Night Lords Armoured Spearhead 3k *EDITED BASED ON FEEDBACK 07/11/2022)*

[gmaleron]

Edited List based on everyone's feedback:

HQ:

-x1 Sicaran *w/ Lascannon Sponsons Prey Sight, x1 Hunter Killer Missile

TROOPS:

-x2 Predators *w/ x1 Predator Cannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons, x1 Gravis Lascannon Turret, Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Dozer Blades, Prey Sight

-x2 Predators *w/ x1 Predator Cannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons, x1 Gravis Lascannon Turret, Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Dozer Blades, Prey Sight

-x2 Predators *w/ x1 Predator Cannon Turret, Lascannon Sponsons, x1 Gravis Lascannon Turret, Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Dozer Blades, Prey Sight

-Tactical Squad *w/ Sgt with Chainblade, Chainsaw Bayonets, Rhino, Transport, Dozer Blades

-Tactical Squad *w/ Sgt with Chainblade, Chainsaw Bayonets, Rhino, Transport, Dozer Blades

FAST ATTACK:

-x3 Sabre Tanks (Individual Units) *w/ Neutron Blasters, Heavy Bolters

HEAVY SUPPORT:

-x Kratos *w/ Volkite Cardenelle, Hull Volkite Calivers, Sponson Volkite Culervin, Flare Shield, Prey Sight

-x2 Sicaran Punishers *w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Prey Sight

-x2 Sicaran Punishers *w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Prey Sight

TOTAL ARMY: 3000 POINTS

Edited July 13, 2022 by gmaleron
Changing List

[stretch_135]

The Sicaran for the HQ has to be the stock standard Sicaran, not one of the variants like the Arcus (exact wording is "a single Legion Sicaran Squadron or Legion Predator Squadron, composed of a single model, must be selected as a HQ choice").

[Eternal Despair]

I always love seeing armoured breakthrough lists but they’ve taken a massive hit in the new edition, so as long as your cool with the changes this is a decent base to work from.

One of the biggest hits to the Rite of War (even between the playtest and final release) is that predator squadrons no longer score, coupled with the removal of implacable advance and the introduction of the line sub type means that this list has 0 scoring units. So in 3/6 of the generic missions you’re going to need to table your opponent to do better than an a draw (which in of itself is unlikely), for 2/6 missions while you can do alright without scoring units you’re going to be behind the 8 ball and fight hard to catch up, the last of the 6 missions is kill points with a twist which you’ll be fine with. The main takeaway from all this is that in most games your only goal is to kill your opponents entire army which does get boring after a while.

Now for the list itself it is slightly Illegal as only the standard/basic Sicarian tanks or predators can become the HQ command tank which means you need to drop the Arcus for a standard one. I’d still keep the lascannon sponsons on the standard sicarian, also I don’t know why you’ve written it down but the Arcus doesn’t come with nor have the option to take a helical targeting array. 

