nachzehrer: Beast or Undead

[Hillhome]

In playing an Anatomist run last night I had an ambition to fight 5 groups of beasts - so I fought some Nachs! But hovering over the group on the screen showed them as being Undead not beasts?? I fought them anyway but they still didn't count for the ambition (I thought maybe it was a display bug or something).

So... now I'm uncertain. I thought they were counted in the beast category?? This is made EXTRA confusing in that they are listed under the book of beasts in the Anatomist set of books. They had Undead Tracks and were listed as Undead but the wiki lists them as beasts and usually they have beast tracks!?

Screen shot from the live stream for reference:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/89769998179901440/969331845395275786/unknown.png

[Cat®]

I believe that they are counted as a part of the undead faction, but the units (small, medium, large) are beasts. Like how wardogs are beasts that belong to the Northern faction umbrella.

Why it's like this is anybody's guess.

[Antifringe]

My guess is that they're that way so that they can team up with zombies. Beasts and Undead are mutually hostile. A side effect is that they can probably fight against "proper" beasts, although I've never actually seen that happen.

[Hillhome]

Originally posted by Antifringe:

My guess is that they're that way so that they can team up with zombies. Beasts and Undead are mutually hostile. A side effect is that they can probably fight against "proper" beasts, although I've never actually seen that happen.

Well that's interesting. Now I want to see if I can't lure some into a fight with direwolves and see what happens.

[Tlewnipla]

Originally posted by Antifringe:

My guess is that they're that way so that they can team up with zombies. Beasts and Undead are mutually hostile. A side effect is that they can probably fight against "proper" beasts, although I've never actually seen that happen.

Can happen, there is even an event for it when you are hunting Lindwurms. A pack of Nachzehrers is fighting the Lindwurms. Usually results in angry, confident wurms with barely a dent in their armour...

[NM9G]

Seems like a bug, the result of a modded game, or a rare instance of perhaps an undead location that had a few nach sent out a roaming party (maybe even initially part of a abandoned contract location).
They normally appear and count as beasts towards ambitions, contacts, etc.

[Hillhome]

Originally posted by NM9G:

Seems like a bug...
They normally appear and count as beasts towards ambitions, contacts, etc.

See that was my initial thought. It certainly isn't modded as I've never modded BB. Now XCOM, XCOM 2, etc that's a different story.

[kit]

Nachzerers can team up with serpents. They will fight side by side.

[Santo]

AFAIK they're beasts -- they count for beasts contracts and ambitions, they give parts for crafting... but it can be as Cat says -- they are beasts that are part of the Undead faction, if that makes any sense.

[Daft Helmet]

They are essentially dual faction although they only seem to spawn with zombies, never with gheists or necromancers. I guess they're scared of the ghosts and would try eat the necromancer. I often enough see undead branded nachzehrer groups as part of 'defend the town from undead horde' contracts, usually as a thematic 'they've turned up to eat all the corpses' last wave.

Originally posted by NM9G:

...perhaps an undead location that had a few nach sent out a roaming party (maybe even initially part of a abandoned contract location).

Seems the most likely answer, locations spawning groups can work a bit weird at times.

[Rat]

undead beast yes yes

[Eye tyrant]

Nachz can be both undeads and beasts. When on the world map you will recognize them as beast by the brown swirly icon, like the one other beasts have. When they are undead, they often come as part of other undead parties or they have a black icon. I have had two parties of nachz fight against each other in one map when the undead party one of them was part of had all the wiedergangers killed during another overworld fight. The can be found with other undeads but it is rare because they are considered weak so when the algorithm creates the party they will be excluded if the power of the spawn is middle/high

[Santo]

In a nutshell, it's like in D&D: the devs have put an undead template on a beast :P

[Hillhome]

Originally posted by Eye tyrant:

I have had two parties of nachz fight against each other in one map when the undead party one of them was part of had all the wiedergangers killed during another overworld fight.

That is crazy (and interesting). I really found it odd to see them labeled as Undead as a group though as in over 600 hours playing the game I've never seen that before.

Thanks for all the responses everyone it is now clear (as mud) to me that Nachs are a really weird special case :D