Undead Cookbook - Undead VS Elves

[UK1]

The 60,000 character limit was looming so I am making another topic for elves.

Carrot Cake - Fighting Elves

Elves, much like loyalists, are a balancing act when it comes to undead. They have fighters and archers which your units are relatively strong against, and then they have mages and woses. In fact the strategy used against elves will be quite similar to that used against loys. IMO when it comes to elves you actually end up having a bit less crap to worry about than you would with loys which I will explain later. The recommended recipe is as follows:
Skeletons 1/4 (base)
Adepts 1/4 (round up)
1/4 Ghouls (round down2)
1/4 Archers (round down1)

As you can see the recipe is almost identical. Just a few changes: Skeletons are now your base instead of Adepts and Ghouls and Archers switched importance. Now mainly the units that will hurt you are the mages and Woses. Fighters just end up doing a pitiful amount of damage to skeletons and ghouls alike 3-4 I belie/ve against skeletons depending on the elf. Archers are going to be almost totally useless against you. Two out of four of your units have retal vs elvish archers and one of those as well as the other two that do not have retal have great pierce resist. Your adept is the only unit that can take good damage from an elvish archer and you won't have to worry about that any time except day basically. It probably wouldn't be profitable to attack an adept at any other time because it's generally 5-4 60% damage vs 10-2 magical damage. At the very least you should deal as much back as they deal to you... But that doesn't mean it won't happen. The cavalry might be a nuisance at first but your adepts and archers should fix their wagon real fast if they bother you too much. Basically your general strategy against elves will be trying to kill/poison the mages and shoot up the woses with your adepts and maybe hit them with other units if u have to. If your adept is quick then a wose can kill it in two hits during the day. Other than that nope. As long as they are on full hp during the day, 27 at dusk/dawn or 21 at night they can attack the wose. Just make sure that it will be dusk/dawn/night on your OPPONENT'S turn. Not just yours. And of course make sure no other units have access to them without the wose having to attack a different unit.

Watch out for:

Mage:
Why: Fire damage.
How to stop it: Kill with skeletons/adepts(kind of a last resort, though still effective) at night or poison with Ghouls.
If you don't: Bye bye skellies.

Wose:
Why: Impact damage plus decent weapons resistance.
How to stop it: Shoot it with your adepts at night (see section above)
If you don't: Bye bye skellies and ghouls
NOTE: Ghouls do not have impact resistance and poisoning isn't very effective against regen anyway. I know the idea of stopping it from regenerating seems appealing, but using that attack slot on a DA is much better and will do much more damage (although woses are weak to cold) also note: do not be afraid to attack with a skeleton at night. Wose is lawful and the damage you do will be far greater than the Wose's damage to you.)

Shaman:
Why: Although I didn't address this up in the strategy section, the shaman is still important to look out for. It can slow your skeletons which can kinda hurt at times (ESPECIALLY AT NIGHT! GRRR!) and it can diminish your offensive bigtime. How to stop it: Just off it as soon as you get the chance. If it steps out of the forest I wouldn't hesitate to attack it with two or more attack slots. Especially if it is nighttime.
If you don't: You will be really frustrated when you try to make a nighttime offensive but can't because one of your skeletons has half their strength and move points.

Side notes: It is worth a casualty/near casualty to lure elves out of the forest (especially if it is late day or ESPECIALLY if it is dusk. Early night is ok but I would avoid doing it at late night, dawn, or early day. For wose reasons)

[TheGreatRings]

Rebel vs Undead is a match I've devoted considerable thought to, and I think you may be underrating the fighters somewhat in this scenario. They can cut up Adepts just fine, and they're cheap.

[UK1]

Don't be confused by the date on my forum account. I've been thinking about it for considerable time too . 3/4 of your units have a blade resist. You should be able to block the fighters with 0 problems. It's definitely the Woses, Shamans, and Mages you gotta worry about bud. Not saying fighters aren't a threat... just saying they aren't a threat to 3/4 of your army lol.

[TheGreatRings]

Don't be confused by the date on my forum account. I've been thinking about it for considerable time too . 3/4 of your units have a blade resist. You should be able to block the fighters with 0 problems. It's definitely the Woses, Shamans, and Mages you gotta worry about bud. Not saying fighters aren't a threat... just saying they aren't a threat to 3/4 of your army lol.

They may not be worth much against anything else, but they are the best Adept killer, except possibly the much more expensive Wose (I haven't done an in-depth comparison of the two vs Adepts). And I would not be confident about being able to block the Fighters. Let's say you block with a Skeleton or Ghoul. Mages and Woses can kill the blocking unit, then the Fighter can hit the helpless Adept behind it.

[Caphriel]

Woses are not weak against cold. Woses have a 10% cold resistance. Please check your facts before making statements

Also, you are aware that shaman's heal ability prevents poison damage to adjacent units, right? Poison against the rebels is not as effective a weapon as it could be for slowing down their offensive. Between shamans healing mages and fighters and slowing your skels, and wose regenerating, poison isn't very useful in this matchup.

And yes, if you ignore the fighters and their 20 or 24 potential melee damage, you'll lose your adepts. Fighters are a significant portion of the rebel army against the undead. Despite the fact that they do reduced damage to skeletons and ghouls, they're cheap HP and ZoC, and you'd be surprised how annoying their plinking is even with 60% pierce resistance. Skeleton units have low HP relative to their counterparts in other factions, and can't get resilient or strong for bonus HP, so their attacks against your skeletons or archers and retaliation damage will add up surprisingly fast. They do 1 or 2 ranged and 3 or 4 melee, depending on dexterous/strong. It's not a lot, but they're not entirely useless meatshields. And, of course, they'll cream your DAs, as said above.

On the other hand, skeletons at night are not bad against wose. Sure, they have a weakness, but they deal 9-3 vs the adept's 11-2 (mind that cold resist), and if the wose is on flat, the skeleton has a better cth than the adept. So if you don't mind taking some counter damage, skeletons get the job done. Two skeletons have a 25% chance of killing one on flat outright. It takes at least 3 adepts to kill one, and they have a 42% chance to succeed.

[Radament]

I also tend to go more fighter heavy, partly because they work real fine in conjunction with shamans, but mainly because you don't want the bulk of your army to be tumbling around with 4 movepoints. Woses have incredible potential, but it's hard to utilize that with all that day/night pushing and pulling.

[UK1]

Caph: Oh that's right. I thought woses had a 10% cold WEAKNESS. It's arcane they are weak to. Also I did mean to mention skeleton kills and forgot in the Watch Out For Section. Adding that...

Furthermore I never said ignore their fighters. Nothing of that sort even. Woses/Mages are a threat to more of your units than fighters. Sorry but they are. THUS they are in the look out for section. I'm not going to put every single unit in the Look Out for section. That would be ridiculous. I never said only target woses and mages I said that they are the main threats to your army and that they should be slightly higher targets than fighters varying of course on position et cetera. I say this for three reasons: One- They cost more than most of the other units. If you can kill a mage or kill a fighter you should probably kill the mage because it's a 6 gold difference alone. Not to mention Two- Your units are weak against woses and mages. And finally Three- Mages and woses are lawful. Your offensive will presumably be at nighttime meaning that these lawful units will be weakened. If a player does not know the difference between targeting units and going out of their way to only attack a certain units then there are some other guides I could recommend for them. Perhaps the in-game tutorial. This is a strategy-specific guide and I am not going to add things into it that are non strategy-specific such as (just when to attack what units where why and how) that is ridiculous.