Is Necromancer the most powerful and versatile unit in King's Bounty series?

[Autoclave]

I really cannot come up with a *better* unit than this one.

Just a few reasons

1. AoE attack that curses enemy invoking -1 morale. Since the curse itself is a negative effect the actualt result is a -2 morale (if enemy has no positive effects). Just add another negative effect and the enemy unit is reduced to critical morale which effectively cripples him.

2. Plague. Omg omg omg! Extremely powerful mass Spell, hell even mages don't have mass effect plague. Again +1 morale for your undead. and an attack/defense/health penalty for the non-undead (except for daemons and plants). Reducing enemy health effectively allows you to kill more units with all sort of damaging spells. I always use this before casting black hole.

3. Spell shackles. I don't remeber seeing any sort of leadership requirement for this one. OMG...

4. Raise Undead, and if the previous 3 are not enough, than this is just icing the cake.

back to the point 1, with endgame warrior, i was capable to do above 5000 hp damage (having attack ~ 100, base 30 + 70) as an AoE attack with potentially 7 units being damaged.

Oh.. and the ability to train him in crossworlds from archmages is fantastic. I don't need to hope for the random number generator to be able to recruit them soon

[Minecontrol]

I would like to use Undead for a change but i haven't a clue how you would resurrect them to qualify for no loss (i generally prefer no loss games)?

How do the strategies for resurrection go when using undead?

[Autoclave]

I always see this "no loss games". Do you mean not loosing individual troops during battles?

All ghosts have soul draining ability which makes them replenish their troops after doing damages. They can even go above their current numbers. Vampires have something similar in bat form, but they cannot go above the original stack size.

So with careful playing you don't have to worry about ressurecting these two.
Put target on ghosts, stoneskin, and you have an almost unkillable unit by physical damage.

As for the spells: You have eviln and turn back time. Eviln is probably the most incovenient ressurection spell, but it is pretty powerful. There is also necro call that raises your dead troops. I don't know however if this counts as a ressurection or a summoning that vanishes after the battle.

[Elwin]

Originally Posted by Minecontrol

I would like to use Undead for a change but i haven't a clue how you would resurrect them to qualify for no loss (i generally prefer no loss games)?

How do the strategies for resurrection go when using undead?

evlin, turn back time. Fair enough for that.But you know that time back using is pretty tricjy, awesome to use at 2nd round but harder later.
On the topic,i never found them that powerfull i prefer demonologists more somhow ^^But i am not fan of undead units, except my lovely black knights ;p. They are the most powerfull in the game. Maybe not versatile but in terms of power they are the best.

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Minecontrol

I would like to use Undead for a change but i haven't a clue how you would resurrect them to qualify for no loss (i generally prefer no loss games)?

How do the strategies for resurrection go when using undead?

Well, frankly I modded the game to create an "Animate Dead' spell that works like Resurrection to achieve no-loss in The Legend. In AP, you can use Evlins - they are pretty effective, and all you need is some unit-spawning enemy to be left alive (like a Gremlin Tower) to provide corpses. But Ancient Vampires, and to a lesser extent, Cursed Ghosts kinda replenish their own losses. In fact, Ghosts can be a big problem if the enemy is too weak. I usually withdrew them from the battle when they started reaching the leadership limit, and using about 10-20 less then what my leadership allows me.

Necromancers are indeed excellent. They are also lightning fast, so they can cripple enemies before they can act - I especially liked to Plague the Black Dragons (yes, it works on them as it's a disease, not magic) and then unleash hell with my Dragon Arrow Skeleton Archers.

In the Legend, this was my undead army by the endgame:

- Black Knights (the backbone of the army, main tank, +1 speed really helps to make them reach the enemy faster. Don't hit that hard early on, so work your 'anger' up by swatting weaker enemies first before you charge the main threat.)
- Necromancers (ranged attack, summoners - enemies really like to attack re-animated creatures - debuff... Only thing to be aware of, don't shoot when your Ghosts are near the target.)
- Ancient Vampire (the core unit of every undead army. except against non-living enemies, they are unbeatable. If you fight undead or too strong units like dragons, stay in vampire shape and hope for an evasion. If you lose some, break off the attack and target a weaker enemy to replenish)
- Cursed Ghosts (The kamikaze skirmisher - send them into the fray and don't worry, they will replensih whatever they lose and draw the fire away from your other units, use Physical Resistance items to make them even harder to kill. Just beware that they never go out of control - if they do, Healing helps. Also, try to block Archmages/Necromancers with them, they attack with physical attack in Melee).
- Bone Dragon (The cleanup crew - not strong enough to soak up much damage, but can inflict a lot of pain, especially with their poison area attack. Just hit the enemy after they have moved. They are also excellent against shooters, as they take very little damage from them, so use them as bait. In Crossworlds, they can even summon fodder! They are not that great against Undead and poison-immune units, though, but rock against Dragons as those have no poison resistance at all.)

I also used Skeleton Archers (they can be hired in insane numbers, and Dragon Arrows make them very potent) sometimes instead of the Ghosts, and for a while, Werewolves. Oh and PLague Zombies before I got Death Knights. They are superior in every regard.

[Autoclave]

If you have moro dark, then you can replenish in crosswordls your undead troops by a few ways:
1. Moro dark convers knights into black knights.
2. In Montero you can also get them from Mesmer, unlimited ammount
3. Dark mistikus gives you Necromancy staff (or whatever its name was) after you complete his quest. It converts peasants into skeletons.
4. Moro dark can convert skeletons into skeleton archers.
5. Cursed ghosts replenish themselves.
6. Training academies allow you to train archmages into necromancers.

So basically only Bone dragon and Ancient Vampires are a little more difficult to find. Everything else is pretty easy.

[Metathron]

I've always hesitated to use any of the two ghosts in my army, precisely because keeping their numbers in check seemed like too much to bother with. Is there any relatively painless way to do that? I would like to give them a shot.

[BB Shockwave]

Well, the easiest way is to get them into the thick of the enemy troops and cast Target on them. Then sit back and watch the carnage... if it seems your Ghosts are getting too much of an upper hand, fire off a Fireball or a Lightning into the crowd. That's pretty much how I handled things as a Mage.

If you are not a Mage, you can try diverting your Ghosts and sending them against enemies they cannot drain life from when they get near the Leadership limit. Ghosts are awesome Cyclops blockers - they have excellent resistance against their attacks and are fast enough to get there and block them.

[Autoclave]

Target is very good. Yeah, sometimes it's a pain in the ass, if they drain too many souls, they might even become actively hostile. I had to reload a few games because of this.

However, target and necromancer AoE attack are good things to keep their numbers in check. I enter every battle with 20% less ghosts then my max leadership.

They had to add this drawback to ghosts, otherwise this would be one of the most overpowered units in the game.

[Sir Whiskers]

Originally Posted by Autoclave

They had to add this drawback to ghosts, otherwise this would be one of the most overpowered units in the game.

This is actually one of the many elements Katauri kept from the original King's Bounty, published 20 years ago by New World Computing. Even then, a player had to be very careful with ghosts, lest they go out of control.