1500 Night Lords - Casual tournament

[Mogsam]

In July 7 friends and I started Heresy armies. Each taking a different one. Now we are nearly six months in we have started to get alot of units and discussing doing a very casual 1500 point tournament. Now the reason I say casual is that 4 of the players are very new to 30k/GW at all and the majority of the rest of us are more fluff gamers than hardcore. So the idea is to write a 1500 point army that is fun to play with - and against. Which is hard! 

 

So here is my 1500 point Night Lords army.

 

• HQ
  • Legion Centurion

    Cataphractii Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon, Nostraman Chainglaive, Teleportation Transponder, Trophies of Judgement

• Troops
  • Legion Tactical Squad

    Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier, 9x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

    • Legion Tactical Sergeant

      Power Fist

  • Legion Tactical Squad

    Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier, 9x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

    • Legion Tactical Sergeant

      Power Fist

  • Legion Tactical Squad

    Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier, 9x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

    • Legion Tactical Sergeant

      Power Fist

  • Legion Tactical Support Squad

    Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier, 8x Legion Space Marines, Plasma Guns

• Elites
  • Legion Terminator Squad

    Chainfist, 4x Legion Terminators, 3x Power Fist, Teleportation Transponder, Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon

    • Legion Terminator Sergeant

      Power Fist

• Heavy Support
  • Legion Heavy Support Squad

    4x Legion Space Marines, Missile Launchers

• Legion
  • Legion Astartes

    VIII: Night Lords                 

I don't think it's overwhelmingly powerful but I am concerned I'm putting so many rhinos out it might be hard to beat without designing the army to deal with them. 

 

I do have the following for alternatives to swap in and out:

 

3 Contemptors (Dual fist punch machine, Dual Autocannon, Dual Plasma Cannon)

5 Autocannons

10 Night Raptors

3 Drop Pods

5 More terminators 

2 Rhino chassis 

 

[Caillum]

Hey man! Nice idea with the planned event. A good way to motivate you is by having a set date for things.

 

I see you have taken a lot of power-armoured bodies - would you consider running the "Terror Assault" Rite of War? It requires 3 Terror Squads as Troops (which you can probably do) but allows only 1 Heavy Support (and you have only 1). Very cool and fluffy RoW that can be strong or fun depending on how you run it, so it could work for you!

[Mogsam]

Exactly, it helped to motivate people to get to 1,000 each before xmas and now we can have a fully painted fully terrain based event in June!

 

I did consider taking the rite of war, it would be very effective. Plus it is very characterful, however I want to avoid too many special units and special rules to make the list more - enemy friendly - whilst they are still learning. When they start dropping Vindicators, Masters of Signals and big tanks the gloves will come off! I've actually had to reshuffle this list a bit, after some feedback from the other long time players during our big game the rhinos were a bit too much to deal with. One or two is fine, but having 4 on the field was very difficult for the newer players to deal with quick enough, jumping 10 plasma guys out and downing a squad at point blank was a bit rough. So I've tried to tone it down a bit -

 

(we also have a comp in place for the three of us that are better. Mostly it'll try to tone down the artillery legions who can kill a squad a turn, there's nothing more demoralising than losing your carefully painted units on turn 1 to a big cannon in your 3rd game! It just limits the Master of Signals, pie plate weapons and plasma to a point - squads of 10 exist in 5 of the 7 lists so far.)

 

•                HQ
  • Legion Centurion

    Cataphractii Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon, Nostraman Chainglaive, Teleportation Transponder, Trophies of Judgement

• Troops
  • Legion Tactical Squad

    14x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

    • Legion Tactical Sergeant

      Power Fist

  • Legion Tactical Squad

    14x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

    • Legion Tactical Sergeant

      Power Fist

  • Legion Tactical Support Squad

    9x Legion Space Marines, Plasma Guns

• Elites
  • Apothecarion Detachment

    Legion Apothecary, Legion Apothecary

  • Legion Terminator Squad

    Cataphractii Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon, 4x Legion Terminators, Pair of Lightning Claws, 3x Power Fist, Teleportation Transponder

