Ramhotep

So his special rule confers frenzy to a unit.  There are provisions within his rules that say why a unit can lose frenzy, losing a combat is not one of them.  That would mean that the unit has frenzy permantly as long as Ramhotep is alive in the unit.  That’s nice.

misguided lists (mgl) to many chiefs, not enough indians

Shamelessly stolen from another forum where I belong, without the authors permission.  This is not to embarass the author, but rather to point out what I think are pretty serious mistakes as far as list building 101 is concerned.  I intend to do this for every list I run across that just screams “lolwut”.   

Here is my first draft of my TK army list. Let me know what you think.

High Queen Khalida

Tomb King- Enchanted shield, Destroyer of Eternities, Dragonbane Gem

Tomb Prince- Shield, CHariot, Dragon Helm, Ironcurse Icon, Gold Sigil Sword

Lich Priest- Hierophant, Lore of Nehekhara, Lvl 2, Earthing Rod, Terrifying Mask of EEE!

Lich Priest- Lore of Nehekhara, Lvl 2, Dispell Scroll

Tomb Herald- BSB, shield, Standard of the Undying Legion Skeleton

Archers x 31

Skeleton Chariots x 5- Full command, Banner of Eternal Flame Skeleton

Warriors x 20- Spears, Lt. Armor

Tomb Guard x 22- Full command

War Sphinx- Fiery Roar Casket of Souls

The plan is to put Khalida in the archers (of course), the Tomb King and Herald in the Tomb Guard unit, the Tomb Prince rides with the chariots. The Lich priests are going to float, by themselves or I might place them in a unit (maybe one in the TG unit with the king and herald).

After looking through the entirety of the list, I see a couple of glaring problems that a Kings list just should not have at 2500 points.

1)  That is quite possibly the fewest number of units i’ve ever seen in 2500 points.  This creates a few unique problems, the fewer units you have, the more devastating, a well played army killer can be to your legions.  So you either need more units, or more magic defense. 

2)  So Many Heroes!  He has so many dudes to lead the army, he has no army to lead!  While one and 2 go hand in hand, the problem is:  When you lose a unit, the loss is catastrophic, because it’s also going to include a bunch of points from the characters you had riding shotgun in the unit.    The problem is this:  Sure the front of the unit wrecks face, but it only kinda wrecks face…  So many heroes out there can be tooled up in such a way so that your King may not even survive long enough to strike!

Not only that, but lets say you get into a grindfest where you are both losing about an even number of models out of the front of each unit, he’s got FAR more units than you, and can flank you, and really take you down a peg or two.

3)  Khalida.  The Break Even point for Khalida is 61 skeletons, 40 is the absolute bear minimum when considering efficiency for points spent.  Bring the skeleton bunker up to that number.

4)  No disruption units.  Tomb Kings armies depend on disruption.  Carrion. Light cav, heavy cav, are all brilliant at dealing with breaking up battle-lines, and preventing charges where the need arises.

5)  No war-machine hunting units.  Apophas is good, Swarms are great, scorpions are meh (they are great if your opponent doesn’t have a cannon), Sepulchre stalkers are amazing if a tad over priced for that role unilaterally, Cavalry is also really good,  Carrion do the job, but are slow to the mark.  To put it lightly, if you want yoru big stuff to survive, you have to deal with his “big stuff killers”

6)  Allowing a Liche Priest to “float around on his own” is not conducive to resisting crumbling by turn 2.

Sadly, one of the things I’d like to do with this article is to direct the player in a way to help tighten up the list.   It’s sad, because I honestly don’t think this list can be tightened up.  The entire philosophy of the list needs to be re-thought before any directive advice can be given.

sunday, sunday

There are 2 days out of the week I get the opportunity to get my hammyfix in.  I get to play on Sundays, it’s mostly a 40k crowd at the sunday gaming session.  On tuesday, we do a sort of evening fantasy league.  Normally I have to pick one, and skip the other.  This week I get to go to both!  Hooray!

Today I played a competitive game against one of the best players in our area, running a Blood Angels list.  I play ‘nilla Marines, and I’m not very good at them.  I try to use some of the lists as put forward by Yesthetruthisstupid.com because, to be honest, that guy only does one thing well, and that’s put together 40k lists.  His lists, though, are designed to table people through efficiency.  I just don’t see them doing very well here against the more solid players of our core group, just because there are certain things I don’t have an answer for with his lists.  That having been said, I probably don’t play them right, but that’s his fault for not making it pretty clear how to play the lists.

I also got an opportunity to play one of our youngbloods.  His father was kind of a dick, acting like me playing the kid was some sort of favor to him.  First off, thank you for being willing to drop your child off to play in the 1000 point game we played, he had a good time and we rolled some dice.  Second off, fuck you for being willing to let some guy you don’t know baby-sit your kid.  He said to me “My son’s tried to teach me how to play, but I just don’t get it”  No, sir.  You just don’t care.  You’d rather drink beers and go fish, or fuck some girl during your obvious mid-life crisis.  Hopefully you don’t ruin the kid on the game..  This game needs more like him, and quite honestly, your kid is #1, if he likes to do it, and he wants you to do it, fucking cynch the belt up and do it.  I don’t give a shit if your 8 year old boy wants to dress up like a girl and serve you tea, he’s in his element and exploring, you sure as shit should play along.

I made a bunch of tactical errors, so the kid would have a good story to tell his dad, I used some assault marines to assault into his terminators, and promptly got wtfpimped.  I tried to put myself into a position so he could wipe me out and win the game, but if he doesn’t want to do it, I can’t make him…(he ran scared with his terminators all game, even though I just hung one of my tac units on an objective begging to be charged and annihiliated.)

In the game I played against the BA player, I felt like I had a good plan, and then the dice just wouldn’t co-operate.  I wanted to crack his transports and kill the shit inside..  The “cracking the transports” part just wasn’t doing the job…  I was pretty pissed.  I usually don’t get mad at 40k but I was livid that I put together a plan that should have at least had a SHOT at winning, and then this guy just shrugs off like 5 melta-gun shots.

finecast

So, apparently GW’s finecast mini’s melt in direct sunlight, seem to be consistently mis-packed, and have more bubbles than a fish-tank.  Just another missed opportunity I guess.

rules rant

Spend enough time browsing any sort of media dedicated to our favorite hobby, and you’ll start to run into some crazy shit.  Mis-interpretations of the rules, mis-remembering of the rules, or sometims just flat out cheating.

Perhaps you’ll remember the White Dwarf in which Cruddace himself healed his own unit of skeletons who were in combat using the Signature spell for the Nehek lore?  That seems to be expressedly forbidden (pending FAQ)

The latest White Dwarf, the new Ushabti wielding Bows are declared to be “capable of stand-and-shooting with fearsome strength 6 bows”  Wait, what?  Tomb Kings may only ever hold!

DakkaDakka.com has some great debates in their “You make da call” section, but about 50% of the time, the interpretation of the rules is over the top-retarded.  A few guys will get it stuck in their craw, that they are right, and then they never come off their high-horse, even when they are blatantly wrong.

YesTheTruthIsStupid.com’s fearless leader normally manages to get the rules right when considering 40k, but when he cocks up fantasy, the absolute shit he manages to spin is detrimental to society the same way white Michael Jackson was detrimental to any boys under the age 15.    Furthermore, many of his game-winning tactics depend on a rather, interesting, dictionary-is-the-word-of-god-interpretations of said rules.

Then on the majority of the “race only boards” there’s always a fan-boy or two who try to make the obligatory our army is stronger, because of my loose interpretation of the rules type arguement.  Take Khalida for example from the Tomb-Kings.net forums.  There are 300+ posts dedicated to whether or not she has My Will Be Done.  It’s not in her special rules, but she counts as a king, and all kings have MWBD.  Huge Debate.  While it seems rather clear, that GW wanted her not to have MWBD, and instead wanted the Blessing of Asaph to be what they replaced it with..

So we see all this bullshit being churned by the internet community.  So my question is this:  What is all this rules cock-mastery for?  Why do we insist on a loose rules interpretation, or perhaps a more favorable rules interpretation than what is normally pretty cut-and-dried in the book?  Why do we look for these amazing loop-holes to win a game in one turn, rather than try to slowly build up a win over 4 or 5 turns?  I hope it’s not just because you think winning is the only important thing.  The win is a good thing, to be sure, but you’re seriously going to argue something as inane as:  Look a d6 was removed, therefore it can’t have a natural roll, even though the natural roll of the d6 was a 6 before it was removed, the act of removing it negates the “natural roll standard”?  Fuck you pal.  This is a game, suck it up.  (this argument actually exists over on Dakk2 right now.

 

tomb kings 1500 bringing the hammer

I have a typical chaos opponent who runs with a 15 man bunker unit of Tizz warriors, a unit of Knights, a caster-type character with the puppet (LDO) a unit of marauder horsemen, and then he spices it up with other stuff.

I’ve tried a monster mash list (Necrosphynx, and a warsphynx)  I’ve tried a balanced list, and I’ve been obliterated each time.  Let’s see how this one does.

1 High Priest lvl 4, with the Opal Ammy 220

1 Ramhotep 120

30 Archers 180

29 Spearmen, St, Mu, Light Armor 194

29 Tomb Guard, Full command, Banner of the Undying Leigon 399!

4 Necronights 260

1 Casket of Souls 135

8 points over.  My opponent will deal with it.

