The Shrine to Lost Armies

that was a reference to a matthew mcconaughey line

 

Been thinking of a sample 1500 point TK list using my PDF of the TK book - would be interested in comments:

Lords:

Tomb King with Fencer's Blades, Dragonbane Gem, Potion of Speed, Luckstone and Armour of Destiny

Heroes:

Level 2 Liche Priest (with 50 pts worth of magic items, haven't decided yet)

Tomb Herald, BSB

Core:

20 Skeletons with light armour, spears, musician, standard bearer and master of arms

20 Skeletons with light armour, spears, musician, standard bearer and master of arms

20 Archers with musician, standard bearer and master of bows

Special:

20 Tomb Guard with Halberds, musician, standard bearer and Tomb Captain

3 Ushabti with Ushabti Ancient

Rare:

Screaming Skull Catapult

That reaches 1500 on the nose, and can be split into smaller armies for smaller games. I know Ushabti are generally hated profilewise but they are the only 'big stuff' available from Mantic's Empire of Dust range, which is to me more easily obtainable than GW stuff off EBay because there's a model shop that stocks Mantic reasonably close to where I live. Also I maintain Ushabti are good at smashing through units of pathetic stuff like Goblins that would keep regular skeletons bogged down for a turn or two. I thought of putting the priest in with the archers and the herald in one unit of Skeletons which would allow me to use a 7 by 3 formation of 21 that would allow all the skeletons to attack due to spears. The other unit of skeletons would stay by the first to support it against tougher targets and also to benefit from the Herald's battle standard which reduces the amount by which they crumble. The Tomb King would stay with his Tomb Guard (of course) who would have WS 6, S5 and killing blow. The catapult is there to bombard the enemy from a distance. The heirophant would use Lore of Nehekhara to give my units boosts all over the place and to try to stem any crumbling that may occur.

I gave the Tomb King the Fencer's blades to give him WS 10, and although it would be nice to give a unit he is in WS 10 as well through the Fencer's blades I don't think the rulebook allows it, but it still gives him 5 attacks at WS 10 which is nice. Also a Potion of Speed to give him a once per game initiative boost, Amour of Destiny to give him a 4+ Ward, Luckstone to give him a re-roll for a failed armour save and Dragonbane Gem because... well, because that's obviously needed with a Flammable Tomb King.

Please have a look and I would appreciate any and all comments!

 

The sad thing is I could probably make something like that.

He never mentioned what the body was, but it looks tyranid?

 

Interesting list. To be honest I would drop the Tomb King. Tomb Princes are generally considered to be the superior choice, and especially as such a low point game, it would free up some critical points for you.

In such a small game I'd drop the Tomb Herald as well. Too many points that could be better spent elsewhere.

I'm surprised you focused so little on magic. That is the one phase of the game that TK can truly dominate. The casket of souls is widely regarded as our most competitive choice.

It was covered directly in the TK FAQ:

 

Friend is offering me

Mortarch, NoS except Arkhan body and head are gone.

30 VC skellies

20 Graveguard

10 black knights

Various other bitz and skellybobs.

For $80

.........I repeat

$80

And I have conversion bits for these to fit my TK

 

Dropping the Tomb King, LP and Tomb Herald might net you a Tomb Prince, LHP and casket. I haven't run the math on it, but it looks to be a close trade points wise.

 

Why would a Tomb Prince be superior to a King? Kings have an extra wound and Attack and would make a more thematic general than a Liche High Priest.

Cheers fellow TK fans!

I did want to include a Level 4 Liche High Priest as well as a Tomb King but that would make the total cost of Lords more than 25% so such an army would technically be illegal.

I'm primarily looking at the models in the Empire of Dust range by Mantic, which would be more easily obtainable than old GW models I feel, and would also be new rather than used.

Perhaps I could create a Casket by using the Caskets of the Damned that you get in Empire of Dust sets that look like this:



If I had a whole row of them in front of a Liche Priest model to represent Canopic Jars or something like that. Fluff wise, the priest could open them in sequence to gradually add more souls to the cloud, like an organ of death, before they are all magically hurled at the enemy by the priest. In fact if I followed the Core and Special sections of the list I would have 4 caskets of the damned. Putting those on a base with a priest model behind would look quite good. The GW model is pretty expensive and Mantic stuff is more easily obtained than stuff on EBay. I could probably use two Revenant or Mummy models as the Casket Guards.

I was also thinking of using the mortarch steed model as a Necrosphinx with Tyranid talons as the blades.

In any case, I was looking for a fluff-based army rather than a truly competitive one - I'm most likely to be playing friendly games against my dad's Greenskins and high elves, and also my dwarfs, Lizardmen and Skaven if he chose to use those.

 

The Tomb Prince is superior to the Tomb King in regards to a points cost to effectiveness ratio. Stat-wise the Tomb Prince is pretty close to the Tomb King, but he costs A LOT less points. Typically Tomb Princes are taken over Kings unless you are talking about a very very large game or if the King is kitted out with something like the DoE (which is not really advisable in such a small game).

If you are looking at it from a thematic stand point, then a Tomb King is great. I was speaking more from a competitive standpoint. Competitively I think a Tomb Prince + LHP is better than a Tomb King + LP.

Also keep in mind that if you field a Tomb Prince and a LHP, the Tomb Prince would still be your general as he has the higher leadership of the two.

 

You can definitely convert a casket from those

 

So do squats count as a lost Army now or have they been resuscitated?

 

Eh, I'd say they're still pretty dead. The Kharadron are similar, but still different. And while one of them is making an appearance in Necromunda, that isn't really much of a revival. I'd be surprised if they ever saw army status again.

 

Be careful mate. You buy one old White Dwarf and before you know it you'll have a whole shelf. Happened to me. Ahem.

#206 also includes some of the colour pages from the army book, plus info on the 'Dark Conspiracy' worldwide campaign (about Antoch). Oddly enough it doesn't feature Lizzies in the battle report even though it's the month their army book was released.

Personally I consider the heyday of GW-only White Dwarf to start at issue #218 and continue through to the early 300s (more or less coinciding with the editorship of Paul Sawyer, aka 'Fat Bloke'). #206 isn't up to that standard, but still a decent read.

EDIT: Whoops, wasn't paying attention to the pages of the thread and missed all the intervening conversation! Double ahem.