From you battle report some of you giants had balista, they can hit undead and after turn 3 you can magic your missile units to hit undead

In my game with my regular opponent we all ways have missile immune screens

so for the first three turns very little can be shot at.

Ulrictar

I agree ... I don't see the missile immunity issue to be a problem for undead or the game as a whole. My only concerns with the undead list is that despite it having a lot of troop types, it really has only one way of playing ... a very defensive style of play rather similar to Marrian tactics which depends heavily on shooting.

I reviewed the Undead list over the weekend; it's certainly vast, and I can see how tactics with this army would be limited.

That in itself isn't an issue for me, nor is the defensive nature of the army. I'm more concerned that the intuitive uses of 2 armies (Undead and Marrian) are so similar.

I think the idea of adding a 'horde' unit type and giving some flexibility to the army selection sounds like a possible change, but I'm worried it may be short-sighted.

This unit would need some ability/selling point that makes it a viable army choice. Many armies have cheap units to use as missile screens - clearly of little/no value in Undead armies. Apart from numbers (which will likely be whittled down by shooting as they trudge across the battlefield), what would these Revenants offer to an army? How would that impact the theme and style of the army? Also, what weapon option/s should they have? Do we want an already large army list becoming even larger?

Those are some good questions ... at the moment, I see them being cheap troops with low armour and a reasonably high missile save (3 or 4) and the option of taking spears. Their low point cost would allow undead players to field large blocks of 25 to 30 of them ... which is something they can't do at the moment. This would allow the undead to have enough regiments to have a wide battleline that would not be flanked as easily. They would then be able to advance more easily towards the enemy. The enemy army will then at least be able to shoot at something in the undead army .... with vampires and ghouls also being non-missile immune, there usually should be something to shoot at.

I think adding skeleton horse archers is also key to making them a more attacking army as the undead cavalry are currently really expensive for their stats due to missile immune. However, they will usually move outside of the range of their missile troops so will rarely benefit from the missile immunity to the fullest.

I quickly knocked together a potential Revenant, based on a Skeleton Pikeman with armour as you suggested:

Movement: 6"
Wounds: 1
Armour: 1 (Missile +4)
Magic save: 2
Morale: 7 - Fearless
Melee: 1/2 Long weapon

This comes to 21 VP (only 3 less than the skeletal equivilant). Obviously this is a 1st pass and very open to tweaking, but may be food for thought.

A first pass of Skeletal Horse Archers showed something similar:

Movement: 16"
Wounds: 2
Armour: 2 Missile Immune
Magic save: 2
Morale: 7 - Fearless
Melee: 1/2
Missile: 15" 1/2

At 41 points a model, I'm not sure they're an appealing option - like you say, the missile immunity makes them expensive. Higher skilled shooting attacks or the Natural skill (either of which would make them more aggresive to suit their role) make this worse.

I actually think fast units with missile immunity have limited value - the immunity pays for itself if you're under fire (enemy fire from range or friendly fire into combat). I see horse archers as a unit that benefits from getting in close quickly and shooting...to a point where they're potentially very exposed to combat troops, which can damage them greatly. They're a unit that (I believe) would need to be used correctly in an Undead army to be successful.

Other (off the top of my head) ideas about making the Undead list act differently:
> Various undead monsters are available - Skeletal/Zombie beasts, etc. What impact would moving these (or some of them) into the 'Troops' section have the army?
> What if all Undead shooting were Eldritch? This could have large impacts on how the army plays and how their missile immune is used (although may be too expensive to be realistic).

For the skeleton horse archers, I think shortbows or perhaps even javelins are the way to go. That way, their one role would be just to follow the main cavalry force and shoot into melee. That should really help make the undead cavalry something to fear .... much like their infantry. With a subtle stat change on Reaper cavalry to make them non-elite, and I think undead cavalry armies would be effective.

For the Revenents, I'm thinking morale 6 fearless and possibly just +3 missile armour so they would cap at missile save 4, which is still above average. Basic ones with swords and another option with simple spears (no strength bonus) should work. That should make them quite a lot cheaper than skeletons and give them a destinct role in the army.

Eldritch missile attacks is interesting but would totally change the face of the undead army. They would no longer be immune to their own shooting so firing into melee wouldn't be a workable tactic for them.

