Headless Horseman

Type	Enemy
Environment	Pumpkin Moon
AI Type	Unicorn AI
Damage	130/195/292
Max Life	5000 / 10000 65008287
Defense	40
KB Resist	100%
Banner	Headless Horseman Banner
Immune to
Coins	1250
Hurt	https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/File:NPC_Hit_12.wav
Killed	https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/File:NPC_Killed_18.wav

The Headless Horseman is a Hardmode, post-Plantera enemy that starts to spawn beginning with wave 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. He can fire a pumpkin projectile at the player as well.

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

Notes

In Classic Mode, the Jack 'O Lantern Mask's drop chance increases linearly with the wave the Headless Horseman is defeated in (lowest drop chance in wave 9, highest drop chance in wave 15). In Expert or Master Mode, the drop rate is always 5%.
Despite having the name referring to the Headless Horseman, The Horseman's Blade is not a drop from the Horseman, but the Pumpking.

Tips

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 or weapons that do continuous damage (e.g. Vampire Knives or Inferno Fork) can still slow it down, however.
Similar to most of the Pumpkin Moon enemies, making an arena where the player 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 the player, but a sufficiently long platform may allow more to spawn on it instead.
As he uses the same AI as the Unicorn enemy, it can be useful to practice avoiding the attacks of multiple Unicorns beforehand.

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

Desktop 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.