Best Shooty 'good' army

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**TheAngrySquig**

I want a very shooty army, but I also want a morally good force. I was thinking about Empire, but is their anything else better?

Note: NOT Dwarves, I don't like the lack of magic

**Hunter13**

I would say take a look at high elves. You could take sea guard, archers, bolt throwers, which all shoot. And outfit some lords with bows to also shoot. Not sure if you'd consider magic "shooty", but they have some good magic as well.

I think empire would make a stronger "shooting" army than HE, but it depends on how much shooting you want, as HE is an elite army with high point cost, and the elite troops that to me make or break HE armies don't shoot.

**TheAngrySquig**

Yeah, I looked at HE, but their more like combat with some shooting rather than vice versa

**Space Crusader**

A empire army hailing from Nuln?

**TheAngrySquig**

And Nuln would be what exactly?

**Therunabout**

Mortars, cannon's, riflemen, steam tank etc. Its the gunnery school and there pretty awesome! Most people would most probably not agree with me on this but Dark Elves are pretty good also for shooting with there crossbows and such. I know many people who have won a lot with a dark elf shooting army.

**TheAngrySquig**

Therunabout wrote:Mortars, cannon's, riflemen, steam tank etc. Its the gunnery school and there pretty awesome! Most people would most probably not agree with me on this but Dark Elves are pretty good also for shooting with there crossbows and such. I know many people who have won a lot with a dark elf shooting army.

I believe they have good shooting, but they sure as hell aren't morally good

**Therunabout**

Ooooh sorry dude. Didn't notice that you wanted a good army. Umm I would have to agree with the others Empire are very good at shooting if you want a good army.

**Murdock129**

Empire or Dwarfs I'd go with, Empire have a lot of nasty warmachines and those lovely Handgunners and Crossbowmen

The Dwarfs have those nasty warmachiens and their deadly engineers, though both armies are also tailored for combat they'd both make nasty shooters

An underrated one is Brets, though you have to have a unit of knights those bowmen with brassiers can be nasty and the trebutchets are very very nasty, though like wood elves their begging for a redo

**DukeRustfield**

HE are probably it.

HE can be shooty, not in the traditional pwnering sense but through mass use of poison. They even have a special character who is a sniper. Not only that but they got salamanders and razordons, the first of which is very powerful as a war machine.

Shooty, magicy, good alignment really narrows your options.

HE
Dwarfs
WE
Empire
Bret
Liz

Are the only good alignments. WE can shoot, but they're kinda sucky. HE can shoot. Liz can shoot. Empire.

**TheAngrySquig**

I think I'll probably do Empire. Are handgunners or crossbowmen better?

**Therunabout**

handgunners is what I'd certainly use.

**TheAngrySquig**

I play mainly against Skaven, but once in a blue moon Bretonnians, does that change that oppinion?

**Therunabout**

Not really dude.

**TheAngrySquig**

Excellent, then Handgunners it is.

**Turalon**

For a shooty good alignment army, Empire is the way to go. As a long time High Elf player, I never take any of the ranged units in games I expect to win. Archers, and bolt throwers are no good in this edition.

Go with Empire, they are one of 2 armies in the game who can win with shooting (dwarfs being the other).

As for Handgunners or Crossbowmen, Crossbowmen are better for range and generally are a bit better unless you play against high armour armies. If your meta game has lots of WoC or brets, it may be better to go with Handgunners, otherwise go with crossbows.

Personally I like to take one unit of each in my army, but then I don't run my many shooty units in my Empire that aren't war machines.

**sebster**

Mainly playing against skaven makes a huge difference, actually.

The advantage of handgunners is their AP, meaning they're ideal against higher armoured targets. They're what you want when you're facing heavily armoured knights, or chaos warriors with shields.

On the other hand, crossbows have a 30" range. The big thing about this is that they have a range greater than the standard deployment distance, which means you get to shoot in the first round even when you go first.

