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Dakka, I was wondering. Why are tombkings so lack luster? I flipped through their book a few days ago and it appears pretty solid. Easy to make your core high Ws, easy to throw down killing blow on just about the entire army. You can even easily make a unit Ws 10! Not to mention enough chariots to make most armies fear you and a totally solid magic phase (for a new book) with access to light and death!

So, why are they so "meh" on the field? I've never played a game against them, and the game store owner near by feels the same, they look solid but have a pretty weak sauce reputation.

Any Tombking players want to shed some light on the topic for me?

They aren't 'meh', there are just a lot of online players who haven't figured out how good they are. My friend plays them and has only lost a single game with them, at the top table for an 'Ard Boyz tournament. Ignore the voices saying they suck, they are very, very good. Stick with your gut, as you're definitely on the right track with them.

I'm going to start playing WHFB and I've chosen Tomb Kings, I've got the army book and they look like they could be good, but I've not played yet.
But I hope they're good, the models are really nice and I like the fluff and I love the thought of hoards of undead.

The army takes a good bit of finesse to get down, but it plays very very well, and I win a lot more than I lose.

I think it is simply harder than other armies, not necessarily worse.

TK-Unstable. Slow. If your heirophant dies you start crumbling. Individually (super) weak core. Highly highly dependent on magic and buffs. Bad movement.

VC have a number of those weaknesses but better Lords, arguably some better core and better monsters.

Compare this at the other extreme with, say, Ogres. Who have the "weaknesses" of LD7 and init 2. And that's pretty much it.

It's just ease of use.

TK aren't as susceptible to crumbling when their hierophant dies as VC are when their general dies. A lot of people point out the hierophant "weakness", but it's not that bad. First, most everything in the TK book outside of Skeletons (archers and warriors) is actually LD 8! The other bonus is that the hierophant is not the general, and if you're like me and run a Tomb King as well, you still get a LD 10 bubble for those crumble tests. I've found the real down side is I don't have my level 4 buff machine anymore, but if I can kill the opposing level 4 this isn't a huge deal.

The core is weak-sauce, but you take the minimum and spend most of your points in Special and Rare, which in the TK book is full of lovely goodies.

I think the real trick with them is proper movement phases and deployment. With TK it's much harder to correct a mistake made in the deployment phase. However you should have a better magic phase than pretty much any other book out there.

(Also keep in mind, you can't make a unit WS 10 with the Fencer's Blades because it spells out in the FAQ that this is not allowed. I know they did it in the last WD but it doesn't actually work that way)

Yeah, but a vampire is much stronger than a heirophant. A heiro's avg stat is like...3. And I think most people view it as a bad thing to basically be required to have 2 things, a general and heiro. I don't think you HAVE to have both. But your core is going to be horrific without them. I just noticed that Arkhan and Setra are both, but Arkhan has poopy WS.

Oh yeah... a vampire lord is a much nastier threat than a hierophant, no contest. Vampires have the advantage of being good casters AND nasty in combat. But my Tomb Kings and level 4 hierophant clock in at maybe 50-75 points more than a tooled up Vampire Lord, so it's not so bad. I can fit both in at 2000 points and at 2500 the Tomb King is actually not too bad. BUT... when the hierophant dies crumbling is not generally a huge issue, or at least as big of as issue as it is for VC. (LD 8 isn't amazing, but it's the LD 10 bubble that you really want)

Wait so you can't do the fencer blades thing? (Yeah I got that from the white dwarf where the tombkings did it against the lizardmen

You can give a prince/king fencers I guess. You can't give it to special characters.

Yeah you can't. I was a tad annoyed when I read that in the WD because it's quite clear in the FAQ. It's unmodified WS only I'm afraid. But still, WS 5/6 Skeletons or Tomb Guard isn't bad. You can make them WS 10 with Lore of Light anyways though.

If it is unmodified, a spell wouldn't help.

The spell increases the whole units weapon skill. Speed of Light is the one I'm thinking of. That's the only way to get a WS 10 unit.

That's the definition of modified.

Though I still believe fencers blades should work as it is part of the champion's profile. It exists for him before you put him on the table.

I know what you mean. The FAQ specifically says Fencer's Blades doesn't work, mentioning them by name. They have quite weird rules with what is and isn't "unmodified"... it doesn't seem very consistent. I wish it did work, and it makes sense that it would, but....

