New skill ideas for undead

One of the problems we've been running into in our group with the undead is that outside of one off games no one can really see any reason to take zombies over ghouls. We've also seen that as the campaign progresses the warband sometimes suffers from lack of numbers as they can't benefit from the warband limit enhancing hired swords or equipment.

I've been toying with some new skills that could help to get around that issue and encourage the use of Zombies. Therefore I give you

Master of Dark Arts (Academic Skill) Only available to spell casters
The caster has mastered some of the more intricate necromantic arts and can more efficiently bind the undead to their service.

At the start of the game when deploying this model you may also deploy three additional zombie models. These models do not count against your warband limit and may be fielding in addition to any other models that may be normally deployed due to scenario restrictions. These zombies are removed from play if their controller is removed as a casualty or they are more than 12" from their controller at the end of their controlling player's turn.

This skill gives a small bump to the warband size and shouldn't be too abusive as it only allows you to take zombies. So opinions, comments, does it seem overpowered?

Jon Schmidt

I've been tinkering with things like this. I agree that zombies are almost worthless against ghouls and dire wolves. They're cheap and sacrifical but they hog valuable warband slots.

One solution I had in mind was something that allowed them to be taken as 2 for 1, with a limit as to the maximum that may be taken in this manner. This makes them a little more useful as you can trade quality for quantity.

I like the idea of making the Undead more interesting. In our group the Undead player makes good use of the zombies with the Re-Animation necromancy spell, hard to keep them down.

Similar to Pete, our group houseruled that taking a zombie out of actin only counts as half a model (in regards to rout tests). Not a perfect solution, but it definitely made a difference.

As Mike mentioned, it also depends on your spell. Sometimes your necromancer has a spell that makes zombies worthwhile, other times it's something that's good on its own.

It would be a fun use for the zombies that come in the Mordheim metal warband set. Compared to the basic zombies from WFB.

undead need[quote] all the variety they can get
http://www.indadvendt.dk/mordheim/files/ghoulkin.pdf