Last night we tried out the new rules for the Empire. I took a 2250 list that I had made with ogres in mind, and re-costed it to see what happened. The identical list came up 86 points cheaper, so I added a Master Engineer, and my opponent let me have 4 more points so I could take pigeon bombs.
I had a general on warhorse with holy relic & sword of sigismund (full plate & shield, naturally) in a unit of 30 swordsmen with full cmd, detachments of 5 handgunners and 10 free company. Lvl 2 light wizard in a unit of 24 spears with shields & full cmd, detachments of 5 handgunners and 8 free company. Helblaster (attached Master Engineer with pigeon bombs) & Steam Tank. One captain on pegasus, full plate, shield, sword of power. 6 inner circle White Wolfs, full cmd & war banner, 6 knights panther, full cmd, 6 knights Blazing Sun, full cmd, and 6 pistoliers, musician, outrider with repeater pistol.
I faced a Tomb King army led by Khalida. 2 Scorpions, one tomb swarm (4 bases), 4 carrion, a screaming skull catapult (upgraded to cause panic), 3 Ushabti, 5 chariots, 3 units of 10 archers, 3 liche priests (one heirophant).
TK won both table sides & first turn. He moved his archers up, managed to use his carrion to block line of sight to most of my units, and therefore had to put most of his archer fire on the steam tank. Thanks to poison, smiting, and my bad rolls, he managed to put three wounds on the Stank before my first turn!
I attempted to generate 3 steam points, rolled a 5... no steam points, and another wound! Suddenly I had a 300 pt unit whose effectiveness was seriously compromised. No charges, the knights, pegasus, & pistoliers headed for his flanks. He totally shut down my magic phase (I had Burning Gaze and the Flare, and only got off one flare the entire game, when he rolled double ones on a dispell). The Helblaster only did 2 wounds on the carrion (long range & skirmish), the pigeon bomb exploded somewhere over the battlefield, and my handgunners all missed.
The carrion charged the Helblaster. I begged him not to, since I wanted the Engineer to die either from a pigeon or from a Helblaster misfire, but he was too worried and came in anyway... so I stood & shot with the pigeon. We couldn't decide whether that was legal, but the description says it is a missle weapon, so... Anyway, the carrion broke the unit and flew them down, pursuing off the table. (He then forgot about them for two turns, which was nice.) The swarm came up and charged the Wolves, a scorpion came up and charged my general's free company, and the Ushabti charged the pistoliers, who stood & shot and did 4 wounds.
After that, though, it was just a matter of me chewing through his army. The 1+ AS of the knights kept them safe from the shooting & swarms, and combat res crumbled the swarms, scorpions, and eventually the carrion when they too charged a ranked unit. The pistoliers held against the Ushabti on snake eyes, and the pegasus joined that combat. The Panthers hit his chariots in the flank and they died to CR. My knights and pegasus got to his lines, and did terrible things to the archers. Khalida charged into my Blazing Suns using Urgency, and then crumbled after two turns. The Steam tank never did a thing- I generated 2 steam points, and used them to fire the cannon, but overshot both times.