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I cant help shake the perplexing removal of the Tomb Kings line. Some of the newest kits were only a handful of years old at the time, and fantastic looking models. Of course you know all this, everyone knows how everyone feels concerning the Tomb Kings. I just have this feeling they will be making a return. Lets quickly make a list of kits that GW would have no need to update, not including characters:

-Tomb Guard
-Sepulchral Stalkers/Necropolis Knights
-Casket of Souls (oldish but still great looking)
-Warsphinx/Necrosphinx

Now for the units really needing an update:

-Skeleton Warriors/Archers (Easily can be made into a dual kit)
-Ushabti (a new plastic kit with options for melee/ranged)
-Bone Giant
-Tomb Scorpion (Could include some scarab swarms in a new kit)
-Skeleton Horsemen (Archers/melee)
-Skeleton Chariots
-Screaming Skull Catapault
-Hierotitan (i don't believe this ever had a model but damn would it be cool)

So based off GW's track record with new AOS armies (ruling out SCE because they're the big selling faction) we have the following list of (some of the) new factions and the number of box sets (again not including clamshell characters).

Idoneth Deepkin: 6
Daughters: 3
Sylvaneth: 4
Slayers: 3
Overlords: 7
Night Haunt: 7+ (not super sure which are dual kits)
Tzeentch: 7

So we could assume a re-release and update of the Tomb Kings would be a pretty huge release (assuming they update everything in my list) we could probably have a safe bet there would be 7ish dual kits introduced. This isn't super far out in left field now that I think about it. Think about how amazing a new Setra model on his chariot would be...

I would love to see the Tomb Kings come back as an Order faction. Sounds a little crazy yes since they're dead, but If Setra was the flagship model and character to be re-released there would be no way he would be siding (or serving) Nagash. I would like to think Setra would not fully ally himself with the forces of Order, but loosely aid them against Nagash. Kinda like the Daughters of Khaine.

Story-wise, the prospect of Tomb Kings returning (maybe due to some massive surplus of death magic through-out the realms?) fighting with Order against the hordes of Nagash could be the tipping point for thwarting the necromancer's great plans. Maybe with Nagash on the cusp of victory he is suddenly beset upon by a vengeful Setra, a prospect even Nagash wouldn't have imagined, but a by-product of his immense impact on the realms.

Basically im making fan-theories, but if you think about it, is this moment in the narrative of AOS not the most obvious choice for GW to relaunch the Tomb Kings?

If they ever were to do it, now is the perfect time. At least to me! What are your thoughts?

Casket of Souls was Finecast, so would have to be in plastic.

I don't see them coming in Order--but I would totally see them as a 'standalone' faction of Death, or possibly getting the ability to ally with Flesh-Eater Courts or another new faction down the road.

I have a feeling the "ancient dead" will return in some form or fashion, provided the moulds don't deteriorate any more than they already have.

However I don't think that this will happen anytime soon.

Ah yes the casket was metal. Still a new one wouldnt hurt!

I would love for TK to come back as an anti-Nagash faction but I doubt it.

I would love to se TK have official support.

I am unsure how theyvwould fit in the lore. In AoS is ther any civelisation to be ancient of?

? The realms are very, very old. There an ancient and dead civilizations all over the place. In fact there's an easter egg of the Tomb Kings in I think it was the original core book?

Updating old kits seem to be very rare in the last few years.

I would have to be new kits or a total reimagening (Greater Daemons, Primaris, Black Coach to a degree).
I can see them bringing back the newer plastic kits.

But that doesn't make up an army and leaves the question what theme they will go with it.
Undead Egytians again? Because that leads back to the need to update old kits which people already owning armies of them won't buy.

Much more likely: some kind of Undead (stone/marbel/lapislazuli) constructs with the Stalkers and Necrosphinx as the only two old kits, a remake of Ushabti, and from there on totally new stuff like the Hierotitan (which never had a model).

 Niiai wrote:
I would love to se TK have official support.

I am unsure how theyvwould fit in the lore. In AoS is ther any civelisation to be ancient of?

Khemri?

That stuff didn't cease to exist, it just didn't show up in the Realms as a new civilization.

I do not know a lot of AoS story. I thought sigmarite was the old world melted into ore? did the races survive that?

How ever they do it, tomb kings would be great. Great models, cool themes. They where quite good when you played them corectly, but I suspect that their complexaty was what made them a bit unpopular. The sum was often better then the sum of their parts. In the last edition tomb guards where identical to grave guards in every aspect including points, ecept having one point of armour less. Things like this was disheartening.

Tomb Guardians was also very good at winning the 2. or 3. turn of combat, even against things like high elf swordmasters. This always felt very unintuetive, but was great fun and good army design.

If new tomb kings could do things like marching, that would go a long way towards making them more playable for the masses and probably support more sales,

They were a challenging army to run well in an era where power lists are what makes you the money.

