Getting to grips with - The Empire

[Wildeybeast]

My turn to take up Mystery’s mighty baton and have a bash at giving you the run-down of the best army in the Warhammer world, based on my experience of nigh on twenty years gaming with the Empire.

Before we launch into the army special rules, a general piece of advice. The Empire is the most flexible of all the armies in the game. This is at once its greatest strength and weakness. Every army does something better than Empire, but are always weaker in another field. The Empire is solid to good at everything without ever really excelling. This means, there are no ‘obvious builds’, very few ‘auto-picks’. You need to decide what you want to build your army around. Do you want a balanced all comers list? A horde army? Cav heavy force? Magic based death? Maybe a fluff build of hordes of religious nut jobs? Or do you just want to play with the coolest looking models? Any and all are viable builds rules wise and with everything (bar a few FC characters) being plastic, the models are there too. Give the general direction of your army some thought before you start collecting.

Army special rules
Just one, but it’s a lengthy one – Regimental Units and Detachments. In short, when you take an infantry unit which has the ‘regimental unit’ rule, you can take one with the ‘detachment’ special rule to act as a support unit, providing it is no more than half the size. Why would you want to do that? Well, because they get some awesome benefits with no disadvantages. They function as fully independent units, but when within 3”, Detachments use the regiment’s LD. They gain most of the regiment’s psychology rules, such as stubborn, hatred etc. When the regiment is charged, the detachment can stand & shoot or even counter charge. Basically, you can buff and support your units on the cheap. Which as we shall see, is what the Empire is all about. I’ll indicate which units have which rule with an R or D. Several units have both rules.

Imperial Armoury
This has some funky ‘experimental’ guns which a small number of your units and characters can take. Not much to say on these; read the profiles and take them if you want. Full plate armour is the big thing here. Armour with a 4+ save. Several units come with it as standard. Put it on every hero that can have it.

[Wildeybeast]

Characters

Generals/Captains of the Empire. For their points cost, pretty decent Lords/Heroes. S&T4 and 3A is not to be sniffed and their LD9/8 is a vital boost for your puny LD7 troopers. But their biggest selling point is Hold the Line! These guys take break tests on 3D6 and discard the highest. Bloody awesome. Taking at least one as your BSB is real no brainer. I’d put one in every unit of substance, were it not for the competition from other characters.

Battle Wizards. The archetypal human wizard. You’ll usually want at least one low level to act as a scroll carrier, but you can aim to dominate the magic phase with a level 4 if you wish. It really comes down to my point about how you want to build your army. The key is picking which Lore you want, with access to all 8 of the main ones. Most are valid choices, but I personally always run Light. With no one other than heroes having I4, Light has some spells that can dramatically swing combat in your favour. You can also mount Amber, Light and Celestial Wizards on Griffons, or funky chariots (more on these later) respectively. Again, it all depends what role you want your wizards playing.

Master Engineers. Buffers for your war machines. Master of Ballistics lets a single war machine within 3” use his BS and re-roll a single scatter or artillery dice. If you are planning on running an artillery battery, you really need to take one to babysit them. At 65 points, I’d be tempted to take one to look after just single war machine in anything above 2000 points. If you want, he can have some of those funny guns we mentioned. He can use war machines for Lookout Sir!, so if fairly well protected from ranged attacks.

Warrior Priests/Arch Lectors. These guys are awesome. They give units Hatred. They can channel power & dispel dice. And they have Prayers of Sigmar. Innate bound augment spells. Choose from having your unit; re-roll wounds, 5+ ward in CC, or flaming attacks and S4 hit on all enemies in base combat. As with the commanders, apply liberally to all units of value to turn your average units into pretty handy ones. If you plan on taking an arch lector, you should really consider mounting him on a War Altar. With Stubborn, T&W5 and a 4+ Ward, this thing is pretty durable (though note the ward doesn't confer to the Lector). It’s a great buff, giving Hatred and prayer effects to everything within 6”, as well as having the Banishment bound spell and an optional Terror upgrade. There aren't really any drawbacks to taking a War Altar.

