Building a 2000 points Death Army

[Cyric The Mad]

Hey there,

Ive been testing an army with Tabletop Simulator for awhile before buying the models.
The army was successfull so far, I had three wins out of three matches but they are just 
pitch battle without any objectives and with the same opponent who plays a melee/witch
elf heavy Dark elf army. Some opinions would be great before I buy anything and invest
into the army. The list follows as:

Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead  - 900
(General)

Count Mannfred - 160
w/ Barbed Nightmare

Necromancer - 120
(with an artifact, tried out the mortal wounding one according to the
battle turn and it worked pretty well)

40 x Zombies - 240

40 x Zombies - 240

40 x Zombies - 240

1 x Corpse Cart - 80

-------------------------- 1980

So the idea was building a huge zombie wall in front, while dealing a quite good damage in the first turns of
combat with all the stacking buffs, which allows Nagash to eliminate targets with huge magic phases. 
Count Mannfred is there to help zombies in combat or hunt down enemy characters. He also allows Nagash
to cast Winds of death as well. Necromancer is there to give Nagash his spell and make one unit of zombies
pile in and attack twice.

As I said, I do not know how this will work in objective games and against other opponents.

Some feedback or ideas would be great!

Thanks.

[TerrorPenguin]

Have you been playing with rules of one? Nagash can only really cast three, maybe four spells a turn if you get him close to an enemy unit.

Also check the wording on the artefact if you are using the black amulet - it's worded as wounds equal to the turn number - not mortal wounds - your opponent still gets a save.

Other than that the thing your list will suffer from is mobility - zombies will not be able to secure objectives quickly. 

Have you thought of deploying less and then summoning some zombie units? Because they can merge in the hero phase you should still get all the buffs and should be able to move them up the board faster. Nagash is almost guaranteed on the summoning zombies so little risk. 

[Cyric The Mad]

Hey there, thank you for the quick reply.

I did a mistake regarding the black amulet. It loses strength for sure. 

But in terms of rules of one, yes I applied them. Nagash was still doing a very good job.

I didn't try the summoning, I should try it next time, preferably with an objective game.
How much summoning pool and actual deployed troops ratio would you recommend?

If you would change the units would you make any changes?
Like replacing one unit of zombies with something else maybe?

Thank you very much.

[Cyric The Mad]

After several tries, I found out that Necromancer is not very worthy just to attakc with a Zombie unit twice. I replaced it with a Vampire Lord who can deliver more impact to the battlefield. And I added one unit of Necropolis Knights because theyre just awesome to use it. And I am also leaving 80 ponits to summoning to have one single option of 80point units to summon towards objectives.  I plan to combine two units of 20x Zombies as soon as possible, I divided them to have 3 battleline units. List follows now as:

Leaders
Nagash Supreme Lord Of The Undead (900)
- General
Count Mannfred (160)
- Mount: Barbed Nightmare
Vampire Lord (140)
- Mount: Flying Horror
- Artefact: Cursed Book or Tomb Blade

Battleline
40 x Zombies (240)
20 x Zombies (120)
20 x Zombies (120)

Units
3 x Necropolis Knights (160)
1 x Corpse Cart (80)

+80 Points summoning Pool

Total: 2000/2000

[CoffeeGrunt]

Necromancer is better on Skeletons to be fair, especially in the list you're running.

I would say that Nagash is a massive points sink in that list, though. He's not really going to pull his weight and he leaves you very thin on the ground. If the Necropolis Knights die, for example, you have nothing that can reliably move a decent distance to claim objectives.

[Cyric The Mad]

What do you think of summoning fell bats or just having a tomb scorpion in the list in that case?

I know what you mean about Nagash but I just love him

[MidnightCardinal]

Have you thought about just having Nagash summon in the Zombies? Having 40 Zombies abruptly pop up eighteen inches from the massive man is pretty convenient, and with a base of +3 to casting at 0-2 wounds taken you only need a '5' which is under average on two dice by '2'. I was doing something similar to this list but straight dropped Nagash for Arkhan the black which free'd up '560' points towards summoning and Arkhan can summon Zombies just as consistently if not more so at a whopping twenty-four inches away.

[Cyric The Mad]

Ive considered summoning them but I do not know how the minimum battleline requirement works with the summoning.

Do you suggest I keep battleline troops at minmum points then summon the rest? And I also consider swapping him with Arkhan actually.

[MidnightCardinal]

You can do three units of 10 and have them become one unit of 30 turn '1'. After that it's all summoning if you go that route. If you go the arkhan route you'll have more flexibility with summoning, need Morghast Archai? How about a Mournghoul. He'll consistently get them out at longer ranges and he'll give you more because well by removing Nagash you free up '560' points. 

[Cyric The Mad]

Thank you for the valuable feedback!

[MidnightCardinal]

Not a problem I just prefer Arkhan for summoning strategies because you can just give him so many bonuses its silly.
Base +2 for casting and unbinding, +1 if he's summoning a unit, +1 if he's near a corpse cart and then a final +1 if he's near any Morghast units. It can get pretty silly.