The New Age Is Begun: The Rise of the Necromancer Army List

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at the Pits of Dol Guldur army list, which has a pretty limited number of profiles. Today, we're tackling the Rise of the Necromancer army list, which basically took over the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur army roster and added some of the special rules/list building options from the Rise of the Necromancer Legendary Legion. As a fan of the Legion last edition, I viewed this as a direct upgrade - we can take normal troops if we want and we get almost all of the buffs to the Necromancer/others that we had before. Great move, GW, great move.

With a decent glow-up this edition, this list doesn't seem to be catching the eye of too many people, but it's certainly seeing play (at the time of writing this, TTA tells me that there are 288 recorded games with the Rise of the Necromancer army list and it sits at 141 wins, 137 losses, and 10 draws for a 49.0% win-rate - and there were 4 players at the 2026 Adepticon tournament that took it, which puts it at the higher end of the army-lists-used spectrum . . . though it's not as popular as Men of the West, Battle of Fornost, Reclamation of Osgiliath, or Grand Army of the South and as-popular as the Beornings, the Shadows of Angmar, and the Defenders of the Pelennor - good company those lists are). Let's see what all the fuss is on the other side of Dol Guldur, shall we?

The Rise of the Necromancer: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list gives you a lot of profiles to choose from. You get Sauron the Necromancer and the nine Nazgul of Dol Guldur, the Keeper of the Dungeons, Castellans, and Hunter Orcs for your heroes, which is a good mix of guys (and the Hunter Orc Captain sure does look tempting in this list for both Heroic March and the option for a mount). On the warrior side of the house, you can take Fell Wargs, Hunter Orcs, Hunter Orc Warg Riders, Mirkwood Giant Spiders (the web-ones that we talked about last time), and Mirkwood Hunting Spiders (the bad ones you should never, ever take). 

We lost access to the Gundabad Orc units (Captains and Warriors) from the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur of last edition, which means we don't have heavy infantry to make a shieldwall for the Necromancer anymore - alas, this means your "shieldwall" will need to be composed of Nazgul or Castellans. These losses are minor, in my opinion, but do drive you down the route of a handful of models OR Hunter Orc spam lists.

Army List Bonuses

The list has retained a lot of the rules from both the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur and the Rise of the Necromancer Legendary Legion from the last edition. Both lists had the "His Spirit has Lost None of Its Potency" special rule, which allows the Necromancer whenever he casts a spell to add a free Will Point (extra die) if he spends at least one Will point (uses at least one die). The Rise of the Necromancer Legion added to this ability the option for the Necromancer to cast two spells each turn, so long as the spells were different and they targeted different models (Power of the Necromancer). With two 2-die casts for the cost of 2 Will Points and 25 Will Points total, it's easy to get five rounds of casting in a game with plenty of Will for other things. Additionally, everyone gains Resistant to Magic - which isn't as strong as it was in the last edition when spells might be narrowly cast on a 2+ or a 3+, but is still very nice to have on your Hunter Orcs, your Spiders, your Castellans, your Ringwraiths, and of course, the Necromancer. There was another special rule that was effectively kept from the last edition that gave the Necromancer 2 Attacks - since this is the only list where you can field him, it's been rolled into his profile (a great change, in my opinion).

Finally, like the Rise of the Necromancer Legendary Legion from the last edition, this army list can be fielded as a single warband if it only contains heroes (who are not Hunter Orc Captains) - while I generally wouldn't take advantage of this rule, it's undeniable that arriving together in a maelstrom scenario is good (though in all the other scenarios, you're going to give up a lot of deployment info to your opponent. Additionally, giving up Hunter Orc Captains seems a bit steep for me . . . I'd just pass on this, but take advantage of it if you want to.

Profile Adjustments

We have a fair number of profiles today - some of which we've seen recently:

• The Necromancer is pretty similar to how he was in the Legendary Legion last edition - as discussed above, he picks up two special rules that give him the ability to get a free Will point to cast a spell if he spends at least one Will point to cast a spell and he can cast up to two different spells against two different targets if he wants to. He's also got Dominant (5) and the F7/S6/2A profile that he had last edition. All told, he's got a good Will store (25 Will) and gets free dice to both cast and resist thanks to the special rules in this army list, but as I recommended with Ringwraiths/units with the Will of Evil in the past, you want to portion out your Will between casting/resist magical powers, fighting, blocking damage by using your Will Points as Fate Points, and staying alive (and in this list, the slower you burn through your resources, the better your save on your Nazgul will be - while the Necromancer has 20+ Will remaining, he grants a +1 bonus to their Unholy Resurrection tests at 18", 10-19 Will reduces that range to 12", and 1-9 Will reduces the range to 6"). Also, Compel is cast on a 3+ instead of a 4+, which is a fabulous change from last edition. With Transfix (3+), Compel (3+), Curse (4+), Wither (4+), and Chill Soul (5+/channel this one), he's got a really good spell suite for casting twice each turn!
• The Keeper of the Dungeons is slightly punchier this edition now that he has 3 Attacks - with F5 and 3-Might-and-Strike, however, he really does want to focus on smashing through warriors (preferrably of the F4 and below variety) so he can trigger his "Bolg-light" special rule that will give him rerolling 1s/all failed To Wounds and Terror after killing 5 models. If your first two Might points are spent calling two Heroic Combats and killing 5+ models, you might have a Might point left (see what I did there) to ruin a hero's day - but you mostly want to be hitting heroes who are out of Might or who can't Strike higher than you. He's a good punching hero, but I don't know when you take him since you also have . . .
• Nazgul of Dol Guldur are still very cost-effective heroes at 80pts each (slight rise over the last edition). With 1 Might now on the ones that are not the Witch-King, you have to be very careful with how you use your Might. They're still very durable (able to come back to life on a 3+ with the potential for a +1 bonus from the Necromancer if they're within 18"/12"/6" of him - and if they are, then the Necromancer can spend a Will point to boost the roll). THey also picked up Dominant (2), which makes these guys more viable in an all-hero list. Here's the run-down of each subtype (in order of best to worst in my humble opinion):
• The Witch-King has F6/3 Might instead of F5/1 Might - this is super good and makes the Witch-King a very solid option for any Rise of the Necromancer list.
• You can still get up to two Abyssal Knights - and if you take one, you definitely want to take both. These guys have the ability to flash-travel from one side of the board to the other if one of your Abyssal Knights goes left and the other goes right - in scenarios where you have to guard far-flung objectives or get models off the table, this is really solid. THe ability doesn't require them to be in base contact anymore - you can place the one Knight within 3" of the other Knight and STILL move, which is even better than it was before. They also have Elven hand-and-a-half weapons, which gives them the option for two-handed firepower and they can win ties more easily in drawn combats.
• Khamul has 3 Attacks with a two-handed weapon - with the changes to two-handed weapons in this edition, he's still my choice for your first four Ringwraiths.
• This is going to offend some people, but I still think the Slayers of Men (up to two) are super good. While within 1" of each other, they have Burly (downgrade from last edition), but they picked up the ability to reroll all failed To Wound rolls when making Strikes against enemy heroes. This means that they become the "bash brothers" to take on a big enemy piece - perhaps one that was Transfixed by the Necromancer. 
• The Lingering Shadow (aka, "Blinkie") can be placed within 3" of his current location at the start of the Move Phase - this is basically what the Abyssal Knights do but with one model instead of two. Like their flash-travel, this doesn't count as moving, so he can move slightly more than 9" each turn, based on what you want to do. Despite being this far down the list, I think he's good - and definitely worth taking over the Abyssal Knights if you don't have enough points for both. Is the extra 3" of movement better than the hitting power you get from Khamul or the Slayers of Men? I'm not convinced - I've used this guy and fought him and haven't been as impressed with the blinking thing.
• The Forsaken has a spear that rerolls all failed To Wound rolls. This rule is fine, but not as strong as the other bonuses. Taking him does give you access to a spear, but I don't know that it's worth spear-supporting with him (unless you're trying to get him into a fight where he can't physically fit).
• The Dark Headsman is . . . fine. His only ability is getting Mighty Blow on any turn that he gets a natural 6 on the dueling roll (instead of a natural 6 on the wounding roll). You'd think this would occur more often - but without access to banners in this list, you're actually just as likely of it triggering as you had before. Great looking model, special rule is kinda meh.
• Hunter Orc Captains are only F4 and a bit squishy at D5, but they can have 3-4 Attacks when they charge (depending on whether they have a warg or not) and are your only March hero option (no Gundabad Orc Captains in this list). In my opinion, this means that a mounted Hunter Orc Captain is going to be your second pick behind the Necromancer - he can lead a small kill squad of fast moving Wargs/Warg Riders/Giant Spiders to handle objectives, but I do understand if other players want to skip on the March and just rely on units with pure speed (and maybe the Lingering Shadow/"blinkie" to keep up with them).
• Castellans used to be 40pts and now they're 50pts with the Morgul Blade in tow (so roughly the same cost as they were before). These guys picked up a special rule that doesn't change too much for them (Bound in Shadow), which allows them to automatically pass courage tests while within 6" of Sauron or a Ringwraith model - with Courage 4+, they pass almost everything already, but not having to make a dice roll is always better than having to make one (you can't fail a roll you don't make). These guys have comparable stats to the Ringwraiths and with S5, they occasionally hit harder. They do have the Will of Evil with 10 Will points and the ability to use their Will points as Fate points, so like with the Necromancer, you need to manage how long you fight with these guys (or go out swinging, I guess).
• Fell Wargs picked up the Beast keyword, which means they can't be used to dig up objectives and carry them anymore - which is a shame, since that was one of the best things they could do in the last edition. With Fell Sight, though, it's pretty easy to keep them out of harm's way and still be able to charge vulnerable enemy units. I've lost guys to these models and I've killed them in droves - take some if you want and be careful with them!
• Hunter Orcs and Hunter Orc Warg Riders went up in price and . . . basically got hit hard in this edition. For 8pts each, they might have 2 Attacks (if they charge - and that's 3 Attacks for the mounted variants) instead of always having 2 Attacks (while they had the infantry keyword). The cavalry definitely did better this edition than their infantry cousins, since they went down in price by 1pt (so they stayed the same once you give them a piece of gear) and they can have 3 Attacks when they charge. They're still F3 and they're going to struggle to get a banner reroll, but if they can charge a single model, they're quite dangerous (and still hit very hard). With the changes that were made to two-handing, I'd at least consdier giving them two-handed weapons because they have a decent shot at getting a natural 6 on three dice (42% chance - not great, but also not bad). The infantry should probably be run without gear or as archers to keep their cost down - a base 4+ shoot value this edition means they're not bad as archers and they're also the kind of archers that a small hit squad might be leery of walking towards (since they can have 2 Attacks each if they charge the hit squad first).
• Mirkwood Giant Spiders are confusing - mostly because the "Giant Spiders" of the last edition are now the "Hunting Spiders" (more on them next) and the "Mirkwood Spiders" of the last edition are now the "Giant Spiders". I get that the bases of these spiders is bigger than the other ones but . . . seriously?!?!?!? Anyway, these guys still shoot webs on a 5+ and that's primarily what they were and are good for: forcing enemy models to spend Fate points (no roll to get a 4+ required) or be Paralyzed. The Necromancer and the Nazgul of Dol Guldur feel really good about going into a fight that they're going to win by default - and these guys go a long way to helping you win those fights easily. They are a bit expensive and F2 isn't great, but having a few is a great idea.
• Mirkwood Hunting Spiders are 20pts (like they were last edition), they're only F3, and they're not any better than the Mirkwood Giant Spiders . . . leave these guys at home and run the other ones, guys.

