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Hello. I hade some games withj tomb kings in the old codex during a campain weekend and after some lame games after that I shelfed them for tyranids and space wolves in 40k.

But the new book is cool, however I am trying to understand how they play. As far as I can see it there are several ways to do this, big chunkcs of small skeletons or ranged. (I gues you can also go with a lott of war sphinkes.)

So this is my plan: Getting a casket, 2 SSC and a "bone giant" with a bow + a block of archers to make shure I have the range game. Backing that up with 2 scorpions, perhaps some insect swarms and archer horsemen (?) to enshure I take out my oponents big guns.

Anchor my gunline with 1 warsphinks, and some skeletons or tomb guards.

And then have chariots and stalkers who can smash/shoot my oponent softening him up along with my warmachines etc enshuring he will be in edable pieces before he reachers my fighting groups.

What do you think, does it sound...well...sound? Or am I misunderstanding fantasy and the tomb kings?

Honestly mate, you've basically come up with an army that incorporates almost every unit in the book. If you're playing a game large enough to field all these units, yeah, I'd say it would be sound.

What point size games do you usually play at? It would be much easier to give advice if there was a better frame of reference to go by.

Hehe...points, that's where the problem is.

The local gaming group plays at 2250 points. People just show up and play, as we get closer to agthouhm I figure the lists will become a lott more competetive. (Close to the tournament.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: Perhaps I am asking it wrong.

What are the ropes for warhammer fantasy, and what do you need to know or do to be playing at a competive level? Tomb kings looks like an army that can be competive while it is not cheesy.

I do not think that the new TKs are competitive. They are prone to having the heirophant killed and the army crumbling. (This can be accomplished in innumerable ways, including with hochland long rifles, Slann bouncing miscasts with Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, and spells like Dwellers Below.) More seriously, their low initiative makes them ripe targets for spells like Dwellers Below. Another problem is that they are not able to resurrect enough models to make up for their instability. Daemons are unstable, but kill stuff. Most TK stuff just loses combat and dies.

All of this being said, you can make a decent TK army, but I just don't think that it is competitive like Skaven, Lizardmen or DE.

If I were going about making a TK list I would fill the core with large blocks of skeletons with HW/S. Elites would be taken up by TG and some Spectres for backfield stuff. I would use lore of Death for character assassination. I would use caskets to boost my magic.

I think the other builds you mentioned are also viable. Lots of Sphinxs, or lots of shooting may work.

I don't know if a lott of sphinx is that viable. The problem is that if you meet hordes they will wound you on 6's and if you meet gunlines (if they exists) then they will have a very slow wlak over the table.

As I said, I did not think that TK were competitive, but various builds will work in a 'casual competitive' environment.

I have not proxied the 5 Sphinx build, but it looks like it may work as well as other TK builds. Cannons are a problem, as is dwellers. Hopefully magic will help them cross the board or help protect them.

Spaceelf that does not really help me. :-)

TK are damn good. Every army has some weaknesses. Having nearly one of the best magic turns in the game means they shouldn't be over-worried about spells doing anything.

For every scary guy mentioned above, counter it with a regenning army full of KB.

Even a Hierophant dying isn't all that. On average, Warrior units will take 2 whole wounds a turn. On average, TG will take 0 wounds a turn. Near a banner they take 1 less. On average, ANY Nek spell on said unit will heal 3 Wounds a turn. It's just not that big a deal. Have multiple casters.

When you look at each individual unit, TK's can seem week. BUt when you look at the list as a whole, then they are a lot stronger. Magic will help buff them up. If you are really concerned about low initiative, you can take Lore of Light on a second caster. The fact that you can bring models back to several units at once makes their Lore Attribute very strong, and buffing things with killing blow is just great! Synergy is the name of the game with TK.

Played two games against the new tomb kings and I think its a very well written book...

GRanted its not skaven and its not daemons, but I think its a very solid middle of the road army.

I think its too early to tell how competitive TK will be and I don't think the best lists or strategies have been developed.

If unstable proves to be too much of a gamebreaker for TK it may be FAQed out.

Amaya wrote:I think its too early to tell how competitive TK will be and I don't think the best lists or strategies have been developed.

