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Made in us
Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator





I am looking to get into Warhammer Fantasy (Age of Sigmar does not interest me), and I am looking for a good army comp around 2k points. Can you guys recommend one?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/11 07:54:23


 
   
Made in us
Keeper of the Flame





Monticello, IN

Depends on the edition you are playing, certain things are more/less viable or simply don't exist in certain rulesets.

www.classichammer.com

For 4-6th WFB, 2-5th 40k, and similar timeframe gaming

Looking for dice from the new AOS boxed set and Dark Imperium on the cheap. Let me know if you can help.
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its AoS, it doesn't have to make sense.
 
   
Made in us
Ultramarine Librarian with Freaky Familiar





Southern California, USA

Block of state troops with halberds, 10 man groups of handgunners, a couple of life wizards, some warrior priests, archers and artillery. Usually hellblaster volley guys and cannons. Add a couple of steam tanks and demigryphs for flavor. \

If you are playing 8th.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/11 02:58:35


Thought for the day: Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
30k Ultramarines: 2000 pts
Bolt Action Germans: ~1200 pts
AOS Stormcast: Just starting.
The Empire : ~60-70 models.
1500 pts
: My Salamanders painting blog 16 Infantry and 2 Vehicles done so far!  
   
Made in us
Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator





I am using 8th edition,

 
   
Made in us
Keeper of the Flame





Monticello, IN

For 6th or 7th go with block of Spearmen or Swordsmen at 20 man + Full Command and a detachment of 10 Handgunners and 10 Halberdiers or Free Company. Maybe repeat that combo once or twice, add a Knight unit of 8-10 models with character in it. At least two wizards, but don't bother with lvl 4. Cannons don't do the damage that I feel justifies their cost, so a Mortar if you must war machine. Greatswords are a good hammer unit as well. And I wouldn't bother with a Griffon, unless you plan to double team in with the cav. Huntsmen would be a good option too.

Damn it, you typed while I was typing. Disregard, I guess, or try a game of 6th

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/11 03:11:56


www.classichammer.com

For 4-6th WFB, 2-5th 40k, and similar timeframe gaming

Looking for dice from the new AOS boxed set and Dark Imperium on the cheap. Let me know if you can help.
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its AoS, it doesn't have to make sense.
 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

Choose which province you want your soldiers from. Richer provinces deploy handgunners and halberdiers, pooer provinces deploy spearmen and crossbowmen, and the poorest deploy spearmen and archers.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in us
Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator





I am not really looking to make a fluffy army, I just want to win games.

 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

Army composition doesnt matter then. Methinks you dont know the lingo, 'composition' means building a themed or fair list, 'competitive' is the word you are looking for.

For Empire take:
Outriders
Demigryph knights
Cannon
Steam tank
Warpriests
Life, Light or Shadow wizard
Halberdiers
Greatswords
Crossbowmen


Avoid:
Mortars
non Inner Circle knights
longbows
Griffons

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in us
Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator





Can a composition be competitive?

 
   
Made in us
Keeper of the Flame





Monticello, IN

 Damikeis wrote:
Can a composition be competitive?


Sometimes. If you go with a Nuln army and spam tons of Handgunners, it is a fluffy list that will decimate lots of models. If you run a Savage Orc army, don't expect to be tearing up the win column.

www.classichammer.com

For 4-6th WFB, 2-5th 40k, and similar timeframe gaming

Looking for dice from the new AOS boxed set and Dark Imperium on the cheap. Let me know if you can help.
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its AoS, it doesn't have to make sense.
 
   
Made in us
Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator





That one guy said to avoid griffons, but I don't see what is so bad about them

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/13 01:11:38


 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

Griffon's can onlt be taken by lords, and it is very difficult to have a griffon rider who is not your general. Empire need their generals in the line and well protecgted as the core army is Ld7 and you will be taking break/steadfast checks as only rarely will you win outright.

Griffons have no armour and are not especially tough as ridden monsters go, too vulnerable for competitive use.

I still use griffons, because I want large monsters and this is the only one you can get, but I dont consider my list competitive.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in us
Kinebrach-Knobbling Xeno Interrogator





Ill most likely get a griffon just for Karl Franz.

 
   
Made in fi
Stalwart Veteran Guard Sergeant




[Expunged from Imperial records] =][=

I might be too late but here goes:

If you go with infantry blocks, learn the detachment rules and have at least 30 men in a parent unit. Also get a melee detachment of at least 15 men (w/ no upgrades). Consider a ranged detachment as well. Repeat as many times as you see fit. The goal is to have enough rank and file soldiers so that you can take casualties and still have the maximum rank bonus and the ability to negate the enemy unit's rank bonus. Ie., the goal is to win close combats with Combat Resolution. When you consider other choices for the army, remember this goal and support the blocks by warding them against psychology, magic and casualties. If you do your pre-battle math and table positions right, this can be scarily effective.

Warmachines are simply classic and almost a must. Cannons and Helblasters seem like best ones. Cannon has an insane range and is best used against big, scary targets, such as enemy warmachines and monsters. Helblaster is pure anti-infantry and really benefits from an Engineer (w/ no upgrades).

Do consider taking a couple of cheap (and fast!) throwaway units to harass the enemy and strike the soft targets. Huntsmen, small units of cavalry and a pegasus captain (w/ knight gear) can all pull this off.

Whatever you do, mind the point costs, especially when it comes to characters. Bells and whistles are hardly ever worth the troops you could buy instead. The upgrades you do buy should serve your overall game plan.

"Be like General Tarsus of yore, bulletproof and free of fear!" 
   
Made in es
Inspiring Icon Bearer





While halberdiers are nothing to sneeze at, Empire excels at all-cav.

You have 1+ knights in core, make use of them. Spend all your specials in DGK and a hurricanum and go double steam tank (can't remember right now if it was possible at 2K, it definitely was at 2,5K).

Basically:
1 big-ish unit of IC knights, with characters
smaller units of knights (and some archers) for support
1 or 2 units of DGK . Those can go on their own, covering flanks
2 steam tanks
1 hurricanum, positioned where you can make the most of his +1 to hit (basically behind the knight bus)
A lv4 with lore of life to get some Stank wounds back

So filthy it makes me puke, but tough as nails.

