Horus Heresy: How to Build a Legion - Night Lords

Today we’ll be looking at the 8th Legion, the Night Lords, in the next video in our ‘How to build a Legion’ series. Hopefully this is useful not only to those interested in the Night Lords, but for all Legion players, giving them an understanding of the concepts behind army building in Horus Heresy, and an idea of what each Legion can bring to the table.
The Night Lords, untrustworthy psychopaths that love to decorate their armour with the skulls and skins of their enemies, and their allies, and any innocent civilians they come across. Anyone really. The Night Lords are one of my favourite traitor Legions. Dishonourable even amongst their own, they use terror as a weapon and embrace their darkness, even before the Heresy. Their lightning wreathed power armour looks fantastic on the table and with the new Night Fighting rules, they’re definitely one of the stronger Legions. I hope you enjoy!
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[@afiqhamid4374]

I did not choose the Nostraman life, the Nostraman life chose me.

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Nah. I think you definitely chose the Nostraman life... and it's a great choice!

[@MatthewFEnfield]

I did not chose the chaos gods and i didnt let the chaos gods chose me

[@Prophetofthe8thLegion]

“You think the night is your ally? But you merely adopted the night. I was born in the night, molded by it, I did not see the light until I was already a man and by then it was nothing but blinding.”

[@andrewkimbell9723]

I have found nemesis bolters are a Night Lord's best friend. I took small pvc rods and clipped them to add to the mkVI bolters as a 'suppressor' to make them stand out for my recon and seeker squads.

[@Khurzan72]

Would love to see these

[@AnnieAturday]

I really liked the AoD box, I cut the axe head off the axe preator's axe, and replaced it with a chainsword head, making it a chainglaive, and then turned half of the mk 6s into night raptors using the chainswords and pistols taken from a CSM kit. just cut off any mutations, fill in any chaos stars with greenstuff and sprue glue, and those arms are absolutely perfect with their extra spikey bits for Night Lords. The other 20 marines got turned into 20 terror troops with rotor canons, and the paired raptors and rotor canons just blow through anything on the table with pinning and then over a dozen chainblades coming in hot. Especially when those raptors are given hatred everything with chaplains which is why I'd recommend a couple chaplains with jetpacks as a quick and early next buy if you want to go hard into raptor squads. I *do* like terror squads over support squads for the sole purpose of preferred enemy (infantry), and infiltrate. Being able to reroll failed wound rolls on rotor canons is a massive boon. Making sure you can get at least one wound in to make sure they take a pinning test is just absolutely necessary in my humble opinion. And with Bloody Murder and chainswords as a baseline, I definitely think they can pull some weight in a melee and are well worth the extra points over a normal support squad. Night Lords are a GREAT army for learning greenstuff and converting, every single model is covered in chains, skulls, and greenstuff skin. I never thought it was possible to run out of the citadel skulls kit, but here we are hahaha. This is just from my limited experience with a *very* fluffy list, though.

[@AnnieAturday]

and I know you say that one of the biggest mistakes is to go all in on special units, but honestly they're just so much fun. upwards of 70 attacks at str +1, full rerolls, on initiative 5 is just a fun thing to do. I have a lot of fun throwing those dice, even if I get punished by not having enough units standing around. Its fun throwing way too much dice and just deleting things, and then after I get to watch a lot of nasty night lords die. Its a win/win to me.

[@brandonhardman1677]

what is the CMS kit?

[@ChaosDemonLeonade]

​@@brandonhardman1677 chaos space marines

[@TheGeorgemcc]

Night raptors with librarians are definitely the way to go. Incredibly strong.

[@ML-zv6tr]

Had some decent usage with Sicaran Punishers with Lascannons supported by Divination Librarians allowing for 20 Precision 5+ Shots. The tactic worked similarly with Iliastus Predators for Blood Angels. Just a shame there isn't a way yet to give Punishers Rending, or at least Breaching.

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Very nice! Yeah I used some sneaky divination action to give a Lascannon HSS precision 5+ to snipe HQs at the recent event. It was a bit too effective 😅😬

[@KaosKittyStudios]

