Tutorial Lore of Undeath and You: Necromancy for Fun and Profit

Great work, Scalenex.

I'd like to make a few comments. I've been playing Undeath for a bit, with a couple different armies, so much of what I have to say is rooted in experience.

1) Lore of Undeath functions best with two general styles of lists: defensive/avoidance or hyper-aggressive. What you cast, and when, differs drastically between those two styles. Some armies can only do one style, some (like Lizardmen) can do both. I personally believe Undeath works best in a hyper-aggressive list. The armies that can do that best are probably WoC and DE, with LM coming up behind. I'll explain this in more depth in a moment.

Defensive lists use Undeath to create chaff, especially ethereals, and then complement with late game screams to help gain points. This style list needs a solid combat block and lots of ranged damage. A great example was the recent US Masters Tomb King list. He mostly won because people underestimated both Tomb Kings and Lore of Undeath, not necessarily because his list or the Lore is so powerful. The main problem with using Lore of Undeath in this way is that it is much more matchup dependent. And you cannot do much if people just stay back away from you! They can take a small loss but the defensive Undeath list will usually struggle getting big wins against good opponents. Lore of Undeath has such a limited ranged, that a defensive list will struggle to keep other very aggressive lists at bay.

So, why are hyper-aggressive lists so powerful with Lore of Undeath? And how can Lizardmen benefit? The first part of that relates to 1) the short range of Undeath, and 2) the ability to exquisitely control movement in a two foot bubble around your caster. Movement is the true name of Warhammer, and the game is won and lost in the movement phase. Being able to block that key unit on the important turn, or to put that ethereal right in front of the steam tank, etc, is a huge part of the strength of Undeath. But you must have range and mobility to enable that! Thus, the best casters in the game for Lore of Undeath (imo) are a Warriors of Chaos Level 4 on a disc with a 1+ 3++, rerolling 1s with stubborn crown and extra spell, a Dark Elf level 4 on pegasus with the 3++ ward against shooting, or a Slann in skinks surrounded by a skink cloud! Being able to move around the board and place your free chaff and screamers is so vital with this lore, as well as being able to utilize the short ranged damage spells.

Another important part of Undeath is that you've given up buffs for the living troops as well as any '6' spell, like final transmutation or dwellers. So you have to have hardy troops that do not need buffs or get buffed by other troops--this is where WoC and DE outshine LM a bit. Skullcrushers and Warriors do not really need buffs to do well in combat, especially when they get to pick the fight. Also, not many things can deal with a witch elf horde that cannot be redirected because the non-DE's player's chaff is all chaffed with ethereals or zombies. LM can get around this a bit by having some skink priests on heavens/beasts, which also allow you scream around the board with the slann, but I think inherently LM will not be able to benefit as much as WoC and DE.

That said, I think a very aggressive LM list with a skink cloud, old blood and two scar vets (scaled up or down for points) with little special or rare points, will actually do very well. It just takes a lot of practice to use the skink cloud in a way to compliment the Undeath summons, a skill with LM that I do not possess yet.

2) While there are so many great options for summoning, too many options are just overwhelming. Also, while much is situational, there are units that will clearly be summoned in almost every game, those summoned in almost every game against specific lists/armies, and those that should just be ignored (all of the red above, and many of the yellows, too, to be honest). The key players are, of course (for hyper-aggressive lists, which I have the most experience with), vargheists, terrogheists, and cheap chaff (skellies, zombies, cairn wraiths, etc). Vargheists are the stand out thing to summon, period. For a 16+, you get a flying, skirmishing unit that can threaten a huge, HUGE range. Especially in hyper-aggressive lists, where you have just flown 20" with your DE or WoC caster, or as a slann, marched in your skink bunker, or moved from one to another. Average charge on a vargheist is ~18.5", can be cast up to 12", and can be flown 20". So the 'threat' of a vargheist is about ~50" from the caster's first start point. That will threaten any bunker in the game! Not to mention warmachines, pink horrors or other tasty points sitting in corners.

And terrorgheists speak for themselves-they are good in practically all matchups, if for nothing else than a monster that you can (and often should) allow it to explode for 3d6 S2 hits to all adjacent units (for only a single token more-I almost always have an extra one by the time I'm trying to cast him, turn 3 or 4). I think any use of the Lore of Undeath without vargheists and terrorgheists is probably less effective, and while many choices can be used specifically against "X" list or "Y" army (such as ethereals against most Empire or Orc and Goblin lists that have very few magical attacks), vargheists and terrorgheists will always be a major threat.

Defensive lists probably can focus more on chaff, but unless they have a lot of shooting (and a lot of reliable extra power dice, Undeath is a greedy lore in that way!), they are not benefiting as much as a hyper-aggressive, because they've expended a lot of their resources to something that won't give them points. In the end, unless we are playing some kind of scenario, we have to take points, and I'm worried that most lists that LM have with Lore of Undeath do not have enough ways to take points, as LM often rely heavily on the combination of spell damage and buffs to boost the troops with the ranged damage of skinks and other bits.

Anyway, that is all I wanted to say at this point-would love to hear what other people think, and other ideas for increasing the LM benefit from Undeath!