The Flesh-Eater Courts and their delusions come crashing through the realms with the brand new battletome for Warhammer Age of Sigmar up for pre order today. In this full review we’ll be taking a look at the brand new 4th Edition book, seeing what has changed from the Faction Pack and checking out all the cool new stuff in the book! We’ve also built and painted the brand new character for the Flesh-Eater Courts, High Falconer Felgryn – we’ll be taking a look at his painted model later on in the review!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us over an early review copy to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your FEC goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

There’s been a whole host of Age of Sigmar releases over the past few months, with Khorne and Kharadrons recently having their battletome reviews up here, and we’ve also got the new Nighthaunt review up on the site today too, so make sure to check it out!

We’ve also got an unboxing of the new High Falconer Felgryn model which you can see just below, or over on YouTube

So without further ado, let’s dive into the brand new Flesh-Eater Courts Battletome and take a look at what is new!

Flesh-Eater Courts Battletome (2025) Review

I always felt that the Flesh-Eaters were an interesting concept for an army in Warhammer Age of Sigmar – an army of insane vampires and their ghoulish followers who believe themselves to be a household of valiant knights and regal court members. But behind their delusion they are living in filth and decay, their noble steeds actually undead bat-like creatures and their grand feasts nothing more than a charnel pit of rotting flesh and entrails. Humorously, people have identified the Flesh-Eater Courts as a new take on Bretonnia, keeping the idea of a Knightly host, but giving it a horror twist.

Up until now, I don’t think the rules have really captured the idea that the entire army is suffering from a delusion that changes their very perception of the battlefield, but in the new 4th edition Flesh-Eater Courts Battletome I think we’ve got the closest mechanic to that idea yet.

As ever, the book is gorgeous and chock filled with background and lore for the army. Games Workshop really have done a great job with the 4th Edition Battletomes, and this is part of the reason why this is my favourite edition so far. the opening half of the books are a real love letter to the factions and dispel any claims that AOS doesn’t have a rich background now. After 10 years of world building, the Mortal Realms are a living and breathing place with their own histories and mythology, and it’s getting better all the time.

With only one new model in the book we don’t get too much new lore, but we do learn about High Falconer Felgryn. He’s somewhat of a Robin Hood character, celebrated by the peasantry and hated by the nobles, though through his charisma and ability to control bats with his song he has got the ear of the Summerking himself. There’s a few interesting bits too – Zombie Dragons are now a different species to Revenant Draconiths, a nice way of explaining away the different look across the armies, and gives them a new identity as reanimated Wyverns, something that even the Soulblight Draconiths see as an abomination to dragon kind and actively fight.

But what about the rules? What’s changed in the faction rules? Let’s take a look!

Flesh-Eater Courts Faction Rules

So what’s changed for the Flesh-Eater Courts? Quite a lot to be honest – The Noble Deeds mechanic from the Faction Pack has been replaced with a fun new mechanic called A Kingdom Deluded that captures the concept of the Flesh-Eaters being caught up in delusions. Basically at the start of the game you pick a Delusion, these are passive effects that give you a variety of different abilities and rules. There’s two available to the army, and then additional ones are tied to heroes are made available by including them in your army.

So for example, the first generic one is A Splendid Pageant, which makes Flesh-Eater counts units within 12″ of a hero run a minimum of 4″ and makes heroes not visible to enemies further than 6″ away while they are near a unit of 5 models. The other generic option is A Glorious Banquet which gives your units +1 to hit on the charge while they are within 12 of a Flesh-Eaters Hero.

Both of these are pretty cool, and there’s a lot of fun ones tied to warscrolls which we’ll take a look at as we go through the profiles. This will encourage you to have a lot of heroes, but the FEC range does have a nice assortment of hero models, so that’s not really a downside.

The big twist is that your army doesnt tend to be the most sane, and can often wildly pivot between their delusions. Every turn you’ll roll a dice and that will determine if you have to pick a different one, have the same one again for a following turn, or just pick freely. This again is pretty cool as if you’re lucky you can switch between different delusions as and when you need them, but if you’re unlucky you might well be locked into the same one all game. So is the fate of those under Ushoarn’s curse! I really like this one and feel it’s a fun mechanic that does capture how the army would act in the lore too.

