Everyone misses the Tomb Kings. Original Tomb Kings models command insane prices on ebay, multiple 3rd party Tomb Kings lines continue to pop up (my favorite being Lost Kingdoms' Undying Dynasties - buy the 3d print files here or search ebay, etsy, or the like for people selling printed models), etc. When age of sigmar first released, the Tomb Kings even had a pretty cool and effective set of compendium rules, which can still be found in the Warhammer Legends download section on Warhammer Community, and you can still find a Homebrew Battletome for the Tomb Kings on Mengel Miniature's page here. Unfortunately, none of these rules were ever updated for 2nd edition, let alone 3rd edition, so they really don't work very well anymore.
This project aims to correct that by updating the Tomb Kings for modern Age of Sigmar, including adding a set of 3rd edition faction rules drawing inspiration from the Mengel Miniatures project, while also sketching out a minimalistic narrative explanation for running Tomb Kings in Age of Sigmar. While I'm starting the thread and currently plan on working on this on my own, I would love to make this a group project with insight from multiple forumites. That said, I've seen several highly conflicting takes on homebrew AoS tomb kings, so while I welcome collaboration, I think it would help to establish some elements of this projects design philosophy up front to make sure everyone stays on the same page, more or less.
Minimalism. The Legends Tomb Kings rules were already pretty fun and effective back in their day and mostly just need to be brought up to date. New warscrolls will need to be created for some of the special characters that didn't make it into the official Tomb Kings Compendium, and there are one or two units that didn't quite work and might need a bottom-up rework (scarab swarms might work better as an endless spell, the Casket of Souls might work better as faction terrain, skeletons will have to be re-written to replace the out-of-style hoard bonuses). But for the most part this project isn't aiming to re-write all the units from scratch here.
Fidelity. The entire purpose of this project is to write modern rules allowing players to run classic Tomb Kings armies. We're sticking to the same units, the same characters, the same personality, the same lore. We'll add just enough original narrative to justify Tomb Kings armies in age of Sigmar, but we're not re-imagining the faction from the ground up for the Mortal Realms. IMO the Ossiarch Bonereapers does a bang-up job of that already.
Death, Not Order. Part of the Core Appeal of the Tomb Kings, much to my personal chagrin, was that they were a neutral undead army - one mainly concerned with protecting their own lands, and as likely to ally with good factions as with chaos or evil when world-shaking events forced them to choose sides. In particular, Settra stood in perpetual opposition to Nagash and Arkhan, Khalida in opposition to Neferata & the Vampire Counts. On the other hand, some Tomb Kings occasionally did work with Nagash & his Minions - Ramhotep once built Arkhan 8 jade Sphinxes in exchange for the Lich King's aid in one of his campaigns, even Khalida sided with Nagash rather than be destroyed in the End Times. As often as not, Warhammer Fantasy Tomb Kings army books allowed you to field explicitly Nagash-aligned armies, including fielding Arkhan himself, so that should at least be an option here.
So are the Tomb Kings a Death Faction or not? For me, the deciding factor is that the 'Death' keyword in Age of Sigmar isn't just used to indicate allegiance, it's also used to mark undead units for the purpose of abilities that treat them differently than the living. Aligned with or opposed to Nagash, the Tomb Kings are still undead, and should be treated as such by rules that specifically target undead units, so this version of Tomb Kings will be a Death army, at least in the sense of having the Death keyword. That said the faction's neutral nature, and in particular Settra's opposition to Nagash, will be reflected somehow - perhaps via subfaction-specific cross-GA ally rules or explicit restrictions against fielding opposing characters in the same army.
So with the basics out of the way, what's the plan for the project?
Step 0: Quick Sketch
Just a quick bird's eye view, pencil in some general ideas. Basically what I'm doing now. Nothing set in stone apart from broad design philosophy stuff.
Step 1: Fix Existing Warscrolls.
The current legends warscrolls are completely out of date. Some just don't work anymore, others don't fit with modern design principles. The first step of the project is to just update the legends rules as they are. We're not re-writing or re-imagining anything completely, at least not yet, just getting it playable. As part of 'getting it playable', come up with some simple placeholder faction traits to be used in playtesting. Then playtest, updating points costs as appropriate and identifying units that don't feel right or match their fluff to be more significantly reworked in phase 2.
POTENTIAL STOPPING POINT - step 1 is intended to provide a playable rule set in and of itself, once it's completed, put it together into a new PDF document in the style of the current Legends document, try to circulate it, see if it has any legs.
