How to play Undead

[Turuk]

Ghoul: Useful to hold villages and scare off high hp units. Does your opponent have too many HI to kill in one turn? Poison one and make sure you kill the rest. This guy resists everything except Impact (and obviously Holy) just a little bit, so he can be a nice damage soaker - especially if your opponent focuses on melee.

Dark Adept: Again, your meat. Not as much as with Drakes, but you'll want these guys near your front line at all times to counter-attack HI and to knock out the high defense Fencers. Mermen will resist you 20%, but you will cut through their high defense as well. At night these guys are killers, plain and simple. Go for HI and Horsemen first, then any other non-Cavalry units - the more expensive the better. Even using Adepts on Mages is smart at night if you're low on Skeletons.

Ghost: Get one and probably no more than that. Mages can kill this unit alone in day, and the 20 gold is far too much to waste. Their Drain ability makes them good attackers of Spearmen, as their Firststrike ability actually works against them. Usually you'll want to ranged attack HI or melee Mages, but keep in mid that your nighttime Drain + 50% defense + good resists means you'll usually go unscathed in melee at night.

If your opponent has HI, and has them in front, same game plan, just freeze the HI exclusively. They are the only unit weak to Cold in their army, it is their only weakness that you can exploit, and they have the most hp (tied). The math is simple. You must use Cold - preferably from Adepts - to kill these guys. After they're down, advance as before.


In defense: leave Skeleton Archers in front. They will resist all damage other than from Mages and HI, and they will do some damage back to Mages (in addition to being your cheapest fighting unit). If HI are coming your way put a Ghoul up front. If your opponent only recruits HI and Mages, recruit only DAs, Ghouls, and Skeletons. Skeles kill Mages, DAs kill HI, Ghouls defend.

It's all good advice from JW, but the meat of what you want is in here.

Even though they are Mages of Light and Shock Troopers, the same concept applies as if they are Mages or Heavy Infantryman, except that they obviously will be able to do more damage back to you, especially the Holy attack of the mage.

But I'm also assuming (dangerous I know) that if your brother is getting all these leveled units, your units will be leveled as well. I take it you are playing multiplayer with a very low experience level?

[Ghost_whore]

What does it mean by HI? no, hs just comes in the the heavy troopers and mages, slaughters everything (night or day, no matter what i have), and Lvs up that way, so anythign i get from there he slaughters to! My bulk is dark adepts, ghosts and skeleton archers.

[JW]

What does it mean by HI? no, hs just comes in the the heavy troopers and mages, slaughters everything (night or day, no matter what i have), and Lvs up that way, so anythign i get from there he slaughters to! My bulk is dark adepts, ghosts and skeleton archers.

HI = heavy infantryman

Skele Archers are 105% useless against the units you are fighting. They only waste your gold. Do not recruit them.

Attack at night with adepts on HI, skeletons (the fighters, not the archers) on the mages, and block with ghouls.

[Velensk]

Be willing to give up villages at day to avoid an engagment till it is night time.

[halifix]

A few comments:
Dark apprentices do 19-2 (not 17-2) damage to drakes at night, and 15-2 to saurians.
Now that ghosts do melee arcane damage, their place has shifted a bit. They are less useful against loyalists, and more effective against rebels.

Loyalists simply resist their melee attack, so even at night, you do a maximum of 4 damage (5 vs mermen, but they dodge anyways), and 2 or 3 damage at day or dawn/dusk. They can be used for their ranged cold damage, but dark adepts are cheaper, deal more damage, although inviting to physical attacks.

Woses fail against ghosts at nighttime. With their high damage and low number of attacks, the ghost will always get the last hit. Ghosts do 6-3 to a wose (with at most 40% dodge) at night, vs a 5-2 attack in return with (50% dodge).

Otherwise, the strat is about the same. Other than 40% blade resistance and 60% pierce resistance of skeletons making a mockery of the standard melee unit, there isn't much change.

[Kavalion]

Any way for the undead to deal with masses of thugs and footpads? All those high damage impact weapons really put the hurt on every unit I try to field.

