Original Thread: http://tomb-kings.net/index.php?showtopic=7838
So, with the new book in my hands and a few games under my belt I have decided to go on a quest hoping to find the key to success with the new army book in 8th edition. I shall be taking you on a journey for 20 games at 2200pts I shall be reporting on the battles played with general comments on the outcome and performance of my army. It is widely accepted that at -least- 20 games with a certain army against a plethora of opponents will give you insight as to the ebb and flow of an army list. And hence I seek the wisdom of the priests and hope that you can join me on this quest. So, I ask you to gain inspiration from these tales of battle as well as offering your insight to the path ahead. At the end of these 20 games we shall have a better understanding of the Tomb Kings legions and how to use them with tactical and strategical efficiency in game.

Epilogue:
I shall discuss my preliminary games that I have had with the Kings army and what I have learned from these games. This will give us the basic core for what we are looking for in a 2200pt army.
I have had 4 games at this point value, and and 2 games at the 1500pt value, but this is not about the skirmish sized games, this is the tale of great battles.
vs Empire:
My opponents list consisted of about 1500pts sunk into one unit, this unit was a huge unit of empire knights (40) + 3 characters (BSB, Karl Franz and Priest). 3 Great Cannon a Mortar and a Steam Tank. The army I ran was a basic list that was similar to my other lists, just with a few perks from the new book since I had no idea about the new book and had made the list in the few minutes that I had had the book in my hands.
King with Tomb Guard. HLP lv 4, Lp lv2, big skeleton block with tomb prince, casquet of souls, one screaming skull, 10 Light horse, 2 units of 20 bowmen and a Colossus. I had really spent on the characters and did not have too many supporting units.

Things that I learned from this defeat:
- The Skeleton horde I had actually survived quite a while against the huge death star. The prince needed something to keep him alive for longer in combat. I got too carried away and charged the tomb guard into the front of the horde of horsemen thinking that the skellies would loose soon, but I would have had time to flank the horde and in the long run that would have been better.
- I had taken WAY too many spell levels and bound items. Ruby Ring, Casquet, level 4, Level 2, Banner of Undying Legion... even with the casquet bonus I was finding it hard to use all the tools at my disposal.
- The bone giant died to mass cannon fire... so he did not have too good of a showing, the screaming skull did 6 wounds onto the steam tank turn 1... that was really nice. Maybe wanted to get a second one for anti monster shooting?
- The casquet was nice, but my opponent kept enough dice arround to always dispel it... Talking about magic... we totally played the Lore of Nehek all wrong, and were treating the augment spells as RIP spells... so during his magic phase he was dispelling them and I was loosing the bonuses that I had (KB, extra attack, ward.. etc)... Never again!
- The light horse... awesome. As soon as I saw that they had scout I was drawn to them... I always liked them before (as bunkers for my LP) but scout and cheaper makes them even better... the 10 took out all the warmachines. Totally worth it they had to stay in some shape or form.

This was the first game that I had had with the new book and the lessons that I learned I took back to the drawing table. For my second game I faced off against a lizardmen player. In my next post I shall explore the changes that I had made to the list and the situations that I found myself in during the game.

Keep posted for more content.

Cheers!

On to the second game of my Epilogue series:

2200pts vs Lizardmen.
His list was:
Slaan (all the good stuff) Lore of Light
20-30 Guard
2 units of 24 warriors, one with spears.
2 units of skirmishing blowpipe skinks
Steg engine of gods, skink priest.
unit of 3 salamanders.

It is a very hefty list, and a tried and true contender for 8th edition.

My list had changed and this is what I took:

Casquet- Always take the casquet...
unit of 5 Ushabti
3 Chariots
30 Tomb Guard with King
HLP
LP (death)
Prince
Light horse (bunker for HLP)
16 Archers
10 Archers
50 HW/Sh Skeletons
Skullypult

- The mission was dawn attack. And from the begginging I was on an off foot... 6 of my units all ended up on my left flank... the
casket, the skeletons, the tomb guard, the ushabti, unit of archers, the chariots and the HLP's bunker.

So, I was unable to finish this game but here is the list of things that I learned:
-Musicians are fantastic... and needed. I had so much stuff crammed in that flank and no music...so my chariots and ushabti were out of pisition in respect to the rest of his army... If you want to get out of a tight spot, use the horns!
- Large skeleton unit with the prince was amazing once again.
- The ushabti died, easily and it is hard to bring them back.
- The casket was really nice.
- The position I was put into at the start of the game really stunk.
- I felt like I did not need the secondary caster... although he did roll up purple sun the damned becalming was really preventing me from doing it effectively.

So, back to the drawing board, but I can see a pattern emerging. Skelly block + prince = awesome.

You need to try out more chariots. They got a major overload in this addition. In addition, I would run atleast 2 catapults at 2000+. Tomb kings still have some of the best shooting in the game with the catapults that cause panic.

How did the colossus do for you and do you have any sphinx?

@ Tomb King- No I do not have a warsphynx.. yet. In the next two games I do run the double catapult.

So, games 3 and 4 of the Prologue series, and a discussion of the set list that I will be running for the 20 games:

Game 3 Was against Orks and Goblins:
His list;
Black Ork Special Character with about 30 black orks.
Large unit of double choppa orks (25?) BSB in here as well
40 or 50 Night gobbos with nets and fanatics with a NG lv 4 Shaman
10 arrer boyz.
2 units of 3 wolf chariots (str 5? wow)
1 Aracknoc spider

My list had changed a bit from my previous game and now included muscitians where needed, no ushabti a bone giant and a a prince instead of a king as well as LV 4 and that was it for magic. Cloak of dunes and ward for the hiero.

HLP Lv4 Hierophant. Cloak, Earthing Rod, Opal Amulet - 300pts

Prince Glittering Scales, DB Gem and HW, SH- 132pts

Prince Armour of Fortune and GW- 139pts

6 Horse Archers

50 HW/Sh Skellies with FC

20 Bows with FC

10 Bows with Mus

3 Chariots, Banner, Eternal Flame

23 Tomb Guard - FC, BoUL

2 Swarms

Colossus extra HW

2 x SSC

Casket

Total - 2200pts

So, mission saw dawn attack once again, this time he was heavy on my right with big spider, hero black ork bunker, chariots and gobbos in the center and the small unit of archers (that did not to anything all game so I wont mention them again) on the left field.

All in all I was doing very well starting turn 3, my BG had eliminated a unit of chariots and had then moved into contact with the Black orks, stalling them... the horse archers got in the way of the big spider to prevent it from getting involved int he middle of the battle, the chariots and HW/sh skellies had broken the unit of orks in the middle and then held up the gobbos with the shaman... it all came down to the shaman casting his big spell bosted, irresistibly and killing 15 of the tomb guard that were about to fight the big spider, and about 30 of the skeletons... neutering any advantage that I had until then, the spider stomped all over the remnants of the tomb guard and then ate the rest of my army... one unit of wolf chariots had busted through my line by hitting the 10 man archer unit and going into the backfield to take out my casket and both catapults over the course of the game.

What a great turn around. The hierophant was alive thanks to the cloak of dunes, but I did not have much else as the last of the skeletons crumbled due to combat resolution.

So things that I noted from this game:
- Need to have a dispel scroll in my army... it would not have helped against any double sixes, but just in case it would prevent something like this from happening again.
- I was happy with the performance of my army in general... the swarms never showed up and the 10 man archer unit was not needed or useful in this game. Both catapults were good but they failed to wound the big spider.. over and over and over again...

So, on to game 4 that happened right after this game. Played the same Lizard player that I had faced in game 2, except this time he took the tried and true Lore of Life for his Slaan.

We played blood and glory. He deployed slaan centraly flanked by both saurus squads, steg on one side within 12 of all block for the ward save... and skinks on one side and sallies and skinks on my right... here i scouted the fast cav to force his skinks away of the sallies from the main battle. I went first and just advanced as fast as I could up the table. Firing at skinks I killed 7 form the unit on my right and the SSC opened up on the steg but failed to kill it.

He advanced and dwellers my 40 skellies, I had deployed my hiero on the far right with the 20 man archer unit to prevent becalming at least for a little bit. With the cloak he was later able to move closer to buff my main units.... so the battle raged on, my TG smashed into the saurus warriors on my right of the slaan and made them run, I was unable to run them down... the skellies tied up the slaan TG unit and the BG charged into the other unit of saurus on the left... the catapults smashed the steg and killed it to prevent it from helping the saurus against the colossus. The scouting cav took care of the skinks in my turn and on my third turn saw a boosted smiting go off ( even with becalming on my hiero) that saw my 20 archers become 40, the scout cav come back to full strength and hence the salamanders pack was reduced to one salamander...

We had to call the game due to time but it had been going very well for me. A few things that I noticed:

- the colossus was awesome but I think the list would benefit more from a hierotitan, a lv 4 is hard to stop (with the casket bonus) and +d3 to his power of spells would mean a lot more.

- still missing the dispel scroll, a secondary caster for more support across the board... sometimes the movement spell would be awesome but people know this and they shut it down, having a second chance at it would be great!

Anyway, here ends the Prologue series, I have written up my list and will now begin this journey.
So, just came back from my latest game, Game 1 of the Journey... we dusty foot legions taking the great watchtower that leads to the passage to the north. Held by the barbarian warriors clad in steel and writhed in magical energies of chaos. (for those not into the narrative, played a game watchtower scenario against warriors of chaos, he started the game in the tower) And this time... have pictures. I hope to have it up later tonight.

So, Game 1 in the series:

Win vs Warriors of Chaos 2200pts.
His list was not an ultra competitive list this is what he took:
Khorne lord on Jugger
3 units of 15 Tzeench warriors FC
2 Level 2's one with tzeench, one with death. Infernal Puppet (I did not like this thing).
4 units of Hounds, 5 strong
5 Khorne Knights (maybe chosen?)
Hellcannon

And now to the list that I have written up for the Journey of 20 games:

Tomb King, Golden Death Mask, Sword of Might, Dragonhelm, Shield, Seed of Rebirth

High Liche Priest- Level 4, Hierophant, Cloak of the dunes, talisman of preservation.

Tomb Prince- Glittering Scales, HW, Shield, Dragonbane Gem

Liche Priest lv 1, Dispel Scroll, Ironcurse Icon

40 Skeleton warriors, FC

20 Archers, Mus, Champ

3 Chariots, Mus, Standard, Banner of Flame

5 Horse Archers

23 Tomb Guard, BoUL, FC

3 Carrion

Colossus (really the concept should have this as a Hierotitan, but I want to make a model for it, same points cost)

1 SSC

Casket of souls!

Anyway some pics and the general overview of the game:
Deployment:


Tomb King Turn one:
- King and Guard charge into building. The 20 archers take out one unit of hounds on the far left, and cause panic on the 15 warriors beside them... who fail and run off the table taking the level 2 wizard with the scroll off the table :O.


WoC turn 1:
- He moves the hounds about to block lanes of advance, splits his lord from the knights as he is not getting a LOS roll from the catapult and he needs the knights to get into the midle. The hellcannon does 3 wounds on the giant.


TK Turn 2:
- The King and Guard assault the building once again, the unit inside fails their terror test, because they are in a building they count as having failed their fear test. The carrion fly in front of the jugger lord to direct him away from the battle (as frenzied units must overrun). The giant charges the hounds in front of him, they fail terror and run, magically I move the giant into a better position for next turn, he gains a wound back. My prince and skellies charged into more hounds right in front of them and killed them in cc, making sure they withheld pursuit so that the knights only had a front charge. My HLP irresitibles a boosted smiting spell, giving everyone with 24" more shots and attacks. He miscasts and rolls an 8, not bad, but the enemy wizard used the puppet to up the value to a 10... this meant that now my wizard would loose 2 levels of magic and 2 spells (including the one I had just cast)... nasty.

TK turn 2 cont:
The King and TGuard storm the building, the enemy fled and the they took possession of the tower.


WoC Turn 2:
- The lord charged the carrion, murdered them and overran over towards the far right of the table away from the actual fight. The knights charged into the skelly block and killed about 13 with crumble loosing none in return. The hellcannon took a wound off a chariot after scattering off the giant. Other units rallied.

TK Turn 3:
- The giant charged the far unit in the backfield with the other sorceror they failed terror and ran... he redirected against the closer unit together with the chariots, they passed and held their ground. The casket of souls used a lot of dice and zapped the jugger lord... for one dead jugger lord :O. The skelly combat was again stagnant, shooting saw some wounds off the hellcannon, and the giant and chariots smashed the unit of warriors and ran them down.


And lo and behold... the game was called. The time was up but the Tomb Kings were in firm control of the tower!

Tactical Review:
- My opponent was not running a super hard list and he is relatively new to fantasy so there were a lot of mistakes on his part, such as putting his general out on a flank. The hounds were more of a hamper than a bonus as they were easily shot down buy asp arrows and dealt with quickly in cc. The combat for the tower was quite something, the King with his Sword of Might turned the tide both times, one to tie the combat, the other to win it. The death mask was really nice and would have meant that even if his general was near the unit they would have suffered the same fate! I like it.
- The unit of 20 archers is a nice bunker for the HLP and provides a decent "just in case" unit. Although it seems that most armies are built around 3 larger blocks of fighters and then 1 supporting block. There was another TK player with a unit of 40 TG (no BOUL).
- I liked having the level 1 caster... he is nice and giving him the movement spell was not bad, luckily i rolled dobles for my HLP and was able to pick the ones I wanted.
- His army did not really have any shooting, and so I was unable to really see how my units did against them (especially the smaller units like carrion and the horse archers).
- The casket was awesome, and actually bounced this time.
- He got super unlucky with the first turn run away unit of warriors...

Anyway. On to game 2! (there is talk about changing the point value of the LGS league nights to 2500pts, more standard point value for tournaments IIRC?... so If this happens I will continue the synergy of this list, but I will have 300 more points to spend! yay for a better ward on my HLP .

Cheers!

Really glad to see this series, and jealous that you're getting to be among the first to really flex the new book.

I'll be reading with much interest!

My fellow Hierophants and Tomb Kings:

A small skirmish (2000pts) against a tide of vermin has taken place. The vermin tide was numerous. Our tomb king and his personal guard took to the field to meet them in the mountains. Our journey continues. Although not exactly the point value of the actual journey every battle counts. I will be writing up the report and note on unit effectiveness in a bit, right now feast on this picture.... as you can see the skaven army is painted, mine is still WIP but slowly getting there!

Great thread, will definitely be following this!

Great stuff Be great to see one of the new units in action too. Maybe somebody won't mind the Bone Giant being a proxy for a Hiero Titan

Nice stuff, will have to get my friend starting TKs up to have a look at this thread.

Thanks all for the replies and encouragement! I hope you may find inspiration within this tome of knowledge.

