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I'm in the process of getting my Empire army assembled for ClassicHammer Fantasy 6th Edition, and this is my plan.

Proposed Army List - v.2

Lords
General on Horseback

Heroes
Captain on Horseback (BSB)
Warrior Priest on Horseback
Wizard (lv. 2)

Core
24 Halberdiers [FC]
+12 Swordsmen (d)

10 Handgunners +Hochland Longrifle (C)
10 Handgunners +Hochland Longrifle (C)
10 Handgunners +Repeater Handgun (C)
10 Handgunners +Repeater Handgun (C)

5 Huntsmen

8 Empire Knights of the White Wolf [FC]
6 Empire Knights [FC]

Special
23 Greatswords [FC]
+11 Free Company (d)

Great Cannon

Rare
Helblaster Volley Gun
Helblaster Volley Gun

Italics = Work in Progress (WiP)


General Comments

This list is counterpoint to my Dogs of War army which has plenty of Magic & Monsters & Regiments of Renown. The Empire army need not be particularly competitive, it just needs to look nice on the tabletop - hence the variety pack of Heroes, piles of gunpowder, shiny Knights, and massed Halberds. Hopefully, it doesn't just roll over and die. The Huntsmen and artillery are already assembled.

I really don't intend to buy any more stuff for it, rather to just finish building what I already own, although rearming models is not out of the question.

Thanks!
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Updates

* Removed ALL Crossbowmen and ONE Great Cannon

Unless you have the classic plastics don't give halberdiers shields.

Small units should not have full command. They need not have champions and the special guns are a waste of points, except the long rifle and then only if you take at least three rifles for meaningful sniping.

Detachments of crossbows dont help much, you need detachments to complement in melee or for covering fire.

Huntsmen are inferior in 6th, you get no boost to accuracy just a little bit of range for a lot of price. Only good if you want less than 10, as you have here. If you can field 10+ models do take archers instead. Yes you get scout, but you dont need scout, yours is a long range shooting army. If you want to march block, use pistoliers instead, more efficient and more survivable.

Knights of the White Wolf are great, the +1S is well worth the -1Sv. It should be the unit of 8, plus characters as they are more of a static combat unit and thus need ranks. Lance armed knights only need a single rank and should be bullies, only picking unfair fights as they need to win, break the enemy, and charge again. +1cr is not reliable for that. Meanwhile Knights of the White Wolf can do toe to toe with chaos warriors or lack orcs in a protected fight. Priests have no synergy with Knights of the White Wolf, but the prayers still work on the general.

I would drop all the fancy stuff from the Handgunners, and amalgamate the crossbowmen into their own units so they can deploy separately. I would make the handgunners instead detachments to the two melee units, they stand and shoot but dont need much range.

Remove the swordsmen altogether, and the huntsmen to buy some pistoliers.

Finally consider a captain on a pegasus for war machine hunting and wizard assassination. A pegasus will also support the cavalry (with pistoliers) in case you are forced by the scenario to go on the attack.

Thanks very much for the reply!

Please note that my primary goal is to simply finish building the models that I own, but can't reasonably sell on eBay to recoup what I originally spent. If I thought I could have sold them, I would. While there are undoubtedly excellent reasons to buy things to make the army more competitive, I don't plan spend any more money on the army, so adding a Captain on Pegasus or Pistoliers isn't an option. At best, I can change up the mix of Swords vs. Halberds. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Halberdiers - by "classic plastics", I assume you're referring to Halberdiers with with non-removable shields molded into their bodies. Mine are the multi-pose guys from 5E/6E, so shields are a separate part that I won't use. Easier to build! Excellent!

Handgunners - It's easy enough not to build the Command models, so just straight Handguns it is! Simple!

Crossbows - I guess I'll use them for covering fire, so regular units.

Huntsmen - I have the 5 models assembled, and they have Longbows, so that's why they're Huntsmen.

Pistoliers - I don't own any, and I'm desperately trying not to buy anything else when I already own too much.

