Skeletal Archers Configurations, Unit Sizes and Nehekara Magic

In a previous post, I mentioned how much I liked units of 21, for purposes of deploying 7 wide. It gives you flexibility in shooting light flanking units, balances your deployments, and expanding does not take up as much frontage. However, if you had say 44 archers, how would you divide them? I'm starting to think that Nehekara magic support makes a big difference - in particular, Righteous Smiting and Dessication.

Smiting on Archers is pretty good. Dessication is a pretty awesome spell. Smiting will increase wounds caused slightly moreso than Dessication. However, Dessication combos off Catapults as well as serve as a deterrent for would-be chargers, possibly moreso than Smiting (except with monstrous units).

If I had a lvl 2 Nehekara wizard (the Sleboda way), perhaps two units of 22 would make sense for the previous reasons of flexibility and balance. Furthermore, you are not guaranteed to get Righteous Smiting. If you do get Righteous Smiting, it becomes a 5 or 6 dice endeavor.

But with a level 4, I'm thinking that perhaps an even split is not the best policy. What about a unit of 30 and a unit of 14? It's an imbalanced deployment and a unit of 30 would need to be very wide (perhaps 12 wide for 27 shots).

The logic goes: Tomb Kings can always use power dice (since apparently we are designed as a magic-reliant army) and we have more spells than dice. Thus committing too many dice may be a waste if the opponent has no interest in dispelling, not to mention the risk of miscasting or failing to cast.

Righteous Smiting is one of those odd spells. To power an 18, you need 5 dice (4d6 with +6 is 76%; 5d6 is 94%), and early in the game, it may get you only a handful of shooting attacks since you are out of charge range. With 44 archers (and say 4 chariots), you get 104 shots with AOE Smiting. But let's say you do the 30/14 approach. You cast with 2 Power Dice and now you conserve 3 power dice for other magic. You net 82 shots. Since you hit on 5s, is 3 power dice worth an additional 7 hits (7-3)? I would think not. On the flip side, the 2 power dice for an additional 10 hits is a much better return (5-1).

Since Tomb Kings pays an insane premium on their magic, freeing power dice for other wizards may make more sense. At the same time, it makes no sense not to at least try and make Smiting work. The opponent could be forced into a set of bad choices. If they let it through, Dessication becomes an ugly spell. If it is dispelled, Dessication and other magic can be forced through much easier since they will spend usually 3 dispel dice (your average casting value is 13 with a Titan).

So in conclusion, defensive armies with magic support should perhaps consider imbalanced archer units moreso than a balanced approach. Your damage per magic phase would be much more productive.

Just my two cents.

makes sense, nice thoughts

The annoying this with archers is that moving will cost you your volley fire. now, to circumvent this, one can go stand wider, to have a larger number of base-shots from the first two ranks. however, since the possibility of shooting at the targeted unit nowadays is evaluated per seperate model, standing too wide will have some of your models unable to shoot, unles you move a little. That in turn means that I personally hardly ever get to use volley fire at all, and therefore I never deploy more than 2 deep.
I haven't got experience with 30 archers in a unit therefore; 15 wide would be difficult to store somewhere in you battleline, and I don't use archers for anything different than shooting gutter runners and other harassers. 20 archers usually is enough for that, also without smiting.

but from a theoretical point of view, I agree with you that it is best to trade those 7 extra shots for 3 powerdice. after all, if you then get dessication of, you could pretty much double the effectiveness of your bows again, and technically you could thereby net 162 shots in you example, depending on how you focus fire and what you were targetting to begin with.

40 archers - 20x2 formation:
- serious threat casting smite on them (80 shots). no need to cast the buffed_one spell and risk being sucked into a warp. also no need to waste valuable Power Dices
- reform into a bus (prince and king, or 2 princes inside; my favorite king + necrotect + HLP). this way you will gain a combat unit with WS5/6 & 6+ regen
- large movement tray looks awesome
- can reform into a horde and cast that -1S-1T and see an enemy tremble before ye (hatred makes u rroll to hit + u have WS5/6)

I always have 80 archers in my army, usually 2 units of 40, I field them 20 wide by 2 deep, as Krael stated above more often than not you need to walk forward, so volley fire becomes redundant.

My archers have never got in the way of anything of mine, plus those enemy template weapons hit less so kills less.... Bonus

could you elaborate on that little, interesting sentence?

You guys aren't finding that deploying 20 wide eventually puts enemy units out of LOS of a 1/4 of the unit of so?

I run 80 archers in my lists in 4 groups of 20. My groups are 10 wide by 2 deep so I get 20 shots per unit.

I like having 4 identical units because I use them as my first drops and because they're identical I can deploy them without having to commit myself to a certain part of the board, if that makes sense.

As I'm dropping my archer units I can see how my opponent reacts and then drop the rest of my army.

I also almost never deploy the full 12" onto the board. I usually deploy as close to my board edge as possible to maximize the time it takes an opponent to reach my lines; I usually get an extra turn of shooting that way.

uncorrect. u still got a 4" move/swift reform to center_align them so all your archers can see them. if u cant do that with a 4" movement, try it with wind - another reason for your enemy to dispel the wind) .only way not to see them with a whole unit is if a building interferes or the unit (lets say HE eagle) is within 7" of your unit



the rulers are 24" - thats the range of our archers. they are angled 45 degrees to represent a LOS of corner_models. rulers are in base contact with corner models to define front_arc.

the range u will have to be in 20" range in order to shoot the single monster. when it comes to hordes the range becomes ~22".


@OrneryRooster - pretty smart tactic. but it might not work against all enemies. especially against those bloody wood elves and their 30" range.

@ orneryrooster:
But surely your bows will not be what kills your opponent?

@ teclis:
woos elve bows? all 12 of them? what an expensive losers they are especially against them I'd like roosters tactic of a board wide 80(make it 160) archer strong sweep. woodsies will have nowhere to go and those guys will actually die to bowfire.

No, that duty belongs to my Casket, catapults, Tomb Guard, Sphinx(es) and chariots. My bowmen can take care of small units, they rest of my army takes care of everything else.