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What can we expect for the future of Tomb Kings in GHB 2


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Sphynxes halve the damage characteristic (rounded up) of incoming attacks, instead of halving the total wounds they take, making them dramatically easier to swamp with weenie units, as their ability offers no protection against single damage attacks.  This on top of the Necrosphynx and Royal suffering kick-in-the-teeth level price hikes.

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On 8/31/2017 at 0:21 AM, themortalgod said:

 

I still think Settra while stronger as a model now due to what you mentioned but paying almost 460pts for an 8 wound model is just too much imo. Even with the nerfs to shooting and such there is just too much ranged firepower in the meta still that can have him dead long before he can make an impact.

 

While I agree with you that 460 points for an 8 wound model is steep, the fact that you can take heralds as wound batteries and that he has a very good defensive profile with a 3+/5+*/6+* is not too bad. There probably is still a good chunk of shooting in the metagame, but less of it is super long range now... that helps quite a bit. A Ring of Immortality can also keep him alive longer. Also remember that he can benefit from cover. I think that its not  unrealistic to expect him to live for at least a couple of turns, which should be enough to deal significant damage to the enemy. Settra armies are going to be pretty offensively focused. 

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As far as the Necrosphinx and Warsphinx go I totally agree that they are very overcosted now especially with the nerf. Hell, I thought they were inefficient BEFORE the nerf and price increase. That said, just about every faction has some warscrolls that are stinkers. There are a lot of great models out there that just aren't competitively priced. The fact that the TK faction has SO many options (and can integrate other death stuff seamlessly, although without the benefit of synergies) means that TK are well equipped to shrug of some bad warscrolls.

The TK roster remains far more complete than any other death subfaction.

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3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

While I agree with you that 460 points for an 8 wound model is steep, the fact that you can take heralds as wound batteries and that he has a very good defensive profile with a 3+/5+*/6+* is not too bad. There probably is still a good chunk of shooting in the metagame, but less of it is super long range now... that helps quite a bit. A Ring of Immortality can also keep him alive longer. Also remember that he can benefit from cover. I think that its not  unrealistic to expect him to live for at least a couple of turns, which should be enough to deal significant damage to the enemy. Settra armies are going to be pretty offensively focused. 

 

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The problem is taking those heralds as wound batteries only increase that cost further. 560pts for 13 wounds, while a bit better, is still very steep compared to other armies. (also important to remember that Heralds also got nerfed, they are no longer guaranteed batteries) Add in the fact that Settra really needs you to buy another Tomb King as well to maximize the efficiency of his abilities and now we are up to 660pts or more to leverage the power of Settra which means you are now in the Archaon neighborhood for a combo that is more vulnerable and offers less offensive capability. Settra is strong, no doubt, but given his cost now the efficiency just really struggles to be worthwhile. 

The more I've looked through and played around with the new rules, the more I find that I discover more and more ways that my TKs are significantly weaker relative to other armies than they were a month ago. Which is frustrating because TKs weren't exactly a dominant army before GH2, they were outclassed by battletome forces and had already been pretty heavily eclipsed as a top tier army, the monster nerf they got with GH2, really hurts. 

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5 hours ago, themortalgod said:

The problem is taking those heralds as wound batteries only increase that cost further. 560pts for 13 wounds, while a bit better, is still very steep compared to other armies. (also important to remember that Heralds also got nerfed, they are no longer guaranteed batteries) Add in the fact that Settra really needs you to buy another Tomb King as well to maximize the efficiency of his abilities and now we are up to 660pts or more to leverage the power of Settra which means you are now in the Archaon neighborhood for a combo that is more vulnerable and offers less offensive capability. Settra is strong, no doubt, but given his cost now the efficiency just really struggles to be worthwhile. 

The more I've looked through and played around with the new rules, the more I find that I discover more and more ways that my TKs are significantly weaker relative to other armies than they were a month ago. Which is frustrating because TKs weren't exactly a dominant army before GH2, they were outclassed by battletome forces and had already been pretty heavily eclipsed as a top tier army, the monster nerf they got with GH2, really hurts. 

