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Hi chaps, this is my first attempt at a list with the new codex, which I've only just got. Up to now I've been using the old one.

So, the aim of this list is to try out Master of the Dead. That is my objective. It'll be facing Chaos Warriors (with chaos dwarf machines and level 4 tzeentch wizard) tomorrow.

305 Master Necromancer, Master of the Dead, Corpse Cart, Unholy Loadstone (between and behind skeleton units)

90 Wight King, GW (with graveguard)
90 Wight King, GW (with ghouls)

120 20 skeletons, musician, std bearer
120 20 skeletons, musician, std bearer
180 18 ghouls
80 10 dire wolves

512 36 graveguard, GW, FC, banner of the barrows

175 varghulf
175 varghulf
150 cairn wraiths (chill grasp against that chaos dwarf steamtank thingie?)

Total: 1997

Comments please?! (I've never taken so few Ghouls, I'm going to feel vulnerable without my usual horde, but I want to try out these new skels!)




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My understanding, by the way, is that IoN cast from a corpse cart affects the corpse cart thereby setting off Vigour Mortis - that right?

I'll sit back and bump up the skels as much as possible so that they can be anvils with decent static res. Varghulfs and Cairn Wraiths do what they do best on flanks. Graveguard smashes against the inevitable Chosen unit - shame I don't have points for the razor standard to deny armour save. Not sure what to do with the dire wolves, never used them before except as Black Knight screen. Ghouls are utility and WK may hop into one of the skel units, but may go for a flank charge or head off marauder cavalry.

You might be able to spend those 180 points from the ghouls on something a bit better in Core. 18 Ghouls won't last long, especially against Chaos with everything being S4+. That could give you 60 Zombies to use to tarpit his Chosen (Invocation with bring up 2D6+4 of these guys). You are also lacking a Dispel Scroll which you may want to try and squeeze in... maybe drop 2 Grave Guard? If you went down to an even 30 Grave Guard you could exchange the Ghoul Wight King for a second necromancer with Master of the Dead, giving you 2 Invocation castings. I've also found people tend to let Invocation through in favour of dispelling our re-roll bubbles.

Unfortunately I only have 20 zombies. With the new codex, however, i'm eyeing up buying a Mantic zombie horde. I could go for more skeletons I suppose rather than the ghouls?

The dispel scroll is a great idea, thank you.

My reading of the codex indicates that only one necromancer can have Master of the Dead, so I can't have a second MotD necromancer - am I correct?

What do you mean by a re-roll bubble?

Oh yeah... my bad forgot about that bit. I normally field all my skeletons on the table to start... I've never made use of MotD myself.

Zombies are much better in this book so I'd recommend getting some. I usually run two units of 20 as buses for necromancers and it works quite well.

If you've got the skeletons to spare so that you still have some left over to raise them beyond starting size then yes, I'd go with more skeletons. Unless you're going up against S3 armies, less than 20 ghouls is just not going to cut it. Your Grave Guard are going to pull most of the weight anyways, so cheaper, larger units are good in your Core.

If your opponent uses MoK Warriors, throwing a Raise Dead unit of zombie at it to force him into an awkward position with his Frenzy works wonders.

For my two cents...
No backup caster? You're kind of painting a big "Shoot me!" sign over your Master Necro...

I'm personally not a fan of Cairn Wraiths... Especially in a unit. All it takes is a character with a magical weapon and/or a magic missile or two, and they're gone. Though I'm not too familiar with them on the field, maybe you could make them work.

And as mentioned: 18 Ghouls will not survive well.

I think you're right about a backup caster, I'll try to find extra points.

Cairn Wraith units are fantastic - they're surprisingly fast and with a Banshee in them can take down eg. a unit of Chosen. But they do need numbers for this, ideally 6 or 7 with a Banshee. This will be the first time I field Cairn Wraiths in such small numbers. I think you're right that this particular number of CWs are a mistake, I'll rethink, I just don't have enough of them.

Yea you really should have a backup caster, that necromancer is just asking for something to hit him and crumble your army.

10 dire wolves arn't going to do much but 2 groups of 5 can work well as redirectors.

Worth giving it a try first but I'd say you will probably want more core.

Well I used the above list swopping 2 GG for a dispel scroll.

The single caster worked very well and I dominated magic, but I knew I was against chaos warriors so I was confident I could protect him as I knew the sort of thing I'd be up against. The "6" spell I found easy to cast and easy to hit multiple units, but was hit and miss in its effectiveness. The corpse cart's Vigour worked nicely with IoN, which boosted one of the skel units to 40+ which did a good job tarpitting a chaos lord, chaos knights and war shrine. Having said that, I can see how zombie tarpits would be much better, although parry saves were made quite often.

Small ghoul unit was pretty good for distracting a chaos warrior unit and taking them out the game by getting them to charge out to an empty flank. My list had 2 units of 5 dire wolves but their low initiative meant they were pretty rubbish and I haven't got the hang of redirecting yet so something for me to work on.

The Wight Kings were as amazing as they always are in my games - I put them in each skeleton unit, with one of them getting 2 killing blows on 2 chaos knights. Having said that, one of them got wiped out by the chaos lord but what would you expect.

My graveguard got wiped out in the first turn of combat by a horde of great weapon marauders. Damn that's a cheap unit hard to counter!

Absolute slaughter on both sides, was one hell of a game, yeh it wasn't an optimised list but the MotD was fun to try out. Thanks for help!