# Undead army, good for a new guy



## The Irish Commissar

So I have never played warhammer fantasy but I'm thinking of starting. How is an undead army for someone who is starting fantasy. I heard that tomb kings are a hard army to play so I'm not sure.


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## JAMOB

Well, tomb kings just got a whole lot better because in the olden days they collapsed when one model died, but that's no longer the case. Undead are ok for a newbie, about as challenging as any other army~ it's rough, though, because to play at your best you would have to acquire the new end times book as well as the TK and VC books. If that's fine with you, then go ahead! TK are a bit overpriced for what they do, but they have builds that work, namely lots of skeleton archers and warmachines. I don't know much about VCs, but they have some very cool units... What sort of a playstyle do you prefer?


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## Reaper45

Both armies require you having more stuff than your opponents, they aren't hard to learn providing you have a firm grasp on the rules. However that being said they require allot of bodies to be played well.

So if you're on a budget or aren't a fast painter you might not get the full fun out of the army.

Since you're just starting out in fantasy I'd personally recommend starting with ogres, they're tough, easy to paint, and you don't have to spend allot in order to get a large force.


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## MidnightSun

Undead are weird since they don't follow the same rules as everyone else for Psychology or for losing combat, as well as being able to raise models to replenish your losses. They rely on magic and either combat for VC or shooting for TK, but primarily magic and the buffs you can get from it. They're also fairly good at wars of attrition due to large numbers that can be replaced when lost and they never run away, but against a strong combat opponent they're going to lose models faster than you can replace them. Both armies are fairly slow, and rely on the General to be able to move worth a damn and/or cast magic.



Reaper45 said:


> Since you're just starting out in fantasy I'd personally recommend starting with ogres, they're tough, easy to paint, and you don't have to spend allot in order to get a large force.


I'd add a vote to this - Ogres are very easy to play (for me, too much so - I got bored of Step 1. Cast Gut Magic Step 2. Charge very quickly), although I'm not sure that they're significantly cheaper than any other race due to the cost of their characters and the number of basic Ogres or Leadbelchers you want. Ironblasters are dirt cheap for GW models though, and they're amazing, as are Mournfangs who are *fairly* cheap per point as I remember so it all depends on army build.


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## Words_of_Truth

With undead you don't need to worry about panic and morale checks, pretty easy imo, very quick to get the hang of.


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## Reaper45

MidnightSun said:


> Undead are weird since they don't follow the same rules as everyone else for Psychology or for losing combat, as well as being able to raise models to replenish your losses. They rely on magic and either combat for VC or shooting for TK, but primarily magic and the buffs you can get from it. They're also fairly good at wars of attrition due to large numbers that can be replaced when lost and they never run away, but against a strong combat opponent they're going to lose models faster than you can replace them. Both armies are fairly slow, and rely on the General to be able to move worth a damn and/or cast magic.
> 
> 
> 
> I'd add a vote to this - Ogres are very easy to play (for me, too much so - I got bored of Step 1. Cast Gut Magic Step 2. Charge very quickly), although I'm not sure that they're significantly cheaper than any other race due to the cost of their characters and the number of basic Ogres or Leadbelchers you want. Ironblasters are dirt cheap for GW models though, and they're amazing, as are Mournfangs who are *fairly* cheap per point as I remember so it all depends on army build.


With ogres two battalions boxes and a special character is all you need for a legal army. You just have to take a few minutes and plan out how to efficiently use what you get. 

Since You're going to have maybe 20 models with a 1500 - 2000 point list learning the nuances of the game is easy with them, in the mean time you can spend the time working on the army of your choice while still having an army to play.


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## Ratvan

I love my Tomb Kings they are however quite frustrating to Keep the momentum moving due to being unable to march and not being able to increase unit size (unlike Vampire Counts). On the plus side there is a variety of builds that are viable so should keep you occupied for a while. Personally if you want a TK army take the plunge they are easy to play but hard to master which is what I love about them (that and I never really like Vampires, Bats and Wolves as undead)


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## Creon

Ahhh. TK can now march if they're in an Army of Undeath. But that requires, as is said, a lot of extra money put out. The not dissolving due to heirophant death is very important now. Also depends on if you're using the new End Times point spread.


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## Ratvan

Creon said:


> Ahhh. TK can now march if they're in an Army of Undeath. But that requires, as is said, a lot of extra money put out. The not dissolving due to heirophant death is very important now. Also depends on if you're using the new End Times point spread.


IMO the End Times isn't for me £20 for my army to march and for Arkhan and Mannfred to put aside their differences just doesn't sit right with me. I love Arkhan but just no


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## Creon

Remember, officially the End times book changes army construction to 50% lords, 50% heroes, 25% minimum troops, 50% special, 25% rare, and you don't need the book. it just happened.


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## MidnightSun

Creon said:


> Remember, officially the End times book changes army construction to 50% lords, 50% heroes, 25% minimum troops, 50% special, 25% rare, and you don't need the book. it just happened.


Really? I thought Undead Legions was for normal games but the 50% Lords bit was one of the End Times Campaign Rules.

