Night Lords Video Battle Report

[Lord Hanaur]

Heya.  I had one last game of Warhammer at my home, since I may not be able to for a couple weeks (surgery is tomorow!).  

 

Decided to put it on Youtube.  Never done that before so kinda fun to learn how.  Not too difficult.  Here's the link:

 

 

Feel free to tell me how I can make these better.  I already know a couple things I messed up on.  I enjoyed playing a close combat army.  Been a while since I did, since its generally not my style of play regardless of the army.  But Night Lords are my close combat army for sure.

 

Melee is not dead!

[fluger]

I'll watch this when I get home! 

[Lord Hanaur]

Kewl

[Lord Hanaur]

I'll watch thtis when I get home!

Thoughts? Other than we need a paint night badly?

[PumpkinHead]

It was fine by my standards. Not sure if it was just the devise you were using to record the video, but the tall and narrow format was slightly annoying.

[fluger]

Yeah, next time take the video on the side.  I haven't watched it all yet.  Got distracted by chil'ens.  

[Lord Hanaur]

K. I seem to be phone illiterate because I seem not to be able to view it right when I do that. Maybe I need someone to show me how to flip it.

[Lord Hanaur]

update:

 

I played a few more games with this list and continue to make tweaks as I see more opponents.  Little things at first, as I prodded along.  

 

Deep Striking my Raptors continues to be a challenge.  It is a large unit and scatters have hurt pretty badly (though one must admit that I am probably on the aggressive side).  That is my number one issue at the moment.  The actual Strategy itself works very well:  flood them with targets all at once and with not enough guns to kill it all, cut off their avenues of escape and then go in roaring with Dirge Casters.  

 

Bouncing the Raptors forward is certainly one options behind a wall of Rhinos instead of reserving them, but those rhinos certainly do go down despite the Land Raiders shadow which they can hide in.  Not helping matters has been that the Landraider has immobilized itself or been immobilized in round 1, every game (mostly terrain tests).  So I have wisely added a Dozer blade.

 

This epic bad luck has seen Rhinos not  getting to the enemy in as good a numbers as i needed, where I needed, so the Destroyer Blades had to come off to make room.  I also found that the Sorcerer, while very cool, ultimately needed to be less of a feature for this force.  Those points needed to be redistributed a little.

 

So in the most recent version of this experiment in melee oriented army listing here's where I'm at:

 

14 Khornate Raptors (Icon of Wrath, 2 Meltaguns, Gift of Mutation+Sword+Meltabomb on Champion)

 

14 Nurgle Raptors (2 Meltaguns, Gift of Mutation+Sword+Meltabomb on Champion)

 

Heldrake (BaleFlamer)

 

3 Rhinos (Dirge Casters)

 

Chaos LandRaider (Dozer, Dirge Caster)

 

Defiler (Dirge Caster, BattleCannon, TL Heavy Flamer, TL Havoc Launcher, TL AutoCannon)

 

1 Nurgle Obliterator

 

1 Nurgle Mutilator

 

1 Nurgle Mutilator

 

Sorcerer (Psychic Shriek most of the time, Gift of Mutation)

 

3 units of 5 Chaos Marines

 

1 unit of 5 Chaos Marines (Flamer)

[Lord Hanaur]

Yahoo, got a couple test games in with the Defiler added.  Great addition, and totally getting more production than I did with the Sorcerer.  Backfield defense is better against Warp Spiders and the like.

 

Also been toying with deployments.  As always the goal is to defend the ACTUALLy important things by making the actually not important things an easier target.  Somethings gotta die some time.  Switching the one Raptor unit helps me take casualties slower on the side that has the bigger amount of firepower, assuming I hjave no way to avoid it altogether.  

 

The list is evolving really well.  I hope to do a follow up battle report once it feels tuned up.  With this kind of force in 6E, it's not as simple to design as it seems.  There are things on the board you can't see as readily on paper.  A "feel" for deployment is important and that is taking a little longer as the list changes, but I'm getting there.  Pretty fun experiment.

[Psilence]

The updated list looks like fun. It reminds me of 3rd - 4th Ed blood angels. Get close with everything all at once the pounce in a wave of 'shoot all you like, something is making it through'. :)

 

How are the mutilators doing? What do you use them for (assault support/late game back field disrupters/ect)?

[Lord Hanaur]

The Mutilators and the Obliterators job is to threaten vehicles and force enemies to make a choice:  fire at the tidal wave or...fire at the l'il 'itty bitty Mutilators.  The Mutilators can kill tanks pretty well.  So can Obliterators.  Obliterators also kill people and tie them up.  So do Mutilators. 