Fellow travelers of the blistering desert. I have dwindled for too long and it is time for the battle report (almost a week late, sorry). 2K points of the Legion faced off against 2K of vermin tide.

After taking the watchtower in the north reports of a tide of vermin sacking sacred shrines and tombs reached the ears of the tomb King. Without a word a detachment of the full army advanced to engage the horde, the aim to break their determination and send them scurrying back to their stinking holes.

So, mission Blood and Glory. His fortitude was 5, general, BSB 2 units of clanrats, mine was 5 as well, Skelly horde, tomb guard, chariots and general.
We also agreed to continue to play even if the army broke (this is in line with a few tournaments in the area, than count the fortitude objective as "primary" and then count up VP's as usual for secondary objective).

His list was something like this:

Lv 4 Grey Seer Feedback Scroll

BSB
PlagueMonk (lv 2)
Engineer- Doom missile

50 Slaves FC
50 Slaves FC
49 Clanrats, HW, Sh FC - Wind Mortar
49 Clanrats, HW, Sh FC - Flamer team

6 Gutter Runners poison slings, ambush upgrade?

DoomWheel
Hellpit

My list:

40 Skellies and Glittering Prince

30 Tomb Guard (BoUL) and King with Deathmask

3 Chariots with flaming banner

15 archers as bunker

5 Horse Archers

HLP with cloak and ward

Casket
Catapult
Colossus

So, I will keep it short and sweet, to illustrate my deployment:

DoomWheel-Slaves-Clanrats-Clanrats-Slaves-HPA

No mans land
Horse Archers (scouted)
Horde Skellies-BG-Tomb Guard
------------------------Archers Chariots
Catapult Casket

He got first turn, and moved up aggressively. Magic did nothing (he did not get skitterleap although he did get cracks call)

My line moved up, the chariots put one wound on the HPA with their flaming arrows .

His second turn saw the Poison mortar hit the skeleton horde and kill 10 or 11 of them. I dispelled cracks call... thank goodness (my colossus was scared, very scared)
My second turn I charged the slaves on the far corner with the TG and he held... the colossus also charged in and he held as well. The engineer in the slave unit then stand and shot with his rocket... and killed about 16 tomb guard! He landed the rocked bang on target.. nasty.
Then in my magic I banner of undying legion back 8 tomb guard . And the entire slave unit was eliminated. The casket zapped the doomwheel and took 4 or 5 wounds off it. (it had one left) The TG reformed to face the HPA and the giant faced the clanrats in the center.

His turn, the HPA charged the TG. The seer left his unit and cracks called my colossus into the ground, the wind mortar killed itself and the doomwheel finally got a hold of the horse archers and wiped them out. The other clanrats and slaves manouvered around a dangerous hill in the center. (see pic above post). The HPA then epically failed in close combat... this was the definate turning point in the game as it failed each and every save... and allowed my TG to face off against some clanrats.

The skeleton horde charged the clanrats in the center and so did the TG and failed to run them down but did win combat. Then in his following turn the last unit of clanrats charged into the skellies, he death frenzied them and wiped the skeletons in one round of combat ! ( I had taken quite number of casualties and he rolled very hot). Then the TG ran in and wiped out the unit that had BSB in it. And the catapult had fired at the slaves on the far left and killed one, and forced them to panic.
His gutter runners had shown up and died when the casket exploded.

Then I had to go home... So we called it a game, the Tomb Kings were in a very strong position and won the game!

So, now onto the mandatory tactics and review section:

Once again the horde skellies were fantastic.
Death Mask is king(and found on a king, imagine that!)
Must take secondary caster with scroll, sometimes you have to stop a big spell!
Casket and HLP are mainstays always I would drop the king before I drop my LV 4.
Chariots with flaming banner, good.
The colossus is still the odd man out, he should really be a hierotitan, I promise I will play him soon.

Anyway Cheers!

The King looked up from his last kill to see the enemy verming fleeing. Their determination and resolve broken, their squeals of terror and pain. The King recalled the smells of battle and for a short moment thought of better times. "Enough recollections" he thought "It is time to move on". As one, the legion halted; the battle had been won and their never ending journey would continue.


And on another note for you eager readers I have played yet another side quest. 1500pts against the Orks and the Goblins! Stay tuned for a short report coming soon as I failed to take pictures, but I have a few tactical fruits to give out.

Cheers!

Pretty good report although since these are all Batreps, it would seem better off to be in the Batrep section

Still good to see a lot of experience getting made with TK. Kinda agree that so far the giant has been the black sheep of your army.

I must ask, why only 3 chariots?

Well, tactically speaking I find that using larger units, when not basing my strategies on them (tactically not taking a king or prince on a chariot) is a liability. I like my large blocks... hehe, I do own about 20 chariots and I am in the process of making an entire chariot army...
3 is min size and a good unit to take out other chaff in the enemy army reliably, and then once freed up being able to support the main battle.

The skaven horde had been vanquished. The legion did not stay still for long, not needing the sustenance or rest like a mortal force they were a swift and relentless machine. The liche priests had informed the king of a Goblin lord that had stolen one of the sacred scrolls of the Tomb of Ankhara.
The legion was advancing into the mountains. As the legion advanced in the night the goblin drums bellowed in the deep.

So, had yet another game this one was saturday night, and happened from about 12-3 am... so we were getting through the game and not really worrying about pictures and stuff, as such I will keep it short and sweet. So, I played the same O&G general in the 2nd game of my prologue series. This rematch saw him not forgetting most of his models and he was now ready to take me on, being more knowledgeable about his army and the capabilities of mine.

His list:
Black Ork Warboss
Lv 4 Night Gobbo Shaman
Gob lord with a GW and 2+ AS?

Gob hero BSB
Lv 2 NG shaman

40 Goblin Spears
20 Goblin Archers
15 Spider Riders FC
25? Black Orks FC

4 Stone Trolls

Anyway, his list had some hard hitters and he seemed confident.
We played the "Battle for the pass" mission. This was the list I took:
HLP lv 4, cloak and endurance

Prince Glitterman
Prince MightSword

39 Skeleton Warriors FC
10 Archers Mus
3 Chariots

20 TG, FC BOUL

SSC
Casket

So, I deployed my TG facing his Nigh gobbo block (no fanatics...?) My horde vs his black orks.
The chariots against the gobbo bows.

I got turn 1 and moved the skellies up and angled them to present the black ork flank if charged, I had taken the number 6 spell on my hiero and was hoping to get it off on the gobbo unit... lo and behold there are 2 ways that this spell can go wrong, if you miscast, and then if you roll problems on the distance to multiply... I found this out the hard way as I got the spell off, and then rolled problems! and my HLP blew up 8 archers... From then on the game went down hill for my opponent... his trolls were on the far far flank... and the game happened on the other side of the battle field. The chariots ran down the 20 gobbos + lv 2 with ease. The TG were the men of the match taking on the black orks, the goblins and the spider riders... THat WS 5 on them has been awesome over, and over and over again.

Anyway:

Tactical review:
- I did not like the fact that the skullstorm will kill a lot of my models with a miscast (explosion) and then if I get problems then on that as well... too many ifs. Once again I failed to take the movement spell and regretted it... Note to self, always take the movement spell!
- I did not like the 10 Archers... 20 seems to be a minimum for me.
- The BOUL was gimikky, yes, it is very nice and has a good chance to res stuff back but, it does not get a bonus from a level caster and if you rely on it the enemy will dispel it unless you roll a crazy number of dice at it... then again, it pays for itself with one average roll... so.
- I am finding that being agressive with the TK works well, gives my opponent less time to think, entices them to charge in and make mistakes and then hopefully war of attrition. THe faster it can start the better, because my stuff comes back.

A dim red glow emanated from the scroll of Hexing. It seemed the goblins had attempted to break the seals of protection and binding to reach the knowledge inside. The High Liche Priest slowly bent down to retrieve it from the small slimy goblin fingers that clutched it tightly. What could have passed for a smile left the Priests face; it was only a matter of time now.
-----------

And yet again another game this week! First game against the High Elves, it was only at 2000pts against a new general, but I did take pictures. In this game I got to see the potential damage of a unit of 3 chariots, as it wrecked face.

Cheers! - Stay tuned.

MOAR, must have MOAR

Digging the reports man. Interesting to see you swapping up so many units and tactics. Well done.

Lets play a little game, what can you tell me about this game tactically from the pictures?

2K VS High Elves
Latest Game:

Win, Tomb Kings vs High Elves 2000pts. Some pictures:
Deployment:

Turn 1, HE before combats.

End of TK turn 2:

How the table looked at end of T3. At this point we had to call it, I had given up 142 pts to a lot of hers. Victory to the TK!


Another side-game. Did not last very long and the TK rolfstomped the enemy army in that time... I shall post more updates soon.
Also had 2 more side games with the TK yesterday vs my Brothers Skaven one win, one loss... I shall have pics and reports as well as tactical review for them today or tomorrow.

Main game 2 should hopefully happen tonight at the LGS, see the main 2200pt army go to town against a random opponent.

Cheers!

Thanks all for keeping track of the Dusty Legions progress!

I see the problem, she took Silver Helms

Actually reavers... fast cav.

hmmm, they sure look like Silver Helms, but i can see they are Reavers. if you squint

I think I will take this opportunity to report the 2 other battles I had against my brothers Skaven 1200pts:
His list:
Warlord on litter, warpweapons
Engineer, Warp lightning, Condenser
BSB
60 Clanrats FC spears - Poison Mortar
40 Clanrats HW/Sh - Flame team
Doomwheel
2 Rat ogres + master
5 Gutter runners, slings, poison

And that was it. My list:
HLP Cloak, Save
Prince glitter
39 HW/sh skellies FC
20 Archers, mus
27 TG FC
Casket

Anyway. Game 1 saw blood and glory we set up, a river across the center of the table a few buildings and a bridge. I was out deployed and he placed the doomwheel in front of the TG... dang!

In retrospect I should have deployed further back. So he took his first turn, shot at the TG and killed a bunch with a direct hit from the mortar, moved everything else up.
I then moved up as well:

My magic did not do much... he then proceeded to charge the TG with the doomwheel, and then the skeleton horde took both units of clanrats head on!... ouch. The river then was a normal river... :( anyway, short story short he broke the center and held the TG, a good after combat reform saw the end of the large clanrat unit get out of LOS of the TG after they ran after the doomwheel, I should have just reformed! Anyway, the gutter runners took out the casket. And after my prince died that was the end of my fortitude.
I was a bit sour after this game, making some crucial mistakes... deploying to far forward it did not help that I was playing my brother, a fantastic general and quite brilliant with his skaven he just seems to have a nack for them. So, reeling in the wallow of my own defeat I promptly challenged my brother (he is younger than be ) to another game. And we set up again:
Same lists, this time it was defend the tower. We rolled off and he could have placed something in the tower but chose not to. We deployed thus:

I then proceeded to get first turn... remembering the nastiness of the doomwheel I spent 3 turns casting the casquet with 6 dice to try and really get it off! The first time it was dispelled and then the other two times it promptly passed its ld 7 test on 3 dice... aww crumbs. The TG and prince made it into the building and repeatedly fought off the large unit of clanrats, my brother was not committing his killy warlord to the combat for fear of Killing blow. The gutter runners killed the casquet again, and the doomwheel killed the archers and the HLP... anyway, it all came down to the middle:

I had nothing left except the unit in the tower it was turn 4 and the game went on. I was testing for crumble, but thanks to the prince I was not loosing anyone. The warlord went in for a final dash and commited to the combat in the building, promptly getting chopped up by the KB TG ( he had not given the warlord any sort of ward). And, with the skaven warlord dead the Tomb Kings had once again been victorious... except now the HLP was dead, haha.

So, I learned a few things from this game: The doomwheel is silly and must be killed. Send a unit of archers to tie it up and hold it, or zap it with the casket.
At small point levels maybe the lv 4 was too much? I think taking more units would have been a better idea.

Cheers!

I hope to have another game this afternoon, 2000pts. Ill keep you all posted!

Got to agree with those wanting more reports. This is great. I love the level of commitment to playing games with the sandbox mindset. Keep it up!

I have 2 more to be posted up. More against skaven? They seem to be all over the place! I shall post them when I get the chance...

On another note, should a mod change this over to batreps? If so, then let it be done! oif not... we can discuss the tactics of the games here

Cheers

My friend has been using Necropolis Knights and he's been wrecking units with them: each model has 3 wounds, a stomp, and 5 attacks (2 for rider, 3 for mount) and each has either poison or killing blow. They're also all S5. Give them a try. They're awesome. Also, Sepulchral Stalkers are great at killing slow monsters...like hellcannons...and hydras...and Stegadons...and lizardmen in general (except skinks).

Ok, so. The dusty legion my fellow Kings and Hierophants has been very busy this weekend. A total of 3 games have been played so far.

Game vs Skaven 2K:
This was a rematch of the game a few pages back, his list remained unchanged to the previous incarnation, except for a few magic items and spell selections.
So, we played a pitched battle, plain ol' victory points and 12" up.


So we depoyed, I got first turn and moved, zapped the doomwheel for 4 wounds and did a flaming wound onto the abom (key in all games vs aboms). Spells did not see much else as I threw all my dice at the casket to get rid of the doomwheel early (or so I thought). He moved up as well.

I used my carrion to charge past the abom and into a weapon team, overrunning towards the center building, the large unit of clanrats with the BSB charged into the TG and held there. THe 40 block charged the HPA and ended staying there for ever till they all died, the giant charged and ran down 50 slaves (not before taking 3 wounds!) and then died to the HPA...

The far flank was held by the doomwheel and it took out the horse archers, the gutter runners died to bowfire and the skiterleaping engineer died while charging the casket.
The tombguard pushed the skaven center back. The SSC made the leftmost unit of slaves flee, they failed to rally and ran off the table. THen it died to the gutter runners.
His plaguepriest did very well with a plaguemist spell that killed my carrion and helped the HPA kill the remainder of my chariots. The Prince with TG finished off his clanrat unit.


The secondary clanrat unit with seer that had been hudled all game within a building came out and tried to zap my TG with the 13th spell. My TG then moved into the building on turn 6. THe doomwheel (still alive!) killed the casket and was doing a number back field. Last turn the seer turns the remainder of the TG with prince into clanrats.... rolling a healthy 23 turned and irresistible on the power (yay for 500pt swing in his favour!...

Nevertheless, points counted... it was a draw in favour of the skaven with 98 points ! Wow, what a game. Here is a pic of the field at the end:


So!

Tactical Review:
- Not having proper ward saves in my princes stung. I will be giving them armour+GW from now on. (and in the last couple of games this has been awesome)
- The TG are still awesome.
- Casket is amaxing
- I hate doomwheels
- Almost killed the HPA (in the end the casket got it!)
- My deployment was not bad, his was. He should not put the slaves on his flanks! As they crumble very quickly.