If unstable proves to be too much of a gamebreaker for TK it may be FAQed out.

no it wont

Its to early to tell where exactly they will be on the competitive ladder. However I fell some of us have enough experience with the game and armies to tell where they will be based on the book and how units are supposed to perform.

ShivanAngel wrote:

Amaya wrote:I think its too early to tell how competitive TK will be and I don't think the best lists or strategies have been developed.

If unstable proves to be too much of a gamebreaker for TK it may be FAQed out.

no it wont

Its to early to tell where exactly they will be on the competitive ladder. However I fell some of us have enough experience with the game and armies to tell where they will be based on the book and how units are supposed to perform.

Yes, because you can tell how new spells, new spell combos, new units, new combos, strategies, etc, etc, will do at a glance.

Amaya wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:

Amaya wrote:I think its too early to tell how competitive TK will be and I don't think the best lists or strategies have been developed.

If unstable proves to be too much of a gamebreaker for TK it may be FAQed out.

no it wont

Its to early to tell where exactly they will be on the competitive ladder. However I fell some of us have enough experience with the game and armies to tell where they will be based on the book and how units are supposed to perform.

Yes, because you can tell how new spells, new spell combos, new units, new combos, strategies, etc, etc, will do at a glance.

You actually can if you have a lot of experience with the game.

Im not saying I know exactly where they will be. However I can say with a very large degree of confidence that its a very balanced book, they will more then likely be a very solid middle of the road army.

I'm with Shivan on this one. There is 0 percent chance that they'll FAQ out the "unstable" rule. It's one of the Hallmarks of the undead.

If anything they'll make Undead more survivable by FAQing in the Move Spell being able to heal while in combat.

GW doesn't make sweeping changes to armies unless things are REALLY bad for an army. Unplayably bad. Dark Elves of 6th ed bad, and believe me, they were bad.

Not to mention 4 point unbreakable skeletons without a drawback like unstable would just be insane...

Unstable has been a part of the undead books.... well.... Forever...

Lol Dark elves in 6th edition... They were my first army, back when 6th edition had just come out.... OMG it was horrible how crappy they were....

7th edition was awesome... People would cry "omg dark elves wah wah wah"... I would be like I PLAYED THEM IN 6th I DID MY TIME!!!!

ShivanAngel wrote:

Amaya wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:

Amaya wrote:I think its too early to tell how competitive TK will be and I don't think the best lists or strategies have been developed.

If unstable proves to be too much of a gamebreaker for TK it may be FAQed out.

no it wont

Its to early to tell where exactly they will be on the competitive ladder. However I fell some of us have enough experience with the game and armies to tell where they will be based on the book and how units are supposed to perform.

Yes, because you can tell how new spells, new spell combos, new units, new combos, strategies, etc, etc, will do at a glance.

You actually can if you have a lot of experience with the game.

Im not saying I know exactly where they will be. However I can say with a very large degree of confidence that its a very balanced book, they will more then likely be a very solid middle of the road army.

I don't know what I Think about your balance argument, but I think they are a solid army. The army can be built with this sort of "alpha strike" mentality that is pretty scary.

3 units of chariots, no command, in front of a unit of light cav that has both a lv4 heiro and a lv4 light mage. Both the Heiro and the Light mage have the heiratic scroll and the power scroll respectively. In 2 games in a row now, I've had ws10, I10, ASF +2 attacks to all units within 12 inches, which just so happens to be all 3 of my chariot units that just charged your 3 blocks. This combo absolutely decimates everything. The only iffy part is getting the ws10 I10 because you don't use your scroll on that spell. A 3rd game I got asf, and +2 attacks. The Kings have some serious brutality but I don't think their lack of toughness offsets the problem well, because they can be in your socks on turn 2. In a 2500 points army, that combo only represents about 1000 points..

The rest is units of skeletons a casket, and a couple of SSC's.

The thing is, those units those chariots "alpha stike" are going to be steadfast, and then wreck you with counter charges and what not the next turn.

I believe they will be a solid army, however solid does not necessarily mean over the top like skaven are this edition.

I personally love what they have done with the two 8th edition books so far, they feel VERY balanced to me. Unfortunantly its going to take a while to get all the books with 7th edition syndrome redone.

ShivanAngel wrote:The thing is, those units those chariots "alpha stike" are going to be steadfast, and then wreck you with counter charges and what not the next turn.

