8th Ed. Dealing with skeletons and Chariots

[Skubzilla]

My friend runs a tomb king army and I've had a lot of success against every list he's run so far until today. I had two battles today, and both of them these particular units gave me A LOT of grief.

My friend runs a horde of 60 skeletons with 4 characters. (tombking, necrotect, liche priest - heirphant, and a tomb herald) In this unit he has a banner whcih recovers a bunch of wounds, as well as the Nekhara lore attribute brings back D3+1 wounds. He runs this unit in every list he writes up. Sometimes it's 100 skeletons.

This unit just doesn't die. First game, I killed the Heirophant with my own miscast using Cupped Hands. Next turn his banner brought it right back and fully healed all of his characters, injured by the miscast. Everything, was healed. It was like the miscast did nothing! His heirophant got thrown into the realm of chaos for christ's sake. But nope, roll of a 6 and bam everything is all good and hunky dory for his unit. Therefore I've come to the conclusion; except with Salamanders and Dwellers... THIS UNIT DOESN'T DIE! I killed it twice over but it just keeps healing wounds. That or he'd dispell scroll my dwellers. The first game I ran light, and I just couldn't kill this unit. I figured, nice I killed the heirphant, this'll be a walk in the park. Nope, next turn; it's back. Then I screwed up my own magic phase by buffing my unit too early, (see the other thread I just posted for details) and lost my Slann in the process. My BSB and general was killed by this unit that should have died already!! FUCK!

Lastly he also ran a unit of 9 chariots. This unit dishes out 4D6+4 impact hits, and it's a core choice. SERIOUSLY!?! This decimated 17 of my temple guard the second game, and the temple guard quickly got overwhelmed in Close Combat. I never got a chance to even regrow the unit, and before I knew it, my Slann was in close combat. (which sucks donkey dick) Somehow my Slann actually held the unit off for a few turns as my saurus got a flank charge and with some awesome rolls, a bunch of skinks assisting in shooting, I luckily killed the unit before he killed my Slann. So I still ended up winnig the second game.

So at first I thought this army would be a walk in the park with using Light. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and messed up a lot of things with Light. My army got obliterated and this was after I took out the heirophant in turn 1! With the exception of my Salamanders (who really are FREAKING DOPE) everything that could hae gone wrong in the first game, did. Turn one went really well, but it was downhill after that.

In game two I used life, and as that is a lore I am most familiar with, I won by a little over 400 points. Again I knocked out the heirophant, but turn 2 this time. It didn't come back the second game though. Yet he still had to test against leadership 10 on everything so it didn't really do that much.

So any advice on using light against Tomb King? And what can I do against these two problematic units??

 

[Lord Cedric]

If he is using the Standard of Undying Legion, I do not believe he can bring back characters as it states that it is a bound spell that can recover D6+2 wounds on the bearers unit per the rules of "Ressurecting Fallen Warriors" on page 28 of the TK army book. That rule states that models rezed in-order are:

Unit Champ, musician, (standard bearers are never ressurected - if the bearer has been destroyed the banner cumbles to dust), displacing rank-and-file models. Then the rank-and-file models with multiple wounds are healed to their starting value. And finally, any remaining wounds resurrect rank-and-file models.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, spells and magic items that restore lost Wounds cannot heal characters or their mounts. If a character has joined a unit, only the unit will recover Lost Wounds.

Unless I am missing a bit more of the puzzle (IE character abilities and other magic items.. I don't see his characters coming back).

In regards to his unit of 9 chariots... yeah, TK chariots are nasty, but not impossible. They have the unique Chariot Legions ability which grants a unit +1 Strength per rank bonus on impact hits. So, going 3x3, their impact hit S is at a whopping 6. But only the front rank get's impact hits.

Chariots are not endurance units meaning they cannot withstand much of lengthy combat. A flank charge into them should pretty much take them out. Chariot Mounts/Steeds cannot fight against flank and rear hits, so use that to your advantage as well.

- Lord Cedric

 

[Arli]

Cedric is correct, unless there is some special item that allows it, tomb king characters cannot be ressurected. To my knowledge, the only item in the game was the old VC ring that brought a vampire back. I have been playing a tomb kings player for about two months now and he has never done that. Your friend needs to look at his rulebook again.

Chariots are easy to beat, just do not let them charge you. Get something in there way that is expendable until you can get to them or get their flank. I would even use salamanders to get their flank so that I could get some saurus, TG, or skrox in for the charge. Another option would be to avoid them altogether.

 

[Caprasauridae]

As Cedric and Arli said, Tomb Kings have no means to bring characters back to life. Heck, only ways to heal them are the Healing Potion and the Blade Of Antarhak. Many Tomb Kings players were really dismayed when the new VC book was revealed along with the ability of vamps to heal themselves quite easily.