 

no vaul! no!

http://www.youtube.com/user/VaulSC#p/a/u/6/77Q0DwYhyBQ

Well, guess the fat lady has sung.  VaulSC is one of my favorite vloggers when it comes to WHFB.  He was my hammyfix for the week.  I intend to try to get at least one post per day, but this guy could hold me over for a week.

Sadly, Vaul is moving on.  He’s got some Chaos, or some Skaven or some Empire he wants to play instead, which is fine, if point and click is his thing, I’ll let him have it.

What I found interesting about my choice to play Brettonians (which I sold off about a year ago, but am contemplating doing a 1 box per paycheck method until I have 2500 points again… *sigh*) was that my Khemri play lost almost all of its credibility.  When the Bretts first came out, they were the *new* broken army, and people just had no idea how to deal with them.  Even a sound battle-plan wasn’t against the Bretts was a dicey proposition.  At the end of a year-long run for the lady, I had people begging me to go back to play my Tomb Kings.  They thought that by playing my new army, I must automatically suck at the old army.  Truth be told, playing my Bretts made me a better player.  I didn’t win a tournament until I applied the things I learned from my knights army to my recently un-dead army.

I eventually want to start Vlogging also.  Guess I’ll have to expidite that because there’s now a giant void on the youtubes where VaulSC used to post.

 

my first articles p3

Strategy Versus Tactics
It seems that very few people understand the dichotomy between strategy and tactics. Go to the major forums and have a look for yourself. Most people focus solely on the build of their army, as if, there is some unit combination that will be nigh unbeatable when the correct units are standing next to each other on the battlefield. This portion of the article is to force you to focus on the idea that sound army composition does not equate to tactical brilliance. You can go to any dictionary and look up the terms I’m about to use, and point out that “my” definitions are wrong, using the argument “Websters Dictionary says that…. Blah blah blah….” You’ll simply be wasting your time, my descriptions of these definitions are to create a firm grasp in your mind of what points I’m trying to get across to you. The discussion of strategy and tactics are very abstract in written form, and there needs to be a standardized defined set of words created to enforce a strict paradigm of understanding and communication.

What is a Strategy? In the simplest terms: How you intend to defeat your opponent. Strategy in its purest form is devoid of movement, and occurs entirely before your troops step onto the battlefield. A sound strategist will create method with which he wants to deconstruct his opponent, pick an army that focuses on that methodology, and maximize his opportunity to exploit his methodology without creating a blaring weakness in his own troops. Some armies are very obviously Strategic armies. Dwarfs being the most strategically adept of all armies. A Dwarven army moves very little, and hits the table with the idea that they want to shoot you to pieces while you march your sorry butt into their battle line, and mop the floor with whatever manages to make it into combat. Taking advantage of terrain, and cover to increase lines of fire, while minimizing wide open charge areas and attempting to force units into each others way.

Deconstruction: The priority in which you pick apart an enemy army. My most common order is 1: War-machines, 2: Wizards, 3: Annoyance Units, 4: Basic core units without characters. 5: and so on working up the ladder to the hardest unit, if the game isn’t over by this point.

Tactics can be defined as: The use of Force (both numerically, and perceived), the application of traps, countercharges, and other general use of maneuvering to create a combat superiority against your opponent. The Dark Elves are a very tactically demanding army. The most powerful Dark Elf army as of late is the Multiple Small Unit (MSU) army. (Of course I know people who’d hit you with a lead pipe for even thinking that ;b -Deke) Using their superior maneuvering, weapon skill and leadership abilities to create force in very unique ways, winning with sheer tactical prowess, instead of the bloody head method.

Numerical Force: The application of pressure with your troops to some point on the battlefield. The force comes from numbers of superior combat troops taking advantage of some situation. The most often application of numerical force is applied when one or two units collapses a flank, then maneuvers during their next turn to charge into the heart of the opponent’s battle line from that flank, and “rolling up” their battle line.

Perceived Force: When your opponent looks at the table and thinks to himself. I HAVE to do this. The most common occurrence of perceived force is when your opponent thinks to himself I can’t flee any more, I’ll be off the table, I HAVE to accept the charge from those angry knights of death. The way to take advantage of perceived force is to get your opponent to think he HAS to do something that you want him to do, and that you have been planning for.

Trap: To create a situation that is unfavorable for your opponent through some sort of tactical maneuvering. The most common type of trap is to flee from a charge with the hopes of getting a counter charge in the flank or rear.

“Rolling up a battle line”: To Charge into the flank of a unit on the front line, to break it, run it down and end up in the flank of the next unit standing right next to it. If this is going on, your opponent is probably ready to throw dice at you. (Note: Right Deke?) (Throw dice?  Ya right! Ever been hit in the soft bits with a
french fry cutter? -Deke)

Truth be told I honestly believe that a perfect tactician will beat a perfect strategist 100% of the time. Which is why I spend more time on tactical analysis than on strategic analysis.

The Tomb Kings player has several options for strategies; 1 Refused Flank, 2 Strong Shooter, 3 Misdirection.

Refused flank. This is the first strategy discussed in the back of the book. Forging ahead with the idea that your troops are fast, and have quite a nice shock effect on your opponent. They deliver a hard hit, crush one flank before your opponent realizes what is going on, then is behind the rest of the enemy and crushing them in a vice that very few can escape. I’ve seen the “Vice” in effect after turn 3 with the Khemri army which is impressive indeed. The refused flank strategy favors a Kings superior mobility in a chariot, and superior hitting power. It also allows for grunt warriors to soak up a lot of wounds, using your Tomb Guard as either a far flank protection unit, or a central pivot unit with the reform banner. While this is an effective strategy, it only thinks one dimensionally; head on. Many people bemoan the lack of combat prowess when Khemri hits the table against Khorne, and Slaneesh. They scream “Woe-is-me”, when a Slann with hundreds of saurus warriors broach the table, and they scream bloody murder against dwarfs who stand, shoot, shoot, stand, and then pick their teeth with hole ridden bones. What they don’t point out is that an effective strategist can break you up into waves, or get you into combats that you can’t win. Then your king gets thumped, your hard hitting units are dead, and your slow units get run around in circles. The best Khemri player will realize that this army depends on 1 or 2 key units winning their head-on combat, if they do, the Khemri player wins. If they don’t the undead take another dirt-nap. The refused flank strategy requires such speed that you can’t set charges and be patient, which is by no means a problem, if you win early.

While I do believe this is a good strategy to start the tomb kings with, most players will after a few dozen games with this strategy be able to look at the table and say Yep, I’m gonna win, or Nope, I can’t win. Unless the dice go haywire, the Khemri player will be right. It’s really a sad feeling to be able to look at a table and say… “heh.. I really don’t have a chance.” I went away from it by the third time I got thumped by Dwarfs, and needed an innovation to win.

Strong Shooter (Khalida Critique): The ultimate strategist army. In this army, you strive to take as few mobile Units as is possible, and load up on Catapults, and the Casket of souls, mix in Khalida with as many poisoned arrows as you can stand in a turn and rain venom doom on your enemies heads. Character selection and Character placement is crucial, you don’t do much moving, and you need to maximize your frontage, and firing lanes, and minimize the points of flank attack. You also need a couple of units capable of mobilizing, and breaking any unit that does get into combat with your archers. In 2000 points, to focus on such a core, takes a lot of points and puts it into str 3 arrows. The next part of your strategic deviousness is that when your opponent is in Charge Range, you form into a large block, accept the charge, hope you don’t crumble, and counter attack with that superior unit. Remember you Could be reforming before you shoot one set of shots..

I’ve only ever played with the Strong Shooter once, and never with Khalida. I hated every minute of the strong shooter army I played. It’s also worth noting that I actually beat the Slaneesh player I was playing against pretty soundly. The entire game I felt as if my opponent had the advantage, until turn 6 when everything he tried was turned away. I hate that feeling of hopelessness, and I never want to be down that road again! The entire philosophy behind Khemri is to use their mobility to win, I just do not understand why people would choose not to. The only real serious point to be made about a Khalida army, beyond the poison is that her one spell can’t be counterspelled. This is nice, but in 420 points plus a single liche priest, to shore up your required character slots, you’ll find you don’t have a lot of points to be spending on anything else, let alone poisoned archers.

I guess, though, that the argument can be made that when I play, I don’t use the smiting incantation enough. I smite to get my catapult off, and call it good. Sometimes I’ll smite with my archers, but that’s only if I can’t do anything with my movement that is tactically superior. I love to set traps, and try to get into a position to roll up my opponents battle line. Maybe if I was putting 60 poisoned shots in the air, plus whatever I can get from magic would make me feel better, but as of this writing I don’t like it.

Misdirection. My own little special concoction. Most armies only have one or 2 fast units that like to work in either the tandem board edges, or in concert with each other. In either case, most people will simply rush forward blindly and attempt to be in combat as early as possible with these units, since they’ll beat even the heaviest armed skeletons easily. What they don’t think about is when someone plans for this contingency.  Most armies will also commit about three quarters of their army to running at you blindly and trying to get to grips as soon as possible, this is also in your favor with this army. You may even try to strengthen that perception by bringing a Screaming skill catapult, and only a couple of tough block units.

