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Thirst, and Sieged by Sandstorm
Part II
by Doug Reid
Ragnar4@email.com. I’ll be happy to answer all and any questions and defend my standpoint concerning any
unit/magical item.
Now that you’ve had the opportunity to think about the magic items, it’s time to start thinking about the
Characters and Units you’ll be using. In the final chapter I'll talk about the 2 special characters, the tactics
presented in the back of the book, and my own philosophy that I approach the table with.
I guess I’ll start with the Lord Characters and work my way down
Tomb King
For the points, you get a pretty solid character. 4 attacks and wounds, with strength and toughness of 5 is
really nothing to balk at. The tactics you’ll approach the table with when using a King will be more straight
forward than if you hit the table with a prince. You see. You have to utilize the fact that your king is a terror in
combat early. If you can’t crush/demoralize your opponent early with a king, he’ll have a serious fighting
chance later in the game as he begins to gain momentum. It is entirely possible to be in combat with your king
on turn one. But I don’t recommend it. Instead try to get your carrion into a war-machine on turn one, then
use your king to crush your opponents units in turn 2. There is an interesting strategy that comes to bear with
the king also. Your opponent can flee from any charge you make. Indeed this is a smart idea, as very few
units can stand up to 4 chariots with the icon of the sacred eye, and a combat monkey king. Should your
opponent out-run you and leave you without a re-direct, you’ll have the opportunity to use your magic phase
to either re-charge the unit and almost guarantee it to run off the board, or you can try to charge another unit.
Your opponent would be a fool not to take this charge as he probably won’t be able to out-run you and will
get run-down. If you get into combat, you just let your combat resolution do the rest, and you’ll most likely
be in the back ranks of your opponent. Other units can follow suit and you can surround your opponent on
turn 3 and he won’t even remember why you’re in his rear. I call this the “blossom” when you hit a few units
in the center of the table, break them, run them down, then use your superior mobility to turn outward and
use your magic to be in the rear of the next opponent. The ground-pounder king is not quite as solid as the
chariot king. Most canny opponents will see your king is walking to get where he wants to go, and will
quickly dispel every opportunity to allow him extra movement. He’ll also create a big bubble around your
king and pick off your exterior units This tactic is very dangerous for your opponent to attempt, but if he gets
your other units and forces your king to points hunt, he’s almost got the guaranteed victory. Use him wisely,
and you’ll win. Get careless, and you’ll lose nearly every time, because he’s so expensive that he’ll take away
from your other fighting units.
Liche High Priest
I find it absolutely amazing that my Liche High Priest is so darn survivable when he has the cloak of dunes.
I'm also amazed that every monkey in the game with a cannon, or a flying unit doesn’t take every shot he can
at the Hierophant. Hell even light cav can give my Hiero a headache. When you take a High Priest, you enter
the game with the idea of sound magic dominance. Which you will accomplish, handily. Rarely will you see
something you want done, not happen. Every once in a while you’ll get both of his spells off, and your
opponent will turn bright red, and curse, a lot! The High Priest actually supports the idea of a balanced army
more than the idea of a “turtle shell/dwarf castle” type of army. With so much versatility, and the ability to
cast 2 spells he can respond to any threat with amazing accuracy, and allow you to mass quite quickly to
counter any problem you may be having. Many, many people complain about the High Priests army, in that it
has a “lack of bite” . I just want you to remember, you don’t need “bite” if you out-number your opponent.
You just need your opponent to whiff once. If you out-number him/her they run, and you’ve won. Your High
Priest can support this roll beautifully because he can heal unit’s so quickly. I also find the most important key
to a High Priest army is patience. Quiet tactical maneuvers forcing your opponent to “tip his hand” or “make
the first mistake” so that you can manouvre in, and then use your High priest to crush the mistake is the most
notorious and infamous way to win.
