HH 2.0 The Kyroptera: VIIIth Legion Tactica

[BitsHammer]

Lose skirmish but gain line seems like a fair trade.

[Brother_Angelus]

You also lose the ability to Evade as a reaction, due to Fearless.

[SkimaskMohawk]

If you put them in deepstrike they really don't need to evade as much.

[Lot35]

Has anyone used or had success with rhinos. Im fascinated by the ability that they have with their 14" to perform tank shocks and hopefully make a squad fallback triggering ATFM for the rest of the army in the movement phase.  Also at 35 points base anything that shoots at it is kinda wasting its points.

The only issues im seeing are:
You only need to be wearing of enemy melee units using it as a way to spring up the board. 
The squad that purchases the Rhino needs to start in it which limits good options.  Im thinking 2 tactical squads with minimal upgrades as cheap troops

[Brother_Angelus]

3 hours ago, Lot35 said:

Has anyone used or had success with rhinos.

They give away attrition like crazy, BUT can be useful for blocking LoS, pushing Line up onto mid board objectives and shielding units from small arms in the first couple of turns. They work best if you have other hard targets to draw away AT fire.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I've thought about rhinos and tank shocking a lot. Well, rhinos and sabres for their 16" moves. If you hit the unit early there's a chance to bump them a few times in the ram, or even cause them to fall back to tee up for instant kill charge. 

 

But, I don't got any lol. Never really jived with the rhino style and owned something like 2 normal ones across 3 legions and 4 or 5 40k marine units. 

 

I think terror marines taking them could be interesting. They don't have to expose themselves, can withdraw into it after shooting, and can prey on any unit that gets rammed. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Just played my first game against the new custodes/talons.

 

My buddy collected them throughout 1st, but never got a game in with them so I went in a bit blind; I took my tournament list of 2500 with curze, 2 dreads, 3x 5 recons, 2 rapiers, 2 javelins, and 2x 5 raptors because I was worried about a guardian steam roller.

 

He didn't have the steamroller; he had lots of vehicles with their now terrible shooting. His list was something like Shield captain, Krole, 1x 5 oblivion knights 1x 3 aquilons, 1x 4 guardians, 1x 4 sentinels, 2x 10 sisters persuers, 2 palas, 2 caladius, 1 coronus, 1 achillus. So he lost really badly as he didn't have enough guardian bodies to melee with and his tanks werent able to deal with multi wound models or even night fight really. 

 

But I did notice a number of things that I'll have to keep in mind for a list that's not just "old collection in 2nd":

 

• Don't expect to get talent for murder. Custodes are bulky 3; they almost always outnumber MSU style units. For my list, I kinda didn't need its benefit against the infantry, and raptors actually don't want it when fishing for 6s. Weight of fire style that uses a lot of <str6 might feel the loss though.
• Night fight ruins their shooting. It's already broadly not the best, but forcing their units to get within 24" before any of it can come out means you can force them into melta range or just get some free turns of shooting. Oh and the -1 BS is helpful.
• Don't expect to leadership shenanigan them. They're basically all stubborn 9 or better, you can't crush their leadership through fear or night. Well, until they do fail a morale test and need to rally. But you won't be able to pin stuff willy nilly.
• They can't mess with curze. He can basically solo any unit with his power.
• But don't mess with the achillus without curze. WS 6 is a very hard break point, and can fight almost all of our stuff no problem.
• Our special units have a rough time fighting them. They're pretty much all glass cannons at heart that rely on initiative and good weapon skill to provide defensive benefit. The custodes match it, and also get more attacks due to nemesis. 

So against a more optimized list, I think a lot of our strengths kinda disappear, though we use curze's speed and lethality as a bit of a trouble shooter. Snipers and other good shooting can whittle down units to the point where dreads or terminators can engage it safely. Maybe use splinter rounds for the rending over fire+shatter on quads?

 

 

[Papewaio]

Any tips on dealing with mass deep strike? I consistently get absolutely wrecked by Day of Revelation - you can't avoid the marker because deep strike can basically get you anywhere and it feels like a waste to stick augury scanners on everything, especially if its only token shooting.

[SkimaskMohawk]

8 minutes ago, Papewaio said:

Any tips on dealing with mass deep strike? I consistently get absolutely wrecked by Day of Revelation - you can't avoid the marker because deep strike can basically get you anywhere and it feels like a waste to stick augury scanners on everything, especially if its only token shooting.

 

My blood angel buddy usually runs it, so I got a lot of experience with it. There's three real options for blunting it:

1. Master of signal. He can basically shut down the desire to do mass deepstrike, and day of revelation doesn't give you the option to start on the board. He can really do a number with disrupting half of the assault.
2. Screen the core of your list with despoilers or tacs. Make your opponents waste their deepstrike charge on them.
3. Take augury scanners on a lot of quality units. Pinning units off the intercept is devastating, so is feeding a volley of lascannons. I have 3 units of recons and a seeker unit with scanners. They can snipe out the seargents or characters and force the tests into the fear and the night and all that.