I disappear from heresy youtube for a month and I miss a black briar NL video! Always like to hear you talk about my legion, one of the few heresy youtubers that seem to actually understand our legion a bit! Mostly spot on as usual, specially for beginners. If you advance to making videos for improving on a new NL players starting army I would suggest covering rapier grav cannons (great for movement speed control amd stackimg dangerous terrain tests are one of the best ways to deal with terminators), missile HSS if fliers are common in ur meta are a great piece in our tool kit. If u trigger tfm against vehicles Str 9 krak glance alot of vehicles to death, have a str 8 functionally sky fire weapon amd are a pinning unit with frag missiles vs infantry! Nullificators are expensive but increidbly hard to answer in our legion with some disintegrators, i have fpund infiltrating a unit forward with a vigilator to be hard to answer. A veteran squad outfit with some power weapons and shot guns (2 NB) is a very threatening roaming squad that brings alot of utility. If u have the points grav guns and missiles launchers are agaim a great splash with these units. Scout squads with melta bombs in our legiom beat most dreads on the charge and are scoring. Shot guns help them edge out wins vs other light infantry scoring in objective slap fights. Indom with shield and hammer are a good solution when you are strugglign with to many terminators in yohr meta or to fit scoring in your list. Forge Lord bringing scoring, TfM, NV (thru konrad) elites choices really helps fill a gap in our lists scoring and are robots. Konrad ofc is cracked. I could give a thesis on why he is just dumb beyond belief, and if building for a competative game he should be the first thing in every list (and i suggest avoiding bringing him to friendly game unlike most primarchs which i think are fine in friendly games)

[@blackbriargaming5483]

These are some seriously spicy takes! Love it!! 🥰 And what a compliment! I'll take it! 😄

[@FlourEater]

the spookiest of bois! I was really tempted to go with them.. thanks for the vid!

[@Booooom513]

Great list, I decided to swap temies for 5 raptors with claws and terror squad for 9 mean with 6 volkites and rhino

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Yeah the raptors are probably the better choice, I just can't go past those termy models though!

[@brotherpink8594]

I really appreciate your videos! I want to take some mechanicum allies but I’ve always found them so complicated. Could you do a video about them?

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Sure will! They're on the list after we get through all the Legions. I've been getting a bunch of games in with them so can start to talk intelligently about them. Not easy though! They're a complex beast.

[@nagekilamentation]

Ave Dominus Nox

[@AubLambe]

If you take terminators, you can give them a spartan without taking up the Heavy slot, so you can get an extra Heavy support/gun platform

[@maddogmadden23]

I got a bunch of cheaper Termite Assault Drills.. so I'm running them as underworld assault. A bit of a different army.. I just imagine how scary it would be to have these psychos popping out of the ground then having terror squads shooting rotor cannons into your troops pinning you as a bunch of raptors swoop in all at once

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Love it! There's so many cool things a Termite Assault army can pull off. What's your 2000pt list???

[@maddogmadden23]

@@blackbriargaming5483 at ~3000pts I have a core of the army is 4 Termite Assault Drills. Inside I'm running 2 Terror Squads with volkite and rotor cannons, a mortis destroyer squad, and a breachers squad. I have an assault squad and night Raptors. I have a sacaran punisher and two sabre tanks.

[@maddogmadden23]

​@@blackbriargaming5483 oh and a run a legion praetor with a jump pack.. he's not competitive but he is a dreadnought killer. Then a moritat and a librarian for my HQ choices

[@maddogmadden23]

​@@blackbriargaming5483 at 2000 I'm still working out a cool list. But it's looking like this: Praetor jump pack - Power Claw and Paragon blade Librarian for pinning Moritat with disintegration pistol 10 Assault Squad 10 Breachers in Termite 10 Night Raptors (various upgrades) 10 Terror Squad with rotary cannons and volkite in Termite 10 Destroyers in Termite Comes out to 1997pts in total. Not meant to be competitive at all. But I wanted to make a list where my jump packs would fly around killing things on the edges until the termites pop up then get close in, shoot and then do as much carnage as possible in a short time.

[@deriksummerfield1522]

I'd love to see you make a 40K version of this video!

[@RichSanders]

Midnight clad. Great video! Nice list, I haven't tried rapiers before

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Thank you! Rapiers are a hidden gem. Especially being in the Elites slot.

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Did people find the Army List helpful?? Or stop watching at that point?

[@ThePipLad]

It's good my man, certainly gave me a few ways to think about building some alternative lists

[@morizberger8776]

You brought up some nice points wich even a long term player like me didn't think of. Usually I run a 10 man Volkite Heavy support squad with a Apo just I can shredd light armoured vehicles, but I was usually struggeling to get through Armour 14 or 15, but I never thought about the rapiers as an option for me (In my head I put them in the Heavy Slot)!

[@brandonhardman1677]

This Video has helped alot. Im trying to make Night Lords my first army, and this video helped me get good info about where to start. i was lost till i seen this

[@arturomiranda1879]

​@@brandonhardman1677I feel the same, a friend ask me to play with him HH and gave me a Sevatar. It is quite hard to get any info for new players.

