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I was going to make an Undead warband using the remains of my old 4th ed Undead army but its completely unsuitable modelwise. Therefore I have written a Necromantic Undead army which emphasis shambling hordes just like the good old days before GW went all 'goffic'.

1 Necromancer – 60gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 3 3 3 3 1 3 1 7
Can be equipped with any item from the undead armoury
Leader, Wizard (necromancy, 2 spells), skulking wretch –may not be targeted by a ranged attack unless they are the closest target or if the attacking model (or his equipment) is subject to a special rule that allows him to pick his target. Being on a higher elevation doesn’t count.

0-1 Acolyte 35gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 6
Can be equipped with any item from the undead armoury
Wizard (Necromancy, starts with Command of Van Hels), skulking wretch
Command of Van Hels – as call of Van Hels but all models with the ‘Undead’ rule within 3’ are effected
Aid me Minion! – If the Acolyte is within 6’ of the Necromancer the Necromancer adds +1 to his casting rolls
Eager for power- If the Necromancer dies the Acolyte automatically takes over the warband and becomes a Necromancer.

0-2 Wight-70gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 4 - 4 4 1 2 2 10
Can be equipped with any item from the undead armoury
Undead, Wight blades –any model that the Wight kills (dead on the injury chart) may be added to the warband as a free basic skeleton. All prior stats, skills and equipment are lost.
Flesh of dust, bones of steel-The Wight always ignores physical injury results on the injury table although he can be ‘killed’ as normal and he can still be captured etc.
Tireless – Wights are never encumbered by armour.
0-1 Igor-35gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 3 2 4 4 1 3 1 9
Can be equipped with any item from the undead armoury
Yeths Maaster – If the Necromancer is within 6’ Igor is immune to psychology. In addition if within 2’ of the Necromancer Igor will always be hit by ranged attacks aimed at the Necromancer provided that both are visible to the firer and Igor will automatically intercept all charges at the necromancer unless already engaged in melee or otherwise incapable of reaching the charger.
Literal Grey Man-Igor can never lead the warband.

0+ Skeletons - 20gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 2 2 3 3 1 2 1 -
Can be equipped with any item from the undead armoury
Undead, no brain.
Not much left to hurt-Skeletons are only ‘killed’ on a roll of a 1 on the henchman injury chart
Tireless – Skeletons are never encumbered by armour.

0-2 Ghoul Predators – 45gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 3 2 3 4 1 3 2 5

Cause fear,
Climbing Claws- the Ghoul can re-roll failed climbing tests.
Paralysing venom- Ghouls stun wounded models on the roll of a 2-4.

0-5 Undead archers – 20gc
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 2 2 3 3 1 2 1 -
Can be equipped with equipment from the Undead and Undead archer armoury.
Undead, no brain.

Shambling horde.
Each hero in the warband can ‘recruit’ zombies; Wights, Ghouls with the ‘lads got talent’ advance and Igor can buy 1 zombie each, the Necromancer can buy 5 and the Acolyte can buy 3. These zombies are classed as equipment (they are lost if the hero dies, don;t roll for injuries and don’t count as part of the warband for upkeep, rout tests or any other reason) and cost 15gc each. If a zombie belonging to the Necromancer or an Acolyte takes a model out of action the owning model gains 1 experience point on the D6 roll of a 4+
Zombies
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 2 0 3 3 1 1 1 5
Undead
Necromantic lynchpin – if the Necromancer goes out of action the warband automatically routs at the end of the current phase.
Craven –Skeletons are expendable and easily replaceable but the Necromancer and his living minions are extremely concerned about survival. If at the start of a turn 50% of models and/or 50% of heroes and ghouls are out of action the warband must take a rout test.
Captives- anytime that the warband is eligible to gain a free zombie it gets a free skeleton instead.
Necromantic magic – all spells that affect Zombies can also effect anything with the Undead rule.
Undead - Immune to physiology, cause fear, immune to poison, no pain, may not run
No Brain – the model can never gain experience.

Undead
Hand to Hand Weapons
Dagger 1st free/ 2 gc
Hammer/Mace 3 gc
Axe 5 gc
Sword 10 gc
Double Handed Weapon 15 gc
Spear 10 gc
Halberd 10 gc

Armour
Light Armour 20 gc
Heavy Armour 50 gc
Shield 5 gc
Helmet 10 gc
Shattered Armour 10 gc

Undead Archer
Missile Weapons
Bow 10 gc
Short Bow 5 gc

Shattered armour – 6+ save, models with the ‘undead’ rule only.
The Necromancer and Apprentices can pick skills from the Academic and Speed tables.
The Wight and Igor can pick skills from the Combat and Strength tables
Additional Acolyte skill-
Van Hels Danse Macabre- Call of Van Hel affects all undead models within 6’.

Does this use the spell list from the undead (VC) warband?

Seems like it would be a challenge to play, with little to no shooting ability.

Standard necromancer spells with some wording changes so that they affect all undead as appropriate.

I think more of an issue would be reaching models off ground level, realistically only the Ghouls can climb.

