Actually playing a Necromancer at a table? How is it?

I'm about to start a new campaign at level 5 and am considering playing a necromancer wizard. We don't know the level cap of the campaign, but for the moment I'm assuming around level 10-12.

I'm familiar with most of the necromancer tools and combos that allow for an undead army, though I'm open to hearing any of your stories and tips. My REAL question is for those who have leaned hard into having that undead army and asking how was it at the table? 

I know it eats up action economy having 8 undead zombies/skeletons in combat, but I'm very quick at making those decisions and will probably work with the DM to group them all in one turn rather than each getting it's own. I'm planning to arm the undead with better gear, but I'm curious to see how well it's worked out for other people. Did you manage to use your undead to actually control the flow of battle and ward off a decent amount of damage or did they keep getting one shot by a random fireball?

Was it worth the effort to create and manage all those summons or am I better off just playing a druid (haha that's a joke!)

An undead army can be a lot of fun at the table, but it has its issues. If you are going to have a lot of minions, I highly recommend you either use an auto-rolling app (for local table-top games) or create roll macros (for VTT's or online games) to speed up the process of rolling and resolving 20 attacks each turn, otherwise your party is going to be rolling their eyes every time your turn comes up.

As far as how well they work, they can be very effective against trash mobs or melee boss monsters. They do have a weakness though. The real killer of Necromancers as a player character is how squishy your minions tend to be. They might do decent damage and be relatively hard to hit if you buy/craft them some better gear to carry....but one good Fireball or a dragon's breath weapon will decimate your ranks, completely undermining your whole strategy.

If you can mitigate their weaknesses somehow, it can be a lot of fun to feel like the master of Death's Army, but be wary of enemies with strong AoE effects.

Quick as you might be at making decisions, it’s still going to eat up some time at the table. That said, when a level 11 fighter decides to action surge, that also eats up a lot of time at the table. But it sounds like you’re aware of that issue and will try to be considerate of the other players, which is really a long way toward dealing with the biggest problem of them in play. I’d be up front with the party and check in from time to time to see if it’s getting annoying.

As you and sequilonis observe, however, they’re not going to be very durable. But if you appreciate that going in, and think of them mostly as a way to eat up enemy action economy and a way to exert some battlefield control, I think that’s the mindset to go with. They are disposable speed bumps that can slow an enemy down for a round more than anything else.

I’d also say check with your DM about 2 things. One is will you be dealing with humanoid enemies. Animate dead only work on humanoids, so if you’re fighting beasts, or plants or fey or devils or constructs or anything else, you won’t have many targets to turn into your undead army. (I once played in a campaign with a spore Druid who never once got to make her zombie for this reason.)

Second is your idea of getting the better gear. That’s not really supported in RAW. They get more hp and damage than a standard zombie or skeleton, but that’s all. If you just want to do it for flavor, that’s cool. But increasing their AC or giving them a bigger weapon to try and boost damage further would make them stronger than their base CR, and would start getting into game balance issues. I’d definitely check with the DM about those plans.

if you are on the ball and make quick decisions and stick with it, its not terrible. if you have a internal debate of the placement of each skeleton each round,  it will bog it down. using the level 11 fighter action surge example its probably close to being as slow as 3 of those, every round. as you are looking at 8 extra attacks and 8 moves, your own actions and movement. which is still far better than a one action guy who is indecisive. 

edit to add that would be the norm. Even quick deciding people will have turns in a campaign where every move matters so they will take more time with it. And while rare those turns will bog things down massively no matter how quick you are at deciding things.