There’s still healing and summoning mechanics too – your Adhorrants still heal each turn, and you can still return half a slain unit to the battlefield once per turn (though it now costs 1 CP rather than Noble Deed points. What’s really cool is that every turn you can still return slain models to units, and it no longer costs any resource. Instead you simply get to pick a single unit within 12″ of each hero (another reason to go heavy into heroes) and return 3 models for serfs or 1 model for Knights. This is ace, and really gives the army some really reliable unit healing.

Feeding Frenzy still exists, but it’s now a once per battle ability to give +1 attack to all units and companions within 12″ of your selected hero. Really good and used at the right time can be devastating, especially as you no longer need to build up points in order to use it.

Battle Formations have all changed, with 2 of them being replaced entirely

Lords of the Manor works similar to how it used to, but Knights now need a 4+ roll to return an extra model when you rally or Muster Guard, serfs just get an extra one without a dice roll.

Royal Menagerie now has had some tweaks. It affects non-hero monsters and beasts and allows them to do a rampage if another model has already done the same rampage, and additionally gives them strikes first whenever they make a 9+ charge. I think this will be very good with the tweaks to Terrorghiests in the book.

The Royal Hunt is a new one, and this allows your surf units to make a pile in move and cause mortal wounds at the end of the turn, very much making them feel like a tide of zombies.

Finally Sound the Charge increases the rend of your Knights when they charge, which would be ace on a cav heavy force.

Like with the Battle Formations, all of the Heroic Traits for the Flesh-Eater Courts have been updated in one way or another. Stronger in Madness is a fun one that ignores the first point of damage allocated to the hero each phase, which is really nice! Even better, it also turns off any special weapon abilities on enemy non-companion attacks that target him! Cruel Taskmaster lets you pick a non-hero and give them a reroll to charges, which is cool but I feel not as good as the first one. Finally Savage Beyond Reason turns your hero into a mini Skarbrand, you get +1 attacks on all your weapons (including companions) if you didnt fight last turn, and +2 attacks on everything if you have not fought at all. Properly brutal on a mounted Terrorghiest!

Artefacts of Power have also seen big changes. Charnel Vestments stays the same, giving you the Priest Keyword, The Splinted Femur is a club made out of a sacred bone that can be bopped on the head of anyone you’re in combat with at the end of the turn. Each time you do you can choose to do D3 damage, reduce 1 from their Power Level (and it states you can reduce to 0!) or banish a manifestation. Finally the Grisly Pennant is really nice – in the combat phase if you can roll over the control charactistic of whoever you’re fighting they are -1 to hit and all your units are +1 to hit them

Spell and manifestation lores are much the same outside of a couple of tweaks to cast values and ranges, though Miasma of Madness has now been reworked and makes the unit suffer a Mortal Wound whenever they roll a 1 to hit.

Prayers on the other hand have had a bigger rework. Charnel Convication is the same, other than being a little easier to chant now. The Summerking’s Favour is a nice prayer that increases the damage of all the target’s weapons by 1 on a base cast, or on the boosted version you can instead choose to allow the unit to fight twice a turn. It’s worth noting that Nagash is bared from having this prayer used on him. Finally Excommunication is a really nice prayer that stops positive modifers to saves on the base version and turns off ward saves on the boosted one.

Warscrolls

So what’s changed with the units in the new Flesh-Eater Courts book? We’ll go through each unit and call out any changes (some small bits may sneak through, but I’ll call out all the big ones!)

Nagash hasnt had any profile changes, but as the only sane member of your army he is never affected by Delusions.

Ushoran is now a really good support piece for your army. He gets a unique Delusions that gives all Flesh-Eater Courts +1 to run and charge, and all enemy models -1 to run and charge which is ace! In addition it also gives your serfs anti charge too. Giving you a little more control over when your Delusions go off, he can choose to increase or decrease your delusion roll by 1 too!

