Undead in 4th

Sam_Urai · January 8, 2026, 11:45am

I haven’t played Undead that often in Edition 3. And although I miss the Liche, Mummies and options for Skeletons and Revenants, they look interesting now. Especially because of the changes to werewolves and soul reavers.

I’m not quite sure which warlord I’ll take, but probably a Vampire. Undead Pegasus is not rhat expensive in comparison, brings all the (dis)advantages of a flier and doubles attacks in the flank.

The ‘normal ‘ one , the Jürgen Klopp of vampires, switches Soul Reavers to core and 7 attacks with CS2 are nice. The ridden version is very mobile and can protect the back of the army, but his price is nearly like the Pegasus and he does not double attacks.

Even the new character with Def6 and his Shadowbeast spell could be worth a try.

Boss_Salvage · January 8, 2026, 2:50pm

Special rules used to cap at 3 … but I’m not seeing that under Lifeleech or the Special Rules section any longer? So I guess you could push those rev hordes up to LL5

Speaking of rev hordes, love ‘em. Would give the third one fire oil instead of the rev king’s mace.

MistakeNot · January 9, 2026, 11:42am

Ended up changing a little bit more, the Rev Horde with the Hammer now has Fire-Oil, the SRC have the boots, and in return for the savings the warlord is the Pegasus Vamp. Its such a small points cost for a huge upgrade, she keeps Dread!

I would like to play my foot vampires but the current rules don’t appeal much. Moving SRI to Core is nice but unnecessary, Duelist isn’t better than move 10… oh well! Might be a second battalion thing.

laribold · January 9, 2026, 3:16pm

I managed to finally get my Undead painted up and ready to go for Clash UK last year. Perfect timing for 4th edition to come around and shake things up!

Thankfully, I’ve got a reasonable spread of units, inc. a nice bunch of Core, so I shall be looking to see what lists I can pull together and this thread is a useful glimpse at what fellow Necromancers are looking at.

My current concern in the lists is getting the hitting power in to actually take enemy units out. I’m not really expecting my Core to do much of anything, even after two rounds of fighting (especially if the opponent has any decent heal around)…

Vince · January 9, 2026, 3:56pm

Undead is (I think) one of the armies that actually have many options for heavy hitters.

Both the Soul reaver cavalry and wights are very powerful, zombie trolls and soul reaver infantry are our 2nd-tier that can go toe-to-to with many other armies’ prime hitters!

The core units don’t do that much in the damage department, but there are several options that will make them more than decent. A hammer of measured force on a horde of ghouls (with the gorger of course) is one of these options. The other option, of course, is bringing soul reaver infantry to core.

That said, it’s also very possible to keep the core units for anvils (@MistakeNot’s revenant-army is a set of high-resillience punching bags). Al alternative is keeping the core cheap using zombie hordes or skeleton regiments (or ghoul regiments using the gorger) and spend the points on the heavy hitters that litter the special and support sections!

laribold · January 9, 2026, 4:17pm

Yeah, plenty of options in there to try out (which I’m excited to do!).

I’m interested in finding out how these hard-hitters get on ‘in the wild’ (especially with a couple of them taking a ding or two - eg lost attacks on ZT and Wights).

Werewolves are an interesting option, and mulling it over, I’m wondering whether they may actually become a key unit, with their long, nimble threat range and strider backed charging. By forcing units to have to turn to face them, they risk giving up flanks to surging units. Will be fun to give it a try and see how it gets on.

Expensive though they are, I’m even thinking that the Helm of Confidence is a decent option on them, allowing them to range off by themselves without the need for a character to inspire babysit them.

Something like this (also partially based on the models I have painted, available , and want to use):

Undead [2300 / 2300]
Battalion 1
Vampire Lord (Hero (Inf)) 1 [195]

Army Standard Bearer [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [110]
Tome of Darkness [20] Surge (5)

Necromancer [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [115]
Bane Chant (2) [20]
Surge (6) [20]
Weakness (2) [15]

Revenant King [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [165]
Surge (5) [20]

Revenants (Inf) Regiment [135]

Skeleton Warriors (Inf) Horde [165]
Spears [20]

Zombies (Inf) Horde [110]

Revenant Cavalry (Cav) Regiment [195]
Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding [15]

Wraiths (Inf) Troop [140]

Werewolves (Lrg Inf) Regiment [280]
Helm of Confidence [15]

Zombie Trolls (Lrg Inf) Regiment [180]

Wights (Lrg Inf) Troop [165]

I’ll be sure to report back!

DarkBlack · January 9, 2026, 5:17pm

They’re also H3, so can see over zombies/skeletons/ghouls to potentially nimble charge what the expendable troops are holding up or get into the enemy second line.

Perhaps consider Inspiring Talisman on the necromancer and regiments of wights?

