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7th Ed. Tomb Kings and Chariots and Catapults OH MY

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Bakatron

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Oh wow. I played my first game against Tomb Kings today, and OH GODS THE PAIN! My friend runs a chariot-based army, 2 units of 4 chariots, one with his leader in. Two screaming skull catapults, 4 magic users... he took out my Stegadon first turn, moved, cast, charged his chariots into pretty much everything... My dear fellow Lustrians, what the hell do you do against them?!
 
Ahh you face a rare TK opponent, one who knows how to use his army properly. Most people just think TK are underpowered and should be powered up. Imagine that?? I salivate at the thought, as my TK army went undefeated throughout its career.

How do you beat it? You need a LOT of magic defence. Magic really is the key here, if TK magic is left unchecked then they can wreck you by turn 2 or 3. Yes turn 2, I have had an opponent all but wiped out at the end of turn 2 before. Just as he must plan out his magic phase and decide which 2-3 spells he really really wants to get through, you must think about what he can do and decide what 2-3 spells you really really don't want to get through. Chariots sitting 8 inches from your flank? You don't want them to move. Skeletons sitting 10" away? Who cares if they move, let it go. Healing incantation to save a few skellies? Well I am sure there are more important things to stop. You should also never worry about the magic missile, it is weak and most TK players will only use it to draw out dispel dice.

Obviously another big factor in controlling the magic phase is killing one or two of the priests. You might definitely consider a suicide unit or two. A scar vet on cold one has decent speed, is immune to their fear and should be able to hit hard enough to kill a priest when he charges. Or use terradons if there are any priests on their own, which there often are especially if there is a casket.

Next and again very important, the heirophant. Like their blood sucking cousins, TK have a weak point in the army which makes them crumble. Unlike the VC, this guy is a really soft and squishy priest not a tough and crazy in combat vampire lord. He is worth destroying at all costs, literally. Not only will that stamp out a bunch of their magic, the army will start to crumble. Unfortunately, once he is dead you cannot breath a sigh of relief because they still have a general around to provide high leadership for the crumble test and can still pull off a win. But it is a big step, especially if you can get him early.

An engine will be invaluable here if you can hide it from the catapults until terradons/char skinks can deal with them. The burning alignment does extra damage against undead and will really really cause him some hurt. Early on the ward save will also be very helpful. Of course you need to hide it behind woods if you can to avoid it being shot at and deal with the catapults quickly. It is fine if it is still behind your deployment line in turn 3, but alive, you can then throw it out as quickly as possible and get close for burning alignment.

How to destroy the chariots? Well if you are killing priests and slowing the magic they should be a lot less deadly already. Sure they are still fairly fast, but nowhere near as good without magic throwing them into combat. Remember they are light chariots, a unit of them shouldn't be able to break through a rock of saurus in one turn, especially with cold blooded, your high toughness and decent armour. S7 kills chariots instantly, so great weapons on your characters will make them able to completely munch chariots. Stopping them getting the charge is also important, try to bait them with skinks to get them close enough for you to charge them.

I think the undead rule can be somewhat of a disadvantage to them, remember they can never choose to flee so if you manage to bait the chariots into a position where you can charge them, there is nothing they can do about it except sit there and die.

Finally, the princes and kings are flammable. Point a salamander at that chariot unit with the king if you can, should give him some trouble or at least make him scared.

Good luck, and I hope that helped.
 
We have a veteran TK player in our group. I think that he'd tell you the same thing. The magic phase is critical. I wouldn't worry so much about close combat considering that most LM units will be able to destroy TK units in hand to hand. Bring a big chunk of magic defense and make sure that you're selective about the spells you know you want to block. Units in close combat in the magic phase can fight an extra round if he decides to cast that spell. Units that are close enough to charge next round can charge in the magic phase if he casts the right spell. The list goes on, but being aware of what is possible with TK magic is very key to victory. Also, killing the general early, or as early as possible is a good way to victory as well.
 
