Black Coach
The most powerful of spells or magical blows can unbind the spirits of the undead, destroying them. But the most powerful of Nagash's servants - Soulblight vampires, lichelords, and powerful Necromancers - can survive the destruction of their material form through sheer will, existing as a deathly animus. It is within the Black Coaches that they reform into a physical shell. The Black Coaches are phantasmal carriages from the underworlds themselves, passing over pits, precipices, and the ground altogether. It is driven by a scythe-wielding Cairn Wraith and pulled by four ethereal Nightmare steeds, and accompanied by wraiths bearing relics significant to the whatever being the Coach plays host to. [1b]
Within these arcane vehicles any tangible remains of the entity – anything from ashes, bones, or leathery scraps of skin – are gathered in a casket that offers a place for the entity to reform. It is here dormant occupant can feed upon the energies of death, drinking in agony and grief sowed by the Nighthaunt in order to grow stronger. [1b]
Combat
The Coaches are drawn to the battlefields, where the deathly energies are the strongest. It hurtles down, the Cairn Wraith plucking out nearby enemy souls as the iron-bound wheels and hooves crush the foe beneath them. From this the malefic thing in the coffin grows stronger and stronger, its malefic aura spreading out of the coffin - and even the coach - to empower itself and nearby Nighthaunt. [1b]
Legion Black Coaches
When a Soulblight vampire is slain, they may crumble into dust, burst into flame, or even collapse into a pile of carrion worms. But for the most powerful of their kind, this is not the end. The Black Coaches are tattered funerary carriages that bear the remnants of these creatures, seeking out places of thrumming with deathly energy, so that they may drink it in and grow stronger. [4a]
Miniatures
A Black Coach.
A Black Coach.
A Legion Black Coach.
Sources
- 1: Battletome: Nighthaunt (2018)
- 2: Hexwraith warscroll
- 3: Hexwraith product description
- 4: Battletome: Legions of Nagash (2018)
- 4a: Nighthaunt Spirits, pg. 31
