D&D 5E Help me build an undead warband

[TheIdeaOfGood]

Short and to the point: I need an undead warband that is associated with Orcus, led by an ancient necromancer reawakened from his tomb with access to fiendish magic, challenging enough to make for a series of challenging and really interesting fight for a group of 5 level 10 characters.

I have access to the MM, Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts, Volo's and Mordenkainen's as well as the Critter Compendium from the DM's Guild and the excellent-cannot-recommend-it-enough free Book of Beautiful Horrors (anyone who does not have that one, check it out, it's freely available and amazing).

To be honest, I suck at setting up complex tactical combats (having little feel for tactics myself), hence me asking you

 

[Eltab]

Read through the Gnoll section in Volo's. That will get you a warband. Adapt to fit your unique needs.

Does the necromancer intend to get into battles himself, to build new members of the band as they defeat enemies (and re-build own fallen), or just hang out on the sidelines and enjoy his fearsome reputation? And can the PCs figure out what is going on, in between battles against the warband?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

What is the environment? If there is anything resembling a swamp, you must include Putrid Haunts from the Tome of Beasts. Vomit undead leeches!

 

[OzDragon]

You have Tome of Beasts. Look up the Darakhul pg 216, Imperial Ghouls pg 220 and Iron Ghouls pg 221 They are all part of the ghoul imperium with a neat write up on page 217. They might be exactly what you are looking for.

 

[Draegn]

You could always use a Death Master npc.

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/death-master/index.html

The original which imo is a little more nasty.

https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg076.pdf

 

[TheIdeaOfGood]

The area where the necromancer arises again is swampy, then he crosses a river and the small town the characters live in is set in meadow-and-hills-terrirtory.

The necromancer is more of a warlord than just a squishy caster, though his martial prowess could be the result of (demonically corrupted) magic items a la Elric.
Also, he is rather old, as in " Dawn of human civilization" old (at least 1,000 years, possibly more. I never set out to do a proper timeline for my homebrew simply because none of the players cares about exact dates).

As for the warband...I should have made my question a bit clearer. I am basically looking for tactically interesting and challenging combat sequences and enemy combinations. I have seen what some of you lot have posted in various threads and a lot of people are leagues ahead of me in that regard. So, any help would be appreciated. I am looking for CR7-CR11/12 challenges.

 

[Ath-kethin]

First off, bookmark this page: https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder.

It's a fast, easy way to figure out encounters of whatever challenge level you need, and includes all the monsters from the monster manual, the Tome of Beasts, and a couple.of others. Using that, you can tailor the encounters based on your group's level, and adapt it as you need.

Read the monster entries and see what they can do. Just reading the entries should give you some good ideas. You already have a loose framework in your head (that much is obvious from your posts). All you need to do is fill in details.

 

[TheIdeaOfGood]

Okay, that page is just amazing! Thanks a lot! Still, any nice suggestions for good creature combos would be appreciated

 

[OzDragon]

The area where the necromancer arises again is swampy, then he crosses a river and the small town the characters live in is set in meadow-and-hills-terrirtory.

The necromancer is more of a warlord than just a squishy caster, though his martial prowess could be the result of (demonically corrupted) magic items a la Elric.
Also, he is rather old, as in " Dawn of human civilization" old (at least 1,000 years, possibly more. I never set out to do a proper timeline for my homebrew simply because none of the players cares about exact dates).

As for the warband...I should have made my question a bit clearer. I am basically looking for tactically interesting and challenging combat sequences and enemy combinations. I have seen what some of you lot have posted in various threads and a lot of people are leagues ahead of me in that regard. So, any help would be appreciated. I am looking for CR7-CR11/12 challenges.

Don't just think of monsters to add tactics to combat also make good use of terrain. This s a smart guy (presumably) use ranged monsters on high ground with melee guys to stop the PCs in the "kill zone".

As I have learned recently use the DMs guide to increasing/decreasing the difficulty of monsters. Any monster can be CR20 even a kobold you just have to make him that way.

 

[OzDragon]

Okay, that page is just amazing! Thanks a lot! Still, any nice suggestions for good creature combos would be appreciated

As he is a necromancer. Any combination of undead works. They may not be synergystic but a good mix of range and melee will work wonders. Also there are A LOT of undead to choose from and a good number of them have cool abilities!