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What changes would you guys, Empire generals (and opponents) want in the new Empire book?

-Colonel

More cannons.

I'd kind of like to see something done to make Halberdiers worth taking. I'd also like to see the Steam Tank actually be in the book, with very little modification (making it a very tough chariot doesn't do it justice).

Most of the changes I'd like to see are cosmetic. Like new Handgunner and character models.

Likewise.  Streamline the steam tank rules. I love the idea of the STank, but the rules we currently have break so many of the basic game rules, they need tightening up.

I really hope Pistoliers keep their fusillade rule.

Also, I'd like to see Inner Circle knights be allowed to get a rank bonus when only 4 models wide. Hey, I can dream, right?
On the subject of dreaming:
I'd like artillery to be able to take at least a detachment of up to 5 models.  The mortar needs a bombard rule, so it can shoot at things it does not have line-of-sight on.
I'd like parent units to be able to stand and shoot, or charge in support of detachments, as well as the other way around.  Huntsmen should be able to take a musician (I'm influenced by too many Bavarian cuckoo-clocks, I know).

cheaper runefangs

As far as I'm concerned about the rank bonus on the Inner Circle Knight.... the unit strength of the unit should be what is the deciding factor for how many models need to be in a rank. For example, man sized units have a unit strength of 1, therefore, need 5 models to have the rank of 5. Cavalry have a unit strength of 2, therefore would need three models to meet the minimum of 5. Ogres have a Unit strength of 3, so would need 2 models to meet the requirement. I think this system would work out a whole lot better than the one they have going right now.  Parent units definatly need to be able to support their detachments.... I stopped using them because all my opponents got smart enough just to charge the detachment and overrun, seeing as how most of them move faster than I do.

The steam tank needs to be in the book, and needs to to take up a H,S,and R choice.... or maybe just both rares.... or even a rare and a special. You can do the whole upgrade thing where if you upgrade it to this or that it takes up more slots.... like with the shaggoth or the slann.

The skavens, Life is cheap rule would be nice, but only on certain units.... free company's and such.

Every unit that can get shields, to come with shields starting off. Swordsmen need to be dropped atleast one point, if not two or three. From what it looks like, orcs are going to cost 5 points a model, be T4, S4 on the charge, and get the +1 AS for a shield and hanweapon and I'm not sure wether or not they're going to start out equipped with a shield.... Somehow WS4 and In 4 should cost 2 points more than those advantages?   Hah! Swordsmen should be 5 points flat, including the light armor and the shield. Halberds need to be +2 str on the charge, and +1 strength normally, and they need to have the option of taking heavy armor. I'd also like to see "greatswords" that fight without "greatswords" ie; handweapon and shield guys in full plate with WS 4. You can even make them a 0-1 upgrade uption for swordsmen, +1 if you take an elector count, which allowed 2 units max. Pistoliers need to keep their fulisade rule or just be tossed.

Flagellents definatly need the life is cheap rule applied to them... as I'm ure everyone wants to shoot those sons of ******* . Also, why doesn't the empire have some sort of bolt thrower? Either make cannons 0-2 or give us 0-2 bolt throwers.

Oh, and how about a hero that can actually kill something... that would be nice. Anyone else tired of watching their elector count getting torn to pieces by a black ork big boss or a dwarven thane..... this is a lord, that can't even compete with other armies heroes.  Runefangs should either cost 70 points, or should include a holy artifact bonus. After all, what could be more holy than a runefang, a weapon that was given to you by a god? (which was given to him by the dwarves)

Engineers for the war machines like they have for the dwarves would be lovely. The Cannon engineer lets you reroll the artillery dice once per shot so long as he's not doing anything, the mortar engineer lets you reroll the scatter dice once, the bolt thrower lets you use his BS, and here's the new one, and engineer on the hellblasters... and something so complex would need the care of an Engineer. The Hellblaster engineer gives you +1 on the misfire result table. This would mean that on a roll of a 1 you're still destroyed, but people would pay for him because the chances of getting a 6 becomes a much better.  Make them cost somewhere around 15-35 points a piece.