These are great units (except the Hunting Spiders) and the list is super good - but it is lacking in a few categories. Let's discuss what this list does well and where it comes up short . . .

The Rise of the Necromancer: Strengths and Weaknesses

This list has a lot of durable heroes - the Keeper and Hunter Orc Captains are vulnerable to taking damage quickly, but the Nazgul, Castellans, and the Necromancer are very durable and difficult tokeep down. Since you have the option to go all-heroes (skipping out on Hunter Orc Captains), you could make a list that fits in a single package that is difficult to permanently remove from the board.

That said, this list is going to struggle to get good Might levels. The Necromancer has 3 Might points, but he's probably channelling Chill Soul on a model that's worth VPs (a target in Assassination/Fog of War, a banner in a scenario with VPs tied to banners, an army General in pretty much any scenario, etc.). The Keeper has 3 Might, but he probably wants to use at least one Heroic Combat to rack up some kills to improve his damage output. The Witch-King is the only other hero with 3 Might, so if you want to call Heroic Moves, you probably want to include him. The harder you lean into Nazgul of Dol Guldur (1 Might each, besides the Witch-King) or Castellans (no Might), you're looking at a fairly low Might army. 

This army has good warrior options - especially Hunter Orcs and Mirkwood Giant Spiders. Whether those Hunter Orcs are mounted on Fell Wargs or not, they're pretty cheap and can provide coverage for your heroes, which is the strength of this list. You can't run these guys with spears, which means you're looking at getting models into base contact as quickly as you can - they're squishy, but they hit hard if they can arrive alive (if you lean into these guys at all, you want a Hunter Orc Captain for March).

On the other hand, while Hunter Orcs have some nice gear options, they don't have the option for a banner. Without a banner, you have to prioritize killing enemy banners in scenarios where having one at the end of the game gives you VPs - the Necromancer helps with that a lot, as do the movement-related Nazgul (The Lingering Shadow, The Abyssal Knights). Having a banner would be really great (Gundabads and Hunter Orcs had this option last edition), but given that it's not an option, you need to focus on killing off enemy banners as quickly as possible and throwing more dice in your fights.

Finally, this list has lots of tricks in it - Rise of the Necromancer lists have the potential to look really different, based on the kinds of tricks you want. If you want a beater list, you can take the Keeper, Khamul, and two Slayers of Men without the Necromancer - all four of which fight two-handed and three of which can ignore their dueling penalty. If you want a movement-oriented list, you can take the Lingering Shadow and two Abyssal Knights alongside a Hunter Orc Captain (maybe with the Witch-King as your General so those other guys can move however they want to). If you want a castling list, you can field the Necromancer and as many Nazgul as possible (maybe with some Spiders for Paralyze potential). There are lots of options in this list - and that's definitely a strength!

Okay, let's talk strategies for using the list . . .

The Rise of the Necromancer: Strategies for the Tabletop

First, let's talk about Will Point allocations for the Necromancer. There's an old article (that's still pretty relevant) that talks about allocating your Will Points and the key theme of that article is that no matter how much Will you have, treat your Will like it's a limited resource. Here's how I'd apportion your Will for the Necromancer (with the understanding that this is dynamic for any game you play):

• Casting Spells: 8 Will (4 turns of casting twice OR 3 turns of casting twice and 2 turns of casting once)
• Combat: 4 Will
• Fate/Resisting Spells: 3 Will
• Staying Alive: 10 Will

This edition, you have to factor in the radius of boosted Unholy Resurrection rolls - which are DEFINTELY worth keeping. While you won't be able to keep the 18" range on your buff all game, you definitely want to keep your 12" buff for as much of the game as possible - especially if there are multiple objectives and you brought Abyssal Knights/the Lingering Shadow. As such, we need to keep at least 10 of these in order to avoid losing the 12" bubble. With 8 Will dedicated to casting magic and 4 Will for fighting, this leaves us with 3 Will for Fate rolls and resisting enemy magic - both of which are dependent on your opponent's list and their choices in-game. Obviously, with 1 Wound on this model, you're going to use as much Fate as is necessary to stay alive, but this is where the allocation method helps us.

If we had a pile of 20 Will points, we might be tempted to throw lots of dice at our spells - and then if we took a bunch of damage, we'd be burning through our Fate quickly and would be unable to keep our Ringwraiths on the board. By allocating 3 Will to Fate/resisting spells, we can choose to dip into either our Staying Alive pool (if we are playing a scenario where we're clumped up together) or from our Combat pool (if we can pull away from combat - he lost his invisibility spell to move through models) or from our Casting Spells pool (which means we reign in our casting early). Depending on how the game is going, we might just have to dip into our Staying Alive pool because our other pools are depleted - but at least you planned for it, right?

The Necromancer's job in this list might be to punch people, but honestly, you can get a lot of punching power in the list, so his contributions in melee should be planned out. Ideally, he's able to charge into models that have been Paralyzed by Spiders, but he can also charge into someone who's been Transfixed, thanks to having F7 base. For chewing through troops, you're going to get far better work out of the Nazgul, Castellans, the Keeper, and Hunter Orcs - and they cost a lot less than the Necromancer does. I'd recommend taking some punch in the list, but more so than the Legendary Legion of last edition, I think the addition of warrior models allows you to focus on tactical Nazgul instead of hitting-power Nazgul in the list now. 

There are several two-cast strategies you can employ with the Necromancer:

• Double Death: The Necromancer can kill models not just with Chill Soul, but also with Wither. Wither is cast reliably on 2 Will (one from your store, plus the free one), but if you cast Chill Soul, you want to channel it. The good news is that on the turn that you call a channel, both spells are cast on a 6, so that's really strong. I'd recommend three turns of that if you need to cripple/kill two units.
• Neutralize: With both Transfix and Compel, the Necromancer has the ability to make an enemy hero/monster unable to make Strikes with Transfix and yank a tactically useful piece out of position (a banner away from a battle line, a model securing an objective out of scoring range, a model that is "haloing" the Necromancer/the Keeper nasty into charge range) with Compel. These spells don't need to be channeled and are reliably cast on two dice (one from your store, plus the free one).
• Terror Army: If you lean into the Terror-causing units in this list (not the Orcs), Drain Courage plus Instill Fear can be a really potent combo. Since Instill Fear targets the caster, this is the only combo that we're showcasing where both spells can affect a target hero. This is also a combo that's probably most effective if you've done some one-cast attempts early (with 3 double-cast turns and 2 single-cast turns), as was laid out in the Will allocation section.

