3k Using...skeletons?

Hi all,

Adepticon is in the books, but Rampage is just around the corner. The rules for the event are awesome. It's 3K, full regular rules of Warhammer, just not using Grand Armies.

I am building some terrain for the event, so my army painting time is limited. I have a few versions of a list I'd like to use, but the one I am presenting here I am calling my "3K With Minimal Painting Needed" list. If I get the time, I'll be dropping skeletons for some other stuff, but if not, this will be the list pretty much.

I am going to get one or two games in tonight with the list and will come back here as usual to post the results.

Tomb Kings List
1 L4 Nehek - Wand of Jet
1 L4 Light - Power Stone
1 Tomb King - Glittering Scales, Sword of Anti-Heroes

4 Chariots - Champion, Standard, Flaming Banner
30 Archers - FC
30 Skeletons - FC
5 Horse Archers
5 Horse Archers

12 Ushabti - Great Bows, FC
1 Warsphinx with Breath Weapon
3 Stalkers

1 Colossus with Additional Hand Weapon
1 Colossus with Additional Hand Weapon
1 Hierotitan


Between the Wand of Jet and the Power Stone, I should be able to ensure that I don't have that one really bad phase in terms of getting enough dice.


Question/opinion time: Do you think the extra D6 from the Wand is truly extra, or does it come from the pool?

That's a bit of painting indeed >.<

One MASSIVE thing/question, Casket? ... You don't have one. Yet I see two level 4's and a Titan.
It's a big investment in magic which I do a lot, but I think your struggle without the extra D3, it pays for itself.

If your not a fan of the Light of Death, then don't cast it with hope, just throw 2 dice at it and watch your enemy struggle to decided whether to allow it through or not. If he dispels it then that's fine, leaves less dice for the more important augments/buffs.
And if you find the spell doesn't actually do that much damage then don't cast it, but the 135 points is a much needed investment for Tomb Kings.

Wand of Jet
"The bearer can increase one of his casting results by an additional +D6, after other casting dice have been rolled. This extra power dice can contribute to casting a spell with irresistible force (and a miscast)."

Power Stone
"The Wizard can declare that he is using the power stone immediately before casting a spell. If he does so, two extra dice are added to the power dice that he is going to roll (you still need to roll at least one dice from the power pool)."

It's that pesky extra word power that casts a shadow of doubt. Good question.. I would think it's extra as in not from your power pool but that's based off the trend that these magic items follow so *shrugs*.

His wife won't let him use it.

Why not?

Why not?

From what I've read before (if I remember correctly) it won him an award. She doesn't want it to get damaged.

Why not?

From what I've read before (if I remember correctly) it won him an award. She doesn't want it to get damaged.

im tempted to mail him one of my caskets so he can hush about it. I only have 3 after all.

anyhoo good luck sleb, were you going to use spears still or did you decide against it?

@AegisGrey:
Yep. "Power" is the word that gives me pause as well.

@Davados1:
As others said. Keeping the wife happy. I do have another (thanks anyway themidget428), but it's gonna take a loooong time to paint it.

Besides, I already feel like I am too heavily spent on magic as is. I'm making harsh cuts already without finding a way to spend the extra 135. Also (and I can't believe I'm saying this), I'm finding that I am able to get to the spells I need each phase with just the Titan boosting things. By adding the Stone and Wand, I'll be able to handle the one "really important" phase and just let the pool handle things otherwise. Really, each turn I'll only be looking to get maybe three spells off anyway, so the casket really is just a luxury right now.

@themidget428:
No spears. Time is short, and I wouldn't be able to get them done in time.

One can hear the whip-crack at Sleboda's back right through the internet...

Just use it, I say! Other people want to enjoy your art too, y'know . But you do have good alternatives. Sure the casket will provide you with 6 or more power dice through the game, but there will be times when you roll that 1-2 and really wished for at least a 3-4 where the power stone will come in handy.

