The Tomb Kings have a difficult start and severe limitations on the number of armies, heroes and top-tier units they can have. I created this guide to help you develop your gameplan before you even start your campaign so that you make as few mistakes as possible to hopefully have a smooth cruise to victory.
Contents
Guide to Tomb Kings
All credit goes to MinMaxRex!
Get Books Fast Tip
Send a Hero to discover the roaming book armies (the Book of Nagash map will show you where they are, but you have to encounter them for them to show up in your diplomacy screen) and then Declare War on them so that they come to you to attack you so you can kill them and take their Books of Nagash.
Canopic Jars & Other Essentials
You need Canopic Jars! Hereafter I will just call them Jars. Here is why you need Jars:
In the Mortuary Cult, “A New Dynasty” gives you +1 to the number of armies you can field (Army Capacity). Awakening this new army costs 10,000 gold and 800 Jars. This cost doubles each time you awaken a new Dynasty, so 20,000 and 1600 Jars for the second awakening of a new dynasty, 30k + 2400 for the third, 40k + 3200 for the fourth, etc.
In Dynasties, each unique Dynasty King (1st-6th) costs 200 Jars. 6 of the researchable heroes cost 100 Jars each. Each of the seven Heralds costs 150 Jars.
1200 + 600 + 1050 = 2850 Jars to obtain everything that requires Jars in Dynasties.
By the end of my Settra campaign, I had Awakened 4 dynasties and obtained everything requiring Jars in Dynasties, in addition to obtaining other things from the Mortuary Cult.
4 new Dynasties + all Jar tech research in Dynasties = 6050 Jars.
Key Point – Unlocking a “Wisdom of # Dynasty” in Dynasties gives +1 Army Capacity but reduces your research rate by 30%, and it solely takes turn time depending on your research rate. After research the “Wisdom”, THEN you can obtain that dynasty’s unique Tomb King for 1 turn to research and 200 Jars. However, if you do not feel you need that unique Tomb King or you are prioritizing research time and Jars elsewhere, the unique Tomb Kings are totally optional. Your regular Tomb King recruitable from the Lord Pool are Immortal and can have decent traits and will get the job done.
How To Obtain Canopic Jars
Important tip: Once you reach the point where you can instantly recruit Tomb Kings at Level 5, you can recruit a Tomb King at Level 5 and you put 1 skill point in Route Marcher and 3 points in Canopic Jar Hoarder, then use “Replace” to recruit another available Tomb King at Level 5 and do the same thing, then once you’ve recruited the last available fresh Tomb King from your Lord Pool, disband him. Repeat this process the next turn. Do this scores of times and you have a huge boost to your canopic jar generation every single turn.
You want every Lord and Hero to MAX Canopic Jar Hoarder for +3 Jars per turn.
Grand Temple of Djaf gives +10 Jars per turn.
Pyramids gives +2 Jars per turn.
Royal Burial Chambers give +1 Jars per turn.
Occupying or Razing a settlement gives +30 Jars (until you sacked the settlement first and then occupy it which will give no jars unless you wait a turn to then occupy the settlement).
The middle post-battle option gives +30 Jars. There are times where you may need the money from the 1st option or the Replenishment from the 3rd option, but you want to use the +30 Jars post-battle option as often as you can, especially if you defeat a small army that will not provide much gold or replenishment.
Other Essentials
Usirian & Attend Me! skills stack in a province (they aren’t Lord-specific), so 4 lords with both these skills add up to +12 recruitment slots in a province on top of whatever the province + research provide.
Liche Priests and Royal Burial Chambers give +1 Lord Rank factionwide each, Black Pyramid of Nagash has a building that gives +3 Lord and +3 Hero factionwide, and the rite Incantation of Tahoth gives +3 Lord Rank for 5 turns.
“The Restless Dead” in the Lore of Nehekhara is reportedly a very weak heal, therefore not worth recruiting Liche Priests with that lore or putting any points into that lore on Settra.
- Reddit user KamachoThunderbus made a good post about how mediocre the Lore of Nehekhara.
