This is one of the warbands in the Mordheim setting which draws a lot of attention because of the eyecatcher and initial combat monster: the vampire.

Then often they get played and the difficulty of play often goes way beyond what a lot of people expected/imagined.

First you can buy back a vamp if his predecessor dies, but do not think it is easy to round up the money. Second, if the vamp is staked and not returns and you loose your necromancer the whole warband goes byby… believe me it happens…

Undead are a quirky warband:

The only warband who is allowed to buy back their, rather expensive, leader. The Warband with the least attractive hero, the dreg. A spellcaster, which half of its spells rely on a non-mandatory henchmen choice: The necromancer. The only warband that can disappear in one fell swoop… (It happens).

These are great obstacles and yet the fun things, which make the undead worth playing. But first lets take a glance at the characters in the warband

Vampire: A combatmonster pur sang. Starts with WS4, S4, T4 and to top it of 2 wounds…
Do not forget he has M6 and BS4 and not to forget I5… but more about that later.
Necromancer: A very important spellcaster in the warband, though rather restricted in his spells, which is IMHO to specialized in one direction. Later more…
Dreg: This is not a bad character and they fit the fluff, but as far as other warbands considered, the least attractive hero in the lot. Youngblood stats for hero prices…
Ghoul: In fact the henchman of choice, was it not for his price. T4 and causes fear… yummy…
Dire wolf: A good companion for accompanying the vampire even has 2 attacks when it charges its full 18".
Zombie: if there ever was canonfudder, it is this one and then nice abilities to boot…

Warband design

Let's see there are a couple of options here. You could go for the fast movers, the shambling horde, or the living undead warband…

1. Fast movers

here you make the most of the M6 of your vampire. The ones that can follow are the direwolves. Backup then needs to be provided by your dregs and necro. These then are either filled up with ghouls or zombies.

What is very important here is how much money you want to spend on your fast movers. The vamp is mandatory, but a direwolf cost 50 GC a piece.
You give the vamp a sword and mace, the necro a bow, the dregs some stuff and then you have money left for 5 wolves! (This makes for 10 members in total.) This could easily spell victory in the first combat…

There is a great chance that your necro will have a useless spell :-)

Strategy: You try to make use of the speed of your vamp and dogs, though the surprise will only work once against a same opponent… I guess… :-)
The downside is a replacement wolf costs 50 GC, which is rather steep.

2. Shambling horde

This is from the start in the hero department equal, but instead of direwolves you go for the zombies… so you should be starting with 15 members.
You can even give the vamp HA and shield; the M-1 is absolutely of non-interest here…
The necro might even have a use for the spell he gets… :-)

Strategy: This one just overwhelms the opponent by hordes of creatures which almost only can be knocked down and (if the necromancer has reanimation) keep coming back if they are killed. Protect your necromancer, as he is the most important in this type of play. The Vampire can concentrate on protecting himself and give assistance where needed.
Zombies are cheap and spells (necromancy) are there to bolster them and make them really fearsome.

Downside is the lack of speed, as the "shamblers" are restricted to normal move except when charging…

3. The living Undead

This warband has only one undead member and that only is there because he is mandatory: the vampire… :-)

You start again with the 5 heroes, as we know now. Then for the rest you buy Ghouls. Probably one of the best henchmen around. He needs (may not even think about it) no equipment has T4 and 2A.

You are able to by 6 ghouls, which bring it with the heroes on 11 members. You even have the chance to spend on some extra equipment like a bow for the necromancer, or spears for all dregs. He! And all move at least 8" when marching.

Downside is the fact that ghouls do cost 40GC not as expensive as a direwolf, but very close. It also means a lot of poison is effective. Do not underestimate that fact… just think about weeping blades, or blowpipes…

Of course you can mix those things a little, but then you dilute the strengths of each concept a bit. This might work, I will give you that but in the long run…

Undead and skills

First lets concentrate on the vampire, as he is the one which can combine al those nice special undead abilities and certain skills.

· He causes fear, which is very nice if your opponent has a low Ld-value. You normally can count on 1 in 3 keeping behind standing and shaking in his boots. This also makes the fearsome skill useless, but who complaints…

Immune to psychology, which officially says he cannot get stupid, or frenzied.

Immune to poison, which is nice as dark venom, poison scorpion tale attacks and stuff add no bonus. This also means that potion and drug do not work.

No pain. Treating stunned as Knocked down instead is very very nice, especially if you give the guy jump up. This means either take him OOA, or get beaten into a pulp… again…

Though obvious combination are clear to the most people (i.e. resilient and T4 is always nice, as is step aside, and mighty blow), there are other skills which are very handy for your main fighter.

If you are in combat your goal is to take out the enemy, so how is this best accomplished?

You need to hit and wound first, which is not that big a problem as the vamp is WS4 and S4. But after that it gets tricky. You have 33% chance to take out a character 16% if he is a dwarf. So to pull this to 50/33%, think about strike to injure.

Furthermore your vampire has M6, so with scale sheer surfaces he will be the shreck of all people high up.

A nice one I noticed is the skill leap, as this not only give you a random distance advance, but also a way to avoid interceptors, as you are allowed to jump over them. :-)
· Of course if you then even add sprint, you come very close to that skaven sorcerer with black fury…

Now lets get to the dreg, the so-called pitiful excuse of a hero. Though he has several advantages, firstly he advances rather quickly, gaining 4 advances within 8 XP. Secondly you are allowed 3 of them!