Two games are now in the books, and boy howdy do I ever have tales to tell.

Both games were against the same Dark Elf opponent, and both were thrilling in their own ways.

I will detail the first game more than the second. I have no map, but both were played on pretty much the same table, with only minor alterations.

The army list below is not fully accurate, but is close enough.

Dark Elf List
30 or so spearmen
10 xbows
10 xbows
10 Cold One Knights
6 Shades
5 Riders
25 Black Guard + the General ("unkillable DE lord")
20 Witch Elves
25 Corsairs
BSB
L4 Shadow
L2 Dark
2 Hydras

Pre-Game
The terrain was 3 or 4 hills, 3 woods, bushes, a sigmarite shrine, and a haunted mansion. Stuff was spread around pretty evenly, with nothing on the table creating any real problems.

He got the spells you would think, as did I. This would be my first game looking seriously at Light. I did the research and decided I wanted Timewarp, Net, Protection, and Speed of Light. Turns out I got them. My Nehek spells were also pleasing.

We rolled up Dawn Attack (or whatever it's called - the one with three zones of randomness).

Most of my stuff when on the right or middle, so I was able to cluster up toward the right, with only my chariots going left.

He had similar luck, and we ended up having most of our stuff in a 4x4 section of the table, on my right.

Anyway, the result will have to wait until tomorrow (or later today, looking at the clock).

Out musical theme is a double tonight. The first game is taken from a Judas Priest album and describes what the Warsphinx did. The second game's album is from Deicide, and describes how I felt about what the Dark Elves managed in game 2.

See you in the morning.

(more to come...)

Your musical references are for old people! I don't know this stuff!

Black Guard are normaly capped at 20/unit - perhaps an exception is being made?

I'm going with "Killing Machine" and "The Stench of Redemption"

I'm a bit dissapointed with the amount of Skeletons, considering the title, I excpected much more than that

I have no clue about the music reference, but if what is posted above is accurate, it's looking good for the sphinx!

Ha! Yeah, sorry. I can see where that might be. For me it was meant more like "I'm playing with more points, and can you believe I actually spent them on skeletons? How crazy is that!?"

Anyway, here's the report.

Turn 1 - Tomb Kings
M: I didn't really advance much other than to get better positions for some of my things.
m: Very low dice, something like 4,2. I froze the Dark Riders in place with Vengeance.
S: My Ushabti put one wound on a hydra.

Turn 1 - Dark Elves
M: He advanced as a wave of dark elfieness.
m: Another low roll, maybe 3,1. He reduced the toughness of my chariots by 1
S: He shot a few things. Nothing of note.


Turn 2 - Tomb Kings
Start of Turn: The stalkers came up!
M: The sphinx opted to take his particular brand of awesomeness and Ram It Down* the flank of a hydra. The stalkers popped up behind the two hydras.
m: Small total again, about 3,1. Nothing of note.
S: I picked up my three artillery dice...and got 10,10,8. 28 hits on a hydra! Dead hydra. Yeah, baby! With that many heads, I guess he couldn't avoid the gaze of the stalkers.

The ushabti killed three cold ones. Man, not paying penalties to hit is great with these guys.

C: The sphinx crushed the hydra and overran into the flank of some witch elves.

Turn 2 - Dark Elves
M: He advanced
m: Stopped
S: A wound here and there.
C: The sphinx takes one wound and breaks the witch elves, who flee though the massed lines of dark elves and have nowhere to stop and rest until they are off the table. The sphinx keeps on trucking and hits the flank of the cold ones.

Turn 3 - Tomb Kings
M: A colossus charges the Black Guard.
m: I Desiccated the Corsairs.
S: A few dead dudes.
C: The sphinx kills many cold ones, who break and flee off the table. The sphinx spins, looking for a challenge.

The colossus misses with 4 of his 5 attacks, but the Epic was about to happen. The one attack that hit caused a wound, which hit, which caused a wound, which hit....9 dead dark elves later, he ran out of steam, but not before he thunderstomped, killed 5 more and broke the unit, running them down.

