Who are the Nighthaunt?
The Nighthaunt are the vengeful dead of the Mortal Realms — spirits dragged back from Shyish and bound by Nagash himself to serve as his terror troops. They fly, they drift through walls and warriors alike, and they arrive shrieking before you have finished deploying. As part of Grand Alliance Death, they are the fast, fear-based cousins to the shambling legions — and one of the most striking armies in all of Age of Sigmar.
The Core Fantasy
Nighthaunt are the ghost story made playable. This is not a grinding line of undead — it is a weightless tide that ignores terrain, sweeps onto objectives, and unnerves everything it touches. Each spirit is fragile on its own, but they come in numbers, they are hard to pin down, and the slain have a nasty habit of drifting back into the fight. You do not out-muscle opponents with Nighthaunt. You spook them, outrun them, and grind their nerve until the line breaks.
Expect:
- Flight, always: every unit flies, so terrain and screens mean far less to you than to anyone else.
- Ethereal resilience: ghosts shrug off the fiddly modifiers mortal armies rely on, holding up better than their low profiles suggest.
- Bravery pressure: your whole game plan leans on fear — sapping enemy nerve and punishing broken units.
- Bodies that come back: the ability to return slain models means a wiped unit is rarely as gone as your opponent hopes.
- Speed and grabbing: alpha-strike threats and objective-snatching that outpace almost everything on the table.
How They Play on the Tabletop
Nighthaunt are a manoeuvre army wearing a horror mask. You use universal flight and blistering movement to dictate where fights happen, land the first blow, and be sitting on objectives while your opponent is still working out how you got there. The trade-off is that individually your ghosts hit and hold like the dead they are — you win through position, numbers, and nerve, not raw punch.
What you'll love:
- Board control: nobody repositions like a flying army that ignores terrain.
- Tricksy resilience: ethereal defence plus returning models makes them frustrating to actually remove.
- Psychological warfare: stacking bravery penalties can delete units your weapons never touched.
- High model count for the money: lots of plastic, big dramatic units, satisfying to field.
What can bite you:
- Fragile if caught flat-footed: get pinned by a hard-hitting unit and your ghosts evaporate.
- Low damage output: you rarely win a straight slugging match, so picking fights matters.
- Hero-reliant: a lot of your best tricks flow from characters — lose them and the army feels flat.
- Discipline to fly right: all that mobility only helps if you commit at the right moment, not the first.
A Very Different Kind of Death
The beauty of Grand Alliance Death is how differently its armies wage war. Where the Soulblight Gravelords lean on hungry vampire lords leading endless, regenerating hordes, the Nighthaunt fight like a haunting — quick, cold and unnerving rather than brutal. And where the Ossiarch Bonereapers are Nagash's disciplined bone-legion, marching in grim order, the Nighthaunt are his fear and fury given form — chaos and speed instead of drill and discipline.
Thematically they are led by Lady Olynder, the Mortarch of Grief, and the roster reads like a ghost-story bestiary: shrieking banshees, wailing revenants, black coaches thundering out of the mist. If you want an army with a clear, singular identity — cold, spectral, relentless — few forces in the game commit to a look and a feel as completely as this one.
Key Unit Roles (What You'll Commonly Need)
1) The Anvil / Chaff (Chainrasp Hordes): your battleline backbone. Cheap, numerous, ethereal, and best held together by a hero — perfect for smothering objectives and tarpitting the enemy.
2) The Damage (Bladegheist Revenants & Grimghast Reapers): your actual killers. Fast, flying, and dangerous in a charge — this is where your offensive punch lives, so protect and time them.
3) The Support Heroes (Guardian of Souls, Spirit Torment, Knight of Shrouds): the engine room. They buff, they return slain models, and they hand out the charges and re-rolls that make a fragile army sticky.
4) The Big Threats (Black Coach, Hexwraiths, Reikenor the Grimhailer): your hammer and your outriders. Fast cavalry and characterful centrepieces that hunt heroes and crack lines wide open.
5) The Specialists (Myrmourn Banshees, Spirit Hosts, Kurdoss Valentian): the toolkit — magic-eaters, objective-holders and disruptors that plug the gaps a pure horde leaves.
Getting Started the Smart Way
Step 1 — Start with a battleline core.
- Build a solid block of Chainrasp Hordes first — they do the unglamorous work in every list you will ever run.
- High model count means you learn the army's movement rhythm quickly.
Step 2 — Add a leader and a support hero.
- Lady Olynder or a Knight of Shrouds gives you a general with real presence.
- A Guardian of Souls or Spirit Torment unlocks the returning-models tricks that define the faction.
Step 3 — Bring a hitting unit and a fast threat.
- Bladegheist Revenants or Grimghast Reapers give you a hammer that can actually kill.
- A Black Coach or Hexwraiths give you the speed to threaten the whole board.
Step 4 — Learn the paint scheme early.
- The classic ghostly glow is one of the fastest routes to a stunning table-ready army — see our beginner painting guide before you start.
- Everything you need to browse lives in the Age of Sigmar range.
The Fastest Ghosts You'll Ever Paint
Here is the collector's secret: that iconic pale blue-white glow looks like hours of blending, and it absolutely is not. Prime with a spray, wash the ethereal parts, and let Warhammer Colour contrast paints do the heavy lifting in a single coat. It is genuinely one of the quickest armies in the game to get to a jaw-dropping standard, which — given the high model count — is exactly what a horde army needs. Beginner-friendly, great value, and stunning on the table.
Common Beginner Mistakes (Avoid These)
- Charging in turn one out of habit: your speed is a threat to hold over the enemy, not something to spend the moment you can.
- Fielding hordes without heroes: unbuffed ghosts fold — the support characters are not optional.
- Ignoring objectives to chase kills: Nighthaunt win on the mission, not the body count.
- Forgetting your returning-models tricks: a huge chunk of your resilience is wasted if you never use it.
- Overpaying for a highlight: the contrast method looks better than laborious wet-blending, so don't fight it.
Who the Nighthaunt Are For
"Choose the Nighthaunt if you want a fast, tricky, gorgeous horde with a singular ghostly identity — and love winning by outmanoeuvring rather than out-hitting. Give them a miss if you crave heavy armour, brute-force firepower, or a line that stands and grinds — these ghosts dance, they do not slug."
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Nighthaunt a good army for beginners?
Yes — they are one of the most beginner-friendly armies to collect and paint. The whole force flies and uses one clear game plan, and the ethereal glow is remarkably quick to achieve with contrast paints, so you reach a stunning result fast.
How do Nighthaunt play on the tabletop?
They are a fast, fragile, fear-based wave army. Universal flight and high speed let them control the board, grab objectives, and strike first, while returning slain models and stacking bravery penalties make them frustrating to remove. You win by manoeuvre, not brute force.
Who leads the Nighthaunt?
Their signature commander is Lady Olynder, the Mortarch of Grief, one of Nagash's chosen. The army also fields characterful heroes such as the Knight of Shrouds, Guardian of Souls, Spirit Torment and Reikenor the Grimhailer.
What should I buy first for a Nighthaunt army?
Start with a core of Chainrasp Hordes as your battleline, add a leader like Lady Olynder or a Knight of Shrouds plus a support hero, then bring a hitting unit such as Bladegheist Revenants and a fast threat like the Black Coach.
Final thought: Nighthaunt do not beat you so much as haunt you — they are already on the objective, already behind your line, and the unit you just killed is drifting back for another go. Play them like a ghost story, not a brawl.
Further reading: dig into their vampire-led cousins in our Soulblight Gravelords Army Analysis, or browse the full Grand Alliance Death collection.
