Undead - Zombies vs. Ghouls

[GeekFreak]

I really like the undead warband and I WANT to like the zombies but they are just so damn slow. On top of that the only armour they have available is cloth with no agility for dodge and not leveled enough (yet) for decent parry. So it seems to me that they fold like wet paper whenever they meet an opponent on top of taking forever to get there. To me the only advantage they have is the ability to sit in the middle of my globadier poisons and not be bothered (something the ghoul can't do). The ghouls however have options for two handed weapons, they're great support for necromancers with disease carrier, have much better movement. Who picks zombies over ghouls and why? I want to know what I am missing because I WANT to like my zombies. I'd like to say before I get comments of "git gud" I don't have a ton of hours in the game and I still don't know ideal builds, it just seems like many other characters are more straightforward with how to utilize them right away.

[GeekFreak]

Also, I had a necromancer in my starting warband, but he just seemed like a liability in place of a more immediately useful vampire thrall. Do people normally start off with low level casters or simply hire them later at higher levels?

[fallenkezef]

Mastered Call of Vanhell makes ALL the difference

[GeekFreak]

So what do I do until I can level up my necromancer for that? Do I keep the zombies or just hire leveled up ones later?

[fallenkezef]

Originally posted by GeekFreak:

So what do I do until I can level up my necromancer for that? Do I keep the zombies or just hire leveled up ones later?

I kept my Zombies and Necro together as wicket keepers, following behind to guard against flanks and to finish off weak enemies till they leveled up.

[Glean]

My little zombie hord in the making I used z's the whole way. Started from lvl 0, so getting the necro has taken a while. I made sure and kept at least 1 ghoul in each game (gonna use them as my hero's so they need some lvls) but stuck with all zombies other wise.

I like them a ton. I think one of the biggest tricks is to stop using ambush with um. What I'll do is spawn them in the closest spots to the direction I'm going to move. Then amble them to where I want to engage with just "end turn". Thats important, since they will never get the ambush so that if atked they can counter.

While that is going on my ghoul follows, fast enuff that he can use dodge to end turn. The hero's go loot anything in range while waiting, careful not to get sucked into battle.

Once the engagement happens the z's work really well. They stick to anyone that gets into range. With high toughness and decent parry later they can really hold there own, but early on I don't even care if they drop as long as they take the charges and give me numbers. The ghoul/hero's are there to do the damage and cause alone checks. So my zombies want to just mire the bad guys apart from each other, and the hero's will just move to the one that is lonly and kill it. Once the hero's are locked on the spare zombies are ok to go into ambush finaly...they are just there to make sure the alone's arn't broken.

It's a bit rough early on, but by the time they get the extra blue pill it dosn't seem as bad. And the fact they can disengage just makes them so versitile. With the ghouls I'm always so paranoid and careful since if they get caught in bad position it's over. But with the zombies I never give a second thought.

I try and keep in mind which zombies are my favorites (the two with most xp/$ in skills) and play them as the 2nd line to give them a bit more survivablity, letting the newbies charge in first and take big leader/hero hits that might drop um.

The only down side is they don't fare so well vs demons and mutated arm mutants. The are still okish. I'm dropping all my vamps tho, so am a little worried about how that'll play out in the long run.

All in all are they better than ghouls? I wouldn't go that far. Ok, I might...but that might be a play style thing. Ability to disengage and use a shield are both very big +'s in my mind and with necro suport the armor thing goes away in the mid game. A few lvls makes all the difference in the world with them. The biggest thing is that all your other units need to engage at the zombie line. If you try and get your z's to engage at your other units they will always be late to the party.

[Paranoia]

Zombies with Necromancer support outperform Ghouls. Zombies with Dualmancer support outperform Ghouls heavily. Ghouls win in absense of support. It is a tradeoff.

K:Mordheim + Vanhel's + Vanhel's Mastery Movement 11 Zombies are hilarious.

[Kernest]

Generally speaking it's way easier to just wait for a sufficiently leveled up caster to show up as a hired sword than to train one up from level 0, since they're super weak early on and all those spells and skills take time to train.

Zombies aren't so horrible that you can't make it to higher ranks with them without a Necromancer, at least if you avoid brutals and deadlies and take easier deployments, but you won't be looting all that much during that time.

[Alexandryos]

Originally posted by Kernest:

Generally speaking it's way easier to just wait for a sufficiently leveled up caster to show up as a hired sword than to train one up from level 0, since they're super weak early on and all those spells and skills take time to train.

Zombies aren't so horrible that you can't make it to higher ranks with them without a Necromancer, at least if you avoid brutals and deadlies and take easier deployments, but you won't be looting all that much during that time.

My UD WB is about to get necros; a WB with 2 globardiers and 5 zombies can take arc/tight deadly missions without a single loss. A low lvl necro will risk a loss, you naied it when you said to wait for a good hired sword.

[fallenkezef]

I started my warband at level 5 so didn't have to worry about zombies without a necro. i can see how they would be a pain before necro's are available.

[GeekFreak]

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll keep the zombies around, adjust how I play them, drop the necromancer permanently until I can hire one that is leveled. I orginally had it with 3 zombie, 2 ghouls, and I think I'll go back to that and just try to push through the early stage pain.

[fallenkezef]

They are worth it when you get mastered call, the 30% damage absorb makes them into nasty little tanks.

[Penny Royal]

I enjoy the damage my Necro can deal with Rotten Corpse on disease carriers. Ghouls are much better than Zombies IMO, running around with a Crypt Horror lurking in the wings just waiting to clean up the diseased mess.

[Warlord]

The zombie models and animations are the coolest thing in the game. That reason alone means you should pick it.

#TeamZombie

[Jhones]

I ran Zombies from day 1. Vamps in heavy mean they stick with the zombies, and you just have this sledgehammer slowly squishing across the map.

On maps with split deployment, bang all the zombies down together and they can tie up several enemies while the rest of your band gets on with the mission. Finally managed to complete a Crush Their Will mission with this tactic.

And as Warlord said, they're worth it for the animations :) desperately want more custimasation options for them now.....

[Boink]

I get zombies and ghouls. I pick ghouls because they got that "lean back" gangsta walk.

If you get ghouls with high enough movement they can spew traps all over. Zombies are just pure gangster you are not a real gangsta if you only bring ghouls (shorties) with you.