For the troops there’s two changes I’d make, the first is I’d swap the lascannon predators for 3 vindicators with the Magna laser destroyers, the vindicators are actually cheaper than the predators while also gaining an extra shot comopared to the gravis lascannon (3 vs 2) while being ordnance (roll 2d6 for armour pen and keep the highest) and having the exoshock 6+ rule (for every successful pen roll another dice on a 6 you cause another pen). The downside to this swap is that the vindicator is only M12 as opposed to M14, which coupled with ordinance on the main gun means you can only move 6 inches and fire the gun, additionally the Magna laser destroyer is also shorter ranged (36 inches as opposed to 48) and lastly you lose out on sponson heavy bolters. Now in my experience (granted HH1.0 laser Vindis where they’re a touch worse) it’s rare that on a 6x4 table you’re going to be out of range of your targets especially when you factor in you can move 6 inches closer before you fire. The additional shot and bonus to the Magna laser destroyer will also help the squadron to more reliably take down the largest of armoured threats namely those with a flare shield/invulnerable save or with loads of hull points (superheavies and knights namely). The second change is that I would split the remaining 2x3 squadrons of predators into individual units, this does mean that you have to pay an extra 60 points due to base unit price being higher than the additional, however vehicle squadrons come with some massive downsides for (in this edition) zero benefits outside of slot efficiency ( which doesn’t matter now that you only have 6 predators). The two biggest downsides for vehicle squadrons is 1. If one tank suffers an immobilised result and you move the other tanks in the squad out of coherency (which is 4 inches) then the immobilised tank is simply removed from the table, so you either have to lose a tank unnecessarily or the rest of the squadron is chained to the immobilised squadron mate. The second and arguably more devastating downside is due to the damage spilling over into other tanks in the squadron, this occurs in one of two forms, the first is through the shear volume of pens/glances, due to the fact heresy has large squads of anti tank weapons which aren’t uncommon at all it isn’t unlikely a 10 man lascannon squad causes 6 pens/glances on your tank, if your preds are in a squadron that’s 2 dead tanks, however if the preds are in individual units then your opponent can only kill the one predator with one 10 man heavy support squad. The second type of damage spilling which is far more frustrating is a consequence of how vehicle damage and the vehicle damage table is resolved. The order in which vehicle damage is resolved boils down to see how many glances/pens are caused, then remove the appropriate amount of hull points from the tank/tanks, remove wrecked tanks, then resolve any pens on the vehicle damage table. As a result if your opponent rolls any explodes results then they are applied to the remaining tanks in the squad. Let’s take the previous example of a lascannon heavy support squad vs a squadron of 3 predators at full hull points, now lets say the lascannon squad got 6 hits, resulting in 3 glances and 2 armour pens, the damage is applied to the squadron, resulting in 5 hull points being removed, there fore one predator is wrecked, one has only a single hull point remaining and the final predator on full hull points, now with the damage applied your opponent rolls to see what the 2 pens do and its the worst result possible 2 6’s meaning you know suffer 2 explodes results and now you also lost the barely the other two. That’s why I always recommend, especially on armoured breakthrough, wherever possible to split up squadrons of tanks now it is unavoidable in some scenarios such as with the kratos and the vindicators as you simply don’t have enough heavy support slots.

With that slab of text out of the way the sabres are a nice inclusion however the volkite culverin isn’t worth the points, yes it is the better weapon but the snub autocannon usually wants to fire at either monstrous creatures (mostly the stomps robots of the mechanicum) or at the exposed rears of less armoured vehicles, (rhinos, preds, vindis bassically anything with a rhino chassis or worse), the volkite culverin wants to fire at hordes of infantry, so its a bit of a mismatch of weapons in that sense, I’d rather save the points. And again since you have the slots run them as 2 individual squadrons. 

And with that we come to the heavy support slot, I absolutely love the full volkite Kratos tanks, they’re very pricy so in the future you may want to swap one of them out for some more sicarian or something else but for now it’s fine. As I said before I think you should really include the laser destroyer vindicators over the gravis lascannon predators so there’s the second slot. Now with the last slot I don’t think you should run the aquitor bombard, I’ve never liked them tbh but even moreso in this edition, artillery has taken a massive drumming and in an all thank list you frankly have the mobility that indirect fire weapons aren’t hugely necessary. Now there’s two options you could swap them out for. The first is a squadron of 2 sicarian punishers, the volume of shots while cause way more hits than a single 5 inch template would anyway, plus on top of the pinning it also has shellshock to more easily pin units which is huge this edition, at the end of the day it’s more anti infantry fire power which you may or may not need seeing as you have the 2 all volkite kratos tanks. The alternative is to run a single sicarian arcus with the sky spear warheads for some anti air, then if you have points left over buy another single standard sicaran in the elites slot, or a second sicaran arcus with sky spear warheads for even more AA.

With all that said I’ll leave you with two final pieces of advice, if you can’t afford to take a dozer blade on the tank you can’t afford the tank, no one wants to be the poor guy who immobilised his tank turn one on a shrub (especially if that tank is in a squadron). Now I was only doing some rough math in my head when making changes to your list so if you need to free up points just drop one of the sabres. 

 

[gmaleron]

1 hour ago, Eternal Despair said:

I always love seeing armoured breakthrough lists but they’ve taken a massive hit in the new edition, so as long as your cool with the changes this is a decent base to work from.

