Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Edition 1.1/Nighthaunt

Warscrolls

The common keywords of these warscrolls are: DEATH, MALIGNANT and NIGHTHAUNT.

Heroes

• Cairn Wraith: A hero with only four wounds, that's unusual, but understandable since the Ethereal rule already makes him annoyingly hard to kill, as it makes his 4+ save unaffected by Rend and 4 Wounds is enough to survive a perfect Arcane Bolt. What he does is swing a big honking scythe that's basically a Stormcast's Grandhammer with three swings and rerolls To Hit if the target unit has 5 or more models, so he's pretty blendy, too.

• Tomb Banshee: For all intents and purposes, a Banshee is more or less a Cairn Wraith with much weaker attacks (though at -2 Rend, that's pretty decent) and a scream attack that causes damage off of Bravery. If you're annoyed that almost all your Heroes can't shoot, have them summon one of these ladies to do the shooting for them. Also, just because they are less fighty than the Wraith doesn't mean they're less tanky. They have the same unrendable save and just enough Wounds to survive a perfect Arcane Bolt.

• Black Coach: Theoretically, the Black Coach is pretty good, especially if you keep buffing it with Wizards. The problem with this is that in order to get all those buffs, you pretty much need to spam Wizards, which equals summon spam, which equals not needing the Black Coach in the first place.

Troops

• Hexwraiths: A bunch of okay attacks, the ability to damage units they move over/through and a high flying movement. They're also Ethereal, so their saves are damn good, too. In fact, there's very little reason other than keyword synergy to ever use Black Knights instead.

• Spirit Hosts: Compared to other swarms, Spirit Hosts have less Wounds, but way better attacks and a 4+ unrendable save, which makes them pretty tough against anything but Mortal Wounds. Unfortunately, this only means that they're the best of a rather poor lot. However, keep them away from stuff that causes mortal wounds and send them at stuff with high Rend and tough armour and they're amazing. Be'lakor in particular hates these things with a passion.

• Mourngul (forgeworld): A massive beast with 10 Wounds, 10 Bravery and a surprising 3+ save, which can be summoned by Death Wizards. Its lone attack is impressive with -2 Rending and the ability to generate additional attacks and drain morale from enemies. If it kills, it can recover wounds, and it also ignores Rending (which is crazy) and has a sorta-Feel No Pain on 4+.

Army Building

A great start to this army would be to buy both Start Collecting - Skeleton Horde and Start Collecting: Malignants as well as two more boxes Spirit Hosts. The Black Knights from the Skeleton Horde box can also be assembled as Hexwraiths, giving you 9 Spirit Hosts and 10 Hexwraiths as core units. The Skellies you can simply leave out/sell/paint in ghost colors and fluff as whatever. If you are playing in a lenient environment, you can also pluck the three Banshees off the Mortis Engine and base these ladies separately and the Mortarch can be made into whichever you want, though Mannfred will help you out the most. After that, season with Hexwraiths, Cairn Wraiths, Banshees and Spirit Hosts to taste.

Allied Armies

If you want to deploy a MALIGNANT army, you should definitely consider the Mortis Engine, if only because it's part of Start Collecting - Malignants.

The Nighthaunts have the ambiguous honor of being one of the most Hero-saturated armies in the game while simultaneously having no support from their heroes.

The obvious remedy is to take some Death units that do buff your units, such as Vampire Lords. The foot-slogging/flying/Nightmare-riding Vampire Lord has a great buff to toss at your Hexwraiths and the one on Zombie Dragon helps Spirit Hosts out a ton. Mannfred von Carstein is also useful because his Dread Abyssal is surrounded by spirits so he fits the theme,because he's very powerful and his buff aura is amazing and because he can summon more Nighthaunts for you every turn.

External links

Rules are here