Soulblight Gravelords · battle formation

Legion of Shyish: the endless-reanimation formation (AoS 4th Ed)

Leans into returning slain models, letting more of your army heal and reanimate each turn for maximum attrition and board control.

Age of Sigmar 4th editionRules checked July 13, 2026

SprueSentry strategy commentary for Age of Sigmar 4th edition, not official rules. Games Workshop updates points and rules regularly — always confirm against the current official rules and your latest dataslate before a game.

Legion of Shyish is the battle formation for players who want to lean hardest into the faction's signature returning-models game. It was consistently reported as letting you pick an additional target for the army's Deathly Invocation (heal/return) ability. Confirm the exact wording and any limits in your current faction pack, as ability details can change by Battlescroll.

What the formation does

It expands your reanimation engine: you can pick an extra unit to benefit from Deathly Invocation each turn, so more of your army heals and returns slain models. The effect is subtle per turn but compounds across a game into a very hard-to-remove force.

Who it suits

Players running a broad, horde-based army with several units of skeletons and zombies rather than a narrow elite build. If your plan is to hold multiple objectives and simply refuse to be cleared off them, this formation rewards that.

Key units

Deathrattle Skeletons and Deadwalker Zombies as the reanimating backbone
Multiple support heroes (Necromancer, Wight King, Vampire Lord) to spread the healing/returning around
Chaff (Dire Wolves, Fell Bats) to trade and re-contest

When to pick it

Pick it in objective-heavy missions and against opponents who cannot reliably delete whole units in one activation. It is weaker if you are relying on one elite hammer, or against heavy mortal-wound output that ignores your resilience.

Common questions

Is Legion of Shyish only for horde lists?

It is strongest there, because the extra reanimation target matters most when you have many units to heal and return. An elite list gets less from it and may prefer a more aggressive formation. Confirm the current ability text in your faction pack.

Does it help my vampires directly?

Mainly indirectly — it improves the whole army's staying power by returning more models, but the vampire-specific bonuses live in Bacchanal of Blood. If your win condition is a vampire hammer, that formation is usually the better fit.

Rules sources

Written by SprueSentry with SprueSentry editorial (hand-authored, research-grounded), grounded in the cited sources — original commentary, not Games Workshop rules text.