Witch Hunters. These are probably, the best fluff heroes in the game. The problem is, they aren’t much use in the game. MR2. Accusation lets you choose a single enemy model to re-roll hits against, as well as getting Killing Blow and Sniper against them. Automatically pass fear checks. Re-roll wounds against undead and daemons. All pretty awesome rules and at 50 points, what is the problem, I hear you cry? Well, it’s what you use them for. With those rules, they are designed as wizard hunters. Most enemy combat heroes will chomp them up, so you have to use them to target weakling wizards, which fits with the fluff. But most people hide their wizards in units and with only light armour, you need to hide them in your units (unless you tool them up with magic protection). All of which makes it rather tricky to actually get them anywhere near their designated quarry, effectively nullifying their role on the battlefield, not to mention most of the special rules. In another army, it may not be such an issue, but when all your other hero choices are so good, it’s difficult to justify even 50 points on what may well turn out to be nothing more than a fluff choice. I love the background for them, I really do; I just wish they were more viable in game.

Grand Masters. These are your most fighty lords. Better WS, I & A than the General. They lose Hold the Line! but make any unit of Knights they join Immune to Psychology, as well as coming ready armoured and horse borne. If you are running Knights in any numbers, you should seriously consider these chaps, though a mounted General/Captain is still a good choice to lead them. Again, it all comes down to personal choice.

[Wildeybeast]

Core
Unless otherwise noted, these guys all have standard human profiles. All that really matters is what they are armed with. Choose the weapon advantage you think will work for you best.
With humans, your combats are often likely to be marginal, so I’d recommend always taking a full command in your combat troops.

Infantry (CC). All have light armour and shield. Spearmen (RD) are the weakest choice, but the cheapest at 5 points. Halberdiers (RD) are 6 points, get the +1S boost in combat but loose the shield save. Swordsmen (RD) are 7 points, but are WS4 and get the 6+ parry save for that. Free Company Militia (D) come with two hand weapons but no armour or shield.

Infantry (ranged). Light armour. Crossbows(RD) or Handguns (RD). Both are Move or Fire and S4. Crossbows have better range, handguns have Armour Piercing. Archers (RD)are your more mobile troops, being skirmishers and having ranged weapons that can move and fire, but at a cost of an armour save and hitting power.

Knights. These guys are pretty awesome core troops and I would strongly recommend considering a unit of them in any army. They come with a mighty 1+ armour save and lances, as well as being WS4 and Ld8. For an additional 3 points you can make one unit of them S4. As befits their status, these guys are your elite troops and are a strong unit (though with the drawbacks all cavalry face in 8th Ed.)

[Wildeybeast]

Special

Greatswords (R). WS4, LD8. Great weapons. Full plate armour. Stubborn. Simply put, one of the best units in the book. A great anvil unit that you can rely to hold whichever section of the battlefield you put them on. Give them the Standard of Discipline to make them Ld9 and they are even better. If you plan on them anchoring the centre of your line, put the BSB in there as well for some LD9, re-rollable Hold the Line! break tests and nothing bar the will of Sigmar will shift them.

Demigryph Knights. Inner circle Knights riding some excellent monstrous cav. The Demigryphs areS5, Armour Piercing and cause Fear. All of this with your standard knightly 1+ armour save. Another excellent choice in the special section.

Reiksguard Knights. Inner Circle Knights who are Stubborn for 2 points more than standard Inner Circle. I’m not really sure why they exist as a separate unit selection really. Still, if you want Stubborn Knights, knock yourself out

Huntsmen. Archers with the Scout rule. If you think you can make great use of that Scout rule then go for it, but they struggle for selection against the better special choices and their standard archer chums.

Pistoliers. Fast Cav, basic human profile with a brace of pistols each. They do what fast cav do, and are cheap enough to be disposable. The pistols pack a punch, but even if they are short range and haven’t moved you are still hitting on 5’s due to Multiple Shots, so don’t expect them to do much damage. Use them as march blockers, charge diverters or human shields as you see fit.

Outriders. Repeater handguns are just like their normal equivalent, but fire 3 shots each! And since your Outriders are BS4 fast cav, these are potentially a very handy unit. You give them extra protection with Barding, but lost the fast cav rule. They require careful use on the field to make the most of the damage they can deal whilst keeping them safe from harm, and the fact that their manoeuvrability is nullified by the move or fire weapons. That said, I think they are very handy choice.

Great Cannon. I’m assuming you know how cannons work and how awesome they are. So the only real debate is how many you take and whether you take an Engineer to buff them.

Mortar. A large template Stone Thrower, with Armour Piercing and Multiple Wounds (D3). How many can I have, you cry? Oh, they’re S2, you sigh. If you know you will be facing hordes of T3, low save troops (Elves, Skaven, Gobbos, Undead or your fellow Empire), they may be worth taking, but even then you are wounding on 5’s. It’s hard to justify those 100 points out of your Special allowance when there are so many better things to go for.

Flagellants. My poor, beloved, much maligned flagellants. They were on of the key things that first drew me to the Empire so many years ago. Who wouldn’t love their brand of nihilistic insanity? So I don’t understand why they seem to get worse, every edition. I’ve seen their S, T and WS reduced over the years. The latest injustices in this book are a nerfing of their The End is Nigh! rule and a points increase. The pros are Frenzy, Flails and Unbreakable. The End is Nigh! means they take D6 S3 hits as they ‘martyr’ themselves in CC. Depending how many die, they get re-roll to hit, to hit and to wound or to hit, to wound and +1T. So basically they can steam roll pretty much anything in combat. The cons are most opponents know this, and most opponents know they don’t have save. So expect them to take heavy casualties before they get anywhere near combat. You need to run them in minimum of 30 to ensure you have enough to get into combat. But when they are a point more expensive than Greatswords, which are you going to take?

[Wildeybeast]

Rare

Helblaster. 3 artillery dice worth of S5 Armour Piercing shots a turn! OMG! My only reservation is their range. With just 24” they will likely be out of range first turn and if you are playing an offensive game, most things will be in combat turn 2. Unless you are playing defensively, you be better off with another Great Cannon. If you are taking one, that Engineer’s BS4 will make a big difference.

Helstorm Rocket Battery. D3 S3 Armour Piercing Stone Thrower shots that always suffer indirect fire. Moving swiftly on.

Steam Tank. This is probably the one auto-pick in the book. You can read the page worth of special rules for yourself. Let me tell you how your T6, W10 Unbreakable, 1+ armour save, cannon bearing chariot works on the battlefield. Surprisingly, not as devastatingly as you think. It’s what it does to your opponents mind rather than his army that is most effective. People are terrified of them. Virtually everyone will hurl every spell, missile and cannon ball they can at it to try and kill it, and usually they fail. What most people don’t realise is that they don’t need to kill it, they just need to damage it. 3 or 4 wounds off it severely limits how many Steam points you are willing to risk whilst increasing the chance of it blowing itself up. So, just leave it trundling round, soaking up all that fire and remember that all that damage isn't hitting your soft, squishy humans. Oh, and using it to repeatedly run over your opponents death star unit never stops being fun.

Celestial Hurricanum and Luminark of Hysh. The same base chariot with different buffs. You can take them as rare choices, or mounts for your wizards as mentioned earlier. It all depends on how you want to buff your army (or what spell lore you are using). 6+ ward or +1 to hit? Extra dispel or power dice? Frickin laser beam or weather machine? It really comes down to personal choice. If you aren’t using them as mounts for wizards, the Hurricanum boost to hit is probably more useful, but as mounts, Light is probably a better lore for the Empire than Heavens. Either way, those buffs are really handy.


And that’s it from me for now. Any feedback or contrary opinions are gratefully received. Thanks to Mystery for letting me have a crack at this. I’ll revisit Special Characters and magic items at a later date. As I said at the start, you really can pick whatever you want in the Empire army. There really aren’t any bad choices, just tough decisions as to what is best. So play around and have fun working out what your favourite/best army is.

[klunc]

As an Empire player I love this quick guide. You haven't marked 90% of the book as 'sub-optimal' which is what a lot of the internet seems to want to do with each book.

[Wildeybeast]

Thanks. I don't pay much attention to the internet, but I suppose you could say most units are sub optimal taken on their own. However, that misses the point of the Empire which is all about coordinating and buffing your units. If people just want to pick the smashiest units, Empire probably isn't for you, but it is a very rewarding army if you embrace its playstyle.

[LadyKatz]

As someone getting ready to start an Empire army I appreciate this thread a lot. I will be able to use your analysis to help me figure out the way I want to go. Having only really played Bret's I find it is hard to stop thinking about how empire compares to Brets and I am not having much luck lol.

[Wildeybeast]

Glad it's of some use! If you have any specific questions, then feel free to post them up and I'll do my best to help. As I said though, it's a pretty forgiving army so you can largely do what you want with it.