Terror Assault

When it came to planning out my force I immediately decided to use the terror assault rite of war laid out in Massacre. Terror assault is a Night Lords specific rite of war and is based around rapid attacks and exploiting night fighting rules.
This is not as amazing for me as it might be since my opposition include Space Wolves who pretty much ignore night fighting as well as including Tau and Eldar who both have plenty of answers in their codex's but at the end of the day it is a characterful option so I feel it will push me even more towards a iconic Night Lords force.

The first aspect of the rite of war is that i can only use terror squads to fill the compulsory troop slots, since terror squads are otherwise elites this is a significant change to the tone of the force i can field. On top of that with this rite of war I am required to field three compulsory troop choices so thats three terror squads that are going to be fielded.
Terror squads (I will do a tactica appraisal of the squad in a future post) are brutal troops so i am not concerned about having to field three units of them but they lack anything like rhino's to give them mobility during the battle. My units will either come in via drop pods or will outflank so they should be able to appear in a tactically powerful position and dish out a substantial chunk of damage but once they are in place there is very little flexibility.

The second important aspect of the rite of war is that I can only field one heavy support choice, this means the choice I make is somewhat important and my eventual army is not going to be packed full of options but it also means I have to ensure i can add impact and flexibility in to the other slots in the army.

Being unable to take fortifications is a significant change from what the imperial guard attitude was but it does fit the Night Lords so I am more than happy to work with that.
The final change to the army list selection options is being limited to only having one model using the consul rule within the force, since I am currently not planning to field any consuls at the moment I do not see this as a massive issue but it is worth bearing in mind for when the army eventually expands beyond the base level.

The most important aspect of the terror assault is the potential to have night fighting for the first three turns, I have to admit so far in the minimal amount of battles I have played the Night Lords in this has not been a critical issue but it has got to be factored in since it potentially allows the Night Lords to isolate elements of the enemy force and neutralise them while their support elements are unable to see and support them. This is going to be something i need to get to grips with since it is going to be a type of tactical thinking that i have not had to consider previously. Even if there is no practical way to exploit this it is an extremely characterful rule to have in place and something i will always enjoy having the possibility of triggering.