Night Lords Sy's Night Lords 9th Edition Log - First Batch of WIP

[SyNidus]

So here's a fun fact - I've never played 9th Edition of 40k.

 

In fact, I've been rather happy playing 30k this whole time. But there's a big 40k tournament coming up and I'm thinking of jumping in. I've made this thread so that I can post my thoughts and discussions regarding the list, tactics and also progress on my army. 

So I've come up with a list based on the stuff which I own which could easily be used in 40k. I'm hoping to make as few purchases but I don't mind spending if need be.

2000 points Night Lords
Ark of Omens Detachment (Elites)
HQ:

DP - MoS, Wings, Claws of the Stygian Count, Psychic Powers: Death Hex, WL Trait: Dirty Fighter - 175

Master of Possession - Chaos Undivided,  Psychic Powers: Mutated Invigoration, Pact of Flesh, Gifts of Chaos: Liber Hereticus - 105

 

Elites:

Terminator Squad - 8 man - MoS, Black Rune, Chainfist, 3x PFist, 2x Combi-melta, 1 Reaper autocannon - 343

Chosen - 8 man - MoK, 1 PFist, Bolters, Accursed Weapons, Icon - 245

- Rhino - Combi-bolter - 80

Chosen - 8 man - MoK, 1 PFist, Bolters, Accursed Weapons, Icon - 245

- Rhino - Combi-bolter - 80

Master of Executions - MoS, WL Trait: Night Haunter's Curse - 85 

 

Fast Attack:

Raptors - 5 man - MoK, 2 Meltaguns - 140

Raptors - 5 man - MoK, 2 Meltaguns - 140

 

Heavy Support:

Obliterators - 2 man - 180

Obliterators - 2 man - 180

 

Total: 1998
Starting CP: 1

Tactics

- The idea is to apply pressure early with terminator brick deepstriking in turn 1. Hopefully, I can charge into combat and then use We Have Come For You to lock them in.
- While the terminators establish the beachhead, my chosen in the rhinos advance up the board with the DP.

- Master of Executions with Night Haunter's Curse to guarantee a 6 for his axe of dismemberment. I've also gone for the Mark of Slaanesh for the murderous perfection.

- The Raptors are there mostly for objectives and actions, possibly bullying a weaker shooty unit

- Oblits will be deepstriking in to take out hard targets.

Secondaries
This is probably the most confusing thing for me coming into 9th. I'm not sure what to take, but based on my army I'm thinking of taking the following:

 

- The Long War/ Sow the Seed, Reap the Fear
I like Sow the Seed, Reap the Fear because it's pretty thematic. Also, I think with how deadly my units are in melee, my opponent will have to choose between either having the unit die in combat or giving me a VP by falling back.

 

I also like The Long War because it seems to play very much into being very aggressive and attacking the opponent just to get them off an objective.
 

- Warp Ritual 

Warp Ritual seems fairly easy for me to complete with the DP and MoP being psykers.

 

- Raise the Banners High

I figure this is something I might be able to do with my Raptors having the mobility to move around the board quickly.

Edited March 11, 2023 by SyNidus

[Tallarn Commander]

SyNidus, this looks like a fun Night Lords list that will do well in casual settings.

I have 4 items of feedback:
1. I really enjoy using "Sow the Seed, Reap the Fear." But it's highly situational because so many armies are effectively fearless. But in some cases it will be useful and fun, especially against low leadership armies like the Imperial Guard.
2. Which unit is going to hold your backfield objective? Really all it takes is a cheap unit of 10 Cultists hiding in a ruin. Did you include such a unit in your army and I just missed it?
3. I tried putting my Night Lords Chosen in Rhinos back in the summer when our Codex first came out. They just seemed lackluster and a points sink. On the smaller boards of this edition you don't really need the mobility and they didn't really contribute much other than being an 80 point pillbox. I'd consider dropping both Rhinos. Since the fall I've been advancing First Claw on foot Turn 1 and they are usually be where they want to be on Turn 2.
4. Your 2 Chosen Squads are 8 troopers each. If you increased each to a squad size of 10 then you could get 2 free powerfists instead of 1. That will increase the Chosen's choppiness quite a bit.

In Midnight clad!

[SyNidus]

On 3/2/2023 at 2:17 AM, Tallarn Commander said:

SyNidus, this looks like a fun Night Lords list that will do well in casual settings.

I have 4 items of feedback:
1. I really enjoy using "Sow the Seed, Reap the Fear." But it's highly situational because so many armies are effectively fearless. But in some cases it will be useful and fun, especially against low leadership armies like the Imperial Guard.
2. Which unit is going to hold your backfield objective? Really all it takes is a cheap unit of 10 Cultists hiding in a ruin. Did you include such a unit in your army and I just missed it?
3. I tried putting my Night Lords Chosen in Rhinos back in the summer when our Codex first came out. They just seemed lackluster and a points sink. On the smaller boards of this edition you don't really need the mobility and they didn't really contribute much other than being an 80 point pillbox. I'd consider dropping both Rhinos. Since the fall I've been advancing First Claw on foot Turn 1 and they are usually be where they want to be on Turn 2.
4. Your 2 Chosen Squads are 8 troopers each. If you increased each to a squad size of 10 then you could get 2 free powerfists instead of 1. That will increase the Chosen's choppiness quite a bit.

In Midnight clad!

Thanks for your feedback TC! 