So, if you're facing skaven, you're looking at an army with very little armour across the board. Stormvermin are about as heavily armoured as they come, and they've got a 5+ save against shooting. In which case, crossbows should be the much more valued weapon.

**TheAngrySquig**

So I should use mainly crossbows, but when the Brets come along use handgunners

**sebster**

TheAngrySquig wrote:So I should use mainly crossbows, but when the Brets come along use handgunners

It's how I'd do it.

**TheAngrySquig**

Alright, and are cannons or mortars better for my situation?

**Turalon**

Well normally, I run 2 cannons, 1 mortar and a Volley Gun and some pistoliers. That gives me enough shooting which can blast most of my opponents before my infantry regiments. I used to run a 20 man block of Handgunners which was a lot of fun, but as of late, I have been playing more team games so there is little enough deployment as is.

But, I also like the idea of 2 50 man blocks of Halberdiers plus great swords to win my games.

What can work well against skaven is to take a 20-30 man unit of crossbowmen with the flaming banner (you need a general of the Empire to give them the option of a magic banner). Shoot those HPA's with the crossbows to negate their regeneration, then cannon them (also works against DE Hydras, trolls or anything with regeneration for that matter.

**TheAngrySquig**

So give them 30 shots of flaming rounds? What does flaming banner do?

**128th_king**

Definitely Empire,

The Flaming banner provides the entire unit with Flaming Attacks, meaning that those Crossbow shots can be used to take away Regen saves

**sebster**

TheAngrySquig wrote:Alright, and are cannons or mortars better for my situation?

Take both. Cannons are great at plinking big monsters, and can perform double duty slicing through heavily armoured knights and the like.

On the other hand, mortars are great for killing large blocks of lightly armed infantry.

In both cases, the real limit on how many you can take of each is how little you care about your opponent thinks of you.

**TheAngrySquig**

Nothing like pissed of townsfolk with flaming crosbows

**Turalon**

Well you only get 20 attacks with the crossbow unit, not 30 as crossbows don't have the Volley fire special rule. I only suggest 30 because they will be attacked and it satisfies core better. Once you drop below 20 models you lose out on your ability to do damage. Ultimately though, you just gotta wound a big nasty once so you can cannon it without it's regeneration.

**TheAngrySquig**

Allright, so would something like 2 units of 30 Crossbows and 2 of 20 state troops be good in core?

**sebster**

Turalon wrote:Well you only get 20 attacks with the crossbow unit, not 30 as crossbows don't have the Volley fire special rule. I only suggest 30 because they will be attacked and it satisfies core better. Once you drop below 20 models you lose out on your ability to do damage. Ultimately though, you just gotta wound a big nasty once so you can cannon it without it's regeneration.

I don't get what you mean there. If you have 30 crossbowmen you can just deploy them 15 wide to keep everyone shooting every turn.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

TheAngrySquig wrote:Allright, so would something like 2 units of 30 Crossbows and 2 of 20 state troops be good in core?

I'd probably stick to smaller units of missile troops, units of 10. The only reason to go bigger is if you've invested in the flaming banner, and want enough attacks to make it useful. The advantage of smaller units of missile troops is that the enemy has to target each one individually to route it. A block of 30 crossbowmen is around about as likely to flee from a big block of orcs as a unit of 10 is, and if you only lose a 10 man unit you've still got 2 other units of crossbowmen firing the next turn.

On the other hand, I'd probably increase the size of the state troops. Big blocks really are the way to go for your core infantry units. One unit of 40 is better than 2 smaller units.

**TheAngrySquig**

So one 30 man cb unit with a flaming banner, 3 ten mans, and one forty man state troops block? Does any particular state troop work well better with a shooty list?

**Therunabout**

TheAngrySquig wrote:Nothing like pissed of townsfolk with flaming crosbows

thats a accident waiting to happen. I wonder if they always shout "get off maa Land!" I don't know why I see empire to have a Yorkshire way of talking, even though clearly there German.