Knights - Thanks for the advice on the Knights - I'll re-arm the big unit as KotWW with all new weapon arms!

Handgunners - I own 2 guys with RHGs and 2 guys with HLRs from the OOP War Wagon. They're cleaned and assembled, which is why I was fielding them as unit Champions, rather than detachments. I guess I'll try to sell one set, and see if that works. That would get me down to 2 primary Handgunner units, and I could use the rest as a detachment for the Greatswords.

Swordsmen - if I remove the swordsmen, I'd re-arm them as a Halberd detachment to support the Greatswords.

Pegasus - as above, I don't own the model and just trying to "use up" what I own and haven't built, rather than buying more.

Back in the day I scratchbuilt a pegasus from a suitable steed knight and pair of wings. If you can sacrifice one knight to the conversion you can make a pegasus capatain easily enough. You needa horse with no barding, the wings are the difficult bit, but several bits are options for you.
You could try Sigmarine Prosecutor wings.

I'll have to dig to see, although I did kind of want the army not to have Magic or Monsters, as counterpoint to my Dogs of War.

Also, it turns out that I actually have enough Handguns to make 40 Handgunners in addition to the 4 Champions with special guns, so I suppose I'll just build out and see where things end up, likely replacing the Swordsmen detachment, possibly ending up with a smaller Halberdier unit.

You can make Hochland Long Rifles by sacrificing some handgunners and taking their muskets. Cut then near the stock and a number of others near the end of the barrel. Voila sniper rifles.

This assumes basic 6th edition core set handgunners.

If you can manage that many Hochland Long Rifles become viable. Think BSB B'Gone. It can be annoying though as the opponent cant do much about it. So keep options to do without. Frankly I didnt bother.

OK, cool, thanks.

FWIW, they're the 5E Handgunners...

Took a while to find them:

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1999/c1999p0375-01.htm

Halberdiers I have heard are crap. I have a bunch of them just because they were free models lol. I have heard a lot of people saying to take Swordsmen because of their cost and that they are fairly worth it.

General consensus is to get at least five Pistoliers, I am in the same boat as you with my Empire as I don't like to buy anything else for the army, but I have to get those apparently to make it a bit more viable as a play option

No unit should have 2 characters in it. Send each mounted character into a separate Knight regiment, and make said regiments 7 man to compensate with full command.

Swordsmen are better anvil units than Halberdiers any day of the week. Build your parent unit to take a charge and survive, such as Spearmen or Swordsmen. Have one unit of Handgunners or Crossbowmen attached for Stand And Shoot, and a 10 man unit of either Free Company or Halberdiers for flank charges after your parent unit is charged. Works like a dream.

Greatswords make a good hammer unit, but would only work best if the anvil holds its ground. The Halberds have neither the armor save NOR the rank attack to stay in the fight dependably.

 Just Tony wrote:
No unit should have 2 characters in it. Send each mounted character into a separate Knight regiment, and make said regiments 7 man to compensate with full command.

Swordsmen are better anvil units than Halberdiers any day of the week. Build your parent unit to take a charge and survive, such as Spearmen or Swordsmen. Have one unit of Handgunners or Crossbowmen attached for Stand And Shoot, and a 10 man unit of either Free Company or Halberdiers for flank charges after your parent unit is charged. Works like a dream.

Greatswords make a good hammer unit, but would only work best if the anvil holds its ground. The Halberds have neither the armor save NOR the rank attack to stay in the fight dependably.

Warrior Priest prayers only buff characters in 6th, they are sidekick characters through and through.

My BSB is in the unit next to the unit with the General in it. Every time. I get the buffs every time. They don't need to be all eggs in one basket, just be within the sphere of the buff.

 brr-icy wrote:
Halberdiers I have heard are crap. I have a bunch of them just because they were free models lol. I have heard a lot of people saying to take Swordsmen because of their cost and that they are fairly worth it.

