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Post by livewaaaaagh on May 25, 2017 13:18:37 GMT
Hi all,
In an effort to put some additional content here to discuss, plus wanting to express some observation based on a game that took place recently, let's talk about Tomb Guard.
Tomb Guard are for me, my favorite TK models and part of what drew me to TK now years ago. I loved painting them and always want to field them in battles. Luckily, I've had somewhat of a good experience when I go all in with them - that is convert them into deathstar of sorts.
In 8th edition, 2000/2500pts, it's not really a deathstar, but I include a Tomb King, Necrotect/Ramhotep, maybe even BSB and a horde of 30~ish(all the models I have) Tomb Guard. This has yielded good combats, though most opponents know they need to kill the Necrotect/Ramhotep ASAP to make them less deadly.
In 9th age, when I used to play, I'd also field them in a similar manner.
Last two games I played with them - and you're going to see it in upcoming battle reports - I fielded them with a Tomb Prince in a block of 20-25. This is because we play here at home in a small table and our games are usually about 1250pts. So fitting in the "deathstar" above is harder to do, and would leave me with no other combat units.
Results were less than expected to say the least. In a battle with Wood Elves, they couldn't take a unit of unbuffed Eternal Guard, and vs Dwarfs, Ironbreakers obliterated them.
It seems that unless buffed with Smiting, or even the 5+ ward, they're average at best. And bringing back units with magic is slow with D3+1.
so... TLDR: Tomb Guard = average or below average unless you field 30+ and they fall to lesser units.
Discuss!
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Post by KevinC on May 25, 2017 14:17:07 GMT
I'd say with Tomb Guard the key is always to maximize attacks, don't worry about their ranks. This means they should be minimum 6 wide. I'd agree to go with 30 in horde formation. If you give them halberds, that's potentially 31 Attacks at S5. I'd also give them the Standard of the Undying Legion so every turn you are attempting to heal them.
I general, if you have potent elite infantry with 1 Attacks (but they hit hard with high Strength, etc.) it's a waste to put them in a small frontage. Their strength is their high Strength and Killing Blow special rule, you must maximize this.
On top of this, Tomb Kings are about buffing. You should be buffing these guys at all times with multiple spells. Combined with the Standard of the Undying Legion plus multiple buff spells you have the potential to bring a lot more back to 'life' than just D3+1. The spell lore makes them crazy. You can give them an additional attack, Heroic Killing blow, and a 5+ ward save. You should be casting these spells on the unit every turn, plus their own bound spell from the banner.
They are a good unit on their own, however, the Lore of Nehekhara, allows them to become extremely better at any moment of the game. You must exploit and maximize this synergy.
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Post by grandmasterwang on May 25, 2017 15:01:39 GMT
I love Tomb Guard, all models, oop and current.
I occasionally run a dual princes with 30 tomb guard unit.
I actually think the choice to Halberd or not is not clear cut, sometimes that parry save can be crucial.
As a dwarf player Tomb Guard in combat are a scary prospect due to the low dwarven initiative. For an army like dark Elves they are not such a combat threat.
I will add one curve ball to the discussion and state that I have had a couple of great results using a small unit of 20 hw/shield tomb guard and/ or a larger 30+ Tomb Guard unit in conjunction with Settra. It really is unbelievable what a difference that WS7 makes, especially vs elven and chaos elites.
Btw KevC, the other day we playtested a unit of 20 TG with full command (250 points) vs 3 eefl draft 3 Retributors including Retributor Prime (280 points) and the Tomb Guard lost all 3 times, 2 were lopsided losses, one the Tomb Guard got a bit luckier with killing blow but still lost.
A bad crumble combat round can be devastating to tomb guard. It's great when they killing blow cavalry or a character though.
Eternal Guard and Ironbreakers are bad matchups for Tomb Guard, the EG are too quick, skilled and cheap, the Ironbreakers too skilled and durable.
Ironbreakers vs Tomb Guard is imo the single most positive matchup I can get as a dwarf player. The 5+ parry vs killing blow stuffs the matchup for the less skilled TG, and if the TG have a prince/king they will be well outnumbered by the Ironbreakers.
livewaaagh, what was the setup of your TG small unit, shields/hw or Halberd?
