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8th Ed. A new enemy: Tomb Kings

Kor
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Kor

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Hey guys! This Thursday I have another campaign game with the empire that is just South West of my own. It is the Tomb Kings. I'm pretty excited for two reasons...

1) Not Teclis.
2) Not Warriors of Chaos

Then again, my last game against WoC sucked only because my Slann literally derped himself on turn 1. I took the Cupped Hands to force his caster to take my miscast. I even let him get Pandemonium off so that I would have a greater chance of miscasting. Nope, I rolled a 1 followed by snake eyes on the miscast chart.

Anyway, I've never fought or even watched a game with Tomb Kings in their new book. And in their last book, I only fought them once. Is there anything I should look out for in 1500 points? And after that, what about 2500 points? I don't want to be losing Stegadons on the first turn like I do against Skaven.
 
I think you need to watch or chariots and sphinx, and the always hit on 5's makes skirmishers and chameleons die to their archers. Try knocking off the Mage and deal with the fast charging units. That's as much as I think i know.
 
I know that if their general dies, the army starts to crumble.

Is their general a magic caster? If so, I may force a Bane Head and a Cupped Hands on him. Or well... If he is, I WILL force a Bane Head and Cupped Hands on him.
 
You want to look out for Casket of Souls, its nasty when unleashed
 
I play TK every other week. The herophant can be a caster, but not always. Things to watch out for:

Casket of Souls -adds d3 to winds of magic every round. Can cause a leadership test on 3d6 (4d6 for us dropping the highest). Compare that roll to the unit's leadership, you take the number of wounds that the roll beats your leadership. You can use the slann's leadership for this roll. Make him BSB and give him the banner of discipline and the TK player will be wasting his power dice casting this within 12 inches of the slann. Also, on a roll of 4+ the spell leaps from that unit to another unit within 6 inches.

HeroTitan-This is a giant that gives all casters within 12 inches an extra d3 to their casting rolls. This thing makes the TK magic phase stronger than you would think.

Screaming skull catapult- This is a small template that causes panic checks for any casualties that it causes (I think they are even at -2 leadership or something because they are the skulls of lizardmen in our case).

Archer-TK shooting hits on 5+ (no modifiers are ever applied) and wounds as normal. This is very dangerous for skrimishers and chameleons as the -1 (-2 for chameleons) does not factor in.

Chariots-TK chariots work in ranks of 3. If you have 3 full ranks, they get d6 str6 impact hits. Do not let these charge you if you can stop them. I would even charge skirmishers into the unit to keep them from charging.

Hope this helps.
 
My local store has a very brilliant player who plays mostly TK. I only played one game with him. I took out the heirophant early with Death magic and still lost. The TK have good leadership scores, so they aren't as crippled by losing the heirophant as you would think.

Besides overall brilliant positioning, what defeated me was a pair of warsphinxes.

Either Necrosphinxes or Warphinxes will mow down piles of Temple Guard and Saurus. At T8, Armor Save 5 you need heavy hitters to bring them down or a lot of poisoned shooting. Unfortunately our skink shooters are vulnerable to the TK numerous shooting.

Sphinx kills Saurus. Saurus kills Archers. Archers kill Skirmishers. Skirmishers kill Sphinx.

Actually I'm not sure if skirmishers can bring down the beasts or not. It' just theoryhammer. Other options include spamming the sphinxes with magic missiles or using Scar Veterans with Great Weapons or Okham's Mindrazor on a Saurus block.

If anyone has a tried and true way to bring the sphinxes down. Please post it here. I want to make a better showing against TK next time we play.
 
Skirmishers will take out the Sphinx. Poison will do a number on it. I think it may have an AS of 5+. Through enough poison at it and it will die. You should be aware of the flying sphinx (not sure which one that is), it can make a charge very early in the game. If the TK player goes second, it can charge your units on the first turn. It is very nasty.
 
I'm not so worried about the archers hitting me on a 5+. I'm not gonna take any Skink Skirmishers. I'm gonna take two units of Salamanders. They always do something good for me. I had a uniit of two kill 19 Sword Masters in the turn just before they were going to charge into my Saurus block. 25 Sword Masters is something to worry about. 6? Nah... that's nothing.

Here's what I'm thinking about taking. This is just my All-Comers list. Nothing really special in it. Just the normal units really. And... just things that I own so that there is no proxying. Even though... I have my Cold Ones on the Salamander bases... :rolleyes:

My Slann is a little beefy... :D

2500 Point List.

Slann Mage Priest - 500
Lore Master (Life)
Becalming Cognition, Ruminition
Cupped Hands
Cube of Darkness
Bane Head
BSB
Slann is firing his laser when he casts spells. Considering that the effect of a spell happens before the miscast, I will be throwing a lot of dice at Throne of Vines in the first turn. If I miscast, I will just use the Cupped Hands to force the TK's main caster to miscast (who will also have the Bane Head on him). After that, it's Augments City! :smug: And when his big unit of Skeletons get near me, it's Dwellers for him! :bored:


Skink Priest - 90
Dispel Scroll
Roams around the back of the board, just out of range of shooty units. I normally just take the basic spell of Heavens. It's always done very well for me.