If so, then... well, not a big deal - I seldom spend more than 25% on Lords and 25% on Heroes anyway, because you win through having blocks of infantry that don't run away, not on having a couple of really killy characters. There are just too many ways to kill characters easily.


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## The Irish Commissar

I had thought about going for ogres but the new undead rules and fluff sound really interesting. Also I really like the new models. I also like the sounds of having loads of necromancers summon even more undead while the rest march on silent. The thing is I know nothing about the rules, I played a demo game at my local GW but I'm just wondering are they going to be one of those armies that take a long time to get good at. I'll start by buying the nagash book and getting ideas from that, afterwards I'll probley get the tomb kings and see what there like.


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## Creon

Go for Ogres and use the Butchers to summon undead. There, you're good


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## KarnalBloodfist

The Irish Commissar said:


> I'll start by buying the nagash book and getting ideas from that, afterwards I'll probley get the tomb kings and see what there like.


Unless the Nagash book is the way things are going to be once 9th Ed rolls around, I wouldn't put to much stock into the funky rules in there. From what I can tell it's just another supplement like Storm of Magic was. I would concentrate on the rules in the BRB and whichever army book you choose to use.

I play VC as one of my armies and, while not hard to play, the strategies vary quite a bit due to the different ways in which they calculate combat, how much they rely on magic to keep the army moving/replenished (more so the latter), how horrid their Core choices are in combat (worse than Gobbos!), etc. So, like TK, easy to play if you know the basic rules, a little different to master. However, if you're not starting a new army after having played a "normal" race, it may not make to much of a difference as you'll have nothing to compare it to.


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## Vaz

KarnalBloodfist said:


> Unless the Nagash book is the way things are going to be once 9th Ed rolls around, I wouldn't put to much stock into the funky rules in there. From what I can tell it's just another supplement like Storm of Magic was. I would concentrate on the rules in the BRB and whichever army book you choose to use.
> 
> I play VC as one of my armies and, while not hard to play, the strategies vary quite a bit due to the different ways in which they calculate combat, how much they rely on magic to keep the army moving/replenished (more so the latter), how horrid their Core choices are in combat (worse than Gobbos!), etc. So, like TK, easy to play if you know the basic rules, a little different to master. However, if you're not starting a new army after having played a "normal" race, it may not make to much of a difference as you'll have nothing to compare it to.


The vast departure of rules and the vast advancement of the fluff (as opposed to filling in an event in history) suggests otherwise - rules for having several similar buildings placed together suggests fortifications, conjoined stats for Monster and Rider, new spell-lores available universally...

End times has some awesome combinations - Necrotects/Tomb Kings in units of Grave Guard for Frenzy, WS6 and then giving them all +1 to hit, for example. 

Bear in mind that taking Undead Legion precludes you from allowing Tomb Kings and Princes in chariots to join other units of Tomb Kings Chariots as that particular special rule allowing that refers purely to Tomb Kings armies, but it's so weak and one trick pony (in a meta that has at least 3 cannon type effects in most armies anyway), along with the rest of the army being so poor that I've yet to see anyone play it competitively. Its spell lore might be a bit more powerful now with some capable units backing it up, and the weakness of being unable to raise new units effectively heal etc is now gone.

Edit - and ignore reaper. 20 models is about 700pts for Ogres. Their biggest weakness was cost effectiveness in the past, but 8th edition made 2000pts harder to achieve.


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## Reaper45

Vaz said:


> The vast departure of rules and the vast advancement of the fluff (as opposed to filling in an event in history) suggests otherwise - rules for having several similar buildings placed together suggests fortifications, conjoined stats for Monster and Rider, new spell-lores available universally...
> 
> End times has some awesome combinations - Necrotects/Tomb Kings in units of Grave Guard for Frenzy, WS6 and then giving them all +1 to hit, for example.
> 
> Bear in mind that taking Undead Legion precludes you from allowing Tomb Kings and Princes in chariots to join other units of Tomb Kings Chariots as that particular special rule allowing that refers purely to Tomb Kings armies, but it's so weak and one trick pony (in a meta that has at least 3 cannon type effects in most armies anyway), along with the rest of the army being so poor that I've yet to see anyone play it competitively. Its spell lore might be a bit more powerful now with some capable units backing it up, and the weakness of being unable to raise new units effectively heal etc is now gone.
> 
> Edit - and ignore reaper. 20 models is about 700pts for Ogres. Their biggest weakness was cost effectiveness in the past, but 8th edition made 2000pts harder to achieve.


It was a rough estimate and I guessed low.

Sue me.


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## Vaz

Why are you giving advice on something you know nothing about?

This is rhetorical, do not answer and take the thread off topic


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## The Irish Commissar

I had thought about ogres, but their model line is so small, doesn't look like there is much room for different builds. But when I look at the undead I see two armies which seem like they have loaf's of different builds. I'm not going to be super competitive when I first start as I want to get used to the rules first. I just don't want to start an army that will be too complicated to play or will see be crushed every time I.but my models on the table.


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## Vaz

The problem is with Tomb Kings, I cannot actually see a phase in which they adequately compete.

