Today we’ll take a look at how to play Nighthaunt with a focus on building Emerald Lifeswarm and Grieving Legion 2,ooo points armies! When you think about it, a squig is the most Christmassy of all the creatures in the Mortal Realms – round, bouncy, and always hungry. Add a buffet of these monstrously joyful orbs to your collection with a Battleforce that contains 25 miniatures, including two pairs of Mangler Squigs – that’s even more squigs per squig! Battleforce: Nighthaunt – Legion of Grief Lady Olynder is the most powerful Nighthaunt special character, and one of Nagash’s most powerful generals. In life, Olynder was a schemer and liar. Manipulating her way to the royal court of her kingdom, she murdered her husband-to-be and claimed his empty throne. She wore a veil of feigned grief for the rest of her mortal life. Yikes! That could be quite the potent fighting force. The dead do not rest easy in the mortal realms. Get ready to fight Ghosts’n’stuff with the new Legion of Grief. This army combines the Legion of Nagash with the Nighthaunt forces – all led by Lady Olynder herself! GW says:

In 3.0 the spells move more often and they are yours alone. As long as the wizard who casted it remains alive, you can move the spell at the end of both hero phases – not just one. If that Wizard dies, it goes wild and then can be used like they worked in 2nd edition, with the player who’s turn it is getting to choose to move it. So as long as you’re cautious with your wizard, this is a huge positive for the player. Defend the realms of Sigmar with a powerful Thunderstrike Spearhead task force of Stormcast Eternals. They’re led from the skies by a Knight-Draconis and a Stormdrake Guard, while the Knight-Relictor wards off magic on foot, accompanying three Annihilators, 10 Vanquishers, and 10 Vigilors.* Battleforce: Revenant Wargrove Break out the marshmallows – the Horns of Hashut are coming. This warband was first available in Warcry: Heart of Ghur and comprises 10 miniatures, including Ruinators, Demolishers – one of whom is armed with the deadly Flamehurler – and Shatterers. They’re also usable in Slaves to Darkness armies for Warhammer Age of Sigmar.** Rotmire Creed

What’s the most Christmassy sound? Jingle bells? Da Red Gobbo sneaking down the chimney? Nah, it’s a bunch of squigs all going booooooing! The Squiqalanche consists of a Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig , two Mangler Squigs (who can be ridden by Loonbosses ), 10 Squig Hoppers (who can be assembled as Boingrot Bounders), and a 12-strong Squig Herd . Don’t let their randomness fool you – there’s a LOT of gnashing teef in this army. Skaven: The Verminous Host

Savings-wise, we’re once again probably looking at last year for reference where we had anything from 30% – 37% in savings for these boxes versus buying the units individually at retail. That’s Nothing to sniff at! it’s a solid saving. Want to drown the Mortal Realms in a roiling sea of bouncing, gnashing monsters? The Stampeding Squigalanche is the Battleforce for you, containing a Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig, two Mangler Squigs (one of which can also be built as a Loonboss), 10 Squig Hoppers, and 10 Squigs with two long-suffering Squig Herders. That’s… a lot of teeth. Battleforce: Legion of GriefThis Daughters of Khaine battleforce is literally a bit of a mixed bag. There’s a bit of everything going on, which is either a good think of bad thing depending on what you’re looking for. The value of this one is going to be in the eye of the beholder. Planning a DoK specialist army? probably not for you. Prefer a generalist force? This could well be the foundation you’re after.

In this particular list, I am going to take the Warlord Battalion and Vanguard, which will give you the much-needed extra enhancement and give one of my units a free at the double to move into the center of the board and claim those important central objectives. The Nighthaunt have access to a wide array of powerful support characters, each of which brings useful buffs to your army. Though competent spellcasters and melee combatants, for the most part their role is to provide area buffs to your allies and debuffs to your enemies. All three infantry units in this box are battleline choices, making this a very strong foundation for any army. To expand this into an army, you could consider Craventhrone Guard, crossbow toting ghouls who can target enemies they can’t even see with their ethereal bolts, and who will benefit from the Knight of Shrouds’ Spectral Overseer ability. The Emerald Host have been gathered to do the bidding of the Nighthaunt’s Mortarch, Lady Olynder. On her behalf they carry out the Emerald Curse and inflict terrible mortal wounds on the enemy. In practice, this means you can choose D3+1 enemy units on the battlefield, and you deal D3 mortal wounds to each of them at the end of each battle round if you roll a 2+ for that unit. This is particularly punishing for armies with high armour saves and no Ward saves – Kharadron Overlords, we’re looking at you. Christmas is coming. We’ve already seen this year’s new Warhammer 40,000 Battleforces, and it’s time to see what’s inside the Warhammer Age of Sigmar sets. Whichever Grand Alliance you’re a fan of, there’s a box for you. Daughters of Khaine: Khainite Slaughter-Coven

Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief

And finally we get an idea of the new Mercenary system coming to the game. ANY army will be able to use this system to add allies from Fyreslayers or the Flesh-eater Courts. Kind of an odd pairing but hey, if you’ve wanted an excuse to run a Magamadroth or Bretonniansnow is your chance! The current Nighthaunt battletome was released in May 2022, and it’s up to date for the current, third edition of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. It has full rules for all the models in the Nighthaunt range, as well as the spells, relics and command traits that Nighthaunt heroes can use, and the army-wide Battle Trait rules that your whole force will benefit from. Dryads are in units of 10; but on sprues for 8… not ideal! Stormcast Eternaals – Thunderstrike Spearhead Warhammer Community / Games Workshop Unit The releases, like every release, will go live at 10:00 am on the Saturday at both GW.com and your favourite online retailers.

Over on Warhammer Community, there’s going to be lots of great content this week, including the online Armies on Parade ceremony on Saturday the 26th. New goodies for Necromunda and the Horus Heresy will be revealed, while the Warhammer Live crew will be working on the Warcry: Sundered Fate and Warhammer Age of Sigmar Battleforce boxes on Hang Out and Paint . There’s a bit of a mix in here, whilst you get some great units like the Screaming Bell and Stormfiends. The Clanrats and Plague Monks are multitudinous, but they are also ancient kits! The sprues don’t even have part-number on. that’s how old they are. Tactics: This army is all about lowering your opponent’s bravery and nuking them with the tomb banshee screams and mortis engine. Where you bravery bombs, you’re going to want to focus fire your tomb banshees on that target and take them out. The Mortis Engine might be able to chip away some damage against them as well but 2d6 – the enemies bravery worth of mortal wounds is nothing to sneeze at. You are going to be committing a lot of resources to where that bravery bomb goes off so make it count.

The Emerald Host: After armies have been set up but before the first turn is taken D3 +1 units on the battlefield and mark them. At the end of every battle round on a 2+, they take D3 mortal wounds (D3+1 if they are a monster) But only the AoS boxes. the 40k boxes will likely be up the following week as we’ve seen no sign of them on either Warhammer Community or via Retailer pricing details. It’s a defensive list, your goal is to keep more models alive on the board than your opponent so debuffing and improving your units’ ward saves are going to be key to allowing you to return models to the board. So what do you get inside and how much would it cost you normally? I’ve also included the points for the troops as sold, but you can make small changes with the way some of the models are built. Daughters of Khaine Warhammer Community / Games Workshop Unit