Jump to content

The virtues (or lack thereof) of Dead Walkers


Oggthrok

Recommended Posts

Greetings,

I was wondering if I might turn to the wisdom of the forum, and ask how people feel about Zombie-heavy armies.

I remain one of the folks not yet exhausted with zombie-apocalypses, and have a great fondness for the GW zombie kit. (Though I would not fault anyone for calling them cartoonish) The concept of a death army comprised of a mortal realm civilization ended by a "Black Plague" style event, leading to a vast herd of wandering undead threatening neighboring civilizations, sounds really appealing.

The thing is, how bad would it be on the table top? I listen to a lot of AOS podcasts, and lovingly paint my miniatures, but the actual game part remains theoretical for me for now.

Taking a glimpse at the point costs, it seems like you would get a really obnoxious amount of zombies in a 2000 point army. One could do, say:

 

2 Necromancers

4 Corpse Carts

240 zombies (in various groupings)

 

Based on that, I think we can safely rule this out from any sort of competitive play, just because you'd get carpel tunnel trying to shuffle 240 zombies around within a reasonable amount of time and turns.

But, I do hear of Moon Clan armies with catastrophic numbers doing well. So, outside of the gross model count of such an army, what other strengths and weaknesses would it have against typical opponents?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From a practical view on playing the army. You need to buy (or make) movement trays. Maybe so you can put them in groups of 10. You need to figure out some system to separate the units, which could be tricky because units can merge etc... Maybe different coloured movement trays, with a lot of extras with different sizes to switch when you need to.

From a gaming point of view. I don't know. I imagine that in some scenarios they could be quite good and really bad in others. I don't think you are going to get steamrolled everytime, it's still 270 wounds to kill and the number of models is what counts to score in many scenarios. I would love to play against a zombie horde (if you have fixed movement trays and unit identifiers ?).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You guys just gave me a great idea about movement trays on horde armies. I'd find the most accommodating round base size for groups of five and magnatize each single 25mm round single model to fit.

I think this would keep your horde tactically movable and drastically cut down on movement numbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think hordes are strong in the current meta although you don't see them much because of the slow play aspect. Movement trays would be vital as would some give and take on the playing aspect (e.g agreeing on your furthest forward model and then allowing your opponent to complete their hero phase while you finish your movement - first turn)

but yeah your 240 wound zombie unit shrugs off the Beastclaw mortal wound spam. 

I would probably consider running Arkhan in it will less zombies for the ability to summon them up the board and make them a more immediate threat. With some gamey daisy chaining you could also summon them mostly up front but with a line trailing to your other unit and then merge them fairly easily (assuming you get twenty which with unwounded Arkhan is 5 or more on 2d6)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you are willing to compromise a little on the theme  

dropping to 2 corpse carts and 200 zombies allows you to fit a Mourngul in

Slightly less optimal but more in theme would be dropping to 3 corpse carts and 200 zombies and adding in a zombie dragon

at least in both these lists you have someone to do some heavy lifting when needed. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...