DarkBlack · January 9, 2026, 5:24pm

As said above, Undead have great hitters.
The “expendable core” is great at unlocking the good units and then gumming things up in a way that creates opportunities for the good stuff to shine.
Like keepjng something in place for a surge into its flank or taking the charge and letting the dangerous stuff get the first charge (even better now with withdraw).

One of the designed strengths (IMO) of undead is that the cheap basic troops allow more elite/expensive units than a different army with a similar number of drops can get.

Sceleris · January 9, 2026, 9:34pm

Think undead are in a really good place in v4 - all the core is good and heavy hitting units easily available.

Like most the multiple warlord/flying beasties list is hit, but fearless now helps the screening units from dying to shooting. Being able to have soul reaver infantry sat, protected, behind zombies or skeletons (which are actually worth taking now!) as they take a charge and then withdraw is great.

Vince · January 13, 2026, 8:34am

It seems that I haven’t posted my list facing @MistakeNot yet. As we’re in the first phases of KoW4, I’m very much testing stuff. Why not take a MSU (Multiple Small Units, courtesy of @Swordmaster ) undead army facing Marissa’s might of multiple hordes? Let’s see if we can destroy the revenants in death-by-a-thousand-cuts….

Here’s my 17-drop undead army featuring six regiments, six troops, two war machines and three characters.

laribold · January 13, 2026, 10:13am

Really interesting looking list.

My only comment would be that with only a handful of lowly Skeleton warriors as Surge targets. the Tome of Darkness seems a little redundant.

Those 20pts could be Jboots on one of the SR cav units

And the 5 leftover points + 5 pts from dropping the Blade of Slashing could get youe Scorched Earth (3), because we all know you’ll fail to cast on two dice the one time you really really need it!

Do let us know how you get on..

MistakeNot · January 13, 2026, 11:23am

The Skeleton War commences in just a few hours!

Its interesting we both ended up with the Pegasus Vamp as Warlord anyhow, its just the best middle ground of our options. The foot vampire is just too close in cost, why not go for the Pegasus? if I could find some points I’d use the Barrow Wight, but the J-boots seem too good to drop, and the Brew of Strength is important (because that horde of Revs is my Mummy models)..

MistakeNot · January 13, 2026, 10:22pm

SKELETON WAR is forever, actually - a draw!

I will edit in a more complete report tomorrow, but: Revenant Hordes slap, Soul Reaver Cav slaps, Goreblight into MSU slaps a lot.

Vince · January 15, 2026, 10:57am

A few pictures:

First the two armies. This is @MistakeNot’s endless hordes

And then here’s my MSU army.

Halfway the battle (just before the first impactful charges:

and then the end result

In this part of the battlefield one horde of revenants remained facing my skeletons and soul reavers. The lone army standard gave me 5 US while Marissa had only four. (The necromancer on the back was acutally contesting a different quarter)

On the far right side, Marissa’s soul reavers contested a table quarter, my balefire another. This meant we both had two. Mathematically we had a draw, but morally I lost.

I played final turn, I removed Marissa’s warlord (who needed an overrun of 2”and got a 1 to get out of the way) and have two heavily damaged units facing a non-damaged horde of revenants. On the rest of the battlefield, Marissa had a unit of soul reavers, while I only had a balefire.

What I learned from this battle:

Endurance is key this edition. Hordes may not unlock more than regiments, their survivability gives the player a huge benefit.
Bane chat is still very valueable. Inspiring remains mandatory. Combining these two on a single model is very hard as one is limited to a necromancer with the inspiring talisman.
Soul reaver infantry troops look grand on paper with 15-attacks with CS (1) and vicious, but the 165 points are better spent on a unit that actually survives the counter-attack. 13 points of nerve on def 5+ is just never enough.
Cavalry (both soul reavers and rev cav) is very dangerous. being able to charge around terrain is great and the increases to attacks/CS makes them dangerous. I would equip my skeletons with spears next time to hinder them and phalanx may actually be mandatory this edition.
Shooting is useful, but only if you’ve got enough of it. A pair of balefires does some damage, but in order to actually succeed they have to be supported by more shooting. Either take ~4 shooting units or leave them all at home. The main reason of this is that all nerve values have been set to the old”rout” value. This means that wavering a chaff 9/11 unit with a one or two points of damage (likely in KoW3) is much harder. First of all, this unit has a 11 point nerve value today (available to both wavering and rout) and secondly, inspiring does protect against wavering
Withdraw is a very useful tool. As wavering is a non-issue for undead, there’s literally no disadvantage of withdrawing through my own units.

With the lessons learned, I can rebuild the army.
Rebuilt, the army looks like this:

This army features the shooting contignent in order to mirror the original list.

An alternative that I like slightly better is switching the skellie archers for normal spear-skeletons and the two balefires for a goreblight.

MistakeNot · January 20, 2026, 3:06pm

So I said I’d post, then it turned out my holiday was actually over, miscommunication is a fun time.

Fortunately, Vince posted better pictures than I took!

Here’s a few highlights,

First Nerve roll of the edition, in style!

