Well I guess zombies and skeletons can be raised anywhere because your fighting on a battlefield that who knows could have been fought on earlier. In the fluff after SoC it said that the vampires came out after the battle and started causing trouble then, with all the corpses around so I would say that VC wait for the right time to strike. Grave Guard are wights and have better magic on them (hense ld 8 ) so I assume it would take longer to get these guys going.

 

I still don't buy it. Surely there an explaination that can allow a necromancer to summer skeletons ANYWHERE.

Also, Wights in WHRP are not skeletons. They are more of an spirt type of thing that protects their dead remains and kills any living thing that get near it.

Wights in WHFB has become just an eilte version of the normal skeletons.

For my fluff, I'm thinking that for a necromaner, the earth is like a portol that gives up it's dead so to speak. Skeletons sort of magically get "transported" from their resting place to the place that the necromancer calls them. Kinda like moving through the warp. Except moving through earth. It then materialises and crawl out of the ground...

Does this make sense?

 

Well I've never played WHRP and thus no none of the fluff so im just going on what I know. However I think skeletons magically appearing is wrong because it would make necromancers uber, where at least to my theory they have a limited amount they can raise. Think about it, just being able to raise indefinitly... I think VC wouldn't have to hide so much if that was the case because they would control the world.

 

That's an interesting point.
So an necromancer does need to do some form of maintanace on his skeleton. So it's agreed that the necromancer do need an actual skeleton or corpes to raise it.

Any other takes on this?

 

Well necromancers are naturally drawn to places of death - cemetaries and the like. People who have made the cemetaries would object to a necromancer digging up corpses and animating them at will, so they would send forces to oppose the necromancer's will. Therefore, can we not assume that VC battles are taking place over a cemetary, oancient battle ground or ancient burial ground of some sort? They would laboriously pour over tomes about the locations of huge ancient battles, legendary cemetaries and the like so that they don't waste their time in 'corpse free' areas. Once the local watch busts the necro, then the local forces arrive, just in time to be opposed by a raised horde of skeletons and zombies!

 

CHECK OUT MY LIST IN THE ARMY LIST SECTION

For my fluff. My wondering necromancer and his assistant "found" the ancient army of *whoever*. (The grave guards) And managed to locate the artifact that allow him to control it. I envision the grave guards as being in stasis untill called. They need to be maintained, since they can not be summoned.

I'm stuck on the fluff for the regular skeletons tho. Should they be the lesser troops of the ancient army who's numbers can be added to with newly summoned minions? It sounds a bit too contrived. What's the fluff for your skeleton minions?

I wanted to have the theme of an old traveler arriving in a small town with his younger man-servent. And the when the town folks least expected it, he raises a legion of ancient horrors and ransacks the town. When the state troops arrives, the minions will fade into dust and/or crmble and the old man dissapares into the night.

It's knida hard for it to work if he has to hide a legion of skeletons in the forest.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Cheers.

 

As it stands, normal Skellies are just some poor souls who have died on the place (Maybe ages ago) whose are, on the whim of the dark wizard, bound back to their bodies, enslaved to their will, seeing only images from past battles or somesuch.

Wights require more work, and are the remains of long-dead warriors. They are infused with much more potent magics, and as such can't just be risen from anywhere the wizard wants. A prime example of Wights might be Krell.

 

I made my skeletons out of men at arm and skeleton bits, so my fluff is after chaos destroyed a village and some un prepared bretonnians, my necromancer came by and raised them up.

 

I think the grave guards needs some sort of ritual... where all the necros gather up and chant manically

 

I was kinda thinking a bit more broadly, and I don't think this will appease any of those who feel raising skeletons out of thin air (or dirt, as the case may be), but I've got a pretty wild theory.

Maybe there isn't entire bones buried, but fragments of bones from battles centuries ago from various situations. Wars, graveyards, and the like. I believe the Necros raise those individual bones and they piece together forming their troops.

Ideally, VC's would choose their battlegrounds wisely near a graveyard or recent battle ground frought with plenty o' skellie fuel. If that's not the case, I can see Necros bringing up bones of dead animals, piecing then together to form something like a humanoid.

Some of my skellies in my army aren't exactly complete (missing a leg, head, etc) to reflect this. But that's my little theory, riddled with holes, but I'm sticking to it

Later,
Servo

 

how would you modle grave guards with halberds and shields?

Mix and match empire halberdiers with the skeleton box?

Can I get away with swtiching heads on a chaos warrior?

Cheers

 

Yeah it might be best to use some Empire guys and convert them with skellie pieces. And the Chaos thing sounds pretty cool as well. It's all about what you want to do with the models IMHO. As long as they are comparable in size all should be well.

Later,
Servo

 

I believe that in a Warhammer Fantasy naval battle Necromancers can use Invocation of Nehek to raise skeletons on an enemy's ship.

