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3x Necromancer Masters, all level 3.
9 Necromancers, all level 1.
4x30 zombies, standard and musician.
3x20 zombies, standard and musician.
2 Corpse Carts (1 load stone, 1 bale fire)
2 Mortis Engines, Blasphemous Tome on both

Master Necromancers all get Invoke and 2 other spells (so I have the full lore). The 9 necromancers all get Invoke.

Step 1) Block self in with zombies.
Step 2) Channel 12 dice.
Step 3) Summon Undead Legion, spamming Invocation with +3 to +5 to cast.
Step 4) Profit?
Step 5) Hope ogres don't bring hell heart.

-Matt

brb bringing a flying purple sun. xD

That is a lot of zombies. Not sure what you plan to do other than annoy your opponent.

They kill half your zombies and you bring them back next turn. Not going to kill anything, but won't die either.

I may be mistaken but I think Blasphemous Tome is 1 per army.

As Sir Blayse pointed out, you have no offencive power, but I'd actually be more worried about having too many casters. You'll be getting 9 dice average a turn, that's 9 invocations leaving 3 wizards wasted each turn.
Replace 1 with the channel staff at least.

I don't see any of your games ever resulting in someone being tabled, that's for sure.

 Sir Blayse wrote:
That is a lot of zombies. Not sure what you plan to do other than annoy your opponent.

They kill half your zombies and you bring them back next turn. Not going to kill anything, but won't die either.

It has a little hitting power.
2 banshee screams, and 2 mortis engine pulses. You'd be surprised how much damage 2D6 S3, S4, S5, and then S6 hits do.
T3 5+ regen isn't the push over that T2 zombies were in the last book.
The 12 necromancers isn't total overkill. With necromancers clustered into 3 bunkers, any given part of my army is only going to be in range of 4 to 8 necromancers. The extra necromancers account for having the summoning where I need it.
Besides, the look on your opponents face when you pick up 12 dice to channel would be priceless.

-Matt

Lol, at least this list is funny!

From a flavor perspective the Corpse Carts are cool, but from a tactical perspective I think they're useless. What are they meant to do for you?

Though really, the Mortis Engines are just cannon bait. Your opponents have nothing else to shoot at, and you have nothing that will block cannonballs.

 Tangent wrote:
Lol, at least this list is funny!

From a flavor perspective the Corpse Carts are cool, but from a tactical perspective I think they're useless. What are they meant to do for you?

Though really, the Mortis Engines are just cannon bait. Your opponents have nothing else to shoot at, and you have nothing that will block cannonballs.

I've had mortis engines hold up really well to cannons. 4+ regeneration and 5 wounds makes then very tough to drop in 1 phase. 12 invokes means they bounce back really quick (each invoke could heal 2 wounds).

I played this army for fun last night (universal battle version, I don't own 800 zombies yet), and made one small change. 2 of the master necromancers took lore of death, neither took the signature.
I Crushed Lizardmen. Corpse carts let zombie ASF and re-roll to hit saurus warriors. I was actually killing 2-3 saurus a turn from zombie attacks.
The pulse from the mortis engine makes skinks disappear.
Being able to throw a purple sun through non-productive zombies for free power dice was awesome. Killed 28 with a spell, got back 9 power dice. Then promptly resummoned ~120 zombies split between 3 units (including the unit that was just hit). Net gain, 92 zombies, and left a vortex blocking a saurus charge.
Swapping 2 masters to lore of death makes that army go from "Ha Ha Funny" to dangerous.


-Matt

Well, for this type of list Mortis Engine and Corpse cart are certainly a must take.

In my experience your going to have more trouble getting everything on the board, Even worse trying to fit the box formation together.

Lore of Death would be a good take. I would probably add something in there to make it a bit more killy. Otherwise your going to get bored just reanimating zombies and rolling dice, then repeat.

I would say drop a couple blocks of zombies for a unit of GG with great weapons. Combined with the Corpse carts and Engines, they would be pretty sick.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Tangent wrote:
Lol, at least this list is funny!

From a flavor perspective the Corpse Carts are cool, but from a tactical perspective I think they're useless. What are they meant to do for you?

Though really, the Mortis Engines are just cannon bait. Your opponents have nothing else to shoot at, and you have nothing that will block cannonballs.