Skink Chief - 340
Stegadon
Stegadon Warspear
Obvious shank unit. Does his best to hit the flank of an enemy unit. May also be used to charge a chariot unit.

25 Warriors - 305
Full Command

25 Warriors - 305
Full Command

Stegadon - 235

Temple Guard - 355
Full Command

3 Salamanders - 225
Hoard Control/Character Hunting

2 Salamanders - 150
Hoard Control/Character Hunting
 
Kor said:
Slann Mage Priest - 500
Lore Master (Life)
Becalming Cognition, Ruminition
Cupped Hands
Cube of Darkness
Bane Head
BSB
Slann is firing his laser when he casts spells. Considering that the effect of a spell happens before the miscast, I will be throwing a lot of dice at Throne of Vines in the first turn. If I miscast, I will just use the Cupped Hands to force the TK's main caster to miscast (who will also have the Bane Head on him). After that, it's Augments City! :smug: And when his big unit of Skeletons get near me, it's Dwellers for him! :bored:
Click to expand...

I am not sure this is how it would work. Since the spell goes into effect first, would you not ignore the miscast due to Throne of Vines?

Casket will eat up your Stegs, skink preist, and sallies, especially if they move away from the Slann. Ditto any catapults. The Warphinx will be tough to deal with since everything you have wounds them on sixes. I think you need skinks in the list to throw out poisin shots, hunt down the casket/catapults, and help control the movement phase.

I also think that you should consider shadow. Pit will wreck undead and warmachines. TK archers actually do not suffer any modifiers to shooting and are BS 2. You can lower their BS with Miasma so they only hit on sixes if they are being a problem. You can wither and/or Mindrazor to help deal with the monsters. The only negative is losing out on healing the stegs.
 
It is your choice whether to use the 2+ save on throne of vines or let it through and use cupped hands.

Hinge is right about the catapults and casket. You need some chameleons to take those out quickly so you can move your steg away from the slann. 2 units of 8 would be what I take against the casket/catapult. After dealing with those, I would take out any Herotitan that the TK player is using as well.

I would shave the points for the chameleons from the saurus and drop down to 2 units of 2 sallies.
 
I can ignore the miscast on a 2+ with Throne of Vines. So why not use the Cupped Hands as well early in the game to give his main caster a miscast instead? And then continue on merrily, ignoring all of my miscasts.

Now I did consider taking Shadow for Pit of Shades and Mindrazor. But I like the survivability of my army when it's full of T8 Warriors and Stegadons with Regeneration.

But I may drop a Salamander for the Chameleons.
 
There is a small amount of risk involved with using cupped hands instead of throne of vines. If you roll a 1, you get to keep the miscast. I have had my slann sucked into the warp at least 3 times due to that exactly. When I take lore of Life now, I always take cupped hands. I roll 1s enough on those rolls to know that it could come in handy.
 
In my last game against Warriors of Chaos, I had that exact thing happen. Used the Cupped Hands on his one caster. I rolled a 1, followed by my Slann getting sucked into the warp.

I was not happy. I felt like doing this to my dice. :mad:
 
Lol, I have had it happen enough to me that I always take cupped hands with life. I will always use throne of vines if it is up as well. Just on the off chance that I roll a 1 on that roll. If it is going to happen, I would rather it be on throne of vines and still be able to use cupped hands.
 
Looking at your army list its also worth noting that your Slann can't take both Cupped Hands and the Cube of Darkness as they are both Arcane items
 
Fixed the list now. I drop a Salamander and two Warriors so that I could buy the Skink Priest with a Dispel Scroll.


Slann Mage Priest - 460
Lore Master (Life)
Becalming Cognition, Ruminition
Cupped Hands
Bane Head
BSB

Skink Priest - 105
Cube of Darkness

Skink Priest - 90
Dispel Scroll

Skink Chief - 340
Stegadon
Stegadon Warspear

24 Warriors - 294
Full Command

24 Warriors - 294
Full Command

Stegadon - 235

Temple Guard - 355
Full Command

2 Salamanders - 150

2 Salamanders - 150
 
I like the list. I will usually take a similar build as I like to be able to shut down as many magic phases as I can and there is no better way to do it than taking a scroll caddy and another priest for the cube. That will give you (potentially) 3 rounds in which you can shut down his magic phase. Or at least, get close enough to use becalming.
 
High Elves still do it better... Which I find stupid considering the Slann is supposed to be the BEST magic caster, period.

Well, not High Elves overall... Just Teclis... He's gonna need a major re-write in the next book because the way 8th Edition magic works; Teclis just get's too many dice.
 
I heard a rumor saying that the HE book would be released after WoC. Not sure how accurate that is though.
 
Kor said:
I'm not so worried about the archers hitting me on a 5+. I'm not gonna take any Skink Skirmishers. I'm gonna take two units of Salamanders. They always do something good for me. I had a uniit of two kill 19 Sword Masters in the turn just before they were going to charge into my Saurus block. 25 Sword Masters is something to worry about. 6? Nah... that's nothing.

Here's what I'm thinking about taking. This is just my All-Comers list. Nothing really special in it. Just the normal units really. And... just things that I own so that there is no proxying. Even though... I have my Cold Ones on the Salamander bases... :rolleyes:

My Slann is a little beefy... :D

2500 Point List.

Slann Mage Priest - 500
Lore Master (Life)
Becalming Cognition, Ruminition
Cupped Hands
Cube of Darkness
Bane Head
BSB
Slann is firing his laser when he casts spells. Considering that the effect of a spell happens before the miscast, I will be throwing a lot of dice at Throne of Vines in the first turn. If I miscast, I will just use the Cupped Hands to force the TK's main caster to miscast (who will also have the Bane Head on him). After that, it's Augments City! :smug: And when his big unit of Skeletons get near me, it's Dwellers for him! :bored:


Skink Priest - 90
Dispel Scroll
Roams around the back of the board, just out of range of shooty units. I normally just take the basic spell of Heavens. It's always done very well for me.

Skink Chief - 340
Stegadon
Stegadon Warspear
Obvious shank unit. Does his best to hit the flank of an enemy unit. May also be used to charge a chariot unit.

25 Warriors - 305
Full Command

25 Warriors - 305
Full Command

Stegadon - 235

Temple Guard - 355
Full Command

3 Salamanders - 225
Hoard Control/Character Hunting

2 Salamanders - 150
Hoard Control/Character Hunting
Click to expand...

I wouldn't expect many skeleton warriors that will engage in close combat (you mentioned it at your Slann). You either go for a skeleton bus, or you use archers instead. Now a skeleton bus is nothing but a hold-up to us, especially saurus who will cleave through them like butter. Granted, they are designed to do this, but still.
The killers of Tomb Kings are first and foremost: magic. They need magic to survive! That's why the Heirotitan+casket is so awesome together.
Second of all: sphinxes, in all shapes and sizes. Necrosphinx, warsphinx, and a scary giant (forgot the name) all fit in this category. Their main defense is having a high toughness, which helps against pretty much everything but poison. Shoot those big boy's down!
They also have acces to core units of chariots, as said, and are only lethal on the charge. Prevent that!
And finally: shooting. Lots of skeletal archers, plus some chariot shots, combined with magic for multishot...lots of arrows flying around always hitting on 5+. Meaning that if you pump enough shots into something, it will die.


As for the rest:
Ushabti-Basically kroxigors, only they can carry a greatbow. Medium hammer unit, too costly to be really effective at it.
Tomb scorpions-Can be entombed to come out on a position behind you. This means that you could get rear-charged by a nasty beast. Also hunts skinks down like a pro!
Tomb guard-Elite infantry of TK. WS4, Killing blow...banner of the undying legion fits perfectly on these guys. Only unit with ranks that dares to go into combat and do any good. Still, quite manageble by our saurus units.
Skeletal horsemen-redirector
skeletal horsemen archers - redirector who can scout, IIRC.


Combine the magic, tough hammers and surprisingly effective shooting...means you could be in for a bad day.

The way I see TK deploy often is with a soft center and hard flanks. So the center will consist of archers, a heirotitan and maybe a sphinx. THe flank will consist of chariots, war/necrosphinxes (basically hammers). The back board contains the casket and catapults.
If you engage the center, both flanks will come in your flank and if you really have a bad day, the tomb skorpions will be coming in from your rear as well. Possibly engaging you from all directions. Now I don't need to tell you that's dangerous.
Fortunately, TK aren't masters of the movement phase anymore. They are actually quite slow. So if you can hold up/speed bump/redirect/ignore 1 'hard' flank, you're starting pretty good.

Last note: they can put archer units behind oneanother, they always hit on a 5+ anyway so modifiers don't matter. Small deployment trick they could use :)

Hopefully this helps!

The Hunted

edit: I sort of missed my point I was going to start with, but this is solid enough that I won't change it :P
 
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