I believe they will be a solid army, however solid does not necessarily mean over the top like skaven are this edition.

This combo routinely goes through 25-30 wounds of t3 5+6++ models, roughly 12-17 t4... In this area, Very few armies have units that can handle that kind of attrition and not have their steadfast removed... if they are even still around as a unit. That may change as I start to play my Current list more, but the meta, I've found hasn't changed as much from 7th list building to 8th list building for the prototypical player.

Even if you do have steadfast afterwards, you probably don't have enough to weather the storm of the second wave. On top of the fact that whatever I have left after your attacks back is still going to be 14 ws10s3I10 attacks per chariot with ASF. That's High Elf level good for low strength high quality attacks back.

I dont deny that it wouldnt hurt, cause it would.

However Im not going to turn this into a beat that unit thread, cause its all speculation.

This also all revolves around you getting all those lore of light spells for one, AND getting them off...

You are also running two scrolls that risk blowing up your heirophant and your other level 4, as well as the bunker they are hiding in.

I dont think the army is weak by any stretch of the imagination. I think its a very strong middle tier army, and since I consider all the armies middle tier (except skaven which is in its own league, and wood elves who are pretty bad right now) take that as you will.

Agree with Shivan on this one - being dependent on magic I think about autoputs you in the middle category, while not having OTT infantry keeps them in the category. Couple that with almost no armor saves in the book, high toughness expensive models (which still have crappy AS) - keeps them from being too much. They alleviate the infantry piece by characters buffing the units, but then again if you lose your characters the army can quickly fall apart.
Lore of Light or Death is great if you take a Lvl 4 to get the spells which will really benefit TK, but then again your highest caster has to have the TK lore, which is still kinda so so in my opinion. Sure you can raise your guys, but only with a couple of the spells and the "in combat" debate is still going on. Alleviate this by 2 Lvl 4s and your competing for magic dice and a buff your troops/raise your casualties decision.
It all creates a balance which I think is good for the army and the game. Sure you can alpha strike - sort of since your slowed by not marching I guess - but then again 8th edition kind of nerfed that with steadfast. Fly that Necrosphinx ahead of the rest of your army, kill some guys, then crumble due to getting flanked.
Unstable definately won't get FAQ'd - what would they replace it with?
Determining how an army will due does come with experience and being able to analyze the book. True there will be nasty combos that come out with time, but you can look at points costs and abilities and see where the game designers were going themewise and see the strategies

I second what ShivanAngel and Mattbranb have said. In my earlier post I said that TK were not competitive. I did not mean that they were a bad army. I simply do not think that they match up well against Skaven, Lizardmen or DE. I think their dependence on magic and characters really hurts them.

The problem with the way GW handles their games is that the armies are not even close to being balanced. Skaven are still a pretty recent release, so will likely dominate 8th for the foreseeable future.

Interesting enough though, I can see the Golden Mask being a big problem for Skaven with their whole Leadership - the trick will be getting the general into 6" range of it, combined with winning combat (which against slaves or rats shouldn't be too hard), even for skeletons (buffed by character)

Yeah im really really hoping the fear of tomb kings with that mask will force skaven players to really think twice about taking the 2-3 units of 50 slaves and 2 units of 30+ clanrats.... ld 5 and 7 is not something you want to be attempting, especially with no rerolls.

I think the point I was trying to make, got lost in the argument.

I think the most effective strategems for the Tomb Kings (the ones I've seen after about 5 games anyway) tend to eschew balance for brutality, the Unbalanced combo I suggesting being an example of that sort of mentality.

There's another army out there that relies on a full 50% of your army being Sepulchural Stalkers, relying on their shooting attacks to wreck armies. Both mentioned armies are going to lend pretty heavily to the "dialed in Khemri army" philosophy that'll eventually show up in 1.5-2 years.

Everyone can make some cheese builds with spells. And if you get a miscast, or roll junk on your power dice, or are facing a better set of mages, you get to watch your army essentially fail on round 1. High risk, high reward has a flipside.

But anyway, I think the book is great. I think they went a definite direction with O&G and TK. They are indeed kind of brought back down to reality, which still leaves the "old new" books a bit stranded. I think they'll have to FAQ some Skaven stuff to pull it in line, and maybe FAQ some Beastman stuff to pull it up.