Tomb Kings
A race of Ancient Egyptian skeleton-mummies found in Warhammer Fantasy. Their troops are damn shitty (ironic since their 40K counterparts are one of the strongest and cheesiest), but this is balanced since there's a ton of them and they have powerful and strong magic. They are mostly an army for expert players.
History
The Tomb Kings of Nehekara were once a prosperous people, with priests possessing the ability to extend their lives to the point of being something like bog mummies. The story goes that Settra, as badass as he was, was forced to contend with the fact that he couldn't live forever (call him a wuss, but he put his goddamn mind to it.) As a result, his personal priests set to work doing their own fancy magic (though it can be argued it was little more than a form of necromancy), and through that they put various incantations on their dead pharaohs. Even though the spells didn't work to revive the already dead or extend a non-priest's life beyond 300 or so, after some necromancer bastard named Nagash that just wouldn't die killed just about every living thing in the kingdom, he eventually failed at raising the undead as mindless servants. And that's because the King of Nehekhara--and possibly one of the last human beings in those parts--was given a badass sword by some Skaven and he slew the bastard. As a result, the corpses of Nehekhara kept their free-will, and as a result is one of the few undead races in fiction that not only isn't evil, but isn't terribly cliche. They also the have the only art by Games Workshop's depicting non-white humans in Warhammer Fantasy.
Playstyle
In order to make up for the lack of constitution of the standard undead, the army must contain a liche priest, who can regenerate units. Unfortunately, it is the liche priest who keeps the army alive. If killed, each turn all friendly undead units must pass a leadership test or die. Due to the standard leadership of most skeletons being terrible, they'll drop like flies. just be strategic where you place your hierophant and this wont be a concern, or give him a 4+ 45 point ward save
In this army, many defensive units exist. Archers almost always always hit on a roll of a 5 or a 6. A Casket of Souls, which is just a super-powered box (think the Ark of the Covenant as depicted in "Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark" if you haven't seen it, get off this site right now and go watch it, don't come back until you see its face melting capabilities) that can annihilate units that come into its range and line of sight on top of that it spreads to another target within 6inches and if you miscast this bitch nothing happens other than it goes off, i usually throw 5 or 6 dice on dis bad boy to get a miscast, usually people throw all their dispel dice at this baby raper. The army also contains a catapult capable of firing skulls. For tanks the army has undead constructs, which are usually just whatever random shit a liche priest could find and put together in the shape of a giant, a man-eating scorpion, or an animal-headed god. They also get a sphinx(fuck yeah) you must mean the god damn WARSPHINX MOTHER FUCKER, YES THIS THING IS A BULLET MAGNET, BUT THAT DOESNT MATTER CAUSE ITS TOUGHNESS 8, give this bad boy righteous smiting and you get 8 attacks with its crew, give it cursed blades and its thundercrush will smush even chaos warriors with their bullshit saves. if thats not enough for you, it can breath fire.
So apparently someone deleted the epic strategies provided by a fellow anon, so I am here to present to you the finest aged cheese, that our enemies may faint at its stench.
We will start with our beloved CORE.
Chariots, oh yes, how we can have chariots for our core, these death machines with wheels can shoot arrows when they aren't busy running shit over, they got 2 of the most brutal horses as well as 2 guys with whips and spears riding them, (the whips aren't as much for the horses as much as whooping the enemies ass) with your D6 impact hits, 2 horse and 2 crewmen attacks *2 attacks per crewman* you get 6 attacks per chariot, 3 chariots and that's 18, give these mother fuckers righteous smiting and now your at 30, lets say you wana run shit over even faster, then you throw cursed blades on them and their impact hits gain killing blow. AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, THEY WILL REBUILD THEMSELVES, YES THAT'S RIGHT, they are not animated constructs so they get the full D3+1 wound from their lore
- PS They get +1 str on charge, but impact hits dont*
THE CHARIOT TRAIN 10 chariots 1 tomb king on a chariot 1 tomb herald on a chariot *Banner of the undying legion* welcome to the pain train
Archers well not much to say about these guys, I only know a couple of good uses for them, run them in a squad of 20 get some shots off, enemy gets close, reform into 5x4 ranks use them to flank the side of your enemy as they charge your warriors. and NEVER take light armor, its a waste of points, a champion is a waste too and so is a banner, only the musician is worth it. lets say you wanna cheese them up a bit, get a squad of 40-50 and throw in our beloved High Queen Khalida, not only is this bitch the bane of your enemy's heroes, but now this unit of 50 archers became the squad that will blacken the sun and rain poisoned death upon your enemies, YES THEY BECOME POISONED, you give these mother fuckers some righteous smiting and your looking at 70 shots from a squad of 50, enough shots to kill anything with multiple wounds or whittle down some ogres or w/e, now i know what your thinking, what if they get into close combat, well i have a suggestion that no one else uses because they are fucking stupid, the banner of the hidden dead, while it may only go up to 150 points of your core, you can get a unit of 30 skeletons to pop out and defend what ever is coming your way, you can put them in a horde formation to block multiple enemies, or you can put them in ranks to win a combat, either way your enemy will see to the destruction of death archers, so you gotta take this, and they wont see it coming, throw in some necropolis knights and tomb scorpions to hit the flank and your back on the offensive, be sure to make your unit the maximum 12inches away, that way, in case they die on the initial charge, your opponent has to get very lucky to make his overrun into the archers, allowing for another deadly salvo of arrows to watch your opponent ragequit
skeleton horses are pointless pieces of shit
skeleton horse archers can be fun to harass your opponents, they are very unlikely to get charged when play right and will piss off your fellow dwarf player when all his cannons died in turn 2, i personally don't like them but they serve their purpose.
