[HH1.0] Night Lords Tactics

[Slips]

Yeah, transports or something to keep your 5-10 plasmagun wielding dudes safe until they can shoot is definitely a priority since they'll be one of, if not the, focus of your opponent when he sees them on the table and you want to at least get one good shooting phase out of them.

 

So, with that in mind, a Rhino is a good and cheap investment. If you want to pump more in, a 5-9 man squad with an Apothecary for FNP (especially against failed Gets Hot! armor saves) is a nice little bonus. You can go even further by giving them a dreadclaw instead or a RoW that lets them drop pod in. Attaching a combat IC might be something you can do but isn't necessary since it makes their bullseye that much larger and harder to ignore.

[Withershadow]

Depends on the character, really. If they have a Cognis Signum, making the support squad BS5 is a huge boon to their lethality.

[Slips]

Depends on the character, really. If they have a Cognis Signum, making the support squad BS5 is a huge boon to their lethality.

Yeah, an MoS with a Power Axe for anti-sergeant duty could work well enough and gives you an Orbital Bombardment to boot.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Basically any unit with rapid fire weapons requires a transport of some sort, and plasma support marines are no exception. Not that they are a bad unit, but they aren't exactly a common choice in Night Lords lists though, just don't fit into our most popular rites of war like terror assault and drop assault vanguard. 

[Darkwrath121]

I think Night Lords actually might be one of the best equipped legions to face custodes in an assault. Assuming you're running terror assault, and you get lucky and have night fight in turn 2, you're striking custodes at the same speed as they are hitting back, and since it's easy to outnumber them even a basic squad of tacticals/assault marines are hitting and wounding on 4s, which is pretty decent considering how tough they are. +2 armor is still a problem of course, but as em en oh pee said I think you just need to drown them in wounds. Charge in as many high number of attack models as you can and wear them down. Since terror squads also get more hits in there from their volkite weapons, I think they could actually do alright against a small three man squad, especially if the sergeant has a fist/glaive.   

Necro'ing this lil thread of conversation. But want to point out that 90% of the time, Custodes are going at i6, thanks to the preternatural skill rule. So even with night fighting, expect heavy casualties vs non-unwieldy armed Custodes. Best best are, as you said, PE volkites. Best to keep 3+ armour guys out of melee with them.

[Lord Asvaldir]

I thought custodes were only i4 base, which at least gives you the chance to strike at the same time during night fight. Either way, yes you're taking a lot of casualties in an assault, but if you have whittled a custodes suad down with PE volkite a big enough NL suad can probably finish them off. A large unit of assault marines in particular comes to mind for that purpose. 

[Baluc]

I thought custodes were only i4 base, which at least gives you the chance to strike at the same time during night fight. Either way, yes you're taking a lot of casualties in an assault, but if you have whittled a custodes suad down with PE volkite a big enough NL suad can probably finish them off. A large unit of assault marines in particular comes to mind for that purpose. 

 

I5, and gain +1 I against anyone Ws5 or less. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

20 volkites off a terror squad does 1.6 wounds on average, will lose 3 guys to the custodes and then deal 2 wounds back. They'll lose combat no matter what, worst case looking out sir will leave all custodes alive with 1 wound left each.

 

This was 10 volkites terrors charging 3 guardians

[Lord Asvaldir]

 

I thought custodes were only i4 base, which at least gives you the chance to strike at the same time during night fight. Either way, yes you're taking a lot of casualties in an assault, but if you have whittled a custodes suad down with PE volkite a big enough NL suad can probably finish them off. A large unit of assault marines in particular comes to mind for that purpose. 

 

I5, and gain +1 I against anyone Ws5 or less. 

 

 

Bleh. 

 

Ten man squad probably isn't enough for custodes, I think if you were actually to do significant damage to custodes unit in an assault you'd need at least a fifteen strong squad, ideally with some power axes so assault marines seems like the best unit to use.  

[Baluc]

I would say when charging into Custodes expect about 6 deaths with a power armour equiped unit. 

[Lord Asvaldir]

I know this has been discussed in this tactia before, but I'd be interested to hear all your opinions fielding Curze on his own again. I'm currently working on a list where I wouldn't have much room to buy a unit to escort Curze, plus I think it might be fun to use Curze on his own. Considering he has stealth and shrouded I feel like he'll be reasonably safe from ap2 weaponry, and he can use his speed to hide in cover and stay away from massed firepower until he's ready to assault. 

 

So my fellow Night Lords, tell me am I mad for thinking Curze has any use when deployed on his own, or is the idea somewhat viable?

[SchultzChaos]

Howdy murderers and mongrels of the VIII!

 

So, I tested my 3k list yesterday against Space Wolves, and gods allmighty what a whoppin' I got.

I fielded a Terror Assault with

Praetor, paragon blade, digital lasers, master crafted, trophies

Chaplain, power maul, refractor shield, jump pack, artificer armour, trophies

 

Apothecary, artificer armour

Apothecary, jump pack

Veterans (8), weapon masters, 2 power axes, 1 power sword, pair of lighnting claws, sergeant has artificer armour and power fist

rides in a dread claw

Terminators (5), plasma blaster, 3 combi-plasmas, 3 power fists, 1 chain-fist, sergeant has grenade harness and chain-glaive

 

Terror Squad (10) Volkites, sergeant has artificer armour and chain-glaive

rides in a droppod

Terror Squad (10), Volkites, sergeant has artificer armour and power fist

rides in a droppod

Terror Squad (10), Bolters, sergeant has artificer armour and power axe

Assault Marines (15), 2 power axes, combat shields, sergeant has artificer armour and power fist

Lightning, 3 pairs of kraken missles, ground tracking arrays, servitor

Javelin Land Speeder, lascannon, multimelta and hunter killer missle

 

Leviathan, armoured ceramite, heavy flamers, phosphex launcher, drill and claw

rides in a dreadnought droppod

 

I met something like

Praetor with close combat stuff (with +1W armour)

Rune Priest (lvl 2 divination)

Legion Champion (Space Wolf Axe and sword)

 

Veterans kitted for close combat (Outflanking)

10 Cataphractii with close combat stuff in a Spartan

Contemptor with assault cannon

 

10 Grey Slayers

10 Grey Slayers

Support Squad with plasmas in rhino

10 Assault Marines with combat shields

 

Land Speeder with grav-imploder, multimelta

Land Speeder with grav-imploder, multimelta

 

Storm Eagle with lascannons and multimelta

 

The scenario we played saw me defending an objective inside a facility (made up of zone mortalis) in my deployment zone, and the wolves assaulted the stronghold. I used my reserves as speed bumps as he tried to enter the facility, and gathered my assault marines, a terror squad and my praetor with veterans and apothecary to charge anything that came through the corridors. In the end I tried to assault his termintors (as they entered the last hall where the objective was) with assault marines with apothecary and chaplain and praetor with buddies. The terminators had a wounded Rune Priest and the praetor. After first round of combat only my Praetor remained and the Wolves had his praetor, his Rune Priest and a terminator. They kicked my praetor's ass next turn.

 

In the end I had two depleted Terror Squads and a dreadclaw kicking ass, leaving the Wolf with a victory.

 

How do you counter the awesome close combat strength that is the Wolves (and all their special rules killing night fightning ect)? Our armies strength is close combat, but still the wolves kick our asses. Should I alter my list in some way? Any tips?

[lanceqi]

I'm quite interested in your Bum Dread. What happened to it? Did it make a massacre and met a glorious explosion?

[Lord Asvaldir]

Wolves do have good assault rules, but I would say ours are equally as good. The key is just getting charges off early game while you still have the initiative bonus from night fight, which we still get despite wolves ignoring night fight. Course that's a little lucked based for night to continue into turn 2. The other thing to consider is if you don't outnumber wolf units, you'll probably lose, since wolves get their bonuses and you won't. I would have expected those assault marines to do better, fifteen are going to outnumber any wolf unit in that list, and you do have 3 marines swinging at ap2 to hurt terminators. Don't particularly see much that is wrong with your list either, seems like a pretty standard terror assault list, except for the bolters on the terror marines which are mediocre. 

[Gorgoff]

Wolves do have good assault rules, but I would say ours are equally as good. The key is just getting charges off early game while you still have the initiative bonus from night fight, which we still get despite wolves ignoring night fight. Course that's a little lucked based for night to continue into turn 2. The other thing to consider is if you don't outnumber wolf units, you'll probably lose, since wolves get their bonuses and you won't. I would have expected those assault marines to do better, fifteen are going to outnumber any wolf unit in that list, and you do have 3 marines swinging at ap2 to hurt terminators. Don't particularly see much that is wrong with your list either, seems like a pretty standard terror assault list, except for the bolters on the terror marines which are mediocre.

I second that.

In the end it's always about who is the better player. Sure, the mission, the armies and so forth are factors but no matter what if you make bad decisions it is pretty hard to win. :)

[SchultzChaos]

Well I tried another match, without the droppods for the terror squads, and this time we played with the special night fight buffs for NL. I got it turn 1 and 2. Boy o boy was it fun. Won the match with just 1 or 2 points, but in the first two turns I really gave the Wolves a beating. After that, well. Like a true son of Nostramo I fled from the most appaling combats. The sad thing is that the Wolf player will bring a plasma pred and a sicaran for our next game. I don't feel that my army has that much anti-armour to deal with any tanks. :/ My lightning is already booked for killing the Spartan. 

 

What would you boost the army with if I would go for 3500pts?

 

About the Leviathan... Well, he hasn't done anything exceptional yet. Usually when he drops down from orbit he is hit by everything the enemy has to throw at him. Last game he got to blow up a Grey Slayer squad (boy I hate those) with his phosphex. But in a game of 8th edition 40k he footslogged all over the map just to rip apart a Riptide in the first round of combat. THAT was glorious! :D

[lanceqi]

Haha! Good to hear!

