Clippity clop, the death train don’t stop

Introduction

‌So I never really wanted a death army, I’m very much a chaos and destruction fan boi.

This Is the result of me wanting an all calvary army. All horse all the time. 

I did a mediocre amount of “research” into what army’s had battline calvary, hero calvary and battalions that help boost / reduce drops for my horsie force.

Enter nighthaunt. 

Battleline cav – check

Hero cav – check. 

Cav battalion – check

Bonus cav behemoth – winner winner

That was me sold, and 4 start collecting boxes straight through online stores and my horsies were on the way. 

Now In between dropping all the dollery doos and it arriving the themed creeped in – nagash’s four horsemen (hence everything being named) 

Now the army started as a double deathrider battalion force, but whilst being worked on (fuck building hexwraiths, seriously one of worst) , there’s been points drops ( 🙁 …… More hexwraiths) and brand new white dwarf battalions that focus on hexwraiths and the cav hero’s. 

Which has now resulted in the above list being clippity clopped around my local gaming tables and to a tournament near you soon…. After the world stops ending. 

Allegience Ability

1. So nighthaunt have alot of allegiance abilities, ranging from the usual death DPR to bravery debuffs and out of sequence combat activations. See below (lifted from aos nighthaunt wiki) 

Battle Traits

Aura of Dread: -1 Bravery to enemy units within 6″ of your units

Deathless Spirits:

Each time a NIGHTHAUNT unit takes a wound/mortal wound, if that unit is wholly within 12″ of your general or any other NIGHTHAUNT HERO it can ignore the wound on a dice result of 6.

Feed on Terror:

If an enemy unit fails a battleshock test, a NIGHTHAUNT HERO within 6″ heals 1 wound. 

From the Underworld They Come:

For each unit you set-up on the battlefield you can keep them in reserve. Then you can deep-strike them with all of the normal limitations

Wave of Terror:

When a NIGHTHAUNT unit makes an unmodified charge roll of 10+. The charging unit can immediately fight, and can still fight again in the following combat phase. 

Spectral Summons:

A Command Ability for your general. At the start of your movement phase pick a friendly NIGHTHAUNT unit on the battlefield, then teleport it to your general. Entirely within 12″ of your general and 9″ from any enemy unit. Great to pull a unit away that’s been charged by something that’s about to wreck them or to charge with something pulled from the backline or to support a unit with another HERO or… you get the idea.

Artefacts, Command Traits & Abilities

General – dreadblade harrow

Ruler of the spirit hosts – 

Start of hero phase return D3 models back to summon able nighthaunt unit, which in this list is hexwraiths.

Given in the midnight tome which turns him into a level 1 wizard ( 1 cast, 1 unbind) and knows soul cage which stops a unit retreating and forces it to fight last or after everything else in that combat has activated.

This allows some play in the activation wars whilst pinning an enemy in place.

Dreadblade harrows also have another ability. 

Phantasmal discorperation – if not in combat at beginning of move phase this unit can teleport to anywhere on the battlefield  (usual setup rules still apply) 

This goes hand in hand with the nighthaunt allegiance ability spectral summons, which also is used at the start of the movement phase to teleport any nighthaunt unit to wholly within 12″ of the general. 

So with the obscene amount of CP that I start with paired with the aether quartz brooch can allow the entire army to relocate to anywhere I want. 

Keep this motherfucker alive or you lose alot of mobility. 

 Knight of shrouds on ethereal steed

Headsmen judgement – +1 to hit and wound, so now hitting and wounding on 2’s. Decent combat hero. Starts at 4 attacks but forgotten scions battalion gives him an extra attack. So 2/2/ – 1 / 2dmg

Command ability 

Wholly within 18″ +1 attack to nighthaunt unit at start of combat. Only once per unit. 

Forgotten scions Battalion allows this to be used for free once per battle round.

I round out the hero slots with 2 more dreadblade harrows. 

One has the aether quartz brooch. Mixed with his teleport ability you can hide this fella someplace secret and safe. 

The other has the pendant of the fell wind, this cheeky bling grants an extra 3″ of movement to units wholly within 12″ when they start their move, so teleport in range and then make the horsies go faster.

Other Units

All about dem hexwraiths baby. 

Despite being one of the worst models to build and then paint these are the meat and potatoes of the army. 

