Blood Bowl Season 3: Tomb Kings Team Guide

An ill, sandy wind blows from the deserts of Nehekhara, and in its wake comes one of Blood Bowl’s two new teams, the ancient Tomb Kings! In this guide we’re going to tell you everything you need to know to get the best out of these old bones.

The Tomb Kings are probably the least ‘new’ new team in Blood Bowl, either in lore or in game. They’ve been around in the Blood Bowl world for a few thousand years, and in the game itself for a good twenty years. However since Blood Bowl returned to being an ongoing concern in 2016, Tomb Kings have never had an official release, or official miniatures, so there’s plenty here that will seem unfamiliar about them to many coaches. Not only that, but along with many other teams in Third Season, the Tomb Kings have had a few tweaks to their roster. Let’s dive in and see what they’re made of.

Pros

Four ST5 players let you dominate the line of scrimmage.
Cheap Linemen are perfect fodder for support and fouling.
Regeneration and Thick Skull keep your players in the action.

Cons

Slow and lack agility.
Your big pieces don’t naturally hit hard, so damage is dice-dependent.
Can be slow to develop in League play.

The Roster

Skeleton Linemen

Tomb Kings Linemen by @hd_miniatures

The humble backbone (please excuse this and any subsequent puns) of the Tomb King roster, Skeletons are identical to those of their modern Shambling Undead cousins. Pretty slow, with poor agility, and lightly armoured. Not a great combo. On the plus side, they are cheap, and thanks to Thick Skull, not quite as easily removed as it might seem.

Ultimately, Skeletons are fodder of the classic kind. Use them to tie up opposition players and keep them busy, provide assists for your better players, and not least, foul.

With General access on skills, Skeletons that level up can be made more reliable with skills like Block or Wrestle. Devious access on secondary means fouling support skills are a bit harder and costly to obtain, but Dirty Player and Sneaky Git are both worth consideration. Skeletons are a decent candidate for random skills, especially as they tend to gain SPP slowly.

Tomb Kings Thrower

Tomb Kings Throwers by @hd_miniatures

The first of your positionals and often the most important. Throwers are your natural ball carrier, with Sure Hands giving you a critical re-roll on what is a 4+ pickup (75% chance overall). In season three, Secure the Ball now gives you a 2+option if the circumstances are right. This means your Blitzers can also act as carriers, but for the most part, setting up your Thrower to carry will be the default play.

Despite their name and intent, Throwers can be developed and used in many different ways. In season three, they received a buff to their Armor Value, making them just as tough as your Blitzers, and as they also have MA6, you might want to think about using them in a similar role as a secondary Blitzer or ball-hawk. Either way, you can’t go wrong with Block as a first skill, which benefits them in multiple ways. With Passing access, Leader is always a great value pick. If you do chose to go the pseudo-blitzer route, Tackle and Strip Ball are useful skills, and Throwers do actually have Strength access on secondaries, meaning skills like Guard and Mighty Blow are in their reach. If you focus on ball-carrying, On The Ball and Steady Footing are considerations.

Tomb Kings Blitzer

Tomb Kings Blitzers by @hd_miniatures

Your other key positional, the Blitzer is built to be your most mobile hitter. With MA6 and Block they can reliably target players who your big guys can’t lock down. Thanks to the new Secure The Ball rule, Blitzers can also function effectively as ball carriers without any skill investment.

Development-wise, you can’t go wrong with building them as traditional killers and bash support. Mighty Blow, Tackle, and Guard are all essential skills that can be taken in any order.

Tomb Guardians

Tomb Guardians by @hd_miniatures

Last and most certainly not least, the Tomb Guardians are the most powerful and iconic players on the roster. Their main strength is... their strength, and applied en masse, Tomb Kings can easily dominate the entire line of scrimmage, tying up a host of weaker players.

The Tomb Guardians have a new native skill for season three in Brawler, which does dual duty in helping to prevent turnovers and allowing them to occasionally fish for better dice. This becomes even better if you can find the assists to make your TG blocks 3-dice.

