[AreaOfEffect]

I'd have to disagree about it being unthematic. As Baalz has already mentioned, all nations, with the exception of Marignon, have access to undead pretenders. Death magic itself should be a magic path available to all nations even for those without starting death mages and gem income. It is worth noting that using magic paths that are unthematic with your nation has an opportunity cost. If players are willing to put in the extra effort, then I'm fine with them paying that cost. Besides, it always makes for a nice role plying feel to see a nation using magic that it inherently does not have access to. It truly shows how the pretender has been given so much devotion that his interests override the morals of society. How often have people used blood magic while playing as MA Mictlan.

In regards to the potency of the life after death, the fight where you use the spell needs to be a very controlled circumstance. You first need to guarantee it is a battle you can win or retreat from successfully. The retreating part would be easy except you need to also kill all your priests once, and only once, before they escape and their souless bodies are frail and unprotected. Surely almost any player can set up this situation in single player games, but it becomes exponentially harder when fighting a war in multi-player. It may also not pay off in the end if a SC teleports on top of the stack of priests or if the enemy researched a bunch of undead killing spells, which they can easily do at this point. Also, not to ignore what Baalz has already stated, there are surely opportunity costs involved. The money alone could easily have been 200 well armed national solders.