One of the biggest hits to the Rite of War (even between the playtest and final release) is that predator squadrons no longer score, coupled with the removal of implacable advance and the introduction of the line sub type means that this list has 0 scoring units. So in 3/6 of the generic missions you’re going to need to table your opponent to do better than an a draw (which in of itself is unlikely), for 2/6 missions while you can do alright without scoring units you’re going to be behind the 8 ball and fight hard to catch up, the last of the 6 missions is kill points with a twist which you’ll be fine with. The main takeaway from all this is that in most games your only goal is to kill your opponents entire army which does get boring after a while.

Now for the list itself it is slightly Illegal as only the standard/basic Sicarian tanks or predators can become the HQ command tank which means you need to drop the Arcus for a standard one. I’d still keep the lascannon sponsons on the standard sicarian, also I don’t know why you’ve written it down but the Arcus doesn’t come with nor have the option to take a helical targeting array. 

For the troops there’s two changes I’d make, the first is I’d swap the lascannon predators for 3 vindicators with the Magna laser destroyers, the vindicators are actually cheaper than the predators while also gaining an extra shot comopared to the gravis lascannon (3 vs 2) while being ordnance (roll 2d6 for armour pen and keep the highest) and having the exoshock 6+ rule (for every successful pen roll another dice on a 6 you cause another pen). The downside to this swap is that the vindicator is only M12 as opposed to M14, which coupled with ordinance on the main gun means you can only move 6 inches and fire the gun, additionally the Magna laser destroyer is also shorter ranged (36 inches as opposed to 48) and lastly you lose out on sponson heavy bolters. Now in my experience (granted HH1.0 laser Vindis where they’re a touch worse) it’s rare that on a 6x4 table you’re going to be out of range of your targets especially when you factor in you can move 6 inches closer before you fire. The additional shot and bonus to the Magna laser destroyer will also help the squadron to more reliably take down the largest of armoured threats namely those with a flare shield/invulnerable save or with loads of hull points (superheavies and knights namely). The second change is that I would split the remaining 2x3 squadrons of predators into individual units, this does mean that you have to pay an extra 60 points due to base unit price being higher than the additional, however vehicle squadrons come with some massive downsides for (in this edition) zero benefits outside of slot efficiency ( which doesn’t matter now that you only have 6 predators). The two biggest downsides for vehicle squadrons is 1. If one tank suffers an immobilised result and you move the other tanks in the squad out of coherency (which is 4 inches) then the immobilised tank is simply removed from the table, so you either have to lose a tank unnecessarily or the rest of the squadron is chained to the immobilised squadron mate. The second and arguably more devastating downside is due to the damage spilling over into other tanks in the squadron, this occurs in one of two forms, the first is through the shear volume of pens/glances, due to the fact heresy has large squads of anti tank weapons which aren’t uncommon at all it isn’t unlikely a 10 man lascannon squad causes 6 pens/glances on your tank, if your preds are in a squadron that’s 2 dead tanks, however if the preds are in individual units then your opponent can only kill the one predator with one 10 man heavy support squad. The second type of damage spilling which is far more frustrating is a consequence of how vehicle damage and the vehicle damage table is resolved. The order in which vehicle damage is resolved boils down to see how many glances/pens are caused, then remove the appropriate amount of hull points from the tank/tanks, remove wrecked tanks, then resolve any pens on the vehicle damage table. As a result if your opponent rolls any explodes results then they are applied to the remaining tanks in the squad. Let’s take the previous example of a lascannon heavy support squad vs a squadron of 3 predators at full hull points, now lets say the lascannon squad got 6 hits, resulting in 3 glances and 2 armour pens, the damage is applied to the squadron, resulting in 5 hull points being removed, there fore one predator is wrecked, one has only a single hull point remaining and the final predator on full hull points, now with the damage applied your opponent rolls to see what the 2 pens do and its the worst result possible 2 6’s meaning you know suffer 2 explodes results and now you also lost the barely the other two. That’s why I always recommend, especially on armoured breakthrough, wherever possible to split up squadrons of tanks now it is unavoidable in some scenarios such as with the kratos and the vindicators as you simply don’t have enough heavy support slots.

With that slab of text out of the way the sabres are a nice inclusion however the volkite culverin isn’t worth the points, yes it is the better weapon but the snub autocannon usually wants to fire at either monstrous creatures (mostly the stomps robots of the mechanicum) or at the exposed rears of less armoured vehicles, (rhinos, preds, vindis bassically anything with a rhino chassis or worse), the volkite culverin wants to fire at hordes of infantry, so its a bit of a mismatch of weapons in that sense, I’d rather save the points. And again since you have the slots run them as 2 individual squadrons. 