Tomb Prince
When you put a simple unit of skeletons on the board, they just don’t seem to have any survivability in
combat. They die in droves, can’t manage to save, and don’t ever seem to get anywhere. When you put a
prince in that same unit. They become hard as a rock. They may still lose the combats, but never by the same
types of negative combat resolution. It also forces your opponent to doubt himself, the curse of the
prince/king is always on the back of his mind. Does he want to chance losing a powerful unit, just because
you got lucky? The prince also has the points for the best selection of magical weapons/armour from the
magical items list, but also seems to do very well with just a great weapon and maybe some light armour. A
lot of people will allow the prince to do whatever he wants with his one single d6 spell too, because they are
scared of what the “other spell casters” may accomplish, meaning this unit becomes the “speedy gonzolezs of
units”. He’s also the toughest her o slot character out there, and quite capable of giving every other hero out
there a run for his/her money, quite easily in the top 4 for hero’s in combat, behind Chaos, lizards, and VC.
I've also fooled around with the idea of tossing a prince in the chariot with the +1 US icon. Doing what I can
to threaten flanks, and deal with war-machines. He’s a serious threat, and most people will commit what I
call battlefield suicide “turn their flanks towards your deployment zone” because they are worried about a
single chariot.
Liche Priest
Bread and butter of any army. I really have to argue that while every army must have one on a compulsory
note, I really think every army SHOULD have 2. Even my High Liche Priest finds himself running with a liche
priest that has the staff of Ravening and a skeleton steed. The Liche Priest gets away with a lot of what he
wants to cast because my opponent is so determined to not let me have my High Liche Priests incantations.
There is something to be said about mobility concerning Liche Priests also. I really don’t like the idea of
having one on foot. If he can’t react to a situation either by flying there or getting there on horse back, there’s
really no reason to have him. Unless you want a catapult baby-sitter or a casket of souls. But that becomes
really expensive and really the points return really isn’t worth it. As you play Tomb Kings, you’ll find that they
are a very reactive force, you need to punish your opponents for their mistakes, and force them into making
more mistakes that cost them the game. Sometimes these mistakes are quite a ways away from your battle
line, and your 4 inch base movement isn’t enough to react to that. 8 inches is barely enough if you have the
foresight to guess that your opponent is going to goof up.
Casket of Souls
Since you have to attach your Casket of souls to a Liche Priest, or a High Liche Priest, I’ll talk about the
Casket here. Most people believe that opening the casket is the most devastating part of the game. If you
actually manage to get the spell off, their units will simply dissappear from the board, and they’ve lost the
game. For those of you who aren’t Tomb Kings players, stop reading now, it’s entirely true. If the spell goes
off, you lose the game. You may as well declare this army cheesy, and hope you never face the casket of
doom! For those of you who are Khemerians at heart, keep reading. 2d6+2 is capable of doing some serious
damage to those small elite units of knights. Low Leadership units, such as skeletons, or goblins, are also
quite susceptible when you roll high. You’ll actually probably enjoy the casket until the first time you play a
dwarf army, or a tiny chaos army. You see the dwarfs will just stare at the casket. Then laugh at you, you mi
ght kill one dwarf with all your rolls, and then they’ll be angry, either way, your casket will not do anything
significant, unless you get lucky and get a war-machine, but they are dwarfs, they have like 5 more. The
Chaos army will simply not look at your casket, they’ll be laughing too, if you get really close, you can hear
them, I promise. If you do take a casket, and face a high leadership army, don’t be disheartened by this. The
casket actually does so much more for you than just killing your opponents stuff. Your opponent will be so
scared of your casket doing horrendous damage to his army, he’ll let so many other incantations through.
