Tutorial Dinosaurs in the Desert, a Lizardmen vs Tomb Kings Tactica

Thanks a bunch NIGHTBRINGER, haha.

On the Armour of Silvered Steel, this is the item you want most of the time on your Prince. Silvered Steel+Dragonbane Gem+GW is the standard build, gives you a 2+ with T5 and 3W on a model that buffs its unit,, etc. It is not going to kill most Lords, but it is great value and something of a budget Hero that really pulls its weight. The alternative is using the Armour of Destiny, but everyone strangely always remembered that my characters are Flammable (i even had to tell a lot of guys that no, not my entire army is Flammable), that really made you want to take the Dragonbane Gem. Silvered Steel is 45, Destiny is 50, so Silvered Steel was often the better option. If you put something like Silvered Steel on a Necrotect you are literally paying 100 points to give one unit Hatred.. meh.

The way i ran them was just in friendly games, and than i would just give them nothing. We always played with closed lists, so your opponent never knew if he had something like Silvered Steel, so often they would just ignore him "because he probably had something" so i got away with giving my 40 unit of TG Hatred for a decent price. Yes this is kinda cheesy for friendly games, but TK were pretty underpowered at that point, i took what i could get. I only sometimes gave him the 5 pts item that gave the unit a 6++ against Warmachines if there was no char who could take that item in the unit. That item was just pretty strong for its points, if you only made one save with it, it has its points worth. I never tried running him just bare in tournaments, might be an interesting idea.

Its already done!

Also, now that 8th is dead, is it ok to use point values in out posts?

 

That is some interesting food for thought. I've always given my Prince the 4++ save for things that might hit him while he is in his unit (a lucky cannon ball, death sniping, etc) but your point on the dragonbane gem is pretty solid.

When you field Tomb Kings, you got to squeeze the army for every last drop of competitiveness!

 

@Killer Angel @Lord-Marcus @airjamy

Over on the Tomb Kings forum (http://z4.invisionfree.com/Khemri/index.php?showtopic=13567&st=0) a survey was conducted rating the effectiveness of all the different Tomb Kings units. I've tabulated the results and thought it might be fun to analyze it here or at the very least use it as a reference.

Legend:
5 – This choice is extremely powerful / under-costed
4 – A very competitive choice, good value for the points.
3 – An OK choice, not optimal but still decent
2 – This unit is below par, either underpowered or overcosted
1 – Complete rubbish, very difficult to find any use for it

The following table shows the average score for each TK unit:



Here is a further breakdown of the voting:



I'm a bit surprised just how well the Carrion and chariots did and also at how "poorly" the Necropolis Knights fared. No surprise seeing the Casket of Souls and Hierotitan leading the charge though.

Discuss!

 

I'm really surprised at the Tomb Herald being last because according to a PDF version of the TK book I have, he can help stop your army crumbling if he's a battle standard bearer.

Also Ushabti would be useful against things like Goblins and State Troopers because they have Great Weapons and are basically Tomb King Ironguts.

 

I agree. While I don't think that Tomb Heralds in general are that good, having a BSB is still useful even in an undead faction. TK may not have to take break tests, but they do take swift reform tests, combat reform tests (after losing), crumble checks after the loss of the heirophant, etc. I didn't expect to see Tomb Heralds in the very last position.

Ushabti with GW have strength 6, that is quite useful against armour. However they are very squishy and expensive. I have toyed with creating a horde of 18 of them for shits and giggles. That's a lot of S6 attacks!

Similar to our Kroxigors, they just seem a bit underwhelming. If you could freely put characters in the unit without having to place them on the side of the unit (due to incompatible footprints) things might be a bit more interesting.

 

18 Ushabti would last longer than a unit of 3 at least, and the majority would be able to attack. I've had my Saurus cav against Ironguts and although I killed a couple I got stomped in return even with a 2+ save without modifiers.

What I don't get is if they are so squishy because they have a 5+ save, and Ironguts are similar, why are Ironguts so difficult to beat? Surely they would be as squishy as Ushabti.

 

I think the thing that Ogres have and that Ushabti don't is monstrous infantry character support. If we could add character support within the unit itself, as opposed to on the sides, our Ushabti might be more useful. Also Ironguts benefit from the Ogre Charge rule, which can really help soften up a unit.

That said, if I could find a way to keep a defensive Necrotect alive for a turn or two in an 18 strong Ushabti unit, they would probably disintegrate just about anything they come into contact with. Necrotect also grants them a 6+ regen save.

Support-wise, how would you field an Ushabti deathstar? Perhaps with a pair of Necrotects to help ensure at least one survives? A Tomb Prince only gives them a modest boost in WS (from 4 to 5), whereas a Tomb King is quite expensive. The tricky part is that characters in the unit get no LoS roll. It might be a good idea to keep the characters in an infantry support unit, and only move them into the Ushabti unit when needed (this of course is purely dependent on the composition of the opposing army and what kind of templates can they throw at you; cannons, stonethrowers, etc.).

The other issue with Ushabti in comparison to Ironguts, is that Ushabti can move 5 inches a turn (and only 4 inches if joined by characters), while the the Ironguts can march 12. That is a BIG difference.

 

Unless you cast Khsar’s Incantation of the Desert Wind on them with a friendly Liche Priest - then they would be able to move 10” (8 with characters), making much less of a difference. Also Ogre Charge only works if they charge you - I charged them with my Saurus Cav and got stomped. I am learning, Master!

