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Why does no one play them?

I'm quite taken by the idea of running a massed undead list (Typhus, Zombies, Heldrakes and Necron for mobile troops and additional air power).

I understand people have run these lists before, but then stopped. I wonder tactically what the drawbacks to this army are? What should I be concerned with facing? What can it simply not beat?

I think the reason is they are large, boring lists that are hard to play. I know a couple players who run large blobs of them, one of whom is loathed at my FLGS. He has over 120 in his army, and they mostly just camp on objectives.

Hm. That's interesting from a tourney point if view. The most hated armies I've heard of are Tau Gunline and Cronair. So maybe it's not a bad idea. The point of the crons and drakes is to rinse the enemy off objectives and drop the crons onto deeper ones.

My question here is: is it tactically effective?

Kholzerino wrote:
Hm. That's interesting from a tourney point if view. The most hated armies I've heard of are Tau Gunline and Cronair. So maybe it's not a bad idea. The point of the crons and drakes is to rinse the enemy off objectives and drop the crons onto deeper ones.

My question here is: is it tactically effective?

No.

Zombies are strategic gold. They let you win the game because they're lame to kill.

Zombies are tactical garbage because they don't do anything but camp objectives and maybe swamp a devastator squad or something.

The "So maybe it's not a bad idea" was a nice brush off for the guy telling you "It's a bad idea", btw. Top bloke, asking for advice then ignoring it when it doesn't agree with you.

They are sort of tactically effective because they are a large fearless blob that camp objectives. Or hold/distract things like terminators devastators or feed them to gribbly things

brother marcus wrote:
They are sort of tactically effective because they are a large fearless blob that camp objectives. Or hold/distract things like terminators devastators or feed them to gribbly things

That's strategically effective, not tactical. If your opponent is taking terminators, he's not too bright. If he's taking terminators and throwing them into hopeless combats, you already have the game in the bag.

Definitely wasn't meaning to brush off or dismiss anything. Tone can be hard to judge on the internet some times.

And I don't have a stance that I am looking to defend. I was looking to find out some tactical advice about zombies and how effective they are in 40k. I was wondering whether the guy's army was hated because it is hard to beat or because it's a dull game against him? Or because he's a douche?

Anyway. I'm not massively illuminated about whether zombies can work in a competitive list or not. But thanks to those who have responded. I'll maybe look for some battle reports.

If you want a zombie theme without going overboard with it, use 35-70 of them in 2 squads. Spread them out within reason, and then get some faster, more killy elements in there.

They'll be a pain in the ass to deal with, because they become turn 4-6 targets, which is the worst possible time to be trying to eliminate them, as the enemy will have lost some firepower, and will struggle to get those objectives (unless they're Tau/Eldar/Necrons).


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Kholzerino wrote:
I was wondering whether the guy's army was hated because it is hard to beat or because it's a dull game against him?

It's because any army with 100+ models takes effing forever to do anything in real time. A single turn outside of a tourney can take a good 30+ minutes (which is horrible).

Thanks Selym. Yeah. I was thinking about 50 of them I did a list on the list page:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/571995.page

Hm. That's interesting about the game turn thing. I'm already not the fastest player in the world. Don't want to be a pain in the ass...

Take a bunch of zombies, then ally in chaos daemons for things like beasts of nurgle. Maybe sculpt up some ogres from fantasy to be big hulking charging zombies to act as beasts of nurgle. Some nurglngs for a little more spice, and if you wanted, a nurgle soul grinder, GUO, or plague drones.

To me... either go min size of 10 for objective campings or go full bore 30 man zombie squads to deliver Typhus (or other HQs).

The biggest flaws with Zombies for me is that they're sloooooow.

Are the soul grinders really good?

i like a good blob or two, usually one 35 man blob or two 20 man groups, great for sitting in area terrain or out of LOS on an objective but not useful for much more than that.

and to above question soul grinders are great, some good options of ranged attack and can wreck face in cc and be an especially tough nut to crack in cc with that av13

Zombies are very tough for their points cost. They either sit on points and hold it till the end or slowly go forward. But you need to decide at the start cause it's gona take them the whole game to footslog to the enemie's table edge and deny or capture something if they're still gona be alive. They're tough but not unkillable.

Soulgrinders are good. They're the thing that makes defilers cry cause they're so much better and cheaper. If you wana get a battlecannon that's gona last all game and be a backfield protector with a great possibility of moving somewhere to frighten enemies - make it daemon of nurgle and give it battlecannon. Av13 with shrowded is really hard to shoot down. And not many things want to get stuck in mellee with an av13 walker with 5++, 4 attacks and fear. If you want some annoying forefront mellee threat to assist u'r assault army elements - go slaanesh and probably take a flamer. Though this role can be acomplished with a maulerfiend that's faster, cheaper but less durable and a bit worse in mellee. Also a slaanesh soulgrinder threatens av13 flyers with his rending skyfire shots but it still has low chances on doing anything meaningful to them per turn.

Actually just ran a zombie-ish list yesterday. 35 zombies with Cypher and Typhus to give the shrouded, infiltrate and hit and run. Survived the game against some shooty dark eldar, and Typhus fell on his scythe a few times -_-

p8ntba1141ife wrote:
Actually just ran a zombie-ish list yesterday. 35 zombies with Cypher and Typhus to give the shrouded, infiltrate and hit and run. Survived the game against some shooty dark eldar, and Typhus fell on his scythe a few times -_-

Now THAT combo is something else...

