The Kill Team Nightmare box has finally arrived! I’ve been waiting incredibly impatiently for this one! When these guys were revealed all the way back in November last year I knew I needed some of these bits for my Creations of Bile. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Night Lords and I’ve long had a want to do some Slaaneshi Night Lords with pink lightning so I’m looking to add a small 5-man unit of Night Lords Legionaries alongside the wayward sons of Fulgrim that comprise the majority of my Creations of Bile host. But a fair few of these bits I wanted for those pink armoured Legionaries and Chosen too.

Just for full clarity, I pre-ordered and purchased this kit myself and it isn’t a review copy or anything like that. Anyway, on to the sprues!

The two Night Lords frames that come in Kill Team Nightmare are beautiful.

Absolutely chock-a-block with bat-winged helms and shoulder pads for a start, if you’re building a full Night Lords army you’ll probably want a few of these sprues. You get 11 bat-winged helms and 10 shoulder pads with the Night Lords heraldry. The 11th head is the one for the Night Lord Visionary.

There is also a bolt pistol with the Night Lords winged skull and a Chainsword with the same. These are all lovely, don’t get me wrong, but it’s some of the other bits that are the most exciting as these have plenty of potential use for the other Chaos Legions and assorted Renegades.

The next bits that really spoke to me were the claws but I didn’t want them for a Night Lord. One of the things I’m keen to try and keep going is that each marine ends up as unique as possible – some of this will be through kitbashing and conversions and some through painting. But, when units have the same equipment layouts it’s tricky to get the level of variety. The claws struck me as a way to do Dual-Accursed Weapons for a Chosen Marine.

Another bit that was spoken for the moment these were previewed in November was the hooded helm.

In the Night Lords trilogy and the Lucius The Faultless Blade from Black Library, there’s a bit of a theme about psykers being distrusted by the brother Legionaries. As one Legionary in a squad can have a Balefire Tome I wanted someone who represented this juxtaposition a little. A Psyker not powerful enough to have a power of his own like the Sorcerers of the Traitor Legions, a baby-sorcerer somewhat ostracised by his brothers but yet valued for what he brings them. The hood feels like it adds to that theme.

Chaos Sorcerers are awesome, what else is awesome? Chainglaives are awesome. Controversial opinion but I think they’re an even more Emperors Children-y weapon than a Night Lord one even if they might be Nostraman in origin in this specific example.

A noisy, scary, exotic weapon in the hands of a sadist… See – Emperor’s Children through and through! Look at this guy, he definitely has the sadistic bit covered off!

One bit that I knew I wanted to use but wasn’t sure where, was the Chainsword.

It’s frankly ridiculous. It’s so over the top that I found it quite tricky to find a home for it that didn’t look a little off. However, a Slaaneshi Chosen Champion seemed the right sort of individual to pull off this level of excess!

Another great bit is the tabard(?) of flayed skin for the Skinthief.

Again, this was a bit I wanted for a Legionary / Noise Marines w/ Chainsword and Bolt Pistol as it reminded me a little of the flayed flesh torso from the old Noise Marine conversion bits and ties nicely to all the skin-coats the EC Apothecaries seem keen on…

As for the Night Lords themselves, the Headsman, Morvek Flay (back at the top of this post) leads a Nemesis Claw / Terror Squad paying off a debt to Fabius Bile. The rest of the Terror Squad are featured below. Enjoyed kitbashing these with some of the other Chaos Space Marine kits to make something a little different to just copying the box art for the Nemesis Claw Kill Team.

One little note, the Night Lords helms are very sexy, but if you’ve built Chaos Space Marines before, you’ll be aware that there’s occasionally a fight for space around the helm, any raised trim on shoulder pads and the high power packs of the marines. Sometimes, a really great pose doesn’t work without having to compromise on one of those things – those Chaos Marines of mine with non-Chaos Power Packs are usually because of this issue and I’ve needed to lower the profile somewhere. This problem is magnified somewhat by the majestic sweeping batwings of the Night Lords helms. It’s not a deal-breaker but definitely test-fit everything just to be on the safe side otherwise you may have to tweak plans as you go!

There are a few other great bits in here that I’ve not used yet. The creepy reanimated dead Marine on a pole is likely to decorate my Land Raider when I get to it and I’m sure the poisoned dagger will find its way onto a Slaaneshi Chosen Marine or something.

I know this is ultimately a Kill Team kit, but I’m reviewing it from a Warhammer 40k perspective so my couple of criticisms don’t really apply if you’re a Kill Team player. Firstly, whilst I’ve made some good use of the bits, the main benefit is in making Night Lords so it’d be hard to recommend it to somebody who didn’t want to build Night Lords – a minor criticism and if most Chaos Space Marines players are Black Legion players etc then they’ll have no issues with some Night Lords amongst their other traitors. The other criticism, and it’s very 40k-centric, is that the Night Lords sprue is added to the base Chaos Space Marine kit. If you’ve grabbed the Kill Team Legionary box for the Heavy Melee Weapon, Balefire Tome, Reaper Chaincannon etc then you’ll know they’re also on the datasheet for Chaos Legionaries now. The extra wargear options on the Night Lords sprues might get added in the new Codex but there are no guarantees of that and ultimately if you’re building them for 40k currently this sprue is down the Heavy Melee Weapon at least (the other options are certainly less necessary than that extra melee punch). Which leads to a wider point… I’m unsure why we still have the base Chaos Space Marine kit when there are now sprues missing from it. It’s a minor point but if I think about all of the options we’ve lost from our codex due to the rules being brought more and more inline with what’s in the lots and only that, then it seems odd that we have this contradiction that if you buy the Combat Patrols etc you’re not getting the bits that are in the Codex and we’re back where we were…

However, I wanted some Night Lords as an excuse to paint pink lightning on them and the extra bits have been a lovely source of inspiration for some kitbashing the rest of my Emperors Children / Creations of Bile and assuming when this kit gets a standalone release it’s a similar price to the other Kill Team Legionary box then there’s definitely some value in grabbing one of these amongst the other Kill Team if you’re planning on building a few squads of Legionaries.

Hope that’s useful, let me know what your thoughts are if you’ve used the kit or if you have any questions add them in the comments or go to the Contact Us section of the blog.