 

This is true, it just sucks that we have to spend power dice to do what every other army can freely do. It's a shame that constructs can only be healed a single wound per magic phase with the restless dead lore attribute, otherwise the spell would be very much justified.

Saurus Cav leave much to be desired in my opinion. I only usually take them as a Saurus Scar-Vet/Oldblood bus. Were you running characters in your cavalry unit? Was your Ogre opponent running characters in his gutstar?

 

No and Yes respectively. I don’t often like to get stuff online and Saurus on cold one character is online only (although I could try getting another cav box and convert) and yes he had a Bruiser with great weapon in his gutstar. I was hoping to do a double teaming with my Carnosaur sharging into his flank at the same time, but Frenzy meant he attacked a sacrificial unit of 3 bulls he had moved out in front of his army instead. I did kill the 3 bulls easily though.

He had 2 units of 5 Leadbelchers, each with a Butcher, 4 Maneaters, 3 Bulls and 6 Ironguts with his Bruiser in. I had Oldblood with spear on Carno, 16 Saurus with spears, 8 Saurus cav, Skink Priest, Skink Chief, 16 Skinks with javelins, Bastiladon with solar engine and 3 Terradons (I don’t have a Slann and didn’t have any more Saurus then - it’s only recently that I got some more). I should really have included my other priest rather than the chief. To be fair though my Bastiladon killed 4 Leadbelchers outright with its solar engine in the first turn which allowed me to finish off the Butcher and one remaining Leadbelcher with my Saurus warriors and I destroyed the 3 bull unit easily with my Carnosaur. I was also able to kill the other butcher later on in the game, although my Terradons fled the board after deciding to use a flee charge reaction when faced with the Ironguts, my Carnosaur was riddled with holes by the leadbelchers and the Skink unit with priest and chief was wiped out. My Oldblood was a beast though even without his steed - he took on the 4 Maneaters by himself and almost killed them all and my cav did kill 1 Irongut and wound the bruiser.

 

That is a really interesting post. The Carrion is a lot higher than i expected, i would personally never put it above Necropolis Knights. It is pretty weak against LM, mostly because we have no warmachines to hunt. I mean, the model has no save of any kind, how can they rank it that highly?

For the rest, i can see how all the rankings panned out, there are just small discrepancies between the units. I can see how the Hierotitan got second place with how strong Bowlines were, maybe i undervalued him a little bit due to the fact that i almost always played mass chariots/sphinxes. I think that that is a lot more fun than just sitting back and shooting.

 

Necroknights and Carrion are obviously two very different units with very different roles. I haven't played with Carrion too much myself, because I always run out of points before they make it into my list.

From what I have read on the forum, they are pretty good little unit. A flying 2 wound Ogre for only 24 points. They may not have a save, but they are S4 T4 and have two wounds a pop. The ability to fly is also a great selling feature. Some guys on the forum us them as conventional chaff, while others load up on units of 8 to take out more significant light targets.

If they would be core, they would be my go to chaff unit for sure. In special, I often can't find a home for them. I wish they were monstrous beasts instead of war beasts, as getting 3 supporting attacks would really make them shine.


Personally I feel the Stalkers should be higher on the list. They simply offer something that is difficult to find in the TK army. They are able to take out high value targets that we would otherwise struggle against. I think poor target selection and EBTS deployment plays into people's negative perception of them.

 

From what I have read, they can use their Gaze against war machines (who are indeed among their top targets). The rules state that "If the target has several Initiative values, always use the highest" [TK army book, page 45]. So while the war machine itself has no initiative value, the crew does, and theirs would be the highest initiative value of the target. Similarly, if Stalkers gaze at a Stegadon, they would have to try to wound against the Skinks initiative because it is the highest. It's also the same reason why Stalkers can still prey upon Steam Tanks!

DoubleSlann... now as a Septuple Slann looking back, I was merely a tadpole back then!

 

First i must say that i love the necromancy going on here .

And are you sure? I always interpreted that the crew are not part of the Cannon model, and as you are targeting that model, you would not get the I value of the crew members. They are also still the only TK unit i never used, so i am really not sure .

 

While I can't be 100% sure, it does seem to fit with the BRB as well.

Firstly, War Machines have a split profile as detailed on page 108 of the BRB. When you normally fire at a war machine, you do indeed use the war machine's toughness, but you do use the crew's armour save. So it is not unprecedented that characteristics from the crew are used when resolving ranged attacks against the war machine.

Second, the BRB states that "You always use the Movement, Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Initiative, Attacks and Leadership of the crew. The Toughness of the war machine is used against ranged attacks and the majority Toughness of the crew is used against close combat attacks." [BRB page 108]. So the rules are directly stating that you always use the Initiative of the crew. The only time the war machine's stats are used is specifically its toughness value, and even then, only in response to ranged attacks.

Taken together, both the TK army book and the BRB seem to pointing directly at the usage of the crew's initiative value. As such, while I can't be completely certain, I think it is a fair interpretation.

 

Sounds reasonable, i will make an edit!

 

@airjamy I think you're thinking about the Monsters & Hanlders rules, where you ignore the Handlers apart from the fact that they can also attack (but cannot be attacked themselves).

 

The thing about the stalkers is that they are decent against LM and a few other armies but against Elves or most mid-to high int armies they are subpar so I dont tend to plan for them in my list. I tried using the book using 7th edition rules and it was great, sadly too much of the book doesn't work well with 8th which is why I don't use the herald.

 

Interesting point, low I armies are indeed pretty rare if you think about it. Only Ogres, Undead and us Lizards really care, against the rest it is just not that strong.