Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Tomb Kings (section)

==Why Play Tomb Kings==
Besides all the bling and skull accessories with options for colors other than red?  Or besides liking the idea of an ancient civilization returning from the dead to wreak havoc on their enemies and seek revenge for the decline of their nation?  Maybe you're just a fan of the Mummy movies and want to fight on the titular character's side, they're all good reasons.

For one, almost the entire army is just skeletons. Thus with some greenstuff, bits, and a box of redshirts, you can avoid paying $16 for a generic character or $55 for ten slightly more armored troops than the $40 for 16 core. Furthermore the customization freedom is amazing. 

Tomb Kings are a pretty fragile army and unforgiving one as they have sat near the bottom of the power rank totem pole for awhile, with many exceptions and special rules to keep in mind while playing, so it is not recommended for beginners who are just learning the ropes.  Like their Egyptian parallel, Tomb kings are reliant upon light infantry blocks, regiments of archers and skirmishing light cavalry, with a heavy reliance upon magic for supporting and debuffing (according to myth anyway). Unfortunately, armour is a rare sight in the Tomb king army with only two units having natural saves greater than 5+, so your troops being numerically superior to your opponent's while supporting each other is a recommended position to take. 

A point to note; many other armies take having troops on standby to flank for granted, but flanking is necessary for Tomb king victory as virtually all Tomb king units are inferior to their counterparts in other armies. With this in mind, you must be very careful when maneuvering troops and know that battlefield tactics (both yours and your opponent's) are crucial to victory or defeat. 

A few points about this army that do not apply to other mortal (and sometimes immortal armies). Every unit has these special rules: Unbreakable, Unstable, Fear, and Nehekharan Undead. Nehekharan Undead is just used to distinguish Tomb Kings from Vampire Counts (which simply use "Undead") for the purposes of spells, and to identify the unit for spells that specifically apply to Undead units. If playing with [[End Times]] rules, the last simply becomes "Undead" even if you aren't mixing models from the 'other' Undead army. 
This tells us that every Tomb king unit is reliable, fragile but reliable. A unit will not break and run because of a bad dice roll, so there is little to fear about losing a combat. However, because of Unstable, a unit will lose the number of Wounds equal to how many points it lost a combat by (if it has lost combat) and while not so troubling when it happens to a large block of skeletons, it is a great concern for Monsters, small elite units, and lone characters. Finally, because of Fear, it is perfectly possible to bring a unit down a peg in combat against any unit in the Tomb king army if the opponent makes a bad dice roll.  There are also ways to increase the chance of a failed leadership test. '''NEVER''' forget to make your opponent take that Fear test, as its one of your key strengths. 

In addition, there are special rules that only apply to Tomb Kings. These are: Animated Constructs, Arrows of Asaph, and Entombed Beneath the Sands (EBTS).  Animated constructs identify the unit as a magical automaton made of bone/stone/metal/tar etc. that is not a skeleton. This includes the likes of the Ushabti and Warsphinxes, and by having this special rule a unit suffers one less Wound due to Unstable and automatically has a 5+ Armour Save. Arrows of Asaph applies to every unit in the army with a ranged weapon, and it essentially states that the unit will never benefit form bonuses or suffer from penalties when shooting, allowing a unit to move, fire directly into cover, fire though a unit, fire at long range etc. all without suffering penalties like other armies. EBTS allows the unit to enter play from reserve anywhere on the board (those familiar with [[Warhammer 40k|the 'other' Warhammer]] can think of it like deepstriking) with the ability to Move (but not Charge) on the turn it arrives, although the downside to this is the high potential for scattering away into terrain since it doesn't arrive exactly where you choose, and the 1 in 6 chance of rolling a misfire on the artillery dice with another 1 in 3 chance of killing of the unit (the other 2 options are not so bad). Finally, Rob Cruddace has seen fit to completely remove any ability for a Tomb King unit to make a normal March move for absolutely no good reason, and kept the restriction from the previous Army Book that limits their Charge reactions to just Hold, meaning Skeleton Archers cannot Stand And Shoot. 

So altogether the army as a whole will be very slow and inflexible in comparison to other armies who are perfectly capable of moving twice their Move distance with their respective units.  

Tomb king units, like Vampire Count units, can reliably resurrect Wounds and models in units from casting buffing (AKA Augment) spells in the Lore of Nehekhara, allowing for many units in the Tomb Kings army to [[Tarpit]] another, pricier unit and still sustain the combat for a extended period of time as long as they receive magic support.

Like Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings have a leader character. Called the Hierophant, he is the highest Wizard level character who MUST be in the Lore of Nehekhara. Models in his unit have Regeneration (6+), which is nice, and if he dies your army starts to Crumble which means each turn your army takes a Leadership Test unit by unit, taking Wounds by the amount they fail it. Unlike the Vamps, you cannot replace the Hierophant; once it dies, you're on a short time limit to win before the metaphorical Deathstar finishes blowing up. Not fun by any measure. 

The Battle Standard Bearer lets any units within 12 inches take one less Wound of damage from Unstable or Crumble, so keeping the troops near Old Glory is a big advantage.

tl:dr; Tomb Kings are a jack of all trades but a master of none.   

Think all the above sucks? Well, in the End Times, the Tomb Kings learned to march! (If they are within 12" from the General (much like Vampire Counts)), no longer Crumble with the death of Hierophant, and the Hierophant is not even really needed anymore. And no, those are NOT optional rules, they officially override older rules. Rejoice!  

This, however, only applies if you're fielding [[Undead Legion]] although almost any Tomb King army can just say it's one and work totally fine. The exception is if you absolutely insist on fielding Settra or Arkhan the Level 5 Wizard-neither of which can be fielded in an Undead Legion. So you'd have to use the old Tomb King rules.