I don't think you need a tomb king to maximize Settra, and in fact if you are using a Necropolis Knights focused approach the added Tomb King doesn't even help that much. Settra's command ability is tremendously powerful in itself, as is Incantation of the Desert Wind. I'm not going to deny that 560 points for 13 wounds isn't steep -- it is -- but it's not completely crazy. 

I also would like to hear more about your experiences playing with the new rules. What list are you using and what are you struggling against? While I agree that TK were no longer top tier in the previous GHB, nearly every top tier strategy was nerfed. Mixed destruction got a ton of nerfs (kunnin rukk nerfed, stonehorns nerfed, battlebrew and rampaging destroyers both nerfed, several other warscrolls minorly nerfed). Skyfire spam lists were nerfed heavily. Sayl bomb lists were also nerfed. Kurnoths were nerfed, and Sylvaneth wasn't even top tier either. Khemist and Thunderers were nerfed. Stormcast had fewer nerfs, but their battalion costs and the inability to take multiples of the same artefact are significant. Some of the new objectives are a bit stacked against them too. I don't see the TK changes as being substantially worse than most of these.

If you are struggling, it would be really helpful if you gave more detail on what you are struggling with.

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On 9/3/2017 at 11:50 PM, swarmofseals said:

I don't think you need a tomb king to maximize Settra, and in fact if you are using a Necropolis Knights focused approach the added Tomb King doesn't even help that much. Settra's command ability is tremendously powerful in itself, as is Incantation of the Desert Wind. I'm not going to deny that 560 points for 13 wounds isn't steep -- it is -- but it's not completely crazy. 

I also would like to hear more about your experiences playing with the new rules. What list are you using and what are you struggling against? While I agree that TK were no longer top tier in the previous GHB, nearly every top tier strategy was nerfed. Mixed destruction got a ton of nerfs (kunnin rukk nerfed, stonehorns nerfed, battlebrew and rampaging destroyers both nerfed, several other warscrolls minorly nerfed). Skyfire spam lists were nerfed heavily. Sayl bomb lists were also nerfed. Kurnoths were nerfed, and Sylvaneth wasn't even top tier either. Khemist and Thunderers were nerfed. Stormcast had fewer nerfs, but their battalion costs and the inability to take multiples of the same artefact are significant. Some of the new objectives are a bit stacked against them too. I don't see the TK changes as being substantially worse than most of these.

If you are struggling, it would be really helpful if you gave more detail on what you are struggling with.

I think a big part of my struggle with Settra is that, not only is he 560pts (if you include the herald) but on his own, he really doesn't do much. You really need to bring in a unit of Necro Knights too which is going to run you another 480pts. Not having the Tomb King is ok, I suppose, but you are almost certainly going to want a 120pt liche priest. So now we are at a 1160pts investment to make a single super powerful unit. Leads to an incredibly one-dimensional army that is super vulnerable to chafe or shooting and brutally predictable. 

For me, Settra almost always falls flat on his face. Even against new DoT Tzeentch (I've only played against DoT once in Gh2) he was shot off the board on turn 1. Against blades of Khorne, they just lined up small units of chafe for my super unit to eat each turn while shooting skull cannons into him. 

I think my other qualm with Settra, is that I have a horrible experience with Incantation of the Desert Wind. The 16.6% failure rate might as well be an 80% fail rate so I kinda just assume it won't work now. Looking back at my last few games, in the last 10 uses, I rolled the mortal wound 8 times. I recognize that that's likely a string of bad luck, but I find I just can't depend on it.

The way I theorize the problem with TK happened is that the pts costs were adjusted to reflect the power of the units before they got changed, but then the compendium warscroll updates came through and a huge % of TKs units got a warscroll nerf on top of all the big pts hikes so now a lot of the army is overpriced relative to the power of their current rules. For example, 440pts for the old necrosphynx was pretty steep, but likely close to reasonable, while 440pts for the nerfed necrosphynx feels very expensive relative to certain other monsters. 

