New necromancer - healing?

[Gallows]

 Going to play with some mates this weekend... I'm completely new to the game and wonder, what are some good sources of healing for the necromancer. Also I'm doing a team game with a warlock on my side, so I don't want to be using that altar that gives damage and finite life. Need an alternative, although I had a blast with that altar against my wife in out very first game 

[ACG]

My advice is not to bother with healing. Stay away from your opponent, use cloak of shadows, and swarm your enemy. If damage is a concern, load up on armor. Unlike the warlock, the necromancer isn't really build for melee, so Vampirism isn't a very good idea. Have your teammate protect you. If you really need to heal, drain life is a decent (though expensive) option.

Also, don't be too afraid of finite life. A warlock/necromancer team can do quite well with a deathlock out, by having the warlock rush and the necromancer swarm. Finite life is the dark school's answer to the many anti-dark spells of the holy school.  The Altar of Skulls is not a good source of healing anyway, because it takes so long to activate and will only heal you 2 damage per turn.

[sdougla2]

For the Necromancer himself you can use Regrowth Belt, Regrowth, Drain Life, Drain Soul, and Death Link. I wouldn't advise using direct healing spells from the holy school like Minor Heal. You should also stay away from using Vampirism because of the Necromancer's frailty and lack of strong melee options compared to other mages. Also consider using defensive cards that prevent incoming damage rather than needing to heal as much later, such as Block, Brace Yourself, and persistent sources of armor.

If you have skeletons, you can reconstruct them with Reassemble, Unholy Resurgence, Mort, and Acolyte of the Bog Queen.

[Gallows]

Cheers for the answers. My wife an I had our first game yesterday with the regular spellbooks of druid vs necromancer. It was so awesome. As we were playing, strategies, synergies and new ideas for cards in our books kept comming to mind. The game took three hours with looking through the codex, reading all our cards and a lot of talk - it was an absolute blast.

I had the altar of skulls out and she wanted to rush it. I saw it comming and used my initiative to quick cast and extent wall of bones. We both chuckled at the way I at least kept her at bay for a bit and how you can really read your opponents intentions and react to them. There is so much player interactivity in this game. After the game we kept talking about different cards to put in our books and how awesome the game is when we could see so much strategy and so many things in the game in our very first play.

The two friends comming over this weekend have both played TCGs, but were both annoyed by the trading part and the fact that the luck of the draw could influence the game a lot. I think they're going to love this game.

I am pondering skeleton or zombie armie... so hard to pick. I like the exploding zombie as a servant I think though, because of the condition and being able to keep him comming. Haven't read sacrificial altar, yet, but after reading on the forums it seems I want to when I get home.

Awesome community. And I was one card short in the DvN expansion. Posted here and a day later I get an e-mail that they have sent me the card I'm missing. Absolutely awesome customer service

[V10lentray]

My friends like to joke that I only play mages that are Really Really living or Really Really dead, as my 2 favorite mages to play are the Druid and the Necromancer.