Olden Era Necropolis Guide — Necromancy, Skeleton Economy, Heroes and Laws

Necropolis is the faction that gets stronger by fighting. The game puts it in one sentence:

"Ruled by Necromancers and Vampires, Shadowspire's undead rise after each battle and often sap strength from their foes with every strike."

Two mechanics carry that sentence. Necromancy turns a share of every enemy you beat into undead of your own, so an aggressive clearing route grows the army instead of spending it. Vampirism, on the Wights at tier 2 and the Vampires at tier 7, heals by hitting, so the same stack keeps fighting round after round. Necropolis asks you to take many fights and to lose almost nothing in each; the reward is an army by week three that no town could have paid for.

This guide covers the current build (game build 26428102, 4 November 2026: the 0.82.06 update of 29 October, which trimmed growth on tiers 2–4, moved abilities between the Wight and Undead Pet upgrades, turned the Graverobbers into a support line and re-priced the Liches, the Dread Knights and most of the dwellings, and the two hotfixes after it, which put the Resource Riches laws back to their old prices). Stats and ability text are the game's, from the Necropolis faction page; the sources are listed at the end. The faction's live standing is on the tier list and the Single Hero faction stats, where it opened this season with the best win rate of any faction while being among the least picked.

The faction skill: Necromancy

Necromancy, in the game's words:

"After winning a battle, raises 10% of the strongest enemy stack as friendly Undead of the same tier. This requires Necromantic Energy, which stores up to 3000 and refills each week."

Advanced raises 15% with a 4,000 cap; Expert raises 20% with a 5,000 cap. Three things follow that most new Necropolis players miss:

1. It is the strongest enemy stack, not the biggest. A fight against 40 Peasants and 6 Griffins raises Griffin-tier undead, not Skeletons. Pick fights for what they raise.
2. Energy is the budget, and it refills weekly. Spending all 3,000 by Wednesday means Thursday's fights raise nothing. Spread the big fights across the week, or spend Law Seals on the Animate Dead laws that raise the cap.
3. Hero level feeds it. The Undead Legion specialisation (Funerella, Tarius) adds Necromancy Power per level, and the Expert perk Fields of the Dead adds "+50% Necromantic Energy gained".

The perks: at Advanced, Soul Harvest ("restores 4 mana after a battle victory") for Necromancers who cast every fight, or Death Herald (+1,000 maximum energy) for anyone who keeps hitting the cap. At Expert, Eternal Service — "a new ability. It restores HP to the target friendly Undead and can revive fallen units" — is the pick for every PvP build; Soul Reaper (−1 enemy Morale and Luck) stacks with the Dread Knights' presence.

Patch #11 (July 2026) rebuilt this skill around the strongest stack and the weekly energy pool, and 0.82.06 left it alone. Guides written before July describe a different Necromancy; this is the one in the game now.

The roster, tier by tier

Tier	Line	Growth	Cost	The choice
1	Skeleton → Skeleton Warrior / Skeleton Archer	30	35 gold	Archers to clear, Warriors for the wall
2	Wight → Wraith / Phantasm	18	85 gold	Phantasm for control, Wraith to feed itself
3	Undead Pet → Barghest / Armored Hound	13	130 gold	Armored Hound to hold, Barghest to hit
4	Graverobber → Merchant of Death / Kennelmaster	9	240 gold	Merchant of Death
5	Lich → Pestilent Lich / Sanguine Lich	5	390 gold	Sanguine Lich in PvP
6	Dread Knight → Avatar of War / Hollow Reaper	3	800 gold	Hollow Reaper to kill big stacks, Avatar of War to hold
7	Vampire → Vampire Lord / Vampire Scholar	2	1,200 gold + 1 Mercury	Vampire Lord

Tier 1: Skeleton

6 HP, 1–3 damage, 35 gold, growth 30 — the cheapest unit of any faction and the one with the highest growth, and the only Necropolis line whose growth and price 0.82.06 did not touch (it gave the whole line Defense 2, up from 1). A Necropolis town makes 30 a week before any law; Elite Skeletons adds 4 then 8 more, and Onkos adds another. The Skeleton Archer (50 gold) is the same frail body with a bow, and it is how Necropolis clears week 1 without trading: upgrade to Archers before recruiting aggressively, and upgrade a stack only when the gold pays off in fewer losses. The Skeleton Warrior has Initiative 6, Speed 4 and 2–3 damage — it is a faster Skeleton now, not a tougher one, since the patch brought its Defense down to the line's 2 — and makes the wall the Archers shoot over. Most players run both: a big Archer stack and a Warrior screen.

