Author's Note: This guide is written with CBM 1.6 in mind.
Now, I know mod nations aren't played as often as they should be, but my hope with this guide is to try to do a little to rectify that matter. The
Tomb Kings by llamabeast are one of the best mod nations out there, and they deserve a guide. Therefore, here you go.
First, I will cover your units, almost all of which have the following attributes: 0 enc, undead, MR 15, CR/PR 100, poor amphibian, lifeless, Need Not Eat, and map move 3
Spearman: These guys are your absolute rock bottom troops, in two varieties: no prot and almost no prot. They are also very useful. They have abysmal protection, low hps, and a forgettable weapon, but they have a very good shield. They're your most easily massable recruit, and serve as excellent arrow catchers with their good shield and morale.
Archers: These guys are excellent. They have the very good composite bows, and otherwise average stats. They are fairly massable, and you have the A and F magic for both wind guide and Flaming Arrows.
Asp Archer: One of your two recruitable sacreds, these guys are basically archers that are sacred and carry asp bows. Unlike poison bows, the phantasmal asp effect is resistable, so these guys aren't going to destroy armies quites as much. However, throw a D bless on these guys and they get VERY scary. Note however that it is a bad idea to use them in conjunction with a W9 bless, since they won't work properly.
Cavalry: Honestly, I don't see much reason to build these guys. They don't have lances/light lances, they have the same crappy hps as most of your other troops, and you can get more bows by just building your foot archers.
Chariots: These guys are slightly more useful than your cavalry, but 0 enc and mor 30 don't really make up for lack of hps and expense.
Watchers: These are a bit of an oddball, niche unit. Unlike the rest of your roster, they're not undead, are weak to fire, and they have old age. They do have somewhat better hitpoints though, as well as wielding a very high damage weapon and a one shot crossbow with strong paralyzing poison. If you get rushed by an early SC, or a few powerful units (giants, Knights of the Chalice, etc.) they come into their own though.
Tomb Guard: Your non-sacred elite, these guys are pretty good. Unlike most of your units, they have a high damage weapon, combined with better than average stats. If you're looking for non-sacred heavy infantry, these are probably your goto guys.
Buried: Your other recruitable sacred, they are eminently suitable for a bless, especially with their recruit-anywhere status. I will discuss possible blesses in the pretender building section.
Now for your recruitable commanders. They are slightly different from your units, in that all your commanders with holy magic are not Undead, therefore no reanimating for you
They are lifeless however,and have 0 enc. Look out for their weakness to fire though.
Scout: Forgettable. Undead though, so if you prophetize your starting scout you can reanimate some londead/soulless to help expand.
Commander: Forgettable also, except for being amphibious.
Tomb Prince: .5FD .5FD .1FEDSA H1 While its sometimes possible to expand with these guys using an E9W9 bless, its also very hit and miss. Otherwise, they are mediocre thugs, and take up valuable mage recruitment slots. Edit: Check out Baalz' and rdonj's posts below for other possible uses, such as cheap, thuggable researchers.
Buried Sorceror: 2F 1A 1D Your early game battle magic caster, they can buff their precision with Aim. Useful things to cast include Fireball, Falling Fires, Sulphur Haze, and summon A elemental. They are your only guaranteed A access. To be honest, your tomb kings are much better battle magic casters, and you'll eventually have good D battle magic for your high priests to use. Edit: If you read Baalz' post, you can see there are actually a lot of uses for these guys with the right items. One problem that can't be remedied though is their non-sacred status, which will cut into your money.
Acolyte: Generic H1 priest, These guys would be almost worth recruiting so you have people to spam Heal the Dead, but there's really no reason too if you can recruit Tomb Priests or High Priests.
Tomb Priest: 1D H2 Similar to the acolyte, these guys aren't so much bad as overshadowed. If you are really strapped for cash you might recruit a few as researchers.
High Priest: 2D H3 Your bread and butter recruit outside your cap, these guys are efficient researchers, great priests, and awesome skelly spammers. Recruit these guys as default, unless you need some battle magic support from buried sorcerors.
Tomb Kings: 2F 1E 3D 1 S/D 1 F/E/A .5 F/E/A/S/D .1 F/E/A/S/D H3 These guys are the heart of the nation. As soon as you can, start recruiting one of these guys out of your cap every turn. Unfortunately, these guys have paths all over the place, and half of them will be very vulnerable to magic duel. On the other hand, you'll have access to most of that F/E battle magic, and awesome D spells like cloud of death.
These guys also excell in the lab, with incredible forging possiblities, and plenty of ritual magic within reach. Great spells include all the D rituals, F rituals like raging hearts, volcanic eruption, and flames from the sky, and those rare D/F combinations, particularly skeletal archers. On top of all that, the first time your king dies, he will be resurrected in an immortal, undead form with -1 to all paths. Use Kings in this form as immortal thugs, or to lead squads of immortal summons.