Let's look at Tomb Kings;

Heirophant; benefits provided including a 6+ Ward save for him and his unit. Everything else is a malus - must be the highest level wizard, and must take Lore of Nehekhara, Crumble Tests if he dies. 

List strengths; 

Tomb Kings/Princes - WS6/5 for your infantry and chariots seem kind of cool, until you realise that you're limited to S3 Skeletons (only benefit is free Light Armour), or Tomb Guard (who pay more for Halberds than Grave Guard pay for Great Weapons - and with I3, for the most part, and then partly thanks to Step Up and Supporting Attacks, it doesn't make a difference against the units you're going to be wanting them up against - things like Executioners, or Chaos Warriors).

Chariot units - they provide a similar damage output as a basic heavy cavalry unit. The problem is, they cost around 2-3 times what someone who is paying for a unit of Empire Knights. With a S4 charge as well, they're not exactly hitting much. 

Compare them to another Core Chariot - Chaos Chariots. They cost half as much, but as a Scythed Chariot, it's doing twice the impact hits, the two chaos warriors are dealing double the damage, it is tougher (T5, 4 wounds, 3+ save), and can take a Mark of Chaos, like Nurgle to make it even more resilient or tougher (-1 to hit in melee, in conjunction with WS5, means that WS2 units like your skellies without princes etc are hitting on a 6+, and most others are hitting on a 5+).

Necroknights I always forget about - they're kind of cool, but for Monstrous Cavalry, they're not really all that, 2 Killing Blow attacks/base and 3 S5 Poisoned Attacks are hardly game winners, especially with Initiative 3 and WS3-4 - at 65pts per, they're a lot of waste - compare that to say Skullcrushers - 13 points more, but have +1 WS, +1 Strength, +2 Initiative, +1 Attack, 1+ Saves, mounts with a S6 Charge... Yeah. They're still good - but at a level when everything else is so much better. It is slightly unfair comparing them to something as "broken" as Skullcrushers (which need to be cheap enough to be taken, but also to be stand out killy in an army of stand out killy anyway). If you compare them to something similar to Demigryph Knights, they're 7pts a model cheaper.

The One thing that Tomb Kings does exceptionally well is Power Dice generation, between the Casket of Souls and the Heirotitan - it's just a shame that to get any good use out of the lores they have access to (Lore of Light or Death, the two most powerful lores arguably in game, even if they are somewhat situational), you have a 210pt model Tax, on top of your general (you're going to want the Ld10 King for the bubble on crumble tests), which means that you're shit out of luck unless you play The End Times rules allowing 50% lords - 25% in a 2K list is your Liche High Priest, 100pts of items and a level 4, coming in a 310, leaving your King on Foot and 20pts for Magic Items, or a second L3 Wizard with 15pts of kit. 

The Lore of Nehekhara is pretty terrible - any augment also heals D3+1 wounds. That's pitiful - it's a single Chaos Warriors attack routine, or 16pts of Empire Halberdiers.

Cursed Blades gives you Killing Blow in CC, or increases Killing Blow range on your existing KB's. Its short range means that if you're going to be using it on your Chariots/Necroknights or whatever, you're going to need to shell out for Fly of some sort (Cloak of Dunes). Another spell provides a 5+ Ward Save to a single unit - which makes units sort of tougher - but honestly, it's a waste of spellcasting potential - if you're using it on a tanky unit, there should be enough bodies anyway - you have skellies. If using it on things like Necroknights or Chariots, then you've charged into something too killy to handle, and despite a 33% reduction in damage, it will in all likelihood see you killed anyway. Short range on it can be lethal.

Smiting - many people were hacked off that the one amazing use it had back in 6th edition for getting double Screaming Skull shots off was written off. Now you're making your "killy" units slightly more killy, or your horde units able to kill another couple of models. Works best with ranged units as its short range can let you sit in your deployment - but BS shooting is kind of wank when only 1/3rd of your shots hit. 

Vengeance Dangerous Terrain can be lethal - it actually has a useable range. 10+ is a risky 2 cast though - would have been decent as a 8+ spell. Dessication is a decent debuff, and has a useable range as well, but the augment is kind of suck for a 22+. Would have been better for a 14+ augment with 48" range to let you backline and then SSC them into oblivion. Skullstorm blows hairy chode. 15+ for a S4 hit on a small template? BRB lores are offering save or dies here. And the signature spell? You're never going to get this off - and the limitation on being unable to charge during this movement renders it ineffectual.


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## The Irish Commissar

@Vaz Thanks a million for that rundown in the army. Can the weakness of the tomb kings be nullified with the addition of vampire counts. From what I read, vampires are extremely strong and tough. People recommend you go archer heavy and troop heavy with the tomb king half while getting the elites from the vampire counts book. What do you guys think.


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## MidnightSun

The Irish Commissar said:


> @Vaz Thanks a million for that rundown in the army. Can the weakness of the tomb kings be nullified with the addition of vampire counts. From what I read, vampires are extremely strong and tough. People recommend you go archer heavy and troop heavy with the tomb king half while getting the elites from the vampire counts book. What do you guys think.