   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

All cavalry Empire works nicely, the key however are Outriders, and demis, not knights.

You need to hold a line somewhere though, cavalry-as-infantry works best with great weapons supported by a warrior priest. If you cant afford a bus of 5x4 don't try to squeeze your points, instead make them stubborn by one means or other. You wont get the 1+ but you will hit so much harder. Inner circle is nice, but not essential for great weapon knights, pay for it if you can but drop the upgrade is you have to. You shouldn't be facing anything you need S6 against, if you are you are likely taking on the wrong target.

Supporting knights should be all lancers including any demigryphs.
Consider taking a pegasus captain to hunt warmachines, as this army is especially vulnerable to artillery.

So long as you dont take too many demis and stick with just one tank nobody should have cause to complain though, mounted Empire can be a lot of fun for everyone, an unlike most cavalry armies you have a lot of variety built in, and many very different units to choose from, Empire are on par with Bretonnians for diversity of options for a mounted list.

If only there were still rules for the war wagon....

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon






Herefordshire

What about using archers as a movable shooting screen in front of an advancing spear block? X-bows and handguns hit harder but can't move and shoot plus archers are skirmishers so they are more resilient to enemy shooting.
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

Historical tactic, which doesn't translate well in Warhammer.
Keep your archers clear of your pike block, or you chaff yourself.

Pistoliers make for better chaff also as they are multi use.

Also unless you are using an unusual list Empire should be the one with the ranged advantage.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon






Herefordshire

 Orlanth wrote:
Historical tactic, which doesn't translate well in Warhammer.
Keep your archers clear of your pike block, or you chaff yourself.

Pistoliers make for better chaff also as they are multi use.

Also unless you are using an unusual list Empire should be the one with the ranged advantage.


I am not suggesting use them as chaff but as a screen to cover the advance of a spear block and as bait for enemies to charge it and then into the spears. The archers can plink away at enemies as the spears advance while giving the spears a to-hit penalty for enemy shooting whilst also themselves having the skirmisher hit penalty. If an enemy charges the archers then good they declare a flee reaction and let them run through the spears to the otherside. Okay there is a risk here of panicking the spears but if they are within 12" of general and BSB they have a good chance of making that. If the enemy charger fails their leadership test they'll go piling into your prickly tarpit just exactly as you want them too. Even if they pass what else are they going to do but redirect into the spears or do nothing and let the spears charge them next turn. They could ignore the archers but that means soaking up their steady rain of fire while the spears get ever nearer unopposed.

X-bows & gunners can shoot well but archers can screen as well as shoot (+ they are cheaper). Gunlines are a little dull, I am making a dwarf list which is a maximised gunline (literally everything can shoot and almost everything does so by sitting at the back shooting without moving gunline style) if I do an empire army as well I'll want do something more dynamic. By my theory hammer it should work pretty well.

Pistoliers are not skirmishers and cost quite a lot per dude, they could screen but they are more vulnerable to enemy shooting.

Do you advance with your melee blocks or leave them at the back baby sitting guns or xbows?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/11/07 21:58:30


 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

 SolarCross wrote:

I am not suggesting use them as chaff but as a screen to cover the advance of a spear block and as bait for enemies to charge it and then into the spears.


Ok, if you screen your spears with archers you chaff your own unit. Archers likely wont have a damage output high enough to worry the opponent much, far less than a spear block. The opponent and ignore the archers and on your next turn you cant charge your spears because your own archers are in the way. You must declare charges first. You could charge in the archers as well and order the charges so the archers unveil the spearmen but the archers might damage your combat res, or if fighting separately lose on your turn and enable an opponent overrun on your turn which can set up a charge on the opponents following turn.
The other way this can play out is that the opponent if up for it could charge the archers, destroy them then overrun into the spearmen, they can support with further charges on the next turn before facing the spearmen if they are a big enough threat as the screen is now gone. All you end up doing is denying yourself the turn of chaffing the screening troops normally buy you.

Now this can work but its situational. Frenzy baiting here works, you could bait witch elves into cheap screening troops and then onto a prepared anvil unit. However most frenzy baiting works by drawing frenzied troops away from the battle, not onto an anvil. Exceptions exist but rarely are spearmen qualifiers for this.



 SolarCross wrote:

The archers can plink away at enemies as the spears advance while giving the spears a to-hit penalty for enemy shooting whilst also themselves having the skirmisher hit penalty. If an enemy charges the archers then good they declare a flee reaction and let them run through the spears to the otherside. Okay there is a risk here of panicking the spears but if they are within 12" of general and BSB they have a good chance of making that.


Ok you shouldnt offer up panic tests, there is a good reason my immune to psychology is a valued unit trait. Even a 10 or less rerollable test sometimes fails, If you are testing on Ld 8 or 9 or without the BSB the odds get worse.
Also this would be a bad time to find out the opponent has an item or upgrade that reduces leadership.

Still fleeing through your own troops is normally ok, that if you need to do it a backstop helps but don't purposely set yourself up that way as a strategem. It's also not just your spearmen you have to consider, your fleeing troops can get within 4" of a warmachine and panic that. A cannon that fails a panic test cant fire for two turns minimum, one to run away, one to run back.

 SolarCross wrote:

If the enemy charger fails their leadership test they'll go piling into your prickly tarpit just exactly as you want them too. Even if they pass what else are they going to do but redirect into the spears or do nothing and let the spears charge them next turn. They could ignore the archers but that means soaking up their steady rain of fire while the spears get ever nearer unopposed.


I will assume for sake of argument that by 'spearmen' you mean a solid dangerous combat block. And yes, spearmen can qualify if they have a warpriest, spell support, buff wagons and are in the command bubble.

 SolarCross wrote:

X-bows & gunners can shoot well but archers can screen as well as shoot (+ they are cheaper). Gunlines are a little dull, I am making a dwarf list which is a maximised gunline (literally everything can shoot and almost everything does so by sitting at the back shooting without moving gunline style) if I do an empire army as well I'll want do something more dynamic. By my theory hammer it should work pretty well. Pistoliers are not skirmishers and cost quite a lot per dude, they could screen but they are more vulnerable to enemy shooting.


