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Tomb Kings Discussion


Charlo

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Inspired by another topic I started looking into Tomb Kings, they seem okay!

While lacking in allegiance abilities (outside of Death save), relics, command traits and spells - they have a hell of a lot of options...

Any players out there willing to share their tips, tricks and builds? Would you grab any other Death units to support them? Which ones if so? Can they be at all competitive?!

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Sadly, while the tomb kings were initially rather fun and impressive in the early days of age of sigmar, and particularly under the initial general's handbook, the army has been absolutley brutalized by subsequent rules & points updates, and that's before you consider how they've been left behind by modern battle tome design regardless.

Sadly, I just don't see them as at all playable these days in anything but the most forgiving of casual environments.  There are one or two units that I'd still take if they were available to a legions army, but as it is?  I'm sorry I can't be more positive about them.  My own tomb kings sure would like to be able to play too.

There was a pretty ok homebrew battletome for them, but even that is kind of clunky and outdated at this point, and if you applied the most recent official points values and rules updates to it, I don't think it would be very playable, either.

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On 1/15/2019 at 12:45 PM, Jaxler said:

Everyone wants TKs back, but GW has more or less taken the army out back and shot it, but then again they've done that to the TK line since they were first made.

That's not fair.  The initial tomb kings line got tons of love and attention.  The chariots were great, and the ssc and casket in particular are still andolutely spectacular models,  and the 8e push was super respectable as well, with tons of super impressive plastic models, in particular the sphynx and tomb guard, that again clearly had a huge investment of effort, love, and money sunk into them.

Their rules were sadly always lackluster, but never to the point of being bad on purpose, just standard gw less than filly competant rules design.  At no point in all of that was the faction deliberately sabotaged.

 

Even when AoS was first released, at which point they had to have already known they were dropping the line, they still got fun & functional rules compared to other compendium lists.  Arguable the most functional that tomb kings ryles had ever been, and under the 2016 generals handbook snakes were easily the strongest death army, and one of the strongest armies in the game, and that was /after/ the tk line had already been discontinued.

 

It wasnt until gh17 that tomb kings got a treatment that could reasonably be called 'bad on purpose'.

Edited by Sception
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You are right, but I guess my point is that the bad rules more or less always kept them knee capped, especially once the game was hemorrhaging players.  

 

I think some of the tomb king models are among the best GW ever released, namely stalkers, ushabti and the big cats. It's a tragedy they got the axe.

Edited by Jaxler
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Oh, yeah, definitely lackluster rules didnt help the tk player base at all.  I mean, even there the results were never bad on purpose, tomb kings rules through the years clearly got a lot of loving attention in the form of unique gimmickry, from units of charriots to the unique, scroll based spell system in their early books.  Rules that different are a lot of effort, tk rules never felt lazy.

But rules that different in a wargame like this can often be broken, either too good or not good enough when run up ahains other armies.  I mean, reference another underplayed fantasy army, the wood elves, particularly in 5e and 6e when they were running full skirmish armies in a rank and file game.  If you knew what you were foing with wood elves a lot of 'normal' factions had very little they could respond with as your freely moving units danced out of charge arcs or drew enemy blocks into woods where they would be stuck for turns on end.

Of course, that didnt help wood elf sales, so while interesting-but-painfully-subpar rules didnt help, I'm not sure they're the main thing to blame for tomb kings never quite catching on.  The simple fact is, there were a ton of warhammer armies already before the vc/tk split, and im just not sure the player base was ever going to support two undead armies, and if only one was going to survive, well, tomb kings had skeletons and mummies, and vamp vounts had vampires and necromancers and zombies and ghosts and ghouls and dragons and, oh, skeletons too, plus the bloodline system to personalize your army.  And while the egyptian aesthetic was super compelling... so was the gothic victorian aesthetic of the vamp counts army.

Even if vamp counts didnt have consistently better rules, if only one undead army was going to catch on in whfb, i still wouldn't have given tomb kings good odds, much as i have a soft spot for them.

