Night Lords - 3k Terror Assault

[Ramza]

3k – Terror Assualt

 

HQ

Praetor – Artificer Armour, Iron halo, Jump pack, Paragon blade, Power fist, Trophies of Judgement – 195

Vigilator – Artificer Armour, Jump pack, Chainglaive – 125

 

Damocles Command Rhino - 100

 

Elite

Apothecary – Artificer Armour, Jump pack, Chainglaive – 80  70

Contemptor-Cortus Dreadnought – DCCW, Chainfist, Bolters - 145

Contemptor-Cortus Dreadnought – DCCW, Chainfist, Bolters – 145

 

Troops

15x Assault Marines – Sgt w/ Chainglaive, Artificer armour, 15x Melta-bombs, 3x Power axe - 365

9x Terror Marines – Sgt w/Chainglaive, Artificer armour & Melta-bomb, 9x Volkite Chargers – 255

9x Terror Marines – Sgt w/Chainglaive, Artificer armour & Melta-bomb, 9x Volkite Chargers – 255

9x Terror Marines – Sgt w/Chainglaive, Artificer armour & Melta-bomb, 9x Volkite Chargers – 255

3x Legion Drop Pods – 105

 

Fast Attack

9x Legion Outriders – 3x Power axe, 9x Melta-bombs, Sgt w/Chainglaive – 370

3x Land speeder (Squadron) – 3x Multi-melta, 3x Grav-gun – 195

 

Heavy Support

Leviathan Dreadnought – Grav-flux bombard, Siege Drill, Phosphex discharger – 310

Legion Dreadnought Drop pod - 100

 

After much deliberation I have landed on Night lords as my next Heresy Project. This is the initial list that i want to start building towards. It would be great to hear your thoughts

 

Aim of the list is to be fluffy without getting annihilated in the first 2 tuns. Trying to imitate a ambush style force, Vigilator, Apothecary & Praetor join the Assualt Squad, giving them scout and outflank for utility. Damocles is there for Deep strike accuracy and reserve manipulation, Bombardment is a bonus. The rest of the list is very self explanatory. 

 

Things I am not 100% on, Praetor with jump pack, might be too many IC's in the assault squad. Bike squad, they're fast and work well with 'Talent for Murder' but really pricey. 

 

Anyways, what are your thoughts? What would you change and why?

 

Edit: What are the benefits of taking a dreadclaw over a drop pod besides rule of cool? I can't justify the extra points for for a flimsy flyer with average weapons. 

 

Cheers

Edited February 14, 2020 by Ramza

[Imren]

These are the differences I see:

• Drop pod: drops in, remains immobile, cannot assault out of it. Good for shooty units capable of close combat that can shoot effectively and take a charge in the face.
• Dreadclaw: Assault vehicle, Not necessary good idea to deep strike it in and disembark right away as you do with drop pods, Instead, you fly around with it on the table, disembark, charge, if close combat successful, embark and fly elsewhere on the table. Good for pure close combat units, and as it flies around it can do its own attacks. For example, UM (or AL) can put a squad of 9 Suzerains (perhaps two with t.hammers) with medic and fly it where they are needed, assault and chop up a unit with AP2 axes at initiative, and then embark and eff off to the next table corner and mince something else.

 

Regarding your list. Your terror marines will be quite immobile once dropped. When playing objectives mission you will most likely prefer to drop them by the objectives and hope they survive several turns of fighting. You will struggle with jetbike heavy DA and WS lists, they will just dance around your dropped squads and pick them apart from distance.

 

Since it's drop podded, the Leviathan will benefit more from having both arms as close combat weapons, You will strive for dropping it close to enemy lines and it will either be charged or should charge, so you won't get much mileage out of the grav bombard as you will with snippety claws and drills.

 

Also consider exchanging the outriders to scimitars (either sky slayer support or sky hunters), per point I think the scimitars are more worth it.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Imren

[Lautrec the Embraced]

Just a few quick suggestions:

 

- You can replace power weapon with chainglaive but only on characters - your random biker is not allowed to wield it.

 

- Apothecary is really not a fighter - he's worse than any sergeant. But if you insist, with only 1 attack base a power sword will be better then glaive in most cases.

 

- Speaking of apothecary, Battlescribe believes that AArmour and Jump Pack are mutually exclusive. I'd check it just to be sure.

 

- Terror Assault always struggles with vehicles due to only 1 HS slot. Speeders are fun though they die rather quickly (read:if anything looks at them, they die). You have some vehicle-killing melee with melta bombs and chainfists but still I'd add some firepower. Cortus are pretty effective with grav guns - it's quite expensive but it complements them well. Unlike Speeders they won't be Jinking and small range of grav is not a problem - these badboys are usually closing in fast anyway.

 

- I'm not sure if Vigilator is worth it. Scout's cool, but they won't be charging first turn anyway. So I'd say that with Jump packs in many situations they can make easy 2nd turn charge with or without Vigilator.

 

He's far from useless though. I'm not sure if you're aware so just remember that he works like a mini-Curze - he's cameleoline grants him stealth which in turn gives it to the whole unit - so 4+ cover save in the open 1st turn! But one could argue whether taking more marines instead wouldn't be more economic. Your call, I'm just giving ideas.

[Aztek]

 

He's far from useless though. I'm not sure if you're aware so just remember that he works like a mini-Curze - he's cameleoline grants him stealth which in turn gives it to the whole unit - so 4+ cover save in the open 1st turn! But one could argue whether taking more marines instead wouldn't be more economic. Your call, I'm just giving ideas.