 

For FOC reasons I went with the one obliterator and two Mutilators.  They serve their purpose very well.  Toooooough to kill, attracts a lot of expensive attention and for a lot less reward than the enemy probably wishes it was.  But they cant just let Nurgle droppings fall from the sky and not clean it up.  bad habit of causing ruthless infection and massive property damage.

 

At 61 poionts a plop, well...  It's a steal to attract all that spendy attention.  2+ armor is no joke.  5+ invul?  yes please!  Tough 5?  yahoo.

[Lord Hanaur]

So I got yet another game in with this.  The Obliterator mishap'd so i didn't get to see him do his thing because the opponent placed it (mishap) WAY on th back edge of my table (naturally).  However the Mutilators wrecked two key tanks before getting shot to death (more than doubled their points).  The Khornate Raptors did a great double charge to kill a Tank AND Guardian Defender unit.  Dirge Casters kept the unit safe from retribution.  

 

The Defiler wrecked a Warp Spider unit that Deepstruck the rear of my army, and then I was able to score the objectives by reserving the troops and bringing them on from board edges.  Enemy Army was bottled up front, so all I had to do was contest with Raptors, a single troops choice in the Land Raider, the sorcerer.

 

Once again the Heldrake failed to be awesome, but it did NOT fail to draw a lot of fire that would otherwise have gone into more important units and THAT was worth it on its own.

[Lord Hanaur]

Okay so I put up a battle report.  List changed so I'll put the most updated version in detail later but here's the report:

 

Another Night Lords Battle Report

[Lord Hanaur]

Latest List on my ever eveolving poroject:

 

Skyshield Landing Pad

Obliterator

Obliterator

Mutilator

Mutilator

Mutilator

5 Black Legion Chaos Marines

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

5 Black Legion Chaos Marines

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

5 Chaos Marines

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

5 Chaos Marines

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

Sorcerer (Meltabomb, Mark of Nurgle)

Black Legion Chaos Lord (Combifist, Combi-Melta, Mark of Nurgle, Aura of Dark Glory, |Eye of Night)

14 Nurgle Raptors (2 x Meltaguns)

14 Nurgle Raptors (2 x Meltaguns)

Heldrake w Baleflamer

 

I located two old school second edition Obliterators and bought three new Mutilators so I can stop proxying now.  Boons had to go even though I liked someof the stuff I was getting.  Itll be the first try with a landing pad.

[spacewolved]

More oblits, far far less mutilators. Oblits do everything mutilators do but also have range.

[Lord Hanaur]

Mutilators do one thing Obliterators can never do:  occupy the Elites slot.  

[WestRider]

But since you still have two open Heavy Slots here, why not go for it?

[Lord Hanaur]

Points.  I can replace the Skyshield with ONE Obliterator.  I am not opposed to that but want to see how the Skyshield effects things for me.

 

All the other points in the army are tight.  Not a lot of fat.  

 

Black Legion Obliterators cost 79 points.  If I take one more normal Obliterator I already have to strip the meltabomb off the Sorcerer which is about all the extra points I have.  I definitely cannot take 2 more Obliterators and I can't really turn one of the Mutilators into one for the same reason.  Points are just toooo tight here.  

 

So at most the list will have 3 Obliterators and still function as intended.

[WestRider]

I was thinking swap all three Muties for a pair of Oblits. The extra damage they do on the landing Turn should offset the reduction in Target Saturation somewhat.

[Lord Hanaur]

I was thinking swap all three Muties for a pair of Oblits. The extra damage they do on the landing Turn should offset the reduction in Target Saturation somewhat.

I see.  I do understand the value you're talking about.  The strategy as I mentioned is not to kill with those units.  The additional 1-3 units that I have NOT shooting another unit is worth the potential of losing one good shot.  Lets face it an obliterator still has to hit and penetrate, the enemy still has to fail its cover/invul/whatever.  We cant know for certain wht might happen.  But what is certain is they will need an added 1-3 units to take out the third Mutilator.  And that's the value.  Not indisputable, but thats the value.

[Lord Hanaur]

Okay I got to play a game with this newest version.  It was a great game.  We both agreed looking at the forces, that movement would win it for someone.

 

The Landing pad did nothing.  It was just more terrain basically.  It allowed me to hide a couple of my mutilators, but they were unlikely to be the enemy targets round one anyways.  We used Nova style terrain and the LOS blocker in the middle was SILLY big, but it hardly mattered because we both had stompy forces.  Neither one of us was winning this with shooting.