Remember he’s always playing the dispel dice game with you. The entire time he’ll be thinking. “I’ve got to
save 3d6 for his casket.” The heaviest dispel armies typically have 8 dice somehow for the dispel phase. That
brings your opponent down to 5 dice. Your liche priest behind the casket is probably trying to get a unit of
archers, o r a skull-chukka to shoot that‘s another 2d6 you‘re spending. Bringing your opponent down to 3
dice. If you have a high Liche priest, then your opponent will be able to match one of your spells with his
dice. Meaning that for 525 points. (1 high liche priest, and 1 liche priest behind a casket, you have a magical
advantage over a lord level wizard, 3 hero level wizards, and an item that provides a dispel dice. Not to also
mention that your prince that is compulsory also casts a single spell on a d6, you ALSO have a single slot
open for another character. This is the greatest advantage of the casket of souls. You can dominate your
opponent in the magic phase because he’s scared he’ll lose the game if the casket opens up, which is entirely
possible, but not probable. The other great advantage of taking a Casket is the -1 to all opponents casting
rolls. Khemri armies are usually hurting for dispel dice, and the this rare helps negate that, by causing your
opponent to fail his casting rolls more often, and giving you a bit of an edge when trying to dispel your
opponents spells. The final rule the casket has is that it causes terror. Which works in its advantage quite
often. I’ve had units either try to charge it, and flee off the board, or beat up my front line, get too close and
run away late in the game, giving me the opportunity to get some easy points. With all this said, the only
downfall is that you HAVE to spend at least 280 points to get this item, and if anyone puts their heirophant
behind the casket they deserve to be slapped, repeatedly. Meaning you have to spend another 115 to take
this item plus another 100 or 170 for a general character. Therefore if you take this item, You’ve spent 495
points and taken up 3 character slots to make this item it’s “most effective”. Having to spend that many points
before ANY magic items plus maybe another character is too much. Causing you to create a very small
army, which has several disadvantages. With all that said, this is a solid unit, but requires some special
balancing issues and creates a very interesting army, which I’ll cover later.
Icon Bearer
The notion that I expect to lose combat is absurd. The only army that I actually believe the Icon Bearer is
worth it is in the “construct army of cheesy doom” consisting of 1 prince, 1 high liche preist, 1 liche priest, 1
icon bearer, 2 Bone Giants, 2 units of 4 or 5 ushabti, and 2 tomb scorpions. The undead construct rule
combined with the icon bearer is the only route worth exploring in this situation. The Icon bearer has a
tendency to get “picked off” for the extra easy 100 vp’s. By surrounding him with terrifyingly-large-
constructs-that-refuse-to-die-in-combat-res-if-they-bounce-on-the-charge creatures you increase his
survivability notably. Also notice that I believe he should be mounted on horseback, with the icon of the
sacred eye in this case. Joining a Giant just before the Giant is magically charged into the flank of some
unsuspecting unit nearly doubling the giants effectiveness. Some may argue that his killing blow helps hedge
the bet in combat, I don’t disagree, but don’t believe he’s worth it. Others may argue that the 2 banners that
only he can carry are worth the risk of losing the points. I just don’t agree, unless you’re playing a Khalida
army with the standard of the sands. The Banner of the Hidden Dead has the “hidden cost” of 65 points for
the ability to hide the unit, plus 200 points if the banner is captured and the banner bearer killed. Making that
100 point unit worth 365 points. Do you really think that “hidden” unit is going to get 365 points before it’s
beaten back into the ground?
Core Units
I have a pretty simple motto lately. Put your faith in your troops. It’s odd to see that many people play with
the most expensive Rare and Special units in the game and they simply dismiss their core troops because they
have no special rules, nothing about them that “stands out” or “they just suck” when in all reality, those cheap
core troops are what should make up the majority of your army. In fact a good tournament army should do
what it can to have a big block of core troops were talking 50% of your army here. In order to get to the
types of armies I have. I played about a dozen games with nothing by my General, my liche priest heirophant,
and as many core troops as I could afford. No magic items, no special/rare units. Just core troops, as
balanced as I could possibly make the army. It was really refreshing to learn two things from the army:
1. This army looked like crap on paper, but in a game, actually held it’s own most of the time. There were a
few blaring weaknesses that had to be addressed, but those weaknesses were all countered by applying units
from my special/rare choices.
