Headless Horseman

Halloween-Only Content
The content described on this page will only appear during the Halloween event.

Headless HorsemanHardmode exclusive

 Classic

 Expert

 Master

Statistics

Type	Enemy
Environment	Pumpkin Moon
AI Type	Unicorn AI
Damage	130/195/292 (contact) 80120180 (Pumpkin Head)
Max Life	5000 / 10000
Defense	40
KB Resist	100%
Banner	Headless Horseman Banner
Immune to

Drops

Coins	1250

• Item (Quantity)Rate
• Heart
  100%
• Higher item drop chances in later waves 
• Jack 'O Lantern Mask
  0.83-5% 1%-5%
  5%

Sounds

Hurt
Killed

• Internal NPC ID: 315

The Headless Horseman is a Hardmode, post-Plantera enemy that starts to spawn beginning with wave 5 / 9 of the Pumpkin Moon event. He is an exceptionally dangerous enemy due to his fast speed, high damage, and immunity to knockback. The Horseman's only attack is to charge forward and do a low, quick jump to reach the player.

Killing a Headless Horseman during the Pumpkin Moon event will add 50 / 100 / 125 / 25 points to the final score.

Notes

• The Jack 'O Lantern Mask's drop chance increases linearly with the wave the Headless Horseman is defeated in (lowest drop chance in wave 5 / 9, highest drop chance in wave 20 / 15).
• Despite having the name referring to the Headless Horseman, The Horseman's Blade is not a drop from the Horseman, but the Pumpking.

Tips

• Can Fire homing pumpkins at the player
  • Homing Pumpkins cannot be hit by any weapon, making it unable to be destroyed.
    • Although it will disappear after a short period of time.
• Due to his size, he cannot fit through 4 tile gaps or lower and can be taken out easily with ranged attacks.
• Due to his immunity to knockback, it is ill-advised to attack him with close-range weapons since he can easily overwhelm the player. Hitting it with rapid fire weapons can still slow it down, however.
• Similar to most of the Pumpkin Moon enemies, making an arena where you have plenty of space to fly around in can make him easier to take down. It is also possible to place some Wood Platforms high above the ground to fire down on him without fear of him reaching you, but a sufficiently long platform may allow more to spawn on it instead.
  • This is not possible anymore because the Headless Horseman has the ability to fire homing pumpkins at you, and the pumpkins can go though walls.
• His immunity to knockback can be used against it with weapons that do continuous damage, such as the Inferno Fork.
• As he uses the same AI as the Unicorn enemy, it can be useful to practice avoiding the attacks of multiple Unicorns beforehand.
• Keeping distance from the Headless Horseman is key using the @Star Wrath is a easy way to take hordes down in seconds.

Trivia

• The Headless Horseman originates from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", a short story written in 1820 by American author Washington Irving, in which the Headless Horseman was prominently featured.

The Bestiary entry for the Headless Horseman: "This menacing nightmare rides out into the night to harvest living souls on his seeing-eye horse, for he has no head of his own."

History

 PC version

• Desktop 1.4.4:
  • Health reduced from 10000 to 5000.
  • Can now fire a pumpkin projectile at the player.
  • Pumpkin Moon wave progression points increased from 25 to 50.
  • Now has the same Health scaling as Pumpking and Mourning Wood in Expert/Master multiplayer.
  • Now spawns since the wave 5.

• Desktop 1.4.0.1: Sprite updated.

• Desktop 1.3.0.1:
  • Sprite updated.
  • Can now drop his own respective banner.

• Desktop 1.2.1: Introduced.

 Console version

• Console 1.02: Introduced.

 Nintendo Switch version

• Switch 1.0.711.6: Introduced.

 Mobile version

• Mobile 1.2.6508: Introduced.

Nintendo 3DS version

• 3DS-Release: Introduced.