 

His list was Fateweaver. Keeper of Secrets and a Grimoire Prince as well as two more Daemon Princes on wings, a unit of Daemonettes and a couple of Pink Horror units (I think that was most of it).  He dropped his spawning sphere in turn 1 and I blew it up with the Eye of Night for first blood.  His army raced to my right side to try and body slam me as mean and hard as he could.  TONS of biomancy powers going off and he had a handy chart for each daemon so he could track what they were all casting and doing.  ugh.  As bad as playing the old Tyranids in that respect.  Luckily he was pretty organized about it so the game didn't bog down too much.

 

 I used the Raptors, Mutilators and my HQ's to tie him up as long as I could on my right side for 4 turns.  Turn 5, I had it won, 5-2 and a Warp Squall killed the Keeper of Secrets quite unexpectedly as it tried to make its way BACK to the left side where all my troops snuck in to steal his objective.  That didn't change the game because he was just too far away from his own objective to get back and I killed all his troops and his Hell hole (or whatever that thing is that spawns out troopies).  1 or 2, 1 or 2, 1 or 2...

 

Unfortunately the game went on to turn 6.  His Fatewaever was able to contest and we ended with a draw because I didn't reconfigure my four units around his home objective correctly.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to do it in the pivotal turn 5.  Despite my mental lapse, an awesome game.

 

His Warlord with a 2+ re-rollable was pretty insane.  Killing the Grimoire should have been job one for the Obliterators and such and would be in future games  

 

I knew all I had to do was kill those troops, and I was able to do that.  I already had First Blood and was confident my Nurgle Droppings could handle line breaking at worst if necessary so it was down to killing his warlord and that just wasn't possible.  Net result was the tie.  I really needed to kill the Grimoire instead of other targets.  It will not Die kept his Daemons coming back for more (Biomancy).  Concerted effort was needed.

 

Still, against a flying menace of a list like those its hard to hit em, hard to ground 'em and even if you do, its still a Daemon Prince with Biomancy powers.  Goof luck!  I just held them on the right side as long as I could and that strategy worked.

 

The mutilators are great book ends.  You deploy them in spots where the enemy will eventually want to go, and not necessarily to threaten something immediately. They skulk around for when your enemy tries to make the fast break or where you might try to back up to to avoid something else like Raptors.  They are good enough to grind a normal unit down a bit and force morale.  They can be a pretty mean bodyguard (I rolled very very badly this time, but normally it works well)

 

The obliterators are an interesting unit; changing weapons every round.  I like having the Assault Cannon option.  Very strong option at 24".  A weapon for every range band!

 

MVP for the game were the plain old Aspiring Champions.  Thanks to challenges, I was able to really hold an army build like this for a bit.  I also learned that Disorganized charges are a valuable tool when you might get stuck in combat with multiple characters in my unit.  It frees the other characters to do REAL damage. to the second target.  I thought of it too late to matter in this game but will remember that in future games.

 

I am told this Daemon list wrecked face the two games before it played me so I was very pleased.  I think it was his third time playing the list so I anticipate that he will have adapted by the time we face each other again.  Ah the chess match goes on!

[Lord Hanaur]

OKay i tried the Hand of Darkness.  i was fighting the dread Tyranids this time.  

 

His list roughly

 

Pair of Dakkafex's

Flyrant

30 gaunts

3 Biovores

Tervigon

2 venomthropes

pair of Zoanthropes

some Ravagers (very cool)

4 Shrikes (also really cool)

4 Warriors

 

and...  I dont remember anything else but that was basically it.

 

Dayam.  that is one BAD ASS Artifact.  You get one shot with it but SO WHAT.  It just CRUSHED a Dakkafex and the Sorcerer crushed the other with his force weapon.  BLAM.  monster guts everywhere.  Woulda killed the Exocrine too if it hadn't overwatch'd me to death.  Sigh.

 

I think that Black Legion Chaos Lords are FEARSOME.  Expensive too but they just can dish it OUT.  I was trying to make a Powerfist work on him and it just wasn't happening.  His role in the army is just too specific and those he fights are NEVER good news.  So i just decided to pay the points and suck it up.

 

I probably will never go without that thing again.  It solves SO many problems I was having.  It DOES make him less effective against vehicles since you lose the extra attacks you'd normally bring to bear on the vehicle with the power fist but that is a SMALL price to pay and it turns the power fist into a one shot Chainfist.  I'll take it!

