Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

This is the tactics page for the Total War: Warhammer version of The Empire.

Why play The Empire?

• Because who doesn't love the sight of normal, everyday humans beating back the supernatural through sheer force of arms?
• A difficult, but very rewarding playstlye that rewards unit cohesion and combined arms tactics.
• Guns. Lots and lots of guns.
• Because the Karl Franz memes are too god damn good to not play them at least once.
• Humanity, fuck yeah!

Pros

• Jack of all Trades: There's not a single department anyone can say you're bad in. The Empire can be played in a variety of different ways that can be viable from gunlines to infantry brawls to skirmish tactics. No plan is off the table for The Empire.
• Gunpowder: Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favorite if they are allowed to do their thing. Handgunners and Cannons can make any army regret coming to the field if used well. Their artillery is amazing for its cost and can blast most things into kingdom come.
• Flexibility: As explained before, The Empire can bring a variety of tactics to the table, which can make them hard to predict. They have an answer for just about every race in the game, and while they have some uphill match ups, they can get together a few lists against everyone/
• Cavalry: A very strong Cavalry faction, up there with the best (which kind of detracts form the whole "Jack of all Trades" thing mentioned above) Empire Knights are amazing for their price, and Demigryphs can take on just about any other cav unit one on one and win.
• Powerful Legendary Lords: The Empire has some of the best named characters in the game. Karl Franz and Volkmar can be a massive asset to any battlefield, and Gelt and Wulfhart can be used to amazing effect as well.
• Magic: You have access to every generic lore of magic in the game, including Metal if you pick Gelt as your lord.

Cons

• Master of None: The main downside of most Jack of all Trades factions. Everyone in the game outclasses you at something. Sure, your State Troops are crushing those Men-at-Arms, but you're cav just got ran over by Grail Knights. Your heavy cav chased of those Wild Riders, but now Waywatchers are putting out more value than your missiles could dream off. Yeah, your gunline and artillery are carving up the Chaos Warriors, but know that they are in melee you can kiss your frontline goodbye. You need to make up for your weaknesses when going up against certain factions.
• Poor Infantry: Unless you're going up against the worst of the worst in terms of infantry factions, you are probably not winning the frontline without support (Priest, spells, Pincer attacks). Infantry lines are mainly there to buy time for your other elements, not to win on their own.
• Difficult to Learn: most newer players pick Empire in multiplayer due to their relative ease of campaign in single-player, only to learn they are hard as hell in Multiplayer. The Empire is a faction that requires time and finesses to play perfectly and isn't something you can pick up and play.
• DLC Locked Content: You don't have it as bad as some factions, but you do have some missing stuff you would like on the battlefield. Also, you are the only core race to never get an FLC lord, meaning if you are committed to not buying DLC, you're stuck with Franz and Gelt (not that they're bad choices, but more options are always good)

The campaign und unique mechanics (The Old World)

The Empire pretty much fills out the entire northern part of the old world, giving you a very secure starting position with either Gelt, Franz or Volkmar. The main passageways into the Empire itself are guarded by the imperial forts from the south and west, and by Kislev from the north.

At the start of the game, The Empire is fractured into many pieces, called the Elector Counts. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual EC is to your faction. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire, causing you to declare war on them, if it reaches ten, they will offer you a confederation, causing you to take direct control of their lands and existing armies. If you control the main capital of an elector count province, you can make one of your lords the Elector count of that province, giving that character a unique bonus as well as the Runefang of the province, a very good Epic Melee weapon with a unique active ability.

Balancing this out is a unique resource called Imperial Authority, which represents how strong your faction is in the politics of the Empire. You basically want it to be at least 1, afromentioned Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of either money or prestige. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through controlled regions.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empires economy is neither terribly bad, nor excels in anything. For most of the early campaign, you will most likely deal with getting some elector count seats under your belt as well as fighting off the Vampire Counts. You will not expand a whole lot early on. Your overall victory conditions are to bring all of the Empire provinces under your banner and defeat Archaon.

