The Unofficial Tomb Kings Battletome Rules Feedback Thread

[Mengel Miniatures]

Hi everyone,

This is the "official" feedback post for the new rules within the Unofficial Tomb Kings Battletome. The new Battletome includes Allegiance Abilities, 9 new Battalions, and 4 new units. Everything else is exactly the same as what GW released for them. I am only looking for feedback on the unofficial rules.

The idea here is for players out there to play test the new rules in games and then post in here letting us know if they felt overpowered, underpowered, confusing, or whatever else you can think of. I'm open to feedback from people not playing the rules, but I am most interested in hearing about actual play tested games.

What would be most helpful to me is if you post the list you took, the type of army you fought against, then anything that stood out to you or you think needs to be discussed. Please get your opponent's feedback on this as well.

All of this feedback will be taken onboard by myself and the rest of the team working on this to further tweak the rules if needed until they are perfect (or as perfect as can be). We will then release an updated version 2.0 at some point down the line. If you really want to play test this a lot, as in many games under many circumstances and battleplans, then please get ahold of me through the messaging on here so I can set up a more direct line of communication with you, but please still post in here as well since it will be good to bounce ideas around off of the community.

Thank you and happy playing!

If you haven't downloaded the Battletome yet you can do so below.

Download Unofficial Tomb Kings Battletome

[bottomfeeder]

This is more of a weird thing that I noticed.  I usually upload game books to Google Play Books for ease of access with the phone and for some reason i cannot do that with the TK Battletome.

Thanks again for putting this together for the community.

[Sleboda]

I am really diving into the book now and have a few comments.  I soooooooo don't want you to think of them as nitpicks or digs. Man, the work you put into this is re-freakin-diculous.  If you just want rules* feedback, that's cool, but I noted a few edit-ie things I could mention for when you update down the line, if you want.  It's up to you.

Thank you so much for making this book.

* If my buds will let me, I will totally play games with it.  They may object to a Royal Warsphinx that teleports or flies, but if I can get them to let me use those things and some of the other items/spells, I'm sure I'll get some games in.  

[Mengel Miniatures]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

I am really diving into the book now and have a few comments.  I soooooooo don't want you to think of them as nitpicks or digs. Man, the work you put into this is re-freakin-diculous.  If you just want rules* feedback, that's cool, but I noted a few edit-ie things I could mention for when you update down the line, if you want.  It's up to you.

Thank you so much for making this book.

* If my buds will let me, I will totally play games with it.  They may object to a Royal Warsphinx that teleports or flies, but if I can get them to let me use those things and some of the other items/spells, I'm sure I'll get some games in.  

Totally open to other feedback. Already going through and fixing typos that slipped through and hope to have that updated within the week. If its something beyond that though shoot me a DM and I'll happily discuss it with you. I would rather keep this thread just rules feedback.

On 3/25/2017 at 1:52 PM, bottomfeeder said:

This is more of a weird thing that I noticed.  I usually upload game books to Google Play Books for ease of access with the phone and for some reason i cannot do that with the TK Battletome.

Thanks again for putting this together for the community.

Not sure what that issue may be. I'll try and look into it.

[Sception]

not sure if you're still looking for feedback here, but...

In terms of the allegiance abilities, the battle traits feel like too much.  To have the death battle traits AND the charging bonus AND the heirophant stuff?  just pick one battle trait, and either get rid of the rest or shift it elsewhere - like heirophant could be a command ability for liche priest generals combining with or replacing forbidden knowledge.  or you could create a new scroll for a heirophant character as an upgraded liche priest (perhaps built as a special character a la the high king & queen).

And the extra pile in thing could be just eliminated, or maybe rolled into the phalanx battalion.

The death save feels like the simplest and most functional of the three battle traits you have now, though it is kind of 'meh' to have the battle trait (or one of the battle traits, if you don't take my advice on cutting back) be the same as the death trait.  Perhaps instead of a new 6+ save, skeleton and reanimant units can gain a +1 bonus to armor saves while within range of a mummy?  similar defensive trait, better against some enemies and worse against others depending on rend.  the ruler-of-the-night stand in could allow re-rolls of saving throws of 1 to nearby reanimant & skeleton units.

 

Additionally, a question about the Legion of Khahara.  If you include non-TK death units as part of that battalion, does that prevent you from claiming the tomb kings allegiance?  For instance, if I take a legion of khahara formation, and include Arkhan the Black and a Necromancer as the optional death characters, can my army still claim the Tomb Kings alliance and use the Tomb Kings battle traits, artefacts, and spells from this battle tome?  By default, i would think 'no', but then the entire legion becomes somewhat disappointing to field for the moment - though would probably be fine again as soon as we get Grand Alliance level spell lores.  If the non-TK death units don't prevent you from claiming the TK alliance, then the formation should explicitly say as much, as well as indicating whether non-TK characters included in that way could select TK artefacts or spells.