Just saw it. But I'm sure I've seen them say you can take a test based on the attribute with a model's, say, Strength, that is increased because of a magic weapon. Especially when they already include that in the profile itself, like in the case of a Special Character. /shrug

I play Tomb Kings, and find them really challenging to play. This probably has a lot to do with my play-style not really matching up, but I can offer some insight into why they are considered so weak. I don’t mean to put you off – the army looks great and has some really characterful and fun rules - but you did ask why they are considered weak so here it goes.

It is worth noting that TK are consistently ranked worst in WFB, at best rising to second-worse ahead of Wood Elves. Note that Wood Elves last had their book updated sometime around the birth of Christ, while we have a hardback. The problems with the TK are essentially along these lines:

Fragile - with low armour saves across the board, and the Undead rule being quite bad for rank & file infantry, you lose models really fast. It isn't unknown to lose above 30 models in one round of combat. The crumble rules also make multi-combats a no-no; while other armies can happily tarpit+flank, we don’t dare because the amount of combat resolution that our tarpits (i.e. skeletons) give up is so high that any flanking unit will crumble to death as a result. Our monsters are a bit of an oddity here: T8 is meant to protect them - and it does a decent job, I'll admit - but with only a 5+ AS you generally find that if your opponent has a lucky round of 6s that your big statue just dies. I tend to lose my Necrosphinx to enemy archery, as the Elves in particular just drown it in to-wound rolls. Our other tough unit, the Necropolis Knights, are T4 with a 3+ save, and tend to do exceptionally badly if the enemy has access to S5 or more.

Dependent upon magic - the TK are an army that simply must go magic heavy. This means 6-8 levels of magic as standard, the Casket, perhaps the Titan - in short, around 500-800pts of investment in magic. For this, you do indeed get a formidable magic phase. But unfortunately the book was apparently written on the assumption that you will cast spells. Our units only function at normal levels if they are buffed; we can't even march without using a spell. Against a canny opponent, the spells that you need to make the army work will be dispelled or scrolled. And a bad roll for winds of magic in the crucial turn 3 can easily cost you the game, as you can't give buffs/hexes/damage spells to the units you need. If you dislike the importance that magic has in 8th, you'll hate TK.

Overcosted - YMMV, but I think that many of our units are priced on the assumption that you have buffed them, and so they are not the right price for the rest of the time. Demigryph Knights, in comparison to Necropolis Knights, have two pips more of armour (1+ vs 3+), the same wounds, one less attack (3 S5 AP and 1 S4 with lance vs 3 S5 with Poison and 2 S4 with spear and KB), double the movement (as a result of being able to march), the same command options, and higher initiative (4 vs 3). All the other stats are equal. For this, Demigryph Knights cost 7pts less each. I’d say that we got the sticky end of that lollipop.

Slow. This point can’t be emphasised enough. You cannot march. The poor TK are the slowest army in Warhammer – staring enviously at the 6” march moves of Dwarves – and this means that it is very hard for them to get into favourable positions, chase down enemy stragglers for vital VC, or get away fast enough. Our most impressive hammer unit is probably the Tomb Guard horde with halberds, Necrotect, Tomb Prince/King. This unit will generally beat up anything that isn’t a monster. But it only moves 4”, and so if your opponent has brought plenty of chaff, it may never see combat. Sure, you can cast Desert Wind to overcome this – but it is unlikely that your opponent will let it through if the movement will actually mean something.

It is generally considered that Cruddace was being really cautious when he wrote the book, and that is why all of our stuff is so weak. The Stalkers, for example, have a nigh-crippling rule attached to their shooting (roll an artillery die per model shooting; if you roll a misfire, the firing unit takes D3 wounds no saves) that is worse than the equivalent rules in other books (like Leadbelchers, I think?). Which is why our lore has high casting values, our MWBD rule is specifically limited to not work with Fencer’s Blades (which happily WD don’t seem to know about), our monsters can’t get any amount of healing done to them, our characters can’t be healed at all, and so on and so forth. It isn’t that we have one issue – like the Daemons, with poor balance and the Reign of Chaos table – it is that everything in the book just isn’t good enough when compared to books that came before and after.

I hope this helps! I have a couple of TK battle reports here and here that you may like to look at.

The reason people say that tomb kings are meh is because they play them as a combat list.

The entire book has one combat unit worth taking in it, and those are necroknights.

A unit of 6, will outhit and outlast anything in the book.

The list excels in shooting and magic.

Their archers are some of the best in the game, yes they hit on 5s. But they ALWAYS hit on 5s. That is more reliable than glade guard.

And their ease of gaining a S7 Banishment, makes them ridiculous at range.

Couple that with the casket and Catapults, as well as 15 or so necroknights, and you suddenly have an army that can dominate at range, and combat.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Their archers are some of the best in the game, yes they hit on 5s. But they ALWAYS hit on 5s. That is more reliable than glade guard.

