Arming your Tomb Prince

[Archamedius]

I think the Tomb Prince is a wonderful support unit that might be underrated by many. Giving VC Skeletons WS 5 can really make a difference in that unit. They take a lot less damage in close combat.

What I am curious about, is how others would kit their Tomb Prince out. With him being flamable you have to be concerned about high str flaming attacks so the dragon bane gem or dragon helm seem like auto includes to me. But is it? How often would he have to fear this? And if those sorts of powerful attacks are coming his way, should I be happy they aren't going into more important units like a VL or MN?

Anyways just thought it might be nice to start a discussion on this.

Thoughts?

 

[TMS]

[mod]Thread moved to The Teachings of Abhorash[/mod]

 

[Kromathus]

If I take a VL on foot;

I run a prince with AoSS, DBG and GW. He goes in my 40 man skelly bus (full command, banner for flavour) with my VL.

He's pretty survivable and he does stop the skellys bleeding as much combat rez (they still don't kill much without magic support). I've only had him die in 2 battles, once because I was forced to accept a challenge with him against a tooled up saurus old blood and the other due to crumble.

However he is an expensive support character for skellys so you need to base you character selection accordingly. In a unit of skeletons for example, with full command you can effectively place characters in the second rank (when running 5 wide). This also limits the attacks being directed against the unit, making it bleed even less CR.

He makes the unit an excellent anvil against other infantry. Paired with a large unit of horrors they form a formidable wall to try and punch through. However it still suffers against the larger stuff, flank charges and multiple combats so watch out.

That's just my experience. I don't run grave guard but that would probably be the only other unit id take him in.

 

[Seneschal]

Armor of destiny and great weapon for added punch.i find that armor won't save him from high strength attacks and I know it's useless against killing blow and death snipes so it's the good ole AoD for me.

Putting him in a GG unit with Barrows allows the eights to hit most things on 2's. Couple that with great weapons and you've got a unit that can bring some pain.

However, I wouldn't field a prince in a competive list as I'd rather have hexwraiths or vargheists in place of him.

 

[Kromathus]

However, I wouldn't field a prince in a competive list as I'd rather have hexwraiths or vargheists in place of him.

This.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Armour of Destiny + GW is the best, with Glittering Scales + DBG coming in second, and dragonhelm alone if you're feeling cheap. There are lots of great uses in the TK list for him, but I'm just not convinced that he's a cost-effective option in VC. There are better ways to make your units hitty than increasing the number of S3 hits making contact for some 150 points.

GG are the only exception, but GG don't really make for a super competitive choice anyways. I suppose they'd make for a fantastic points-denial tool, but that's about it. Maybe give him the Obsidian Lodestone and a great weapon, alongside a blender lord on foot and a WK with the NS in a unit of 7-wide GG. Good luck getting any points out of that unit.

 

[Nox]

I'm trying a list soon that puts him in a 40 strong unit of grave guard with Vlad Mortarch of Shadow and equipped with glittering scales so everything is -2 to hit him.

 

[Nicreap]

Wow you people really kit out your tomb princes, apparently the transition to undead legions has made tomb princes quite wealthy. Tomb kings players generally give him a GW and maybe a Dragonbane gem if he is your general. In most cases people will choose to attack the squishy unit he is in to wrack up combat rez over trying to kill the prince himself, since the whole crumble thing kills him much more easily.

 

[Seneschal]

I don't see why they would go for the unit over the guy that buffs it. People know what princes do and will attack him with the proper unit to eliminate the WS buff. A vargheist unit 2x2 for example would be a tactic for us.
Actually attacking the model will kill it faster than waiting a number of rounds for it to crumble

 

[LordTobiothan]

I'm trying a list soon that puts him in a 40 strong unit of grave guard with Vlad Mortarch of Shadow and equipped with glittering scales so everything is -2 to hit him.

I have other lists as priority so i haven't played it but I made this exact unit as well. Mines a bit gimmicky though, it uses this basically indestructible unit as an anvil and neferata as a hammer because it turns out vlad and nefe fit in a 2500 point list and this was the best use i could think for both of them.

