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Hi all,

I've been tinkering with the idea of getting into Age of Sigmar for a while, and since the release of Mortal Realms, I saw Nighthaunt as an easy way to build some cool models and start up a new game. Obviously, with lockdown and covid19 playing havoc on my gaming opportunities and no one in my area playing AoS since moving to a new city, my foray has been a bit stop start.

That being said, I like the models a lot, and the idea of having a ghostly procession with a theme in mind has me keen to get started again, even if the army is just for a shelf. I have been told that Nighthaunt aren't the most competitive army and there are different soup combinations that can be done with them, so input on a decent 2k list would be great! I do have a selection of models which I'll list below, and if there are any other necessary units to make up the army, I'd be keen on hearing what they are so I can actually field the army and not lose immediately.

What I have so far:
70 chainrasps
12 Mymourn Banshees
1 Spirit Torment, 2 chainghasts
4 glaivewraith stalkers
2 nightvault warbands (these can be run as chainrasps)
1 Guardian of Souls
1 Knight of Shrouds on ethereal steed

In addition, I'd really like to hear some decent lore involving nighthaunt. So far, reading the introductory books on them and the mortal realms magazines, their fluff feels quite bland and I feel like there has to be something more to them than that.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Cheers

If you haven't read the Battletome, you're missing out. There's a lot to digest there.

Honestly? Nighthaunts are one of those armies that looks really cool on the table (and on paper) - that I've just never been impressed with play-wise.

Kanluwen wrote:If you haven't read the Battletome, you're missing out. There's a lot to digest there.

I haven't picked up the battletome yet as I was following along with the mortal realms magazine and I was also unsure about the different sub-factions that you can run Nighthaunt as a part of like Legions of Nagash. Do you have any insight into those as to what would be a good way to run them as?

ccs wrote:Honestly? Nighthaunts are one of those armies that looks really cool on the table (and on paper) - that I've just never been impressed with play-wise.

Is this related to Nighthaunt the battletome or nighthaunt in general? I'd like to hear some more input regarding what doesn't impress you.

Night haunt have the double attack if you roll high enough on charge rolls.

It's strong when it works but more often it won't trigger and standard attacks are not that great.

This is the milestone around the armies neck, other armies get consistently active bonuses but nighthaunt dont.

However they'll eventually get a new book in line with other armies.

Basically you buy the NH battletome for the fluff. For allegiance you use the Legion of Grief from Forbidden Power.

Turns out 'we are overpowered but only on a 10+ charge' doesn't make a effective basis for an allegiance, who knew?

I've yet to actually lose to my mates Night haunt with my tempest keep dwarf army.

The charge bonus is too random, and without it they just don't hit that hard.

Night Haunt are a cool army, a buddy of mine plays them.

They are like Harlequins in 40k, where they are immune to rend, and have a (pretty much) army-wide 4+ unmodified save.

They have a bunch of cool units. The Bladegiest revenants are particularly deadly unit, as they can fall back and charge, and hit really hard. Especially with the support hero nearby.

The battalion with the chaingasts is also really obnoxious. My buddy runs two units of 20 of them, with the lantern ghost reviving heaps of them every turn.

I think they work really well as multiple small units for the most part, as that allows you to roll as many charges as possible. They are a bit of a finesse army, but can give a lot of armies a bit of a headache, due to army-wide fly, fear, and immunity to rend. I think they have a lot of power, but it might take practice to get the hang of them.

If there is one truly strong way to run NH, it is chainrasp spam. That unit is too dam cheap for what it does. But the kit is so expensive for a horde unit that it dissuades any attempt, and the end result would not compete with tourney-level cheese so the dedicated tryhards don't attempt it either.

Thanks for the replies folks!

I had heard that chainrasp spam was a pretty big deal, hence picking up a good few copies of issue 1 of mortal realms to build up my core units and avoid paying the full price for them.

I was also told that the bladegeist revenants were pretty strong, so I was looking to build a unit or two of them (on top of them being cool models) to flesh out my forces.

I have also heard that spirit hosts are a good unit to have in the army too as they're cheap? Are they worth picking up to go alongside my horde of chain rasps?

Finally, from what I have so far, would I be on the way to building a semi-decent list for the Nighthaunt? I realise there are power level problems now but still, keen to get the most out of them for what is a fairly cheap army to build right now.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If you haven't read the Battletome, you're missing out. There's a lot to digest there.

