TK vs Empire 2.5K

[Maglok]

2.5K vs the new empire with my tomb kings. The opponent is a friend of mine that is just awefully good at empire.

I am not one for writing a lot, but I felt like documenting a match.

MY TOMB KINGS LIST
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Bakari - Level 4 HLP Nehekharan - Earthing Rod (goes with the 20 archers)
Naeem - Level 1 LP Light - Dispel Scroll (goes with the 10 archers)
Sam-Ta - Necrotect (goes with the TG)

20 Skeleton archers - SB, musician
10 Skeleton archers
4 Chariots - Banner of Eternal Flame, SB
5 Skeleton Horse Archers
40 Skeleton Warriors - Full command

4 Necropolis Knights - SB
30 Tomb Guards - Full command
Warsphinx - Fiery roar

Casket of Souls
Screaming Skull Catapult
Screaming Skull Catapult
Hierotitan
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HIS EMPIRE LIST
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General of the Empire
Witchhunter
General of the empire on hippogryph (the new big monster thing)
Level 2 shadow
Level 4 life
Warrior priest
Master engineer
A BSB

40 greatswords
40 swordmen
20 riflemen
20 riflemen
20 halbediers
3 demigryph knights
6 pistoleers (the fast cav shooty ones)

1 greatcannon
1 hellstorm battery (the one with 3xartillery dice)
1 steamtank

Luminark

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I will once again not go into too many details, because gaming it was more important then logging. I did make a buncha pictures that should help illustrate.

Pre-game
We fought in the empire, so my opponent brought some terrain. He is my neighbour from downstairs in the flat and thus it was easy to bring.

The terrain was mainly a wyrding well, which would become quite important later on.

Spell wise he got some shadow debuff spells, including the withering. He also got most of the fun lore of life spells, minus the dwellers.

I got speed of light, dessication, vengeance, protection and smiting. In hindsight I REALLY should have traded vengeance (since he wouldnt move much anyway) for the desertwind. A big mistake on my part.

Deployment
So he pretty much made a line.

I did a few things very well, and some very bad. For one I ended up placing my necroknights behind my tombguard and sphinx. I don't know how that happened, bad me.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7222/7...25f1463d_z.jpg

I did put the skeleton horse archers, as scoutes, 12" from his pistoleers, who could then not move towards me with their vanguard move. Brilliant if I do say so myself. He then puts all his guys horizontally so he denies me slipping through.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8150/7...c79c89fe_z.jpg


Turn 1
I win first turn. I move up. I have a bad caster phase in which I get nothing off.

I do get a direct hit on his steamtank, putting him on 3 wounds, 7 remaining.

In his turn he shoots my sphinx for 4 wounds with his cannon. He also declared a charge against my chariots (who moved up) with his hippogryph. Swiftstride, short distance, fly, should be fine. He rolls 3 1s. Doh. Lucky me

He does shoot a bunch of holes in my line, including 3 out of 4 chariots and 4 out of 5 horsemen archers.

Turn 2
A better turn for me. I manage to throw more direct hits on the steamtank.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7052/7...c7bc1ddd_z.jpg
9 wounds! Darn! He kept on healing it with his lore spells, quite annoying.

I also take out most one of his riflemen units.

I charged my chariot (one remaning after his shooting onslaught)

Now he also had 4 hochland longrifles (2 in riflemen, a master engineer and the steamtank) and he started his offensive. This time he tried to take down Sam-Ta the necrotect, he took one wound and lived.

On the other side of the field my sphinx turns and breaths over the pistoleers. I figured I couldn't do much else or I was going to be shot to pieces with my 4 wounds taken. This is where I should have drank from the wyrding well (which he was able to) and tried to regen the wounds. Drat, another mistake.

I reformed my TG to make space for my necroknights.

The one chariot killed the hellstorm battery. Yay. I then restrain and pivot to block the cannon from shooting.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8164/7...eeec683d_z.jpg
In his turn this turned out quite fun. He tried to shoot the last chariot away with his riflemen, every hochland that could see him AND his steamtank cannon and failed. The great cannon then quickly loaded all manner of cuttlery in their cannon and grape-shot the chariot away.

His turn saw more shooting at me. He also finished off the sphinx. He charged his hippogryph into the flank of my skeletons. This would take 2 turns for him to get through. Nice.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7221/7...c3bdbd36_z.jpg

Turn 3-5
Now it got messy, so excuse me for going through this with a bit of a mess. I'll just describe sides of the table from here on.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8006/7...74b124ea_z.jpg
A overview to get a generic idea of the state of the battle.

Shooting wise I did manage to get the steamtank near the end of the game. I also sucked the life out of his master engineer and great cannon with the casket of souls. Also shot down his pistoleers. A stray SSC shot also got a direct hit on the luminark and killed it outright.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5345/7...402d7bdc_z.jpg
The steamtank about to die. In the back his two wizards. The luminark was there. :P

The game really turned when during his shooting he hochland longrifled my hierophant to death and everything started crumbling. Ouch.

His halberdiers helped out his hippogryph to destroy my 40 skeleton warriors, and won of course. My level 1 lore of light priest got caught and made into a snack by the hippogryph as well.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7280/7...d42fa927_z.jpg


My hierotitan charged into his riflemen, killed them, overran, and promptly ran off the table. When he came back my enemy had turned his greatswords around to face him. Unlucky for him I moved right past them and cast burning gaze at his level 4 and burned him to a crisp.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8155/7...692cf97a_z.jpg

In the end I charged my tomb guard into his swordmen, had a round of combat and sceded the game. It was over.

