Necromancer Army List

[Rilth]

Hello chaps and chapesses,
Long time reader (rules discussion mostly) and first time poster. I was just wanting some advice and critique on a characterised Necromancer Army List that I've been working on.
The Necromancer Army represents both ancient Liche lords finally making a move on the world of the living and those mostly lone necromancers dotted around the Empire and Bretonnia, court magicians or misguided scholars that have delved into forbidden tomes and fallen steadily down the road to madness. Most of the units represent one such necromancer raising the local graveyard or battlefield dead, so plain Skeleton Horsemen and Bowmen are back as well as new units like zombie rat swarms. VC units like Corpse Carts and Hexwraiths still make an appearance but are rarer choices.
The balance of the army is put mostly towards mastery of the magic phase and pure weight of numbers and lacks most of the "hammer" units from the VC army.

Note: Where the list refers to "The Lore Of Necromancy" this is exactly the same as "The Lore Of The Vampires", I'm just being pedantic!

You can download the latest version of the army list here in PDF:
[attachment=1799]

 

[Rilth]

Right myself and friends have done a few more test games and so there's a few changes to the list above, more points values and commentary on Special Rules (such as how Invocation of Nehek affects new units like Skeleton Horsemen/Bowmen/Chariots). I'll post the new list later tonight.

 

[Mello]

seems like a good idea, but what about when you are fighting armies such as dark elves or lizardmen who could potentially out-do you in magic, along with contingency plans for when your wizards blow themselves up.

I'd say writing the army list up properly eg:

"20x skeletons with musician
1x vampire with dispell scroll"

would attract you more attention, and advice

 

[Rilth]

Good idea, thanks Mannfred. Using the units and rules in the PDF here's an example 2000 point Necromancer List army:

Items marked with * are new magic items detailed in the PDF.

LORD
Liche 330pts
- Power Stone; Staff of Sorcery; Forgotten Tome*
(Has Loremaster (Vampires) and Master of the Dead rules by default)

HEROES
Necromancer 125pts
- Level 2 Wizard; Dispel Scroll.

Necromancer 65pts

Wight King 117pts
- Additional Hand Weapon; Ironcurse Icon; Death Knell*

Ghoul King 50pts

Cairn Wraith 60pts

CORE
20 Zombies + Command 70pts

10 Skeletons + Command 80pts
10 Skeletons + Command 80pts

10 Skeleton Bowmen + Bowmaster* 80pts

5 Skeleton Horsemen + Command + Light Armour 115pts
5 Skeleton Horsemen + Command + Light Armour 115pts

SPECIAL
14 Grave Guard + Command 223pts
- Exchange Shields for Great Weapons; Banner of Souls*

10 Black Knights + Command 290pts
- Barding; Lances.

RARE
5 Hexwraiths 150pts

The tactics for this army would be to keep the skeletons, bowmen and horsemen with the Liche for the first few turns and try to get as many Invocations of Nehek off as possible (1 + 4 [wizard level] Skeleton Horsemen per casting) and using these to outflank the enemy and relying on the Black Knights and Grave Guard (with the banner of souls that allows them to fight in an additional rank) to be a hammer in combat.

 

[Mello]

Thanks, now at least I (if not some much more sound tactical minds than me) can see how we can improve this.

Hmm, what is the ghoul king doing at this time, he seems slightly just.. randomly put in, that and I don't like necromancers for anything other cheap IoN casting. I prefer to have a couple of mid-level vampires. It means that you're not going to suffer hugely if one commits magical suicide, and will stop any character targeting spells from draining too many resources on your one powerhouse mage.

However I am a complete noob compared to the geniuses on this forum, just give 'em time