Tomb Guardian development is limited by having only Strength access on primary, but Guard and Mighty Blow are both fantastic picks and every TG should start with one. Thanks to its season three buff, Break Tackle has re-entered the skill conversation, allowing TG’s to make 2+ dodges, and opening up potential for cage-and screen-diving. With a team re-roll to back these plays up, this becomes a highly viable option (and a terrifying one for your opponent). Stand Firm is also a nice option to prevent opponents freeing themselves.

Star Players

Wilhelm Chaney. Credit: Fowler

With the release of season three we’ve had a little reset and rework of the star player options, but a few of Tomb Kings’ old favourites remain. Ivan ‘The Animal’ Deathshroud is a very well-priced ST4 Blitzer with a host of utility skills. He can perfectly complement your existing pair as a roaming threat. Wilhelm Chaney is another ST4 piece with a similar price tag, who can act as both a blitzing and ball-carrying threat. With MA8 he can add significant range to your team’s threat. Finally, if you want to go all-in, Count Luthor Von Drakenborg is a legitimate legend who can do pretty much anything, and potentially presents your opponent with the challenge of stopping a ST5 AG2+ ball carrier.

Tactics and Playstyle

As all of the above suggests, Tomb Kings are a bash and control team. Their pitch control is arguably unmatched in the game, and the less agile the opponents, the easier it is for Tomb Kings to lock down swathes of players. On the flip side, their own poor agility means they are vulnerable to the same issue, so careful positioning remains important.

Tomb Kings’ main struggles will be on offense, where that lack of mobility means a fairly one-dimensional grinding cage is pretty much the only option. So you’ll need to master the art of breaking opposition lines and advancing into them. Fortunately we already have a whole article on this subject. In general you should look to make holes with your Blitzers, and fill them with Tomb Guardians. The Guardians are generally more useful forming a line in front of your cage than forming part of it themselves. With all that strength applied directly to the opposition’s defensive front, it will be very difficult for them to stop you shoving something out of the way and inching forward each turn.

Defensively, that same Tomb Guardian frontage will serve you well. Use your Skeletons to fill in gaps around them, and provide assists as needed. Try to keep your Blitzers and Throwers behind that line, so that you can cover any breakaway attempts, or pick off loose players.

Fouling is a strong way to up the damage of Tomb Kings, but it is not without its risks, so use it discriminately against high value targets, and make sure you use your cheap linemen to make the fouls rather than one of your vital and expensive positionals. Thinking of the team as control first and bash second will serve you well.

Starting Team Builds

The Bretonnians take on the Tomb Kings - image courtesy of Games Workshop

League Play

With the price changes in season three, Tomb Kings have a bit less wiggle room in roster building if they want to start with all four Tomb Guardians. This is probably still the right way to go, so let’s start with that:

4 x Tomb Guardians
2 x Skeleton Blitzers
2 x Skeleton Throwers
3 x Skeleton Linemen
2 x Team Re-rolls

This is exactly 1m Gold on the nose, and gets all your best players, but at the cost of only 11 players and 2 rerolls.

If you want a slightly comfier roster you could try the following:

3 x Tomb Guardians
2 x Skeleton Blitzers
1 x Skeleton Throwers
6 x Skeleton Linemen
3 x Team Re-rolls

This gives you twelve players, and 3 rerolls, but you’ll need to grab a Tomb Guardian and Thrower down the line. Thanks to Secure The Ball, this roster still has plenty of players who can reliably pick up the ball.

League Development

For the first build, you should focus on adding the twelfth player, and then look to the third re-roll. For the second build, the fourth Tomb Guardian, and then the Thrower.

Tournament Play

Tomb Kings have an easy time in tournament play and can get everything you could want even at lower building values like 1100TV:

4 x Tomb Guardians
2 x Skeleton Blitzers
2 x Skeleton Throwers
4 x Skeleton Linemen
3 x Team Re-rolls

If you get higher gold values, adding Skeleton Linemen is an easy upgrade.

Tier

Tomb Kings have been considered a Tier Two team for a long while now, but they are certainly one of the best in that category. With the changes in season three they are arguably better positioned in the meta than they have ever been, and you could well make the argument they are a Tier One team now.

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Tags: Blood Bowl | tomb kings | blood bowl season 3