Legendary Lords and Subfactions

• Karl Franz: So Franz is your beatstick Legendary Lord and my lord is he good at his job. Thanks to his items he is widely considered one of the best non mage lords in the entire game. First off, Deathclaw is able to give him control of the skies and once you have it it should be what he's on for the entire game, campaign or multiplayer. Ghal Maraz also gives him +16 anti large and armor piercing, making him a damn scary monster killer, and wields the Riekland Runefang, which grants an AOE leadership and attack buff to his troops. Combine that with fear and terror and Franz can be a goddamn nightmare for a lot of factions to deal with. His only real weakness is that if your take him you're pretty much forced to being a Lore of Life mage due to how squishy he is. Aside from that, damn good choice for campaign and multiplayer.
• Balthasar Gelt: So Gelt is not only the only lord level mage you have, he's also your only access to the Lore of Metal. The Staff of Volans gives you a crazy amount of magic to play with, meaning you can get quite a few castings of Final Transmutation off in order to delete blobs. Plus, the fact that he can ride a Pegasus means he is decent at keeping himself out of trouble, though if someone gets their hands on him he's probably going to be in trouble. All in all he's a decent pick in multiplayer, especially against heavy armor or factions who love to blob, but there are just better options for you.

In the campaign, he can get some crazy buffs to magic, armor, and artillery. Also memes. Lots of memes. Starts in Solland and not penalize for spreading into the mountains, so lots of non-"allied" factions to expand into.

• Volkmar the Grim (DLC): So if you want at least a semi-decent chance at winning the infantry fight, you got to bring Volkmar. On his War Altar of Sigmar, he can be a crazy powerful lord to assist your state troops. While you may see his lack of armor-piercing and wonder how the hell he's going to deal with armored troops, remember that it's his abilities that make him so good. He's got a buffed version of Shield of Faith and Soulfire meaning he can really buff up your infantry troops and deal with blobs fairly well. In the end, though, Jade Griffon is what makes him so amazing, as replenishment makes him ungodly hard to kill. Combine that with the fact that he can cast Banishment twice with no winds of magic use, and you got a buffing, blob destroying beast who can turn your infantry fights from a surefire loss to a possible win.

an alternative to Franz with a focuses on to make a single Flagelent death stack possible.

• Boris Todbringer (DLC....Kinda): So our boy Toddy has an odd way to unlock him. You'd think he'd be the FLC choice for the Empire but no, CA did something kind of stupid. He could only be unlocked after beating the Eye for an Eye campaign you get when you buy Call of the Beastmen in game 1, and even then only in custom battles and multiplayer. Meaning you have to buy the Beastmen DLC, complete a crappy mini campaign and then you can bring Toddy to multiplayer but not make him playable on campaign. Yeah, it's pretty dumb. Thankfully if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign. Good news is Boris is pretty good in combat. His runefang gives him passive regeneration meaning that while he doesn't do as much damage as Franz, you don't have to babysit him nearly as much. Still has terror and a good leadership and melee capabil bomb ability, so can be very good against low leadership faction.
• Markus Wulfhart (DLC): Markus is your choice if you love kite builds. With vanguard, stalk, nets and TWO different sniping abilities he can take a large target and burn it down pretty darn fast. Armor-piercing anti large means he like fighting factions that rely on big armored monsters, so if you're against someone who loves them, he will do wonders. His biggest problem is his lack of mount options meaning that he is pretty prone to getting gooned out and dying to any decent melee character who realizes he can't get away. He can do some great damage and help out your skirmishers with nets and buffs, but if your opponent wants him dead it's honestly not that hard for them to get him that way.

his campaigns place him in lustria, where he wages a war of "colonization" against the lizardmen. As his underpowered forces escalate the conflict with the dinosaurs with friken laserbeams, your backers will ship you reinforcement to further their interests, letting Wulfhart play with late tier units very early in the game. In Vortex he is also gearing up with his fight with Nakia, Gathering up and leveling 4 special heroes to tip the scales in the climactic battle between two hunters.