Archers are better for screening not just because of skirmish but because of move and fire. However consider Pistoliers instead, pistols give you the punch you want with the mobility. You can screen with detachments, those most cant or wont be able to shoot.
9th Age fixes things by allowing pistol upgrades for Free Company Militia, so you can deploy them just as Total War: Warhammer does them. The actual old models had some pistols anyway. I think you will like pistol militia.

Your dwarf concept army is interesting, but it will help you paint yourself into a corner with regards to unit election. Dawi are a fairly static army anyway, so denying you some of the option in your theme may make your army unfun to play, good for a gimic but then what?

Empire can do anything you want them to except monster(ous infantry) mash. Skirmish it not their strong point, but Empire fast cav options certainly qualify as annoying hard to catch shooting things.


 SolarCross wrote:

Do you advance with your melee blocks or leave them at the back baby sitting guns or xbows?


Perhaps you are asking the wrong question.

This tallies with your concern for incoming fire. Pistoliers and archers get shot at, its part of life. If that concerns you have a bigger target. Most armies can have anti chaff shooting, but few armies have shooting that can significantly damage a main combat line. Empire can do that.
also don't overestimate the survivability of skirmishers, if you are skirmishing and are at -1 to be shot at, and your skirmishers are being annoying enough to be a target then they are likely in short range, and other following things are likely not. Yes the -1 will still help, but it wont deter fire, and fire will be of sufficient volume to panic your skirmishers unless you get very lucky. Skirmishers get shot, accept it.
Now pistoliers and outriders can move fast enough to possibly escape fire arcs of defending units, positional play from fast movement might give you more protection than the static -1 from the rules.
Outriders are a particular case in point as they are expensive, but then they aren't chaff, but each outrider is effectively three BS3 handgunners with bonus mobility and protection, they are even competitive for the price. So long as you maintain the initiative in the gunnery battle, and thus don't let them get shot to bits a unit of outriders can put down a lot of firepower.

With Empire you get enough rope to hang yourself, lots of good troops, but can you combine them into an army effectively. Do you have a static main block with lots of ranged troops or a more mobile main block of infantry, or cavalry with more modest ranged support. You have to know how you have built your army before you can decide whether to move forwards or stay still.
Next you need to look at what your opponent is playing, if its Khornate you have less need to push forwards, if Dwarfs probably more; and even that is not certain until you know the scenario objectives if any.

What you need to know in abstract is not whether to advance or hold with your infantry but whether you effectively can. Unlike your opponent and the scenario mission which are odd factors this you can influence.
Sometimes you must advance to win the game and purely defensive armies can struggle here. Having one token unit of knights in a static gun line with infantry support isn't enough. That is a reasonable concept for an Empire list and looks goo, but a single fast attacker is better as a counter charge unit than a true offensive arm. If you are forced onto the attack you will need more.

Empire can make itself strong in most categories, heavy cavalry, infantry line, gun line, magic or anti magic. You can skirmish and play a denial game too but only with specific builds and even those can't compete well with pro-skirmish factions. You will need just enough of a mix of your chosen speciality vs everything else to be able to compete in any given objective. If you have to hold the line and have a cavalry army, did you spare enough points to bring a halberdier block and a Hellblaster to hold out while your cavalry disrupts the advance and reduces the incoming threat to something manageable. If you have to take the hill and you have a gunline, will your limited cavalry and infantry blocks be able to work together to move forward without leaving your artillery as easy pickings.
Get the balance right. You could take a bit of everything and rely on moving characters to boost performance where needed, you could find which units have multiple roles. For example Knights of the White Wolf can blend into a cavalry army, but if your cavalry needs to hold they can become S5 "infantry" with a 2+ save reasonably enough, if you gave them a couple of ranks and a standard. Greatswords are a premier defensive unit and slow, but with Shadows wizard you can better play the mobility game with them, up to a point.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/07 23:31:04


n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon






Herefordshire

 Orlanth wrote:
 SolarCross wrote:

I am not suggesting use them as chaff but as a screen to cover the advance of a spear block and as bait for enemies to charge it and then into the spears.


Ok, if you screen your spears with archers you chaff your own unit. Archers likely wont have a damage output high enough to worry the opponent much, far less than a spear block. The opponent and ignore the archers and on your next turn you cant charge your spears because your own archers are in the way. You must declare charges first. You could charge in the archers as well and order the charges so the archers unveil the spearmen but the archers might damage your combat res, or if fighting separately lose on your turn and enable an opponent overrun on your turn which can set up a charge on the opponents following turn.
The other way this can play out is that the opponent if up for it could charge the archers, destroy them then overrun into the spearmen, they can support with further charges on the next turn before facing the spearmen if they are a big enough threat as the screen is now gone. All you end up doing is denying yourself the turn of chaffing the screening troops normally buy you.

Now this can work but its situational. Frenzy baiting here works, you could bait witch elves into cheap screening troops and then onto a prepared anvil unit. However most frenzy baiting works by drawing frenzied troops away from the battle, not onto an anvil. Exceptions exist but rarely are spearmen qualifiers for this.

Ok as far as chaffing myself goes that is a bit awkward in the circumstance where the archers are not charged, and so can't flee out of the way, as they will have to move out of the way in remaining moves which comes after charges can be declared just as you point out. So they would have to move out of the way and then the spears would have wait until their next turn before declaring a charge, giving the opponent a window of opportunity to charge first and / or shoot up the sprears. Spears are a little stronger at receiving a charge than delivering it due to the Fight in Extra Ranks rule's small print so that is actually kind of what we want the enemy to do, so the main concern there is that they would have to tank a round of shooting without a -2 to-hit penalty but if they hadn't taken an archer screen they would have to potentially do that for many turns instead of just one.

 Orlanth wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

The archers can plink away at enemies as the spears advance while giving the spears a to-hit penalty for enemy shooting whilst also themselves having the skirmisher hit penalty. If an enemy charges the archers then good they declare a flee reaction and let them run through the spears to the otherside. Okay there is a risk here of panicking the spears but if they are within 12" of general and BSB they have a good chance of making that.


Ok you shouldnt offer up panic tests, there is a good reason my immune to psychology is a valued unit trait. Even a 10 or less rerollable test sometimes fails, If you are testing on Ld 8 or 9 or without the BSB the odds get worse.
Also this would be a bad time to find out the opponent has an item or upgrade that reduces leadership.

Still fleeing through your own troops is normally ok, that if you need to do it a backstop helps but don't purposely set yourself up that way as a strategem. It's also not just your spearmen you have to consider, your fleeing troops can get within 4" of a warmachine and panic that. A cannon that fails a panic test cant fire for two turns minimum, one to run away, one to run back.

Yeah it's not ideal but the upside to the risk of panicking the spear block is that the archer unit will certainly escape being caught and destroyed and will probably rally later. Even in the event that the spear block fails its panic test it should still be far enough away from whatever charged the archers to avoid being overrun and will probably rally later. If the enemy that had attempted to charge the archers tried to redirect to the now fleeing spears then it will probably fail to connect and so be out of position which may present opportunities in itself. The risk of panicking backfield units like warmachines can be mitigated by thoughtful deployment.

 Orlanth wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

If the enemy charger fails their leadership test they'll go piling into your prickly tarpit just exactly as you want them too. Even if they pass what else are they going to do but redirect into the spears or do nothing and let the spears charge them next turn. They could ignore the archers but that means soaking up their steady rain of fire while the spears get ever nearer unopposed.


I will assume for sake of argument that by 'spearmen' you mean a solid dangerous combat block. And yes, spearmen can qualify if they have a warpriest, spell support, buff wagons and are in the command bubble.

Provisionally I was thinking they would have an empire captain and be within 6" of the luminark of hyrsh (with a wizard) for a 6+ ward save (also medieval lazer guns are fun). Not super dangerous but dangerous enough depending on the opponent. I haven't thought about priests, i've ingnored them so far because I am prejudiced against fundies.

 Orlanth wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

X-bows & gunners can shoot well but archers can screen as well as shoot (+ they are cheaper). Gunlines are a little dull, I am making a dwarf list which is a maximised gunline (literally everything can shoot and almost everything does so by sitting at the back shooting without moving gunline style) if I do an empire army as well I'll want do something more dynamic. By my theory hammer it should work pretty well. Pistoliers are not skirmishers and cost quite a lot per dude, they could screen but they are more vulnerable to enemy shooting.


Archers are better for screening not just because of skirmish but because of move and fire. However consider Pistoliers instead, pistols give you the punch you want with the mobility. You can screen with detachments, those most cant or wont be able to shoot.
9th Age fixes things by allowing pistol upgrades for Free Company Militia, so you can deploy them just as Total War: Warhammer does them. The actual old models had some pistols anyway. I think you will like pistol militia.

Pistoliers are 18pts each that's the same as nearly 3 archers (7pts each).. For screening purposes pistoliers are a lot less resilient and expendable. Skirmishers are mobile enough but the main job of a screen is not to be highly mobile as they only have to fast enough to keep pace with what they are screening but to render enemy shooting relatively inefficient, skirmisher archers can do that very well, better than anything else in the book actually. I would take pistoliers they are pretty cool but I would'nt take then instead of archers to screen but as well as archers for other purposes for which they are better suited.
 Orlanth wrote:

Your dwarf concept army is interesting, but it will help you paint yourself into a corner with regards to unit election. Dawi are a fairly static army anyway, so denying you some of the option in your theme may make your army unfun to play, good for a gimic but then what?

My dwarf list is optimised for very strong shooting and because most dwarf shooting is move or fire, static gunlines are how it must be. This list does feature up to 3 gyrocopters though so it has some mobility, it may also include dwarf rangers which are scouts in addition to having xbows. The game for the list would all be in deployment and target selection, that could get a bit dull after while but I wouldn't call it a gimmick but rather a theme or a focused strategy.

 Orlanth wrote:

Empire can do anything you want them to except monster(ous infantry) mash. Skirmish it not their strong point, but Empire fast cav options certainly qualify as annoying hard to catch shooting things.

I see Empire as a natural combined arms faction, with a diversity of relatively specialised units working together in a mutually supporting synergy. They aren't wood elves so yeah full throttle skirmishing is not right for them but I wasn't suggesting that, I am considering skirmishing as a small element in a wider combined arms strategy. In total I am looking to spend at most 280 pts for 40 archers, (that would be 2 units of 20 each with each one screening a spear block of 40) which would otherwise buy me 31 xbows or guns. The archer spear combo is a combined arms synergy. The spears are vulnerable to shooting but relatively strong in combat (well at least they have lots of attacks and CR from ranks) and the archers are vulnerable to combat but relatively resilient to enemy shooting. Together they can cover each other's weaknesses. My message is that maybe, just maybe, the humble empire archer is an under-appreaciated unit in favour of the more static xbows and gunners and that viable strategies can be made with archers too.

 Orlanth wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

Do you advance with your melee blocks or leave them at the back baby sitting guns or xbows?


Perhaps you are asking the wrong question.

This tallies with your concern for incoming fire. Pistoliers and archers get shot at, its part of life. If that concerns you have a bigger target. Most armies can have anti chaff shooting, but few armies have shooting that can significantly damage a main combat line. Empire can do that.
also don't overestimate the survivability of skirmishers, if you are skirmishing and are at -1 to be shot at, and your skirmishers are being annoying enough to be a target then they are likely in short range, and other following things are likely not. Yes the -1 will still help, but it wont deter fire, and fire will be of sufficient volume to panic your skirmishers unless you get very lucky. Skirmishers get shot, accept it.
Now pistoliers and outriders can move fast enough to possibly escape fire arcs of defending units, positional play from fast movement might give you more protection than the static -1 from the rules.
Outriders are a particular case in point as they are expensive, but then they aren't chaff, but each outrider is effectively three BS3 handgunners with bonus mobility and protection, they are even competitive for the price. So long as you maintain the initiative in the gunnery battle, and thus don't let them get shot to bits a unit of outriders can put down a lot of firepower.

With Empire you get enough rope to hang yourself, lots of good troops, but can you combine them into an army effectively. Do you have a static main block with lots of ranged troops or a more mobile main block of infantry, or cavalry with more modest ranged support. You have to know how you have built your army before you can decide whether to move forwards or stay still.
Next you need to look at what your opponent is playing, if its Khornate you have less need to push forwards, if Dwarfs probably more; and even that is not certain until you know the scenario objectives if any.

What you need to know in abstract is not whether to advance or hold with your infantry but whether you effectively can. Unlike your opponent and the scenario mission which are odd factors this you can influence.
Sometimes you must advance to win the game and purely defensive armies can struggle here. Having one token unit of knights in a static gun line with infantry support isn't enough. That is a reasonable concept for an Empire list and looks goo, but a single fast attacker is better as a counter charge unit than a true offensive arm. If you are forced onto the attack you will need more.

Empire can make itself strong in most categories, heavy cavalry, infantry line, gun line, magic or anti magic. You can skirmish and play a denial game too but only with specific builds and even those can't compete well with pro-skirmish factions. You will need just enough of a mix of your chosen speciality vs everything else to be able to compete in any given objective. If you have to hold the line and have a cavalry army, did you spare enough points to bring a halberdier block and a Hellblaster to hold out while your cavalry disrupts the advance and reduces the incoming threat to something manageable. If you have to take the hill and you have a gunline, will your limited cavalry and infantry blocks be able to work together to move forward without leaving your artillery as easy pickings.
Get the balance right. You could take a bit of everything and rely on moving characters to boost performance where needed, you could find which units have multiple roles. For example Knights of the White Wolf can blend into a cavalry army, but if your cavalry needs to hold they can become S5 "infantry" with a 2+ save reasonably enough, if you gave them a couple of ranks and a standard. Greatswords are a premier defensive unit and slow, but with Shadows wizard you can better play the mobility game with them, up to a point.


Oh I am happy for the enemy to shoot the skirmishers, that is part of a screen's job after all. They have a -1 to-hit for being skirmishers and convey a -2 to-hit to the unit they are screening, whichever the enemy targets you are doing okay.

On advancing.. that is the point of the skirmisher-spear combo as compared with a xbow / gunner oreintated list, it has the flexiblity to advance where that is advantageous as it would be against a dwarf gunline or to bunker up in the back field against the aggressively advancing khornate army. The static gunline can only shoot it out, whatever comes its way. Against another gunline it is a coin toss as to who can win the attrition. Against the charging axe maniacs its a coin toss as to how much can be shot off the table before reaching the lines. Whatever you face you have to do pretty much the same thing either way.

This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2017/11/08 02:06:00


 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

 SolarCross wrote:

Ok as far as chaffing myself, that is a bit awkward in the circumstance where the archers are not charged, and so can't flee out of the way, as they will have to move out of the way in remaining moves which comes after charges can be declared just as you point out. So they would have to move out of the way and then the spears would have wait until their next turn before declaring a charge, giving the opponent a window of opportunity to charge first and / or shoot up the sprears. Spears are a little stronger at receiving a charge than delivering it due to the Fight in Extra Ranks rule's small print so that is actually kind of what we want the enemy to do, so the main concern there is that they would have to tank a round of shooting without a -2 to-hit penalty but if they hadn't taken an archer screen they would have to potentially do that for many turns instead of just one.


Don't sweat shooting at spears, most shooting is fairly low volume by price, if your spearblock is big enough itcan take the hits. Magic can be problematic as there are too many spells that make veveryone in the unit save or die. There is no way around that except dispels, and if your opponent is forced to target big spells at units as lowly as spearmen you are doing something right.
The loss of a turn of effective movement by the spearmen however it crucial for other reasons.

 SolarCross wrote:

Yeah it's not ideal but the upside to the risk of panicking the spear block is that the archer unit will certainly escape being caught and destroyed and will probably rally later. Even in the event that the spear block fails its panic test it should still be far enough away from whatever charged the archers to avoid being overrun and will probably rally later. If the enemy that had attempted to charge the archers tried to redirect to the now fleeing spears then it will probably fail to connect and so be out of position which may present opportunities in itself. The risk of panicking backfield units like warmachines can be mitigated by thoughtful deployment.


Sure try and save the archers if you can but flee them to the flank, if the opponent has to pursue then they will be way out of position.
Another use for screening troops is to get right in the face of the enemy, preferably blocking several units. Force them to take a one inch charge, or do nothing. If the unit is weedy enough, and mimumum archers are fine for this, and the opponent killy enough the archers die outright with nowhere for the opponent to pursue to. You lose the archers but a powerful enemy or two might only progress a few inches. Generally speaking you need faster troops than archers for this.

As for fleeing through your own lines as a strategy, you have the wrong army for that. It works, very well actually, if your skin is filthy and green. Orcs ignore goblin panic so its a good idea to have a front row of goblin troops to absorb damage, keep them over 4" apart. Gobbos can flee through the orc units, the orcs laugh at their pain and fear, and the gobbos get to rally after on the generals leadership. It can all happen nice and tight yet bothering nobody. Just be careful with any artillery as they are considered goblin units unless you pay extra to make them orcs.
Bretonnian peasants have similar characteristics, but they rarely get in front of the knights for this to happen.

 SolarCross wrote:

Provisionally I was thinking they would have an empire captain and be within 6" of the luminark of hyrsh (with a wizard) for a 6+ ward save (also medieval lazer guns are fun). Not super dangerous but dangerous enough depending on the opponent. I haven't thought about priests, i've ingnored them so far because I am prejudiced against fundies.


Luminark is a nice model but suffers for being overshadowed by the Hurricanum. A 6++ doesn't go far, +1 to hit however is powerful. The Hurricanum and War Altar are commonly labeled 'buff wagons', though for Warhammer 'augment wagons' is more appropriate.
Besides fantasy lasers are cool, but ramming foes with your combat astrolabe has the right balance of arcane madness and plain insanity.


