Oh baby, Nighthaunt was one of the most broken armies at the start of fourth edition – in fact probably one of the most broken armies in the history of our game, with its 80% win rate. People really thought they were the shit when they¹ managed to do well at events with such a bent army.

After copping some much-deserved nerfs, Nighthaunt was still decent but saw a lot less time on the table as its win rate fell off towards the end of the 2024-2025 GHB. Looks like GW has decided to give them some pretty bonkers buffs in the latest Scourge of Ghyran updates and together with their new faction terrain we could see them rise back to the top of the meta.

YOU get Terrain! And YOU get Terrain!

First up with the new release of SBGL’s Terrain and Manifestations, Nighthaunt managed to get in on the action and get itself a fancy new terrain feature – the Nexus of Grief.

Whereas Soulblight’s terrain ended up nerfing the army’s recursion from their Index rules, the new Nighthaunt terrain is extremely strong and definitely worth picking up a box – or using the terrain that GW have been tacking onto various other terrain boxes for years. The Nexus has the ability to teleport around the board to a friendly NH unit from its Hungry Crypts ability, and it’s very generous, stipulating that you must appear outside 3″ of enemy units and objectives – but notably not 3″ inches” away from other terrain.

This can really help to keep its other abilities relevant. Screams of the Penitent has a passive aura of no commands in combat range: deny your opponent’s ability to Power Through or All Out Attack if you bubble wrap your NH units to be wholly within 2.4999″ of it. Also take note that if someone tries to deepstrike and charge off the terrain, they won’t be able to reroll that charge if they drop within 3″ of it.

Finally its strongest ability: Awful Refashioning allows you to heal D3 or return an equivalent amount of Health in slain models. At the end of every turn. To three units. This is insanely strong. This casual recursion can help mitigate some of the chip damage an opponent throws at you, and with the spell Spectral Lure plus a Rally you can build one remaining model from a squad back up to a scary amount of dudes in a very short timeframe. Nighthaunt has been pretty weak to significant Mortal wound chip damage² and this passive healing can make your army a right pain in the arse to deal with.

So after all of this, when someone manages to kill one of these pieces through its 5+ ward … Bippity Boppity Boop and it’s back! You can just teleport another one right in there. Sublime.

Battle Formations

So with the new faction terrain duly fapped over, let’s look at the Scourge of Ghyran goodies. First up, the Battle Formations are overall pretty whatever in my opinion.

Hungry Nexus is funny, enabling the new teleporting terrain to be even more mobile. Making them the Hungry Hungry Hippos of Age of Sigmar, basically becoming Hungry Crypts and Hungry Nexus. Getting into combat and therefore turning off enemy command abilities in the next turn could be beneficial to prevent Redeploys, Magical Interventions and the like, but I have the feeling it won’t be too relevant too often. Might be cute once or twice and it’ll feel great when it does have an impact, but competitively there are stronger picks for consistent impact.

Blades of Eternal Rust is a bit more compelling, allowing you to reduce the save of an enemy unit that is in combat in their hero phase, potentially forcing them to run away with a unit that couldn’t withstand copping extra damage. It’s not a bad pick, it’s just a pretty situational one that might be useful here and there. Does it stack up to the Procession of Death giving all your infantry a 5+ ward, or Death Stalkers giving the ability to Run / Retreat and Charge? That remains to be seen but that is the benchmark for ghosts, and it’s a very high bar.

Artefacts

The Stave of Suffering feels like a substantial add-on to a Nighthaunt army as usually the support pieces are set back from the frontlines: for example your Guardian of Souls issuing your units with +1 to wound. So having a bonus to cast is nice for helping get those spells off, as the Nighthaunt spell lore is actually really strong and especially in an edition where terrain doesn’t give bonuses to cast.

The Amulet of Waking Nightmares feels pretty useless in my opinion. Potentially removing Guarded Hero and Obscuring sounds good… in almost every other army other than Nighthaunt, whose best units are not skewed towards shooting. Oh well, there’s always one dud outta the three.