You can combine all three to really stop it if you need to. Master of signals is the cheapest in points and money. Recons probably round out a list the most. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Alright, I'm getting bored of my curze, raptor, recon terror assault so I'm doing a completely different list tonight...with curze, recons and terror assault. But with terror marines!

 

The list is either 30 with blades or 45 with axes (both with volkite). Theres a questionable melee Leviathan as well for good measure, and only a single javelin for dedicated ranged anti tank. I feel like I'm going to miss the 1st edition night initiative or the playtest weapon skill, but we'll see if they get wiped too hard.

 

Edit:

 

So I ended going with a Herald, 30 chainblade+volkite terrors, 15 sniper recons, 2 javelins, a melee Leviathan and curze. My world eater buddy brought a berserker assault list with angron, 2 kheres+fist contemptors, 40 despoilers, 15 falax rampagers, 5 butchers, 10 las HSS, apothecaries, and a master of signal. Lots of infantry which is good for me, but they're  extra resistant to pinning, extra fast, and have weight of attacks to brutalize my squads if they didn't get thinned out first. We rolled blood feud on search and destroy, and i got deployment priority. 

 

The game was a bit of a fiasco. We both forgot some key charges, he forgot to pre measure distance to the closest units and got forced to charge some irrelevant stuff, i pulled some really janky moves with challenge locking angron and abusing melee wound allocation, and then it culminated with us realizing we didn't understand blood feuds scoring. I had last played the mission years ago; he had read it as we gain victory points for every killed unit, scaled to the blood feud. As we started my turn 5, I thought I had 13 and he thought he had 12. Then we realized we had never chosen a blood feud unit type, and those were the only ones to give out VP. I would have still picked angron, but he would have played it safe on Infantry; either way it would have changed our playstyles and we agreed to label it a learning experience.

 

And what did i learn about terror Marines? Well, en masse they have some serious anti infantry output, and the squad with curze killed angron, killed a bunch of rampagers and put 3 wounds on a contemptor. But they also die really hard; ws 4 let's them get bullied by other elites, I4 makes them vulnerable to trading with other units, 1 wound and 3+ just cements it. For 15 volkite+chainblades, i could get 11 raptors with double claw and meltas, who move faster, have better alternative deployment, have more total wounds, higher weapon skill, better charges, can strike at I5 and don't need to pay for night vision. I'm not sure how their base 18 points lines up with say, a mortals destroyers 12.

Edited December 31, 2022 by SkimaskMohawk

[Lord Morgrim]

Thanks for the run down. I am just starting my NL army and I am going with a Sevatar Pride of the Legion list. I will be adding in a 15 strong unit of raptors as well because they are cool. Where do you source the lightning claws for them? What ratio of claws to melta do you use?

[SkimaskMohawk]

50 minutes ago, Lord Morgrim said:

Thanks for the run down. I am just starting my NL army and I am going with a Sevatar Pride of the Legion list. I will be adding in a 15 strong unit of raptors as well because they are cool. Where do you source the lightning claws for them? What ratio of claws to melta do you use?

 

Depending on how pure you want the heresy aesthetic you can just buy 40k raptors/warp talons and use the stuff from that box to make them. Otherwise it's 3d printing or dark fury for enough claws. And I usually do units of 5 with 4 2x claw, 1 melta gun, and 1 chainglaive on the melta gunner. 

[SyNidus]

Hail gentlemen, i've not been particularly active in the hobby as of late, but i'm slowly picking it back up. I had a couple of games of HH 2.0 throughout the course  of last year and based on my experiences there and some theoryhammer, i've written a new list for which I'd be most grateful if you fine folks could take a look and share your thoughts.

The army list post link is here: https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/377063-2000-night-lords-terror-assault/

Cheers!

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by SyNidus

[SyNidus]

On a separate note:

How do you guys choose between taking a Delegatus or a Praetor?

Both are there to enable the RoWs. On one hand, the Praetor has the iron halo, +1A and +1LD. On the other hand, the delegatus is cheaper and has that sweet rallying ability. Would their stats change your wargear choices? For example, a thunder hammer on a praetor is pretty good, but would the delegatus be better with Twin Lightning Claws rather than a Thunderhammer?

[Lord Morgrim]

I am having trouble writing a good terror assault list. I feel like I should play to the strengths of night lords but I can’t decide what units to take. Units that have long range to hit from outside 24 inches I feel is important. Problem is my regular opponents take lots of augury scanners and master of signals. Does this mess with our advantage in night fighting? I have been tempted to run a pride led by Sev and containing a big unit of raptors. I really am in two minds on how to build my Night lords.

[The Scorpion]

On 10/22/2022 at 5:16 AM, SkimaskMohawk said:

Heralds are really good, and can help shore up the leadership of a drop for any interceptor pinning. In other armies they'd also double to help inflict pinning from fear, but night lords kinda have that covered already.  I personally haven't used one yet, since the one I have doesn't have a jump pack and doesn't lend well to getting one. 

 

I haven't had any terror marine success yet and lots with raptors, so I'd say go with them.

Not to mention they carry a sick banner.

[Kain Mor]

Hey friends! 
I’m new to HH/7th Ed style rules, been in the hobby 4-5 years. I’m currently working on building up my army and I had a couple questions.

 

1. I’ve been looking at javelins as a way to add more AT fire in a terror assault list, and I’m wondering if you think it’s more valuable to have 2 selections of 1 javelin each with preysight or 1 selection of 2? 
its basically a matter of whether the extra 15 pts savings is worth having them firing at the same target or not and I’m new to split fire being restricted and unsure how valuable that is.

 

2. What are people’s takes on fire raptors as a heavy support slot?  They seem to have a decent amount of firepower and feel relatively fluffy, with effective BS5 against infantry targets.

 

what’s holding me back though is concerns about the durability for that level of point investment, and outside of the missiles it is primarily anti infantry fire which we aren’t lacking in. In addition, it doesn’t really contribute to our hunt for pinning weapons
 

 

3. I’m wondering what people’s preferred “front line” character loadout and escort is. Praetors with jump pack and raptors? Praetor on foot with terror squads? Or a different type of consul? 
 

thank you for any insight! 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Going MSU is usually the better choice. Having flexibility with 50% of the shooting is great, but it's also how complicated targetting for your opponent and gives you more options with their positioning. The best reason to keep them in a single unit is to get value out of Evade. But it is a trade off. 

 

The fire Raptor has a number of issues, barely any of which are actually with its entry. The first is that there's fewer light/medium vehicles in the game; the javelin is toughness value, the predator and Vindicator side armour went up, and the dreadnought is toughness value. The second is that there's a ton of multiwound infantry now, so it's guns have a harder time clearing out squads; they also have an issue with the larger amounts of feel no pain. The third is augury scanners and interceptor in general being a huge disincentive to flyers. The fourth is being unable to outmaneuver the artificer due to the change to wound allocation. The fifth is losing Jink's 4+ cover save for the entire turn for a 5+ against one attack. The sixth is a lot of the beneficial reserve manipulation was made worse. The last thing is it's points; it was too good and too cheap in 1st and the new point value would actually reflect its abilities...back then. But in 2nds environment it really didn't need to go up. Definitely not one of the better heavy support choices, especially if it's going to be your only one.

 

IMO front line melee beatstick marine charavters are a bit of a trap.  It's really hard to beat a dreadnoughts output in melee, so you need to have a little something extra to pass up on bringing a Herald, librarian, or vigilator. A thunderhammer praetor will kill the most out of any HQ, jump pack being the best mobility option. Sevatar costs more and is worse at instant killing terminators, but will go before anything else and win almost any duel. He can also snipe out characters with his high precision strikes, and enhances terminators. Curze is the ultimate investment as a primarch; he'll beat almost anything down in combat, is very hard to pin down, and actually saves you points on the night vision front. That free synergy with terror assault makes him really easy to include in lists.

 

 

[Stickyjester]

Looking for thoughts on my 2500 lost for a tournament next month. Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated. Ave Dominus Nox.

 

++ Crusade Force Organisation Chart (LA - VIII: Night Lords) [2,494Pts] ++

 

+ Expanded Army Lists +

 

Expanded Army List Profiles:: Exemplary Units On, Legacy Units On

 

+ Allegiance: +

 

   VIII: Night Lords

 

Allegiance: Traitor

 

+ Rite of War: +

 

Rite of War: Terror Assault (NL)

 

+ HQ: +

 

Centurion [75Pts]

. Armistos: Artificer Armour

. . Bolt Pistol

. . Chainsword: Chainsword

. Armistos

 

Praetor [370Pts]: Flaymaster (PLACEHOLDER), Warlord

. Command Squad, Tartaros 

. . Tartaros Chosen: Combi-Bolter, Chainglaive

. . Tartaros Chosen: Combi-Bolter, Chainglaive

. . Tartaros Chosen: Combi-Bolter, Chainglaive

. . Tartaros Chosen: Combi-Bolter, Chainglaive

. . Tartaros Standard Bearer w/Melee Weapon: Chainglaive

. Legion Praetor: Artificer Armour, Bolt Pistol, Paragon Blade

 

+ Elites: +

 

Apothecarion Detachment [45Pts]

. Apothecary: Bolt Pistol, Power Armour

. . Chainsword: Chainsword

 

Contemptor Dreadnought Talon [435Pts]: Preysight

. Contemptor Dreadnought: Gravis Lascannon, Gravis Power Fist with in-built ranged weapon, Meltagun

. Contemptor Dreadnought: Gravis Lascannon, Gravis Power Fist with in-built ranged weapon, Meltagun

 

Night Raptor Squad [425Pts]

. Huntmaster: Artificer Armour, Bolt Pistol, Headsman's Axe

. 9x Night Raptor w/Pair of Lightning Claws: 9x Pair of Lightning Claws

 

Terror Squad [326Pts]: Preysight, 6x Rotor Cannon, 6x Volkite Charger

. 12x Executioner w/Chainsword: 12x Bolt Pistol, 12x Chainsword

. Headsman: Artificer Armour, Chainsword

 

+ Troops: +

 

Reconnaissance Squad [223Pts]

. Legion Recon Sergeant: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

. Recon Legionary: Bolt Pistol, Nemesis Bolter

 

Tactical Squad [170Pts]: Preysight

. Legion Tactical Sergeant: Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Chain Bayonet, Power Armour

. 9x Legionaries (collective): 9x Bolt Pistol, 9x Bolter, 9x Chain Bayonet

. Rhino Transport

 

+ Heavy Support: +

 

Kratos Squadron [425Pts]: Preysight

. Kratos: 2x Lascannons, Dozer Blade, Flare Shield, Hull (Front, Right/Left) Mounted Lascannons, Melta Blast-Gun

 

++ Total: [2,494Pts] ++

 

 

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

- Thunder hammer on the praetor instead of Paragon.

- Something legal on the command squad instead of chainblades 

- Split the dreadnoughts 

- Drop the terrors and possibly the tacs 

- Consider units of 5 recons; each five average a rend for an opposing seargent. 

- if you don't have one big unit to buff with the armistos, consider switching it to a tely librarian.

 

 

[Stickyjester]

Damn, missed that I can't give the retinue Chainglaives as they lack the character subtype. Really annoying as I wanted to run kitbash them to look like Atramentar but with WS5. Tempted to go with dual lightning claws instead for the extra attack to make up for lack of strength.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[oldhat]

I have been tinkering with the list and realizing that Terror Squads are just... not great. Not until they come down in price.

 

For TA lists, how about running a Warmonger + Cataphractii as an option for another threat coming from a different vector? In combo with a Pod Levi, this is two potent hammers coming down. As long as our pinning units make sure we don't eat a lot of interceptor fire, that could be good?

Anyone done this yet?

[Brother_Angelus]

6 hours ago, oldhat said:

I have been tinkering with the list and realizing that Terror Squads are just... not great. Not until they come down in price.

 

For TA lists, how about running a Warmonger + Cataphractii as an option for another threat coming from a different vector? In combo with a Pod Levi, this is two potent hammers coming down. As long as our pinning units make sure we don't eat a lot of interceptor fire, that could be good?

Anyone done this yet?

Unless you have another idea for your Warlord pick, then Sevetar's Trait will give Cataphractii deepstrike without needing the extra consul or the risk of blipping out of existence.

[oldhat]

9 minutes ago, Brother_Angelus said:

Unless you have another idea for your Warlord pick, then Sevetar's Trait will give Cataphractii deepstrike without needing the extra consul or the risk of blipping out of existence.

 

Curze. I wouldn't run a TA list without him. Sev is great but plays very differently.

 

Also, for the Warmonger, it's a 16% chance to take ine wound with a 50% chance to save on Cataphractii. That's not that likely to hurt the unit all that much. I think it's potentially worth it to have a second hammer unit to augment my Drop Levi, while my Raptors and other units move up field.

[SkimaskMohawk]

On 1/12/2023 at 3:58 AM, Stickyjester said:

Damn, missed that I can't give the retinue Chainglaives as they lack the character subtype. Really annoying as I wanted to run kitbash them to look like Atramentar but with WS5. Tempted to go with dual lightning claws instead for the extra attack to make up for lack of strength.

 

 

Ya it's a shame they did the atrementar so dirty since 8 months prior when their rules dropped for 1st they were WS 5. And scoring. And disrupted charges. Would have been a fantastic terminator units at their old, more expensive price, but with the 2nd tweaks.

 

@oldhat ya terrors are basically a complete liability unless they're used as a pseudo support squad. They're just way too expensive. For 15ppm you can get an assault destroyer; same statline, has faster movement and deepstrike instead of infiltrate and outflank, loses PE but has rad grenades, actually benefits from ATfM easily, and if you make them both 20ppm for volkite you double the amount of shots. And people don't really run destroyers lol. You just can't really fight other elite melee units, and can't afford to trade 20-30 point models with chaf.