At this point my opponent conceded the game.

I had lost a unit of horse archers. He had lost the witches, his general, the guard, the cold ones, both hydras, and the L2 (was in a unit I had crushed).

Holy crap.

*


GAME TWO
My opponent took a break and reworked his list. I did not change mine. The main difference was him shaving some points from a unit or two and lowering his L4 to L3. This got his the dark pegasus and the kit he wanted on his Unkillable Lord (Pendant, 1+ save, Crown of Command, and Sword of Might).

The battle was Battleline. We rearranged the scenery a bit and jumped into it.

This game went the full 6 turns, but was much more static. Rather than making a full report, or even a short one, I am just going to point out some highlight moments.

Highlight One
The stalkers came up again without a hitch, and had a shot at the Unkillable Lord. I did not know his gear, but I suspected. When I let lose the Gaze, I got 8,4, misfire. Sadly, I caused no wounds to his general, and this was probably the moment of the game. Still, after what they did last game, I totally didn't care. I was sort of floating at this point.

Highlight Two
He charged my skeletons with the King with both hydras. The entire unit was dead in that one round. Later they both charged my full archer unit and killed all of them as well, doing enough to put a wound on each liche through crumble. For the first 4 turns I was able to inflict only two total wounds on one hydra and zero on the other. A colossus charged one of them in the side and was actually killed before it got to swing. Hydras are cool.

Highlight Three
I charged his Black Gaurd, with the BSB, with my Ushabti. Then came the awesome. I rolled 11 power dice. Between those dice, the Titan, and a power stone, I got:
- Pha's Protection
- Timewarp
- Speed of Light
- Smiting
- 5+ ward save

All 5 spells on my Ushabti.

I had 5 attacks per front line Ushabti, +1 for the champion, +3 per rear rank guy. In addition, I was hitting first on 3+ with re-rolls to hit. I had a total of 33 of these attacks. Wow. Then I would have four stomps.

I should have hit with 22 + 8 for 30 hits, then 20 wounds. I did pretty close to that, but he had a 6+ save and saved 6 of them, then he saved 2 more stomps. Still, I did end up with about 12 kills. He stuck around.

Then in his turn he charged with the spearmen and the flying lord. All of my spells were still up. I killed a lot. His BSB died. Many spearmen died. Sadly, the unkillable lord laughed off 11 attacks, taking zero wounds. I won by a ton. The Black Gaurd were slaughtered to the man and the spearmen ran away. Then I found out the Lord was stubborn. Noooooooo..... He stayed.

There were three rounds of combat that followed, with his lord in contact with three ushabti. I had ward save, killing blow, and Timewarp up for all three rounds. He dispelled Speed of Light to prevent my re-rolls.

In the first two rounds, I put a total of 42 attacks, all with Cursed Blades on them, on him. Three KB attacks landed, and his ward (3+) saved them all. He took no damage at all from those 42 attacks.

In round three I landed three KBs, and he failed both. Yeah!

At one point he had tried to charge in with Witches but failed. I told him it was good that he failed because with my guys being Initiative 10 I would have wiped them out. He thought about it and agreed.

In the end he got the win by about 300 points, but it was an awesome game due to how magic went. I'll comment more below on that.

For now, though, after losing his hydras in game one, they filled the air with the Stench of Redemption*.

*

@ Veritas - You're never too old to rock the horns, man. Get in touch with your roots, young'un.

Post-game Thoughts

Wow. Two really great games.

I'm a little concerned by how I was able to get pretty much every spell known to man off on the Ushabti and _still_ not obliterate a unit. It reminded me of the discussions we've had here about spells making units better. On one hand, people like to say that with the right spells, our stuff gets awesome. On the other hand, it is pointed out that the units of other armies would be even _more_ awesome and that all these spells do is make our units function a bit above average rather than boost them to the next level. I can see that. 630pts of Ushabti boosted by 5 great spells should be better, I feel.