 SolarCross wrote:

Pistoliers are 18pts each that's the same as nearly 3 archers (7pts each).. For screening purposes pistoliers are a lot less resilient and expendable. Skirmishers are mobile enough but the main job of a screen is not to be highly mobile as they only have to fast enough to keep pace with what they are screening but to render enemy shooting relatively inefficient, skirmisher archers can do that very well, better than anything else in the book actually. I would take pistoliers they are pretty cool but I would'nt take then instead of archers to screen but as well as archers for other purposes for which they are better suited.


I can go with that, but its still a waste. The problem of the archers getting in the way of the charge remains. You could move the archers aside the turn before you intend to charge, your spearmen will take a full turns shooting if that is what the threat is. However in practice the archers moving aside will probably gum up supporting units. Chaos warriors can advance into the enemy unsupported and beat things up, Empire troops don't have the same punch, not even Greatswords.

Besides if you screen you screen, the trouble with this is like any other case of selective defence when the opponent has a choice of target. Shoot something else. Shoot your crossbowmen, shoot your archers if you have nothing else. Ultimately this only works if you screen everything worth shooting at.

 SolarCross wrote:

My dwarf list is optimised for very strong shooting and because most dwarf shooting is move or fire, static gunlines are how it must be. This list does feature up to 3 gyrocopters though so it has some mobility. The game for the list would all be in deployment and target selection, that could get a bit dull after while but I wouldn't call it a gimmick but rather a theme or a focused strategy.


Dwarf aircorps units are not mobility, they are anti-artillery. Mobility involves taking and holding objective territory or removing steadfast from the flank.


 SolarCross wrote:

I see Empire as a natural combined arms faction, with a diversity of relatively specialised units working together in a mutually supporting synergy. They aren't wood elves so yeah full throttle skirmishing is not right for them but I wasn't suggesting that, I am considering skirmishing as a small element in a wider combined arms strategy. In total I am looking to spend at most 280 pts for 40 archers, which would otherwise buy me 31 xbows or guns. The archer spear combo is a combined arms synergy. The spears are vulnerable to shooting but relatively strong in combat (well at least they have lots of attacks and CR from ranks) and the archers are vulnerable to combat but relatively resilient to enemy shooting. Together they can cover each other's weaknesses. My message is that maybe, just maybe, the humble empire archer is an under-appreaciated unit in favour of the more static xbows and gunners and that viable strategies can be made with archers too.


A cloud of forty skirmishers may be relatively cheap but its fragile, first when one it hit they are likely to panic each other. Second crucially the enemy might send worthless units of their own to melee them without effect. Swarms, gnoblars or goblin heroes will be good for this. If your archers can be tied up ineffectively in combat they then become a screen against you. It neutralised their shooting and create blindspots for your artillery and crossbows.

What you can do is make the archers detachments for the line troops. Sadly archers do not confer skirmishing when taken as parenting units, but archers can get stubborn from greatswords. A small unit of archers advancing as a rough column alongside greatswords can all shoot as they are skirmishing, provide anti shooting protection from the flank, and if charged rank up alongside the greatswords and are stubborn so they will likely hold long enough for you to do something about it. Detachments for the spearmen have similar effect, but without stubborn. Though if stubborn is aquired via a character it does transfer. You would need only two units of flanking archers unless you want to deploy the units far enough away from each other, in which case two small units per block.

However these units should be small so not to get in your way, and only screen against flanking shots for most of the advance.

 SolarCross wrote:

Oh I am happy for the enemy to shoot the skirmishers, that is part of a screen's job after all. They have a -1 to-hit for being skirmishers and convey a -2 to-hit to the unit they are screening, whichever the enemy targets you are doing okay.

On advancing.. that is the point of the skirmisher-spear combo as compared with a xbow / gunner oreintated list, it has the flexiblity to advance where that is advantageous as it would be against a dwarf gunline or to bunker up in the back field against the aggressively advancing khornate army. The static gunline can only shoot it out, whatever comes its way. Against another gunline it is a coin toss as to who can win the attrition. Against the charging axe maniacs its a coin toss as to how much can be shot off the table before reaching the lines. Whatever you face you have to do pretty much the same thing either way.


Ok S3 shooting is not going to wow anyone, S3 poking is not much better. Empire are nasty because the bulk of the work is done at S4. Crossbows, handguns and halberds. With yet higher strength for specialist work. I like spears and think they are underated, they have a volume of close combat attacks plus a workable save that allows them to hold until relieved or maybe even prevail against basic troops. But that is thier role. Empire armies cant shoot everything to bits, they have to let some attackers through, and weaker attackers can get matched by cheap spearmen. You still need your elites to counter their elite, and your elite will need quality shooting to soften up the enemy so they can be dealt with. Greatswords can defeat chaos warriors or saurus, but only after cannon have tenderised them. A drizzle of bowfire doesnt cut it.

Look at the Bretonnians as an example, their archers are even cheaper, have better bows and are identical when it comes to quality of bowfire. Breton armies can take massed longbows because they dont have access to anything better, and while their stone thrower is superior due t a quirk in the rules Bretonnian shooting is unreliable due to S3.
i have twice as many longbows as you are planning for archers, two units of thirty with a skirmishing unit of eleven. I bought twenty more on ebay recently but have yet to a paint them. That is impressive by even wood elf standards, but they still only tickle at S3. I am under no illusions that a Breton bowline can stop the enemy, it always comes down to the knights.

Archers and spears can make a great themed Empire list, poorer provinces like Stirland and Nordland favour both those weapons due to cost. But Stirlanders cant fight their way out of brothel and time and again rely on Nuln and their black powder weapons to save them from horrible things.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in gb
Furious Fire Dragon






Herefordshire

 Orlanth wrote:
 SolarCross wrote:

Ok as far as chaffing myself, that is a bit awkward in the circumstance where the archers are not charged, and so can't flee out of the way, as they will have to move out of the way in remaining moves which comes after charges can be declared just as you point out. So they would have to move out of the way and then the spears would have wait until their next turn before declaring a charge, giving the opponent a window of opportunity to charge first and / or shoot up the sprears. Spears are a little stronger at receiving a charge than delivering it due to the Fight in Extra Ranks rule's small print so that is actually kind of what we want the enemy to do, so the main concern there is that they would have to tank a round of shooting without a -2 to-hit penalty but if they hadn't taken an archer screen they would have to potentially do that for many turns instead of just one.