Also, I imagine Grave Guard/ Black Knight units as being like a unit of individuals who have their own story and accomplishments. Much like a unit of Space Marines, Grail Knights, Chaos Warriors. Therefore I don't believe it fitting that such an elite unit could be mass produced by magic but probably comes about through ancient oaths and sheer willpower to continue to fight even after having crossed death's doorstep.

 

there's lots of little reasons for that really

-most battles are fought on battlefields (also in reall life), these are simply places that are strategically important and convenient for fighting pitched battles.
in other words no one cares about the little rocky peninsula at the edge of the island so no battles are fought there but the wide open field in front of the islands main town is a place worth defending.
in a wartorn place like the old world that means that on certain acient battlefields there's generations of warriors lying in the ground, either hurriedly buried in a soldiers grave or left where they died as their buddies legged it off the field.

necromancers and other undead have a natural affinity for death, walking on a battlefield that has so many generations of corpses buried in the soil would be like walking in a rich field of corn for them, they see the potential everywhere around for them to raise.

additionally, provided the magic is strong enough necromancy doesn't even need a corpse, when nagash was destroyed his body was obliterated in to miniscule fragments of black tar like material, the very fabric of death so to speak.
his necromancy was so powerfull that over a timespan of centuries all those countless fragments slowly traveled and dripped into his coffin reconstructing his body untill he was ready to rise again.
nagash is a powerfull sentient being that took a lot of resurrecting, a skeleton is a mere automaton.
it's possible that very powerfull necromancers are capable of constructing skeleton servants from the ether by drawing in ashes, fragments of dead bodies and pure magic as long as death is strong around them. (don't forget that even a mere level 1 battle wizard is a powerfull mage compared to the many magic users too weak for the battlefield, a battle necromancer is probably a lot more powerfull than your average graveyard skulker)

concerning wights, traditionally a wight is the corpse of a important person that has been enchanted into undeath so he can protect his own tomb.
graverobbers expecting to find a dead king with a lot of fancy jewelry find a wight decked out in his acient battle armour ready to defend his tomb.
necromancers don't actually create wights themselfs, they find barrows and grave mounds allready containing a wight and then use dark magic to bind the wight to their will. (or in some cases they don't even magically bind the wight to their will but strike a deal with them to find powerfull allies, lord Krell was a particularly powerfull wight, a chaos lord in life that struck a deal with the lichemaster kemmler and became his ally)

in essense, skeletons are easy to raise, mindless servants but wights are sentient undead, usually allready raised before the necromancer get's to them.
this is also why wights are much more elite, they are malevolent, sentient beings that can think on their feet and fight with all the skill they had in life unlike skeletons. (also why necromancers can't raise them, the magic that animates wights is not theirs, probably much older than their magic and possibly much more advanced or they'd have a army of wights instead of skeletons)

 

what i wonder, if they can make skelletons and zombie's everywhere, why don't the get a lot and take over the world????

could they resurect dead zombies as zombies again?

 

As said Wight animation magic is much older and powerful than mere skeleton raising so could i get someone to tell me how many Master Vampires are still alive since they were gifted with "great necromantic powers" and claim to play their army so you can raise Wights like skeles^-^. I think Abborash is still kickin and Nefereta, W'Soran is dead and so is Ushoroman of Strigos or whatever and is Mannfred a Master cause it never says if he was just created by Vlad or came to Sylvannia after his death, Aneways the magic that vampires use to reanimate dead is on a higher plane than mere mortal necromancers and therefore since a Master Necromancer is on par with power as a vampire and you will always have one or the other leading your force you probably would be able to reincarnate dead warriors from the empyrium itself. and when Nagash went against Sigmar and the Empire why didnt he make an army of all Wights, god knows hes powerful enough,i think he was voted the second most powerful wizard in Warhammer next to Lord Kroak. But anyway hope that helped a tiny bit.

 

I would just like to add for all the curious people out there...

On page 26 and 27 in the VC armybook, there is an fluff text over skeletons stats (for ex)

It sais:

The battlefields of the Old World are strewn with the graves of many nameless warriors who have fallen in combat and been consigned to hasty resting place, or left upon the ground admidst the carnage. Even in death there is no rest for the fallen warriors, for they can be summoned back to the world of the living by black sorcery. And so on.


In other words the skeletons are actully dead warriors of old battles that have fallen on the battle ground and left to rot. And since Necromancers has a special connection too death he can probobly feel where the dead is buried and therefor pick their battleground with care. ( So that they can raise skeletons during the battle).

Thats how I figure it.

 

I figure it's like dowsing. They get a death divining rod cut from a willow tree and go stumbling across the fields looking for the rod to dip down towards the earth. Or they look for mushrooms growing out of cow dung. That's another sure sign of the dead.