Night Lord's Lists for LVO 24 (2.5k & 2k)

[Helix]

Hi all, this is my first post and I am looking for some advice/critiques of some lists.

I'm creating two VIII Legion lists for the Horus Heresy Narrative Event at the Las Vegas Open in 2024. Before I jump into the lists I will explain some of the specific rules for the event to better help with some of the oddities from normal list building.

1. Praetor Consul: When purchasing a Praetor for a Legion you may, in lieu of a paragon blade, pay the Consul upgrade cost from the Consul Options available to Legion Centurions. The cost is the same as the Consul upgrade and will provide your Praetor with all of the benefits/limitations that Consul upgrade is associated with - excluding any Consul rules that prevent the Consul from being the Warlord.

2. List Size and Construction: Day 1 = 2,500 pts., Day 2 = 2,000 pts.. Day 2's list must use unit entries from Day 1. You do not have to take every unit entry and they can be modified (size, wargear etc.), but you cannot take more or different unit entries than was included in your Day 1 list.

3. Forbidden: Primarchs, Unique Characters, Titans, and/or Drop Pods.

The Idea
I wanted to create a force based on a proto-Raptor Cult that used the Age of Darkness box (primarily the 40 infantry), and maximised on the VIII Legion's traits (fear mechanics, pinning and out-numbering).

The Lore in General
Inductii are brought into the unit and those that survive/thrive in close combat are elevated to Assualt Legionaries, those less predisposed are relegated to Reconnaisance. The Assault Legionaries that excel are selected to become Chosen which is the begining of a Raptor Cult.

Note: I've used Inductii over regular Despoilers because I think their rules are really thematic and the breaching 6+ is nice. I also wanted to include Night Raptors instead of Assault Squads, but they cost too many points and didn't really make for a well-rounded force.

The Lists
Day 1 List (2,500 pts):
Night Lords - Allegience: Traitors
Rite of War: Terror Assault

HQ
Praetor (190 pts.)
- Warlord: Flaymaster
- Pair of Lightning Claws
- Warhawk Jump Pack
- Chaplain Consul Upgrade

Praetor's Retinue: Command Squad with Warhawk Jump Packs (294 pts.)
- 7x Chosen (2x Power Fist, 1 with Combat Shield + 3x Paired Lightning Claws, 1 with Legion Standard + 1x Charnabal Sabre + 1x Chainsword)

Centurion: Librarian (125 pts.)
- Force Axe
- Warhawk Jump Pack
- Psychic Discipline: Telepathy

Centurion: Master of Signals (95 pts.)
- No upgrades

ELITES
2x Contemptor Dreadnought (180 pts. ea.)
- Gravis Melta Cannon and Gravis Power Fist with Combi-Bolter on ea.

TROOPS
2x Assault Squad (165 pts. ea.)
- 10x Legionaries (Sergeant with Artificer Armour and Chainsword, 2x Power Lance) in both squads

2x Despoiler Squad - Inductii (200 pts. ea.)
- 19x Despoilers (Legion Vexilla) in both squads

1x Reconnaissance Squad - A (140 pts.)
- 5x Legionaries (4x Nemesis Bolters + Preysight)

1x Reconnaissance Squad - B (135 pts.)
- 5x Legionaries (5x Nemesis Bolters)

FAST ATTACK
2x Proteus Land Speeder (70 pts. ea.)
- 1x Graviton Gun on ea.

HEAVY SUPPORT
2x Vindicators in a Squadron (290 pts. total)
- Magna Laser Destroyer and Dozer Blade on ea. + Preysight

Day 2 List (2,000 pts.):
Night Lords - Allegience: Traitors
Rite of War: Terror Assault

HQ
Praetor (190 pts.)
- Warlord: Flaymaster
- Pair of Lightning Claws
- Warhawk Jump Pack
- Chaplain Consul Upgrade

Praetor's Retinue: Command Squad with Warhawk Jump Packs (294 pts.)
- 5x Chosen (1x Power Fist with Combat Shield + 3x Paired Lightning Claws, 1 with Legion Standard + 1x Chainsword with Combat Shield)

Centurion: Librarian (125 pts.)
- Force Axe
- Warhawk Jump Pack
- Psychic Discipline: Telepathy

Centurion: Master of Signals (95 pts.)
- No upgrades

ELITES
1x Contemptor Dreadnought (180 pts.)
- Gravis Melta Cannon and Gravis Power Fist with Combi-Bolter

TROOPS
1x Assault Squad - A (165 pts.)
- 10x Legionaries (Sergeant with Artificer Armour and Chainsword, 2x Power Lance)

1x Assualt Squad - B (160 pts.)
- 10x Legionaries (Sergeant with Artificer Armour and Chainsword, 1x Power Lance)