The idea is that your speed and deceptive combat prowess will bring your opponent to grips in waves, and you’ll be able to “pick off” the units you want.

The way to use a misdirection army is to have your slower units on one half of the table, and the farther you go from that half, the faster the unit. It should almost look like the refused flank. The only change is: Your carrion should rush behind the fast units on your opponents side, while your fast units turn and bring a flanking wall against the half of the board that has your slow units. The most important part of this strategy and eventual tactical maneuvering is a piece of difficult terrain used as a pivot point somewhere in the middle of the field. That point should mark where you are going to break from slow units to fast units. When you turn and come towards the middle of the field, you should only use your half of that terrain as an avenue increasing the distance your opponent has to travel to get where he is going. Giving you more time to sweep the half of the board clear that you picked as your “target half”. Of course this is easy to explain, and it never really goes totally according to plan, but for the most part, you close the gate, crush the resistance, and then can reform for your opponents desperate last attack in an attempt to gain points and bring a draw.

The big downside is armies that are all fast, and enemy generals that can identify which units are rockstar and which units are there because you had to fill points. Some have even gone so far as to say that this should only work once, and then never work again. Try using that argument to console the people that have been beaten by it 5 or 6 times. Most opponents get so frustrated when I roll up their battle line they start making mistakes and simply hand me the game. Others try to think their way through it and provide a tough game, but the early lead is simply too much to handle. Remember this strategy is not the only one in place in ANY of the 3 strategies I’ve outlined. At the same time, Carrion are picking off war-machines, and random mages and skirmishing units. Scorpions are raising hell in the middle of the field, and my nuclear skull launcher has been upgraded to DEFCON 1 and is launching flaming skulls of radiating doom into my enemy’s ranks. With so much going on, and this system becoming so subtle, many people don’t even realize that this is the strategy they’ve been beaten with.

I’ve talked about the Khalida Army, now I guess I’ll talk about the Settra army.

Settra. What an army, the one time I played with his army I won. Beat a strong magic Vampire counts army into the ground. Most undead versus undead battles are akin to a retard slap fight, boring, slow, and kind of funny. (Oh, aren’t we PC? Hate mail goes here.  -Deke) Settra brings a bully into the fight with braces, and anger about his new, painful braces. Since 1500 points of Settra’s army HAS to be Tomb Guard, Chariots and Heavy Horsemen, all of a sudden you’re hitting with some serious power. Settra, denies any more liche priests, so there’s no reason to not bring a full compliment of Lich Priests to help create some combat prowess in your units. Creating a horribly fast, army, after his special ability, plus the princes ability to cast spells PLUS he casts 2 more incantations. I was throwing 8 3d6 incantations, 3 1d6 incantations and another 2 3d6 incantations. It was absolute murder. Every unit I had trumped my opponents boring units. The only downside to any Settra army is the fact that he only has 2 dispel dice. Any High Elf player would simply destroy all of his magic items and drop comets on the army all day long. My opponent had units of skeletons that started at 16, and had built into the mid 40’s by the time we were grinding in combat. In one on one mortal combat Settra beat the Vampire in combat, but eventually succumbed to knights. It was a fun game, it’s too bad that Settra’s army isn’t tourney legal, I’d think about taking him.

Well, I guess this shores up my 3 tactical articles dealing with the Tomb Kings. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed it. Sadly I’ve shelved my Khemri army of friendly doom to start working on a Bretonnian army much to the chagrin of many of my friends/opponents. Can’t let those goofy Chaos things invade this summer.

Thank you for reading it. Any questions or comments:

my first articles, p2

Now that you’ve had the opportunity to think about the magic items, it’s time to start thinking about the Characters and Units you’ll be using. In the final chapter I’ll talk about the 2 special characters, the tactics presented in the back of the book, and my own philosophy that I approach the table with.

I guess I’ll start with the Lord Characters and work my way down

Tomb King
For the points, you get a pretty solid character. 4 attacks and wounds, with strength and toughness of 5 is really nothing to balk at. The tactics you’ll approach the table with when using a King will be more straight forward than if you hit the table with a prince. You see. You have to utilize the fact that your king is a terror in combat early. If you can’t crush/demoralize your opponent early with a king, he’ll have a serious fighting chance later in the game as he begins to gain momentum. It is entirely possible to be in combat with your king on turn one. But I don’t recommend it. Instead try to get your carrion into a war-machine on turn one, then use your king to crush your opponents units in turn 2. There is an interesting strategy that comes to bear with the king also. Your opponent can flee from any charge you make. Indeed this is a smart idea, as very few units can stand up to 4 chariots with the icon of the sacred eye, and a combat monkey king. Should your opponent out-run you and leave you without a re-direct, you’ll have the opportunity to use your magic phase to either re-charge the unit and almost guarantee it to run off the board, or you can try to charge another unit. Your opponent would be a fool not to take this charge as he probably won’t be able to out-run you and will get run-down. If you get into combat, you just let your combat resolution do the rest, and you’ll most likely be in the back ranks of your opponent. Other units can follow suit and you can surround your opponent on turn 3 and he won’t even remember why you’re in his rear. I call this the “blossom” when you hit a few units in the center of the table, break them, run them down, then use your superior mobility to turn outward and use your magic to be in the rear of the next opponent. The ground-pounder king is not quite as solid as the chariot king. Most canny opponents will see your king is walking to get where he wants to go, and will quickly dispel every opportunity to allow him extra movement. He’ll also create a big bubble around your king and pick off your exterior units This tactic is very dangerous for your opponent to attempt, but if he gets your other units and forces your king to points hunt, he’s almost got the guaranteed victory. Use him wisely, and you’ll win. Get careless, and you’ll lose nearly every time, because he’s so expensive that he’ll take away from your other fighting units.

Liche High Priest
I find it absolutely amazing that my Liche High Priest is so darn survivable when he has the cloak of dunes. I’m also amazed that every monkey in the game with a cannon, or a flying unit doesn’t take every shot he can at the Hierophant. Hell even light cav can give my Hiero a headache. When you take a High Priest, you enter the game with the idea of sound magic dominance. Which you will accomplish, handily. Rarely will you see something you want done, not happen. Every once in a while you’ll get both of his spells off, and your opponent will turn bright red, and curse, a lot! The High Priest actually supports the idea of a balanced army more than the idea of a “turtle shell/dwarf castle” type of army. With so much versatility, and the ability to cast 2 spells he can respond to any threat with amazing accuracy, and allow you to mass quite quickly to counter any problem you may be having. Many, many people complain about the High Priests army, in that it has a “lack of bite” . I just want you to remember, you don’t need “bite” if you out-number your opponent. You just need your opponent to whiff once. If you out-number him/her they run, and you’ve won. Your High Priest can support this roll beautifully because he can heal unit’s so quickly. I also find the most important key to a High Priest army is patience. Quiet tactical maneuvers forcing your opponent to “tip his hand” or “make the first mistake” so that you can manouvre in, and then use your High priest to crush the mistake is the most notorious and infamous way to win.

Tomb Prince
When you put a simple unit of skeletons on the board, they just don’t seem to have any survivability in combat. They die in droves, can’t manage to save, and don’t ever seem to get anywhere. When you put a prince in that same unit. They become hard as a rock. They may still lose the combats, but never by the same types of negative combat resolution. It also forces your opponent to doubt himself, the curse of the prince/king is always on the back of his mind. Does he want to chance losing a powerful unit, just because you got lucky? The prince also has the points for the best selection of magical weapons/armour from the magical items list, but also seems to do very well with just a great weapon and maybe some light armour. A lot of people will allow the prince to do whatever he wants with his one single d6 spell too, because they are scared of what the “other spell casters” may accomplish, meaning this unit becomes the “speedy gonzolezs of units”. He’s also the toughest her o slot character out there, and quite capable of giving every other hero out there a run for his/her money, quite easily in the top 4 for hero’s in combat, behind Chaos, lizards, and VC. I’ve also fooled around with the idea of tossing a prince in the chariot with the +1 US icon. Doing what I can to threaten flanks, and deal with war-machines. He’s a serious threat, and most people will commit what I call battlefield suicide “turn their flanks towards your deployment zone” because they are worried about a single chariot.

Liche Priest
Bread and butter of any army. I really have to argue that while every army must have one on a compulsory note, I really think every army SHOULD have 2. Even my High Liche Priest finds himself running with a liche priest that has the staff of Ravening and a skeleton steed. The Liche Priest gets away with a lot of what he wants to cast because my opponent is so determined to not let me have my High Liche Priests incantations. There is something to be said about mobility concerning Liche Priests also. I really don’t like the idea of having one on foot. If he can’t react to a situation either by flying there or getting there on horse back, there’s really no reason to have him. Unless you want a catapult baby-sitter or a casket of souls. But that becomes really expensive and really the points return really isn’t worth it. As you play Tomb Kings, you’ll find that they are a very reactive force, you need to punish your opponents for their mistakes, and force them into making more mistakes that cost them the game. Sometimes these mistakes are quite a ways away from your battle line, and your 4 inch base movement isn’t enough to react to that. 8 inches is barely enough if you have the foresight to guess that your opponent is going to goof up.