Well the undead would have to choose between having a small missile immune army or using units of cheap Revenants to widen their battleline and protect flanks. They Revenants wouldn't really be useless .... their low point cost allows the undead player to try new strategies. Removing them (along with other non-missile immune units like ghouls, vampires and Fell Vultures) with missiles should be a priority for the opposing player.

I think the addition of a couple more non-missile immune undead units that performed a key role would go a long way to make the army more fun to play against. Your archers would have something to do in the missile phase. If the undead player chose to field an all missile-immune army, then his army will be small and will lack cheap flyers and cheap fearsome troops, so it'll be a give-and-take situation.

I played a 5000 point battle with very cheap and weak Revenants and with a mostly otherwise unchanged undead list and it was really enjoyable. Phil fielded the Undead army and used the undead as an agressive army with no missile troops, except for two Elder Dracolichs. I fielded a balanced 5000 point high elf army and it was very close, with the Undead coming out on top only slightly (minor victory).

Here's the trial list that Phil used:

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I wish I'd taken pics of the battle as it would have made a great battle report. The Revenants worked well ... they gave the undead the numbers necessary to be aggressive and attack the High Elf battleline. Despite having two units of cavalry, a dragon and a squadron of chariots, my High Elves were unable to flank the undead army significantly as it approach, largely due to the Revenants.

I came to the same conclusion basically taking a skeleton archer and putting it on a skeletal steed. It was too costly to be worth taking considering the high price of all the other minis.

I haven't been able to play AoA in the last few months sadly. We need more players in the Dallas area.

Missile immune is the biggest problem with the undead army, and all other missile immune units. Nerfing their stats, or giving the undead ONE non-missile immune unit is completely the WRONG thing to do and wont help one bit. Missile immune REALLY needs to go. Even 5 fixed vs. missiles is way too powerful. 5 normal vs. missiles sounds like the best way to go. Missile immune doesn't add to the character of the undead army, it makes the undead army a power gamer's wet dream. Besides, if a rule is broken it shouldn't be kept just because it's "part of the character" of an army, that is a horrible excuse to keep a terrible rule in the game. The 5 normal save vs missiles keeps all the "character" of the army without being totally unbalanced. I don't know of ANY other game that makes undead TOTALLY immune to missile fire. More resistant maybe, but I don't know of any game designer insane enough to make undead TOTALLY immune to missile fire, except whoever decided to add it to AoA of course.

Hi shadowdragon ... the current idea is to remove missile immune completely and give missile immune units missile armour instead. At the moment, the idea is to give them enough missile armour to give them armour 6 against missiles .... normal armour, not fixed.

I've play tested this a few times but not with a full undead army yet so I'm not sure if this is the way to go or not. We may have to look at this again since the latest rules have reduced the strength of missile weapons so now the majority of shooting can no longer wound undead if their missile armour is kept at 6. We'll have to think about what armour save of 6 means against strength 0 and weak attacks ... does it mean there's no chance of wounding or should it still allow a small chance of wounding?

Armour 6 should not exist at all.

That's a simple enough solution, I suppose ... the only other unit with armour 6 are Marrian Legionnaries who are in Testudo.

I wonder though that if we reduce Testudo to be armour 5 ... then when they shoot into a melee involving a Testudo unit with their strength 1 pilum, the friendly fire will only be saved on a 4. That'll change the dynamics of Marrian tactics a fair bit. I suppose we could always just reduce the strength of Pilums to strength 0 rather than strength 1 ... pilums are different from proper javelins in their design after all. I've often thought that giving Pilums a "remove shield" ability for first turn of melee would be suitably fluffy but that's another topic really.

okay I was a bit rash let me rephrase.

a roll of a 6 should always fail.

Also I have changed testudo to simply be a +2 to armour rather than an auto 6. That is neither here nor there though. The reason I changed it was because an auto 6 is worth more to a unit with little to no armour than a heavily armoured unit. The +2 made it (imo) easier to cost when introducing new units with the rule.

That's a good change for Testudo ... I made a similar rule called Shieldwall for my trial Saxon army that was basically the same thing.

Perhaps 6 always fails is the best approach. With reducing missile strength across the board, a 6 always fails rule would prevent some armies being too immune to missile fire. I think I like that idea best.