Games Workshop did us a sneaky one this time, implementing FAQ changes in the app way back on January 26 without telling anyone, but now the most recent FAQs are live on Warhammer Community to update Wrath of the Everchosen, Broken Realms Be’lakor and the Nighthaunt Battletome. Most of these are just cleaning things up, but there is one fairly major item for Nighthaunt players.

Wrath of the Everchosen

Just a bit of cleaning here, calling out that the rules for Munificent Wanderers, Droning Guard, Blessed Sons and Drowned Men have been updated and replaced with those in the Battletome: Maggotkin of Nurgle.  This actually was already covered in the recent Maggotkin of Nurgle FAQ but I guess if you want to be thorough they included it here.

Battletome: Nighthaunt

Nighthaunt have been on the up and up recently, with Nate Trentanelli taking Nagash and ghosty friends to 6th place at Las Vegas Open. Again, I don’t think these changes would have made a material impact on how the game went, because it’s how the con TOs ruled it anyway, but it’s good to see the devs are listening.

Given Nagash always counts as a Nighthaunt general, it’s been clarified that units moving via Spectral Summons (the battle trait allowing units to disappear from the battlefield and reappear within 12” of the general) can deploy near the God of Undeath. This is really just a clarification, as I don’t believe anyone had rules that Warmaster worked differently. Given that Nighthaunt tend to throw Nagash up the board fairly aggressively, there won’t be very long before you’re too close to the enemy to functionally use this ability, but it’s still great for positioning; maybe Nagash can break through their line and summon some friends behind him!

More interestingly (but also not super controversially), Nagash is confirmed to operate as a general for Deathless Spirits, giving Nighthaunt within 12” a 6+ ward. Annoyingly, he still doesn’t gain that ward for himself, meaning that a living deity worth almost a thousand points has no ward save against normal attacks… This is important given the very, very low number of heroes that Nagash lists tend to include; Nate Trentanelli’s list at LVO contained only a lonely Spirit Torment alongside Nagash. Without this rule, you’d likely lose a core benefit of all Death armies.

Broken Realms: Be’lakor

The tasty stuff, and also Nighthaunt-based. The Emerald Host procession has an ability where you could transfer wounds allocated to your general to a nearby hexwraith unit instead. Simultaneously, Nagash has a rule stating he cannot “benefit” from an army’s allegiance abilities. This spawned a range of, uh, lets call them discussions online around whether Nagash could transfer wounds to hexwraiths. The ‘pro’ argument was that the Hexwraith unit was benefiting from the ability, not Nagash, allowing them to tank wounds for him. The ‘con’ argument was that this was a benefit to Nagash, and thus should not be allowed. Some tournaments ruled that he could transfer, with others, including LVO, ruling that it didn’t work. The difficulty was that GW hasn’t used the word “benefit” in other rules context, so it was unclear what it meant. Did it mean “use at all” or “have a positive effect” or what?

Well, that’s now been cleared up, with the ability being modified so that hexwraiths can now bodyguard wounds from specifically Emerald Host Nighthaunt generals only, not any general. With Nagash not being Nighthaunt, this rules him right out. I’d say this was a nerf, but the best performing Nighthaunt list in a long, long time was using this ruling before it was cool, with his list not even using three of the five benefits that procession provides.

For such an old battletome, Nighthaunt have had surprisingly few FAQs and erratas. Either way, only a few more months until the new battletome gives us ample opportunity to create more!

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