Tactics for the Tomb Kings

After having read the info about the new Tomb Kings Monster, I have to ask:

What is YOUR army going to do against that monster?


Here is the relevant blurb from the GW site:

Quote :

The Khemrian Warsphinx is effectively an infantry masher. It is accompanied by four Tomb Guard riding in the Howdah, all of which have the Killing Blow Special Rule. The Warsphinx itself has four attacks at Strength 5, which is more than enough to splatter bits of lightly armoured troops all over the battlefield. However, it can exchange all its attacks for one Thundercrush Attack. As you've probably guessed, this will be very painful for the unlucky troops standing in front of the Warsphinx. If the attack hits, you get to place a small template over the unit, roll loads of dice to wound them all and then do a small celebratory ritual while your opponent takes off a couple of ranks of models. And then you can Thunderstomp them, just for good measure. Against infantry on a 20mm base you can potentially kill 31 models (that's 21 under the template, 6 from the Thunderstomp and four from the crew). Oh, I nearly forgot, it also causes Terror, just in case it wasn't scary enough.

The Necrosphinx is the monster masher1 of the Tomb Kings army. It has the Killing Blow rule and the Decapitating Strike rule. This means that one of its attacks every turn is at Strength 10 with Heroic Killing Blow. This gives the Necrosphinx a good chance of killing enemy monsters outright with a single sweep of his blade (and his blades are big). If worst comes to worst and he doesn't kill the monster, you'll be safe in the knowledge that he will have given it a good kicking anyway. Few monsters will survive two turns against the Necrosphinx and even fewer will have the strength to retaliate. If the enemy doesn't have any monsters then, as mentioned earlier, they'll probably have big guns instead. The Necrosphinx can fly, so dealing with pesky cannons hiding at the back of the battlefield won't be too hard for it either.

I guess for my Warriors of Chaos I will consider the Shadow magic and Nurgle Lore combo, but otherwise it's going to squish my troops.

Just trawling for thoughts, as we do not have concrete numbers yet.

4 cannon shots petr turn.

A few strength 5 or 6 hits will probably take it down, just like any other monster. I bet it will also have a low initiative since it is an undead model, so maybe a strong cavalry charge will cut it down to size. If all else fails, hit the damn thing with poison attacks.

Depending on what it's save is I can see this thing falling pretty easy to stuff like poison skinks or gutter runners. Model looks AMAZING though.

Ghouls, Witch Elves, Chameleon Skinks... That or 4 cannon shots a turn.

you will need 6s to wound it because of its toughness 8
My plan?
Well if you cant beat them join them, go tomb kings

MonkeyMan wrote:

you will need 6s to wound it because of its toughness 8
My plan?
Well if you cant beat them join them, go tomb kings

All the things I listed (cannon excluded ) have poisoned attacks (auto wound on 6's to hit) and 1 of them auto rerolls in the first round of combat and another is very easily granted rerolls. Both will most likely reliably go before said beastie. The third is obviously doing this from the relative safety of the shooting phase. Big beasties are scary (and a ton of fun) but don't base your whole army on them. 8th ed will make them cry, promise.

In 8th edition any str can wound on a roll of 6

If it has lower initiative than the Abomination, I am fine with that.

All of this is true(sadly)
They are still awesome and unless my opponent makes his entire list so he can fight them it will be hard to fight them

Fethos wrote:

A few strength 5 or 6 hits will probably take it down, just like any other monster. I bet it will also have a low initiative since it is an undead model, so maybe a strong cavalry charge will cut it down to size. If all else fails, hit the damn thing with poison attacks.

Aracknarok can kill it. Poisoned attacks, with one causing D6 wounds. It will be undead, so low Initiative and easy to hit. 8 S6 attacks should the poison fail. Plus tons of little goblins. Should die in one round of combat.

Bane wrote:

Fethos wrote:

A few strength 5 or 6 hits will probably take it down, just like any other monster. I bet it will also have a low initiative since it is an undead model, so maybe a strong cavalry charge will cut it down to size. If all else fails, hit the damn thing with poison attacks.

Aracknarok can kill it. Poisoned attacks, with one causing D6 wounds. It will be undead, so low Initiative and easy to hit. 8 S6 attacks should the poison fail. Plus tons of little goblins. Should die in one round of combat.

The Necrosphinx can kill the Arachnarok in one turn if it gets its heroic killing blow role

MonkeyMan wrote:

Bane wrote:

Fethos wrote:

A few strength 5 or 6 hits will probably take it down, just like any other monster. I bet it will also have a low initiative since it is an undead model, so maybe a strong cavalry charge will cut it down to size. If all else fails, hit the damn thing with poison attacks.

Aracknarok can kill it. Poisoned attacks, with one causing D6 wounds. It will be undead, so low Initiative and easy to hit. 8 S6 attacks should the poison fail. Plus tons of little goblins. Should die in one round of combat.

The Necrosphinx can kill the Arachnarok in one turn if it gets its heroic killing blow role

But it has to survive long enough to do it. I am willing to bet most times it will not. Initiative is the word...

very true but, if it does survive it might stomp the spider flat
But my strategy is actually to use the arachnarok spider to kill it

MonkeyMan wrote:

very true but, if it does survive it might stomp the spider flat
But my strategy is actually to use the arachnarok spider to kill it

Very good chance, especially with not knowing what the TK spells are going to be like. Might have some crazy stuff. I dunno if I would truly waste Arach on it. Would probably charge a huge unit of boyz in and bog it down. Now, the infantry version will definitely see either the Giant or Arach in its face.

Monkeyman, after looking thru the army book this saturday you definately need 3 of the necrosphinx, 4 of the khemerian warsphinx( one for the general) 80 tomb guard with halaberds, 5 40man units of skeleton archers, heirophant and a liche priest on the casket of souls it will be the most epic force of all time.

Dan

Hold on, I need to be writing this down Dan.

The general tactic with this army is to roll over everything with your unstoppable horde of sphinx's, cast so much magic from the casket of souls that the opposing wizards brain explodes, then 200 arrows a turn with the skeletons to wipe out anything left on the board.

everything should be dead after that because tomb kings are just that freaking awesome, if you have any questions about the army just let me know!

Dan

I wish I had all that!!!

Back to the OPs point, without looking at the book, I have high hopes for the Warsphinx, but I doubt it'll be off the charts. The last critter GW put out that was over the top was the Hydra. The abomination is powerful, but think of how weak Skaven would be without out, so it's a good addition. The spider is ok at best, in an O&G army you really don't want 300 points in a big, tie-uppable unit.

/fingers crossed for the Warsphinx. Dannato's review makes me hopeful. Maybe I should preorder 4 from the Pig.

How many do you think you can run at 2000?

Figure it's rare so 2 + 1 for a character mount.

The Warsphinx can be taken as a mount for a Tomb King, a Tomb Prince, or can be a special choice, or a necrosphinx for a rare
Thats a lot of sphinxs

The thread on warseer lists both sphinxs as rare, if that's wrong...hm.......that's awesome.

well I saw that they were in the special on the video on GW i think