How to play Death Knights
Alignment
Death knights are chaotic, while most of their mindless slaves are neutral.
level 0 units
Mindless Archer - One of the weakest units. Melee damage is a joke, while ranged attack can be solid when all the conditions are met.
Mindless Skeleton - Similar unit. Weak, but can be massed. Not good in defense.
Mindless Beast - Ghoul-like creature, beasts are you main poisonous unit. When damaged, they do not only fight less effective, but there is also a smaller chance to poison enemy units.
Mindless Ghost - Melee oriented, almost no ranged attack. Good in self healing, but very vulnerable to blade attack. Player might use them against no blade/fire/arcane enemies.
Mindless Rider - Melee oriented, cheap unit with good movement. Also not very good in fighting.
Raven - Not modified raven
Walking corpse - Not modified walking corpse
Other units
Mindless Cavalry - Strong, powerful cavalry. Good in inflicting a lot of damage. Even better near high level leader. 2 attacks, with and without charge. Devastating against drakes. Expensive.
Death Captain - Melee only leader and basic healer. Can be a frontline unit, but he is expensive.
Death Knight II-IV - Strong leader and strong fighter, good healer. You need them as much as possible.
Basic strategy
Main philosophy is to combine strong death knights, which works as a leader and healer, with low level units. In theory, they can do a lot of damage when fully healed. Problem is low ability to control battlefield with ZOC (Zone of Control), slow movement and not enough powerful units. Faction units are much stronger when fully healed, becomes useless when damaged and have to return to village or near a death knight.
- Use your numerous level 0 units to capture villages quickly. Ravens and mindless riders are your good options for this.
- Do not lose important units. Heal them, retreat often. Do not lose your leaders and cavalry.
- Strike with multiple units at once, and use leadership as much as possible. If you split your army, make sure you can support each group with death captain.
- Use poison. Your units are mostly immune to poison.
Against special enemies, add these units:
- Mindless cavalry is your damage dealer. They are expensive, but you can make 2-3 of them and they will kill almost anything.
- Beasts can poison strong enemy units.
- Many of your units are good against archers.
Upgrading
High priority: Leaders
Low priority: Everything else. While you can improve your basic units into death squires, it is very hard to do so.