TheChirurgeon's Road Through 2026, Part 6: Finally on the Nightmare Hunt

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing blog of hobby and competitive progress through 2026. Last time around I was taking a break from my two back-to-back events and talking about hobby progress and plans for 2026. This time it's back to the grind as I finally get to play some test games with Nightmare Hunt.

I set some pretty ambitious goals for myself when I said I'd play one hundred games again this year. For those of you keeping track at home, that means playing roughly two games per week and keeping that pace up all year, which can really get away from you if you take even a week off. As an example: I'm currently at 15 games played following this past weekend's games, which means I'm only up three games on my goal - if I don't get in another game this week, I'll be behind. I've written before about the hourly cost of being a good player and I can't stress enough that even this work I'm putting in isn't enough to really get to the next level. That said, I can certainly bank some of the time I've already put in.

One of the more difficult aspects of trying to stay on top of games is that I tend to play all of my games in person. I'm not a big Tabletop Simulator fan; I see the value in some sense but for me that is, at best, Warhammer-like substance, and I find that it's much more difficult to gauge distances and do positioning well in the simulator, and this leads to bad play patterns and poor habits on a real table. Also games take longer and I don't want to sit at a computer any longer than I already do each day.

What this means is that scheduling games can become difficult, especially with my crew of "responsible adults" who mostly "have children and lives" and "cannot drop everything to game every weekend." It's some real bullshit, but I can usually get someone to answer the call. This past weekend I set up a game with one of the locals at my local GW store, and then as luck would have it, Swiftblade offered to get in a game when he had to stop by to pick up some models to paint for an upcoming release. This was a good weekend to get in a pair of games, as my schedule was pretty open, and this meant a good opportunity to try out the Nightmare Hunt Detachment finally.

Game 1: vs. Greg's Death Guard

I know what you're thinking - "that Greg?" well, no - this wasn't Greg, sitemaster and CTO at Goonhammer dot com, it was a different, Texas Greg. And no, it wasn't Greg "Klobasnek" Narro, either - this was another, third Greg. HOWEVER, this particular Greg is still VERY COOL and a fun person to play against who frequents the local GW store near me. He's usually down for a game but the catch is that he's always running some kind of insane bullshit. The good news is that his latest fixation is Death Guard, so he's no longer running multiple units of Space Marine Reivers. Unfortunately, he's fallen into the same trap as so many fledgling Death Guard players and is convinced that Blightlords should be in his list.

My List

For this first test game, here's the list I ran:

My Nightmare Hunt Test List - Click to Expand

nightmare hunt test (2000 points)

Chaos Space Marines Strike Force (2000 points) Nightmare Hunt

CHARACTERS

Chaos Lord with Jump Pack (100 points) • Warlord • 1x Bolt Pistol 1x Power fist • Enhancement: Warp-fuelled Thrusters

Chaos Lord with Jump Pack (115 points) • 1x Bolt Pistol 1x Power fist • Enhancement: Sorrowscent Vulture

Cypher (90 points) • 1x Cypher’s bolt pistol 1x Cypher’s plasma pistol

Haarken Worldclaimer (90 points) • 1x Helspear 1x Herald’s Talon

BATTLELINE

Cultist Mob (50 points) • 1x Cultist Champion • 1x Autopistol 1x Brutal assault weapon • 9x Chaos Cultist • 9x Autopistol 9x Brutal assault weapon

Legionaries (90 points) • 1x Aspiring Champion • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon • 4x Legionary • 2x Astartes chainsword 4x Bolt pistol 1x Chaos Icon 4x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Missile launcher

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chaos Rhino (75 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-bolter 1x Combi-weapon 1x Havoc launcher

Chaos Rhino (75 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-bolter 1x Combi-weapon 1x Havoc launcher

OTHER DATASHEETS

Chaos Predator Destructor (140 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-weapon 1x Havoc launcher 2x Lascannon 1x Predator autocannon

Chaos Vindicator (185 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-weapon 1x Demolisher cannon 1x Havoc launcher

