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Pretty extreme title I know, but the more I keep playing against the new Vampire Counts the more I'm beginning to think my Tomb Kings are fairly well outdated. As far as I can tell the Vampires are at least as good at undying hordes, but have a much stronger and more varied sideline of support units and the Vampire Lords themselves hugely outclass any King or Prince I could possibly send against them, what with having a better base statline and then getting both magic items and vampire powers, I've yet to face a Vampire Lord that couldn't just roll straight over all my units and even my tooled up Kings just don't stand a chance. Mount them on a coven throne and I might as well pack up and go home!

I really want to love the Tomb Kings, I did with the old book even though it wasn't that strong I liked the character it had, but the more I play this new book it just feels bland and flat, I can't fully explain it - it isn't weak it just has no real edge either and facing off against the Vampires just seems to highlight the hollowness of my army, they can do most of things I can do but often better and then some. What am I missing here? What do my TK have that the VC don't because at the moment I'm having a hard time not jumping ship.

Flammable characters and a Level 5 Wizard. That's about all I can think of.

When it comes to competitiveness, Tomb Kings are blown out of the water by Vampire Counts. The intent was to have Tomb Kings be an "elite" army of well trained troops (MWBD Skeletons / Tomb Guard, for instance) and Constructs (downgraded Ushabti aside), with Vampire Counts a big nasty horde of undead backed by a few powerful / notable characters and units (Vargulf, Black Coach, etcetera).

Unfortunately, that is not how things played out. Instead what you have is basically Tomb Kings vs Mass-Raisable Tomb Kings, who are also much less vulnerable to Crumble than regular Tomb Kings (since so long as any Wizard character is alive, your VC's are probably fine). Most of your offensive capabilities are restricted to a few units that V.Counts have their own analogies for (Grave Guard w/ Barrow Banner v MWBD Tomb Guard, Ushabti v Crypt Horrors, etcetera), and you're less capable of utilizing these units than the - again - mass-raisable Vampire Counts. Add in that V.Counts are faster, have a better spell selection, and better characters...

I'd feared as much, shame really since I'd thought the point of these new hardback books was to balance out the armies to a more level playing field. Certainly the Orcs, Tomb Kings and Ogres all seem to be on a similar level.

One of my biggest gripes is that things seem to be creeping back from the limited options route presented in the new books: The Vampire Counts have one more magic item than the Tomb Kings and then on top of that all of the Vampire Powers mean that it's possible to create some ridiculous near-unstoppable super characters, something I thought was being scaled back and not what I wanted to see.

Most dont run vampires. They run necromancers since they cost less and I dont have to worry about combat res killing my super expensive vampire. Unstoppable? 3 wounds isnt unstoppable espeacially if I lose a bunch say attacing said orgres. VC are good but not THAT good. Ogres are a pain so idk why you say theyre not bad. A gutstar will shred undead if your not careful. Daemons negate any eatheral so not like banshees are as useful. TK may not be as strong as you want but VC arent above an beyond either.

Hmm, probably an over reaction I guess, but it comes from two experiences going up against a particular Vampire build namely a Lord with WS 9, glittering scales, Beguile, that rage ability that gives them extra attacks when they wound, always strikes first and mounted on a Coven Throne (I'm sure it had a rerollable armour save too).

Basically this one unit proceeded to roll across my entire army more or less by itself, almost all my shooting was ineffective because of the thrones defensive ability and in close combat next to nothing in my army could slow it down let alone stop it. Caused 22 wounds in a single round once. Also my tooled up King on a chariot, with a chariot unit hit it and though they caused a few wounds, most had been regenerated within a few turns. It just hits so hard and doesn't go down too easily with T6 and a 4+ ward and needing a 6 to hit the Lord, often with a re-roll due to beguile meant I couldn't touch him realistically.

Maybe if I build a tailored list I could take it down, but I just don't like tailoring to face specific super threats, hence why I preferred the direction the new books seemed to be taking. I guess I've just had better luck against the Ogres then because I've never felt I couldn't deal with anything they had.

I'm, not trying to say the VC are an unstoppable super army, I know a cannon could drop the Coven Throne combo with relative ease and Daemons cream ethereal, what I am saying is that the Tomb Kings specifically are outmatched, which frustrates me.

I think the depth of 8th lvl books is way more than people realize. What was it, last 'Ard Boyz was dominated by a TK army.

Ogres are really easy to figure out, though I'm sure they have a lot of tricks we don't know.

Just off the top of my head, some weirdness of TK.