I've had mortis engines hold up really well to cannons. 4+ regeneration and 5 wounds makes then very tough to drop in 1 phase. 12 invokes means they bounce back really quick (each invoke could heal 2 wounds).

I played this army for fun last night (universal battle version, I don't own 800 zombies yet), and made one small change. 2 of the master necromancers took lore of death, neither took the signature.
I Crushed Lizardmen. Corpse carts let zombie ASF and re-roll to hit saurus warriors. I was actually killing 2-3 saurus a turn from zombie attacks.
The pulse from the mortis engine makes skinks disappear.
Being able to throw a purple sun through non-productive zombies for free power dice was awesome. Killed 28 with a spell, got back 9 power dice. Then promptly resummoned ~120 zombies split between 3 units (including the unit that was just hit). Net gain, 92 zombies, and left a vortex blocking a saurus charge.
Swapping 2 masters to lore of death makes that army go from "Ha Ha Funny" to dangerous.


-Matt

Ah, yeah, I forgot about the lore attribute keeping those Mortis Engines up.

Well that's awesome man. I was going to suggest swapping two of your Masters to Shadow or Death, but you mentioned having them all on Vampires so you could get the whole lore so I thought you wanted that. But that's awesome about Death doing well. I wonder how well Shadow would do.

Was it a standard lizardmen list?

 Tangent wrote:

Was it a standard lizardmen list?

Necromancers don't get shadow.
The lizardmen was Shadow Slaan, 3 good sized blocks of saurus, a goodly number of skinks and chaemeleons, 4 salamanders, unit of 6 krox. Slaan was ghost slaan.

I left a flank open initially to let chameleons in close.
He scouted in, marched into short range, and double tapped (movement and double fire for hitting on 5's). With the 3 units of 6, he did 3 wounds after saves (armor and regen blocked most). Then the pulse turn 1 killed a few, the scream finished a unit, and panicked another off the table.

Once I saw how fast I could summon, I went into horde formation with the zombies, mostly to get enough space to summon more.
I used the death snipes to pick off salamanders, then kroxigor.
The init 1 on the saurus was the key, it let my ASF zombies re-roll to hit.

With how effective the zombie wall is, I think this list (which was meant as a funny list), can actually compete pretty well. It's really tough to get to the important necromancers, the mortis pulses do a lot of damage to chaff and chip away at bigger units. The death snipes allow the army to grab victory points.
So, you're left with an army that can earn some points, and is really tough to take points from.

-Matt

I'm actually really surprised that the zombies killed... anything at all. I mean, I guess rerolls to hit help a LOT, but still. How do you think the list would do against stuff that's NOT initiative 1? Honestly, not saying that you got lucky or something, but that seems like the ideal matchup and not much else is initiative 1.

 Tangent wrote:
I'm actually really surprised that the zombies killed... anything at all. I mean, I guess rerolls to hit help a LOT, but still. How do you think the list would do against stuff that's NOT initiative 1? Honestly, not saying that you got lucky or something, but that seems like the ideal matchup and not much else is initiative 1.

A corpse cart would help with that.

Nah, they still wouldn't get rerolls.

 Tangent wrote:
I'm actually really surprised that the zombies killed... anything at all. I mean, I guess rerolls to hit help a LOT, but still. How do you think the list would do against stuff that's NOT initiative 1? Honestly, not saying that you got lucky or something, but that seems like the ideal matchup and not much else is initiative 1.

5+ to hit, 5+ to wound, 4+ to save. Saurus were 6 wide, I was horded, getting 27 attacks. That's 3 wounding hits a phase without the cart, 5 wounding hits with the ASF from the cart.
Soul blight (-1 Str -1 To) bumped it to 7-8 wounding hits. Half are saved by armor, so 2-3 kills is normal, ~4 kills with blight up.
Then another ~2 in the shooting phase from each mortis engines banshee and 1-2 more from each pulse from the mortis engines at the start of the turn.

Each game turn, it's ~10 kills. It's attrition. No single phase does significant damage, but each phase a few get chipped away.

If your opponent shows up with a big enough block where attrition isn't going to get it done, you've still got purple sun, wind of undeath and curse of years.

-Matt

Hmmm... that's interesting. What do you think would be your worst matchup?

 Tangent wrote:
Hmmm... that's interesting. What do you think would be your worst matchup?