Also I'd like to see some better wargear. A weapon that does d6 wounds would be most appreciated, considering what other armies combat monsters can do. And I understand that the empire is not supposed to be an army that plays Hero Hammer.... but I mean come on.... give us a chance...

And my last thought, which is more or less just for fun is this, isn't the Empire home to the Schools of Magic? Aren't their numbers growing every day? Shouldn't they be able to come up with some halfway decent arcane items? My solution is this.... redo the arcane items, get rid of the extremely stupid ones... the luckstone and hexstaff.... and also the enchanted items... Aldreds casket of sorcery.... (who thought of that so I can smack them?!) the rod of command... 50 points for a one use item that does what?.... The ring of volans, which needs to be the same thing, at the same price, and not be one use only, the laurels of victory ( Oh yeah, you're going to be doing a whole lot of wounds Mr. Elector count, when you only have 30 points left to spend on wargear) And then make battle wizards 0-2 choices, you could even say that half of them must be level 1 wizards.  Or give them a -1 on the micast table

And the last thing I could think of is just a neat idea, but one that more than likely will never happen.

I really like that unit strength-to-rank size idea. I like that a lot.  An alternative would be to use base size instead- 20mm bases need 5, 25mm need 4, and 40mm need 3; larger than 40mm (or anything that is a Large Target) cannot form ranks.

Engineer upgrades to cannon crew is a fun idea- though for the mortar I think I'd prefer something along the line of the new Doom Diver rules- a mortar with an engineer could alter the placement of the template by d3 inches.

The Runefangs were forged by Dwarves, as was Ghal Maraz.

Another major change I'd like is for mortars to either be as dangerous as stone throwers (it's the only weapon of its type that allows an armor save and deals less than d6 wounds per hit) or to be completely indirect fire - if it's on the table, it's a target.

Yup, the runefangs were forged by dwarves..... which I said.... and then given to sigmar who gave them to his generals..... sounds like a holy object if you ask me

If your guy keeps getting torn apart get a grand master.

1. They should definately do something to make grand masters more appealing. The only time people ever take one is when their theme depends on it. In all empire armies, at 2000 they take the elector count for the griffon banner, at 3000 they take the elector count and a wizard lord, at 4000 they'd probably just take the elector and 2 wizard lords, also they're horrendously over pointed. One possible advantage for taking a grand master may be that you get 0-2 Inner circle or something like that. Which is completely beleiveable, whenever the grand master went to war he would take the most elite and best equipped of the order with him. An alternate for the 0-2 rule would be the wealthy advantage published in White Dwarf. That up to half the total number of knights units rounding up (or down) can be upgraded to inner circle. If it was rounding down though then you'd have to take 4 units of knights to get 2 units of inner circle, which would never be used. So i think if you're going to implement that rule it would have to be rounding up.

2. They might want to try and make crossbowmen more appealing, maybe lowering the cost by a point or two, or giving the marksman access to a repeater crossbow (comeon they're mercenaries, fought all over the world, they must've picked up a dark elf weapon somewhere).

3. Make engineers more appealing, Lowering their points cost might be the way to go, also making it so that no matter what happens he doesn't die when the cannon blows up instead of whenever he contributes the re-roll.

4.The Imperial Banner sucks! They should either drastically lower it's points cost or make it a lot better. 99.99% of Empire players would ignore the bsb, take an elector count and give the griffon banner to a unit of swordsmen, halbediers or spearmen (whoever gives it to handgunners are absolutely ****ing crazy!)

5. For the banner of sigismund they should lower it's points cost to 50. This would allow greatswords, knights and the elector benefitting state troops to carry it. As it needs to be carried by a bsb, no-one uses it. The also might want to improve the steel standard a bit, its a tad overpriced/ under powered.

6. The laurels of victory are a good idea, just horrendously overpriced, maybe 50 or 40 points, not 70! At 50 points it allows the character to grab a nice shiny weapon to aid them actually killing something.

