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I've just started fantasy and it took me ages to pick my armies (I've picked 3, I know that's a lot but it's the least I could narrow it down to!)

ive settled on Wood Elves, Lizardmen and Tomb Kings. I've read quite a few bad things about tomb kings and was just wondering what the general consensus is on their book, are they playable? Or would i
be hobbling myself by taking them?

thanks guys.

Tomb Kings are still dead, last I checked.



Joking aside, Tomb Kings are a FANTASTIC army. When things go right, they go spectacularly.

They have the second best shooting in the game, if we include an upgrade on Wood Elves. (Trueflight)

They have good MC, that with light magic, becomes the one of the hardest units in the game. (I believe so anyway.)

Their only weakness is their combat infantry. With the inability to march, they take far too long to do anything. And with how many points you're investing into that horde of tomb guard, you want them to do stuff.

They're trickier to use than most armies and less forgiving of mistakes. Definitely not a contender for most powerful book. But they're not crippled by any means, and can still win plenty of games.

Wood elves just got a new book and look fantastic, but they're also looking to be very unforgiving still. Which is fine, and I can't wait to build them up as my third army now, but I'm not sure if they'll be encouraging for a beginner.

Lizardmen are in a solid spot. They're pretty well-rounded and resilient, and let you do stuff from every phase pretty well. If all else is equal, and those are your three choices, I'd go with them just because they'll be the most forgiving and most versatile when starting out.

But if either of the other two have really caught your eye, then don't feel as if they're going to screw you over for having picked them by any means. Just expect a steeper learning curve, but it's not an insurmountable one! And when you get the hang of it, it'll feel good.

That's okay, I don't mind a steeper learning curve, it'll feel better when I get it and playing the underdog sorta appeals to me (more than playing some über powerful army does)

Just to clarify, I'm gonna be doing these armies at the same time. I imagine people will probably say it's better to pick one to start with and then do another later but it was difficult enough to narrow it down this far, I think I'll keep my interest better this way, and I already own things for each of these three armies anyway.

Thanks for the help so far fellas

ImAGeek wrote:
That's okay, I don't mind a steeper learning curve, it'll feel better when I get it and playing the underdog sorta appeals to me (more than playing some über powerful army does)

Just to clarify, I'm gonna be doing these armies at the same time. I imagine people will probably say it's better to pick one to start with and then do another later but it was difficult enough to narrow it down this far, I think I'll keep my interest better this way, and I already own things for each of these three armies anyway.

Thanks for the help so far fellas

I've already replied to this on Warseer, but I really feel that I should reiterate that Tomb Kings are NOT as tactically challenging as you seem to hope.

It's really hard to be REWARDED by your good choices as a Tomb Kings general. Your army is too slow to catch your enemy off guard. Your charge ranges are too small, even your flying units barely move faster than infantry. Save for a few tricks in list building (using Ramhotep to get rerollable armour saves on your snakes, for instance) there isn't anything that will SURPRISE your enemy, and even then the surprise will only last a game or two before they figure it out.

On the flip side, if your OPPONENT catches you off guard then you're basically fethed. Tomb Kings lack the mobility to react dynamically to threats, meaning that there's very little you can do against something you didn't see coming. Playing Tomb Kings is an exercise in being brutally punished for even the smallest mistakes, and often things your opponent happens upon accidentally. You'll end up defeating yourself as often as your opponent does. A poor deployment will bind your units up so that they can't support each other. A risky charge will pull a unit outside your buff range and they'll wither and die out there on their own (an unbuffed TK unit is a dead TK unit). A tiny gap in your castle and the opponent is in your back lines eating your support elements.

Oh, and then there's the lovely time your opponent manages to hit and kill your casket turn 1 with their cannon, and the explosion immolates your entire back line. That's always fun.


The whole army is just...frustrating. I, like you, thought it would be a fun challenge to really sink my teeth into. But at the end of the day it was a challenge with no payoff. There are too many lists that Tomb Kings just can't do anything about, and if you tailor to deal with them then other holes open up. If you want to play rock-paper-scissors warhammer then there are other armies that can do this which are much more fun.





All that said, if you're playing friendly games in a low-competition environment the Tomb Kings are actually pretty fun. It's only at high levels that they start to unravel.

There are some serious issues that need to be changed in order to have TK able to win some battles.

1)Archers must be able to stand&shoot. Does it take them too long to load arrows of asaph in the bows?
2)Remove flammable. There are way too many flaming attacks in the game. Since when bones are more vulnerable to fire?
3)More flexibility in magic. Nehekhara lore is mostly augment spells, and having the slowest army in the game, it means that first 1-2 rounds of magic TK can do almost nothing. It should be like Ogres: at least 1 mage take Nehekhara, but not necessarily your highest level.

KeyserSoze wrote:
There are some serious issues that need to be changed in order to have TK able to win some battles.

1)Archers must be able to stand&shoot. Does it take them too long to load arrows of asaph in the bows?
2)Remove flammable. There are way too many flaming attacks in the game. Since when bones are more vulnerable to fire?
3)More flexibility in magic. Nehekhara lore is mostly augment spells, and having the slowest army in the game, it means that first 1-2 rounds of magic TK can do almost nothing. It should be like Ogres: at least 1 mage take Nehekhara, but not necessarily your highest level.

1) Being a skeleton is apparently terrible for the reflexes, maybe it is because they can't speak, so they can't shout to fire.
2) It's not being a skeleton, it's all that yummy embalming fluid they used to keep the Tomb Kings in good condition for the afterlife.
3) I wish they had sand magic, living in a desert and all. It would be pretty cool to cast sandstorms on people.

So are you saying you're pretty much not gonna win unless you're really lucky because of those?

ImAGeek wrote:
So are you saying you're pretty much not gonna win unless you're really lucky because of those?

It's not that you can't win ANY games, Tomb Kings just lack the tools to deal with certain threats. If you bring tools for one kind of threat you open yourselves up against another.

My old TK army could absolutely wreck an Ogres army. So long as I didn't get unlucky when the Hellheart popped I was fine. This was entirely because the army was I2, and everything I had struck first.

If they hit first then it's a different story. TK are fragile, so if they kill enough guys before you get to strike you won't be able to do enough damage back and will just crumble away. And that's REALLY easy to do. Witches into your tomb guard, execs into your snakes, and it's curtains.

Now switch to light magic and you're looking pretty. But you give up the benefit of D&D+casket+catapults that gave you ranged teeth. So you swap for 2 level 1s and a light council instead, but now hell heart ruins you, there's 600 points sitting in your wizard bunker, and if you're against Brets or Dwarfs with 2-3 dispel scrolls you're gunna have a bad time.

Come up against Empire running dual-banishment light council...yeah that one's a good time too...



So that's really the issue. Warriors of Chaos are strong in some matchups, decent in others. We're strong in a few matchups, decent in most, weak in others. That's the big issue.

If you really want some in-depth looks at the pros and cons of Tomb Kings, check out the Invasionfree Khemri forums. It's one of the most in-depth and plain useful army-specific forums out there.

Also, aside from their silly looking, outdated core, Tomb Kings is the most gorgeous of the Warhammer Fantasy model lines.

Thanks, I have registered and asked this there too I agree. The sphinx models, the sepulchral stalkers, tomb guard etc are beautiful beautiful models.

Though I personally think the "Snake Surfers" are a bit silly, they are wonderful models.

I'm actually gonna try modeling multi-armed "Sepulchral Knights" myself, and I"ve seen one army who replaced the snakes with giant crocodiles, which actually looked awesome.

I'm absolutely in love with the Tomb Kings models. It's a shame their rules have been so lacklustre. I think they'd be one of the most successful factions if they had rules to suit. Instead we get rumours about them getting squatted. <sad face>

As I said though...plenty of those gorgeous models shoehorn nicely into Vampire Counts rules

I dunno about that though... I dunno just somewhat against using different rules for an army. Almost feels like cheating? And I don't know how I'd fit a sphinx or the snake surfers in to VC

I play pretty competitively with my TK and have for a while. They are playable, but the learning curve is tough. I win more games that I lose with them, but it's tough. I'm pretty happy with their rules except for some of the special choices, and the magic lore limitations.

I went for it in the end, and I'm really looking forward to the challenge.