Undead Legions lets the army March, removes Crumbling when the general dies, and removes the necessity of Lore of Nehekhara. Those alone solve huge issues for TK, meaning that there's very little point using the TK book (pretty much restricted to those who have a burning desire to use Apophas or Settra or whatever other bad characters there are). 

For an Undead Legions list, honestly I'd be more tempted to bring Vampire Counts, with Screaming Skull Catapults and the odd Tomb Prince for MWBD on Ghouls or something, plus the obligatory Casket of Souls and a Hierotitan if you can afford it (I'm not sure on the wording of the Hierotitan's +D3 to cast, but if it stacks with the Mortis Engine then you could do something really silly there). Chariots seem pretty good too.


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## Creon

Undead also no longer crumble anywhere. You don't need to be a legion army to do it, the rules addition of the End Times says it's gone, I think. I'll have to check at home.


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## Vaz

It's a bit of either or. 

The weaknesses with Tomb Kings was;
- No March - ever
- Weak troop healing (there are only 4 augments in the spell list)
- Cannot heal characters or mounts

With access to an allied army, with access to the lore of Vampires, this is improved. 

Your core choices are 25% of units made of the following;
- Zombies
- Skeleton Warriors
- Crypt Ghouls
- Dire Wolves
- Skeleton Warriors (TK)
- Skeleton Archers
- Skeleton Horsemen
- Skeleton Horse Archers
- Skeleton Chariots

Skeleton Chariots as mentioned lost their big buff (at least until the FAQ, I'm sure it's an oversight) in that they cannot be joined by a Tomb Prince or King, meaning no My Will Be Done, and no Death Mask of Kharnut to try and encourage linebreaking.

Vampire Skeletons versus TK Skeletons - 4pts versus 5pts, TK Skellies have Ld5, and cost 4pts without Light Armour, Vampire Skellies have Ld3 and cost 5pts/model, but can take a Magic Banner for 25pts.

If you're going to run them with a Magic Banner, then putting a Tomb King/Prince to let them benefit from My Will Be Done is okay, but it's a lot of points going into S3 A1 models, and improving them with expensive force multipliers is a bit daft. It is worthwhile mentioning that a single Necromancer with Master of the Dead can increase the size of Skeleton Warrior units past their starting - this includes Tomb Kings, as they're named the same as Vampire Skeleton Warriors - this doesn't apply to Archers, however.

Zombies - nobody ever takes them. In the Vampire Counts list, you can raise zombies, and lots of them - they can be taken above their starting unit limit, and gain an additional d6 with Invocation of Nehek. A L4 Vampire with Dark Acolyte, Raise Dead, and Invocation of Nehek can create a zombie unit with 2d6+3 models, then gain a further 2d6+4+D3 zombies - with average rolling, you've just created a 22 model tarpit out of thin air - all the way up to a 34 model unit at max. This isn't exactly much - you're maybe going to do 2 wounds at best to any enemy unit, and against elites, you've just "thrown the unit away" - but the way you've angled that Zombie unit is that you've managed to force the enemy elite unit which was going to flank into your Knight bus to spend a turn reforming as their overrun would not catch the bus in the flank.

Ghouls - way too expensive. This was a knee jerk to the 7th edition Ghoul spam, which IIRC was basically taking as many ghouls as possible with their 2 poisoned attacks each, and giving them a special ability that let them start further up the field, at a time when chargers went first unless there was ASF or similar, and no step up/supporting attacks - basically if you got the charge off (and you usually did, due to charge being double move distance flat), and was able to kill the front rank, and due to their cost, outnumber the enemy as well, you were looking at a combat resolution of 3 from ranks, 5-8 from kills, and one outnumber, compared to a single enemy rank, and maybe 3 ranks, and possibly a kill if you forgot to target the champion, you could force a 300pt enemy unit to take a Break test on a -7 or so. Since pretty much all of those benefits were removed AND they now cost twice, neither can they be made higher than starting size, they're rarely taken. There was also a rule that the BRB brought in call "Fortitude" which was based on banners, something that was a really poorly thought out rule in retrospect, but something that penalises ghoul armies as they cannot take standards.

Dire Wolves - despite being kind of expensive, and being T3 no save, and only I3 with a Vanguard move, these can be fairly effective. The Vanguard move gets them in position ready for a conjoined charge with a Black/Blood Knight charge to remove ranks. Against shooty armies, they tend to suffer, due to not only getting pincushioned, but also the lack of big combat blocks which need to have their flanks removed.

Archers - these are a new thing to Vampire Counts armies - a shooting phase? What's that? As mentioned, Skeletons are kind of poor - they were taken in Vampire armies as they were the perfect midpoint between Ghouls and Zombies - they at least have a 5+ save to benefit from, and often consisted of one massive block around 40+ strong with a L2 Necromancer with Master of the Dead who can simply throw any spare dice at the end of a Magic phase on improving his bunker for free.

While the bunker option is limited only to melee varieties of Skeleton Warrior, Archers actually let your core units do something, while looking intimidating in your deployment zone.

