Games Workshop Warhammer AoS - Nighthaunt Bladegheist Revenants

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In summary this is just a sample of what you could do, from the Vanguard: Nighthaunt box set. I would prefer to replace the HQs with a Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed and a Guardian of Souls for their warscroll abilities and bringing our Triumph into play (975 of a 1000 points). The biggest advantage of the Guardian is his ability to return models which transforms this list into a very frustrating defensive list with bite. We may have been a bit harsh on Nagash all of, uh, three paragraphs ago, but we really don’t think he has competitive viability at the top tables. He’s a model that’s very binary with victory almost decided at the list building step; if your army can solve the problem of him existing, you win, and if you can’t, you lose; there’s not a lot of tactical nuance or gameplay here. Bringing Nagash to a friendly game can lead to some real feels-bad moments when your opponent can’t solve him and you take off half their army, or they kill him round two and you’ve flat out just lost the game. We love Nagash at Goonhammer, but we’d happily see him reduced in power to increase in survivability and fun for everyone at the table. The first key unit though isn’t a unit, the Procession, Emerald Host, will get a lot of work done for us through the Emerald Curse

The first edition Nighthaunt book introduced the fascinating idea of Nagash as a god of justice, with cruel and evil deeds in life rewarded (?) by unending servitude and punishment by Nagash in death. Kurdoss Valentian was punished for his ruthless desire to rule and murder of his own brothers with a curse of being fated to never rule and never kill again, a bitter jest of Nagash. Dreadscythe Harridans were once healers and nurturers that denied souls to Nagash through extending their life now cursed with rage against those self-same healers, and Chainrasp Hordes were vicious and irredeemable criminals, how fated to be tortured and imprisoned forever. I took the Midnight Tome, for the bonus artifact on the guardian of souls allowing me to get off the Purple Sun or Cogs whichever is needed more for free once per game. Faction rules completely redesign the way the army is played, rewriting Nighthaunt into an incredibly mobile scalpel of an army. Terrifying Entity is the one we’re going to be testing first – with the number of interactions based around terrified , having your general project a 6” Aura of Dread rather than 3” could be quite nasty. It doesn’t give your general any personal bonuses, but Nighthaunt heroes have always been more about buffing their army rather than being blenders themselves.Still lashing out in a blind frenzy, each Bladegheist Revenant has now been armed with a long sword - a tomb greatblade - that stands nearly as tall as a man. In their maddened fury the revenants spin in arcs, their own momentum pulling them forward in a destructive path that cleaves through the enemy's ranks. Although their other senses are numbed, trapped as they are in a final push for freedom, Bladegheist Revenants can feel the presence of what they imagine to be their captors. Any nearby Spirit Torments or Chainrasp Hordes serve to spur the whirling spectres on to even further manic efforts to escape their imagined doom. [1a] Wargear [ ] The Nighthaunt Vanguard set makes it easy to get into the army and gives you a reasonable starting position. No Subfactions – In a rather baffling decision, Nighthaunts don’t have subfactions like other books. It was a launch battletome so it’s likely they did not know at the time those would be so important. There have been a few bonus rules released to try and give Nighthaunt a boost, including most recently adding sub-factions in the form of Processions and adding in the Krulghast Cruciator in Broken Realms: Be’lakor. Nothing ever really worked, so we waited with bated breath to see if the warscroll cards in Arena of Shades would help out the most fragile Death faction out there. And folks? It ain’t lookin’ too grand. One of the broader trends here is to strip out sources of rerolls wherever they were found and replace them with new effects or simply rewrite the scroll entirely. Despite having a whopping 16 leaders out of 27, many of these leaders have been tweaked and written to have a specific niche, resulting in a selection where you can make an argument to include almost everything here. Leaders

