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Hello!

I'm planning on starting an Empire army with the focus of having plenty of units to beat down Orcs and Skaven? What would be my best choice in terms of Lord, Core, special and Rare? Thanks!

Not exactly sure but I played against one guy that had played for decades and against my skaven he took lots of handgunners as sort of a secondary unit to his main unit (name escapes me right now). Basically the way it works is whenever you charge the main they all stand and shoot for their parent unit and if I remember correctly they can do it without negative modifier for stand and shoot. It can potentially be very nasty. I never knew they could do that.

As for other good units I don't think you have to try too hard to have good units against skaven. You already have war machines which are good vs. skaven large targets. If that fails to work you have pistoliers which should easily handle some things on the flanks and harass.

If skaven take a grey seer on a screaming bell it's probably their general and you can do the d*ck move of shooting a cannonball into it until you snipe the grey seer off the screaming bell. Since it works as a form of line template it hits both the bell and the grey seer. All the grey seer has is 3 wounds and a 4+ ward save. That's the best he can get against a cannonball. It should only take a couple shots and wounding him should be easy. You're only really hoping the ward save fails and you have a 2/3 chance of auto killing the grey seer when you do wounds to it. Suddenly your skaven opponent has no magic and no general and that's quite a big deal for skaven. I'd probably hate you for it too if you did it to me.

Steam tanks in general are also pretty annoying to face. So much armor and so much high toughness. Unless you cracks call it, somehow use the fellblade on it or use warp lightning cannons with a rare chance of doomwheels working then those things will just rampage. Skaven are better off just taking a large slave unit and swamping it down all day and empire can take 2 of these last I remembered. Such a ridiculous unit to face and it causes so much pain even without it's negative aspects. Yeesh I dunno how the abomination could ever get such a crazy load of notoriety with something like that in the competition.

Well, I play skaven so I can help you there. it really depends on how many war machines the skaven player has. generally Skaven infantry doesn't shoot, so if you can out range them good. remember that any unit good against hordes will do you wonders. cannons, mages, handgunners. Cavalry could also help you on the maneuverability side of things. I could help more, but i don't know the skaven list. Good luck.

I know its a week after the OP, but if you still want a little bit of advice,

Lords

balthazar gelt
any blender lord

Core
Halberds
Crossbow men
Handgunners
Swordsmen

Special
Mortars
Cannons
Demigriffs

Rare
Steam tanks
Helblaster volly guns
Light wagon
Comet wagon

I kind of thought mortars felt a bit weak. Aren't they only strength 2? I faced them and didn't fear too much. How are the hell storm rocket batteries?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I kind of thought mortars felt a bit weak. Aren't they only strength 2? I faced them and didn't fear too much. How are the hell storm rocket batteries?

mortors can be effective against t3 being they do wound on 5's and the fact that a large template can hit something like 35+ 20x20mm bases. Just doing that you can knock off 7-8 a shot generally getting at least 2 shots before combat begins cutting a 50man horde down to 35 or less before combat. So horde of state troops40-50 vs horde of clan rats 30-35 the state troops will win almost every time

Some things will dependent on what you are facing and your points. Also how you want to play
If the Skaven player wants to go with the big 'win button' they will have 1 or definitely 2 Hell Pit abominations.

If you want your big 'win button'...steam tanks.
Cannons are your best friend. Use them to take out heavy hitters....Doomwheels, abominations,

Greatswords with a regimental unit of halberdiers can hang out with any skaven tarpit with a good chance in the longer battles but be careful because they will almost always be outnumbered 2 to 1.

Put a naked engineer with your hellblaster for BS 4 and the reroll of an artillery.
Inner circle make a nice hammer wih good staying power on a flank.

Great swords with a warrior priest are not going anywhere.

Helblasters are your friends. As is lore of light.