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Ave Domine Noctis: The Night Lords in 6th Edition

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.

  • The Night Lords' modus operandi tends to revolve around terror tactics and generally not playing fair. As such, if you think a unit type is particularly intimidating, definitely consider throwing it in, but on the other end of the scale don't hesitate to include plenty of Cultists if you think you can spin them appropriately, possibly as "subverted militia" to represent the victims of Night Lord psy-ops.
  • I've seen several people assume "Night Lords = Lots Of Raptors" when this isn't really the case. I think this comes initially from interpreting 3rd Edition rules as background (where the Night Lords got an extra Fast Attack slot, back when Raptors and Bikes were the only options; they were apparently chosen to be a foil for the Iron Warriors and their extra Heavy Support slot). More recently, though, we have Lord of the Night, where the main character Zso Sahaal has a jump pack, and Krieg Acerbus shows up later with an entire army of Raptors. Understandably, if Lord of the Night and the old-style rules are a player's first glimpse of what the Night Lords are like, they risk misinterpreting their methods as "Raptors Everywhere" when the Night Lords' background tells a different tale. While the Night Lords definitely employ Raptors, they're not a defining feature by any means, so it's also perfectly feasible to field Night Lords armies with no Raptors whatsoever.
  • The Night Lords are generally rather skeptical of religion, and by and large, are unaligned. They'll gladly ally with "dedicated" followers of Chaos, but they themselves are more likely to consider Chaos worship as just another tool to be used -- in fact, their reticence to throw themselves off the deep end is one of the main reasons why their genetic stock is more stable than their fellow Legions'. As such, don't expect a "traditional" Night Lords army to have any Cult Troops or Marks of Chaos. I would also recommend avoiding Dark Apostles (too preachy) and Possessed (too much religious fanaticism involved in becoming Possessed), and I'd also be really stingy with Gifts of Mutation.
  • Following on from the above, don't rule out sorcery or Daemon Engines. To the Night Lords, these are just tools to achieve their goals. Telepathy-using Sorcerers in particular are fairly characterful, although it's a pain that Chaos Sorcerers don't get Divination as the Night Lords' Index Astartes article makes a note about their sorcerers potentially having the gift/curse of foresight and precognition. As for Daemon Engines, consider that having several tonnes of biomechanical Warp entity dropping in on you is going to be pretty terrifying.
  • Don't rule out Daemon Princes either. They're going to be fairly uncommon if the Night Lords' attitude to religion is anything to go by, but then we've got Krieg Acerbus who's a Daemon Prince, so obviously there are a few knocking around. You might have to get a bit creative when putting its fluff together, though, although I wouldn't have a problem with any of the dedication upgrades.
  • Feel free to take Icons of Vengeance and/or Veterans of the Long War if you like, but don't forget the points.
  • On allies: While many Chaos players are likely to gravitate towards Daemons, do bear in mind that Night Lords are more likely to treat daemons more as allies of convenience (do excuse the name-dropping of a rule) than anything else. By no means rule them out, though, as I can definitely see a Night Lord commander bringing a few daemons along for the ride in the name of causing mayhem. However, it's also worth remembering that Imperial Guard are a valid option. Maybe these are the poor subverted sods won over by the Night Lords through dirty tactics and foul play, and sent out to inject doubt into loyal Imperial forces who didn't anticipate having to shoot their own mates, at which point the Night Lords themselves capitalise on that doubt and start gleefully killing everything. Remember, however, that these guys aren't the Word Bearers or Alpha Legion, so you may well have to think a bit if you're looking to explain either case from a fluff perspective.

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? Dreadnoughts Helbrutes? A Defiler? Go for it, they're all scary. Got the points for dirge casters? Put them on, they're characterful. Want some warpflame gargoyles? Why not, setting people on fire is just a whole new level of terrifying. And the enemy sure didn't see those Heldrakes coming, now did they?

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

Rating: ***** by 1 members.

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