Noted, thanks. I’ll try it out.
My lich idea (before reading this) is a bit more aggressive.
If you’re casting on your own units then you don’t need the periscope and I believe in leaning into what you have.
Also, my thinking on this is a product of my experience with dwarfs, so definitely has some evolving to do.
With dwarfs I have found that squeezing in extra damage, rather than durability is usually the best approach.
Hence drain life over heal. I’m taking it instead of bane chant (extra damage plus healing) rather than looking to get extra out of healing.
I also tried mind fog (to shave points) and it’s nice to support shooting with shattering and slightly more reliable than lighting bolt 3 (from Boomstick). Undead don’t have shooting to support though.
The dwarfish experience is not entirely applicable, though.
I should also admit that the main reason I like drain life for undead is that it’s so very thematic. 
Here’s my take (again, before reading, so not a response/argument).
The idea being that lighting will be useful in the early and late game, when drain life is out of range. Surge is a bit of a tax.
The obvious issue is that I’m 10 points from Morgoth.
For reference:
Morgoth is more maneuverable, casts 2 spells a turn, more potent drain life (especially if cast with Bane chant), extra inspiring and dread.
Casting 2 of those spells is nice, but surge and mind fog are situational. As is having LoS to a drain life target and a bane chant target at the same time.
Morgoth is probably better, but the lich has the following going for them:
*The main thing is the Periscope. Morgoth’s extra manoeuvrbility is useful for getting LoS and/or dread in place. Lich can stay behind my skeletons and doesn’t need to fly somewhere awkward to begin with. All the large infantry complicates this, though.
- Damage at range from lightning.
- 10 points for something else.
- Last, but probably the most significant, lets me rail against “auto-include” legendary heroes. I feel that their rules should be more interesting, rather than better. It shouldn’t matter if competitive players take them, it’s supposed to be a fluff thing anyway.
The idea is to be testing things; so healing lich and upgrading the Revenant King to a vampire instead of a necromancer to a lich are next to test.