I am a TK player as well as lizardmen, and I have some advice:

If you can spare 160 points for him, Oxyotl is good at sniping the liche priests.

However, watch out for Ushabti as their 10 Ld will in most cases prevent them from crumbling when the Heirophant is killed.

One of a Lizardmen Player's advantages over TK is that cold-blooded is good protection against Fear and also will likely nullify the Tomb King's Curse, which requires a Ld test.

TK shooting is very dangerous, as they always hit on a 5+ and ignore shooting modifiers, so skirmishing is no protection from their arrows.

The normal units of a TK army are not the equal of Saurus, though, and you should be able to beat them in combat and crumble them.

I can't give any better advice about magic than Strewart gave, simply remember that a TK army is all about it's characters, and it can be beaten if they are out of the way.

Hope this was useful :) !
 
Tk, although considered underpowered, are not.

Sure they cannot march, but they are unbreakable and can't miscast at all due to the way they cast spells...

I play them regularly, and tomb princes are beasts, my advice-

the burning blade of chotec-awesome vs undead
A slaan
A skink priest with diadem

and a unit of cold ones with the totem, this will alow you to get the jump on chariots, horseman etc. this unit along with a scar-veteran crushed 3 chariots 8 horseman 16 skeleton warriors, a liche priest and a tomb prince in one game.....they now never leave my list

AN EOTG! The 5+ wardsave vs the catapult is critical! you should also get terradons to get to it and destroy it!
 
Hey, great advice here. A guy in our gaming group is a veteran TK player and I have a tough time with his army. We go back and forth on wins but I have definitely received some good advice here that I'm going to take into consideration the next time I play him. Thanks again and can't wait to try some of this stuff out.

Iggy Koopa
 
Get the tomb kings army book.
Read the magic section of the army book.
Work out the saddest, filthiest combination of magic users and items you can based on what is legal in the army book. See if you notice these things from when you played with your mate.
Work out what items, spells and bound spell items are MOST important in the use and success of tomb kings magic. Wait for them, and chuck dispel dice and scrolls at them.
Take a Slann, if you haven't already. Take the random banner that noobs casters (18" stupidity one) and take the one that discards all casters 6'2 within 24 inches. (along, of course, with focussed rumination and focus of mystery)
gg. you win. its a hard meta and your friend might hate you, but advise him you only did it cos he's got butt-tonnes of magic. Then you can both tone down your armies.
 
thesecondman said:
gg. you win. its a hard meta and your friend might hate you, but ask him how many power dice and bound spells he has. If its over 10, advise him that most tournaments look down on that much magic. If he has a problem with you changing your army to beat him, tell him to tone down his magic and you can do the same, and you will both have more fun. Good Luck, we're all counting on you ;p
Click to expand...

10 PD in a TK army? You must be thinking of someone else. Every TK army I know bar none has.... 2 power dice. Bound spells? Maybe 1 or 2.

TK do not use PD, their incantations are automatically cast and their power level is random based on dice. Those 2 PD that every army gets as 'pool' dice? They can use them to try to stop remain in play spells. Otherwise a RiP spell is a big weakness for TK since they don't have a source of power dice to dispel it.

Really I don't have a problem with undead taking lots of magic. They are designed in their rules to need magic to function. Every other army can literally take no magic at all and still be fine, undead and particularly TK need magic. Not to damage the enemy, I agree that lots of magic being damage spells is overpowered so most armies should keep it toned, but they need the magic to support their otherwise expensive and weak troops. Sure they cause fear and never break, but that isn't going to win them a combat when their low armour gets them shot and their low WS and I gets them killed in combat.

Different armies have different advantages. Are You going to powergame a Wood Elf player with warmachines until he reduces the number of bows in his army? That just happens to be the strength of the army. Which is why dealing with the magic against undead is going to make more of a fun game than them taking a lot less of it, because undead without magic do not live. As I mentioned in my last post, there is usually 1-2 spells a turn that he can cast that will have a big effect on the game, usually movement spells, and the rest can be pretty much ignored or given a low priority. Its not as scary when most of the spells are only there to eat dispel dice.
 