 

Final score was 7-4.  he was winning until the last round pretty much but i managed to pull it off.

[Guest]

The mutilators are great book ends.  You deploy them in spots where the enemy will eventually want to go, and not necessarily to threaten something immediately. They skulk around for when your enemy tries to make the fast break or where you might try to back up to to avoid something else like Raptors.  They are good enough to grind a normal unit down a bit and force morale.  They can be a pretty mean bodyguard (I rolled very very badly this time, but normally it works well)

Book ends. Yeah, I like that visual. Thanks.

-Pax

[Lord Hanaur]

You're welcome.

 

So this is updated:

 

Obliterator

Obliterator

Mutilator

Mutilator

Mutilator

5 Black Legion Chaos Marines(Veterans of the Long War)

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

5 Black Legion Chaos Marines (Veterans of the Long War)

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

5 Chaos Marines

Rhino (Dirge Caster)

Sorcerer (Meltabomb, Aura of Dark Glory, Mark of Nurgle, Level 2)

Black Legion Chaos Lord "Cruise Missile Bob" (Chaos Bike, Blight Grenades, Veteran of the Long War, Hand of Darkness, Combat Familiar, Combi-Melta, Mark of Nurgle, Sigil of Corruption, Eye of Night)

14 Nurgle Raptors (2 x Meltaguns, Power Axe+Meltabombs)

14 Nurgle Raptors (2 x Meltaguns, Power Axe + Meltabombs)

Heldrake w Baleflamer

[Lord Hanaur]

So the newest version got a couple more good test flights (Imperial Guard Armoured Corps, Tyranid Dakka list, Chaos Daemons Winged Lords list, and the inimicable Mechdar).

 

There were a few bumps along the way as I learned to steer this ship but I can't lie.   The force stands up well.  In poarticular the evolution of the Black Legion Chaos Lord has been quite expensive but needed.

 

Breaking it down below:

 

Raptors:  these are the star of the show.  they are capable of holding an enemy in their own deployment zone for a long portion of the game.  Win or lose (and they do their share of both) their main asset is simply to pin the enemy down and inflict damage.  their grenades cause all tanks to fear them in the numbers I have them and normal troops are not looking forward to the charges.  Elite units tend to stand us up a littlke but sheer weight holds them in place for long enough.  The Raptors though ultimately an expendable part of the force, are what disallows the enemy from ever whiffing midfield and any objectives thereabouts.  Clock is ticking.

 

The Psychic powers of the Sorcerer are usually a Debuff on enemies.  The sorcerer allows the Raptors to be able to function against almost any top tier melee unit, in particular the charge.  If i do alter the sorcerer to be Level 2, Biomancy will be my choice.  

 

The Obliterators have been spending more time on the table itself in some fights and Deep Striking only when facing Eldar and harder to crash things whose rear armor may be the only or best choice.  They take resources to kill and the enemy does hesitantly offer some fire at them hoping for a little luck but a 2+ Tough 5 with cover is pretty hard to kill.  They guard objectives pretty well and they provide fire support a little bit.  Just enough to keep armoured enemies honest.

 

The Chaos Space Marines are simply there to come on as reserves and march to Hill 54 or wherever we need to take something.  I typically don't involve them in the main fighting and they typically would rather take their 24" shots over rapid firing unless its an objective in the 5th round they have to get to.  The LD boost on the Black Legion groups helps them take the beatingthey get subjected to by the enemies excess fire and such small units can lose very few and run.  So the LD boost really helps those two units.

 

Mutilators DS more often than anything, though when there are drop armies, the Mutilators patiently wait for their prey in the shadows.  Clearly they are good enough to inflict some damage and whittle a unit over the course of rounds, plus make its mission pointlesss.  Against Tyranids, two of them charged and ground a 30 gaunt squad to dust and bones over the course of four game rounds and no one dared eneter the melee for fear of losing other units to their slow grinding ways.

 

The Chaos Lord is now fast and can solo anything in the game.  he is definitely NOT immortal and suffers the usual weakness of his "Captains" statline.  However, his Nurgle blessings and his Bike at least give him a level of protection against all but the Wraithknights of the world.  Even the WraithKnight may not enjoy his arsenal however.

 

The Heldrake is so profoundly disturbinmg to foes that they will spend a considerable measure of fire power to take it down and in the best of days it might fire its torrent twice but we all know how much that can actually mean.  It has been a worthwhile tool from start to finish.  And It is just a ridiculously good looking model.  It's just really good.

 

All four were wins save one, though that was a positioning error that was infinitely avoidable in the end..