Counterpoint to the above – “The boon of the resurrection skill (the final skill of the red line) that undead get isn’t about the in-combat effect, it can be used to ridiculous efficacy if you cluster your units after the enemy has routed and just spam heal them. TK should essentially end every fight with 0 losses.” So if you have multipel Lore of Nehekhara Liche Priests in an army and just spam spells at the end of the battle once the enemy routs, it may be worthwhile but this will require testing to see how effective it is, but I can already argue that it is sub-optimal to use multiple Liche Priests in an army for this purpose when you could bring Death Lore Liche Priests to nuke enemies behind walls in sieges or enemies crunched up against your infantry in field battles.
Settra & Tomb Princes are Anti-Large on Foot or Steeds, but become Anti-Infantry if put on Chariots or Khemrian Warsphinx. I thought steed mounts were trash, however, they don’t reduce certain stats like other mounts, they give a huge speed buff to otherwise very slow lords and steeds prevent knockdown, at the cost of making Settra and Tomb Princes vulnerable to anti-large.
Regular Tomb Kings are NOT anti-large, so their best mount is the Khemrian Warsphinx.
Every Tomb King you recruit should prioritize the Blue Line first to get Route Marcher, max Canopic Jar Hoarder, 1 point in Soul Reaper (later possibly max this), Attend Me!, Lightning Strike, All is Mine!, and Renowned & Feared.
Tomb Kings are already really strong combatants, and the Yellow Combat Line just makes them ridiculous and if you are not sure what units you want to buff, the Yellow Line makes for an easy choice to create a wrecking ball.
Red Line has some excellent skills however. Sun-Scorched Bones buffs all your basic infantry so it is good all the way through the campaign (unlike the red lines for other factions where you have to decide whether you want to buff early or late game units). Master Charioteer is excellent on Settra and Alkhazzar since they buff chariots. Revered Stonemasonry is essential on Lahmizzash or another lord dedicated to leading Ushabti. More on this later.
More tips:
- If you get “the -50% Hero Action Cost” Book of Nagash early, you can use heroes to wreck the enemy with Assault Units and Assault Garrison Tomb Princes.
- Key Followers: Skeleton Labourer (-25% Settlement Cost) and Charnel Valley Necrotect (-15% cost for Infrastructure buildings)
- You may be able to get these by sacking settlements.
- Herald Followers provide excellent buffs to certain units, pay attention and give them to the right Lord accordingly.
- Raid The Sentinels faction in The Black Pyramid of Nagash province early in the campaign. The faction won’t move and always hates you. So no risk.
- The Purple Tier Legendary Items in the Mortuary Cult? You can only get 1 of each of them. But you can make many of the others, and some of the others may be even better, particularly those that provide Health Regeneration.
Recruit Rank 9 Units
Attend Me! and Renowned & Feared skills in the Blue Line give +1 unit rank each, so +2 here.
“Wise” trait gives +1 unit rank (in addition to 2 jars per turn). Liche Priests can get the Wise trait.
Liche Priests have “Incantation of Preservation” which gives +2 unit rank (and +1 Lord Rank factionwide!).
So you can either have 3 Wise Liche Priests in an army,
Or
2 Wise Liche Priests, Blue Line to Renowned & Feared Lord, and have the commandment that gives +1 recruit rank in province active.
Boom, Rank 9 of whatever unit you are recruiting.
Best Army Capacity Strategy
Army Capacity is the biggest constraint on the Tomb Kings. Canopic Jars and the Dynasty “technology” tree are essential to Tomb King success, so what is the best approach? Here is what I recommend:
You start being only able to field 1 army. Research the 6th Dynasty (that leads to Alkhazzar) first and go ahead and finish researching it as soon as you can, which will give you +1 Army Capacity but reduce your Research Rate by -30%. Hold off on spending the 200 Jars to get Alkhazzar just yet.
Go ahead and unlock the 1 Necrotect, Tomb Prince and Liche Priest that become available to unlock once you research the dynasty.
