Stalking the Stalkers: Tactics to defeat the Nightstalkers in Kings of War
Stalking the Stalkers: How to beat Nightstalkers with Kingdoms of
Men
There are
two armies that Mantic created that ruins Kings of War for me. Those are the Trident Realm and the
Nightstalkers. The reason why is they
severely impede two phases of the game:
shooting (for Nightstalkers) and melee (for Trident Realm). The ironic thing is that an army that can
crush the Trident Realm will struggle against the Nightstalkers!
Army Overview of the
Nightstalkers:
I am not
going to waste time on this one. There are SO
many good reviews of the Nightstalker army! Just take the time out to listen or read them
and absorb what they are saying.
Direct Misfire:
https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-zuun2-1085dd7
Dash 28: (article)
https://dash28.org/2020/07/11/kings-of-war-3rd-edition-nightstalkers/
Basic Tactics:
The nice
thing about Nightstalkers, unlike Trident Realms you can use what I call “orthodox”
or “normal” tactics against them-except for shooting. Their army also seems to have a lot of low
armored units. Their speed is
decent. In fact in another review I mentioned that Nightstalkers are one of the best balanced armies in regards, that
they can compete in every phase of the game effectively! THAT is what makes
them hard to beat!
One of my
early thoughts on Kingdoms of Men was: BE
GOOD AT SOMETHING. What does that even mean?
What it means is while you may think a really balanced list will work-it
usually will not. The reason why that is the Kingdoms of Men are SO
average. They simply do not excel at any
particular thing. They can be very good in some phases, but you need to resist
the idea of playing an army with a little bit in every phase. You really need to spam phases to really make
a good Kingdoms of Men list work. The brilliant thing is that Kingdoms of Men
have all the tools in the box to do it!
You want to hold the charge; take Pikemen. You want lots of flyers: take the General on Winged Beast, the Pegasus
Hero, and the Pegasus Wizard. If cavalry is
your thing; you have mounted scouts, mounted sergeants, and Knights and tons of
good mounted heroes. In other words you
can “spam” a phase of the game and succeed with Kingdoms of Men.
So how would
I design an army to play against Nightstalkers?
The thing for me is I try not to design an army to beat any particular
foe. As I pointed out earlier, an army
that would shred Trident Realm will suffer against Nightstalkers. That means you need to design an “all comers”
army. An army that is not so one
dimensional that it will struggle against other armies.
What do you need to have in your army
list?
Shooting:
Any shooting that is RA 5 or better is going to be completely useless
against Nightstalkers. There are not
many options in the Kingdoms of Men army for RA 4 plus shooting. In fact there is
only one: The Ballista. Even that could
be a waste of time, but if you really need shooting that is your best option.
Taking shooting is like spotting the
Nightstalker player that many points. The next time you play, look at your list; regardless of
the foe. Imagine if you have to spot your foe your entire shooting phase and
try to win the game. That is what you are doing against Nightstalkers.
The nice
thing is that since Kingdoms of Men are neutral, they can take allied 4+
shooting that will be fairly effective.
This is especially true since most of those have piercing one.
Magic: Stealthy does not work against magic.
Instead of shooting use magic to inflict ranged damage. For the most part, Nightstalkers have a very
low defense. Even fireball will do some
damage to them. Lightning bolt is
better. While you won’t annihilate enemy
units with magic, you can do enough “chip damage” to make them hurt in a
fight.
Melee: Melee is the solution to killing
Nightstalkers. As mentioned above their
armor is fairly low, especially their infantry.
Since I don’t like shooting in Kingdoms of Men armies, this is perfect
for me. A lot of their infantry and
other units hit on a four plus. That
means that Pikemen are your friend. Add
to that how many flying units that are in their armies, makes the Pikemen even
stronger. Heavily armored units such as Foot Guard are good as well.
Mounted
heroes (aka “The Lone Ranger”) are very good at grounding flyers, stopping multiple
charges, and hunting down spell casters.
Remember, some of their shooting units can fly, but not far enough to
get away from “The Lone Ranger”. So they want to toss a 6 dice Lightning Bolt
at him? That is three hits on average, and only 1.5 wounds. If you have wisely put Indomitable Will on
him, the next turn you should be charging their spell caster.
Flying
Heroes: While the Nightstalkers have
many flyers, they are vulnerable to the flyers in the Kingdoms of Men. Many of them have low flying movement rates
that leaves them open to being charged.
The General on a Winged Beast is especially effective and should be used
to target the few high armor units of the Nightstalkers such as Butchers and
the Shadow Hulk.
Cavalry:
Knights and Mounted Sergeants can be good against Nightstalkers. While they do have some fast units, there
aren’t very many of them. The problem is dealing with flying cavalry like their
Soulflayers and chaff units such as their Phantoms. In this event you really need to have combined arms. You pretty much need to have something to “setup”
their units. You have to get the charge
with your Knights in order for them to be effective against Nightstalkers. While a regiment of Knights will rarely kill
a Horde of Butchers, they can do some good damage. What you will want to do is charge with
something else. That could be a Mounted Hero, a Flyer, or just an infantry
unit. Of course they will try and
prevent that, but that is the challenge of the game.
