Tomb King magic
There are a few wee things you need to know about Tomb Kings and their magic phase, before we get into the spells, or "Incantations" as they are called:
The magic phase has a set order of casting. If the player misses one caster's turn, he can't go back and still use that caster!
This is the casting order:
1. All bound items not used by characters
2. Icon Bearer: bound items
3. Tomb princes: casting and bound items
4. Tomb kings: casting and bound items
5. Liche priests: casting and their bound items
6. Liche high priests: casting and their bound items
7. The casket of souls.
2 points to remember:
The heirophant is always the highest ranking liche priest (so if there's a high priest, he will be the last).
If there are 3 liche priests, one will be the heirophant (and be last), but they will still have a strict casting order!
A liche priest on the casket of souls does not need to be the heirophant and so may be earlier in the casting order than the heirophant, with the casket of souls coming last. The COS is always last!
Here we go:
Tomb Kings only have four spells from which to choose. And then the casket of souls.
Sekhubi's Incantation of vengeance
You can generally ignore this spell. It's a D6 S4 magic missile with an 18" range.
A TK player will only use this if he's got nothing else to do.
Horekhah's Incantation of Righteous Smiting
As the name suggests, it is pretty awful.
Basically when cast on a unit, the unit gets an extra turn of shooting or an extra strike in close combat.
Tomb King archers always hit on a 5+. S3 isn't all that good, but if the TK player has 10 archers, that can be 20 shots in one turn.
Depending on what the TK player is shooting at, it's generally not worth dispelling. If you've got a lone wizard hopping about though, then I would consider it...
The screaming skull catapult with "The enemy's head". If the righteous smiting on the catapult...dispel it! You don't want the equivellant of a stone thrower which causes panic tests shooting more than neccesairy!
If cast on Ushabti, the Ushabti only get one extra attack each. Same goes for the giant, etc. etc.
So choose which targets can suffer that amount of attacks carefully before dispelling.
EXCEPT: if there is a Tomb King in a unit of skeletons and this gets cast, dispel it.
There's a good chance the TK will have The Destroyer of eternities on him. He can use the special attack and that generally means everything you've got in base-to-base contact with him is going to receive 2 S7 auto hits...with killing blow (as if it was needed).
Djedra's Incantation of summoning
This is nothing more or less than a weakened version of a Vampire Counts summoning spell. The TK player can't create new units with it and he can only revive D3 "Wounds worth of models" with it.
Unless cast on The Tomb Guard, they get D6 or if cast on normal skeletons, then he rolls 2d6 and chooses the highest.
Again, this is a spell which may need dispelling, but really depends on what he and you are up to. Dispel wisely and not too hastely though.
Mankara's Incantation of Urgency
This is the entire engine of the Tomb King army. An extra movement phase.
Much needed, for Tomb Kings can't march. Not now. Not ever.
If possible dispel this spell. Simple as that.
For instance: Carrion can fly 20". If this spell is cast (it's got a 12" radius, by the way) they will fly (and so can effectively charge) 40".
It won't take you too long to work out how effective this can be.
If a TK player has Tomb Guards in his army, they will have a banner with them which gives them a free reform. Watch out for this combo!
The Casket of Souls
It causes terror and that terror is psychologically more damaging to any opponent than the damage it can do.
Well...it can do a lot of damage too, but it is basically used so that enemies save dispel dice and scrolls to stop it, so that the rest of the magic phase can get through!
Basically whilst this "thing" is still functioning all non TK casters get a -1 to cast.
It's a 2d6 spell and any unit (or lone character) which has line-of-site gets 2D6+2 - LD wounds.
If the player rolls high you're weeping, if he rolls low you're laughing. He rolls seperately for each unit. Most of the time you'll be laughing and crying at the same time...statistically.
Taking it out with a commando group is well advised.
How many spells do TK's get off?
Tomb Kings can't cast with irrisistable force, but they can't miscast either. That means that every spell gets through on at least a powerlevel 1.
The roll the caster makes is the powerlevel of the spell.
Tomb princes and Tomb Kings know Righteous Smiting and Urgency.
All priests know all four spells!
Tomb princes can cast one spell at power level D6.
Tomb Kings can cast 2 spells at power level D6
Liche priests can cast 1 spell at Power level 2D6
Liche high priests can cast 2 spells at power level 3D6
It seems so fragile and poetically weak. I know.
But think of it like this:
Taking 2000 point battles as a standard:
A TK army will have either:
1 liche high priest, 1 priest and tomb prince
or
1 Tomb King, 2 liche priests.
And they have room for an extra character as well.
Both options have four spells automatically cast each round. One of the priests will have the heiratic jar with him, which gives him an extra Incantation 1x in the game.
With the Tomb King in the army, one of the units will have a banner which gives them The summoning Incantation at powerlevel 3.
So, any Tomb King player worth his weight in gold will have at least 4 or 5 spells going off each round!
To summerize:
- Kill the heirophant if possible (okay, I hadn't mentioned it 'till now, but in case you were wondering....kill him).
- Tomb Kings armies use combo's of spells and magic items, be careful which spells are being cast on which units!
- Try to take out the casket of souls. It's worth a lot of points and frees up dispel scrolls and dispel dice. Do note however that his heirophant will not be on the casket. He'll have a normal priest on it.
- Don't forget that none of his army are breakable. This means that a unit of skeletons can be an ever lasting tar pit!
- Ushabti and bone giants have an effective charge range of 18" (6" move and 12" charge if the Urgency incantation is cast on them).
- A unit of skeletons with a Tomb King in it and a priest hovering around it will generally be a far nastier unit than you suspect.
One last thing. If the Tomb King player is using an Icon bearer there's a good chance he'll have the banner of the hidden dead by him. When that's used (you can't stop it, unless you kill the icon bearer before he uses it) 100 points worth (6 heavy cavalry) will appear within 18 inches of the icon bearer...it cannot charge automatically that round!
However, if he's using it, then he's probably got a priest up there too, ready to prance it into your flank!