Oh man, Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist is so good now! While the guy on top has much the same statline, the Terrorghiest now has crit mortals on all it’s weapons and the Maw does D3+3 damage, making it a lot more reliable. What makes it really good are its abilities though. It’s rampage gives the companion +1 to hit on a roll of 3+ (and don’t forget there’s a Battle Formation which lets you use this on multiple kings on ghiests). On top of this, the Terrorgheist gets +1 attack on its talons for every champion, banner or musician in the target unit to a maximum of 10! And if that’s not enough attacks, his Delusion increases the attacks of all companion weapons too. While it may have lost the gaping Maw rule, you now have up to 14 attacks that can hit on 3s and put out as much as 44 Mortal Wounds a turn!

Vanilla Royal Terrorgheists are similar but not quite as scary as the mounted version. They also get the extra attacks when fighting banners etc, and would still get the Delusion ability if they are hanging out near the Ghoul King, so a monster mash army is very much on the cards here! They still have their old Rampage which is good for thinning out units and dropping their hit value.

In contrast, Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Zombie Dragon feel much like their old profile, but do have a few improvements – mainly in increased attacks and damage on the jaws and Crit Auto-Wound on all the Dragon attacks. Pretty good, but I think I like the ‘Gheist version more

The standard Royal Zombie Dragon has the upgrades to crit auto-wounds and extra attacks, but does have a nice tweak to it’s deep strike rules – instead it can now be removed from the battlefield in the movement phase and put anywhere outside of 9″. This is pretty good, but becomes really good when combined with the new Throne rules, which allows a unit set up this turn to move D6 inches…

Grand Justice Gormayne has had an updated set of rules, he now can give an enemy unit within 18″ strikes last on a roll of 3+ and in addition has a delusion that increases the damage of Serfs and Knights within 12″ of wounded heroes.

Abhorrant Archregent loses a wizard level and his unique spell, but he does now have a new delusion that makes Flesh-Eater Courts -1 to hit with shooting, which is pretty good. I feel there’s better options now that the “move after set up” rule is tied to the Throne rather than him

High Falconer Felgryn is the new kid on the block, and he’s well worth taking in an army. His main ability is in his pet Grype who can be placed on an enemy unit within 18″ in order to turn off ward saves against attacks from serfs. This is ace and a nice way of getting through those tough units. In addition his Delusions subtracts 10 from the control of all enemy units while they are in combat with non-hero units. This is bananas good, especially with dragon redeployment shenanigans to charge in and steal objectives.

While Im disappointed we only got a new character rather than an awesome new Terrorghiest model, this is a great little set and was loads of fun to paint up! he is a little fiddly to build though, so just make sure you take your time cleaning up each piece properly otherwise you’ll end up finding sprue nubs and gaps when priming!

Abhorrant Ghoul King now has a pretty vanilla combat character rule, allowing a serfs unit to fight immediately after him at +1 to wound. He does have a pretty good delusion however that gives non-unique heroes +1 damage when fighting heroes, which might be worth taking him for in some lists. Personally, I’m sticking him on a ‘Ghiest

Abhorrant Gorewarden has been reworked and can now deploy off the board with any 2 Flesh-Eater Courts units, and not just Knights – He then gets placed anywhere on the board outside of 6 of a target unit, and then his carried units get placed within 12 of him and outside of 9 of units. Now this does mean they are a little further away from the target, but as mentioned earlier the Throne can be used to move one of those units D6 inches, setting up an easier charge. Helping with this he also has a Delusion that gives all units +1 to charge, but any set up this turn +2 to charge. Dropping two Terrorghiests 9 inches away, moving one D6 inches and then charging both at +2 to charge sounds pretty tasty to me…

The Abhorrant Cardinal has been reworked into a really nice magical and prayer defense unit. His delusion gives you +2 to banishment rolls and gives all Flesh-Eater Courts a 4+ ward save against any magic, prayer or manifestation based abilities. He also gets +1 to his chants too!

The Marrowscroll Herald has also had a fun update – he can offer the enemy a diseased bone in the charge phase, if they reject they are strikes last, but if they accept then for the rest of the battle every time they cast a spell or prayer then it fails on a 5+ and whenever they use a command it fails on a 5+ but they still spend the command points.