Not true, sadly. Recently there was a survey conducted on all the race-specific pages concerning what the players throught of their own units. Skeleton archers ranked among the lowest rated units among all books. A discussion arose on another forum as to why this was, and the following math block was conducted:

Against a T3 5+ model. WPP = wounds per point. Obviously the higher strength / AP weapons will scale better on tougher opponents.

.048 wpp - Goblin Archer, no penalty, 18"
.037 wpp - Skeleton Archer, any range / movement, double tap 24"
.037 wpp - Empire Handgunner, no penalty, move or fire, 24"
.033 wpp - Sisters of Avelorn, no penalty, 24"
.032 wpp - Goblin Archer, -1 penalty, 18"
.030 wpp - Empire Crossbow, no penalty, move or fire, 30"
.026 wpp - Sisters of Avelorn, -1 penalty, 24"
.025 wpp - Empire Handgunner, -1 penalty, move or fire, 24"
.024 wpp - Empire Archer, no penalty, 24"
.024 wpp - Thunderer, -1 penalty, move or fire, 24"
.022 wpp - HE Archer, no penalty, 30"
.021 wpp - Empire Crossbow, -1 penalty, move or fire, 30"
.018 wpp - Skeleton Archer, any range / movement, 24"
.017 wpp - HE Archer, -1 penalty, 30"
.016 wpp - Empire Archer, -1 penalty, 24"

Assuming T4 3+ short range

.019 wpp - Empire Handgunner
.016 wpp - Goblin Archer
.015 wpp - Sisters of Avelorn, no penalty, 24"
.014 wpp - Empire Crossbow
.012 wpp - Skeleton Archer
.012 wpp - Thunderer
.008 wpp - Empire Archer
.007 wpp - HE Archer
.006 wpp - Skeleton Archer

Note tat the skeleton archer is only decent - by the standards of WFB BS shooting - when firing at weak targets and with magical support. This is obviously fine when your Goblin opponent is unable to dispel your Smiting spell; it is less fine when your WoC opponent dispells it and watches your twenty archers do no wounds.

Necropolis Knights were also rated among the bottom three MC in the game - ahead only of Bloodcrushers and Warhawk Riders - but that is another issue entirely.

 Charles Rampant wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

Their archers are some of the best in the game, yes they hit on 5s. But they ALWAYS hit on 5s. That is more reliable than glade guard.

Not true, sadly. Recently there was a survey conducted on all the race-specific pages concerning what the players throught of their own units. Skeleton archers ranked among the lowest rated units among all books. A discussion arose on another forum as to why this was, and the following math block was conducted:

Against a T3 5+ model. WPP = wounds per point. Obviously the higher strength / AP weapons will scale better on tougher opponents.

.048 wpp - Goblin Archer, no penalty, 18"
.037 wpp - Skeleton Archer, any range / movement, double tap 24"
.037 wpp - Empire Handgunner, no penalty, move or fire, 24"
.033 wpp - Sisters of Avelorn, no penalty, 24"
.032 wpp - Goblin Archer, -1 penalty, 18"
.030 wpp - Empire Crossbow, no penalty, move or fire, 30"
.026 wpp - Sisters of Avelorn, -1 penalty, 24"
.025 wpp - Empire Handgunner, -1 penalty, move or fire, 24"
.024 wpp - Empire Archer, no penalty, 24"
.024 wpp - Thunderer, -1 penalty, move or fire, 24"
.022 wpp - HE Archer, no penalty, 30"
.021 wpp - Empire Crossbow, -1 penalty, move or fire, 30"
.018 wpp - Skeleton Archer, any range / movement, 24"
.017 wpp - HE Archer, -1 penalty, 30"
.016 wpp - Empire Archer, -1 penalty, 24"

Assuming T4 3+ short range

.019 wpp - Empire Handgunner
.016 wpp - Goblin Archer
.015 wpp - Sisters of Avelorn, no penalty, 24"
.014 wpp - Empire Crossbow
.012 wpp - Skeleton Archer
.012 wpp - Thunderer
.008 wpp - Empire Archer
.007 wpp - HE Archer
.006 wpp - Skeleton Archer

Note tat the skeleton archer is only decent - by the standards of WFB BS shooting - when firing at weak targets and with magical support. This is obviously fine when your Goblin opponent is unable to dispel your Smiting spell; it is less fine when your WoC opponent dispells it and watches your twenty archers do no wounds.