Tier 2: Wight

Flying, Speed 6, 9 HP, Phantom Vampirism ("each attack restores 20% of Damage dealt as HP to this creature; this can create temporary units"). The 0.82.06 update swapped the two upgrades' jobs. The Wraith raises the vampirism to 30%, has Initiative 7, and its active is now Gates of Afterlife — "summons [ 1 × amount of units ] Wight(s) on an adjacent hex. They disappear after the battle" — on a three-round cooldown; it lost a point of Speed, so it flies at the same 6 as the base Wight. The Phantasm took the Howl of the Banshee from it, which "forces the target enemy creature to move to a random free hex, if possible" — it drags a shooter out of its screen or breaks a formation before your Dread Knights charge — and keeps Nightmares, a stacking curse that deals pure damage each round, now behind Defense 6 and Initiative 7. The Phantasm is the PvP pick: the control, the curse and the Defense are all on it. The Wraith is for the stack that clears on its own: it heals more per hit and brings a second Wight stack to the fight.

Tier 3: Undead Pet

Cheap (130 gold, growth 13), Initiative 6, Melee Defense I (−30% melee damage). The patch also swapped roles here. The Barghest (Initiative 8, Speed 6, Defense 4) is the striker: it gained Double Strike and keeps Bone Crusher — "reduces target's Defense by 1 with each strike and gains an equal amount until the end of battle" — so every attack is two strikes and two points of Defense moved from their side to yours. The Armored Hound (14 HP, Attack 6, Defense 10) took Call the Pack from the Barghest, which adds 20% temporary units to its own stack, gains 3 Defense whenever a friendly stack dies (Protect the Fallen) and leaves a bleed (Lacerated Wounds). The Hound is the flank-holding stack of the early game; Barghests when you want the Pets to kill rather than stand.

Tier 4: Graverobber

Long Reach (it attacks two hexes away without the ranged penalty) and Dig Up Bones: "summons [ 2 × amount of units ] Skeleton(s) on an adjacent hex. They disappear after the battle." The 0.82.06 update took the whole line's Attack from 11 to 6 and rewrote it as support, so do not expect a Graverobber to kill anything itself. The Merchant of Death now summons the same 2× Skeletons as the base unit (3× before the patch), no longer summons Wights, poisons on its Long Reach hits (Blighted Corpses) and carries the new passive Throwing a Bone: "Increases Speed and Initiative of friendly Skeletons by +1." The Kennelmaster summons Pets (Fetch!), marks a target to always take maximum damage (Hail!) and has the matching Pack Leader for Undead Pets. A Necropolis army is a Skeleton army, so take the Merchant: a point of Speed and Initiative on the biggest stack in the game is worth more than any Graverobber's own damage ever was.

Tier 5: Lich

A shooter at 390 gold (320 before 0.82.06; the upgrades went from 460 to 560), Attack 14, with Rewind Death: "restores [20 + 10 × amount of units] HP to a friendly creature. This can revive fallen units. Usable twice per battle." Two revives a fight is the reason Liches are in every Necropolis army, and the reason not to waste them on a scratched stack. The Pestilent Lich gets Area Strike on its shots, Death's Embrace, which detonates every damage-over-time effect on the target at once, and, new this patch, Plague Aura — "increases the duration of all negative effects applied to all enemy creatures by 1" — at the price of a point of Speed (it walks at 2 now, like the base Lich). The Sanguine Lich keeps Rewind Death at double strength ([40 + 20 × units]), adds Temporal Vampirism — "each attack restores 20% Damage dealt as HP to all friendly creatures" (this one cannot revive) — and 10% more hero XP, and gained Last Spark: "Destroys a chosen corpse and restores +6 temporary mana to this creature's hero (if present)." In PvP the Sanguine Lich's revives decide fights; against neutrals the Pestilent Lich's splash clears faster, and Plague Aura makes every Nightmare, poison and Sleep on the enemy last a round longer.

Tier 6: Dread Knight

85 HP, Attack 21, Speed 7, Double Strike and Dreadful Presence (−1 Morale to all enemies), at 800 gold since 0.82.06 (700 before; both upgrades are 1,200). The Avatar of War adds War Incarnate (steals 1 Attack per hit), −2 Morale and Speed 9; the Hollow Reaper trades Double Strike for Death Stare — "each attack also kills +1 enemy unit(s) in addition to regular Damage. Works on creatures up to tier 7" — plus Reap Without Sowing (hits three targets), 24–32 damage, +3 Attack whenever a friendly stack dies, and the new Paralyzing Dread: "Adjacent enemy stacks' chance to skip turn increases by +2% for each negative point of their Morale." The Reaper strips Morale with its presence and then cashes it in as skipped turns. Against a Temple Angel or a Dungeon Dragon stack of two or three, its flat kills are worth more than any damage roll.

