[krpeters]

Are you sure you're not making this problem more difficult than it needs to be? In my (admittedly limited) experience, skelespamming is a high fatigue process. After raising a horde of undead, the death mages should stop for a rest. What you need is to have enough damage-dealing ability to mop up his horde and kill his mages before they start up again.

Thugging is exactly the wrong way to go. You want a horde of cheap expendable troops, that, or effective anti-undead spells. Troops with multiple attacks are ideal.

Also, like someone else pointed out, a pile of 40 gold indy preachers are highly effective. Plop temples and recruit them, you don't need to worry about losing mages to make them.