2x Despoiler Squad - Inductii (150 pts. ea.)
- 14x Despoilers (Legion Vexilla) in both squads

1x Reconnaissance Squad - A (140 pts.)
- 5x Legionaries (4x Nemesis Bolters + Preysight)

1x Reconnaissance Squad - B (135 pts.)
- 5x Legionaries (5x Nemesis Bolters)

HEAVY SUPPORT
2x Vindicators in a Squadron (290 pts. total)
- Magna Laser Destroyer and Dozer Blade on ea. + Preysight

The Plan
- Flexible deployment options with potential to deepstrike and pin, supported by the Master of Signals. Deepstrike all or nothinig (Praetor+Retinue, Assault Squads+Librarian, and Proteus Land Speeders).

 

- Recon Squads hold deployment zone objectives and target enemy leaders to cause pinning. Master of Signals is attached to Recon Squad - B to give the shooting boost. Master of Signals is also able to assist a morale roll each turn (will probably be the LD 7 Despoilers).

 

- Despoiler Squads and Contemptors move up the board together. Despoilers go for objectives with secondary task to tarpit 2+ units. Contemptors target vehicles > WS4 2+ > dreads.

- Vindicators remain outside of 24" and target vehicles > dreads > WS5 2+.

- Assault Squads target critical WS4 3+ units (Heavy Support Squads), assisted by Librarian to shut down overwatch and Land Speeders to reduce WS. After this they will grab objectives or finish off damaged units.

- Land Speeders reduce WS (concussive) > vehicles > absorb overwatch.

- Praetor and retinue initially target weaker units to build Fear 2/3 bubble then use movement to pile into other combat (WS5 3+ > WS4 3+ > 2+). Primary focus of 3+ due to the Lightning Claws, but also included Power Fists for Artificer Sergeants or clean up smaller 2+ units.

 

Conclusion
I havn't had much of a chance to play HH 2.0, so does anything leap out at those with more experience?

My questions are:
1. Is there enough pinning? If not, what would you substitute?

 

2. Between picking my fights with Jump Packs and mass amounts of breaching/rending will this be enough to deal with Legion Specific Terminators (WS5 2+)?

 

3. Should my Praetor have a Thunder Hammer? This seems to be the optimal build, but is really expensive and the Lightning Claws seem in-line with the Raptor aesthetic.

 

4. Are the Land Speeders with Grav. Guns a dumb idea?

 

5. Does the Chaplain upgrade on the Praetor seem worth it (Noting his retinue and him are only 8/6 models), or should the 35 points be used elsewhere?

 

6. Is there too many moving pieces, should I instead invest more heavily in a smaller number of units?

 

Thanks in advance for any feedback. 

Edited August 29, 2023 by Helix
Spelling

[SkimaskMohawk]

A praetor can't be a consul, but that's about the only real mistake in your list building. Take the extra points for a hammer or other upgrades.

 

On the whole, while you can drown some units with weight of numbers, on the whole you're going to have a bad time against dedicated melee bricks (like normal terminators); legion specific ones are going to be scary. For some perspective, the full inductii unit charging a pinned elite cataphractii unit averages 1.5 failed armour and 2 failed invuls; they'll probably cause more than 3 wounds back and break them with their low LD. Dreads taking the matchup, laser vindicator pre-softening, or just chain pinning are going to be the best strategies. 

 

There's enough pinning. The tely librarian is one of the most unfair units in the game and really shores up the pinning side of things. 

 

The praetor should have a hammer. Brutal is amazing, as is instant death against marines. 

 

Grav land speeders are fine.

 

Some general stuff to watch out for is how night will affect LD and BS across your stuff. The speeders and dreads won't quite be operating as well as they should. Also don't over commit deepstrike, the speeders on the ground can deter dreads or other vehicles; the tely librarian should be throwing out as much of his shooting attack as possible, and should definitely not be held off the table.

 

Also, just an observation that while the list is absolutely narrative and thematic in many ways, the multiple melta dreads, recon units, and a tely librarian are just staple extremely good units. The LVO narrative event really isn't narrative; there's a lot of very good, competitive lists that just have a cohesive paint job.

Edited October 27, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[sonsoftaurus]

I like it, but then I like most things. 
 

As noted the tough/elite bricks will be hard for most of your units to deal with, but that’s a problem many units have. Shoot and avoid.
 

Hammer is great, but…Night Lords. I think the option for the Chaplain upgrade is neat, and rerolls for all those attacks and wounds should be fun.
 

 

[Sky Potato]

5 hours ago, Helix said:

Hi all, this is my first post and I am looking for some advice/critiques of some lists.

I'm creating two VIII Legion lists for the Horus Heresy Narrative Event at the Las Vegas Open in 2024. Before I jump into the lists I will explain some of the specific rules for the event to better help with some of the oddities from normal list building.

