I recently posted saying that i was thinking of starting tomb kings. A few people replied saying they were a good army.

A friend of mine tried them out and said that TK were basically flawed. He made 3 points:

1)He said that if your opponent takes lots of dispel scrolls then your army is useless because it is so reliant on magic.

2) He also said that unlike the VCs, you cant create units from no where, or increase your unit size which is a tactical disadvantage.

3) The units that make them different like cavalry are useless because you cant march them without magic so they move very slowly and cant outmanoevre the enemy.

My question is, is he right? I love the models, particularly the skull chucker and casket of souls, and i have flicked through the book and like the artwork and fluff, but i dont want a lame duck army...

Please help!

1) It's not true at all. Tomb kings are both origanal and very ballanced.
if in a 2k army you have a tomb king a tomb prince and 2 liche priests you will CAST (not attept to cast but actualy cast) 6 spells per turn 4 at an everage power level of 7 and 2 at an average power level of 3.5.
if the game lasts 7 turns then to use dispell scrolls on all youre spells he would need 42 dispell scrolls!!! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN
plus TK work well in conjunction with majic but some units (like ushabti and tomb guard) can happaly rip there way through the enemy army without majic.

2) tomb kings cannot raise new units but they dont need to as there skeletons can be cheaper than vc with the same amount of equipment, they can still be healed, and you can still get units behind the enemy line.
And even though raising units is an important part of a VC army, TK do not play in the same way as VC, they have totaly different tactics and do not nead to be able to create new units.

3) Plus even if you cant march all of your units in a turn you can still stop youreself bieng out-monouverd by dictating the enemy movenment with catapults, archers and the threat of scorpions and swarms apearing where they dont want them to.

First off, Kai I think your incantation numbers are a little flawed.

A TK, TP, and 2 LPs would cast 3 Incantations at an average of 3.5 and 2 at 7. This is quite a bit under your 4 @ 7 and 2 @ 3.5.

drrat to address your questions:

1) If a guy loads up on Dispel scrolls it can be a problem, but this all depends on what type of enviroment you are in. In a tournament eniroment you will rarely see more than 3 (at least in my experience), and depending on how many dispel dice they have 3 scrolls will likely only last them a few turns. The key to the TK magic phase is forcing your opponent to make hard choices. I used to be a proponent of the above hero choices (TK, TP, 2LP). But I have since converted to heavier form of magic for my heroes. I run HLP, LP, 2TP. This gives me 2 incantations @ 3.5, 1 @ 7, and 2 @ 10.5 (or course these are all averages). I have noticed that the magic might of the HLP has won me more games than the fighting might of the TK ever did. I suggest reading plasmapuffs tactic articles as they shed some light on alot of the TK units.

2) True we can't raise new units like VC can. However, what we can do with our healing spell is heal any unit in our army. Thats right, start with a unit of 4 ushabti, 3 get killed, raise 1 or 2 back. Tomb scorpions, bone giants, tomb guard, anything in our army can be healed. The units that VC can raise and heal can often swarm, and pop up in in opportune place, but they can't bring back thier black knights. (Heck even our characters can be healed). That being said TK and VC play very differently. They have undead, fear, and crumbling in common. But thier magic and how they fight are very different.

3) You are right in the fact that without magic our army is slow, however when properly organized magic is not a problem. Adding the casket of souls gives your opponents another 2d6 bound spell to get rid of. In all honesty our cavalry suck...they are probably the worst in the game, some people may disagree, but I would stick with foot troops and maybe some chariots.

Well thats my two cents

Reu