(Spoilers?) Tadpole machine or living dead girl?

[Saridu]

My first playthrough (which is stalled at lv19 for now) I took Fenora which turned my paladin into a bit of a geyser spamming defender but after reading an interesting strat about ghosts and the daunting assault on Castle Karador's necro castle, I've just started a new dark commander paladin.

Anyways I just picked up Rina, after using a pair of boots that gave +1 speed to pirates I reckon +1 speed and initiative to undead could very well rock. And, unlike Frog girl she can't have zombielings! (I wish the devs had written in another response to Fenora's maternal urges - lets have another baby! You respond - Fates woman! We already have three, I'm not a machine! I cannot just perform at the drop of a hat! I have feelings too! Sniff sniff)

On the subject of the tadpoles, I wonder if by say the elven islands I will find enough good items as the tadpoles I had in my first game? (+20% defense, +20%int,+5 defense, and oh +10 rage)

What's the verdict, take a chance on the tadpoles or zombie meat shield? And the army of the unliving? I'm a little concerned that apart from ghosts and zombies the only undead for hire I found were in Demonis (Ancient Vampires and Bone Dragons ) I reckon a dark commander, tolerance build could work if I can find the troops.

[Palinius]

You can get zombies at Swamps, sucky but still.OFc also at shipwrecks. Rest of the Zombie army is for hire in Dead Lands.

[Saridu]

Yup the alchemist in the marshan swamps always seems to stock zombies for me but lets be honest, zombies! (Ah Rina, honestly love I didn't mean that!)

It's a long haul to the dead lands

[Gatts]

Just to heat up the ghost scenario in the game - I am now in the middle of the game (Dwarven lands) and by nearly each battle I accumulate more ghosts (I couldn't hire cursed ghosts which are better till now) now I have over 800 ghosts in my back up army (good that there is not leadership cap on the backup army) - so if I fight any hard battle or I fight with undead (when vamps nor ghosts can not steal life) I can replenish my ghost stack right after the battle.

I know that one stack can't win battles, but even w/o tollerance I always can hire a lot of armies that are not undead and do not care (animals, plants..)

Where to hire undead? Well - this is all about RANOMIZATION of the game, but in the first map there is a undead ship - if you are lucky skel archers are there also (but mostly always zombies or decayed zombies) (zombies and normal skells are better than they look like - imune to mind at low levels, resistant to poison, and having the rush +2 speed skill can decimate enemies that are faster in INIT, but don't count that my army can increase it's speed for free - after all zombies have nice defence and more LP than others)

Also nearly always (maybe always but not always I had checked) on the swamp cementry are ghosts to be hired - so if you are skilled adventure map runner - you can avoid the strong undead armies (strong they are when you are level 1~3 and play impossible) get to the cursed house (when you enter the cementry, turn left, left, right, there you are) and you can smash weak neutrals building up ghosts in numbers.
In the same map - finish first quest for furious paladin normally, and let him die in the second quest (destroy all statues) - he will have random undead armies!
And still in the swamp - the evil boy (or undead boy?) has often good undead armies - I bought from him 80 vamps and 150 skell archers (yep - I had leadership only for 4 vamps, but I moved them always to the castle garrison - becouse when you defeat the boy-his undead armies will vanish, and will be replaced with living one... EW! )
And yes - sometimes has the alchemist zombies as well. (not always though)