My biggest issue with 'deathstar' tomb guard is how easy it is to avoid the unit, or engage it on favourable terms.
Seriously though, WS 7 Tomb Guard are amazing, hitting Swordmasters on 3+ is a great thing.
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Post by wilsonthenarc on May 25, 2017 15:35:20 GMT
When I play Tomb Kings, my Death Star of choice is 20ish Ushabti. Obv with Great Weapons. Talk about a hammer. A blunt instrument. Add 2 or 3 Necrotects. And now they hate you? Yup, re-rolls with S6 feels unfair and like playing on easy mode sometimes. If I could play with 20 Ushabti, why would I want Tomb Guard? If yer gonna deathstar, be the deathiest starriest M'er F'er you can be!!!! Only reason against: It is about 1 jillion points (1000 - 1200 in my lists). But you have to kill them dead. All of them - Nyah! And the big guys keep standing back up for more punishment. Like KevinC said, the Tomb Guards can be really good with buffs. +1A? Sure. Killing Blow on 5+ can be insane against the right enemy (Chaos Knights anyone?). Nutty if you get 2+ buff spells on them. But that IF should be size 72 font. And Red. And Bold. I tried to make that Tomb Guard Death Star happen in quite a few games. It never quite worked on the highest level. I will say this: it is great throwing buff spells at Tomb Guard and the number of models you resuscitate is very noticeable over a long grind of a combat. D6 vs D3 vs 1. The number of models you resuscitate versus: same spells on a unit of animated constructs is a real and serious number. All that said; give me the Ushabti every day.
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Post by KevinC on May 26, 2017 14:57:32 GMT
I actually think the choice to Halberd or not is not clear cut, sometimes that parry save can be crucial. -------The best thing about a parry save is that it negates a point of combat res from your enemy, but who cares about a 6+ ward when you can have a 5+ ward?? (i.e. buff spell). In terms of keeping Tomb Guard "alive," you have all the buff spells, plus the banner. This means, because you have the potential to bring back several models each turn, I believe the halberds are more important than the shields. Who cares about armour when you can bring models back to life? Because of this, I'd focus on damage output over armour saves for them. S5, Killing Blow is potent. When you increase that to 2 Attacks each and/or Heroic Killing blow, they become a huge threat to everything! Not to mention, you can give them a 5+ ward save for protection through spells. The best way to go with TG is to have a large unit in horde formation with halberds (i.e. maximizing their damage output) and then constantly buff them, which does everything: further increase damage output, gives them protection, and raises them back.
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Post by livewaaaaagh on May 26, 2017 17:31:48 GMT
When I play Tomb Kings, my Death Star of choice is 20ish Ushabti. Obv with Great Weapons. Talk about a hammer. A blunt instrument. Add 2 or 3 Necrotects. And now they hate you? Yup, re-rolls with S6 feels unfair and like playing on easy mode sometimes. If I could play with 20 Ushabti, why would I want Tomb Guard? If yer gonna deathstar, be the deathiest starriest M'er F'er you can be!!!! Only reason against: It is about 1 jillion points (1000 - 1200 in my lists). But you have to kill them dead. All of them - Nyah! And the big guys keep standing back up for more punishment. Like KevinC said, the Tomb Guards can be really good with buffs. +1A? Sure. Killing Blow on 5+ can be insane against the right enemy (Chaos Knights anyone?). Nutty if you get 2+ buff spells on them. But that IF should be size 72 font. And Red. And Bold. I tried to make that Tomb Guard Death Star happen in quite a few games. It never quite worked on the highest level. I will say this: it is great throwing buff spells at Tomb Guard and the number of models you resuscitate is very noticeable over a long grind of a combat. D6 vs D3 vs 1. The number of models you resuscitate versus: same spells on a unit of animated constructs is a real and serious number. All that said; give me the Ushabti every day. 20 ushabti!?!?!?! Holy Animated construct batman!