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I don't feel they are quite as bad as many players would lead to believe. They certainly aren't top tier or even mid tier so you won't be seeing them in many competitive environments but in terms of power level I wouldn't put them below Ironjawz, BCR, or Overlords. 

They have some mega downsides in the form of lack of true allegiance abilities, battalions, spells, items, etc but they still enjoy some really solid units which can help keep them in the game. 

Chariots are still fantastic. Don't expect them to ram through enemy armies on their own but my experience with chariots, even in 2.0 has been fantastic. Being able to bring back a chariot per unit per turn makes them such potent tarpits.

TK on Exalted Chariot (aka Settra) is in some ways better than ever now that he can have items and command abilities. Ethereal Amulet on him is particularly fantastic. 

Ushabti are very competitive for their pts cost. They hit hard and against the right units are super resilient.

Standard Skeletons are still fantastic for the pts. 

Unfortunately, though, most of the cool modern units are really lackluster. Sphynx as way overcosted, as are Tomb Guard. Necro Knights are ok but nothing special at their current pts cost. Stalkers are pretty bad. 

I have also had some success with a Tomb Queen list that buys a bunch of extra CP and a ton of archers to make for a ridiculously dangerous shooting phase. 

One of TK's biggest strengths though is that they are so uncommon. Most opponents go into the game with little or no sense of target priority or how to play against the army. This helps mitigate the weaknesses of the force. 

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On 1/17/2019 at 2:51 AM, themortalgod said:

I don't feel they are quite as bad as many players would lead to believe. They certainly aren't top tier or even mid tier so you won't be seeing them in many competitive environments but in terms of power level I wouldn't put them below Ironjawz, BCR, or Overlords. 

They have some mega downsides in the form of lack of true allegiance abilities, battalions, spells, items, etc but they still enjoy some really solid units which can help keep them in the game. 

Chariots are still fantastic. Don't expect them to ram through enemy armies on their own but my experience with chariots, even in 2.0 has been fantastic. Being able to bring back a chariot per unit per turn makes them such potent tarpits.

TK on Exalted Chariot (aka Settra) is in some ways better than ever now that he can have items and command abilities. Ethereal Amulet on him is particularly fantastic. 

Ushabti are very competitive for their pts cost. They hit hard and against the right units are super resilient.

Standard Skeletons are still fantastic for the pts. 

Unfortunately, though, most of the cool modern units are really lackluster. Sphynx as way overcosted, as are Tomb Guard. Necro Knights are ok but nothing special at their current pts cost. Stalkers are pretty bad. 

I have also had some success with a Tomb Queen list that buys a bunch of extra CP and a ton of archers to make for a ridiculously dangerous shooting phase. 

One of TK's biggest strengths though is that they are so uncommon. Most opponents go into the game with little or no sense of target priority or how to play against the army. This helps mitigate the weaknesses of the force. 

Carrion are under-rated, too.

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Thanks for the responses guys, I think the surprise of them is a real boon - not to mention they actually have a VERY rich selection of units and strategies to pull from. To name a few you could go:

  • Queen and massed archer buffs
  • Legionnaire blocks with Lich Priest + King buffs
  • Massed speed/ harass with Cavalry/ Snakes/ Carrion
  • Monster mash
  • CHARIOTS OF FIRE

I've had an idea for a count as army using elves so may see it through... Especially for my gaming clubs more relaxed scene. Maybe i'll pull a list together to review here - i'd urge anyone else to do the same!

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10 hours ago, Charlo said:

Thanks for the responses guys, I think the surprise of them is a real boon - not to mention they actually have a VERY rich selection of units and strategies to pull from. To name a few you could go:

  • Queen and massed archer buffs
  • Legionnaire blocks with Lich Priest + King buffs
  • Massed speed/ harass with Cavalry/ Snakes/ Carrion
  • Monster mash
  • CHARIOTS OF FIRE

I've had an idea for a count as army using elves so may see it through... Especially for my gaming clubs more relaxed scene. Maybe i'll pull a list together to review here - i'd urge anyone else to do the same!

