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Continuing from the N&R thread;

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Nighthaunt all have fly--that is a massive advantage in mobility. Granted not every map will give opportunity for it, but the tactical opportunities it opens up are quite valuable. They need to be played as a mobile finesse army, despite their toughness they are not a straightforward combat warband.

I'm interested to see people say they are bad, as that is the opposite I have heard everywhere else. Our local NH player wrecked the field against all sorts of warbands, only having serious trouble against Splintered Fang for obvious reasons. Would definitely like to hear about you guys' experience, maybe we can start a thread in the appropriate subforum?

I feel that Nighthaunt are among the weakest warbands in warcry, if not actually the weakest warband, even after the points "rebalancing" done in Tome of Champions 2021. They were one of the first AOS warbands to be translated into warcry, so the design ethos has changed a lot since that point.

Here is why I feel Nighthaunt are lagging behind:

Anecdotal evidence first:

Terrain vs. Flying -
While flying is powerful and should be baked into the cost of a model, rarely do we see terrain setups that make flying matter at all. if you use the terrain cards to set up your battlefield, (and why shouldn't you?) then there is a 99.9% chance that anything over 3" high will be placed on the table that matters to objective gathering or gameplay in general. And when cards are not use, terrain is still rarely set up so that anything higher than 3" is used. We cant have baby hurting their wittle head on the hard turf of the bloodwind spoils by falling down and going boom, can we? So the promise of verticality in the rules is thwarted by fundamental design fiat of the terrain cards themselves. Flying allows ghosts to get to the enemy fast and do next to no damage while they get brutalized in return. There is a disconnect here.

Toughness vs. damage output -
If you trust the statistical analysis that people like Reedo have performed, then there is no question that GW designers overrate toughness. Though I would hazard to guess that we as players feel it on an intuitive level outside of such mathematical influences, and thus makes this anecdotal. Yet, for all the huffing and puffing by GW design team about their valuation of toughness, it fails to give nighthaunt the stamina such insubstantial/incorporeal beings would intuitively enjoy. Chainrasps are a joke, and it is my estimation that they should be avoided unless you have 80 points that cannot be filled any other way. And it cant because of how everything is costed. More on that next point. I would not begrudge the low damage output of the boo bois if the toughness was actually there. But ghostys still drop easily, and flying nor toughness helps with that.

List building -
There isn't a "point spectrum" to build a list from. and if you're trying to get the most out of your points without going over, or relying on the good graces of your opponents when you do go over, then you are stuck building some fairly predetermined lists. This leads me to believe that even with the new points adjustments, they are still not costed correctly. Just when you think you've got something that might remotely enjoy the same combo techniques an other warband would enjoy, you realize that such a thing isn't remotely within the allotted points.

Objective evidence:
Reedo's youtube channel pouring over the math averages and reverse engineering the design process is fundamental to understanding how toughness is criminally overvalued by GW designers, and how this among other design choices negatively impacts Nighthaunt and their average chances against other warbands.

This has been corroborated in other content creators channels. One content creator thinks that nighthaunt are not as bad as everyone thinks they are, and even he lists them as least amongst all available warbands. How he comes to that conflicting conclusion is beyond me.

I have a lot more to say on the topic, but I want this to be a back and forth discussion and not me vomiting a screed across your screens.

[edit]
This is my grab-it-from-the-case-and-play nighthaunt list post TOC2021:
Briar Queen
3x Myrmourn Banshees
2x Spirit Hosts
1010 pts.

Spirit hosts are about the only thing nighthaunt have a solid lead on, and even they were reduced in points with the update. The myrmourn are a bit better now, so taking 3 gives me back 45 points i would have spent prior to the update. The briar queen is an interesting ranged option to explore for the ghosts, and still being a not bad leader option. I wont take a second leader options as that eats into my spirit host points. And you cant have those points. They are autoallocated, and immutable. And as you can imagine, that becomes boring super effing fast. For me and my opponents. But what other choice is there?

What do you usually play against, and what list(s) did you use before this update?

My partner runs Nighthaunt and I play Corvus Cabal, and she generally stomps me. I find the toughness a hard barrier to get past and the flying means she can hide in a corner and make some missions impossible for me.

We accidentally played the second convergence for my quest a few times because I'm an idiot and didn't realize the first convergence was on the bottom of the prior page. It was completely insurmountable. I had to destroy one of her groups, which she put as Tomb Banshee, Spirit Host, and Dreadblade Harrow. her deployment started behind a little fortress. She put the Spirit Host on top and hid the other two down below, and I couldn't fight my way past to even have a chance to drop down and do damage.

We haven't played with the new update yet, but I'm really dreading that she can fit more into her list.

I will note that my partner is not well-versed enough in wargaming in general for her to play her army as a mobile finesse army . 90% of the time she plays it as a straightforward combat army and still plows me. Although she is canny enough to know that when my objective is to kill certain units, those units should move away.

What Corvus are you running?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What do you usually play against, and what list(s) did you use before this update?

Thats hard to say, since everyone i play against has at least a dozen warbands each. Kinda lucky in that way. But i suppose i see mostly low tier warbands against my nighthaunt such as iron golems, tzeentch mortals, ironjaws, daughters of khaine.

Previous lists usually had 2-3 chainrasps, a reaper, 2 spirit hosts, knight of souls or an extoller of shyish. Sometimes toying with a spirit torment. Its a bit hard for me to justify 2 leaders, as much as id like to give it a shot.

As for the poster above me dreading his gf can fit more in her list: She would be hard pressed to fit a single chainrasp with the changes. If anything, the changes just make it to where you likely wont go too far past allocated points. I see an average drop of 60 points in the lists i usually take. Unless they start handing out rerolls for 25 pts a pop, you wont see night haunt be able to take advantage of tbat point reduction in a meaningful way.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What Corvus are you running?

Spire Stalker as a leader
2 Shrike Talons
2 Spire Stalkers
1 Cabalist with Familiar
1 Cabalist
4 Cabalists with Spear
I had a mindstealer sphiranx ally but he got straight up murdered in his first game (albeit, that game was to tame a chimera, so not by nighthaunt)
and I have a chimera now, but it hasn't hit the table since I tamed it.

As for the poster above me dreading his gf can fit more in her list: She would be hard pressed to fit a single chainrasp with the changes. If anything, the changes just make it to where you likely wont go too far past allocated points. I see an average drop of 60 points in the lists i usually take. Unless they start handing out rerolls for 25 pts a pop, you wont see night haunt be able to take advantage of tbat point reduction in a meaningful way.

Sorry, specifically what I'm dreading is her upgrading her glaivewraiths that she doesn't like to the myrmourn banshees that she does like. She usually takes glaivewraiths only because she can't fit all the stuff she wants without them. She doesn't actually have any chainrasps.

I find it very interesting to read about you guys' experiences, would love to hear more.

The local NH player at my flgs used a Tomb Banshee general, some myrmourns, and several reapers. The reapers were generally expected to die (could bring them back at any rate) but went in to attack models with 1" range from 2" away, forcing them to move and engage. Once things were tied up with them other elements moved in to gank. Mobility was a big factor--a lot of spreading forces out initially then bringing them in to focus on one spot, a lot of having models lurk out of range but ready to pounce on an objective if the opponent moved away.

I've only played a handful of games, but it definitely seems like mobility is very important for many of the scenarios.

Playing with Iron Golems I've really struggled with games where you have to try and get over to objective markers while my dark dwarf spends the entire game slowly crossing the table
(The 'strong point' of defence for them I've found is almost entirely circumvented by the exploding dice mechanic, and the single hit/wound/save roll - but that's a topic for another time!)

4" move is manageable, 3" is just too dam slow to do anything.

A big blow to these high costed elite armies is attrition. This is highlighted more so in how forces are divided via hammer dagger shield and rarely are they all ever on board at once.

The more activations you have, the better youll do.

Its not tbat cheaper chaff is broken, its that not all warbands have the option to take them. Even storm cast have access to aetherwings for cheap (even after update) units to pump up activation numbers.

But that a problem with design fiat overall than just nighthaunt. Nighthaunt are just struck by it more so than other warbands, on an effectiveness per model basis.

There is a counterbalance though; using abilities on more elite models generally gets more effect. Sometimes a lot more. And a medium number of mid-grade units is not a bad way to go. Oftentimes the enemy will either be wounding you on 5s or have less numbers. NH can also bring dead models back, so against chaff-heavy armies that can turn into a strong lead on activations late game.