Now for your national spells:
Conj: 4- Servants of Horus: These guys are pretty good if your looking for anti-undead troops, or simply troops that aren't undead. They have decent prot, an effective enc of 2, and magic fire weapons with x3 vs demons and undead. They're also summoned with F gems, which are both plentiful for you and otherwise limited in usefulness.
- Tomb Swarms: Very similar to raise skeletons or raise dead, this summons a large number of units that do minor AN damage. Look out for archers or aoe spells though, as they have very low hp and very little protection against projectiles. Buffing them with some of your national holy spells can drastically increase their survivability and lethality.
- Servant of Set: While it can be useful to have some spies, spies that cost D gems are expensive. You could also kit this guy out for assassination, but he's not really optimal for it.
Ench: 0- Awaken Immortal: Here you have a very useful, early summon. Immortals have quite good protection for your nation, are immortal (duh), have a high damage weapon, and excellent stats that will be quickly improve with numerous exp stars since they should almost never die. If you start early, you can eventually collect a very tough defensive force that never dies. Add in all your great holy spells and you have an excellent unit. Final note, Immortals have upkeep, but they are also sacred.
3- Awaken Anubites: Here you have more non-undead troops should you need them. Anubites have decent prot, two attacks, and otherwise average stats, except for their very high APs. I can't really comment on their usefulness since I haven't really used them.
4- Awaken Ushabti: Honestly, I never summoned one of them. Think a gargoyle that doesn't fly and has a big, high damage weapon with two attacks.
8- Awaken Ushabti Avatar: These guys should definitely be a major research target. Their paths can be incredibly annoying, but you are guarenteed to have a 3 in B/D/S/N, and otherwise scattered elemental paths. They are very expensive in E gems though, which cuts into what you have for items and rituals. They diversify your magic though, and can make for excellent SCs, especially with the right bless since they're H1 and sacred.
Const: 5- Construct Bone Scorpion: This is an expensive, but very good spell. It creates one tomb scorpion with fear, size 6 trample, sacred, CR/PR 100, 18 prot, and 0 enc. While the unit is very good base, particularly with some of your holy buffs, if you GOR it it gains H3 and D2, so it can buff itself with your holy spells and soul vortex if you give it a D gem.
You also have several national holy spells, all of which are great force multipliers for your otherwise mediocre troop lineup.
Heal the Dead is a useful little spell on occasion, and scales with H magic. The only problem is that its tough to get the AI to cast it with regularity unless your using acolytes.
Resilience is one of your best early spells, as it buffs all your undead's natural protection by 10 and provides them with 50% fire res, which makes your troops much more survivable than they would normally be. Its only H2 as well, so your starting tomb priest can cast it.
Strength of the Tomb is also a useful early spell. The majority of your troops are armed with fairly weak spears, and +4 strength goes a long way towards giving them some killing power. Cast this on your sacreds and add a minor blood bless and W9, you're talking major damage.
The Undying is a spell that is useful, but not so much on your national troops. You see, all these holy spells ALSO work on regular undead! Since Souless have more hp than most of your troops, the regen this spell provides is more useful for them. For even more fun, throw this on tartarians so you can skip regen items! Your high priests like to cast this, so you'll see it on your regular troops a lot anyways.
With all this variety, I'd recomend that your early research targets include ench to give you access to skelly spam and non-undead troops, and later focusing on construction, evoc, and minor alt and conj. Skelly spam will carry you through the early game most of the time, especially if you took an E bless, while cons and alt turn your Kings, and later your avatars, into thugs or SCs. Conj gives you some of your national spells, as well as access to more conventional thug chassis and summoned troops.
For those of you who want something more succint, here are some go to spells in no particular order:
Darkness, Cloud of Death, Banefire, Skeleton Archers, Raise Skeletons, Rigor Mortis, Burden of Time, Utterdark, Shadow Blast, Volcanic Eruption, Blight, Flames from the sky.
For pretender design, you have a lot of choice. You have great sacreds that can benefit from almost anything. W9, F9, E9, S9, B?, and D? are all possible blesses. Alternatively, you can opt for a killer early game SC in the Gilded scorpion pretender, a 0 enc size 6 trampler that could be considered practically unkillable before year 2. For scales, you have a heat preference, so H3 is obvious, you can easily afford Sl3 if you have an SC or a good bless, and you could care less about death. O3 is something that you really want, and you have great heroes to pull you towards a luck scale. Magic or drain can be a tough choice. Your high priests are very cost efficient, but not the most time efficient, so a magic scale makes sense. On the other hand, you have access to both lanterns and skull mentors, and your undead troops will appreciate the extra MR against banishments.
Sheesh, this has taken a lot more time than I thought it would. Its possible that I'll think of things to add in the future, and any tidbits you think of and post will also be integrated. Please post your thougthts!
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