Casket of Souls - Is it worth taking?

I am getting ever closer to having my entire Tomb King army painted, and as I get closer I have started looking at models I have never or rarely ever fielded. The top of that list is my Casket of Souls. So I started to ask myself why I never use the Casket. Well in the past my answer has been simple, it costs 165 points, it can't move and it uses up a rare slot on my roster. Those 3 reasons alone have kept me from using one for many years now.

Well now that I am getting close to painting the model I started to look into ways that I could make the Casket more useful to me. Then I started reading the rules to the Casket more closely. First thing I noticed is that it can be taken as an upgrade for a regular Liche Priest. I have no idea why but ever since I started playing the army I thought it had to be taken by a Liche High Priest, which I never use. This really got me interested in taking one, but how will it help my army?

Well first off the whole unit (casket, liche priest and guards) count as a war machine and crew. This means added protection from shooting as the hits must be randomized against the war machine and crew. This manes on a D6 roll the crew are only taking a hit on a 5/6. Then this gets further randomized between the crew and the liche priest. Furthermore unlike regular war machines the Casket itself ignores any hits against it.

Ok so protection from enemy fire is pretty good but what about from a charge. Well first and foremost the casket and crew cause Terror, so any wanna-be charges will need to pass a leadership test first. Then the crew themselves are basically Tomb Guards, only they have 2 attacks instead of 1 and come complete with Tomb Blades (killing blow).

The casket power, called The Light of Death, is just full of potential. If you take your time and place your Casket effectively you will be able to effect the majority, if not every unit in the enemies army. The power works on every enemy unit that has line of sight to the casket. This means that you have the potential to cause wounds with no armor save to every unit in their army every turn. The casket even have some anti-magic use for as long as it is on the table enemy wizards take a negative to their casting.

All of that is pretty great as it is, but the biggest advantage I realized is that most players will not just ignore the casket and will save some dispel dice to deal with it. This means that my Lich Priests and Tomb king will have more of their magic getting through to better supplement the army. I think this was the final selling point for me.

I know that my latest Tomb King list now has a Casket of Souls in it. I hope I have made some good points for other generals who are debating on fielding one. I would love to hear any feedback on the use of a casket in a Tomb Kings arrmy.

-BJ