2 wounds a piece, ethereal, fly and movement 12″ ( 15″ with artifact support) 

Attack profile is meh. 

Rider – 2 attacks at 1″ 4+/3+/-1/1 dmg.

Horse – 2 attacks 4+/5+/-/1 dmg

Mediocre is being polite. 

They do generate mortals wounds on natural 6’s to hit with the riders and anytime they move over the opponent in the movement phase, for each model the passed over a unit on a 5+ the generate another mortal. 

Black coach

Apart from being one of the prettiest models made, this ‘behemoth’ adds alot. 

Movement 14″ (17 near artifact) 12 wounds, fly and ethereal. 

Can be given two load outs. One melee, like a buffed up grimgast reaper, one with ranged/ melee  touchy feely hand (-3 rend, like this thing literally gets inside you levels of rend) 

The main ability of this is its evocation of death ability. 

At the beginning of each round you get to shout “POWER UP” and roll 3 dice, each 4+ grants you a nimbus of power level which stack. 

Level 1 – heal d3 to yourself and d3 MODELS to a unit wholly within 12 (so more hexwraiths back) 

LLevel 2 – run and charge and rerolls 1’s to hit. 

Level 3 – impact hits on a charge. 2+ = d3 mortals

Level 4 – retreat and charge, really getting spicy now. 

Level 5 – during your hero phase d3 mortals to enemy units within 3″ on a 4+

Has a whole bunch of spookey touchy ghosts like a unit and a half of spirit hosts. Mortal wounds on 6’s to hit. Starts at 9 attacks in combat down to 5

Battalions

This is where I dropped my load. 

Seriously, 470pts on battalions. I have more artifacts then I do hero’s… Confidence game here we go. 

Alot of these are found in one of the white dwarfs, but I found all the pictures online.

Deathriders

1 ( or 2) dreadblade harrow

2 units of hexwraiths ( 5, 10) 

1 black coach

Now this battalion provides a flat +1 charge to all units within it. It also triggers the nighthaunt fight on charge ability go off on a 9 now instead of a 10.

Now the white dwarf battalions. 

Emerald host. 

This is a mini mega battalion made of smaller battalions. Has no other real benefit except lowering my drops, extra CP. 

Allows me to select an enemy hero and reduce their armour save by 1.

The forgotten scions

Knight of shrouds on ethereal steed (makor) 

1-2 dreadblade harrows

Allows KoSoes to use his command ability for free each battle round and grants and extra attack of the knights sword.

The dolorus guard

Now were talking. 

2-4 hexwraiths units 

+1 attack when a unit from this battalion charges 

If General is within 3″ of one of these units can shrug damage over to the unit on a 2+ ( so general is ethereal 4+, 6+ death save, 2 + shrug damage, hexwraiths then 6+ death save) 

In-Game Guide

As eluded to on Darrens list diary’s

This army is very movement heavy, with the amount of movement potential with the teleport/summons and added movement artifact, this army can go places or be places you need it to. You can relocate and deepstrike this army in the blink of an eye, teleport and strike your opponent on his soft flank, when the react, bampf to the other exposed one.

You will not win a straight fight with alot of armies, ethereal only goes so far.

There’s very little to do in the hero phase beside casting soul cage. I don’t really like to fuck with magic, magic is stoopid. But this spell is baller. 

If cast ( on a 6, to hard, teleport in your previous turn to arcane) you can pin a unit in place and make them fight your spookey horsemen. This can work wonders for cycle charging you wraiths, you retreat out doing mortals on the way out, 2nd lined up units all charge trying to pop charge fights on 10’s ( or 9’s)

We can potentially do alot of chip mortal wound damage, with moves, powered up coach, hex attacks. And to shore up the hex’s lackluster 4+ to hit start, why not buff them up with more dice attacks

Mix in the generals healing and the black coach healing the 2 Big blocks of wraiths should stick about and help capture obj.

The 2 fives are mobile screens to slow down potential death squads charging in and just clearing out.

Cant revive whats perma dead.

Don’t fuck with magic armies or traditional shooting armies, look out sir only goes so far. Your hero’s are key, once they pop your four legged bed sheets disappear real quick. 

Don’t expect your coach or anything in your army for that matter to really kill anything. Just go where you need to and win all the points. 

And if someone tells you a unit is shit, prove them wrong, make them work. 

Long live Cygors.