Hi All

Night Lords for me seem to be an army that is not quite Chaos and not quite Space Marines either. I agree they should be classified as a Chaos Army but I believe they probably have more in common with a conventional Space Marine List. They are essentially renegades. Please remember this is my interpretation of the Night Lords which I am pretty sure will differ to how other may see or perceive them.

I have read a fair bit of their 40k and Horus Heresy fiction (especially the Night Lords Trilogy by Aaron Dembski-Bowden which I regard as top shelf of the genre) and other background material. People need to remember that that no Space Marine Legion/Chapter is in every respect better than any other, there are strengths each will have in a particular area (Night Lords are very good at terrorising), but this is often offset by an area of weakness (Night Lords do not possess the disciplined focus of most loyal Astartes).

I did not want to fall into the trap of going too overboard with special rules for this list. I want to by the end of this process have an army list that people have fun playing (and playing against) and that is more or less balanced against the other army lists out there. I want a list that is a fair reflection of the Night Lords in regards to their character and background.

I made a conscious decision not to have any Daemons or other followers of the Chaos Gods in the list which is in keeping with the background of the Night Lords. Yes, individual Night Lords can be touched (or even possessed) by the Powers of Chaos but for the most part as a group the Night Lords will reject this sort thing. They will often at the very least show a disdain to any brothers tainted by Chaos. The Night Lords view other Chaos Legions who actively follow the Powers of Chaos as weak and little better than the followers of the Emperor. They may share campaigns with other Chaos Marines, but due to (mutual) distrust will seldom share the same battlefield.

Raptors have been brought in as a core formation which is in line with the Night Lords background. Thunderhawk gunships also appear in the list for similar reasons. The other choices in the list are more or less what one would expect from Chaos Marines.

I really wanted to flesh out the Terror Claws in the list as highly adept infiltrators who will potentially cause chaos in enemy rear areas once they emerge. A small part of this was giving them a sniper option so they can potentially assassinate enemy characters. A large part of this was giving the formation the tunneller rule. I did not believe in giving them teleport as this would make this unit in my opinion too reliable. Nor did I think giving this unit infiltrator was a good thing either as this really means you can botch your “surface” location and still find it easy to engage your target. I understand entirely that tunnelling Night Lords seems somewhat silly, but the rule when played that way achieves what I am looking for from this formation. Time (and playtesting) will tell. I can very much state on the record there are no digging implements of any kind to be found here at all.

As far as Titans went, I did not want anything possessed in the list, nor did I feel Warlord Titans were appropriate to the list, so at this stage the biggest Titan the Night Lords can access is the Reaver. I have also added the Talon Pattern Warhound Titan as a terror weapon for people to try out.

I do feel the Space Craft choices feel right, but I still am not sure on what to do about the Night Lords Air options. The other choice in the list that is open up for possible change is the Anti-Air choice, at the moment I have chosen the Hyperios which is essentially a whirlwind ancestor of the Hunter used currently by the Space Marines.

The main Army special rule for the Night Lords is predictably called “We have come for you”. This means that the Night Lords are more effective in an assault against enemies with more blast markers as well as making it harder for formations to rally that have Night Lords hot on their heels. I also was strongly considering a +1 to hackdowns after an assault but this at the moment will sit on the sideline and may or may not be something for future consideration.

I also wish to acknowledge and credit Simon “Simulated Knave” Jack who put together the Night Lords 0.1 and 0.2. The most important rule he has that I have incorporated into my list is the assault modifier +2 for opposing formations having more blast markers that makes up part of “We have come or you”. I really believe he got that bit so right in regards to the Night Lords background. I also love the Saboteur rule from that list, but for me it is something that would be more suited to the Alpha Legion.

I have had two mock games against the Steel Legion Imperial Guard for one win and a loss. Initial feel for the list is that the Night Lords pose a big rear area threat for opponents but need to choose their targets carefully especially when it comes to war engines.

So with some of my rational out of the way, please check out the attachments below. Comments and questions will be appreciated.

Thanks.

cool! i look forward to seeing where this goes!

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Interesting. The Thunderhawk should probably be moved to war engines/dark mechanicus as in the recently approved EC-list.

I would probably favour including the Warlord or more probably dropping the Reaver (again as in the EC-list)

Thanks for the feedback.

It does make make sense to shift the Thunderhawk option to the war engines/Dark Mechanicum to be consistent with the approved EC-list.

As far as the Titans go I prefer the feel of the Reaver to the Warlord, as the Reaver is faster and the Warlord for the most part for me is too sledgehammer for the Night Lords. However it is something to consider and playtest (both options) prior to the next update.

I think titans are entirely not Night Lord hit and run thematic. However this list is going to need to be careful to not end up too much like the Red Corsairs list which is based on the whole predation vibe so having them in probably works. Some form of tactics around them being utilized as a terror instrument (perhaps some odd disrupt weapons?) might be worth cogitation over. Basically all I'm saying is we've got an uphill trek to make this list distinct from what's out there and close to pushing for approved.