 

[Nicreap]

But the prince it's already harder to wound anyway, he is T5 with 3 wounds, so it you are throwing attacks at the prince you are dropping the combat rez of your unit. Swinging at my price is the easiest way for my unit to win combats. Granted it you have a vampire then it is not really a concern, but before undead legions you needed whatever you could to boost CR.

 

[Sception]

Seriously, assuming a standard armor of destiny, great weapon prince, you need three wounds to get past his inv save, which means on average six wounds. Vargs are S5, the Prince is T5, so that's about 12 hits. With 4s to hit, that's 24 attacks on average (though of course it could swing a lot one way or the other) to bring him down. So vargs on average take two rounds to do it, during which time they're pouring their offence into the sturdiest part of the enemy unit and eating crumble from combat res as a result.

Princes may not be "real" melee characters, but they aren't squishy like mages or necrotects, either. They're actually pretty resistant to these sorts of assassination tactics.

 

[Nicreap]

That's my point most people assume the prince is equipped and will dump those varg attacks into the unit over risking losing the vargheists to cr

 

[LordTobiothan]

That's my point most people assume the prince is equipped and will dump those varg attacks into the unit over risking losing the vargheists to cr

I'm not sure why you'd throw a varghiest unit into a main combat block in the first place. They are made to kill flank units and assassinate wizards.

If you run a block of vc skeletons with a vamp the only way the tomb king skeletons win is with the boosted ws. The vamp targets the prince, it goes down 9 times out of 10 and you do not win on static cr and we now have equal footing for our skeletons.

If the vamp attacked the unit he'd probably do more wounds, but the ws 5 skeletons would easily make that up vs regular skeletons. Not targeting the prince only makes sense if you charged a non combat block into the tomb kings main combat block. Which is bad versus any army.

 

[Seneschal]

OK, I should've explained more.

What I said was in response to nicreap's comment. If you regularly face a prince who is next to naked, then why not swing on him? Your opponent will learn to better equip him after a few games. I used to go up against players who got their advice from another forum (no idea which) and would take setups like the one nicreap listed. I would then drop the prince each game with whatever (spirit leech, wraith, etc) at which point my opponents stopped giving him next to nothing for protection and start equipping him with ward saves/AoSS with gem/luckstone.

The kit I listed earlier in this thread was what I personally used to take.

So when I said "use vargs" as an example, it was meant under the assumption that you'd be taking on a barely protected prince. And I wouldn't send them in without support from a block of course

 

[Kromathus]

I just played a game against beastmen last night with my vlord and prince 50 man skellie unit.

Took the charge against a 40 man bestigor bus. Wargor bsb, beastlord, great bray shaman, bray shaman and full command. Beastlord challenged skellie champ. Vlord struck first and killed 6 bestigors. He allocated all attacks into the prince and killed him. I won combat but he held with stubborn ld10.

After that it was a down hill battle, the vlord just couldn't get enough attacks to generate combat rez even with crypt horrors flanking. The skellies just bled too much rez. It didn't help he shut down my invocations.

A smart opponent will risk losing one or two combats to kill the prince. The difference in hitting on 3 is huge compared to 4.

 

[deste]

I'm trying it (gw,DBG, AoSS) in to a 30 GG with banner of barrows, with a Whight king (SoR, FB), mortis for support
A lot of point, but funny!

 

[Archamedius]

I'm trying it (gw,DBG, AoSS) in to a 30 GG with banner of barrows, with a Whight king (SoR, FB), mortis for support
A lot of point, but funny!

SoR, FB? What is that?

 

[LordTobiothan]

SoR, FB? What is that?

Seed of rebirth and I can only assume fencers blades.

 

[Alabaster427]

I think having Vlad (UL) and the TP with AoSS is a solid combo. Hopefully I will get to test it soon and let you guys know how it goes.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I think having Vlad (UL) and the TP with AoSS is a solid combo. Hopefully I will get to test it soon and let you guys know how it goes.

It's solid if you want a 1,200 point M4 deathstar with a 200mm frontage. Against an even remotely competent opponent it will fight nothing but chaff all game, unless it's not a fight it can win (nurgle prince, for instance).

 

[deste]

Seed of rebirth and I can only assume fencers blades.

yes seed and fencers blades