Undead (Tomb Kings) - desperately need an additional hero per 1.000 pts

[Claus]

Hello Gentlemen.

I´m coming directly to the point.

Undead (tomb kings) desperately need an additional hero per 1.000 points.


Why ?

• They are the only army with a restriction of 2 heroes per 1.000 points. Not ohter army is restricted like this.
  
  They have no initiative.....so you need to command everything
  
  They are a mass army (I play them like this all the time) ....and this requires a certain amount of heroes

We recently played a few games of 2.500 points and can you imagine how hard it is to command them when being allowed to field only 1 General and 4 wizzards ?
I had 37 units on the table (BP19)
Did you ever try a 3.000 points game with them and going "all Mass".....forget it....you can´t command that mass.


My recommendation :

Give them the ability of an additional hero with following profile.

Tomb King "Mumie"
Standard Hero with command range of 60 cm as other Heroes
Command value 7
1 Attack
45 Points.

This would be a very good option as this small figurine is allready part of the Undead heroes blister.

The profile of this  hero is justified and would give the desperately needed additional hero

I personaly like this army as they are not to tough and you really have to think about your actions carefully but the current army list set up makes it nearly impossible to play them as mass army.

Regards
Claus

[CT Yankee]

Hi Claus,

I'm sure you realize that in a 3000 point army you could actually have six Liche Priests, so the command problem would not be so dire.  However, I do see that in the mass army that you envision you may still come up short on commanders.

I don't think that adding a new character to this army is the solution, though, as it would give "normal" (not mass) TK armies an inordinate number of characters.  Better, I think, to allow brigades of any size (ala Skaven) provided that the brigade is comprised only of Skeletons units.  This shouldn't unbalance "normal" TK armies too much (if at all) and might actually encourage people to take more skelly units (not a bad thing).

[Claus]

@CT Yankee

I don´t think that 1 Command value 7 character per 1.000 points inbalances the Tomb King army.

Skaven have initiative moves whereas Tom Kings don´t have.
Skaven can field 2 heroes + 1 wizzard per 1.000 points in addition to the general whereas Tomb Kings can´t.
Skaven have heroes allowing to command within 60 cm whereas Tomb Kings have only Liech Priest allowing to command only with 20cm.

But the biggest advantage you have for every other army is the fact that you can use initiative whereas you have to give commands for everything at Tomb Kings. This fact allone requires to have and additional hero.

Orcs & Goblins (which I consider also a Mass Army) also can field quite a lot of Heroes per 1.000 points.
I don´t want to go the way to have 3 Liech Priest per 1.000 pts as it would mean to have to much useful Magic at hand but 1 standard hero would be a good choice allowing also to see some other set ups then the usual 1 General, 4 Liech Priest, 6 Chariots, 2 Carrions and the rest a mix of all Infantery armies.

I know for 3.000 pts game you can get additional 2 Liech priest but....this would mean to get 11 additional units + 2 Liecha priest giving it at total of 48 units and 7 heroes (inkl. General) to command them.
Have you ever seen such a Tomb King army ?
I can tell you ....this army has no more side/edge   
I don´t have it yet finished but I´m working on it 

Cheers
Claus

[azrael71]

Hi Claus
Can you post your proposed army list?
I find TK a great army as they are.
They either win big or fail horrifically

[Claus]

@Azrael

I won quite often when using this set up for 2.000 pts.

1 General
4 Liech Priest
6 Chariots
2 Carrions
12 Skeletton Spearmen
8 Skeletton Archers

Giving a Breakpoint of 14

Sometimes I where using a variant with adding a Dragon or adding 2 units of skeletton Cavalry or Giving "Crown of Command" to the general. But the Basic set up of 1 General, 4 Liech Priest, 6 Chariots and 2 Carrions never changed.

Recently I were playing following set up for 2.500 points.

1 Tomb King
4 Liech Priest (Draong mount for one of them)
13 Skeletton Spearmen
8 Skeletton Archers
6 Chariots
3 Skeletton Cavalry
2 Carrions
1 Bone Giant
2 Skull Chukka

Giving it a Breakpoint of 18.
Where playing against 2.500 pts Dark Elfs and won at the end but were only 2 units away of reaching my own Breakpoint (yes 16 Units of mine got killed) The big turnaround were that I could catch 3 units of Cold one Knights with 2 Units of my Chariots + Adding the Dragon mount and giving the Generals effect (+1 attack for one complete combat phase to 1 unit) to one of them.

