How to Play Undead in Warcraft III

Braaaaaaains. That's what you want when you're undead. It's also what it takes to play the undead correctly in Warcraft III. So are there some basic strategies that will help you? Of corpse there are.

Instructions

1. Blight, blight, blight. The undead can't build any buildings without blight, with the exception of their necropolis and haunted gold mine. Like the Zerg Creep in Starcraft, undead buildings must all be built on blight and then help extend the range of the blight. Best of all, your units on blight will regenerate! Upgrading your necropolis will help expand the blight around it slightly, but when you want to colonize, you'll need a new necropolis.

2. An acolyte is a one-man wrecking crew. Or more accurately, a one-man building crew. Since acolytes can summon numerous buildings consecutively, you don't need to have a half-dozen acolytes on building duty. Get five around a haunted gold mine, have one or two on building/repair duty and that's it. If you have extras, sacrifice them into shades for scouting.

3. Ghouls just want to have fun. These creatures are your only way to harvest lumber, but that's a small price to pay for a higher carrying capacity than other races, as well as a seriously strong attack. Ghouls are solid ground troops in the early game, so build a reasonable number to harvest lumber and when you've got enough, switch them to military duty. Also great for bolstering town defense in a pinch.

4. Speaking of defense, the spirit tower is one of the more effective defensive buildings in the game. You'll need to build ziggurats to support your troops and expand the blight anyway, so upgrading them to spirit towers will make your town costly to attack. The downside is that upgrading many towers is costly as well, so if you think your little town will be ignored, hold off on upgrading until there's more threat. But once a threat arrives, your troops will be glad to be aided by a row of towers.

5. Corpsetravaganza! The undead love corpses. Ghouls and abominations can cannibalize them for quick restores, necromancers can raise them as skeletons, and death knight heroes can animate them to form a small backup army. A graveyard will ensure that you have a steady supply of corpses to use for all these purposes and meat wagons will help carry the corpses to where they need to be.

Tips & Warnings

• Attack towns with expendable/invincible troops. Use your meat wagons to drop a load of corpses just outside the sight range of an enemy town, then use your necromancers and death knights to create an army of skeletons and animated dead. Send the mages home and send your newly-raised troops in to do as much damage as possible. They were all free, so their (re-)deaths shouldn't bother you.

• Your necropolis also serves as a tower, so the temptation to put it on the front lines may be great, but if it is destroyed, you may end up severely hampered until you can summon in a new one.