Necromancer Q's

[Archon_Wing]

Hirable mercs are always slightly lower level than you, so don't bother leveling them up; just hire new ones if you're not happy with your current one.:)

Defiance probaly won't help too much. Thanks to the high regeneration, and with more pts in skellie/mastery they rarely fall, and if they do, it's typically not a physical attack. Usually I lose skeletons only to act bosses. In other cases, skeletons are easily replaced. Basically your army will have little problem with tanking, it's just the damage you need to focus on.