Try to build a Royal Burial Chamber or get a Liche Priest to the level to get his +1 Lord Rank skill, and try to unlock Invocation of Tahoth rite, so that you can use the rite and immediately recruit Level 5 Lords (4 skill points available) so that you can recruit a Tomb King with Route Marcher and maxed Canopic Jar Hoarder, and then go to his Details Page and use Replace to replace him with another Rank 5 Lord that you skill the same way, and do this until you are out of Tomb Kings to recruit that turn. Then recruit a Level 5 Tomb King as a new one becomes available every turn that the Tahoth Rite is active.
If you need a 2nd Lord before you can recruit him at Level 5, that is fine, just replace him with the Level 5 Lords once you use Tahoth Rite, and then once the rite expire, you can replace the last Level 5 Lord recruit with him so that he can continue to level up until he is also at least Level 5 for the max Canopic Jar Hoarder.
So you can recruit a normal Tomb King from your Lord Pool for your 2nd Army. Collect Canopic Jars like mad, you need to save up 800 Jars and 10,000 Gold ASAP to Awaken a New Dynasty (+1 Army Capacity). As soon as you have the Jars and Money, Awaken a New Dynasty. You now have an Army Capacity of 3.
You may now spend 200 Jar to get Alkhazzar if you wish, or save those 200 for the next step below.
Settlement buildings boost your Research Rate, so the more you conquer, the more your research rate should rise, so keep expanding and you should eventually get your Research Rate back up to 100%, and then continue to keep increasing it as you expand.
The next Dynasty Lord you want to focus on researching is Lahmizzash (4th Dynasty), but more on this in the next step.
Key step
Your next “Awaken a New Dynasty” will cost you 1600 Jars and 20,000 Gold. “The Heralds Empowered” skill on the far right of the Dynasty tree does not reduce research rate and it buffs global recruitment while giving you +1 Army Capacity, however, you have to unlock all 7 Heralds first. In terms of research time the heralds are great because each one only takes 1 turn to unlock, but each one costs 150 Jars, for a total Jar cost of 1050. However, that is still less than 1600, and you will unlock some sweet Herald Followers on the way, so start unlocking Heralds as you obtain 150 Jars.
Key step
If you don’t have enough Jars then research Lahmizzash of the 4th Dynasty next but STOP researching with 1 turn remaining to finish unlocking the 4th Dynasty. Why you ask? Because you do not want to reduce your research rate by another -30%. Once you have 1 turn remaining to unlock 4th Dynasty, start on another Dynasty. I recommend in order, 6th, 4th, 5th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd. STOP researching the dynasty on the last turn before it completes.
Hopefully you fairly quickly unlock all the Heralds and then research “The Heralds Empowered”. This gives you Army #4. If you have not unlocked Alkhazzar yet, you could spend 200 Jars to do this now. Now start saving up 1600 Jars for your next “Awaken a New Dynasty”, which would give you Army #5. From here you just keep saving up Jars to “Awaken a New Dynasty” when you can but also don’t forget to save up the 200 Jars for each Dynasty Tomb King and the 100 Jars for each Dynasty Hero that requires Jars to unlock. And you can also spend Jars in the Mortuary Cult to get Regiments of Renown and some very useful items.
Army #6 (which may be a sooner Army # depending on luck) may be an easy unlock if the Book of Nagash that gives +1 Army Capacity spawns close by, so check where is spawns when you start your campaign.
Once you have the remaining 5 Dynasties on the last turn to unlock them, pause and focus on researching the tech that buffs Ushabti, Necrotects and Warsphinx that became available once you unlocked the 6th Dynasty. If you have been conquering a lot your Research Rate may be well over 120% now and hopefully these skills will take 3 or less turns to complete. The Ushabti buffing tech is the most important because that will help make Lahmizzash’s Ushabti army absolutely ridiculous in combination with his trait and the red skill “Revered Stonemasonry” maxed out. You can also unlock the Proclamation of the 6th Dynasty.