Yeah... I've only played one game, but I've watched a couple(casket of souls: totally equals The Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones, I mean, It only works if you're looking, and you're faces-I bet- melt), and the auto 5+ drove me insane.... I was like: "Skirmishers!!! Long range!!! Banner of Chotec!!!!..... WHAT!?!?!? Well, there goes the use of half my army...."
 
Yes, I meant the amount of magic, in short. Here, ill edit it. There. They use bound spell basically, and I did mention bound spells.

Additonally, Vampire Counts can get 17 power dice. Undead having too much magic CAN be done, and dumb.

Additionally, I reckon that Tomb Kings are going to be Really Scary when the new book comes out. There something about a defensive undead army with range attackes that really gives me bad dreams...
 
TheAncientOne said:
Yeah... I've only played one game, but I've watched a couple(casket of souls: totally equals The Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones, I mean, It only works if you're looking, and you're faces-I bet- melt), and the auto 5+ drove me insane.... I was like: "Skirmishers!!! Long range!!! Banner of Chotec!!!!..... WHAT!?!?!? Well, there goes the use of half my army...."
Click to expand...

And movement. ;) s3 bows hitting on 5's aren't really that scary, but I did find them a very very useful support unit. As you mentioned they can shoot over half range after moving at anything and still hit on 5's. I used them as mobile support, running up next to my blocks 10x1 knocking off a rank or peppering any low armour support units, then on the turn the blocks charge the move up to the flank of the unit and reform to 5x2 then magic throws them into combat and all of a sudden I have ranks, outnumber and a flank charge for beaten and outnumbered by fear.

I'm not sure about the casket.. Definitely saw the Indiana Jones reference. I got it to go off once against beastmen and it wreaked havok. Mostly, opponents save 2-3 dice for it and block it. But this is an advantage in itself as you are effectively holding back several of their dispel dice so other spells get through. I liked to use one in 3k, flanked by 2 catapults, so the priest on the back actually had something to cast on and made the pults shoot twice. In 2k I preferred just the catapults and no casket.

thesecondman, yes there is definitely a limit as to how far they should go with magic. There needs to be some kind of balance between having powerful magic to support the army and having magic that is just rediculous. IMO TK don't really get into the rediculous area due to the lack of PD and since basically all their characters (except the useless icon bearer) have incantations anyway it is hard to avoid the amount of magic you have. It is a fair amount. The VC though definitely have the potential to go absolutely ballistic and be almost uneatable. If you don't entirely destroy a unit in 1 turn, if even 1 model survives, you can be looking at 5-10 raising spells popping up and returning the unit to above full strength so you will literally just bounce off them, especially since when most of the game is in combat they really have little else to cast besides raising everything. The downside for VC is their magic can fail or miscast so it is less predictable, but in general it is more powerful.
 
Look out for the new Tk book yo. They will prolly make the magic better, and I reckon we can expect them to be able to get a REAL general or at least make him tougher.
 
IMO the Tomb King as a general is among the stronger characters in the game, about on par with with vampires maybe slightly better since most vamps these days are geared toward magic rather than combat and would only really struggle with chaos characters or maybe some black orcs.

It will definitely be interesting to see what GW do with TK. Half the players want them powered up, half the players are happy as they are, and we can all agree that they pale against VC these days. I think TK will get a fair bit of an overhaul.
 
Take a Slann, if you haven't already. Take the random banner that noobs casters (18" stupidity one)
Click to expand...

um, the POD banner doesn't work on TK ....they're ITP
 
In 7th edition, Immune to Psychology only covers fear, panic and terror so even with ITP undead can still be effected by things like frenzy, hatred and stupidity..
 
Really? :jawdrop:

Thats news to me :D

Basically against TK, get an assassin built character, kill the hierophant, then sit back and dance around them as the army crumbles to nothingness
 
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