what are the tomb kings best units?

[Demon Dog]

i'm thinking of getting them, but can anyone tell which units are good for them

[Wyvern]

Campaign or MP?
In campaign you start with a bunch of weak trash infantry and rely on archers and chariots to do the damage. By late game your infantry is kinda mediocre, but your monsters/constructs are ridiculously strong and will make up the main killing power of your armies. Neither of the "true" artillery for TK's is good, but both of their shooting constructs are very solid, so you can either go for more melee centric builds or shooting oriented ones. Just do keep in mind that the units you have in your armies are limited by buildings+unit caps rather than upkeep, so a lot of your armies might end up being mixed bags rather than super specialized builds, especially until late game.

MP is a bit different because cost efficiency matters, so TK can play very differently depending on what kind of player you are.

[A_COOC]

Also, if you're not a fan of chariots or can't use them all that well. Tomb King early game in singleplayer won't go as smoothly as you'd like. Besides the few archers you do get and the lord starting units. Chariots are your major early game enablers.

[XXXThe69God]

Ushabti with great bows are one of the best units in the game easily

[Kaaz]

snakes and scorpions for looks!

[glythe]

Have a look here:
https://totalwarwarhammer.gamepedia.com/Tomb_Kings_unit_roster


End game army units:

Infantry:
Tomb Guard

Monsters:
Necrosphinx (anti large)
Khemrian Warsphinx
Hierotitan

Anti Large:
Tomb Guard (with Hallberds)
Sepulchral Stalkers

Artillery: Casket of souls


Quick note on Ushabti: They look amazing stat-wise right? Well as monstrous infantry they can't climb walls. The archer version can't shoot over walls very well as it is more of a unit designed to kill dragons/giants/heavy cavalry.



Noteworthy mid tier Units:

monsters:
Bone Giant
Scorpion

Cavalry:
Skeleton Archer Chariot (use it as a chariot - mostly ignore the range attack)
Necropolis Knights

Anti Large: Necropolis Knights (Halberds)

Monstrous Infantry:
Ushabti


How the army plays:

More or less you start with 99% crappy skeletons. You get one cool unit more or less from your commander. Don't lose it whatever you do as you won't be able to make the good mid tier monster units until you get a tier 4 or tier 5 city.

Your job as you expand is to try and place as many of the barracks you can per province so that by end game you have enough barracks built to let you build enough Tomb Guard. I think each level 3 barracks gives you 4 tomb guard and 2 halberds. Ever since Rome 2 my general infantry lineup for Total War games is 10 melee infantry. So you'll have around 8 armies total in the end; if you follow my formula that means you need 20 copies of the barracks.

Lets take 2 steps back... every time you make a building it lets you recuit some of your units. So when you make the building that allows for bone giants (main province only building) I think you get 2 per building. In every main province you'll want to have some scoprions, both sphinxes and the bone giant as well as the hierotitan. Personally I find it cheaper and easier space wise to skip the Ushabti. What do I mean cheaper? Aren't the TK armies free? They are free to recruit after to buy buildings (which usually require high tier cities).

Your army sucks at the start of the game. Almost all of the real killing is done by lord/chariots/archers/ high tier unit provided to lord on campaign start. I think every 25 turns you can recruit a casket of souls via ritual (recuited like regeiment of reknown after ritual cast). More less what I do in TK campaigns is have a big recruitment phase during the rituals as recuits get like +3 levels. It makes a huge difference saving during an advance if you don't have to stop and recuit troops. Plus stronger veteran troops leads to easier wins as they keep leveling up.

Chariots work fine up until you start seeing late game units. You can use them as a bait force to lure units away (works even better with the archer version). Eventually you need to replace them with giants or monsters as they can do exactly the same thing.... just better.

Late game is kinda the same as early game where your infantry line holds things in place while the monsters/artillery/lord kill stuff.

I never use two of the heroes in my armies and stick with the ones that casts spells. Don't even bother with the shadow magic (unlocked via book as part of the campaign mechanic). Death magic is great and so is the light magic.