And with that we come to the heavy support slot, I absolutely love the full volkite Kratos tanks, they’re very pricy so in the future you may want to swap one of them out for some more sicarian or something else but for now it’s fine. As I said before I think you should really include the laser destroyer vindicators over the gravis lascannon predators so there’s the second slot. Now with the last slot I don’t think you should run the aquitor bombard, I’ve never liked them tbh but even moreso in this edition, artillery has taken a massive drumming and in an all thank list you frankly have the mobility that indirect fire weapons aren’t hugely necessary. Now there’s two options you could swap them out for. The first is a squadron of 2 sicarian punishers, the volume of shots while cause way more hits than a single 5 inch template would anyway, plus on top of the pinning it also has shellshock to more easily pin units which is huge this edition, at the end of the day it’s more anti infantry fire power which you may or may not need seeing as you have the 2 all volkite kratos tanks. The alternative is to run a single sicarian arcus with the sky spear warheads for some anti air, then if you have points left over buy another single standard sicaran in the elites slot, or a second sicaran arcus with sky spear warheads for even more AA.

With all that said I’ll leave you with two final pieces of advice, if you can’t afford to take a dozer blade on the tank you can’t afford the tank, no one wants to be the poor guy who immobilised his tank turn one on a shrub (especially if that tank is in a squadron). Now I was only doing some rough math in my head when making changes to your list so if you need to free up points just drop one of the sabres. 

 

-In the new HH C 2.0 book the Arcus can take the  Helical Target Array

-I assumed Legion Sicaran Squadron referred to any type of Sicaran, if that's not the case I can make the change 

-I would love to get some Demios Vindicators but they haven't been announced in Plastic yet, hence the Predators so eventually would like to get a few.

-Sabres are interesting but if Volkite doesn't work with the Autocannon I could change it up. Idea was to have the ability to engage any targets in case my priority ones aren't available.

-I can also adjust the list in regards to the Squadrons, forgot that if one Imobilises the whole squadron does as well.

-if lack of Scoring Units is an issue I could always add some Terror Squads in Rhinos to help address the problem. Give them Rotary Cannons to help with Pinning.

-I will get a 3rd Kratos eventually and plan to run it with a Battle Cannon for some variety.

I appreciate the help guys as I just started getting into HH. I have Night Lords for 40k and am looking to double dip. 

Edited July 11, 2022 by gmaleron

[Aeternus]

3 hours ago, gmaleron said:

-In the new HH C 2.0 book the Arcus can take the  Helical Target Array

-I assumed Legion Sicaran Squadron referred to any type of Sicaran, if that's not the case I can make the change 

-I would love to get some Demios Vindicators but they haven't been announced in Plastic yet, hence the Predators so eventually would like to get a few.

-Sabres are interesting but if Volkite doesn't work with the Autocannon I could change it up. Idea was to have the ability to engage any targets in case my priority ones aren't available.

-I can also adjust the list in regards to the Squadrons, forgot that if one Imobilises the whole squadron does as well.

-if lack of Scoring Units is an issue I could always add some Terror Squads in Rhinos to help address the problem. Give them Rotary Cannons to help with Pinning.

-I will get a 3rd Kratos eventually and plan to run it with a Battle Cannon for some variety.

I appreciate the help guys as I just started getting into HH. I have Night Lords for 40k and am looking to double dip. 

Just as a heads up, terror squads aren't scoring either :P You'll need basic tac/despoiler/breacher/assault/recon squads for that.

Can't add anything else beyond Eternal Despair's very solid run down - though while splitting tank squadrons up is a good call, for our trait I'd recommend keeping at least your anti-tank tanks in squadrons of 2 so they gain the aTfM bonus. I'd also honestly be tempted to swap out the grav predators for conversion beamers, since grav has taken some major hits this edition and conversion beamers are one of the very few (I think 3 weapons in total?) things that can get large blast ap1 S8+ for terminator blobs or other multi wound elite infantry with 2+ saves.