General consensus is to get at least five Pistoliers, I am in the same boat as you with my Empire as I don't like to buy anything else for the army, but I have to get those apparently to make it a bit more viable as a play option

Yeah, Halberds are not as "competitive" because Swordsmen are grossly underpriced in the Empire list - Swordsmen should cost +2 pts more and/or be moved to Special, and the problem would be solved. Halberdiers would be the most points-efficient, causing players to take fluffier lists. Halberds are supposed to be the mainstay of the Empire, which is why I'm taking them.

I bought, held, and ultimately sold my unit of Pistoliers a few years ago, so I'm not re-buying them. I'm not playing competitively, so it doesn't really matter. If my opponent wants an equal points game, I'll simply negotiate a handicap of some sort.
____

 Just Tony wrote:
No unit should have 2 characters in it. Send each mounted character into a separate Knight regiment, and make said regiments 7 man to compensate with full command.

Swordsmen are better anvil units than Halberdiers any day of the week. Build your parent unit to take a charge and survive, such as Spearmen or Swordsmen. Have one unit of Handgunners or Crossbowmen attached for Stand And Shoot, and a 10 man unit of either Free Company or Halberdiers for flank charges after your parent unit is charged. Works like a dream.

Greatswords make a good hammer unit, but would only work best if the anvil holds its ground. The Halberds have neither the armor save NOR the rank attack to stay in the fight dependably.

I can move the mounted Characters around, resize the units, no problem.

The bulk of my foot infantry will be Halberdiers for fluff reasons. I am OK to take some Swordsmen, although I have no Spearmen without conversion. At one point, I had a unit of 20+ Swordsmen, and traded it off because it was unsatisfying to see how they looked.

Thanks for the input! In terms of competitiveness, the army needs to be comparable to my Dogs of War, and DoW are not even close to being a competitive army.

Oh, I get the fluff build. I'm going to build my own personal Empire army around Morgan Bernhardt's Grudebringers.

 Just Tony wrote:
Oh, I get the fluff build. I'm going to build my own personal Empire army around Morgan Bernhardt's Grudebringers.

Very cool choice of theme!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:



Yeah, Halberds are not as "competitive" because Swordsmen are grossly underpriced in the Empire list - Swordsmen should cost +2 pts more and/or be moved to Special, and the problem would be solved. Halberdiers would be the most points-efficient, causing players to take fluffier lists. Halberds are supposed to be the mainstay of the Empire, which is why I'm taking them.

I bought, held, and ultimately sold my unit of Pistoliers a few years ago, so I'm not re-buying them. I'm not playing competitively, so it doesn't really matter. If my opponent wants an equal points game, I'll simply negotiate a handicap of some sort.

I definitely get the fluff list, I painted mine to be Sylvannian (I mainly play VC) for fluff reasons and put as much Sigmar stuff in it as possible. Themed as "distract them with religion while the count feeds on them" I also have a big block of Halberdiers in it. I do want it to be able to compete with my other armies if someone pulls it out to play.

I love the Grudgebringers... "Charge!!" "Our men fear the beast!"

You could use halberds as a backup unit to protect your war machines, for example.

Oh, there are places and uses for Halberdiers, just none of them is as an anvil unit.

Based on feedback and Kondo-ing the Crossbowmen (only my DoW will have Crossbows), I'm now thinking to build even more strongly for theme:

massed basic Handgunners and Halberdiers

minimal Magic

NO Special Characters
NO Empire Spearmen
NO Empire Crossbowmen
NO Captain on Pegasus
NO abhuman Ogres / Halflings

"standard" army list (no Artillery Train / Sigmarite sublists)

Basically, the DoW have all the "fantasy" stuff, where the Empire will have almost none of it.
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2/6 - I counted my bitz, and it turns out that I can only build 83 Handgunners / Halberdiers / whatever, so I update the plan accordingly:
+ 36 Handgunners
+ 24 Halberdiers
+ 12 Swordsmen
+ 11 Free Company