With the release of the War of Settra’s fury (and the Heralds and Priests on barded steeds in addition), my eagerness to get Tomb kings on the table spiked. I had been playing mostly the Beastmen as I worked on getting them built up and painted too, but everyone knows the new shiny things are more important!

So I picked up one of each of the new models, arranged a game and scrambled to get a 1000 point list put together. Tomb king cavalry, aside from the archers, have proven to be pretty weak in most of the games I have played with them. However, since there’s now the opportunity to put new heroes with them, I thought I would theme an army around being all mounted just for no reason other than rule of cool. And this is what I ended up with;

I called this army “Oops, all horses”. Using the Nehekharan Royal Host Army of infamy I started with my core troops. A unit of 3 Chariots to be led by a Tomb Prince in a chariot with the Death Mask of Kharnutt. Two units of Cavalry Cohort (6 spearmen and 6 bows in each, with full command) and in the special slot a unit of 7 horse archers to act as chariot runners.

And finally, the two new heroes. The herald, holding aloft the battle standard (with the Icon of the Sacred eye) and a mortuary priest, level 2 wizard, both on their barded steeds.

And so it was time to try it out. My opponent brought his Empire. Beautifully painted and with plenty of firepower to counted the skeleton horde charging over the board towards them. We set up and rolled for turn. Fortunately I won first turn as I wanted to try get up the table as quick as I possibly could (which, due to not being able to march, is admittedly not as fast as I would have liked)

My archers unleashed their paltry volley of bows. The great thing about the cavalry cohort is being able to volley fire on the move and with 1 higher BS than the regular Horse archer unit. The terrible thing is you get half the shots. Through both unit shooting, and the horse archer unit, only 2 musketeers were shot down.

Empire Turn 1 saw them cautiosly move their knights up, wanting to maintain distance but still progress up the board. He was cautious of the chariots, less so the cavalry. His guns let loose, ripping into my Cavalry cohort on the left flank. Fortunately due to some lacklustre rolls, not many of them died and the unit was still on the table. It wasn’t until my next turn however, I realised Ihad completely forgotten about their regeneration rolls!

Tomb king turn two, Arise! from both my Tomb Prince (due to the AoI upgrade) and the Mortuary priest, saw some wounds returning to the cavalry units. The Cavalry Cohort on the right flank charged, the Empire Knights counter charged in return. A wise choice we decided as it guaranteed they were striking before the charging Skeletons.

I saw an opening in the middle, my chariots declared the charge through the chariot runners (Horse archers) into the Empire veterans directly infront of them. Unfortunately, they fell 1″ short of the charge, so failed and stopped short behind the horse archers. The veterans, having to take a terror test due to the Tomb Prince’s Death mask, failed….but then didn’t. Lucky re-rolls!

Not much happened for deaths in the shooting phase so we wnt on to the combat phase. The knights tore apart the Cavalry cohort whilst taking no damage in response. After unstable crumbled some models, only the command group was left standing. The undead gave ground, and due to it being Empire turn 2 next, they restrained from following up, and turned to face a juicy opportunity to meet my chariots head on.

The Empire moved their Cavalry to face my Chariots Purposefully holding the line close enough to negate the impact hits of the chariots. Shooting took out the remaining horse archers and focused on my remaining chorot on the left flank. The engineer sniped the champion out of the command group on the right flank, leaving a standard and a musician on their own.

The knights continued to hold the ground against the chariots. Passing all terror checks, and saves, and only breaking after two rounds of combat. The general, being the only survivor of the unit fled, stopping short of his veteran infantry, meaning the overrunning Chariots ran him down…but also didn’t overrun into the infantry. Again denied their impact hits!

The combat versus the Veterans was long drawn. Each victory for the veterans due to their static combat res would be met with restraint, and volleys of guns. The chariots were eventually shot to ribbons, and the Tomb Prince met his demise from Combat resolution after a challenge with the heroes of Empire.

The Standard and Musician managed to charge down the Engineer on the right flank, and then overrun into the Hellblaster volley gun, winning the first round of combat and killing one of the crew, only to fall in the final round of the game. Being the last model on the board.

A very fun game! The hellblaster volley gun started off the game slow, with the hit dice not being cooperative. Until it began firing at lone heroes, then it seemed to ramp up to overkill mode.

I feel I would try this list again, but perhaps when I build upon it at higher point levels. It’s definitely missing something to give it extra staying power. Maybe just more chariots would help a lot.

Until next time!