Are Screaming Skull Catapults Any Good in Patch 5.2? - Tomb Kings Unit Focus

[@КонстантинГребенков]

Their main problem is where you get them from. You get only +1 cap from tier 3 building that's mutch worse in value than barracks or ushabti building and your space is very limited as Tomb Kings cause you need to build economic building in every settlement. I wish TK had some way to get unit caps from a different sourse, not related to infrastructure.

[@NyJoanzy]

Like how necro tecs can increase construct caps, or in the mortuary cult, or both?

[@КонстантинГребенков]

@@NyJoanzy The mortuary cult way. Cause getting bonus constructs through heroes is nice, but unreliable. You kinda can get some caps from nagash books, but only for a few units and it's even more inconsistent. Beastmen method "just pay and get more units" is much better. I suggest to rework TK in a way that you get ALL your bonus units, heroes and armies through mortuary cult for canops and each of your settlements just generates a few canops passively (+1 per turn for settlement tier or something). Cause the main TK problem now is that to have good armies you need to rapidly expand, but to do so you need good armies (and more that freacking one, man this +1 army per tech system is so annoying).

[@OffToBattle]

Well they do, just not for catapults. Necrotects have some insane traits they can roll.

[@OffToBattle]

I see the logic, I'm still very appreciative of what we did get for Immortal Empires, that alone solved some critical problems from back in the day.

[@ARTEMISXIX]

Yeah pretty much. Maybe they should combine them with the Tomb Scorpion building since they're both in a weird awkward spot...

[@NyJoanzy]

There's a point when your enemies are hurling vengeful spirits of the dead at you that makes one wonder about their life choices and the concept of morality. Solid unit review.

[@OffToBattle]

Yeah, the discouraging effect is for good reason! Tomb Kings lore is freaky. Then again Lizardmen call down lasers from orbit so I'm not saying that as a bad thing.

[@GamesWorkshopsFlyingCircus]

Fun fact: A doom stack of these reinforcing a seige battle is quite good at destroying cities!

[@OffToBattle]

Yeah, there wouldn't even be a section of wall left after that...

[@caret_shell]

I thoroughly enjoyed the Bobby story and the skeleton crew pun. I really like the rapid posting rate of these videos, though I hope that they're not stressful to create at this pace! I think this is a really good series to chase after the constant updates that new patches are introducing all the time. It seems like it should make for good job security! 😃

[@OffToBattle]

They aren't that bad. I think certain reaction videos will be easier in some senses but like I've said in Posts, I have one that requires me to splice in the video I'm reacting to with actual functioning audio and it's all good ^^ I can genuinely say I enjoy doing Tomb Kings content too. That and I either used the skeleton pun here or never - Vampire Coast uses zombies after all!

[@ether23-23]

I've watched all of your recent tomb king videos and I'm strongly considering starting up a Settra campaign after I finish my Yuan Bo run. Hhmmmm

[@OffToBattle]

That's what I've been playing when I've been campaigning. Skeleton Chariots are an acquired taste, but they can put the hurt into infantry.

[@asdrubaelvect3995]

Now this is an intersting unit, great generalist artillery piece, good ap, magical damage for pesky damage resist or ethereal units and a nice leadership debuff on top. On the other hand, you have the casket possibly available early, and screaming catapults get available just when the tomb king roster offer it's most interesti g toys. Overall they are avery decent unit, with a large amounts of upgrade for tk a rk units. Best used in lybaras or generic tk army and not in a more specialised composition.

[@OffToBattle]

Last night I decided to level a general into Arrows of Asaph who had archer spam plus a catapult. I'll try to send him any spare Bone Giants I get in the near future too.

[@asdrubaelvect3995]

@@OffToBattle It's a very fun army list, tk armies usually reliés on monsters hammering the opposition, tk archer aies can blot the sun with their projectiles, it can be micro heavy, especialy with various spells and nets spam, but it's so much fun. The many burst of leadership penali can also be fun to watch as skaven rout, rally and rout back almost instantly.

[@kirillrivkin4842]

Nice artillery unit- good range, explosion radius and magical damage. It would be nice if they could get an upgrade where their shots did not harm friendly units- Skeletal Warriors would hold the enemies in place and Catapults would blow them apart.

[@OffToBattle]

True, they were designed with the 'limitation' in mind so you end up with somewhat more random results than you'd like, but they're pretty good.