Anyway. I shall post snippets of the other games.

Of course, comments are welcome!

I am pretty sure Slave units explode when they flee. they are auto destroyed due to their special rules or something. maybe its only when they are flee from a combat.

Only when they fail a break test. They run for their lives and damn all who stand in their way! Hehe

What do you mean by

played the Lore of Nehek all wrong, and were treating the augment spells as RIP spells... so during his magic phase he was dispelling them and I was loosing the bonuses that I had (KB, extra attack, ward.. etc)... Never again!

@ Smolo82: Instead of an augment bonus that remained until my next phase... we treated them as RIP... so he used his power dice to dispel them and negate my bonuses... although that was not supposed to happen.

-------------------------------------------
On another note, went to a tournament this weekend 4 games!
Ok, so first things first. My list. The tournament had a 3 colour minimum and this shaped my list, due to the time I had to paint things up and what I already had painted. I also made some last minute changes that in the end I regretted, but this will become more apparent as we move along.

2200pts:
Lords/Heroes:

Tomb King- GOlden Mask, Armour of FOrtune, GW, Shield, Dragonbane

Liche Priest (hiero) Lv 2 Talisman of Preservation
Liche Priest (tk lore) Lv 2 Scroll, Ironcurse

Prince GW, Shield (yes i know the shields are redundant, but I needed sorta WYSIWYG), Armour of Destiny

Herald BSB Flaming Banner (the odd one out, I was sure that we would play a kill the BSB scenario... but we did not... so points wasted)

Core:

41 Skeletons, HW/Sh Full Command

2 x 10 Archers with mus.

3 Chariots mus

5 Light Horse

29 Tomb Guard FC

3 Carrion

Screaming Skull

Colossus with xtra HW

Casket


I was confident that it was an ok list, and I was able to give battle to some very competitive builds. My lack of experience and generalship did show at times, but all this will come with time. After the games and considering my list a few things did become very apparent:
- Small archer units are useless if the enemy shoots at them at all... as soon as they drop below 5 your priests are in danger!... never leave home in a unit of less that 15-20.
- I needed a third "block"... in most games my opponents out blocked me and were able to dictate the pace of the game, having a second horde of skellies would have given me more field control, this is reflected in my 2500pt list.
- I missed my level 4! 2 level 2's were great... but to reliably get off any of the un-boosted spells I was having to roll 3 dice. With a lv4 you can get away with 2 dice, increasing the number of spells to cast.
- Casket was awesome, every... single... game!
- Horsearchers were awesome!... need to take 10 so that they can hold their own in the backfield.
- Tomb Guard need the BoUL!... they tend to get into combats away from the spell bubbles. Sometimes you just need some dedicated raising on them, during the tournament this would have helped a lot against a few of my opponents!

Anyway this is just a tidbit to get you going. And here is an army picture, the display board is not mine, just something that I used for the day because mine is not finished yet.





Cheers!

Firstly, I want to commend you on your efforts, this is a wonderful thread initiative.

Im not super up to speed with 8th, but I played in a lot of tournaments with my TK in 6th/7th, so there are some things id like to put out there, to both get your thoughts and to give you mine.

1) Skeleton Hordes - not as good as you might think. The problem is that deploying extra wide to get the horde bonus allows the enemy to get many extra attacks against you. While you will get additional attacks also, every attack they have is often worth more than every attack you will have.

Even with Ws5 from a Prince (which is such a must now), you are still only T3 with 5+/6++, and very squishy. Most deficated CC units are going to blow right through you, using your wider frontage to get more attacks and whittle you down more quickly. For example, when you are 5 wide (100mm) it is possible to get 6 cavalry against you in CC. Right now then can get 8 + a chariot if they wish. Your static bonuses do not increase by an awful lot just by going wider, and they are going to be able to get many more attacks against you. This then drains your casting dice to keep the unit around.

Its a freakin' shame that warriors cannot get the warbanner or the banner of the undying legion now.

It may be worth considering going 5 wide and 6 deep (or more) with the warriors, to maintain your rank bonus as long as possible. The Prince does most of the killing anyway. Still, it is a wonderfully intriguing idea that I might try myself!

2) Skeleton Archers - these are a better bunker for your priests than the fast cavalry. It doesnt take much for fast cav to allow hits to be allocated to the priests and then they die awfully quickly. A unit of 13 with a champion and banner is a very effective unit. Stick then immediately behind your horde, with the priests nestled into the front, in the middle. This presents direct line spells from picking them out and doing damage, stops LoS to them for targeted spells and also prevents suicide charges. Sure, the archers will never shoot (or very very rarely), but the unit costs like 100pts and give you significant protection even from heavy damage spells.

Auxilliary - the lifeblood of TK in 7th, I cannot say that I have done enough playtesting to see whether that is still the case in the case in 8th. The chariot unit with the flaming banner is a must. TK have no real way of dealing with MSU HE elites otherwise. They also let you run down other chariots (24" charge!), ethereals and forest spirits (also a massive pain).

I would love to see a second unit of light cavalry, and some scorpions. To get these, I would advise getting ride of the collusus - even with the ponts reduction, and the gaining of a thunderstomp, they still dont strike me as being all that wonderful.

Scorpions, while they can no longer pop up and charge are still amazing. I usually only every burrowed one and deployed two normally. They easily destroy annoying units like detatchments, chaos hounds, yeomen etc, and are quite resistant to shooting (T5, W4). The +1 bonus hit from stomp just makes them that bit more hitty. Because you are going magic heavy, moving them around quickly will not be that difficult and their real value is in character sniping - any hero or lord mage will not last long against a scorpion. Sure, the scorpion wont last long against static combat resolution, but with a charge (+1CR), 4 atacks on the character (probably +2CR) and maybe a skill from stomp, combined with them taking -1W from resolution, you are going to get to do some damage, and trading a scorpion for a character is ALWAYS great. They make a nice force mulitplier with skeleton warriors as well.

I want to say something more on characters, but I need to come to terms with what I think is optimal or at least good.

Id love to hear your thoughts on character load out between 2000 to 2250.

- Z.

coool thread

Skeleton hordes are actually pretty good, especially with Spears and if you can get the KB augment off on them.



Skeletons are pretty cheap compared to other infantry hordes so you will outnumber the enemy.


and the enemy only gets more attacks if they are in horde formation themselves, otherwise theey get as many attacks with you in horde as if in bus.


and the unit can switch to Bus formation if fighting another horde and preventing them from being steadfast is important.



Skeletons really gain no benifit, aside from breaking the enemy steadfast, from going deep as they are unbreakable and just crumble. the max benifit is +3 static combat rez and a horde can easily be 5 deep to start with.


T3 and 5+ armor isn't that bad. its what anything that isn't a chaos warrior or an Ogre has. State Troops and Elves have 5+ armor and are T3. Beastmen are T4, but are lucky to have a 6+.

The obvious benefit of going deep is to deny the enemy attacks, when their attacks are if a significantly higher quality. Frontage is very important, and exploitation of it is your opponents best way to quickly knock down a large skeleton unit.

The problem is that state troops have at least an initiative advantage and gave access to a magic banner. Elves are just plain better - it's not like you can really whittle them down at range, so you need to be careful hue you engage to deny them as many attacks as possible, lest they rack up a huge CR. Skeletons without at least a prince seem to a losing prospect against anything with better than goblin stats - the provision if WS5+ is just enormous defensively, and dies help to generate wounds against mire lightly armored foes.

You will really only be denying attacks to a horde and, even then, they can attack 7 wide against a 5 wide enemy unit(corner to corner)


you might as well try and get plenty of your own attacks in too.


Skeletons arn't that bad. they are very good for their cost.

they also cause Fear, which is grossly under estimated in this edition. when it bites, it really bites.

Skeletons are better at tarpiting than actually do the killing, hold that unit up and hit them with Chariots/Warsphinx/Necroknights and whatever.
The attached prince isnt for really for the killing either, his job should be staying there to give you WS buff, so should be kit out accordingly.

Agree in full.

Still, for a while today ivwas thinking about a large horde unit with a King with the Ws10 swords - that could be a real pain in the butt unit to shift, around which the rest if the army could freely operate.

Interesting.

What caster load out is everyone finding to be successful? I'm running mass hero priests at the moment so that i can spam low level augments and get lots of heal.

Thanks all for the replies!

When I refer to 'horde' i mean enough to make a horde, but I usually deploy in bus and then move out to horde when needed.

The unit has to use the prince/kings unmodified WS.

As for caster I usually run lv4 and lv1. But I think I might run loremaster sometimes I need all the spells available.

I certaintly think its best to have loremaster if possable.


the more spells you can throw out there(dublicates too) the more sleletons you can raise and mitigate your losses.


a Lvl4 and Lvl2 would be the best option. more if possable.

Ok, so.

Game 1: Against VC. His list, from memory:
400+ pt lord vamp (nasty nasty)
BSB
Vamp with book.

30+ Graveguard
4 units of ghouls

And thats about it. A very in my face army, the ghoul units varied in size but were about 25-30 strong.

We played the diagonal deployment battle with a modified tower "king of the hill" scenario. I had my chariots in reserve he had everything on the table. He had 2 units of ghouls and book vamp on to my left, facing the skelly horde with prince. And then the other two units of ghouls and graveguard deathstar on the right side.

Anyway the game started well for me, with turn 1-3 going my way. until I charged the TG into the graveguard! And found out that that unit had an 8 combat res standing still :O. +1 for each vamp (gen and BSB), then BSB with a warbanner, and a standard and 3 ranks! So my TG lasted for a bit... but ended all dying. It was in this case that I wished I would have kept the BoUL on the TG... because the combat was away from the support of the priests... I also made the mistake of going into horde with my TG... but then he did the same to get more GG attacks.
On the far flank, suprisingly I had my colossus and carrio tie up a large unit of ghouls for about 6 rounds of combat...
On the other side I had 5 horse archers tie up another unit of ghouls until the chariots charged in and wiped them out.

In the end he had 3 units to my 2 units within 6 inches of the building in the middle, and he took the primary, secondary was to win by 300vp... and he had that ( I had only been able to get one unit of ghouls! (my TK almost killed the uber vamp, and I was unable to KB the BSB after all those rounds of combat :(.)

So a sound loss, to the TK.

Game 2: VS Dwarfs, gun line... his list:
Lord
Runesmith
BSB Thane
20 HW/Sh warriors
20 GW Warriors

2 x 10 handgunners
2x 10 crosbowmen
2 x grudgethrowers
2x cannon
2x bolt throwers

Mission was dawn attack. He had most of his things in the middle and to my left.

I scouted the horse archers to the right, the TG in the middle deployed in two lines to mitigate fire and the other units on the right...
This mission was me moving up and him shooting... the casket was great this game! Killing dwarves left and right... the LH and carrion got into the backfield and tied up the warmachines... But turn 3 it all changed! i charged my colossus into the handgunners up front... and killed them, overrunning into the lords HW/sh unit... the lord had the rune of double str against tough opponents... so my giant died horribly! He then proceeded to take out my prince with the 40 skeletons... The TG failed a key charge on a double one... and were unable to make an impact on the game. regardless... It was quite the game untill my hiero then died... killing the carrion and the horse archers to crumble and then the catapult.

This is what I took away from that-
- Make the hiero bunker bigger... so that there is always 5 R&F models for LOS.
- once again the BoUL was missed, the TG usually stray away from the main bubble.

So, two losses under my belt and I went into round 3 after lunch. My opponent? Lizardmen, finally a matchup that I have played before... sadly my worst opponent of the day.

Cheers!

Ouch those battles sounded painful. More experience is good though. I'm beginning to think the giant you have isnt the best of units, or maybe you should take note on what the dwarf lord has with him as they can be MC killers.

It was closed list and the lord runes totally caught me off guard... he waded through the colossus and the tomb prince without a sweat.

I love the idea behind this thread
Looks like you've learnt a lot from your games and are really understanding how the TK play. Congrats to you on the wins, and commiserations on the losses.
(the closed list seems a bit...well harsh, especially when playing against dwarves, those guys could have all manner of rune shenanigans going on!)

I really think a midsized archer unit with a champion is best - 13 with a champ is only 88points and offers a lot of protection. It's so important to have the big bunker because some armies can ONLY threaten your liches with concentrated shooting.

Enjoyed the reports, you have the right attitude towards learning.

The runes thing did catch me off guard. But that did not lose me the game... what lost me the game was a failed charge by the tomb guard... who rolled a double one. Ouchies.

I agree, the bunker for me would be 15 with a mus (100pts) as a minimum. COncentrated shooting to my bunker/s cost me characters more often than not.

Cheers!

Defs grab a champ as well - you never know when someone might try and suicide in a character.

Usually have a BSB in there as well.. acts as a pseudo champ... and with KB is a deterrent at least .

3 More games to report, the last two from the tournament a weekend ago, and one from this thursday (the LGS moved up to 2500pts.

Game 3 of the tourney saw me pitted up against Lizardmen. I will keep this one short. Mission was blood and glory and I broke his army in 4 turns. I felt slow played and had quite a few arguments with my opponent after a dodgy declare charges phase that included some shady pivots and moves. Needless to say, I won the game, but did not have a good time. The things that worked still, tomb guard were awesome. The light cav pulled some skinks from the main battle line, the colossus exploded after a horrible set of rolling when into some saurus... and the carrion held up an entire flank (20 skinks and a salamander pack).

So, after that sportsmanship disaster I went on to have the best game I had all day, against who? Another fellow tomb king! His list:

2 Kings
3 lv 2's
2 units of 45 archers
casket
warsphynx and 2 colossi.

All in all highlights from this game were:
My casket was awesome, killed his warsphynx and pulled a lot of his dispel dice. My bows peppered away one colossus while the other exploded against the HW/Sh skeletons. The TG rocked one unit of bowmen in the center and killed all the characters within 3 priests and a king... My light horse went up against his casket and won. At the end all I had lost was the HW/Sh skellies and the prince that ran with them. All he had left was the remainder of 45 archers and a king (blade of antarak).

We had tonnes of fun, and my opponent was very keen to mold his army up more in tune to the style that I was playing .

So, that was the tournament, I placed 9th out of 11... But did learn a lot. As soon as I got home I built another 50 skeleton spearmen and went about building a 2500pt list with all the tactical changes and knowledge that I had gathered from the tournament.

I was able to take all this to the table on thursday, when I got to play 2500pts... who did I play? Dwarfs. So I was up for a tough game. On my next post I shall discuss my list, his list and the mission we played as well as other notes.

Cheers!