In regards to horsemen - the melee ones - you're not going to like them. There's little that they can do with their S4 charge, T3, 4+ Save that Black Knights with their S6 Killing Blow and ignores difficult terrain movement and +1 to hit Standard, Toughness 4, 2+ Saves cannot do. Sure they cost nearly twice as much - but compare a S3 arrow against each - assuming it hits, 50% to wound, 50% to save = 25% chance dead TK Cav. 33% chance to wound, 83% chance to save = 6% chance dead Black Knight - costs twice as much, but 4 times more likely to survive. Lets not even talk about what happens when said units charge something like Chaos Warrior Halberdiers. The S4 charge is still achieved by Vanguard'ing Dire Wolves, who can have a decent chance of hitting a flank, and are a lot cheaper.

Skeleton Horse Archers - they're light cavalry who cannot march (and cannot march in Legions as they're likely to be out of the Generals reach anyway, so that's not fixed). If that's not enough to dismiss them, they're equipped with Hand Weapons and bows, that only hit on 5+, and cost 2.5x what normal Archers cost. Even using Smiting for Multiple Shots (2) is a poor use, as you get 2.5x the amount of shots with normal archers, as well as likely to be in range of Smiting in the first place - and despite the longer range they have by virtue of their scout rule and 8" move speed, if you're that desperate for wounds that you're relying on 5+ to hit S3 arrows, you're truly in the crappers (incidentally, that was probably due to you not having 250% the amount of shots in the first place). As you can see - bad.

Chariots - we've already done this. However, they're a core unit which can actually do something, which may well be good enough reason to take, they're also a combat unit, and one of the few things in a TK army which can hit hard enough to do significant damage to break on the charge. Sounds decent until you remember that Vampire armies are pretty much all about their special and rare units and hitting hard - Grave Guard blocks, Knight busses, Crypt Horror hordes+Dual Mortis Engines, Vargheist hordes, Hexwraith combat blocks, Blood Knights, Dual Black Coach, Dual Terrorgheists being the pick of the bunch, plus the added benefits of the Morghasts.

In return, Tomb Kings have Tomb Guard, which are outclassed by Grave Guard, Necroknights, Tomb Scorpions, Ushabti (utter gash, cannot heal adequately, 50pts a model, and a 5+ Armour Save? no ta), Carrion (even more effective with Invocation of Nehek to heal them), Warsphinx spam (still tends to get cut short by Cannonballs), Sepulchral Stalkers (Strength 1 versus Initiative is weak - even Ogres and Dwarves have I2, so you're stuck wounding on a 5+, despite Artillery Dice hits - not to mention putting yourself in charge range of a lethal enemy unit - because there's no point wasting those shots against crappers units), Necrolith Collossus, Heirotitan (magic heavy armies need this), Necrosphinx assassins, Screaming Skull Catapults, and Caskets. 

I think the best thing to do is choose which is going to be your main hitty unit; 

I'm old school, so prefer units with options, as characters can join and force multiply, but that needn't be the case - from what I can see, the list has very hitty units in Grave Guard (or Tomb Guard, but honestly, Grave Guard are just better), Black Knights, and Blood Knights, and can be well supported by a variety of units - Flying Vargheist Hordes, Crypt Horrors with Mortis Engine in support (4+ Ward, T5, 3 Wound anchors which can be healed effectively as they're not Large Targets or Vampiric), Corpsecarts for Vigour Mortis buffs, Ethereal Spirit Hosts, Hexwraith War Machine/lone archer unit killers, and then your general beatstick supports.

My army honestly wouldn't have changed all that much - I might take TK Skeleton Warriors as for the meanwhile they're still buffed by Master of the Dead Necromancers, along with a Heirotitan and Casket of Souls or 2 to generate additional power dice with which I might transfer a few of my buffing Vampires to Lore of Undeath. I can't honestly see what changing my core units to becoming shooters would do for me - maybe kill a half dozen or so enemies. Maybe a few Necrosphinx for Headhunting enemy monsters/characters, and a Screaming Skull Catapult to reduce the potential enemies the knight bus is up against thanks to panicking those on the flanks away from general+reroll. Possibly shed some points for some Scorpions to help kill War Machine crews and their sniper cannons.

I honestly don't think that the problem with Tomb Kings was their lack of effect - on paper they have plenty of synergy - it's just that they're a bit too overcosted, and their "downsides" are too overplayed or not mitigated as effectively as other armies are - for example, Chaos Heroes are rewarded for challenges, for example, but TK took some serious penalties. The Undead Legion removes SOME of those penalties, but a few others are hardcoded in - such as how bad the Lore of Nehekhara is (that's a penalty, in as much as, even though you are no longer forced to take it, it is still wasted potential - it's not High Magic/Lore of Nurgle, for example), overcosted units (Tomb Guard, Sepulchral Stalkers, Necroknights and Chariots sticking out here), and just generally poor units - both Cavalry being the main ones here.


