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So, I'm starting up a small Empire army to take some nice breaks from my High Elves (Go warmachines!) but I'm a bit over-whelmed with kitting out characters.

The High Elf character builds are fairly straightforward, imo, but there seem to be a lot more options available to an Empire list.

What're the typical load-outs for Empire characters?
Should warrior priests take two-handed hammers? Hammer and shield? 2 Hammers?
Put every character on foot?
Who should get Van Hortsmann's Speculuum?

I see many Van Horstmann's Speculums out there.

Popemobile (Arch Lector on War Altar) with VHS seems to work well.

A couple kits that I like are as follows:
General of the Empire: Barded Warhorse, Full Plate, Shield, Lance, Laurels of Victory, Holy Relic (1+ Sv, 4+WS) on the charge 3 Str6 Attacks (Laurels help with CR). 222pts
Captain: Armor of Meteoric Iron, Icon of Magnus, Great Weapon, (3 Str 6 attacks, 1+ Sv). IoM allows the unit you are with to negate Fear effects and reduces Terror to Fear. 104pts
Captain: Full Plate, Pegasus, Sword of Might, Enchanted Shield, Ring of Volans (2+ Sv, 3 Str5 attacks). Use to hunt down Artillery crews and characters. Ring of Volans could be interesting if you select the right spell.

Is it just me, or is Aldred's Casket of Sorcery quite a nasty item?

Jin wrote:Is it just me, or is Aldred's Casket of Sorcery quite a nasty item?

It is when given to a captain on pegasus in full plate with a pistol and lance and enchanted shield.

2+ armour save, can shoot, great movement and whilst march blocking can steal spells (great vs VC to remove their summoning spells, especially on low level vamps)

For an empire general, I'd personally go for:
GW, Armour of Meteoric iron, Holy relic, von Horstman's speculum.

Is it better to give a priest a two-handed hammer, two hammers, or hammer and shield?

Depends on what you want to do with him, and what you expect to face. Against horde style forces I would vote for a second hammer, elite armies would be better faced with the greatweapon. Personally, I think hammer and shield is the best for survivability, as you need all the armor you can get (that whole no full plate thing bites him hard). Survivability is usually my focus for priests, as they don't have the stats to really be any sort of combat beast no matter what you give them (VHS aside...), and for the most part I use my priests just for the dispel die and the hatred he bestows to the unit.

Depends on their role in your game plan of course, but I like HW & Shield. I say this is because you can get heavy armor, but that's about it unless you splurge on Magic Items. The 2+ Sv Magic armor plus GW works, but if I'm taking a Priest I'm probably going to give him the Rod of Command so HW & Shield may allow him to live long enough to use it.

WS4 is what hurts them the most. If you want somebody for combat I say take a Captain. Cheaper, better base armor choices, and better stats. Granted you don't get the extra Dispel dice and Bound Spells, but that is the trade-off.

Heh. I'm sooo not used to this many Character options. .

Welcome to Fantasy.

Jin wrote:Heh. I'm sooo not used to this many Character options. .

Solution: Take a sharpie, and color over the box that says "Engineer". Will reduce the clutter.

Well, I'm coming from High Elves who get to choose between "Hitty" or "Magicky", so the extra options in the Heroes/Lords section is befuddling me a bit (that and the lack of 'obvious' selections like Great Weapon on a hero on foot).

@Malecus - yeah, I've learned that part enough by now .

VHS goes on a priest or a wizard, cause they have the crappiest stats and can get the best mileage out of it.
It depends o who leads your army but you can give a warrior priest or arch lector the Armor of Meteoric Iron, Icon of Magnus and a great weapon. Put him in a greatsword unit. Hatred makes up for the crummy stats somewhat and you've made a unit of stubborn warriors immune to fear.