Its always fun to face the same army that is built completely different. Nice work

Shame about the Lizard player, well done on the win vs TK though, congrats

So, this is about a week late but here it is nonetheless. Thank you all for your patience, after all, what is another couple of days when we have all been beneath the sand for aeons. (see what I did there? hehe)

First game at 2500pts. My opponent? Dwarfs, His List? Below:

Lord carried by two guys.
Thane o' Pain
Rune Priest
BSB

20 Handgunners Shields full c.
20 (or 30) Warriors HW/Sh
30 Rangers, GW
25 Miners Drill
2 Cannon
Grudge Thrower

Tough list. Not all gear is clear or was used. The mission was diagonal deployment with the roll for everything as they might be in reserve.

My list was as follows:

King- Mask, AoFortune, GW, Dragonbane Gem
HLP- 5+ Ward

Prince, AoDestiny, GW

50 Skeletons with spears FC
40 Skeletons with HW/Sh
7 Horsearchers
20 Bowmen
3 Chariots

30 TG, BOUL
3 Carrion
5 Ushabti w/ GW

SSC
Casket

Anyway. The deployment was us both with everything on the table. THe miners were doing their own thing. I was able to spread out all across my deployment zone (its amazing how much space you can control with 2 huge skeleton blocks and the TG block (that was in tripple file to mitigate the grudgethrower). I also won the roll to deploy scouts so I was able to force his rangers to deploy in a centralized position and not off on one of my flanks. The carrion were great for this and because of fly were able to get into the fight quickly. The casket was out of LOS from the cannon. So, he took first turn, and blew up my Catapult. And then I moved up towards him... I was very nervous about the miners and reformed my 50 skellies to face my edge (big, big mistake... I should have sacrificed the casket and just ran everything up at him full speed). For magic I just cast 5+ ward on the Ushabti... the rune of balance and the one rune priest really evened out the magic phase and prevented me from doing too much, the casket once again was fantastic!. The light cav moved to the flank of his thunderers to stay out of LOS with their vanguard move... and then moved in front of the chariots to provide them with heavy cover.

His second turn he was able to shoot up the chariots a bit and the horse archers. And his miners failed to arrive.

In my second turn... the LH charged the thunderers... the chariots failed their charge (that was to support the horsemen)... oh well. And the Ushabti rolled astronomically high to move into the HW/SH warriors with runepriest and thane with GW. The ushabti were in one big line of 5 (to mitigate cannon damage)... In the magic phase I irresistibly rolled a boosted smiting... suddenly the Ushabti were a lot scarier, and a lot of my outlying support units that had taken casualties came back.... but the miscast saw my HLP loose 2 levels, dessication and smiting (awww). To top that, the ushabti wiffed with most of their attacks, and only because of the stomps were able to win combat by 1. The Horse archers actually held the gunners up for a turn.

In his turn the miners turned up on my left flank, in front of the HW/SH skellies. And I realized I had squandered about 500pts (the prince and spear skellies). He killed all my chariots and my carrion. The gunners failed to kill the horse archers, the ushabti did a bit better in combat, but their numbers were dwindling.

My TG with king charged into the rangers... even with the banner of slow you down... and... after the dust settled... had all exploded. All those attacks, and only 2 kills. 30 TG and a King dead (ouch). The ushabti held but the rangers had reformed to face their flank after the combat. The HW/SH skellies moved into a building to force the miners to a longer drawn out combat. The Spear skellies reform to the center and move up. The horse archers finally died.

So to summerize... time was up and we had to call the game, but I did lose quite handily. I had taken 0 vp's and given away quite a lot.

There are a few things that I came away with:
- Horse archers need to be 10 strong to actually make them do something .
- Casket was awesome, although it did not go off, the power dice alone are worth its pricetag.
- The king was useless... maybe a double prince to save points?
- I liked the Ushabti... better rolling and they would have done a lot better. I find that the TK have a lot of anvils and no hammers, these guys (and the knights) are the closest thing that we have to hammer units.


Anyway.
Hope you enjoyed.

cheers!

Ouch, dwarves can really put up the pain for TK. Perhaps dual princes is a better investment than a king as you said. Still that sounded fun. I guess Ushabiti should always take GW, theres no real benefit for them to hang in the back and shoot

Consider taking out a unit of skeletons and getting more auxiliary units - you don't present a substantial amount of threats with three large, slow infantry units.

Light horse are best at 5-6; just don't expect them to do too much against dwarves, not all WM crew are Ws4, T4!

@ zemanjaski: I have considered this. I think the TG really need the necro, just to hit reliably at least until he is dead. I like the LH, 5 die way to quickly 10 means that at least they will have the numbers to go on far from the bubble of res that the priests provide. As for other supporting units, I really want to try out the necro knights and the warsphynx.. as I have not tried any of them so far. All I have used are old units and just new rules. Maybe its time for some more tweaking?

Through the looking glass came an image that was hard to swallow. Row upon row of skeletal forms, brazen weapons and shields glittering in the sunlight. Their advance was slow yet It chilled Hanz to his very soul. This handful of men had to buy the rest of the army time. The undead marched to war and Hanz feared for his life.


Just a little inspirational story note. This week if fantasy week at the LGS so I hope to be able to report back with another battle for the Journey.
Stay tuned.

Cheers!

Want to renew my support for this series. Great stuff. Played Tomb Kings at the last GT I went to, and I think Dwarfs will be a challenging matchup for Tomb Kings. The toughness to weather Str 3 shooting, the firepower to keep them from sitting back, and the magic defense to make things difficult in that phase.

Good call Zeke! This is such a god idea, hope you keep it up (and find the definitive TKs build for yourself too )

RZ, is that a hint for your next Bat Rep?

SO Game 1 that I am reporting vs Skaven. Battle for the pass... great game. Flaming chariots once more did great job of taking out the HPA, the ranked units of spearmen were awesome and a well placed dessication allowed me to get most points at the end of the game killing his greyseer. The 10 horse archers scouted behind his army and then killed the cannon and proceeded to disrupt his battle plans, I love this 10 man unit.

Some Pictures:
Deployment-

Tk T1:

Tk t2 and Sk T3:

End Tk T3:

T4:

T5:

The last combat:


And the next game that I also have to report was a grudgematch against Lizardmen! It was a great game and I did take a few pics. Will be up soon. Cheers!

Looks like a lot of fun, using your cav to take on the cannon was smart. I hate those things when they fire

I see Ushabti in there! Any comments on performance?

Red_Zeke wrote:I see Ushabti in there! Any comments on performance?

Im intersted also, but would you take them with bows?

I am starting to love the ushabti again. Just for sheer volume of attacks, with WS 4 and the high str they can really make a mess of things.

As for the game against lizzies I made 4 very risky charges on turn 2 and made every single one, this put me in a very good spot as I was able to grind him down for the rest of the game after he was pinned in place.



And later in the game as it set in that he could not even touch the unit in the tower.



Cheers!

On another note, the LGS has begin an escalation campaign over the next 6 weeks we have to play 9 games. First week is 1000pts and will go up 300pts per week. No lords on week 1 and max 1 lord week 2. No blood and glory missions and the tower is worth 25% vp's of game total. There are a lot of Deamon and Warriors armies. One Empire, one O&G, another TK, one Skaven and an orge player. This week I have one game against Warriors, one against O&G and if I win that one another against TK.

All in all any thoughts on army compisition and tactics mainly, we can change our lists from game to game. So, from what I have learned so far... take large blocks, and good support, and of course... the mandatory casket.

I am also working on trying a chariot heavy list, this campaign might be the right time to try it out and paint it. Anyway, my fellow Sand Dwellers.

Cheers!

Played 2 games today, I lost against a 1000pt OnG army. There was a huge turn around about turn 3... when his wolf chariots hit my Ushabti and killed them all. The death of my Hierophant saw the rest of the army crumble. I had achieved 800vp's to his 1125, this was a minor win to him. Phew...

On to game two and a complete tactical overhaul, now playing the Journeys 2500pt cap. Played an empire gunline:

Deathmage
4 Hockland engineers
5 x 10 Hangunners with Hocklands and 2 5 man Crossbow each.
10 White Wolf Knights FC (GW)
2 x 5 Pistoliers
1 Cannon
3 Mortar
2 Hellblasters

And We played pitched battle. At first glance this army can seem very, very intimidating. But its greatest weakness was lack of leadership... although he did make an ungodly ammount of Ld 7 panics all game. this was the first time I tried using a Settra Based list, with 2 large blocks of chariots (6 each). My list:

Settra

LP lv 2 Hiero with 5+ ward
LP lv 2 with scroll and Ironcurse Icon

47 Spearskelies FC
20 Archers Mus
10 Horse Archers
6 Chariots Mus, Ban (swiftness)
6 Chariots Mus, Ban

19 TG

Casket
SSC

I was able to place the casket out of LOS of the cannon but I rolled the first turn because he had so many deployments. And I just rushed him. An early desert wind on settras chariots saw them 16 inches up turn one (for a turn 2 charge) And from then on it was just nasty nasty buisness... because of his clumped deployment, small units and low LD the casket was king... smiting things left and right. Settras chariot unit was def MVP's as they annihilated the archmage, some handgunners and a detachment as well as the knights. My achers made short work of his individual engineers and his light horses. But this has really shown me how agressive the TK book can be... the potential is there. In a perfect world(because I was using models that I had available at the time) The unit of TG would become another unit of skeletons to provide the tarpits needed for heavier ranked units that the chariots can then dispose of. The WS 7 bubble for settra was nice, but his Str 6 and no saves really sold him to me. All in all a very good change of pace.

"The relentless advance of the undead unnerved the Empire Archmage. General Howard was off on a raiding mission and the men seemed anxious. As soon as the undead horde was in range Krix gave the order to fire at will. The gunline roared and the undead began to take a heavy toll. The archmage turned for just a second, and suddenly, out of the smoke the fiery Death Chariot of the mighty King of the Undead himself rode towards him. With magical speed the King and his cohort of chariots cut down the hanguners that were nearest to the mage. With the point of his mighty blade, Settra motioned his chariots forward towards their next target. The archmage stared on as the blade pointed directly at him... the pressure was too great and his concentration had been broken... The Chariot of The gods jumped up a little as the mages broken body was crushed underfoot."

Cheers!

I have 20+ chariots that I have thought about running in a list. I just cant bring myself to bring that soft of a list as one good round of shooting can eliminate a majority of my army. I have played with the idea of a unit of 15 lead by settra!

I found that the 6 strong + settra was quite good. And even with a -1 str -1 t hex on them they were able to weather most of the firepower thrown at them. Key things that game were a successful movement spell turn 1 to get them right up there, and the fact that settra had rolled up the 5+ ward spell, that he used quite often to keep them all alive.

Cheers!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, game at the LGS today. I decided to take a more refined version of the Settra chariot heavy list that I played with yesterday. I dropped the tomb guard for another unit of skeletons with HW and shields, and I was also able to fit another unit of 20 archers in with a Mus. Played a Bret list with 3 death bussesN treb and archer, with the fey and 2 lv 2's the BSB and a paladin. 15 errants, 15 realm and about 12 grail. Anyway, all in all. He moved his cav up, I was able to make 2 key charges, into the grail with the HW/sh and the 6 chariots on the far right into the realm block. This pinned the two units and allowed settra to get into the grail flank, after the HW sh withstood a flank charge from the errants. Also allowing the spears to get stuck innto their flank. The game turned into a big grind meelee in the middle. I had to leave but as we finisjed turn 3 my opponent conceded knowing that this was one tarpit he was not going to get out of.
Tactically I am really liking the chariot list, it is very agressive and I like it. The two large blocks really add to the army and allow me to pin something in place. I like a combination of the flaming bannner in one unit of chariots and the movement banner in the other (with settra) to make them get into combat a lot faster.

I dont think I have posted all 20 (24) games here. But the original thread can be found here http://tomb-kings.net/index.php?showtopic=7838&st=0

That makes 21 Games(well 4 for the prologue and 21 games). For all, here is a recap:
(1).vs Empire 2200 - loss
(2).vs Lizardmen 2200- loss
(3).vs O&G 1500 - win
(4).vs Lizardmen 2200 (win)
1- vs WoC 2200 - win
2- vs Skaven 2000 - Win
3- vs Skaven 2000 - Win
4- vs O&G 1500 - win
5- vs HE 2000 - win
6- vs Skaven 1200 - loss
7- vs Skaven 1200 - win
8- vs Skaven 2000 - loss
9- vs VC 2200 - loss
10- vs Dwarfs 2200 - loss
11- vs Lizardmen 2200 - win
12- vs Tomb Kings 2200 - win
13- vs Dwarfs 2500 - loss
14- vs Skaven 1500 - win
15- vs Lizardmen 2500 - win
16- vs Empire 2500 - win
17- vs OnG 1000 - loss
18- vs WoC 1000 - loss
19- vs Bretonnia 2500 - win
20- vs High Elves 1500 - win
21- vs Empire 2500 - win

Anyway. I shall be posting a summary as well as some tactical notes. This has only just begun.

Cheers!

Quick scan looks about a 2/3 win rate. Lots of games against Skaven, none against Daemons, Dark Elves, one against Vamps. Interested to see your thoughts!

Yes, lots of skaven... too many skaven .

I am in a campaign that features a few deamon players and I look forward to playing against them. The one vamp game was almost a win for me, had I more knowledge of his army build. There is but one DE player in the area... sadly he does not have enough core and no money to expand. There are a LOT of WoC armies here, but I have not played them either, and I also have not played vs ogres (although there is someone in the campaign that is) or wood elves ( I have seen a few players just never drawn them on vet night).

My thoughts are that I need to play against them. Just a shame that there are not many out there. Although all the other armies (especially the Empire one) have been copy paste armies of what is considered "competitive"... 3 mortar, 3 cannon, stank. Or life slaan, or ranger/grudgethrower dwarfs... all in all I have had a good spread of opponents and skill levels, but I will not really have a "better view" until I begin to look out of town to other events and the like. I do play 40K more competitively and usually go to events for that system when time permits.

Cheers!

Yeah congrats on the wins Iago!

looks like you are really getting to grips with the TKs as it were, and im sure im not the only one who will not be unhappy to see more than 20 games posted

I look forward to not disappoint.

Revenent Reiko wrote:and im sure im not the only one who will not be unhappy to see more than 20 games posted

QFT

Congrats from here as well, Iago!
This is an an inspiring thread, I can't wait to get my army ready for some games against my mates

Its been a great read, while sometimes not the most competitive of games at least this gives insight on how each unit works in the overall army

@ kenshin620: You are correct, not the most "competitive" of opponents. But as I have improved so have my opponents and they are slowly getting better and better. As you can see sometimes the most competitive of "net" lists (like the empire gunline) can still be fought effectively. Yes, this has really given me an idea of how the army works and different matchups. The most "competitive" event that I went to was the tournament were I played VC, Dwarfs, Liz and TK... the last two games were on lower tables (as I lost my first two games, those were against competent generals and I clearly lost the games).

Anyway, I do have 2 more games to report. This is the week that I have first included my warsphynx, a new unit, into the army.
The first game was against Dwarfs 1500pts, and the sphynx was responsable for most kills the entire game, Thane, 30 clansmen, 2 grudgethrowers, master runesmith, master enginer. All in all a great game! To my opponents credit, first game against New TK and had only ever played vs HE. So he learned the quick way that he shold kill the sphynx with his warmachines. We did talk after the game about list changes and I am sure he will be taking better runes and choosing his targets better next time.

Warcat took 2 wounds all game (and I regened 1), it did get lucky against all the warmachines (and my preservation spell was great at keeping it alive!)

Other than that. Here is a small pic of the army advancing. A couple of well placed dessications turned the tide in my favour quite nicely. The flaming breath for the kitty did 12 hits at a dessecated clansmen unit, felling 7. .

All in all I like the cat and I think I want another .

The second game I played last night was a campaign game for week 3 (out of 6) of the campaign at the LGS. A WoC army attacked one of my settlements on a desert. We had a river and a khemrian sphynx and the tower scenario. This was an intense 7 turn game! That swung heavily into my favour turn 5. And then turned into an all out massacre turn 7 when I was finally able to dislodge the marked khorne double hand weapon warriors from the tower to get the extra VP's. I shall post a more in depth analysis of this matchup as it is I feel one of the hardest matchups for TK just because of the ammount of killy death that WoC can do in combat and the curse that is being unstable.

Cheers!

Iago wrote:I dont think I have posted all 20 (24) games here. But the original thread can be found here http://tomb-kings.net/index.php?showtopic=7838&st=0

That makes 21 Games(well 4 for the prologue and 21 games). For all, here is a recap:
(1).vs Empire 2200 - loss
(2).vs Lizardmen 2200- loss
(3).vs O&G 1500 - win
(4).vs Lizardmen 2200 (win)
1- vs WoC 2200 - win
2- vs Skaven 2000 - Win
3- vs Skaven 2000 - Win
4- vs O&G 1500 - win
5- vs HE 2000 - win
6- vs Skaven 1200 - loss
7- vs Skaven 1200 - win
8- vs Skaven 2000 - loss
9- vs VC 2200 - loss
10- vs Dwarfs 2200 - loss
11- vs Lizardmen 2200 - win
12- vs Tomb Kings 2200 - win
13- vs Dwarfs 2500 - loss
14- vs Skaven 1500 - win
15- vs Lizardmen 2500 - win
16- vs Empire 2500 - win
17- vs OnG 1000 - loss
18- vs WoC 1000 - loss
19- vs Bretonnia 2500 - win
20- vs High Elves 1500 - win
21- vs Empire 2500 - win

Anyway. I shall be posting a summary as well as some tactical notes. This has only just begun.

Cheers!

Nice win ratio

I have noticed no Ogre games. you might want to try and get one in if there is an Ogre player around. a MI based army is a very different opponent from anything else.

There is an ogre player in the campaign. That and I recenlty had a game vs Deamons, khorne heavy (with lore of life herald). Was fun and I did very well during the game.

Game I played last night was a campaign game for week 3 (out of 6) of the campaign at the LGS. A WoC army attacked one of my settlements on a desert. We had a river and a khemrian sphynx and the tower scenario. This was an intense 7 turn game! That swung heavily into my favour turn 5. And then turned into an all out massacre turn 7 when I was finally able to dislodge the marked khorne double hand weapon warriors from the tower to get the extra VP's. I shall post a more in depth analysis of this matchup as it is I feel one of the hardest matchups for TK just because of the ammount of killy death that WoC can do in combat and the curse that is being unstable.

Tactical analysis:
- I have thought long and hard about how to defeat those huge marauder blocks. MoK and either flails or GW makes them very nasty. Due to the lack of armour I risked a turn 1 boosted smiting, my archers and my catapult did a lot of damage to the unit at range. I had also placed my 10 Horse Archers at an angle to bait the unit into a frenzied overrun that would present the flank to my warspynx. This worked like a charm. The next combat phase with the sphynx in the flank and 50 skelly warriors to the front I dessecated the unit (by far my new fav spell) and then won combat and forced the marauder unit (with his lv 4 to flee).. they ended fleeing off the table by turn 5 giving me a tonne of points.
- Then the sphynx charged the building to try and do some damage on the warriors inside, who with crazy good rolls (and something like 40 attacks... ) did 6 wounds to the beast, and I only saved one... so it was felled before it got to swing. As much as t8 is good, its not so good when your opponent can concentrate so many attacks on it and then get lucky.. so beware!.
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3 More games to report. 2 against Skaven and one against WoC.

1300pt vs Skaven:
Draw
- Flaming chariots did away with the HPA, killed everything except for a stormvermin unit with nasty rat-lord.

1600pts vs Skaven:
My list:
HLP Earthing Rod
19 Archers Musician
3 Flaming Chariots
50 Warriors FC
10 HorseArchers
3 Carrion
Warcat
SSC
Casket

All in all, same as above except that the casket did away with the Cannon and Jezzails turn 1. The chariots, once again did away with the HPA and he tapped out as my large skeleton block actally beat down on the ratlords unit.

And lastly
1600pts Vs WOC
Same list as above, except for chariot unit substituted for 40 HW shield FC skellies. ANd the horse archers in 2 units of 5 (to redirect the frenzied stuff)

Victory! Did not actually get all the spells I wanted, but a good combination of the casket + dessecation and killing blow eventually did the trick as well as ignoring the rather large knight unit with jugger lord (who I failed to kill after lobbing a rock on his head and only doing 1 wound, awww).
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Latest game 1500pts. My regular 1600 - the carrion and 10 skellies.
Against skaven battle for the pass. Interesting game, I got tabled top of 6. All he had left was an abom with 1 wound on it, 20 slaves with an engineer and 2 depleeted unit that were fleeing the battlefield. Was a very brutal and bloody game. I spent 3 turns trying to put a darned flaming wound on the HPA but failed, no matter how many arrows I rained on that thing it just would not die biggrin.gif. Anyway. Fun times.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First game vs Deamons at 1900pts. Had to call it before it was done, got 5 1/2 turns done. I won minorly had we been able to finish I would have been able to win it more solidly!

Many things I learned... that bloodthirster is dangerous! biggrin.gif
some pictures of the Game against the deamon player. My highlight of this game:
Banishment from the river of light downing 10 bloodletters (that had been dessecated) as soon as they set foot in it.




Aha! One more game 1900pts vs WoC.

Win to the TK. It was the battle for the pass and I sat back and let him come to me while isolating the frenzied units and annihilating them.

My level 4 miscast on 2 dice... and I rolled a 5 that would have been a 3 thanks to the puppet. But thanks to the earthing rod I was able to mitigate that damage (and his potential points) and instead he lost 3 levels... ouch. But he was still alive!... I love the earthing rod.

The warcat proved its worth once again. Ran into frenzied nurgle knights and ran them down, into a unit of flail marauders that put 4 wounds on him (phew!) the cat proceeded to blow flames in their face, thundercrush them and thunderstomp them to win combat, they failed their stubborn and the cat ran them down! Nicely done kitty!

I am no longer as afraid of the WoC marauder build, this warcat has proven itself time and time again.

My 1900pts:

HLP

Prince

54 Warriors
2 x 5 Horsearchers
2x20 Archers

31 TG w/ razorbanner
Warcat

Catapult
Casket

THe catapult did nothing. I would have been better off with a scorp instead or something... in the last 3 or 4 games the catapults have been a non-issue... im considering dropping them all together.

Cheers!

love these reps an writeups, you're in danger of making me a TK convert (if they had better looking warriors/archers I'd been sold)

@ Seven Sins: Enjoy, there are many more

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Latest game loss vs High Elves 2500pts. Played against my brother and his HE, what a fun Dawn Attack mission. His rolls were awesome. I put 6 wounds on his stardragon and 3 on his Noble turn 1... but then failed to do any more for the rest of the game as the 600pt character ate units. hehe. My Tomb Guard were the MVP holding up the dragon princes, killing his BSB and then helping the warcat to beat up the remaining spearmen block.
10 Horse archers do not stand up to 16 Archers and a small unit of seaguard at range.
Stardragon sucks

As much as I love my leve 4 this game very interesting thing happened to me... I lost concentration on my first spell cast 3 magic phases in a row... this was quite a blunder! And I can say it probably cost me the game (it seems that my wizard, sitting in a wizards tower, becomming a loremaster, had so many books to read that he completely forgot about the battle outside the walls, even when the dragon was tearing down the building on top of him did he did not even stop to take a look.

I am thinking of running a secondary caster just to have more options in case this happens again, or wanting to try out Khatep... for his re roll.
Cheers!

I was unable to run my DoE and the Hierotitan today at the LGS. I have a feeling that for the DoE to work (and for the TK to still have a magic phase) you need the hiero to make the LV2's more reliable.

The Tomb King Army, Pictures

Anyway I ran a 2500pt list:
HLP Lv4 Earthrod

Prince Armour of Destiny GW
LP with a feedback scroll (I really like this item!)

50 HW Skellies
2 x 10 Archers
2 x 5 Horse Archers
15 Horsemen with LA and Musician
4 Chariots, Banner, Flaming
20 Bowmen Mus, Champ

29 TG with BoUL and full c.
Warcat
3 Carrion

Casket
2 x Catapults

Anyway... played against a DElf. His list, from memory:

Lord, on Peg with inverted ward, stubborn crown, agonizer wip.

Lord caster lv 4.

BSB hag on Couldron

30 Spearmen
2 x 20 Crosbowmen w Mus, shields and standard
30 corsairs FC

10 Cold ones Always strike first.
5 Harpies

Hydra

Anyway. I was not looking forward to that Dreadlord... yeah, he ended up in combat with the large skeleton block for the entire game, killed the prince. And passed every ld test he was required to make.

Highlights of the game:

One catapult putting a rock on his hydra turn 1 and felling it. The second landing a rock on the cauldron... but it passed the save.
The dreadlord "chuck" to steal the term tied up the 50 skeletons + prince.
My fav... the sorceress casting a boosted pit of shades... i let it though. It sucks my hierophant into the pit (as I failed the LOS... oh well) and then my little wizard feedback scrolling the sorceress to death .
The tomb guard making a game of it after my horsemen all died trying to charge a crossbowmen unit that shot very very well, and I wiffed attacks and then failed to make any saves made for some dead horsemen. The TG then proceeded to make the cold ones flee, then the spearmen only to get tied up on the flank by the corsairs and in the front with the knights and explode. The warcat was once again.. awesome. It took on volley after volley of crossbow fire and then charged into the flank of the spearmen to turn the combat into my favour. And at the end was tying up the corsairs, winning combat. We had to end the game due to time...
The chariots did well against one of the large crossbow units, wiping them out.

Anyway, it was a fun game. Having the hiero die was a big blow (turn 3) so I was crumbling all the way to the end. The level 1 with light was nice to have and that feedback scroll was fun (I was able to roll 3 wounds as he rolled 6 dice at the spell...) anyway, because he still had some cold ones and I had lost the TG.

In all these games the biggest gripe I have is the lack of points for units that are under 50%... all that work... for nothing. Arg.

Anyway. Cheers!

Great work mate

So, as a part of my 20 Games, Journey to perfection (Main Blog Found Here:http://tomb-kings.net/index.php?showtopic=7838&st=125)
Anyway, I believe that sharing a tactical blerb on the different units that I have used will be useful for you, the aspirant Tomb King to take and use in your own games wherever it may be that you are.
I have played over 35 games with the current book since before it hit the shelves and although this does by no means make me an "expert" I would say that its not that bad . Although I have all this experience it is not at a hardcore tournament level. I have only gone to one tournament with my Tomb Kings and was quickly placed out of the running. But I do hope to make the next one and put into practice what I have learned since then.
So, without further rambling here is the tactical article. I will be focusing on the regular non special character lord choices that are available to the Khemrian Legions: the Tomb King and the High Liche Priest. Both these characters are very similar to their counterparts in the other races (fighty character and spellcaster).

I will begin with the High Liche Priest:

A tomb king army must include a Hierophant. This is the highest level caster that knows the Lore of Nehekhara. What better than a Level 3(upgreadable to a level4) character? The nehekaran lore is quite useful to the army as a whole, the buffs really make the skeletons scary and the hexes also make the skeletons scary or neuter enemy scary units. Having 4 spells is usually not bad. In my recent lists (from 1500-2500) I usually just run the one High Liche Priest with level 4. Thats it.
Gear: If I give the hierophant gear it is usually an earthing rod, and thats it. The more I play the more I found that sometimes you really just want to boost a spell, and darn the consequences the earthing rod means that you are a lot less likely to loose your main caster (and start crumbling) due to a warp rift. It also mitigated the potential damage done by a WoC army with a puppet.
But why no more? No ward save? - I used to run with the 4+ ward... but TBH the Hierophant will usually die to something that allows no save... like a purple sun, or a dwellers below, or a pit of shades. If your opponent wants your hierophant to die he just have to try and no ammount of ward save is going to help. The 6+ regen to the unit and the hiero can sometimes really come in handy.
Mounts: I am a bog fan of keeping things cheap. I do not like putting the HLP on a steed (or on a carpet or cloak) I find this makes the unit that he is with a lot slower and not as useful. The best bunker that I have found for the HLP is a unit of 20-30 skeleton bowmen with a musician and a champion (to save the hiero from a nasty character once in a while) the unit is usually enough to take some punishment and not as dangerous as to warrant too much of the enemies attention.
Crumble: When the hierophant dies, the army will begin to crumble. This is by no means the end... I have won many a game while crumbling. Many Tomb King units that usually operate far from the magic bubble or general bubble have half decent leadership and therefore will not crumble as badly. So hunker down, and play on!

The Tomb King:

The Tomb King is a good general and fighty character for any army. They pass their WS to the unit that they are with, making Tomb Guard, Skeletons and even chariots WS6! Not too shabby.
Gear: The best item given to a King in my experience is the Golden Deathmask, some decent armour (with a ward) and a Dragonbane gem or ironcurse icon. Because he is in the thick of it that Death Mask can really cause an enemy battle line to crumble very quickly, especially skaven!
I have also tinkered with a Destroyer of Eternities king, but I don't really have enough experience to talk in depth about it.
Basically gear wise you want effective, useful and resilient (as long as the King is around units can use his Leadership for swift reforms and when the hierophant dies then for crumbling.
Mounts: I like having the king on foot and in the thick of the battle line. He is a sturdy character with 4 W and T5. The chariot will usually be beaten from under him and the warsphynx is cannon bait and he can't use his special weapon skill ability while on it.
The Curse!: Rember the curse. When your King dies they will automatically hit what ever killed them with D6 s5 hits. Just roll to wound. If you get lucky you might just kill the character that killed you or damage all the units involved in a combat that you crumbled from. But remember to not forget... the curse!

Anyway. I hope you all found this interesting. There will be other articles on the various units within the TK book as well as a discussion of the items within the book and those common items as well as how they interact with the TK book.

Good Reading!

Cheers

Thanks for this Iago, i always love tactics articles (especially ones that come from experience), cant wait to see the rest.

Im glad you like it I shall slowly add more and more.

At the moment, caster wise I am finding a secondary level 2 caster with Lore of Light to be awesome. Even if it is just for shems burning gaze... another flaming attack can really come in handy!

Just got back from another game. Against orks and goblins as I said I would be running my Hobby list and here it is at 2500:
HLP- Earthing Rod
Tomb King- Destroyer of eternities, Charmed Shield, The other tricksters shard

LP lore of light, feedback scroll.

40 Skellies
20 Archers
10 Archers
3 Chariots Flaming
5 Horsearchers

Scorpion
30 TG BoUL
Warcat
3 Carrion

Catapult
Colossus
Casket.

Ok, so long story short... I lost.

His list:

60-70 Night goblin horde, with 2 goblin heroes with GW and 2 shamans.

40 Black orks with grimgor in horde.

40 Big un wild orks with shaman (with 5+ ward item)

6 Trolls

And thats it.

I was able to redirect the frenzied wildboyz and the colossus actually held them up for a long time!
The warsphynx popped after killing about 10 black orks... (they are str 7! with GW on the first turn... darned choppas) and because of grimgor they were WS 5 and even with speed of light on the warcat they still crushed it.
I deployed all badly and gave him all my chaff and basicallu got nothing in return as his units were all alive, exept for the trolls (that ended up on the wrong side of the chariots smile.gif. ) and the wild ork shaman that sucked himself into a hole.

Anyway. Cant wait to get this stuff painted so I can switch my list up... that scorpion scattered into an enemy unit and died. Aww.

Cheers!

Yes, 1st ed was a very long time ago, considering I was born in 87 . Anyway I had a tonne of fun this game and here is the battle report.

- Teclis stood at the edge of the flowing river. He stared up at the high cliffs on either side of the pass. This would be the perfect place to ambush the undead King. He turned to face Lyrion, his most trusted commander and carrier of the battle standard, who approached him. Most certainly with the scouting report.
"My Lord, the undead have increased their march speed and will be upon us before the sun reaches noon."
Teclis looked away, staring at the low lying mist.
"We shall meet them here. The ancient fire walls and river shall hinder their advance. Make the archers ready for we make our stand..."
"Aye my lord"
Lyrion turned to join his cohort of swordmasters. Teclis was immobile, concentrating. He could feel the winds of magic gathering and the flames in his blood boiling from the hatred of this king. For the march had to be stopped and the old Mummy-King killed. They should not be allowed to reach the sea. -

Now that was for you fluff readers .

So, lists. These are mostly form memory, so some items/gear might have been forgotten both should be 2500pts.
The Army of the High Elves:

Teclis
BSB on foot with Battle Banner
Dragon Mage lv2 with 3 spells and the reaver bow.

20 Archers, full command
30 Archers, full command

25 Sword Masters, full command, banner of balance.

3 Bolt Trowers

Lots of Shooting, and magic. With a dragon for good measure and some sword masters to eliminate resistance.

The Legions of the Tomb King:

Tomb King, Sword of Strife, Armour of Fortune, Dragonbane gem, Shield, Chariot
HLP- Earthing rod (lv3)

30 Archers, FC
40 Skeletons Hw/Sh, FC
7 Chariots, standard, banner of swiftness, musician.
10 Horse Archers

3 Necro Knights
1 Warsphynx

1 Catapult
1 Hierotitan
1 Casket
1 Colossus with Bolt thrower bow.

The mission: Battle for the pass. We rolled 5 terrain pieces, one river, some blazing barricades, a banestone and tower of blood and a regen marsh.

Spells- Teclis: Loremaster... fire.
Dragon mage: Flaming Sword, Fireball, firecloak

High Liche Priest: Movement, 5+ Ward and dangerous terrain hex (bah).

He won the roll and decided to deploy across the river. (which he had placed in an excellent location to hinder my movement)

Deployment:

Large unit of 30 was at the bottom with Teclis in it.


End of turn 1 I had moved up, the dragon moved back to take care of the horse archers that then charged the big line of archers. I moved up, cast my movement spell and he used teclis spell breaker to kill the spell :(. The Sword masters moved back.


Turn 2 saw me move up more after he shot a lot, and charge a bolt thrower with the chariots, who then overran into the sword masters. His turn 3 saw the large archer unit charge in to try and help in this massive combat:


He also moved to threaten my rightflank (with the knights) with his Dragon who was then to move up to take my warmachines. That combat saw the chariots deal 19 impact hits (that then killed 13 of the sword masters) the unit champ with the bane something or other failed to kill my king and the chariots just mopped up killing the BSB and another few sword masters this ended up breaking both units and running down the swordmasters.

Turn 3 Tomb Kings:
The chariots reformed to face the HE army core... and then magic saw me cast a boosted 5+ ward. The catapult then dropped a rock on Teclis... who failed his LoS roll and was annihilated. This then caused mu opponent to throw in the towel.


That was the endgame!

Tactical Tidbits:
- Had not tried the king on chariot with a legion of chariots. I like it its kills alot.
- The hierotitan once again proves its worth, I was reliably casting boosted spells with my level 3 with 4 dice.
- The bolt thrower giant drew a lot of attention and fire but failed to hit both times he shot. Can't wait to see what he does when he does hit.
- The knights did well, they were facing off a bolt thrower and 30 archers with teclis and they lasted more than 3 shooting phases. I do like the armour save, it allows them to soak up quite a bit of shooting.
- The horse archers did what they do best, cause distraction, having the dragon move to the backfield and then be out of position for a few turns was fantastic. Anyway.

Cheers! As always, stay tuned for more!

I've really enjoyed reading this, it's nice to see how your lists have evolved over time!

It seems over time that you Dropped Usabti, did you feel that they were too expensive?

Ushabti are not bad. I just found that they die very quickly and cant be regen fast enough to be worth it. Although sometimes they would just go to town. Low armour, ALS and only T4... I will bring them out once in a while but the chariots and warsphynx have def earned a place ( as well as the archer legions).

What a great thread! Awesome how you've stuck with this

Thanks! I actually have more than the games I have posted here... And a vid batrep on the tube. I am having a blast squeezing all the juice from the new TK.

Haha Lyrion... no one pulled any muscles there!

Seriously though, have been following this thread since the start and love it. I remember one of the MODS did one for his WoC a while back, we certainly need more threads like this for Fantasy!!!

Keep up the good work.

Excellent update as usual!

Hmm after reading both this and those new ogre bat reps, I think that impact hits make non steadfast units extremely viable.

@ alex 87: I sure will continue to add content!

@ kenshin620: The impact hits are very nice. Those swordmasters lost 13 out of 23 before they swung... and then broke.

A sunken green glow emanated from the eye sockets of the once great King. A thick smell of embalming fluids and wrappings surrounded the tall armour clad figure. With eerie silence that green glow surveyed the swamplands at the feet of his army, he could remember the smell of such swampland, and like many memories from long ago it made a deep hatred burn in his now dry veins. The lizard people had stolen it and by the Gods was it to be his once more!. He raised his sword and as one the legion began its advance as the sun began to rise.
As they entered the swamp the roar of the lizard people was heard and the battle commenced, there was not much time to prepare the formation of the legion.
"Memories.." the King thought to himself. "I wonder if they die like they used to"

Tee hee, I like these little mini stories.

So. Mission: Dawn Attack Point value: 2000pts
Lizardmen vs TK.

His army:
Ethereal Slaan with loremaster life, extra dice, and cupped hands.
Special character skink on howda thing, with loremaster heavens and special teclis like abilities.
Skink priest lv 2 with the cube!
Skink warrior with a biting blade and a bounce back shield.

25 Spear saurus
20 skinks with FC (character in here)
15?-20 Skirmishing skinks
2 packs of 1 salamander
15 temple guard

And that is about it... so 10 levels worth of magic and 16 spells all together...

My list:

Tomb King- Sword of strife, armour of destiny, dragonbane gem, shield, Light armour

Liche Priest lv 2 Hierophant with Earthrod.

40 Skeletons HW/Sh FC
30 Bowmen FC
3 Chariots, flaming banner
10 Light horsemen

Warcat
3 Knights

Hierotitan
Colossus with Great Bow
Catapult

Deployment and t1. We rolled off and I won, so had to roll for all my stuff first. I was rather lucky and had most of it set up in the middle and left, as well as my own choices so I clumped arround my hierophant.

His rolls were not bad either, and his army was opposite mine... he then used his special character to redeploy D3 units (to roll for them again) and got a sally pack on the my far right to fend off the fastcav. He then failed to steal the initiative... and the Tomb Kings advanced!

My thoughts... I needed to get stuck in fast... the ammount of potential magic damage that he could throw at me meant that any time wasted was dead skellies... hence I threw 6 dice at movement to get the army up fast, and get the archers in range to then spread out (turn2)... this put a wound on my hiero(due to miscast) but it was worth it, and it meant that he could not black cube my magic phase.




Lizzies: They moved up, shot a bit he rolled badly for his magic but was able to cast a comet in between my advancing army.

Turn 2 Tomb Kings:
The knights charge the skink block, and the chariots charge the skink skirmishers i take some wounds but get stuck in, the comet comes down and wounds the colossus.
He shuts down my magic phase with the cube but the chariots wipe out the skirmishing skinks on my far left. The knights took a chunk out of the sking block and the warcat charged a salamander in the center, failed to overrun far enough to help the snakes... but was now in the way of the temple guard.

Lizzies
The saurus charged the large skeleton block with the king, the slaan charged the warcat. Magic was once again uneventful as my opponent rolled a low roll, he regrew a few of the skinks. In combat the warcat lived with I think one wound left and the kings skeleton unit held up the saurus. The knights annihilated the skink block and pursued them landing into the sally that had fled from the warcat.


Turn 3 TK
The colossus charged into the saurus, the knights finish off the sally and reform to face the center. The warcat dies and the slaan faces the saurus combat (the saurus break and flee, the hierotitan runs after them, the skellies reform to face the slaan.

Lizzies... the saurus regroup and face the hierotitan. The temple guard fail to charge the skellies with the king! ANd the magic is once again... uneventful.

Turn 4 TK
The skellies with the king, the knights and the colossus charge the slaans block, and wipe them out to a man... in this combat:


Opponent threw in the towel.
Victory for the TK!




Tactical afterthought:

- My opponent spent way to many points on magic.
- The colossus with the bow is fun... he missed all game, but the potential is there, then having the thunderstomps later in the game is very useful!
- I did not miss the casket this game.
- The knights did very well on their own, i like them and against the poison they were awesome.

Cheers!

Lizardman special character? He might have been either overconfident or ignorant. I think almost all LM SC are overpriced. Still that was a good fight, perhaps the lizarmen could have benefited from some more CC stuff like a stegadon to smash your skelies. Or perhaps if the sallies actually had some turns to fire. Its actually amazing how you closed the gap really fast, TK arent so slow now!

Yeah, he moved up, and I had marched... and I made all my 8-10" charges .

Points 2500. O&G vs TK!
Mission: Battle for the pass.

Armies (from memory so please excuse):
Black ork Warboss.
Gobbo BSB
3 Gobbo heroes with GW
Lv 4 Ork Shaman (with 5+ ward thingy)

40 Black Orks FC
40 Savage biguns w FC and double weapons
90 Night gobbos, with nets. (general and gobbo heroes here)
20 Gobbos Archers
5 Wolf riders
5 savage riders
5 boar riders
2 solo wolf chariots

And I think thats it. Here was his deployment:


My list:

King on Chariot with my Fav build by far:
Sword of Strife
Armour of Destiny
Dragonbane Gem

Lv2 with Nehek Rod
Lv 1 light with Scroll

7 Chariots, SB, Mus Swiftbanner
20 Bows
40 Skeletons
10 Light Horse

3 Knights
Warcat

Catapult
Casquet
Hiero
Colossus with Bow

And Deployment:


And the orks took the first turn!... here comes the horde.

Turn 1 Orks: The orks advanced! The boarboyz turned to face the 10 horsearchers that had scouted to the back of his army. The chariots advanced the 20 gobbo archers and the BSB made it into the building. Magic was uneventful.

Turn 1 Tomb Kings:

Shuffled a bit about. Moved the chariots forward to bring the bows to bear on the black orks and do nothing. The horse archers fire on the savage boar riders on the far left (my left) and kill one. The Colossus with a bow actually hits! yay, and wounds a chariot and then only does one wound :(. Magic sees me take a wound off the wolf riders. Shooting sees a few orks dead.

Turn 2 Orks:

Wolf riders get in the way of the warcat. The chariots move up again, everything moves up at full tilt. The 20 gobbos and bsb get out of the building and move up with the army. The boarboys at the back shuffle back keeping the horse archers at bay.

Turn 2 Tomb Kings:

The knights charge the chariot on the far right, it flees, they redirect against the savage boarboyz and kill all but one. The warcat kills the wolf riders and reforms to face the big un wild boys. The big unit of 40 skellies moves up, buffed to help them survive a charge. The chariots prepare to charge the black orks (gasp!) I kill the other chariot with shooting. The chariot that flees ends up falling into a rocky area and crashes and dies.


Turn 3 Orks:

This turn was key. The 20 man gobbo unit, rolled a double one to squabble... and picked a fight with the unit of 90 goblins with the bosses!!! this pinned both units in place. The black orks then just advanced towards the chariots, not wanting to get bogged down with the skeleton warriors. The reformed the boarboyz facing back to face forward and moved them up towards my mage bunker. Magic saw him drop a few chariots with foot and then move the large savage unit onto my flank with the hand (what an amazing spell!). In combats my knights finally finished off the savage boar riders and reformed to face the middle.

Turn 3 Tomb Kings:

I decided what the heck! and charged the king and chariot into the black orks. I was very curious about how much damage they could do. The warcat moved to get in the way of the savage orks. The horse archers moved up at full tilt now, and the knights charged the flank of the boarboyz. In magic I set boosted smiting! 5+ ward on the chariots and got enough chariot wounds back to have my back rank back . The combined shooting of the army killed the 20 gobbo unit and the BSB included . The knights killed the boarboyz and overran towards the other side of the table. The chariots killed about 8 black orks, my impact hits sucked and i did not roll alot of hits :( but my opponents rolling was also atrocious, so the combat balanced out... I did lose combat by 1 but still had my king and 2 chariots left.

Turn 4 Orks:

The savage orks neutered my warcat... and moved into my magebunker . The gobbo unit failed to charge the skeletons. Magic was basically uneventful.
Combat with the king and chariots saw the king kill quite a few and one chariot be left alive with 2 wounds! But the TK won the combat (the king with +2 A sword was pivotal in killing enough to keep me in the fight.

Turn 4 Tomb Kings:

The knights got a long charge off to contact the flank of the black orks . The skellies charged into the gobbos (that although they were in a forest... it was a fungus forest and as gobbos it made them stubborn!). The skellies did very well and killed off one gobbo hero, and did not completely die. The Collossus with bow moved up and the hierotitan moved up as well. I got off another boosted smiting this was great. The combat with the black orks saw a lot of them die to few wounds in return (I also had a 5+ ward on the chariots). The magebunker died but most of my units were within the Kings LD bubble so no biggie.

Turn 5 Orks:

The savage orks use magic again to move to protect the flank of the gobbos. The black orks fell back. The snakes and chariots reformed. The skellies once again do well in the combat, and kill another gobbo hero.

Turn 5 Tomb Kings:
Put the hierotitan in the way of the savage orks to protect the flank of the skellies and force them to overrun down, put the chariots in a place where they could get a flank charge on them. The knights moved up to get a flank on the gobbos. The colossus moves into the back of the gobbo unit and tramples a bunch of them. And the skellies kill yet another gobbo hero!

Turn 6 Orks:

The Savage orke charge the hierotitan and kill him and overrun a grand 10 " to charge the casket... the gobbos hold but are not winning the combat.

Turn 6 Tomb Kings:

Ok, this had been a fun game, so although I could conserve the points for the chariots, I decided to play for fun and charged the 2 remaining chariots onto the flank of the savage boys (to try and snipe his Lv 4) and the king charged into the gobbo unit to end the game with an epic challenge on the warboss The knights also charged the flank of the gobbos.
The chariots exploded (so did the casket) and the king took another wound, but took 2 off of the Black Ork Warboss, and although the gobbos lost combat they held!

We counted up the points and a down the middle draw. What a fun game! In a tournament of course, the chariots and king would have stayed put to safeguard those 700pts for the win.

Endgame:


Hope you all liked the read! Cheers.

Those Savage Orks seemed to pull their weight. As someone putting togther a small Ork force at the moment, I have taken note

The savage orks are awesome... best served as Big uns with a shaman with the talisman of 5+ ward.

High. I am following you, and it seems good.

I am wondering what you think about a "gun line" tomb kings?

I was thinking stalkers, archer skeletons, katapults, casket and and sceleton scouts. And chariors to charge whatever comes close to me.

What do you think?

@ Niiai- The long ranged all gunline style TK list is not one that I have used since the book came out. But I can break it up piece by piece and maybe say a few things about stuff that might work.

- 2 Catapults, not a bad choice when it comes to long range, basic rock thrower.
- Casket, awesome, kills other warmachines quick will give you that long ranged edge.
- Skeleton archers, I usually use 20-30 but in a gunline list at least 40 to a unit with FC. If you want a nice themed army one unit of 50 with Khalida should do the trick.
- Remember chariots have bows!... so they fit right in, and they have a great damage output (especially on the charge).
- Ushabti with Bows... long range, high strength shots that can double tap... KEY in a gunline list as they bring the biggies and things like chariots down fast.
- Colossus with Bows... hit or miss, but fun and then provide much needed support for the archers mid-late game.

Thats all I have.

Cheers!

Keep it up Iago! I hope to see more!

I'm really curious to see how your TK would fare against the new Ogre Book.

Ah... well my next game was against Ogres. Stay tuned . Alas tho I did not take any pictures :( but I will!

Thanks! I will be playing an event this weekend. I "only" have 40 bows, and have no colosus.

I have some of the other though, I think it will be fine. My ace in the hole is that I have 2 caskets of souls! ;-) A nice benefitt, seing as I do not have to use magic dises to walk towards him. (And it is real good vs MC's, mages on fulcroms and warmachines.)

2 Caskets is something that I have not tried yet. And another tripple report: Games 47-8-9

Ok, so here is a 3 for 1 battle report. The LGS is now playing at 2000pts and this is the list that I have taken for the last 3 games:

Tomb King, Sword of Strife, Armour of Destiny, Dragonbane Gem
Chariot

Liche Priest Hierophant, Lv 2 with Earthing Rod

Liche Priest, Lv 1 with Lore of Light and Dispel Scroll

6 Chariots with Banner and Banner of Swiftness.

5 Horse Archers

41 Skeletons with HW and Shield Full Command
18 Skeleton Bowmen Full Command

3 Knights
Warcat

Hierotitan
Catapult

This list is a good mix of everything, the hitting power of the knights and the chariots with the king and the support of the hierotitan and the lore of light wizard to support the rest of the troops.

Game 1(47 in the series) Vs... the New Ogres. Mission was diagonal deployment. I had nothing in reserve, he had 2 units of ogres and his tyrant and one butcher he went first.

His list:

Flyrant (assorted gear)

Butcher, Hellheart
Butcher, scroll
Firebelly

8 Ogres FC
8 Ogres FC

4 Leadbelchers

2 units of 2 sabertusk wolves

2 Super Cannon

So... this mission saw me use the chariots to ram into the 4 leadbelchers that had a butcher and firebelly... I rolled 22 impact hits! thats almost perfect for a 4 wide chariot unit. This inflicted 17 wounds and because of the wrap arround... killed everyone in the unit and left the butcher with one unit, who was easily dispatched by the king. They overran into the tyrant, killed him..
My archers smited, and then killed 2 off of an ogre unit that had just arrived from reserves they failed their panic and ran. The warcat had survived death form the cannon together with the hierititan as they were busy trying to kill the knights who then bouced off of one of the cannon... all in all my opponent conceded the game when his other bull unit failed a long charge into my archer bunker and would have been counter assaulted by the hierotitan...


So first game against the new ogres. Win, although my opponent is def still trying out all the cool fun stuff. Its just a matter of time before he hones his list into a machine.

Games 2 and 3 (48 and 49): Vs my brothers high elves. Played the same list above his first list:

Archmage life with book of teclis.

Mage lv 2 with extra spell, high magic
BSB

20 phenix guard FC
Lion Chariot
38 Spears
16 archers
2 bolt throwers
10 Seaguard

This game was a dawn attack and saw all my army crammed into my right flank except for my hierphant all the way on the other side with the catapult and the warcat in the middle. My secondary caster was able to get a timewarp off on the 40 skellies who then did an 18" charge onto his lion chariot and ran it down, i love that spell. The king got dwellersed off the table but the remaining chariots hit the phoenix guard and ran them down! (I am loving those chariots) My brother then conceded the game.

Later that day he challenged me to yet another game. This time he went for this list:
Archmage (unkillable, ethereal)
Mage lv 2 with fire
BSB

30 swordmastersFC
16 archersFC
39 Spears FC

My list stayed the same. We played battle for the pass. And I knew that I had him at range and so I could out shoot him. But i ended taking the fight to him anyway. The chariots with the king hit the swordmasters... and I cast timewarp on them (wow that made a difference) the swordmasters were severely depleted! and the chariots ground them down until one chariot and the king emerged alive (the BSB had the crown of command, so he stuck around for a long time and the archmage kept of giving him wounds back )
Anyway, the warcat ran into the 39 spears and basically wiped them out in 2 rounds of combat... so once the chariots had reformed to face their flank he threw the towel in... and another victory for the TK! Here are some pictures:







Anyway. Cheers!

Those Chariots with the King sure seem to be worth their weight in gold.

Do you prefer that, over say a Tomb Guard Death star?

I got two coustions regarding the king (I am gonne try it this weekend.)

1: Is it hard to get the charge, contra otherfast flyers charging into you, robbing you of the impact hits.

2: How about changing up his equipment? I am not saying it is better, but it would be good to get a potion of speed in there?

@ Sasori: I have tried the Tomb Guard, and I love them. I run them as a 30 man unit with the BoUL. They have been tried and tested, but I find that they dont have the killing potential of the chariots. This is simply because of the impact hits. Those make or break a combat and go before things like high elves... and if you can get the full chariot unit into the combat for the str 5 hits its amazing.

@ Niiai: 1. I have played a few flying things, ususlly people dont like the flying creatures because they can be picked out. So my experience is limited. As for them getting the charge off, flying units have movement 10... and then the dice.. the chariots have move 9 with the banner.. and therefore have almost the same charge range. Unless they come up a flank, that is usually covered by the horse archers or the skeleton horde. If they face the chariots off you might end up getting the charge if they fail is as your threat ranges are similar.
2. I had not noticed the potion... I think I might try it. Might be good to get the king out of a tight spot.

Cheers!

With fencers blade you loose the shield, but you get WS 10 and you only lose one attack. It is not so bad. ;-)

(No the chariots do not become WS 10.)

You are correct. I do like that 3+ save on the chariot tho... . I think I will test it out for sure.

Ok, so here be the report from my game this tuesday.

Against Dark Elves.
Mission: Blood And Glory (we each gain +500vp's when breaking the enemy army, 6 turns)
Point Value: 2000pts

His list.
Lv4 Shadow Sorceress, with dagger.

Lv2 Death sorceress with uber crossbow, horse, scroll

BSB hero with cauldron

18 spears? FC (sacrificial bunker)
5 Dark Riders
20 corsairs frenzy banner
20 Black Guard, champ with ring of hotec.

2 Hydras. (yes thats right)

Hehe.

My list... same that I have used the last 4 games. (king and chariots, hiero, lv2, lv1, skellies, archers, catapult, warcat, necro knights)

So, we rolled off and this is how the armies ended up facing off against each other:


He won first turn and moved up. Shooting saw a few of my horse archers die. Thats about it. In my turn I moved the warcat up to face off the black guard, and used the horse archers to block them off from my chariots. The knights moved up a bit and the catapult and spells did 1 wound to the lead hydra... And a 5+ ward on the sphynx.

His turn 2 saw the black guard charge the warcat. He failed to irresistible a purple sun with 7... dice! so I was able to scroll it and save my chariots. The hudras moved up full tilt and one flamed my skelly horde for about 10-12 kills or so. The combat with the warcat saw him put a wound on it. I was able to dispel mindrazor(phew!)

My turn 2 saw the knights run into one of the hydras and wipe it out woo! and then overrun into the other hydra right in front of my skellies to tie it up. I had moved into range of the black guard champ with the hierophant who then misscast when he rolled double ones for his spell (luckily I had rolled 3 dice and the hiero) this put a 5+ ward on the warcat again. He allowed me to get a spirit leech off with the hierotitan... he rolled a 2 with ld 9... and I was only able to roll a 4 to make one wound... so close! The chariots charged into the blackguard and the king failed to make a charge against the horse reaver fast cav... so no assassination of purple sun.. grr. I wiped out the blackguard with this combined charge.

His turn 3 saw the corsairs charge the knights... the hydra and them wiped them out (that +1 A on frenzied double weapon corsairs from the cauldron is nasty). The corsairs overranbut just fell short of the skeleton bus. The lv 2 lined up a great purple sun that hit my warcat, all 6 chariots, the last 2 horse archers and the king.. luckily I only lost 3 chariots and the horse archers. This was right after the purple sun...



My turn 3 saw me reform my warcat and chariots to face the magebunker. The large archer unit was able to wipe out the remaining reavers in a volley. The chariot bow fire took out the lv 2 mage (yay) The skeletons redirected to make the corsairs go away from the main battle.

His turn 4 saw the hydra and corsairs assault the skeletons. I dispelled any magic that was cast(especially mindrazor). The combat saw the skeletons all die, and the corsairs had to overrun towards the table edge. The hydra turned to face my mage bunker, hungry to kill hierophant.

My turn 4 saw the chariots hit the spears and wipe them all out together with the warcat, the cat overran into the cauldron (bad, bad idea) and the chariots reformed to the center. The archers moved back and the light mage stepped in front of the hydra to prevent it from marching, or charging anything but him also redirecting him so he would want to combat reform.

His turn 5, hydra charges and kills the mage, the corsairs attempt a swift reform and fail their test.

My turn 5, my hierotitan steps up to the plate and infront of the hydra. My hiero puts a ward on him.


His turn 6 sees the hydra charge the hierotitan and do a wound.
My turn 6 sees the hydra do another wound... but that would be game!
So the endgame:



So... I had broken him and had more than 300vp's more than him. So a solid win for the TK!

Tactical Corner:
- The Necro Knights have consistently shown that they can go into some tough matchups and come out on top. Only when the flanking bazzillion attack corsairs charged them did they loose the combat, I feel confident that they could have taken both hydras.
- The last 4 games I have not really used the skeleton bus. They just sit there... eventually in a tight situation they get in the way of something but they rarely do anything. I think a second unit of necroknights would do much better for almost the same cost.
- That king and chariot unit is by far awesome... I love them.

Cheers!

Keep it up! I'm really enjoying these BatReps.

Really digging the Tomb Kings. I keep waffling between what army I plan to start in Fantasy, and you keep inspiring me for Tomb Kings.

Im glad that you are inspired . The Tomb Kings are an interesting army, hard to get "right" but playing so much with them has really given me some good insights as to the dynamics of the army. Also I really like the look of the army.

I played a tomb king fight this weekend. We had a big event.

It was apparent 1: I do not know the basics of this game. 2: I really like the tob kings.

They are very very cool, but it is important numero uno to get a charge in the side or the other players units. I just used big blocks with characters in it. I need more horse archers and fast things to deny the rank bonuses, and I really need an avil unit. I really do think 4 point skeletons blank make for a very good anvil unit because they will not runn. They will crumbel, but if you have suport for them it is really good.

Niiai wrote:I played a tomb king fight this weekend. We had a big event.

It was apparent 1: I do not know the basics of this game. 2: I really like the tob kings.

They are very very cool, but it is important numero uno to get a charge in the side or the other players units. I just used big blocks with characters in it. I need more horse archers and fast things to deny the rank bonuses, and I really need an avil unit. I really do think 4 point skeletons blank make for a very good anvil unit because they will not runn. They will crumbel, but if you have suport for them it is really good.

I'm not a fan of the Skeleton Warrior blocks. It seems like they crumble quickly, and if you support them with another unit, they are going to take wounds because of Combat resolution as well.


Iago, what do you think of Stalkers? I haven't seen you use them yet, and was curious on your thoughts! They seem like they would be good in a group of six, but I"m not sure of course.

I think stalkers are amasing. It is the one thing that really works for me along with the casket. Just grab some stalkers, pop up and just gaze the chaos hell cannon/lone mage/big monster/warmachine/mage in fulcrum.

It is the best EBTS unit i think, because it shoots the turn it turns up and your oponent have to deal with it!

I agree that skeletons crumble fast. They rarly do anything themself. But look at it this way: With only 5 wide and shield there are only so many he can kill. Say he kills 7, and another 7 crumble you only loose 56 points, but your oponent is now locked in close combat. Unlike a lott of different units they will be standing there for some time. Grab enough of them and it is easy to get flank charges in. With the skeletons brining up the ranks you will get a big combat resolution while he will get a very hard leadership save. It can work quite well as an anoying anvil unit. 160 points give you 40 skeletons in a 8 seat buss.