It was pretty damn fun, though, to get that many spells off on a unit. People are telling me that I should add a casket, but I'm not so sure. I seem to be able to get a healthy magic phase without one, especially with the wand of jet and the power stone. I'd have to drop something, and darn it, I'm having too much fun with my Action Figure Tomb Kings to drop some of them for a casket. As incredible as it sounds, I may be hitting a sweet spot. I like the way the army plays with the Action Figures and magic. I just wish I didn't have to take any core. Other than scouts, points spent on core are such a waste.

The luck I had in the first game was crazy. I really don't think I ever have played a game where so much went in my favor. I was able to capitalize on it when the luck came, though, which was nice. I think it's a result of dealing with several decades of bad luck. I've always had to maximize my play to account for bad dice. When the dice go my way, it seems I have good things waiting to happen. It sort of makes me even more bummed out that I don't often get even average results. I think I would win more if I did.

On the whole, I really think I am getting comfortable with my army. I just need to keep tweaking, embracing my style, and improving. I'm not sure I'll ever win more than 10% of my games, but it looks like I just may have fun doing it. Can't wait for a Colossus kit so I can do bows!!!!

(Unit Evals to come...)

Those were great games you had Joe. I see your list is coming together at 3k better than at 2200. the skeleton blocks seem to fill in the spaces needed for your Army.

We have to get a game in next FND. Play @ 3k? What Army you need to practice against or would like to go up against?

Ric

Unit Evaluations

Chariots
I have to admit, I didn't use them very well. Even though I decided to reduce them down to a slam-and-die role, I still think in my head I was like "these are precious!" Looking back on it, I was waaaaaay too worried about getting charged by weedy little elves. I should have pressed on toward the scouts and harpies rather than trying to stay out of their charge range.

I find myself wanting to get rid of them, but for what? You have to spend on core somewhere.

Horse Archers
I love these. They help shape events so much. Sure, they kill a few things now and then, but really they are not there for that. They get in the way divert, and generally but the rest of the army time.

Man, if I could not have to scout them, I'd replace my liche bunker with a unit of 25 or so of these and still keep a few small units as diverters.

I did get to do a neat trick with them last night, one we've talked about here before I think. Knowing he had scouts, I placed a unit in an area of the board where I didn't want him to go. This spot left me vulnerable to getting charged turn one, but with my Vanguard move, I retreated out of harm's way. So, I got to deny an area of the board to him and still wind up where I wanted to be.

I think learning to use these guys well is a big factor for us.

Archers
Honestly, I don't think I killed more than 5 models total between the two games with them. I have _got_ to find a better way to protect my liches so these can get the hell out of my lists. Utter trash. They serve no purpose. Hitting on 5+ with no mods sounds great, but it's really not, especially at S3.

Skeletons
Crap #2. Even with a king they could not hold up. Other units that get hit by monsters can rely on steadfast to keep them in the game. Crumble is an amazingly unfair penalty for our guys to pay. They are not good troops that would unfairly benefit from being unbreakable. They are poopy in the extreme. They did nothing and have no place on anyone's tabletop.

Ushabti
Man, 50pts each is still far, far too much. At least by making them bowmen, I remove much of my problem with their lack of marching. Still, it takes way too much effort and expenditure to make them worth it. And let's face it, if you are going to take a big enough block to make their shooting do something, you are building your list around them. This means putting a lot of support into them. The game plan becomes "Go, Super-Ubies, go."

Don't get me wrong, though, I am enjoying them. When I start my new TK army, I will build around them again. I would just prefer to not have to make them my sole plan with the army.

S6 shooting is cool and can be worked into a plan with sufficient numbers. S3 shooting is largely pointless and cannot be the plan in numbers. The bows on chariots and horse archers can deal with eagles and the like. A block of S3 bows can also deal with those things, but does not 'scale up' to deal with other stuff. The points are wasted. Spend those points on S6 shooting and find yourself in business.

