# need tomb kings advice!



## dthwish09 (Oct 15, 2009)

i am looking to build a competitive tomb kings army and I would like to know if going all foot units or all calvery would be the best approach to using the tomb kings in a tournament environment.

so foot units or skeleton horses for an army theme?
what do you guys think would be the most effective


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## Yilmar (Sep 12, 2009)

I dont know much about Tomb Kings but I can give some general pointers.
The most succesfull tournament lists are the ones that are quite evenly balanced.
Combining infantry with cavalry usually gives you high adaptability to different situations and against different armies.

If you really are sticking to going all infantry or all cavalry I probably think that all infantry would work better that al cavalry TK lists.
The only choice you must have in either kind of lists is a unit of chariots.
Dont tell me why but every TK player I've seen uses them to great effect.

So my final advice is to go all infantry with a few subtle cavalry influences to make the army versatile enough for competitive gaming.


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## Sword Slasher (Mar 9, 2008)

I'm a TK player, and I generally I feild an army that Yilmar described. However, the best point of a TK army is the always 5+ shooting, or the emmense amount of magic that a Liche Priest, Tomb King/Prince and a Casket of Souls can fire in a turn. 
For a decent TK army, i'd suggest hard-hitting foot soldiers, a few cavalry/chariot units acompanied by PLENTY of shooting or magic units. Tomb Kings excell in holding their ground and letting skies of arrows turn their enemies into pincushions!


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## Tombking (Jan 5, 2010)

TK tournament army will need 2 skull caterpults lots of archers (core) pos a casket if you got the points for 3 rare choices. i like a block of skeles on foot but they can be avoided as archers are core. you will need carrion as they fulfill a vital role as war machine hunters etc. tomb scorpions are a must as they have a 14" charge and can deep strike (sorta) charging on the turn the arrive. tombguard are nice to have in your pocket. 

ushabti you can take or leave, same with heavy cav - light cav are nice but not essential chariots rock but you need to go all out chariots in a tourny or nothing at all. bone giants are not so great for the points. tomb swarms are ok but better things can be bought for the points.

plenty of magic - high liche + 2 liche priests + tomb prince is a good HQ for a shooty 2 skull thrower army.


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## Shadow Hawk (Apr 26, 2009)

TK cavalry isn't very good. In fact, it's terrible.
You probably won't see many TK lists that use them. Their low armour, WS, Toughness and Strength means they are terrible in combat. If for some reason you need to take cavalry, take light cav, at least that way you can shoot instead and not have to get into combat.

Skeleton Warriors are much better. They are the backbone of the army (literally). A pure Skellie army is not amazingly effective, but it might work as long as you don't get into combat. If you are going to take an all Skellie army, most units, if not all, want to be archers. No need for shields, champions, standard bearers etc. Just plain Skellies with bows. You will want at least one Screaming Skull Catapult, depending on the size of the game. High Queen Khalida will go well with an all Skellie army. Give all the Skellies 'Blessing of the Asp' and all your shooting attacks become poisoned. That's probably hundreds of poisoned arrows in one turn. Give the Liche Priest a Hieratic Jar and Cloak of the Dunes, cast Righteous Smiting on some of the Skellies and you'll be shooting two squads twice a turn and three squads twice on one turn. If you have a high priest, four squads could shoot twice in one turn and three in the other. And they're all poisoned. Imagine having 100 archers, Khalida and a High Priest. Each turn you could shoot 100 poisoned arrows base, 130 on a normal turn and 140 on the turn with the Hieratic Jar. All poisoned!

Chariots should be taken instead of cavalry to make a balance, they are much better.


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## Inquisitor Aurelius (Jun 9, 2008)

I'd go with a Screaming Skull Catapult and a Casket for your Rare choices. Tomb Scorpions can perform admirably as war machine hunters, so Carrion are essentially superfluous. Lots of small archer units are nice, and a Tomb Swarm is great as a way to screen the Casket without blocking LOS. I prefer to field a TK on foot in a unit of Tomb Guard (with the Banner of the Undying Legion - load up as much as possible on bound spells), but I can certainly see the argument for a High Priest. I just prefer a solid anvil anchoring my line.

A faster army would probably have Chariots and Light Horsemen, but that's not really my preferred style with TK. That said, they can excel at it if you're committed.

Just one last thing: bound spells, bound spells, bound spells. The single greatest strength of the army is the inevitability of its magic phase; if you stack up enough castings, your opponent can't possibly dispel all of them no matter how hard he tries. Even Dwarfs can't shut down a well-organized TK magic phase completely, and that's saying something.


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## dthwish09 (Oct 15, 2009)

thank you all for the helpfull advice, I have much more direction now.


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## NagashKhemmler (Apr 28, 2009)

Ushabti are awesome, these things have killed so many units and broken so many, what's more you can ressurect them which makes them completely awesome.

Skeletons are horrible, if you have the spare special slots get Tomb Guard, they're barely more expensive and a million leagues better.

Scorpions are great, they're cheat and effective at two things: Mage assassinating and war machine killing, if you can kill the enemy wizards you can give yourself the magical advantage (you really need it).

Skull catapults are wonderful, so is the casket of souls, the casket is great to stop enemy magic (it often means they need another dice to cast) and catapults are imo the best arty in the game aside from maybe a hell cannon.


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