[Lord Asvaldir]

Yeah you can't go wrong with the night fight rules for terror assault, that initiative bonus can make all the difference between a terror squad completely wiping a fairly equally strong unit or getting bady mauled. Good to hear you got vengeance against the wolves. 

 

Anti tank always is tricky for terror assault since we are stuck with only one HS slot, but you can still have solid anti tank choices. You just need to branch out from HS more. You've already got a lot of the good non HS options-javelins and lightnings are both solid. Other options are terminators with combi plasma/chainfists, though plasma will only work for medium armor, veterans with combi melta and machine killers, and contemptor/cortus dreadnoughts with dual fists and graviton. That's just a few choices I think you could easily add for 3500. 

 

One thing to consider with the leviathan, I think you are really missing out by not taking a ranged weapon arm. Both the melta lance and graviton bombard are incredibly powerful weapons, and the melta lance in particular will be incredibly helpful vs armor. Much as I love the bombard the melta lance is usually my go to option, and it's served me well many times before. 

[SchultzChaos]

Thanks for the advice! I will experimentate with the Leviathan a bit more before I decide on buying another arm for him.

 

Btw everyone.

What about other lists? Does anyone play anything other than Terror Assaults? If so, what do you play and how does that list fare? 

I'm quite tempted to go armoured someday with my Lords, maybe some Raiders carrying a bunch of terminators and some such.

[Lord Asvaldir]

I would really badly like to run a drop assault vanguard list for NL. It synergizes so well with the NL rules and it would let me take lots of assault marines which are a really fluffy choice for NLs. Plus I've also heard from other NL players that it's effective. Unfortunately I don't have enough assault marines or fliers to make the list work, one day though I will. 

 

As far as other lists, I suppose a pride list with a bunch of terminators and veterans would be alright, but you could say that about most legions. Orbital assault might not be bad either, but terror assault is better since it's flexible. There's also our second special rite you could try, make a raptor oriented list but that seems mediocre. Honestly TA and DAV are the only two rites I want to run for NLs. I suppose you could always do a standard list without a rite based around large tactical squads but that seems a bit bland in my opinion. 

 

If you want to run an armored list for NLs I'd say go for it, terminators work well with NLs thanks to TfM, it's just that armored list aren't the best for NLs since our rules don't support them as much. 

[Ghorgul]

Drop Assault Vanguard can definetly work! Probably one of the strongest RoWs available to Night Lords. Only bad thing is Assault Squads are weak against certain units (Vindicators, Phosphex quads) and do suffer against very vehicle heavy lists.

 

Legion rules are mostly about the Outnumbering, and this is easiest to achieve with cheap bulky units, making assault squads most efficient source of bulky per points. If not going for outnumbering one is basically just skipping the strongest rule our whole legion has in 30k.

 

I think Night Lords 2nd special RoW is better than people give credit to it for, it has several things going for it:

1. Unlimited AoD FoC: Terror Assault RoWs only 1 Heavy Support slot is seriously limiting, and then many other general RoWs set very strict restrictions on unit choices available, Drop Assault Vanguard for example.

2. Fear rule can be bought for whole unit with flat point cost, the cost is not based on number of models in the unit. Usually Fear "equipment" is only available for independent characters, so this can be significant buff.

3. Any infantry squad with 10 or more models can take Kharybdis as dedicated transport, which is expensive and situational, but does allow you to not spend a FoC slot for this vehicle.

4. Raptors as troops is cool, but the unit is too expensive for it's actual durability and efficiency.

Of course this "Horror Cult" RoW does have few drawbacks too, but these are very minor in my opinion.

[SchultzChaos]

Hmm. Played another match yersterday against Salamanders and Custodes together with a Sons of Horus player. Boy oh boy does the golden boys slam the jam. Talent for Murder really packed the punch I needed, but will all the Custodes' saves and legion of rules it all came down to be a little too crunchy. Not even a Leviathan was enough to punch through their lines (with shields messing with the Dread's hits and all). Well well.

 

I think I'll drop the combat shields on the Assault Marines, drop two terminators and go for another Dreadclaw while making the remaining terminators to Tartaros with combi-meltas.

Edited July 16, 2017 by SchultzChaos

[Lord Asvaldir]

Combi plasma>combi melta in almost every case. Double the shots, only needs to be within 12" range to be fully effective opposed to 6", and given the use of AC melta is mediocre. Plus against light vehicles without AC, plasma will do the trick anyway. Also wouldn't take tartaros on deep striking terminators, cataphractii is far better for them to survive the turn after they deep strike.

[Dhar'Neth]

However the Tartaros can run in a case of bad scatter to not end under a large blast and/or get closer to action.

[SchultzChaos]

Ah! Well I thought to make the Tartaros ride with the second Dreadclaw.