Cheers
Claus

[The Dog]

Hi Claus
Your opponent should of let you have 1 more Liche Priest for the 500 points as you pointed out because you could not have your maximum 5 you only had 4, your army suffered due to lack of Commanders, advantage to your opponent.

When playing with Thousands+500 points I think its fair to have ½ of min/max units per 1000 points available but you must agree with your opponent to round up or round down on the odd numbers say like Carrion for 2500 point, round up and have 3 or round down and 2 Carrion.  Liche Priests this way would give you 5 for your 2500 points no matter what rounding.

So sadly I don’t agree that Undead Tomb Kings need another character per thousand just a different and to my mind fairer way of dealing with the rules.

[Claus]

@The Dog

Well....it´s no problem of negotiation with my friends that I´m playing quite often.
In my opinion it´s a wrong design of Army list for Tomb Kings.

The restriction of only 2 Liech Priests per 1000 pts is not justified....by no way....

This is not a call for making them tougher....it´s a call to balance them with regards to other armies.
WARMASTER is a game where each army lives from succesfull commands an the ability of it´s heroes to give the same. Without succesfull command you can´t do anything ....especially if you don´t have initiative moves 

As for your point of adding a Liech Priest for the next 500 points. Shure this could be an option but it also would mean to get an additional wizzard and opponents could claim for the same.
I prefer a clean solution.....that a new kind of hero with low leadership/command value would give to this army.

Regards
Claus

[Carrington]

@The Dog

Well....it´s no problem of negotiation with my friends that I´m playing quite often.
In my opinion it´s a wrong design of Army list for Tomb Kings.

The restriction of only 2 Liech Priests per 1000 pts is not justified....by no way....

This is not a call for making them tougher....it´s a call to balance them with regards to other armies.
WARMASTER is a game where each army lives from succesfull commands an the ability of it´s heroes to give the same. Without succesfull command you can´t do anything ....especially if you don´t have initiative moves 

As for your point of adding a Liech Priest for the next 500 points. Shure this could be an option but it also would mean to get an additional wizzard and opponents could claim for the same.
I prefer a clean solution.....that a new kind of hero with low leadership/command value would give to this army.

Regards
Claus

I'm not sure I see the necessity for change:
1) TK get the same # of leaders per 1k as Dwarfs, Elfs, Chaos, though they are "only" wizards.
2) They don't get initiative, but they do get commands w/o the -1 for enemy in 20, and they don't confuse.

It seems at least plausible that these are fair exchanges, and I definitely appreciate the effort in WM armies to create lists that are asymmetrical but still balanced.

Looking at your army list, of course... I can see why you might be concerned with your leaders command span -- you've gone very heavy on infantry at the expense of cavalry.  I'd tend more toward three brigades cav and chariots, two brigades infantry, and filler with what's left.

Not least, you've deprived yourself of the ability to threaten a two-order flank attack with your cavalry that takes advantage of u/d ability to maneuver in the face of the enemy.

[spiritusXmachina]

I'm not sure I see the necessity for change:
1) TK get the same # of leaders per 1k as Dwarfs, Elfs, Chaos, though they are "only" wizards.

That's true, but it's only half the truth.

Let's make a list:

Armies with 3 characters for 1000 pts: DE, Dwarfs, HE, Chaos, Daemon, Arab (?), Undead

Armies with 4 characters: Emp, Skav, Bret, Kis, Vamp

Armies with more characters: O&G, Lizardmen

I think it's quite clear from the above that there are three categories. The first are the high quality armies with presumably lower breakpoint and tougher units (Kislev seems a bit displaced here) - they will normally have less units therefore need less commanders.
Then there are the medium armies and the "swarm" armies.

To be honest I cannot see any reason why Undead should be categorised as high quality army. They seem much more like all the other medium armies - and their breakpoint at 2k points mostly lies between 12 and 16 (taken my experience) - this number needs a lot of characters I'd think.
Furthermore the army that's most similar to Undead - Vampires, have 4 characters, too.

Of course all armies with more characters have one character class with command 7 (Skav even lower), so I think Claus's suggestion is perfectly fair.

I think it's quite strange that there are voices here that seem to say - "Well, just take less units and you'll need less characters!"
Especially Undead should imo be an army where hordes and hordes of terrifying skeletons should slowly come out of the desert sands to take the lifes of unwanted intruders. Why restrict that? That should indeed be a playable option.

