Hi everyone! This is my first foray into KoW but I am a lover of Undead overall across all genres. I have done some reading about the game and this is a list I came up with. Mostly to test and see if I would enjoy the game in general before taking a bigger plunge. I would love some help and advice or anything you can share really.
Zombie Regiment
Zombie Horde
Goreblight (The model that made me want to play KoW and probably why I went full on zombies)
Zombie Trolls Regiment
Zombie Trolls Horde
Necromancer with Vicious Aura, Bane Chant and Sacred Horn (I am 5 points of for the inspiring item so I went with horn)
Mhorgoth the Faceless (I read somewhere he is almost mandatory?)
Welcome!
I think the list needs two Inspiring sources. Having too little Inspiring in an army is a typical rookie mistake IMO which I have seen lead to new players getting frustrated and disillusioned when their units suddenly die on the first nerve check. Forcing the nerve reroll is vital for flattening any spike results which one shots your units.
I would take out mhorgoth and get the Inspiring on the necro, and see if I could squeeze in one or two cheap heroes. Like a flag bearer with the surge (4) item plus a liche king or even a revenant king to have a punchy individual to deal with flyers who land behind your lines.
Taking your advise to have 2 inspiring hero and a backline babysitter, would it be wise then to drop Mhorgoth, give the necromancer the inspiring talisman and adding in a vampire lord with surge? This gives me a 50 point balance which I could use to upgrade the zombie regiment to a zombie horde.
I wouldnât recommend a Vampire Lord at 1k level. There are cheaper alternatives for inspiring and surge. Morgoth is great (even though he got nerved), but too expensive for a start, imho.
I think @FredOslow gave good advice there with the ASB or Revenant King.
Congrats on the Goreblight, I love the model! It also never let me down in my games. Itâs a beast!
On the Standard Bearer I like Tome of Darkness, Shroud of the Saint, Boomstick or Zephyr Crown. Basically he will probably be parked behind your units the whole game so giving him one of those items means he can contribute in some fashion.
Liche comes with a great Surge built in, adding a second spell like Drain Life and adding the Conjurerâs Staff is usually good. He has almost too many spells to choose from, itâs easy to fall for the temptation to take too many, and suddenly he is more expensive than even Mhorgoth.
Rev King is good with a mount and maybe a cheap item like the Mace of Crushing. I donât know if Surge on him is worth it because he is usually too busy fighting to be able to cast it.
I am looking at the points and it feels more logical to go for a Standard Bearer with tome + a vanilla liche. This tops me off at 1000. I think I like this having 3 inspiring and 3 surge heroes around supporting. Feels thematically undead.
This can be in my mind a Liche with his banner skelly watching an upstart necromancer raise a zombie horde!
I like your zombie theme, itâs what Iâve played mostly in the beginning and it is still fun. Itâs kind of hard actually winning games, because itâs very slow and taking/holding objectives is, depending on where they are placed, annoying. But, sweet undead, itâs also hard to beat the list, because as slow as the dead guys are, they are flexible thanks to surge. Surge shouldnât be your main focus, because the whole army (with few exceptions) is surgeable, so you have it with your necromancer, no matter what else you field. Get used to knowing when surge will be most devastating (accidently facing backwards to a horde of zombies can take out titans in a single charge), but donât surge, only because you can. Like the others mentioned before, Iâd recommend another inspiring hero to the necro (skip morgoth imo), I personally love mounted Revenant kings. At 1k one is enough I think, but two will annoy your opponent and can do nasty surge things when you might need them. But 2 heros at 1k will do, maybe take something speedy, like the lykanis (fast, almost guaranteed hit to ground and disorder, AND scoring).
But as I said, your origin list idea is cool at low point games, because you can swap the enemy with pure mass, you only have to keep in mind that undead arenât fast in that constellation.
Ah, mea culpa! I donât play that points very often, and normally donât double heros at higher points toođsorry. So, necro and rev king, or necro and lykanis with inspiring f.e.
I would have taken double necromancers if i could. It is a way more thematic win having 2 necros lug around swarms of zombies haha. But i guess its also good to have a variety to try and see what exactly i enjoy. It might help going forward.
Surge + inspire is really the staple for undead armies that go shambling. (the other way is elite soul reaver/werewolf heavy). Iâd go for necro + taliman plus revenant king + surge +horse, but the cheaper banner + tome is a decent option too.
In 1,000 points, Iâd not go for triple heroes, as this is too much of a drain in points. Instead, Iâd invest in a faster unit which also shamble such as wraiths or a wight regiment.
The last 2 units are 260 points and are âextraâ (chaff and fast option) which can also be other units such as a regiment of revenant cavalry and a chaff unit or balefire catapult.
Thanks for all the helpful tips and advice everyone. I think the big takeaway for me is to have 2 inspiring + surge sources at least. I guess I will have to play a little to see where the lists goes beyond 1k. I will be trying out the zombie list first to see how itâs like because of thematic reasons but I will definitely tryout some of the harder hitters like soul reavers down the road.
P.S everyone here is extremely helpful and that is a breath of fresh air
Nice, I like that you go the thematic road! I think Undead are a very versatile army with lots of options for thematic armies. Army of Darkness - style skeleton armies, Zombie theme, fast bestial werewolf, deathpack, ghoul armies, Vampires and ghoulsâŚ
I agree, itâs a very rare and friendly corner of the internet.
Definetely, try what you like. Undead are one of, if not THE most flexible army in the game. Slow and hard to kill, or fast and nimble, and everything in between - choosing a list that feels good is a long, but very entertaining process
