New to Tomb Kings

Hi all. I just bought the new army book for Tomb Kings. So, I got an older battalion box from my FLGS (Nice discount, too, BTW - older box cheaper coupled with Black Friday sale). I'm seeing a lot of talk about the skeletons not being as tough as many other troops. I have 32 skeletons in this box. Suggestions for ratio of spear vs. sword & shield vs. bow would be welcome.

I know that I'll have to get another box and at least a liche priest at some point, but I'd like to assemble and paint this gang before I get more.

I've decided to equip the cavalry with bow - as I've read that they would be the most useful.

Suggestions for additional elements to this army are hereby requested.

I have a small (1200+-) dwarf army that will be my most frequent opponent and the army I'll be practicing with. A friend of mine has a skaven army and another has lizardmen, so I'll be eventually working toward them.

Thanks,
-Bill

Prepare for a tough fight. I have been playing Tomb Kings since 6th Ed and I can tell you it's not easy to work with. Skeletons are weaker by stat line alone but can be very nasty when things go right. If your opponent fails a fear check, watch out those skellis become killing machines. When you couple that with a Tomb King or Prince (which I would recommend) they will put the hurt on. I also suggest HwS combination. Spears don't help skeletons at all. Magic is essential to the army for it to work. Without it you will just be ineffective. We can't march, we can't shoot well and typically we don't kill well. So we need our magic to augment our abilities. Getting additional attacks is huge. Getting a 5+ ward save is also huge. Gaining Killing blow. All of the augment magic also brings back D3+1 models back for each unit affected and our spells are easy to cast. I highly recommend a Casket of Souls. Not only does it scar opponents a lot it also adds D3 dice to your pool. Skeleton horse archers are ok nothing great. They make an ok harassing unit but w/o the ability to march makes it tricky. The biggest problem TK have is that there is no unit that really gives them a punch. Lots of units that are good but nothing great. The best unit they have are the chariots. If done right they can be a recking ball (I swear I'm not quoting Miley Cyrus). Just be prepared for some frustration at first. No matter how much the army irritates me I still love the army.

It really depends on the way you want to play. TK have a weak core infantry line model for model, so I'd either suggest a single hw/s unit (5 wide, 6 deep) or as archers to act as bunker for your liche priest.

Horse are only ever going to be a harassment unit, so build as you see fit. If you dont plan on using them in your list, keep the horses and buy chariot parts on bits sites to try and bump your unit up to 6 chariots.

Next steps I'd suggest bulking the chariots to 6 (including a tomb prince is a good option) and adding a special choice, in the form of a warsphinx, necro knights/stalkers. As mentioned a casket of should will give you some much needed help in the magic phase. Purchasing the warsphinx will get you a plastic tomb prince/king too, so would be my recommendation.

After that, for larger games tomb guard are pretty much your only decent infantry option, but you may find that against gunline type armies you need a bit of help and so stalkers, scorpion, carrion may be worth a look. Many people find that scorpions & carrion dont work for them, so definitely get some games in before you go for either.

Hope this helps!

Everything mentioned so far is correct. Tomb Kings are in my opinion the only 8th edition book that has no uber build as every units need support of some kind to reach it's full potential. Don't let this put you off (anybody!) As it makes for a rewarding experience when you discover what works for you and showing people that Tomb Kings shouldn't be taken so lightly is a great feeling...the dude who turns up with his skullcrushers and chaos knights yearns for this feeling ;-)