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I am in desperate need of help for this army list. I want to focus on some things (in order from most to least important) 1. I don't want to be playing my opponent. I want to have a strategy that I focus on every game, so my opponent has to react to me, putting me in the drivers seat of the game. 2. Competitiveness (I am going to be using this army in a league fighting against mostly the "bad guys" (high elves, dwarfs, brettonia are on my side.) 3. Utilizing the models I have. I have the battalion, 20 archers, and 15 or so figures without arms (I got them for cheap) that I can outfit with extra parts from the state troops in the battalion. I have yet to buy any lord or hero units.


Empire-995/1000 points

Battle Wizard Lord-165
(No idea on the lore, help here please!)

Captain-106
BSB
Full Plate Armour
(Anything else i should give him?)

Halberdiers (BSB here, but is a Warrior Priest necessary to make this formation work?)
x29
Full Command
-Swordsmen x10 detachment (March to either side of the halberdiers)
-Swordsmen x10 detachment

Archers (For the Wiz to hide with)
x10
-Archer x5 Detachment (These march in front of the swordsmen units)
-Archer x5 Detachment

Inner Circle Knights-150
x6

Great Cannon-120

So I am using some form of the griffon formation that I read up on in the tactics section. I am hoping that swordsmen work ok as detachments to halberdiers. I will be going for flank charges with the swordsmen. What I really need help on is outfitting the wizard lord, what should I give him (lore wise) to work with my army list? Also do I need a Warrior Priest in the Halberdiers for the swordsmen detachments to become effective?

I don't play Empire so you know. I would put defensive items on your BSB to keep him alive. maybe for your
wizard lore you should use either life to keep your men alive, or shadow to help your state troops kill more.
Also, what do you plan to use against massed heavy armor like warriors of chaos or a heavy cavalry army,
so maybe you should use lore of metal.
Overall, looks like a good army.

I say go for as many war machines as you can fit. Because your buddies, except Dwarfs, have less access to them.

So you want to pick defensive guys. Halberds are okay. I would get rid of your archers/swords and get more knights. Their speed an super awesome armor save is really hard for many low point armies to beat.

Get a master engineer and either a mortar or hellblaster. Everyone poopoos a mortar, but the template is really huge and for fodder units like goblins and gnoblars and dark elves you'll kill like 20% of what you hit. Alternately a hellblaster wrecks face.

And since I'm totally changing your list, get rid of the battle lord and get a Arch Lector. It's +1 more LD and his spells don't blow up your army and they are hard to stop. Put him on a warhorse and get a separate normal warrior priest on a warhorse with other knights.

Everyone has casters and a lot of armies have better casters than Empire. But no one has Warrior Priests and not many have as good war machines.

Not sure if you like that style, but then it would be a natural progression to add stuff like demigryphs and steamtanks.

I disagree with duke, Keep your army the exact same, don't go off buying more models when you need to learn how to use what you have first, first things first.

1) wizard lord needs a ward save
2) bsb needs a shield, and a ward save
3) have the archers in one unit

Those are the most important things for this army, what you can do to get points are,

1) archers
2) drop inner circle
3) drop cannon (with elves/dwarfs there is enough AM)

As for getting a warrior priest, at higher point games he is a champ so look into getting one.

Good lores for this army are shadow/life/fire/beasts.

Oh, didn't see you had batallion. Under no circumstances drop inner circle and cannon. Which come in battalion.

Use the full 8 knights. They are very solid, fast, and not expensive. And a great tool at that low points.

Halberds are fine. Crossbows are nice. Good range. Good strength. I'm not sure if the archers can be converted into that, if they are just archers, then that's fine. Though the -1S and shorter range is bleh.

Use archers as huntsman, they're much better.

I won a 4 game 1k tourney with borrowed empire last weekend list:

Warrior priest, horse, hvy armor, barding, shrieking blade, enchated shield(Never died, use ward save prayer if worried)

LVL 4 Light horse (died once, but mattered little)

Both of those guys rolled with 9 IC knights with FC and gleaming pendant. Never lost them all and they did awesome, beat everything that they hit.

3 Demi's- died once but were key in winning.

Stank- Died once, but it was awesome otherwise.

Light works really well due to the following reasons.

Shems: cheap to cast for basic MM, the S6 boosted version is great for beating other knights, war machines, ect. The flaming, and lore attribute are cool too.

Pha's: - Money a 12 to cast the boosted bubble is so super sweet.

Speed of battle, makes units better

Light of battle, short range, but lets you overcome not having a bsb

Banishment- I passed on this every game, I should of kept it vs skaven, would of been nice to have two blasty spells.

Net- pretty good. good for throwing on units with wizards to suppress casting.

Birona's- makes the demi's into demigods. Helps knights a lot too, great for setting up monster long charges.

You're missing the point where he has a battalion box and probably wants to use it.

So he's got a cannon or mortar, 8 knights, 10 archers I think, and some general melee core. Like 20.

Here is the updated version, the halberdiers will go up the center with the archers and wizard behind them, and I'll take the knights up a flank.

Battle wizard
Lore of life
Dispel scroll
Talisman of preservation

Captain
Bsb
Fpa
Dawn stone
Dragonhelm
Shield

Warrior priest
Heavy armor
Armor of destiny
Shield

Halberdiers
X38
Standard

ICK
X8
Standard

Archers
X10

1000 on the dot.
So the only thing I am worried about is that too many points are spent on heros and I don't have enough bodies to withstand combats. Is this list gonna be effective and competitive? Or should I drop a hero and equipment for more bodies?

It's only 1K points.

I still say you should get a war machine. Not sure if you're going to get as much use from a warrior priest since you also have a battle wizard. You only got so many PD and even the WP has to throw 1 per prayer. I would go one or the other.

And yeah, you only got 3 units. So scrap a hero and get 3 demigryphs if you can

Re did it again, it's getting closer to the date I have to finalize what models I buy (currently have 30 halberds, 8 knights and a cannon. I can probably convert all three characters. Duke I think you will like this list more the war machine count is not too shabby IMO

Captain
BSB, Full plate, shield, Dragonhelm, Dawnstone

Master Engineer

Warrior priest
Full plate, enchanted shield

Halberdiers (with the warrior priest and bee es bee)
28 bodies, full command

Knightly orders
5 bodies, run naked as redirector units (could use some explanation on how to use chaff tho)

3 demigryphs
Musician
For flank charging units the knights hold up and general hard hitting power

Great cannon
And...
Hell blaster
Which both are babysat by the engineer.


I felt I had too many points invested into the wizard for anything else in my army to be effective, especially if he was only going to be buffing some halberdiers. I think the artillery base gives me a lot more power and the Demi gryphs can finish something off that has been blasted by the artillery. The knightly orders can run around and charge something that I don't want hitting my halberd block. My questions are: can an army without a battle Izard lord be strong? Should the halberd be in hord form or 5x6 for steadfast? And I have heard about the knights used as chaff, but when exactly would you charge a unit with them? (I sort of understand what chaff is for but don't really know when to use it.)

I would go with what you have, as later they will be great for 2k+ on thise side of one important note,

1) engineer can only babbysit one WM per turn (choose before you shoot)


So IMO I would swap helblaster for a mortor, drop engineer (as the mortor and cannon don't blow up often) and spend the points on a lvl1 wizard of beasts, reason why is the signiture spell is broken on basic empire troops.

Either way Good Luck and hope you win!