Raptors (110 points) • 1x Raptor Champion • 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 4x Raptor • 1x Astartes chainsword 3x Bolt pistol 2x Heavy melee weapon 1x Mutations 1x Plasma pistol

Raptors (210 points) • 1x Raptor Champion • 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 9x Raptor • 3x Astartes chainsword 8x Bolt pistol 4x Heavy melee weapon 2x Mutations 1x Plasma pistol

Raptors (110 points) • 1x Raptor Champion • 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 4x Raptor • 1x Astartes chainsword 3x Bolt pistol 2x Heavy melee weapon 1x Mutations 1x Plasma pistol

Warp Talons (270 points) • 1x Warp Talon Champion • 1x Warp claws • 9x Warp Talon • 9x Warp claws

ALLIED UNITS

Noise Marines (145 points) • 1x Disharmonist • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Sonic blaster • 5x Noise Marine • 2x Blastmaster 5x Close combat weapon 3x Sonic blaster

Noise Marines (145 points) • 1x Disharmonist • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Sonic blaster • 5x Noise Marine • 2x Blastmaster 5x Close combat weapon 3x Sonic blaster

Exported with App Version: v1.46.2 (108), Data Version: v732

The idea here is three units of Raptors - one big unit to take advantage of Haarken's impact mortals and two smaller units to spread out and harass enemy units and drop that -1 Leadership aura. If there's a part of this I don't love it's that I don't really have any ways to force Battle-shock tests in the Shooting phase now - Noise Marines merely give -1 when they hit you - and that's a shame, but I don't have any solutions beyond taking bad cultist leader units.

Greg is running a Flyblown Host list with three units of Blightlord Terminators, a unit of Deathshroud, three units of Plague Marines, two Blight Haulers, a Predator Destructor, and two HBL Bloat-Drones, plus three units of Poxwalkers. It's light on Rhinos because the idea is to surge out with that initial move from Flyblown Host and use that to ramble forward.

This is a tough nut to crack: Raptors and Warp Talons can easily bounce of T7 targets with a 2+ save, and to add insult to injury Greg takes Skullsquirm Blight (-1 to hit) over Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves) to give him melee protection on top of Stealth for his models. While I mostly think that's a mistake, he says his goal is to annoy the shit out of me during the game and he definitely succeeds at that particular goal. Well played, Greg.

The Mission: Take and Hold + Search and Destroy

I'm going second. I keep the uppy-downy unit of Raptors and the naked unit in Deep Strike while the Warp Talons and Haarken's unit go on the table.

Greg draws Extend and Sabotage turn 1 and scores free points on Extend and does Sabotage with his Poxwalkers - his Plague Marines and Blightlords aren't really in position to perform it yet. On my turn I'll draw Bring it Down and Tempting Target. Greg picks the middle objective but I'm not biting - instead, I wheel around and take out his two units of Poxwalkers, scoring a turn 1 kill with the Warp Talons. Haarken's unit wipes the other.

Greg's clapback is pretty nasty - he drops Deathshroud and Blightlords on Haarken's unit and wipes them and whittles down some of my Noise Marines while killing one Rhino. The good news is that this traps the Deathshroud in the corner after they're unable to make a charge into the dead Raptor unit. I cut some of his Blightlords down but I'm having trouble killing the last one and the Lord of Contagion. Meanwhile I drop the Warp Talon on the table to try and kill the Blightlords who took out Haarken's unit and the Lord of Virulence there lives on a single wound, leaving me vulnerable to the Deathshroud on the following turn. The good news is that they don't wipe the squad - I get pretty lucky on my saves and Greg only kills a few Warp Talons, who then kill the unit and the Lord of Virulence.

I mostly forgot my Detachment rule for most of this game; it started to come into play late when suddenly +1 to hit mattered into Stealth targets. I drop a unit of Raptors behind Greg's home objective and kill the Poxwalkers there, forcing him to pull back his Predator and the Bloat-Drone to contest it, and then they both get caught in combat and battle-shock. Meanwhile Greg's remaining Lord of Contagion survived a Vindicator to the face and killed my Vindicator before killing 9/10 Poxwalkers on my home objective. That last one passed his Battle-shock test to hold on and deny Greg primary, however.

