[HH1.0] Night Lords Tactics

[Kol Saresk]

So what are some ideas for lists that don't use the RoW?

[Balthamal]

Sevatar with the Atramentar loaded into Spartans and Sicarans 

 

In all seriousness I'm not looking past the rite of war, it fits in too perfectly with what I'm looking to achieve although as my collection expands I'll probably start gradually moving away from it as inevitably happens when model count outstrips FoC (Not to mention FW smashing out new models non stop)

[depthcharge12]

So what are some ideas for lists that don't use the RoW?

 

Lol I had mine, which didn't use the RoW. Do you want me to make some more?

 

 

When expanding to 2500 points I plan to add an armored claw, which you could add to your lists if you want.

 

 

 

2 predators with executioner plasma destroyers and HBs

 

1 Sicarus with Accelerator ACs and lascannons

 

 

The preds do a baby duck line with the "momma" Sicarus up front tanking shots and shooting pesky melta bikes with its autocannons, while the preds hang back and lob plasma death at squads.

 

All under 500 points! :D

[Elazar The Glorified]

I think a Volkite Support squad is a good home objective unit and they fit nicely with the fluff in the book too.

My question got lost amidst the rule of cool bit but with Raptors is it universal thinking that the Glaive is the go to weapon. The twin lightning claws are double the points but allow each Raptor to double his output against power arnoured foes and is the same against Terminators as the Glaive. I suppose it's short fall is trading shooting and the S5 with Rending for emergency tank hunting and that it can't hurt T8 which to me doesn't sound like a huge loss but they might then be too effective on the assault..

 

Sorry that was me thinking out loud there really!

[Brother Aiwass]

I don't have any ideas, because I don't plan to run a non ROW Night Lords army. Their ROW is what makes NL unique, and I love the fact I can play with it against 40k armies

 

EDIT:

 

@Elazar,

 

Glaives help a lot with terminators too, because rending it's AP 2 if I'm not worng.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Maximvs

[depthcharge12]

I think another contender for hardest unit that you have to look out for is an Iron hand command squad in terminator armor.

 

add cyber familiars and an apothecary or primus medicae -

 

 

2+/3++ and 5+ FNP

 

fearless

 

 

 

 

eeep

[Brother Aiwass]

Avoiding them? :lol:

[depthcharge12]

Avoiding them?

 

To quote Roger Waters:

 

 

"You better run...like hell"

[Kol Saresk]

So since shooting is difficult, would we rely on sheer numbers in close combat? Or would we perhaps rely on dumping so many shots that the -1 S becomes negligible? How would we achieve either? Use the Bulky Night Raptors at full strength(counts as thirty models)? Or maybe a Terror Squad loaded with a Rotor cannon and some bolters/vokites?

 

A Tactical Support Squad? Maybe sick some Javelins with their Cyclone Missiles and a Multi-Melta?

[depthcharge12]

10 man vokite culverin heavy support squad.

 

 

Has been known to obliterate any infantry squad.

 

 

 

-1 to strength of weapon doesn't matter when you have 40 S6 shots that cause deflagrate.

 

'Merica.

[Brother Aiwass]

Snipers to take down the doctor/praetor maybe? rad weapons? phosphex bombs? full squad of bikers rapidplasming them?

[Elazar The Glorified]

 

@Elazar,

 

Glaives help a lot with terminators too, because rending it's AP 2 if I'm not worng.

My mathammer might be off but 2 attacks from twin Lightning Claws at S4 Shred do the same amount of wounds to Terminators as 1 S5 Rending attack and once Talent for Murder kicks in a LC armed Raptor has slightly better output against Terminators. The Lightning claws are twice as good against Power Armour as the Glaive though so might be worth the extra points

[Brother Aiwass]

You're right about the maths, but I don't know if that would be too many points (every one of them with LC). It will set a squad of 10 about 450 points.

