From Team Fortress Wiki

“ — The TF2 Blog Listen closely! What's that you hear? Is it the clip clop of haunted hoofs? Nope. It's the terrifying, completely foot-generated clomping of the Horseless Headless Horseman! He's come to steal your soul! And, if you have one, your horse! ”

The Horseless Headless Horsemann, the undead form of Silas Mann, is a neutral enemy that appears in Mann Manor, the Carnival of Carnage, and the community maps Hellstone, Brimstone, Gravestone and Slasher. In Mann Manor, approximately every 8 minutes, he spawns at the currently contested control point and hunts down players from both teams. He has a great deal of health, deals devastating damage in a single attack, and will continue to rampage until defeated by the players. In the Carnival of Carnage, he spawns in the Bumper Car Soccer and Falling Platform bumper car games after a certain amount of time, carrying the Necro Smasher instead of his normal weapon. On Hellstone, he spawns when the BLU Team captures the second point, and there is a modest chance of him spawning in any game on Brimstone, Gravestone and Slasher.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann is referred to as "Team Fortress's first boss monster" on the official Scream Fortress Update page.

Mechanics

Damage graph showing the number of players vs. the health of the Horseless Headless Horsemann.

NPC entity

The Horseless Headless Horsemann is classified as part of the map's environment; any kills made by him count as environmental deaths for the victim. On-hit effects, such as the charging of the Buff Banner, healing provided by the Black Box, or the L'Etranger refilling Cloak, will not trigger upon a successful attack against the Horsemann. Additionally, the Horseless Headless Horsemann is completely immune to all status ailments, such as Jarate, slowdown, or bleeding. He is, however, affected by critical hits and damage ramp up/fall off.

Player targeting

When the Horseless Headless Horsemann spawns or does not have a target, a random player within a certain proximity of him will be designated as "It" after a short period of time. The Horseless Headless Horsemann will relentlessly chase the player who is "It", slaying any others unfortunate enough to be in the way.

The player designated as "It" is notified via an on-screen message and marked with a floating white skull and crossbones icon. The Horseless Headless Horsemann will change targets if "It" is killed, is far enough away from the Horseless Headless Horsemann, survives for 30 seconds, or is in an area inaccessible to the Horseless Headless Horsemann, such as the respawn room. Additionally, a player can hit an enemy with a melee weapon to pass the "It" status to them, in a manner similar to tag.

If no player is currently "It", the Horseless Headless Horsemann may perform a taunt, spreading his arms and releasing a loud "Boo!" Any players within 500 units are stunned and placed into a state of fear. Players wearing the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head or Saxton Hale Mask are immune to being stunned by the Horseless Headless Horsemann's taunt.

Health

The Horseless Headless Horsemann has a base health of 3000 that increases by 200 for each player in the server. His actual minimum possible health is 5000, as he will not spawn if there are fewer than 10 players in the server, while his maximum possible health is 9400, in an increased slot 32-player server.

Death

The Horseless Headless Horsemann will begin to "shiver" when he has been defeated before exploding shortly afterwards. His defeat will be announced via a sound and on-screen message to all players on the server. The last three players to damage the Horseless Headless Horsemann will be credited with killing him.

Audio cues

These sounds play during the event:

‡Accompanied by a notification Popup.

†Shown through in-game chat.

Holiday items

Contributing to killing the Horseless Headless Horsemann awards both the Sleepy Holl0wnd Ghostchievement and Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head hat. If a player is credited with killing the Horseless Horsemann with a melee attack, the player will receive an Unusual Haunted Metal Scrap and the Gored Ghostchievement.

Strategy

Related achievements

Scared Stiff

Kill a player scared by a ghost.

Sleepy Holl0WND

Kill the Horseless Headless Horsemann.

Gored!

Collect the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Haunted Metal Scrap.



Foul Territory

Cause an environmental death by stunning or slowing an enemy. Fall Classic

Cause an environmental death or suicide using the Force-A-Nature's knockback.

He Who Celt It

Use the Sticky Launcher to kill an enemy player via environmental damage.





Unused content

The Horseless Headless Horsemann has several unused animations that can be found in the game files. These include the "Cheers" thumbs up action and Medic calls. This is due to the Horseless Headless Horsemann using many of the Demoman's original animations. Even though the Horseless Headless Horsemann never jumps, an unused jump animation exists from the original Demoman animations. The Horsemann will walk around high obstacles or change his target if confronted with an enemy on a higher ledge.

Aside from animations borrowed from Demoman, there are 2 unused animations for "failing" a hive five taunt, which only the Horseless Headless Horsemann has. The names of the unused taunt files are taunt_highfivefail and taunt_highfivefailfull .



Bugs

The Horseless Headless Horsemann may in semi-rare cases move right into players, rendering them completely stuck and vulnerable to a quick and painful death.

Trivia

Silas Mann in the Mann family portrait. Notice that he is holding keys and that something is burning in the fireplace. Presumablyin the Mann family portrait. Notice that he is holding keys and that something is burning in the fireplace.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann is a parody of the Headless Horseman from the story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.

by Washington Irving. The animation the Horseless Headless Horsemann uses when walking changes depending on how much health he has. After he loses a certain percentage of health (presumably 50%), he stops using the two handed walk animation and starts using the one handed walk animation.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann's kills count as environmental deaths. Therefore, achievements such as Foul Territory for the Scout can be achieved by stunning someone about to be killed by the Horseless Headless Horsemann.

for the Scout can be achieved by stunning someone about to be killed by the Horseless Headless Horsemann. Despite avoiding hazards such as pits, the Horsemann can be killed by other environmental hazards if he is spawned somewhere other than Mann Manor. He is killed in one hit by the trains on Well, for instance.

If The Horseless Headless Horsemann is spawned with other bosses (Merasmus or Monoculus), he still will kill them in one hit.

In Carnival of Carnage, Merasmus frequently refers to the Horseless Headless Horsemann as the "Headless Horseless Horsemann".

The internal name of the Horseless Headless Horsemann is headless_hatman .

Gallery

The Horseless Headless Horsemann attacking some members of both teams.

An in-game screenshot of the Horseless Headless Horsemann.

An image of the Horseless Headless Horsemann with the Necro Smasher, used on Carnival of Carnage.

The icon displayed above "It".

The icon which appears above a scared player .

Message that appears when Horseless Headless Horsemann spawns.

Message that appears when Horseless Headless Horsemann is defeated.

Horseless Headless Horsemann's gibs