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I've got my two "main" armies lined up and ready for painting, and a third in the wings. But since my empire units aren't drawing much love in the Swap Shop, I thought I might delist them and see about keeping them around for a smallish (1500-2000, no more than that) army. But I had a couple of questions on a tactical front before I start repriming over my ill-advised tuberculosis phlegm color scheme...

- Do warrior priests count as wizards for the purposes of dispelling and channeling dispel dice? I know in previous editions that they added one to the pool and that the prayers worked like TK incantations.

- Is a wizardless empire force viable? I was hoping to run a "flavor" army: Luther Huss and two or so warrior priests and a nice fat block of flagellants for the crazy Sigmar squad, but I'm worried that without some oomph in the magic phase (especially if WPs can't dispel), it'd be a hopeless cause.

- I'm thinking about two blocks of state troops (~20 spearmen or swordsmen) with two detachments (8 handgunners, 8 halberdiers) each. Actual numbers will change as time goes on, but at the moment I'm going with the models I have.

- Shields with the halberdiers - yay or nay? For some reason, it just seems aesthetically wrong to me, but the upgrade option is there and a ward save WOULD be nice.

Some of these are true newbie questions, to be sure, but I don't see Empire played all that much (which is funny, considering how all the 40K discussions equate them with SM), and I think they'd make a nice counter balance to my 1500-2000 goblin army.

If you are trying to trade stuff try Barter Town, I trade my stuff there, and it is allot more efficient than the swap shop. As to the rest of the empre stuff, I have no clue except that you don't get bonuses from shields in close combat if you use a halbred.

I have a small Empire army as well and I'm quite pleased with it. I like to keep it as a "Jack of all trades, master of none" army, as Empire can compete quite well in any phase of the game. Warrior Priests still add +1 dispel dice, but as they have no magic level, they can't aid in a dispel attempt, so it might be worth it to include a cheap level 2 wizard for some boosted magic defense (although not mandatory). You could always balance that out with Magic Resistance items and banners too.

Two blocks of state troops are never a bad thing. One thing though, halbardiers only benefit from the shield at range, so you would never get the parry save. Because of that I've enjoyed using them as a detachment for flanking countercharges with my swordsmen. It's up to you on the shields. I've noticed that my opponent would rather shoot at bigger, scarier units (my Greatsword Horde) than bother with a halberdier detachment, so they usually get into combat undamaged.