[Velensk]

If you are still faceing thugs, then you must be useing a very old version. Thugs were removed before V1. I'd strongly reckomend updateing.

Dark adepts are very good at dealing with footpads, and realy any other knalgan unit at night. Ghouls, Skelotons, Ghosts, and sometimes WC can work as an effective meat sheild.

[JW]

Any way for the undead to deal with masses of thugs and footpads? All those high damage impact weapons really put the hurt on every unit I try to field.

Thugs? No. Only the Ghost would be an effective counter, and it costs 6g more than the Thug. I'm assuming you're talking about Noyga's Extended Era for this, because Thugs are not in default. Adepts could also work, but you'd have to hit them first for it to work. Otherwise no, Thugs will destroy you, hence why they were removed from the Default Knalgan Alliance.

As for Footpads, just recruit less skeletons. They aren't really that effective against Knalgans anyway, so focus on Adepts to counter them. Their high defense is no longer an asset at that point. You'll need a skeleton or two to avoid from being Ulfd to death though, so don't avoid Skeletons like the plague, just temper your recruit if your opponent goes Footpad crazy. One Footpad is really nothing to worry about generally, so don't gameplan around it unless you have to. Sorry if this paragraph seems disorganized.

[Kavalion]

I actually have the latest version, but thugs are still in the Descent Into Darkness campaign. In the last "mission" I was having an easy time killing everyone but the foolish outlaw. Didn't realize thugs were removed from normal game play.

But yeah, that makes sense that they were removed. Although they might be more manageable with fewer hit points or fewer attacks.

[JW]

I actually have the latest version, but thugs are still in the Descent Into Darkness campaign. In the last "mission" I was having an easy time killing everyone but the foolish outlaw. Didn't realize thugs were removed from normal game play.

But yeah, that makes sense that they were removed. Although they might be more manageable with fewer hit points or fewer attacks.

Sorry, I speak in terms of multiplayer...single player campaigns can assign whatever units they want to any side. Adepts and Ghosts will be your best bets against them, especially the levelled versions. Levelled Bats will do fine as well if you have them.

Sorry for the confusion.

[UK1]

One thing I noted in your Undead VS Drake tidbit. It may have been mentioned before. Don't get on me for not reading through the five pages of text. I'm not... I'm just not. If people keep bringing something up and it annoys then it should have an asterisk or something next to it. Ghouls are great vs drakes. Sorry but they are. They have pierce, blade, cold, and fire resist. That covers all departments in the drake military (at least level one) I know you dismissed them saying that their poison wasn't useful. However, the poison doesn't matter. It's not even the idea to use them in attacking. They just provide good blockers against drakes. They need two burners to take one down without poisoning any units. And even then they may have to swing with a fighter (if it's night) so yes they are killable, but archers are just as killable! In fact I think archers were over-emphasized in your tidbit and ghouls were pitifully under-emphasized. I'm going to post a replay in which The ghoul matched the archer when you added the units up except for one difference: The ghoul took THREE BURNERS and a clasher to kill at night. Not many people recruit three burners... the ghoul ended up outperforming the archer everywhere but at dusk (because burners cost more than clashers) I just need to figure out how to attach it... I hope you will take what I said into consideration. In the long run: ghouls are just as good if not better than archers because it requires MORE and more COSTLY units to kill them. And I will post that replay.

