Kings of War/Tactics/Nightstalkers

Why Play Nightstalkers

You want to play an army of spooky creatures, but don't want to play demons or undead.

Do you wake up every morning dehydrated, your shirt soaked in sweat? You toss and turn in the night. A full eight hour rest is an elusive concept. A sense of anxiety grows as the day goes on because as your waking hours pass, you grow ever more tired. No matter how beautiful the sun set is, you feel unable to enjoy it. To you, the sunset is a call for you to return to a prison in your own mind. A hellish torture with no escape, no rescue and no parole. You've moved past dreams about scary monsters long ago. The nightmares have escalated to visions of your most cherished loved ones dying at your own hands. Hands that move slowly to draw out the agony. If that messed up shit describes you, Nightstalkers are the army for you.

Army Special Rules

• Mindthirst: All units in this army gain Inspired status whenever it's 12" away from an enemy with inspiring. That means his standard bearer is better for you than him, and will see reduced usage as he decides when to employ him. TL;DR expect to see inspiring opponents to suicide rush or flee. Most of the core has no waiver, and it has a large selection of monsters to better suit your tyranids Ghost models.

• Trans-dimensional: All units in this army have Stealthy unless otherwise noted.

Unit Analysis

Hero

• Banshee:

• Dread-fiend:

• Horror:

• Shade:

• Void Lurker:

• The Dream Hunter [1]: A pretty standard hero stat line with Crushing Strength (1), Individual, and Lifeleech (2), but what really stands out is that this creature gives every Nightstalker unit you control within 9" Lifeleech (1), or +1 to an existing Lifeleech. This is really powerful, but requires you to deploy your army around the Dream Hunter and move in unison. You do get a lot of wiggle room at 9", so take advantage of it to maximize your Lifeleech bubble.

Infantry

• Blood Worms: Lifeleech 2, like zombies sans rats.

• Doppelgangers: These guys assume the base stats and crushing strength of their opponents, which means they're as good as their opponents. These things are murder against hammer units, monsters, and anything that missed defense class, and would be OP if gobbos didn't piss all over them unmolested. Typical best use scenario: Yo' dawg, I heard you like elite infantry! Hmm, 27 +2 attacks with 3 crushing strength? I'll take those. Oh, well if you're attacking, can't you share that +5 defense? You get the idea.

• Phantoms: The only ranged infantry unit in the army. Has firebolts and piercing one. Hits on 4+, which is really good, but the short range firebolts means less shots and you are more likely to move around. With pathfinder it makes sense to put these guys in terrain. With stealthy and cover bonuses they would be hard to hurt but can provide plenty of damage.

• Reapers: These are your elite infantry. Hit on 3+ with crushing strength one gives them the ability to hurt basically everything. The best part is the number of attacks. 20 on a troop or 25 on a regiment! Some of the most cost effective melee in the game.

• Scarecrows: They have a legion option. They have shamble. No wavier, and they die faster than anyone else in the list. In a list of gribblies they're your economy anvil.

• Spectres: Essentially the same as wraiths from the undead list, but trade away the 6+ defense for stealth and a slight discount. All the typical shenanigans of flying surge units apply.

Large Infantry

• Butchers: Basic large infantry. Have CS 2, but are shambling. Has relatively high armor for the night Stalkers, so makes good front line troops.

• Needle-fangs*: This unit is pure screening. Height 0, vangaurd, crappy to hit and crappy nerve. Even with that, they can't be ignored. Pathfinder too.

Cavalry

• Shadowhounds*: Really fast and nimble, but relatively expensive. They need to hit first and hard or won't service a grindfest.

Large Cavalry

• Fiends*:

• Nightmares*:

Monsters

• Mind-screech:

• Planar Apparation:

• Screamer:

• Shadow-Hulk:

• Terror:

War Engines

• Portal of Despair [1]:

Tactics

Abuse the hell out of his leadership.

The army as a whole does well on the offensive, but has little in the way of defense. This means shooting will hurt, an be wary of envelopement, you're not going to survive.