Editing Warhammer/Tactics/6th Edition/Tomb Kings (section)

==Incantations: the 'magic lore' of Nehekhera==

Tomb Kings don't cast spells: they incant incantations. 
They don't roll them up on a chart: there are four Incantations and each Priest knows all of them. 
They don't generate or use Power dice: they just go off as a Bound Spell with a random power level (one at 2d6 for a normal Priest, two at 3d6 for a High Priest). No Miscasts, no Irresistible Force, no target numbers: they just WORK.
On top of that, all your Tomb Princes and Kings have an ability called My Will Be Done, which lets them cast low-power (1d6), reduced-range versions of the two 'do stuff out of sequence' incantations.

All of which sounds pretty neat. However, the Tomb Kings are a tiny tiny bit set in their ways, and they have to do their magic phase stuff in exactly the same order every single turn of the game.

If you happen to have been a beardy boy and brought along a spellcaster (see Dogs of War, later), they can cast either before or after the Hierarchy begins, but not during it.

'''So what do these dang incantations actually do?'''

* Horekha's Incantation of Righteous Smiting: 12" range, friendly target unit takes a single shot or makes a single close combat attack out of sequence: opponents are unable to fight back, and there is no combat resolution, but you can cause a Panic test if you do very well. Doesn't stack.
* Mankara's Incantation of Urgency: 12" range, friendly target takes a Movement phase out of sequence: they can charge if they want to, all normal rules apply. Also doesn't stack.
* Sekhubi's Incantation of Vengeance: 18", d6 S4 hits magic missile, included in case your Priest has nothing better to do or urgently needs to blast a Banshee out of the way.
* Djedra's Incantation of Summoning: 12" range, restores wounds to friendly unit: baseline d3, up to d6 for Tomb Guard and two d6 pick-the-highest for Skeletons. Lots of spilled ink over exactly how it works, but read the goddamn book for that. Filler, but occasionally very useful if it puts an Ushabti back on its feet or restores a point of rank bonus to an embattled unit.

So let's walk through it. In a 2000 point game you should be throwing out at least five spells, every turn, and you WILL cast all of them. The first few will be low powered extra phases for key units, led by characters. The next couple will be higher power, and might bring models back from the dead or double down on activating higher value units. And all the while your opponent will be hanging on to their Dispel dice, just in case you have a Bound item up your sleeve, or worse - the Casket of Souls parked at the back.

The chief drawback of Incantations is that they have uniformly awful range and a strict casting order, so you have to plan ahead and put the right characters in the right place, which can in turn make your play very predictable. You also have only so many to go around, an entire army that needs their support to get shit done, and some of them will be Dispelled because you're bound to roll low on them. What this means, in short, is that you'll probably have to pick one or two units and sink all your efforts for each turn into forcing through the desired Incantations on those. Tomb Kings do not lend themselves to a bitty or Multiple Small Units playstyle where most of the army ends up unsupported and whittled away. Go big or go home: it's what Nigel Stillman would have done.