It really was a blast getting all those spells onto them.


Warsphinx
He was so cool in game one! My opponent said he didn't see the charge coming. So, really, he made a mistake that let me win. That's a bit disappointing, but by the same token, at least I was in position and had the tools to capitalize on his mistake when it was made. That feels good.

Mr. Kittie is pretty cool. Yes, he is free VPs vs cannon armies, but I love the model and will keep using him. When you do getting a Smiting off on him, he's very good. Add a ward save and he gets to be almost worth his points. Too bad you need a wizard to make him worth what you pay. That's the TK army's lot in un-life, though, I suppose. You need magic to make things worth it.

Stalkers
A Skaven unit in a TK army. That's the best way to put it.
In game one, they were amazing.
In game two, they blew their roll and I lost.
We just have to accept that about them, I suppose.
165pts in 3K is not bad for a gamble. Less than that...not so sure.

Colossus
This is another gambler's unit in some ways, but at least when you crap out, it doesn't kill itself.

That run of kills I had in my first game was literally the best one of these has ever done for me. Like I said, my dice were on fire. I still think I'll trade up for bows when the kit comes out. I'd like my 175-200 points to be able to do something more in the early turns. They are great diverters and assassins even without bows (thanks to thunderstomp at S6 vs S5 for sphinxes), but the bows will tip them over the edge I think.

Titan
Consistent. That's his thing. Barring cannons and their ilk, he will survive. He hangs back, presenting a threat and boosting spells. He really make the engine hum, so to speak. He's a great combination of stats and rules and really fills a role for my army. I'm very glad to have him. He even killed a unit of harpies for me in combat last night. Take that, bird-ladies!


King
It sounds weird to say it, but I think there's no use for Kings in a Tomb Kings army. He was wasted points other than for his Ld on swift reforms. He did nothing in game one and died easily in game two. His skeletons lived not one moment longer from his WS boost. He's just no use in my style of list. If he could ride a horse, I could put him in a horse bunker with liches. He can't. What a waste.

I'm thinking I'll try again with a big (7-11) chariot block, but really I think he's just going to have to leave. That makes me really sad.


Liches
Fun! Taking two L4 liches provides me with such a great array of spell options! I am now a huge fan of light over death. Holy cow, was he useful. Light and Nehek work so well together!

The Wand of Jet worked exactly as advertised, allowing me to cast with fewer dice until I uses it. Even after using it, having another L4 made with supporting spells meant I could be a bit risky with the hierophant and use fewer dice than I prefer to use.

The Power Stone gave me the one dominating phase I needed. Even though I lost game 2, that one magic phase was huge.

Two L4 wizards. Don't leave home without them.

I'd like to take on a shooting army with cannons, but not if it's as proxied as Tom's was. I may be just getting old, but I really can't keep track of that much non-representative stuff.

Here's an option for Core for you- you like your Horse Archers so much, why not use them to fill your Core? And replace your Archer bunkers with Skeleton Horsemen bunkers, with Light Armour upgrade. A lot of people swear by them as Priest bunkers, too. Just don't even bother with footmen- go fully mounted, nothing below M5 in your entire army.


Something to do with a King... Ever consider taking one on a Sphinx? Or even a Prince, perhaps. It'd be a way to saturate your list with even more Constructs, and give you another big hitter- the King on top has about as many strikes as the Tomb Guard have, and you could give him the Obsidian Blade or Fencer's Blades or something.

Also, remember the Curse!

As far as the casket goes, I think even against high leadership armies it kills enough models to more than pay for itself. Also, people tend to fear it and you can use it 1st in the magic phase to draw out dispel dice or last to keep them holding on to dispel dice.

Pretty cool battles.

