Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings

This is the tactica for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Tomb Kings.

Why Play the Tomb Kings

• Do you want to play an undead faction which is not totally villainous?
• You want to play an undead faction that is also blingy as fuck?
• Because you want to play not Egyptians and roll over everyone with chariots.

Pros

• Constructs: The reason you play them in the first place. Tomb Kings have among some of the best monsters in the entire game. Not only do they all have incredible armour values, but you have a monster that can fill any role that you need it to. From infantry killing power to ranged damage to blob destroyers to monster slayers, you have a construct that can do anything you need your army to do.
• Ranged: You aren't the Vampire Coast, but you can dish out some good damage from ranged. Ushabti Great Bows shred anything they fire against and a Casket of Souls can destroy blobs on infantry that are giving you troubles.
• Undead: You get all the perks of being an undead faction. Your units are unbreakable, all cause at least fear and many cause terror, and they are generally cheap, allowing you to swarm the field with spooky skeletons.
• Mobility: Chariots, light cav and some quick monsters means you can be an elusive and fast faction. Sure, you won't outpace the likes of the wood elves or beastmen but you can really run circles around many of your opponents. This means you are probably the best of the three undead factions at the kite game.
• Realm of Souls: Your main battle ability gives you healing as you take damage, allowing you to stay in the fight. It will also give you a free Ushabti summon to use when you fill the bar all the way, which you can use to swing any fight on the battlefield in your favor.

Cons

• Poor Infantry: You are not an infantry faction, and will probably lose in that department unless you are fighting the worst of the worst when it comes to foot troops. Even Tomb Guard, your "elites" lose to a lot of other mid tier infantry, so expect your constructs to do the heavy lifting.
• Lack of Flying: All you got is Carrion and they're.... Subpar. Don't expect to have control of the skies when bringing the boney boys.
• Subpar Healing: You got some options in the form of Lore of Nehekhara and The Realm of Souls, but it won't allow you to keep up with vampire healing. You have the hardest time bringing troops back out of all the undead factions so casualties actually mean something here.
• Fire: If you're opponent has fire damage or the Lore of Fire, expect them to bring it. All your lords are weak to it and Lore of Fire is great at melting your infantry.

Lords

Legendary Lords

• Settra the Imperishable (Khemri): The one true big bone pimp daddy is back to lead the Tomb Kings to glory once more. Settra has an excellent start location in the northern desert part of the Southlands with easy allies to your south and east with easy pickings from the Greenskins towards the northeast. You are all about growth and expanding Nehekhara as much as possible, curb-stomping any foolish Bretonnian or rival Tomb King that dares interrupt your conquest. Settra is among the easiest campaigns in the game due to his good growth and great public order bonuses, allowing you to keep expanding for longer.
  • Settra on the battlefield is a supercharged Tomb King who can acquit himself well in battle but is more suited towards buffing your army or wrecking your opponent's face with his mounts. You may take him on the Khemrian Warsphinxes that all Tomb Kings can ride but for some he is better on his pimped-out ride the Chariot of the Gods instead, which is the perfect vehicle for keeping up with your strong and plentiful chariots. He can also buff Tomb Guard up to insane levels and can actually make them decent at fighting other elite infantry. Just don't expect him to solo Kholek Suneater on his own, he's not cut out for that here.

• High Queen Khalida (Court of Lybaras): The queen of Lybaras has risen to take her place on the Asp Throne but somehow ends up taking a road trip to the southern edge of Lustria. You're surrounded by Lizardmen in the beginning who will absolutely wreck your early skeletons with ease, so abusing Khalida's archer buffs is a must. Fighting through Lustria will be a slog due to unfavourable terrain for your preferred units but if you're diligent with your diplomacy you can get Teclis or maybe even the Skaven to ally with you. You have limited routes to expand but your archer game is godlike and with time you'll be able to break out of the position.

Khalida herself is billed as a duellist Lord but her animations and statline hinder her ability to perform that role. Instead you should let her hang back with the archers and give them all poison to pincushion anything that gets close to death, and counter-charge anything that gets close to your homies. You can take her on a Necroserpent which will make her more mobile and let you keep up with her buffed Necropolis Knights (if you get that far).

• Grand Hierophant Khatep (Exiles of Nehek): Having taken his oath of exile a little too seriously, Khatep finds himself on the west coast of Naggarond in some desperate quest to glean forbidden knowledge from the Dark Elf locals. Khatep's faction is by far the most magic-intense and if his day job doesn't convince of that then the massive Hierotitan that he begins with should. You have good tolerances to the terrain there unlike the other Tomb Kings factions but you will have to rely on your magic more to overcome the horrible quality of your troops compared to the Dark Elves. You will most likely have a small realm until you can tech up to your elite units but luckily for you there might just be enough contenders for Malekith's attention to the east to let you grow properly.

Khatep is one of the two caster lords the Tomb Kings have and like most caster lords he's squishy as fuck. Take him on a skeletal horse to improve his mobility but you may also elect to put him on a Casket of Souls, which curiously enough makes him the only artillery lord in the game. Due to the slow speed of the Tomb Kings forces you should try to let the enemy come to you - that way you can fuck them up with your buffed casters better.

• Arkhan the Black (Followers of Nagash): The black sheep of the Tomb Kings, Arkhan the Black returns to Nehekhara to find his big daddy Nagash only to be slapped down by Settra by turn 50. His faction starts on the western coast of the Southlands surrounded by the Bretonnian crusade factions, Dwarfs in the mountains and sneaky Skaven to the southeast. The upside of your faction is that you have additional limited access to the Vampire Counts roster to give you some proper fast troops like Dire Wolves and Hexwraiths. You also have diplomatic bonuses to other Vampire Counts factions in the game but that hardly matters when they're getting massacred by Settra before you can even get to them.