    • Legion Terminator Sergeant

      Power Fist

• Heavy Support
  • Legion Heavy Support Squad

    4x Legion Space Marines, Missile Launchers

• Legion
  • Legion Astartes

    VIII: Night Lords                 

Instead of mass tanks they're all footsloggers bar the terminators. But now they all get accompanying apothecaries so they can make it to the opponents line. I have about 90 points to spare with this list. These might to into more terminators but again, 10 deep striking terminators has been very powerful so far, they can easily take out multiple squads by themselves. (I'm quite tempted to run a pride of the legion NL army at some point and take nothing but terminators...)

[Tychii]

With 90 points I would suggest upgrading to a praetor, or adding some more missle launchers.

[Carnivore]

Glad you're enjoying your Night Lords! They're a blast to play and one of the best legions (in my biased opinion) if you want to build an army that can be both fluffy and competitive. I like what you have so far - and I admire your commitment to not being 'that guy' and curbstomping the newer 30kers while they're vulnerable.

The feedback I have for you is partly my own thoughts, and partly just me parroting back advice I've gotten from better fraters here (listen to Caillum - I have yet to receive bad advice from him ). I would echo Tychii's sentiment regarding upgrading your Centurion to a Praetor - a Cataphractii-Terminator Praetor is a beast in close combat, and short of Primarchs and big tanks, not much is beyond his ability to kill one-on-one.​ Also, with your sole HS slot, you either need to beef up the squad size or pick something with a little more teeth - I know you're not try to throw your weight around but all your opponent has to do to protect anything he has with armour value is kill 5 power-armoured guys and then avoid your heavy-hitting but slow and purposeful Cataphractii. A tank or a Deredeo would go a long way here.

Lastly, and I am a broken record on this one, but chainfists are your best friend in 30k. Cataphractii terminators shine with power fists, and adding a chainfist or two for every five terminators will only make them stronger. Armoured Ceramite is everywhere. Chainfists solve that problem, particularly in lower point-value games when heavies and superheavies aren't there to shoot them off the board. I run a 10-man squad of Cataphractii terminators in my Terror Assault list, with three chainfists, two powerfists, a thunder hammer and two pairs of lightning claws, and a Nostraman chainglaive on the Sergeant. With my Praetor's Void Shield Harness protecting them, they can teleport in safely and punch almost anything off the board in one turn.

[Mogsam]

Thanks for the feedback, I've put the list I ran yesterday at the bottom of the post - at the 1,500 point level. I manoeuvred it around a bit to free points up to take a second heavy choice as it was the only unit I could afford and gave me some more anti tank stuff.

Somewhat ironically based on your post, a terminator praetor ate his way through my 15 man squad + apothecary by himself. He lost his terminator buddies but ate my powerfist before he could strike. Whilst my loveable murderers did take 2 wounds off him through weight of numbers - gotta love extra hand weapons and the +1 to wound - the paragon blade kept chugging through the unit and eventually broke them. To be fair to mine, he also chainblade'd his way through a squad, he only struggles when he finds another praetor or a terminator squad. It really makes the chainblade a bit poor as a choice, the AP3 doesn't cut the mustard really. 

 

I take the point about the chianfists, I'll make some room for them.

 

The missile squad did its job and took out a dreadnought so they are fulfilling their role, plus they are mainly for anti transports at the moment. No one is taking big tanks yet, there's plenty of dreads but as far as land raiders/spartans etc go there are none in the group. I have been thinking of a couple of predators just to get in the way, a vindicator is the obvious item I would like but he stays until there are a few more games under the belt. I am concerned about the lack of heavy support, I do have a couple of dreads lying around that I can retool to deal with it when it becomes a bigger issue.

