It was pretty fortuitous that you asked me this just when I have been having a re-read of my copy of the Tomb Kings Army Book - as the army is so fresh in my mind right now, I’ll disclose my wisdom here.
Exactly the reason why I post non-Lizardman Warhammer stuff on here as well as EEFL
BSB is the main way you can limit the damage of this - a cheap Tomb Herald with Battle Standard is all you need.
Army-wide Fear counteracts this a little bit, because every time an enemy unit fails their Fear test even basic Skeletons without a King or Prince hit on 3s, and your Monstrous Infantry and Monsters are not the ones you need to worry about in the WS department.
Unless you’re playing against Vampire Counts or fighting an army using Lore of Life, this is a low-ranking priority - you’ll be more preoccupied with trying to bring casualties back than expanding your units further.
I actually don’t think this is the worst one, because Khsar’s Incantation of the Desert Wind gives all units in a bubble around the caster an extra move which is the equivalent of marching (and given you’re going to be aiming for magical dominance anyway, casting one extra spell isn’t going to be too bad for you - best to cast it after potentially more killy spells so that your opponent will waste his dispel dice trying to dispel the more killy spells and leave you free to give your guys a free march). Additionally, even if your Archers make both a normal move and this free move, as far as I can see they can still shoot, whereas marching for other races prevents them from shooting.
This isn’t too much of a problem given you’ll be focusing on boosting your attack power when choosing your options and making use of resurrection and Neru’s Incantation of Protection (which is a nice one for giving some additional durability) as your defensive elements.
This is probably the worst one - you can’t replace your Heirophant yet Vampire Counts can replace their conduit. Stupid GW and their biases towards boring factions over interesting ones (if you haven’t noticed I have grudges against Vampire Counts for being given the later ruleset than Tomb Kings and daring to still exist when Tomb Kings were scrapped).
Yes, but Monsters and Monstrous Infantry can’t regenerate that much at all. 1 wound per Magic Phase is a real kick to the stone nether-regions. It should really have been D3 wounds per Magic Phase or 1 wound per spell for animated constructs.
More than that, no modifiers at all for shooting, not even long range, meaning you’ll always be hitting on 5s. Given that most BS 3 troops are hitting on 6s if moving and shooting at long range, that’s actually not too bad.
Now we’ve got that out of the way, I’ll give my views on what you should take in each of your army categories:
Lords: If you’ve got enough points you should take both a Tomb King and a Liche High Priest - the former with a Dragonbane Gem and either the Destroyer of Eternities to make him a killing machine or the Blade of Antarhak to give him supreme regenerating abilities, and the latter preferably upgraded to Level 4, using Nehekhara and with some sort of protective magic item.
Heroes: If you can’t afford to have both a Tomb King and Liche High Priest in your Lords slot, a Tomb Prince will make a decent general who can still pack the Blade of Antarhak as it’s only 50 points, and any points left should be spent on a Tomb Herald with Battle Standard (Banner of the Hidden Dead is cool but too expensive to take, and the BRB Magic Standards are generally lacklustre, so just take a mundane standard) and numerous Liche Priests. Death has some killy spells and Light gives you buffs and is especially fun against your arch-enemy the Vampire Counts, but Nehekhara is a solid lore you should be using a lot of the time with your minor priests as well as your major Priest, as that’s the only way your army can make use of resurrection. Any of the augment or hex spells are great to have in their own way (augment spells give you extra models back and make your units stronger and hex spells make the enemy easier to kill), though if you get Skullstorm you should sub that out for Desert Wind to give you the ability to ‘march’.
Core: This is where you’ll generally be packing in heaps of Skeleton Warriors and Archers, because I don’t see the point of Skeleton Cavalry unless you’re playing a thematic army - Horsemen are only useful on the charge and preferably in the flank, while Horse Archers may seem fun as Fast Cavalry with Scouts but then you realise you can’t benefit from Fire on the March because you can’t march in the conventional sense, and can’t benefit from Feigned Flight because you can’t flee.
Though I hate Hordes, if you’re playing more competitively you should make use of them here as your troops are chaff troops, and given you’ve got rubbish armour and are relying more on resurrection anyway, you’re better off giving your Warriors Spears rather than Hand Weapons, because a 6+ Parry Save isn’t much more to add to your maximum armour save of 5+ and you want to get as many attacks out of them as possible. Taking units of 40 with Spears arrayed in 10x4 formation will allow you to attack with all of them, so you should be able to do something even against the more OP enemy units. You could put a Tomb King or Prince in each unit to given them an improved Weapon Skill, but personally I would save that for the Tomb Guard - Only Elite warriors deserve such an honour.
