Undead Legion

[ShadowMoon]

Well it will take some time and effort to create enough undead for creating an unit. And even then, the number of undead, mage can control is limited, so majority of the undead created will not recognize the Necromancer as their master.

[Dcolby]

Who uses Undead Legion? Regular necromancy spells work much, much better and far, far less expensive.

A 20th level Wiz or Sor Necromancer (Really high I know..) could control 80 HD of Undead. At 25 gold pcs (Material Componet Cost for Skels and Zombs) per HD of Undead created this is 2000 G.P. Roughly the cash equiv of a Gold bar.

In terms of raw numbers and level required to mass weaker undead force not less expensive at all, it could be rather cost effective by comparison.

I do understand completely and agree with the difficulty in deploying an undead legion and the type of desperate Regent that would need to resort to it.

[Sir Tiamat]

One might limit the number of undead units raised, by province level....

(Ancient) Battlefields may allow a little more undead units to be produced.
Death Plague should be a rather efficient way of creating sufficient corpses as well.

[Dcolby]

Death Plague should be a rather efficient way of creating sufficient corpses as well.

You sir have snakes running around in your head, you make me very afraid.

[kgauck]

The problem with undead units unsupported by living units is that they are only a terror weapon. Its way too easy to kill an unlimited number of skeletons and zombies if you are willing to trade space for undead kills. A single unit of scouts, given enough time and enough space could kill vast numbers of such a legion with no casualties. You just have to be willing to keep falling back (although back in a tactical sense, you can fall on flanks, sling away and just back off if they approach you). Its a classic guerilla warfare strategy. Missile troops in general, but scout troops especially represent a risk to the caster behind the Undead Legion.

Any normal unit with a missile rating can utterly destroy an undead unit with no casualties. If you can augment a normal unit with a spellcaster to counter the Undead Legion caster, then you have overwhelming victory.

Undead units are particularly weak. The 8HD ogre zombie's I have been talking about are CR3 creatures. The best application of undead troops is as terror troops against a populace. Even if they all get killed because a bunch of young men gang up on normal skeletons and zombies and kill them one at a time, they will still frighten the townsfolk.

[ryancaveney]

I unyield!! (Is that a word??) Since the caster must travel with the army and the legion responds to his/her orders I contend that the Caster must rest (Unless undead himself) and therefore the army moves slower than it could if unburdened by its necromancer.

Fine, so no giving "do it yourself" orders. However, I continue to believe that there's no reason one person's need for rest would slow the army at all, given that the undead troops can carry or pull the caster in a nice, comfy carriage or palanquin. The only exception to this would be if they were traveling in a place where normal troops couldn't go at all, like across mountains so high and cold that a living caster couldn't breathe or would freeze to death. On the other hand, since to be the commander of an undead army, you pretty much have to be a reasonably powerful spellcaster, even these considerations aren't really limitations. Also, the most likely suspects for trying to conquer the world at the head of a column of legions of dead are the undead-awnsheghlien (Raven & Magian) anyway...


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

cutting their warcard defense from 7 (what were they supposed to be wearing? Dwarven fullplate) to a more reasonable 2-3 for starters

One way this can been seen as making sense is that normal units, composed of free-willed living creatures, generally respond to casualties by running away. Mindless killing machine undead, however, never ever run away, and always fight to the last man. This behavior alone can cause less fanatical troops to flee, not to mention any horror effects caused by fighting creepy unnatural things from your nightmares. If you cut their defense to match their AC, you have to increase their number of hits to ten or so, to reflect that the standard heavy, three-hit human unit has broken and run by the time it reaches about 30% casualties.

Another way to interpret the printed score is that the unit is not composed of mere skeletons and zombies, but rather some more powerful kind of undead creature, probably with some kind of inherent magical defenses or damage reduction. This is the interpretation I prefer myself, and envision them as being summoned as a group from the Shadow World. The 2E creature I favored for the Legion of Dead was the Dread Warrior; they have gotten a 3E update, but I'm not yet sure I like it.


Ryan

[AndrewTall]

One way this can been seen as making sense is that normal units, composed of free-willed living creatures, generally respond to casualties by running away. Mindless killing machine undead, however, never ever run away, and always fight to the last man. This behavior alone can cause less fanatical troops to flee, not to mention any horror effects caused by fighting creepy unnatural things from your nightmares. If you cut their defense to match their AC, you have to increase their number of hits to ten or so, to reflect that the standard heavy, three-hit human unit has broken and run by the time it reaches about 30% casualties.

Ryan

I figured that they were trying to adjust for a skeletons 1/2 damage from piercing weapons - but that should only apply to missile weapons really. I'd say defense 3 (6 vs missile) or some such, more hits would be a good way to reflect morale, and less unbalancing in many combat systems...

My thought is that if they come from the shadow world, a basic sense of self preservation is probably what makes the spell rare - what sort of lunatic tears the evanescence enough to willingly summon several hundred undead when something much worse could come through? (Aside from the Raven and Magian of course...)

[kgauck]

Another way to interpret the printed score is that the unit is not composed of mere skeletons and zombies, but rather some more powerful kind of undead creature.

You've mentioned this in the deep past, but of late I have noticed a twist on it, which I have to reflect on before I can agree. Going with more powerful undead generally means the ability to create spawn. This is impressive, and given the realm spell that powers it, and the time, source, and cash investment, maybe this is the right answer. But we probabaly should consider the possibility that this is a self-recruiting army. Even if its just a ghoul army with ghast officers, it could in theory double or triple in size before you encounter an enemy.

Consider a siege of a town of 2000 souls by such an Undead Legion. If not relieved, the whole town could be slain (except the defenders who die before the breech) and be converted to ghouls. Roughly a quarter of the slain would rise per day until after four days, the whole town (again subtract those who died before the breech, and those who were consumed to sataiate the ghouls cravings for flesh) would rise as spawn of the Undead Legion.

As several posters have reminded us, an Undead Legion requires the presence of the caster of the realm spell. What of the spawn? Could they detach and raid communities off the route of the Legion? Could they stay and hold towns while the remaining dead spawn? Could they circle around and flank an army? If your army lost would the survivors fight the slain a week later, now even more outnumbered?

In a world where undead are raised by unnatural forces, or corrupt magic, wouldn't the normal practice be cremation?

[ShadowMoon]

In my campaign all of Ruornil's clergy are cremating bodies of their faithful.

But undead are pretty rare, anyway...


According to the Birthright Rulebook (TSR AD&D 2nd), Legion of Dead is composed of about 200 undead, which are zombies, monster zombies, skeletons, and giant skeletons. So no Ghouls, and no spawns...

Legion of Dead was a realm spell for Character Level 7. Stronger spell (and of higher level) could be devised that would allow greater undead. And if it summons the undead from the Shadow World than it would be rather a Conjuration discipline than a Necromancy.

Undead created by the Necromancer (Create Undead) could do all that You mentioned about Spawns, but they would be limited to skirmishes, since they are not numerous. And their spawns wouldn't automatically obey the wizard anyway...