Nighthaunt is a very interesting army with awesome miniatures, which is rightfully the face of the new edition in Age of Sigmar. We decided to join the party and collect an army of these ghosts. In the next few articles, we’ll tell you about all the details of this process – buying, painting, creating a roster and, sure, playing. Today we’ll start with the sets you should buy from the very beginning.
The choice is obvious – starter sets. Many miniatures at a reasonable price. Cooperate with a friend who collects Stormcasts, or check a Nighhaunt part at the secondary market – there are really a lot of this sets now, so it’s easy to find. However, the question is – which one of the three should you choose?
We’ve got the middle and the small ones. It’s quite simple with the second one – the miniatures don’t repeat in two others, there are a battle mat and a terrain-box. Miniatures are 2 easy-to-build sets: 4 Myrmourn Banshees and 4 Glaivewraith stalkers – exact the number, required to make a squad. These two sets separately cost almost the same as this starter box. But here you also have some terrain, rules and the SIgmarite half. So, Storm Strike is a perfect option for anyone, who wants to see Age of Sigmar closer.
The things are a bit more difficult with Tempest of Souls. The battlemat there is the same as in Storm Strike. It’s a two-sided paper mat almost 24 x 48 inches. A bit smaller. (By the way, nice for Kill Team). Box-terrain is a bit bigger here, but that’s not what we want. It’s a bit more logical in Stormcast units than the big Soul Wars is, but it’s a topic for a separate article. But the Nighthaunts here really lack characters from the big box. They are key figures for our roster. Also, small ghosts are much better when there are 20 of them – you definitely need that to hit bonus.
Also, the weird units are the same for big and middle starters – 4 Grimghast Reapers, who need minimum 10 models in the unit, and 5 Glaivewraith stalkers who are supposed to fight in groups of 4. Strange that it’s so – if they were organized conversely, we wouldn’t have an extra model and we would get a complete Grimghast unit by combining two starters. However, we are not depressed about that and will use extra models to try different color schemes. Painting Nighthaunt is not easy at all.
So, if you decide to play Nighthaunts, it’s better to take a big and small starter sets. This way you get maximum – all the models, terrain, and the Rulebook which can be found only in Soul Wars or separately. We’ve also bought Lady Olynder and a box of Dreadblade Harrows – those models are awesome and no one can resist. Also, we had to order extra characters and 10 Chainrasp Horde models from the big starter. This way we already can see the skeleton of our future roster.
It obviously lacks battleline. So, the next purchases are the box of Grimghast Reapers and Spirit Hosts. Hexwraiths are probably, more powerful, but those old looking miniatures are not fun at all. Also, we’ll definitely get Bladegeist revenants – those swordsmen are able to tear apart almost any unit if you use them right. All this will let us comfortably play a 1500 points game with some options and future expansions.
In the next part, we’ll talk about painting this army. How do you like this roster? What would you change?