Summon creatures of the night is basically the best thing ever.

[Ether Dude]

Discuss.

In combination with lord of the dead, ring of fury and rod of flaming death, you have magic pressure from turn 1. I was struggling because I did not have anything to use magic on in the first few turns of the game. No longer. Now I'm happily raising 15 wounds worth of bats against unsuspecting opponents. It is glorious, especially because it's taking up a measly 10 points from my combat lord who has very little else to do with said extra points. The only thing that I can think of as being useful is fear incarnate in conjunction with the screaming banner (and a unit of black knights). But still, 3 units of 10+ bats is very sexy.

Feel free to comment on this sentiment.

 

[Mikael.K]

Fell bats - war beasts
Bat swarms - swarms

So, if you are running a level 4 fighter lord, then its nice, but level 1´s not so much. You´re running a level 4 right?

Ring of fury? Sounds a lot like a HE item if you ask me . Also, what has lord of the dead to do with this?

 

[Ether Dude]

Yes, clearly a lvl 4. Sorry if there was confusion. Another point in favor of a casty vampire!

As for ring of fury, I honestly don't know the name. It's the enchanted item that gives you fireball from the BRB.

Lord of the dead is great because it gives you free points, thus making your necro spell more important to stop. It's better on a master, but oh well.

 

[Tim]

As for ring of fury, I honestly don't know the name. It's the enchanted item that gives you fireball from the BRB.

You are talking about item ruby ring of something, don't have to book on me.

I like the Creatures of the night thing, when I'm done painting most my stuff going to get some more wolves and bats to incorporate this in most of my lists when possible.

 

[Johnny-Crass]

I am working on a MSU Fast Vamps list and Summon Creatures is on all my vamps

 

[Kaptain Von]

Summon Creatures of the Night is indeed ace. I'll be using it a great deal just as soon as I fix all the flying bases on my Fell Bats...

 

[Von Calyptra]

My last experience with it was that I had some good dice and suddenly my army was stuffed full of bats and wolves - so much so that I ran out of models and had to proxy. This by itself was pretty cool (except for the proxying) and my opponent's reaction was more or less, "Aaaaaaaah!" But the extra models didn't really accomplish much and within a turn or two the relevant units had all been wiped off the table. Thinking about it, I'm not certain that Dire Wolves or Fell Bats become that much better in their roles (as redirectors and warmachine hunters respectively) with the extra models.

Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my desire to not have to buy and paint up a bunch more dire wolves and fell bats.

 

[Uziel]

Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my desire to not have to buy and paint up a bunch more dire wolves and fell bats.

I see the wisdom in that statement. hehe
I think "Best thing ever" applies more to GW's "increase of funds" in this case, as some of those units (looking at you fell bats) have gotten a ridiculous price tag of late..

 

[Ether Dude]

Ghouls with gargoyle wings (tyranid) on 40 mm bases ftw!

As far as diversity of roles goes (unintential) I think that the standard 2 bats will struggle against anything other than DE bolt thrower crews (and even then it's a close thing). By increasing their size, they can threaten all war machines as well as smaller missile units. Speaking of missile units, a unit of two bats evaporates in approximately a nanosecond to shooting. 10, not so much.

You also gain the possibility of tarpitting or even beating chaff units, including the DE pendant master or tzeentch 3+ ward lad. The important thing that we see in bats especially (compared to say zombies) is the massively increased movement. This means that you've got a much better chance of actually getting to what it is you want to hold up.

FYI, 20 bats will last 2 rounds (+/-) against either of the aforementioned hero bricks, which should be enough time for you to get your zombies in position or your deathstar into something that needs to die.

Cheers,
Ether

 

[Von Calyptra]

As far as diversity of roles goes (unintential) I think that the standard 2 bats will struggle against anything other than DE bolt thrower crews (and even then it's a close thing). By increasing their size, they can threaten all war machines as well as smaller missile units. Speaking of missile units, a unit of two bats evaporates in approximately a nanosecond to shooting. 10, not so much.

When did two Fell Bats become standard? Just two seems silly. Ideally, I think you want six, because that's how many can attack a warmachine. I won't take less than four. I find that I'm usually able to get them to their first target without suffering losses.

Actually, a possible argument against a huge unit of Fell Bats is that it becomes so unwieldy that it will have trouble fitting around warmachines in hard to reach places, like between units.

I have a feeling that Summon Creatures of the Night might be most useful if you're running a lot of bat swarms.

 

[Pyre]

I use pairs of bats all the time and they work really well. They're cheap, and I've never had problems with them dying to shooting or to warmachine crews though mainly they are there for cheap drops and diverters. When I can I'll squeeze Summon Creatures in, if for no other reason than it gives the enemy another reason to not let those early game Invocations through.



Pyre

 

[Ether Dude]

I guess that's my main point: make early invoks important to stop or at least a little useful if it does go through.

As far as 2 vs more goes, the 2 is a minimum size, and if the role is exclusively diverting, why bother paying more for bat swarms or a bigger unit? If you argue versatility, fine, I'll just counter with raise gives you more versatility for fewer points. Of course this is subject to dispel nonsense, but even then I think it'll work out.