2. The army is very mis-leading. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, told me that my army sucked, had
absolutely no “bite” and would struggle against a retard with 50 points in goblins, and dice weighted to roll all
ones, they also suggested I would be very embarrassed against even an incompetent general with the same
number of points as me. They hinted at the fact that I’d probably give up after the whipping that a seasoned
vet would give me. I only lost a handful of games with this army against some seriously strong competition.
Not only do I recommend this with Khemri, I recommend this with every army out there.
If you want to become a serious competitor with your army, you need to be willing to lose, you need to be
willing to play an army that sucks, and you need to be willing to play games from “base”, and starting from
base starts right here in the core list. You should start out with the minimum number of required characters,
and as many core troops as you can muster, no magical items, and as balanced as possible. Play a few games
with this army. Even if you lose, don’t change, keep playing, beat your head against the wall. Then something
miraculous will happen. After a few games you’ll see a common theme, something that frustrates you in
EVERY game you play. Then you can go to your list, juggle a few things around, maybe drop a unit that just
doesn’t seem worth it, or is overly redundant. Then play a few more times. Eventually you’ll strike a balance,
and a miracle will happen, you won’t lose very often at all. People may even suggest that your list is “cheesy,
beardy, or cheatery”. It’s actually pretty funny when people tell me my 50% core troops army (where it sits
now) is overly powerful. Anyway I digress, onto the Core units:
Skeletons Warriors
Your basic, cheapest core troop, has quite a few different armaments to be explored, of all of these different
armaments you’ll find that if your warriors have bows, you don’t want to give them armour, if your warriors
have combat weapons, you’ll want to give them as much armour/shielding as possible. You want your boys in
combat to survive as long as possible. You want your opponent stuck in combat until the end of not just the
game, but until the end of time! Shields and armour are the way to do that. In order to also assure that your
skeletons live as long as possible, they really shouldn’t ever be more than 4 wide, unless you are using
spearmen. 28 models at 4 wide seems to be the “magic number” for units, and 25 models at 5 wide seems to
be the magic number for spearmen. This helps ensure that you’ll be able to survive a few losing rounds of
combat and still out-number your opponent when he whiffs, or to get that flank charge they so desperately
need.
Skeleton Heavy Cavalry
Nothing beats 12 heavy cavalry in the flank with the war banner. Not even VanHelsing beats 12 heavy
cavalry in the flank with the war banner (which is to say a lot ‘cuz several people think that VanHelsing could
beat Batman and Superman at the same time. Even if Batman was wielding the moon as a weapon. Getting
hit with the moon hurts, believe me, I know.). It’s kinda like throwing dynamite at your opponent when he
thinks you’re playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. A LOT of single attack units are hard pressed to beat 16 heavy
cavalry in the front with the war-banner. Even more units are hard pressed to completely destroy 16 heavy
cavalry in the front with the Banner of the Undying Legion. I guess what I’m getting at here is that people are
going to snicker at your fastest deadliest response unit you have because they are more like the heavy cav
rejects of the war-hammer world. The trick is timing, and unit structure. You see you never want to go more
than 4 wide with your cavalry. Never ever, not even if your opponent offers to pay you money. The timing is
essential in that you don’t want your opponent to simply flee from your insanely, overly long charge. So you
need to create a situation where he feels like he won’t escape. It’s kind of sad to admit that they have one of
the best saves in your army, in fact only one thing has a better save. But if you remember the exercise from
the first article I wrote, you’ll know you don’t care how many fall apart as long as you win combat, and out-
number. Then you get to say, “you auto flee, I will pursue.” That feeling is as good as rolling a natural 20.
Once people learn that your Heavy cavalry like to carry a LOT their of banners. (I once had a unit of Heavy
cavalry lugging around 4 banners, from a first turn charge, then ran that unit off the table, then the next turn
they came on, and magically charged into the rear of a unit, then they ran them off and charged another unit in
front of them….. THEN they took a turn and got some healing, and responded to the last combat on the
board… my opponent was done on turn 5...) They’ll start to be scared of that 24 inch bubble of doom that
your Cav bring. Parking units in front and then not moving them. I once watched nearly 600 points of Orc
and Goblins just sit there and have a staring contest with my knights, simply cuz the guy got whupped by my
Heavy Cavalry the time we played before. I cut a quarter of his army off with one unit. That’s a win in my
book. I beat him pretty handily too. By nearly 800 points.