Units

Generic Lords

• General of the Empire: Discount Melee lord. Budget Griffon rider, but most players will make room for a Karl or Boris instead.
• Arch Lector (DLC): comparison of discount Volkmar or Priest make lord. Still a good fighter and line supporter with his prayers. He rolled the lord and priest slot together so you can fill the vacant hero slot with a wizard.
• Huntsman General (DLC): Discount Wulfhart. Rather than being a powerful sniper, Huntsman is Support Lord for Gunlines. Has fire for days to inflict on Flammable and Regening enemies. A can shoot exploding fire arrows, gives units around him fire attack in addition for shooting faster, and an Oil attack that makes things weak(er) to fire and slows for more shooting time. Sees less use as most players need a fast-moving melee character to press the enemy and keep monsters off their weak holing lines.

Heroes

• Empire Captain: Your generic melee hero, and honestly he is probably the worst one in that category. No AP, anti large or infantry, no special support abilities or powers, just a dude with a sword who can't really do anything against most dedicated combat character. His pegasus makes him mobile, but you have plenty of air options already. I guess he's a good mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that prepare to be disappointed.
• Witch Hunter: Your designated assassin. Has decent melee capabilities, but his main use is his armor piercing pistol which, although short range, packs a hell of a punch. Comes equipped with the Accusation ability, wherein he points at an enemy and yells at it, lowering melee defense, armor, and missile resistance. Works well in conjunction with other ranged units for when you really want one specific unit to get obliterated.
• Warrior Priest: An excellent support hero, his buffs will make every unit around him temporarily win at combat no matter who they're fighting despite the fact your lines were supposed to be one of the weakest infantry in-game. In fact buffing infantry is the most effective use for him since their staying power allows them to make the most of his buffs.
• Wizards: One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion.
  • Amber Wizard: Uniquely among wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and could summon a Feral Manticore for more Arial gooning.
  • Amethyst Wizard: Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes.
  • Jade Wizard: The Hippy is the Team Medic, highly valuable in any list that has Griffins.
  • Grey Wizard: Reduces enemies' ability to fight back.
  • Bright Wizard: A DPS caster greatly praying on matchups where the enemy will have important Flammable units, in addition to boosting damage output of units.
  • Celestial Wizard: A good all around lore. High damaging spells, as well as a handful of buff/debuffing spells.
  • Light Wizard: Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster, and give a lot of melee defense to a unit in an important protracted battle.

Melee Units

• Spearmen: Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no sheild.
• Spearmen(Shield): Spearmen but with better defensive stats and an ability to tank arrows while costing a teeny bit more. Unless a chaos host will be hitting your bare-bones settlement in 2 turns and it's the only thing you can recruit locally, always get Spearmen with Shields.
  • Eldred's Guard (Spearmen)(ECST) In the campaign they are Spearmen Expert Charge Defence instead of just large while also having anti-large damage.
• Swordsmen: Your very basic melee infantry. Doesn't do well against all but the weakest of enemy fighters (Think Skavenslaves, Peasants, Zombies) and will get positively obliterated by most of the baseline troops of the WH2 factions. That being said, they work well enough for their cost and have decent morale.
  • Sigmar's Sons (Swordsmen)(ROR): Are Umbrakeable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
  • Swords of Ulric (Swordsmen)(ECST) comes with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline Damage Dealers.
• Greatswords: Your melee infantry elite. As usual, nothing all that groundbreaking and a bit frail. They work really well as tarpits for enemy elite troops as well as being able to even drag some of their enemies with them, their great morale being a valuable asset. Used right, they can punch far above their weight.
  • Carroburg Greatswords (Greatswords)(ECST): Unbreakable Greatswords that deal magic damage, as well as an area buff increasing nearby units melee attack. Tend to get focussed down a lot by the AI.
• Halberdiers: Available fairly early on and a really good option for your frontline. Halberdiers make Bretonnians and Dragon Prince's cry, they are a very cost-effective counter against all matter of heavy cavalry that gets thrown their way. They share the same boons of Greatswords: Armour-Piercing, good model count, decent morale. Granted only 40 armor and no shield means that if the enemy has any kind of missile unit, these guys are going to say hello to Morr very quickly.
  • Nordland Mariners (Halberdiers)(ECST): negates charge bones from all units they brace against. Also are aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
• Flagellants (DLC): Your most cost-effective tarpit. While being extremely fragile, they tie down enemy units, especially those without bonuses against infantry very effectively. Generally speaking, they work better in MP than on the campaign, where Suicide units are not worth it.
  • The Tattersouls (Flagellants)(ROR): Even better at tying down enemy units, having both more health and bigger unit.