7. The Armour of Meteoric Iron ROCKS!!!!!!! Never leave home without it!. Had to say that.

8. Warrior priests should either have better stats, less points costs or have access to full plate armour. Comeon this is the church of sigmar, the most politically powerful church in the empire, surely their priests would be able to get some decent armour!

9. Get new empire soldiers models. Especially their armour, it looks like ****. If anyone has seen the trailer for Warhammer Mark of Chaos with the fully armoured empire guys, thats what i'm talking about! Also the current colour schemes suggested by games workshop are pretty lame. Here's a link to the trailer. By the way, i got into the closed beta, it sucks- http://www.namco.com/games/warhammer/ then select videos and E3 2006 trailer, low quality- you have to be a member to watch the high quality. It's a bad size and the Empire gets slaughtered but the soldiers look awesome!

10. The bombardment rule for the mortar is a common sense must-have, isn't the entire point of a mortar to fire up, over obstacles on to the target? This should be implemented ASAP.

Good suggestions though, any more?

P.S. Longshot what do you mean by more cannons, more access to them (making them core/ 2 for each special) or actually more varieties. If its the later it's a longshot (pun intended).

P.P.S. Angron, if Unit strength affected ranks you would see Ogre armies using two models at the front with 3 ranks behind them, the exact thing these new rules tried to destroy. I get the idea though, cavalry should get rank bonuses in ranks of 4 or 3, just like the Bretonnian Lance. Also there is nothing in the empire book called a Hexstaff, but I agree, the rod of command is horrendously overpriced and stupid, aldred's casket is stupid and the ring of volans should have more than one use or drop it's points.

For actual changes see http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14159&st=0

-Colonel

Honestly though, if a ogre player did do the 2 wide front, 3 deep unit, would you care? Would you be affraid of it? Of course not. It's a rediculously expensive unit, with only 6 str 4 hits, and a CR of 4 starting off.....  Sure, impact hits might hurt.... but who ever lets an ogre player charge them when they don't want them to?

I think...

*Keep swordsmen as they are equipment wise, drop the points though.
*Allow a unit to be upgraded to entirely duelists, with the swordsman unit's duelist stats, and allow access to pistols at X pts/model.
*Let halberders have heavy armour.
*Give us light horse -- I designed some lancers as a house rule/model; seince guns are in in the empire, I'd immagine fully plated knights would be on the wane--historically we had horsemen with lighter armour and long lances for riding down fleeing enemies/flanking
*Maybe let the leader of each unit take a different weapon or something.
*Give us a lesser cannon; shorter range, but maybe it moves faster or something. Think Chevulron...if thats how you spell it.
*Make halberders 1+; fluff wise it makes sense, with heavy armour I'd take them.

With the shorter cannons, Bronzino's galloper guns are exactally what you're talking about. They're a regiment of renown.
Halbediers need access to heavy armour to make them more appealing (and realistic?)
Light Horsemen- They were armed with quick swords. Pistoliers- Always strike first
Swordsmen-6/7 Points
Spearmen- Shields as default- 6/7 points
Leaders- What weapons? Ideas; Spearmen Champion- Pike, Halbedier Champion- Great Weapon?, Swordsmen Champion (Duellist)- Access to pistol/ brace of pistols.
Entire Duellist units- Already exist, Dogs of War. I think they have basic swordsmen's stats.

Also if you check out the link i put in my last post yo ucan find models and suspected rules. Heres a picture of the proposed Empire $350 (Aus) Deal.


The new empire characters, pistolier units and state troops (spearmen, halbediers, swordsmen and handgunners are made with the same plastic kit-apparently, thats a lot of spare parts) units are visible. As far as i can see, no changes to the cannon model or knights. Free company (the militia box set-free company, crossbowmen, archers) look changed aswell.

-Colonel

The problem behind solving what I'm after with DOW units is that they're DOW--not regular soldiers.

Whats DOW units?

Bronzino's galloper guns
Entire Duellist units- Already exist, Dogs of War