[SkimaskMohawk]

There's not much point running squadrons if you aren't low on FOC slots. A talent for murder only counts vehicles as 10 when they're the target of the shooting attack, otherwise they count as 1. It's almost impossible to gain a talent for murder through outnumbering on anything that's not infantry. 

[Aeternus]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

There's not much point running squadrons if you aren't low on FOC slots. A talent for murder only counts vehicles as 10 when they're the target of the shooting attack, otherwise they count as 1. It's almost impossible to gain a talent for murder through outnumbering on anything that's not infantry. 

I'd wholly disagree on this point re aTfM, though I've seen it come up a few times on disc. I can see where you're coming from, but the wording for establishing that bulky counts as (x) for - what everyone assumes is both the 'attacking' and 'defending' unit - is substantially the same, just shuffled around a bit.

'When determining if a unit is outnumbered...' vs 'determining if the model is outnumbered by another unit'. If you were to argue that the latter only counts for opponent units being targeted, then the previous clause of 'models with the bulky(x) special rule count as a number of models equal to the value included as part of that special rule' would also only count for enemy units being targeted imo - and that's inane. 

I don't know why they shuffled the wording in the two sentences around so you've got one sentence saying, in essence, 'for determining outnumbered, bulky counts as x', then the next sentence saying 'vehicles count as 10, for determining outnumbered', but I don't think it means that vehicles only count as 10 for the purpose of being targeted.

Even just taken on its own without reference to the bulky sentence, I'd say there's no particular wording to definitively state that only the unit being targeted counts their vehicles as 10. 'For the purposes of determining if the model is outnumbered by another unit' is equally useable when shooting at something with your vehicle - you're shooting at say 5 tactical marines, and so you see if your model (predator) is outnumbered by their unit (tactical marines), is equal, or if their unit is outnumbered by yours allowing you to claim aTfM. They obviously count as 5 models, and with reference to the start of the sentence for determining 'outnumbered' models with vehicle count as 10, so your predator counts as 10, and so your model is not outnumbered, you're not equal, and instead their unit is outnumbered.

I understand it could boil down to the use of 'outnumbered' rather than 'outnumbering' (ie, for being on the receiving end rather than the shooty end), but they use 'outnumbered' consistently for both the standard description and the bulky rule, so I don't think claims that it then only works on the receiving end for vehicles as opposed to both ends for the standard and bulky areas to be accurate.

Ultimately it could probably use a FaQ or failing that some agreement within your group, but I don't think it works how you've described - which in turn allows our tanks and tank squadrons to benefit from it to a greater extent (which would then also bring it in line with almost every other legion trait having a bonus that applied to tanks, whether a separate one like bonus ramming or their general legion trait working).

Sorry for the wall of text :P

Edited July 11, 2022 by Aeternus

[SkimaskMohawk]

Fair enough points; the language is inconsistent across all three sentences it talks about outnumbering. It doesn't really bother me whichever way it shakes out with the faq, as getting it on shooting at all is still a bonus.

But not every legion gets a bonus to their vehicles, so the legion trait consistency argument is the one poor one imo.  

[Aeternus]

Aye that last legion level consistency point was definitely my mistake, had missed the handful of legions that don't get one, threw in a sneaky edit for that :P

As you say getting it on shooting in general is still a significant bonus. Tbh it's something I could see gw FaQ'ing either way if they discuss it, wouldn't be surprised if it was intended to work for vehicles all the time or only work for being shot, but honestly I'd rather a FaQ for bikes and dreads first.

It's also definitely arguable whether the benefits it gives if it works constantly are worth squadroning (and if it works for squadrons) up for given a fair amount of vehicle weaponry already wounds on 2s (so really you're in it for the +1 to armour pen), and in turn it makes your opponents high volume anti-tank that much more efficient at wiping multiple vehicles at a time as referenced previously in this thread.

 

*Edit*

Back onto the thread though, while the points about squadrons suffering from wound pools is correct, they can still abandon immobilised vehicles - these don't just get removed (Pg 211: Abandoning Squadron-Mates).

Edited July 11, 2022 by Aeternus

[gmaleron]

Thanks for the Awesome feedback guys, and good to know about the Terror Squads not scoring. I'll see what I can come up with and get back to yall.

***I HAVE EDITED THE LIST BASED ON YALLS FEEDBACK.***

Edited July 12, 2022 by gmaleron