Casket of Souls
Since you have to attach your Casket of souls to a Liche Priest, or a High Liche Priest, I’ll talk about the Casket here. Most people believe that opening the casket is the most devastating part of the game. If you actually manage to get the spell off, their units will simply dissappear from the board, and they’ve lost the game. For those of you who aren’t Tomb Kings players, stop reading now, it’s entirely true. If the spell goes off, you lose the game. You may as well declare this army cheesy, and hope you never face the casket of doom! For those of you who are Khemerians at heart, keep reading. 2d6+2 is capable of doing some serious damage to those small elite units of knights. Low Leadership units, such as skeletons, or goblins, are also quite susceptible when you roll high. You’ll actually probably enjoy the casket until the first time you play a dwarf army, or a tiny chaos army. You see the dwarfs will just stare at the casket. Then laugh at you, you might kill one dwarf with all your rolls, and then they’ll be angry, either way, your casket will not do anything significant, unless you get lucky and get a war-machine, but they are dwarfs, they have like 5 more. The Chaos army will simply not look at your casket, they’ll be laughing too, if you get really close, you can hear them, I promise. If you do take a casket, and face a high leadership army, don’t be disheartened by this. The casket actually does so much more for you than just killing your opponents stuff. Your opponent will be so scared of your casket doing horrendous damage to his army, he’ll let so many other incantations through. Remember he’s always playing the dispel dice game with you. The entire time he’ll be thinking. “I’ve got to save 3d6 for his casket.” The heaviest dispel armies typically have 8 dice somehow for the dispel phase. That brings your opponent down to 5 dice. Your liche priest behind the casket is probably trying to get a unit of archers, o r a skull-chukka to shoot that‘s another 2d6 you‘re spending. Bringing your opponent down to 3 dice. If you have a high Liche priest, then your opponent will be able to match one of your spells with his dice. Meaning that for 525 points. (1 high liche priest, and 1 liche priest behind a casket, you have a magical advantage over a lord level wizard, 3 hero level wizards, and an item that provides a dispel dice. Not to also mention that your prince that is compulsory also casts a single spell on a d6, you ALSO have a single slot open for another character. This is the greatest advantage of the casket of souls. You can dominate your opponent in the magic phase because he’s scared he’ll lose the game if the casket opens up, which is entirely possible, but not probable. The other great advantage of taking a Casket is the -1 to all opponents casting rolls. Khemri armies are usually hurting for dispel dice, and the this rare helps negate that, by causing your opponent to fail his casting rolls more often, and giving you a bit of an edge when trying to dispel your opponents spells. The final rule the casket has is that it causes terror. Which works in its advantage quite often. I’ve had units either try to charge it, and flee off the board, or beat up my front line, get too close and run away late in the game, giving me the opportunity to get some easy points. With all this said, the only downfall is that you HAVE to spend at least 280 points to get this item, and if anyone puts their heirophant behind the casket they deserve to be slapped, repeatedly. Meaning you have to spend another 115 to take this item plus another 100 or 170 for a general character. Therefore if you take this item, You’ve spent 495 points and taken up 3 character slots to make this item it’s “most effective”. Having to spend that many points before ANY magic items plus maybe another character is too much. Causing you to create a very small army, which has several disadvantages. With all that said, this is a solid unit, but requires some special balancing issues and creates a very interesting army, which I’ll cover later.

Icon Bearer
The notion that I expect to lose combat is absurd. The only army that I actually believe the Icon Bearer is worth it is in the “construct army of cheesy doom” consisting of 1 prince, 1 high liche preist, 1 liche priest, 1 icon bearer, 2 Bone Giants, 2 units of 4 or 5 ushabti, and 2 tomb scorpions. The undead construct rule vombined with the icon bearer is the only route worth exploring in this situation. The Icon bearer has a tendency to get “picked off” for the extra easy 100 vp’s. By surrounding him with terrifyingly-large-constructs-that-refuse-to-die-in-combat-res-if-they-bounce-on-the-charge creatures you increase his survivability notably. Also notice that I believe he should be mounted on horseback, with the icon of the sacred eye in this case. Joining a Giant just before the Giant is magically charged into the flank of some unsuspecting unit nearly doubling the giants effectiveness. Some may argue that his killing blow helps hedge the bet in combat, I don’t disagree, but don’t believe he’s worth it. Others may argue that the 2 banners that only he can carry are worth the risk of losing the points. I just don’t agree, unless you’re playing a Khalida army with the standard of the sands. The Banner of the Hidden Dead has the “hidden cost” of 65 points for the ability to hide the unit, plus 200 points if the banner is captured and the banner bearer killed. Making that 100 point unit worth 365 points. Do you really think that “hidden” unit is going to get 365 points before it’s beaten back into the ground?

Core Units
I have a pretty simple motto lately. Put your faith in your troops. It’s odd to see that many people play with the most expensive Rare and Special units in the game and they simply dismiss their core troops because they have no special rules, nothing about them that “stands out” or “they just suck” when in all reality, those cheap core troops are what should make up the majority of your army. In fact a good tournament army should do what it can to have a big block of core troops were talking 50% of your army here. In order to get to the types of armies I have. I played about a dozen games with nothing by my General, my liche priest heirophant, and as many core troops as I could afford. No magic items, no special/rare units. Just core troops, as balanced as I could possibly make the army. It was really refreshing to learn two things from the army:

1.  This army looked like crap on paper, but in a game, actually held it’s own most of the time. There were a few blaring weaknesses that had to be addressed, but those weaknesses were all countered by applying units from my special/rare choices.

2.  The army is very mis-leading. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, told me that my army sucked, had absolutely no “bite” and would struggle against a retard with 50 points in goblins, and dice weighted to roll all ones, they also suggested I would be very embarrassed against even an incompetent general with the same number of points as me. They hinted at the fact that I’d probably give up after the whipping that a seasoned vet would give me. I only lost a handful of games with this army against some seriously strong competition. Not only do I recommend this with Khemri, I recommend this with every army out there.

If you want to become a serious competitor with your army, you need to be willing to lose, you need to be willing to play an army that sucks, and you need to be willing to play games from “base”, and starting from base starts right here in the core list. You should start out with the minimum number of required characters, and as many core troops as you can muster, no magical items, and as balanced as possible. Play a few games with this army. Even if you lose, don’t change, keep playing, beat your head against the wall. Then something miraculous will happen. After a few games you’ll see a common theme, something that frustrates you in EVERY game you play. Then you can go to your list, juggle a few things around, maybe drop a unit that just doesn’t seem worth it, or is overly redundant. Then play a few more times. Eventually you’ll strike a balance, and a miracle will happen, you won’t lose very often at all. People may even suggest that your list is “cheesy, beardy, or cheatery”. It’s actually pretty funny when people tell me my 50% core troops army (where it sits now) is overly powerful. Anyway I digress, onto the Core units:

Skeletons Warriors
Your basic, cheapest core troop, has quite a few different armaments to be explored, of all of these different armaments you’ll find that if your warriors have bows, you don’t want to give them armour, if your warriors have combat weapons, you’ll want to give them as much armour/shielding as possible. You want your boys in combat to survive as long as possible. You want your opponent stuck in combat until the end of not just the game, but until the end of time! Shields and armour are the way to do that. In order to also assure that your skeletons live as long as possible, they really shouldn’t ever be more than 4 wide, unless you are using spearmen. 28 models at 4 wide seems to be the “magic number” for units, and 25 models at 5 wide seems to be the magic number for spearmen. This helps ensure that you’ll be able to survive a few losing rounds of combat and still out-number your opponent when he whiffs, or to get that flank charge they so desperately need.

Skeleton Heavy Cavalry
Nothing beats 12 heavy cavalry in the flank with the war banner. Not even VanHelsing beats 12 heavy cavalry in the flank with the war banner (which is to say a lot ‘cuz several people think that VanHelsing could beat Batman and Superman at the same time. Even if Batman was wielding the moon as a weapon. Getting hit with the moon hurts, believe me, I know.). It’s kinda like throwing dynamite at your opponent when he thinks you’re playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. A LOT of single attack units are hard pressed to beat 16 heavy cavalry in the front with the war-banner. Even more units are hard pressed to completely destroy 16 heavy cavalry in the front with the Banner of the Undying Legion. I guess what I’m getting at here is that people are going to snicker at your fastest deadliest response unit you have because they are more like the heavy cav rejects of the war-hammer world. The trick is timing, and unit structure. You see you never want to go more than 4 wide with your cavalry. Never ever, not even if your opponent offers to pay you money. The timing is essential in that you don’t want your opponent to simply flee from your insanely, overly long charge. So you need to create a situation where he feels like he won’t escape. It’s kind of sad to admit that they have one of the best saves in your army, in fact only one thing has a better save. But if you remember the exercise from the first article I wrote, you’ll know you don’t care how many fall apart as long as you win combat, and out-number. Then you get to say, “you auto flee, I will pursue.” That feeling is as good as rolling a natural 20.  Once people learn that your Heavy cavalry like to carry a LOT their of banners. (I once had a unit of Heavy cavalry lugging around 4 banners, from a first turn charge, then ran that unit off the table, then the next turn they came on, and magically charged into the rear of a unit, then they ran them off and charged another unit in front of them….. THEN they took a turn and got some healing, and responded to the last combat on the board… my opponent was done on turn 5…) They’ll start to be scared of that 24 inch bubble of doom that your Cav bring. Parking units in front and then not moving them. I once watched nearly 600 points of Orc and Goblins just sit there and have a staring contest with my knights, simply cuz the guy got whupped by my Heavy Cavalry the time we played before. I cut a quarter of his army off with one unit. That’s a win in my book. I beat him pretty handily too. By nearly 800 points.