-Any unit of any size the King/Prince joins gets their WS. (Or Khalida's BS). That can mean +4!
-Any unit of any size the Heirophant joins has Regen 6+.

^The above can make a BoneStar. Max your specials on Tomb Guard and give them Halberds and you got Bloodletters, one of the best infantry in the game. Oh, except you can give them KB on 5/6, make them double march, rez them, ward save (same as Bloods), give them +1 attack, etc. Buffed like that, they will beat or come close to any similarly buffed elite infantry in any other book--for cost!

-Casket of Souls. For D3 power dice, and 3 decent guys, it's really nice. The Light of Death isn't going to do much, but it's nearly free (bound 5 so no miscast).

-Heirotitans. Another mana battery. With uber uber cheap bound spells (no miscast) of its own. They are both decent spells with the Spirit Leech being great against Skaven/O&G/Undead because it's unmodified leadership and you can basically snipe a hero for 4 points.

-Carrions. These things are dirt cheap. They are unbelievably cheap and very good. They are baby Ogres that can fly and cost much less (though with less wounds/armor).

-Khalida, Arkhan the Black, Khatep are 3 of the SC that are totally worth their points in the game. I don't think any other book has that many. Arkhan by a Heirophant is getting +8 to cast and can store up leftover dispel dice and gets more dice based on his death kills. It's almost a joke how much magic TK can get. And obviously Khatep ges the ability to ignore miscasts and is a Loremaster.

*whew*

Anyway, these are "new" books. TK have already shown to be competitive by beating the pants off of every tourney army in one of the best tournaments in the world.

-If you go Death, casket, heirotitan, you have basically unlimited dice.
-Casket of Souls.

I wouldn't count the Tomb Kings out of the fight just yet. MWBD Halberd Tomb Guard are straight up nasty, and your augment spells are in my opinion better than Vampire Counts. Also keep in mind that that Coven Throne build costs in the neighborhood of 600 points - without giving any points for magic levels. So at 2400 points he's maxing out his lords section and taking away his ability to have a level 4 wizard. You should be able to dominate him in your magic phase as he'll have a hard time dispelling your augments.

The other thing to keep in mind with the Coven Throne is that at 600 points, you need to attack it with several units at once in order to stand a chance. Point for point it will (and should) be any other single unit you can throw at it.

As a Vampire Player, I'm scared of several things in your army. First, that stupid Casket. My low leadership army just disintegrates from that thing. Sphinxes also hurt... a LOT, and are pretty tough for me to bring down. MWBD turns our evenly matched Skeletons into me needing 5's to hit you, and your accursed Sepulchral Stalkers turning half a unit into sand because I'm initiative SLOW. And not to mention all of those can easily be in the same 2000 point army. One guy I played against brought the Casket, 9 (nine!) Stalkers, a MWBD Tomb Guard star, and two Sphinxes. Ouch.

Let him take that coven throne, I'd be dropping screaming skulls right dead center all game long. If you hit you hit the mount and the vampire. Casket is good for nailing anything that has left bsb/general range Don't forget that lore of light has 3 spells that make units better in combat. Birona's Speed of battle, and pha's all just one of those can be game winners, if boosted near multiple combats.

No, you are not obsolete.
You can take light magic, VC cannot.
That already gives TK an advantage. You also have T8 monsters, which gives another advantage.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You can take light magic, VC cannot.

Technically, they can

But it seems that spamming Vampire lore (and to a lesser extent, necromancers) is better or at least more preferred. Plus zombies have I1 and ASL anyways

GMR wrote:Hmm, probably an over reaction I guess, but it comes from two experiences going up against a particular Vampire build namely a Lord with WS 9, glittering scales, Beguile, that rage ability that gives them extra attacks when they wound, always strikes first and mounted on a Coven Throne (I'm sure it had a rerollable armour save too).

Basically this one unit proceeded to roll across my entire army more or less by itself, almost all my shooting was ineffective because of the thrones defensive ability and in close combat next to nothing in my army could slow it down let alone stop it. Caused 22 wounds in a single round once. Also my tooled up King on a chariot, with a chariot unit hit it and though they caused a few wounds, most had been regenerated within a few turns. It just hits so hard and doesn't go down too easily with T6 and a 4+ ward and needing a 6 to hit the Lord, often with a re-roll due to beguile meant I couldn't touch him realistically.

He's only spending at a bare minimum 600pts to get that Lord. And he's a Lv1 wizard with no ward save to boot! (the Throne does not give it's ward save to any mounted character, just like character's don't give their ward save to any monstrous mount/chariot)

Also keep the following mind and remind him to play his model right;
- The Lord **MUST** challenge every round of combat untill he kills all your characters. Dreadknight is pretty damn clear about this, so unless he's smart enough to support his 'uber lord with Krell or a 'Vampiric' character with higher Ld in the same combat, just send your champion forward and limit his possible 10 kills to a measely 1W champ + 5 overkill!

