[Archive] First game against tomb kings

Archive [Archive] Tactics, Strategy & Battle Reports
1

CynicalFun:

Well I had a game today against a tomb kings player who wanted to try out the new army book. 2500 points.

My List (roughly):

Sorc Lord: level 4, Shadow, 4+ ward

Sorc Hero: Level 2, Fire

Sorc Hero: Level 1, Death

CD Hero: BSB, ironcurse icon, armour of gaz

Hobgoblin Hero: Wolf, Black Gem of Gnar

Hobgoblin Hero: Wolf, potion of foolhardiness, Sword of Might

35 Warriors (hoard): Full Command, Great Weapons, Banner of Eternal Flame

15 Blunderbusses

15 Blunderbusses

10 Wolf Riders: LA, Shield, Bows

40 Orc Big Uns: Shields, Full Command

30 Sneaky Gits

4 Bolt Throwers

1 Earthshaker

His List (roughly)

Tomb King on Chariot: Item that lets unit use his WS

2 Liche Priests: One Mounted, One on foot

3 Chariots

20 Bow Skeletons

20 Spear Skeletons

5 Light Cav

25 Tomb Guard

3 Utushabi

3 Spechurial Stalkers

Tomb Scorpion

Bone Giant

Catapult

Necrosphynx

It was a pitched battle, I decided to turtle up with a large hill covering my exposed flank. From the end of the table towards the hill, Wolf Riders, Blunderbuss, Warriors, Orcs, Sneaky Gits, Blunderbuss, With artillery in the corner. He set up pretty wide, chariots Cav on the farthest end, infantry in the middle, Necrosphynx, Bone Giant, Utushabi on the closest end.

Anyway, it was a fairly dull battle, Wolf Riders went behind his monsters, destroyed bowmen, one of the liche priests. Most of my army stayed put. His Sphechurial Stalkers roll badly for ambush and deploy on the side where none of my guys are, and tomb scorpion ends up in front of a lone bolt thrower on the hill to my flank. His necrosphynx eventually gets to my warriors, where they are locked in combat for about 3 turns until I charge in with my orcs and black gem hobgoblin, pop the gem and he dies to combat res. His Light Cav bounce off my Shaker, his chariots with the king dont make it to my front line until the last turns. Tomb gaurd fall to blunderbuss fire and later an occamz razor cast on the blunderbuss in combat. Just about anything else gets steamrolled by the orcs on one flank or dies to magic on the other.

What I learned:

- Granted, his list wasn’t too mean but he was trying to use a lot of new units so it was just about having fun.

- Their new magic looks great on paper with the ability to raise back troops when spells are successful, unfortunately they have high casting values so you dont have to worry about them casting over and over like in their previous book.

- Skeletons and Tomb Guard are not to be used defensively like they are for vampire counts, It looks like they are meant for being buffed up with magic and used offensively.

- Necrosphynx is pretty nasty against characters (and monsters I assume) but has a very large flank so when it gets stuck in combat it becomes a prime target as long as you have a unit in reserve to counter it.

- As with all “random arrival” units, the stalkers and scorpion need to be taken in multiples to hedge against a bad ambush roll.

- Chariots are nasty with that WS sharing magic item, though still very fragile. When they fail a dangerous terrain test they lose d6 wounds, so keeping a forest between your flanks and them is a great idea. Those impact hits really hurt!

- Black Gem is amazing against armies with instability tests

- Fire is pretty useful against Tomb Kings, not just because of the chance you will target something flammable, but virtually everything except for their monsters is very susceptible to S4 and you can take advantage of the low casting values and kindleflame with so many targets to choose from.

- Shadow was also great, pit of shades and penumbral pendulum did amazing against their low initiative.

2

Necrotique:

Cheers for the report/update :slight_smile:

Looking at it from a WOC point of view also I don’t feel I have much to worry about from the new Tomb Kings list.

:cheers

3

CynicalFun:

I suppose as WOC your biggest threats would be (potential) abundance of killing blow that Tomb Kings can dish out. My opponent was too busy trying to cast the mobility spell on his shaken troops to cast any of the other spells such as the +1 attack or killing blow augment. Apart from a necrosphinx dicing up an expensive chaos lord, the main issue your warriors could face would be a large hoard of spear skeletons with killing blow, with possibly +1 attack stacked on top of that. Beyond killing blow they will have a hard time taking out armored targets though.

4

Necrotique:

Ah, that would be a problem. What’s the core troop’s initiative in the new edition though? I’m pretty hopeful that my Warriors could strike first and dish out a lot of punishment before retaliation.

Are Necrosphinx really really OP against normal troops, or just good for hero-killers?

:cheers

5

CynicalFun:

I’m not thoroughly familiar with the new rules yet. but I believe they are I1 or 2, so that wont be a problem. The issue with WOC is that yes, your troops would be striking first, but if you are striking against a much larger unit (which is fairly likely against skeletons) then a hoard or even a block would still be striking back with 15-20+ attacks unless you could somehow cut down at least half of them in a single round of combat. Also, since your army focuses on moving in on the enemy, their power dice would be used to cast the augment spells rather than the mobility ones that were used against chaos dwarfs.

I believe their snake riders, tomb scorpion, necrosphynx, and tomb guard all come with killing blow, the necrosphynx has the heroic version as well. Casting the killing blow augment on anything with killing blow gives them heroic killing blow (so grave guard with it become pretty sick, they are just T3 though so most offensive magic should be used to whittle them down).

The Necrospynx wasn’t too great against blocks of troops, its strong but unless it rolls well for thunderstomp it wont be able to kill too many, it definitely needs to be backed up by something when engaging units. The heroic killing blow, however, can take out characters and monsters very reliably. Supposedly the War Shpynx or whatever the thing is with the howdah is much better against troops, much like a stegadon.

I suppose as WOC you should try to engage large blocks in the flank, though you still have to watch out for charriots/utushabi/bone giants being used as their countercharge. A hellcannon would be great, as their cav cannot march so their only way to destroy it somewhat reliably would be a tomb scorpion with a little luck.

Overall, it seems that Tomb Kings are very good at destroying light infantry with all their special choices, and can potentially change the course of a game with a panic roll from their screaming catapult. Against armor, however, they only have killing blow to rely on since most of their troops are low strength.

6

dromar:

Don’t forget ushabti: S6 and no more flammable!

What about this unit inthe new dex? better?

And how does the tomb king play if they can’t march?

7

CynicalFun:

I don’t really know how ushabti play, they didn’t survive the round against my orcs. If the liche can get the movement spell off then everything within 24" can move again, which is better than the old spell but with a higher cast value and broken concentration you can’t keep spamming it until it works. I’m looking forward to seeing Tomb Kings in about another month or two when casual players have had a chance to figure out some good strategies.