Skeleton Light Cavalry
Some people swear by them as combat units. Some people denounce them as “ineffective and horrible” I sit on the fence with them each game. Against elite armies, I love the fact I have one unit, and wish I had brought more. Against horde armies I kick myself for wasting the 70 some odd points I wasted on them. You see, since they can’t flee they more or less act as a meat shield (bone shield) for my Liche priest on the horse. They have a couple of simple goals, eliminate swarms, beat 8 tons of crap out of any other panzy light cav, and react quickly to any situation where my liche priests incantations may be needed. I know I need to use them as a flanking force, but using them is always tucked away in some back corner of my mind for fear my opponent will just get a better combat resolution out of me just throwing them into combat. In any balanced army I recommend a unit maybe two of at least 6 models. The most effective use for Light cav against hardcore combat armies is to sacrifice them. Park them in front of a unit that’ll charge them or be march-blocked and frustrated, then angle them slightly so as to create a flank counter charge from your heavy cav, or chariots, and watch the fun ensue. You’ll sacrifice 84 points to win the unit that beat the light cav, plus a banner. Frenzy is even more fun, because if you charge the rear of a unit that is frenzied, if they win, and kill the frenzy, it’s good. If you lose and your frenzied opponent destroys all of your light cav, they have to overrun, backwards, taking them away from your battle-line AND turning them around facing their rear to your real power units. I’ve even created situations where they were charged in the rear, and after they overran they were looking at another easy points unit of carrion they had to charge, guaranteeing a charge with my combat units in the rear.

Tomb Swarms
The argument that 45 points is enough to trump any war-machine with “it came from below” (ICFB) is pretty nasty (us3). Their slow movement means they can actually displace themselves out of a charge when they scatter from ICFB, but only if you roll a 10. The other tactic is when you bring a casket of souls, bring 5 of these boys and surround your casket. Any flyers attempting to charge your casket must be able to land and fit their base where you have your machine and be 1 inch away from all other units or they are NOT allowed to charge. Swarms fit this roll nicely. Then their character, or flyers are tied up by swarms. The best part is that Swarms are small, so you can fire over them. Note that Tomb Swarms do not fill the normal niche of tying up a unit head on, because they suffer casualties the same way normal skeletons do, making them a horrendous waste of points. They will tie up a single rank of cavalry on the flank quite nicely, you just have to work a little bit to get the charge. WS3, and S3, with poison is quite nice also. The final tactical deviousness I’ve seen people attempt with Tomb Swarms is to try to bring them up in the middle of the table and hope that the scatter and the timing of coming up out of the ground allows them to march block their opponent. I’m not too sold on this idea, although I do think it would be funny to pick off a mage like this. Like every other unit in the Khemri list, swarms do not fit the typical niche most other swarms fill, but are effective in their own cake eating, evil ways.

Chariots
The official unit of Khemri. No other army can have units of chariots that are rank and file. They are toned down, but only because doing 3d6+3 str 5 impact hits is *BROKEN*. D3 str 4 hits plus 9 str 3 attacks and 3 str 4 attacks is enough, believe me. The most interesting thing about chariots is that they have a normal movement of 8, and they are light cavalry. Very few units can guarantee a charge against them, while they are dancing and dinking around on a flank, until your opponent commits battlefield suicide and turns a flank or rear towards them, or towards another unit that doesn’t have their ability to move. Without a character you need to adpot the “flank/rear charge only” paradigm, but the ability to move and then move in the magic phase with makes this easily achievable with a bit of foresight, and some careful planning. When I went to Seattle GT I was amazed to see one army in particular using Chariots in a block of 10!!!! With a prince and an Icon Bearer if I remember right. Absolutely sickening. Apparently this guy got beat by Bill Edwards in the 44h round of the tourney too. Because “Bill Flees like a sun-of-a-gun”. Of course, I got beat by Bill too, in the 5th round, but he didn’t flee from anything I gave him. I really must say that I think Chariot units don’t need to be bigger than 4 and that’s only if you bring a character with the unit, 3 is plenty for the roll they’ll be filling in your army. Take 2 units of 3, and it’s better than a unit of 6. Or 3 units of 3 in the case of the dude with 10 chariots. They’ll be more tactically flexible, more maneuverable, and more frustrating for your opponent to deal with.

Special Units

Carrion
You should never leave home without at least 3-4 carrion, I’ve begun to see the merit in maybe even 6 in a unit. Any unit that can move 20 inches, then charge another 20 inches in the magic phase is sick, wrong, and shouldn’t have been included in the game, but GW did it, so I say have your cake and eat it too. I’ve got a set strategy concerning my Carrion. Turn one and 2 they struggle to be in combat with a war-machine. Once the war-machines are dealt with the march block a unit until I can use them to commit a Coup de Gras on some unit. The way you do this is fun. You park them one inch behind any unit that is fleeing, then you magically incant them to move, and charge. The farthest any unit can flee in the game is 18 inches, you fly 20 minus the one inch you are away from the unit. They can’t get away, your carrion are carrying a banner that is more than what they were worth if you brought 4 or less, plus the points you got from the unit. If your opponent hangs a mage out, anywhere within 40 inches of these guys you’ve got a free hundred points plus some more magical phase dominance, extremely dangerous unit.

Tomb Guard
Your toughest, strongest, meanest, most heavily armored unit, with magical attacks, AND killing blow. All for the low, low price of 12 points a pop. HOLY CRAP! Anyone that approaches the table with the idea that they want to outnumber their opponent in combat, and “not care how they do in combat as long as they out-number and win” would be NUTS to take these guys. I’m not saying Tomb Guard are a bad unit, I just don’t understand why people would spend so many points on a unit so easily avoidable. There is something to be said about the free-reform banner… but, it’s just more points. Remember that on average you’ll be spending about 600 points on characters. A decent unit of Tomb Guard is around 300 after a banner, leaving you right around 1000 points to try to create a balance, AND out-number your opponent with your fear causing units. Wow, that’s a tough order. What if your opponent slaps this unit around like little girls at a bully convention? You’re out 400 some odd points. Baby sit the unit with a prince or king, they avoid the unit and dispel your movement spells. Your unit only makes 100 if it’s lucky (quarters at the end of the game.) No, you need a solid core that your opponent feels like he *must engage to win* not a core that he wants to avoid. I love the models, and think the unit is hard as they come, I just wish they were not such a strong focal when they show up on the field.

Tomb Scorpions
This unit is 100 pounds of dynamite packed in a 6 pound tub. There are so many tactical abilities that this guy brings to the table it’s uncanny. WS4, S5, T5, Unit Strength 4, 4 attacks. Poison AND killing blow, with a movement of 7. SEVEN! GW really dropped the ball making this units movement 7. Some of the best armies out there take 3 scorpions and carrion, and a bunch of ground units. The scorpion and the ground unit attack in concert, the scorpion gives you the wounds, the unit out-numbers, they both pursue, and one of your pursuers goes 3d6 inches!!! If you need a flanking unit, just pull a character out of unit and join up with the scorp, that’s a bucket of effective attacks with a us of 5, and negating ranks. Need a war-machine gone? Enemy mages like to dink around outside of units? Use ICFB, hope you don’t misfire, (better yet ICFB with 2 of them and make sure one makes it there, bonus for 2.) and blow your opponent away with a 21 inch total charge range!!! I’d be willing to be t money that poison and killing blow are used together on the scorpion to bring DOWN its effectiveness. Since the scorpion can’t get killing blow on a poisonous hit, (no roll to wound…) he can’t killing blow the enemy. Brining the amount of chances he has to killing blow the opponent down by 16.5%. They think that little bit brings down the effectiveness of the scorpion down to 85 points.
Thank you GW!

Ushabti
At first I had a real problem using Ushabti. I couldn’t understand what the big deal was, why everybody was ranting and raving about how great they were. Natural str 6 was neat, but it just didn’t click especially at 65 points a pop. I like to bring 4, and that’s too many points to spend for 4 models.. Until the first time I brought them and they hit another ogre type model in combat. Kroxigor to be exact. During the smite that I managed to get off, my opponent asked me, what’s your WS? I looked at him and said, “Good Question” and I looked it up. I had missed it time and time again. WS 4. I3. That’s HUGE. Against all other ogre models but 3 (minotaurs, Dragon Ogres, River Trolls) they hit on 3’s. They are ogre unit killers! With an 18 inch charge range, they really come into their own and should always get the charge on opposing ogre models. Where they have the advantage against the ogres, dragon ogres, and Trolls is their natural str of 6 and their I of 3, making them faster than most everything, and stronger than everything without a Great Weapon.