Ogres: Hell Heart would be brutal. If it catches 8 of the 12 wizards in range, it's very likely to kill every wizard I've got on the table with a couple of "All wizards take S6 hit" miscast effect. Also, ogre death stars deal out a stupid amount of damage, and could wipe zombie units before they get properly beefed. On the flip side, purple sun would cripple ogre death stars and give me enough power dice for a massive zombie summoning.
Dwarfs. With flaming warmachines and the anvil, they should be able to drop the mortis engines and corpse carts pretty quick. Anvil the generals unit and you slow down the whole army. Then they'd just have to deal with a magic phase and start the grind.
Against any other standard build, I think it'd do pretty well.

I think the key to beating it is to move in really fast, and hit it as hard as you can, as fast as you can. If you stall and try and run up a flank, you're just giving the zombies time to grow, and letting the hitting power of the mortis engines pulse be stronger.

-Matt

Yeah, makes sense. What about Empire?

 Tangent wrote:
Yeah, makes sense. What about Empire?

The problem with empire, is the warmachines are worse, and the infantry is squishier.
Since I get the regen, I'm far less worried about empire cannons than I am dwarf cannons.
Also, Wind of Undeath is made for wrecking empire. Knocking out 40-50% of the models in several units is crushing.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
3x Necromancer Masters, all level 3.
9 Necromancers, all level 1.
4x30 zombies, standard and musician.
3x20 zombies, standard and musician.
2 Corpse Carts (1 load stone, 1 bale fire)
2 Mortis Engines, Blasphemous Tome on both

Master Necromancers all get Invoke and 2 other spells (so I have the full lore). The 9 necromancers all get Invoke.

Step 1) Block self in with zombies.
Step 2) Channel 12 dice.
Step 3) Summon Undead Legion, spamming Invocation with +3 to +5 to cast.
Step 4) Profit?
Step 5) Hope ogres don't bring hell heart.

-Matt

Raising undead beyond starting size was one of the more fun ideas to me in the previous edition. Now sadly only one necromancer (i think master necromancer) can take an ability to raise skeletons beyond starting size. Considering how much zombies have gotten better and for a lower cost and being so incredibly easy to raise i can imagine a ridiculous army could come out of this. Even if you summons zombies from that small wall of zombies type spell you could basically increase the starting size of that and keep amassing zombies till the enemy drowns in them. I wouldn't say this army would never win so much that it'd probably take a ton of turns though if you're fighting against stuff like minotaurs, ogres or some extreme killy unit you're probably gonna need a little more than zombies.

Also what about slann and teclis. Do you think the 'calm' ability wouldn't hurt you a little on your main wizards or the sheer casting power of a slann or two? I won't talk about teclis. Also what if they take 'lore of life' and constantly use 'dwellers below' on you or an initiative check or die type spell.

Your list sounds fun but in ways it can get hurt bad. It seems to all work around your wizards living while zombies are often just chaff.

I just paused and thought of the utter terror that is the Blender Doombull build for Beastmen hitting one of those huge zombie blocks, by the end of things it would have like 12 attacks a round with stomp and it would keep getting fury tokens added one it. A chaos Dwarf list would have an absolute field day blasting this list to smithereens, but I would love to pit my Skaven against this, Gutter runners attempting to sniper necromancers (you're gonna fail some LOS), and massive slave blocks against zombies. However i think that one unit of stormvermin with a bell, or plague monks with a furnace would be able to level a unit of zombies in a turn. Forget about some plagueclaw catapults, or worst of all the spell Plague. All in all though, all of these neat Skaven tricks are still only killing zombies in a strange it doesn't matter twist. I would love to play this list as I think it would be a ball, but I still think a Zulu Dawn Lizardmen list could kill this with very little trouble, Mortis engines would be poisoned or terradon rocked down by turn 2 and the slann would just have a field day sniping necromancers.

Actually, I went up against a Doombull once with a small unit of zombies - the unit started the game at 20 or so and was about 30-strong when combat hit. The combat lasted 7 rounds before the end of the game, including summoning in my magic phases, and when the game ended the zombie unit had 1 model remaining! He never got the points for the unit. And that was just one small unit!

 Tangent wrote:
Actually, I went up against a Doombull once with a small unit of zombies - the unit started the game at 20 or so and was about 30-strong when combat hit. The combat lasted 7 rounds before the end of the game, including summoning in my magic phases, and when the game ended the zombie unit had 1 model remaining! He never got the points for the unit. And that was just one small unit!

