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Submitted By: Koval, Master Verispex Date: December 26, 2012, 03:23:07 PM Views: 4979 | ||
Summary: A brief exploration of how to assemble a Night Lords army using the 6th Edition Codex: Chaos Space Marines. | ||
Preamble I've seen rather a lot of misconceptions about Night Lords, not just recently but back under 4th and even 3.5th. Together with the general slant towards renegade warbands in the 4th Edition Codex, the relative unavailability of the Night Lords' Index Astartes article, and the somewhat short overview presented in the current Codex, I've also noticed that there are some budding Night Lord players out there that get their wires a bit crossed. My intent with this article, therefore, is to suggest ways for players to go about fielding their own Night Lords-themed armies, and point out a few things about their background that risk being missed. DISCLAIMER: The views I express are entirely my own. On a side note, permit me a mini-rant, as whoever decided that Ave Dominus Nox should be their slogan clearly didn't have a blinking clue about how Latin grammar works (you use the vocative case with Ave, not the nominative, and Nox needs to take the genitive case as it goes with Dominus). Since we're meant to assume High Gothic is represented by Latin (or at least pseudo-Latin), the title -- though an unofficial rendition of their motto -- is a grammatically correct translation of "Hail the Lord of the Night", and sounds better when you say it. A Few General Notes About The Night Lords Here, I'll present a few general guidelines for following a Night Lords theme. Obviously, one is free to put one's army together as one sees fit, and in fact I encourage adding less obvious units like Havocs and Predators; however, do bear in mind that any themed army will favour certain things over others, so the suggestions below are intended to guide the reader towards appropriate decisions for a Night Lords army.
How Do I Assemble A Night Lords Army? I'm going to borrow from Irisado's excellent Word Bearers article here, and suggest a "traditional" approach, a "non-traditional" version, and a "warband" option. All three versions will centre around what looks, at first, like a rather unassuming core -- unaligned HQ, two Chaos Marine squads, possible transports. While this sounds like the building blocks of just about any unaligned Chaos army, this is where the rest of your choices come in. In a traditional Night Lords army, this is where you get to play around with your other slots, bearing the above guidelines in mind. I'd pay particular attention to Fast Attack, as just about everything in that part of the list is intended to create a bit of a stir (with the possible exception of Warp Talons; certainly I wouldn't have a problem with a unit of these guys in a list, but I think most of us can agree by now that they have their flaws). Don't discount any section of the list, though, and if you think that a unit could reasonably be quite fearsome, is unaligned, and conforms to the Dirty Fighting idea behind Night Lords, put it in. Deep Striking Terminators? A non-traditional variation might include a couple of "allied" Cult Troops bulking out your Elites slots (or Troops choices if you've taken a second, appropriately tooled-up HQ). Night Lords have been known to buddy up with cult units, after all, and they might employ said units in such a role that they add to the Night Lords' anarchy/terror approach just through doing what they do best. Khorne Berserkers in particular would be fairly appropriate here, as their bloodlust complements the Night Lords' own enjoyment of killing, but even Plague Marines or Thousand Sons can be counted on to hold onto something and free up a group of Night Lords to go about their work. For something even more non-traditional, I'd consider Huron Blackheart as a HQ, as Master of Deception is pretty cool, and he's also unaligned so can fit in as a counts-as-Night Lord HQ. For a warband or highly non-traditional approach to Night Lords, I'd retain all the basic ideas, and definitely pick a "traditional" core, but I'd consider some extremely unorthodox choices as well -- let's face it, by the time they're a warband, they'll have probably modified or even done away with the general Night Lord ethos anyway -- as long as you can get creative with justifying them. For example, "because the Mark of Nurgle makes my guys tougher" is a very bad reason to give a unit the Mark of Nurgle, as at that rate you might as well be putting a Death Guard army together. However, "because the Mark of Nurgle gives me access to the Icon of Despair" is more passable, and gives you the option of having a unit of Chosen or Terminators that have been around for millennia and are not only absolutely terrifying, but also tougher than old boots. Your modelling choices can reflect this without actually turning them into a Nurgle unit. By the same token, "the Storm Rider Raptor Cult fall upon their foes like murderous thunderbolts" or similar would be an okay way of representing the Mark of Slaanesh on a unit of Raptors, without giving them over entirely to the Prince of Excess. Please don't overdo it, though, as you're still putting a Night Lords force together, not a ragtag bunch of misfits. Having said that, if you genuinely want a ragtag bunch of misfits, with marked units or even cult troops by the dozen, but would like to retain a Night Lords flavour, then there's nothing to stop you from having a force where you've got a prominent Night Lords element (even if it's just a Lord and a bunch of Chosen -- after all, it could be a small, but highly elite, Night Lords warband) buddying up with smaller groups from, say, the Purge or Flawless Host. This approach is not unlike the Warriors of Aggannor, an example from the 4th Edition Codex where we had different splinter-groups allying behind a main figurehead. While I'd argue that we've got an entirely different army by that point, you could make it so the Night Lords are still running the show and that squad over there from the Flawless Host is just "following the plan". Conclusion Hopefully, the above has given you a few ideas of how the Night Lords operate, and what to keep in mind when you're putting an army of Night Lords together, although it should just be guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules. Certainly there are going to be plenty of valid approaches that I've not looked at, but this article was never intended to exhaust all the possibilities anyway. Happy gaming! Koval 27/10/12, 26/12/12 |
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