I haven't picked up the battletome yet as I was following along with the mortal realms magazine and I was also unsure about the different sub-factions that you can run Nighthaunt as a part of like Legions of Nagash. Do you have any insight into those as to what would be a good way to run them as?

ccs wrote:Honestly? Nighthaunts are one of those armies that looks really cool on the table (and on paper) - that I've just never been impressed with play-wise.

Is this related to Nighthaunt the battletome or nighthaunt in general? I'd like to hear some more input regarding what doesn't impress you.

Practical experience as their opponent.
A buddy plays them, is a decent enough player, has a decent collection (around 3k, maybe 4k pts+) so he's not hindered on choice of units to pull out of the case... They look great on the table. And having read their Tome they don't look bad rules-wise & I could certainly make something I'd have enough fun with to justify the cost.
BUT....

All that said? I've never lost a game to him when he brings them out.
The closest I've ever come was the other week in a team game. 2k combo of the living vrs his 2k of the dead for some Halloween themed fun. We tied because I didn't notice that my partner didn't have enough control of an objective. Had I noticed, that would've been rectified.
But in a straight up fight? I simply mow through him. Often with either Goblins or Beastmen. But I've done it with Khorne, Cities, & Fyreslayers as well.
His charge gimmick can deal some extra damage when it triggers, but otherwise he hits my units like a not-quite-wet noodle.

** Forgot to mention that neither of us use big expensive characters much. Maybe that'd swing things, I don't know. But if the army relies upon something like that? Then it's a crap army IMO.

Well every army has it's crutch unit without which you are gimping yourself. If it happens to be big model for nightgaunt it's not crap army. That's just nighgaunt.

Whatever crutch unit is is irrelevant. You either take it or you gimp yourself

tneva82 wrote:
Well every army has it's crutch unit without which you are gimping yourself. If it happens to be big model for nightgaunt it's not crap army. That's just nighgaunt.

Whatever crutch unit is is irrelevant. You either take it or you gimp yourself

Are you going to tell the person who's starting AoS what the unit is or is this just to get the post count up?

@ccs, it's a shame to think that the army doesn't really perform all too well, I'm guessing they aren't as beginner friendly as Stormcast?

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well every army has it's crutch unit without which you are gimping yourself. If it happens to be big model for nightgaunt it's not crap army. That's just nighgaunt.

Whatever crutch unit is is irrelevant. You either take it or you gimp yourself

Are you going to tell the person who's starting AoS what the unit is or is this just to get the post count up?

@ccs, it's a shame to think that the army doesn't really perform all too well, I'm guessing they aren't as beginner friendly as Stormcast?

Used to be bladegiests and grimghasts, but as it stands now even those don't pull enough weight. If you run legion of grief they're better because they can be recycled, but typically you lack the punchyness or staying power of other armies, and thus recycling units becomes a crutch for a bigger issue.

 Jaxler wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well every army has it's crutch unit without which you are gimping yourself. If it happens to be big model for nightgaunt it's not crap army. That's just nighgaunt.

Whatever crutch unit is is irrelevant. You either take it or you gimp yourself

Are you going to tell the person who's starting AoS what the unit is or is this just to get the post count up?

@ccs, it's a shame to think that the army doesn't really perform all too well, I'm guessing they aren't as beginner friendly as Stormcast?

Used to be bladegiests and grimghasts, but as it stands now even those don't pull enough weight. If you run legion of grief they're better because they can be recycled, but typically you lack the punchyness or staying power of other armies, and thus recycling units becomes a crutch for a bigger issue.

Yeah, I'll tack on to this. Nighthaunt was my first army as well, and the main issue has just been codex creep since their release. Nighthaunt is really suffering since it was one of the first 2.0 battletomes A good example of this was the Mortal Wound ability they could do. When introduced, it was pretty strong since MW spam wasn't very common. Now it's not that great. We also lack subfactions which is another major issue, and our Allegiance abilities are not that strong to make up for that.

As mentioned, Legion of Grief is really the only way to run them. Our ability to bring back models is extremely limited in the main codex, compared to the other Death dexes which also hurts. You essentially only have Spectral Lure, The Torment and an Ruler of the Spirit hosts ability. This really hurt our ability to actually grind down enemies.

We also really lack punching power across nearly all of our units. Grimghast were a cornerstone until they got Points hikes because of how good they were in Legion of Nagash, not in Nighthaunt. This ended up hurting the Nighthaunt pretty bad. Bladegheists and Myrmourn just arn't enough to make up for the lack of layered rules, weak allegiance abilities and very poor unit abilities across most of the battletome.