ok now we can move onto fun stuff, our special units
TOMB GUARD DEATH STAR, oh man how i love these guys, you tired of getting butthurt by chaos warriors? well here is your god damn unit, get a monster sized unit of these bad boys and watch them killing blow the shit out of the enemy, i wouldn't recommend halberds unless you are expecting anything immune to killing blow. Grab necrotect or your best friend Ramhotep the Pissed Off, he will make sure they get the job done right, one crack of his whip and BAM your unit has frenzy and hatred, rerolling all their missed extra attacks, but say you wanna fucking hit ALL THE TIME, give em a tomb king or prince and then watch as your enemy fades away turn after turn, give them righteous smiting and cursed blades and you'll be sure to win combat against any infantry unit, because on god damn 5+ you'll be hitting your killing blows
Heroes
There are some cool heroes in the Tomb Kings army:
-Settra the Imperishable: Settra is like an undead spellcasting Chuck Norris. He's got a weapon skill of 7 and a strength of 6 and eats lesser characters for breakfast. He also has the best beard in the whole Warhammer Realm, this alone making him worth his points. Some claim that Settra is in fact a rastaman, judging by both the length of his beard and the amount of spells he can dish out each turn. He is also made out of an intense amount of cheese. He was nerfed in the more recent edition, but in return you can use him in a 2000pt army.
-High Queen Khalida: First off, Khalida is by far the hottest undead woman out there. She got into a badass cat-fight with this vampire chick. Khalida lost, badly, but because she could please the snake (the Asp Goddess) she was granted freedom from becoming a vampire. She also got a badass codpiece, and initiative 9, and the unit she joins gains poisoned attack. She used to be even better, but they cut her point cost and regeneration ability. All in all though, with the models costing half the points, it's bearable.
-The Herald Nekaph Nekaph is the best buddy of the undead spellcasting Chuck Norris. He is NOT nice in challenges. He will mangle any Hero he thinks smells a bit off, and can munch some Lords for breakfast too. And so will his flail. It is made of SKULZ. Khorne likes this flail. It gives him lots of lulz and stuff.
-Prince Apophas:-- He was an evil asshole, so he was put into a crypt to be eaten by beetles. He made a deal with a god though, and now he can fly and barf insects on people. He's a super-powerful warmachine killer. Beyond that, he's not entirely worth it when you consider all the heroes you can choose from. He is also completely legally distinct from a similarly named character in an Egyptian themed sci-fi tv show, as well as from the lead character from the mummy and the Egyptian god of evil and chaos and stuff. Terrible.
-Rahmhotep the Visionary:-- In return for building monuments, the ancient architects would be sacrificed so their ideas couldn't be shared to other kings, so the man got his fellow builders wasted and then he'd disguise himself as them and go around building monuments. Yeah, how many people can say they escaped sacrifice several times and walk around like nothing was new.
Song
A miniature named Settra found a secret out this year, that he could avoid death and make his people rule the world, and now some sorcerer named Nagash tries to get him day and night, but Settra has four thousand points to protect his very life. He has the Tomb Kings: from 1525 B.C. He has the Tomb Kings: protection on a roll of 3! He has the Tomb Kings: they're hanging out by the Black Gulf. He has the Tomb Kings: Araby they will soon Engulf. He has the Tomb Kings: from 1525 B.C. He has the Tomb Kings: protection on a Roll of 3. He has the Tomb Kings: they're hanging by the Badland's Gate. He has the Tomb Kings: they will enslave the world today, the Nehekharan way. They're Tooooooomb Kiiiiiings Alive!
See Also
- Tactics/Tomb Kings
- Necrons - With their recent 6th edition fluff update, Necrons are now the TOMB KINGS IN SPEHSS of the 41st millenia.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3vhpk7DhZM Tomb Kings themesong
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ7BOeCpkY&feature=player_embedded#! Tomb Kings better themesong
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icwd9HYIuq8&feature=player_embedded#! A rather more serious themesong, done by Egyptian Death Metal band Nile.