Zso Sahaa; (Lord of the night)

[minigun762]

However, I also still think that the Night Lords would really only ever be able to have their trademark effect on Imperial Guard, Tau, and possibly Craftworld Eldar (when they ever get the opportunity to orchestrate one of their raids against them). Against the majority of 40K forces the Night Lords methodology shouldn't have any effect at all (besides the typical effects of being assaulted by spiky Astartes).

I was actually thinking about this the other day and I think that the Night Lords could work their magic on most of the armies out there, if you use some imagination.

 

Against Tyranids for example, going after the different synapse units will create confusion and significantly impact the ability of the army to wage war. Sure its not "fear" but it has many of the same end results.

[Legatus]

And how would that be different from the approach of any other army that has figured out the deal with the synapse creatures?

[Lord_Caerolion]

I'd rather have a Daemonic Visage effect across the board.

Terror is the essence of the Night Lords after all, Jump Packs, Bikes, infiltration and the likes were things that were tacked on for good measure to try and make them original.

 

Unfortunately, I fear (ha!) it wasn't even that, but an attempt to have an opposite to the Iron Warriors. The only reason I've ever heard for Night Lords having an obsession with FA was that they had the first Raptors. I refuse to accept this reason until I see Black Templar players being told to have all 3 Heavy Support choices as Land Raider Crusaders if they want to be fluffy.

 

Night Lords are the overkill Legion, who nuke people for worshipping a fertility godess. Surely a tank or two is certainly in character!

 

 

As for causing fear in Tyranids, the new background explains that Tyranid creatures are more animalistic, rather than the Hive Mind directly controlling every single Ripper and Gaunt, for every second of every day. I see no reason the Tyranids can't feel fear, unless they're directly influenced by synapse (which they aren't all the time).

As for Necrons, they follow self-preservation, from what I remember. Therefore, they feel fear, in a sense. Sure, it's for different reasons, but they do feel "fear". Just change it from the Night Lords wearing flayed skins, to Night Lords utilising shock weaponry, or directed EMP pulses. Necrons will be more willing to fall back in the face of those, due to their self-preservation programming.

[Legatus]

I have allways assumed that the Night Lords were made to focus on fast attack choices because they were known to use complete and decisive force when attacking. Fast Attack units which jump the enemy and tear him apart are a bit better at representing that kind of mentality than Heavy Support units who you would more often expect to assume a position and then wait for someting to enter their field of fire. That is not neccessarily how all the Heavy Support choices work (Tanks can move and fire, Obliterators can deep strike), but that is generally what you associate with the Heavy Support section.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Then they should just state that, instead of limiting the potentials of an army. Now that Chaos can have Vindicators, I've been meaning to add some to my Night Lords, to help with the "iron fist" tactics, smashing apart all the terrified defenders vainly hoped would protect them, leaving them nowhere to hide when the Land Raider rolls up to disgorge a squad of Terminators.

 

Instead, we have (had) that Night Lords use almost no tanks, and are some sort of Chaos hybrid of the Raven Guard and White Scars, wrongly giving people the idea that if it doesn't have a jump-pack or a bike, or at least Rhino-mounted, then it isn't a Night Lord.

I will agree that Havocs using heavy weapons are slightly out of character, but Havocs with special weapons, tanks, or even mercenary Obliterators, fit right into the Night Lord tactics. Hell, we'll just leave it as "whatever you choose to use, use lots of it". As said before, we're the overkill Legion. We don't do things by half measures.

[Legatus]

Perhaps the emphasis on Fast Attack choices and limitless Raptors was giving a too strong impression. Even for Night Lords (and in the current Codex with the limit being gone) Raptors were still said to be a rare unit. They simply like to employ them a bit more than the average Legion, which might also have to do with the scare factor Raptors had in their original incarnation. The notion that Night Lord forces would neccessarily have to include some Raptors (let alone as much as possible) ist just as wrong as was the notion that a fluffy 3.5 Iron Warriors force needed 9 bliterators, merely because they were not limited to 0-1 choice of them.

That is why I also do not understand proposals to give Night Lords Bikes or Raptors as Troops choices. They may like to employ such units, but their forces are not mainly centered around those units.

[Brother Nihm]

Perhaps the emphasis on Fast Attack choices and limitless Raptors was giving a too strong impression. Even for Night Lords (and in the current Codex with the limit being gone) Raptors were still said to be a rare unit. They simply like to employ them a bit more than the average Legion, which might also have to do with the scare factor Raptors had in their original incarnation. The notion that Night Lord forces would neccessarily have to include some Raptors (let alone as much as possible) ist just as wrong as was the notion that a fluffy 3.5 Iron Warriors force needed 9 bliterators, merely because they were not limited to 0-1 choice of them.

That is why I also do not understand proposals to give Night Lords Bikes or Raptors as Troops choices. They may like to employ such units, but their forces are not mainly centered around those units.

I couldn't agree more. That is why I believe that the only way forward (while still using the current way of doing codices) is to give abilities to HQs or Legion upgrades that accurately portray their style of waging war on the tabletop (known elsewhere as flavour) - in an up-to-date Codex. An example of this is the Special Characters in C:SM, who are actually special and DO something to the force that they accompany.

[Dark Mechanicum]

Yea, i've been reading of people using C:SM to field a bike NL army as that is fitting for a "chapter" within the Legion. Same with using C:BA to get Jump Pack Marines as Raptors. On the fast attack thing its supposed to be, they go in: cause havoc, make things scream in terror, demoralize the enemy, and then the heavy stuff shows up to back them up or mop up resistance.

[renegadewarp]

Well I mean of course the emphasis is on fast attack, but it is also TERROR, Utter overkill and moral breaking. Don't knock heavy support if anything I think we have one of the most "night lord" esque vehicles in the game.

 

Our Defilers, A HUMONGOUS(overkill) ordinance that causes pinning(morale breaking) and which stands as tall in "warhammer universe" as tall as a carnifex not board wise XD but yea.. I do field a heavy raptor army but I wont be with out my Defiler(s).

 

-Renegadewarp