 

•               HQ
  • Legion Centurion

    Cataphractii Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon, Nostraman Chainglaive, Teleportation Transponder, Trophies of Judgement

• Troops
  • Legion Tactical Squad

    14x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

  • Legion Tactical Squad

    14x Legion Tactical Space Marines, Nuncio-Vox, Take an additional Chainsword or Combat Blade

  • Legion Tactical Support Squad

    8x Legion Space Marines, Plasma Guns

• Elites
  • Apothecarion Detachment

    Legion Apothecary, Legion Apothecary

  • Legion Terminator Squad

    Cataphractii Terminator Armour with Combi-bolter and Power Weapon, 4x Legion Terminators, 4x Power Fist, Teleportation Transponder

    • Legion Terminator Sergeant

      Power Fist

• Heavy Support
  • Legion Heavy Support Squad

    4x Legion Space Marines, Missile Launchers

  • Legion Heavy Support Squad

    Autocannons, 4x Legion Space Marines

• Legion
  • Legion Astartes

    VIII: Night Lords                 

[Tychii]

there really is quite a bit of anti tank in the other force org slots. "Range anti av14" however only really exists in the heavy slots.

But if you don't want to load up on heavy slots, there are a lot of good options in both fast and elites, in the form of dreadnaughts with grav, attack bikes with meltabombs, and outflanking javelins.

Sometimes you need to be a bit creative with getting them to their targets, but they all really do the job once they get committed.

[Lord Asvaldir]

there really is quite a bit of anti tank in the other force org slots. "Range anti av14" however only really exists in the heavy slots.

 

 

I wouldn't say so-any unit that can take graviton guns is ranged anti av14, and there are several units that are not HS that can take graviton-rapiers, dreadnoughts, breachers and land speeders all come to mind. Yes a lot of those are fairly short range, but the rapiers are not. Without ranged anti av14 outside of heavy support terror assault would be very difficult to run. Course given you're not running terror assault, that's not an issue. If as you expand your list you start to go up against forces with heavier armor, units like sicarans (either variant) and deredeos would be a worthwhile investment to deal with armor. Graviton cannon rapiers are very good as well for dealing with spartans. 

[Mogsam]

I have three dreads sitting around waiting for more points based games with their drop pods to get them to those high value targets so I do have plans to deal with the big guys eventually, but until it twigs with the newer guys how good the £100 tanks are I don't see it coming up for a while!

 

I do quite fancy some javelins at some point and I will get a big tank at some point, if only because I really want one a spartan or a sicaran on my shelf!

 

I am quite tempted to drop the apothecaries or a few plasma marines along with the autocannons to get a drop dread in there, I find them wonderful at just throwing other peoples plans up in the air. I have one with two plasma cannons that is excellent at getting every gun on the board pointing at it, one toting two autocannons that is thoroughly disappointing and one with two fists. The fists dread has often performed the greatest feats and usually spends his time hunting other dreads. Is grav guns the preferred set up for anti tank roles? 

 

What is the general consensus on the vexilla? I lost a unit to a round one panic test and don't want to knee jerk but they seem fairly important.

 

On another note, the modelling side of this list can be found at the link below!

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/317685-pre-heresy-night-lords/

[Lord Asvaldir]

Double graviton is great on dreadnoughts. The short range isn't a problem at all given you want to get up close for an assault, and in a pod you can safely drop in and not be charged and bogged down in your opponents turn, leaving your dreadnought free to go after vehicles in your second turn. Always a great unit to have. 

[Carnivore]

I would echo Lord Asvaldir on the double-graviton Contemptor being an extremely effective armour/monster hunter. In my opinion, every 30k army should have at least one Contemptor/Deredeo/Leviathan - what they offer is just too good to pass up.

A squadron of Javelins and a Sicaran synergize very well, and scream Night Lords so well done there, brother . ​

I ran apothecaries with my Terror Squads for a bit when I first started 30k, and while they are a good option I agree with your assessment that some drop dreads are a stronger option.

DO NOT drop the Vexilla. Few legions need a moral safeguard more than ours. Nostraman Blood and Seeds of Dissent can torpedo you if your troops fail morale tests and fall back on their own when you don't want them to, or you didn't bring a backup HQ and a Vexilla to keep them under control. They cost almost nothing, and can make all the difference if Morale tests are crippling you and need your Night Lords to hold the line like Imperial Fists .