Arkhan is the other caster lord of the Tomb Kings but unlike Khatep he can actually dish out a beating with his sword. He gets the Lore of Death from the start which will greatly aid your battles with the Bretonnians and later the Dwarfs. He also has access to his own unique Skeleton Chariot mount that ignores terrain. All these assets make Arkhan a versatile lord with no real downsides, but no real upsides either.

Generic Lords

• Tomb King: The only generic Lord the Tomb Kings have, which sounds disappointing but is somewhat alleviated by the fact you can get unique custom vanilla Tomb Kings via your research tree. Nevertheless the average Tomb King is a mediocre combat lord that exists to buff your up army and little else. However, once you unlock their Warsphinx mount they become true terrors on the battlefield, able to take out almost any infantry blob by the simple action of walking through them. Just don't let them die and you'll be fine.

Heroes

• Tomb Prince: Your combat-oriented hero, and a solid one at that. Good close combat stats accompanied with the usual FUCK HEUG shield that all Tomb Kings warriors wield. Can be taken on a horse or a chariot - pick the chariot, it'll let you run roughshod over almost anything with little downside.
• Liche Priest: Your basic caster hero, and in the lens of how the Tomb Kings work, bloody important at every stage of the game. May be taken with the Lores of Light, Death, Nehekhara and Shadow, the last of which is unlocked by acquiring the appropriate Book of Nagash. ALWAYS take them on a horse, helps with their mobility greatly. As for which Lore to take, if in doubt take Light, but tailor your choice depending on your potential adversary. Nehekhara Lore is exclusive to Tomb Kings and is very useful to them as a whole.
• Necrotect: Even if you only have a single Construct in your army, take this hero. No exceptions. Your Necrotects heal and buff them, which will be key to getting the most of your stony boys. May be taken on a chariot to help keep up with some of the faster constructs, and can have a merry time chewing up lightly-armoured tarpits if necessary.

Units

Infantry Units

• Skeleton Warriors: Your basic infantry. Due to the mechanics of the Tomb Kings all your units have no recruitment cost or upkeep, but come with unit caps and slow acquisition to temper your growth. Not these guys. You can recruit an unlimited number of these guys from any settlement at any level. Does that make them good? Sure. Should you use these guys? Hell no. Instead you should be using....
• Skeleton Spearmen: These guys. The basic Tomb Kings infantry is there to hold the line for as long as possible and that added Melee Defense from being spears will keep these guys in the fight longer. An odd quirk is that due to their massive shields they have some of the best missile resistances in the game for their tier.
• Nehekhara Warriors: Your mid-tier infantry and the guys who are actually meant to be dealing damage. Unfortunately due to their lack of shields they get shot up easily. Try to avoid using these guys if possible - if you can't, use them to counterattack anything that is pressuring your frontline.
• Tomb Guard: Your real elite infantry, but they suffer from low armor values that greatly holds them back from being a true frontline. They can easily mulch mid-tier infantry from most factions but will fail hard against real elite infantry.
• Tomb Guard (Halberds): Previous unit but arguably more useful and important. They have Armor-Piercing and Bonus vs. Large plus the characteristic tough melee defence the Tomb Kings infantry have. Again let down by low armor but can fuck up any monster or cavalry unit if given the chance.

Missile Infantry

• Skeleton Archers: Your only choice for foot archers and while they are subject to unit caps you'll get boatloads of these guys from merely having the basic barracks buildings constructed. Decent range but anemic damage - no Armor-Piercing means they will have to rely on sheer weight of fire and caster buffs to kill anything.

Cavalry

• Skeleton Horsemen: Fast, poor armor and easily spammable. Despite their availability they're not all that useful aside from long flanking manoeuvres to threaten enemy artillery.
• Skeleton Horsemen Archers: Actually useful mounted skirmishers that have exactly the same range as your foot archers but a much lower model count. A good pair of these can easily buy more time for your artillery and ranged units to shoot at the enemy.
• Nehekhara Horsemen: Your proper cavalry, but due to having swords excel more at diving into the rear of a unit and staying there to butcher the enemy than cycle-charging to victory. A niche unit that can potentially cause headaches for your opponents but their average defense can cause problems for you too.
• Necropolis Knights: Monstrous cavalry has never looked so beautiful. Armor-Piercing and Poison, count as constructs and have the high armor that comes with being constructs. Only downside is their relative slowness compared to other heavy cavalry counterparts.
• Necropolis Knights (Halberds): Heavy lancers in all but name, excel at deterring monsters and other cavalry from getting anywhere near. They do lose their shields so be aware of missiles.

Chariots

• Skeleton Chariot: The signature unit of the Tomb Kings, and your stand-ins for shock cavalry. Despite their prominence to the Tomb Kings they are considerably fragile which makes cycle-charging extremely important for getting the most use out of them.
• Skeleton Archer Chariot: See previous unit, except now with some light skirmishing ability. Keep in mind chariots have difficulty manoeuvring around quickly so in some cases it may be better to get Skeleton Horse Archers for easier micro.

Monsterous Infantry

• Ushabti:
• Ushabti (Great Bow):
• Sepulchral Stalkers:

War Beast

• Carrion:

Monsters

• Tomb Scorpion:
• Khemrian Warsphinx:
• Necrosphinx:
• Hierotitan:
• Bone Giant:

Artillery

• Screaming Skull Catapult:
• Casket of Souls: