Tomb King battle tactics advice

[Captain Chris]

Anyone able to give me a clue as to how I can win battles without losing 90% of my forces?
Im on turn 60ish, I have 4 armies with 4 Nek. Warriors and 6 skeletons, 4 archers, 2 chariots and 2 archer chariots and I just got some Ushabti.
I tried straight fighting, thats 100% lost every time, even against similar units with less exp.
I tried flanking but by the time my chariots get out behind the line the battles are so fast that all the skeletons are already dead and the enemy just turn on the chariots and thats a loss too.
I can get horsemen in just about but they are to weak to turn the tide at that point.

Do I have to just click end turn for 100 turns until I get to have better units?
Oh and most of these battles are against other TK, I can only imagine how they are going to fair against better troops.

Other thing, is it just me or do your units not listen to you? Several times I have ordered my chariots to back off and they either ignore me totaly or go in the opposite direction, cost me a few battles in itself.

I really want to like the TK, especially since I payed cash monies for them but Im strugging to get any fun out of them.

[Iriath Zhul]

IMO chariots are trash units against anything other than skavenslaves and archers. Too much micromanagement required to make them do the job of a more generic unit.

Make sure your archers can flank or find unshielded targets. Tomb King archers are very very powerful provided you give them time to fire and don't waste their many, many arrows on resistant targets.

[Hannibal Barca]

Those are bottom teir units ofc you wont win, Tomb kings have strong monsters and Heros. What TK are you using because that factors in alot. I use Arkan the black I make an army of 2 Wraiths, 5 scorpians, 1 Heirotitan if i can , Meats sheilds either ghouls or Spearmen , archers and bone giant. TK will never win a straight up battle you need to flank with monster and heros to cause routes. This is why scorpians are the best because they borrow and flank on their own, you engage a unit with meats shields the scorps will borrow behind them and rip them to shreds.

[TVMAN]

Originally posted by GanjaDemon:

Anyone able to give me a clue as to how I can win battles without losing 90% of my forces?
Im on turn 60ish, I have 4 armies with 4 Nek. Warriors and 6 skeletons, 4 archers, 2 chariots and 2 archer chariots and I just got some Ushabti. I tried straight fighting, thats 100% lost every time, even against similar units with less exp.

Too many skeletons. Recruit more constructs and replace your skeletons with tomb guard asap. I'd say 2 warriors, 4 tomb guard, 2 halberds, and the rest should be ranged or constructs. By turn 60, you should be using skeletons merely as chaff to bulk up your armies to full.

I tried flanking but by the time my chariots get out behind the line the battles are so fast that all the skeletons are already dead and the enemy just turn on the chariots and thats a loss too.

Either you're sending your chariots off on a merry little adventure on the other side of the map or you're reacting too slow to micro them properly, because they have the speed to flank around and into the sides of the enemy line just fine. They should be nearby to flank the moment the infantry lines meet.

Still, you'll want to replace your chariots eventually. They're mostly meant to hold you over in the early game until you can get some more resilient fast flankers in your armies, like tomb scorpions or necropolis knights.

Do I have to just click end turn for 100 turns until I get to have better units?

Depends on who you're playing as. Khatep in particular has a rough starting position with limited expansion opportunities, so you'll be turtling for a little bit until you can get more constructs.

Other thing, is it just me or do your units not listen to you? Several times I have ordered my chariots to back off and they either ignore me totaly or go in the opposite direction, cost me a few battles in itself.

Press 'J' to immediately turn them around and order them to charge away from what you're attacking. With chariots, you'll be doing this repeatedly. They're meant to be cycle charged due to their great charge bonus, and leaving them stuck in melee will cause them to die. Always keep them moving. Sometimes you'll need to mash your mouse button to get them to disengage, because units will re-engage something if it attacks them in melee.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Iriath Zhul:

IMO chariots are trash units against anything other than skavenslaves and archers. Too much micromanagement required to make them do the job of a more generic unit.

Make sure your archers can flank or find unshielded targets. Tomb King archers are very very powerful provided you give them time to fire and don't waste their many, many arrows on resistant targets.

Chariots are fine. They're cheaper than archers and are meant to be more effective. You just rear charge them into any units about to route. If you're fighting stuff strong enough that a rear charge with a chariot won't be doing a significant amount of damage, then realistically its an armored unit that archers aren't doing much to either.

If you look at multiplayer I think chariots cost like 900 or 1000, and archers are like 475. Meaning a chariot is meant to be about twice as good as an archer. I don't think they're twice as good, but they will get a lot of kills if you micro them at all.

What more generic unit can fulfill the same role? Their horsemen are more expensive and weaker, and archers don't fulfill the role. I suppose if you run archers behind their flank they'll deal good damage without micromanament, but with the slightest effort a chariot will outkill an archer.

[TaurusBully]

Chariots are awesome.

[Tenshin51]

Chariots are fine but if you already unlock monster unit field more monster unit especially Ushabti. If your playing Vortex Campaign for the final battle I strongly reccomend get more monster unit and late game unit than chariot unit.

W/ Skeletons and Skeletons cavalry units are trash mobs there purpose if you still haven't unlock snake cavalry and tomb guards is for numbers so that your monster unit will not crumble and meatshield.
Snake cavalry are just expensive to build and Ushabti are better unit. The only good unit at the cavalry building will be Sepulchral Stalkers. This Stalker unit are must unit if your fighting TK and an AI army consist of monster unit. Stalkers are the best anti-large unit for TK. Tomb guard w/ polearms will take them more time to kill summoned Ushabti destroying your range and artillery unit. W/ Stalkers they will quickly destroy those pesky summon Ushabti w/ melee but Stalkers aren't meant for infantry and long battle there quite fragile against infantry.

Tomb Kings in the campaign is about build order. If you wanted to focus on cavalry or monster unit focus more building military building than economy buidling. TK economy building sucks you will get more income sacking some region and treasure hunt in order to upgrade your own military building and your region.