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Post by grandmasterwang on May 28, 2017 5:46:53 GMT
I actually think the choice to Halberd or not is not clear cut, sometimes that parry save can be crucial. -------The best thing about a parry save is that it negates a point of combat res from your enemy, but who cares about a 6+ ward when you can have a 5+ ward?? (i.e. buff spell). In terms of keeping Tomb Guard "alive," you have all the buff spells, plus the banner. This means, because you have the potential to bring back several models each turn, I believe the halberds are more important than the shields. Who cares about armour when you can bring models back to life? Because of this, I'd focus on damage output over armour saves for them. S5, Killing Blow is potent. When you increase that to 2 Attacks each and/or Heroic Killing blow, they become a huge threat to everything! Not to mention, you can give them a 5+ ward save for protection through spells. The best way to go with TG is to have a large unit in horde formation with halberds (i.e. maximizing their damage output) and then constantly buff them, which does everything: further increase damage output, gives them protection, and raises them back. I agree with everything you have said basically however sword/shield TG still have their uses and the choice is not imo 100% clear cut as the upgrade cost is 2 points instead of one and you will not always get the 5+ ward save protection spell. Even if you have it, with the Sword/shield guard having and inbuilt parry save you can put more dice into the killing blow spell or opponent debuffs. If you are lucky enough to roll alot of killing blows the additional strength doesn't matter as the enemy gets no armor save anyway. If the upgrade was only 1 point Halberds would be a no brainer. At 2 points Sword and shield guard still have a role to play imo. For a 30 squad of Tomb Guard, you can add a Necrotect to Sword/Shield guard for to same price as swapping to Halberds. VC grave guard should really have to pay 2 points for great weapons even though they are replacing their shields. My poor Chaos Dwarfs have to pay 3 points for them.
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Post by NIGHTBRINGER on May 29, 2017 3:07:04 GMT
The spell lore makes them crazy. You can give them an additional attack, Heroic Killing blow, and a 5+ ward save. You can't give Tomb Guard heroic killing blow. The Lore of Nehekhara spell "Djaf's Incantation of Cursed Blades" only allows their killing blow to go off on a wound roll of 5+. HKB would have been awesome for these guys, it would be a complete game changer as they could smoke monstrous infantry, monstrous cavalry and monsters with ease. If you have a model that already has heroic killing blow (TK with DoE or Necrosphinx) then the spell will allow their HKB to go off on a wound roll of 5+ as well.
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Post by gregwarhamsters on May 29, 2017 12:51:35 GMT
I have the older models so I've only played hand weapon and shield, however I prefer the parry save if I'm honest. Now the halberd may be more useful against more opponents especially those that are immune to killing blow (Ogre for example) and with a razor standard the -3 to save is of course golden. However as I said, I go for hand weapons and more recently I'm not putting a prince or King in the unit, typically coming in at 515pts with full command and the razor standard 40 Tomb guard are a points sink but I like 'em. I didn't use them in 6th or 7th as there were better choices of special (couple of scorpions etc) but in 8th these guys come into their own. Now a TK army excels at magic, the hierotitan adding 1d3 and the casket getting 1d3 more power dice hopefully means you've got the chance to get more spells off. Now I tend to run Nek and Light so I'm looking at getting speed of light and timewarp to buff them (protections also nice) Now I'm interested BSB's generally die pretty quickly in 8th as they don't have any protection and most often a huge point sink in banner points. I tend not to take magical banners and take protection for them so how do you load out your TK BSB? I'm not saying you can't put the extra's in the TG but I'm investing elsewhere, for example the King/Prince usually go in a skeleton block turning them into better skeletons, OK not as strong or tough but a useful tarpit never the less. In this army I went for a King in the unit so the whole unit comes in a 785pts. Greg
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Post by wilsonthenarc on May 29, 2017 15:55:15 GMT
Greg I am a huge fan of this army. I love how it looks on the battlefield. Paint, color scheme It looks like an army! The army build & selection is well done. I respect the way you met core requirements. I think it is well chosen. 3 Cheers from a fellow Tomb Kings Player!!!!(and this is me, a Tomb Kings player who almost always fills up his core requirements with skeletal archers for reasons that even I still don't quite understand)
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Post by wilsonthenarc on May 29, 2017 15:56:20 GMT
Also, I forgot to mention your basing: I REALLY like your dusty brick basing. Chit chat achieved. +1.