Skeleton Light Cavalry
Some people swear by them as combat units. Some people denounce them as “ineffective and horrible” I sit
on the fence with them each game. Against elite armies, I love the fact I have one unit, and wish I had brought
more. Against horde armies I kick myself for wasting the 70 some odd points I wasted on them. You see,
since they can’t flee they more or less act as a meat shield (bone shield) for my Liche priest on the horse.
They have a couple of simple goals, eliminate swarms, beat 8 tons of crap out of any other panzy light cav,
and react quickly to any situation where my liche priests incantations may be needed. I know I need to use
them as a flanking force, but using them is always tucked away in some back corner of my mind for fear my
opponent will just get a better combat resolution out of me just throwing them into combat. In any balanced
army I recommend a unit maybe two of at least 6 models. The most effective use for Light cav against
hardcore combat armies is to sacrifice them. Park them in front of a unit that’ll charge them or be march-
blocked and frustrated, then angle them slightly so as to create a flank counter charge from your heavy cav,
or chariots, and watch the fun ensue. You’ll sacrifice 84 points to win the unit that beat the light cav, plus a
banner. Frenzy is even more fun, because if you charge the rear of a unit that is frenzied, if they win, and kill
the frenzy, it’s good. If you lose and your frenzied opponent destroys all of your light cav, they have to
overrun, backwards, taking them away from your battle-line AND turning them around facing their rear to
your real power units. I’ve even created situations where they were charged in the rear, and after they
overran they were looking at another easy points unit of carrion they had to charge, guaranteeing a charge
with my combat units in the rear.
Tomb Swarms
The argument that 45 points is enough to trump any war-machine with “it came from below” (ICFB) is pretty
nasty (us3). Their slow movement means they can actually displace themselves out of a charge when they
scatter from ICFB, but only if you roll a 10. The other tactic is when you bring a casket of souls, bring 5 of
these boys and surround your casket. Any flyers attempting to charge your casket must be able to land and fit
their base where you have your machine and be 1 inch away from all other units or they are NOT allowed to
charge. Swarms fit this roll nicely. Then their character, or flyers are tied up by swarms. The best part is that
Swarms are small, so you can fire over them. Note that Tomb Swarms do not fill the normal niche of tying up
a unit head on, because they suffer casualties the same way normal skeletons do, making them a horrendous
waste of points. They will tie up a single rank of cavalry on the flank quite nicely, you just have to work a little
bit to get the charge. WS3, and S3, with poison is quite nice also. The final tactical deviousness I’ve seen
people attempt with Tomb Swarms is to try to bring them up in the middle of the table and hope that the
scatter and the timing of coming up out of the ground allows them to march block their opponent. I’m not too
sold on this idea, although I do think it would be funny to pick off a mage like this. Like every other unit in the
Khemri list, swarms do not fit the typical niche most other swarms fill, but are effective in their own cake
eating, evil ways.