Heralds can double your chariot/snake regeneration and take a hit for your expensive heroes.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Cambot1231 said:

who in the end bent the knee to Sigmar 

Settra does not serve...

 

so whoever this Settrus is supposed to be, he took the name probably only to sound cooler since all the stormcast are stupid and have stupid names.

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15 hours ago, Honk said:

Settra does not serve...

 

so whoever this Settrus is supposed to be, he took the name probably only to sound cooler since all the stormcast are stupid and have stupid names.

SETTRA RULES! 

 

Definitely not Settra, he didn’t even bend knee to the chaos gods or Nagash, why would he serve Sigmar. I agree with Honk, wannabe hipster stormcast trying to look cool pretending to be Settra. 

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19 minutes ago, Jagd said:

trying to look cool pretending to be Settra. 

Please please a stand off between them...

And who are You supposed to be?! (like grinding tombstones, the whispering from beyond time)

I am mighty Settrus... Highly anointed by God Sigmar to be his Lord-Celestaaaaiiighhhhgsrgle

Puny mortal, always yelping like a welp... I will kick you like the dog you are!!!

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  • 3 months later...

I dont like things like this, but i think it is interesting to someone.. 

Today i read this on ours ru_aos_community:

#Rumors_lampPost #AoS

 

"Hello everyone, so I've been a long-time lurker, first time poster. So, for the past half a decade (been in the hobby for 10 years), I've been collecting and cataloging rumors in my spare time for fun. Literally all rumors I come across from any source, trusted rumor-lords to even /tg/ ones just to piece things together because I like making predictions based off the data. Most of its 40K related, so not much AoS (Attached so you can see I'm not lying lol). Anyways, I come today because in the past few years I've had a friend who has been telling me things that have increasingly come to pass. Now, to be honest a lot can be considered "obvious", but a few stand-out examples was when he told me shortly after the release Legions of Nagash that Warherd and Brayherd were being combined into a battletome in a similar format, and 2 years ago he told me in a couple years we'd get a Keeper of Secrets and daemons seperate from an Emperor's Children release (something else he says is coming next year but has been repeated by many). Now, the thing is, most recently, he has come to me with a very particular rumor. I trust the guy complicity, but even I had to swallow a bit when he told me. Going through my collection, only one other non-4chan rumor-lord that I know of has posted anything similar, and that was over a year ago in the comments of Naftka by a person that hardly posts rumors. (Which I attached with info redacted as I don't think the person wants to be put on the spot). So I've decided to post my friend's rumor, because if it comes to pass he get's bragging rights. The following is from my friend paraphrased by me: 
 
"Tomb Kings" are returning, being re-done not as a new army, but a "new " one. In the same manner as Daughters of Khaine and Gloomspite Gitz, with a mix of new and old models and re-named. So, they won't be "Tomb Kings" they'll be AoS-fied Egyptian army in the vein of Tomb Kings. He also heard about some more Deathrattle, of which The Sepulcharal Guard are a preview at how some of the new skellies will look. Of this part he is not certain, but in his opinion the two are one and the same. 
 
I personally have a Tomb Kings army, so I have to be honest and say I'm very biased in my belief in his info lol. He has no info on date, but from my personal experience his rumors have come to pass as soon as 6 months to as far as 2 years so who knows. So maybe its the upcoming Death Battletome or maybe we'll see it after all the tomes have been updated. That's all I've got on that. I don't have much else AoS-wise, I've got a collection from various 40K rumors but its all just stuff I've screencapped like I said. An interesting tidbit though regarding the recent rumor engine pics that look like dinosaurs: I have a couple screencaps where Atia said a few years ago that we may get Exodites (for 40K) in a few years (from that point in time). My friend has also said that Seraphon were not getting a major release of models outside of spells, terrain, and tome for a while, so maybe a correlation."

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On 1/18/2019 at 5:41 PM, themortalgod said:

Yup, they are the only unit in the game that can hold an object while being completely invincible. ;) (Though it would be a ****** move to take advantage of it)

I'm assuming most tournaments don't allow tomb kings? I'm surprised grand alliance death isn't taking advantage of that.

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