Setra being awesome can do magic and melee (so can Khalida/Arkhan). If you chose the other guy... well he sucks and has the most difficult campaign.

[glythe]

What about the other units?

Nehekhara Warriors - I hate them. Early on you might need them but they require micromanagement. This is a "damage dealer" unit that you need to escort into the flank of an enemy to do "okayish" damage vs low tier units. That requires a lot more micromanagement and for that much effort I would rather use a chariot.

What about low tier cav? I would skip all of the following : Skeleton Horsemen, Nehekhara Horsemen, Skeleton Horsemen Archers, Carrion.

Carrion are just like the bats from the undead faction with slightly better stats. But unlike the bats you can't upgrade them via research early in the game when you might actually want to use them (locked behind army research that will take at least 24 turns, plus another 2-4 turns). Flying units are cool but work better in an army that has sturdy infantry. Early game skeletons are NOT sturdy.

Why use early cav when you can get chariots? The only one of these I might use would be the skeleton horsemen archers as cav archers can be super special depending on whom you fight.


Why use Skeleton Archers late game? Because unlike all the super trashy melee skeletons that will get their asses repeatedly kicked your archers shouldn't ever die unless the AI has a cheese army with a ton of Lothian spearmen and late game flying monsters.

Skeletons archers are easy to mass and deal tons of damage. I would start with like 6 per army and by late game change that to 4 per army (or none depending on the army).


Overall I play the TK like I do the vampires; throw your solid infantry line to hold the enemy in place and use specialized units to kill the enemy.


What about the Screaming Skull Catapult? It's ok. It's artiller and it mostly does what you think.... poke things from far away. If you don't make these with at least +4 bonuses you are probably wasting your time.

Having played through a few TK campaigns I would only use these if I lost a bone giant or casket and I didn't have the unit required to prevent the "wait one turn while you build siege equipment" aspect of sieges.

Don't expect enemies to recoil in fear... that's practically flavor text.

Compare all this to the Casket of Souls and you see why I prefer it instead. The only downsides of the casket are the low recruitment rate (but you only ever need like 8 so thats ok) and the fact that sometimes it decides to target wtf it wants.

In the end this is Ok because it does a ton of damage And has a form of homing projectiles kind of like the goblin high end catapult (compared to rock thrower). No you can't steer the projectile like you can steer the goblins.

The casket has crazy AP damage but also comes with 40% armor so if you respond quickly it isn't instantly ruined (unlike all other standard siege equipment).

If you happen to be playing Arkhan the black you might want to start off with some crypt ghouls. They lack shields but have poison and that really messes up a lot of units. You can also get hexwraiths pretty early compared to say the vampires and they are incredibly strong early on in the campaign (and seem more price appropriate when free).

[harleyquinrazer]

Sepulchural Stalkers = Early on, they work as anti-cavalry. The Eyes of the Desert special version has stalk but that's about it. Once players get access to Necropolis Knights with Halberds, they are a direct replacement for the Stalkers. I matched the Eyes of the Desert against one of Khalida's Halbert Knights in the final battle and they were losing badly, so switch the stalkers out for Halberd Knights when feasible.

Use Carrion the same way Vampire Counts use bats = Tie up ranged infantry without the need to micromanage around battle lines. Chariots will get the kills, but chariots don't help in a siege assault whereas the Carrion will. Either way, both units are early-game and won't see much use past that.

Use the new Bone Giant as the artillery unit. Unlike the others, it's actually useful in melee against units not specialised at killing it.

Cavalry archers move faster than chariot archers so are better suited to chasing after living routers early on. They'll get superseded by proper cavalry (Necropolis Knights and Variants) and when players get proper artillery pieces into play.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

One thing nobody's mentioned is stacking Treacharous with its +5 melee attack +5 melee defence for scorpions.

Trecharous lord + treacharous priest + treacharous Necrotect + trecharous Tomb Prince (or a second mage) => +20 MA/MD on scorps. Bonus points for globalling them in 1 turn.