Shouded... gives zombies more survivability.

H&R... prevents being tarpited.

Inftiltrate... being 18" away from opponent at the start is nice.

What are zombies afraid of getting tarpitted on? lol
That is an awesome combo though. 5+ cover + 5+ FnP on open ground makes them extremely hard to shift... I probably wouldn't even bother shooting them.

Plus I hope you didn't forget that within 8" they have a 4+ cover in the open due to blight grenades!!

Anyways, Jy2 had an awesome batrep where a guy used a massive blob of zombies to deliver Typhus in the midfield. He would then charge and make sure Typhus was counted as unengaged so he couldn't challenge, and then he would pile in at I1 and go to work with his awesome daemon force weapon.


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It's also worth noting that Necrosius can make zombies for 70 points cheaper than Typhus... and they get free Furious Charge.

Necrosius? Who he? Runs to codex.

He is in the new Apoc book under the Siege of Vraks part.
He is a Nurgle Sorceror with the statline of a Lord, with a force sword, power armor, blight grenades, and feel no pain. He also is ML2 and knows a power that is poisoned 2+ assault 2 I think ap2 and doesn't require a to hit.
He isn't that amazing himself but the fact that he is cheap and gives zombies furious charge makes him worthwhile.

Zombies are as indicated by other great strategic assets. They are useful as tarpits and gold as scoring units. I usually use them in squads of 10 personally as they are fearless and so having a single zombie to hide on an objective is just as good as 20 come end game.

If you want to run big blobbs of zombies then you really should become practiced at fast movement. If you want to position each model perfectly this is really not the play style for you.

BTW if you take this many zombies you will end up needing to devote the rest of your army to damage dealing. This usually means spamming oblits and helldrakes...which will not make you any friends and will make you 30 minute movement phases even more onerous for the opposition. I would recommend being careful of going out of control with spamming. It not only reduces variety and fun but it also opens you to hard counters.

Necrons are a great ally for CSM. The mobile scoring and fast threat units it provides syncs well with the CSM strengths.

I'm a longtime Death Guard player, but first time Zombie user!

I'm gonna try either one blob of 28, two blobs of 14.

Or two blobs of 21, and one of 14.... same difference.

Death Guard has ALWAYS been a slow army, even with Rhinos and Spawn, and even Winged Daemon princes. I'm hoping people take the bait of Zombies, and give my Plague Marines more time to draw things out.

Now if only the ****ing game would end when I want it to!

It seems it ALWAYS goes on to turn 7 (ironic) and by then my Opponent takes away an objective/relic/secondary objective.

Zombie-based armies pretty go one of two ways: Massive amounts of zombies or just a few units of zombies to hold objectives in the backfield reliably.

As already said, if you go the first route (masses of zombies) then you will end up with the majority of your firepower tied up in a handful of key units. It makes for a slow game, but personally I find nothing more satisfying than mowing down horde after horde of zombies with my Space Marines. If you let your opponent know what your about so he can tailor his list in advance for a zombie game, you're both guaranteed a good, fun evening. Make up a dedicated scenario (say, sending in a team of HQ choices and elite units to rescue a little girl from a zombie infested city) and go with it.

That's probably the best way to ensure that both players enjoy themselves with a 100 or more zombies on the table.

The second route is to take a few units of campers for holding objectives. The good news is that this makes your cultists a lot tougher (as already stated). The bad news is that a smart player will just sit back and burn you out with template weapons and blasts or even willingly surrender a cheap but tough unit to a game-lon melee with small units of tar-pit zombies in order to contest your objective for the rest of the game. Even if he can't kill your zombies, your helldrakes won't be shooting his guys off the table while they're in melee with your zombies. So long as he keeps (or takes) control of his own objectives in the end-game (not hard given that's he almost guaranteed to have better maneuverability than you) he will win.

This can become even more of a problem against zombie hordes. With your slow scoring units tied up in assault against tough troops for most of the game, the rest of his army is free to concentrate on killing your other troops before moving on to you denial units.

It doesn't always work out that way of course, but that's how things tend to go after your opponents first few games against zombies. games often go. You might catch your opponent by surprise the first time you play, but it won't take him long to spot the glaring weaknesses where zombies are concerned.

Basically, what it comes down to is this: Zombie's are a great troop choice for casual games, but I would think twice about fielding them in a tournament.

It sounds to me that while they have their limitations, they could synergise with, for instance, a Necron force and provide you with some backfield scoring units alongside your mobile, shooty warriors.

It's the expense of the HQ that makes the list tricky to find competitive. But if Necrosius is available in a standard game if 40k that could make things much more interesting.

 whembly wrote:

p8ntba1141ife wrote:
Actually just ran a zombie-ish list yesterday. 35 zombies with Cypher and Typhus to give the shrouded, infiltrate and hit and run. Survived the game against some shooty dark eldar, and Typhus fell on his scythe a few times -_-

Now THAT combo is something else...

Shouded... gives zombies more survivability.

H&R... prevents being tarpited.

Inftiltrate... being 18" away from opponent at the start is nice.

If you, or anyone else, wants to check out the list I posted it here

Essentially what gave me the win against Dark Eldar was oblits destroying all of the transports, the blob would hit and run on the enemy's turn and then before my charge I would hit the target with oblits. Essentially deleting anything that was a threat against the blob before it charged it.