God Aligned Elites with Night Lords?

[Kain Mor]

Hey guys!

 

I’ve been looking at different Elites choices to supplement my Night Lords and thinking about branching out. I wanted to see what units people have used and get your takes on their places in our lists!

 

I’ll kick this off with Berzerkers. They’re an obvious stand out that none of my winning lists have been without. The level of melee output they have is just incredible.

 

That being said, I’ve been glancing towards Rubric Marines more and more these days. The durability they bring as a fire base with decent AP is intriguing. Plus, I’d love the opportunity to convert up some themed Night lords battle automata.

 

So, what are your takes on the big four elites?

[Celtic_cauldron]

As a traditional Night Lord player I never play God-aligned units, limiting myself to Chosen, Terminators and various Dreadnoughts.

 

Yet if I had to pick one I would go for Berserkers because my play style is quite aggressive. As you mentioned it those guys can deliver a fairly huge amount of damage in close combat so they would definitely be an option. Thus the question should be: what is your own style?

 

Ave Dominus Nox!!

 

Celtic_Cauldron

[Doom Herald]

Night Lords with taint and devotion are not unheard of, calling it worship might be a bit much though. That said, I dont recall any full squads being devoted to a single god in the fluff. Of course, in 40k fluff we often see units made up of what we would consider to be components of many different units or impossible wargear combinations.

 

I've used NL Berzerkers and they work extremely well. I havent tried any of the others. Berzerkers also seem like the ones that would benefit from being Night Lords the most. Terror Tactics, From the Night, Prey on the Weak, [i can't think of the name] the fall back and charge strat. Night Lords rules push the playstyle towards melee-aggressive.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Doom Herald

[Mr Smith]

Aside from Berzerkers, Noise Marines suit the Night Lords sadistic nature, and Plague Marines work well with the 'fear' aspect.  Nothing Tzeenchian fits Night Lords as well, I think, but still wouldn't be unheard of.

[Gederas]

Aside from Berzerkers, Noise Marines suit the Night Lords sadistic nature, and Plague Marines work well with the 'fear' aspect.  Nothing Tzeenchian fits Night Lords as well, I think, but still wouldn't be unheard of.

This. We've also seen in the Night Lords trilogy a marine who's literally a Khorne Berzerker without the Nails (Uzas), a very heavily Slaanesh-corrupted Marine (Cyrion) and one who's very strongly hinted as being Nurgle Tainted (Lucoryphus).

 

I use Berzerkers to great effect with my Night Lords (a squad of 10 buffed with Prescience actually ran over a 6-strong squad of Tau Stealth Suits in a single melee phase!), and Night Lords Plague Marines become ANNOYINGLY hard to remove, because if you REALLY wanted to, you can get them -4 to hit (In Midnight Clad, Miasma of Pestilence, Benediction of Darkness in normal games, plus Night Fighting....). Even a -2 to hit Night Lords Plague Marine squad from In Midnight Clad and Miasma of Pestilence is annoying as hell to remove (which I GREATLY enjoyed when fighting someone's Tau ).

 

Plus, the new Plague Marine sculpts look good really in Night Lords colours:

 

I've yet to finish painting my Berzerkers, but you don't even really need to go full-on with the Khornate iconography. You can keep it more subtle, like a Khorne-marked shoulder pad, more red areas (a red shoulder pad). I did that and also used the oldschool Night Lords upgrade pack helmets to make a similar silhouette to the Berzerker's caedere remissum helmets:

Edited March 2, 2020 by Gederas

[Tallarn Commander]

I agree with what's been said.

While the Night Lords would never owe fealty to any of the gods, they would certainly fight alongside Cult troops for a host of reasons. And, as has been noted, individual Night Lords or (possibly?) whole Night Lords squads might embody aspects of certain gods and/or become tainted by them.

In my mercenary Night Lords warband. The warband leader, Duvalier Nightfall, hires his forces out to any non-Imperium client with enough coin. Then he simply sub-contracts out work to cult and other forces as needed. And he loves hiring Khorne Bezerkers because they are effective and because they are particularly cheap. They only want to be paid in skulls, something the Night Lords can easily acquire.

Here are some photos of Nights Lords and hired Bezerkers together from 3 games.