Missile Infantry

• Free Company Militia (DLC): These guys are a very good flanking and dual-purpose unit. They have no AP or much range but they make up for it by being able to fire while moving forward and being somewhat decent in melee for missile standards. This means they can defend themselves against hounds and be able to wrap around the flank, fire into the side or back, and charge if they run out of ammo. All in all a solid unit if used well. In campaigns their versatility makes the auto-resolve AI think they're far more powerful than they actually are.
  • Stirland's Revenge (Free Company Militia)(ROR): come with Skalk and Immune to psychology, along with an ok amount of ap missile damage makes them fill a better ambusher role.
• Crossbowmen: your reliable shooting unit, a long-range of 160 and shots will arc over your units. Easy to use and cost-effective if facing enemies with low armor.
  • Stir River Patrol (Crossbowmen)(ECST) vanguard with fire and slowing attacks. excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while letting the monster slayer an opportunity to catch them.
• Handgunners: There's a reason why the Empire's described as being built on Faith, Steel, and Gunpowder. While you do need micro to be effective due to their LOS firing arcs and you usually have to babysit them, Handgunners are a key part of an Empire Army as soon as they're available. These guys are excellent at melting away heavy infantry formations.
  • The Silver Bullets: (Handgunners)(ROR) Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off key enemies that rely on Physical resistances for defense.
  • Gunderson's Surefires (Handgunners)(ECST) Guns with Vanguard. stock, and can fend themselves from harassers.
• Archers (DLC): With a pitiful 120 range and better options on the table, the main advantage these guys have is that they're cheap as dirt. If you really want to save money and want to rely on something other than range to win the day I guess they're not bad. That said in both MP and campaign expect better results from the other options.
  • Deathjacks (Archers)(ROR) often what Archers wished to be. They are set apport by having the powerful combo of Stalk, Snipe, and vanguard deployment, letting them be the ultimate skirmishers, constantly lowering the health of units while the opponent is not looking.
• Huntsmen (DLC): Human waywatchers only they swapped out AP for Anti Large. These guys are great at killing low armor monsters and cav and their ability to vanguard and fire while moving makes them ungodly annoying for any army that can't catch them. You're wasting shots if you put them into infantry and don't expect much against super heavily armored monsters, but they can be a pretty useful unit against the right factions.
  • White Wolves (Huntsmen)(ROR): Huntsmen that don't imminently crumble when charged by light skirmishers. Your asking if your going to pay extra so a unit of Huntsmen don't immediately high tale it and probably stop participating in the battle when a unit of hounds bites them.

Cavalry

• Empire Knights: Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that safely occupies a spot among the best units in the game. Boosting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own against most cavalry in the game, where only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them.
  • Knights of the Everlasting Light (Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units.
  • Knights of Morr (Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that course of Fear and Terror. Will chase way all that are not fearless.
  • Stubborn Bulls (Greatswords)(ECST): Empire Questing knights. High Protracted AP calv. holds you over in the campaign for Dymigryphs.
• Reiksguard: Upgraded Knights, same strengths, same weaknesses. If you're playing MP, take normal Knights, they do the same job for cheaper.
  • Zintler's Reiksguard (Reiksguard) (ROR): Has Vanguard and Immune to Psychology. Gives a little more utility than Reiksguard.
• Knights of the Blazing Sun (DLC): Bog-standard Knights with Fire Attacks and Higher DPS values. That's all that is to them. Counters Regenerating units like many Undead, tree people, and trolls.

