7th Ed. Interested in starting up Tomb Kings

[Sebulba]

Hey Lustria,

I've just about collected all I want to collect for my lizardmen army and was thinking about taking up Tomb Kings as a second fantasy army. Does anyone have any good combo's or list ideas?

I love what Vaul does with his Tomb Kings on youtube (check those vids out if you haven't) but I know very little about the army.

For 2250 I have: (Comes out to 2372 actually, but still editing)

Tomb King
-Destroyer of Eternities
-Enchanted shield
-General

Liche Priest
-Hieratic Jar
-Cloak of the Dunes
-Hierophant

Liche Priest
-Staff of Ravening

Liche Priest
-Collar of Shapesh

20 Skelton Warriors
-Standard
-Musician

20 Skeleton Warriors
-Standard
-Musician

3 Chariots
-Standard
-Musician

3 Chariots
-Standard
-Musician
-Warbanner

20 Tomb Guard
-Banner of the Undying Legion

Tomb Scorpion

4 Carrion

4 Ushabti

Screaming Skull Catapult
-Skulls of the Foe

Screaming Skull Catapult
-Skulls of the Foe


Obviously a rough draft, but what do some of the more experienced players think? I want big blocks of skeletons with bows to hold out until my special units/chariots can hit the flanks.
I want to work in a prince too, but are princes better than priests?

Let me know,
Sebulba

 

[strewart]

Might be worth trying to get a unit champ or two into your skelly blocks so they can protect whatever characters you have there from challenges.

Towards the end of my TK career, I quite enjoyed a rather novel and unexpected use for the King. Cloak of fly, spear of heal my wounds, armour of don't let me crumble (actual names may vary slightly). This lad was great for flying forward then magicking himself into combat with warmachines on turn 1 or 2, also good for mage hunting. I liked getting him into the flank of the most powerful infantry block my opponent had. They do maybe 1 wound on me, I lose 1 wound crumbling, next round spear heals me back. I essentially fix the entire unit in combat with me uunable to go near the rest of my army until I am able to setup a flank/rear charge with something fun like chariots.

Also if there is a unit with no combat characters but a 'safe' mage, he can get in there, kill the mage and do the same holdup job with the rest of the unit.

Princes are good, they combine a spell and good combat ability plus the curse is always fun to unleash if they perish. The absolute key to TK success is a good strong supportive magic base though. So it depends on how much magic defence your usual opponents bring really. Carrion, scorpion and maybe King provide a nice mage hunting arsenal to lower magic defence though. IF you completely control the magic phase, you pretty much control the game. Don't forget to give your catapults two shots per turn as well if you can, particularly in turn 1-2 when there is little else to cast.


Finally, strong rumour has it that TK get rereleased later this year and will be made more powerful and get new models. And if you do start them now, don't even bother deploying against VC if they want to play because you will lose, and daemons will be an extremely hard fight too. Also, points values in multiples of 1k are best. 2k or 3k will be better than 2250. Why? As a TK player you max out magic no matter what. As an opponent, going from 2k up to 2250 or 2.5k, they just have more points to throw the odd extra magic defence item in.

 

[Sebulba]

Yeah, I'm hearing May on the new release?

That is an interesting King build... Should I combine two of the priests into one to put in a prince with the chariots?

 

[strewart]

Depends on how you want the army to run. Would you prefer to be a bit slower with more magic, or a bit faster with more combat potential? It is a pretty balanced list so far, fair bit of range though if you are running the skeletons with bows not shields and also have 2 catapults. Actually I would most likely ditch the TG now that I look again since they basically just provide holding power like skeletons except for more points.

I wouldn't expect May, that is very soon. Even GW would have leaked a rumour by now. Last I heard actually they were being pushed back due to problems with the new plastic bone giant kit. And of course, with 8th ed coming this year, things may get a little busy.

 

[Sebulba]

I was looking at that Tomb King build and it's really different from what most people play, I think.

How many turns could you keep him in combat? Did that tactic work alright even though you couldn't charge using the flying movement of Cloak of the Dunes?

 

[strewart]

Well since he strikes first usually, has the option to use his magic to give himself an extra attack, and has high toughness he very rarely takes a wound. The only loss is the 1 from crumbling, but that is quickly covered by a kill the next turn. I have never lost that King. I'm not the only TK player to come up with the combo though, so if at least a few others are using it then opponents may have faced it before. Not that there is a whole lot they can do about it.

Its no worries not charging with fly. He can use his incantation to mve into combat, and really when you charge a full static combat res unit (ranks, outnumber, standard) with a single model, who is going to try to stop that over your catapults firing twice? Even if they do, you go in turn 2 usually without the need for magic.

 

[Eternity_Warden]

I wouldn't expect May, that is very soon. Even GW would have leaked a rumour by now. Last I heard actually they were being pushed back due to problems with the new plastic bone giant kit. And of course, with 8th ed coming this year, things may get a little busy.

Hmmm, bone giant problems... interesting. I was rather disappointed when I found out GW was releasing new O&G in May because that of course meant TK would't come till later...
My TK army is pretty much on hold right now until the new release.