At this point you should have unlocked everything from the 6th Dynasty, the Heralds and “The Heralds Empowered”, hopefully “Awakened a New Dynasty” a 2nd time and so should have 5 Army capacity (6 with the Book of Nagash), and you should be back well over 100% Research Rate, with only 1 turn to complete each Dynasty.
You can now complete (“Awaken”) 5 Dynasties in 5 turns adding +5 Army Capacity in only 5 turns. Boom, 10+ Army Capacity and hopefully before turn 100.
Important Note!: All of the Dynasty tech only takes 1 turn to complete (because they cost Jars or Gold as well) except “The Heralds Empowered”, Awakening a Dynasty and the unit buffing techs. You may however want to finish unlocking a dynasty, unlock the heroes, and then immediately focus on completing the tech in that Dynasty while you still have a good amount of Research Rate, before unlocking another Dynasty and repeating that process. At 100% Research Rate I think the unit buffing techs take 3 turns to complete, but if you knock the Research Rate down to like 10-20% or such, I saw that one could take as long as 33 turns to complete. Keep this in mind if you really want to buff certain units.
- 6th Dynasty Techs buffs – Ushabti, Necrosphinx, Warsphinx
- 5th Dynasty Techs buffs – Catapults, Caskets, Necropolis Knights
- 4th Dynasty Techs buffs – Heroes, Tomb Guard, Hierotitans
- 3rd Dynasty Techs buffs – Carrion (worthless), Scorpions, Sepulchral Stalkers
- 2nd Dynasty Techs buffs – Horsemen (worthless), Bone Giants
- 1st Dynasty Techs buffs – Nehekhara Warriors and Chariots
Why This Strategy
Many will recommend getting Thutep (3rd Dynasty) first because his trait reduces Construction TIME by -35%. But once I realized it is time that is reduced and not cost, and how he impacted my gameplay, I recommend against this. Why? Because I put all my Necrotects with him and had him go back and forth reducing costs, BUT, I needed him to fight my enemies often while my other armies were conquering, and the Necrotects would have been better served boosting those attacking armies, Damaging Walls so they did not have to siege, and reducing building costs and construction time as I built up newly conquered settlements. When I only had 3 armies with 2 attacking, I needed that 3rd one to be able to attack or defend as needed and not be concerned with where I needed to build stuff. Sure this saved me a ton of money but it also really slowed me down and made my conquests more stressful once I bothered with Thutep. I recommend making a Thutep Necrotect stack later in the game once you have plenty of armies and Necrotects and if you want to play a long total domination campaign or a Mortal Empires campaign. Honestly you can win Settra’s campaign very quickly if you focus on conquest and armies of Basic Military Building Units overwhelming the enemy.
Settra Campaign Strategy
Read and follow my Army Capacity Strategy, and make a mental note now that many of my suggestions regarding Hero use probably apply to other Legendary Lords as well.
Make friends with Numas and try to get a Non-Aggression Pact and Trade Agreement ASAP. I’ll explain why shortly.
When you get a Tomb Prince send him up to the High Elves so you can start trading with them for more money ASAP. Send the prince over to Naggaroth as well. Also send a prince to Lustria.
When you get the dilemma of which hero to choose, I chose Necrotect. Necrotects boost army movement, they can Damage Walls, they give additional healing to constructs both in battle and on campaign map, and they give extra constructs of the type you select, AND they reduce build time by -1 turn and building cost by -10% with each Necrotect.
Try to get Necrotects with the Ushabti Carver trait, and then pick the Statuesque Sentinels skill for more Ushabti, the Master Builder skill, and then pick whichever greater construct you want to get more of, Warsphinx, Necrosphinx, or Hierotitan.
Once you get a Necrotect and perform a hero action with it, you unlock the Invocation of Ptra rite which spawns a special single-use Necrotect that suicides itself to rebuild a ruin as a Level 3 Settlement Instantly (much like the Skaven special Warlock and special Plague Priest in function). This is useful if you want to sack a major settlement over and over again, raze it, and then rebuild it at Level 3.