Next, let's talk about battle lines. Your battle line should have some 2 Attack infantry models in front of the Necromancer with fast units working the flanks. Since there are basically no spears in the list, your battle line will either be very thin OR you'll have some reserves sitting in the second rank to shore up holes (which I recommend). These units could be Hunter Orcs with Orc bows (who have a base 4+ Shoot this edition), but could also be Hunter Orcs with no extra gear if you want to save points. Your goal is to make sure you have agency with the Necromancer all game - and that means giving him a shield of guys. Possible 400-point front-lines include:

• Five of the Nazgul of Dol Guldur/the Keeper of the Dungeons
• Eight Castellans of Dol Guldur
• Fifty Hunter Orcs (which you can almost field if you bring the Necromancer and 2 of the Nazgul/the Keeper)
• A mix of the units listed above - e.g. two Nazgul of Dol Guldur, two Castellans, and seventeen Hunter Orcs

Spending 400pts on your battle line is only possible if you're playing at fairly high points levels, but understand that it's a working number and you could go with a smaller battle line if you need to - all of these are going to be tough to shift, though each will be tough in different ways (Hunter Orcs get killed off by archery much faster than the rest of these guys, Nazgul of Dol Guldur can be Heroic Combatted through pretty easily because they don't come back until the following turn, and Castellans can't reposition once they're locked in and can't fix bad dice rolls because they lack Might points). The point of all this is that you have options.

Finally, if you can swing it, I'd take a few Spiders the Abyssal Knights every time. They have incredible value in a lot of scenarios because most scenarios require you to get there - though since they're not likely to be near the Necromancer, they both don't care about how far his Unholy Resurrection boost range is, but also are unlikely to benefit from it. If you have 160pts to spend, I'd definitely take them. Similarly, these guys want to be escorted by something fast and tactically useful - and Giant Spiders are definitely worth taking! They won't Paralyze people all the time, but golly, if it just happens once, it can be a real boon to you on a far flung objective or board quarter.

Okay, let's talk lists!

Sample Lists

At 500pts, I'm not taking the Necromancer - instead, I'm taking the Witch-King, a Hunter Orc Captain, and Khamul along with a host of guys (and yes, the first list doesn't have the Abyssal Knights - what can I say, I wanted my army to be able to move quickly and I wanted Might points for Heroic Moves):

Scaling up to 650, we're keeping the model count about the same with 32 models - it features Sauron, both Abyssal Knights, and 4 Giant Spiders:

Alternatively, we could go heavier into the heroes and run the Necromancer alongside 4 Giant Spiders, a Castellan, and 4 of the Ringwraiths:

Our 750-point list is actually not one that I wrote - this list was piloted by Mick Dueholm at Adepticon - he was the highest-ranked Rise of the Necromancer player (29th overall) and his list sports 11 models including all three of the tactical Nazgul, the Witch-King and Khamul, the Keeper of the Dungeons, and Sauron leading four fast units (two spiders, two Warg riders) - I imagine this list was fast, but a bit on the fragile side against magic/Elven-made weapons:

This list went 4-2 and lost to a Shadows of Angmar list in Clash by Moonlight and to Alisher Aminov's Shire list in Reconnoitre). A more traditional list piloted by Nathan Newman landed at 36th place at Adepticon (Sauron, Witch-King, mounted Hunter Orc Captain, 40 models including 6 spiders), so I think there is something about not going hero-heavy for those of you who like that better (like me).

Conclusion

This list got a lot better when it gained the ability to bolster its numbers - and while you certainly can run it with a limited number of durable models, this list remains a nasty bit of kit to have to square off against on the tabletop (unless you brought a lot of magical damage/Elven weapons). If you've used this list, let us know how it went in the comments below! Next time, we're kicking off a new month with a Dwarf list: the Army of Thror (we won't be doing the whole month on Dwarf lists - we did do that recently). However, the Army of Erebor does have Thrain in it, and we've been talking about Thrain recently with the Pits of Dol Guldur. This is, of course, power-Thrain, but he's in a list that a lot of players don't think is very good. Find out if there's something salvagable in it next time - and until then, happy hobbying!