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Post by KevinC on May 29, 2017 16:48:13 GMT
gregwarhamsters, lovely army! NIGHTBRINGER, I was mistaken regarding HKB, thanks. My comments still stand however for Killing Blow 5+. grandmasterwang, I'm certainly not saying that TG with hand weapon and shields are bad. They certainly have their uses. I just think ultimately great weapons are best.
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Post by gregwarhamsters on May 29, 2017 21:18:45 GMT
I am a huge fan of this army. I love how it looks on the battlefield. Paint, color scheme It looks like an army! The army build & selection is well done. I respect the way you met core requirements. I think it is well chosen. 3 Cheers from a fellow Tomb Kings Player!!!!(and this is me, a Tomb Kings player who almost always fills up his core requirements with skeletal archers for reasons that even I still don't quite understand) Thanks, really appriciate that. I never had too many archers, didn't really do the Khalida thing as the archers cost an additional 2 points for the poison, in 8th you get the poison for free (as you know) and I've made some more models. 50 odd I believe. I don't think missile fire wins any games of 8th so I've gone with larger units of warriors. Thanks. grandmasterwang , I'm certainly not saying that TG with hand weapon and shields are bad. They certainly have their uses. I just think ultimately great weapons are best. Getting back on topic of course great weapons would be better as halberds with a low initiative are about as useful as wing mirrors on a submarine, I can see arguements for both sides, I've just stayed with the metal models as I like them better, it's really that simple. In that picture I wanted the King with HKB and as mentioned the buff making it 5+ is really scary. I think WS3 TG are good enough for most things, as I said with a light wizard they can be really effective, depends on the set up of your other army selections though. I really need to update this picture, I've more archers and another 40 warriors. Greg
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2017 21:24:49 GMT
that's a very nice looking army. I like the blue.
As far as the HW/Shield vs Halberds debate I think the best answer is "it depends".
Do you need them as an anvil so chariots/scorpions etc can hit the flanks and cause mass murder? HW/shield all the way.
Are they there to kill things? Then halberds.
I have minimal experience playing against them so I can't offer any first hand anecdotes or impressions, but this is all strictly theorycrafting.
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Post by gregwarhamsters on May 31, 2017 5:25:32 GMT
As far as the HW/Shield vs Halberds debate I think the best answer is "it depends". Which is fair enough I think we tend to over complicate theory hammer at times, we look at 1+ armour saves and say what happens here? or we look at tougher opponents both of which favour the halberd but does the shield option mean you get more bodies due to cost making the unit more survivable? Is there a magic number where shields are better than halberds? For example 11 Halberds gets you 13 shields both 143 points. Now assuming both units have a full command +30 this is way too small to be combat effective. lets triple the numbers. 33 Halberds and 39 shields. If I went horde I'd only have to lose 3 halberds before it started to effect my attack output but I'd have to lose 9 shields before that happened. Lets be fair, most units the TG go up against are going to negate their light armour, maybe not their light armour and shield but that means I've two chances to save my shield guy on a 6 rather than no chance at all with the halberds. Now as killing blow is worked out on the wound roll I have an equal chance of taking down that empire knight. S4 against 1+ is moot. 2+ save. I tend to take the Razor std so thats a 3+. Halberds 3+ and with the standard 4+. Thing is, if they are inner circle and S4 they're chopping the halberds apart just as fast if not faster than they are being taken down. Now this is where the characters come in, you tank up a King adding to the unit cost making the whole death star thing, if your opponent wanted he could feed you chaff and due to your lack of mobility you'll have difficulty in engaging. Don't get me wrong it's the same for all the army (thus Desert wind is so useful) as I said in previous posts it's not really the unit it's self rather the way you're complementing the unit with buffs. I tend to go the path of light as I want ASF, Ws10 and I'm looking at NOT putting a character with them, after all Ws3 isn't the worst. You'd need to be Ws7+ for it to matter fighting against you. As Ryryak said, it depends. Personally I like WYSIWYG so I'm sticking with my hand weapon and shield but I've yet to be convinced the halberd is the best option all of the time. Regards Greg
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