[Sevatar]

Nah, the Firedrakes are the best..of all time. With Drakeshields/Primus Medicae in Cataphractii, you have:

 

WS5, 2W, 2+ 3++ 5+FNP.... they will slaughter the foul Traitors! Seriously, your 1+ to Wound counts for little when they hit you on 3+ and kill you on a 3+ (assuming they take power weapons here), and laugh off your puny Rending with a 3++ and 5+FNP

Edited October 21, 2013 by Sevatar

[Brother Aiwass]

Nah, the Firedrakes are the best..of all time. With Drakeshields/Primus Medicae in Cataphractii, you have:

 

WS5, 2W, 2+ 3++ 5+FNP.... they will slaughter the foul Traitors! Seriously, your 1+ to Wound counts for little when they hit you on 3+ and kill you on a 3+ (assuming they take power weapons here), and laugh off your puny Rending with a 3++ and 5+FNP

 

Very funny coming from one nicknamed Sevatar

 

EDIT:

 

If facing raptors (WS5) you would hit on 4 and wound on 4 (T4) unless power-axe/fist etc. Yes, drakes always seems OP (not looking at GW) but can be avoided with high mobility units, or even normal units, because of SnP. Not everything in the tabletop needs to be killed. Heck, even a contemptor can tarpit those if no CF present.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Maximvs

[AfroCampbell]

Are those raptor builds just too expensive tho? one unlucky pie blast and there goes 450 pts of troops. thats 2 land raider proteus' or  4 predators with basic loadouts going.....

hmmm.

what really is optimum build???

 

I don't think I would put them ALL with LCs as a few are defs gonna die to shooting before cc, so may as well leave 3 or 4 without LC...

 

Does anybody think taking Heavy Chainblades on Terror Squads is worth it?

[Balthamal]

I don't personally, not when you could take a chainglaive. And at best I'm only going to do that on 2 squads, the 3rd is going to be fully kitted out with volkite

 

As for the raptors, it's the same problem with any blob squad, just have to position them well and get them into combat as fast as can be

[Brother Aiwass]

My Terrorists are going to be like 

 

Terror claw - 10x marines, 9x bolter, flamer, chainglaive, melta-bomb - 243

 

Volkites are nice, but as they are not cheap, I think that are best suited for large games, where the points are not an issue.

 

To the Raptors question, yes, they're expensive, so I will not maximize the squad number, just around 8-10. Glaives may be not the best option if you want them cheap, but with the Onslaught rule, I think that are worth it, at least in half of the squad -but the Rule of Cool tells me that I have to do the whole squad. Stop! Stop voices in my head! Stop!

[Verity]

Yeah, the Raptors have you having to make the best use of cover etc that you can - with the whole potential of forcing Night Fighting and the 6+ cover save they start off with, you could stand a decent chance of getting them into combat with a relative lack of harm. The way I'm looking at this army now is it's all about taking out whatever might stand the best chance of hurting you, and then hitting hard with your powerhouses. This philosophy served me relatively well in a match against Tau I played the other day - although I'm aware there's an opinion that the Massacre armies are fairly strong against 40k armies in general.

 

I'm also now in love with the Whirlwind Scorpius...That beautiful, devastating machine.

 

On the matter of taking LCs with Raptors - I like the concept of both those and Chainglaives, but in terms of effectiveness vs points cost, I'd likely go with the chainglaives, and even then it does feel a bit like you've invested a lot of points into one unit...Even if that unit is now awesome. If you go with the glaives, might be worth picking up a couple of Plasmas/Meltas/Flamers. The bolt pistol has already lost part of its effectiveness there, with the giving up of a bonus close combat attack. I've also got a weird stigma against running assault units without a ranged weapon this edition, which pushes me a bit further from LCs. I feel like the ability to pop that flamer at the front of a group that might cause you hassle with overwatch is somewhat useful...It is undeniable that the Lightning Claws are tearing through opposition with ease though. On average on the charge, a full unit of Lightning Clawed raptors are dealing 20 wounds to a toughness 4 power armoured astartes, without taking into account the benefits from a Talent for Murder.

 

 

Volkite Charger Terror Squads are brilliant at neutralising infantry, and with decent positioning are even not so bad at popping your enemy light armour - they stand around a 1 in 3 chance of destroying a tank if they can get at some AV10 goodness, and statistically should strip away around 4 hullpoints against the same. AV11 reduces that to 2, which is still not terrible for a unit going outside of its intended purpose. They also deal around 5 wounds on average to toughness 4 power armoured astartes...an amusing side effect of this is I think it ends up causing a morale check for most units you'll encounter, which is a nice little fluffy touch. Not sure of quite the best way to play them, but I think it's a bit by ear - you can hurt units hard enough that they won't hurt you, or dedicate more than one squad to the cause and utterly wipe a unit out, as per your best judgement.