[@TheGreatDanish]

Calcium missiles! Hearing that made me smile. But as for the unit, i like it. Not really much to say. The casket of souls works until you can start fielding more and they should be a priority behind tomb guard and stalkers. If only to have 2or 3 for sieges.

[@OffToBattle]

Like with Cannons for other factions, it's good to have a catapult for sieges, the towers do not juke your skulls. They do OK otherwise, but I had some great shots of skulls overshooting rectangles of missile infantry too! It's their total impact you depend on, not perfect accuracy.

[@TheGreatDanish]

@@OffToBattle that's why I bring more than one. Volume of fire makes up for accuracy.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

If these were tier 2, I would think they're amazing. If Tomb Kings could recruit units like other factions, they'd be great. Niether of these are the case. They're a good method for dealing with things skelestacks struggle against, but can't really be deployed en masse to do so. If you coukd just plug 2 or 3 into an army, they'd be so, so much better. Tier 3 is kinda when Tomb Kings start getting their act together, and one catapult is hardly an army maker. Still, you HAVE the chariot building, so, one of these is probably happening, and it's still appreciated, especially for second or third string armies that haven't gotten any good units yet, and are still hurling skeletons at problems and begging them to go away. That's where I find tbe best results for them, put into that second or third army to give the mass skeletons SOMETHING to do, since they don't exactly gel with the increasingly decentralized army structure of higher end tomb king stacks. They CAN support a warsphynx in a manner similar to a hellstorm shooting at a captain surrounded by dudes, but, eh.

[@OffToBattle]

I think the fact the Ushabti doomstack exists is what stops people from mass producing chariot buildings, but I think it's underappreciated just how great archer chariots and catapults work together. You get so used to the limits of skeleton archers but even the chariots do a surprising amount of AP for "bows" and then the catapults, if given time, chew armored foes apart. And if the chariots get stuck? Honorary Empire Captain. But you kind of have to like chariots to mess with this (it so happens I do).

[@Canuovea]

It's the AP on this thing that really messes things up. It's good for sure, despite being annoying.

[@OffToBattle]

Yes, consistent sources of armor-piercing are precious, much like my feelings about the Plagueclaw Catapult, actually. It's a roll of the dice whether you'll get the perfect hit on a blob, but the more chances, the more likely something the enemy cares about gets hurt.

[@Canuovea]

@@OffToBattle Less important for some factions than others too, of course. Tomb Kings lack AP early on, unlike, say, Dark Elves or even Wood Elves, but it isn't just that, it's that even when they do get units with AP, they can't just recruit them willy nilly due to the limits.

[@OffToBattle]

@@Canuovea yes, exactly, you have to treasure each and every one.

[@Rich50v]

I wonder if Elspeths defeat trait would add a lot to these? Makes me wanna get Malakai and Wulfhearts traits too and just see how strong a doomstack of these could be with Khalida lol

[@OffToBattle]

Interesting thought.

[@RisingChaosWriting]

Screaming skull catapults are good, artillery, especially splashy infantry killers, plays nicely into the tomb king gameplan. More importantly, they shoot big funny skulls, which is just fantastic.

[@OffToBattle]

The impact armor piercing damage is enough to one-shot any Chosen unlucky enough to take one in the chest I think...

[@thrall6647]

Greetings praise algorithm gods! I like them. They look cool.

[@OffToBattle]

They do. And when the RNG gods favor you they kick stuff around.

[@mp5284]

I think screaming skulls really benefit from having high exp levels. At lower levels they miss a ton in my experience

[@OffToBattle]

That's what I saw in my video, and I know I've seen them do much better under Khalida.

[@KenoughsEnough]

I've never actually used them. I always wrote them off as "okay, but I'll save for the big bow boy." I'll give them a go next campaign.

[@luisgooding7363]

The damage they do to leadership is pretty good, they don’t seem to do a lot of damage but you should just let them focus heavily armored infantry throughout the battle, in my experience at least, that’s the best use of

[@OffToBattle]

Well like I just finished saying to someone else, it helps if you actually use archer chariots as skirmishers.. and that applies for Great Bows AND Screaming Skull Catapults. Then you can justify the building and not consider it just surplus.

[@OffToBattle]

Certainly that's the ideal use. Diminish the tougher nuts to crack so that your archer spam etc. can finish the job.