[Oppenheimer]

I do find the death alliegance save being here as well a little disappointing.

I agree that Death is fragile and so needs something in their alliegance to balance that out though. Maybe double down on resurrecting units rather than having the same defensive save. After all one thing that TK scrolls have that VC don't is the spell that adds a model to the unit. Maybe their special trait is that they can have more than their starting size worth of models in a unit and restore double the amount per spell or banner.

[Mengel Miniatures]

On 4/19/2017 at 11:48 AM, Sception said:

not sure if you're still looking for feedback here, but...

In terms of the allegiance abilities, the battle traits feel like too much.  To have the death battle traits AND the charging bonus AND the heirophant stuff?  just pick one battle trait, and either get rid of the rest or shift it elsewhere - like heirophant could be a command ability for liche priest generals combining with or replacing forbidden knowledge.  or you could create a new scroll for a heirophant character as an upgraded liche priest (perhaps built as a special character a la the high king & queen).

And the extra pile in thing could be just eliminated, or maybe rolled into the phalanx battalion.

The death save feels like the simplest and most functional of the three battle traits you have now, though it is kind of 'meh' to have the battle trait (or one of the battle traits, if you don't take my advice on cutting back) be the same as the death trait.  Perhaps instead of a new 6+ save, skeleton and reanimant units can gain a +1 bonus to armor saves while within range of a mummy?  similar defensive trait, better against some enemies and worse against others depending on rend.  the ruler-of-the-night stand in could allow re-rolls of saving throws of 1 to nearby reanimant & skeleton units.

 

Additionally, a question about the Legion of Khahara.  If you include non-TK death units as part of that battalion, does that prevent you from claiming the tomb kings allegiance?  For instance, if I take a legion of khahara formation, and include Arkhan the Black and a Necromancer as the optional death characters, can my army still claim the Tomb Kings alliance and use the Tomb Kings battle traits, artefacts, and spells from this battle tome?  By default, i would think 'no', but then the entire legion becomes somewhat disappointing to field for the moment - though would probably be fine again as soon as we get Grand Alliance level spell lores.  If the non-TK death units don't prevent you from claiming the TK alliance, then the formation should explicitly say as much, as well as indicating whether non-TK characters included in that way could select TK artefacts or spells.

The dilemma I ran into with the Death save is, this generally seems like something all Death armies should have, and I can't justify removing it. It feels like a race trait, instead of an army trait.

Kharadron armies effectively have 3 unique abilities for their allegiance, as well as a few different armies having more than one ability for their allegiance. I do like your idea about maybe doing +1 to their armor saves instead of the Death save though. I'll have to think about that one.

As for the Legion of Khahara, you still maintain your TK allegiance while taking the 2 other Death Units. This has already been done in the Sylvaneth, Beast Claw Raiders, and Kharadron Overlords books. GW's ruling on it was that since the Battalion they are a part of is, in this case, a Tomb Kings Battalion, then they count as being part of the allegiance. No, they cannot take an artifact or command trait from the Battletome though, since they themselves do not have the TK keyword. 

1 hour ago, Oppenheimer said:

I do find the death alliegance save being here as well a little disappointing.

I agree that Death is fragile and so needs something in their alliegance to balance that out though. Maybe double down on resurrecting units rather than having the same defensive save. After all one thing that TK scrolls have that VC don't is the spell that adds a model to the unit. Maybe their special trait is that they can have more than their starting size worth of models in a unit and restore double the amount per spell or banner.

The amount the TK can bring back models is already more than other armies, I think if I did that it would push it too far over the top. 

I appreciate all of this feedback though, please keep it coming. For the moment though, I think the Death Save will be staying until a better option comes up. Again, it just feels like a race characteristic and not an army one to me. We shall see though.

Thanks!

[Sception]

Even if you leave it as just the death save, i still think that's more than enough in and of itself, as it is arguably the strongest battle trait already, especially with ruler of the night.  the other battle traits really should be dropped or shifted somewhere else.  In particular, i would just drop the charging bonus, and would write up the hierophant as a unique special character scroll in its own right.

a brief design note sidebar or box on the particulars of how the non-tomb kings units in a kharadron army interact with the allegiance rules would be nice, even if it is sort of covered in faqs of other factions.  that's not the easiest or most obvious way to get that information.