 

[strewart]

Yeah I think that is part of the reason GW are so tight lipped on rumours these days. If people know new stuff is coming soon, they wait rather than buying the old stuff.

They are saying that the new TK will be construct heavy to really difference them from the VC, which will be cool. Alas, their cool magic system may change to the same as everyone elses...

 

[JohnMavrick]

They are saying that the new TK will be construct heavy to really difference them from the VC, which will be cool. Alas, their cool magic system may change to the same as everyone elses...

That's crap! I LOVE the way TK do their magic even as their apponent! I think it's what makes TK compedative and unique. I agree with most other TK players that the list could use a few tweeks but I would be very very dissapointed if they changed the core of the army (unique magic casting).

 

[erians]

Been a while since the OP started this thread but I'll throw in my 2 cents anyway.

Tomb King

-Destroyer of Eternities
-Enchanted shield
-General

Liche Priest
-Hieratic Jar
-Cloak of the Dunes
-Hierophant

Liche Priest
-Staff of Ravening

Liche Priest
-Collar of Shapesh

Pretty decent character set up. King - Prince - Priest - Priest is a more common set up, but both obviously work. I used to play TK and had a lot of sucess with the King with Destroyer of Eternities or Flail of Skulls and Cloak of Dunes (28" charge range) and 3x mounted Liches, 1 with the Jar, 1 with Plaque and 1 Herophant with either Collar or with the +1 to cast staff (If I used the Flail on the king I gave him the collar instead). Priests are VERY fragile so you want to play very defensivly with them, which means you will rarely be within 18" and in LOS of an enemy and thus never get to use the staff. The flying king can be extremly handy and flexible, but he lacks protection and if his My will Be Done gets dispelled he can get stranded in the middle of nowhere so you have to be careful where you fly. Perfect for picking up some pts later in the game.

20 Skelton Warriors
-Standard
-Musician

20 Skeleton Warriors
-Standard
-Musician

Im personally not a fan of the Tomb Kings skelletons, I much prefer the archers, hitting on 5+ is powerful, espeially against skirmishers, and with the shooting spell they can really dish out some pain. If you take skellies you want bigger units, they can't get raies above starting strenght and killing a unit of 20 skelletons in a single round of combat is actually pretty easy for heavy hitters. If these units are intended to be archers then ignore this comment.

3 Chariots
-Standard
-Musician

3 Chariots
-Standard
-Musician
-Warbanner

Great choices. Units of 4 is sagnifically more effecient imo, but its more a matter of taste and with 3 big fighting blocks on the table you will have trouble fitting too wide chariot units in your deploy anyway.

20 Tomb Guard
-Banner of the Undying Legion

You reeeeaaally want the Icon of Rakaph on these. It allows them to make a free reform before charges are declares, which effectivly gives them a 360 degree charge. This is very powerful and makes it impossible for fast units to try and sneak past them. You can also reform, move 4" in any direction and then charge 8" with magic, which means this unit creates a (24" + the size of the unit) sphere of death, anything inside it risk getting charged by a unit of fighty Tomb Guards.

Tomb Scorpion

4 Carrion

4 Ushabti

Carrions are fantastic, they can move 12" away from your casters in the movemen phase then charge 20" with magic making first turn charges on War Machines possible, and very effective. Tomb Scorpions are another amazing choice, they are fantastic fighters, great character snipers due to KB and their tunneling rule where they can charge the turn the come up is great for taking out gun lines or support units. The Ushabti on the other hand are very cool looking models, but doesn't come close to the effeciency of a 2nd Scorpion. They are very expensive and pretty fragile with only T4 and 5+ save, and they don't really hit particularly hard either. Useful but far less effecient than the Scorps.

Screaming Skull Catapult
-Skulls of the Foe

Screaming Skull Catapult
-Skulls of the Foe

At first glance this set up might seem optimal but I found that the Bone Giant is a fantastic addition to the army as well. Moving 6" then charging with magic 12" makes the Bone Giant very fast, and as he breaks ranks and gets free pivots he can move 6" into a units flank arc then charge 12". He also hits pretty hard on the charge, but its his unexpected speed that really makes him good. The Skull catapults are good against big blocks of infatry, but they will struggle to make up for their pts cost against smaller armies with lots of skirmishers like the DE, WE and LM.

I want to work in a prince too, but are princes better than priests?

In a defensive, counter attack style list you need as much magic as possible to get magic shooting off in the beginning and magic charges in the later turns, and the Prince is very limited in what he can. In an offensive straight-up-the-guts type of list then a Prince on a Chariot of Fire wielding the Antrack spear is pretty good and adds a lot of offensive power. I've seen some players do well with a big unit of Chariots with both King and Prince in it (both on chariots ofc) but that type of unit is too easily wiped out by S7 attacks. I personally think that the prince is worse than a priest in most situations and that the TKs are better suited for a defensive play in the first 4-5 turns, then launching at the enemy with magic charges in the last 1-2 turns to pick up a lot of points or mop up whatever is left after the shooting.