Games Workshop Warhammer AoS - Easy to Build: Nighthaunt Dreadblade Harrows

Product Information

This kit comes as 12 push-fit components, and is supplied with 2 textured 60mm oval bases – these feature the graveyard detritus expected from the Nighthaunt. The Nighthaunt presence in the Eightpoints intensified after the Necroquake, a ritual summoned by Nagash, and even more appeared since Katakros, Mortarch of the Necropolis, led an invasion of the Eightpoints and secured the Shyish gate. Since then gheists and other dangerous spirits populate the Bloodwind Spoil and in particular Lost Velorum, a subterranean spectral kingdom. Overview and Points for the Fighters in the Nighthaunt Warband

Their movement is their greatest strength: they all fly and all have at least 6″ movement (10″ the cavalry). In addition their reaction can allow them to move around an enemy that passes by. I’m not 100% sure when you would use it, but I suspect if an enemy is coming towards you and you want to avoid the engagement and you have a platform nearby, you can move to the platform while maintaining the same distance but you are now out of the enemy’s weapon range.Finally an equivalent for All Out Defense ! As we’ve spoken about in Hammer of Math articles before, a 5+ ward is more than twice as good as a 6+ ward, because any saved wound has a higher chance of being saved again. Using this ability at just the right time will be absolutely game winning. We’ve taken to calling this ability All Out Ghost in the Goonhammer office. Frightful Touch The Nighthaunt army features in the starter sets for Age of Sigmar 2.0, therefore many models are available in those boxes for a good discount. The other unit that had mortal wounds on 6s to hit, Spirit Hosts lost it and got given a new bodyguard rule, which allows nearby (3”) Nighthaunt heroes (so no Nagash) to pass wounds off onto this unit on a 3+. Nighthaunt have traditionally always fallen apart as soon as their support heroes die, so having a bodyguard unit that both has the summonable keyword so can be replenished and also doesn’t require a subfaction to use is fantastic. Along with the Cruciator these are almost auto include for at least one unit, if only to help stop enemy shooting from messing with your hero hammer too badly. The Ever-Hanged is cheaper than Varclav, with better damage than a normal Chainrasp (1/4) and slightly higher wounds (10).

These are enormous benefits and will really change how the army plays. In the old rules your ghosts only got the 6+ ward save while within 12+ of a Nighthaunt Hero, limiting their ability to spread out over the battlefield. Now it’s just innate; you can use your various movement shenanigans to put your models exactly where they need to be without risking them losing their save. As you’ll have seen by now with our looks at other factions like the Flesh-eater Courts and the Ossiarch Bonereapers , we’ve enlisted the aid of one of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar playtesters to tell us all about how the Nighthaunt are finding the new edition. Let’s take a look at what James has to say about his favourite findings. Heroic Actions are a great new feature to the game and allow Heroes to heal, making them even more survivable than before. Heroic Recovery is very reliable, given Nighthaunt are often at a Bravery value of 10. Also, entirely arbitrarily, these units only moves 6” a turn, the slowest in the book. Give this one a miss. Scriptor Mortis The units are all well distributed, allowing a mix of more basic units like the Chainrasps or Glaivewraiths with more elite units like the Reapers and the Spirit Hosts for a real fun list building activity.

Behemoth

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 Sentenced to Eternal Torment (Triple, Scriptor Mortis): 6 damage to an enemy if a dice roll is lower or equal than the current round. Let it never be said that we here at Goonhammer are afraid to change our minds or admit mistakes. A unit of contention in our Arena of Shades review, Myrmourn Banshees are looking like some of the real big winners in this book. With all the benefits of running a tonne of small units, a unit or two of these ladies can put out some serious hurt (rend -3 on a good Wave of Terror charge!) while also helping shut down an enemy magic phase that is likely already struggling with the plethora of excellent wizards you’re likely already taking. Spell-eaters lets you roll 2D6 every time an enemy spell is cast, not unbound and targets a unit within 12”, and if you beat the casting value (adding +1 if your banshees have three or more models) the spell is unbound or dispelled. This is superb , as it really doesn’t matter how many bonuses the enemy has. Nagash and Teclis can both cast with some absurdly high numbers, but these ladies don’t care – your casting value six spell stays at six, doesn’t matter if you rolled a 16 to cast it. A unit or two of these is our third near auto-include unit. List building and competitive thoughts

If you need even more options, the Thorns of the Briar Queen warband include 7 miniatures including 5 Chainrasps and an alternative Dreadwarden or Banshee. Their loss in Toughness (only 4 now) makes them more vulnerable. They don’t have too many wounds and so they will suffer critical hits. In addition they are not particular strong so they rely on scoring critical hits themselves. Their resurrection ability is a bit worse than the Soulblight one but allows you to restore any fighter. Time-based missions in which you have to kill specific enemies within 3 or 4 battle rounds will be your biggest problem. The Dreadblade Harrows are a pair of mounted spectral knights, seemingly a touch more solid than many of their Nighthaunt brethren, but no less sinister. Each is armed with a dreadblade held aloft in their right hand, with their left hands clutching the reins – one set spiked, one set ornate – of their steed. Not much else is visible of the Harrows themselves, with a helmeted skull peering out from beneath their cloak.While before Nighthaunt could ‘deep strike’ using From the Underworld They Come , now at the end of deployment but before determining control of objectives you can choose up to three units and remove them from the battlefield to return to play at the end of any movement phase 9” away from enemy units. This is incredible, because your opponent has presumably deployed in response to how your army has been, but then you completely rewrite the battlefield. It also doesn’t limit how many units can leave the table – if you’re playing a small game with four units, you can hide one and put the other three into reserves before the game begins. The Midnight Tome in Relics of the Underworld lets a wizard once per battle automatically cast a spell to summon an endless spell with an unmodified 12 that cannot be unbound. While our choice would probably be Emerald Lifeswarm, Nighthaunt endless spells have received major upgrades and are all incredible viable, which we’ll get into just below.