I'm new so could be missing something, but he/she's running Terror Assault. So on a 2+ their force is Night Fighting which means their whole army has Stealth on turn 1 with a 4+ cover. Curze is big because of Shrouded giving the juicy +2 on top +1 for stealth for the whole game. So the Vigilator is only giving a 6+ cover and only really kicks in after Terror Assault Night Fighting ends, which is probably turn 3 or 4.

[Ramza]

These are the differences I see:

• Drop pod: drops in, remains immobile, cannot assault out of it. Good for shooty units capable of close combat that can shoot effectively and take a charge in the face.
• Dreadclaw: Assault vehicle, Not necessary good idea to deep strike it in and disembark right away as you do with drop pods, Instead, you fly around with it on the table, disembark, charge, if close combat successful, embark and fly elsewhere on the table. Good for pure close combat units, and as it flies around it can do its own attacks. For example, UM (or AL) can put a squad of 9 Suzerains (perhaps two with t.hammers) with medic and fly it where they are needed, assault and chop up a unit with AP2 axes at initiative, and then embark and eff off to the next table corner and mince something else.

 

Regarding your list. Your terror marines will be quite immobile once dropped. When playing objectives mission you will most likely prefer to drop them by the objectives and hope they survive several turns of fighting. You will struggle with jetbike heavy DA and WS lists, they will just dance around your dropped squads and pick them apart from distance.

 

Since it's drop podded, the Leviathan will benefit more from having both arms as close combat weapons, You will strive for dropping it close to enemy lines and it will either be charged or should charge, so you won't get much mileage out of the grav bombard as you will with snippety claws and drills.

 

Also consider exchanging the outriders to scimitars (either sky slayer support or sky hunters), per point I think the scimitars are more worth it.

 

Thank you for the Drop pod VS Dreadclaw breakdown, very isnightful. The mobility of the Dreadclaw is unquestionable but I think the Drop pods are the better option for me, plus storage and travel with a dreadclaw gives me anxiety :P. In a 3k game I can't see a few AV 12 flyers surviving past turn 2. 

 

I'll definitely change up the Leviathan though, thanks for that suggestion. 

 

I was thinking of Jet bikes, however I see them as a dedicated shooting unit and I wanted outriders for a fast, versatile, tank hunting unit. 

 

 

Just a few quick suggestions:

 

- You can replace power weapon with chainglaive but only on characters - your random biker is not allowed to wield it.

 

- Apothecary is really not a fighter - he's worse than any sergeant. But if you insist, with only 1 attack base a power sword will be better then glaive in most cases.

 

- Speaking of apothecary, Battlescribe believes that AArmour and Jump Pack are mutually exclusive. I'd check it just to be sure.

 

- Terror Assault always struggles with vehicles due to only 1 HS slot. Speeders are fun though they die rather quickly (read:if anything looks at them, they die). You have some vehicle-killing melee with melta bombs and chainfists but still I'd add some firepower. Cortus are pretty effective with grav guns - it's quite expensive but it complements them well. Unlike Speeders they won't be Jinking and small range of grav is not a problem - these badboys are usually closing in fast anyway.

 

- I'm not sure if Vigilator is worth it. Scout's cool, but they won't be charging first turn anyway. So I'd say that with Jump packs in many situations they can make easy 2nd turn charge with or without Vigilator.

 

He's far from useless though. I'm not sure if you're aware so just remember that he works like a mini-Curze - he's cameleoline grants him stealth which in turn gives it to the whole unit - so 4+ cover save in the open 1st turn! But one could argue whether taking more marines instead wouldn't be more economic. Your call, I'm just giving ideas.

 

• Nice pick up on the Chainglaives, I'll amend the list.
• Great point on the apothecary, I'll make that change. You're also right about the AA and Jump pack, I can only take one. 
• I have run Cortus with gravs before and they never seemed worth the investment hence why I have left them off. I will consider them pending some games. Speeders do die quick so I am wanting to deepstrike them next to a tank I want dead.
• I agree that the vigilator may not be the most economical choice but I wanted him in for fluff reasons. He fits the theme of a Night lords force. Plus the ability to scout move or outflank adds some versatility to my assault squad.  If I was to replace him I might invest the points into a tac squad with a nuncio vox for scoring purposes.

[Lautrec the Embraced]

 

He's far from useless though. I'm not sure if you're aware so just remember that he works like a mini-Curze - he's cameleoline grants him stealth which in turn gives it to the whole unit - so 4+ cover save in the open 1st turn! But one could argue whether taking more marines instead wouldn't be more economic. Your call, I'm just giving ideas.

 

I'm new so could be missing something, but he/she's running Terror Assault. So on a 2+ their force is Night Fighting which means their whole army has Stealth on turn 1 with a 4+ cover. Curze is big because of Shrouded giving the juicy +2 on top +1 for stealth for the whole game. So the Vigilator is only giving a 6+ cover and only really kicks in after Terror Assault Night Fighting ends, which is probably turn 3 or 4.

You're absolutely right - Curze is way better at this because shrouded make this unit nigh impervious to ranged attacks. Night fighting and cameoline confers the same bonus so unless you're fighting other Night lords, Wolves or other weirdos with night vision, the latter is useless.

But Terror Assault is unreliable at best; you're quite an optimist with 'probably 2-3 turn'. It lasts on average 1.32 turn (and with my luck it's 1 turn tops...). And your first roll can always fail leaving you with a Rite of War with no benefits at all. So Vigilator is like your insurance policy - likely not necessary, but could be useful when things go south.