It has to be said he had a lot worse luck then I, but my magic phases were horrible, except one in which I got smiting and protection off.

Unit of the match: Hierotitan all the way. He personally killed the two casters on the enemy side with his burning gazes, helped cast a lot of spells and trampled some riflemen (including a hochland!)

Some random shots from pre-game
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7198/7...6bf8fa67_z.jpg
Empire units

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5330/7...6b4edd5a_z.jpg
Empire units looking grim!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7132/7...33721b4e_z.jpg
WIP catapult!

Aftergame thoughts
The skeleton warriors did work tarpitty, but I am not convinced if I do not want more chariots or skeleton horse archers. Opinions?

The necrotect really worked nicely on the tomb guard, but the tomb guard themselves didn't do much. I am not sure about trading a sphinx and 4 necroknights for TG and a necrotect. I do like having proper blocks of infantry though.

The hierotitan stays, the dual SSC kept hitting sooo good, the casket was important. All have to stay.

I do have issues with deployment, I will have to check that out more next time. I will also have to focus a bit more on spells and make sure I get the vengeance against armies that move to me and desertwind for if I move to them.

I do wonder what else I could have done. His infantry was just simply still complete after 5 turns. It was a bit depressing.

PS: How do I get pictures to show up? img tags doesn't seem to work. They work fine in the painting tale forum.

[thrawn]

good battle report, thanks!

your opponent did have a good list, how did he fit so many Lords? they must have all been naked?

[Maglok]

3 lords i think.

Wizardlord

General in greatswords.

General on hippogryph

Empire characters are just dirtcheap 95 for a general.

Bit short this, but from my phone and i dont like typing on it.

[Methios]

if you run TG put a prince with it for WS5 then they perform much better

[Maglok]

if you run TG put a prince with it for WS5 then they perform much better

That is true, the thing is that a prince is 40 more pts then a necrotect. Where should I shave off exactly?

[Methios]

True that. just saying if you run a TG block it needs support. i run both a prince and a necrotect in it. Maybe 6 NK's would work better for less points i dont know. Im a new tomb king player

[Maglok]

I had 2x4 necroknights before and 2 sphinxes (also 4 more chariots), but I noticed I needed some core infantry. I am considering changing the skeleton warriors back to chariots, or into more archers.

Next battle is halfway this month versus orcs and goblins.

[bluemage]

Thanks for posting the battle report, sorry about your lose. I have to say that I think purple goes well with your army as it really stands out.

I've got a question about your list thought. How useful do you find a level 1 lore of light wizard? Seems like he doesn't get enough of a spell selection and maybe should be made a level 2.

[GodlessM]

Haven't read the report yet but just want to point out that your opponent's list is 3017pts without any upgrades whatsoever, so if your lists are accurate, he major cheated you (or can't count).

EDIT: Just finished it, well played on getting the win despite the disadvantage.

[TsukeFox]

Great pics-awesome sphinx

[Maglok]

@Bluemage: So far I have had varied results. I am wondering if I should drop him and his archers. Basically it is a godsend against demons and other undead, since I can take the missle. Otherwise it is also sweet against HEs so I can sometimes take their first strike re-roll away. In this battle it was quite useless.

@GodlessM: Oh I lost! I thought I made that clear, I gave up in turn 6 when I basically crumbled all the way. I used the word 'sceded' which might not be entirely clear, but in my head it means 'I gave up'. I just went over his list again, and it seems he still had all of that. He is always really picky about his lists and points so chances are I misremembered something. He also had some more items in there as well. Did you perchance write the points down? Now I wonder where I made a mistake.

@TsukeFox: Thanks! That sphinx is the only real thing that is done. Well that and 7 skeletons with handweapon and shield.

[Far2Casual]

GodblessM is right. Naked, with absolutely no equipment, magic item or option (command options) on any unit, what you give us as a list is already 2897 pts. With an average number of options and magic items that list is 3300+ pts. No wonder you felt outmatched, especially considering the fact that if your list above is correct, you had 60 pts left

[Maglok]

@Far2Casual: Could you PM me that point list? Because I do not own the empire list I can then compare it.

As for my own list I seem to have forgotten to mention the halberds upgrades on my TG. 2 pts for each halberd, 30 TG = 60. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

[Maglok]

Far2Casual and GodlessM thanks. I checked the points I got from Far2Casual in PM and turns out there was just a silly copy paste error in the spreadsheeting on the empire side. Things like that happen. Everyone was rather tired, didnt know the new empire yet and failed to notice the game going on longer then usual. I just figured the empire was just that strong.

So effectively, counting commandgroups and magic items (of which he turned out not to have much) we get to the following:

Tomb Kings 2500 pts vs Empire 3242

No wonder I felt outmatched.

We are going to do a rematch sometime soon with proper numbers. Its a mistake anyone could make really, and just as bad for me for not catching it while playing. I should read other armybooks more often. 742pts difference I should have noticed.

[cosy]

To be fair, it's not your fault that you didn't see the point difference.
The game is way to vast to know all this stuff. He should have been more careful.
But like you said everybody makes mistakes. Even if it's a big one ;-).

[Maglok]

I am not going to count it as a loss at least.

Rematch seems to be next week. Report to follow, i got battle chronicler so should look better.