Rare Units

Bone Giant
No one in the history of mankind has rolled as poorly as I have continually rolled with my Bone Giant. I have almost never had more than 3 wounds come out of an unstoppable assault. That’s horrible. Typically you can get 4, or even 5. I do remember once I got 17 wounds against Chosen Khornate Knights, which was absolutely amazing. Why do I keep taking it? That much whallop packed in such a small area. The Bone giant can get into tight spots, and not even break a sweat manouvering around. Flank and rear-charges are the Bone Giants Bread and butter, meaning even if he only gets 2 wounds on the flank, you’ve tied your opponent, and even a horrible roller like me can get 3 wounds, making for a win, on the flank. On the rear, he can whiff and not lose a wound, and with one wound caused, he wins. Couple that with a Str 6, 3+ save, and a M of 6 you’ve got a solid rare unit. I’ve stated that It would be really fun to couple an Icon banner with the icon of the sacred eye with the Bone giant just to watch him hit on 3’s and wound on 2’s.. But that’s a LOT of work, and my opponent will just roll his eyes at me.

Screaming Skull Catapult
The hands down reason I did as well as I did in the Seattle GT. I won 3 of the 4 games that I did win with this before turn 2 had begun in every game. I picked off my opponents units with this and broke up his battle line. The strength of the catapult is NOT it’s ability to kill lots of models, The strength is the leadership test that your opponent has to take. For 20 points, the Skulls of the foe pays for itself nearly EVERY time. -1 to the average leadership means your opponent will be failing half the time. Flaming skulls means you can take away regeneration (Ed’s note: Deke, any thought here???)(Well, Doug, I’m thinkin’ it may be time for me to introduce you to a one-on-one session with my sprue snips, if you know what I mean? -Deke) if your opponent is on a good low leadership streak. The fact that if they just destroy the machine but leave crew members, and it CAN still be healed with a good spell, and that if you kill all the crew, and leave the machine that you CAN STILL heal the crew is HUGE. Most people devote just enough attention to get one, or the other, because they never need to get both. I have never NOT had a use for my catapult, it’s a rockstar, and has saved me many times.

Well that’s about it. Next up I’ll talk about the 2 special characters in the back of the book, I do need to play a game with Khalida’s army first. I’ll also talk about the 2 Tactics in the back of the book, and I’ll talk about my own special tactic that I took to the last RT and GT. I really wonder why I’m telling you all this, next time we play, you’ll know all my secrets, and I’ll just lose. I don’t like that. AACK! I’m doomed!

my first articles p1

note–  This was written for the new Tomb Kings book way back in 2k4.  This is just me using showing you, the gentle reader, just what my thought-process was back then.  Perhaps helping you understand how good I was, and giving you an insight to why I make the arguments  I make when I say some tactic is good or bad.

I guess I ought to give a road map concerning the build of this article. First I’m going to cover the important rules that make Khemri tick, then on to Magic item assessments one by one. Next, on to units assements one by one starting with core, on to special, rare, then characters. Finally on to some tactical advice in helping you become a better commander. One final note, I really am not going to delve into the “Larger battle” argument that a lot of people like to use if they think an item/unit sucks at 2000 points but has combination potential at 3000+ points. I’m pretty stuck on the idea that 2000 to 2150 is the “perfect” size for battles argument and think that stuff gets pretty out of hand on the “larger battle” scale this article and assessment is more for those looking to do well in a tournament setting where typically 2000 to 2150 is the size of the army.

 

 “I WHAT? Auto-break?” “Be not afraid, you have nothing to fear, but fear itself” Elanor Roosevelt.

The number one most important aspect of your army is the assertion that everything in your army causes fear, no exceptions. The ground-breaking approach to any Khemri army is to look yourself in the Mirror and repeat: “I do not care how my unit fares, as long as it wins and out-numbers the other unit” until you actually believe it. (This took me three weeks, without break, then the men in white coats with the warm jacket came…) The most abstract idea that any Khemri General faces is that his power is NOT in his combat, prowess, but instead the aftermath of the combat. Very few armies are immune to fear, with this in mind, you need to maximize the effectiveness of your fear-causing troops. This means minimizing your frontage, and out- numbering your opponent. The less attacks he gets on you, the more likely you’ll win and drive your opponent off.

“Chop off the head, and the rest shall fall” Baron Sengir

 You’re going to place the most strategic and tactical stress on this one army flaw. If your Heirophant dies before turn 5, you may as well toss in the towel. The effects of fear are so over-balanced, especially in a Khemri army, the designers felt it was a good idea to give a 2 wound T3 hero character, or a 3 wound T3 lord character, the same rules a typical vampire has. I giant red bullseye gets drawn on your hierophant’s head, and you have to pray to Settra they can’t manage to hit it. More on protecting him later.

“What I have ordered you shall carry out, this or you shall die.” Inscription, King Tut’s Tomb.

 Khemri Magic is final most important aspect of the Tomb Kings army. Magic that never mis-casts, never fails, and can be ruggedly over-powering by the end of the hierarchal casting order is sometimes too much for your opponent to bear. Especially you have some game-breaking manouver, and you are pouring 2, 3, 4, or even 5 different spells trying to get one unit to move, eventually your opponent will faulter and you’ll be off to the races. This where a Khemri General loses and wins all of his battles.

“Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes men!” Khemri Archers do have their place in any Tomb Kings army.

 Only hitting on 5’s all of the time is annoying to begin with but causes interesting problems when the opponent is using skirmishers. The absolute worst scenario. Your lizard men opponent has 7 chameleon skinks, on the outskirts of a forest, over half range. Wood elves hit this combo on 6’s, while your archers are popping these boys off on 5’s. It’s also worth noting, that if you manage to get the Incantation of smiting off on your archers, they become (for that round) more accurate that regular elves, and almost as good as wood-elves.

“Dance like a butterfly, and sting like a bee!” Muhammad Ali

The Tomb kings live and die by this quote. Most people, when they look at an undead army they’ve been fooled, and lied to so many times they think one thing. “I have time, my opponents army is slow. The units can’t march” The interesting note is that The Khemri army is hands down the fastest army in the game. A well played unit of Carrion can move 40 inches in one turn. Chariots and Heavy/Light Cavalry can be in combat on turn one also, if things go right for the Tomb Kings player. So this army screams finesse. Another hidden factor of this army is that seeing undead across the table brings back bad memories of vampire lords, and a soft sigh of relief comes across their face as they realize that a king isn’t as brutal as a Vampire lord. This is very mis-leading. A Tomb King can convincingly thump a Vamp lord given the charge and the right items. He doesn’t have the combat survivability the Vamp has, but he doesn’t need it, it often seems nothing survives the charge to attack back anyway. This is another interesting issue: I sometimes wonder if GW dropped the ball making the King as mean as he is. The fact that they can outmanuover any other army in the game, should mean that they really probably shouldn’t have the combat prowess of an angry space monkey with a scalpel and a lust for the total annihilation of the world. To kind of steal a quote from Tycho Brahe, (www.penny- arcade.com) the Tomb King’s player has the option to either kick, stab, or shoot his opponent, in the nuts. Argumentatively his combat prowess is why he’s not *as* powerful magically as the High Liche Priest thus being *the* balancing factor for the king. I wouldn’t suggest trying to console your opponent with that argument next time you’re looking at your opponent that you just kicked, stabbed and shot in the nuts with a Tomb King in a unit of chariots. The point is, you have finesse and power, which is a deadly combination. I have a theory that any time an army is designed in such a way that it either massacres its opponent, or gets massacred in the process every game it hits the table, that the army relies on something that is broken. Any player that uses a unit of 3 chariots with the standard of the sacred eye, no other command, led by a King with the Crown of Kings, and Flail of Skulls will tell you that if this unit dies his game is over. If this chariot unit wins its first combat 9 times out of ten the loss of opposing unit is too hard to overcome against a Khemri army. I honestly don’t remember a game where I didn’t massacre my opponent, (about 75% of the time) or get massacred. I NEVER had a draw. And only once did I suffer a loss that was a solid victory to my opponent. I’ve also had games in which I’ve only last 3 models. That’s usually a once every couple of years occurrence. I was doing it regularly with the army based around this unit, at least once a tournament, sometimes twice.

Magical Item Assessments

Destroyer of Eternities: The total number of wounds this single weapon is capable of is astonishing. Str 7, 6 auto hits at 2 per model in base to base contact is absolutely terrifying. Toss in killing blow, and the ability to trade in a smite of only 1 attack for 2 auto hits against every model in Base to base contact, and the weapon almost becomes broken. With that being said, it’s a wonder I don’t take it more. I’ve found, though, that the King rarely ever sees combat. Since He’s busy hoofing it to his opponent, with his unit of Skeletons or his unit of Tomb Guard, and getting shot to pieces on the way. Nearly 600 points spent on one unit that my opponent won’t let move. This unit becomes an “all your eggs in on basket unit” all because you want to get your king into combat with a weapon that is almost too powerful. I’ve used it, in tournament and friendly. To be honest I give the Weapon a C+. Too many drawbacks for the strengths provided.

Crook and Flail of Radiance: This weapon is twice the weapon all the others try to be. Both +1a, AND strike first in a weapon choice. Argumentatively, this weapon deserves to be with a king with his S of 5, and higher WS, but a prince may benefit from having the weapon to if there were some way to ensure he was attacking normal troupers and not trying to crack through some armour. Weapon gets a B- because of it’s dual purpose + cheapness.