Chariots
The official unit of Khemri. No other army can have units of chariots that are rank and file. They are toned
down, but only because doing 3d6+3 str 5 impact hits is *BROKEN*. D3 str 4 hits plus 9 str 3 attacks and
3 str 4 attacks is enough, believe me. The most interesting thing about chariots is that they have a normal
movement of 8, and they are light cavalry. Very few units can guarantee a charge against them, while they are
dancing and dinking around on a flank, until your opponent commits battlefield suicide and turns a flank or
rear towards them, or towards another unit that doesn’t have their ability to move. Without a character you
need to adpot the “flank/rear charge only” paradigm, but the ability to move and then move in the magic
phase with makes this easily achievable with a bit of foresight, and some careful planning. When I went to
Seattle GT I was amazed to see one army in particular using Chariots in a block of 10!!!! With a prince and
an Icon Bearer if I remember right. Absolutely sickening. Apparently this guy got beat by Bill Edwards in the
44h round of the tourney too. Because “Bill Flees like a sun-of-a-gun”. Of course, I got beat by Bill too, in
the 5th round, but he didn’t flee from anything I gave him. I really must say that I think Chariot units don’t
need to be bigger than 4 and that’s only if you bring a character with the unit, 3 is plenty for the roll they’ll be
filling in your army. Take 2 units of 3, and it’s better than a unit of 6. Or 3 units of 3 in the case of the dude
with 10 chariots. They’ll be more tactically flexible, more maneuverable, and more frustrating for your
opponent to deal with.
Special Units
Carrion
You should never leave home without at least 3-4 carrion, I’ve begun to see the merit in maybe even 6 in a
unit. Any unit that can move 20 inches, then charge another 20 inches in the magic phase is sick, wrong, and
shouldn’t have been included in the game, but GW did it, so I say have your cake and eat it too. I’ve got a
set strategy concerning my Carrion. Turn one and 2 they struggle to be in combat with a war-machine. Once
the war-machines are dealt with the march block a unit until I can use them to commit a Coup de Gras on
some unit. The way you do this is fun. You park them one inch behind any unit that is fleeing, then you
magically incant them to move, and charge. The farthest any unit can flee in the game is 18 inches, you fly 20
minus the one inch you are away from the unit. They can’t get away, your carrion are carrying a banner that is
more than what they were worth if you brought 4 or less, plus the points you got from the unit. If your
opponent hangs a mage out, anywhere within 40 inches of these guys you’ve got a free hundred points plus
some more magical phase dominance, extremely dangerous unit.
Tomb Guard
Your toughest, strongest, meanest, most heavily armored unit, with magical attacks, AND killing blow. All for
the low, low price of 12 points a pop. HOLY CRAP! Anyone that approaches the table with the idea that
they want to outnumber their opponent in combat, and “not care how they do in combat as long as they out-
number and win” would be NUTS to take these guys. I’m not saying Tomb Guard are a bad unit, I just don’t
understand why people would spend so many points on a unit so easily avoidable. There is something to be
said about the free-reform banner… but, it’s just more points. Remember that on average you’ll be spending
about 600 points on characters. A decent unit of Tomb Guard is around 300 after a banner, leaving you right
around 1000 points to try to create a balance, AND out-number your opponent with your fear causing units.
Wow, that’s a tough order. What if your opponent slaps this unit around like little girls at a bully convention?
You’re out 400 some odd points. Baby sit the unit with a prince or king, they avoid the unit and dispel your
movement spells. Your unit only makes 100 if it’s lucky (quarters at the end of the game.) No, you need a
solid core that your opponent feels like he *must engage to win* not a core that he wants to avoid. I love the
models, and think the unit is hard as they come, I just wish they were not such a strong focal when they show
up on the field.
Tomb Scorpions
This unit is 100 pounds of dynamite packed in a 6 pound tub. There are so many tactical abilities that this guy
brings to the table it’s uncanny. WS4, S5, T5, Unit Strength 4, 4 attacks. Poison AND killing blow, with a
movement of 7. SEVEN! GW really dropped the ball making this units movement 7. Some of the best armies
out there take 3 scorpions and carrion, and a bunch of ground units. The scorpion and the ground unit attack
in concert, the scorpion gives you the wounds, the unit out-numbers, they both pursue, and one of your
pursuers goes 3d6 inches!!! If you need a flanking unit, just pull a character out of unit and join up with the
scorp, that’s a bucket of effective attacks with a us of 5, and negating ranks. Need a war-machine gone?
