aren't a joke army. So I'm kinda biased against fluffy but meh.

Tbh I'd like to relive the days of 3.5 edition too, but in all honesty I'd prefer being the underdog than be the next Taudar.

However, at least legion-specific armies are looking up if the EC choices is anything to go by, and if berserkers retain their hilarious "fight twice with two chainswords" rule.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Again, not quite the steamroller we were expecting, but at least it's something fluffy with counterplay. the IW ended up being a literal copypaste of the IF one and doesn't have much in the way of counterplay.

If nothing else, this at least gives hope that the other legions will get something interesting if not powerful.

Don't get too excited. According to White Dwarf, Alpha Legion get "Hidden in Plain Sight" which is a direct copypaste of the Raven Guard tactic.

At least it wasn't the Night Lords (the chaos analogues to RG).

Plus Alpha Legions are closet loyalists anyways.

That's arguably fluffier for alpha legion than RG. Honestly, I'm not sure what a fluffier alpha legion tactic would look like. Screwing with enemy CP seems more like a warlord trait.

I'm liking these Night Lords rules so much!

Current rules allow NL to outright murder certain armies, Tau will have huge problems, and SM armies too I think.

Some other armies wont suffer too much against NL, but that is fine, I wasn't expecting us to get any instant-win buttons. I mean, it's nice to get powerful abilities, especially since 7th ed. NL were kind of a sad joke.
Tyranids and Horde orcs should be able to do just fine against NL.
Also Conscript + Commissar hordes do well as long as they manage to keep commissar alive.

One big weakness for NL lists will be the min-maxing of the Ld modifiers, you do that and then you face a mass vehicle army and you lose hard. Although Plasma Raptors should be good choice anyway.
Haha I'm just so excited now! Happy Happy Joy Joy!

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Again, not quite the steamroller we were expecting, but at least it's something fluffy with counterplay. the IW ended up being a literal copypaste of the IF one and doesn't have much in the way of counterplay.

If nothing else, this at least gives hope that the other legions will get something interesting if not powerful.

Iron Warriors are the mirror image of the Imperial Fists. That's the dynamic they have going on, so having the same rules makes sense to me. It's also why they were not treated with respect by the other legions. Explains the bitterness.

Iron Warriors are simply Imperial Fists with goatees.

 Badablack wrote:
I'm really glad the NL relic is a big nasty weapon. This guy was looking pretty silly on the battlefield lately with nothing to represent his weapon.

Well, technically speaking the relic doesn't represent that big spear. It specifically has to be a pair of lightning claws.
For whatever reason relics are exactingly specific now, so you could get some pushback in some circumstances- I wouldn't care but I can easily see a TO saying 'nope'

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Again, not quite the steamroller we were expecting, but at least it's something fluffy with counterplay. the IW ended up being a literal copypaste of the IF one and doesn't have much in the way of counterplay.

If nothing else, this at least gives hope that the other legions will get something interesting if not powerful.

Iron Warriors are the mirror image of the Imperial Fists. That's the dynamic they have going on, so having the same rules makes sense to me. It's also why they were not treated with respect by the other legions. Explains the bitterness.

Iron Warriors are simply Imperial Fists with goatees.

That just gives me weird "NOTICE ME SENPAI" vibes off of Perturabo now.

 Gamgee wrote:
As usual the Tau are going to be obliterated by this barring commander spam. With every release we have less and less reasons to take troops it seems. The morale debuff is huge for Tau. We're quite nearly getting close to automatically lose a unit status.

Be patient, FFS. You'll get yours.

And hopefully it will be more than one codex. If they can do this to just CSM, who have traditionally had one book OR LESS for themselves (they used to share a book with daemons, IIRC), they can do it to the Tau.

I'd look forward to getting a Tau Empire codex that just covers the Tau sept.

Then another just for Farsight covering the original farsight enclave as well as a few new planets his forces have colonized since they broke away from the greater good.

Then another just for the colonial forces themselves. The tip of the spear, so to speak. The Tau's rapid strike force that puts down rebellion and hostile forces that refuse to join the greater good (you know...for their own good, because the ethereals know best). This could be your typical suit-heavy tau force, while the Tau Empire would be more infantry focused as it would be more of a defense force for the established Sept worlds.

They could also do one just for the kroot and all other Tau alien allies.

Necrons, Eldar, Orks, and Nids are all the same way.

I'd get busy spamming the GW facebook account with Xenos requests.

Voss wrote:

 Badablack wrote:
I'm really glad the NL relic is a big nasty weapon. This guy was looking pretty silly on the battlefield lately with nothing to represent his weapon.

Well, technically speaking the relic doesn't represent that big spear. It specifically has to be a pair of lightning claws.
For whatever reason relics are exactingly specific now, so you could get some pushback in some circumstances- I wouldn't care but I can easily see a TO saying 'nope'

If some TO instructed me that my spear/claw Lord wasn't following the full canonicity of the Claws of the Black Hunt relic and its need for a specific claw/claw setup and thus could not be played as such I would poke him in the gut with a sharpened flamer template and moonwalk out of that tournament flipping everyone the bird.

...and then sheepishly come back in and get all my stuff before they called the cops. Hopefully the Black Legion relic is still that nasty Black Hand doomfist.