Capture the Salt Plains first and then immediately go east and focus on wiping out the Savage Orcs to your Northeast by capturing all of their settlements. You need to wipe out the Savage Orcs before they get strong or you will be in for a rough time, so this takes priority over capturing Zandri and securing Khemri province. Remember that sacking is great for income but reduces settlement level. Always Occupy a Major Settlement especially if it is Tier 4-5 (Tier 4 may reduce to Tier 3 but then again it may not if you are lucky), unless you have a Ptra Necrotect handy so that you can sack the settlement down to Tier 1, raze it, then rebuild it at Level 3.
Once you have secured the Orc province, you can go capture Zandri and now have 2 full provinces.
Here I made the mistake of attacking Numas, which to secure the full province has you bordering the Arachnos Greenskins in the mountains to the east, and the southern minor settlement is vulnerable to attack from many different factions, and to defend it occupies a precious army that you cannot afford to waste just sitting there to scare of potential attackers. Better to let Numas fight it out with anyone in that direction while you go West.
If you do not attack the Sentinels they will not attack you. You can even raid their province for extra cash and they will hate you but not attack you. However, if another faction attacks them, they will fight back and potentially win, so you could see the Sentinels take the Black Tower of Arkhan or some other nearby Settlements, causing them to be in your way. This is another reason to go west ASAP to beat them to capturing as much as you can.
You start at war with Arkhan the Black and you cannot make peace with him, so be prepared for him to send armies against you if he overcomes his nearby obstacles (or potentially even suicidally, he may ignore other threats just to mess with you).
You want to capture The Black Tower of Arkhan before the Sentinels do or someone else like Snikch does. Then go west along the coast and wipe out the Bretonnians, down around and take out Arkhan, then Snikch and then the Dwarves (or SW and take out Snikch first, then Arkhan, then up around and finish off the Bretonnians and the Dwarves in order of their threat). By this point hopefully the Black Tower of Nagash is Level 5, so this may be a good time wipe out the Sentinels so you can get the +3 Lord Rank building sooner rather than later. Hopefully the Dune Kingdoms is still holding Ka-Sabar and that line of settlements at the southernmost edge of the desert and keeping the Lizardmen at bay, and Numas is still your busy and preventing the Arachnos or Eastern Mountain Dwarves from targeting you. Now is a good time to consolidate and survey the situation. Hopefully you have 5 armies at least by now, you might take out the Dune Kingdoms and secure the province Ka-Sabar is in and set up some armies to defend the southern edge of your desert kingdom, then send other armies over to take out the dwarves and Archnos, and finish by betraying Numas and finally securing the entire north of The Southlands. From here you can aim for a long campaign of world domination, I recommend starting by going south to take out the Lizardmen and Skaven and secure the entire continent of The Southlands. Or you can go Book of Nagash hunting to unlock the Final Battle and go for a quick victory by beating that battle.
P.S.
You want Lore of Death Magic Liche Priests, best lore of magic of the 2. You want them to have the “Wise” trait, both to generate Jars and to increase unit rank upon recruitment which jives with one of their skills, see my Recruiting Rank 9 Units section below.
You want to have Settra followed by a 2nd army. Since you will probably only have 2 Necrotects for a while, you want to put your Necrotects, 1 each, in those 2 armies to boost their movement, but also, you can use these Necrotects to Damage Walls on Major Settlements so that you don’t need artillery, but can instead just rush in with your Lords and Chariots to slaughter everything inside. Then the army Occupies the settlement and cannot move, then the Necrotect can rejoin the army the next turn ready to ride along for the next conquest. And the 2 Necrotects with their Master Builder skills should reduce construction time by -2 turns and building costs by -20%.
Settlement Building Choices
Important!: After the Royal Burial Chamber, you should expect to have 4 slots in a Major Settlment you can use for unit buildings. See the bottom of this section for my thoughts on the most efficient unit building choices.
