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[higgypig]

So my fortress is running all smoothly up until some yak hair starts beating on my war dogs. Im in a calm environment and yes,I did embark next to a tower but I see no necromancers. Perhaps the necromancer is sneaking around?

[VerdantSF]

Yup, one or more necros might be stealthed on your map.

[higgypig]

After close examination of the combat logs, there IS a human hunter skulking about raising the dead. He keeps evading capture however, is there a way to bait him into a cage?

[Brilliand]

After close examination of the combat logs, there IS a human hunter skulking about raising the dead. He keeps evading capture however, is there a way to bait him into a cage?

Random movement is based on pathing to random locations, so if you build a wall across your map with cage traps at both ends, odds are pretty good he'll walk into the cage trap on his way around the wall.  (You might want to build the cage traps first, actually, since they take longer to build than walls.)

[higgypig]

I heard that necros need line of sight to res bodies and seek bodies out, can I bait him with a dead cat or something?

[Urist Da Vinci]

Necromancers run away for a few seconds when they see one of your creatures, making it difficult to catch them with military patrols or guard animals.

However, they do home in on corpses (anything that they can animate). Place a corpse somewhere where the necro can get to it without seeing anyone, but where the necro has to cross a cage trap BEFORE he has line-of-sight to the corpse (so put the corpse behind a corner or an unlocked door). I've caged 2 necromancers this way so far at my current fort.

[higgypig]

So I dug a hole into the ground, a windy maze and dumped a few dead elves down there. But he seems to be avoiding my trap so far. This guy is ressing goats that my hunters are hauling back to the fort for Armoks sake.

[higgypig]

Well happy to say the idiot human seemed to have bumped into one of my macedwarves,who bashed him into oblivion. RESSURECT THAT SUCKA!

[Aquathug]

One necromancer snuck into my damn boneyard once and started the damn zombie uristpocalypse. Shit was great.

[MattStriker]

Fun story: I had an aboveground refuse stockpile to avoid miasma issues. Because I expected to see a necromancer at some point, I built a wall around it with a drawbridge to seal it off in emergencies.

Well, a necromancer got in and reanimated...uh...a lot of stuff. I pulled the emergency lever just in time, and I now use that stockpile to dispose of goblin prisoners .

[Aspgren]

Cudos on killing that necromancer good job!

If another one arrives there is a way to ruin his day.

Step 1. Keep any and all corpses locked up where one cannot see them and cannot path to them. I think the necro magic works similar to when you fire a crossbow; in that the necromancer has to have line of sight and a clear shot. Meaning he'll sneak into position and necro your refuse stockpile from a safe distance. Just like gobbos might sometimes snipe into your fortress.
Step 2. Assuming that the necromancer has to see the corpse to raise it, you could construct a passage that leads a system of corners with a corpse storage in the end. Since the necromancer has to navigate the passage before coming within range of the corpse you can fill this passage with all the traps you want. (I hope they don't have trap_avoid)
Step 3. I'm not sure if a necromancer can use his magic from inside of a cage but just in case you do. Don't keep your prisoner storage next to your corpse storage or you might be in for a nasty surprise when using cagetraps.
Step 4. Keep in mind that necromancers don't always come alone. At one point three of them came to one of my fortresses and I can only assume that the number can go much higher than that. You might want to have numerous cagetraps in the passage.

Since cagetraps can only be used once before reloading, I start to wonder wether or not it would be a good idea to just put weapon traps in there.. it's probably a bad idea though since necromancers might be able to raise eachother. Who knows, maybe the resurrected necromancer can raise the dead as well as the living one?
What if his severed, reanimated arm can do it as well?
Beware.

[VerdantSF]

Necros are also a good time for vampire soldiers to shine!  They can pass through hordes of undead without fear and zero in on enemy necromancers .

[BoredVirulence]

Necros are also a good time for vampire soldiers to shine!  They can pass through hordes of undead without fear and zero in on enemy necromancers .

Can they really? I know vampires it works that way in adventure mode, but does it really work that way in fortress mode?

[VerdantSF]

Can they really? I know vampires it works that way in adventure mode, but does it really work that way in fortress mode?

I can confirm that vampires and undead will not attack each other in fortress mode. During an undead siege I sent my vampire pikeman outside and closed the bridge. Both parties ignored the other, however the undead did fight back after giving an explicit attack order. You could use a single vampire to fight off an undead horde if your fort is sealed, but issuing attack orders to 80+ undead is a pain, and if you seal off your fort it's simply more fun to use magma. It should be possible to use this fact to quickly flush out a vampire. Build a contained area next to a critical hallway that every dwarf will pass through. Use fortifications to allow viewing the area while preventing (most) crossbowdwarves from shooting in, and a bridge so it can be turned off. Place an undead creature in the area and lower the bridge. As each dwarf passes by the undead, they should panic and ran away - unless they are a vampire. I imagine that this would quickly filter out any vampires in your fort, but I haven't tested any of it.

I'm thinking of trying out a vampire fortress in an evil zone next to a necro tower.  It'll be the Mountainhome's last ditch effort to contain the undead menace by fighting fire with fire.

[BoredVirulence]

Can they really? I know vampires it works that way in adventure mode, but does it really work that way in fortress mode?

I can confirm that vampires and undead will not attack each other in fortress mode. During an undead siege I sent my vampire pikeman outside and closed the bridge. Both parties ignored the other, however the undead did fight back after giving an explicit attack order. You could use a single vampire to fight off an undead horde if your fort is sealed, but issuing attack orders to 80+ undead is a pain, and if you seal off your fort it's simply more fun to use magma. It should be possible to use this fact to quickly flush out a vampire. Build a contained area next to a critical hallway that every dwarf will pass through. Use fortifications to allow viewing the area while preventing (most) crossbowdwarves from shooting in, and a bridge so it can be turned off. Place an undead creature in the area and lower the bridge. As each dwarf passes by the undead, they should panic and ran away - unless they are a vampire. I imagine that this would quickly filter out any vampires in your fort, but I haven't tested any of it.

I'm thinking of trying out a vampire fortress in an evil zone next to a necro tower.  It'll be the Mountainhome's last ditch effort to contain the undead menace by fighting fire with fire.

You know, just fix that booze problem first...