Raise Dead/IoN clarification

[Banat]

Say I use raise dead to summon a unit of skeletons. Would I then need to have a Master of the Dead necro to add models to the unit using Invocation? Does a unit raised during the battle count as having a "starting number" of models....?

 

[Demian]

Well... Raise Dead creates an entirelly new Unit made of "x" models. Those models would be their starting number and cannot be increased, unless by the special rules "The Newly Dead" or, as you suggest "Master of the Dead"..

So yeah, raising skeletons is a bad idea, however, most Units summoned via Raise Dead are cannon fodder and are expected to die with little effort... I would've liked to be able to cast a more powerful version to have like... 4D6 Zombies instead. That would have been awesome !

 

[Banat]

Thanks Demian. I had a match last week in which about half of my force had been wiped off the table, although my Blood Knights had distracted 3x10 Chaos Knights enough so that I could a raise dead in behind them. Then next turn a second raise dead then an 18" Invocation of Nehek which brought pretty much all of my core troops back onto the field. Did someone say turn 3 reinforcements?

Oh also... How does IoN affect Blood Knights and say, units of Vargheists or Crypt Horrors. Would the Vargs and Horrors get one wound back each or would it just be one wound across the entire unit? And would you be able to bring D6+lvl Blood Knights back?

 

[filescraps]

always total on unit.
crypt get lvl + 1.
vampiric units get 1.
then both can get 1 from the lore attribut, but not blood knights since they only have 1 wound each.

I'm sure I have seen a sticky somewhere with a great summary of IoN effects on different troops.

 

[Banat]

So you can only ever resurrect one Blood Knight per IoN.

And you can restore multiple wounds to Crypts (lvl1+1, lvl2+1 etc).

But similarly only ever one wound on Vargs (+ lore attribute?)

Forgive my meddling questions, I am but a young necromancer with many decades ahead yet to master my dark art...

 

[Alabaster427]

So you can only ever resurrect one Blood Knight per IoN.

And you can restore multiple wounds to Crypts (lvl1+1, lvl2+1 etc).

But similarly only ever one wound on Vargs (+ lore attribute?)

Forgive my meddling questions, I am but a young necromancer with many decades ahead yet to master my dark art...

That's correct. Ethereal, such as hexwraiths, Spirit hosts, etc. also only ever get one back. Things like SH, TB, and the Black Coach after it reaches ethereal can also benefit from Lore Attribute.

Amend: The Black coach is already at the 1/1 limit from being vampiric.

 

[Powl]

And the Lore attribute can only be used to restore wounds on models. So if you have 2 fully healed Vargheists left in a unit of 3, the Lore attribute would not bring the 3rd back to life with 1 wound.

 

[Skittelz1981]

IoN breakdown:

mounted characters and their mounts can not regain wounds through IoN (this means the TG, Zombie Dragon, corpsecart or Abyssal Terror)
characters in units can not regain wounds through IoN, only the unit can (so a character on foot or on horseback in a unit)
infantry regains casterlvl+1d6 (skeletons, graveguard)
zombies regain casterlvl+2d6 (zombies )
Other trooptypes regain casterlvl+1 (CryptHorrors, Blackknights, corpsecart, batswarm)
ethereal regain 1 max (spirit host, hexwraith)
vampiric regain 1 max (Vargheists, Bloodknights)
large targets regain 1 max (Terrorgheist, Mortis Engine)

-- basically, Vampiric, Ethereal, Large Target or when mounted overrule the normal 'Other Troop Types' resolution for the spell and can only be healed 1 wound by IoN or not at all. The lore attribute can obviously only land on a model with multiple wounds.


As to your original question: If you 'Raise Dead' skeletons, you will need 'Master of the Dead' to increase that new unit of skeletons beyond their starting size. (definately not the best of choices since that unit comes without commandgroup and can only be increased with casterlvl+1d6, resulting often in a meager unit. I think any VC player wonders why that version of 'Raise Dead' even exists)

 

[Alabaster427]

That's correct. Ethereal, such as hexwraiths, Spirit hosts, etc. also only ever get one back. Things like SH, TB, and the Black Coach after it reaches ethereal can also benefit from Lore Attribute.

Amend: The black coach is already at the 1/1 limit from

IoN breakdown:

mounted characters and their mounts can not regain wounds through IoN (this means the TG, Zombie Dragon or Abyssal Terror)
characters in units can not regain wounds through IoN, only the unit can (so a character on foot or on horseback in a unit)
infantry regains casterlvl+1d6
zombies regain casterlvl+2d6
Monstrous inf and cavalry regain casterlvl+1
ethereal regain 1 max
vampiric regain 1 max
monsters regain 1 max


As to your original question: If you 'Raise Dead' skeletons, you will need 'Master of the Dead' to increase that new unit of skeletons beyond their starting size. (definately not the best of choices since that unit comes without commandgroup and can only be increased with casterlvl+1d6, resulting often in a meager unit. I think any VC player wonders why that version of 'Raise Dead' even exists)

I've used skeles before for the armor/parry to combat warmachines and such. Sometimes you don't want to tarpit... you want to destroy!