Types of Nightstalker armies:
Just like every
army, there are styles of Nightstalker armies. Some of these have bubbled to
the top of the tourney scene and can be viewed in many places. Many tournaments have a high number of
Nightstalker players. That is because they totally ruin any armies with
shooting. Here is Nathan Clevenger’s
army. Nathan is and has been a Master’s Player for several years. His army reflects a couple years of
refinements.
Scarecrow Regiment (War Bow of Kaba)
While Nathan’s army doesn’t have heavy shooting, it is always nice to have a
late game bow shot to cause a panic test.
I suspect this unit is what I call a “placeholder” meaning it is just to
hold an objective or table section.
Legion of Bloodworms (Measured Force)
Just a BIG
block of nerve and lethal attacks! It has 24/27 nerve. Not sure, but that may be the highest nerve
in the game. It also has 40 swings that
always injure on a 4+. It is totally a
waste of time to attack this unit. It is a “tar pit”.
2 Regiments of Reapers (Blessing of
the Gods, Brew of Strength)
These guys
are instant death of you let them charge your forces! A pike
unit “might” be able to handle them but it is doubtful. The good thing is their armor is fairly low
so they are a “glass hammer” in some ways.
A knight charge could kill them outright, but I guarantee Nathan won’t
let that happen.
3 Units of Phantoms (Slashing,
Crushing)
A very
versatile unit that can be used as flying chaff, terrain grabbers, artillery
killers, etc. The nice thing about these is that they are “unbreakable”. That
means your chip damage will do very little from magic.
Regiment of Shadowhounds (Brew of
Sharpness)
I love this
unit! Fast and hits a TON! They are also
“nimble”. Now they would be garbage against Pikes, but they probably are not
charging formed units from the front anyway.
Just a rock
solid infantry unit, that is hard to take off the table. The times I have
played against them they have struggled to hit my pike units, but they have
very good staying power. It would be
very rare to “one shot” them with anything, but it could happen.
Mindscreech
He only has
one in his army instead of the usual three you see in other armies. The deal is he can inflict chip damage, cause
a leadership test, or blow you back off of objectives or control zones. A very versatile unit that you will often see
in Nightstalker armies.
Planar Apparition:
This model
is the perfect support model. Heal 7 and
Mind Fog are very good spells. It is particularly good in support of the two
hordes of Butchers. (Pro tip: Healing works best when used on high defense
models).
Horror (Conjurer’s Staff, Aura of
Vicious, Bane Chant, Lightning Bolt 3)
Another
awesome support character! He helps make
up for some of the Nightstalker units lack of Crushing Strength, not to mention
the Aura to make every attack hurt.
What can you do to beat this army?
The hardest
thing is that this is a melee army for the most part, that is all but immune to
ranged combat. That is why I mention
taking an all melee army with Kingdoms of Men.
An army like the “Sam list” from the Dash 28 article has the tools to
beat it. However, you would be going up against
one of the most experienced Nightstalker generals in the world.
Pikes,
Fanatics troops, flyers, and some hard to injure units such as foot guard are
all great choices. Knights “can” work,
but you would have to set them up for success.
You would have to counter chaff a LOT of things for them to get in the
perfect position for a charge. Spamming
Lightning Bolt is never a bad idea, but remember he will just heal your
shooting back up with this Planar Apparition.
This is my
friend Craig’s army. It is the “classic” shooting Nightstalkers
3 Regiments of Scarecrows
1 Regiment of Reapers
3 Mindscreechs
Regiment of Phantoms
2 Hordes of Butchers
Shadowhulk
Terror
2 Horrors (Boomstick, Conjurers
Staff)
This is a
shooting list plain and simple. The
strategy is to blast units off of the table, while backing up to avoid
combat. You see this type of army a lot
in our area, since the Southeast is famous for shooting in Kings of War.
You need to
practice the “Wild Weasel” strategy sending your fast units forward to try and
suppress the shooting while moving forward aggressively. The Nightstalker
player does not want to fight until late in the game after he has wounded your
units with Lightning Bolts. Even that
may not work if they get lucky shooting or they get a good scenario.
See a battle
report here: https://youtu.be/gjrxVtUJZW0
Summary:
I will say
that one of the secrets of beating any army it to: “Know your Foe”. You should listen to the podcast above and
read the article. Both are excellent
sources of information.
Secondly,
avoid taking any shooting. You can still
have a good “all comers” army without taking shooting. Instead take magic over shooting or don't waste your time with ranged attacks.
Third,
normal tactics will work against Nightstalkers. A lot of players LOVE to play against them
with their melee armies. That is because
they have fairly low armor.
Regardless,
there isn’t a magic template you can use to defeat a Nightstalkers army. I have played against many melee only
Nightstalkers armies. Those may be
harder to defeat than the shooting ones!
They are just so balanced in all phases they are difficult to
defeat. I consider them a “Tier 1 or
2" force. That is why your force needs to be strong at something. Melee and flyers almost always work in a Kingdoms of Men army. I would build my armies with that in mind.
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