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## Vaz

MidnightSun said:


> Undead Legions lets the army March*, removes Crumbling when the general dies, and removes the necessity of Lore of Nehekhara. Those alone solve huge issues for TK, meaning that there's very little point using the TK book (pretty much restricted to those who have a burning desire to use Apophas or Settra or whatever other bad characters there are).
> 
> For an Undead Legions list, honestly I'd be more tempted to bring Vampire Counts, with Screaming Skull Catapults and the odd Tomb Prince for MWBD on Ghouls or something, plus the obligatory Casket of Souls and a Hierotitan if you can afford it (I'm not sure on the wording of the Hierotitan's +D3 to cast, but if it stacks with the Mortis Engine then you could do something really silly there). Chariots seem pretty good too.


* March still only within 12", and doesn't improve for Large Target though. You're going to want your general in a fast unit, and fast flankers to be Flyers or Vampiric.

But yes, Crumble is gone. At least Vampires had the benefit of to make them crumble you had to not only get your assassin character/unit into charge range, and then direct your attacks to the Heirophant, but to actually survive a round of combat with a Red Fury S7 rerolling to hit character.

And I personally still wouldn't take ghouls. 10pts a model is coming into Chaos Warrior territory - erm, no ta. At the least, Elves, and again, no ta.


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## MidnightSun

Vaz said:


> * March still only within 12", and doesn't improve for Large Target though. You're going to want your general in a fast unit, and fast flankers to be Flyers or Vampiric.


Yeah, but a 12" bubble is pretty large, and it's the fact that you just _can March_, rather than having to cast some spell to do it with. It has limitations, sure, but it's better in every way than TK's current rules.
@Creon - I thought that was just an Undead Legions rule, but frankly I'm not sure why you *wouldn't* bring Undead Legions anyway, so it's kinda moot.


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## The Irish Commissar

Thanks for the comments lads. What I'm thinking for a list is to go with a super beafed up vampire and a tomb king that is beefed up as well. Then for troops throw in huge blocks of skeletons ( archer and melee) then for elites have the vampire units like blood knights and grave guard. Then for have catapults and that big massive tomb king thing that can "cut a dragon in half", also a casket of souls. People keep saying it's a auto include, why?


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## Vaz

It adds +d3 to your number of power dice available - normally you're limited to 2d6+channeled dice (channeling is each wizard rolls a d6 for each Caster level they have - on a 6, they gain an extra Power Dice only they can use) - which is up against a dispel scroll, and an opponents dispel pool, which is equal to their channeled dice, plus the highest number out of the 2d6 roll you made - you may roll a 1 and a 6, which means you're shit out of luck.

This is where the Casket comes in - you're adding +d3 dice to the pool - that's 4 turns out of 6, you're rocking +d6 to your casting total on 2 spells. Yeah, sure, it can potentially give you extra spells to cast, but that's spreading what's available too thin, and if your opponent is good at prioritising, can choose which spells to dispel, and which to let through. 6 dicing, as it's called, is a tactic which means you throw as many possible dice (normally 6, hence the name) into getting a spell off. To that, you add your Wizard level (usually 4), and any other bonuses available. On average dice, a Level 4 making use of 6 dicing can get off a 25+ spell. In the Lore of Undeath, that means you can get off a spell which can summon a 200pt Monster etc to the field. For free.

However, vampires are one of the few armies which benefit a lot from casting more spells - it is what keeps their Vampires alive, healing a wound any time they cast a spell.

Back when I played, I ran a so-called "Unkillable Vampire Lord", which ran around a 2+/4++, T5, 4 wounds, and forced all successful wounds made against him be rerolled. The only time he ever really came close to dying was when I decided to be cocky against a Cannonball, and didn't take the Look Out, Sir! - I failed the Ward Save, and thanks only to poor rolling was he around to see the next magic phase - suffering 3 wounds, I cast 3 Lore of the Vampires spells, putting me back to full health again. Incidentally, he was no slouch in close combat, either. I can't wait until 9th edition comes around, when I may be able to field him on a zombie dragon, when he becomes even more unkillable if the rumour mills are correct in conjoined statlines becoming a thing.

In regards to your list - 

The most notable thing about Tomb Kings melee magic items/characters is the Death Mask of Kharnut. This is kind of cool, in that when it forces a Fear check on the charge, if failed the unit must make a flee reaction. This rarely comes into effect - a Battle Standard Bearer and a General nearby (a 24-32" bubble is big thing) means that the unit not only gets a reroll, but an improved Leadership - almost universally Ld10, as a result of Banner of Discipline). That thing isn't going anywhere. However, the Deathmask allows you to force nearby enemy units to gain no effect from their Generals and BSB's, causing a line break.

This is where you begin to go down the Vampire fear buffing routine - Aura of Dark Majesty is a 6" debuff to leadership, Beguile forces a challenged opponent to pass Ld test with a severe penalty or reroll successful to hit rolls (I used the two above in conjunction to force massive rerolls), and the Screaming Banner which forces 3d6 discard the lowest for fear tests and a forced reroll from Fear Incarnate, you can pretty much guarantee victory.

This is a lot of points;

60pt TK item
25pt VC power
20pt VC power
15pt VC power
25pt VC magic item, which comes to a Vampire Lord, Tomb King, and another Vampire.

It also prevents you from putting it into a Black Knight or Blood Knight unit - so effectively limits it to Grave Guard. You're going to want to ensure you can get the unit there, a Liche Priest to ensure that you can move it, as you may not be guaranteed to get Vanhel's Danse Macabre off.