Result: 72-45, Win

Greg put up a solid fight and his list was better than I figured it'd be - he definitely needed to play a little tighter and get better use out of his drones but the Blightlords are a legitimately scary unit despite being outclassed by Deathshroud. He was on solid pace with his primary and secondary scoring right up until he failed those Battle-shock tests (admittedly at -2) late in the game.

That was the weird part about playing with Nightmare Hunt - the Battle-shock rules didn't matter... until they suddenly did and I flipped every objective on a test on the final round. Being able to Advance and Charge was great, and so was the fall back and shoot/charge stratagem. But My feeling here was that the extra five Raptors in Haarken's unit were a waste, and I'd have been better off with Plague Marines. So I decided to mix things up for my game against Dan.

Game 2: vs. Swiftblade's Drukhari

For the second game I'm going into Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson, a good friend of mine who I haven't seen or played against as often since he had his first child. He came over to pick up some models and brought his Drukhari, with a Kabalite Cabal list running Lady Malys, a big unit of Incubi, two units each of Scourges, Chronos, and Mandrakes, a pair of Ravagers, a unit of Reavers, and some Kabalites and Archons.

I adjusted my list, swapping out five Raptors and the Legionaries for two units of Plague Marines. I like their toughness and the -1 Ld aura.

My second list - click to expand

nightmare hunt test 2 (1995 points)

Chaos Space Marines Strike Force (2000 points) Nightmare Hunt

CHARACTERS

Chaos Lord with Jump Pack (100 points) • Warlord • 1x Bolt Pistol 1x Power fist • Enhancement: Warp-fuelled Thrusters

Chaos Lord with Jump Pack (115 points) • 1x Bolt Pistol 1x Power fist • Enhancement: Sorrowscent Vulture

Cypher (90 points) • 1x Cypher’s bolt pistol 1x Cypher’s plasma pistol

Haarken Worldclaimer (90 points) • 1x Helspear 1x Herald’s Talon

BATTLELINE

Cultist Mob (50 points) • 1x Cultist Champion • 1x Autopistol 1x Brutal assault weapon • 9x Chaos Cultist • 9x Autopistol 9x Brutal assault weapon

Legionaries (90 points) • 1x Aspiring Champion • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon • 4x Legionary • 2x Astartes chainsword 4x Bolt pistol 1x Chaos Icon 4x Close combat weapon 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Missile launcher

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chaos Rhino (75 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-bolter 1x Combi-weapon 1x Havoc launcher

Chaos Rhino (75 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-bolter 1x Combi-weapon 1x Havoc launcher

OTHER DATASHEETS

Chaos Predator Destructor (140 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-weapon 1x Havoc launcher 2x Lascannon 1x Predator autocannon

Chaos Vindicator (185 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Combi-weapon 1x Demolisher cannon 1x Havoc launcher

Raptors (110 points) • 1x Raptor Champion • 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 4x Raptor • 1x Astartes chainsword 3x Bolt pistol 2x Heavy melee weapon 1x Mutations 1x Plasma pistol

Raptors (110 points) • 1x Raptor Champion • 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 4x Raptor • 1x Astartes chainsword 3x Bolt pistol 2x Heavy melee weapon 1x Mutations 1x Plasma pistol

Raptors (110 points) • 1x Raptor Champion • 1x Heavy melee weapon 1x Plasma pistol • 4x Raptor • 1x Astartes chainsword 3x Bolt pistol 2x Heavy melee weapon 1x Mutations 1x Plasma pistol

Warp Talons (270 points) • 1x Warp Talon Champion • 1x Warp claws • 9x Warp Talon • 9x Warp claws

ALLIED UNITS

Noise Marines (145 points) • 1x Disharmonist • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Sonic blaster • 5x Noise Marine • 2x Blastmaster 5x Close combat weapon 3x Sonic blaster