With ASF from the carts and 5+ regen from the engines, the doom bull is largely nurfed. 3+ to hit, 2+ to wound, 5+ saves. Coming in with 6 attacks, he's doing 2.2 wounds, and another 1.67 with impact hits and stomp. (he loses the re-rolls to hit because zombies will also have ASF).
Without ASF, each attack only averages .37 wounds.

What's funny, is the zombie horde will be doing ~3 wounds a turn to the minotaur in return (5+ hit, 5+ wound, 6+ save).

A unit of 7 + doom bull will do ~15 wounds on the charge (with impact hits and stomps). Zombies do 3 with ASF. Zombies lose by ~11.
Round 2, minotaur all have 1 more attack (meaning 4 more), but lack the 5 impact hits, and lose another 3 attacks from ASF zombies dropping another minotaur. Net effect is minotaur only do 12.5 wounds average in the 2nd round, zombies still do 3. Minotaur only win this round by 6 to 7 (no charge or rank bonus at this point).
The following rounds, minotaur are gaining 4 attacks while losing 3, making the margin of winning slightly higher.
The 5 round of fighting the zombies start dropping the front rank, which dramatically cuts down on hits taken, but also cuts down greatly on the zombie killing power (they really need as many attacks as possible).

That's not taking into account the D6 or D6 twice hits from the mortis engines, or the engines shooting.
It's going to come down to the magic phases, but I think the summon spam list will be able to keep up with the minotaur kills.

What surprised me, is that this is similar killing power put out by 18 ogres (ogres, not iron guts). After running the numbers, I'm more confident in my ability to take stop hordes.
I might have to start on some scenic bases to make this all possible.



-Matt

You mean like, diorama-style units so you don't need so many actual zombie models?

 Tangent wrote:
You mean like, diorama-style units so you don't need so many actual zombie models?

Bingo!

Also, having groupings of 10 or 15 makes adding and removing models much easier, which zombies do a lot of.

-Matt

I was referring to the ASF doom bull build with a 1+As re-rollable, where he gains additional attacks for each save made.

Yeah, that would be pretty sweet! I saw a thread on Carpe Noctum with some blue-ish skeletons and stuff on diorama bases. It looked freakin awesome.

 sandant wrote:
I was referring to the ASF doom bull build with a 1+As re-rollable, where he gains additional attacks for each save made.

Good thing I won't be allocating any attacks to him, or as few as possible. If you don't stick him in the corner, I won't be hitting him at all. In a corner, I'd be taking 6 swings on him, and 24 on the unit.
Ram Horn helm and dawn stone? Sounds good. So you're saying that I should worry about a character who's LD8 and gets no save vs death magic, wind of undeath, curse of years, and banshee screams?
That's less of a threat than a 4+ ward doombull.

-Matt

You forgot deamons have flaming cannons as well.
If they can kill the mortis engines quick it could make things tough for you esp if the hounds get lucky and can blast through and kill a necromancer or something. I think miscasts are your worst enemies though. Everything else you can probably deal with.

I'd love to see some firephoenix's carpet bomb this army side to side though

buckero0 wrote:
You forgot deamons have flaming cannons as well.
If they can kill the mortis engines quick it could make things tough for you esp if the hounds get lucky and can blast through and kill a necromancer or something. I think miscasts are your worst enemies though. Everything else you can probably deal with.

I'd love to see some firephoenix's carpet bomb this army side to side though

Yup, daemon cannons are a problem. Thankfully, they only get 2.
As for miscasts, that's totally controllable. I can single dice cast invocation 10 times. With +3 to cast (level 1, +2 from the tome) I need a 3+ for the spell to go off.
I'm only going to risk a miscast should I need the bigger spells (lore of death).

What is interesting is that my opponents when they get in close are at high risk for miscasts. That Tome not only gives +2 to cast for lore of vampire; but it makes ALL miscasts within 12" roll twice on the chart.
I have actually taken out enemy wizards due to that 2nd roll.

As for the phoenix, the zombies pretty quickly go into horde formation (due to lack of space to summon). A phoenix fly over is going to get D6 +maybe 7 or 8 D3. Maybe 20 hits. ~13 wounds. That comes back pretty quick.


-Matt