What got me is the luck with the dice rolls. After countless games with bad luck, you're finally seeing some good rolls on your side. Looks like your dices are starting to warming up to you! To bad in a month or so you'll have new dices to master, and have to start over from nothing, that should be glorious

Or maybe good thing will happen, and the luck will shift toward better average rolls with the new dices

About core and Horsemen, maybe you could get that 20+ Horse Archers unit for your Liche, and use a small 5 regular Horsemen for deployement purpuse. You deploy the Horsmen and Liche were you want it to be, then put your scouting Horse Archers in front of that. First turn you move the Liche in the Horse Archers. Your Liche should be safe within the Horsmen for 1 tun should your opponent get to play first. After that you have the small Horsemen that can move up to cover a flank. Maybe that's something you could toy with.

And it's nice to see that you're loving the Titan so far, always good to see a convertion being usefull and used regularily, and you didn't had to wait for GW to enjoy that unit

Yeah, I would love to use them as my bunker, but remember, you can't start out in them since characters deploy before scouts. Now, after reading Mioumboy's amazingly brilliant idea below, I do believe I'll be giving it a go. Thanks, Mioumboy. I'll dedicate the next game to you.

=> You have no idea how much I would love to do this. Seriously. Just the modeling opportunity alone would be Epic. Can you picture the things you could do to the sphinx model to deck it out with extra detail worthy of a king? And the king himself could have attendants and a canopy that would shield his royal self from the baking rays of the sun...and...and...

Unfortunately, it's probably the worst thing we can do in our entire army list. It's been explained in greater detail in other posts, but the summary of why it's bad is:
- You lose 4 tomb guard from the sphinx and get no points back. That's at least 40pts just plain thrown away.
- The King's MWBD is totally wasted. More hidden points lost.
- All templates (including cannons) hit both the rider and the beast. Ouch.
- The normal perk of being on a big monster so you can spread your General's Leadership is largely meaningless for TK.

Essentially, you give away a ton and get almost nothing back. It's very frustrating as this could have been one hell of a centerpiece/cool model in our armies, but the writer really, really didn't think it through. It should have been 175pts for the sphinx for him and a MWBD should work on sphinxes. Don't tell me they could not have found a way to fluff-justify it with some sort of bit about a King ordering his royal Necrotects to fashion a special construct that has a piece of the King's mummified body within it, creating a bond between the beast and his king ...blah blah blah...

=> I forgot it last game, but then again, now that they have weakened it so much, it's not worth remembering. Against the hydras, they would taken D6 S5 hits each, which would have done nothing against their T, armor, and regen.

=> I do like the casket, but I just can't see what I would cut.
Right now I am at the minimum on core, and that's 750.
The Ushabti unit actually needs to go bigger, but even with just 12 + command it's 630.
Stalkers are 165.
Sphinx is 230.
That's 1025 + 750 so far.
Then there are the two liches at 225 each, roughly, for 450.
The three rares are 525.

The only wiggle room is the King. Seeing as how he was so useless last time, maybe I could drop him. We'll see. If I dropped him, I'd be more inclined to add 4 more Ushabti before a casket.


There's still the issue of getting a new one painted in time for the event. That's probably the bigger problem right now.

In my opinion, the casket has no place in magic heavy lists. The power dice adding ability is roughly a 50 point ability. That means that you are spending 85 points on the light of death. In a list that already has heavy competition for power dice, you are spending 85 points on something that eats up more dice that will more often than not never get used.

I think your list is perfectly fine without the casket.

well, my initial idea that the light lich would disappoint couldn't have been more wrong, it seems. Very well done all that!

You know what I like best?
You charged a unit of witchelves with a sphinx
-sphinx weakness #1: lots of str 3 attacks
-sphinx weakness #2: poison
...
you killed them dead anyway. That's how its done


concerning the king on a sphinx:
the fault cruddace made, was making the warsphix available for special in the first place. let's face it, the only reason elves ever take a character on their dragon, is that otherwise they can't take a dragon at all! that's the general reason to take a character on a monster: only he is epic enough to controll it in the first place.
people defenitely would take the warsphinx on a prince if it was the only way to get it.