Tier 7: Vampire

150 HP, flying, Initiative 11, Attack 26, Vampirism ("each attack restores 66.6% of Damage dealt as HP to this creature. This can revive fallen units" — 50% before 0.82.06, on all three). The Vampire Lord (2,000 gold + 2 Mercury) has 175 HP, 30 damage, Initiative 13 and Swift Strike (no counterattack against it) — the best duellist in the faction. The Vampire Scholar stands back with Long Reach, a flat 35 damage and Speed 6, and Blood Transfusion, which drains an enemy for [30 × units] magic damage and heals a friendly stack for all of it, reviving. Lords to kill, Scholars to keep a Reaper stack alive.

Heroes worth drafting

The might class is the Death Knight (Attack 3, Defense 1), the magic class the Necromancer (Spell Power 2, Knowledge 4 — the highest starting Knowledge of any class). Every one of the 18 starts with Necromancy; the faction page has them all. Two things changed for all of them in 0.82.06: the creature specialists add their +1 Attack and Defense every five levels instead of every three, and the starting armies lost a Wight and a Pet or two to match the lower growth.

Undead Legion: "+5% Necromancy Power, plus another 2% for every 5 hero level(s)." The purest snowball hero: every fight raises more, and the Avatar is a free stack to absorb the first charge. Most hero rankings list her first.

The same Undead Legion, with Necromancy already at Advanced on day 1 and the Death Knight's Attack 3. If you would rather hit than cast, he is Funerella.

Perfect Puppets: Skeleton growth +1 in your cities; Skeletons gain 1 Speed, 1 Initiative and 20% HP, and +1 Attack and Defense every five levels (every three before 0.82.06), while enemy Skeletons lose the same. He starts with three stacks of 19–26 Skeletons and nothing else. The "Skeleton Storm" build is built on him: Necromancy, Offense, Logistics, Leadership, Defense, with Haste and Blessing on a single huge Skeleton stack — and a Merchant of Death beside it now adds another point of Speed and Initiative.

Starts with three Dread Knights — tier 6 on day 1 — and Dreadful War adds Dread Knight growth and stats. The strongest early clearing in the faction; the Tactics start lets you place them where the neutrals must walk through them.

Masterful Berserk: the target "immediately and uncontrollably attacks the closest target", and his version "affects all creatures adjacent to the target". One cast into a clustered Hive or Dungeon line is a round of free damage; It is the strongest week‑1 answer to high-initiative threats.

Starts with 4–6 Liches beside his Skeletons, and Tomb-bound Will grows Lich numbers and stats. Two Rewind Deaths on day 1.

Alchemist: +1 Mercury a day and double Mercury found. Mercury gates the Quiet Pavilion, the Bone Exchange, the Timeless Mansion and both tiers of the Chateau — a map-dependent pick, but on a poor map he is the Vampire timeline. The patch notes say he now starts with Resistance instead of Recruitment; in the files his second skill is still Recruitment, and the files are what the site shows.

Masterful Web affecting all enemies, plus Logistics: the Classic pick for reaching the centre first.

The first week

The town's resource is Mercury: the Quiet Pavilion (Wights) costs 2,500 gold and 5 Mercury, the Timeless Mansion (Liches) 4,500 gold, 5 Wood, 5 Ore and 5 Mercury (3,500 gold before 0.82.06), the Chateau of Feasts (Vampires) 12,500 gold, 15 Wood, 15 Ore and 15 Mercury, and each Vampire costs a Mercury. Necropolis needs no Gems or Crystals at all in week 1, only Wood, Ore and a little Mercury beyond gold, which makes it one of the two least map-dependent factions.