Trade Resource Buildings
You may think that resource buildings suck since they only give 10 resources. However, you need resources to unlock items in the Mortuary Cult. For example, you want to make sure you built Salt and Marble buildings early because they are needed for the “Blade of Antarhak” that gives “The Hunger” health regeneration effect in battle on your Lords and Heroes. Very useful. Also, if a resource is worth 19 gold per resource for example, then 10 x 19 = 190 gold, which is more than the 150 gold per turn from a Tier 3 income building. Also, I do not believe trade income is impacted by climate, so resource buildings in Unsuitable Climates should still reward their full income output. Plus they probably make the AI be more likely to trade with you.
Unit Recruitment Buildings
Besides Army Capacity, another major constraint on the Tomb Kings is the limit per building on the number of any units besides Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Warriors (Spears). Even Skeleton Archers are limited to number of buildings you have. To get more of a certain type of unit, you need to build more of its associated building. This means you need to be building unit producing buildings in every province, and the number of slots you have is too limited to build everything, so you must make choices. You could build in such a way that you can get a little of everything, but that is not efficient. You want to know what units you want to build and focus on obtaining as much capacity for those units as you can.
Key Points
There are normally a few 10 slot Major settlements and mostly 8 slot Major settlements (some are only 6). Since 1 slot is taken by the main settlement building, they have effectively 9 and 7 slots respectively. Same with 4 slot Minor settlements that only have 3 slots, and coastal settlements with ports realistically only have 2 slots. So we should plan on only have 7 slots to work with most of the time.
You want Royal Burial Chambers in every Major Settlement as soon as it reaches Tier 4. They give Bone Giants which are powerful artillery, Anti-Large and Anti-Towers and walls in sieges, and which can hold their own in Melee, and each building gives +1 Lord Rank factionwide and +1 Jar per turn.
There are 3 Basic Military buildings: Chariots (and Catapults), Infantry (Skellie Archer to Tomb Guard), Cavalry (Skellie Horsemen to Necropolis Knights)
There are 5 Advanced Military buildings: Ushabti (+2 Ushabti and +1 Ushabti Great Bow), Tomb Scorpions (+2), Khemrian Warsphinx (+1), Necrosphinx (+1), Hierotitan (+1).
Chariots and Infantry buildings max out at Tier 3 so they can be built in Minor Settlements, although again, your strategy may call for lots of them so you may also want to build them in your Major Settlements too, especially if feel you will not need the big constructs. Ushabti and Tomb Scorpions max out at Tier 4. Cavalry and the 3 big constructs max out at Tier 5.
If the settlment has a special Pyramid, you want to build the Pyramid.
If the settlement has a resource, you want to build the Trade Resource Building, such as the Gold Mine in Khemri.
Khemri is a 10 slot Major city (so 9 slots), and it has both a Pyramid and Gold Mine, so with the Royal Burial Chamber, that leaves just 6 slots left to use.
You want to build the +Growth building in every settlement until all the settlement in a province are their maximum tier, then you can demolish that building and replace it with something else.
You need to build the Citadel in order to unlock the Invocation of Geheb Rite, but then you can demolish it. It gives +1 to recruitment capacity which can be nice, but not worth it when so many other important buildings.
The Income Building that gives 150 gold at Tier 3 is ok for income but your main major settlement buildings provide more income so as you conquere more territory you get to the point where you don’t really need these buildings for their income, however, the +15% army movement range is very useful.
You shouldn’t end up needing a Public Order building once you secure your provinces, but may need it for a short while before demolishing it for unit buildings.
What to Build
In my campaign I used my 4 slots for Ushabti, Tomb Scorpion, Khemrian Warsphinx and Necrosphinx capacity. I ignored Hierotitan because they are anti-infantry like the Warsphinx but are super slow. However, after my Settra campaign, I would probably go Hierotitan over Tomb Scorpions, because Scorpions were a bit more fragile than I liked, so if going for doomstacks I would want Hierotitans over Tomb Scorpions.