 Blade of Setep: Once again, a dual purpose weapon. No Armour save, AND destroys magical armour with the first hit. I’ve watched a king on a chariot blow through heavily armored but toughness 3 knights, and slap around super tough dwarf lords with 1+ re-rollable saves. Allows you to crack knight units wide open and get 2 or 3 casualties nearly every time, when you might be lucky to see 1 at str 5. Grade: A

Blade of Mourning: Blam this piece of crap. Follow the logic here: If you win combat, but don’t out- number your opponent (skaven, goblins, sometimes humans,) then you double combat res against them for their loss (Skaven, goblins, and sometimes humans die in enough droves that they’ll be running anyway thanx to their super low ld…) and anything you out-number, doesn’t take a break test. The worst part, the only effective thing I could think of was using it against other undead, but they don’t take break tests, rendering this weapon useless against them. Grade F

Flail of Skulls: Head of the class, Magna Cum Laude, and all that Jazz. Imagine, with a str of 7, even against heavily armored things, you can sneak a wound or two through. 1 wound = one dead hero. 2 wounds = one dead lord. 3 wounds = 1 dead dragon. 4 wounds = a few dead Greater Daemons (all but one….) Give it to a king and challenge a unit with only a champ. You’ll guarantee yourself the +6 to combat resolution nearly every time. Give it to a prince and challenge the same champ, +4. Still enough to really matter. It does lose its S bonus after the first turn, but with those kinds of numbers flopping around, you’ll rarely see a second round. Grade A+ with Honours

Spear of Antarhak: This weapon seems to be most effective with a king, and even more so if the king is in a chariot. The idea of this weapon is to increase the staying power of a unit, and it does do it effectively. Solid weapon, It also seems to fit well when taken with a spearmen unit led by a prince. I do have to say though, I find myself wishing the guys wielding it had a greater S, since armour is so tough to crack these days, and str 4 or 5 on the charge just doesn’t seem to do it. Grade B-

Serpent Staff: Right… you’re telling me you want your now re-roll-to-wounds/poisoned-single-attack-liche priest-and-possible-heirophant *in* combat? And you wanna pay extra to put your heirophant *in* combat? Lean a little closer I need to tell you something… closer… no closer… *SLAP* Grade D.

Armour of Eternity: This armour creates quite a disturbance in the force. Against S3 opponents, it seems like they will never wound your King. Needing to roll 2 sixes in a row, AND have you fail your armour save afterwards, which could be as low as a 4+. But against high strength characters, where you want your king throwing down anyway, they need to roll 2+’s twice. That most likely negate your horrible 4+ save. Not only that, but taking your king alone against his points in troops = loss for the King 100 percent of the time, because he crumbles to dust. This armour requires you to enter the game with the idea that you want your king in Combat with things that your normal units can deal with. For 70 points it just doesn’t seem to be worth it. Grade C-

Scorpion Armour: Top Marks here. Say you want to get into a situation where you put your king out on an island. So your army can come to his rescue while everything else stays locked into combat. Or, say that your have a heavy powered unit that wins combat often, and it whiffs on the charge, forcing you to lose big! This armour has saved me more times than I can count, buying me time before my king takes another dirt nap to get into position to crush those that would slay my king. It also increases the staying power of your king and unit. Grade: Solid A

Armour of the Ages: Anywhere else I look, +1 W costs 50 points. Here it’s 35, and counts as Heavy armour. Seems like a bonus to me. The astute reader will point out: It’s worth less because he’s undead and subject to crumbling. I say tell me that while he’s in front of a unit of 24 skeletons with HW and Shield! Grade A-

Shield of Ptra: The concept is awesome. If I save with my prince, or king, then my unit of skeletons will go nuts on my opponent, needing only 3’s to hit!!! The application is like the minimalists approach to Taoism. The absolute best save he can get with this item is a 5+ armour save. Meaning that only str 3 and 4 units will suffer the effects of this item. Couple that with the idea that they’ll only be wounding him on 6’s or 5’s respectively and hitting on 4’s most of the time: Wooo. It is cheap, but useless. Grade: D+

Golden Ankra: 4+ ward, cheapened because the Undead fall apart. Give it to a model you don’t intend to be in combat and you’re in business. Grade B+

Crown of Kings: A must in force led by a Tomb King. The fact that your lord slot sucks at magic, forces you to NEED better scores. I can’t count the number of times I’ve rolled a 1 when rolling for my king. My opponent picks up a Dispell die and chuckles to himself. On the same note, I can’t count the number of times I’ve rolled a 1 and a 6 when using this item and then my opponent picks up 2 dice and offers a quick prayer to the dice gods. Grade A+

Amulet of Pha-Stah: Renders everything but Magical Standards, Weapons and armour useless. Which is an interesting concept. A lot of players tend to rely on that ward-save from their talisman, or immunity to fear from that enchanted item. By using this item you help level the playing field. The balancing factor to this item is that this character (obviously going to be a prince, unless you were drunk when you made your list) cannot take any other magic items. I dinked around with the idea of running him in concert with another character that was a combat monkey, but then I found I had all my eggs in one proverbial basket, and if I lost that one unit, I lost the game. Yuck. Grade: C+

Collar of Shapesh: The Absolute cheapest 4+ save you can give any character out there! This item is GREAT! It’s only drawback is that you only save the character from getting wounded because the wound “bounces” to some other model within 4 inches. Give it to a Tomb King with the Scorpion armour, and you’ve got a King that’s going to make a good run at living the entire game every time. Give it to your Heirophant, and keep him within 4 inches of a unit and he can wander around a bit. Give it to your liche priest behind the Casket of souls and put a Screaming skull catapult within 4 inches. Then bounce the wound to the war-machine. Yes you can do it! Watch your opponents face go red with frustration! Fun for the whole family! Grade A-

Golden Eye of Rha-Nutt: One of the biggest downsides to chariots is watching an entire unit disappear before one very angry (insert expletive here) dwarf lord, scar-veteran, vamp lord… with a great weapon. While this item won’t save the whole unit, it will save your prince’s chariot. Create the situation in which that same very angry (repeat above expletive here) dwarf, veteran, vampire… can only attack your Prince/King’s chariot with this item and you severely decrease his combat effectiveness. This item is an offensive chariot combo must. 5+ on top of the afore mentioned goodness is just bonus. This item tends to lend itself to the Ultimate chariot combo which is kinda like when all the Transformers combine to form the megatron (collect the whole set! 1 of 3). It also tends to finds itself combined with the amulet of pha-stah on another character in the same insane combat monkey unit. Which is, decidedly the only inconvenience of this item) Grade: Solid B.

Blue Khepra: Anyone that has led a Khemri force into battle more than a handful of times knows that offensive RiP spells (Read as Flames of the Phoenix) can give even the most embattled grizzled veteran evil nighmares. The lack of Power dice in a Khemri army means that if you don’t dispel spell when your opponent tries to cast it, you probably won’t dispel the spell till your opponents turn. Tossing this item on your character in that unit of 24 tomb guard is just what the psychoanalist ordered for those nightmares. I’ve tossed around the idea of the fearless High Liche Priest on a horse with MR of 2, coupled with a 4+ ward- save more times than I care to admit, but I just can’t get around the crumbling rule in conjunction with his lack of speed. Grade B+

Death Mask of Kharnut: I’m probably the only guy in the world that thinks causing terror is a bad thing. I just have a really hard time with the idea that I’m going to take the time to make my character cause terror, and then give my opponent another opportunity to run-away from my carefully timed charges. I do think that the Death Mask has it’s merit in that a single character in a chariot in a could conceivably create a charge that the typical fleeing unit of foot could not escape, and a Cavalry unit would be hard pressed to escape, but I’ve actually never been so ruthless as to try the item in that capacity. Maybe I’ll try it with Deke’s goblins next time we throw down. Whattya think Deke?! (editorial note: Thinkin’ it’s time for Fred to become a Black Orc, Str 7 mmmmmmm…tasty -Deke) Anyone that’s going to take the bloody head method with the Tomb Kings leader instead of the Finesse approach that I’ve adopted will probably find this item in their army often. Grade B-

Brooch of the Great Desert: There are some players out there sick enough to try using a King, 2 princes, and a single Liche priest in 2000 points. I’ll bet you a dollar that the King, or the 2 princes has the Brooch, it’s just a dispel scroll. But this army relies on keeping its units alive just long enough to beat you in the head on turn 2 with a couple of insanely fast, surprisingly hard hitting units. This just ensures they can have 3 dispel scrolls with only 50 points in allowance in arcane items. The only downside is that the item removes from some of the magical items this army will have that help decide combat. Heck, I even take one in my army when I get the chance. Grade A-

Chariot of Fire: Chariot now does d6+1 flaming S4 hits instead of d3. You can do quite a few things with this, the most obvious is helping to lend to your CR in that nasty unit of chariots tooled for combat. Taking away Trolls regeneration with a little bit of luck is always a bonus Charging something flammable such as a Treeman, or another tomb prince is a weak but existing option. The fact that these attacks count as magical attacks really helps hedge the bet against daemons. I believe this is a pretty solid item until you explore the concept: It really bothers me that Tomb Kings and Princes are flammable, but will ride in a chariot that’s burning all around them. Wouldn’t they worry about this? “Ok Bubba-Joe-Tep what we want you to do is get in this here chariot and ride around screamin’ and hollerin’ we’ll cover the sucker with gas and light ya on fire. This is gonna scare the hell outta the neighbors!” “Ok Billy-Ray-Taf, hold my sign….” Grade B for application, F- with a letter home to the parents for fluff. (2 of 3 collect the whole set!)

