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I was never a HUGE part of any forum scene really. However I did feel that this was the place to get a consensus on the beginnings of an Empire army.
That being said. I have owned the latest Empire Army Book since it was first released but only just recently had a pang of desire to look into starting the army. A modest amount of research and some very interesting Empire centered novels were enough, coupled with the love of the idea of the human race overcoming the mutant and chaotic dangers of the world, to start me on the path.


So we read... and read... and read some more. It is a well done book in all aspects of what an Army Book should be I think. However after rifling into the book my very central issue became clear.
From a fantasy loving nerd point it is SUCH a cool book, but from the competitive side of my brain I have a particular issue with just how much the War Altar and the Various magical chariots changed the points values based solely on the power of their special rules.

Example : The Celestial Hurricanum grants a +1 to hit to friendly units, and the War Altar gives an aura of battle prayers similar to those of the warrior priests. Truly massive buffs to the infantry which sit at the core of the army book. Cheap infantry being buffed in such a way can be quite powerful so to speak. That being said because of these new chariots / buffs the prices on nearly ALL of the infantry in core and some in special ( greatswords ) have increased. Which by itself is FINE COMPLETELY FINE. It is not a shock to see points going up based on combinations and supporting units, that is all good in GW. The problem is that the causes of the points increases on infantry ( IE : Altar / Hurricanum ) are two very large models that are impossible to hide and instantly suffer from cannon ball disease.

So in conclusion: You have infantry buffs that increase points on infantry but are very easily destroyed and once destroyed just leaves the empire army with a grand total of... more expensive troops.
( Not to mention the War Altar fig is quite awful )

I am a hobbyist but I do play in tournaments and enjoy winning. The armies I choose will have themes to them that are shown clearly in the painting, modelling, and fluff of the list but at the end of the day I cannot invest into any army that gimps its ability to win so much so that it's very very hard to do.

So... is the empire army flawed that much so? Help me dakka dakkda

Empire does fine without the giant stupid chariots.

The most trouble I've had is:
Grand Master with runefang and other tricksters shard
Level 4 wizard
Warrior Priest w/2+ armor and great weapon
BSB w/ 1+ armor and great weapon
2x Engineers
~50 halberds with small detachments
15 Inner Circle Knights
2x3 Griffon Cav
2 Great Cannons
2 Hell Blasters

The Monstrous cav sweeps up fast flanking units, the halberd horde is throwing out lots of S4 attacks with re-rolls, and the knights are a solid counter charge.
Meanwhile, great cannons are pounding high value enemy targets and the pair of hellblasters sweep away anything that gets around the Griffon Cav.
It's still packing a level 4 wizard, and does decent in the magic phase.

Very Few armies can be as good as empire in All Phases of the game.
IMO, that's the empires niche. Try and build an army that can play all aspects, and exploits your opponents weakness.

I ran a 2000 point list with all 40 knights, 3 characters (2 on pegasus), 4 demigryph, a steam tank, and 5 pistoliers...Was able to beat dwarves at battle for the pass and tabled a VC player. It is not impossible to win without the wagons. I do like the war altar, I ran it with that list at 2400 and tabled a brett player. Warrior priests and wizards do just as good a job as the chariots!

A lvl4 death wizard with talisman of 4+ ward and feedback scroll on Pegasus has always worked for me, and hudge blocks of 50 halberds and swordsmen are just as good by themselves.

The wagons are so cheap that even though they suffer from cannon freight its not a bad investment, as for the alter of Sigmar, the model sucks but everything else about it is awesome.


My normal 2k list is like this.

Lvl 4 life or death with 4+ ward and feedback scroll
general bsb full plate shield

Witch hunters x2 with brace of pistols (1 goes in each of my 50 man blocks)
1 engineer
warrior priest x2 HA, 2 ccw
lvl 1 beasts x2 -1 has dis-spell scroll


50x block of halberds FCMD
50x block of swordsmen FCMD
10x knights lances shields.

cannons x2
hellblasters x1
motor x1
Stank x1

Thats pretty much it and it has yet to fail me, 2 strong units that have plenty of buffs even without the horse carts and has 5 channel attempts which is funny since I never channel reguardless (really!)