I totally agree with Claus.

Greetings,
Gerald

[Claus]

@gentlemen and Carrington.

Chaos gets per 1000 pts....
1 General
2 Heroes
1 Wizzard

Dwarfs get per 1000 pts
1 General
1 Heroe
1 Rune Smith...

Tomb King get per 1000 pts
1 General
2 Liech Priests

O.K. for Dwarfs it´s the same number of heroes but you get a Leadership 10 General and 2 Heroes not restricted to command range 20cm and having initiative moves.

As for Tomb Kings not being confused or getting a command penalty for enemies within 20cm.
Well...I would say you pay this price when looking at the unit stats (2 ground attacks and no initiative)

I know that the Cavalary variant is the more effective and easier to play one but isn´t this a poor sign that you only can play this army when fielding enough Cavalry as you don´t have sufficient commanders to go for an Mass Infantery attempt ?

But I see that there is not enough support for this kind of change as probably Tomb Kings are not the most often played ones or only played in their static way.

Also explain me why Standar Skellettons cost 30 points and Skeletton Archers cost 45 points.
It´s also not justified.
For example Empire army:

Halberdiers cost 45 points
X-bow men cost 55 points

Why not doing the same for Undead ...

Skeletton Spearmen 30 points
Skeletton Archers 40 points


Yes....I´m challenging the system at all with my comments and I consider having enough experience to do so.

Cheers
Claus

[Stomm]

Also explain me why Standar Skellettons cost 30 points and Skeletton Archers cost 45 points.
It´s also not justified.
For example Empire army:

Halberdiers cost 45 points
X-bow men cost 55 points

Why not doing the same for Undead ...

Skeletton Spearmen 30 points
Skeletton Archers 40 points

Because skeletons are underpriced when compared to Empire Halberdiers, or to be more precise Empire Halberdiers are over-priced. At the very most they should be 40pts under the current system, and even then they just aren't worth it quite frankly. But ultimately that is the fault of the game system, not necessarily the individual army selectors...


As to the wider picture. No other army has a command 9 general and access to two quite deadly spell-casters per 1000pts. So what you lose in command and control flexibility, you gain in being able to cast lots of nasty spells, 'backstopping' with skeletons of course being the most obvious and nasty tactic available...

[spiritusXmachina]

As to the wider picture. No other army has a command 9 general and access to two quite deadly spell-casters per 1000pts. So what you lose in command and control flexibility, you gain in being able to cast lots of nasty spells, 'backstopping' with skeletons of course being the most obvious and nasty tactic available...

That's an opinion. But still the point is if you imagine an army with let's say 32 units you'd need more than 5 commanders.

And you're comparing apples and oranges. Claus did not want another spell-weaver - he just proposed another commander with 7cmd. That would not change the magic strength of the army it just would improve the moving abilities of the army.

And it's true that O&G whose spells are even better than the Undead ones (so many players say) have only a cmd 9 general. But in total they have a better movability than Undead initiative even left beside.

[Claus]

@Stomm

As to the wider picture. No other army has a command 9 general and access to two quite deadly spell-casters per 1000pts

That´s absolutely not correct

Daemon Army can field two wizzards per 1.000 points + upgrade the Daemon Overloard to an additional wizzard.

May I ask if you have a Tomb King army or play them regularily.....it does not sound like that....

[The Dog]

@Claus you do play with alot of cheap units, the current selector is almost forcing you to use more expensive units just so you can command them more readily.

Perhaps a character that is more in keeping with the Undead Tomb King army would only have a command range of 20cm maybe named an "Acolyte" or Mummy as you first proposed.

Tomb King "Mummy"
Hero with command range of 20cm
Command value 7
1 Attack
35 Points.

I think a Hero with a Command range of 60cm is too much, so what do you think?
As your friends seem agreeable why not test out both versions?
.

[David Wasilewski]

If you choose to bulk out your army with lots of cheap infantry (massively boosting your break point) then the obvious sacrifice you are making is maneuverability. I would just get a brigade of skeletons and hide them at the back - don't even try to move them! The chariots, cavalry and monsters should do the fighting and dying, the skeletons are just there for applause as far as I'm concerned! If you throw large brigades of cheap infantry forward then you will probably end up losing unless there is a lot of terrain on the board.

I don't think TK are underpowered although I do admit they are difficult to play.

Dave Vos