Night Lords House Rules

My friend is putting together a Night Lords army and I've decided to draw up some house rules in an effort to make his army Fluffier.

I figured I'd throw them down here to see what the Interwebs thinks of them.

Night Lords house rules.
Note: These rules apply only to unmarked units that do not have the demon special rule. Units marked by the Chaos Gods, Possessed by demons, or otherwise aligned with the dark powers are considered to be allies enticed or coerced into the warband. Chaos Sorcerers and Dark Apostles are likewise considered to be outsiders and do not benefit from these special rules.

• The following rules apply to cultists:
  
• Ruled through fear: Cultists in a Night Lords warband may reroll failed morale checks (though not pinning or fear checks) when within 12” of a non-cultist Night Lords unit. They’re more scared of their masters than the enemy.
  
  The following rules apply to Night Lord chaos space marines:
  
• Terror Tactics: Units composed entirely of models with this special rule have the Stealth and Fear universal special rules, and their shooting attacks have the Pinning universal special rule. On any round in which they charge fear checks against them are made on 3d6.
  
• Covert Operations: One infantry unit with this special rule, chosen at the start of the game, gains the Infiltrate universal special rule. This extends to any character accompanying the unit, but not to any dedicated transport they may have.
  
• Strategic Withdrawal: Night Lords may not be Fearless or Stubborn, and lose those special rules if they already had them. A Night Lord Chaos Lord, instead of being fearless, gains the Hit-and-run universal special rule.
  
• Terror Specialists: The Night Lords focus on terror tactics has left them less capable than their Loyalist brothers in a straight-up fight. Night Lords have a -1 penalty to their WS score.
  
• Sonic Scream: When assaulting, Night Lords often overload their helmet’s vox system with a deafening scream to disable and distract their enemies. Any unit assaulted by Night Lords must make a toughness test. If they fail they may not fire overwatch against that unit. If they succeed, the Night Lords may not take cover saving throws against overwatch fire.
  
• Night Vision: All Night Lords have the Night Vision universal special rule, and any battle including the Night Lords starts with night fighting on a 3+ (note, this means that Night Lords vs Raven Guard will have night fighting begin on a total of 2+). However, Night Lords sensitive eyes leave them vulnerable to extremely bright lights. Night Lords roll 2d6 and take the highest when taking Blinding tests.
  

not a bad start. You might want to look at the 30k legion tactics. They can have a longer night fight and have a better chance to run away (tactically?) when outnumbered in a combat.

here's a link to a review that gives a bit of an overview of the night lords rules from a site that is doing a review of the units in the 30k books

[url]http://warpstoneflux.blogspot.com/2015/01/horus-heresy-review-night-lords-legion.html[/url]

Thanks!

Terror Helms: all Nights Lord Chaos Space Marines wear special terror helms. These confer the Fear rule. They also confer the rules Something To Grab Onto and I Hate Doorways.

Something To Grab Onto: any model with this rule automatically suffers Instant Death whenever they suffer an unsaved wound in Assault, as the enemy grabs hold of their helmet horns and uses them for leverage to break the model's neck.
I Hate Doorways: any model with this rule may not enter vehicles or buildings unless they have double doors. If a vehicle or building only has a single door, the model may enter by crouching and turning sideways, in which case they may make no actions next turn as their bat wings get caught on the wiring and they have to spend a moment to retain their dignity in front of the enemy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YorkNecromancer

Terror Helms: all Nights Lord Chaos Space Marines wear special terror helms. These confer the Fear rule. They also confer the rules Something To Grab Onto and I Hate Doorways.

Something To Grab Onto: any model with this rule automatically suffers Instant Death whenever they suffer an unsaved wound in Assault, as the enemy grabs hold of their helmet horns and uses them for leverage to break the model's neck.
I Hate Doorways: any model with this rule may not enter vehicles or buildings unless they have double doors. If a vehicle or building only has a single door, the model may enter by crouching and turning sideways, in which case they may make no actions next turn as their bat wings get caught on the wiring and they have to spend a moment to retain their dignity in front of the enemy.

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*gives two thumbs up*

I like Covert Operations, Strategic Withdrawal and Night Vision, though you might want to give that last one a different name as it's more than just night vision.

I like most of Terror Tactics, but they shouldn't cause pinning with all of their shooting attacks. There are plenty of similar units and weapons in 40k and they don't confer pinning. There should be a lot more pinning in 40k, but for the sake of consistency I think that part should be dropped. It would also be a bit much causing a pinning check with every squad that causes a wound. Other than that I like the rule.

I think you're drawing too much from the Night Lords trilogy on a couple of things. Talos's warband didn't like using warp power, but that doesn't mean all Night Lords are the same. There's no reason they wouldn't have sorcerers, possessed and such, and even the warband in the trilogy only hated their sorcerer Ruven(name?) so much because he betrayed them and ran off with Abaddon. If a person wants their Night Lords warband to be like that, that's their choice, but nothing says they're all like that.

Also sonic scream. Any marine could turn up their speaker grills and shout really loudly into them. Raptors have powerful shrieks, and that's represented by their having fear which your rules already give all Night Lords. That part with the Callidus didn't really make much sense anyway.

Terror Specialists I would drop, I don't think they would be noticeably less skilled than other marines, certainly not to the extent of only being as skilled as a guardsman. Sure they employ terror tactics, but they would still get into melee quite a lot and wouldn't let their skills dull that badly.

Drop Ruled Through Fear, you could make similar arguments for why any cultists could be less likely to flee.

Essentially, cut it down a bit so you're left with these four:

Terror Tactics: Units composed entirely of models with this special rule have the Stealth and Fear universal special rules. On any round in which they charge fear checks against them are made on 3d6.

Covert Operations: One infantry unit with this special rule, chosen at the start of the game, gains the Infiltrate universal special rule. This extends to any character accompanying the unit, but not to any dedicated transport they may have. (Probably specify that they can't be bulky so you can't infiltrate terminators and such)

Strategic Withdrawal: Night Lords may not be Fearless or Stubborn, and lose those special rules if they already had them. A Night Lord Chaos Lord, instead of being fearless, gains the Hit-and-run universal special rule.

Night Vision: All Night Lords have the Night Vision universal special rule, and any battle including the Night Lords starts with night fighting on a 3+ (note, this means that Night Lords vs Raven Guard will have night fighting begin on a total of 2+). However, Night Lords sensitive eyes leave them vulnerable to extremely bright lights. Night Lords roll 2d6 and take the highest when taking Blinding tests.


That's the way I would take it anyway.