If someone could tell me how to win a game with the Iron Golems that would be appreciated
Just that damned critical hit mechanic, it makes the high defensive values a lot less useful than you would like them to be.

Also does anyone with experience know if its worth getting hold of a Fomoroid Crusher or one of the other beasties? Are there rules for them coming into the game randomly (and being a 3rd-party, encountered by both warbands) or are they just for campaign play as an addition to a warband?

Hm I'd have to check the rune marks but I'm not sure the crusher can be brought in as a wandering beast via twist card.

Winning with Iron Golems, like the dedicated warcry cults in general, is about buying/converting additional copies of certain pieces rather than using the 'one of everything' that comes in the box. What do you have to work with?

I got no suggestions on winning with iron golems besides playing against nighthaunt. XD

As for allowing crushers and other types of allies to be pulled in via twist card, i see no problem with it. Its not strictly allowed in the rules, but warcry is more of a narrative game, and if that fits your narrative and is fun, well, those seem like more important rules to follow to me and encourage you to wrangle that crusher into the game.

I watched a battle report on red rose wargaming where they used an arachnarok spider to be used for that twist card. And honestly, it looked fun as hell and worked just fine. People with imagination make good opponents.

The people I am playing with are RAW-only I'm afraid, so if there isn't a way to introduce the miniature in the rules as a wandering monster then we won't be able to use.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Hm I'd have to check the rune marks but I'm not sure the crusher can be brought in as a wandering beast via twist card.

Winning with Iron Golems, like the dedicated warcry cults in general, is about buying/converting additional copies of certain pieces rather than using the 'one of everything' that comes in the box. What do you have to work with?

Ah thanks - yes I only have the starter set unfortunately. Which miniature do people usually drop from their lineup? I know the basic guys struggle and can only really be used as speed-bumps. I like the Ogre miniature but found it to go down surprisingly quickly against the Untamed Beasts, and he hits hard but with only 2 dice you usually seem to miss with one of them. Getting hit by the lion/beast thing in a 'hunted' scenario where your opponent has to take down the Ogre, two rounds of combat and he was nailed.
This is the problem in my mind with some of the mechanics of the game. T6 (or 7 if you are in terrain), everything still wounds you on a 5+. You can basically have a snotling armed with a twig that has a 1/3 change of inflicting a wound.

After playing the game some more, I wonder why the designers of the game didn't go with a grid system (and simplified system of movement over terrain) - perhaps something similar to Deadzone. Especially with the formalised use of terrain (very specific instructions for terrain placement etc.)

They have gone through all of the trouble of making a streamlined experience - simple stats, easy access to the rules through the cards, simple combat system. But then because movement and placement is so important, literally a half inch can decide if you win or lose the game through getting an attack off or not, we found that we spent ages, measuring to the 12th of an inch, each movement. Which takes bloody ages, and invariably the prominent vertical terrain gets knocked by big clumsy hands when we are leaning over. Cue "that guy was there!" and "no he wasn't!" arguments.

There is also way to much weight in the importance of the wildcard dice at the start of the turn, a poor dice roll at a bad time and that's game over. Also relating to the the mission/scenario being played - along with setup, I found you can see immediately who is almost certainly going to win.
'Random' can be great - see some of the older GW games (ork weapons misfiring, random charts for injuries in Necromunda) but I strongly dislike the usage in this game, as in those aforementioned instances they were fun without deciding the result of a game.

Just my 2p worth! I love the setting, miniature design, miniature quality, I have played far better games.

 Pacific wrote:
But then because movement and placement is so important, literally a half inch can decide if you win or lose the game through getting an attack off or not, we found that we spent ages, measuring to the 12th of an inch, each movement. Which takes bloody ages, and invariably the prominent vertical terrain gets knocked by big clumsy hands when we are leaning over. Cue "that guy was there!" and "no he wasn't!" arguments.

That sounds so profoundly tedious that I question whether I would play this game, or with that opponent ever again.

I mean, I know placement is important, but thats just too damn much. I have played a few people who wanted to browbeat about an 1/8th of an inch, but life's too short for that nonsense.