- The Lord is pretty naked with only T5/4+ re-rollable armour save. No ward, maybe regen 6+ if a mortis engine is nearby, but overall pretty fething squishy! Beguile only picks on 1 guy in base-to-base. If he's claiming it's bonus vs all hits against his Lord, get him hooked-on-phonics with his book because he's cheating! (you'd have to *really* flub your roll against the 'Battle of Wills' to force your entire unit to re-roll successful hits!)
Anyone in a position to slap the character go for it! Sure the Throne's chart is annoying, but unless he's picking on units on your flank, you should have your own general's Ld nearby to help out vs it's effects. (Ld10 vs Ld10 means BoW's comes down to whoever rolls higher on 1D6.)

Overall, I'd ask him to actually show you what magic items & powers he's got on his Lord. Something here just smells rather fishy.
The Throne is a solid mount for a Vampire Thrall, but it's far too expensive for a Lord and forces him into being your general without any other lord choices to back him up... If he's only got say 2-3 heroes left to support the rest of the army, then once you kill it his army will fold pretty quick.

GMR wrote:Maybe if I build a tailored list I could take it down, but I just don't like tailoring to face specific super threats, hence why I preferred the direction the new books seemed to be taking. I guess I've just had better luck against the Ogres then because I've never felt I couldn't deal with anything they had.

I'm, not trying to say the VC are an unstoppable super army, I know a cannon could drop the Coven Throne combo with relative ease and Daemons cream ethereal, what I am saying is that the Tomb Kings specifically are outmatched, which frustrates me.

No, you don't have to list tailor to beat him! Feed his Throne something like horsemen angled to draw him out of position or else into an easy flank charge.
Hit him with Light magic - it's dirty against undead! The sig spell is 2D6 hits - some of those will enevitably hit his character. Unless you're playing something like 3k or higher, use your magical advantage... Your Lv3/4 will have a field day vs a bunch of snotty-nosed Lv1/2 wizards. Let him charge into a nice big unit ranked archers, then buff them with KB attacks + smitting and laugh as his general bites it.
A Casket will wreck most VC units not within range of the general's 'inspiring presence'.
Tomb Guard w/Necrotect positioned on the far corner so he can't assassinate him. Buff them with the KB spell or smiting. Give 'em the 'raising banner' so you can keep healed up and ensure your champ comes back again and again to lock down his lord in your turn.
Catapult aim for the Throne every chance you get.

Tomb Kings are simply different to VC's. We raise better because we love necromancy. Our Ld is even worse than gobbos because mindless lackies are pretty pants. Our characters get more abilities, which makes them ultra expensive. We can heal more models in one go, but are more limited in how often we can do so. We can get area-effect regen saves, but the engine goes 'boom' when it dies.
You have a shooting phase, we have angry ex-wives who make a few ears bleed!

In my experience the default assumption for lots of players is tooled up super characters smashing through undermanned units of troops. So when one army has superior super characters it appears unbeatable to the other players.

In my experience these groups just need to play more games, against a wider range of opponents, so they'll see how strong armies can be when they're not sinking so many points into super-characters.


For the record, I haven't played the new TK army, but I have played two games against the new VC army. In one I got trounced by mass minions in an attritional strategy, in the other he had an all powerful vampire in a block of grave guard, and I hammered that one unit with so much artillery that it was easy picking for my greatswords to finish off, and kill the super Vampire it protected.

And honestly, if there's one thing that Tomb Kings can do well, it's light characters, heavy magic.

But yeah, there's pretty much no way that one character should be going through your entire army like that, even from my limited experience with TK.

We have the skill VC's lack- whereas they are simply craven, cursed souls who hide behind puppeted cadavers, each and every Skeleton fights for his Tomb King with the fervor of a man serving his leader, with skills honed by a thousand battles.

If you're still having trouble, grab Khalida and stick her in a big ol' block of archers- your Hitting on 4+ Poisoned bow shots will shred pretty much anything, and if he does somehow manage to get into CC with a character or a unit, you've got Hatred and Khalida, who's something of a killer in her own right.

I'm puzzled at this thread-Tomb Kings are good. Maybe better than VC by a little, or maybe just different. You have Necro Knights that can take on units by themselves, Sepulchral stalkers that EAT low initiative armies and can attack from behind, WS 5 or 6 on any units you want from MWBD if you put the Prince/King in the unit, chariot UNITS, cheap fast cavalry and plenty of other goodies. TC are still good. If you aren't using Stalkers and Knights, it's time to start. My buddy was questioning Stalkers, and I told him to put a unit in, in case of Hellcannons. He popped up, ripped the first one apart and swore never to leave home without them. They're awesome for undead, nurgle, lizards (non-skinks), hellcannons, many monsters (including monsterous infantry)-and they have halberds and stomp attacks! And the Necro Knights are better in CC. Your TK book is solid. Enjoy it, and use your shiny toys-don't focus on the VC guy's toys.

Also you have the herio-titan which is the safe mortis engine

timetowaste85 wrote:I'm puzzled at this thread-Tomb Kings are good. Maybe better than VC by a little, or maybe just different. You have Necro Knights that can take on units by themselves, Sepulchral stalkers that EAT low initiative armies and can attack from behind, WS 5 or 6 on any units you want from MWBD if you put the Prince/King in the unit, chariot UNITS, cheap fast cavalry and plenty of other goodies. TC are still good. If you aren't using Stalkers and Knights, it's time to start. My buddy was questioning Stalkers, and I told him to put a unit in, in case of Hellcannons. He popped up, ripped the first one apart and swore never to leave home without them. They're awesome for undead, nurgle, lizards (non-skinks), hellcannons, many monsters (including monsterous infantry)-and they have halberds and stomp attacks! And the Necro Knights are better in CC. Your TK book is solid. Enjoy it, and use your shiny toys-don't focus on the VC guy's toys.

I absolutely love Necro Knights. I'm still not sold on Stalkers, so will test them a few more times.

If you are not sold on stalkers play against mournfang heavy ogres and just laugh. Or dwarves

Johnny-Crass wrote:If you are not sold on stalkers play against mournfang heavy ogres and just laugh. Or dwarves

or better yet, play against the mightiest of them all - Lizards with their rock-bottom I1 troops!

I have to give alot of credit and thanks though to Dakka's TK players! Thank-you guys for not saying your book is worthless crap because of how we can stop the crumble from general's death by having more lore of vampires casters about!
I think almost every other forum has degenerated into this silly argument.

The big positive differences now between the two undead armies seem to be;

Tomb Kings:
- Get 'My Will Be Done' to turn basic units into 'elites' by using the king/prince's WS
- Get a shooting phase with no modifyers of any kind! (think how much elves would kill for that rule)
- Core chariots
- Constructs which don't crumble as fast. Sure Ushabtii are still lackluster, but the others are pretty spiffy.
- Hierophant isn't the General, thus allowing for 'inspiring presence' to help mitigate crumble if/when the hiero dies.
- Higher Ld across the board.

Vampires:
- Better raising/healing through Necromancy
- More beastly combat characters.
- Ethereals everywhere!
- Cheaper core units & chaff.
- More access to regen.
- Better BSB.
- March bubble near the general.

Both armies have a very unique flavour overall and aren't a case of simply being egyptian/gothic horror clones of the same army. TK's have a more 'complete' game turn with shooting and such and have better resiliance built into their units overall. VC's are the true masters of attrition warfare, but our real hammers are squishier and/or more costly overall.

The books aren't perfect, but I think we're looking back at a balance more along the lines of 6th where both armies were pretty even, instead of VC's being a clear cut powerhouse over TK's like we saw in 7th.

kenshin620 wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You can take light magic, VC cannot.

Technically, they can

But it seems that spamming Vampire lore (and to a lesser extent, necromancers) is better or at least more preferred. Plus zombies have I1 and ASL anyways

Wait what? Since when?
I thought for vampires it was either

a) Necromancy (lore of vampires or whatever its called)
b) Death
c) Shadow

and that's it.

Vamp power that makes us able to take any lore besides life

Forbidden Lore I believe. Its a Vampiric power.



Anyway, I think TKs are a good army and can definitly compete with VCs. they just have a different style of play then the VCs.

TKs arn't meant to get into combat and have the cheap hordes take the hits while heros and lords do the killing. Thats what VCs do, and Vampires are damn good at ripping units and characters apart.


TKs are a more shooty undead army(BS based shooting that is actually reliable ) with some big nasty constructs for the heavy hitting.

Basically, you either take Skeleton archers for core and have your close combat covered by your Tomb Guard, Necropolis knights, and Sphinxs. Catapults and Caskets provide support.

Alterantivly, you take some Chariots in your core. a unit of these guys will decimate any VC infantry unit that they charge, unless its got a killy vampire in it(and even then the Vampire does risk evaporating)

Light Magic can make your undead far superior to his undead(where literally his only advantage is his ability to raise more effectivly)

A Warsphinx is made for chewing up weak infantry, and thats exactly what you have him facing. A Thundercrush attack will kill swaths of Zombies or Skeletons or even Grave Guard. The only thing you have to watch out for a Gouls and Crypt Horrors, they'll eat a Sphinx for breakfast.

And Necrosphinxes are pretty much dedicated Character Killers- I'd feel alright sending one up against a tooled up Vampire, myself. Though it would be even better to buff him with extra attacks or KB.

I wonder if part of your problem isn't tactics. I mean no insult, but it's a new book and it plays a lot differently than the previous one.

I'm not sure TK should swarm forward and get in combat early vs VC. I think you wait, whittle him down with shooting he can't answer and magic fueled by PD-spam, and then land on him when he's got fewer models and you can roll right over him. Vamps are not maneuverable; if you can whittle down one unit and then hit it from 2-3 directions with your hard hitters and poof it and overrun into his backfield, he's got very few options to deal with you. Just be patient and aim for first combat around turn 4 instead of 2.

I have to agree with Malleus, i think the probelm here is tactics, and that not meant to be a insult, tactics are learned through trial and error, i ve seen people take cookie cutter lists and be runover, its not the list fault its the tactics used,
Some of the greatest games i have been in have been Vamps, vs Tomb kings, the units just grind away at each other,

To be clear, btw, I do think the VC book is better than the TK book, just not insurmountably better. There are some things you can do that he simply can't answer.

Malleus wrote:I wonder if part of your problem isn't tactics. I mean no insult, but it's a new book and it plays a lot differently than the previous one.

I'm not sure TK should swarm forward and get in combat early vs VC. I think you wait, whittle him down with shooting he can't answer and magic fueled by PD-spam, and then land on him when he's got fewer models and you can roll right over him. Vamps are not maneuverable; if you can whittle down one unit and then hit it from 2-3 directions with your hard hitters and poof it and overrun into his backfield, he's got very few options to deal with you. Just be patient and aim for first combat around turn 4 instead of 2.

No offense taken, it's a legititmate point. Though I should point out in the battle I only made movements backwards, I just couldn't bring the important stuff down before it got to me and once it did, well it wasn't even a fight really. I also scored 2 direct hits on the Throne with my Catapult, but both were ward saved. I do have a tendancy towards taking new army lists every game and not necessarily focussing on what's maximised in effectiveness (To be honest if I discover something that just steam rolls, in any of my books, I'd be inclined not to take it again because it's just no fun to go up against.).

It seems the consensus here is that the TK can be more than a match for the VC, so I guess I'll just keep playing and maybe focus on a more competetive list next time, more Catapults, more Light magic and more constructs!

GMR wrote:... I also scored 2 direct hits on the Throne with my Catapult, but both were ward saved.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think a direct hit would mean a hit on the throne and a hit on the Vampire. Ward saving both hits is pretty much just luck... And that's not considering that they each have to have separate ward saves.
(Also, correct me if I'm wrong on this, as I'm not 100% sure)

The CF wrote:

GMR wrote:... I also scored 2 direct hits on the Throne with my Catapult, but both were ward saved.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think a direct hit would mean a hit on the throne and a hit on the Vampire. Ward saving both hits is pretty much just luck... And that's not considering that they each have to have separate ward saves.
(Also, correct me if I'm wrong on this, as I'm not 100% sure)

You are 100% right about this!

- A ward save for one does not pass it's ability onto the other.
- A template attack like a stone thrower or a cannon ball tothe chops will hit both the chariot + character. Hence why large target mounts are pretty pants this edition.

Stumbled upon this interview with an (alleged) top UK player and it's pretty relevant to this thread I would think. I know nothing about the UK scene, so can't validate the claim that he's a great player, but his points where good and it was a fine read.

wargames.cerebros.net/articles.php?article_title=Russ-Veal-on-8th-Edition-Tomb-Kings

Cheers

The CF wrote:

GMR wrote:... I also scored 2 direct hits on the Throne with my Catapult, but both were ward saved.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think a direct hit would mean a hit on the throne and a hit on the Vampire. Ward saving both hits is pretty much just luck... And that's not considering that they each have to have separate ward saves.
(Also, correct me if I'm wrong on this, as I'm not 100% sure)

yeah, both are hit seperatly and the Vampire doesn't get the Throne's ward save.

Of course, Vampires often will get a ward save of their own, but not always.