Bezerker Krueger, the rest of his squad having been killed, stands firm next to the Night Lords Rhino "Dragonne" in a battle against Tyranids

Night Lords "Bats out of Hell" Raptor Squad and Biker Lord Chamorro move up alongside Bezerker Rhino "Death's Head" in a fight against Death Guard

Night Lords Dark Apostle Nightgaunt and Sorcerer Castro battle Slaaneshi daemons alongside Bezerkers Skull Reaver, Maggot, and Blood Rose

Sometimes one of my Night Lords sorcerers perils when casting Prescience on a Bezerker squad. When this happens I always think that the sorc takes damage not because the warp hurt the caster. Instead he or she took damage because an irate Bezerker turned around and said, "You will pay for using sorcery on us you treacherous dog!" and the grumpy Bezerker then chops into the unfortunate sorcerer with a chainaxe!

Night Lords, "The quick and the dead."

Edited March 2, 2020 by Tallarn Commander

[Gree]

The old Index Astartes had this to say about them.

 

Night Lords are exceptionally versatile in their use of the forces of Chaos, employing the hell-spawned powers of each of the major Chaos deities with equal favour. It is just as likely that the Night Lords will be seen fighting alongside a group of foul Plague Marines as it is the warriors of the Thousand Sons. However, it has been ascertained that the Night Lords have nothing but scorn for faith in ail its forms, whether it be the fanatical bloodlust of the Khornate Berzerker or the devotion of the Imperial creed. The only authority they recognise is that of temporal power and material wealth.

 

 

In a ''fluffy'' list it would be acceptable to have Cult troops as allies or mercenaries.

 

Otherwise, I don't really think that Night Lords would really become Berzerkers, Plague Marines or Noise Marines. Certain Night Lords would possess Chaos Marks yes. However the specialist Cult units speak to me of a complete and total dedication to to a single Chaos God, the ultimate culmination of that path. The Night Lords strike me as too cynical and temporal to have that total dedication. Maybe individual Night Lords, but not whole squads.

 

Of course, rules now allow that and a player can do whatever they want with their own army. So if somebody wants to run Night Lords Plague Marines then they do can whatever they want with their models.

[Lucerne]

Honestly, individual warbands are fair game. Maybe yours decided to break from the mold.

 

Or refluff it and kitbash- they're not Plague Marines, they're biological warfare terror troops, who Nurgle is "favoring" against their will.

 

They're sonic warfare specialists.

 

They're witch-kin and entralled astartes, puppetted by unholy warp-magic.

 

They're just...close quarters Marines that Khorne may or may not favor.

 

The Codex is a source of custom fluff and inspiration, not a straitjacket.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Lucerne

[SyNidus]

Yup, I've found that fluff is very flexible for the Night Lords. Particularly because the legion is so fractured that every path, whether puritan, chaos-worshipper or otherwise is fluffy.

[Lucerne]

Also, let's be honest: the CSM codex is terrible for representing things that aren't daemon-heavy warbands, Red Corsairs that left their mortal followers behind, or Black Legion/WB, unless you get very creative with the counts-as.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Lucerne

[Gederas]

Honestly, individual warbands are fair game. Maybe yours decided to break from the mold.

 

Or refluff it and kitbash- they're not Plague Marines, they're biological warfare terror troops, who Nurgle is "favoring" against their will.

 

They're sonic warfare specialists.

 

They're witch-kin and entralled astartes, puppetted by unholy warp-magic.

 

They're just...close quarters Marines that Khorne may or may not favor.

 

The Codex is a source of custom fluff and inspiration, not a straitjacket.

You know, I thought about the Plague Marines for my Night Lords being former Breachers.... But them being former Legion Destroyers? That's an idea.

[Lucerne]

 

Honestly, individual warbands are fair game. Maybe yours decided to break from the mold.

 

Or refluff it and kitbash- they're not Plague Marines, they're biological warfare terror troops, who Nurgle is "favoring" against their will.

 

They're sonic warfare specialists.

 

They're witch-kin and entralled astartes, puppetted by unholy warp-magic.

 

They're just...close quarters Marines that Khorne may or may not favor.

 

The Codex is a source of custom fluff and inspiration, not a straitjacket.

You know, I thought about the Plague Marines for my Night Lords being former Breachers.... But them being former Legion Destroyers? That's an idea.

 

I thought about that as well, but didn't the changes to the way Plague Marines work make that less of a "conceptual" fit for breachers?