If they get killed, it is a bit sad for the earned experience, but they are cheap to replace. But what skills are handy…

Firstof a dreg needs to survive, so with their meager skill list I think step aside is almost mandatory, then extra skill will be added fast. From that point on they turn small combat monster very quickly. Do not forget armour on these guys, though replacing them gets more expensive then…

Finally we get to the Necromancer. A not unimportant character with rather specialized spells.
The first thing to doe at warband creation is to see what spell the necromancer will get, as this influences warband creation a lot in my opinion. I dare say it has the most influence of all warbands.

If the Necromancer gets a skill advance, most often it is handy to choose a spell as a lot of spells have low difficulty rolls. But let's get to the spells and all relevant commentary with that.

1. Lifestealer (Diff10)

This is actually a great damage spell and it even gives your caster a nice bonus. Downsides are there too: the high difficulty. This almost screams for the sorcery skill, a familiar or Mind Focus. Furthermore it has only a range of 6", which means every model I know except for a dwarf with a legwound, can charge you. This is a very unfavorable situation… Better hand out weapons to the poor dude.

2. Re-animation (Diff5)

I will say that this is the zombie boost spell. Someone take'm out, you take 'm back. Even from a relative save distance. This spell has only big use if you have zombies in your warband… (Duh!). This one only woks on that mindless canonfudder. It can really stress your opponent, or it might bolster his XP-earnings. Of Course the shambling horde warband is the way to go for max profit.
The nice bonus of this spell is, that if you do not loose to many heroes, routetests will be of the past, as all zombies turn up again…

3. Death vision (Diff6)

I started a warband thrice now and every time this was my starting spell. I rather hating it at the moment. In my experience it has almost no extra value, cause if they charge your Necro, do not expect him to put up a great fight. In my opinion this could have been a special skill for undead Heroes.

About the only advantage (yup there is one) is that it only needs to be cast once in a battle. That is why my necros always have a bow and my last also Hunting arrows…

4. Spell of Doom (Diff9)

The multiwound killer, doesn't matter how strong, tough, skillful, or lucky a character is, if Necrodude gets within 12" (very nice!) and the spell works…
The character is toast, either he goes OOA, or models that charged him take care of the rest… I rather like this one as it gives the necro distance, difficulty is not overly high and it can take out everything…

5. Call of Vanhell (Diff6)

This is a rather strange spell. The workings are clear, but the effects are strange in my opinion. Nice tough is that this one also works on the smelly wolves. Like they need that extra move, or that Ol' necro can keep up…

This also makes it again one of the specialized spells, only useful if you use zombies/wolves.
But what is the use? If you have several zombies/wolves it does not make the horde faster. It does not make the model charge anything extra. If it charges in the call's move, it could do it on its own too…

Although this is a mandatory fluff spell, I at least expect giving a model an extra attack if the spell succeeds, or make a full march/charge move. Or at least let you move D3 models or so… (Now you may guess what my second spell was after I started with deathvision and no zombies or wolves…)

6. Spell o' Awakening (Diff NA)

A lot of people think this is the spell of the lot, it always works and can give great benefits. But remember the chance that a hero dies is about 14%. On the upside is that I once fought the beastmen and they lost 2 heroes, permanently. I gained 2 zombies with great stats (both of course 2 wounds). On the nice side is also, that you only need to have the spell, no further testing etc. Of course if you have re-animation it is a beauty…

Now onto a rather important chapter for the undead. They are always in need of something that has own initiative, earns experience and will move faster the 4"…

Hired swords

In fact up till now there are only 4 Hired swords available for the undead warband:

1. Ogre Bodyguard

This one comes with a hefty price and hefty upkeep (where is that returned favour If you need one). But his impressive stats are worth it. 3 wounds, move 6 and fear causing are just a few.
There is only one important question, do you go for 2 handweapons, or for a 2-handed weapon. My personal favourite is the latter, as taking out enemy is more important in my eyes. Though more attacks should give you more chance on that. But say for yourself, do you like 3 rolls with 25-33% chance of making an injury roll, or do you like 2 rolls of 33-40% of making your opponent bleed (though you tend to hit last in this option, in the beginning).

2. Warlock

Always a good choice. Not to expensive, although some bad rolls in the spell department and you can end up with a rather useless figure. Though chances on that are not that big. And with the arrows, you got a chance on probably one of the best spells in the game…

3. Witch

What can I say, I think she might even be better as a warlock. Prices are the same. But the "spells" are inherently better. Mostly because they have more subtle effects. With special mention to Scry and Age of stone…

4. Imperial Assassin

Though a bit more steep in price, this one is a definite catch. Cost can even go up more if you want to equip him with other special things. He has some nice special skills, of which the Hide in shadows must be my favourite. The dwarfs in my campaign hate it…
Though pricey I would suggest giving him a crossbow and using him as a canon.
S5 hits are nothing to sneeze and there are not many shooters that can fight too, or was it fighters that can shoot too….

So I hope this helps starters a bit out, if they like Undead. But remember this is a bit from my perspective. And half way the campaign my warband fell to pieces…