But, I actually think I would still ignore Hierotitans and instead build the Cavalry building that ultimately gives Necropolis Knights (Halberds) at T5. Why? Because I just tested in custom battle a 40 stack of Rank 9 Chariot Archers and Rank 9 Skeleton Horse Archers against a Beastmen 20 stack, and they mowed the Beastmen down. I figure they would be similarly effective in Campaign. Then add Necropolis Knights and Necropolis Knights (Halberds) to fill in the respective Anti-Infantry and Anti-Large gaps in Khemrian Warsphinx and Necrosphinx doomstacks, and you get a lot more bang for your unit capacity buck, because the Cavalry building gives Skeleton Horsemen and Horse Archers, Nehekharan Horsemen, Sepulchral Stalkers, and Necropolis Knights.
Build 10 of these Royal Menagerie buildings at Tier 5 and that would be 20 of each type of unit except Halberd Necropolis Knights of which you would get 10. If you also built 10 Warsphinx and Necrosphinx buildings, you could build doomstacks of 10 Warsphinx with 9 Halberd Knights and 10 Necrosphinx with 9 Knights, and still have 12 Knights that you could put in other armies. And a full stack of Sepulchral Stalkers, and a full stack of Horse Archers. This is besides the full stack of Ushabti and another stack of Ushabti Great Bows and Bone Giants.
How to Skill Settra
At Level 40, Settra has 39 skill points to spend. Here is what I consider the best build:
Ignore Magic Line completely, the healing is mediocre and not worth it, if you really want Lore of Nehekhara get a Liche Priest.
- Mounts (1-3 points): Skeleton Steed, Khemrian Warsphinx, Chariot of the Gods
- Returned in Madness (1 point)
- Embalmed in Elixir (1 point)
- All Unique Skills from Unique Row (9 points)
- Blue Line (11 points): Route Marcher, 3x Canopic Jar Hoarder, 1x Soul Reaper, Attend Me!, Lightning Strike, 3x All is Mine!, Renowned & Feared.
- Red Line (4-7 points): Inspired Presence, 3x Chariot Master (always), 3x Sun-Scorched Bones
- Yellow Line (7 points): 1st skill plus the 6 combat skills, ignore the leadershp skill.
Blue 11 + Unique 9 + Red 7 + 3 + 1 RiM + 1 EiE + 7 Yellow = 39
If you know that you are only going to give Settra his Chariot of the Gods and only put Chariots or Warsphinxes in his army, then you can save 5 points on Sun-Scorched Bones and 2 Mounts. You could put these 5 into his Blue or his Yellow Line instead (maxing Soul Reaper with 2 points and 3 into Ambush or Raiding Income could be good in Blue Line).
The Final Red Line Skill “Resurrect” apparently heals and resurrects units around the Lord, so at the end of a battle you could ball up your army around Settra and try to heal them as much as possible. To accomplish this, you can save 2 points on Mounts, not get Embalmed in Exilir, and Trampler of the Ages could be ignored if you need another point for another 2nd Tier Red Skill.
How to Skill Lords
All Lords should put at least 11 points into the Blue Line as follows: Route Marcher, 3x Canopic Jar Hoarder, 1x Soul Reaper, Attend Me!, Lightning Strike, 3x All is Mine!, Renowned & Feared.
Khemrian Warsphinx for the Lord mount Only
I believe only Settra and the Tomb Princes have Halberds so they are the only Anti-Large Lord/Heroes and therefore the only ones who might need a Skeleton Steed (to keep their Anti-Large bonus while having a mount). And I don’t think normal Lord chariots are anywhere near as good as Settra’s The Chariot of the Gods. So the only real choice for normal and dynasty lords is the Khemrian Warsphinx.
Blessing of Usirian!
Unless you specifically need Blessing of Ptra for Tomb Guard & Chariot +8 Melee Defense (I only really see getting this on Alkhazzar and Settra), Blessing of Geheb to buff Ushabti, or Blessing of Asaph to buff a “Prepared” Lord’s stack of Skeleton Archers, I would recommend going with Blessing of Usirian, which gives +15% Casualty Replenishment and +2 Local Province Recruitment.