[Gederas]

Honestly, individual warbands are fair game. Maybe yours decided to break from the mold.

 

Or refluff it and kitbash- they're not Plague Marines, they're biological warfare terror troops, who Nurgle is "favoring" against their will.

 

They're sonic warfare specialists.

 

They're witch-kin and entralled astartes, puppetted by unholy warp-magic.

 

They're just...close quarters Marines that Khorne may or may not favor.

 

The Codex is a source of custom fluff and inspiration, not a straitjacket.

You know, I thought about the Plague Marines for my Night Lords being former Breachers.... But them being former Legion Destroyers? That's an idea.

I thought about that as well, but didn't the changes to the way Plague Marines work make that less of a "conceptual" fit for breachers?

It was kind of a logical progression for me. Breachers are usually depicted in Mark III armour and seem to be really, really durable. Plague Marines are in Mark III armour and are really, really durable.

[Paradigm]

Each one of the non-cult legions kind of remix themes from three of the four cult legions. Night Lords are basically Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch. At least this is how I see them. Night Lords don’t seem to be as tempted by Nurgle’s offerings. Though I mark mine Nurgle all the time for the added morale debuff. I also think Night Lords plague marines look awesome.

 

Plus Rogue Trader Night Lords were legit Khornate.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Paradigm

[Kain Mor]

My puritan Night Lords don't make use of any Daemon units, and it definitely hurts. I feel like the God-aligned elites are less of an issue even in strict interpretations of the fluff because of how pragmatic the Night Lords are, and short of maybe the Plague Marines most of these elites are more using the dark powers as tools compared to things like Helbrutes and even warp talons. 

 

That being said, the lack of Warp Talons in my lists definitely hurts, so does refusing to use Daemon Princes and Daemon engines which seem to be the stronger parts of our codex at this time. Which is a main part of why I wanted to start this discussion, to see what other tools we have in our toolbox to still make some lists with teeth. 

 

I'm definitely going to look into some heavily converted and themed Rubric or Noise marines. 

[Lucerne]

My puritan Night Lords don't make use of any Daemon units, and it definitely hurts. I feel like the God-aligned elites are less of an issue even in strict interpretations of the fluff because of how pragmatic the Night Lords are, and short of maybe the Plague Marines most of these elites are more using the dark powers as tools compared to things like Helbrutes and even warp talons. 

 

That being said, the lack of Warp Talons in my lists definitely hurts, so does refusing to use Daemon Princes and Daemon engines which seem to be the stronger parts of our codex at this time. Which is a main part of why I wanted to start this discussion, to see what other tools we have in our toolbox to still make some lists with teeth. 

 

I'm definitely going to look into some heavily converted and themed Rubric or Noise marines. 

For Warp Talons, refluff them as CQC Marines that the gods are taking an interest in. It's unfluffy and ridiculous that all jump pack marines with lightning talons in the traitor legions have to be daemonic in the first place- what, does picking up a lightning talon automatically make you a Warp Talon now?

 

Lorewise, there are still Chaos Dreadnoughts. Ignore the GW description/models for Helbrutes and use counts-as.

 

Daemon Engines and princes- yeah, that's probably lorebreaking, but warp talons can be refluffed easily.

 

That, or think about using a LSM codex and looking at units like Reivers or "successor chapter" rules.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Lucerne

[Kain Mor]

I haven’t missed helbrutes at all really, as the Hellforged Contemptor dreadnoughts are quite nice. And yeah, as far as warp talons go I’ve definitely felt my convictions slipping as far as using them.

Luckily I kinda just dislike all the daemon-y stuff anyway, so my personal taste and the fluff align pretty well there.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I mean, daemon engines don’t necessarily require worship, just summoning and binding, and if the Exorcists can summon a daemon to possess every inductee and still be Emperor-worshipping Loyalists, then Night Lords should be able to do it while remaining “neutral” without any issue.

 

Hell, if they’re puritans, explain it as a way they show their dominance over the Warp. Other Chaos Marines may make bargains and pacts to achieve power, but that’s for weaklings. The strong command, and the weak obey. That was the law of Nostromo, your Lord is simply continuing that tradition. Chaos serves him, not the other way around.

 

...Of course, out-of-universe, we know this sort of mentality doesn’t last too long, as eventually something gets free and wants revenge. Until then, though? Well, that’s where the fun is.