This many units does look really good.

As for reflections, I think the ‘Do Not Shamble’ command got used a lot, by both of us, its just a lot more reliable than Surging. And I’m thinking a Necromancer with Blizzard (4), at 100 points, is going to be a great investment.

Belkaleth · January 23, 2026, 8:57pm

Are Undead really fine? Am I the only one who sees that they’re the armies that have lost the most?

Fearless is now practically useless in combat.

The general rules mean that all units get an extra pivot in normal movement, except units with Shambling. That makes the rule twice as bad. On the one hand, you can’t do At Double! order (which now includes a pivot), and on the other hand you can’t make two pivots in a normal move. If you think about it, a Dwarf horde can now move 8 inches while making a pivot. It has the same maneuverability as Revenantant Cavalry (which is supposed to be a fast unit). There hasn’t been any points reduction to compensate for this. Quite the opposite: costs have gone up. (105 points for a troop of Revenants???). If mobility was already an issue, now basic heroes with Surge have also become more expensive.

Most core units across all armies have seen their Nerve increased at the horde level — except Undead. Before, a Shieldwall Horde from the Kingdoms of Men had Nerve 20/22. Now it’s 24. Skeletons and Zombies are still at 22. If before Undead compensated in combat by not wavering despite hitting on 5+, now they fall far behind, at almost the same cost as humans (who hit on 4+). Again, no points balancing to compensate.

The Revenant King is a character that simply won’t see play. Hero costs have increased across the board, but generic heroes gained extra rules (like Inspiring). The Revenant King got the same points increase, despite already having Inspiring by default. And let’s not even talk about the Champion of the Dust Empire (the most useless hero in the game).

Necromancers no longer have anything special about them. They’re just irrelevant spellcasters. They have the same Heal as humans, less than Elves or Orcs, when they should be raising units. Any other army with Shambling units (like Elementals) has at least Surge 8. Necromancers and heroes are stuck at Surge 5 or 6.

The only units that have come out slightly ahead are the living ones: Werewolves and Ghouls. But those aren’t Undead units. Foot Vampires (formerly the hammer unit) are now a bad joke (CS1 while wielding two-handed weapons). Meanwhile, Heartguard are still just as brutal — or even more so, now that they have Retaliate.

Not all of us enjoy running clone lists based on Vampires and Werewolves, and I feel that what used to be classic Undead (the units now labeled as Decaying Horde) are no longer worth taking, as they’re badly balanced in points — too expensive for mediocre combat effectiveness. On top of that, equipment options have been removed (like two-handed weapons), and some units and heroes have disappeared from the list entirely (the ones I used the most).

I’ll probably switch to playing Elves or Dwarfs, which are the armies that benefited the most from the new changes (yes, Dwarfs have always been the favorites, but it could have been a bit less obvious xD). Or I’ll just stick to 3rd Edition and stop using the Companion altogether (which will also save me some money).

MistakeNot · January 24, 2026, 2:02am

Mobility comes mostly from the “Don’t shamble this turn” Command, which really helps.

Try Revenant Hordes if you want to see what Undead infantry can do now!

Vampires and Werewolves aren’t particularly good now, I think, they don’t have any Commands. Soul Reaver Cav is the exception, those things slap.

ImpNotFound · January 24, 2026, 7:35am

I just lost immensely to Undead so they’re not bad. Having the option of surge or removing shambling gives you major board control. Fearless helps against shooting because I can’t even waver those bastards. Wraiths and wrights are still nasty and help with that board control. Ghouls going at the double with a Crypt gouger behind them takes care of ‘slow’ undead and the shambling ones go at the double with the command option. And the army will become even better when good old Morgy comes back. I got respect for the non-werewolf undead, my man!

Sceleris · January 24, 2026, 7:30pm

The overall amount of Inspiring in lists dropped, not increased, in v4 and the only extra rules most heroes got was access to Commands.

The Rev king actually got stuff, Rally for the decaying horde units,over what he had in 3rd and is a similar place to a number of low level dual use characters.

Undead had been blessed for editions with one of the best units in the game (zombies) - who are still useful) and they now have a lot of decent core options. Skeletons are now a viable choice (having been cr*p in comparison to zombies/revenants).

MistakeNot · January 24, 2026, 8:29pm

Zombies at 70 a regiment (Aux doesn’t matter, I have the Core Unlocks anyhow) seem fun, but 110 for a Horde? yeah I’m painting more.

I’m not convinced on the Rev King, but mostly because he can be flanked. Makes him too easy to take out, given that his defense isn’t terrible otherwise.. but the Rallying didn’t really affect me, but that’s mostly because 25 nerve hordes either break or are super safe, making them 26 didn’t change that!

I do think he’s kind of worth, when compared to the battle standard. Not that many points more for a Surging hero with the commands.. just tougher and with a couple of attacks. Maybe in a build with a bunch of Rev Regiments!