# New to Fantasy



## VX485 (Feb 17, 2011)

Hey everyone, well after a couple of years of looking i have finally taken the first step into Fantasy (picked up a brand new rule book on ebay for an awesome price).

All of the gaming veterans (myself a 40k vet) at my FLGS play fantasy and have been doing so more often for a few months now, along with asking me to join in.

Years ago when i first looked at Fantasy i was immedialty drawn to Tomb Kings (havent got any yet) and they are my army of choice although i do not know a single thing about how they are played, or how to play full stop.

I'm on the lookout for any tips in relation to Fantasy, any tips all, be it modelling, stratgies, loadouts for units.

Cheers


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Hmmm i like Chariots for tomb kings since they hit hard and look pretty cool. Anyhow its nice to see another 40k player getting back into fantasy! I will warn you now....the first few games might get you crushed! (well they are for me at least but im a vampire player!)


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

I'm not fully up on tomb kings, but they are an interesting army to play by all accounts. The only thing I'll say is, if you dislike painting bone, try and up your numbers of special units for them, otherwise you will end up painting alot of skeletons.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

TK is a hard army to play. You cannot march and have to use an augment spell to effectively march by a second move in the magic phase that you must cast. You really need to know how to use the magic and augments to keep regrowing units and to enhance combat. 

Also the character mix and how to protect them is critical with tomb kings and princes. King and princes can lend their weapon skills (much higher chance of hitting) to the units they are in. Necrotects give you units hatred (the ability to re-roll to hit in the first round of combat which is essential to maximizing units with killing blow). If your primary caster (hieophant) dies then then the army can begin to crumble on failed leadership tests each turn (they fixed this and limited it with vampire counts). 

Of core units. A large block or two of skellies should be your core with skelly archers (screened). Chariots are okay but have limited abilities after their initial impact hits. Chariots should be used as supporting units only. The skeletons with arrows and general shooting are great because they don't panic and always hit on 5's regardless (which mean they can shoot right through screens and soft cover and hard cover to hit, so they can be mostly covered up and still hit). 

The casket is very good, almost essential due to the extra power dice and bound spell it can cast. The necrosphinx can be very good because it is so tough and can fly but it is vulnerable to cannons and certain magic direct damage spells that can get through its toughness. I like the skull catapults but have heard mixed information on them. The hierotitan is a great boost to casting (+D3 to attempts to cast) and has two decent bound spells but it hard to protect from high S shooting, but as a S6 T6 monster, he can really help out and be worth running. but vulnerable to high S shooting and some magic. I'm concerned tomb guard may be overpriced by one point relative to core skellies but I've heard they can really rock if they get to re-roll to hit and get the enhanced killing blow augment. The necro knights are neglected and are one of the best units if you can keep them in spell range and keep regrowing lost wounds. The serpeant and knight poison and killing blow attacks can make this a very effective unit if used properly. The one player that has been winning uses necro knights successfully. 

I feel like they kind of cheated TK on the magic lore relative to the new Vampire lore in the new VC book. The TK signature spell just allows all units within 12" to move in the magic phase. The lore allows all units hit by an augment to recover D3+1 lost models per unit in range, which is not quite enough and not as good as a resurrection spell like VC's Invocation of Nehek. The key is to get off the second spell (5+ ward on a target unit or boosted to hit all units within 12'), the first spell (gives killing blow or increases killing blow to unit within range), and the third spell (righteous smiting gives +1 attacks or +1 shot per model in the target unit and can be boosted to hit all units within 24"). The heavy reliance on magic means that and the importance of the first four spells of the lore and lore attibute means that one will risk miscasting a lot and have to have ways of avoiding the catastrophic miscast on the primary caster (take earthing rod). 


I've seen a few players in our region run TK successfully in tournaments and local 3 game events and a number struggle with the new book. 

You can also consider the new Vampire Counts book with the army. Thae VC army will likely be more competitive and you can use the skeletons for core in both armies and the tomb guard as grave guard. Tomb kings and princes can be a wight king and Liche priests can be necromansers. The only problem is that skellies in VC have light armour while skellies in TK are best played without light armour. The way I deal with these issues is to have some skellies with light armour and some without and put in the front rank the models that are correct for the unit I'm playing. In casual games you might have to proxy the vampires and some other models and you will have a competitive VC army along with the TK army and book armies use the undead rule and rely on magic, so you will learn to use that rule and magic effectively playing both armies.


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## VX485 (Feb 17, 2011)

Thanks everyone, i don't mind playing an army that is considered 'difficult'. I'm not going to playing competively for a long time.

I went down to my FLGS and after buying the TK codex and a heavily discounted TK catapualt (still NIB) the owner gave me 3 sepuchrals stalkers and a necrosphinx (all assembeld but unpainted) for free. 

I also bought a can of bone coloured spray from the army painter so skeletons wont take too long. What are your guy's thoughts when equiping blocks of skeletons, sword and shield or spears?


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Great I like the army painter sprays for getting up to speed and painting quickly. Ideally, a top job would use a thinner coat of primer (white) and then you would base coat with a foundation paint and continue to paint over them. Buy some good washes and shades and learn to use them well to provide definition and shade the recesses. With some details and highlighting (use the shields for lots of color) and you can paint those skellies to a decent quality in no time. 

I personally would take the sword and shield (parry save) over the shield and spear. You are paying an extra point for a spear and losing the no parry save in combat on the shield. I alsoand not spend an extra point on armour. The base skelly is so cheap and with the undead rules, you are better off buying more models for the points than spending the points to make you skellies slightly more resilient or to gain an extra . As a general rule, I do not increase the armour save by +1 for a point (to go from 6+ to 5+ armour save) unless the model costs at least 7 to 8 points already. Too many times the armour save is lost and it is not worthwhile to spend the points for more armour.


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## VX485 (Feb 17, 2011)

Thanks for the tips, i'm currently struggling to connect the 2 halves of the catapualt, think im gunna have to break out the araldite.

As i'm fairly new i thinking of buying a Tomb kings battalion or 2 to get myself started, and because it's a great buy compared to buying them individually. How many skellies would you recommend i put in each unit (with 2 Battalions i will have 80 skelleton warriors)


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