Don't sweat shooting at spears, most shooting is fairly low volume by price, if your spearblock is big enough itcan take the hits. Magic can be problematic as there are too many spells that make veveryone in the unit save or die. There is no way around that except dispels, and if your opponent is forced to target big spells at units as lowly as spearmen you are doing something right.
The loss of a turn of effective movement by the spearmen however it crucial for other reasons.

It can take hits by buying extra dudes who will do nothing except die on the way to the fight, which means the unscreened spear block has to be bigger than the screened one and so more expensive which is more point eggs in one basket making the unscreened spear block more vulnerable to spell damage. Which is more MSU a 25 man spear block + a 12 man archer detachment or a 40 spear block on its own that will be whittled down to 25 by the time it gets to the front line?

Actually there need not be a loss of turn of movement for the spears, they can still move even march after the screen moves away, they just can't charge until their next turn. Picture it this way: the archers ( 2 ranks skirmisher formation) start in front of the spears they march together up to the mid table or until just at the edge of charge range of the enemy, then the archers free reform into a 2 file column pointing to the flank, march 8", then make another free reform back into a 2 rank line (or whatever else is suitable a the time). That is equivalent to an 8" side step and enough to clear the front of a 5 file spear block. Then the spears can make their march or move (forward presumably). Once one gets to mid-table then much of the enemy shooting may be coming from the flank rather than the front anyway so the archer's could still be providing effective screening even when no longer blocking the spears charge.

 Orlanth wrote:

Luminark is a nice model but suffers for being overshadowed by the Hurricanum. A 6++ doesn't go far, +1 to hit however is powerful. The Hurricanum and War Altar are commonly labeled 'buff wagons', though for Warhammer 'augment wagons' is more appropriate.
Besides fantasy lasers are cool, but ramming foes with your combat astrolabe has the right balance of arcane madness and plain insanity.

The Hurricanum has a better buff granted but the Hyrsh Lazer Gun is stronger than the Hurricanum's drizzle maker. Also a strength 8 (d3 wound) flaming bolt thrower is more useful complement to the rest of my shooting, which apart from the Cannon, is pretty low strength if high volume. I'd want something for giving regeneration monsters a hard time.

 Orlanth wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

Pistoliers are 18pts each that's the same as nearly 3 archers (7pts each).. For screening purposes pistoliers are a lot less resilient and expendable. Skirmishers are mobile enough but the main job of a screen is not to be highly mobile as they only have to fast enough to keep pace with what they are screening but to render enemy shooting relatively inefficient, skirmisher archers can do that very well, better than anything else in the book actually. I would take pistoliers they are pretty cool but I would'nt take then instead of archers to screen but as well as archers for other purposes for which they are better suited.


I can go with that, but its still a waste. The problem of the archers getting in the way of the charge remains. You could move the archers aside the turn before you intend to charge, your spearmen will take a full turns shooting if that is what the threat is. However in practice the archers moving aside will probably gum up supporting units. Chaos warriors can advance into the enemy unsupported and beat things up, Empire troops don't have the same punch, not even Greatswords.

Besides if you screen you screen, the trouble with this is like any other case of selective defence when the opponent has a choice of target. Shoot something else. Shoot your crossbowmen, shoot your archers if you have nothing else. Ultimately this only works if you screen everything worth shooting at.

40 skirmishers in a single rank line skirmisher formation could screen an entire army. That's a 50 inch frontage, just over 4 feet. Annoy alpha strike shooters by giving everything in your army except the skirmishers themselves -2 to-hit penalty for the first turn in addition to long range.


 Orlanth wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

Oh I am happy for the enemy to shoot the skirmishers, that is part of a screen's job after all. They have a -1 to-hit for being skirmishers and convey a -2 to-hit to the unit they are screening, whichever the enemy targets you are doing okay.

On advancing.. that is the point of the skirmisher-spear combo as compared with a xbow / gunner oreintated list, it has the flexiblity to advance where that is advantageous as it would be against a dwarf gunline or to bunker up in the back field against the aggressively advancing khornate army. The static gunline can only shoot it out, whatever comes its way. Against another gunline it is a coin toss as to who can win the attrition. Against the charging axe maniacs its a coin toss as to how much can be shot off the table before reaching the lines. Whatever you face you have to do pretty much the same thing either way.


Ok S3 shooting is not going to wow anyone, S3 poking is not much better. Empire are nasty because the bulk of the work is done at S4. Crossbows, handguns and halberds. With yet higher strength for specialist work. I like spears and think they are underated, they have a volume of close combat attacks plus a workable save that allows them to hold until relieved or maybe even prevail against basic troops. But that is thier role. Empire armies cant shoot everything to bits, they have to let some attackers through, and weaker attackers can get matched by cheap spearmen. You still need your elites to counter their elite, and your elite will need quality shooting to soften up the enemy so they can be dealt with. Greatswords can defeat chaos warriors or saurus, but only after cannon have tenderised them. A drizzle of bowfire doesnt cut it.

Look at the Bretonnians as an example, their archers are even cheaper, have better bows and are identical when it comes to quality of bowfire. Breton armies can take massed longbows because they dont have access to anything better, and while their stone thrower is superior due t a quirk in the rules Bretonnian shooting is unreliable due to S3.
i have twice as many longbows as you are planning for archers, two units of thirty with a skirmishing unit of eleven. I bought twenty more on ebay recently but have yet to a paint them. That is impressive by even wood elf standards, but they still only tickle at S3. I am under no illusions that a Breton bowline can stop the enemy, it always comes down to the knights.

Archers and spears can make a great themed Empire list, poorer provinces like Stirland and Nordland favour both those weapons due to cost. But Stirlanders cant fight their way out of brothel and time and again rely on Nuln and their black powder weapons to save them from horrible things.


Sure high volume low strength shooting is not efficient against tough but pricey targets, but they can thin down cheap hordes. skaven slaves, gobbo blocks? I'll take a cannon and the hyrsh lazer gun for the trolls, giants and dragon mounted vampires, and loads of S3 for clearing out the swarms of pond scum.