I don't know where you got 4D6+4 Impact hits, chariots do 1D4 hits per chariot only (so if they are in a rank of four, that's 4D6). I think in the old book you could buy scythes to the chariots to get that +1 Impact hit, but not anymore. And as Arli pointed out, you get +1 Strength per rank for those Impact hits. But if you deny a charge from them, you have a big lump of fairly useless pile of bone and wood. In close combat only the first rank can strike as ranked up chariots don't get support attacks (not riders nor horses). At that point, you are basically fighting against skeletons with 5+ AS. Shouldn't be too hard. Also, as chariots only have Ld 7 and they often operate far from the General's leadership bubble, they are more susceptible to Crumble if you manage to take out the Hierophant.

 

[Scalenex]

There are things that can heal wounds on TK characters, but they can't be brought back from the dead. Your opponent probably wasnt' cheating but we all have a tendency to accidentally overlook rules we don't like.

 

[ChandlerGriz]

As a Tomb King player myself I have a couple things to add here.

1. Tomb King characters can never heal wounds, unless its has Blade of Antharak equipped or has a healing potion.
2. Even if they could, once a character is dead its dead. You cannot ever resurrect a character with spells such as Banner of the Undying Legion or Regrowth.
3. If his BSB has the Banner of the Undying Legion then he does not have any other magic items and is only WS4, T4, W2 and Saurus should eat him for lunch.
4. If you have Salamanders sit them on the units flank and toast away... if the template covers either of the characters (except the Liche Priest) and it fails the lookout sir its pretty much dead as the Prince/King, Necrotect and Herald are all flammable. And the S3 template will nuke skeletons in droves.
5. Skeleton chariots are only D6 impact hits each at S4+rank bonus. not D6+1
6. Make sure his Prince's "My Will be Done" special rule is NOT applying to his characters to boost their WS, because it DOES NOT! A couple saurus attacks at that Herald, Necrotect and Priest should neutralize them pretty easy. The King/Prince is a little harder to deal with and may require a scar-vet.
7. Characters do not get a LoS for Dwellers Below... so cast Throne of Vines (to protect VS Miscast) then chuck 6 dice into it targetting his unit... its going to do damage!
8. Slann with Becalming Cogitation will severely hamper a TK priest and its healing capabilities.
9. Remember the Banner of the Undying Legion is only a Bound spell 5+ and is easily dispelled by a lvl-4 wizard.
10. Im a Tomb Kings traitor

 

[Arli]

No, you are a Lizardmen Champion!

 

[Ejpok]

Hello,
From what I've played with Tk, thier Weakness is that they can't march. So our fast scout units can out run them with ease. And the 2 things I'm afraid of most is the Cascet of souls, and the Hierotitan, these two units buuf up the TK magic beyond Godlike..;/

 

[Arli]

The casket of souls adds d3 power dice to each magic phase. The Herotitan adds d3 to the casting value of each spell (within 12 inches of the Herotitan). They both are dangerous. The Herotitan is so good to be almost broken. When facing TK, I will usually take out the casket first (using chameleons) and then go for the Herotitan. The reason that I do this is because the first unit that the casket targets will be my chameleons. The casket is not very effective against any unit within 12 inches of the slann with the banner of discipline.

 

[Natural 20]

Ive played TKs quite a bit and everyone here has pretty much hit the nail on the head for tactical advice. Just to add my 2 cents ill second the comments on the TKs speed deficiency.

Theyre SLOW! My personal favorite thing to do is use my sallys to harras theyre units its easy to just circle them and keep flame templeting them, as far as im concerned the less skellys i have to face the better. Casket is most annoying but chammys tend to take it out fast i actually havent had to many games against the Heirotitan though i know of its scariness. The thing ive fought most on the battlefield against TKs is that awful sphinx from personal experience ive never seen that thing do anything at all its a big waste of points that goes down to poison shots faster than you can say big waste of points................

 

[Vallek]

Dwellers is awesome for rocking faces off against anything with a normal stat line.

As I've brought up in the vs. VC thread I've actually devised my own way to deal with undead armies. Slann with Lore of Death and Bane Head. Which ever character on the field that you feel is the biggest threat (typically army general) nominate them. Blast them away with the lore's sniper style spells and watch as even one wound getting through multiplies into two.

If your opponent like to field a nice fat block of skeletons then you can take out the only real damage dealer, lock into them, and burn them down with saurus superior stat lines. Use cube of darkness once you're locked in to try and shut down their magic phase and let Unstable do the fighting for you. All you have to do is shut down one magic phase and your opponent will have to face 3 rounds of combat and 3 potential unstables without being able to reinforce.