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Warhounds with a more-or-less Inferno Gun loadout? Or some sort of macro BP/disrupt weaponryto maintain some availability of hot macro death?

I am getting a bit concerned that Thunderhawks are returning to Chaos Lists. We have them in the EC list and I don't want them in all the Chaos lists.

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I do on principle agree that very careful consideration should be given to including the Thunderhawk gunships in any Chaos army lists. For what it is worth I do not think it is appropriate that the main Chaos Black Crusade list get the Thunderhawk, as they get a plethora of other choices in their list that the Adeptus Astartes list does not. So therefore the case for having the Thunderhawk as a choice available to the Night Lords is based on their lack of choices compared to almost every other Chaos list out there at the moment.

As far as the Titan loadout comments go, I did very much toy with the idea of having an inferno gun on both classes of warhounds in the initial list but at the moment I am content enough to see how things go under the current format for the near to mid future. Effect of Titans and the damage they are capable of dealing out in the game can be psychological enough without putting extra rules out there at this time.

I do appreciate the ideas around disrupt weapons. Whilst I understand entirely disrupt as a rule fits into the Night Lords theme it as a rule seems incredibly difficult to get the disrupt rule to work balanced under game conditions. Disrupt in Chaos lists is probably best suited for either heavy siege weaponry or the Noise Marines. I was not even aware of any imperial scout titan weapon that has disrupt. Can anyone please enlighten me on that point?

Thanks.

why are you concerned with Ad Mech load outs? these are traitor titans and as much demon as machine. Disrupt and Scout titans are a bad gamey mixture so some type of "dirge" weapon would be for battle titans.

also like TT, I'm very cautious about inclusion of Thawks. Might need to be willing to lose something else.

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I still believe the Thunderhawk does fit in with the Night Lords theme, there is little better way of saying “we have come for you” then a Thunderhawk dropping some Night Lords on top of a vulnerable enemy for some misplaced justice/vengeance or a good old fashioned crusade style curbstomping. The Dreadclaws for me too often say “we hopefully are coming for you”. The more I consider this the more I am thinking of dropping the Reaver Titan from the list entirely and just leaving the scout titans in for the sake of balance.

But on some level this is an issue of timing, as from what I am aware you have the Emperors Children already having the Thunderhawk choice as well as the Red Corsairs and Night Lords pushing for it as well. If we were up to the current day where most of the other Chaos Marine Legions (or chapters in the case of the Red Corsairs) had approved lists without the Thunderhawk then I believe this would probably be less of a concern. The Iron Warriors is a good example of this an army list feeling like it should and getting to the approval stage without needing a Thunderhawk.

Perhaps at a more planning level it may be worth a separate topic thread opening to discuss what Chaos Marine Lists should and should not (and why) have access to Thunderhawks as a choice. I would be most happy to offer my views on this but my short answer is most Chaos Marine lists with (lots of other cool stuff) probably should not need it.

Yeah you perfectly sum up the situation, mate. I'll leave such directives to the Chaos AC but it has merit as a concept.

As a personal take on things I'd try and get as many people into pushing Red Corsairs over the finish line (it really just needs a bit of stress testing) and them come back here and take a fresh look at things. In addition, perhaps taking a read through the latest HH rule book from FW will inspire some ideas for this list? It has tons of units/list/and background about the NL and may be of use here. If you don't have access to it PM me, I'm sure I can help you out

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Thanks for the idea and offer on the FW books jimmy, I do access to a few of these books including book 2 (Massacre) which covers the Night Lords, so maybe some extra ideas might spring from there, either way it will be an interesting read. Yes and I agree with getting the Red Corsairs over the finish line in terms of time and resources of the many people doing the playtesting and battle reports. It is great to see a such a well organised (and global) gaming community run for the players by the players.

Book 6 also has some more tasty (and new) background too

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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Looks like a good start to the list, I'd pretty much echo the comments above concerning titans.

As others have said the question with NL is reflecting the small scale terror tactics without myriad special rules or making them dark blue corsairs or marines.

Regarding the thunderhawk I can see the relevance to the NL (probably more than EC) but you need to be careful again to not make the too like the corsairs or codex SM without ATSKNF but with lots of other stuff

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As a confirmed "fluffy-phobe" please be cautious with the following.

I agree that at the very least THawks should fall into the Space 1/3, or perhaps have some limit per 1000 points. However, while I echo the concerns about excessive inclusion of THawks perhaps a better answer is to present a chaos equivalent of the THawk which is weaker in some respect and / or more expensive, the intention being to make them slightly less useful or less practical.

Doing this would provide a more appropriate vehicle for the chaos lists in general without encroaching on the stuff available to the more elitist Marine lists.

For example, would the chaos variant have so many heavy bolters, have the same battle-cannon, have the same strength armour etc. Could they be modelled more along the lines of the Transport variant etc . . .