Tombstone of the Penitent is actually really cool and I am a little in love with it. Being able to give a Lord Executioner up to 8 extra attacks, putting him on a whopping 13 attacks at Rend 2 Damage 2, can make this fella pretty damn scary.

Overall these feel pretty good. The modern classic Lightshard is probably still the strongest out of the combined bunch but now costs 20 points, so it’s good to have these options if you can’t stretch to that. And moving away from one auto-include that goes into every list is a good place to be, right?

Warscrolls

We got some good ones! And for some much-loved units which hadn’t seen a lot of joy in our recent Battletomes or indices.

Kurdoss Valentian – The Craven King was mediocre but has now gotten a substantial update, so let’s run through the upgrades.

First of all Kurdoss’s combat profile has been given an extra attack on his main mace and dropped the Companion attacks – perfectly fine and streamlined. He has now been given the Passive ability Inescapable Mockery which is him making fun of those with a lower Control score. This grants him +1 to hit and wound, making him a pretty consistent beat-stick.

Now where he really shines is the combat phase: so long as he is in combat, he can give a Nighthaunt unit wholly within 12″ one of three things;

1. Regicide and Kingslaying: Melee weapons get anti-Hero rend. Pretty nice when going into a large centerpiece model: stack this with the NH charge phase -1 to save, and you get to an effective Rend 3 pretty quickly.
2. Usurpation and Larceny: +5 to control score. In case you thought this can synergise with the Inescapable Mockery warscroll ability mentioned above to help him reach 2s and 2s – I’m afraid not. Sadly this ability specifically boosts your control score, whereas the former checks your control characteristic³.
3. Sedition and Betrayal: No commands for an enemy while they are in combat with the target.

Three pretty solid abilities and all situationally relevant, but Sedition and Betrayal is the one I’d expect to use most commonly. This rule is pretty bonkers .. and makes me think of someone else.

The Black Coach also got a revamp and in a really fun way:

It now has three different abilities:

First of all has built-in 3D6 charge (only in your own turn) from its Spectral Carriage ability. Next up One Stop, No Return lets you pick an objective and while the Black Coach and your opponent are both contesting it, they cannot score Crit effects – which feels extremely situational and hard to pull off. I have played a few test games with this and haven’t found it to be overly impactful, but it’s cute and could come up. Importantly, the Black Coach is now a nice synergistic piece with the new Spectral Attendants finally giving the three dudes at the back a role (other than the usual shit combat attacks).

So in any hero phase they can choose from:

• Noble Blade: Give yourself Crit Mortals, including the Companion weapons.
• Unholy Grail: Add +3 Rally points – not Rally dice, so you’re guaranteed to get 3 + whatever you actually roll, allowing you to always bring back a Spirit Host, Hexwraith or 3 lil NH dudes.
• Tome of Undead Lore: Become a Wizard for a turn.

I really love this: a lot of flexibility, rules worthy of a centrepiece model and an impactful support piece for 280 points.

Now where this unit gets really exciting is … IT ACTUALLY DOES COMBAT DAMAGE.

The Black Coach has been known to be pretty limp in the combat phase but it’s now rocking 13x Rend 2 Damage 2 attacks, so it can deliver some really solid output. I’ve found it helpful to get some consistent damage into your opponent’s flanking units or support pieces. Really love this change – it’s not too oppressive, but it’s some decent damage for its points considering this is a support piece.

The Verdict: As a NH player, I’m really happy with these changes

This army isn’t going to be back to its 80% win rate but the update has definitely breathed a lot of life into the index, instead of Hurr Durr Bladeghiests Go Burr which we have seen for basically this entire edition. And with some test games already under my belt I can say with confidence that there are a lot of unique lists out there, that aren’t just cute, but pretty damn strong – over the weekend I’ll write up on one that I’ve been enjoying, and share it over on our Patreon site. Catch you there!

~ ROCKMAN

Credit for cover image to Games Workshop

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1. Myself included ↩︎
2. That cunt Kroak springs to mind ↩︎
3. Yeah, we got excited at first too. Git GRAAL’d cunt. ↩︎