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Hi guys, as you may have guessed from the title, I'm new to Fantasy.
I come from a 40k background so I've got an idea of what I'm in for.

Before I provide much love to Games Workshops wallet I'm hoping to get answers for and suggestions for where to take my chosen army. I've been poking at the idea of Fantasy for a long time now and Tomb Kings always caught my eye and now they are getting an update I figure it's time to bite the bullet and dive in head first with a Necrosphinx. I love it and intend to buy one just to model and hopefully build an army around it but I'm not sure what to put in.

So my main questions are:
1. What are the basic units types for? As in, where should i direct spearmen or archer fire? Or what cavalry does what to who? etc. if you get my meaning

2. What tactics should I learn to watch for? I hear flanks feature heavily in this game

3. What units are needed in a Tomb King army? Mainly do I need to take catapults to be effective? I am hoping to do an army without artillery and feature alot of basic skeletons for a horde feel, backed up by the new tomb guard, a few charriots and a sphinx.

Obviously regarding the new units no one can be sure of their effectiveness. Really I'm only asking for opinions and core suggestions. I intend to wait and see if a new battalion is released and I'll start by grabbing that, a codex and my Sphinx

Thanks for any help

Welcome to the Fantasy side.

The recent buzz has been the NEW Tomb Kings book coming out in May (you may have noticed them popping up everywhere) so in short no one is going to be able to tell you for sure until the new Codex comes out.

As for the general feel of Fantasy, one of the big differences is in the movement phase. Very few units have 360 degree arc of view/movement, you need to take into consideration what angle you're facing your enemy when you're positioning your units. Charging the flanks and rear make you far more likely to win the combat. As for Tomb Kings in general, until the new Codex hits us, I can't tell what will change. Their spells, however, tend to make them able to move, shoot or attack in the magic phase (if they take these away, I'd be shocked). Kinda nasty when a close combat unit gets to hit you twice in one turn.
General troop advice from me would be to use spearmen defensively, cavalry to flank and maybe try and sneak behind (if you manage this, go for his war machines), archers to stand back and shoot foes (lightly armoured your best target). I can't guess what kind of role the new snake riders will have, shock troops at a guess. Same for the Sphinx, although the big flying/ killing blow variant has been hailed endlessly as the ultimate monster killer, since he has heroic killing blow. Think instant death and no armour saves on a to wound roll of 6, killing blow only works on man-sized, heroic killing blow works on everything. The howdah variant seems to be a big-block-of-infantry killer, considering the thundercrush attack. The Tomb Guard have a halberd option I've gathered, and they're the elite, so put them where there's gonna be thick hand-to-hand fighting. And you'll have heroes and mages as well of course.

Well I can't say i expected you guys to see into the future regarding the new Tomb Kings lol but yea I think you hit the nail on the head with what i needed to know.

You said about war machines, would these be things like the Skaven wheel and Screaming catapult?

Does this mean that spearmen work like 40k heavy weapons and would only be good when standing still or charged? Since i was hoping to make a spear wall type army with some archery Im hoping that wont gimp my forward advance

By war machines, I mean artillery, stuff like cannons and catapults and mortars and bolt throwers. Cavalry go round, smack them in CC, there's usually between 2-5 crew members who'll fight back.

Spearmen are best used defensively. Normal rules for troops is that front rank of troops get full attacks, second rank troops get 1 supporting attack. If you have spears, the third ranks troops get supporting attacks as well, but not on the turn you charge, if you charge with spears you'll only fight in 2 ranks for that phase (it goes back to three after one phase). Because of this, spearmen are used to hold flanks and such and more as tarpits than as actual killing troops, maybe defend some of your more fragile units like the catapult and the archers. A good idea is to bog the enemy down with some skellies and then try and flank charge with some chariots (anything killy will do, but I'm using chariots as an example because they're both fast and killy). Of course being undead, as long as your unit hasn't been annihilated, you can bring troops back again and again, making your skeleton unit even more of a slog to get through.

Also,if you wanted a shield wall formation, usually the archers would need a line of sight, and so a hill in your deployment area would be ideal. The only way you can shoot over the heads of your guys is with the template weapons and with elevated position. You can't shoot over with archers. Your shield wall would have to have some gaps to compensate.

You'd probably need some archers in the middle, some spearmen to their flanks, some tomb guard nearby, send some chariots and other fast moving toughies down the flanks (either to deal with anything that tries to flank you or simply to flank the enemy). You can have some deep-striking scorpions as well, they're pretty tough. But, as I said, new Codex = new rules. Depending on the Sphinx's points costs, you might be able to field one in smaller games, and then the fun would begin.