Step 2: Write Entirely New Warscrolls.
Come up with entirely new Warscrolls for those units and special characters that never made it into the legends rules (Nekaph, Khatep, Ramhotep, Heirotitan), as well as any units that step one identified as requiring a more extensive rewrite. Again, playtest with the placeholder faction rules and re-work as necessary. we're not super concerned with balance yet, just that the units work with the rules and 'feel right' on the table, that they play in a way that reflects their character, lore, and classic models.
Step 3: Faction Triats, Command Traits, Spells, Artefacts
Draw inspiration from Mengel Miniatures, but don't copy their homework verbatim. Draw inspiration from recent 3rd edition battletomes like Nighthaunt for what modern faction rule design should look like. We need faction traits, command traits, artefacts, spell or prayer lore, maybe mount traits, battle tactics, grand stratagem, maybe core battalions, subfactions (to be worked once main faction traits are good), and some faction specific Path to Glory stuff. Everything a modern 3e battletome gets. Again, more play testing.
Step 5: Finalize Points Costs
We'll need to tinker with points costs along the way as unit sizes and warscrolls are updated, but this is where we get SUPER concerned with points costs, internal & external balance, etc. As a homebrew project, we're aiming for a balance of slightly weaker or slightly higher points costs compared to other armies in the game. It's hard enough to get people to play against homebrew rules to begin with, if they get even a whiff of cheese they're not likely to give you a second chance.
Step 6: New Fluff
Again, this is about modernizing the rules for the classic Tomb Kings. The faction will be grounded on the established Nehekhara lore. We'll want to add some new story elements to justify their presence in Age of Sigmar, but it shouldn't be the focus and it shoudln't influence the rules design. This project isn't about coming up with an original take on Egyptian style undead in the Mortal Realms, this is about letting people play with existing Tomb Kings armies.
The Next Steps
I'm expecting to call this thing done after step 1 alone, but if the project is particularly successful & picks up any sort of attention, then when we get through all the above we can look into putting together a fancy pdf document, gathering funds to commission artwork, putting out calls online to see if people would be willing to submit photos of their old armies, typing up full lore entries, and putting it all together into a proper homebrew battletome like Mengel did with theirs. We might even try contacting them to see if we could use their art assets to do so, but I wouldn't even want to think about bothering people with that kind of stuff until we had a pretty complete and playable ruleset put together.
Honestly, knowing myself, and based on other Tomb Kings projects I've seen started and never finished online, I don't expect this project to get that far, but we'll see...
This project aims to correct that by updating the Tomb Kings for modern Age of Sigmar, including adding a set of 3rd edition faction rules drawing inspiration from the Mengel Miniatures project, while also sketching out a minimalistic narrative explanation for running Tomb Kings in Age of Sigmar. While I'm starting the thread and currently plan on working on this on my own, I would love to make this a group project with insight from multiple forumites. That said, I've seen several highly conflicting takes on homebrew AoS tomb kings, so while I welcome collaboration, I think it would help to establish some elements of this projects design philosophy up front to make sure everyone stays on the same page, more or less.
Minimalism. The Legends Tomb Kings rules were already pretty fun and effective back in their day and mostly just need to be brought up to date. New warscrolls will need to be created for some of the special characters that didn't make it into the official Tomb Kings Compendium, and there are one or two units that didn't quite work and might need a bottom-up rework (scarab swarms might work better as an endless spell, the Casket of Souls might work better as faction terrain, skeletons will have to be re-written to replace the out-of-style hoard bonuses). But for the most part this project isn't aiming to re-write all the units from scratch here.
Fidelity. The entire purpose of this project is to write modern rules allowing players to run classic Tomb Kings armies. We're sticking to the same units, the same characters, the same personality, the same lore. We'll add just enough original narrative to justify Tomb Kings armies in age of Sigmar, but we're not re-imagining the faction from the ground up for the Mortal Realms. IMO the Ossiarch Bonereapers does a bang-up job of that already.
Death, Not Order. Part of the Core Appeal of the Tomb Kings, much to my personal chagrin, was that they were a neutral undead army - one mainly concerned with protecting their own lands, and as likely to ally with good factions as with chaos or evil when world-shaking events forced them to choose sides. In particular, Settra stood in perpetual opposition to Nagash and Arkhan, Khalida in opposition to Neferata & the Vampire Counts. On the other hand, some Tomb Kings occasionally did work with Nagash & his Minions - Ramhotep once built Arkhan 8 jade Sphinxes in exchange for the Lich King's aid in one of his campaigns, even Khalida sided with Nagash rather than be destroyed in the End Times. As often as not, Warhammer Fantasy Tomb Kings army books allowed you to field explicitly Nagash-aligned armies, including fielding Arkhan himself, so that should at least be an option here.