The concept for this is 'shambling horde' and I think it works quite well from that perspective although that obviously has some significant weaknesses (not least the volume of exp that opposing warbands will earn).

That too. But you will have very few fear tests or all alone tests to take.

never mind


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You should get a copy of "Border Town Burning".
In it you will find a war band called the Restless Dead, which I think you will like.

The Zombie horde seems somewhat unbalanced.

You will could have a maxed out starting warband with many Skellies anyway then add 4-12 zeds on top. It will be a huge warband most games and zeds in a normal game are pretty good anyway for what they are. They will swamp most starting warbands and make your leader practically in touchable wrapped in side and zeds as he will be.

Zeds need to have a gc value and be bought as normal.

Also re skulking retch, isn't it a basic rule that you can only shoot at the nearest target anyway?

 notprop wrote:

Zeds need to have a gc value and be bought as normal.

They rarely get taken because they are frankly gak and hamper your income. Most undead warbands that I have seen max out on wolves, a few ghouls and then take maybe a couple of token zombies which spend the whole game limping slowly forward largely forgotten, exactly the opposite of what I think of as an undead warband.
This warband will be very large however the majority of its members are very poor, can't advance and are all but unable to climb. They will swamp anything at ground level that's true (but as the campaign progresses with less and less success) but a shooting warband in buildings will slaughter them or something fast like Skaven will be able to easily avoid the blob of skeletons and zombies to fulfil objectives or snipe important models. I had added a rule which means that if the Necromancer goes out of action then the warband automatically routs at the end of the current phase to enable some sneaky sniping. I am also thinking of a rule that means that only heroes and ghouls count for rout tests to prevent games lasting ages.

 notprop wrote:

Also re skulking retch, isn't it a basic rule that you can only shoot at the nearest target anyway?

Unless you are in an elevated position then you can generally shoot who you like.

I take your point but zeds are waaaay under rated. In a bog-standard Undead warband true you max out wolves, but also Dregs and this is where the zeds come in. The dregs need the protection.

I found opponents would happily charge out to meet a group of Zeds imagining easy wounds but they are dammed difficult to take out of action and keep popping back up. 2 or 3 will eventually drag down some chump and then the dreg charges in for easy hits and Xp boosts.

You already have Skellies in this role in the basic warband so when you add in the zeds i think your going to give the player too many bodies to hide behind. The fact that you are making additional routing rules underlines this.

Perhaps a different idea might be to have cheap zeds (15 gc) and more expensive skellies with a 'memories of life' type rule giving them better martial prowess (reroll 1's to miss or some such)?

 notprop wrote:

Perhaps a different idea might be to have cheap zeds (15 gc) and more expensive skellies with a 'memories of life' type rule giving them better martial prowess (reroll 1's to miss or some such)?

Cheap Zs and more expensive skellies would just mean no zombies, especially after a few games. The warband cap is what really makes zombies useless.

I deliberately only made 1 offensive combat hero, the Wight, with Igor's job being to babysit the Necromancer so combat will be all about zombies and skellies. I only included ghouls as there really needs to be something that is able to climb.

The routing rules were actually there to help make games shorter via targeted assassinations although keeping the original rules in addition would be a good idea as well.

Did you find "The Restless Dead" yet?

 snurl wrote:
Did you find "The Restless Dead" yet?

I read it and while it is an improvement on the standard Undead list for my purposes its not really what I am looking for.

I have made some changes to the list; most significantly zombies are now bought as hero 'equipment'.

Thanks for looking. I may try out your list myself.

 snurl wrote:
Thanks for looking. I may try out your list myself.

It take it that its your list then?

I just want to use a real 'horde' warband with only a handful of crunchy elements which the Restless Dead warband doesn't really allow for. I am using a Liche model for my Necromancer though

No, its not my list, but I have used it before for a one off game.

Let me know how yours works out for you.

It will hopefully get its first outing on Sunday.

Well ?

Only managed 2 games against some pirates and won both, although that was more due to the dice gods than the list. I managed to kill his Captain with the charge of a lone zombie, that kind of thing is not supposed to happen.

The warband seems to be good at brawling, not least because most models cluster around the acolyte to benefit from his magic, and the zombies tie up enemies fairly effectively which allows the Wights to break skulls. Wights are nasty, ghouls are also nasty but very fragile, zombies are zombies.

The big weakness with the warband is its neat complete lack of mobility and the extreme importance of the Necromancer and the acolyte. In reality the Necromancer is pretty much useless due to the weakness of the Necromantic spells, I rolled the spells that cause fear and the one that gives me a free zombie if i kill a hero....yay? The acolyte is very squishy and is basically forced to be on the front line; he is easy to focus down and once he drops virtually everything is left shambling about the board. I would have lost the second game if my opponent had paid more attention to the objective; he needed to get 2 models of my table edge, realistically there was little I could do if he really tried to do so.

I will hopefully be playing against more diverse opposition this weekend so i can get a better idea of how things work. So far though it seems fairly balanced.