Sun-Scorched Bones is a safe choice for any and all non-Legendary Tomb Kings because it buffs Skeleton Warriors, Nehekhara Warriors and Tomb Guards and so can be useful throughout your campaign, and because they do not have as many non-standard skills as Legendary Lords and so should be able to have the 3 points in this awesome skill and still get all the other most important skills.
Alkhazzar (6th Dynasty) (This is your Chariot Lord)
Chariot Master, Blessing of Ptra (+8 Melee Defence for Chariots, +2 Tomb Prince rank which if Alkhazzar is recruited 1st like I advise elsewhere the +2 for Tomb Princes will payoff over the rest of the campaign)
Lahmizzash (4th Dynasty) (This is your Ushabti Lord)
Revered Stonemasonry, Blessing of Geheb (+5 Melee Attack and Defense for Ushabti) (Revered Stonemasonry and Blessing of Geheb would be the same choices if you recruited a 2nd Lord to be an Ushabti leading Lord if you get to the point where you have enough Ushabti slots for a 2nd Ushabti Lord to be viable)
“Prepared” trait Lord (+5% Missile Damage, +20% Ammo)
“Arrows of Asaph” (+12% Missile Damage) for Archers and Bone Giants, Revered Stonemasonry if fielding Ushabti Great Bows. And Sun-Scorched Bones if fielding melee infantry as a wall to protect your ranged units. And “Blessing of Asaph” (+12% Missile Damage for Skeleton Archers and Sepulchral Stalkers) if running lots of Skeleton Archers with “Arrows of Asaph” maxed. This = +29% Missile Damage for Skeleton Archers, and +17% for Bone Giants and Ushabti.
“Treacherous” trait Lord
Max the skill that buffs Tomb Scorpions and field lots of Tomb Scorpions, possibly add heroes with the “Treacherous” trait for even more ridiculous Tomb Scorpions, and research the tech that buffs Tomb Scorpions.
How to Build Armies
Alkhazzar
All Chariot Archers, max Chariot Master skill. With Rank 9 Chariots and his +20% Missile Damage buff, Chariots Archers fielded by him had 96 Missile Damage, so they could rain hell on enemies and then run them down to finish them off.
Reinforcing Army Idea for Alkhazzar’s Chariot Archer army
Skeleton Horsemen are absolute trash, but a full stack of Skeleton Horsemen Archers might work great reinforcing Alkhazzar’s Chariot Archers, and they all just stay in Skirmish Mode shooting the enemy to death.
Lahmizzash
All Ushabti or mostly Ushabti with 5-8 Ushabti Great Bows, max Revered Stonemasonry.
Doomrain Lord
“Prepared” trait Lord with “Arrows of Asaph”, “Revered Stonemasonry”, and possibly “Sun-Scorched Bones” red line skills maxed. Bring 4-8 Bone Giants and the rest be Ushabti Great Bows, or that but bring 3-4 Tomb Guard as a screen to protect your ranged and also to take enemy artillery fire while your ranged kills their ranged. Note that this is a fantastic army to bring for sieges and the Final Battle.
Balanced
1-2 artillery (Casket of Soulds or Catapult), 2-4 Chariots (preferably Chariot Archers to skirmish and then rear-charge), up-to 8 Skeleton Warriors (Spears) eventually replaced with Tomb Guard, and up-to 8 Skelton Archers. Artillery force the enemy to come to you, your melee infantry protect your archers while your archers whittle down the enemy, and your chariots pull away units and harass and then start rear-charging (and only have 2-4 makes micro-managing them manageable), while your Lord on his Khemrian Warsphinx flanks and rear charges and hammers the enemy against the anvil of your melee infantry.
Doomsphinx
Khemrian Warsphinx for enemy infantry and Necrosphinx for Anti-Large (they both fast so can keep up with each other).
Titans & Giants
Hierotitans for enemy infantry and Bone Giants for Anti-Large (both are slow and the Bone Giants can force enemy to attack).
Scorpions & Anti-Large
Scorpions boosted by Treacherous Lord and Red Line for anti-infantry and Necrosphinx or Bone Giants for Anti-Large.
Be the first to comment