Necropolis Knights were also rated among the bottom three MC in the game - ahead only of Bloodcrushers and Warhawk Riders - but that is another issue entirely.

You mistake effectiveness for reliability. Elves are effective for their range. Dark elf crossbowmen don't even shoot. Goblins are cheap. Dwarves are dwarves. However, they all lose out on the to hit modifiers. Tomb Kings effectively ignore that. Whilst 1/6th may hit, that stat will never change. I've had my Elf archers hit on 7s many a time. The Arrows of Asaph actually makes them more reliable than every other ranged core choice in the game.

As for Necroknights, they aren't one of the best MC choices in the game, but they are the only decent combat unit in the book. The 3+ armour save is invaluable. Couple that with the same buffs you NEED to make Tomb Guard effective, and they suddenly become even worse to face than the tomb guard horde. Although saying that, the only way Tomb Guard can do anything is if your opponent is too busy laughing to do anything.

At 18" they goblins are at long (max) range. Skeletons shoot to 24" with no penalty. If shooting at long range they got the same BS. And then it's 3.5 pts vs. 6 so goblins are ahead. If they both move, skeletons are ahead by (almost) double because the gobos need 6 and skeletons need 5. If you add smiting, skeletons are way ahead. If you add some gigantic horde of gobbos, they have a chance to pull ahead, but they will still have range/movement problems.

At short range with no modifiers, skeletons do sucky.

If you add Khalida to the mix for giggles, skel hordes are pretty damn scary.

The biggest problem with TK is that it's a synergy-heavy army that many people don't "get," many of our units are considered overcosted or unnecessarily crippled in some way, we lack tools against certain kinds of enemies, and our inability to march makes it difficult to compete in certain game types or against certain opponents.

Working at these one by one:

1) Synergy (Magic): many of our units, especially skeletons, really rely on buffs to work well. KB to deal with armour, desiccation to combat our low strength, etc. A weaker player will attempt to ram through critical spells by throwing more dice at them. If their wizard doesn't blow up (essentially an auto-lose), the opponent can just use a scroll and shut you down combat-wise for a turn. It can be frustrating.

However, a savvy player will bring enough magic threats such that they're casting a number of threatening spells, and no single one is make-or-break. Many of us use Khatep or Arkhan, our two special character casters, for this very reason. Arkhan is a super aggressive death mage, and Khatep is a loremaster who can reroll all casting dice for a spell once per turn. Either can bring a lot more oomph to our magic phase, allowing us to get more of those critical spells through. Same with the Hierotitan (+d3 to each casting, plus two bound spells and S6 thunder stomps!) and the casket (bound spell that can be IMMENSELY powerful).

2) Synergy (Combat): This is another tricky one. The way crumble works EACH unit in a combat crumbles from any CR loss. This means that if we try to use skeletons as an anvil, and throw a unit of snakes into the flank, we risk our snakes imploding from crumble when our enemies just target the skeletons and butcher a dozen of them. It makes it much trickier to handle enemy units in combat.

Not to mention that many players look at skeleton stats and think they're garbage, and thus discount them entirely. Large (80 without a King/Prince, 60+ without) units of skeletons are actually a very effective combat unit, as proven by Krael on the TK boards. They can go toe-to-toe against many strong units and eke out a victory over 5-6 rounds of combat, even without buffs.

Unfortunately:

3) Speed: we really suffer on the speed department. The biggest problem here being that it's very difficult to recover from being out-deployed or out-maneuvered by your opponent. Magical movement can't be relied upon since, if it's REALLY critical, your opponent will dispel it. <Sigh>

On the plus side we do have some decent high-movement threats (chariots, snakes, sphinges, carrion, etc.) that can handle this.

4) Overcosting: this is the unfortunate bit. Many of our units are considered overcosted, or are not quite as strong as their rules and stats suggest. As has been mentioned, the writer of this book was very conservative in crafting our units and as a result they're a little lacklustre in many capacities.

That said, a strong general can get around these shortcomings, and many units are still quite strong despite them.

5) Lacking tools: high armour, high toughness, or super-killy combat units often give us troubles. Chaos warriors and ogres in general are very tough armies for us to play. Armies that out-range us can simply choose not to engage and bombard our units into dust, while we lack the movement to effectively chase them down. It can be quite frustrating.



This isn't to say that this is a pants army, though. It's just faced with some challenges that makes it not for the weak of heart. A strong TK army generally comes equipped with numerous mages in order to saturate the magic phase with threats, and a casket/hierotitan to maximize our casting capability. You'll usually see two catapults to help with range superiority. Plenty of chaff (carrion are amazing) to mitigate our opponent's ability to out-maneuver us. You often see stalkers to deal with armour, and carrion/scorpions to take on war machines.