1. Praetor Consul: When purchasing a Praetor for a Legion you may, in lieu of a paragon blade, pay the Consul upgrade cost from the Consul Options available to Legion Centurions. The cost is the same as the Consul upgrade and will provide your Praetor with all of the benefits/limitations that Consul upgrade is associated with - excluding any Consul rules that prevent the Consul from being the Warlord.

 

2 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

A praetor can't be a consul, but that's about the only real mistake in your list building. Take the extra points for a hammer or other upgrades.

 

The Praetor consul seems to be a LVO specific upgrade per the OP.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ya totally missed that.

 

Chaplains are solid, and really push the output of the unit they're with, but I'd still be cautious about that unit.

 

Vigilator is a solidly annoying upgrade for the shell shock and pinning combo of night and fear; using him to react and extra pin is always fun (for the reacting player). 

 

Another tely librarian would do much the same, and removes the opportunity for them to resist with stubborn. 

 

An esoterist opens the door for some really nasty daemon pressure, but that forces you to make room for brutes. 

[Razorblade]

1. I think you do have enough pinning between the Recons to reliably force tests, and the Libby to pretty much autopin the most critical target (God I hate that model). However I would try to find the points for the fifth nemesis bolter in recon squad a. I'm also not a fan of running them with a MoS as it takes away their infiltrate. I also think that this list would benefit from a Scorpius for an extra source of pinning and anti-terminator firepower.

 

2. I think this list is dead in the water if you run into Custodes and you'll have trouble fighting PotL. I think you will have to solve this problem at range as your units will always be too squishy to fight terminators and equivalents.

 

3. I actually don't think the preator needs a hammer. Him and his unit will loose to true elite melee units anyway so he doesn't need to be kitted out for that matchup.

 

4. That Gravspeeders are fine in general but given this lists issue against elite Infantry I think conventional anti-tank guns that are also good against terminators would serve you better than grav. Javelins are the superior platform for those.

 

5. The Chaplain upgrade seems like overkill into the things the unit can fight and won't make a difference against the things it can't.

Speaking of which I think you should downgrade to a Delegatus as it saves points and Rally the legion is super valuable for all the Infantry you're running.

 

6. I think the number of units is fine, especially if the event runs the siege of cthonia missions. I'd try to cut some fat rather than whole units or replace units at a 1:1 ratio where applicable.

 

Bonus observations:

I really don't like the flaymaster warlord trait. By the time you get something trophies don't give you half the game is over and extra assault phase reactions are borderline worthless. You're better of with Ever-Vigilant, Stoic Defender or maybe even Warmonger.

 

A single infiltrating Terrorsquad would be thematic and help you apply fear turn 1.

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Razorblade

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I'd play against the list. Maybe I will, I'll be there.

 

Couple of things from my experience last year:

 

I ended up swapping out telepathy on my librarian day 2. I also only used Hallucinations once. I took mine as a reaction turn off.

 

Big 20 man squads are cool and all, but they can be a hassle to navigate during events. Granted there's only 2 games each day, you will more than likely go to time each round, especially if you're opponent is also taking a lot of bricks.

 

It was a mixture on anti-deepstrike; some people had augury scanners on everything, some had augury scanners on like their Heavy Support Lascannon team only.

 

I think your main struggles are going to be WS5 elite infantries, and AV 14 but that's a big weakness for me and my list too.

 

A Terror Squad is really good, and I think it would be okay to bring one.

 

I'm not sure what Alex will do for missions this year, last year we did secret missions and secondaries from the book. He did say infantry matters this time around, and he may be taking some of the Pyrix Campaign structure for points of interest and the character forge from Lucas. That's a TBD.

 

 

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

On 9/3/2023 at 7:11 AM, Razorblade said:

I actually don't think the preator needs a hammer. Him and his unit will loose to true elite melee units anyway so he doesn't need to be kitted out for that matchup.

 

He doesn't need one, but if you can find 15 points it's rather transformative. Giving him that flexibility to fight many different targets is really nice to have in a fast moving unit that already has plenty of lightning claw output, especially in an army without a dedicated elite melee counter unit.  

 

Quote

A Terror Squad is really good, and I think it would be okay to bring one.

 

This is the real thing to address: terror squads are not "really good". They're in fact, usually really bad.

 

There's a lot to touch on, but at its core, the unit is extremely fragile, extremely expensive and doesn't have a niche that isn't already covered somewhere.

 

You pay 115 for 5/18 per model for a 2 attack basic chainsword guy. They get a suite of special rules and wargear options that help expand their roles, but stock, they're a melee unit. Assuming bloody murder is up, a terror marine can expect to average 2.18 wounds (11.41 from a base unit) to other basic marines; a talent for murder pushes it to 2.55, but I'm not going to factor that into melee with anything. 