Noise Marines (145 points) • 1x Disharmonist • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Sonic blaster • 5x Noise Marine • 2x Blastmaster 5x Close combat weapon 3x Sonic blaster

Plague Marines (95 points) • 1x Plague Champion • 1x Boltgun 1x Plague knives • 4x Plague Marine • 4x Boltgun 4x Plague knives

Exported with App Version: v1.46.2 (108), Data Version: v732

This time around the plan is to drop the uppy downy lord unit on the table and take it back up round 1. I still deployed the Warp Talons on the table, which was a mistake given the opponent.

The Mission: Take and Hold + Tipping Point

I'm going second again, and I kind of don't want that. Dan has positioned himself well for me to fire off a turn one charge on both units of Mandrakes and ensure I take out a big piece of his game before the game really starts. He goes first and plays conservatively, scoring 1 point for Engage on All Fronts and giving up on Establish Locus. This is the correct choice, but he's left his back corner pretty open. I take up my Raptors with uppy-Downy Chaos Lord.

On my turn I attempt a big move with the Warp Talons and get nothing - I advance 2, then re-roll that into a 1, trapping them on the table for a turn. At the bottom of the table I bring up my Plague Marines to kill the other unit of mandrakes and they fail the 4" charge by rolling a 2. We are not off to a good start. On the upside, my uppy downy raptors drop in behind Dan's home objective and make their charge into the Kabalites and archon there, killing the unit despite Dan passing nine straight 2+ saves with his Shadow Field.

Dan's units are fragile but he has a lot of firepower. He kills a Rhino and my Predator with his Ravagers while whittling down the Noise Marines but his target priority is all over the place. He leaves the Warp Talons untouched and the following turn they'll move on to kill a Venom and drop off the table. Meanwhile the plague marine units did work, killing a unit of Mandrakes and another Venom. The Vindicator ends up taking out a Ravager and surviving to kill the other, but Dan's 18" lone op strat makes that take longer.

We trade blows - Lady Malys hits hard and wipes two units of Raptors, a Chaos Lord, and Haarken more or less by herself - but the backbreaker happens when Dan brings in his Incubi via Strategic Reserves/Rapid Ingress, then fails a 3" charge with them into my Noise Marines, rolling a 2. They'll get wiped out the following turn and that was it.

This was another game where Leadership didn't matter until it did. Most of the time I'd just kill units, but then late the Chronos and Incubi started failing tests and killing them got easier, plus the objectives flipped.

Result: 86-56, Win

These were good reps to have, and it's an interesting Detachment to play. I think having new Raptors who can put out nine power fist attacks is a much bigger deal than the Detachment bonuses, but I did get failed tests often enough to believe it's viable. It really feels like an odd snowball effect, though. The real value here is in the Advance/Fall back and charge stratagems and the Enhancements, as far as I can tell. The rest is solid, and getting units below half strength was big, but it wasn't strictly necessary. That's a weird bag since it means this Detachment feels on the whole, less powerful than something like Veterans of the Long War, or Renegade Raiders. I think I'm likely to drop a unit of Plague Marines for Legionaries and give it another test game or two.

Hobby Progress

I'm working like crazy on some new stuff but I can't talk about any of it yet! Check back next week and the week after for more updates on what I've been painting.

Next Time: Back to the Grind

These were fun games against chill people but they were also more about getting in reps with the army than taking on challenging opponents. Much as I love Swiftblade, he hasn't played much 40k recently (though he's become quite the Kill Team player), and I shouldn't have been able to drop behind his home objective. Still, it was good practice, and I really needed to get more comfortable working with Raptors and Warp Talons. With only one unit able to Ingress, the Warp Talons eat that spot and it means that if you're dropping Raptors in it's likely as a regular deep striker unless you're on backup strats with the uppy downy lord. That said, having a lord in the Warp Talons is a huge improvement. This list definitely needs more testing.

See you next week.

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