Throwing a Wight Lord with the Banner of the Barrows in there is just the final step for this literal Death Star (bearing in mind that the Unkillable Vampire Lord has just dropped to a 4+/4++ as well). This ends up with having a Vampire Lord, Tomb King, Vampire, and Wight Lord, along with a full command Grave Guard unit. If there's a Liche Priest nearby with Smiting as well...

The charge ends up something like;

Force a Panic test - if within 6", apply -1 to Leadership, and do not allow General or BSB reroll. If failed attempt to catch (unlikely).
If unit is still there, charge in. 
Cast Vanhel's Danse Macabre
Cast Hellish Vigour
Cast Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting
Roll for Fear test, at -1 Ld, on a 3d6 and discard the lowest, ignoring general and BSB buffs, rerolling if successful. If the test is failed, enemy at -1 Ld.
Vampire Lord offers a challenge to the most killy enemy character. If accepted, enemy take a Ld test on a total of -4 - if failed, enemy must reroll successful to hit rolls against the Vampire Lord (in addition to rerolls to wound).
Vampire Lord attacks - 6 WS7 Initiative 7 S7 attacks rerolling failed to hit and to wound.
Vampire Attacks - 5 WS6 Initiative 6 S6 attacks rerolling failed to hit and to wound
Wight King attacks - 4 WS6 Initiative 4 S4 Killing Blow attacks, +1 to hit, rerolling failed to hit and to wound
Tomb King attacks - 5 WS6 Initiative 3 S7 attacks, rerolling failed to hit and to wound.
Grave Guard Seneschal attacks - 3 WS6 Initiative 3 S6 Killing Blow attacks, +1 to hit, rerolling failed to hit and to wound.
Assuming 6 wide formation, 1 more Grave Guard in first rank - 2 WS6 Initiative 3 S6 Killing Blow attacks, +1 to hit, rerolling failed to hit and to wound.
Assuming 6 wide formation, 6 supporting attacks from Grave Guard in second rank - 6 WS6 Initiative 3 S6 Killing Blow attacks, +1 to hit, rerolling failed to hit and to wound

Whoa - that's how you death star...


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## Words_of_Truth

Btw I just realised after reading through the list again, you can use Apophas as well as Khalida, they are the only two named characters available.


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## Vaz

Indeed - the rest of the named characters are missing, unless they're upgraded to Mortarch status by Nagash. Still, there's little reason to actually take any of them - the only worthwhile Mortarch is Mannfred IMHO. Arkhan doesn't provide enough oomph, and is missing the Lore of the Vampires and other combat hittiness to make him worthwhile, Neferata, I don't know what the hell they were thinking when the wrote her rules and points value.


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## The Irish Commissar

That sounds like an awesome deathstar. I've also heard people say that tombkings are good for archer heavy hoards or calvary hoards. What do you guys think.


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## Vaz

They can make them. They just suck ass.

The best use of Ballistic Skill shooting is taking Khalida which gives a single unit BS3 shooting with unmodified to hit rolls (so, always hits on a 4+), and gains Poisoned attacks. A big, big horde of these is around 60 strong, with a supporting Level 4 Heirophant making use of Smiting to make them Multiple Shots 2. The tax of the Heirophant and its limitation on its lore made it difficult to get access to debuffs/weapon buffs (not only because Death and Light kind of suck for that as well). 

With Undead legions, you can take;

Lore of Fire; Flaming Sword of Rhuin (+1 to wound, arrows are magical and flaming), Fulminating Flame Cage (penalises enemy movement) - Vampire Counts with Forbidden Lore of Metal; Plague of Rust (-1 to enemy Armour Saves), Enchanted Blades of Aiban (don't benefit from the bonus to hit, but become Armour Piercing and Magical), Transmutation of Lead (-1 to enemy Armour Saves) - Vampire Counts with Forbidden Lore
Lore of Light; Net of Amyntok (Slows enemy movement) - Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts with Forbidden Lore
Lore of Heavens; Harmonic Convergence (rerolls 1's to hit and to wound), Wind Blast (slows enemy movement), Curse of the Midnight Wind (enemy rerolls 6's to save) - Vampire Counts with Forbidden Lore
Lore of Shadow; Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma (-d3 Movement, slows enemies), The Withering (-d3 toughness), 
Lore of Death; Soulblight (-1 Toughness) - Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts with Forbidden Lore

As you can see, there are many options which enhance an Archer Horde - I personally think Heavens is the best best, especially as with Bretonnia around the corner, their Skylance Pegasus Knights will become big business once again, and slowing them down and causing damage to them will be big boost, but Lore of Fire is ALWAYS useful (Flame Cage should have been their 6th spell, but been more dangerous), especially with the Wood Elf bandwagon and with Regeneration coming out in big numbers with Undead letting Tomb Kings, Necrotects, Crypt Horrors and Sphinxes play together with Mortis engines, and can help you strip Regen. 

Ballistic Skill shooting does suck, but sink some resources into it, and you're fairly golden. It usually revolved around the Watchtower scenario, however, when they could take the watchtower and hold it indefinitely.

