Deathwalker Army tips

[Murphy]

Hey guys debating whether to run a deathwalker or deathrattle army, I have pretty much decided in my direction if I go rattle but I'd like so advice on what to take if i was going the walker route? 

[Oppenheimer]

Many many zombies. A corpse cart to go with them.

I like to also field Vlad as his +1 to wound will give them +2 to hit and wound with large unit and corpse cart.

A necromancer to allow them to pile in twice.

Dire wolves are okay especially when kept in range of the corpse cart.

Zombies make great battle line and summons since you can merge them and still get the benefit of a large unit.

Other than that there's not much to the faction.

[Murphy]

If I was going to run Death but mainly focus on Deathwalkers is there anything that goes well with them 

[Andreas]

The best complement to deathwalker (who are tar pits) are probably hammer units. Maybe two VLoZD or something. 

For example:

Leaders
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
Necromancer (120)

Battleline
40 x Zombies (240)
40 x Zombies (240)
40 x Zombies (240)

Units
1 x Corpse Cart (80)
1 x Corpse Cart (80)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)

Just theoryhammer, havn't played or seen something similar to this list.

[Murphy]

I do like zombies so that's up my alley, tried writing a unit of 40 and a cart into my rattle list but kept having to drop things I'd be hard pushed to 

[Andreas]

Do not complement skellies with zombies and vice versa. Take either or. They have both the same function on the battlefield. 

[Teletomas]

Zombies!

60 points and merge ...plus the models look great (though I seem to be pretty much alone with this view)

[Squirrelmaster]

With zombies it depends a bit on whether you want to make them the focus of the army, or just the minimum battleline so you can fill up with other things (i.e. the heavy-hitters).

If you actually want a zombie horde, I'd recommend having multiple necromancers, and summoning points set aside. Summoning ten zombies then merging them into an existing unit lets you extend their effective range far more than regular movement would, allowing for potential turn 1 charges. Multiple necromancers because you probably will lose one or two against shooty armies, so it's good to have backups. "Vanhel's Danse Macabre" is also one of the biggest boons you can put on a zombie unit.

Having a corpse cart or two would also be a good idea. And some movement trays — you are likely to have a lot of models, moving them all individually will slow the game down.

If you want to boost their hitting power, the extra attack each from a Vampire Lord on foot is the best boon I can find — the only problem being that the Vampire Lord themself is quite fragile against enemy shooting. Mannfred and Neferata both have "alright" command abilities, but are expensive and prevent you from having a decent command trait, so I'd be more likely to run a Coven Throne or just pick any random guy to be my general — the "Inspiring Presence" command ability is actually quite useful for big units of zombies.

One of your biggest weaknesses with a zombie horde is dealing with heavily armoured opponents — the dreaded 2+ rerollable save is something zombies will struggle against. Mortal wounds become handy here — Mortis Engines, Spirit Hosts, and Tomb Banshees give you means to dish these out. I think Morghast Archai are also worth a mention, since they are pretty fast and have rend -2. Again, you may well find summoning is a good option here, since you will be able to choose what to summon to match your opponent.

There is, as ever, the Mourngul — a Forgeworld model widely decried as overpowered filth — which works well in any army. Or the less hated but out-of-production Tomb King units such as the Casket of Souls, Necrosphinx, and Screaming Skull Catapults, which I feel would all add something useful here. The Wight King with Infernal Standard is another potentially useful compendium warscroll that I don't think ever had an official model. It's up to you whether you want to go down these routes.

I guess you might also want some fast stuff, but again I think having some decent summoning and multiple backup wizards will help cover that reasonably well.

[Squirrelmaster]

(Disclaimer: I'm a lot more experienced with theoryhammer than actual games.)

[Murphy]

Some great advice there thanks, I know with Zombies it's weight of numbers that helps them kill stuff but even numbers have a limit so some Nighthaunt units would be helpful for sure. Might look into Vlad or Manfred a massive unit of zombies with 2+ to hit and wound is insane. 

[Bradifer]

Nobody has really mentioned this, but zombies are simply not threatening.

Even in a horde size 40, if they're at 3+/3+ or wahtever, maybe higher with other buffs + double attack from Danse Macabre....The thing is, no rend, and they have no range on their attacks.

So it's not like you're going to get 30+ attacks, unless you Danse Macabre. More likely you will get 10-15 ish depending on who you are fighting. You still only get 1 attack per model, no rend, 1 damage.

An entire army planned around really slow, unthreatening mobs with no armor save is not exactly intimidating.

Big blobs of skeletons are actually very threatening. Skellies with spears can fight 3 ranks worth (3 bases deep) and they can have 3 attacks per model, easily 3+hit/4+wound if near a hero, try using Dance Macabre on a 40 man skeleton blob, if they're all in, it's 120 + 120 3+/4+ attacks.

Support with a big monster, 1-2 necromancers, some fast scoring units/chaff (Hexwraiths, dire wolves, black knights) and maybe Morghast Archai to kill enemy with high armor save, and you have a real army.

[Squirrelmaster]

Yes, skeletons hit harder than zombies, no question. Zombies on 2+/3+ will average 5/9ths of a wound each, skeletons on a 4+/4+ with 3 attacks will average 3/4 of a wound each, and will get more models in range thanks to spears.