Spamming scorps in a manner like this (full stack of scorps) is hilariously powerful earlygame and still darn good lategame (on par with a full stack of Ushtabi spam).



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Ushtabi with Great Bows exist to murder single-target monsters, they're terrible vs small hard-to-hit lords on foot and infantry. Shoot monsters with them and you won't be dissapointed.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

One thing nobody's mentioned is stacking Treacharous with its +5 melee attack +5 melee defence for scorpions.

Trecharous lord + treacharous priest + treacharous Necrotect + trecharous Tomb Prince (or a second mage) => +20 MA/MD on scorps. Bonus points for globalling them in 1 turn.

Spamming scorps in a manner like this (full stack of scorps) is hilariously powerful earlygame and still darn good lategame (on par with a full stack of Ushtabi spam).



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Ushtabi with Great Bows exist to murder single-target monsters, they're terrible vs small hard-to-hit lords on foot and infantry. Shoot monsters with them and you won't be dissapointed.

Eh, theyre not that bad vs lords or infantry, like sure, shooting a unit of gobbos with them isnt smart, but you can be picking off a model a shot with your bowshabti, with no hope for healing, which is pretty huge vs top tier elite infantry like the type you see from dwarves, various elves, chaos, lizards, orcs etc.

[DJ]

Different Tomb Kings have different strengths. Some favour a mobile army of chariots and horse archers, some favour a defensive spearman meat shield/archer army, whilst other Kings favour a magical bombardment from afar. Highly versatile armies tailored to opposing forces.

[Aenarion]

For tomb kings more than any other faction you're not looking for one or two killer units to fill all your armies. Due to the unique restrictions on unit numbers you should really try to use everything. For mid-late game I do this with four army patterns, based around lord skill efficiency:

1. Tomb Guard, Chariots, Warsphinx, Casket of Souls
2. Tomb Guard, Necropolis Knights, Casket of Souls
3. Ushabti, Hierotitan, Bone Giant, Catapult
4. Scorpions, Stalkers, Necrosphinx, Bone Giant, Catapult

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by rymeintrinseca:

For tomb kings more than any other faction you're not looking for one or two killer units to fill all your armies. Due to the unique restrictions on unit numbers you should really try to use everything. For mid-late game I do this with four army patterns, based around lord skill efficiency:

1. Tomb Guard, Chariots, Warsphinx, Casket of Souls
2. Tomb Guard, Necropolis Knights, Casket of Souls
3. Ushabti, Hierotitan, Bone Giant, Catapult
4. Scorpions, Stalkers, Necrosphinx, Bone Giant, Catapult

You're missing:
5. Ushtabi, Ushtabi, Ushtabi, Ushtabi w/ Great Bows, Ushtabi
and
6. Scorpion, Scorpion, Scorpion, Scorpion, Scorpion, Scorpion (+ anything with Siege Attacker)


I don't know about you, but if I have ten Scorps and ten Ushtabi I'd rather shove all the scorps in one army and all the Ushtabi in another. This saves on trait points and also makes for a less confusing battle, as I only have one type of unit to deal with.

[glythe]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

I don't know about you, but if I have ten Scorps and ten Ushtabi I'd rather shove all the scorps in one army and all the Ushtabi in another. This saves on trait points and also makes for a less confusing battle, as I only have one type of unit to deal with.

As said before it pays to stack bonuses. You get a scorpion banner and an ushabti banner from the research on the far right.

But late game Ushabti and Scopions are weak.... except when massed (unless you are using the archers vs large monsters)

I played co op with a friend and by the time I had 8 armies I had good stuff to put in them.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by glythe:

But late game Ushabti and Scopions are weak.... except when massed

that's exactly the point :D

[glythe]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Originally posted by glythe:

But late game Ushabti and Scopions are weak.... except when massed

that's exactly the point :D

It sets up a failure waiting to happen. Like if you take a bunch of scorpions and the AI sends the lothian sea guard your way.