Cavalry, erm, you can field a lot of cheap horsemen. And by cheap, I mean crap. WS2, S4, 1 Attack, Initiative 2, large base size etc means that they're typically going to be outside of range for March movement - if Fantasy ever gets more Objective based games, then they'd suffer even more. For "Heavy" Cavalry with a 4+ Save, they blow ass, especially when you've got access to Chariots who can at least do damage with their Impact hits, and have My Will Be Done for WS6, or Black Knights who have the Banner of the Barrows, Killing Blow, S6 Lance Charges and a 2+ Save, there's no need whatsoever for Heavy Cavalry in a list unless you like the look of the 20 year old skeleton horses and massive headed skeletons.


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## The Irish Commissar

Alright that's great thank. One final question, what do you think of Nagash and the new special characters.


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## Vaz

Nagash is brilliant. Level 5 caster is fantastic, the ability to 10 dice is brilliant, and being able to bring in triple the value of troops with an extra 30 pts generated per counter means he can quickly make up the points deficit. Don't be fooled by his combat stats. They are to prevent him from being cannon sniped/HKB assassinated.

Other characters - only Mannfred is worth his points, and he can combat and cast well enough. Arkhans sucks. Neferata blows, and she uses teeth too. Krell, eh. You can summon him with a few counters thanks to Nagash. Vlad, his special thing relies on him dying. Not sure that's a thing that anyone wants to build on. He is fairly tough, but you can build tougher Vampire Lords if that's your thing.


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## The Irish Commissar

So would you recommend nagash for a newcomer and is he worth is massive points.


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## Vaz

You'd have to build him right, I think. He can be taken in a 2K list, unless I'm missing something, which means you have a 500pt army backing him up (500pts for the core - and as pointed out, the core sucks, so can't really be counted for much IMHO).

This means you need to encourage as much magic as possible - hence, Casket of Souls and heirotitan are pretty much autoincludes.

You're going to want to be able to bring on all of your models available, which means that you're going to want to take every Undeath lore spell to guarantee you don't miss out on an important one - so take all 7, leaving you with 2 other spells to randomly roll - I'd take both for Lore of Vampires so you can heal yourself should you get injured, and for Invocation should that prove necessary, or Death so you should be able to get additional power dice (but honestly, doing damage is the last thing you're going to want to achieve).

Don't take any other characters, you can easily raise them (remember, he triples raised points, and adds 30pts for each counter spent, rather than 10 - So Ryse 9+ = 150pts Infantry, Ryse 14+ = 300pts Infantry, Ryse 16+ = 450pts Monstrous Infantry, Razkhar 10+ 225 War Beasts/Swarms, Razkhar 16+ = 450pts Monstrous Beasts, Kandorak 10+ = Character = 195pts, Kandorak 24+ = 600pts Monster, Chariot or War Machine, Akar'aran 16+ = 450pts of Cavalry, Monstrous Cavalry or Chariots). Although a BSB is fairly important, they're expensive - the cheapest one is 110pts for a Wight King - using Kandorak on a 10+ gets you a BSB you can place.

So, it's looking something like;

Nagash = 1K

Core = 500pts

Rare = Casket, Heirotitan = 310

This leaves you with a further 190pts to spend - This prevents you from taking Black Coaches, Terrogheists, Necrosphinxes, Mortis Engines, Blood Knights (200pts Minimum unit cost).

190pts for me would look like double Screaming Skull Catapult (180), and then max out archers for ranged damage, and then raise in tanky blocks of units - maybe a single unit of Zombies with which you can throw one dice Invocation of Nehek/Morkarn to add to at the end of each phase if you have it spare and your staff has 4 dice stored in it.

It would suffer to a faster cavalry based army until you can summon enough units to put down something to take it down (a Mournfang heavy Ogre army, or a Skullcrusher Heavy Chaos Knight), as they can easily force an Instability check on something as crap as Skeleton Archers with around give or take 15 wounds, causing entire units to blink out as a result of their horrific damage output.

Nagash doesn't come into his until 3K, IMHO, when he has a balanced 2K army list (remember that you're going to effectively have larger than a 2K list, as you're not going to want to "waste" points on your previously mandatory level 4, who can no longer cast spells thanks to Nagash solely making use of the winds of magic, so it's probably nearer the base army of a 2,4-2,5K list). These armies at least have access to thinks like Necrosphinx for Ogres, or Black Knights+Banner of the Barrows to make a mockery of heavy cavalry,

I think he's pretty powerful, but I think the problem will become using him as a crutch. For a beginner, I'd recommend just learning the game originally. It would be like suggesting to a new 40K player how to use a Primarch, who brings all these massive force multipliers to an army (literally, in this case). Sure, it makes them individually more powerful, but it makes the army massively smaller (in an army that relies on its size over individual valour for the most part), and removing such a crutch completely changes the status of the army.

I.e get him, paint him, it's a beautiful model, and even play a few games with him - but while you're learning I'd keep to a more "normal" army.


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## The Irish Commissar

Thanks a million Vaz and everyone else for the comments. One of the reasons I love Heresy :biggrin:


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