In terms of Archers, given you’re always hitting on 5s like 40K Orks, you’ll need a good few of them it’s fair to say - units of 30 are good in that as well as being able to Volley Fire they’ll also be able to all attack against an enemy if arrayed in 10x3 formation, so at least they’ll have some defence in close combat - which is just as well given you’ll be putting your Priests in your Archer units to minimise their time in close combat.
If you’re up against anything with Always Strikes First or anything that can be easily flanked, it’s also worth investing in a unit or two of Chariots, though they will be very reliant on Impact Hits and won’t be rolling nearly as many dice in combat as your infantry, so keep them to hit an enemy in the flank when he’s already bogged down by your Skeletons.
Special: Tomb Guard are a good choice for Special, especially if they act as a bodyguard for your Tomb King (particularly important if he has Destroyer of Eternities) and have the Banner of the Undying Legion at their command - WS 6 + attacks of the Tomb King + Killing Blow + resurrecting D6 +2 models per buff spell makes for a solid unit all round. Like with the Skeletons it’s best to eschew the hand weapon and shield option due to limited armour, and halberd with give these chaps Strength 5 to make them even more killy.
Necropolis Knights are an alternative to Chariots (only 10 points more per model) that sacrifices the Impact Hits and healing D3+1 wounds per buff spell for a superior armour save, superior regular close combat attacks, Stomps and the ability to make use of the Monstrous Horde rule. Against armies like Elves with Always Strikes First Chariots are probably better, but against other armies I would say Necropolis Knights are better (though don’t use them against other armies’ Monstrous Cavalry without a spell or two being cast in their favour).
Tomb Scorpions are fun things that can be used to take out enemy artillery, but only buy one or at the very most two, as you’ve got more expensive stuff to buy first.
Ushabti, though awesome fluff-wise, are the ones hit especially hard by the rule that Animated Constructs can only be healed by 1 wound per Magic Phase - I can understand why they made this clause to avoid your Toughness 8 monsters continually healing to max health, but this hurts your Monstrous Infantry badly. GW amended this in the Vampire Counts Book by making only units with the Large Target special rule heal by 1 wound per Magic Phase, but Tomb Kings were made Vampire Counts’ guinea pig so don’t get this. I can see a big Ushabti unit with great weapons being useful as a horde-killer or as a counter to Ironguts, but Warsphinxes are better Horde killers and you won’t need a counter to Ironguts if your friend doesn’t play Ogres. Ushabti with bows are a nice addition to your shooting phase, but otherwise there are more useful units available.
You should certainly take at least one Warsphinx given competitive Fantasy players are obsessed with Hordes - T8 plus Thundercrush ruins any Horde’s day. Even Chaos Warriors struggle against this thing.
Tomb Swarms are superior to Jungle Swarms as they can deep strike and heal D3+1 wounds with each buff spell they receive as well as having poisoned attacks, but Swarms are generally not that much use in this Edition anyway, especially when you’ve got Tomb Scorpions who can do a similar job only better.
Carrion are an interesting unit - though they are not nearly as good as Ushabti on paper, they are half the points, can Fly and heal by D3+1 wounds per buff spell. If you’ve got some points left over, I’d say give some of these guys a try, they can make a nuisance of themselves, take out Fast Cavalry and Skirmishers and generally distract the enemy.
Sepulchral Stalkers are situational - against low-Initiative armies they are useful, especially with their ability to Deep Strike, and could be seen as a more substantial alternative to Tomb Scorpions, just as capable of hunting war machines as charging in the flank or rear to support your infantry, but they haven’t got as many attacks or as good armour as Necropolis Knights and risk damaging themselves with their special attack. They are cheaper than Necropolis Knights so if they do die you won’t lose so many points at once, but are arguably not as effective, especially against higher Initiative armies.
Rare: Given you’re aiming to achieve magical dominance, you certainly should take a Casket of Souls to give you some extra power dice, and I would also advise you take a Hierotitan too. However, GW in their infinite lack of wisdom didn’t make a Hierotitan model, and though there are conversion kits out there they are quite rare. If you have a Hierotitan model by all means take it to truly give your forces UNLIMITED POWER in the Magic Phase, but if not then it won’t matter too much as long as you still have a Casket. If this is the case, Necrosphinxes and Necrolith Colossi are also good choices - the Necrosphinx is a premier monster-killer and the Colossus can be great against infantry and cavalry on the charge if you give him an extra hand weapon to maximise the potency of his ability to make an extra attack with every kill he makes. Screaming Skull Catapults are another thing you can bring against enemy hordes, but given you’ll have at least one Warsphinx and possibly a Colossus to take care of them you probably shouldn’t invest in one.
Hope that helps
@NIGHTBRINGER I’ve been working on my response since reading exclusively
@Lizards of Renown’s first post, I’ll read your posts later
At least it makes for a more robust and interesting discussion.