Edit: I was reading through (drake was the first thing I saw) and I couldn't help but notice that you did the same thing... Ghouls are not useless against undead. Every good player I have played with has said eh pretty much the exact opposite really. When it's undead v undead skeletons should be the LAST thing you recruit or they'll get shot up by DAs! Skeleton archers are purely useless! they can't deal damage to adepts (without getting killed) or skeletons or ghouls or other skeleton archers.. You're right about one thing: They're good at taking out those pesky WC. Too bad WC have impact damage and are fearless! I mean fearlessness is the core of what you want to get when you're fighting undead. WC can own up skellies during night and especially at day (fearless!) and ghouls can take arcane, cold, blade and pierce without going down! The only way undead can kill ghouls is with their DA and even that takes some doing. Oh and then the ghouls poison the DA's without getting hit back. IMO it should be DA/Ghouls or DA/Ghouls/WC. No skeletons... certainly no skeleton archers. But ghouls are by far an integral unit. Sorry for using shouting for emphasis. I would use italics more heavily if I could do the ctrl+i mechanism, but alas I cannot. I suppose I will start typing posts in word and then pasting them so I can use ctrl+i. Not even gonna bother with a replay. Open up a game in your spare time, get two undead, for one recruit whatever you said and for the other recruit 1/3 adepts 1/3 ghouls and 1/3 walking corpse. The second will win hands down. I will end this addressing the most bizarre thing you said in your undead v undead tidbit (because I will not continue reading the list.) You said that adepts were only good for fighting zombie swarms. You said they could do minimal damage to skellies. Adepts have an arcane attack. At worst one will do 9-2 damage I believe. At best it will do some 12-2 maybe 13-2 (I forget how the darn thing rounds) damage. How is that minimal? If you use the cold attack then yes you're right it would be minimal. But if you ever tried it the computer would automatically use the arcane attack. Even the AI knows that the arcane attack does a good amount of damage. So I'm sorry, but either you aren't aware of the attacks that adepts do or you aren't aware of the resistances of skeletons. I also noted you referred to "Holy" damage... All these things considered... in good jest: was the last time you played wesnoth when you made your forum account?

[Caphriel]

The original post was written close to three years ago. Adepts did not have an arcane attack back then; they got in the release build in version 1.4. It would be best to check your facts before flinging accusations of incompetence around, eh? Without the arcane attack, DAs were pretty useless in Undead mirror matchups, and since the ghoul is mostly useful in the matchup as a counter to the adept, the ghoul was pretty useless, too.

[UK1]

Oh wow just reread the last post of JW. Thought it said 2009 so it would be one year ago. Now I see it says '08. No idea if that is within the range of adept update. Also I assumed that if it was still sticky and used as a guide that it was still valid. That brings another question to mind: If it is invalid as of a year or so ago and hasn't (obviously from what you told me) been updated, why is it still sticky then? Everything I pointed out still stands. You can't use the excuse "Oh well it's outdated" to protect it because it could still be misinforming new players reading it right?

[krotop]

There is a small informative note at the beginning of the how to play series, but not in each faction thread :

MODERATOR EDIT: This guide is now somewhat outdated, as several versions have come and gone. Many of the units (saurians, footpads, dark adepts, others) have had relatively major changes since this guide was written. There is still much value for new players reading this guide, but if something doesn't make sense, or seems "odd", it might mean that it is now outdated. Just FYI!

Other than that, what you said is rather right. Both ghouls and skeleton archers are good to use against drakes, each with their advantage and inconvenients (you didn't mention the excellent blade/pierce resist of the archer that outmatch the ghoul's for instance), so having a mix of both to protect the adepts is a good thing, and the ratio between ghouls and archers depend on your playstyle.

Also, please note that even if that guide isn't perfect, the community is happy to have it around. Writing it requires both good knowledge of the game and the skill to communicate a clear message about how to make your 1st steps. If someone had proposed something better, it'd be used, but only JW and a few other people took the time and responsibility to write that, so no need to spit on their work. As obvious as it is, arguing without the minimum of tact will only bring more flames and backlashes.

[Yoyobuae]

I like skeleton archers. It's the only unit that makes it worth recruiting drake gliders. Also they help the case for saurian augurs (4-2 impact damage which at night against skels becomes 6-2. not to shabby compared to drake glider's 5-2 or fighter's 3-3 blade (at night vs skels)).

Ghouls too make it worth to have a one or even two augurs around. Not only to deny poison, but to take advantage of weaker cold resists than skels. Again, augurs will retaliate with impact damage if ghoul tries to poison. Their curse attack being magical actually gives them a better shot at dealing damage to ghouls at 60% def than burners (at night).

Undead resistances are nice. But don't forget that Drakes (together with Undead) have the most variety of damage types:
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