Night Raptor

Every Chaos Raptors' and Warp Talons' grandpapa.

They are the proto-Chaos Raptors and is essentially where all these lovely chucklefucks came from. Night Raptors were specialized fast attack infantry of the Night Lords during the Horus Heresy and Great Crusade.

Overview

The Night Raptors were a caste apart from the rest of their legion - not so much a martial elite as a bloody insane asylum filled with murderers unified by similar proclivities of terror, warfare and mutual love of jump packs.

The Night Raptors were equipped with Jump Packs and an array of close combat weapons, including all sort of Power Weapons such as Lightning Claws, Power Swords, Power Mauls, Power Axes, Power Lances, alongside other CQC weapons like the Chainblades and Chain Glaives. For ranged, they usually carry a light sidearms such as a Bolt Pistol, Hand Flamer, Inferno Pistol or Plasma Pistol.

They all wore Mark IV: Maximus Armour with custom bits to make them extra spooky.

Crunch

Crunchwise, on the Horus Heresy tabletop, these guys are flying Power Armor blenders, and one of the fluffiest Night Lords picks. They are essentially a mix of Veterans and Assault Marines; each is stacked with WS5 Relentless, Bloody Murder, Sudden Strike (1), Fear (1) Night Vision, Skirmish, and 2 wounds. Each one of these madmen can take Power weapons, single or paired Lightning Claws, and Nostroman Chainblades/Chainglaives. They are only 7 points more expensive per model than normal Assault Squad marines, and due to Skirmish, they have a 3" coherency, making them both tougher to kill with template weapons and easier to get attacks when they pile in. They are so good at shredding all but the most stalwart of units into confetti that they actually make the other unique Night Lords units a bit redundant (though to be fair the Night Lords elite Terminators are embarrassingly bad, so that might not the most ringing of endorsements).

Likewise, their paired Lightning Claws are the best AP3 weapon RIP AND TEAR, and cost only 10 points. A full squad of 15 counting as 30 models due to Bulky (2) means you'll almost always trigger your Legion trait. Thus, you get +1 to wound anyway, where your +2 attacks will pull ahead of Power Sword/Maul/Nostraman weapons. You don't really need the Power Lance's Reach (1) either, as you have Sudden Strike (1). Each model can get up to 6 attacks on the charge if you trigger Bloody Murder for 91 attacks on 15-strong squads. However, that's gross overkill against MEQs, and trying to spam Rending to kill TEQs isn't the best idea. Typically it's more advisable to take a few dual Lightning Claws to dice MEQs, then outfit the rest of the squad with Power Axes that wound on 2+. While sending them into a Dreadnought isn't the best idea, a squad of these guys (especially with Lightning Claws) can get the job done by just drowning the thing in potentially Rending attacks.

On the other hand, if you replaced your Bolt Pistol with Flamer/Melta/Plasma, you have no pistol and thus cannot claim +1 attack or take dual Claws. In such cases, there's no reason not to take Chainglaive unless you want the Power Axe's AP2.