Same deal with a ton of other stuff, 160pts for the old screaming skull catapult, probably balanced, 160pts for the new one just doesn't feel worth it. 

I'm not saying TKs are hopelessly weak now, but imo they went from maybe the 60-70th percentile to more like the 30-40th. 

I also play DoT, and while they also took a nerf, I feel like they simply outclass my TKs now.

I think there were just too many nerfs to things that didn't actually warrant a nerf. For example, the Tomb Scorpion, or the removal of all the revive spells, the tomb heralds, and the loss of the warscroll battalions seemed pretty unncessary. 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, themortalgod said:

I think a big part of my struggle with Settra is that, not only is he 560pts (if you include the herald) but on his own, he really doesn't do much. You really need to bring in a unit of Necro Knights too which is going to run you another 480pts. Not having the Tomb King is ok, I suppose, but you are almost certainly going to want a 120pt liche priest. So now we are at a 1160pts investment to make a single super powerful unit. Leads to an incredibly one-dimensional army that is super vulnerable to chafe or shooting and brutally predictable. 

For me, Settra almost always falls flat on his face. Even against new DoT Tzeentch (I've only played against DoT once in Gh2) he was shot off the board on turn 1. Against blades of Khorne, they just lined up small units of chafe for my super unit to eat each turn while shooting skull cannons into him. 

I think my other qualm with Settra, is that I have a horrible experience with Incantation of the Desert Wind. The 16.6% failure rate might as well be an 80% fail rate so I kinda just assume it won't work now. Looking back at my last few games, in the last 10 uses, I rolled the mortal wound 8 times. I recognize that that's likely a string of bad luck, but I find I just can't depend on it.

The way I theorize the problem with TK happened is that the pts costs were adjusted to reflect the power of the units before they got changed, but then the compendium warscroll updates came through and a huge % of TKs units got a warscroll nerf on top of all the big pts hikes so now a lot of the army is overpriced relative to the power of their current rules. For example, 440pts for the old necrosphynx was pretty steep, but likely close to reasonable, while 440pts for the nerfed necrosphynx feels very expensive relative to certain other monsters. 

Same deal with a ton of other stuff, 160pts for the old screaming skull catapult, probably balanced, 160pts for the new one just doesn't feel worth it. 

I'm not saying TKs are hopelessly weak now, but imo they went from maybe the 60-70th percentile to more like the 30-40th. 

I also play DoT, and while they also took a nerf, I feel like they simply outclass my TKs now.

I think there were just too many nerfs to things that didn't actually warrant a nerf. For example, the Tomb Scorpion, or the removal of all the revive spells, the tomb heralds, and the loss of the warscroll battalions seemed pretty unncessary. 

 

 

 

I definitely agree with the latter stuff -- some of the nerfs were unnecessary. 

I just don't know what to say about the Settra stuff though. Giving a huge bubble of +1 to hit to everything in the army (and +1 to hit / +1 to wound to much of it) is really powerful. You certainly can dump a huge amount of points into a big snek bomb, but you don't have to play it that way at all. He can also make multiple blocks of skeletons into 3 attack, 3+/3+, attacking in 3 rows murder machines. Similarly, the herald(s) aren't exactly a sunk cost either. They are also regenerating additional models in a wide radius. Mediocre on skellie blocks, but very nice for chariots and necroknights. If you fail 8/10 2+ rolls maybe that's evidence that your experiences with the model haven't exactly reflected what you would expect to happen. 

While it's certainly tempting to make a super unit with Settra and multiple other buffers, it's far from the only strategy to use with him. We really need to playtest much more extensively before writing him off.

Also, I think as TK your worst matchups are going to be against long range heavy shooting. That doesn't mean you won't have good matchups elsewhere.

Maybe I'm wrong and TK are 30-40 percentile, but I'm not going to reach that conclusion without a lot more playtesting against a variety of armies. 

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