Vanhel's Danse benefits both the same: +100% (assuming you don't lose any attacks).

+1 to wound is really not great for zombies, it only amounts to a +25% boost. It's better for skeletons, where it's +33%. For zombies, you really want +1 attack, which is again a +100% boost (for skeletons it would only be +33%). There's nothing that boosts skeletons as much as +1 attack boosts zombies.

With +1 attack, skeletons average 1 wound each, zombies average 1 and 1/9th (but remember, skeletons get mode models in thanks to spears). Depending what you're up against (and therefore, how many models you can get in), it's the only way zombies will get close to skeleton levels of damage.

Skeletons are also a better tarpit against Rend "-", thanks to their armour save, but zombies tarpit better against everything else. Zombies are also easier to summon, and you can pull off tricks with summoning and merging to get them into combat faster. They can cover more of the board, restricting your opponent's movement options. They are better at holding objectives.

[CoffeeGrunt]

It's all well and good theoryhammering it out, but as you note that +1 Attack is +100% attack damage on Zombies, it sound really powerful, until you realise it's just a doublespeak way of saying that you're doubling the attack power of a trash model. Zombies have never, ever been a hammer unit, and still aren't, they're merely a cheap tarpit.

The main problem will be keeping them alive and keeping the buff units alive, as well as having points spare to inflict meaningful damage with other units. You can't really pull tricks with Summoning-Charging because of the hard 9" limit on proximity to enemies as well as having literally no way to buff Zombie charges aside from Vlad, who granted gives them a guaranteed 7" Charge, but if they're 9" away that's worthless.

The other big problem is that your slow Zombie unit is easily tied down with a single charge from a chaff unit if you do decide to blob up into one mass. Meanwhile other units can pound them to their heart's content and capture objectives while that unit ties them down, or skirmishing units can simply harry them constantly while dodging combat themselves.

Personally I've tried zombie hordes, and a canny opponent always finds ways to outmaneuver them while crippling their support and making them utterly irrelevant.

[Squirrelmaster]

Just saying, if you're gonna buff a trash unit, better a +100% than a +25%.

And while a 9" charge is by no means reliable, that doesn't make it worthless to try. There's a chance you'll make it, and maybe a chance of getting a double-turn if you don't. It's better to play the odds than to try and build a "reliable" strategy.

(Fwiw I can think of one other way to buff the charge, if it's really critical — the Coven Throne's once-per-game reroll.)

[Bradifer]

I think the bottom line we're talking is that Zombies are very difficult to turn into a real threat.

It's a fragile strategy that requires luck, and your opponent letting you do what you want, while not simply using any counterplay.

By Comparison a largely Deathrattle army came out of nowhere recently at one of the tournaments with either two or three blocks of 40 skeletons among other things.

[Squirrelmaster]

Of course, I'm assuming that if you merge a newly-summoned unit, the resulting merged unit cannot move at all in the following movement phase.

RAW that's debatable — at the very least, I could see GW ruling that only the summoned models are then unable to move, in which case there's much less of a downside to the whole summon + merge + attempt a charge trick. Arguably, though, merging two units removes any lingering effect — including the rule that prevents newly-summoned units from moving. If that was the case, summon + merge + charge would be hugely exploitable, but to me that seems gamey at best.

I'm also assuming that when two units merge, the "starting size" of that new unit is equal to the current sizes of the two units combined, not the combined starting sizes. For example, unit A starts with 20 but loses 7, so now as 13. Unit B starts with 10 but loses 1, so now has 9. They merge, creating a unit with a "starting strength" of 22 (not 30).

Otherwise, merging then resurrecting could also be used to get you closer than 9". But that also feels abusive.

Just throwin' it out there…

[CoffeeGrunt]

8 hours ago, Squirrelmaster said:

And while a 9" charge is by no means reliable, that doesn't make it worthless to try.

Immediately when we started playing, we realised that failing a Charge at this distance is the worst possible thing, because you hand the unit to your opponent on a platter if they go next. If they attack first, and attack hard, they may inflict enough damage that the Zombie unit is impacted. Zombies are very susceptible to being weakened by loss of numbers, and if they start pushing them below 30 men then it'll really hurt.

There's plenty of players at my local who could have me removing fistfuls of zombies by concentrating fire on the blob then charging all across it, striking with the most ruthless, buffed unit first to inflict max casualties before I can even swing.

That's when Zombies go from a high-damage pile of rubbish to a tarpit that's doomed to die hard. Especially if you've gone for the Vampire Lord to give them +1 Attack and thus can't give them Inspiring Presence.

You'd also have to summon the new Zombie unit within 1" of the existing one, as you can only merge in the Hero Phase, so unless you make a very thin conga line you won't be gaining much ground, and said conga line will only get a minimal amount of Zombies into contact while exposing the whole squad to their unit. You can also only attempt this once per turn, so you can't do this multiple times to "walk" the Zombie unit forward.

[Murphy]

Think I'll stick with the deathrattle plan they gain attacks in numbers so with spears just seem like the obvious choice for hordes