Also, entirely arbitrarily, these units only moves 6” a turn, the slowest in the book. Give this one a miss. Scriptor MortisMortalis Terminexus –Casting Value 6. Predatory endless spell that moves 8″. After moving the model the controlling player chooses to reverse time (Heal D3 wounds for all units within 6″) or advance time (Deal D3 wounds in 6″). In Shyish the range is increased to 12. Actually decent utility and could see use. To top everything off, there’s Vanishing Phantasms. As if it weren’t enough for Nighthaunt to hitch a ride with Awlrach the Drowner and hop around the battlefield at will, this new ability gives them even more potential for jump scares. The retreat and charge is an entirely unexpected icing on the cake. Combined with a general increase in movement to 8” on average, your ghosts are going to be where you want them to be, and none of these pesky screening shenanigans will matter. Discorporate Have you felt the chill of the grave rising through a faint mist? You enjoy painting pale figures stalking out of the horizon and falling on your enemy like the tide? Or have you read the lore and know that Nagash is the true inheritor of the World that Was and you want to join the right team? Have you decided it is time to up your miniature storage game?

Finally, Arcane Tome from the core rules is not a bad option, giving you another wizard on a hero you’re likely already taking. Nighthaunt have a fair few nasty spells, and even with Olynder, Reikenor and a Guardian of Souls in the same list (probably unlikely), you’re still probably wanting to cast another spell. Look outside the box that is this excellent battletome, and you might just find some still very useful basic enhancements in the core rules. We played Prize of Gallet. We had a smaller gaming table than the usual size and it was filled with some really cool terrain (but there was more than there should be in a tournament game).With this army, we are going to bring out three different battalions, the first being Command Entourage which will have most of your heroes and let you get your bonus artifact. Then you’re going to take Expert Conquerors and place your battleline units in there to get the additional points towards objectives. Finally, you will take Bounty Hunters and put the Banshees in there to do additional damage to your opponent’s Galatian units. A lot of players have at least the beginnings of Nighthaunt armies thanks to Soul Wars and the Mortal Realms magazine series, and there’s never been a better time to break out this un-boo-lieveably different army. Nighthaunt have gained a consistent ward save, vastly better battle traits, useful bodyguards, retreat and charge, more speed, more battleline options… It’s hard for us to find something that got worse for this army beyond some modest points increases. Admittedly, the army was in a pretty bad shape, but this book really feels like it’s in a good place in the game overall. Our playtesting against the other books released this edition suggests Nighthaunt are absolutely a podium contender, and with the number of overlapping buffs and unit options in this book we’re sure that generals will be exploring new builds and ideas right up until their next battletome. Looking forward to striking fear into the hearts of all the Mortal Realms? That’s the spirit! That’s at least 8 free wounds per game (on average) and potentially many more. The curse could easily clear a battleline unit per game. Shyish Reaper –Casting Value 7. A predatory spell that moves 8″ (12″ in Shyish), the controlling player can pivot it before moving it and for every model it passes over, roll a die, if the die rolls higher than their save characteristic, deal 1 mortal wound. Like Aethervoid pendulum but with more control, which kind of goes against why you’d take that spell (To keep an opponent from using it on you). Don’t bother.

Many Character Options –This book has a lot of characters which can drastically influence your army composition. Morathi-Khaine and the serpentine Melusai Blood Stalkers are coming off the Priority Targets list, so they won’t give up extra victory points on death. And in light of their petrifying revamp, the Nighthaunt will leave the Prime Hunters list. There’s a couple of key things to note here. Firstly, there’s no cap on how low you can reduce a unit’s save. With enough rend and Wave of Terror results, you can absolutely strip a unit down to no save whatsoever.Shrieking Blade –-1 to hit the bearer with melee weapons. Good protection as while your Heroes aren’t affected by rend you cant improve their save either, so you need to find other ways to protect them B+ Best of all, you can combine multiple effects by making multiple charges. When your spectral hosts really gang up, they form a terrifying tidal wave that can overwhelm even the hardest targets with a dread combo of Shriek, Stun and Petrify, leaving them utterly helpless to retaliate – and with the updated Ethereal ability, you can retreat and charge again and again and again… The first thing you’ll notice when trying to build a list for your army is that points prices have increased a lot . We’ve seen lists go up hundreds of points, as the only unit that’s come down in points are Bladegheist Revenants down 15 from their last iteration. This is fine. The new battle traits and unit changes we think are very appropriately priced, and while you obviously can’t recreate your old army with this book for the same price, we haven’t been struggling to make new, effective armies with the changes in place.