Royal Decapitator has been tweaked, on the plus side he still lets a unit of serfs fight after him, and now they also get crit 2 hits, which is cool. His Off With Their Head rule has changed though, it’s no longer a 5+ auto kill and instead you have to roll over their health on 2D6. This makes it easier to auto kill weaker heroes, but does mean you can no longer hack off the head of bigger characters.

Varghulf Coutier is very similar to how he was, but has lost the ability to fly. His Victory Feast rule has also changed. He still heals D6 wounds, but now if he is still in combat he can move 10″ but has to remain in combat (So can use it to hop over another unit and tag a hero or objective for example), but now if he kills a model and is no longer in combat he can just make a normal 10″ move, which is pretty cool

Cryptguard have got a lot better, having Anti Charge and Crit Auto Wound on their weapons, and now they gain Strike First on a 3+ when enemy models charge them, though if they choose to then they cannot make ward saves that turn, which is a nice trade off.

Morgheg Knights get a small tweak – they no longer do damage on the charge, instead at the end of the enemy turn they deal D3 Mortal Damage and then get to make a free retreat with no damage inflicted on them – this is great as it can set them up to charge something else in their turn.

Crypt Haunter Courtiers and Crypt Ghouls keep their old profiles

Crypt Horrors are now a dedicated anti-cav unit, boasting Anti-Cavalry and Auto wound on their profile, and also having a rule that can cause mortal wounds to a unit they are in combat with, with it more likely to trigger on Cavalry units.

Crypt Infernals and Crypt Flayers have had a bit of a rework. The Flayers now can be teleported within 12″ of a friendly hero in the movement phase, and then the Internal allows a unit that has teleported in this way to move D3 inches, allowing them to creep a little closer for charges. I feel a pair of Flayers with an Infernal makes a nice little hero hunter unit to take advantage of anyone caught away from a unit.

Royal Beastflayers are the only unit I’ve been disappointed with the changes – they still cost the same points and have the same damage and rampage mitigation rules, but they no longer cause mortal damage to monsters in combat with them, which seems a shame considering they don’t get any other changes to make up for this.

The Charnel Throne, or as I like to call it the Undead Air Traffic Control tower has been rewoked and is now used to move a unit each of your movement phases. If the guy on top can see a non-hero Flesh-Eater Courts unit they can move D3 inches, or if they are set up this turn they can move D6 inches. Amazing for bringing units in from 9 inches outside an enemy to much close to make a charge. Particularly good when combined with the Gorewarden’s +2 to charge delusion.

Cadaverous Barricade is pretty much the same, but has had its save reduced, but is slightly harder to banish

Corpsemare Stampede has had some big tweaks, it starts with less attacks now, but gains a point of rend and crit 2 hits. It now moves with it’s special Stampede move in the charge phase, meaning you can use it’s normal move first, and then it moves 2D6 plus an additional 1D6 for every Battle Round its been on the battlefield – so if it had been down for 2 Battle Rounds for example it will move a total of 4D6 – Anything it moves over takes D3 mortal wounds on a 2+, and if it makes a charge with that move then it increases it’s attacks by the value of the Stampede roll. So in the example with a 4D6 charge it could be adding up to 24 attacks to it’s profile on a lucky roll! yes it hits on a 5+ but this thing can get lucky and put out some serious damage!

Finally the Chalice of Ushoran has been reworked – you now pick an enemy unit and on a 3+ they have to choose either to lose all their weapon abilities, or to instead have enemy units get criticals on a 5+

Some nice changes here for the Flesh-Eater Courts and should lead to some fun lists.

Spearhead

Before we dive into the rest of the book we’ll have a quick look at the new Spearhead.

It has a Gorewarden, a unit of Royal Beastflayers, a unit of Cryot Horrors and a unit of Crypt Flayers. All in this is around £139 of models, but to me it does seem to be a bit of a mixed bag, I’d have rather seen some Morbheg Knights maybe instead of the Horrors. The beastflayers and Gorewarden are nice models however, and it does give you a different mix of units if you got into Flesh-Eater Courts with the last Army Set.