[@benjaminbrenner745]

Thank you

[@balkenkreuz2063]

I've loved the Night Lords for a long time but never started to collect a warband until 2019 when GW refreshed a lot of the CSM range... However, I honestly think that the 30K iteration of the army feels more compelling than the 40K counterpart. Better rules, more flavor, Sevatar... you name it. A Night Lords army in 30K feels and looks more true that in 40K.

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Same could be said of every single 30k Legion over their diluted 40k counterparts 😋

[@liammorgan1413]

For Terror Assault, a good Heavy Support option is a Sicaran Punisher Squadron. Pinning + Shellshock + Night Fighting can be really devastating.

[@blackbriargaming5483]

For sure! Great pick!

[@liammorgan1413]

@@blackbriargaming5483 As for other generic Legion units that would be worth including in a Night Lords army, I would almost say that destroyer squads (both mortalis and assault varieties) with rad missiles would be particularly nasty not just when used in conjunction with the Legion-specific special rules but also in setting up to use those rules against a target unit. Inflicting a permanent -1 Toughness debuff as a result of Rad-Phage, coupled with outnumbering or pinning the target unit, really opens up some doors for terrifying plays where power swords and (especially) lightning claws are wounding on 2s against what would normally be Toughness 4. Hell, even outside of doing the legion-specific Rites of War, normal HSS with missile launchers are a good unit to pin with courtesy of frag missiles having the special rule. Normally I would recommend coupling them with a techmarine or armistos for cognis signum as the cheapest option, but because Night Lords units can just pay 15pts for Night Vision the only reason for going for the Cognis Signum in that case is for boosting the unit's ballistic skill. A nuncio-vox is a definite must in the squad though due to Blast.

[@DeusExMachina10001]

NL unique terminators are all terrible, and the Atramentar in particular are either the first or second worst termies in the edition. Don't use them. If you are going to bring terminators, just go with stock Legion ones.

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Ok. So. They're not great... but the look cool!?

[@mrdelaney4440]

They are brilliant for brutalising peasants.

[@14DEADSOUL]

@@blackbriargaming5483 Kontekar are the BEST looking in the game bar none. Unfathomably gorgeous, I'm tempted to build them as a second legion just for them!

[@blackbriargaming5483]

@@14DEADSOUL the best reason to build a new Legion 🥰

[@DeusExMachina10001]

@@blackbriargaming5483 Oh they look amazing, don't get me wrong. That's why you take them as stock Legion Terminators. That way you can look at the models for more than like 2 turns. It's just hard not to be a bit salty about them when you've got other units like, say, Inner Circle running around, who both look incredible and actually function. Or Broken Claw Inner Circle, who are just absolutely bonkers. Or Solarite Huscarls. Or Firedrakes, or Deathshroud, or Varagyr, or Morlocks, or Dominators, or Deliverers, or Tyrants, or Fulmentarus, or Justerian, or Lernaean, or Crimson Paladins... Even things like Gorgons or Phoenix Terminators have their niches. The Contekar are just straight garbage. Their only saving grace is that that you don't lose anything by not taking them; Night Raptors are better at the same thing for cheaper. Only the Atramentar and the poor Red Butchers are worse.

[@TheHarty1]

Just started a night lords army. Talk about timing 👍

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Great to hear! What are you thinking of including??

[@TheHarty1]

@@blackbriargaming5483 I was planning on a mix of jump pack melee units and heavy weapon squads for support and pinning. Although your video has got me thinking about combat bikes lol

[@blackbriargaming5483]

@@TheHarty1 yeessss gooood

[@RustedSniper7]

Dark angels next pretty plz 🙏

[@blackbriargaming5483]

Afraid not! Reverse order. Imperial Fists next 😊

[@razalfraz6618]

So i made two 11 man raptor squads 1 with lightning claws and the other with chain blades I’ve her to use em but I’m really curious to see which one is better

[@arkslippyjunior7773]

In swift blade, even though it's very expensive running the bikes with a command squad gives you two wound, line bikers that can take power weapons It's not cheap by any stretch of the imagination but 16 cracked up bikers with chainblades will ruin anything

[@afiqhamid4374]

Thug life space marines.

[@sanguinius6815]

and the Sons of Horus thought they had a gang problem.

[@TheAcidDrip]

Please add time stamps to your videos. Otherwise it's hard to jump to the relevant bits. Thanks

[@IdioticSynergy]

Nightlords just want some skin man lmao

[@blackbriargaming5483]

It would be rude not to give it to them i suppose? 😬