What's the coolest necromancer army you could make?

[Keeganwilson]

Assuming everything is on the table, true polymorphing your simulacrum into an undead, using your command dead feature on a white Dracolich, how many skeletons would you have?

What would you say is your ideal army of undead ?

[loki_ragnarock]

For me, cool would be a "Necromancer" who is basically a paymaster and pitchman that has organized a bunch of sentient undead into a mercenary company in a for profit enterprise. He doesn't cast any spells, he's just good at pitching the concept to sentient undead that he meets and bringing them into the fold. As many sentient undead can... recruit non undead prospects into their own influence, it seems like it'd be an expanding operation. No control checks, no having things turn on you when you forget to cast however many slots of spells, just a bunch of willing undead dudes working for a livi... uh, paycheck.

As such, there's no zombies or skelingtons except as incidentals, but probably a whole butt load of ghouls as grunts. Providing victory *and* cleanup services in the aftermath of battle. What ruler wouldn't want that level of convenience?

Call them the Necrophagic Nights.

[quindraco]

Assuming everything is on the table, true polymorphing your simulacrum into an undead, using your command dead feature on a white Dracolich, how many skeletons would you have?

What would you say is your ideal army of undead ?

There's no limit to simulacra, so... main focus would be spellcasting undead minions, some of which would definitely have undead minions of their own, some of which would be skeletons. So top priority would be skull lords (each of which has 5 skeletons or zombies), mummy lords, death knights, vampire spellcasters, etc. Any other undead that can make undead is useful - for example a death tyrant can make infinite zombies under its permanent control.

[Man_Over_Game]

INB4 Sorcerer King spam.

It's an old meme about a guy who would make new accounts weekly to get around bans so that he can show off his stupid Sorcerer builds in massive paragraphs, one of them including dressing up all of your undead in cloaks and disguising yourself as one.

[noob]

If I was making the coolest undead army I would try to get a band of undead bards or something like that and a giant tyrannosaurus rex skeleton(easy to do if you are the gm) and finally a group of fancy undead that wears cool armour and clothes with style (does not matters what they are as long as they look dapper).

[Naanomi]

White Dracolich mount or Nightwalker bodyguard?

[OldTrees1]

10K sanitized skeleton farmers.
5K sanitized skeleton motors / generators.
etc

The actual army might include some intelligent free undead amongst the other living* citizens that chose to serve in the army.

* If a citizen that is neither alive nor undead, aka a dead citizen, figures out a way to join, then I will amend my statement. Although they will probably be on a special ops squad.

Edit:

Ex: a citizen that became an archon in the afterlife and came back to the material plane for joining your army for some reason.

Good example. Time to amend the statement

[noob]

* If a citizen that is neither alive nor undead, aka a dead citizen, figures out a way to join, then I will amend my statement. Although they will probably be on a special ops squad.

Ex: a citizen that became an archon in the afterlife and came back to the material plane for joining your army for some reason.

[Catullus64]

It's thematically cool to have an army of people forcibly conscripted via ghost possession, even though on the tabletop that'd be less powerful than simply fielding an army of ghosts.

What about making an army of zombies out of fresh plague victims, so they can spread their contagion even when they lose an engagement?

[Asmotherion]

-Necrosis carnexes, behind the melee, healing them up. When one falls, one from behind takes it's place.
-A collection of Allips weakening the will saves of big bruicers and tanks for domination or render comatose. All target the same enemy at the same time. When all Big Bruicers are down, they spread among the fodder.
-Zombie/Skeleton Dragon(s) for optimising the Animate Dead spell. Front. Carnexes prioritise healing them up.
-Ghouls in the front, in order to make more ghouls. The Alpha (first ghast spreader) is safely with the necromancer, in order not to break the chain of command.
-Bone Creature Adventurers, preferably spellcasters as personal bodyguards to the Necromancer, and using their ranged spells to heal the Melee and harm the enemy (for example casting Black Sand or Necrotic Skull Bombs).

That's a basic Design of what I think of as a good undead Army.

[noob]

-Necrosis carnexes, behind the melee, healing them up. When one falls, one from behind takes it's place.
-A collection of Allips weakening the will saves of big bruicers and tanks for domination or render comatose. All target the same enemy at the same time. When all Big Bruicers are down, they spread among the fodder.
-Zombie/Skeleton Dragon(s) for optimising the Animate Dead spell. Front. Carnexes prioritise healing them up.
-Ghouls in the front, in order to make more ghouls. The Alpha (first ghast spreader) is safely with the necromancer, in order not to break the chain of command.
-Bone Creature Adventurers, preferably spellcasters as personal bodyguards to the Necromancer, and using their ranged spells to heal the Melee and harm the enemy (for example casting Black Sand or Necrotic Skull Bombs).

That's a basic Design of what I think of as a good undead Army.

Are you aware it is 5e?

[YoungestGruff]

INB4 Sorcerer King spam.

It's an old meme about a guy who would make new accounts weekly to get around bans so that he can show off his stupid Sorcerer builds in massive paragraphs, one of them including dressing up all of your undead in cloaks and disguising yourself as one.

Damn. That is both stupid and a little rad. The first time, anyway.

[Asmotherion]

Are you aware it is 5e?
Wrong forum again... :/

Necromancers in 5e have pretty limited options though...