1. Thanks for the tip, I'll keep that in mind. Genuinely sounds like a lot of fun to try and achieve.

2. Now that you mention it, I don't actually have one. So I've fixed that by adding a squad of 10 cultists. Completely forgot how cheap these guys are.

3. I'm hoping to be able to use the rhinos in combination with the Chosen to minimize the number of attacks that can come back at them. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am quite inspired by Blog for the Blood God's Chaos Rhino masterclass on youtube. Also, one of the reasons why I've gone for chosen is because i can use my seekers squads as chosen without having to do extensive conversion work. Unlike legionaires who I'll need to give special weapons and wargear to in order to make them chopy.

4. The squad size is partially because of the points costs (so that I can pick up other units). It's also partially because I want to keep space in the rhinos for my characters.

 

With that in mind, here's the tweaked list:

 

Arks of Omen Detachment (Elites)

HQ:

Daemon Prince - MoP (15), Wings (35), Hellforged Sword (G'Hollax, -1 CP)(10), Psychic Powers: Death Hex, WL Trait (-1 CP): Dirty Fighter - 180

Master of Possession - Chaos Undivided, Psychic Powers: Mutated Invigoration, Pact of Flesh, Gifts of Chaos (-1 CP): Liber Hereticus - 105

Sorceror - Undivided, Psychic Powers: Prescience, Warptime - 95

 

Troops:

Cultist Mob - Undivided - 50

 

Elites:

Terminator Squad - 7 man - MoS (20), Black Rune of Damnation (-1 CP), Chainfist, 3x PFist, 2x Combi-melta, 1 Reaper autocannon - 307

Chosen Squad - 8 man - MoK, 1 PFist, Bolters, Accursed Weapons, Icon - 245

- Rhino - Combi-bolter - 80

Chosen Squad - 8 man - MoK, 1 PFist, Bolters, Accursed Weapons, Icon - 245

- Rhino - Combi-bolter - 80

Master of Executions - MoS (20), WL Trait (-1 CP): Night Haunter's Curse - 85

 

Fast Attack:
Raptors - 5 man - 2 Meltaguns (20) - 125

Raptors - 5 man - 2 Meltaguns (20) - 125

Heavy Support:
Obliterators - 3 man - Fleshmetal Guns - 270

Total: 1992
Starting CP: 1

Tactics remain the same, except that now I have a cultist unit for holding backfield objectives.

So I'm looking at the following secondaries:

Main Secondaries:
- Warp Ritual

Warp Ritual seems fairly easy for me to complete with the DP and MoP being psykers. And now the added Sorceror also makes it easier to quickly max out this objective.

 

- Engage on all fronts / Retrieve Data

I think with my mobility, I should be able to achieve this objective fairly consistently. Alternatively, I could use that mobility to retrieve data. The nice thing about Retrieve is that I don't have to spend 3-4 turns to try and max out the secondary.
 

- The Long War / Engage on all fronts / Sow the Seed, Reap the Fear

If i take Retrieve Data as my 2nd objective, may consider taking engage on all fronts here as well. The Long War is kinda interesting because if the opponent wants to play the primary and go for objectives, I can destroy the units that he sends to claim them.

Do you think this has a better chance? 

 

 

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

You should seriously consider adding The Warp's Malice onto your MoE.  It adds serious utility since you can be active in the shooting phase.  You also gain some threat with overwatch.  At minimum you can put out 2 MW when firing overwatch but sometimes that spikes to 4 or even 6 MW if you use Night Haunter's Curse.  

[SyNidus]

On 3/4/2023 at 2:58 AM, SanguinaryGuardsman said:

You should seriously consider adding The Warp's Malice onto your MoE.  It adds serious utility since you can be active in the shooting phase.  You also gain some threat with overwatch.  At minimum you can put out 2 MW when firing overwatch but sometimes that spikes to 4 or even 6 MW if you use Night Haunter's Curse.  

Hey SG, thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a think about it, at the moment I won't be using that because for my game plan, I need to have 1 CP to do the turn 1 deepstrike and charge with my Terminators, and then next turn I need to have 2 CPs to do the stratagem to stop them from falling back. Hopefully I can get my first game soon.

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Hobby update:

So i've been making my way painting the model's using Richard Gray's youtube guide. 

 

 

 

 

 

I used the following for my blue:

Night Lords Blue

Kantor Blue

Caledor Sky
Calgar blue (highlight)

This is where I want to ask for some hobby help. In the Richard Gray video, he blends them all together using mineral spirits. Even in Ninjon's video he uses enamel paints. I don't really want to use either but I want to blend the blues so that they don't appear so blotchy. Should I give the models a wash of Drakenhof nightshade? Would this work to really make the colours blend better?

[Galron]

Use Drachenoff Blue wash. It will blend a decent amount. 

 

I wouldnt count on Warp Ritual as a secondary. With only two psykers it is easy to deny/fail. If they are doing that then they arent buffing or going offensive with their spells. You need a dedicated psyker pretty much to use that. I would drop in a terminator sorceror who can deepstrike down on an undefended objective and then warp time to get to the others while maybe having the DP do it on the home objective turn 1 before catching up. 

[Kaldoth]

You'd be better off glazing over washing. A wash will be too thin. It'll just flow into the recesses, and where it doesn't flow it'll just make splotches. I'd look up a YouTube video on glazing vs washing and then go from there. The blue looks great though!