Cloak of the Dunes: Game breaker. If there is any one item that lends itself to the argument that Tomb Kings Magic is broken, this is it. Giving the Liche Priest this item gives his spells a guaranteed effective radius of 32 inches for all of his spells 38 for the magic missile. Giving this High Liche Priest this item gives him a possible effective radius of 52 inches for everything but the magic missile that clocks in at 58. Do you have any item that can do that? This item ensures that the Liche Priest is almost NEVER out of place when the game is on the line. As soon as I started taking the High Liche Priest, I took this item with compulsory glee. You’ll often find this item combined with The Heiratic Jar which is Sickness. The epitome of the “sickness” is when you move your High priest out, and on your first attempt to force a charge, or heal a unit, or do whatever you wanted him to do succeeds, and your opponent biffs it for his dispel roll, your High Priest can use his next spell to move himself again, and just jump back in bed with his starting unit like nothing ever happened. Grade A+, Valedictorian.

Icon of Rulership: US +1 doesn’t seem like a lot at first. Chariot units are just too unwieldy to field in large units meaning that the US+1 doesn’t help you get that out-number you might need. Where this item really shines is when you realize the chariot + the character now have a US of 5. The magic number needed to take away rank bonus. The Character starts out in the unit of chariots that’s going to scream down the flank, but instead of charging second turn. The Character splits off and moves to the flank of the enemy unit that the Chariots are facing off with. Use the Characters incantations, to get the unit into combat and your opponents in a world of hurt from a unit that wouldn’t have beaten his unit head on. (item 3 of 3, collect the whole set.) This item specifically says it can be combined with other enchanted items, so the combinative possibilities get a little better, but it’s really only extra credit points by now. Grade B- hanging on by a thread, almost a C+ A note on the 5+ ward save, immune to str7 d6+1 flaming, magical, hits US 5 chariot ridden by a King. It’s not as good as its points cost would suggest. 245 points before any magical weapons/armour that you can find for 30 points, and your opponent will just roll his eyes at you when you spend nearly thirty seconds explaining what the chariot can do. What’s worse, is that while it seems the intent of these items was to work together to create the granddaddy of all chariots. If you do use this character well, and roll up your opponents battle line from the far flank, he’s likely to accuse you of abusing the rules, and using overly- powerful magical combinations to win, dinging you for comp, and maybe sportsmanship. Then you may even have to put up with jokes like, maybe your king is compensating for something…. That *is* a HUGE chariot.

Vambraces of the Sun: Opposing model loses an attack and the Khemri player picks what attack that is. One thing that most people don’t expect is the ability for a Tomb King to throw down in combat. Now you can pick an attack and take it away from your opponent for only 15 points, AND it doesn’t take up a weapon/armour slot AND they can still have a ward-save if they forgo any magical armour. That makes a King one tough monkey! Grade B

Staff of Ravening: The offensive power of this item is quite misleading. Most people dismiss 3d6 str 2 hits. Until a unit of skirmishers, or that lone mage disappears under a swarm of locusts and falling frogs. This item is also an insanely powerful equalizer against Fast Cavalry, and Swarm Bases. Then when your opponent starts to worry about your Staff, and its bound level of 4, he realizes that he almost needs to toss 2 dice at it in the dispel phase. So now you’re taking away dice from an opponent who’s already playing the conservation game with his dice. I’d imagine it’s really frustrating to play me lately, even with 8 dispel dice. I use this item religiously. Grade B+

Neferra’s Plaques of Mighty Incantations: The only insult bigger than trying to cast a spell and failing, is when your Liche priest, whose magic is so reliable that it never fails, tosses 2 dice and gets a 3. Wipe that smile off your opponents face with the Plaques of Mighty Incantations. Pick those dice up and roll them again! Guaranteed to do better next time! The idea is a sound one, but the idea of being pro-active to failure is like wiping before you crap. I find that I’d rather rely on multiple attempts at a spell instead of being scared I’ll have a bad roll. Also realize that Liche Priests can only pick one item out of the arcane items, plus as many dispell scrolls as they want to carry, couple that with the fact that Khemri arcane items are over achievers takes the grade down a notch or two because there’s so much to choose from. Grade C

 Staff of Mastery: The only thing more frustrating that a spell that never fails is a spell that never fails +1. I’m not sure that 40 points is right for the item. On the High Liche Priest it is, but the Hero Priest, it isn’t. Then again, any High Liche Priest running/flying around without the Heiratic jar deserves a nice tight white jacket and matching restraint belts. Grade C+

Hieratic Jar: Game Breaker. For the Cost of a dispel scroll, its another spell at the bound level casting dice of the priest using it. One use only means you’ll play a game of cat and mouse trying to get rid of all of your opponents Dispel scrolls before you use it. Or you can use it early and try to take that last dispel scroll your opponent is saving for an emergency. Grade A+

Enkhil’s Khanopi: Ironically I’ve taken the item to a couple of tournaments and never gotten the chance to use it. In theory if an RiP spell goes off, this is your ticket to stopping it before your rocking in a rubber room repeating “my world is pain, my world is pain” (read as, I hate flames of the Phoenix!) In practice, my opponent has tossed a couple of dispel dice at it and continued burning my unit to the ground. It’s a good item, but it again finds itself in a list of over achievers in the Arcane items list. Grade B-

Standard of the Sands: I’m really not sure this banner gets much use. The idea that your opponent can’t march is an interesting one. The concept that your opponent has a -1 to rally on his rests is even cooler. What gets me is A the price, B the conflict of timing. Do I use it early to buy myself another turn, or wait until at least ONE unit is fleeing the battle, C bringing a Battle Standard Bearer (more on that conflict later) for this item. Tactically in a Khalida army this banner probably makes it to every game, but I’ve never played a Khalida army, and I don’t plan to. Grade C-

Banner of the Hidden Dead: The original Ravening hordes concept was so much better, but insanely overpowered. This new incarnation of that banner is pretty weak allowing for fewer models at an increased cost. Couple the fact that you can’t “hide” chariots, and you’re limited to 100 points (which is not enough at all) with the disadvantages of bringing an Icon Bearer means that taking this banner is, plus the fact that you have the maneuverability to get behind your opponent most of the time anyway means you’re just giving your opponent 60 points head start at the beginning of the battle. If the could charge on the turn they came up though, instead of relying on magical persuasion this would be a different story. Grade D

Icon of the Sacred Eye: Finally we get into some good banners. I’ve described how rough a tomb king can be in combat. Imagine for a moment getting into combat with a unit, and the champion issues a challenge, your king with the flail of skulls accepts. 2’s to hit, 2’s to wound means +6 combat resolution and a unit that is almost definitely running. The rest of the unit definitely benefits from the +1 to hit too. One of the reasons Fear causing skeletons are cheap is WS 2. Make them hit on 3’s and you’ve got some serious meanness. The only downside to this banner is that you often find yourself too eager to get into Hand to hand combat and will sometimes isolate your unit with the banner. Grade B+

Mirage Standard: Re-rolling to hits, and a 5+ ward against cannon balls and rock lobbers is HUGE! Increases the survivability of your unit tenfold. All around great banner with no downside other than it’s a touch on the expensive side. No tactical deviousness behind this banner either though, it’s pretty straightforward. Grade B+

Icon of Rakaph: There are 2 camps of thought concerning the Icon. Many argue that the ability to re-form and charge lends itself to a new type of “perceived weakness” tactic. In which your battle line is a rough and tumble bunch of guys shoulder to shoulder except where that big single rank unit of Skeleton archers is. Your opponent picks the skeleton archers out of the crowd. Kicks the crap out of them, overruns to avoid being charged in the flank, but doesn’t quite get off the board edge. Then your unit of Tomb Guard Re-forms, and slams into their rear/flank and forces them off the board. Next turn re-forming and helping out in the battle line again. Others argue that you can still employ this tactic with the same effectiveness simply utilizing the Tomb Kings relentless magic to achieve the same goal. Re-form in the movement phase, charge in the magic phase. I’ve used this banner on a unit of Tomb Guard, and have found the unit too expensive for my taste. But others swear by the banner and live and die by the unit. Grade B+

Standard of the Cursing Word: This item for being so cheap is actually kind of fun. The idea of a single model cursing his opponents the entire game is enough to bring a smile to any face. The potentail wound it can do to a champion, or hero model is actually quite devastating if your opponent goes on a slew of high leadership rolls. It’s even helped me gain the out-number bonus against other skeletons, and humans, which turned out to be a game breaker. Grade B-

Banner of the Undying Legion: During a typical game, by turn two or three your opponent is beginning to strategize his dispel dice rolls. “Do I want to let my opponent have this, but prevent my opponent from having that…” Many people don’t know about your banner until they’ve got a set strategy. Opponents turn pretty shades of red when you announce you have yet another spell for them to throw dice at. Healing a unit that’s in combat or getting shot to pieces is great, and if your opponent is really intent on stopping the spell, he’ll throw 2 dice at it because the situation is pivotal. A bound level 3 spell attracting 2 dispell dice. Who would have thought? I’ve seen a unit go from having only the standard bearer left to being big enough to break my opponent unit and run them off, run them down, and start causing panic tests in his battle line. Pays for itself every time. Grade A-