 

Back to Heavy Support, though...This seems like it's a fairly important choice. My inclination to the Whirldwind Scorpius comes from the ability to hide it somewhere and have it rain down death on your opponent, with a minimal risk to it's own wellbeing...And that just feels so nice and Night Lord like haha. You might feel drawn to go for something slightly less anti-infantry though - Raptors and Terror Squads already lean fairly heavily in that direction, so another unit for that (and one that feels so much more important in our armies) may be a bit redundant. 

 

I'll be honest and say that apart from Raptors, I haven't really given much thought to our fast attack.

 

Elites seem to be something I could see varying based on taste and particular synergies...Sevatar/Terminators being the most obvious, but Veterans/Drop Pods is another that I think works well.

 

Just a few random thoughts and insights I picked up in my match the other day though, as always do bear in mind that I'm not a 40k expert and I could be spouting complete nonsense...The worst bit of it all is I'm slowly falling further away from "optimised" in favour of "aww yeah, that looks awesome...give me three!" It's all a hell of a lot to take in and process for me, so we'll see...

Edited October 22, 2013 by Verity

[Brother Aiwass]

I've not put much thinking in the HS slot. So what I have as possible choices are Krakstorm Drop Pod, a Caestus filled with terminators. And barely anything else :(

[Balthamal]

Here's a list I put together this morning, just going through both books deciding what I liked the look of and, more importantly, things that fit in with the theme I've got in mind. The overall cost is 3,400 odd points but I'll trim it down to 2k since I'll only really take it all in a 4k game (have to take the Night Haunter ;) )

 

Terror Squad

Volkite x9

Power Weapon

Meltabomb                 260

 

Terror Squad

Bolters x9

Rotar Cannon

Lightning Claw

Meltabomb              248

 

Terror Squad

Hand Flamer

Chainglaive

Artificer Armour

Melta Bomb               245

 

Terminator Squad

Reaper

Lightning Claws

Chainfist

Volkite Charger

Combi weapons

Thunder Hammer       246

    

Night Raptors x15    

Volkite    

Artificer Armour    

Chainglaive    

Plasma Pistol x2    

Chainglaive x3            435

 

Fire Raptor

Reaper                       230

 

 

 

That's around 1700 and for HQs it will be a combo of Sevatar and a Legion Champion or a Praetor and lvl 3 Librarian 

[Sevatar]

 

 

Nah, the Firedrakes are the best..of all time. With Drakeshields/Primus Medicae in Cataphractii, you have:

 

WS5, 2W, 2+ 3++ 5+FNP.... they will slaughter the foul Traitors! Seriously, your 1+ to Wound counts for little when they hit you on 3+ and kill you on a 3+ (assuming they take power weapons here), and laugh off your puny Rending with a 3++ and 5+FNP

 

Very funny coming from one nicknamed Sevatar

 

EDIT:

 

If facing raptors (WS5) you would hit on 4 and wound on 4 (T4) unless power-axe/fist etc. Yes, drakes always seems OP (not looking at GW) but can be avoided with high mobility units, or even normal units, because of SnP. Not everything in the tabletop needs to be killed. Heck, even a contemptor can tarpit those if no CF present.

 

 

I have two allegiances

 

True, I suppose. Still, they are nasty.

[AfroCampbell]

It seems like with a talent for Murder, Terror Squads, and Raptors we have some epic anti-infantry, however against tank heavy lists I feel like we could very heavily get curb stomped when using the rite of war. I want to take a Sicaran, however I dunno if it is necessarily the best anti-tank option. In fact I imagine a few of the others are much better... maybe a Spartan. Or even Heavy Support Squad with 5 lascannons (though this is a bit squishy if caught under a pie blast)

[Brother Aiwass]

The lack of anti-armour in our legion trait is not a restriction in what we can take besides the only one HS slot. We can take melta/plasma to deal with armour, and we must do it. I advise to take 2x melta in any raptor squad -pop and assault, like the old raptor chaps of CSM dex, and melta bombs everywhere. Biker/jetbikes with meltaguns and termies with combi-melta-plasma are also very useful. As a HS option, a Caestus with the lovely magnamelta is very welcome aswell.

[Kol Saresk]

Except that even the Night Lords have full-blown armored companies, according to Massacre from what I've heard. It's on the page with the Legion Caradara Armoured Claw.