The best Necropolis heroes in HoMM: Olden Era

IN Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden EraNecropolis is a faction that wins through stacking. Necromancy turns enemy deaths into reinforcements after each fight; Undead Transformer transforms recruited or diplomatically acquired neutral units into faction units. Hero selection determines which engine starts first, how quickly it changes, and how safely it moves through the dangerous early game before the pace is self-sustaining.

The list contains 18 heroes in two classes – Death Knight (Might) and Necromancer (Magic). All heroes start with Necromancy as the starting skill, the rotation of the second starting skill being the primary differentiator.

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is currently in Early Access. The information below is very likely to change as a result of balancing patches.

How the tier list works

The city of Necropolis in Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era.

These rankings are weighted by three factors: the impact of the second starting skill on Necropolis core engines (necromancy scaling, army tempo, spell control or economic growth); the value of specialization throughout the cycle rather than just opening; and subclass path accessbecause heroes who start with a necessary skill have a structural advantage in a system where skill rolls are random.

A hero who accelerates the Necromancy snowball or fixes an early faction fragility will be ranked higher than a hero whose advantage is conditional, narrow, or only manifested after a game is won.

Tier	What does this mean
WITH	These heroes have starting perks that directly boost Necropolis' base engines or provide week 1 combat abilities that the faction otherwise lacks.
AND	These heroes offer strong, clearly defined strategic identities – reliable primaries that excel in specific modes or builds.
B	Clear roles, functional starter kits and viable subclass paths – but without the transformative early benefits of top tiers.
C	These heroes work in specific contexts or secondary roles, but in most primary scenarios they are outclassed by higher tier picks.

Heroes Of Might And Magic: Olden Era – Necropolis Strategy Guide

Become a skeleton machine with the Necropolis faction in HoMM: Olden Era!

S-Tier

The Necropolis hero headed to a neutral party on the map in Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era.

Hero	Class	Starting skill	Alignment
Funerella	Necromancer	Advanced Necromancy	Advanced Necromancy from Day 1 accelerates the faction's primary engine faster than any other hero.
Kel'Ghul	Death Knight	Tactics	It starts with Dread Knights already in the starting army. No other Necropolis hero addresses the fragility of close combat quite so directly.
Artorius Veritas	Death Knight	Resistance	Master Berserk as a starting spell neutralizes high initiative threats from the first fight – a combat ability that the Necropolis army has no other way to access in week 1.

Funerella is the main hero of Necropolis and the default choice for everyone a run built around growing Necromancy — which is the most runs. Advanced Necromancy at the start means he's a step further towards Expert than any other hero before the first fight. Since each level of Necromancy directly increases the percentage of defeated enemy HP converted to increased units, reaching Expert faster creates a compound advantage that grows with each subsequent battle. The early game is its only real vulnerability: Advanced Necromancy doesn't provide any immediate combat power, and a bad fight in week 1 can expose an army before it snowballs.

Kel'Ghul the S-Tier gains a single, undeniable advantage: it starts with Dread Knights in its starting army. Dread Knights are a T6 Necropolis unit and normally require weeks of building and recruiting investment to achieve. Having them from day one turns Kel'Ghul's Week 1 — his army can handle fights that would be catastrophically expensive to open for skeletons only, meaning that Necromancy can snowball into fights that other heroes would avoid entirely.

Artorius Veritas it solves Necropolis' most pressing structural problem: the faction enters the game with a slow, melee-heavy army with no shooting output, making the early fights truly dangerous. His Berserk master spell powers affect enemy units to instantly attack a random adjacent target — including their own allies — neutralizing high-initiative threats that only skeletons cannot safely trade with.

A-Tier

Necropolis unit recruitment screen in Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era.

Hero	Class	Starting skill	Alignment
M.Sc	Necromancer	Mysterious magic	The strongest a devoted magician in the faction.
King of kings	Death Knight	Diplomacy	Diplomacy to Undead Transformer is different, economical engine with a high ceiling which can beat standard necromancy growth on the right map.
Marl	Death Knight	Logistics	Masterful website slows all enemy creatures from the opening fight; Logistics mixes map efficiency every day. The most reliable/adaptable hero in the faction.

Where S-Tier heroes share a unified purpose at the start of the game, each of the A-Tier heroes represents a different strategic direction – and choosing between them is really a matter of playstyle rather than raw power.

Mag transforms Necropolis va witcher factionadds levels to all Arcane spells from the start and completely locks out opponents from the same school.
King of kings it almost completely bypasses the Necromancy engine in favor of a Diplomacy-and-Undead-Transformer conversion economy who can scale faster than any other hero on the right map – though his ceiling is heavily dependent on neutral density.
The advantage of Marl is the width: Masterful Web slows all enemies from the first fightLogistics maps efficiency every day and no tool is ever irrelevant

B-Tier

An army of four Necropolis units fighting against enemies in Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era.

Hero	Class	Starting skill	Alignment
Ethric	Necromancer	Wisdom	A lich specialist that starts with Liches already in the starting army — AoE range from day 1 addresses the faction's most pressing early weakness.
Lord Rufus	Necromancer	Thaumaturgy	Masterful Rewind Life revives units above their original stack size — a uniquely strong late-game reward for a faction built on increasing its stacks.
Wall	Death Knight	Defense	Passive damage reduction specialization scales across the entire military; the large starting army and defense subclass path make him the faction's most durable frontline hero.
Oncosis	Death Knight	Attack	Specialization on the skeleton directly supports the unit that most Necropolis players want to scale first. The cleanest execution path for a standard strategy.
Tarius	Death Knight	Advanced Necromancy	Same Advanced Necromancy edge like Funerella, but being a Might hero gives him a lower ceiling than the magic of specialization. Great though.

The B-Tier is the most diverse grouping of the faction – five heroes with significantly different identities, none of which share the same perk type. None of these heroes transform the openingbut they all have a clear answer to the question of what they actually do.

C-Tier

Level up the Necropolis hero in Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era.

Hero	Class	Starting skill	Alignment
Shadespinner Oona	Necromancer	The magic of night shadows	Sleep control from level 3 Nightshade neutralizes dangerous chimneys; useful in specific difficult fights but less universally effective than the best selections.
Miloš Zlatá	Necromancer	Battle magic	Battle Magic starting skill contributes to the subclass path and boosts critical hit damage – workable, but narrower than investing in Arcane or Nightshade for Necropolis.
Laura	Necromancer	Wizardry	Masterful Despair affects all creature types, removing standard restrictions against undead and constructs – useful in specific matchups, but DoT rather than an immediate threat isn't that much of a game changer.
Adahn	Necromancer	Recruitment	Recruitment promotes the growth of creatures in citieswhich ties in with Skeleton production—but that's a secondary hero perk, not a primary combat identity.
Sub	Death Knight	Battleship	Mercury production specialist. Addresses the faction's true resource issue as a secondary hero on large maps; it adds almost nothing to the fight as a primary.
Guildmaster Monastery	Death Knight	Luck	The Graverobber specialization boosts a useful early unit, but specializing in a T2 unit has a fixed ceiling which the other heroes do not share.
Natalida	Death Knight	Scouting	Scouting is a subclass prerequisite, which is the most important thing Natalida brings. Better as a secondary scout hero than a primary combat pick.

C-Tier heroes share a common pattern: each has a real and identifiable use case, but one that is either too narrow, too conditional, or too dependent on a supporting role to justify primary selection status against the above levels.

Other

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