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Necropolis units, continued Lich/Power Lich
The lich is the necropolis' only ranged unit but it is powerful. Use it in conjunction with the vampire lord in the combo described in the vampire entry. The lich is a fairly powerful ranged attacker, and the power lich does a little more damage, but the real strength of this unit is its area effect damage. The cloud that the lich hurls deals damage to the target hex and all adjacent hexes. Better still, this cloud does not affect undead troops, so the lich can hurl the cloud into the thick of battle without worrying about harming its cohorts. At the same time, this makes the lich less powerful against enemy undead forces; while its attack always harms its target, the area effect will be ineffectual against friendly and enemy undead alike. Upgrade the lich as soon as
you can to gain the extra damage and 10 extra hit points. Both liches
and power liches suffer the ranged units' penalty in melee combat, as
they only deal half damage when fighting hand-to-hand. Cast haste spells
on them to pump up their average speed. Guard your liches with powerful
spells of protection and with your other troops, since liches are valuable
and your only ranged attackers. It's at this time that you might want
to consider employing zombies as guards for your liches, since the key
zombie weakness - lack of speed - is negated because the enemy comes to
the lich.
The black knight is an awesome unit, while the dread knight is the most powerful non-seventh-level unit in the game. The black knight and dread knight have superior attack, defense, damage, and hit points. The dread knight can almost match blades with the hydra and behemoth. This unit is expensive though, so you'll need lots of resources to support a knight army. Even if you don't upgrade your black knights, they'll still be extremely useful.. The black knight can curse opponents 20 percent of the time; cursed units always deliver minimum damage. However, the dread knight has a 20 percent chance to deal double damage, in addition to the curse. This can prove particularly lethal because of the unit's high maximum damage. Cast spells that enhance luck on this unit to really increase the power of the knight creatures. Try to protect the dread knights with protective spells because enemy heroes will often target the knights. They are expensive, so you want to keep them alive. And in numbers, they prove very powerful so you want to hoard them. Use them with the vampire lords and power liches, and you will present your opponent with some tough decisions on which units to attack first. You can also use the dread knight with the power liches' death cloud if the enemy swarms the knights instead of the vampire lords, although make sure you animate dead or cure the knights if they suffer casualties.
Bone Dragon/Ghost Dragon The bone dragon is a weak seventh-level unit, although it is cheap, fast, and able to fly. The ghost dragon is only marginally better, but it gains the useful aging ability. The bone dragon has very weak defense and low hit points, so it isn't durable. You'll need to shore up its defenses with spells, or otherwise your investment will crumble to inanimate bone when enemy units converge on the bone dragon. Both dragons reduce enemy morale by one point. Upgrade your bone dragons as soon as you can, because the ghost dragon's aging ability is extremely helpful. Although it only occurs 20 percent of the time, it halves the hit points of all units in an enemy stack. So a force of 10 archangels goes from 2500 hit points to 1250 hit points. This is in addition to regular damage. You'll want to cast damage-enhancing spells on your ghost dragons because maximum damage for the ghost dragon is excellent. Luckily, neither bone nor ghost dragons are very expensive. Use these creatures, but always be mindful of their weaknesses. You won't be able to compete against other high level troops without significant magical aid and a host of dread knights.
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