Missle Cavalry

• Outriders: Outriders rank amongst the best skirmish units in the game, period. Their repeater rifles deliver a tremendous amount of firepower at a decent range and they are very quick on their feet (or rather, hooves). This comes at the relative downsight that, unlike Pisoliers, they cannot fire on the move or in all 360 degrees around them, making good micro a necessity. If you want to have a reference point in how to use them to their best, try playing around with Dragoons in Total War: Empire.
• Outriders (Grenade Launcher): Screw Elven missile cav, Rotting Promethean Gunners or Norscan Missile cav, these are the definitive champions of the missile cav game and the best unit across all factions in that category. Grenade Launcher Outriders outright delete everything you point them at and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Their mobility paired with their firepower make them prime targets and they are very expensive, so keep them save from any stray missile infantry that definitely will target them.
  • The Bordermen (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST) now with Higher Ratio of AP damage, letting deal significantly more damage to also high armor ememies.
• Pistoliers: If Outriders are your walking gunline, Pistoliers are your dedicated harassers. Fire on the move makes chases go very one-sided, which is their only real boon, apart from being cheap. Their missiles are fairly weak, don't pierce armour and even their ammo count isn't anything that spectacular.
  • The Noble Sons Abroad (Pistoliers)(ECST)

Monsters Cavalry

• Demigryph Knights: A all-rounder in terms of a Monsterous shock Calvery, having better survivability and fairs better when fighting high armour infantry.

• Demigryph Knights (Halberds): Can take on just about any other cav unit one on one and win.
  • The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR): A step up with better melee defense and causes terror to better chase way cavalry that is not immune to it.

Chariots

• War Wagon (DLC): These things used to be a meme unit, though with the buffs they got I suppose you could make an argument for them. AP shots are nice and the additional tankiness can help them get out of some sticky situations. Plus they can function as chariots even without the AP in melee and the guys on the back can fire while in combat, so that's nice. Outriders will be better in 90% of situations, but honestly, they aren't absolutely useless.
  • they do beat pistoleer and Outriders when it comes to being harassed. High armor and you loss out on potential firepower when all the unused ammunition dies with the models, so War Wagon gives you more shooting for your buck with each wagon taking a lot of punishment before one model is lost compared to how much ammunition is lost when a calvery unit reaches that same health margin.
• War Wagon (Mortar) (DLC): Ok, so this is a meme unit. The extra mobility doesn't make up for the missing ammo and without the guns, to fire they are a hell of a lot worse in melee. Just take normal mortars, they'll do so much better and if you plop a spear unit by them they'll be defended just fine. (still, those Results can be pending)
• The Black Lions (War Wagon): Carries Helblaster Volley Guns and sometimes can shoot over infantry. As with mortar war wagons, it's better to just take the regular artillery. They might be a bit more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy.

Artillery

• Mortar: The first gun you get and very much an early game unit since it's intended target are blobs of low armor infantry. Their indirect fire means you don't have to worry much about positioning.
  • Sootson's Guns (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to fire near engaged friendlies. Best used as regular artillery in the opening stages and infantry support once things get close and personal.
• Great Cannon: Good old reliable. Will Blast holes in most things it hits. Predominantly AP, says it's anti large but that is because of how big of a target they are to hit. Like many cannons, you can manually control it if you have down time in battle to better lead the shot.
  • Hammer of the Witches (Great Cannon)(ROR) upgraded cannon with about 100 more damage and magic attacks. Great if when also targeting those elite units with Phsyiscal resistances but bad against those with magic resistance like Dwarfs.
• Helblaster Volley Gun: Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. Is something of a machinegun as long as it's not obstructed, quickly chowing through infantry and makes it near impossible for a monster to zig-zag dodge like for the Cannons. You do need to pay attention to your positioning to get the most out of them.
• Helstorm Rocket Battery: Very inaccurate (it's more likely to it something if left on fire at will then prioritizing targets). Useful to discourage blobs from charging your lines.
  • The Sunmaker (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades ammunition for about 500 more Damage that has is on fire.
• Luminark of Hysh: The worst nightmare of giant units, the Luminark of Hysh deals more damage than all artillery pieces in the first game. Very Accurate but only effective when hitting single entities. Great for sniping enemy generals but only if they're on foot or on top of a monstrous mount. Taking one also gives benefits of slighting reducing the winds the enemies can use and giving you gunline a 12% Ward Save.
  • Templehof Luminark (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Has the ability to prevent a unit from moving, making up in case of bad maneuvering.
• Steam Tank: Armed with an artillery cannon, a steam turret, and Unbreakable courage. The cannon can't be aimed downwards so if placing the tank on a hill make sure it's angled to shoot below. Its ammunition refers strictly to the artillery cannon, the turret can always fire at nearby units.
  • The Emperor's Wrath (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of the unit that was attacking it.