Also the people saying our archers are terrible don't know what they're talking about. From a pure theory-hammer perspective, maybe. But on the table the "always hits on 5+" is a HUGE advantage. The dual purpose of our archers is to serve as bunkers for our mages, and to clear out enemy chaff. That generally means moving the full 4", then shooting over cover (our front lines) against enemy chaff (often skirmishers). A unit of 20 is easily enough to clear out most chaff, giving our own redirectors free reign.

I've said this for a while. S7 Banishment + a million archers + necroknights is the way to go.

Something like:

Level 4 - Earthing Rod (General) Light
Level 4 - Channeling Staff (Hierophant)

Level 1- Dispel scroll (Light)
Level 1 (Light)
Level 1 (Light)

600 points of archers

5 Necroknights - standard+Musician

4 Necroknights - Musician

4 Necroknights - Musician

Hierotitan

Casket of Souls

Catapult

Catapult

The list gives you ridiculous ranged threat, and a level 4 who is guaranteed to roll Banishment and the two big buffs. Both of which turn Necroknights from a good combat threat, to a brutal combat unit.


If you can fit 5 horse archers with champions in there, it would be rather good. But they don't really matter.

That's roughly 2665 points there and your core would be too low.


Edit. Here's my TK list @ 2500.

Liche High Priest (Heirophant) w. Lvl 4 Upgrade -
Liche High Priest (Lore of Light) w. Lvl 4 Upgrade, Power Stone -

Liche Priest (Lore of Light) w. Lvl 2 Upgrade, Dispel Scroll -
Liche Priest (Lore of Light) -


6x Chariots w. Standard, Musc, Flaming Banner -
15x Archers -
15x Archers -
15x Archers -

4x Necropolis Knights w. Standard, Musc -
4x Necropolis Knights w. Standard, Musc -
3x Stalkers -

Casket of Souls -
Heirotitan -
Screaming Skull Catapult -
Screaming Skull Catapult -

Lords - 450
Heroes - 200
Core - 630
Special - 725
Rare - 490

2495

You've got 4 Liche priests and what I assume is 3 archer bunkers, do you stick one in each? where does the 4th go? or do you double up in one squad?

I tend to double up the level 4s so the lore of light priest can have a regen save.

I prefer to do one larger unit of archers and a couple smaller ones, to get more mileage out of smiting. Something like one unit of 30 and two units of 15 instead of four units of 15. Then you stick all the priests in that unit, unless you think your opponent has a decent chance of making it there (or hitting it with dwellers/comet/etc.). If so the light council goes in one unit and the hierophant in another.

For the light council I'm also a huge proponent of big blocks of skeletons. Throw a unit of 60 with a priest, and use that as a shield to protect your priest battery. Run in horde mode it'll protect your centre from pretty much anything. With snakes on the flanks you can pretty much guarantee that nothing without flying is getting back to your priests until the game is already far past gone.

A player in my circle uses Tomb Kings more often than not, with a variety of different army/ play styles.

I was impressed with the Monster Mash list he brought to the table a bit back.

Something like 2 Warsphinx, 2 Bone Giants, and a Necrosphinx in 2500 points.

He backed that up with magic and archer support, some light cavalry and carrion is chaff/ redirectors, and one big unit of skeletons to tar pit the one thing he did not want to face. His other threat was a 6 chariot strong unit with banner of flame.

Game went side ways for him, but seeing all of the small drops and chaff reminded me of VC, who can clog deployment/ movement with chaff so they can dictate their fights.

Putting a warsphinx to the front and the necro or bone giant in the side of a unit can make most infantry run screaming!

This thread has been helpful to me! I recently started putting together a force (without even having codex yet) from spare models lying around/conversions

@ 2500 I was thinking something like

L4 high liche priest (light) (general) dispel scroll
L3 high lich priest (heirophant)

L2 priest Death skelly Steed
L2 priest death skelly steed

3 Chariots
3 Chariots
3 Chariots
10 Archers
5 Skeleton Archer-horsemen

3 carrion
3 carrion
6 necropolis knights
warsphinx

heirotitan
screaming skull catapult
casket of souls
casket of souls

which I figure could use some tweeking (don't have full load outs available to me currently)

Really just working with models I have already/could easily convert so kinda what dictating my list (didn't think of carrions until this thread!)

thanks guys!

Take 3 level 1 light mages, this gives you a S7 magicmissile, as well as guarantee your level 4 the main buffs and banishment.

Other than that, looks good.