So are the Tomb Kings a Death Faction or not? For me, the deciding factor is that the 'Death' keyword in Age of Sigmar isn't just used to indicate allegiance, it's also used to mark undead units for the purpose of abilities that treat them differently than the living. Aligned with or opposed to Nagash, the Tomb Kings are still undead, and should be treated as such by rules that specifically target undead units, so this version of Tomb Kings will be a Death army, at least in the sense of having the Death keyword. That said the faction's neutral nature, and in particular Settra's opposition to Nagash, will be reflected somehow - perhaps via subfaction-specific cross-GA ally rules or explicit restrictions against fielding opposing characters in the same army.
So with the basics out of the way, what's the plan for the project?
Step 0: Quick Sketch
Just a quick bird's eye view, pencil in some general ideas. Basically what I'm doing now. Nothing set in stone apart from broad design philosophy stuff.
Step 1: Fix Existing Warscrolls.
The current legends warscrolls are completely out of date. Some just don't work anymore, others don't fit with modern design principles. The first step of the project is to just update the legends rules as they are. We're not re-writing or re-imagining anything completely, at least not yet, just getting it playable. As part of 'getting it playable', come up with some simple placeholder faction traits to be used in playtesting. Then playtest, updating points costs as appropriate and identifying units that don't feel right or match their fluff to be more significantly reworked in phase 2.
POTENTIAL STOPPING POINT - step 1 is intended to provide a playable rule set in and of itself, once it's completed, put it together into a new PDF document in the style of the current Legends document, try to circulate it, see if it has any legs.
Step 2: Write Entirely New Warscrolls.
Come up with entirely new Warscrolls for those units and special characters that never made it into the legends rules (Nekaph, Khatep, Ramhotep, Heirotitan), as well as any units that step one identified as requiring a more extensive rewrite. Again, playtest with the placeholder faction rules and re-work as necessary. we're not super concerned with balance yet, just that the units work with the rules and 'feel right' on the table, that they play in a way that reflects their character, lore, and classic models.
Step 3: Faction Triats, Command Traits, Spells, Artefacts
Draw inspiration from Mengel Miniatures, but don't copy their homework verbatim. Draw inspiration from recent 3rd edition battletomes like Nighthaunt for what modern faction rule design should look like. We need faction traits, command traits, artefacts, spell or prayer lore, maybe mount traits, battle tactics, grand stratagem, maybe core battalions, subfactions (to be worked once main faction traits are good), and some faction specific Path to Glory stuff. Everything a modern 3e battletome gets. Again, more play testing.
Step 5: Finalize Points Costs
We'll need to tinker with points costs along the way as unit sizes and warscrolls are updated, but this is where we get SUPER concerned with points costs, internal & external balance, etc. As a homebrew project, we're aiming for a balance of slightly weaker or slightly higher points costs compared to other armies in the game. It's hard enough to get people to play against homebrew rules to begin with, if they get even a whiff of cheese they're not likely to give you a second chance.
Step 6: New Fluff
Again, this is about modernizing the rules for the classic Tomb Kings. The faction will be grounded on the established Nehekhara lore. We'll want to add some new story elements to justify their presence in Age of Sigmar, but it shouldn't be the focus and it shoudln't influence the rules design. This project isn't about coming up with an original take on Egyptian style undead in the Mortal Realms, this is about letting people play with existing Tomb Kings armies.
The Next Steps
I'm expecting to call this thing done after step 1 alone, but if the project is particularly successful & picks up any sort of attention, then when we get through all the above we can look into putting together a fancy pdf document, gathering funds to commission artwork, putting out calls online to see if people would be willing to submit photos of their old armies, typing up full lore entries, and putting it all together into a proper homebrew battletome like Mengel did with theirs. We might even try contacting them to see if we could use their art assets to do so, but I wouldn't even want to think about bothering people with that kind of stuff until we had a pretty complete and playable ruleset put together.
Honestly, knowing myself, and based on other Tomb Kings projects I've seen started and never finished online, I don't expect this project to get that far, but we'll see...
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