A standard week 1 (Crypts and Graves and Quiet Pavilion already built). It opens with the upgrade nearly every Necropolis player makes first:

Day	Build	Why
1	Crypts and Graves II (1,250 gold, 10 Alchemical Dust)	Upgrade the starting Skeletons to Skeleton Archers (15 gold each) before the first fight
2	Kennel (3,250 gold, 10 Wood)	Undead Pets: the melee screen for the Archers
3	Eternal Visage II (2,500 gold, 5 Wood, 5 Ore)	Income and Law Points
4	Eternal Visage III (5,000 gold, 10 Wood, 10 Ore)	More income
5	Bone Exchange (4,000 gold, 5 Wood, 5 Ore, 5 Mercury)	Graverobbers: a second Skeleton stack every fight, summoned for free
6	Timeless Mansion (4,500 gold, 5 Wood, 5 Ore, 5 Mercury)	Liches on day 8
7	Fortifications	Unlocks the Tomb of Warriors (6,500 gold, 5 Wood, 10 Ore), the first build of week 2

Why the Skeletons come first. The Skeleton Archer costs 15 gold more than a Skeleton and turns the biggest stack in the game into a shooter: the upgrade is what lets Necropolis clear week 1 without trading Skeletons for neutrals, so it comes before any new dwelling. It is also the town's cheapest upgrade, even after 0.82.06 put 250 gold on it. Every dwelling upgrade costs Alchemical Dust as well as gold, and the map gives little of it — 8 to 12 a pile, 20 to 40 from an Alchemical Storage once a week — so the rest wait:

• Skeletons to Skeleton Archers (Crypts and Graves II, 10 Dust), on day 1. Once the Archer stack is big, switch part of it to Skeleton Warriors in town for a wall to shoot over.
• Wights to Phantasms or Wraiths (Quiet Pavilion II: 1,750 gold, 5 Mercury, 20 Dust), the next 20 Dust the map gives.
• Pets to Armored Hounds or Barghests (Kennel II: 2,750 gold, 5 Wood, 30 Dust), in week 2.

Mage Guild I (2,500 gold, 5 Wood) belongs somewhere in days 3–5 for a Necromancer: without spells the army has no crowd control until the Liches arrive. Build the Marketplace only to fix a Mercury shortfall.

On the map, one rule holds: a fight that costs 30% of your Skeleton stack is a bad fight even if you win. Take the fights the Archers can finish behind a Pet screen, and take the ones with a big high-tier stack to raise. The Undead Transformer (1,000 gold, 5 Ore, 5 Wood) converts neutrals you pick up from banks and Pandora's Boxes into undead, so a Jebus Cross haul of Griffins becomes a stack that your Morale does not suffer for.

Laws, in priority order

Full text on the laws page. Costs are Law Seals per level. The 0.82.06 update gave Tax Collectors a third level, made the Free Death and Terra Mortis laws dearer (Resource Riches too, until the 0.82.08 hotfix put it back to 1/2/3 Seals), cut Bloodthirst to 50%, and collapsed Return to the Soil and Death's Presence to a single level each.

From the start (0 points).

• Elite Skeletons (3/2): "+4 growth, +2 Attack and Defense", then +8 growth — the first law, always.
• Animate Dead I (3): +500 maximum Necromantic Energy, for heroes hitting the cap by midweek.
• Tax Collectors (2/2/2): 250, 500, then 750 gold a day — the third level is new this patch.
• Resource Riches I (1): 2,500 gold, 5 Wood and 5 Ore, once — on day 1 it is the Kennel a day sooner.
• Gifts of the Afterlife (3/3): +1 then +2 Luck.
• Black Death (2/2) for Phantasm, Hound and Merchant builds: enemies take +25% then +50% from damage over time.

At 5 points.

• Laws of the Immortals (2/2/2): "Your cities generate +10% Law points", up to +30% — take it early, it compounds.
• Animate Dead II (3): +2.5% Necromancy Power.
• Elite Graverobbers (3/2): +2 then +4 growth and "they summon +50% units".
• Death Equalizes All (4): "Friendly creatures from different factions don't decrease each other's Morale" — the law that makes a Necropolis army full of raised Griffins and bank Phoenixes work.
• Mining: Mercury (2/2) if the map is poor.

At 15 points.

• Moon's Grace (3): Nightshade spells +1 level, for Death Knights and Necromancers casting Berserk, Sleep and Web.
• Elite Liches (3/2): +1 then +2 growth and healing abilities restore 50% more.
• Elite Dread Knights (3/2): +1 then +2 growth and +6 maximum damage.
• Bloodthirst (6): "Vampirism of friendly creatures increases by 50%" (60% before 0.82.06) — only once Vampires are in the army; taking it earlier is the classic Necropolis mistake.

At 30 points.

• Terra Mortis (6, up from 5): "Your Necropolis heroes always battle on their Native Terrain", which turns the Gravesoil perk (+10% damage dealt, −10% taken) on everywhere — and makes Return to the Soil (5, one level now) a flat +1 Speed for the whole army.
• Free Death (4/3/3, up from 3/2/2): creatures cost 10%, 15%, then 20% less gold.
• Elite Vampires (3/2): +1 then +2 growth and +25 HP.

