Jay's Necro warband. Swords and spells.

Heya all,

As the other guys have slung up their builds I have caved and will describe my process and such for my Necromancer Krosh's band of not very nice guys.

Following the rulebook's process, I chose a a Necromancer for my wizard and apprentice (for those unfamiliar the apprentice takes his stats and spells directly from the wizard). There was a bit of a bum fight in the group as to who went for what wizard, I think James went for thaumaturge which was not his initial choice, but we wanted to have a lot of variation for this campaign. Cheers James.

Anyways, following Wizard choice comes the all important choosing what spells to give him!

There are ten schools of magic, each with eight spells equalling a whopping eighty(!) spells from the initial rules alone.

Each wizard chooses their main school, of which they can choose three spells. I went for:

• Bone Dart. Whilst not as devastating as the elemental bolt from the elementalist tree, BD is a decent ranged attack with a +5 modifier to shoot, which should be my effective offensive tool for my dastardly duo. Casts on an 8+. 

• Raise Zombie. What kind of Necromancer leaves home without this? Casts on an 8+, either in game or before the game starts. The warband gets and extra set of boots on the ground that does NOT come out of the warbands ten man limit. I also plan on using said zombie as a line backer for my wizard. The warband can only have one zombie, but having this spell roll down to the apprentice gives me a backup roll out of game to get the Z on the board at the start of the game. 

• Steal health. With the probable use of empowering (paying health to power up spells) and miscasting, I can fully foresee Krosh bleeding himself out just on bad rolls. Whilst not keen on taking an apothecary I thought this spell, which casts on a 10+ and drains 3 health from an enemy and heals the caster, would be a potential life line. I also like its double use, damages AND heals. 

For my three aligned schools, I have taken the following (note all aligned schools are +2 to cast which I have done below):

• Chronomancy- Fast act. cast of 10. This lets the target activate before anyone else in a special phase of the turn. This will be great if I desperately need a guy to move first, perhaps escape with the treasure etc. Also not too bad a cast for an aligned school. Also fluff wise I think a necro could invigorate a friendly to work harder...or else.

• Summoner- Possess. A small buff spell that gives a bit extra armour and fight at the cost of will. A difficult cast at 12, but I took this as I can fully see my necro using the spirits of Frostgrave to inhabit the bodies of his men. 

• Witch- Familiar. Another out of game spell. This is a little extra health, coupled with steal health, I hope to add a bit of survivability to my wizards. Casts on 10 which is ok for an aligned. 

For my two neutral school spells, which are a +4! to cast, I just took some gap fillers. At the essentially 20% harder to cast (worse for the apprentice), I really don't see these getting used much.

• Enchanter- Telekinesis. Cast on a 12, this will allow objects (read treasure) to be dragged 6 inches in any direction. Could be of use. 

• Elementalist- Wall. I can only see this being useful against warbands with lots of firepower, or if my wizard gets rooted or stuck. He can raise a 6" long, 3" high wall (of corpses) to block Line of sight. Cheekily, he can deploy this anywhere in LOS so could place it in an enemies path rather than just hide behind it. Casts on a 14.

Note add a further +2 to all  casting rolls for the apprentice. 

So that's my spells, here are the foot sloggers/ treasure molesters that will be going the grunt work:

With 500 gold to spend, the first choice is the obligatory Apprentice, for a whopping 200 gold.

After that I set on some ranged support, I'm not sold on crossbows, but I wanted to give them a try so I took one archer and one crossbowman. 

I have read that not many people go for the 'big guys' (anyone costing 100 gold) for a starter warband but I reeeealy wanted an immortal, undead knight so he is in.

Luckily this leaves me with 100g on the button, so I invested in some fodder and got four thugs to block arrows. 

This has me at a nine man warband:

• Krosh (wizard).
• Brun (apprentice).
• Knight.
• Thug.
• Thug.
• Thug.
• Thug.
• Archer.
• Crossbow.

Hopefully that raise zombie works and I'm not overly outnumbered!

Future plans for campaign.:

Whilst utterly giving the game away, I would like to get bone dart's casting down. Other than that get the real tenth man, perhaps an infantryman or barbarian. Then start swapping out thugs for Men at arms. If i set my lair up in a pub, I get an extra warband slot, with the zombie this would potentially get me twelve sets of boots on the ground. But I am more likely to loose my apprentice in the first elemental bolt of the game....lets see what happens.

Jay.

(will add pic of full warband this weekend guys!)