Iago,

I'm also wondering what you consider are your Toughest match ups? What Armies/units do you dread seeing across the Table?

I'm just curious to know.

@Sasori: I have not used the stalkers, generally do not like any of the EBTS units. They may never show up. I would much prefer more chariots or knights.

As for my toughest matchups... I would say its not the "toughest" just match ups that I have not had much practice against... Deamons, Dark Elves, Warriors of Chaos, Lizzies probably in that order (orks), probably in that order and if the army is a nasty premade "net" list.

How do you think the chariots performs with regards to terrain? I alwasy find that at least mine have to take very many dangerus terain tests.

Also, what is your anvil unit? Is it the warcat?

@ Niiai: I do not mind rolling for the terrain for the chariots... any that die usually come back in the ensuing magic phase.

As for anvil units, I use the warcat as an anvil with anything s6 or lower :p. The skeletons are a speedbump, that will die, but stay for a few rounds and are cheap. The chariots are a fantastic hammer tho, that I have just been testing what they can smash into and win. Its a learning process.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mission: Blood and Glory
Opponent: Bretonnians
Army list Brets
Point Value 2500pts

Special Character- lv 4 lady on unicorn - lore of life.
Paladin BSB banner of lady
Paladin, horse, heroic killing blow
Damsel with chalice lv 2 life
Damsel with lv 2 beasts on horse

15 Realmbus
12 Grailbus
12 Errantbus

30 Archers

Treb

So a very in your face list.

My list, of course because we are playing 2500pts I have the place to add all the cool toys that I usually don't take.

King on Chariot, Sword of Strife, Potion of Speed, Armour of Destiny and Dragonbane Gem

Lv 2 Hirero with Earthing Rod
Lv 1 dispel lore of light
Necrotech with Silver Steel.

6 Chariots
40 Skeletons
20 Bow
13 Bow
5 Horse archers

3 Carrion
3 Necro knights
1 Warsphynx

2 Catapults
Hierotitan
Casket

We deployed and this is what the table looked like, after the first turn but the start of my second turn. The horsearchers had march blocked the errant block the catapults had done a number on the longbowmen (who had done 2 wounds on the hierotitan) I scrolled a dwellers on the chariots (phew!).



So, my turn 2.
I charge the chariots into the grail knights in the middle. The horse archers, charge the archers who elect to flee... but run 5 inches. I roll high enough to run them all down and make it into the treb. The knights get within max distance of the errant knights to make them take an impetuous test. The chariots kill a few grailknights. The king is stuck in challenges... one grailknight at a time.
In his turn 2 he turns the huge bus to face the chariots. The treb holds on snake eyes. He regrows 3 grainknights.. ugg. The errant knights fail their test and failcharge 3 inches.

So my turn 3 the carrion get in the way and redirect the realmbus. The chariots do well against the grailknights and wipe them out. I killing blowed the super damsel (she failed her ward) and the unicorn flees. I reform the chariots so that they don't get charged by the realmbus.

His turn 3 sees the reambus charge the carrion and overrun out of the arc of the chariots. The treb finally dies, and the unicorn regroups.


My turn 4 sees the warcat charge the flank of the realmbus and kills quite a few. The chariots reform to face back, the 5 horse archers charge the unicorn... who choses to flee and subsequently rolls low... and gets run down by the horse archers who rolled 11, moving all the way up and reforming to face the back of the errantknights. The knights failcharge against the errants, who take a catapult and archers... and break.


His turn 4 sees the errant reform. And the mage with them miscast and explode, killing the rest of the errants and herself .

My turn 5 the chariots charge the realm and annihilate the remainder of the unit.

My opponent threw in the towel.

Victory for the Tomb Kings!

Tactical Corner:
- I have been having a lot of fun running the chariots into a variety of units and seeing what they can take head on. Lets add grailknights to the mix.
- There are some kinks in this list, my dream list would have 2 warcats and 2 units of 3 knights with chariots as hammers.
- The horsearchers this game were amazing, raking up about 400vps by themselves! Never underestimate the power of 70 points worth of scouting fastcav.

Cheers!

I am a more of a plug and play person. Meaning I do not know tactics so well. I have learned to never charge chariots into huge buss blocks from the front. They winn but then they are steadfast. :-P

I have been thinking of eather getting the chariots in the flank or B: Use entombed beneath the sand of carrior/necro sphinx to sett up flank charges so that I can get the chariots into the fray. Also, I am getting a huge respect for horse archers as they are very good speedbumbs since they can move 8, and reposition themselves in a bad and horible way. (Although carrion birds only cost 2 more and they have I3, perhaps they are better?)

Getting a large chariot unit in a flank can be hard sometimes, but it is def worth it. Although even on a flank, the enemy does not loose steadfast if they have more ranks... I have been finding that you have to hit then hard when you charge... then hold for one combat turn, then finish it off with buffs your next combat phase. Make sure you block the enemy from supporting the unit that is getting bashed by the chariots.

Cheers!

Fellow Journey Followers! Seekers of the truth of the setting sun and inhabitants of the windy plains.

I will be joining(running) a small escalation league at one of my LGS. 500pts-1000pts-1500pts-2000pts

It is meant to help get peoples armies painted. Sort of a paint or die thing.

So, 500pts of my unpainted Tomb Kings. This will give me a reason to go in a completely different direction and try out other things with the TK.

So, 500pts:
Liche Priest
26 Skeleton Spearmen Full Command
5 Horsemen with Light armour, Champ
3 Necropolis Knights

So. I will be getting this painted and will be plating games with it. A small side quest if you will. I might keep it with a "magic lite" theme. I am thinking of getting that into a 50 spearmen block it will give me the chance to also paint up my necrotech and one of the many kings / princes that I have lying around.

@ Noc: Thanks for the support, I hope this thread provides insight and inspiration.

As for the 500pt game that I had, I decided to keep the champion in the horsemen unit.

My list:

Liche Priest
26 Skeleton Spearmen with full command
5 Horsemen with Champion
3 Necro Knights

Her list:

Lv 1 mage with lore of life.
12 Seaguard
7 Phoenix Guard
Bolt thrower

We both took the basic spell for the lore and rolled a meeting engagement. She had her entire army show up, my skeleton spearmen unit decided to stay in reserve.. luckily there was some LOS blocking terrain that my hiero could hide behind no not get shot to death.

So our deployment looked like this:



So basically her turn 1 sees some of the horsemen die to shooting, she miscast with her wizard and blew up 3 seaguard. My turn 1 saw the horsemen charge the bolt thrower and the knights charge the phoeniz guard. The skeletons moved towards the priest to bunker him.

The phoenix guard held well and managed to kill all but one of the knights before all dying. And the horsemen got charged by the seaguard who then overran towards the top of the table. I was able to bring back 2 wounds on the knights and this is what the game looked like just before my 6th turn:


And then I charged in with the knights and sniped the mage. Giving me a solid win!


And now on to the tactical discussion:
- Lv 1 mage... hmm, unless I am rolling 6 dice at the spell I doubt I will get anything off.
- The spearmen look menacing but if charged by a hammer I feel that they will die horribly.
- The knights as expected did awesome.
- The horsemen did not dissapoint. Can't wait to build on the concept of this list.

Cheers!

Great Stuff Iago, 500 points seems.. so small.

Seems like your Necropolis Knights are your #1 preforming unit.

I can't wait to see some more.

Its def close between them and the warcat.

Iago, I must say I always look forward to your updates.

I am moastly drawn to the hobby from a collectors standpoint (I moastly play 40 K) but I really like your reports. It gives me hopes for my TK who perform terible.

I am wondering about your knights though. Why do you not give them any command?

Also, in your chariot death attack is it not better to shave 250 points by dropping the king. It apears that what chariots usualy do is dealing 4d6 S5 inpact hits and hitting from the side breaking the enemy unit. Does the king/prince really do anything besides negating the hits that come back at you? Would it not be better to inwest in another chariot giving you 3 ekstra wounds while saving you 200 points?

How do you see the heroes? The king/prince, necrotect and any mage with lore of Necraham lore seems like unit enhancers/multiplyers. Even the herrald gives +1 in combat resolution and one less curmble efectivly giving you 2 ekstra HP if you lose the match. Could this be combined with cheap 4 point skeletons or 5 point spoearmen. 40 spear skeletons FC with a decent prince is around 384 points. Quite cheap it seems for 40 WS 5 attacks. Give them smite or cursed blades or debuff the enemy and you are seing some very cheap wounds. (The King and prince are very good for what we pay for them.)

Latest Game 2500pts VS. Lizardmen.

Same list that I have played against a few times. How will I fare this time?

Stay tuned.

@Niiai: I am glad that this thread has provided some inspiration. Your questions:
- I only have 3 of them and they are usually on a flank.. and they take on units that tjhey will munch on usually. I dont really want to spend more points on them then I have to... keep it cheap, keep it simple.
- I dunno, I like the king. Whenever I was using not a king the chariots ended up dying all the time. Combats tend to be more protracted then I expect and its the King, in the format that I run him, that ends up busting me out with his high volume of str 5 attacks.
- As for the heros, I do like all of them. Recently I have been using a necrotech and I do like him. As for the prince, I either run a king or a prince. THe thing is because I am already forced to take a priest I dont want to invest too much on the characters as those points can then be spent elsewere in the army. As for the BSB I have always loved the idea, when I do run him I would with the flaming banner... and then either run him with the chariots, or run him with the archers.

Recently I have been running the magic lite format... so I have a lv 2 and a lv1 and thats it... so far so good.

Cheers!

A level 1 and a level 2, but you have the casket and the hierotitan, so you are not that magci light. Perhaps spend an ekstra 100 points for a level 3?

Sorry I was rambling on thinking of 2000pt games and lists.

I would run the hierotitan always because he is awesome. I can do without the casket (but 2500... why not?)

Don't get me wrong I do love the better caster... I have run a lv 4 + prince (or lv 4 + king) for quite a few games... and they never dissapoint.

Latest game vs the Ogre army in the campaign!

I was able to witle the ogres down (more like, his firebelly killed ogres with miscasts) and then the snakes finished the main unit off while debuffed -1str - 1 tough... it was awesome.

Win to the TK!

Man you really like those snakes.

I am not sutch a fan of the model.

2 questions:

1: What do you think about the nechro sphinx?

2: I think of TK as a crumbeling horde, but you seem to be using high T models and really melle monster (chariots, war cat, snakes, hiero titan etc.) Do you think of TK as a heavy hitting armybook?

Niiai:
1. I have not used it. I feel like the warcat is better for its points. But in a list where you are going for volume of high toughness... fly and t8 comes in all to its own.

2. I think TK have some very killy elements! I love the horde feel of the legions of skeletons and bowmen but I also like to win games by dishing out the damage and taking the fight to my enemy at the right time. Something not everyone expects.

Cheers!

Ok fellow journey travelers, here are the battles that I played last week at the LGS. As you know, i have been participating in an escalation paint or die league... so far I failed the first leg and then for the second leg I only added 5 models to the list to get me back on track.
Regardless... first game I played was a pitched battle against Wood elves.

Here is our deployment:


So I was pretty confident, having the high armoured snakes across from the gladeguard, and the chariots in front of the wardancers with the giant facing the dryads.

So he moved up. Not much else happened.



I then moved around, shot a few wardancers.
Then in his next turn he moved up and shot down one of the snakes. Those str 4 long bows are nasty.
Then I charged with the snakes... and he killed another, and although I only needed a 5 to get in I promptly rolled a 4 for the charge with the snakes... and they lost another... and failed to get in.

He then charged into my face... and cast his one spell (free move and can charge) irresistibly on the wardancers who ran into the chariots... and wiped them out. Ouch.


I then charged the dryads with my horsemen and the giant... but he made about 5 of his 6 ward saves.... and the stomp only killed one. Enough for me to win combat, but he held. I was able to get a boosted inv save bubble. Although it did not help much.



Then those treekin ran in... and murdered the giant. The only think I had left alive was the skeleton bunker at the end of the game.. with 2 members left, the hierophant had died.
Good game. I got absolutely destroyed.

Things that I learned or remembered after.

The treekin are flaming, should have sent the chariots and their flaming banner straight for them.
Don't underestimate the wardancers... holy moly, they had so many attacks!

So, on to game 2. A rematch against the high elf from last week that annihilated me.

He moved up, so did I and shot a bit. I got a boosted movement off and used that to encircle the enemy army.

My snakes got into the bolt thrower, and then needed a 6 to overrun into the magebunker... and rolled a 4. Arg... this meant the chariot charged them in the flank = dead snakes. So my swarms had also arrived and tied up the archer unit on the far right (off shot).
My horsemen, in this picture had been one man strong, moved up and then a boosted movement had brought them back up to full.


Then he moved up some more, and I was able to get a succession of long charges, the chariots into the phoenix guard. Chariots eventually died, but did some damage, the giant got into the chariot and killed it, and then ran through the remainder phoenix guard. The horsemen took out the remainder of the archers and the mage, the swarms finished off the other archers...

A victory to the tomb kings!

Iago with TK beat by a Wood elf's army! Wow, I am impressed. :-)

Yeah, hehe. I know, I went in underestimating it big time. And with no archers... hehe.

Thanks again for posting these. You keep giving me ideas, which is good and all, but I was hoping to buy models slowly for this army.

Apparently I am not very good with the whole delayed gratification thing, it seems.

I do not recall seeing you use carrion and have basically heard only good about them this edition. Is it the lack of models? (that is my current excuse) In any case, do you have any more thoughts on them?

Besides a Heirotitan and a catapult they are near the top of my list of things to add.

I do like the carrion and I have run them quite a few times. I own 2 of them and I fill the third in with a rank filler, they never really dissapoint and they do what they are supposed to do.

Excellent.

Thank you kindly.

Keep up the good work!

So a small hiatus. But here is the next one:
So , 1500pts game vs dwarfs from last week:
Deployment, battle for the pass:

Then we moved up, the lines clashed:


My chariots were up to their usual antics wrecking face


At the end of the game I was able to finally take out his warmachines with my one catapult, yay.



Anyway, one thing that did happen this game was the failing of 4 out of 5 dangerous terrain tests for my chariot unit that overran across some fences... ouch!

Then I had another game on thursday. I got absolutely annihilated by some warriors of chaos. The crux of the game was when my chariots failed to kill a warshrine to overrun into another unit of warriors, this would have pulled me out of the charge ark of the chosen.. alas it was not to be. Then the chosen mowed through the chariots.

The turning point of the game was his chaos knight rolling 4 sixes out of 5 hits against my warcat to wound... bringing it down in one round of combat!

Cheers!

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