Hey everyone,
Today we’re looking at familiar faces some of you may remember from Auriga: The Necrophage. The insatiable, warmongering bugs are back, but their time on Saiadha has changed them.
Lore
The Necrophage are a hive of semi-insectoid creatures that feed on corpses, driven by instinct to devour everything in their path.
Retreating from an ancient flood and the violent storms of Saiadha, they burrowed deep underground, where they adapted to life in the dark.
Now that the waters are receding, they have emerged from their hibernation to sate their unceasing hunger. But crawling to the surface they immediately encountered the Sheredyn, a threat to the hive and the queen that must be eliminated.
Art
As the Necrophage are a returning faction from Endless Legend 1, we wanted to maintain a strong visual legacy so that they would be instantly recognizable to our long-time fans. That means a reliance on organic materials for their structures, and an off-putting combination of vertebrate and insectoid features for their units.
However, we also wanted to clearly show that this is a different hive that has adapted to the conditions on Saiadha. After sheltering underground in near hibernation for a long time, the Saiadhan Necrophage rely even less on inorganic tools and weapons while their shells have paled to mostly white.
Notable Elements
Buildings: Wasps nests, (funnel) spider webs
Units: Insectoid and arachnid carapaces 
Gameplay
The Necrophage are one of the most aggressive factions in Endless Legend 2. Their entire economic power is concentrated in a single city, fueled by their armies devouring their enemies and the land itself. Swarms of units can be moved quickly through burrows or spawned right on the front lines. When dealing with the Necrophage, peace is never an option.
Here’s a word from our designers on the design intentions for the Necrophage:
So necrophage evolved quite a bit during development: They are the big bad guys they had to be an agressive faction forcing you to create armies to stop them. Making them a one city faction was a good way to pull out some of the macro management of a regular economy making them focus on what was important for the players of the warfare playstyle: explore, Swarm, Kill and focus on the next target. This does not mean there are a weak economy as they can full it with unique infrastructures and districts, those requiring some meat to be built so combat is still a must to make them grow. The main issue is to make them feel fair while fighting them: the free unit is one way to compensate for the solo city economy but the endless swarm can feel unfair. Making their base unit the worst unit of the game was our solution. Your goal as a necrophage player should be to find them an easy place to eat the terrain freely or to feed them some meat and strategic resources to make them evolve into deadly monsters. Your goal as the opponent of the necrophage should be to find those isolated larvas and kill them as fast as possible, not letting them becoming dangerous beast (and yes they'll be scattered across all land so watch out for those sneaky armies). Same thing for their burrows, those can be used as entry point for their invasion or to flee if you are chasing them => to sum it simply Watch out for the bugs or the bugs will eat you alive. Finding the balance between the all in in military and the feeding of your capital will be the key to Necrophages success, Having the biggest and Badest hero will compliment it well with the tons of experience necrophage earn by their military Playstyle. To sum it up have one mission in mind => FEED THE SWARM
Faction Affinity: Hive Society
The queen is vitally important to the Necrophage and their lifecycle, so their society and their hive are structured around her. Instead of placing camps and founding additional cities, the Necrophage have only their capital. They can still claim faraway lands through Burrows and Hives, which they can attach to their capital from anywhere on the map, adding more territories to their capital than other factions. These Burrows and Hives can also be used to move armies quickly between them, letting the Necrophage control and defend a large territory without establishing cities there.
The Necrophage also harvest Corpses from killing enemies and razing cities, a crucial resource for them. First and foremost, they need these corpses to evolve their larva into more powerful forms of Necrophage to create effective armies. Should they find themselves with a surplus of Corpses, they can also use them to create new population in their cities.
The swarm is insatiable, and the Necrophage will consume everything in their path to fuel their growth. Your armies have a special “Devour the Land” action they can use to strip tiles of all their resources and sending them to the hive, leaving the land barren in their wake.
Traits
Rapid Adaptation: Necrophage units can upgrade anywhere, instead of only in their own territory.
Ever Fighting: Necrophage cannot parley with or bribe minor factions. However, they can always declare justified wars for free and suffer less war weariness.
Insectoid Society: Only Necrophage population can live in Necrophage cities.
Queen’s City: The Necrophage city has additional population slots in each category.
Larva Creation: After every victorious battle, a larva spawns nearby.
Military
Necrophage armies favor aggression over defense. Many of their unit abilities focus on dealing increasing damage or destroying isolated and wounded targets, though a few of their units might be tougher than you expect. Even if they take losses in battle, they can easily recover thanks to the newly spawned larvae and their ability to upgrade anywhere.
Battle Affinity: Unceasing Hunger
Every time a Necrophage unit attacks, it reduces their target’s defense, making them more vulnerable to damage.
The most basic of Necrophage units, the Larva, is quite fragile in combat, as its primary purpose is to evolve into stronger units after spawning.
Necrodrones are the flying scouts of the hive, locating promising new territory or prey.
Bloodseekers are even more mobile and can help other armies move faster.
Hornets focus more on combat, gaining extra damage from charging and shoving back their enemies.
The Spitter serves as the ranged unit of the Necrophage, gaining a damage boost against wounded targets once they evolve to Corruptors.
Defilers support the roaming swarms by boosting the damage of nearby allies every time they attack.
Infestors bolster your ranks in battle, as every time they kill an enemy a Feeder that will die at the end of the battle spawns.
Feeders are the core melee troops of the hive, and they excel at taking out isolated targets.
Evolving them into Slicers will make them even more dangerous against already wounded units, and even allow them to heal after they kill an enemy.
Soundtrack
Of course, Arnaud Roy has as always provided us with an amazing theme to accompany this faction. Give it a listen below or on one of Arnaud's streaming platforms.
Will you join the swarm and consume Saiadha? Let us know what you think about the Necrophage.