From a rules point of view you get Delusion mechanics with a choice between healing units and returning models to serfs or making heroes and Knights hit on plus 1, with a 50/50 chance of your delusion changing each turn. You also get a choice out of an additional 2 delusions, one that increases ward saves while the other adds 1 to wound rolls. I really like this, and there’s no bad picks really, just expect to be at the whim of the dice and be forced to change when you dont want to!

The Beastflayers are really good in Spearhead as when they are within 6 of a board edge they can hop off the board and set up on another board edge outside of 6 of the enemy. I feel this will be a fun one to use, and gives me an excuse to paint up some Horrors and Flayers!

Path to Glory

As ever, we get a nice Path to Glory section giving us Anvil of Apotheosis rules to build your own characters. I love this, with the only stopper to me running a full campaign is the fact that some factions still don’t have their rules yet. The Flesh-Eater Courts ones look fun though, with options to make your hero a wizard or priest, and even mount them on some properly cool things such as riding on a howdah carried by an undead gargant!

As usual there’s new paths here giving upgrade options for your heroes and units.

Flesh-Eater Courts Armies of Renown

Two new Armies of Renown are included in the new book. The first, The Knights of new Summercourt is based around Ushoran and units of Knights, non-unique heroes and Varghulfs. This is all about Knights and challenges – each turn you roll for each unit in combat and the first time you roll a 6 that unit can fight twice – which is pretty cool. They also get to make some cool charges with Ushoran and 2 picked units, Ushoran charges first, with the your 2 other units automatically getting the same charge roll and being having to end up within 3 inches of him. What’s fun in this Army of Renown too is that Ushoran can issue challenges. If the target accepts then they can only target Ushoran, but if they decline then they get Strike Last!

All of your units that charge can move through enemy units, and when you charge it’s -1 to hit you! I think this might be a fun one to try out on the Battlefield!

The Equinox Feast is more of a horde army that consists of the common rabble of the Flesh-Eater Courts and led by Felgryn and non-unique and non-monster heroes. Now obviously this gets rid a lot of your heavy hitters, but this is quite a differenet one that feels almost like the old Deepkin rules. In the first battleround you have increased run rolls for each other unit that has run – so by the end of the movement phase you might have units that can run 10+ inches on top of their move! In the second battleround you cause mortal damage on the charge. On the third battleround you pile in 6″. In the fourth battleround you deal and return models to every unit that has fought and finally in the fifth battleround you have 4+ ward saves. I’m not sure If i feel this one myself, but if you want to flood the board with ghouls then this may be one for you!

Regiments of Renown

We also get two new Regiments of Renown in the new book. The Horror of Hallows Watch allows you to give other Death armies a Terrorgheist, and it gets to increase it’s shooting attack by one for every unit destroyed by its shooting attack! However, if it is able to declare a charge it always must

The Scarlet Jury is the other Regiment, and this one can be taken by a lot of different forces – Cities of Sigmar, Kharadrons, Slaves to Darkness, Nighthaunt, Bonereapers, Gravelords, Ironjaws, Kruelboyz, Ogors and Sons of Behemat. It consists of Gormayne, a Decapitator and 10 Cryptguard and they all have Gormayne’s delusion for the entire game, which is fun.

Summary

I really enjoyed this battletome, more than I was expecting to – and I think on balance this is one of my favourite 4th Edition tomes so far. The new army rules feel like how the army would operate in the lore, and I love th idea of their delusion switching throughout the battle. Yes, sometimes it will go the way you want and you’ll be able to pick the ones you want, and some games you’ll be stuck with the ones you don’t want right now – but that’s all part of the appeal!

From a competitive point of view it feels like there’s some really nice combinations in here too especially when used on units that are set up on the battlefield, and I’m very surprised we haven’t had a new Terrorghiest given the awesome new profile, but maybe that is something that will come in time!

We’ve been getting Battletomes for 4th edition at a rapid pace, but this is deffo one of my favourite ones and I can’t wait to see how they look on the battlefield!

The new Flesh-Eater Courts Battletome is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 30th August.

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.