 

And this is their first stumbling point; that's not very special. Assault destroyers average 2.42 wounds on the charge and cost the same for a unit of 10 (and would be way more likely to get talent for murder), mortalis destroyers average 1.76 (the same as terror marines without bloody murder) and are cheaper at every point, inductii have a similar conditional attack boost and average 1 wound on the charge, but for the same cost as the base terror unit, 11 inductii actually average more failed saves because of breaching. None of these units are particularly shocking in output; the point is if you never considered them highly, then the stock chainsword terrors can't be very good.

 

So the stock unit is outperformed by other units, but they have options to consider still. You can take bolters, volkite chargers, flamers, and rotor cannons in addition to your chainswords; you can replace the chainswords with an assortment of shredding, breaching, ap3 melee weapons. They're all mix and matchable, allowing customization.

 

Let's look at the range options first. Bolters for 1 point, volkite for 2, flamers and rotors are 5. Now some common factors; they're all anti infantry, all rely on volume of shots rather than quality, and most are short ranged; only rotors allow you to play with Night Fight effectively. Bolters are obviously not a good choice; you have very low damage, pay points, invite a reaction and can't charge. Volkite are the traditional pairing; they can do a surprising amount of damage to infantry and pair very nicely with preferred enemy, and crucially allow charges. Unfortunately, return fire is still a thing, and a unit of 10 costs 225 (10 tactical supports with chargers are 145 for context). The flamer is super finicky; the short range can be punished by reactions, requires an optimal line/concave, can screw your own charges if they pull from the front, as well as being practically useless into any Heavy units. It doesn't have utility for one-off use and is expensive coming in at 140 for 5 and 255 for 10 (the tactical support squads are the same as the volkite ones,  85 for 5 and 145 for 10). Last is the rotor cannon, and it's pretty solid: 30" range to play around the Night Fight cut off and return fire, assault to enable charges, and pinning with shell shock to set up your own bloody murder/be generally useful. Mathwise, you only need 2 to average an unsaved wound on 3+ armour and 4 for 2+, so you never really need more than those amounts and helps keep the cost low to 135 for four in a unit of 5, and 225 for four in a unit of 10 (the tactical supports end up costing 110 for 5, which don't quite get through the 2+ armour without preferred enemy). So most of the ranged weapons are a combination of bad, inflationary to an already expensive unit, short ranged, and unversatile. The rotor cannons allow terrors to have a new niche as a pseudo support squad on the mid board, but that niche is competing with sniper recons for the same price, and they do it way better (and score). 

 

The melee weapons are left, and the good news is that they're all extremely good at their job, which is drowning a unit in ap 3 shred attacks. A full unit that's maxed out on melee weapons and gets their bloody murder buff can really beat up on a lot of things short of ws5 2 wound 2+ save units. And that's kinda crazy; a full 76 attacks averages like, 3 dead ws5 tartaros and will super overkill anything weaker but costs 445. This unit will also bleed losses to every melee exchange as your 28 point models are 1 wound, ws4, and initiative 4, as well as invite Overwatch like no one's business; 10 tacs average a dead terror and overwatch without fury averages another 2, if they're tooled up you basically traded 90 points of terror marines for 100 of tacs. All this to say, they excel against infantry, pay through the nose, and very vulnerable. But there's other options if you want that sort of melee output; in fact, every other night lord unit can take those same weapons. If you pay 165 for 5 terrors with chainblades you can compare them to raptors, contekar, and even Atrementar (we'll see how the points affect them later on tonight/tomorrow). 235 for raptors gets you more attacks with double lightning claws, faster movement,  ws5, 2 wounds, hammer of wrath, bonus to charge, and sudden strike; those tacs average 2 wounds from overwatch that can be spread across the seargent and a dude and nothing from melee so you trade 0 points of raptors for 100 of tacs. The contekar are 225 and also give you ws 5 and 2 wounds, but with better armour and invul to back it up and guns that can be shot at infantry without bleeding models as a result. 

 

What's more, terror assault gives fear to units for free, and curze gives bloody murder for free, further undermining the baked in costs of the unit and chipping away at anything special they claim to have. 

 

This has turned into a massive ramble so maybe a tldr: terror marines have complete melee overlap with every other night lord special unit and are outperformed by normal units when just given chainswords. Terror marines have complete overlap with normal nits for their ranged roles, and are outperformed in those too. Terror marines are very vulnerable with their defensive stats and easily take casualties while being very expensive, preventing them from being a good trade unit. Terror marines don't score, preventing them from being a good pressure unit on midfield/far away objectives. There is always something better for night lord players no matter how you configure the unit.

 

They are not really good; they are not at all good.

 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk