Horus Heresy: Night Lords By DiStudios Army Update #3

Seasons greetings all, I have officially been on holiday for one day and making every minute count! Amid the chaos of last minute gift wrapping, event organizing and food shopping, I have managed to make significant gains on my Night Lords project.

Night Lords seem to run as a infantry-centric, yet high cost per individual force due to the restriction of having to take a minimum of three Terror Squads as your Troops choice. With two attacks base and options to take Volkite, a full unit of ten will cost on average the same as a Land Raider before even considering transport options - Both of which are pods, with one adding an extra hundred points to the unit...Non the less as you see above I am almost there with my minimum, with twenty built and blue stages complete (this includes micro detail battle damage). I have the parts for my third and final Terror Squad, which will once again be packing full Volkite, and perhaps I will make a start on those in the next few days, but for now I want to focus on getting the painted figures up to a base uniform standard.

With only one Heavy Support choice (in line with the ROW) and an extra unit type in the Fast Attack section (which seem almost mandatory) Night Lords suffer a cramped force organisation and can suffer in the anti tank department. According to background, the army makes significant use of Tarantula sentry guns for ambush and anti-tank, so I have embraced this ideal fully, having ordered enough to make two full slots worth of twin linked las-cannon (six in total). While this suits the background, it does leave me limited in terms of some of the nicer toys; such as my Primaris Lightning Fighter and of course my Scimitar Jetbikes. I do feel, that being reduced to one Heavy Support choice in a Night Lords army is very limiting, and by not opening slots elsewhere in the army; such as an extra fast attack option; the Night Lords are really set in what they can take. An idea I had was to either shift Tarantula Sentry guns as a purchasable heavy weapons addon to a Terror Squad - which works with their infiltrate ability, or at least make the cheaper Rhino transports an option to make efficient use of the Scout rules. 

It was inevitable that I was going to get a unit of Night Raptors, I just had a very specific idea in mind. From the outset I knew I wanted the entire unit to be armed with Nostraman Chain Glaives, with a liberal splattering of melta-gun. With a full unit armed so, clocking in at just under five hundred points, this unit is expensive in terms of game and real currency - most Chain Glaives had to be bought from bits suppliers at a premium. None the less, I am half way there! I have the other 5 waiting for construction, but am still searching for those last few Chain Glaives to complete. while I have shopped around for third party products; what I have seen, I did not find impressive enough to justify purchasing.

ALL ABOUT THE BASE

At time of writing I have just ordered enough 32mm bases to redo my current standing army. I did actually speak to Forge World on this and their current stance is that, they will continue to supply the traditional 25mm for now; and In regards to usage of 32mm; it was suggested I check with my opponent. Now from a gaming perspective I have heard all the arguments concerning game breaking/advantage etc. But quite frankly I like the extra modelling space on the new bases and I love the idea of my Raptors NOT falling flat on their faces once I have spent hours painting them. Undoubtedly I will get the odd player who will cry over it, but frankly if that occurs, I will just pack my figures up on the spot and 'give them the win'. While I love to play the game and of course win, I choose to win with the visual of 7-8 ft space marines walking the fields of battle pouring bolt rounds into each other, not two ageing man childs screaming at each other over a 7mm base size increase...

So good progress for me, considering I paint about as fast as a one toed sloth moves! Today, I will start to black out the metal and detail areas and prep the shoulder pads. I really want to have the infantry portion of this army broken by the end of January so I can start playing some games against my buddies Iron Hands. In terms of expansion, I have a couple of packs of Veterans already and will be looking to add a fill out the rest of my troops slots with Assault Marines and most likely Tactical support with yet more Volkite While I do have something for the heavy support (Fire Raptor) I am toying with the idea of triple Basilisks to provide some form of substantial fire power to my force...but those are just ideas and a long way off.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th legion

P.s Yes I did order Night Haunter on release day, progress shots of him soon(ish)!