Tactics

Campaign Strategies

In Campaign, the crucial thing with Empire is having the right army composition. Usually, you gotta have the lord and 1-3 heroes, 2-4 cavalry units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-5 missile infantry units, and the rest (no less than a third of your army) MUST be hand-to-hand infantry units. Do NOT go overboard with artillery and missile units, always have, at the very least, 6-7 melee infantry units. Get this into your head: your melee infantry is your worst weakness, but it's also your backbone. Without them, all your shiny and deathly artillery will fail miserably. Your infantry is mediocre at best: low armor and hp make them die to a breeze, with bad strength they don't kill shit, and most of all, their low morale will make them run pretty soon. The combination of all these factors makes them very unreliable. More, more unreliable than you think when you begin the battle.

First of all, you need numbers: without that, you'll lose, 100% guaranteed. Even if you win a battle with only five swordsmen units and get cocky, in the next battle you'll find they're only at half strength (Empire infantry gets decimated in each battle, even victorious ones) and you'll get your ass handed to yourself. Get halberdiers asap, their defensive nature makes them perfect for an Empire gunline (which most of the time your army will be). You also need to place them right (spears/halberdiers in the flanks to protect against cavalry, no weak points in the battle line, no exposed flanks), and you need to support the right (heros with "Hold the line" and priests with battle prayers evenly distributed in the line, cavalry in the flanks prepared to intervene when necessary, mages to buff the line/debuff the enemy). Without a reliable wall of steel in front of them, your missiles and artillery won't have enough time to do their thing, and if the enemy gets to them, not only will they stop firing, they will suffer great (perhaps irreparable) casualties, the nearby units will get demoralized, and you'll have to dedicate a lot of resources to contain the breach, weakening the rest of your line. Do NOT let your battle line get breached!

When you progress in the game, you won't have to rely so much on the h2h infantry battle line. Your griffon/horsey general/captain/priest, with all their buffs, can contain whole units by themselves, your mages can use their flying mounts to position their spells where they are truly devastating, your high-end artillery can work miracles, and demi-grypth knights can operate independently. And yet, do not delude yourself: without a good battle line, all will be for naught. Greatswords are good but not truly great (heh), do not think they are Ironbreakers or you'll pay for it. As always, even if I repeat myself, never leave home without a third of your army being infantry!

About mages, remember, with Empire the name of the game is buff/debuffs. Your little guys truly need them, do not use missile and offensive magic unless you have a lot of magic reserves and will get a lot of advantage when doing it. Later in the game, when you have a good mage with lots of magic reserves, some vortexes, either moving or immobile, and things like Comet of Cassandora can be outright devastating when the massed enemy is being contained by your battle line and you cast them right in the middle of them. But even then, only do it AFTER you have buffed/debuffed the right units and have the battle more or less under control.

About pistoliers/outriders, they only shine when you have many of them, and can shoot a unit while it's occupated pursuing your other units. This is especially true with outriders, who can't move and shoot. Lonely units won't do much, but having said that, even if they only manage to get one enemy infantry unit away from the main battle when the action takes place, they have justified their cost.

About empire knights and all their variants, remember that even with all their armor they die fast in prolonged combat, or get whittled down by the enemy fire. Never let them get too far from your battle line, where their slowness (for cavalry) can make them get surrounded and destroyed by the enemy. Their primary use is to support your infantry, not to chase enemy missiles away (although they can and should do that sometimes, of course).

To sum it all up, never forget that, in this game, Empire is the closest thing to managing a real-life army: one moment of overconfidence and many lives will be lost!

Multiplayer Strategies

• Beastmen:
• Bretonnia:
• Chaos Warriors:
• Dark Elves:
• Dwarfs:
• Empire:
• Greenskins:
• High Elves:
• Lizardmen:
• Norsca:
• Skaven:
• Tomb Kings:
• Vampire Coast:
• Vampire Counts:
• Wood Elves: