Making a necrach themed army playable

[Drathys]

I'm a necrach at heart, love the skulking loner hiding in his tower creating strange monsters to unleash on the towns folk. to me they are how I picture Vampires in the warhammer world.
also I like how they should play with lots of magic, monsters and hordes of zombies. However with the erosion of the clear divisions between bloodlines (which is not necessarily a bad thing) I'm finding it hard to think of how to make a truly necrach army that stands a reasonable chance on the battlefield.
Strigoi seems to have encroached on our monster territory with most of them seeming like they belong more to them than the necrach- vargulf and terrorgeist. with characters looking likely to be able to join zombie units again this makes them slightly more playable and I was also going to convert some zombie orges and use them as the new larger crypt fiends. I have a reasonably large standard army but really wanted to give it a necrach theme.

wondered if anyone had any other ideas?

 

[whtdwrf11]

I honestly really wouldn't worry about any of this until we have our 8th edition army book in our hands on the 14th to see what GW has changed or added to our army itself then you can see what you have to work with for a necrach army.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

A Vargulf is not like Necrach.
It is Strigoi through and through.
The Terror Ghiest in lore is a bolt on, can really fit with either of the 2.

For Necrach what you want is weird experimental creatures they have created, for one take the book, curse of the Necrach.
I wanted to recreate the moster from that by fleshing out sections on the legs of a necron tomb spider attached to a fleshy spider like body with the machinery from the Hellpit abomination attached to it with a small girl on top fused at the waist with her head opened up with wires running in and out of her brain while her wrists were cuffed to the creature creaming in pain.
Perhaps give the rest of the beats a face so it could have mandibles of something of that ilk.
Their monsters are pure insanity, Giant centerpeeds with human faces, Forrest sprites with spider legs, clockwork skeletons, there is no end to the madness.

 

[Drathys]

your right i'll just have to wait for the book.
thanks danse I'll scout some old bits to make particularly warped creatures. should save some dough hopefully too

 

[Sception]

Zombies are getting better in the new book. Not good by any stretch, not something you can use as an anchor or anything, but decent as bunkers and tar pits. With a Mortis engine (fits well with the necrarchs) they get a regen save, helping with those roles. The vampires themselves can be decent castsrs, with some good vampyric powers aiding in that (particularly the one that re-rolls one of the winds of magic dice).

Wights, Hexwraiths, and corpse Carts all work well enough thematically in special, and pretty much any of the heroes fit for you.

I'd consider some converted 'counts as' options as well. Stitched together zombie ogres / flesh golems as crypt horrors (works well with the mortis engine). The terrorgheist works well enough already, but if you instead convert it as an unridden zombie dragon or some cobbled together giant undead monster possessed by ghosts and banshees, that fits the theme even better (maybe you can get some spare swirling ghosty bits from someone who makes the coven throne instead of the mortis engine?)


I mean, there aren't explicitly Necrarch options like there are for the Von Carsteins (special characters) or Strigoi (ghoul kings), nor is there anything quite as blatantly on theme as the Coven Throne is for Lahmia, but you can still make a magic, monsters, & zombie horde type army led by dedicated caster vamps that will feel very Necrarchish in the new book.

Whether it's competitively viable or not, that I have no idea.

 

[Alexos]

You know, the use of the Abyssal Terror (If we still hav it) as your Necrarch's mount could work for putting you Vamp into games. They can basically be anything you want, no real bounds here. That, and I would suggest you look into some of the possibilities that the fluff on the Bloodlines would allow. Such as:

A foray into the North to capture the odd and awesome creatures for his experimentation fails horribly for the Vampire, and he must rally back at his home territory in the Mountains. Soon the Knights of Blood Keep come to him in droves to fight the toughest men and monsters in the toughest conditions arrive at his Tower. With this force of elite knights at his command, this Vampire can finally capture the very creatures of chaos for his own twisted experiments.

A Strigoi vamp, trying to recreate some semblance of the power he once held, sets up shop underneath the Necrarch's castle, keeping out any skavens that want his monsters, or treatises on the creation of new monsters, and in return getting to carve out an empire for himself in the surrounding countryside. Every now and again the Strigoi vamp brings in a few Ghouls, Crypt Horrors, or even Terrorgheists for the Necrarch to work on.

This Necrarch's tower was once a home to a once-powerful kindom's Wizardry college, and the Vamp now uses the magic there to raise the warriors of old as Wights to do his bidding, as well as the freshly dead from any nearby towns to create a legion of death that can sweep aside the armies of mortals in his quest to find some magical artifact.

Finding an abandoned citadel in the North, your Vamp has deicided to right the wrongs done to him in the past by the Skaven of Hell Pit, and creates his own menagerie of monstrous half-living, half-undead abominations to take down the Skaven's precious hole. Even in his depths of madness, he realises he will need help taking the Skaven's fortress, and he gatjers a multitude of Necromancers. With this Shambolic legion, none shall stand in his way.

Deep in the south, where the sun itself looks to quench any life where it can be found, ancient power lies unguarded. Almost. The desire for ancient knowlege has led this Vampire to delve into the tombs of Nehekhara, awakening the restless guardians that stand silent vigil over their cities. But the ancient rulers of this barren land aren't his only competition. The Lahmians of the Silver Pinnacle have taken the opportunity to try and reclaim that which was once theirs. Thankfully, not all those buried in the sands are truly dead. Finding an ancient clan of Ghouls, the Necrarch sets to work. The Lahmians mustn't know where he is, and so he steals away the strongest of the Ghouls, and force-feeds a number of concoctions of his blood, and warpstone, the very stuff of chaos. After the last of his experimentation is done, the new Crypt King takes his place as leader of his tribe, and conquers the tribes in and around the catacombs he inhabits. With the Crypt Ghouls for a hundred leagues around on the loose, the Vampire can continue his work.

In the borderlands, the terrain changes so drastically that moving his army of shambling zombies is nigh impossible, and the citadels that guard the weaklings in this area are situated in the hardest to reach areas of the land. But, with the ethereal spirits of the long-dead Knights that founded these lands on his side, nothing will stop him from taking what he disires.

See, with a good bit of fluff, anything is viable.

 

[Drathys]

ha cheers for that impressive spontaneous fluff i like it. yeah that was what i had been doing, like you I enjoy thinking these things up and considering that I already have a fairly 'standard' vamps army thats what i had been doing. I was just thinking for the future with the new models to aim them to give it some direction.

looked at the mantic models and up close the undead stuff is great so think i'll invest in a new horde of zombies to get me started, hopefully with their new stat line they can replace my ghouls back to their rightful place shambling toward the enemy in vast hordes

 

[Sception]

They'll be decent tar pits and bunkers. The problem is that elite infantry (saurus, chaos warriors, etc) will chew them up and spit them out, winning by large margins. Which means that most things you could throw in there to try and help them will just get dragged down by instability. Just know which units to support, and which units to abandon.

 

[Zombieboy]

I must say I am very excited at the new zombies. I plan on doing a nechrach themed army as well. I plan on doing extensive modifications to some characters/units to keep with the theme. I plan on grabbing some ogres and then some bits from ebay for other various monstrous infantry and making the "golems" that were first rumored to be coming. I'll use the crypt horrors stats. With zombies now a bit tougher they will be taking less wounds and being a bit stronger they should be doing more wounds back. Don't get me wrong they will still die in droves but hopefully slightly less droves. Will have to wait for the book but with characters joining and the potential for multi necro raising and the big mortis engine giving a regen save hopefully they can become at least a viable tarpit to hold up deathstars a round or three while crypt horrors and terrorgeists go a-hunting.

Lord level Necro with hordes of shambling dead, Necros in corpse carts, zombified ogres/golems, and a couple big screamers flying around....

Zombieboy is so excited! Need to get me some more mantic zombies!

 

[Drathys]

definately on the mantic zombies. hopefully the new book will return them to what they used to be. for me the ability to put characters with them equal to the change in stats. the onyl reason that i have so many skellies now is that they couldn't before.
back to what zombies should be, huge hordes that spring up as fast as they are killed with characters doing the wounds.
they are better for bunkers as the whole point is that the bunker doesn't get charged anyway

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I think it is more than viable. There has always been decent magic options for the vamps, so there isn't really an issue there. Just stay away from putting armour etc on him to keep him fluffy.

As for the army list, the who list is viable with some tweaks. A necrarch loves to mix and meld different creatures. You could have winged zombies for Fellbats, and fellow vampire that has been experimented on to produce a massive mutant = varghulf.

You could even twist the new Mortis engine to work very well, as the thing can explode anyway it could be some unstable experiment.

So rules wise, it shouldn't be an issue. As long as you get the models to match, and also make it clear to any opponent before the start of battle what is what, then it should be fine, and more importantly look great.