Challenging army lists are not what the consumer wants. No matter how good they look.

If they had been busted powerful I guarantee you they would have sold as well as any of the top fantasy lines did, and additionally they'd probably be around today because of it.

I think everyone wants them back, and I know a lot of people would buy them up. I hope GW will maybe reconsider bringing them back...

The realm design actually leaves GW very free to add new realms or factions. Finding an old realm gate that is blasted open that reveals a portal within a giant black pyramid filled with the undead of a race long lost in the mists of time - BAM TK Back!


So bringing them back lore wise is very easy.

Product wise GW lets remember that TK died at a time when fantasy was selling very poorly after years of neglect and I suspect having been ignored partly to allow GW to focus on the big earner that was Lord of the Rings at the time; only when LOTR died off no one at GW put the money and focus back into Fantasy in the same way.
I suspect that had we retained Kirby and that era of management we would have steadily seen more armies dropped from fantasy in part or in full as they shifted it from a miniature wargame line to a boutique line of fantasy models with some, quite literal, beer and pretzels rules.


Sigmar Generals hand book, Sigmar 2.0 and the new management and focus of GW is vastly different and I could well see them bring TK back. As said a lot of their models were fairly new; so they don't even have to do a full army rework.


It would not surprise me if GW do another big community survey if TK might not replace Sisters as the "please give it back to use" faction that people ask for.

It is a pipe dream. Tomb Kings will never return.

 Strg Alt wrote:
It is a pipe dream. Tomb Kings will never return.

Such as might be the case, but GW already shows that they've held onto a lot of the classic moulds from their fantasy line; so it stands to reason we can assume they still have the TK moulds and perhaps even masters too. There is potential, esp as quite a few of the newer models are still good enough to stand up well in the AoS setting.

I think it could happen, but might only happen if one of two things happens

1) The right person or persons in the right position at GW has the passion and drive to push them forward.

2) GW does another community survey and TK get as many requests to return as Sisters of Battle - and that assumes that when GW re-releases them that they get the uptake in sales that the survey hinted to them that they would.

They've already had a not-Tomb Kings reference in one of the Realmgate Wars books...

There are quite a few Tomb King and Queen references from the very start.

If you can have fire and metal Dwarfs, it wouldn't be hard to have Undead from a place other than the Realm of Death. They could easily be from the Realm of Light, Fire, or, ironically, Life (they didn't die, they just decayed and their spirits stayed with the bones).

I think they would really add a huge number of players into the community that maybe haven't found an army they liked yet.

If i remember correctly tomb kings had acces to death, light and the tomb king disipline when it came to magic. Light undeads could be cool.

But I would argue they would get more sales with elves, that are rargly absent.

But it would be glorius with more tomb kings.

 Charistoph wrote:
If you can have fire and metal Dwarfs, it wouldn't be hard to have Undead from a place other than the Realm of Death. They could easily be from the Realm of Light, Fire, or, ironically, Life (they didn't die, they just decayed and their spirits stayed with the bones).

Undead are in all Realms - Sigmar liked purged Azyr but after the Necronquake even that Realm had a resurgent Ghiest population .

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
If you can have fire and metal Dwarfs, it wouldn't be hard to have Undead from a place other than the Realm of Death. They could easily be from the Realm of Light, Fire, or, ironically, Life (they didn't die, they just decayed and their spirits stayed with the bones).

Undead are in all Realms - Sigmar liked purged Azyr but after the Necronquake even that Realm had a resurgent Ghiest population .

Precisely, and Tomb Kings would represent the Undead from some of those Realms. We've seen Fire Dwarfs, so it's not outside the possibility that Tomb Kings would be from one of the specific Realms as well.

Azyr already has its undead. They're called Stormcast Eternals...

 Ghaz wrote:
Azyr already has its undead. They're called Stormcast Eternals...

Stormcast are not undead. But there are some kingdoms in the realm of heavens far from the light of Azyrheim that may have undead.

They're the souls of dead warriors put in magically grown bodies. They can indeed be considered 'undead' in the loosest sense of the word.

How those eternals are made sounds very much how all the tk constructions where maintained.

 Ghaz wrote:
They're the souls of dead warriors put in magically grown bodies. They can indeed be considered 'undead' in the loosest sense of the word.

Undead are animated corpses or spirits corrupted by necromantic death magic. Stormcast are alive and resurrected by the power of the heavens, their bodies are not constructs. But are living flesh and blood, they are not walking corpses.

Unless you think the daughters of khaine are undead too.

Nope. 'Undead' covers a little more than just zombies.

 Ghaz wrote:
Nope. 'Undead' covers a little more than just zombies.

I know, I said undead are spirits corrupted by necromantic death magic too.

"Stormcast" and "daughters of khaine" still are not undead.

Again, you're going by too narrow a definition of 'undead'. Stormcasts are the souls of dead warriors basically possessing a magically grown body. They fit the definition of 'undead'.