Newbie Question: Joining The Living And The Dead

[Managarm]

In a previous SP game, I was playing EA Ulm with a rainbow Master Druid with plenty of nature and death for using him as a devoted summoner to bring extra support to the Steel and Warrior Maidens.

After a bit of research I created a small army of Vine Ogres with the help of an Ivy Crown + Druid's bonuses. When I hit Conjuration 5 I summoned a couple of Bane Lords, very nice commanders indeed, but I had no undead armies to command...

How can I create an effective undead army to join those nice undead commanders?
Having a single summoner, It'll take so many turns casting Summon Shades or Revive Wight to bring forth a mid-sized army.
Legion of Wights won't be available until late stages of the game, and Spirit Mastery brings a useful but rather weak horde.
I read something about Carrion Reanimation before, but it is corpse dependant and I'd like to keep my population alive paying their taxes and bringing resources...

I'd be very pleased if any Necromancer out there could give a lesson or two to this puny apprentice...

[thejeff]

Early on revenants to site search for more death gems.

Then summon Mound Kings to reanimate and use them, spectres and liches.

The pretender summons summoners. No need to waste him summoning chaff.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah I concur with thejeff. If you want a large undead army with a nation that doesnt support it, you should make efforts to summon mages which can reanimate or can summon mage who can (or search for sites where you can recruit said death mages too).

On the nature side you should definitely not be using your Druid to summon Ogres, that is far too menial. He should be summonging Ivy Kings who can in turn summon the Vine Ogres. In the same manner that you would booststrap your undead army production.

[thejeff]

Oh yeah, almost forget. Lamia Queens.

[Nick_K]

IMO ghosts are an excellent troop summon. The spell summons extra ghosts if you have high magic levels. IIRC a death 7 summoner will get 7 ghosts per casting. Death is quite easy to boost with items so it's quick and cheap to gather a powerful army.

Ghosts have a chill aura so don't use them with regular troops. They are frightening, ethereal, drain life and can enter the sea as well as having good stats across the board except for prot - and their etherealness makes up for that in sp at least. Also, unlike wights they don't suffer from exceptionally low battlefield movement. Against the AI they should be overwhelmingly powerful.

[Managarm]

Thanks to all for the quick replies and guidance.

Now I see that my "scalable" summoning approach is not the most efficient way to proceed... I'll keep my rainbow pretender doing (serious) pretender stuff: boosting research and looking for magical sites early, and bringing powerful summoners later on.

I'll give a try to Ghosts, they have plenty of abilities including stealth, excellent for raiding alongside the Steel and Warrior Maidens!

Another very good Death/Nature trick is the Gift Of Reason + Tartarian Gate combo, although it has a steep death requirements (D7) it's easy to achieve forging some items.

Apart from the Mound Fiends, which other undead commanders have the "Reanimate" ability?