Bretonnian bowmen are not really cheaper, well for just for S3 output yes they are a teeny bit, but they don't have skirmisher by default and to get it they must pay a point which makes them the same cost as a empire archer only with lower Ld and WS. They are similar units but their role is quite different by default. Empire archers are for skirmishing, for static gunlines the empire have xbows and gunners. By default bretonnian bowmen's role is the same as that of xbows and gunners in the empire, static gunlines (longbows, defensive stakes + volley fire), only by paying for skirmisher and losing defensive stakes do they become a comparable unit to the empire archer and then they are same cost.

-------

Going back to using archers to screen an infantry block, I just realised that while it has value a for spear block it is even more valuable for a halberd block. Halberds hit harder but cost a little more than spears while being no more durable. Halberds also benefit less from shields than spears do as they can't use them in combat only against enemy shooting. With the only use for a shield on a halberdier being to add resilience to enemy shooting it seems an eminently good deal to forgo the shields and buy skirmishers instead.

--------

On the fluff theme I was thinking of styling the Army as from Averland for mostly geographical reasons. I gather Averland is noted for its horse mainly, so I'd have some pistoliers / outriders and also knights in the mix. What else is fluffy for Averland?

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/11/08 12:32:44


 
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

 SolarCross wrote:

It can take hits by buying extra dudes who will do nothing except die on the way to the fight, which means the unscreened spear block has to be bigger than the screened one and so more expensive which is more point eggs in one basket making the unscreened spear block more vulnerable to spell damage. Which is more MSU a 25 man spear block + a 12 man archer detachment or a 40 spear block on its own that will be whittled down to 25 by the time it gets to the front line?


It takes a lot of shots to whittle down a block of spearmen with infantry missile weapons, a stone thrower will ignore your screen if it can see the target at all.
Also don't MSU Empire infantry, it doesnt work. Take big combat blocks.
As for your question a block of 40 is better because it wil more likely be steadfast, the casualties you predict might not happen, you might be defending or playing an opponent who decided to takle a melee army.

 SolarCross wrote:

Actually there need not be a loss of turn of movement for the spears, they can still move even march after the screen moves away, they just can't charge until their next turn.


If your spears job is to advance to combat the missing turn is crucial, the opponent might have moved out of the way by then.

Picture it this way: the archers ( 2 ranks skirmisher formation) start in front of the spears they march together up to the mid table or until just at the edge of charge range of the enemy, then the archers free reform into a 2 file column pointing to the flank, march 8", then make another free reform back into a 2 rank line (or whatever else is suitable a the time). That is equivalent to an 8" side step and enough to clear the front of a 5 file spear block. Then the spears can make their march or move (forward presumably). Once one gets to mid-table then much of the enemy shooting may be coming from the flank rather than the front anyway so the archer's could still be providing effective screening even when no longer blocking the spears charge.


 SolarCross wrote:

The Hurricanum has a better buff granted but the Hyrsh Lazer Gun is stronger than the Hurricanum's drizzle maker. Also a strength 8 (d3 wound) flaming bolt thrower is more useful complement to the rest of my shooting, which apart from the Cannon, is pretty low strength if high volume. I'd want something for giving regeneration monsters a hard time.


You cant dispel a bolt thrower, and it eats power dice. Bound spells can be useful but are situational. The Hurricanum is not there for the bound spell but the +1 to hit augment.


 SolarCross wrote:

40 skirmishers in a single rank line skirmisher formation could screen an entire army. That's a 50 inch frontage, just over 4 feet. Annoy alpha strike shooters by giving everything in your army except the skirmishers themselves -2 to-hit penalty for the first turn in addition to long range.


I have seen this before and it is risky. Your skirmishers are in how many units? If a few large units charge them with light cav, they will need to form up, screen dispersed. If several small units do same locally but better yet rout or panic one by any means, a magic missile spell works as it ignores the target penalties. Screens like that often extend beyond the command radius. Panic them away.


 SolarCross wrote:

Sure high volume low strength shooting is not efficient against tough but pricey targets, but they can thin down cheap hordes. skaven slaves, gobbo blocks? I'll take a cannon and the hyrsh lazer gun for the trolls, giants and dragon mounted vampires, and loads of S3 for clearing out the swarms of pond scum.


Except that likely doesnt work. To generate a kill on a goblin you need two attempts to wound, assuming it has no save. Each attempt to wound requires three attempts to hit at long range, two at short. So it takes 4-6 archers to kill one unarmoured goblin. Rounding up your forty archers will kill ten goblins a turn, very likely less, that is only 30pts of gobbos a turn, being generous. You arent going to stop them with bowfire.

 SolarCross wrote:

Bretonnian bowmen are not really cheaper, well for just for S3 output yes they are a teeny bit, but they don't have skirmisher by default and to get it they must pay a point which makes them the same cost as a empire archer only with lower Ld and WS. They are similar units but their role is quite different by default. Empire archers are for skirmishing, for static gunlines the empire have xbows and gunners. By default bretonnian bowmen's role is the same as that of xbows and gunners in the empire, static gunlines (longbows, defensive stakes + volley fire), only by paying for skirmisher and losing defensive stakes do they become a comparable unit to the empire archer and then they are same cost.


My point is that even with lots of S3 bowfire you cant expect much.

 SolarCross wrote:

Going back to using archers to screen an infantry block, I just realised that while it has value a for spear block it is even more valuable for a halberd block. Halberds hit harder but cost a little more than spears while being no more durable. Halberds also benefit less from shields than spears do as they can't use them in combat only against enemy shooting. With the only use for a shield on a halberdier being to add resilience to enemy shooting it seems an eminently good deal to forgo the shields and buy skirmishers instead.


Just buy more infantry. Infantry heavy Empire are a horde army


 SolarCross wrote:

On the fluff theme I was thinking of styling the Army as from Averland for mostly geographical reasons. I gather Averland is noted for its horse mainly, so I'd have some pistoliers / outriders and also knights in the mix. What else is fluffy for Averland?


Averland is in the south, bordering Stirland and Wissenland, Its not an interior province due to Black Fire pass. If fluff means enough to you take a coastal province so dark elves and chaos can come calling.
You need not think on it much armies can march for central defence.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
 
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