The dated NH rules do have one small advantage--several abilities were worded as returning "slain models" instead if the more modern 'wounds worth of slain models'. That means Olynder and the Black Coach can return entire spirit hosts to a unit.* Having a coach bring back 9 wounds of spirit host can really swing a combat in your favor. Still a niche benefit but it's something.

*And Ruler of the Spirit Hosts, but that requires NH allegiance proper and as previously established Legion of Grief is better.


But yeah, NH was an average 'tome when it came out and has been left behind by power creep since. Nurgle too, but then it got an upgrade with Wrath of the Everchosen. Stormcast and Idoneth also have problems along those lines.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

@ccs, it's a shame to think that the army doesn't really perform all too well, I'm guessing they aren't as beginner friendly as Stormcast?

(shrugs) They seem pretty straight forward, so I don't think a new player'd have much trouble playing them. Though if they get the same mediocre damage output my buddy does they might get discouraged.

Or who knows, the new person might go for one or more of the big giant named characters & wonder "What's CCS talking about? These guys are great!". Like I said, we rarely include named characters in our games. Never have. We prefer clashing armies, not special character duels.... So I can't really judge how that'd swing a game as I'm not really familiar with NH characters (and don't care to look them up either).

Thanks folks for your replies and insight into the faction it is helpful.

So now that Legion of Grief has been established as the best way to run Nighthaunt, what are the general builds that people are following?

Also, what are players' wants for a new battletome, and what can we expect from Broken Realms if Nighthaunt are getting rules too?

As another player who plays against a solid, smart player that runs Nighthaunt, that ive never lost against...

Reliable Traits that will actually impact the game in a non-toxic way. Simply improving their fight-twice on a high charge roll ability, to trigger easier, instead of changing the ability wholesale isn't a good place to start. Random chance doubling your damage output(not exactly double but you get the point) doesn't make for an engaging trait.

After that, GW needs to stop being shy about having the same unit having different points in different books. Using Grimghasts as the example, they were solid and fine in NH, but overtuned in LoN. Let Grimghasts cost more in LoN if they're so much stronger with that trait.

Other than that, the book just needs an updating to be inline with modern tomes. Sub-faction traits, tune up some units, nudge a few points here and there.

Difficult thing about balancing NH is every unit being ethereal and having fly. Both of those things bump a unit's points up considerably, completely justified given how useful such a unit is to have in an army. Being able to specifically pick out high-rend enemies AND having the fly movement to facilitate that is a potent combination of abilities. See LoN examples. But when every unit has it, there are diminishing returns. Not every part of the battlefield will be obstructed enough for the cost of fly to be worthwhile. Not every enemy unit will have enough rend for the cost of ethereal to be worthwhile.

The natural solution is to have a stronger set of allegiance abilities to compensate for the entire army paying for privileges not every unit will be using. Unfortunately NH allegiance does not do that. Converting the 10+ charge to a command ability used at the start of the combat phase to give an immediate (extra) fight to a unit that charged would be a good step in the right direction. Alternatively make all NH units that charged the same turn strike at the start of the combat phase (instead of normal initiative).

Sub-factions steadily going from alternative options to mandatory upgrades also hurts NH for not having them.

I can't say I'm a fan of it going to a Command Ability, unless there are other changes to allegiance traits added or buffed to make up for it, but that is one solution. At their current damage output, I think the fight-at-start idea could work just fine. Certainly better than changing it to something involving Fear and terror and modifying battleshock since... well its a bad mechanic to begin with and rarely matters. Though, from a fluffy perspective it does give me pause, since they'd be out-speeding some factions that are known entirely for their fast reactions. Tough to say exactly how I'd change it.

Personally it is a trait I do not feel represents how NH fight in the fluff. It is almost always them taking hits then swinging back, and it is not a sudden surge but a steady advance. Pretty much the opposite of how wave of terror works. Were it my call I'd chuck it out entirely. But then I don't think the functionality of ethereal properly represents how ethereal works, nor do I think NH should universally have fly (back in WHFB they could move through terrain but not enemy units).

Yeah from games I've played the fly almost never really matters at most it'll save you a couple of inches going over terrain.

I don't think the double fight ability being a command point ability works either, that makes it reliable but the points would skyrocket as a result because it's very strong if it activates every time.

Add more terrain. Play trees as solid rather one you can travel through. Helps fly instantly

Maybe have an allegience trait that forces the opponent to take a battleshock test immediately after a nighthaunt unit attacks it and rolls 2d6 dropping the lowest?