FW Undead and Mercenaries

[dheran]

I've spent some time recently looking through the vast archive of documents Katie has collected and saw something that puzzled me.

In the Mercenary document (M16) there is an entry for Spectre on Wyvern warchief who can be warchief of either an Undead army or a mixed race army consisting of Orcs, Goblins, Dark and Damned Elves and anything that can be lined with those races.
Does it mean I could make a mixed Orc/Undead army somehow?

[rflowings]

Works for the host of Minas Morgul. If you want a Ring-wraith on one of those horrible pteranodons, that would fit the bill and I imagine that's precisely why they included it.

[dheran]

I've read deeper into the docs and it seems that it is either Spectre on Wyvern + Orcs, Goblins and D.Elves OR Spectre on Wyvern + Undead with option for some Chaos stuff and Chaos Dwarves.

No option for zombie goblins and goblins in the same army though

[rflowings]

Presumably they could be an allied contingent? If you want to do this, perhaps we can find a way of working it into the map.

[dheran]

Don't have any army to speak of currently. I'm looking at the rules and thinking what to commit to.
What point sizes do you play usually?

[Katie]

"Does it mean I could make a mixed Orc/Undead army somehow?"

"Presumably they could be an allied contingent?"

No; The undead may not bring allies or mercenaries except for Dworgar (Chaos Dwarves) if they are led by the Spectre.


www.fysh.org/~katie/wargames/downloads/fantasy_warriors/alliances.pdf contains some charts and notes about who can be in which armies.


1000 is a reasonable sized army (and almost certainly the smallest practical for undead), 2000 means you get to have some Neat Stuff, 3000 is probably a sensible limit for getting things done in an evening.

For 1000 pts each, I have: 80 undead figures, 180 orcs, about 60 men at arms, 60 barbarians, 135 ratmen.

Undead characters are expensive; you need a bunch of magic users which are 80pt each or they're going nowhere. Men-at-arms get expensive with mounted knights. Ratmen have no cavalry and are poor troops so you end up with just loads of big infantry blocks.


Vikings might make a cheap option -- they're available in plastic from Gripping Beast and they get to have some decent higher level characters.

Several important notes --

1. The monsters look brutal, but mostly have no wounds -- they get killed on the first unsaved hit. They're a bit of a glass hammer.
2. Undead are difficult to play.
3. Scouting is more important than you think it is; especially if fighting someone who has light on you (already poor archers squinting are a Bit Crap.)
4. Magic is randomly chaotic and can either be brilliant or a disaster. There are some "low magic" characters available to various races (alchemist/druid &c) who are less random.
5. The Priest rules don't work. I've added the suggested replacement for those rules to www.fysh.org/~katie/wargames/downloads/fantasy_warriors/rules-extra2.pdf which is also now on the document pile.

[Katie]

"Does it mean I could make a mixed Orc/Undead army somehow?"

I'm going to backtrack on my answer on this one and say "yes", having read the Italian version of the "Spectre on Wyvern" rules.

That very definitely says your mercenary army can consist of "Orcs, Goblins, Dark and Damned elves and those who can ally with them" which is a lot more defined than the English version of the rule.

That would mean you can have Orcs, Goblins, Dark Elves as main constituents. These are all normal commands and can have characters but must all have battleleaders of the same race.

Trolls & Ogres can be part of the Orc & Goblin commands. Dark Elves can bring Harpies and Hydras. Orcs can also have Goblins (but not Hobgoblins) as part of their commands.

You can then have ONE of Barbarians, Ratmen, Men-at-arms or Undead. These commands are NOT full commands. They cannot have characters other than a battleleader.

So your problem is going to be getting necromantic power to work the undeads... Now technically this has to be by having Dark Elf Sorceresses casting necromantic power spells.

But I don't see why Orcs can't be Necromancers. The Italian rules include a upgrade to create Necromancers of +75 points, I think you could stick that on Orcs.

Note that they'll have to be in Cabal with the undead battleleader... because they'll be dreading the Spectre and if nearby will be making at best a 5+ threat roll every turn not to run screaming in terror.

[Belg]

Being one of the guilty authors of the document in question (yes, I confess!) I clarify that we (Naran Team) did not intend that the Spectre on wyvern could command a mixed army of living creatures (Orcs, Goblins, Dark Elves, etc.) and Undeads, but TWO different armies: one of living creatures (inspired by the Lord of the Rings) or one of Undeads. We made those armies lists for Mirliton in 2006. Since then we have done them twice more editions (2007-2008 and 2012) and now we are working on the fourth new 2018 edition.

I think we will maintain the rigid separation between the living and the undeads, unlike what Nick Lund has done by allowing the alliance between Undeads and Goblins (Companion), extended then also to the Dark Elves with the army list published on Warrior. We do not agree. But of course you are free to behave as you see better.
Cheers,
Belg

[Belg]

Keep in mind that we at the Undeads have added the Vampires, which are really strong. We had foreseen the possibility of making the alliance between Undeads, Chaos Creatures and Demons, as all three of these races are not classifiable as "living". I think we will maintain this approach.