Enemy mages like to dink around outside of units? Use ICFB, hope you don’t misfire, (better yet ICFB with
2 of them and make sure one makes it there, bonus for 2.) and blow your opponent away with a 21 inch total
charge range!!! I’d be willing to be t money that poison and killing blow are used together on the scorpion to
bring DOWN its effectiveness. Since the scorpion can’t get killing blow on a poisonous hit, (no roll to
wound…) he can’t killing blow the enemy. Brining the amount of chances he has to killing blow the opponent
down by 16.5%. They think that little bit brings down the effectiveness of the scorpion down to 85 points.
Thank you GW!
Ushabti
At first I had a real problem using Ushabti. I couldn’t understand what the big deal was, why everybody was
ranting and raving about how great they were. Natural str 6 was neat, but it just didn’t click especially at 65
points a pop. I like to bring 4, and that’s too many points to spend for 4 models.. Until the first time I brought
them and they hit another ogre type model in combat. Kroxigor to be exact. During the smite that I managed
to get off, my opponent asked me, what’s your WS? I looked at him and said, “Good Question” and I
looked it up. I had missed it time and time again. WS 4. I3. That’s HUGE. Against all other ogre models but
3 (minotaurs, Dragon Ogres, River Trolls) they hit on 3’s. They are ogre unit killers! With an 18 inch charge
range, they really come into their own and should always get the charge on opposing ogre models. Where
they have the advantage against the ogres, dragon ogres, and Trolls is their natural str of 6 and their I of 3,
making them faster than most everything, and stronger than everything without a Great Weapon.
Rare Units
Bone Giant
No one in the history of mankind has rolled as poorly as I have continually rolled with my Bone Giant. I have
almost never had more than 3 wounds come out of an unstoppable assault. That’s horrible. Typically you can
get 4, or even 5. I do remember once I got 17 wounds against Chosen Khornate Knights, which was
absolutely amazing. Why do I keep taking it? That much whallop packed in such a small area. The Bone giant
can get into tight spots, and not even break a sweat manouvering around. Flank and rear-charges are the
Bone Giants Bread and butter, meaning even if he only gets 2 wounds on the flank, you’ve tied your
opponent, and even a horrible roller like me can get 3 wounds, making for a win, on the flank. On the rear,
he can whiff and not lose a wound, and with one wound caused, he wins. Couple that with a Str 6, 3+ save,
and a M of 6 you’ve got a solid rare unit. I’ve stated that It would be really fun to couple an Icon banner with
the icon of the sacred eye with the Bone giant just to watch him hit on 3’s and wound on 2’s.. But that’s a
LOT of work, and my opponent will just roll his eyes at me.
Screaming Skull Catapult
The hands down reason I did as well as I did in the Seattle GT. I won 3 of the 4 games that I did win with
this before turn 2 had begun in every game. I picked off my opponents units with this and broke up his battle
line. The strength of the catapult is NOT it’s ability to kill lots of models, The strength is the leadership test
that your opponent has to take. For 20 points, the Skulls of the foe pays for itself nearly EVERY time. -1 to
the average leadership means your opponent will be failing half the time. Flaming skulls means you can take
away regeneration (Ed’s note: Deke, any thought here???)(Well, Doug, I'm thinkin' it may be time for me
to introduce you to a one-on-one session with my sprue snips, if you know what I mean? -Deke) if your
opponent is on a good low leadership streak. The fact that if they just destroy the machine but leave crew
members, and it CAN still be healed with a good spell, and that if you kill all the crew, and leave the machine
that you CAN STILL heal the crew is HUGE. Most people devote just enough attention to get one, or the
other, because they never need to get both. I have never NOT had a use for my catapult, it’s a rockstar, and
has saved me many times.
Well that’s about it. Next up I’ll talk about the 2 special characters in the back of the book, I do need to play
a game with Khalida’s army first. I’ll also talk about the 2 Tactics in the back of the book, and I’ll talk about
my own special tactic that I took to the last RT and GT. I really wonder why I’m telling you all this, next time
we play, you’ll know all my secrets, and I’ll just lose. I don’t like that. AACK! I’m doomed!
Part III