At 50 points.

• Morituri te Salutant (4): "+1 counterattacks per round".
• Magic Absorption (6): "The enemy loses 1 level(s) on all Magic School spells".
• Death's Presence (5, a single level since 0.82.06): "Enemy non‑Necropolis creatures deal –5% and take +5% Damage. Your non‑Necropolis creatures gain the opposite effect."

Skills and spells

Death Knights: Offense (Battle Frenzy is +1 Attack per point of Morale since 0.82.06, down from +2), Defense (its Luck perk likewise +1 Defense per point), Leadership, Logistics (Classic), Tactics. The new First Aid — "after winning a battle, surviving friendly stacks revive 20% of the units lost during that battle", 30% and 40% at the higher ranks — was written for this faction's game plan: take many fights, lose almost nothing in each. It gives part of what you lost back on top of what Necromancy raises, and on a Single Hero template it is the second hero you do not have. Necromancers: Nightshade Magic is the faction's school — Despair, Web, Sleep ("falls asleep and cannot take any actions"), Twilight ("prevented from using Ranged attacks") and Berserk are all control, and a Necromancer with Knowledge 4 can afford to cast one every round. Arcane Magic for Early Start and Carapace. Battle Magic was reworked into a trade: friendly creatures gain 20/30/40% of the hero's Spell Power and Knowledge as Attack and Defense, "but decrease by 20% of the hero's Attack and Defense" (30% and 40% at the higher ranks). A Necromancer starts with Knowledge 4 and Defense 0, so for the Skeleton stack it is still pure gain; on a Death Knight it gives up more than it adds.

Spells to buy: Haste and Blessing for the Skeleton stack; Sleep and Twilight for the enemy's shooters; Rewind Life if it rolls, since it stacks with the Liches' Rewind Death.

Fighting with Necropolis

Against neutrals. Choose the fight by what it raises and what it costs. Pets and Warriors in front, Archers and Liches behind, Wights hunting the enemy shooters. Never spend Rewind Death before round two; the revive is worth the most on the stack the neutrals have decided to focus.

Against players. Necropolis wins by being bigger at round six than it was at round one. Dreadful Presence takes a point of the enemy's Morale before anything happens; Phantasms pull the enemy shooters out of their screen (the Howl is theirs since 0.82.06, not the Wraiths'); Hollow Reapers remove one unit per hit from the enemy's tier‑7 stack whatever its Defense; Vampires and Sanguine Liches heal what the enemy did. Against Hive, the Howl on a Hornet stack that has flown into your lines wastes its turn; against Temple, Berserk a Griffin into its own Marksmen; against Dungeon, Sleep on the Dancers before they strip your Defense.

Matchups. The Single Hero faction stats and the Classic faction stats have Necropolis's record against each faction, with mirrors left out; the recurring advice to "ban Necro" is a comment on where it stands, and the grid is where to check whether it is still true this week.

Common mistakes

1. Recruiting Skeletons before the Archer upgrade and marching melee Skeletons into neutral shooters. The 35-gold unit is only cheap if it survives.
2. Taking Bloodthirst before there are Vampires to use it. Six Law Seals spent on nothing for two weeks.
3. Spending Necromantic Energy by Wednesday. Spread the big fights, or raise the cap.
4. Fighting what raises nothing. A fight against low-tier neutrals costs the same Skeletons and returns Skeletons.
5. Wasting Rewind Death. Two uses a fight; the second one wins the fight or it was wasted.
6. Mixed armies without Death Equalizes All. Raised Griffins and Phoenixes drag Morale down until the law is enacted.
7. Single Hero without a recovery plan. There is no second hero to re-fill the Archers; take First Aid, take fewer fights in week 1 and bigger ones in week 2.

Where this comes from

Numbers and ability text are from the game files for build 26428102 (4 November 2026, the 0.82.08 hotfix), as published in the game database and on the Necropolis page; where Unfrozen's 0.82.06 patch notes and the files disagree, the files are what this guide and the site show. The strategy draws on TheGamer's Necropolis strategy guide (May 2026), Paradrew's Onkos "Skeleton Storm" build (May 2026), KeenGamer's week‑1 build-order and best-heroes guides, Whisper of the House's Necropolis week‑1 build order, the Patch #11 Necromancy rework notes, Unfrozen's 0.82.06 patch notes, and the Steam community discussions on the current meta. The faction's real standing is on the tier list, recomputed daily.

Related: Which faction should you play? · How the ranked ladder works · Glossary