• Chapter 1
  
  • None
• Chapter 2
  
  • Zero Milestone
• Chapter 3
  
  • Zero Milestone
• Chapter 4
  
  • Zero Milestone, River, Forest/Thicket, Smith's Forge

• Village, Ruins
  
  For Chapter 4 only:
  • Spider Cocoons
• Vampire Mansion, Blood Grove, Battlefield
  
  Not necessary, but useful or fun:
  • Bookery, Smith's Forge
• Forest/Thicket
  
  Not necessary, but useful or fun:
  • Suburb, River
• Oblivion
  
  Not necessary, but useful or fun:
  • Temporal Beacon
• Zero Milestone

The Basics
Zero Milestone seems like an odd card but after several runs switching between Ancestral Crypt and Zero Milestone, I feel I get more consistency from Zero Milestone!

Ruins are for resources and gear. Blood Grove is to get you a couple Flesh Golems for gear and to eat the boss. Battlefields are to get ghosts, but be aware that a fight covered by a Blood Grove aura cannot spawn ghosts.

Temporal Beacons make the day bar fill faster, so cover the loop path with their aura to spawn monsters quicker.

Oblivion is for Bandit Camps which still suck.

Enhancements
Suburbs will get you more traits, and the necromancer has some critical traits like the +1 summoned skeleton.

River just gets you attack speed faster, which is important in Chapter 4 but I do fine in Chapter 3 without it.

Spider Cocoons are to cover the tiles around the camp fire for Chapter 4. Be careful not to place too many Spider Cocoons, because spiders are tough for necromancers. They reduce your attack speed which makes it hard to get out the skeletons.

Smith's Forge just lets you armor up for the boss, which will grant you reliability against unlucky RNG from the boss targeting you instead of your skeletons.

Chapter 1 is not the best to farm, but if you want to conquer it you basically just focus on getting your evasion as high as you can.

Completely surround the 8 squares adjacent to the campfire to block the boss castle spawns.

Just have your skeleton army ready...

• Drop the Zero Milestone next to your camp fire, the first tile you walk on as you travel the loop.
  
• The Zero Milestone has a neutral effect eight tiles away from it. I place ruins or cemetery at that tile.
  
• Place two Blood Groves adjacent to and diagonal from the Zero Milestone. This is to cover the boss fight, and to spawn a second Flesh Golem. You want these Flesh Golems as close to the Zero Milestone (and your Watchtowers) as you can.
  
• Use Oblivion on Bandit Camps.
  
• Place both Forests and Thickets, just fill the map. Unless you have River and Bookery, in that case only place Thickets and use Bookery to cycle the Forests.
  
• If you have Suburbs, I do a column 4 tiles wide on one side of the map.
  
• Only place monster cards on the tiles within 8 spaces of the Zero Milestone. You can alternate Ransacked Villages (from Vampire Mansions) with Ruins or Cemeteries.
  
• The half of the map distant from the Zero Milestone will fill with Villages (do not make these Ransacked Villages unless you are feeling lucky, punk) and forest villages. You can place Battlefields adjacent to the forest villages to spawn treasure chests. Be careful not to overlap Battlefields and create Blood Clots. You can overlap Battlefields if the overlapped tiles are already occupied (by villages for example)

Same as Chapter 2.

• Make 4 Towns per boss. A Town is made by making a cross of Suburbs. Stop placing Suburbs once you have 4 Towns per boss spawn.
  
• User Spider Cocoons to help cover the tiles around the Camp Fire. Get the extra four squares on the cardinal directions as well. Be careful with the Spider Cocoons! Place them adjacent to the Camp Fire or the Zero Milestone, you don't want to fight a lot of these eight legged freaks.
  
• Only place Thickets next to your winding river. Either cycle Forests at Bookies or use Forests to help surround the camp fire.
  
• Get a Smith's Forge on the tile around your Camp Fire (diagonal from it) before you complete the loop. You want to armor up before boss fights.
  
• Deploy Bookeries as needed to cycle your Forests and excess Suburbs. Do not place Bookeries near the Smith's Forges. The interaction of magic books and magic armor is unpleasant.
  
• Use Battlefields to carefully control spawn rates by taking up a spawn slot with a treasure chest. For example, placing a Battlefield adjacent to a Ruins will cause a maximum of 3 Scorch Worms to spawn. Do not overlap Battlefield auras on Wastelands.
  
• Aim to have your Skeleton Level a bit over the Loop Level before each boss spawn. I had no issues with any boss by just focusing on the proper stat priority for Necromancer and being mindful of tile placement.

You must be picky with gear. At least two pieces of gear must have +1 skeleton. Usually I do two rings. Your tome will eventually be a gray quality tome that just gives a ton of skeleton level, alternative would be skeleton level and summon quality. The secondary stats to shoot for are summon quality and skeleton level.

You need to pay attention these stats and only accept rings and amulets that have +1 summon, or skeleton level AND summon quality. Ideally all 3. Dropping below 50% summon quality is dangerous. Letting your skeleton level drop more than -2 below the loop level is dangerous.

The Forests/Thickets (with optional River) will quickly get you over 100% attack speed, and you can summon an army for fights. Run Rivers so they go on both sides of Thickets. If you have River, don't place Forests. Let those get cycled by the Bookeries. 200% attack speed is perfect. Getting up to 300% is dangerous because you will start attacking Training Dummies.

Position one Blood Grove to cover the camp fire for the boss and place one more Blood Grove adjacent to and diagonal from the Zero Milestone. Weakened Flesh Golems, even with four Scorch Worm archers, are no problem at all.

Skeletons do not benefit from any hero stats. No attack speed, no defense, no evasion, no magic damage, not even regen. You want attack speed for your hero so you can summon more skeletons, and I feel comfortable with 50-80% summon quality so that I get guards.

The only real problems come from bandit camps. Bookery can help you cycle excess suburbs and Forests and hope for Oblivions.

The Forest Villages are pure gimmes for Necromancer. Try to cover them with Vampire Mansions for extra loot.

The Temporal Beacons make the day bar fill faster, so cover the loop path in the Temporal Beacon aura and you will get faster Scorch Worm spawns.

Completed Map

Completed Map