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Here's my 2400 Tombkings army working around a Tombguard deathstar. My concerns are a lack of magic and not having the banner of undying legion on the tombguard, the later could be swapped in from the Tomb Heralds magical armour. Not sure how much I need to protect him (used to Ogres and Empire where the BSB is all important). So here goes all well thought out advice welcome:

LORDS 508

Tomb King - Potion of Toughness, Destroyer of Eternities, shield 273

Lich High Priest: Lvl4 Heirophant - Dispell Scroll, Lore of Nehekara 235

HEROES 190

Tomb Herald: BsB - Armour of Silvered Steal 130

Necrotect - 60

CORE 606

39 Archers - 243

39 Skeletons - Full command 186

39 Skeletons - Full command 186

SPECIAL 958

36 Tombguard - full command 498

Warsphinx - Firery breath 230

Warsphinx - Firery breath 230

RARE 135

Casket of Souls - 135

Casket deals with Warmachines, Skeletons are tarpits, Liche priest sits back with the archers. Warsphinx and Tombguard kill everything they can get hold of. Necrotect, Tomb Herald and King all go in unit of Tombguard (obviously I hope). Warriors would go collumn if facing a lot of cannons as a tempting target to distract from the Warsphinxs.

As a frequent employer of cannons, I can say deep formations of skeletons would not come close to tempting away shots from the warsphinx, so I wouldn't plan on making that a part of your overall strategy.

You might want to consider a flaming ward for the herald, if not also the tomb king (but perhaps you don't see that much flaming in your area).

My army wouldn't have anything willing to fight that tomb guard block, but it *does* become an obvious target for shooting. I'd definitely try to get the ward up on them as a high priority.

Not very comprehensive feedback, but I've only played two games against TKs!

Yeah the Skele column isn't really a great distraction and as someone who frequently uses 6 cannons in my army I wouldn't point at them. So it was hardly a key part of my plan just a little ploy to try to distract my opponent.

What ward save could I get for the Tomb guard?

What could I drop to get flaming protection? Ok I could drop 1 skele and get a dragonbane gem for the Herald but the King is full of his allowance and he needs the potion of Toughness to ensure he can kill with the Destroyer of eternities.

Solid list for the most part. But if you're only taking one level 4 (That happens to be the heirophant) I would probably invest in a ward save for that poor chap. One unlucky LoS or Miscast roll could quickly hurt your army...

It does look like a good list - I am generally opposed to using Tomb Guard as a bunker for your tomb king - I find 40-50 skeletons with spears at WS 6 do the job just as well. Yes, S4 is better than S3 but i often try and get the killing blow spell off on my tomb king's unit so he gets KHB on a 5-6 and thus the entire skellie unit would have KB.

Necrotect is solid for hatred for the TK - and the herald with armor is a good choice but the banner of undying legion would be better. That way you can throw champions at challenges and just resurrect them in your magic phase.

I would try and fit a lvl 2 wizard. If for some reason your heiro gets shut down you need the extra wizard for some more augments, especially divine wind. Sadly your deathstar unit wont reach the enemy until turn 4 unless you augment with desert wind. SHould they pull something beardy like the wind spell (Lore of heavens? i forget) than you will NEVER get into combat!

The skeleton units are a waste. Without hero support they'll be annihilated in melee within 2 rounds of combat. I would recommend liquidating the skellies and instead running chariots or more archers. there's little difference between skellies with hand weapons and skeleton archers in melee except 2 points per model. At least the archers will do something other than die.

Math out your skellie hordes by the way - 40 skeletons vs 40 empire state troops. We'll give the skeletons light armor to balance out the points (even tho spears is more realistic, but more detrimental to the skeletons in this situation)

State Troops go first - halberders will be S4. They will inflict 13.3333 unsaved wounds forst. Then skeletons get to strike back (27 now) they will only cause 5.6 wounds (taking out a rank bonus, sure).

Resolution is +8 in favor of the empire troops (charge not in the calculation, ranks are the same, standards same).

Turn 2 - empire kills another 13.3333 (still full 3 ranks of attacks) while TK gets only 4 kills. Empire is now one up on ranks and so the total res is 10. That's a wipe.

All I'm saying is even against a very VERY basic unit - the empire state troops, the skeletons will be next to worthless.

My experience has been that skeletons are horrible tarpits.
Due to crumble rules, skeletons give up too much combat res to risk them supporting anything.
Skeletons on their own don't tarpit all that well, because crumble is much worse than steadfast.

In general, I'd thin down on skeletons, and pick up some chariots. 2 smaller units of chariots can sweep away light flanking units. Keep core at ~600, just shift the core around a bit.

Deployment-wise, put archers behind grave guard, chariots and warsphinx on the flanks.

-Matt