Help: Men of the Empire!

[Thornblood]

Hey all!

Once, in days gone by I played an infantry-heavy empire force. With the new rulebook and my gaming group beginning to get excited about fantasy again Im dusting off the old models and reading up on the new rules. What I would love is a few pointers, and maybe to see peoples sample lists so I can be inspired and see how certain units work with others (or dont as the case may be).

Thanks!

[Wildeybeast]

Like most of Cruddace's army books/codexes it is all about supporting and buffing units. Big blocks of infantry are king in the meta game and detchements are now super awesome as they get the parents special rules (hatred, stubborn etc). If you want to go infantry heavy, then go for it. Every parent unit needs a Captain to give the unit cold blooded break tests and a Warrior Priest to give them hatred, both of which pass onto detachements. WP's also have some rather nifty spells to buff the units as well such as re-roll to wound. I'd recommend lookign at Witch Hunters as well, they are cheap wizard killers and give you MR2. Greatswords are still exactly as the name implies and flagellants are also awesome, though given how quickly they die you need them in big units. I always use lore of light to buff my troops, though you can't go far wrong with life. I'd also recommend looking at the war altar, celestial hurricanum and luminark of hysh to further buff your troops. They have area effect hatred, +1 to hit and 6++ save respectively. If you are looking for mobility, pistoliers are in my opinion the best fast cav in the game, Knights have taken a points drop to make them much more viable and the demi-gryphs are fantastic, both in model and game terms. Gunlines are still viable, but with artillery, engineers, crossbowmen and handgunners having been nerfed, increased in points or both, they aren't as good as they once were.

In summary, there is so much great stuff in the new Empire book and so many fantastic mdoels, you really are spoilt for choice. Pretty much any build type you fancy is viable (as it should be with Empire) so you can do whatever you like with them.

[metalloveman]

I would actually recommend against putting captains, and warriors priests in every unit. Give units you want to use as anvils or tarpits captains, and units you want to kill things or be hammers warrior priests. That being said don't put a character in every unit or you won't have any troops for them to buff. I'd recommend starting off with a lvl 4 of either light, shadow, metal, or, heavens, a defensively built bsb and two blocks of 40-50 infantry with detachments, a few artillery pieces and a huricanium. From here you can add outriders for shooting, some knights for monster hunting, or maybe some demigryphs or steam tank for generally messing things up in combat.

[Wildeybeast]

Why would you not want cold blooded in every unit, regardless of whether it is hammer or anvil? And the WP 6+ ward is also great in a defensive unit. If, as you adivse, you are running with two large blocks of infantry, I'd defintely put one in each (one can be your BSB remember). I'd also be tempted to put a witch hunter in each for the extra magic resistance). If you are taking number of smaller unit it can be a bit expensive to put charcter in each, but when you are running large ones with detachments (which you really should be doing in the meta game), WP's and captains seem like pretty much auto picks to me.

[metalloveman]

If you take 180 points of characters in each infantry unit your going to be outnumbered by warriors of chaos and high elves.

I'm pretty sure that the captains cold blooded only works on break tests. The battle prayers can always just be dispelled so they aren't a certainty. MR2 from the witch hunters is pretty circumstantial, some army's don't really use magic missiles or can just aim their magic missiles at units that don't have witch hunters.

I'm all for taking advantage of robin cruddace's love of synergy and support buffs, but every unit doesn't need every character.

[Wildeybeast]

Cold blooded does only work on break tests, but you also get Ld8 from the heroes. I'm not suggesting you stick them in every unit, but if you are sinking your points into a few large and/or elite units you want to maximise your chances of those units doing their job and staying in combat. But that's just my opinion and the way I like to play, one of the great things about the Empire is you can build them so many different ways.

[Thornblood]

So I've had some success- struggled against Ogres though, been playing 1,000 and 2,000 point games.

Highlight unit has to be my Witch Hunter, who, due to my poor luck chased a high elf mage around a battlefield for five turns tragically missing. He has been brutally cut down by an Ogre Irongut champion (really should not have accepted that challenge), but taking out Undead Necromancers has become his starring role.

I'm running an 11 wide unit of Spearmen 47 strong (every spearman model I have) and 30+ Swordsmen six wide. Between them I divide up detachments of 16 wide free company, two units of five archers (either for taking charges and redirecting opponents, or as a wizards retinue, gonna experient using them as a witch-hunter delivery system too).

Crossbowmen have done very very well, its a largish unit (16 again, but with another 6 man crossbow detachment). They have a full command group in case I take a charge and hopefully they might survive, but so far no one has got past the units stand and shoot. Im running 16 Handgunners as well, as its a Hochland force they have a marksman with a long rifle. So far he has missed almost every shot, but he is forcing enemy mages away from his LOS, and if I get the Witch Hunter in the right place...

Speaking of getting the Witch Hunter in the right place Im using a shadows lore wizard, if he has Van Horstmanns Speculum he can deal with most combat , and the shadows benefit means that if he gets a spell off he can swap places with another character. When I swapped him with the Warrior Priest it went poorly, but Im convinced it could be a winning move at the right time.

Pistoliers have not done very well, so Im gonna need some more practice there. Knights have done badly as well. Cannon did well against Ogres- took out a Sky-Thunder-Cannon thingy. Then got pounced on by a monstrous cat ridden by an Ogre.

So yeah, its going well. I think a BSB could be a good investment, even with the cold blooded leadership thing. Playin Dwarfs tommorrow, very different from the other forces I've played. Cant see my beloved Witch Hunter being much help...