# Tomb Kings,what are the must have units?



## Viscount Vash (Jan 3, 2007)

Having just bought a pile of mainly TK core units with a few other bits added, I was wondering what units I should be thinking about buying.

Heres what I have already.

Tomb King Great Weapon.
Liche Priest mounted.
Liche Priest.
Bone Giant.
6x Chariot.
16x Horsemen.
12x Archer.
30x Warrior Spear/Sheild.
23x Warrior H.Weapon/Sheild.

High Elves will be the regular enemy.

I don't have the army book as the local GW had none in stock.


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## Sarcasm (Nov 23, 2008)

With TK there are two mandatory character selections, a General (Tomb King/Prince) and a Heirophant (Liche High Priest/Liche Priest). I'm sure you knew that already but I thought it best to say so just in case you didn't.

For your Heirophant I would recommend a Liche High Priest so you can be surer of getting off your incantations, along with a regular Liche Priest to cast yet more incantations and act as a secondary proper caster (the TK/Prince can also cast incantations but not as effectively as Priests). Since you have two Priests purchased I would say you have this covered.

For the General I have no particular favourites between the King and the Prince. The King is more powerful and survivable but is much more expensive than the Prince, who is a good, tough fighter too.

For core I'm a fan of archers. Lots and lots of skeletons with bows. With 20-30 per unit you can get plenty of shots off which will always hit on a 5+. Incantations can be used to get more shots out of your archers and to reform them in preparation for being charged by enemy units. They can also be upgraded to fire poison shots by taking Khalida but she is quite expensive herself and even after buying her you still have to buy the upgrade for each of your units, which can use up a lot of points. It does make half your hits auto-wound though.

Some nice stuff is in the special section. Scorpions are widely acknowledged as being a great unit so one or two (perhaps even three if you really like Scorpions) would be a good addition. Tomb Guard are also quite good. They are basically better melee skeletons that come with with killing blow. A unit in a formation of 6x4 or 7x3 is probably the most effective and they should be able to withstand most things attacking them with re-raises as required. Ushabti are a favourite of mine, simply because I love the models. However they are quite vulnerable and die easily, but if they get into combat they can make a mess of the enemy. They are good for flanking units in combat with your skeletons or TG.

The rare section contains the Screaming Skull Catapult, a favourite unit of mine and of many TK players. With incantations the SSC can shoot twice per turn, and with two catapults that's a decent amount of shots for a low points cost. Hits from a SSC are both magical and flaming, and they make a unit take a panic test if a wound is lost. When on target the catapult can wipe out a lot of models.

Out of what you have I would ignore the Horsemen, Chariots and the Skeleton Warriors with hand weapon and shield. They are not all that great unfortunately. I can't comment on the Bone Giant as I have no experience with it, but as far as I can tell people have mixed views on it. The characters are good and should be basically all you need. More archers would be good, 12 wouldn't do much. The skeletons with spears can be used as a decent tar pit for things you want to hold up for a little while, but don't expect very much of them.

Just some of my thoughts. Please excuse any spelling/grammar errors, I always seem to miss some of them when proof-reading. Hopefully my ramblings have been some small help to you. It's nice to see someone else picking up Tomb Kings


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## gatha23 (Jul 9, 2009)

from my exp of using them so far,

the casket is good but not a game winner.
i like the high queen and giving my bowmen poison
scorpion are verry good
kings in chariots with flails is something i thought of today. 

i dont think i would suggest tomb gaurd they seem too small of a number but ive never used them.

good luck with them i have had lots.

-N-


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Scorpions are amazingly cheap. Tough, Healable Constructs.

Icon Bearers now become useable (and they have Killing Blow too).

Spear's are overcosted (compare to Helf Spears who get rerolls to hit, and +1 rank of attacks), so just stick with Archers.

Chariots are somewhat useful against HElfs, their Impact hits hit before ASF, but then again T4 3 Wounds isn't that much to right home about, and they're expensive.

Carrion - amazing - Healable Flyers, perfect for hunting characters, war machines and archers. 2 Units of 3 do excellently.

Screaming Skull Catapults become doubly better in this edition - Panic usually does bugger all thanks to the universal reroll from a BSB, so they're "cheaper", and new template rules means I wouldn't leave home without 2.

Bone Giant is semi-decent, but it's still a "shoot me" and not very good at dealing with it.

Ushabti are must haves.

I'd look at a Tomb King (Khalida if you can squeeze the points, the magic weapons aren't that good so it's no loss aside from being Overcosted), Icon Bearer, and 3-4 Priests for characters, 25% Core of Archers (A single max unit supported by several other smaller archer units, poisoned if Khalida), a couple of minimum Carrion, a large anchor unit (8-10) Ushabti, and the rest of specials on Scorpions. With a 180 points left aside for SCC's, you're rolling.


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

gatha23 said:


> the casket is good but not a game winner.
> i like the high queen and giving my bowmen poison
> scorpion are verry good
> -N-


I play Lizardmen and I can tell you that those poison shots are well worth that named queen's points. The casket is nasty as well. Scorpions scare the hell out of me (especially if they come in from underground). I also do not like to face the ubashi giant things.

Whatever you do, protect your Heirophant. That is my primary target when I face TK.


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## steamius (Dec 9, 2010)

the scorpions are a must in every tomb king army!


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## Viscount Vash (Jan 3, 2007)

Cheers for the info folks.

The hand weapons unit I have is going to be swapped over to bows then


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