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Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms

2023-05-03T17:15:34Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1:

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Ogre Kingdoms]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why Play Ogre Kingdoms?==
*You like doomstacking with monsters anyway so why not play a faction that is 95% monsters?
*You love the satisfaction of seeing a unit's health drop heavily from the impact of a massive charge.
*Because you are the one person on the planet who has asked themselves "What if the Mongols were a bunch of big fat dudes with prehistoric animals and magic chefs backing them up?"
*Because you love meat. In fact, you are likely eating a pork chop wrapped in bacon as you read this.
*Your enemies will scream and run, [[Meme|but you think that's part of the fun]].
*You relate to their body image a little too much.

===Pros===
*'''THICC''': The vast majority of your troops are composed of monsters and large units. If you only play this game to build up large monster stacks to take over the world with, this is the race for you.
*'''High Charge''': You are one of the most devastating armies off the charge. A lot of armies are going to evaporate once you make contact.
*'''Quality''': Stat wise, Ogres are one of the scariest armies in terms of pure stats. Few other factions will be able to compare to you pound for pound.
*'''Armor? What's that?''': Almost everything you have pierces armour. No amount of armour is going to protect your enemies from a 4-meter tall hulk of flesh that swings a hammer the size of a small building.
*'''Monsters''': Monsters, monsters and more monsters, you are the primo monster faction with only 2 infantry units that aren’t monsters. One way or another you will have little trouble winning the monster mash.
*'''Decent Ranged''': For a monster focused faction you are solid at shooting. You got two forms of artillery, a monster with a bolt thrower, Leadbelchers and even Gnoblar Trappers can be useful. Ok, the Wood Elves will probably beat you in a ranged fight but you can put out some serious damage from far away.
*'''Mobility''': For a faction filled with morbidly obese dumbfucks who wouldn't look out of place on R/Incel, you are quick on your feet. Your artillery can move as fast as heavy cav and you do have a variety of cavalry to speak off. Even your basic ogre bulls have good cardio with 54 speed. You actually stand a decent chance at outmaneuvering your opponent aside from a [[Slaanesh|few]] [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|extreme]] [[Beastmen|cases]].

===Cons===
*'''Lack of Numbers''': Your units have a super low model count. Even a single casualty in a unit of anything other than Gnoblars will hurt a lot more than what other factions will suffer.
*'''Anti Large/Charge Defense''': Given how reliant you are on size and charge, factions that have plentiful anti large and charge defence might be a massive pain in your giant, 2-ton ass (grins in Dwarf.) Ogre charge does help with Charge Defense somewhat, though you will still be losing a good chunk of your damage.
*'''No staying power''': With a heavy reliance on charges and fear you will not be winning a sustained fight. If your enemy can outlast your ammo or your charges you will find your inflexible roster will fail you.
*'''<s>Feet</s> Guts Firmly on the Ground''': You've got no air power. Nadda. The Lore of <s>Manticore Summoning</s> Beasts helps out a bit, but armies with dedicated air power will be a problem.
*'''Armor? What's that?''': I mean, to be fair it's probably hard for them to find armour in their size, but it does mean armour values for Ogres seem to be on the low side. Combine this with their massive hitboxes and archers can have a field day fighting them.
*'''Footlords only''': None of your generic or legendary lords get mounts, though they do have above average movement speed. Your lords can rip up and eat most other lords for lunch, but you're going to have trouble catching them.
**'''Lack of Mounts in General''': Honestly, the only Lord or Hero with a mount is the Hunter with a Stonehorn. Granted, you have an army of massive, muscled up monsters who will eat most other lords and heroes for breakfast, but they're going to have to get there on foot.
*'''DLC?''': On launch, the Ogres missed out on Bruisers, Yhetees and Thundertusks. It remains to be seen if these will be added as FLC units later or will be added as DLC.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Ogre Charge''': If an ogre unit charges a braced unit with charge defence, they will only lose half of their charge bonus. This is very important for a faction that is so reliant on getting the charge for their damage it's nice that they have a way to not get completely cockblocked because the enemy is just standing still. That said most opponents, even the AI usually don't just sit there and let you charge them and even if they do you're probably better of circumnavigating their frontline and going for their skirmishers in the rear. So while not the most practical trait in the game it's still nice for the Ogres to have.

*'''Captives''': During a battle the Ogres slowly fill a meter for each unit they kill that is broken or shattered. As the meter fills special army abilities are unlocked, including Dismember (an AoE slow and charge debuff), Massacre (AoE buff for AP damage and gives affected units Terror), and Butcher (basically Regrowth from the Lore of Life). This will be a very useful army mechanic against chaff-filled armies like Skaven or Beastmen, but will be hard to use against armies with a lot of unbreakable units (like daemons or undead) or a lot of low-model counts (like other ogres).

*'''Mercenaries''': Ogre Camps allow other factions to purchase Ogre Mercenaries if they are nearby. They're limited to regular Ogre Bulls and also have limits on how many they can have in their army at a time.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Greasus Goldtooth]]''': Overtyrant of all ogres, in his beautiful and shockingly obese glory. Greasus inflicts a leadership debuff on enemy units due to how stinking rich he is and a damage resistance aura based on how impressive his shiny crown is. He may or may not be slower due to being pushed by gnoblars instead of being carried by them, but either way he's big as hell and might want to be careful about ranged units.
*'''[[Skrag the Slaughterer]]''': Skrag is a legendary caster lord, using Lore of the Great Maw. Skrag is still an ogre (and has big swords instead of arms), so he is capable of holding is own in melee unless against anti-large or duelists. On top of that, Skrag has the ability to summon Gorgers during battle, and his cooking pot can make any gorgers in his army stronger the more kills he gets. Which he can rack up very quickly by using the AOE spells from the lore of the great maw.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Tyrant''': Standard melee lord, well armored and does decent armor piercing. His really nice benefit is the "Snacks" ability which lets him heal while in melee.

*'''Slaughtermaster''': Generic caster lord, supporting the ogres through the power of either the Lore of the Great Maw or Lore of Beasts. As an added bonus gets the "Extra Ingredients" ability, which is the ogre version of Arcane Conduit, increasing your Winds of Magic while you're in melee.

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Butcher''': A hero version of the Slaughtermaster, in case you want a melee lord but still want magic. Like their lord counterpart, Butchers come with Lore of the Great Maw or Lore of Beasts. Also gets the "Extra Ingredients" ability.

*'''Firebelly''': A caster hero, cooking the army's next meal during the battle with the Lore of Fire. Also has a number of bound abilities, including an explosion for getting out of melee, breath attacks, and a damage reflection buff. Generally a good fighter in melee and a reliable source of magic damage, but with zero armor however he can be quite squishy.

*'''Hunter''': A hybrid character with throwing spears, provides buffs to Sabretusks (SP only) and the only character on launch able to use a mount, a massive Stonehorn. His ranged attacks are anti-large on or off the Stonehorn, so he's effective at both sniping and demolishing infantry with his mount. If you play multiplayer, bringing one or two of these guys on a Stonehorn is an auto include. If you bring a Stonehorn as a mount you get [[Creed|stalk]], a missile resist, a ward save, and AP Anti Large missiles. Oh, and did we mention this is all while only being 100 gold more expensive than a standard Stonehorn?

==Units==

===Infantry===
*'''Gnoblar Fighters''': Your chaff unit. Surprisingly tanky compared to what you might expect, having the same statline as Goblins. However that lack of shield really hurts them in the long run. Use them as even more fragile goblins to absorb charges, tarpit units for a small while, and to plug gaps whilst your chungus boys get into position. They're expendable so none of your other troops really care what happens to them.

*'''Gnoblar Trappers''': Gnoblars, but they have stalk, vanguard deployment, and a ranged attack. Also come with the ability to slow down enemies in an area around them, making them surprisingly good support skirmishers. Still Expendable. Very useful for sneaky caps in Domination Mode.

===Monstrous Infantry===
*'''Ogre Bulls''': Your "standard" infantry, they come in the usual monstrous infantry size and a tremendous charge bonus to batter the enemy with. They will cause fear and come with siege-attacker to help get past those city walls so you don't have to wait out in a siege. Come in three varieties: a cheaper, single mace version, dual weapons for anti-infantry and an ironfist for bonus melee defence and missile block. None of the variants have very good armor piercing, however.

*'''Ironguts''': Your thiccest bois. Comes with armour-piercing melee and are also one of the only armoured units in your entire roster. Expect them to be able to throw down with the best elite units the other factions have to offer. Notably lack an ironfist variant, meaning that they can only rely on that extra armor to survive missiles.

*'''Maneaters''': The well-travelled mercenaries of your army, they are far more flexible than your standard unit of ogres. They come in a pistol, ironfist and a great weapon variant. The pistol for helping them pepper the enemy before the battle itself is joined, the ironfist for extra survivability and the great weapon for increased charge and a bonus vs large. They also come with Immune to Psych so don't expect to see these guys running away any time soon. Note that Maneaters are basically superior to Ironguts in all stats ''except'' for armour, and are priced accordingly.
**'''Powder Guts''': A pistol variant that is pretty much the normal pistols with better range, accuracy and damage. They do get an ability that gives them buff when they're losing, but overall they're just the normal pistol unit but better.

*'''Leadbelchers''': Hybrid missile/melee unit with good range + armour-piercing damage + fire on the move. These guys are one of the best units available, their cannon salvos deal enormous damage. They can do okay in melee but don't leave them in it for too long. Consider keeping some Gnoblar Trappers or Gorgers nearby to screen for them.

===Beasts & Monsters===
*'''Sabretusks''': Similar to high elf war lions, except they have more models, more melee attack, more weapon strength, and run as fast as chaos warhounds with 95(!) speed; great for hunting ranged weapons or chasing down routing units when your monstrous cavalry have better things to trample. Try to keep them away from hard targets, zero armour-piercing damage and rampage means they won't survive if they tangle with an enemy that can properly fight back. A hunter hero can make them incredibly scary in single-player by giving them frenzy, stalk, and vanguard deployment, but they don't get those bonuses in MP.
**Pretty good when following in the wake of a Stonehorn. Smaller war beasts don't normally fare very well when the enemy is braced, but formations are nothing to the Stonehorn.
**Their rampage can also be an asset. Warhounds are generally very fragile and can be routed easily. Sabertusks however are very stick and if they rampage then it'll be even harder for the enemy to get rid of them. Just make sure they get on the right targets.
*'''Gorgers''': Come in groups of eight, unbreakable, stalk, frenzy, and vanguard deployment. Use them as you would Mournguls, sneaky flankers to rip apart tasty and tender backlines. As of launch, these guys are broken as fuck since they can beat Bloodcrushers and Celestial Dragon Guard in a head on fight despite costing less and being sneaky backline skirmishers instead of frontline bruisers. Enjoy it while it lasts before CA slaps them with the nerf bat. Extra dangerous if you bring Skrag due to his unique item's ability to buff Gorgers.
*'''Slavegiant''': Your normal giant unit, except this time cajoled and beaten into battle by the very people who destroyed their race rather than bribed with booze. Sometimes the Ogres are the absolute worst. Ironically enough though, this is the only giant in the game that can actually regain health thanks to the Trollguts spell, making it a lot more tanky if you bring a gut magic caster.
*'''Stonehorn''': Give the Norscan War Mammoth more armor, missile resistance, have it ridden to battle by a hungry Shrek rather than an angry viking, and you've got the Stonehorn. As expected outclasses the Giant in every way and has some of the best armor in your roster. Like an unholy merging of the Mammoth and the Khemrian Warsphinx its bounding animations let it run straight through infantry formations to deliver absolute hell.
**By the Maw, Stonehorns are so ridiculously good you can expect them to be nerfed by the next balance patch. Stonehorns have practically zero weaknesses besides getting locked in combat with an anti-large monster/monstrous infantry. Its attack animations make it practically immune to being tarpitted by anti-large infantry, it has high armour and missile resistance to cover the usual weakness of monsters vs ranged, and its monstrous charge bonus will flatten any frontline it rams into, letting it get straight into the ranged units cowering behind the enemy shieldwall. It's a little on the slow side compared to the newer monsters of other factions, but it's fast enough to completely scramble the enemy's frontline before the rest of your chungus boys arrive. Stonehorns are your best monster, use them well and often.
**See those Cathayans huddled around their cannons, providing "Harmony"? Sure would be a shame if someone ran them over and wrecked their shit.

===Monstrous Cavalry===
*'''Mournfang Cavalry''': One of the most powerful cavalry units from the tabletop game and their Total War counterparts don't disappoint. Their statline is scary, they have about the same mass as a Carnosaur, and their lack of armour actually works in their favour too, since the things enemies would normally roll out to counter monstrous cavalry usually have lower base damage, making them even beefier than they already appear on paper. They don't have Ogre Charge for some reason, but their speed and heavy mass will usually make up for it. Comes with standard, ironfist, and great weapon variants. The only cavalry that can beat Mournfang Cavalry with great weapons are Crushers with Great Weapons.

*'''Crushers''': Rhinox cavalry. I know. We’re surprised they’ve shown up in the base game too. Essentially acting as an even better version of Mournfangs, they come in two variants, ironfists and great weapons. Also, just like on tabletop, they are expensive at 1800-1900 points in multiplayer. Does basically everything the Mournfangs do but better. Will be pound for pound the best heavy cav in the game when Immortal Empires comes out, especially if we get a RoR variant. Not a single other cavalry unit in the entire game comes even close to being able to take on crushers with great weapons. War Bear riders are a pretty distant second and everyone else gets absolutely dumpstered by Crushers.
**'''The Sky-Striders''': Meet the strongest cavalry unit in the game to-date, courtesy of stolen Sky-Titan weapons. These guys hit harder than their great weapon cousins, have missile resistance, and frostbite. The enemy ranged won't be able to focus them down as fast and any enemy cavalry they encounter will take massive damage on the charge and be unable to escape. A must-take against cavalry-heavy factions like Bretonnia and still pretty useful against monster heavy factions as well.

===Artillery===
*'''Gnoblar Scraplauncher''': A single entity catapult, with surprising speed and charge stats. They shoot a spread of three projectiles which explode in a fairly wide radius of shrapnel on impact. The downside is they have very poor AP. When they run out of ammo use them as a back-up chariot. Otherwise they're best to bring against factions with a lot of unarmored chaff.
*'''Ironblaster''': Mobile cannon pulled by a rhinox and firing spreadshot cannonballs that sunder armor. In other words, it's an artillery piece with none of the weaknesses. This is one of the best units on the roster as it can snipe out large monsters while running over infantry that gets its hands on it. If left alone this thing will demolish armies. Cavalry will be its biggest weakness, as they're fast enough to catch up and tear it down. Also since it only has one model it may lose in shootouts with other dedicated cannon units.
*'''Stonehorn Harpoon Launcher''': All the benefits of a regular Stonehorn but with a ranged attack to boot, though with a price increase to match. A big armoured monster with a fire on the move ballista that can outrange Vampire Coast Deck Gunners. Capable of throwing down with an Ancient Stegadon in melee, though you'll much rather throw it at infantry.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
You are THE monster faction of the trilogy. You have a grand total of 2 normal infantry units, neither of which is going to carry the day for you, and a bunch of big fat boys in all manners of flavours. You are going to be a scary force on the charge and have some of the scariest units in the entire game. Mournfangs make elite cav from other factions cry and they're your lowest tier cavalry unit. Of course, your reliance on monsters comes with an obvious weakness as you will struggle against... well, pretty much anyone who can bring a decent amount of Anti-Large to the field. You may also struggle since your army tends to be predictable, and I imagine veterans will learn how to counter you fast. Still, if you want to grab a monster horde to feast on your enemies this is the race for you. Here's how to win glory for The Maw:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': Bretonnian cavalry being essentially immune to your greatest strength is going to hurt badly. knights of the realm will break through 90% of your roster and will be able to outspeed all of your roster 'even sabertusks'. prepare for pain

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''': An extremely good matchup for your ogres, other than khorne warriors with halberds 'who can be knocked over anyway' the low-mass hordes of chaos will be mulched. Do bring a leadbelcher or two in case the daemons break out the greater daemons

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': Your plentiful AP will be enough to crack open the evil refrigerators a WoC player will call a frontline. Mournfangs and Crushers with Great Weapons will destroy Chaos Knights as well. Dragon Ogres will be a definite concern, and should be dealt with using Leadbelchers and Ironblasters.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': Scourgerunners. Scourgerunners, Scourgerunners, Scourgerunners. If they were a standout unit in the Dark Elf roster before, they are a rockstar in this matchup, and victory will come down to in a large part how you deal with them. They'll outrun your cav, stay out of range of your missiles and can dodge your artillery if they're micro'd well enough. Sabretusks seem like a good way to get them off your back with their insane speed, but can they reach the chariots without being shot half to hell? Other than that, Dark Elves can bring a pretty good amount of anti-large to the field with their infantry, but they have a hard time building wide because their army is pretty expensive. While they're not exactly a slow faction, you should generally have the mobility advantage, since their cavalry just won't be able to stack up to yours. Make sure you're using it to get those charges in, especially against elite units like Black Guard. Some artillery could be a good idea in case they bring a Kharibdyss. You're fast enough to maul any unprotected missile infantry, and your own missiles should be a good way to shoot any lords/heroes they bring full of holes.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': If you can reach the Dwarfs you're going to do a lot of damage; they've always had trouble fending off lots of large entities at once. However, that "if" is nothing to sneeze at. You will be eating cannonballs from the beginning of the match. Be sure to bring ironfist variants on most of your Ogre troops to get ''some'' survivability against dwarf ranged play. Bring Leadbelchers and Ironblasters as well; dwarfs often have trouble against the artillery of other armies, and while they'll probably focus down your ranged units before you do theirs at least if they're doing that they're not shooting your advancing ogres. If by some miracle your Ironblasters survive they can still serve as chariots, something else dwarf players hate. Gorgers might be a worthwhile investment for stealthily getting into the back lines. Watch out for Trollhammer torpedoes!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': If you didn't like the Empire before then you'll definitely hate them now. With Markus Wulfheart, Huntsmen, artillery aplenty, and skirmish cavalry running circles around you, fighting the Empire is going to suck. However, With what we know about ogres so far some good advice would be bringing Gnoblar Trappers to ambush, ensnare, and destroy skirmish cav. You can also get good mileage out of sabretusks, they're speedy enough to catch outriders and mean enough to eat artillery crews along with their weaksauce empire infantry bodyguards. The Empire's frontline for the most part will crumple the moment you get in melee, but watch out for halberdiers and try to soften them with your leadbelchers and artillery. Bring Maneaters with great weapons to handle their Demigryphs with halberds, and shut down their artillery as soon as you can because great cannons, steam tanks, and luminarks will blast your ogres and monsters to pieces. As for enemy lords, the primary threat is Markus Wulfheart. He's squishy, but the trouble is catching him before he kills your lord, heroes, your monsters, and your ogre infantry. Try to tie him down with your gnoblar trappers and speedy units, then close in on the bastard and use his bow as a spick to roast him on.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Guts out boys! Cathay is going to bring halberds and plenty of ranged against you. Your best bet is to plow a Gutbus of Ogre Bulls and right through their front line and into the chewy center. For all of Cathay's strong defensive tactics a mass of ogres and other monsters can overwhelm them. Bring some Sabertusks or Gorgers as well though, because you will want to shut down their long ranged firepower, especially Grand Cannons and Crane Gunners, so your ogres don't get too shot up on the approach. Consider bringing an Ironblaster or two keep them preoccupied with an artillery duel. Leadbelchers will be helpful for gunning down the dragons and Stonehorn will really maximize your bunkerbusting ability, but at this point you're going to have to make some tradeoffs as ogres don't come cheap.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Arachnarok spiders will be your bane here if your opponent brings them otherwise this matchup could go either way as both your armies will end up in a slugging match.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': Helves basic tier 0 spearmen and archers will shred through anything you can bring. In campaign either go for autoresolves or bring 3 armies against their 1. In multiplayer just give up.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Khorne Warriors and calvary will be squished before your counterparts. Better yet most won't gain their Hellblade bonuses unless you've brought Gnoblars. Bloodthirsters could be a problem due to their anti-large power, and they could fly over your lard-line for any juicy artillery beasts you've been keeping.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''': An extremely painful matchup. kislev has missile units out of the ass and your low-armor ogres will have a poor time against them. kislev's other 'premier' unit are anti-large war bears that can't be knocked over. prepare for death

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Though Saurus won't seem too daunting a proposition, Skink Skirmishers and Chameleon Skinks are going to be a literal pain in the ass due to their speed and your relative lack of armor. The abundance of poison weaponry generally sucks and Lizardmen aren't exactly hurting for Anti-Large in the form of Saurus Spears, Temple Guard, Salamander Hunting Packs and Carnosaurs. Lastly, their Terradon Riders will be a rather annoying nuisance due to your very limited anti-air options. The good news is that your cavalry will generally bowl right through theirs and with proper positioning, you'll likely be able to shoulder check your way through most defensive lines. Leadbelchers can make short work of Saurus and Kroxigors in general if you can get flanking shots onto them. Just make sure you have some Sabretusks and Mournfang Cavalry screen any Skinks or Cav trying to tie them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': This will probably be a tough match-up considering Norsca's anti-large. Consider bringing artillery to destroy them from afar before you charge in.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle hates enemies he can't tarpit and is bad against large numbers of monsters, powerful ranged weapons, and fire damage. Given that you can bring all of these to the table if you can't win this match-up you should probably turn off the computer and go play hop-skotch or something.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': Weapons teams and enough chaff to hold even your THICC mass off. you're fucked

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': You can't flank ogres enough said

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Skelly infantry won't last long against you, especially if you bring a Firebelly for lore of fire. What you really got to watch out for are their constructs, especially dedicated anti-large ones like Sepulchral Stalkers and Necrosphinxes. Load up with anti-large and try not to cluster your units too closely together. Your army is highly highly dependent on getting the charge and you don't want your entire strategy to get ruined by a single Net of Amyntok.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': Bring sabretusks and gorgers, if you're not able to chase down tzeench he's going to abuse his barriers and whittle you down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': While you are vulnerable to missiles, the coast is also going to struggle like hell to keep you at range given how incredibly fast you are and how easily you can shove them around with your charges. Prometheans are really their only means of stopping you from getting where you want to go and Crushers or Mournfangs with great weapons should annihilate the crabs in short order.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': A very tough matchup. bring firebellies and gnoblar scraplaunchers because as ogres you have a lot of difficulty dealing with swarms of infantry and the vampire counts WILL bring a truckload of anti-large skeleton spears and ethereal units. Do your best to protect the firebelly as you flame storm the counts.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Forests give a 80% penalty to large units speed and melee attack, and any good welf is going to sit in that fucking treeline and mulch you to death with his no-collision arrows. your best bet is to bring stonehorns and leadbelchers and get into a quasi-artillery duel to force him out into the open.

==Campaign Strategies==

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos

2023-05-02T18:14:49Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1:

{{Topquote|[[Tzeentch|Change!]] [[Nurgle|Rot!]] [[Khorne|Blood!]] [[Slaanesh|Defile!]]|Game battle chant for Warriors of Chaos, shared with Norsca}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Warriors of Chaos.

==Why Play Warriors of Chaos==
*You don't need no damn Daemons to take over the world for the Chaos Gods
*Because you want to see the unending tides of damnation overrun all that is good and civilized in this world.
*Because back in my day only the bad guys wore [[Space Marines|Stupidly OP]] [[Stormcast Eternals|Armor]].
*<s>BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE</s> Sorry, that's the dedicated Khorne's faction motif now, you're undivided
===Pros===
*'''Top-grade Melee''': Pound for pound, your troops are among the best in the entire game when it comes to melee combat. Though your reign as the undisputed combat champion of the game has come to an inglorious end due to feature/power creep (not even mentioning the coming of Khorne), precious other factions will be able to face you in melee and walk away unscathed.
*'''Armor''': Regardless of which ever one of the Dark Gods you decided to suck off, they gifted you an ungodly amount of armor to protect your troops from the enemy. If for whatever reason the other guy decided not to bring AP against you, you've pretty much already won the fight right there.
*'''Monsters''': You got some monsters that are unmatched in what they do. Shaggoths make dragons cry, manticores make great mounts and flying harassers, trolls will help win you the frontline even faster and hounds will make sure that all those pesky skirmishers don't screw over your troops on the way in. You best have answers for anti large though.
*'''Versatility''': You're not quite the most versatile of factions, but with all of the high quality troops you have, you can deploy a wide assortment of tactics against all kinds of opponents. You can use rushes, monster mashes, artillery boxes, magic bombs, and make your lords into one man armies. With how much good stuff is at your disposal, you can come up with all kinds of crazy tactics to throw at your opponent.
*'''Strong Lords''': Your lord options are pretty damn good. Archeon is one of the better duelist characters, Kholek kills whatever he is fighting, Sigvald is the king of "never die" and Sarthoreal is a raid boss with impressive magic abilities. Even generic sorcerers are pretty damn good for what they do.

===Cons===
*'''DLC Faction''': The original controversy from the first game, the Chaos Warriors were originally locked up as a pre-order bonus for the first game, slapping those who didn't do so with an extra $8 tax to play as them. For penny-pinching fans, this can make them a hard sell.
*'''Limited Skirmishing''': You do have some mounted skirmishers, but odds are they aren't going to be the reason why you win the fight. You are not going to be beating your opponent in the skirmishing phase of the fight.
*'''No Ranged Infantry''': Aside aforementioned skirmishing cavalry, you're generally bringing a battle axe to a gun fight. In any shooting match, you're gonna lose.
*'''Slow''': The downside of all that armor? It makes you slow as all hell. This, combined with the con listed above, means you are pretty vulnerable to enemy ranged attacks. Be sure that you devote a few of your troops to getting on those skirmishers and making sure they can't do to much damage to your troops on the way in.
*'''Expensive''': Sadly, all this good quality comes at a price. With how expensive a lot of your troops are, odds are you will probably be outnumbered in whatever match up you are going up against. Expect to rely on quality over quantity when you are choosing to rep team WOC.
*'''The campaign is terrible''': Their campaign is in dire need of a rework (that hopefully comes with Warhammer 3). The horde mechanic the WoC revolve around has never been particularly fun to play as, and only continued to age poorly as Warhammer 2 went on. Maybe CA had a point when they originally planned to hold them back for Game 1, they feel incomplete and kind of pointless. Add to this that elementary stuff from the Lore such as specific pledges to the Dark Gods and Demons are missing (with Archaon being the Champion the Chaos Undivided and all that, [[Fail|except you also can play as Sigvald who is a Champion of Slaanesh with no access to Demons of his patron]]) and you got yourself a dumpster fire of epic proportions. There are mods like Ultimate Chaos that seek to alleviate the worst of it, but most of them are of dubious quality and other can break entire campaigns (like the Chaos Outposts Mod). If you want to play WoC in Singleplayer, better wait for Warhammer 3 and hope it gets better.
**Good news is you're confirmed for a rework in summer of 2022, so you won't have to wait too much longer

==The campaign und unique mechanics (The Old World)==
Only one Norscan tribe can be awakened per province. It is recommended to awaken them in the province capital.

*'''Warbands/Marks of Chaos''': What used to just be glorified banners pre Warhammer 3 are now your ticket to unlocking warriors devoted to each god. On campaign as a unit gains experience you have a chance to upgrade them to superior units, for instance you can upgrade a Marauder unit to Chaos Warriors to Chosen. However, if your army has the proper level of '''Dark Authority''' for a specific god, you can also give them a mark for that god which alters their appearance and stats. Some subfactions will have an easier time with certain marks than others, for instance Sigvald will have an easy time getting Slaanesh units but Khorne units will be hard to come by. You will need a Lord or Hero of a specific god in order to get the authority for it, so you will have a hard time recruiting and maintaining Nurgle units if there isn't a Nurgle lord or hero in the army. In multiplayer, this means that you can take 4 marked units alongside your mostly undivided army, included specialized marked mortals such as Skullcrusher or Hellstriders. In order to make sure half the units below don't get an extra 4 paragraphs of what they do, here is a general list of the stats each Mark does and each unit that can take Marks will be checked below
**The Mark of Khorne gives a unit spell resistance and frenzy in exchange for less melee defense, so if you are looking to play offense you will want to give your blessings to the Blood God.
**Mark of Tzeentch will give a unit Barrier and Magic Attacks, making them great if you are fighting an enemy that has a high amount of physical resistance or if you want them to have a bit of protection going in.
**Mark of Nurgle will give the unit poison attacks extra Melee Defense and HP in exchange for less attack and speed, making this the choice if you are looking to out last your enemy.
**Mark of Slaanesh will give a unit Immune to Psych, more Speed, strider, a physical resist and Devastating Flanker on cavalry. If you want to play a mobility heavy playstyle or you're fighting a ton of fear and terror this is your mark.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
The first DLC to TWWH3, Champions of Chaos, will revamp the faction and change how they play. Each Legendary Lord will have unique ways to access units from the vanilla, Undivided roster, while Chaos Champions have better access to their God's daemons and Marks.
*'''[[Archaon]] the Everchosen:''' at the start of the Total War it was a joke that he was the Neverchosen, but recent progressive buffs have been slowly improving him. Still waiting to see if he will ever get his title back from Kholek but he is currently usable in multiplayer. He is currently a strong generalist fighter and Fire wizard hybrid. He is among the strongest melee lords stat-wise in-game even before taking items. being a fire wizard also grants him the ability to clear out mobs, snipe lords, or buff damage of troops depending on your needs. He does still have some flaws. He doesn't get the AOS version of [[Dorghar]], so no monstrous mass to help easily break out from tar traps. He is very expensive in multiplayer even when running naked(don't do that) so you have to buy only what you need.
**Archaon, as the Everchosen, will have easier access to monogod rosters as well as better Authority to command forces from rival gods.
*'''[[Kholek Suneater]]:''' Given how prevalent he is seen, most players think of Kholek as the face of Warriors of Chaos despite the advertisement. But why wouldn't you as he is the best legendary lord the WoC have in MP. He's a massive, tough Dragon Ogre monster lord that runs around unhindered and deals massive damage to both infantry and monsters. Even better when gooning around with his Dragon Ogre boys.
**His campaign bonuses buffs Dragon Ogres, giving reduced recruitment cost and upkeep while buffing attack for Shaggoths. Kholek also spreads more Chaos Corruption.
**Has the hardest time recruiting Monogod units, but obviously has better control over Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths.

*'''[[Sigvald|Prince Sigvald the Magnificent]]:''' Used to be bad but got significantly better after The Twisted & The Twilight update. A powerful and quick foot dualist that will never suffer fatigue penalties. His small size, perfect vigor and very high melee stats make him slippery, but when combined with the regen from his unique item he ties with Gor-Rok for the tankiest lord in the game.
**Despite his overwhelming ego, his campaign has him being most in touch with [[Norsca]], having a stronger diplomatic bonus, and have practically the same unit version of the unit with them having the Norsca "Rage", with it upgrading to the superior "Berserk" at late veterancy to keep marauders viable. A Leadership bonus against men encourages him to go after the Empire or Norsca.
**A bit of an odd duck, since he's already devoted to Slaanesh, so CA has to differentiate him from Azazel. He can recruit Slaaneshi Mortals and Daemons turn one, and as Slaanesh's boytoy, has Dark Authority to better control them. In turn, he pays a premium to hire and keep Khornates unless he has a Khornate Hero tagging along.
*'''[[Be'lakor]]:''' Confirmed to be part of the Warriors of Chaos faction in Immortal Empires. Starts in Albion with a unique mechanic to corrupt non-legendary human lords into daemon princes.
**Being the Daemon Prince of Undivided, he can access the Gifts and Favors of the Dark Gods earlier, but must prove himself before he can give them specific marks.
*'''[[Azazel]]:''' As the DP of Slaanesh, Azazel comes with Slaaneshi spells and limited access to Slaanesh's campaign abilities. Fitting with his role as Slaanesh's pimp, he can seduce his enemy's units to add to his own roster and has +80 diplomacy with the Human factions, meaning through some careful and selective warfare, you could make yourself less of a target.
*'''[[Festus the Leechlord]]''': The Plague Doctor is in, and he comes with a whole host of buffs and debuffs. Fitting in with his Leechlord aesthetic, he can heal his army a quarter past the normal cap, and Festus' army ''and'' vassals have access to poison attacks. He can brew plagues on top of his plagues lasting longer.
*'''[[Vilitch the Curseling]]''': A combination warrior-caster, who, according to the DevBlog, should be at home casting or in melee. He can use the Changer of Ways and the Teleportation stance meaning he will be an absolute troll in the Campaign map, and gives his vassals better Barrier and Tzeentch Corruption. Their ability, Twisted Twin, buffs their spell mastery and Melee skills, ''but'' requires him to be either casting or in melee for it to go off. While it's '''very doubtful''' he'll be beating back dedicated melee lords, he could at least cast a few spells first to buff himself before jumping into the fray.

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]]''': Representing Khorne, the Gorequeen not only has stats to rival Skarbrand but can fly and has several unique abilities. Able to fight multiple battles just like Skarbrand.

*'''[[Sarthorael|Sarthorael the Everwatcher]]:''' Looking back it's surprising we got a greater deamon so early on before game 3. Not available in the campaign (for WoC anyway, Norsca can unlock a different Lord of Change over the course of the Campaign) but playable in multiplayer. A giant lore of metal caster with a lot of missle resistance. Well used a battering ram to disrupt gun faction with his mass and terror as the rest of the army hounds on their position but prefers to run through the lines to new spots of safety to cast his spells.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''[[Chaos Lord]]:''' Cheap melee lord. Can take a poison mace if you want this lord to be supportive. He can also be put on a flying mount for manticore gooning. These guys have been power creeped to hell and back so despite their reputation on the table top and what you'd think from Chaos, they're one of the worst generic lords in the game. Never take one unless you're roleplaying in campaign or memeing. Can be given the Mark of Khorne or Slaanesh.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer Lord]]:''' Saves points by fusing Chaos Sorcerer as your lord option and still being a good melee fighter. Comes in Death, Fire, Metal, or Shadows. Once you start putting him on mounts he's pretty much objectively better than the standard lord since he can also wield magic. Will be your main generic lord in campaign, though in multiplayer the Legendary options are just better. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle. (Lores of Tzeentch and Metal for Tzeentch or Nurgle and Death for Nurgle)

===Heroes===
*'''[[Exalted Hero]]:''' Melee hero, often a part of the manticore goon squad. their stat line is honestly kind of absurd for the price, as they can beat pretty much any other standard melee hero in a one on one fight. Definitely one of the better melee bodyguard heroes. Can be given the Mark of Khorne or Nurgle.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer]]:''' Tankier than the traditional wizard as they have a large amount of armour and are a low-end melee character. It would be best if you didn't let them fight good melee units, but they are still a force multiplier on the charger when on a mount. Comes in Death, Fire, Metal, or Shadows. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Slaanesh (Slaanesh gets lores of Slaanesh and Shadows)

===Melee Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos Marauder|Chaos Marauders]]:''' Your budget line, but you often fill up your numbers with them given how expensive everything else is. They are how you go wide in WoC. Posses low armor but can still cause some more expensive units to struggle against them. They have pretty good stats as far as melee chaff go, so they should earn back their cost fighting other low level troops.
**'''Chaos Marauders (Great Weapons):''' Cheap Ap Damage but not as good as Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons) since the Marauders are very fragile with trading away what little defense a Marauder gets.
**Can be given any of the marks, each come with an additional weapon variant. Khorne gets Dual Axes, Tzeentch gets Spears, Nurgle gets Great Weapons and Slaanesh gets Hellscourge Whips for additional Melee Defense.

*'''[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]:''' The spiked anvil of Chaos. High all-around in offensive and defensive stats except for speed. In general, Chaos Warriors in this faction are much more well rounded than their Monogod cousins. They are better defensively than Khorne, faster than Nurgle, more offensive than Tzeentch and more durable than Slaanesh. They're the nice in between that allows them to fill a wider variety of roles. Often beat out other line infantry in the grind. They Lack AP, so not effective against other high armour targets.
**'''Mirror Guard(RoR):''' A strong point used in Marauders and Warriors. Moves faster, higher defense, and don't falter against Fear or Terror.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons):''' your AP troops effectively upend other armored infantry like Dwarfs.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Halberds):''' Your Anti-large infantry out classes Great Weapons if facing Calvery and Monsters.
**Get all their marks and weapon variants for marauders, though the Tzeentch version gives up spears for halberds.

*'''Aspiring Champions:''' A small unit of Chosen with Magical attacks. They fill a role as support units, having the Encourage ability which gives extra Leadership to your lines, being a moral anchor if your lord is way from your front lines. The magic attacks are also a cheap way to crush enemies that rely on Physical resistance for protection. What really screws them over is their pitiful amount of health, so once they actually start fighting they will drop like flies. Immortal empires buffs their statline to be more like monstrous infantry, but their cost efficiency is still highly questionable. You'll probably still be better off bringing chosen or spawn instead

*'''[[Forsaken]]:''' A niche, fast damage dealing unit, being both fast and having good armour. Good at mulching through low armor units and used as foot flankers. They don't do well against Armor-piercing or elite infantry. Generally going to be way better used against low armor factions like Beastmen or Skaven and kept away from high armor stuff like Dwarfs or Lizardmen. Can get all Marks.
**'''The Daemonspew:''' Blessed by Nurgle, they have poison attacks and melee attack debuff aura. A supportive unit to mix with your line blob to make an elite unit easy to handle.

*'''[[Chosen]]:''' Oh my. Chosen, pound for pound, probably the best heavy melee infantry in the game, also comes in Great Weapons and Halberds variants like Chaos Warriors, baring some regiments of renown. They will never run away, their stats are terrifying, and they are absurdly tanky. They are every bit as scary as their reputation makes them out to be. Like any heavy elite infantry, they are slow with low model counts, so they will suffer severely from being targeted by artillery, magic, or AP Missles. Can get all marks and separate variants same as Chaos Warriors.

===Beasts===
*'''Chaos Warhounds:''' Cheap and fast harassment unit, shutting down Skirmishers, Calvary, Missile units, and Artillery Crews that will target your slower-moving Warriors. Against a lot of skirmish power these doggos are a good way to get archers and other ranged threats off the field and you won't miss them too much if they die.
*'''Chaos Warhounds (Poison):''' Now give it a poison debuff to attacks. It can also catch those slippery units with a nibble and support in melee by making the difficult unit easier to kill while also reducing their damage.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Chaos Knight|Chaos Knights]]:''' your melee cav, strong and able to win lots of protracted fights. Best used in a supporting role since they're somewhat cost-inefficient compared to demigryphs/blood knights. This version is probably best used against heavy missile factions like Elves, as they will be able to block some of the incoming fire and chase them down. They're better in a grind too, though you'll have to pull out eventually (Yeah, yeah I know, insert Slaanesh joke here).
**'''Swords of Chaos:(RoR):''' Knights with Flaming weapons but with a smaller model count, but most useful in keeping your characters safe and letting your whole army get a temporary speed boost.
*'''Chaos Knights (Lances):''' Cycle charging cav. While the shield makes them good at resisting missile fire, the tremendous charge bonus is a bit of a waste on the skirmishers on the other side. As such, best to use these guys against other cavalry, monsters, or for rear charging infantry. Just make sure that you are keeping an eye on them, while they do have tanky stats they can still crumple surprisingly quick if you leave them in a grind.
**Both the Lance and Sword and Board versions can take any of the marks.

===Missile Cavalry===
If you want shooting but don't want to spring for artillery, you only have skirmish cav. Like most Skirmish cav, you need to use some micromanagement to make sure a real opponent doesn't chase them out of the game and use their ammunition efficiently instead of AI autopilot everything.

*'''Marauder Horsemen:''' You cheapest shooting unit. Useful in taking things out annoying units air and harass units with a low Missile resistance. Fragile with the same protection as a Marauder. Their cost efficiency makes them a go to in a lot of competitive lists. Can come with Marks of Tzeentch and Slaanesh.
*'''Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes):''' Trades Missile range for AP. Suited for harassing armored foes from a distance but won't take punishment well like the normal variant. Can come with Marks of Khorne and Nurgle
*'''Marauder Horsemasters:''' A slightly upgraded version of Horsemen with the most important upgrade being significantly better armor. Lets it take punishment and trade better when engaging in melee with other Skirmish units and other lesser melee units.

===Monsterous Infantry===
*'''Chaos Trolls:''' A regenerating bag of HP and AP damage. Do need some babysitting to help with their low Ld. Better for Marauder lines for that extra Damage and Monstrous mass. To be honest, probably not worth it in most situations because of that low morale and weakness to fire.
**'''Chaos Trolls (Armoured):''' Pay extra, so Trolls are less likely to run when they take damage. These guys came out before CA realized we like variants that serve different purposes and aren't just straight upgrades. Still probably not worth bringing though.
*'''[[Chaos Spawn]]:''' Line breakers, they do go down quickly from guns but are a cheap way to tie up multiple line units as they don't stop attacking until they are all dead. They can tear apart lighter infantry lines if they get their hands on them, and can really help supplement a cheaper frontline. Generally better than trolls, as while they lack AP they will actually stick around to do their damage. Each version comes with a Mark, Khorne gets Frenzy, Nurgle gets Regeneration, Tzeentch gets Armor sundering and Slaanesh gets Devastating Flankers as Soporific Musk.
**'''Wyrd Spawn: (RoR)''' Spawn blessed by everyone's favorite crazy [[Tzeentch|Bird]], these guys have armor sundering so they can actually help against armored troops and have resistance to magic. They can also walk thorugh trees for some reason. Don't ask me why.
*'''[[Dragon Ogre]]:''' Your anti-large monstrous cavalry. These boys will kick the hell out of any cavalry or monster they get their hands on, although their vulnerability to missiles means they can be a bit of a risk against super missile factions. Try your best to keep them safe, probably best on the flanks where they can deal with cav and go into the back line or flank when that is done. Can send infantry flying if needed.
**'''Summoners of Rage: (RoR)''' Have magic attacks and an infantry clearing bound spell. It takes out Physically resistant enemies or give you another edge in a fight.

===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Giant:''' A big infantry smasher, but easily sniped and hammered with ranged and anti-large attacks. Remove them, and they can frolic through even the heaviest of armor. Do yourself a favor and don't get one, it'll get shot to pieces before it can do anything useful.
*'''[[Manticore|Chaos Feral Manticore]]:''' One of the most cost effective flying monsters in the game. It has an impressive statline for the cost so it can actually do a good bit of work diving into backlines or helping goon out enemy characters. It's big problem is Rampage, so you will likely lose control over it, though it is decently cheap so don't worry too much if it goes nuts. Often used as a mount for characters in multiplayer, but there is nothing wrong with taking this guy by himself.
*'''Dragon Ogre Shaggoth:''' An anti-large monster duelist. Are you scared that the enemy might have a dragon, big scary tree, crab monster or freaky rat monstrosity from hell? Throw this thing at it and if it doesn't kill it it'll get it damn close. Of course, it's also a massive bullseye for every AP missile unit on the field, so you got to make sure that it's kept safe. Often paired with Kholek to make a Dragon Ogre goon squad.
*'''Chaos Warshrine''':

===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariot:''' A pretty standard heavy chariot. Will get absolutely dumpstered in a prolonged fight but will devastate enemies on the charge. Bring against heavy armor factions that can't lock it down like Dwarfs. Each of these can come with any mark.
*'''Gorebeast Chariot:''' Slower than standard chariots, but has more AP damage for fighting higher armor. Generally not a good deal thanks to the price since standard chariots can simply do what it does better. Can come with the Mark of Khorne.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Hellcannon]]:''' Big gun with homing projectiles and damage that includes a Ld debuff. It also comes with an unbreakable Chaos Dwarf crew who will keep firing until they're killed to the last man. Somewhat of an odd man out in the Chaos roster since their playstyle is more geared towards bumrushing the enemy than noob boxing around the artillery, but there are no complaints about having one to round out your army. Depending on the matchup, you can force the enemy to come to you if they can't artillery dual with the cannon. If you got the attention to spare, taking manual control of them allows you to fly the projectile.
**'''The Soul of Damnation: (RoR)''' A tad beefed up Hellcannon. Stats identical, but has the addition of the Soul Devourer ability that makes it reload faster when enemies are near.

===Daemons===
* For the daemon units go look at their respective pages, the overviews there are mostly the same except that with the limited access to them you'll want to be a bit more careful before throwing your bloodthirster into a horde of skeleton spears

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
You're... pretty damn strong in multiplayer to be honest, despite the fact you're currently a meme faction on campaign. You got a lot going for you, from strong lord choices, good magic lores, really good infantry, cavalry and monsters, and even an alright skirmishing core with Marauder Horsemen. Your only real major weakness is just how expensive everything is, and even then you got it better than the High Elves in that category. In game 3 you are likely to get even better toys to play with, so as long as you don't get any super insane nerfs (which isn't likely since most of the player base play campaign and think you suck) it should only get better from here. Here's how to win glory for the Chaos Gods:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': After seeing this matchup, it’s no wonder thag the Chaos warriors haven’t been able to make it out of Warhammer Canada. Dark Elves are tailor-made for busting your balls. Between darkshards, shades, and dark rider crossbows, they have more than enough ranged AP to melt your infantry and heavy calvary. Hellcannon(s) could find their crew being harassed by Furies or Dark Riders. Dragon Ogres, if they can make it, can handily deal with calvary and monsters.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': You'll win the infantry fight, assuming your slow frontline survives the heavy artillery bombardment. Use manticores, hounds, calvary, and/or furies to mess with Dwarfen ranged. Big monsters like the Shaggoth should stay out of this, unless you like watching 2000 gold get shot to shit.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': your arch enemy for good reason, the empire while you may scoff at there frontline infantry never underestimate how good flagellants are at stalling you as helstorm rockets and cannon balls rain the imperial version of hell down on you, while you cav is good, make sure there supported as Demigryhs with halberds will eat them for breakfast, monsters while useful are another tricky prospect as like the dwarfs, the empire is really good at killing large units, the general play is go for a solid line of chaos warriors with shields, they can quickly cleave though there frontline while at the same time not getting completely torn to shreds by there handgunners, for the rest of your army get a core of war hounds, preferably poison hounds unless your pinching pennies as there great for chasing down there skirmish cav, attacking there back line and are a good supporting option for shaggoths to lessen the damage they take when fighting demigryphs, as for monsters, per the norm, bring shaggoths, they can defeat an unsupported steam tank and will wreak havoc on most empire cavalry while being fast enough to Juke cannon balls, however again, be careful of demigryhs with halberds, the bird riders will take a lot of damage but they can also kill shaggoths with surprising speed, make sure there supported if they have a jade wizard for back up, having some exalted heroes on manticores can help control the sky if they bring Karl Franz, though do it in a goon squad cause Karl is more than capable of throwing an exalted hero in the dumpster, if he doesn’t bring Karl, then expect volkmar to be next on the list if he’s looking to win the infantry fight, a typical empire frontline when fighting you will largely consist of halberdiers, maybe a few greatswords and some flagellants to act as meatshields so he can keep shooting you, for the other legendary lords, gelt is also a common sight due to him being there only access to lore of metal which can screw over your armor or nuke blobs if your dumb enough to do so, go wide with your infantry, have a core of dogs and shaggoths and then show that the helden hammer is no match for the dark gods!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Make no mistake, this is a bad matchup for you. Khorne is better than you in a knock down drag out melee fight. Bloodletters trade up vs Chaos Warriors and Chosen and a wide frontline of marauders will crumble quickly and buff Khorne's units in the process. However, you have a potential ace in the hole. Dragon ogres give more bang for the buck than khorne's horribly overcosted monsters + cavalry. If you play your cards right, your superior magic, skirmishing, and monsters will be enough to tip the scales in your favor.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Though a flexible faction with many tools to use against you, you have relatively little to fear from their infantry. Saurus are tanky SoBs, but grindfests will generally work out in your favor due to your superior offensive statlines. Though you'll never catch any Skink units, the only ones you need to pay any real attention to are the Red-Crested variety, which will still melt in combat against your forces without extensive support. Instead, your primary concern will be the myriad of monsters the lizards are almost assuredly bringing to bear against you. Chaos Warriors or Chosen with Halberds will be your bread and butter for pinning such beasties down. Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths also make fantastic hunting squads for isolated dinosaurs and will utterly dumpster them if they can get in the thick of it. Additionally, though the Lizardmen do technically have a higher ranged roster to chose from, your Hellcannon can lay waste to their forces long before even ''their'' artillery can attempt to retaliate. Just be particularly cautious of Razordon Hunting Packs, Troglodons and potential Ripperdactyl strike squads.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': To show the northerners that the chaos gods favor you most, you’ll need to consider your army carefully. Beserkers will trade upwards into pretty much any infantry you bring, even chosen, and their ‘berserk’ ability makes them a surprisingly tough nut to crack. This means you should either go super low-tier and bring tons of marauders, or super elite and invest in chosen and chaos warriors, relying on your infantry to win the day. Both setups have their own advantages and weaknesses. Do NOT bring mostrous infantry like dragon ogres or chaos spawn. Sure, they can deal with berserkers fine, but Norsca has plenty of mobile anti-large and ap to make you regret it. If you can protect it, a hellcannon can pay huge dividends by shooting holes in their higher tier infantry. You are one of the few factions that actually had a good answer to mammoths, Shaggoths have the speed and ap to grind them down and reliably outduel them. You won’t be able to keep pace with them in the skirmish game, but you probably want to bring at least a couple of wolves/skirmish cav, since their ap ranged units can make your monsters very sad if allowed to fire in. Marauder chariots can actually be a big problem for you because of their great mass and ap, so whittling them down with your fast units is probably your best bet. Kholek is not a great choice here, since he can get ground down by Skin wolves and Wulfrik, I’d recommend Archaon or a chaos sorcerer on a dragon. The former has a chance to put duel even Wulfrik (let alone throgg or a chieftain) if you use slayer of kings wisely, and the latter is able to pick his engagements, and probably won’t face any threats in the sky.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]'''
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': First thing's first, leave the Chaos Warriors and Chosen at home. Not only do you not need them to deal with most Skaven frontlines, but they will get ripped apart against Jezzails and Mortar teams. Mauarders are the frontline of choice as they will help deal with Clanrats and Skavenslaves relatively quickly and for cheap. Hounds are also pretty much a requirement in order to get behind the rats and take out the weapon teams before they are able to do irreversible damage. Finally, Spawn are your friends, as they help shred Skaven infantry, murder Rat Ogres and are unbreakable so some of the scarier Skaven units won't be able to spook them off. For magic lores, go with something that can deal with swarms like Fire or Shadows. Sigvald is your best bet here as a lord since Jezzails are some of the best SEM snipers in the game and Sigvald is really hard to kill.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': This matchup sucks. Slaanesh epitomizes the very concept of anti-armor and even their basic troops will run laps around yours. You will want to go as cheap and wide as possible with your front-lines, they're dead meat anyways. Bring some marauding horsemen with throwing axes to try to chip away at the unarmored daemons before they make it into combat and use a hellcannon or two to blow holes in their formations when possible. Get a Fire or Shadows caster to throw some wind/vortex spells about to get past Slaanesh's higher melee defense and disrupt their formations. A Chaos Giant might not be completely out of the question due to Slaanesh's complete lack of missile units, but don't expect much from it. Unfortunately, this matchup is just heavily out of your favor no matter which way you slice it.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': The deckhand cries out in pain as he strikes you. A terrible, terrible matchup for you. Shaggoths, Chaos Spawn, etc. would be great here if they could actually get into melee, but with the coasts firepower there isn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Your only strategy is to go super wide and use chaos warriors/chosen as your killing. And then you’ll promptly run straight into World War Z as the coast player runs your infantry smack into a veritable wall of deckhand mobs and summons while their ap missiles and monsters eat your infantry for breakfast. You’re better off just forfeiting this one tbh, the coast player can basically just take a nap while you’re tearing your hair out on how to deal with them.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Your bad luck just doesn’t run out when it comes to the vampires. To put it shortly, wait for your rework. Sure this matchup is marginally better than Coast since you’ll actually make it into melee, but Vampire Counts will take your leadership to pound town with fear/terror, and their excellent mobility means that they can pick their engagements way better than you can. Also they can heal. Your only hope is to grab 2 Shaggoths or an exalted hero goon squad and defend them at all costs. Hopefully Tzeentch will favor you!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': You know what they say: dogs are a mutated tentacle-y chaos warriors best friend. Chaos Warhounds are a must in this matchup, because they are the only unit with the speed to reliably pin down the asrai’s shooters. Here’s the thing: you will win the infantry grind with 0 effort, as chaos warriors will kill any asrsi infantry they’re put up against with one hand tied behind their back, and the great weapon variant can even buzzsaw through Tree Kin relatively quickly. That’s not where the Wood elves strength lies however. If they go full Vietnam and bring a list full of shooters, you’ll want chaos warhounds and skirmish cav to pin down and damage their archers and cav. Chaos knights can deal with any cavalry the wood elves have (except for maybe the lost Sylvan Knights) as long as they don’t take the charge. Speaking of The lost Sylvan knights, they can be a huge pain since your magic damage is limited, and the easiest way to grind them down is probably a fire caster with flaming sword of rhuin. I wouldn’t bother with Shaggoths. An Exalted hero (or even two!) on a manticore can be a great pick here, since it’s mobile enough with a small hit box and has the killing power to take out Treemen, Zoats, lords/heros you name it. You’ll just need to be careful of Hawk riders. Archaon or Dorghar or Sigvald are probably your best lords here. Anything with a big hitbox is just asking to become a pincushion.

===Campaign Strategies===
'''AND THE REWORK CAME!''' The new rework gives you the ability to recruit daemon lords and all the daemons in general. a new 'upgrade system' allows you to recruit basic marauders and then upgrade them over time into chaos warriors and then chosen. your objective really is to kill a lot of people to earn 'souls' which you can offer to the chaos gods to get daemon units or major faction buffs. with the ability to pseudo-conquer settlements the days of horde agony are in the past. Take archeon and his lads on a merry slaughter-crusade throughout the world and with the ability to evolve your non-legendary generals into daemon princes come rank 30 it's the chaos experience we always wanted.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-05-02T18:10:07Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* legendary lord guide */

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.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''Gunpowder''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor 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.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===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 now 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.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': your infantry isn’t bad but unlike most other factions yours isn’t really meant to win the fight, their meant for holding the line, they have average stats across the board but that is their main weakness, they can hold the line but they won’t beat the line, that job is for your artillery and cavalry.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': 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 and 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 Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, 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 independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; 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 a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating 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, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. 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. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making 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 you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). 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 but are too manly to be an elf. 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 [[lascannon|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 [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], 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. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, 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.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===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, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[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. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[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.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''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 with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. 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): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' 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 focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': 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): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (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. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''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 crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' 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, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (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 and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart 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 Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and does pretty well against anything without magic resistance. Leave them at home if you're fighting dwarfs.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[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===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' 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 high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' 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): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===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 pistoliers 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 cavalry 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) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) 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 lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever was attacking it.

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
general overall empire strategy: 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/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around 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, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. 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-gryph 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 around a third of your army being melee 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!

===legendary lord, immortal empires guide===

'''Karl Franz:''' in immortal empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and kazarack, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or kazarack, they can leave vast portions of the empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.

to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

'''Balthazar gelt:''' '

'''Volkmar the grim:'''

'''Markus wulfheart:'''

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-05-02T18:08:21Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* legendary lord guide */

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.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''Gunpowder''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor 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.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===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 now 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.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': your infantry isn’t bad but unlike most other factions yours isn’t really meant to win the fight, their meant for holding the line, they have average stats across the board but that is their main weakness, they can hold the line but they won’t beat the line, that job is for your artillery and cavalry.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': 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 and 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 Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, 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 independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; 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 a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating 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, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. 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. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making 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 you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). 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 but are too manly to be an elf. 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 [[lascannon|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 [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], 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. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, 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.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===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, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[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. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[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.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''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 with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. 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): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' 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 focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': 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): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (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. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''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 crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' 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, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (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 and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart 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 Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and does pretty well against anything without magic resistance. Leave them at home if you're fighting dwarfs.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[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===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' 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 high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' 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): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===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 pistoliers 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 cavalry 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) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) 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 lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever was attacking it.

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
general overall empire strategy: 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/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around 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, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. 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-gryph 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 around a third of your army being melee 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!

===legendary lord guide===

'''Karl Franz:''' in immortal empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and kazarack, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or kazarack, they can leave vast portions of the empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.

to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

'''Balthazar gelt:''' '

'''Volkmar the grim:'''

'''Markus wulfheart:'''

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-05-02T18:07:49Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* legendary lord guide */

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.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''Gunpowder''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor 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.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===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 now 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.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': your infantry isn’t bad but unlike most other factions yours isn’t really meant to win the fight, their meant for holding the line, they have average stats across the board but that is their main weakness, they can hold the line but they won’t beat the line, that job is for your artillery and cavalry.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': 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 and 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 Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, 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 independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; 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 a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating 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, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. 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. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making 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 you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). 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 but are too manly to be an elf. 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 [[lascannon|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 [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], 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. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, 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.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===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, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[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. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[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.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''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 with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. 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): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' 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 focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': 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): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (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. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''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 crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' 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, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (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 and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart 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 Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and does pretty well against anything without magic resistance. Leave them at home if you're fighting dwarfs.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[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===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' 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 high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' 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): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===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 pistoliers 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 cavalry 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) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) 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 lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever was attacking it.

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
general overall empire strategy: 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/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around 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, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. 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-gryph 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 around a third of your army being melee 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!

===legendary lord guide===

'''Karl Franz:''' in immortal empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and kazarack, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or kazarack, they can leave vast portions of the empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.

to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

'''Balthazar gelt:''' '
'''Volkmar the grim'''
'''Markus wolfheart'''

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-05-02T18:05:47Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* Tactics */

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.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''Gunpowder''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor 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.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===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 now 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.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': your infantry isn’t bad but unlike most other factions yours isn’t really meant to win the fight, their meant for holding the line, they have average stats across the board but that is their main weakness, they can hold the line but they won’t beat the line, that job is for your artillery and cavalry.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': 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 and 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 Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, 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 independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; 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 a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating 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, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. 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. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making 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 you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). 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 but are too manly to be an elf. 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 [[lascannon|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 [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], 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. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, 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.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===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, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[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. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[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.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''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 with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. 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): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' 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 focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': 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): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (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. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''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 crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' 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, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (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 and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart 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 Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and does pretty well against anything without magic resistance. Leave them at home if you're fighting dwarfs.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[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===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' 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 high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' 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): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===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 pistoliers 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 cavalry 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) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) 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 lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever was attacking it.

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
general overall empire strategy: 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/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around 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, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. 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-gryph 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 around a third of your army being melee 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!

===legendary lord guide===

'''Karl Franz:''' in immortal empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and kazarack, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or kazarack, they can leave vast portions of the empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.

to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-05-02T18:04:42Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* Campaign Strategies */

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.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''Gunpowder''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor 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.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===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 now 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.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': your infantry isn’t bad but unlike most other factions yours isn’t really meant to win the fight, their meant for holding the line, they have average stats across the board but that is their main weakness, they can hold the line but they won’t beat the line, that job is for your artillery and cavalry.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': 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 and 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 Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, 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 independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; 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 a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating 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, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. 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. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making 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 you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). 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 but are too manly to be an elf. 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 [[lascannon|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 [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], 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. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, 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.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===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, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[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. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[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.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''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 with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. 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): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' 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 focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': 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): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (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. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''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 crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' 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, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (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 and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart 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 Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and does pretty well against anything without magic resistance. Leave them at home if you're fighting dwarfs.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[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===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' 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 high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' 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): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===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 pistoliers 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 cavalry 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) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) 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 lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever was attacking it.

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
general overall empire strategy: 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/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around 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, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. 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-gryph 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 around a third of your army being melee 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!

Karl Franz: in immortal empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and kazarack, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or kazarack, they can leave vast portions of the empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.

to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos Dwarfs

2023-05-02T06:23:35Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* Units */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Chaos Dwarfs]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why play Chaos Dwarfs?==
*Because you like seeing things go BOOM!
*While everyone else is in the Renaissance at best, you will show the world the glory and horror of the Industrial Revolution.
*Because you love the shameless evil of the Dark Elves but don't like the actual ''Elf'' part.
*You love to artillery box and shoot things with giant fuck off guns.
*Because you feel like every single villain should use an exceptional amount of fire.
*You're a fan of clan Skryre and their tactic of dropping high explosives into the ranks of your own slave fodder
*You wanted to play dwarves but you are tired of the classic honorable mining fellows.
*You have a high tolerance for silly hats.
*You're a Victoria 3 player but also want war in your game

===Pros===
*'''Gunpowder''': Your guns are some of the most powerful in the whole game. Expect to win in a straight up shoot out against pretty much any other faction that relies on guns. Combine that with some of the strongest artillery in the game and no enemy will want you shooting for long.
*'''Armor''': At least for the units you actually care about. Even the lowest Chaos Dwarf has strong armor comparable to the Dwarfs when it comes to durability. Of course your Hobgoblins won't be great in this department, but you don't really care about them now do you?
*'''Melee Grind''': What? You thought that just because they are good at shooting they must stink in melee? Nope! Chaos Dwarf infantry is very strong and hard hitting and their monsters are quiet good at turning the enemy into pasta sauce.
*'''Fire''': Not only do you have lots of it but you have lots of units resistant to it. Anything weak to fire is going to burn and anything that uses fire will feel damn near useless against you. You also have plenty of ways to give fire weakness, leading to some cool combos.
*'''Monsters''': You got plenty of them, from K'Daai, Lamassus and Great Tauruses you have plenty of monsters to throw around.
*'''Versatile''': You got a unit for more or less any occasion. Yeah you prefer to shoot but you got strong Infantry, Cavalry, Fliers and magic as well. It's possible to pull out all kinds of tactics, especially compared to your Dawi cousins. The flexibility of the Chorfs on launch puts many other factions to shame. It's almost absurd just how well all different parts of the Chorfs' roster work together. You have plenty of sources of Flammable to complement your plenty of sources of fire damage, your four lores of Fire, Metal, Death and Hashut give you every buff, debuff, and direct damage you need. Enemies charging your frontline? Drop an Ash Storm and give your Blunderbusses Flaming Sword of Ruin and even the strongest units will disintegrate before your eyes. Need to tarpit something? You have plenty of expendable greenskins to hold things in place while your artillery rain death on them. You have a tool for virtually every situation.

===Cons===
*'''Insufficient Mid-Tier Options''': You don't have a lot of options that are strong while also affordable. Your options consist of either very strong but very few Chaos Dwarfs or plentiful but near useless Hobgoblins and Labourers. In game, your army lacks effective mid-tier units that can kick ass while still being an affordable price. In multiplayer, you're all but forced to bring expensive elite units which your opponent will immediately target with magic or units like jezzails.
*'''Single Entity Artillery''': Your artillery is fearsome but they're all single-model units. You can actually get into trouble during artillery duels as many other ranged factions can bring units of cannons with four shots to your one.
*'''Short-ranged infantry''': The Chaos Dwarfs always favored blunderbusses over handguns. While dumping a whole unit of shotguns into somebody is going to hurt, longer range units can kite away from you. Your other possible option, goblin archers are... not great if we look to the orcs. Fireglaives have decent range but they are also highly expensive and you have limited recruitment. So if you want to really touch somebody at distance you'll have to rely on your artillery.
*'''Slow''': Chaos-corrupted Dwarfs are still Dwarfs, and you still curse the day the Old Ones gave you stubby legs. Sure you're faster than the Karaz Ankor Dwarfs but that's like saying you're faster than your 4 year old nephew, not something you should be bragging about. Even Bull Centaurs are rather slow for Cav and while Hobgoblin cav is quick, it’s not good for much outside of killing skirmishers and artillery or chasing off routing units.
*'''Cost-inefficient''': The big one: Chaos Dwarfs don't like fighting in armies as there is too few of them to risk their lives consistently compared to their western brethren. As such, the Chorfs have high upkeep for units like chaos dwarf warriors, infernal guard, etc. and will be reliant on slaves, which you will likely only be able to get by fighting and winning battles. Don't expect anything to go cheaply unless it is a slave with low morale or a hobgoblin.
*'''Anti-Large? What's that?''': You don't have super cost effective Anti large options. All your AP missiles cost a pretty penny and anything with Anti Large is in the elite camp, so monsters might actually be a problem for you.

==Faction Traits==
*'''Contempt''': All Chaos Dwarf race units (so excluding Hobgoblins and K'Daai, but including Bull Centaurs) will only suffer morale penalties from watching friendly units rout if they also have the Contempt rule. This means that if your Greenskin or Monster units run away, they aren't going to give a shit, allowing your Dorfs to stay in the fight a bit longer than other units in the same situation.

*'''Malign Authority''': The ability of your Greenskin sla- oh, I'm sorry- LABOURER units. They gain extra leadership when a unit with the Contempt rule is nearby, allowing them to stick around for just long enough to drop another volley onto their faces while they hold the enemy in place.

*'''Backstabbers''': Common to all hobgoblin units, increases both melee and missile damage if above half health.

*'''Fire Resistance''': All Chaos Dwarf race units have some degree of fire resistance, in the 15%-25% range, varying by unit.

*'''Hellbound''': Common to all war machines and artillery besides the Hellcannon, this passive grants Magical Attacks, 20% Physical Resistance, and perfect Vigour for as long as HP is >25%. Oddly enough, can be removed in multiplayer for some extra funds.

*'''Hell-Forged''': Common to the same units as Hellbound, simply allows them to be healed by the Daemonsmith's Reforge ability, which is given even more importance by the buffs gained from keeping Hellbound enabled. Also works on K'daai.

==Lords==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''Astragoth Ironhand''': An ancient, partially petrified Sorcerer-Prophet with machinery grafted to his limbs to move, and de facto the faction leader. Comes with a mix of the Lore of Hashut and the Lore of Fire. Despite being a caster lord, he can hold his own against melee beatsticks like Vlad and Malekith thanks to his high melee stats and his special ability that increases physical resistance at the cost of mobility over the course of a battle. And while he doesn't get a mount, that's not a problem when his mobility suit allows him to run at heavy cavalry speed.

*'''Zhatan the Black''': Your dedicated melee beatstick. He's not the strongest melee lord in the game, but he's well armored and shielded, making him fairly tanky. He's also got decent maneuverability if you take the Lammasu or Great Taurus mount. His most powerful ability is his "Sadistic Snare," a single target net that allows your ranged units to turn that target into mincemeat.

*'''Drazhoath the Ashen''': Lore of Hashut caster lord. Can mount a Taurus, Lammasu, or Bale Taurus.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Sorcerer-Prophet''': Based off of the Legion of Azgorh they can use the Lore of Hashut, Fire, Death, or Metal. Anyone who's seen chorf speculation has heard this a thousand times, but your generic magic lord may have a mechanic to represent the curse of petrification.

*'''Overseer''': Melee lord

==Heroes==
===Legendary Heroes===
'''Gorduz Backstabber''': Hobgoblin melee hero, can buff Hobgoblin units. Can mount a wolf.

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Daemonsmith''': Hashut's own mix between a caster and master engineer. Come with the lore of Hashut, Fire, Metal, or Death, and can heal War Machines.

*'''Infernal Castellan''': Missile Specialist

*'''Bull Centaur Taur'ruk''': Melee specialist pseudo-cavalry with anti-large

==Units==
===Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Goblin Labourers]]''': the worst of the worst infantry in the game, the only thing they beat is peasant mobs and that should say something, luckily like peasant mobs thier a damn cost-effective meatshield, have a chorf unit near them and, well, they still ain’t very good but at least they won’t rout immediately.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Orc Labourers]]''': your other trash unit, orc laborers are only good as cannon fodder for heavily armored factions, otherwise goblins are more cost-effective, they're so bad they lose to GOBLINS, makes one wonder what the chorfs put their laborers through that make even orcs suck ass at fighting.

*'''[[Hobgoblin Warriors|Hobgoblin Cutthroats]]''': Close but stronger to the Greenskins' Goblins. Also benefit from Malign Authority and Backstabbers. Because of Contempt, you can use them just as disposably as the Labourers. With 140 models, makes for good tarpitting.

*'''[[Sneaky Git|Hobgoblin Sneaky Gits]]''': Stalk, poison precursor ranged attack, poison anti-infantry melee. Has mediocre melee stats and no armor piercing, so use them as a cheap sneaky tarpit like night goblins.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Warrior|Chaos Dwarf Warriors]]''': Tier 2 heavy infantry, across the board superior than Dwarf Warriors, but used in essentially the same way. Comes with axe & shield, or armour-piercing great weapons, has silver shields which their honorable cousins still don’t have, this has…lead to more than a few popped vains

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Infernal Guard]]''': Tier 3 heavy infantry, comparable to Longbeards. Come in axe & shield or AP great weapon varieties.

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Ironsworn]]''': Heaviest infantry available to the Dawi Zharr. Charge defense vs all and broadly similar stats to Dwarf Ironbreakers, magical & flaming attacks.
**'''The Immortals:''' An elite double axe Regiment of Renown which can turn basically any other infantry they face into rump roasts.

===Missiles===
*'''Hobgoblin Archers''': Closely analogous to Greenskin Goblin Archers, but with Flaming Attacks added. Can be surprisingly good if Weakness to Fire is abused (or absolutely useless against Dragons).

*'''Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses''': THE standout member of the present roster, a frontline of Blunderbusses can on it's own rout many armies, and with charge defense vs large even the stuff that reaches them will have a hard time getting through them. Comparable melee stats to Dwarf Warriors, and their ranged weapon does an ungodly amount of damage to anything that enters it's 90 range. Prepare for the possibility of this unit getting nerfed like Ogre Ironbelchers.

*'''Infernal Guard Fireglaives''': Tier 3 hybrid infantry, with a 145 range repeating rifle. Very capable melee combatants to boot, one of only two Chaos Dwarf units with anti-large. Will lose bad in a 1-to-1 shootout against Blunderbusses.

===Cavalry===
*'''Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders''': Superior Goblin Wolf Riders. Come in spear & shield and bow varieties, and have the unique ability Cowardly Despoilers granting +25% Weapon Strength when attacking a unit from behind or the flank.

*'''Bull Centaur Renders''': A bit like tankier Dragon Ogres. Come in axe & shield, anti-infantry dual axe, and anti-large great weapon varieties, all with armour-piercing. Similar to Blunderbusses, Bull Centaurs with great weapons are absurdly overtuned and will beat practically every other cavalry unit in the game and will likely be hit with the nerf hammer in upcoming patches. They're slow for monstrous cavalry however, and are vulnerable to kiting.

===Monsters===
*'''[[Great Taurus]]''': The basic doom cow and your cheapest monster. It has respectable stats, it flies, it causes terror, it gains physical resistance and reflects melee damage the longer it's in combat. Drop it on a backline and watch it go moo.

*'''[[Lammasu]]''': An odd flying monster with some tricks up it sleeves. It has Enfeebling Foe and The Withering as bound spells, which can be useful as the only access to Shadow spells in the roster. Compared with the flying cows, it has far less AP damage, lower melee attack and substantially less charge bonus, but higher melee defence and magical attacks. Besides its spells, the unique feature of the Lammasu is it has an aura that nullifies enemy unit's magical attacks. This would be very useful... if the Chorf's roster actually had any units that relied on high physical resistance to survive. Really, the only non-RoR units that rely on physical resistance are the K'daai, which if you're babysitting, it's better to just stick a Daemonsmith on a Lammasu rather than bring one of these by themselves.

*'''[[K%27daai|'K'daai Fireborn]]''': Daemons summoned from the burning depths so they may then be bound into armour and turned into the Dawi-Zharr's brand of Monstrous Infantry. K'daai have a few attributes that make them tricky to use. They gain physical resistance and damage reflection the longer they're in melee, and they're Unbreakable as long as their health is high but as soon as it dips too low they start taking damage from Daemonic Instability. They have an anti-infantry bonus with most of their damage being AP and can buzzsaw through even elite infantry... so long as their health is up. Once it drops the Fireborn die ''fast''. Since they benefit from a Daemonsmith's Hellforged ability they're one of your few units that can be healed but you have to keep an eye on them or they'll be gone as soon as you blink. They suffer a bit from filling the same role as dual weapon Bull centaurs but being far more fragile.

*'''[[Bale Taurus]]''': Exactly the same as the Great Taurus but with better stats and the addition of a flaming breath attack. This steak wants ''you'' well done.

*'''[[K%27daai|K'daai Destroyer]]''': The big monster from the trailer and the ultimate work of the Chaos Dwarfs, the K'Daai Destroyer is a massive metal-wrought prison for a raging fire daemon, and it is here to rip and tear through your enemy's frontline. Flaming magical attacks with a whopping 680 weapon strength will pulverise any man-sized thing it gets its claws on, and its animations are designed for it to rip through even the most elite infantry in seconds. On top of being Hell-Forged allowing your Daemonsmiths to repair it, it's a Bound Fire Daemon like the Fireborn, it has Blazing Body, and its unique Hellish Frenzy buffs its damage, charge bonus and melee attack while it's above 75% health, although it also has Daemonic Instability which means once that Unbreakable wears off it can die quickly. If you want a giant monster to throw at your enemy, look no further than the K'daai Destroyer. Just keep it away from anti-large monsters.

===Artillery & War Machines===
*'''[[Magma_Cannon_(Warhammer_Fantasy)|Magma Cannon]]''': Single unit anti-infantry fire artillery with a range of 450. Upon hitting something, its projectile makes a fire field on the ground that continuously damages and stuns anything in it, which breaks up a unit's formation on the advance. If the enemy is coming towards you in a big blob, target the front ranks of the blob, the other guys will walk into the fire patch.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Iron Daemon]]''': Fat single unit, powerful collision attacks and two fat blunderbuss cannons. This and the Skullcracker's primary melee attacks are anti-infantry steam cannons mounted on all sides of the chassis, so this thing can do a lot of damage whether it's sending rounds into the enemy's flanks or rolling straight through it. It's melee attack/defense are mediocre, so it won't perform optimally if you order it into an infantry blob and forget about it. See also: Dreadquake Mortar.

*'''[[Hellcannon|Hellcannon]]''': The classic artillery piece using the souls of the damned as homing ammunition. Not much to be said, just the WoC unit returned to their fellow countrydwarfs. Lacks the unique traits of the faction's other machines, and is the only crewed unit on the roster.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Skullcracker]]''': The dedicated melee counterpart of the Iron Daemon that for some reason has the exact same stats as the Iron Daemon minus the guns. Despite this, it costs more than the Iron Daemon. Lords do have redline skills that improve the Skullcracker's melee stats, but this just isn't a thing in multiplayer battles. Probably needs some stat adjustments to differentiate it from its ranged brother.

*'''[[Deathshrieker_Rocket_Launcher|Death Shrieker Rocket Launcher]]''': A much killier version of the Empire's Helstorm and Cathay's Fire Rain. 420 range, can fire both anti-infantry airburst rockets and anti-large direct detonation rockets (Two direct hits of the latter will break Queen Bess). Important to note that the anti-large rocket will only ever hit a single entity - shooting it at anything that isn't a single or very low model count unit is hugely inefficient. This is the most specialised of the Chorf's artillery, it loses out in the anti-infantry department to all other options available and the single-fire rocket is lacking in accuracy. It does have an extremely high firing arc that lets it ignore most terrain in between itself and its target.

*'''[[Dreadquake_Mortar|Dreadquake Mortar]]''': CHUNKY 380 range mortar. Single hit will cut a lot of unit's model count in half, but the slow speed of the projectile can make it a little situational. The damage number doesn't count the AoE earth tremor effect that persists for a few seconds after the shot lands. While highly inaccurate, a direct hit will decimate all but the most heavily armoured units and it will stop anything in its tracks with its -60% speed debuff. Be careful though, as the Dreadquake doesn't discriminate, and a poorly aimed shot will decimate your frontline as quickly as it'll decimate the enemy's. But that's what your greenskin units are for, ay? Can be taken by itself, or can be pulled into battle by an Iron Daemon or a Skullcracker, for all your war train needs - benefited further by it's 360° firing.

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===

==Campaign Advice==
===Mechanics===
Chaos Dwarfs have a large number of mechanics at their disposal, more than pretty much any other faction in the entire good. The good news from a comprehension stand point is that a lot of them are from other factions, so if you are familiar with how those factions work than you can implement the same thing into the Chorfs. As for what is unique to them however, it may seem very complicated at first but honestly once you start playing you catch on pretty quick.

Firstly, Chorfs are focused around economic development, and have three different building chains that produce three different types of incomes outside of normal gold. There are '''Outposts''' that produce ''Raw Resources''', '''Factories''' that consume Raw Resources to produce '''Armaments''', and '''Towers''', Regional capitals that produce '''Conclave Influence'''. Outposts and Factories both have building chains that produce the Raw Resources and Armaments, where as Towers produce Conclave Influence naturally.

Your Raw Resources consume '''Labour''' to produce from your '''Labour Economy'''. Labour are your totally fairly treated, well paid and not at all enslaved workforce that are gained from winning battles, raiding, use of your '''Military Convoy''' system (basically Cathayan Caravans, where you sell Gold or Armaments in exchange for Gold, Raw Resources or Labour, countering battles and new chances for units as your convoy travels the map) or from random events. Once you have two provinces you can manage your Labour with a tab that allows you to see where your Labor is, move Labourers around to other parts of your empire, and stop Larbourers from going to provinces you don't need them anymore. It's important to make sure your Provinces all have the Labour they need because if they don't your Outposts won't produce the Raw Resources you need as efficiently. You can also sacrifice Labourers in order to gain money, control, Conclave Influence or instantly construct buildings.

Raw Resources are extremely important in the early game as you need them to upgrade your towers, certain buildings and produce Armaments. Armaments are used for '''The Hell-Forge''' mechanic to help you get decent armies. Any unit in your army that isn't a Hobgoblin or Labourer is restricted by unit caps, and you can spend Armaments in the Armoury in order to raise said cap. You can also spend Armaments in the Manufactory in order to upgrade your higher end units, though this will cost you Armaments up front and an upkeep of them per turn. You can also trade them with the Convoy system, which will get you better more resources than with pure gold. Finally, Conclave Influence is used in the '''Tower of Zharr''' system, wher you can secure seats in the tower and steal seats from other Chaos Dwarfs for buffs and bonuses, all the way up to confederating the other Chaos Dwarf factions. Influence can also be used to upgrade towers to higher tiers when you conquer a city.

I know, I know, big scary wall of text, so let's break it down.

'''Treasury''': Normal gold earned from income buildings, used to upgrade Outposts, recruit and maintain units. Can be traded in Convoys

'''Labour''': Totally not Slaves got from battles, raids and Convoys used to make Raw Resources, instantly construct building or sacrificed for buffs

'''Raw Resources''': Made from Outposts' Strip Mine buildings. Consumes Larbour. Used to upgrade Towers, Factories and certain buildings and produce Armaments

'''Armaments''': Made from Factory's Gunsmith buildings. Consumes Raw Resources. Used for upgrading units or selling on the Convoy

'''Conclave Influence''': Got from Settlement Buildings, certain buildings and events. Used to upgrade conquered towers and secure seats in the Tower of Zharr.

Looks very complicated at first but you catch on fairly quick. If you play Victoria 3 you might be laughing at someone calling this system complex but by Total War standards it's a fun and in depth evil economy simulator.

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos Dwarfs

2023-05-01T10:28:58Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* Units */

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Chaos Dwarfs]] (that's DWARFS with an FS at the end, ignore the title of the redirect page, the author shall be sacrificed to Hashut) in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why play Chaos Dwarfs?==
*Because you like seeing things go BOOM!
*While everyone else is in the Renaissance at best, you will show the world the glory and horror of the Industrial Revolution.
*Because you love the shameless evil of the Dark Elves but don't like the actual ''Elf'' part.
*You love to artillery box and shoot things with giant fuck off guns.
*Because you feel like every single villain should use an exceptional amount of fire.
*You're a fan of clan Skryre and their tactic of dropping high explosives into the ranks of your own slave fodder
*You wanted to play dwarves but you are tired of the classic honorable mining fellows.
*You have a high tolerance for silly hats.
*You're a Victoria 3 player but also want war in your game

===Pros===
*'''Gunpowder''': Your guns are some of the most powerful in the whole game. Expect to win in a straight up shoot out against pretty much any other faction that relies on guns. Combine that with some of the strongest artillery in the game and no enemy will want you shooting for long.
*'''Armor''': At least for the units you actually care about. Even the lowest Chaos Dwarf has strong armor comparable to the Dwarfs when it comes to durability. Of course your Hobgoblins won't be great in this department, but you don't really care about them now do you?
*'''Melee Grind''': What? You thought that just because they are good at shooting they must stink in melee? Nope! Chaos Dwarf infantry is very strong and hard hitting and their monsters are quiet good at turning the enemy into pasta sauce.
*'''Fire''': Not only do you have lots of it but you have lots of units resistant to it. Anything weak to fire is going to burn and anything that uses fire will feel damn near useless against you. You also have plenty of ways to give fire weakness, leading to some cool combos.
*'''Monsters''': You got plenty of them, from K'Daai, Lamassus and Great Tauruses you have plenty of monsters to throw around.
*'''Versatile''': You got a unit for more or less any occasion. Yeah you prefer to shoot but you got strong Infantry, Cavalry, Fliers and magic as well. It's possible to pull out all kinds of tactics, especially compared to your Dawi cousins. The flexibility of the Chorfs on launch puts many other factions to shame. It's almost absurd just how well all different parts of the Chorfs' roster work together. You have plenty of sources of Flammable to complement your plenty of sources of fire damage, your four lores of Fire, Metal, Death and Hashut give you every buff, debuff, and direct damage you need. Enemies charging your frontline? Drop an Ash Storm and give your Blunderbusses Flaming Sword of Ruin and even the strongest units will disintegrate before your eyes. Need to tarpit something? You have plenty of expendable greenskins to hold things in place while your artillery rain death on them. You have a tool for virtually every situation.

===Cons===
*'''Insufficient Mid-Tier Options''': You don't have a lot of options that are strong while also affordable. Your options consist of either very strong but very few Chaos Dwarfs or plentiful but near useless Hobgoblins and Labourers. In game, your army lacks effective mid-tier units that can kick ass while still being an affordable price.
*'''Single Entity Artillery''': Your artillery is fearsome but they're all single-model units. You can actually get into trouble during artillery duels as many other ranged factions can bring units of cannons with four shots to your one.
*'''Short-ranged infantry''': The Chaos Dwarfs always favored blunderbusses over handguns. While dumping a whole unit of shotguns into somebody is going to hurt, longer range units can kite away from you. Your other possible option, goblin archers are... not great if we look to the orcs. Fireglaives have decent range but they are also highly expensive and you have limited recruitment. So if you want to really touch somebody at distance you'll have to rely on your artillery.
*'''Slow''': Chaos-corrupted Dwarfs are still Dwarfs, and you still curse the day the Old Ones gave you stubby legs. Sure you're faster than the Karaz Ankor Dwarfs but that's like saying you're faster than your 4 year old nephew, not something you should be bragging about. Even Bull Centaurs are rather slow for Cav and while Hobgoblin cav is quick, it’s not good for much outside of killing skirmishers and artillery or chasing off routing units.
*'''Cost-inefficient''': The big one: Chaos Dwarfs don't like fighting in armies as there is too few of them to risk their lives consistently compared to their western brethren. As such, the Chorfs have high upkeep for units like chaos dwarf warriors, infernal guard, etc. and will be reliant on slaves, which you will likely only be able to get by fighting and winning battles. Don't expect anything to go cheaply unless it is a slave with low morale or a hobgoblin.
*'''Anti-Large? What's that?''': You don't have super cost effective Anti large options. All your AP missiles cost a pretty penny and anything with Anti Large is in the elite camp, so monsters might actually be a problem for you.

==Faction Traits==
*'''Contempt''': All Chaos Dwarf race units (so excluding Hobgoblins and K'Daai, but including Bull Centaurs) will only suffer morale penalties from watching friendly units rout if they also have the Contempt rule. This means that if your Greenskin or Monster units run away, they aren't going to give a shit, allowing your Dorfs to stay in the fight a bit longer than other units in the same situation.

*'''Malign Authority''': The ability of your Greenskin sla- oh, I'm sorry- LABOURER units. They gain extra leadership when a unit with the Contempt rule is nearby, allowing them to stick around for just long enough to drop another volley onto their faces while they hold the enemy in place.

*'''Backstabbers''': Common to all hobgoblin units, increases both melee and missile damage if above half health.

*'''Fire Resistance''': All Chaos Dwarf race units have some degree of fire resistance, in the 15%-25% range, varying by unit.

*'''Hellbound''': Common to all war machines and artillery besides the Hellcannon, this passive grants Magical Attacks, 20% Physical Resistance, and perfect Vigour for as long as HP is >25%. Oddly enough, can be removed in multiplayer for some extra funds.

*'''Hell-Forged''': Common to the same units as Hellbound, simply allows them to be healed by the Daemonsmith's Reforge ability, which is given even more importance by the buffs gained from keeping Hellbound enabled. Also works on K'daai.

==Lords==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''Astragoth Ironhand''': An ancient, partially petrified Sorcerer-Prophet with machinery grafted to his limbs to move, and de facto the faction leader. Comes with a mix of the Lore of Hashut and the Lore of Fire. Despite being a caster lord, he can hold his own against melee beatsticks like Vlad and Malekith thanks to his high melee stats and his special ability that increases physical resistance at the cost of mobility over the course of a battle. And while he doesn't get a mount, that's not a problem when his mobility suit allows him to run at heavy cavalry speed.

*'''Zhatan the Black''': Your dedicated melee beatstick. He's not the strongest melee lord in the game, but he's well armored and shielded, making him fairly tanky. He's also got decent maneuverability if you take the Lammasu or Great Taurus mount. His most powerful ability is his "Sadistic Snare," a single target net that allows your ranged units to turn that target into mincemeat.

*'''Drazhoath the Ashen''': Lore of Hashut caster lord. Can mount a Taurus, Lammasu, or Bale Taurus.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Sorcerer-Prophet''': Based off of the Legion of Azgorh they can use the Lore of Hashut, Fire, Death, or Metal. Anyone who's seen chorf speculation has heard this a thousand times, but your generic magic lord may have a mechanic to represent the curse of petrification.

*'''Overseer''': Melee lord

==Heroes==
===Legendary Heroes===
'''Gorduz Backstabber''': Hobgoblin melee hero, can buff Hobgoblin units. Can mount a wolf.

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Daemonsmith''': Hashut's own mix between a caster and master engineer. Come with the lore of Hashut, Fire, Metal, or Death, and can heal War Machines.

*'''Infernal Castellan''': Missile Specialist

*'''Bull Centaur Taur'ruk''': Melee specialist pseudo-cavalry with anti-large

==Units==
===Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Goblin Labourers]]''': the worst of the worst infantry in the game, the only thing they beat is peasant mobs and that should say something, luckily like peasant mobs that a damn cost-effective meatshields, have a chorf unit near them and, well, they still ain’t very good but at least they won’t rout immediately.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Orc Labourers]]''': your other trash unit, orc laborers are only good as cannon fodder for heavily armored factions, otherwise goblins are more cost-effective, their so bad they lose to GOBLINS, makes one wonder what the chorfs out their laborers through that make even orcs suck ass at fighting.

*'''[[Hobgoblin Warriors|Hobgoblin Cutthroats]]''': Close but stronger to the Greenskins' Goblins. Also benefit from Malign Authority and Backstabbers. Because of Contempt, you can use them just as disposably as the Labourers. With 140 models, makes for good tarpitting.

*'''[[Sneaky Git|Hobgoblin Sneaky Gits]]''': Stalk, poison precursor ranged attack, poison anti-infantry melee. Has mediocre melee stats and no armor piercing, so use them as a cheap sneaky tarpit like night goblins.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Warrior|Chaos Dwarf Warriors]]''': Tier 2 heavy infantry, across the board superior than Dwarf Warriors, but used in essentially the same way. Comes with axe & shield, or armour-piercing great weapons, has silver shields which their honorable cousins still don’t have, this has…lead to more than a few popped vains

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Infernal Guard]]''': Tier 3 heavy infantry, comparable to Longbeards. Come in axe & shield or AP great weapon varieties.

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Ironsworn]]''': Heaviest infantry available to the Dawi Zharr. Charge defense vs all and broadly similar stats to Dwarf Ironbreakers, magical & flaming attacks.
**'''The Immortals:''' An elite double axe Regiment of Renown which can turn basically any other infantry they face into rump roasts.

===Missiles===
*'''Hobgoblin Archers''': Closely analogous to Greenskin Goblin Archers, but with Flaming Attacks added. Can be surprisingly good if Weakness to Fire is abused (or absolutely useless against Dragons).

*'''Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses''': THE standout member of the present roster, a frontline of Blunderbusses can on it's own rout many armies, and with charge defense vs large even the stuff that reaches them will have a hard time getting through them. Comparable melee stats to Dwarf Warriors, and their ranged weapon does an ungodly amount of damage to anything that enters it's 90 range. Prepare for the possibility of this unit getting nerfed like Ogre Ironbelchers.

*'''Infernal Guard Fireglaives''': Tier 3 hybrid infantry, with a 145 range repeating rifle. Very capable melee combatants to boot, one of only two Chaos Dwarf units with anti-large. Will lose bad in a 1-to-1 shootout against Blunderbusses.

===Cavalry===
*'''Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders''': Superior Goblin Wolf Riders. Come in spear & shield and bow varieties, and have the unique ability Cowardly Despoilers granting +25% Weapon Strength when attacking a unit from behind or the flank.

*'''Bull Centaur Renders''': A bit like tankier Dragon Ogres. Come in axe & shield, anti-infantry dual axe, and anti-large great weapon varieties, all with armour-piercing. Similar to Blunderbusses, Bull Centaurs with great weapons are absurdly overtuned and will beat practically every other cavalry unit in the game and will likely be hit with the nerf hammer in upcoming patches. They're slow for monstrous cavalry however, and are vulnerable to kiting.

===Monsters===
*'''[[Great Taurus]]''': The basic doom cow and your cheapest monster. It has respectable stats, it flies, it causes terror, it gains physical resistance and reflects melee damage the longer it's in combat. Drop it on a backline and watch it go moo.

*'''[[Lammasu]]''': An odd flying monster with some tricks up it sleeves. It has Enfeebling Foe and The Withering as bound spells, which can be useful as the only access to Shadow spells in the roster. Compared with the flying cows, it has far less AP damage, lower melee attack and substantially less charge bonus, but higher melee defence and magical attacks. Besides its spells, the unique feature of the Lammasu is it has an aura that nullifies enemy unit's magical attacks. This would be very useful... if the Chorf's roster actually had any units that relied on high physical resistance to survive. Really, the only non-RoR units that rely on physical resistance are the K'daai, which if you're babysitting, it's better to just stick a Daemonsmith on a Lammasu rather than bring one of these by themselves.

*'''[[K%27daai|'K'daai Fireborn]]''': Daemons summoned from the burning depths so they may then be bound into armour and turned into the Dawi-Zharr's brand of Monstrous Infantry. K'daai have a few attributes that make them tricky to use. They gain physical resistance and damage reflection the longer they're in melee, and they're Unbreakable as long as their health is high but as soon as it dips too low they start taking damage from Daemonic Instability. They have an anti-infantry bonus with most of their damage being AP and can buzzsaw through even elite infantry... so long as their health is up. Once it drops the Fireborn die ''fast''. Since they benefit from a Daemonsmith's Hellforged ability they're one of your few units that can be healed but you have to keep an eye on them or they'll be gone as soon as you blink. They suffer a bit from filling the same role as dual weapon Bull centaurs but being far more fragile.

*'''[[Bale Taurus]]''': Exactly the same as the Great Taurus but with better stats and the addition of a flaming breath attack. This steak wants ''you'' well done.

*'''[[K%27daai|K'daai Destroyer]]''': The big monster from the trailer and the ultimate work of the Chaos Dwarfs, the K'Daai Destroyer is a massive metal-wrought prison for a raging fire daemon, and it is here to rip and tear through your enemy's frontline. Flaming magical attacks with a whopping 680 weapon strength will pulverise any man-sized thing it gets its claws on, and its animations are designed for it to rip through even the most elite infantry in seconds. On top of being Hell-Forged allowing your Daemonsmiths to repair it, it's a Bound Fire Daemon like the Fireborn, it has Blazing Body, and its unique Hellish Frenzy buffs its damage, charge bonus and melee attack while it's above 75% health, although it also has Daemonic Instability which means once that Unbreakable wears off it can die quickly. If you want a giant monster to throw at your enemy, look no further than the K'daai Destroyer. Just keep it away from anti-large monsters.

===Artillery & War Machines===
*'''[[Magma_Cannon_(Warhammer_Fantasy)|Magma Cannon]]''': Single unit anti-infantry fire artillery with a range of 450. Upon hitting something, its projectile makes a fire field on the ground that continuously damages and stuns anything in it, which breaks up a unit's formation on the advance. If the enemy is coming towards you in a big blob, target the front ranks of the blob, the other guys will walk into the fire patch.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Iron Daemon]]''': Fat single unit, powerful collision attacks and two fat blunderbuss cannons. This and the Skullcracker's primary melee attacks are anti-infantry steam cannons mounted on all sides of the chassis, so this thing can do a lot of damage whether it's sending rounds into the enemy's flanks or rolling straight through it. It's melee attack/defense are mediocre, so it won't perform optimally if you order it into an infantry blob and forget about it. See also: Dreadquake Mortar.

*'''[[Hellcannon|Hellcannon]]''': The classic artillery piece using the souls of the damned as homing ammunition. Not much to be said, just the WoC unit returned to their fellow countrydwarfs. Lacks the unique traits of the faction's other machines, and is the only crewed unit on the roster.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Skullcracker]]''': The dedicated melee counterpart of the Iron Daemon that for some reason has the exact same stats as the Iron Daemon minus the guns. Despite this, it costs more than the Iron Daemon. Lords do have redline skills that improve the Skullcracker's melee stats, but this just isn't a thing in multiplayer battles. Probably needs some stat adjustments to differentiate it from its ranged brother.

*'''[[Deathshrieker_Rocket_Launcher|Death Shrieker Rocket Launcher]]''': A much killier version of the Empire's Helstorm and Cathay's Fire Rain. 420 range, can fire both anti-infantry airburst rockets and anti-large direct detonation rockets (Two direct hits of the latter will break Queen Bess). Important to note that the anti-large rocket will only ever hit a single entity - shooting it at anything that isn't a single or very low model count unit is hugely inefficient. This is the most specialised of the Chorf's artillery, it loses out in the anti-infantry department to all other options available and the single-fire rocket is lacking in accuracy. It does have an extremely high firing arc that lets it ignore most terrain in between itself and its target.

*'''[[Dreadquake_Mortar|Dreadquake Mortar]]''': CHUNKY 380 range mortar. Single hit will cut a lot of unit's model count in half, but the slow speed of the projectile can make it a little situational. The damage number doesn't count the AoE earth tremor effect that persists for a few seconds after the shot lands. While highly inaccurate, a direct hit will decimate all but the most heavily armoured units and it will stop anything in its tracks with its -60% speed debuff. Be careful though, as the Dreadquake doesn't discriminate, and a poorly aimed shot will decimate your frontline as quickly as it'll decimate the enemy's. But that's what your greenskin units are for, ay? Can be taken by itself, or can be pulled into battle by an Iron Daemon or a Skullcracker, for all your war train needs - benefited further by it's 360° firing.

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===

==Campaign Advice==
===Mechanics===
Chaos Dwarfs have a large number of mechanics at their disposal, more than pretty much any other faction in the entire good. The good news from a comprehension stand point is that a lot of them are from other factions, so if you are familiar with how those factions work than you can implement the same thing into the Chorfs. As for what is unique to them however, it may seem very complicated at first but honestly once you start playing you catch on pretty quick.

Firstly, Chorfs are focused around economic development, and have three different building chains that produce three different types of incomes outside of normal gold. There are '''Outposts''' that produce ''Raw Resources''', '''Factories''' that consume Raw Resources to produce '''Armaments''', and '''Towers''', Regional capitals that produce '''Conclave Influence'''. Outposts and Factories both have building chains that produce the Raw Resources and Armaments, where as Towers produce Conclave Influence naturally.

Your Raw Resources consume '''Labour''' to produce from your '''Labour Economy'''. Labour are your totally fairly treated, well paid and not at all enslaved workforce that are gained from winning battles, raiding, use of your '''Military Convoy''' system (basically Cathayan Caravans, where you sell Gold or Armaments in exchange for Gold, Raw Resources or Labour, countering battles and new chances for units as your convoy travels the map) or from random events. Once you have two provinces you can manage your Labour with a tab that allows you to see where your Labor is, move Labourers around to other parts of your empire, and stop Larbourers from going to provinces you don't need them anymore. It's important to make sure your Provinces all have the Labour they need because if they don't your Outposts won't produce the Raw Resources you need as efficiently. You can also sacrifice Labourers in order to gain money, control, Conclave Influence or instantly construct buildings.

Raw Resources are extremely important in the early game as you need them to upgrade your towers, certain buildings and produce Armaments. Armaments are used for '''The Hell-Forge''' mechanic to help you get decent armies. Any unit in your army that isn't a Hobgoblin or Labourer is restricted by unit caps, and you can spend Armaments in the Armoury in order to raise said cap. You can also spend Armaments in the Manufactory in order to upgrade your higher end units, though this will cost you Armaments up front and an upkeep of them per turn. You can also trade them with the Convoy system, which will get you better more resources than with pure gold. Finally, Conclave Influence is used in the '''Tower of Zharr''' system, wher you can secure seats in the tower and steal seats from other Chaos Dwarfs for buffs and bonuses, all the way up to confederating the other Chaos Dwarf factions. Influence can also be used to upgrade towers to higher tiers when you conquer a city.

I know, I know, big scary wall of text, so let's break it down.

'''Treasury''': Normal gold earned from income buildings, used to upgrade Outposts, recruit and maintain units. Can be traded in Convoys

'''Labour''': Totally not Slaves got from battles, raids and Convoys used to make Raw Resources, instantly construct building or sacrificed for buffs

'''Raw Resources''': Made from Outposts' Strip Mine buildings. Consumes Larbour. Used to upgrade Towers, Factories and certain buildings and produce Armaments

'''Armaments''': Made from Factory's Gunsmith buildings. Consumes Raw Resources. Used for upgrading units or selling on the Convoy

'''Conclave Influence''': Got from Settlement Buildings, certain buildings and events. Used to upgrade conquered towers and secure seats in the Tower of Zharr.

Looks very complicated at first but you catch on fairly quick. If you play Victoria 3 you might be laughing at someone calling this system complex but by Total War standards it's a fun and in depth evil economy simulator.

{{Chaos Dwarfs-Forces}}
[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-04-28T14:36:04Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1:

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.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''Gunpowder''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor 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.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===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 now 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.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': Unless you're going up against the [[Bretonnia|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.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': 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 and 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 Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, 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 independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; 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 a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating 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, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. 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. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making 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 you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). 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 but are too manly to be an elf. 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 [[lascannon|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 [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], 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. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, 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.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===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, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[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. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[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.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''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 with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. 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): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' 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 focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': 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): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (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. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''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 crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' 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, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (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 and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart 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 Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and does pretty well against anything without magic resistance. Leave them at home if you're fighting dwarfs.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[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===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' 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 high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' 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): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===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 pistoliers 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 cavalry 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) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) 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 lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever 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/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around 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, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. 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 around a third of your army being melee 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===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Warhammer 40K: Darktide

2022-11-14T01:49:19Z

2601:204:201:9A00:AC53:82F1:165F:7DE1: /* Other Characters */

{{/vg/}}
[[File:Darktide 40k Logo.png|700px|thumb|center|''Rejects Will Rise'']]

'''Darktide''' is an upcoming co-op first-person shooter made by [[The End Times: Vermintide|Vermintide]] developer Fatshark. The game will likely have the same gameplay as Vermintide, only in space and facing Chaos cults in an Underhive.

==Story==
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta7pEier2MQ Writing] Brought to you by motherfucking [[Dan Abnett]], with help form your favourite [[Spiritual Liege]], [[Matthew Ward]]<ref>https://twitter.com/thetowerofstars/status/1512480226651295744</ref>

The game takes place on the Hive World of '''Atoma Prime''', where a group of [[Nurgle]] worshipping assholes called '''The Admonition''' are plotting to take over the planet from the hive city of '''Tertium''' with the extensive use of pox gases, converting the infected to their side. Thankfully (or not), one Inquisitor Grendyl has come to cleanse the heretical arsehole. Instead of [[exterminatus|doing the mercy killing]], or calling [[Adeptus Astartes|911]], the inquisitor believes the situation is still somewhat salvageable. Scooping out the convicts they've collected [[The Last Chancers|(not for the first time)]], giving them weapons and throwing them to the meat grinder, hopefully they could find out what the hell is going on while purging some fucking heretics.

According to the devblog, the true antagonist is a concept known as the '''Darktide''' (roll credits!), a boogeyman threat that must be kept at bay, or so the people of Atoma Prime believe. In fact, it is a collective term referring to the brutal horrors of the Warhammer 40,000 universe: mutants, xenos, and worse - who want nothing more than to extinguish the fluttering flame of human civilization. The young people recruited to regiments like the Moebian Sixth have no idea where they’re being sent, or what they will face. They are as ignorant of the "Darktide" as any other regular citizen, for they were all citizens themselves. Out on the death worlds of the Fringe, the lasmen are thrown into the meat grinder and come face to face with unimaginable danger. Their world-view changes. They learn the nature of the Darktide and fight it tooth and nail. Sometimes, they learn too much. Long tours result in trauma, both physical and psychological. Some are broken by the experience. Some are made bitter and resentful that the grueling combat they experience is generally unrecognized back home, because the Imperial Administratum tends to keep all details of the ongoing conflict quiet so as not to generate public alarm. There might be a few news broadcasts about "great victories", but the rest of the turmoil is screened by propaganda. Some troopers, of course, serve brilliantly and bravely, and remain loyal despite everything they experience. But others fall prey to the insidious touch of the Darktide. They encounter the malevolent effect of the Warp, and it changes them. They become - literally, in some cases - the very thing they are fighting against.

In summary, the Darktide is basically Nurgle's way of weaponizing PTSD, throwing Imperial troops into a meat grinder to break their spirits and then brainwashing them to become one with the grinder themselves. It is no wonder why [[Adeptus Astartes]] were not sent. One can see some rather unnerving parallels with what happened to the [[Iron Warriors]] and how the their endless campaigns of gruelling siege warfare caused them to snap and turn to Chaos.

And that's where our heroes, the convicts come in. They are invaluable yet expendable. Whether they're Ogryns, guard veterans, fanatics of the Imperial Creed, or Psykers, they are the hardest meat the Imperium could send en masse, ready to purge the enemies of the Imperium with their remarkable abilities.

'''''The Rejects Will Rise!'''''

==Gameplay==
The game excitingly is one of the very few 40k video games to feature the Guardsmen in the starring role and not the Space Marines, and will play just as similar to Vermintide, only probably leaning more towards the shooty parts of the game. As such it will likely be much closer to the L4D2 style of play than Vermintide. The game will also feature a class style of character system like in Vermintide.

More will come as more info comes out, but Guardsmen fans rejoice as they are put in the spotlight for once.

As of the magazine spot, playable classes are to be a Zealot, an Ogryn, a Veteran, and a Psyker, The classes are also apparently very customizable, both visually and gameplay-wise with lots of interchangeable weapons for classes and while no weapons have been specifically mentioned, plasma weapons, hellguns, chainswords, ripper guns, and flamers have all been seen at one point or another. Also, [[Awesome|you can play as four Ogryns.]] Each character can choose between three different voices with their own unique responses, for it seems Fatshark has been pulling their weight and emptying coin pouch on this game with many different VA.

The trailer also showed off Poxwalkers, traitor guardsmen, Hounds of Xaphan (actually pox hound), and fucking Plague Ogryns as enemy types so even though FW disconnected the Renegade and heretic line, they will hopefully live on in the game.

Darktide was featured on Edge magazine with a 15-page article stating that there will be some form of character creator, a backstory in that you start as a newly conscripted prisoner snatched off a transport ship by the Inquisition, ability leaks, and a shield system like Payday 2.

For new introduced features unlike in Vermintide or L4D, certain enemies now "corrupt" players, reducing their maximum health represented by a purple bar (just like in vermintide where the players are cursed for carrying grimoire). Be aware the effects can stack, so players better stick together and be ready kill any specials in order to prevent further health reduction. The corruption cannot be healed by normal means (normal health pack are health sprays that can group heal btw), but it can be treated by healing stations that appear at certain points of the run, fully healing any players that use it. However, the healing station has a usage limit of 4, so spend its uses wisely. There are no more infinite ammo boxes like in vermintide, so players have to think more strategically on their ammo usage. However, there will always be at least 3 stacks of ammo waiting at healing stations.

A new mechanic called "cohesion" gives bonuses to players if they stick together, discouraging them from trying to wander off on their own to get killed. Another mechanic called "toughness" acts as a temporary damage soak, ensuring that players won't get stunlocked to death the moment they get shot at. Unlike regular health, it regenerates over time but does so faster if the team stays in cohesion.

==Classes==
Unlike the Ubersreik Five (or Four, doesn't matter), your characters each have a customizable backstory that lets you choose their homeworld, what they did in their earlier lives, and how they ended up in prison. As a result, it's perfectly possible to form a team consisting entirely of one class (though in practice it'll probably be a good idea to have some variety). Each class has several different personalities representing the various criminal lunatics serving in the campaign. Highlights include the aggressively German male Psyker, a Northern English Ogryn, the magnificently hammy Preachers (all of them, male and female, it's great) and the French female Psyker voiced by Repanse de Lyonesse who alternates between psychotic and kind (amazingly, she is the SANEST Psyker, which is saying a lot, and has a shockingly well developed moral compass for the 42nd Millenium, though of course she is just as remorseless a killer as the rest and thus something of an oblivious hypocrite professing love for the citizens and horror at the Inquisition's regular MO even as she gleefully pops skulls and rips through hordes of enemies with her sword).

* '''Veteran:''' Has the ability to grant themself extra gun zooming range and increased headshot damage. By default, they wield a [[Lasgun]], a [[Chain Weapon|Chainsword]] and Frag Grenades. For other weapons, they have a Lucius patterned combat [[shotgun]] (aka your favourite shotgun from L4D is back!!!),[[Stubber|a Stub Revolver]], a Plasma Gun, a Power Sword, an Autogun, and a Combat Blade. Confirmed that they will be making Forge-World variation for Basic weapons such as Lasguns and Autoguns for now.
** '''Sharpshooter:''' A subclass of Veteran geared towards long-ranged combat and scoring headshots, with their passive granting them a larger ammo capacity and more damage against enemy weak points. While in cohesion, they have a chance not to use up ammo when shooting. Their active ability slows them down in exchange for boosting their accuracy, damage against enemy weak points, and weapon handling; it also makes non-Ogryn elites and special enemies easier to identify from afar so you can snipe them better. By default the weapons they can wield are a Kantrael Mk VII Lasgun, a shovel ([[Death Korps of Krieg|Krieg fanon-lovers rejoice!]]), and frag grenades.

* '''Zealot:''' Your happy go purging Ministorum Priest. Since player characters are all convicts for a reason, the Zealots was probably excommunicated for [[heresy|certain reasons]], but let's hope it is not something [[chaos|too severe]]. By default, they wield an [[Autogun]], a [[power weapon|Power Hammer]] and Incendiary grenades, and have also been seen using a [[Flamer]] and a Chain Axe.
** '''Preacher:''' A subclass of Zealot that functions similarly to the Zealot from [[Vermintide 2]]: they have fast melee attacks, deal bonus damage when their health is low, and can avoid dying after taking a fatal attack (albeit with a long cooldown). They take reduced toughness damage while in cohesion. Their active ability is a charging attack that locks enemies into melee. By default they wield an [[Autogun#Autopistol|Autopistol]], Combat Axe, and Stumm grenades.

* '''Psyker:''' A wizard type character with the exact some play style and mechanics as [[The End Times: Vermintide#Gameplay|Sienna from vermintide]], but no fire (at least, not physical fire). So I guess we know that the Inquisitor sending the Convicts out is a Radical. As mentioned previously in Vermintide, this type of character has unlimited ammo, but will explode if they overuse their powers (here referred to by Perils). They will also suffer damage when trying to cooldown from overheating by "reloading", but not for the Psyker in Darktide however, bless the Emperor. As for other new features, the Psyker can get new spell powers in their grenade slot (which every class now gets their own unique grenades) to smite the enemies for the Emprah! One of the many demonstrated spell is the Brain Burst spell that deal massive damage to a single enemies' head, [[awesome|to the point of crushing their skull, killing them instantly]]. When blocking, they are able to conjure a psychic shield that not only blocks ranged fire, but also stagger enemies when they try to hit it, and it works on even the hardest hitting elites like the Crushers or the Maulers. Other powers include [[Star Wars|pushing away a horde of enemies in a burst of psychic wind]] (melee special attacks), and imbuing the powers of the warp into their blades and to deal lethal damage in one swing. Their unique ability allows them to instantly erase any overcharge they had. By default, they wield a [[Force Weapons|Force Sword, a Force Staff]] (aka the conflagration staff from vermintide) and the aforementioned head busting power (speculated to be able to switched for other psyker powers in future updates). For other weapons, it was confirmed in a dev steam that they can exchange their force staff with a stub revolver or a [[Laspistol]] if they wish to save their overcharge for spamming their special melee attacks instead.
** '''Psykinetic:''' The most combat-focused subtype of the Psyker, gaining warp charges from killing their enemies by using their unique Brain Burst power. This works especially well against elite foes, not only because of its high damage, but because they gain increased damage against elites while in cohesion. While building up charges can help mitigate the risks of perils, they can also spend these charges to make a force wave to knock away mobs they can't otherwise contain. By default, they wield a combat sword and Stub Revolver.

* '''Ogryn:''' Taller than the other characters ([[derp|said to be the height of three Bardins tall]]) and can send smaller enemies flying back with his attacks. Has the same charging move as Foot Knight Kruber in [[Vermintide 2]], which pushes enemies away and gives them a boost to their movement and attack speed to finish them off faster. By default, they wield a ripper gun (which has an alt-firing move that allows it to go full auto), a combat knife, and their own unique Ogryn patterned grenades (a cluster bomb that scatters and explodes in a large area, randomly). Due to how tall and big the Ogryn is and since this is a sci-fi game where majority of the enemies and characters use guns, the Ogryn will have to do the heavy lifting, [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|acting as a distraction/cover]] for his teammates. But that's fine since he's big and strong, and being tall allows him to score headshots in melee with relative accuracy and ease. You should play a strike team of four of them.
** '''Skullcracker:''' [[Meme|It cracks skulls.]] This chonker is a big ol' brute in the classical Ogryn image who takes less damage, staggers enemies harder and protects da lil' unz by continuously reviving allies even while taking damage. Their default weapons are a break-action single-shot shotgun, a huge metal club and a box of grenades. No, they don't toss a box of grenades with some sort of igniter attached to it to set them all off in quick succession (though there is a feat that can be taken with such a functionality), [[Lulz|they just toss a whole-ass box of grenades at someone's face to instantly murder them with the blunt force trauma]]. This is apparently more potentially-lethal to a single person than actual shotguns. [[Lulz|Can also lethally pimp slap people with some melee weapons' special attack.]]

==Weapons==
being a 40k game you have a wide plethora of weapons to shoot and beat heretics to death with, when the full game comes out, this might be of help of choosing your favored toy for killing.

===Ranged Weapons===

*'''[[Lasgun]]:''' the humble lasgun, while often the butt of jokes, is arguably the best weapon in the game. With very little recoil, good damage (minus the light lasgun, we'll get to that later), an actual scope for good accuracy, ''and'' a humongous ammo pool both in clip and reserves, there is very few scenarios the lasgun will serve you badly in. It is available to all classes barring the Ogryn, though it works best with the Veteran because his skills and passive traits reward precision headshots, which the lasgun is ''very'' good at. The special attack for all lasgun types is <s>a twin-link toggle</s>an under-slung flashlight, perfect for illuminating darkened corridors, though here's hoping we also get a bayonet in the full release. Before you start complaining about [[Skub|the lasgun somehow having recoil]], the devs ''did'' try to make fully recoilless lasguns, [[Not as planned|but it felt so off that they scrapped the idea]].
**There are three types of lasguns, '''light''', '''medium''' and '''heavy'''; the heavy lasgun is slower firing but heavier hitting, making it ideal for dealing with elites or specials, the medium serves as the middle ground between the heavy and light lasgun, perfect for all scenarios whether it be sniping or crowd control, and then the light lasgun... sucks. There's no sugar coating it. When guardsmen themselves call lasguns "flashlights", this thing is probably why; its rate of fire is the best when compared to its cousins, that means fuck all when you can't kill something heavier than a traitor guardsmen or poxwalker (read: chaff). Use the other two when available and scrap the light lasgun for thrones.
**Do note they are all semi automatic, so buy a second mouse as it will break.

*'''Laspistol:''' First seen in the psyker class reveal trailer (and was hinted early in the developer stream). Hopefully it'll have a gimmick like being able to simultaneously wield it with a close combat weapon because lore-wise, it should be inferior to a lasgun in most situations.

*'''[[Autogun]]:''' Depending on what you're going for, this weapon is either great or it sucks. On one hand it has a better rate of fire compared to the lasgun, but on the other hand it has worse recoil, ammo efficiency, and to an extent damage. Good if you want to mimic an Ork, but until release it is best given up for your trusty lasgun. Available to all classes barring the Ogryn, and has an underslung flashlight as its special attack.

*'''[[Shotgun]]:''' With 9 shots and a very good cone of damage, this thing is one of the better weapons for crowd control. It's also one of the few ways that the Veteran and Zealot can knock down and kill Marauders, easily one of the more annoying enemies in the game with the amount of armor they have. Its special attack is supposedly firing a single shot for greater range but one doesn't really notice it.

*'''Autopistol:''' Ironically better than the autogun, it's effectively a VZ61 Skorpion submachine gun with a very high rate of fire. Has surprisingly low recoil compared to equivalent weapons in other FPS games so don't be afraid to use it at medium to longish range. Like most other guns, it has a flashlight for its special attack. Exclusive to the Zealot.

*'''Thumper Shotgun:''' Exclusive to the Ogryn, it's essentially a larger M79 that fires 40kg shotgun shells. It can only hold one round before reloading, but that one round is all you need to turn an entire mob into chunky salsa. Has a pistol-whip secondary attack that sadly doesn't do much damage.
** If you played the closed beta this is actual name of the Kickback shotgun, editors found the true name on playdarktide.com .

*'''[[Ripper Gun]]:''' An Ogryn auto-shotgun. If you thought the Kickback turned crowds into paste, wait till you use this thing. Its standard fire is a three-round burst and holding right click turns it into a fully-automatic pellet hose that also tightens spread. Only bosses are going to survive a volley from this thing. The Ripper has an actual bayonet mounted for its special attack.

*'''Force staff:''' Psyker only. Comes in multiple variants including a flamethrower variant, a Palpatine force lightning variant, and a variant that's a copy paste of Sienna's conflagration staff from vermintide. Doesn't use ammo, but does increase your perils meter so use carefully lest you blow yourself up by reaching into the warp too deep and too often.

*'''Stub revolver:''' For the psyker and zealot. Is surprisingly accurate and does good damage, use as an alternative to the lasgun if you want to fight effectively at long range. Count your shots, the reload animation is painfully slow since it has your character manually pushing rounds into the chamber one at a time instead of using a speed loader.

*'''Meltagun:''' Not present in the beta, but it's icon was datamined from the files.

*'''Bolter:''' Not present in the beta, but it's icon was datamined from the files. Looks like a 2 handed rifle variant, likely used by the sisters of battle.

*'''[[Flamer]]:''' Zealot only. Wasn't available in the beta but visible in the character creator.

*'''[[Plasma Gun]]:''' Our lovely blaster cannon made for Veteran only. Present in early trailers and in the character creator but wasn't available in the beta. Seems to be a combination of Moonfire Bow and Trollhammer Torpedoes from [[Vermintide 2]]. We can safely assume that Plasma Gun will be a specializing in destroying armoured foes and beefy targets, like on tabletop and the previously mentioned Vermintide weapons. May also have a overheat mechanic, similar to the drakeguns in vermintide.

===Melee Weapons===

*'''Shovel:''' The stock melee weapon for the Veteran and perfect for roleplaying as a [[Death Korps of Krieg|Krieger]], it has good damage and can smack multiple heretics at a time. It focuses more on cleaving though a horde than the Night Fang which rewards more precise head severing strikes.

*'''Combat dagger:''' Seen wielded by the psyker in the class reveal trailer. It's animations are heavily focused on quick stabs, so take it if you want a fast, high DPS, low-AOE melee weapon like Kerillians dual daggers in Vermintide.

*'''Chainsword:''' Wouldn't be a 40k game without one. Veteran exclusive. The light attacks aren't as good for clearing hordes as the shovel, but it's better for taking out bosses and special enemies with it's revved up heavy strike.

*'''Catachan Night Fang:''' According to [[Catachan Jungle Fighters|Catachans]], it's a knife. According to everyone else, it's a bloody sword. As mentioned above its built for precision strikes aimed towards a heretic's neck, preferably decapitating them. Its special attack is a parry that allows you to conserve stamina for pushing/blocking when being swarmed.

*'''Axe:''' It's an axe, what's there to say other than its heavy attack is easily one of the better ones and does a decent job of chopping though armor, though marauders are still a pain, especially when's there more than one. Not very good at cutting a crowd to pieces but it does the job well enough, is the stock weapon for the Zealot and can purchased by the Veteran.

*'''[[Power Weapons|Power Hammer]]:''' It smacks people real hard thanks to the power field, though it is slow on the swing.

*'''[[Force Weapons|Force Sword]]:''' Exclusive for the Psyker, spectacularly fast and lethal especially at high peril. Though the Power Hammer and the Ogryn's weapons hit harder with individual hits the Force Sword is probably the best overall melee weapon so far, the ludicrous speed allowing it to both butcher hordes and take down the big bastards.

*'''Ogryn Knife:''' A knife scaled up to ogryn size, but it would be akin to an [[Ork]] [[choppa]] in anyone else's hands, which it's probably why it's exclusive to the big boys.

*'''Ogryn Maul:''' Slower and not as good at horde-clearing as the knife, but blunt damage makes it better for taking out armored enemies.

*'''Ogryn Shock Maul:'''

*'''Ogryn Grenadier Gauntlet:''' The lovechild of a breaching ram and a grenade launcher, which Ogryns can carry by simply strapping it to a forearm. Predictably, punches the crap out of enemies and can fire explosives as a special attack.

*'''Ogryn Slab Shield:''' Will likely take up the ranged item slot since we see it wielded with the maul and the grenadier gauntlet. In addition to blocking gunfire, it can also be used to bludgeon enemies to death. Emperor said you shall be the cover!

==Other Characters==
* '''Sergeant Major Morrow:''' Think of him as the Mission Control from [[/v/|Deep Rock Galactic]] or Lohner from [[vermintide]]. Now with the power of Vox technology (bless the [[Omnissiah]]!), he will constantly be providing mission details for the players team in a sarcastic tone. Voiced by Kruber's VA. His original regiment is the [[Armageddon Steel Legion]]. He was apparently the sole survivor of a warp accident and the Inquisitor rescued him.
* ''' Tech-Priestess Hadron Omega 7-7: ''' Sometimes does the briefing and is the one who warns you when the data-interrogator starts to fuck up and you have to fix it, filled to the brim with sass and been angry for nearly 392.1736 Terran cycles or so, calls the player and the squad varlets and rightfully thinks the players are a bunch of idiots who may not be completely useless.
* '''Flight Lieutenant Masozi:''' The [[Valkyrie]] pilot. The squads accuse her of cheating at cards and somehow even the Tarot, with the more reckless characters constantly complaining about losing credits to her.
* '''Sefoni:''' The narrator for the tutorial with 2 different responses when greeting the player's character, if you're a Psyker she greets the player as a little one to be turned into a proper solider, if you're any other class, she says “Welcome to the Pyskana, where your torture, I mean training starts.” You can actually find her stuffed in a tube aboard the Mourningstar if you want to replay the tutorial.
* '''Explicator Zola:''' An Atoma native, is in the short story “loyalty’s price” where a pysker is interrogating another pysker before executing the victim of said interrogation, though it was probably for the poor bastards own good, sometimes does the briefing like tech-priestess omega and sergeant major morrow.
*'''inquistor gryndel:''' is the one everyone mentions at least once and is (presumably) the lady in the story trailer

==Enemies==

* '''Poxwalkers:''' Civilians of Atoma Hive who were infected by Moebian Sixth's pox gas. They are the trash mob, Skavenslave/Common Infected equivalents, in that they come in hordes with the purpose of tarpitting the players. Befitting lore, [[Grimdark|they can be heard periodically begging for help or crying over being forced to observe their body act completely outside of their control whilst out of combat]].
** '''Poxburster:''' Suicide bomber. Kill him from afar as soon as possible since its explosion can also corrupt players. Can be detected by the beeping sounds from their bomb.
* '''Admonition Cultists:''' Bog-standard Chaos cultists dressed in ragged robes and salvaged gasmasks, armed with lower-quality ballistic weapons. Their Scab Gunners use [[Stubber#Heavy Stubber|Heavy Stubber]] instead of [[lasgun#Hotshot_Volley_Gun|Hotshot Volley Gun]]. Possibly only encountered in poorer parts of the hive like the Underhive.
* '''Moebian Sixth Regiments''' These regiments were known for being the toughest out of all Moebian regiments. However, a good grimdark dose of war trauma and a bit of Warp shenanigans later, they turned in a bunch of Nurgle worshippers. They now seek to "save" the citizens of '''Atoma''' and its sister worlds by releasing gas blessed with papa Nurgle's "truth" in the hab blocks, freeing them from the corpse Emperor's lies... They almost all wear skull-like gasmasks, although not as much as the Death Korps'.
** '''Traitor Guardsmen:''' Your '''''HERETICAL''''' wall of guns. Smarter than Poxwalkers. Knows how to use cover like most FPS enemies. They come in lasgun and close combat weapon varieties, and are a bit more resilient than the Clanrats they probably stand in for. [[Anal Circumference|The former can spawn in groups of 10 or more at difficulty 3 and higher to light your ass up like a fireworks display]], forcing you to cover-hump and switch from playing 40K [[Vermintide]] to playing 40K [[/v/|Call of Duty]].
** '''Scab Bomber:''' Think of them as the Globadier/Spitter of this game, but lobs firebombs to create puddles of area-denying fire. Raises the question as to why their quartermasters didn't issue them gas bombs if the Sixth was going for a pestilenc- themed army. For whatever reason, they don't cause as much friendly fire as the Vermintide globadiers, it's pretty common to see hordes sprinting through the flames without getting burnt to a crisp.
** '''Dreg Tox Flamer:''' A lanky guy in robes carrying a flamethrower that burns green. It's hard to say whether it's supposed to be a [[Chem_Weapons#Chem-Thrower|Chem-Thrower]] or a [[Chem_Weapons#Plague_Belcher|Plague Belcher]], or if maybe the Nurglites jumped through a Warp rift to nick Warpfire Throwers from [[Clan Skryre]]. Much like other enemy specialists, this guy loves opening up on the players while they are getting swarmed.
** '''Scab Trapper:''' The Packmaster/Smoker of this game. More clever than her ratty or asthmatic counterparts since the Trapper uses an electrified net gun to disable players from a distance instead of running into melee range with a mancatcher, and abandons them to the mercy of her buddies right away rather than try to reel them in, focusing on another target. The Trapper isn't wearing a bunch of rattling skulls to announce her presence any possible victim either.
** '''Scab Gunner:''' The Ratling Gunner of this game, but uses a [[lasgun#Hotshot_Volley_Gun|Hotshot Volley Gun]] instead.
** '''Scab Shotgunner:''' The Berserker/Plague Monk equivalents. Suicidally aggressive, they move intp optimal shotgun range and start dumping rounds.
** '''Scab Mauler:''' Similar to Stormvermin from [[Vermintide 2]]. Covered head to toe in [[Carapace Armour]], tough as nails and armed with a two-handed chain-axe. Like Stormvermin, they occasionally come in small mobs on higher difficulties.
** '''Scab Sniper:''' This guy hangs out at a distance and blends in with vanilla traitor guardsmen until he turns on his targeting laser. His long-Las shots are very painful since they ignore toughness and deal HP damage with every shot. He is at his most dangerous when he has pals to [[tarpit]] players while he picks them off one by one. Take cover behind a wall or a structure if you see him scoping you out with his laser. On the plus side, he dies almost instantly the moment the players start shooting back at him.

* '''Mutant:''' Mutants that were enhanced with cybernetics. Inspired by the Charger from Left 4 Dead, its role is to charge at one of the players to separate them from their team, then give them a little ground pounding, followed by throwing them even further. It is a pretty big abomination, about the size of an Ogryn, and it is pretty fast and tanky. Funnily, it shares the Chaos Spawn's throwing animation from [[Vermintide 2]]. Liable to choose one target [[Derp|and then run past everyone else to get to them no matter how much dakka that tends to attract]], but it's understandable since the poor thing most likely doesn't have much of a mind anymore.

* '''Pox Hound:''' A straightforward Gutter Runner/Hunter, but not as agile nor stealthy since it likes to bark and it does not fly. It sometimes comes in a squad of 2 or 3 mixed in with hordes. Its bite can corrupt players, not to mentioned it is fast and tanky so like the Pox Burster, it should be another enemy to be taken out afar ASAP. Just like the Mutants [[Derp|they will prioritize their chosen target regardless if the rest of the team is opening fire]].

* '''Chaos Ogryn:''' The Chaos Warriors of this game, but bigger with the abnormally large body proportions of Ogryns. Their job is to [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|attract the players' attention and tank as much as possible]]. These tough dumb bastards come in three variants:
** '''Crusher:''' The offensive variant that's armored and armed with two handed great weapons. Reminiscent of the Chaos Warriors from [[Vermintide 2]].
** '''Bulwark:''' Chaos Bullgryns, the defensive variant that's armed with a [[chainsword]] and a big sturdy shield, but not armored, thankfully. Capable of charge towards the players.
** '''Reaper:''' The ranged variant that will fill the players, the air, and their allies full of lead with their big fucking [[Stubber#Heavy Stubber|Heavy Stubber]]. Think of it as a harder-hitting, meatier version of the Scab Gunner.

* '''Plague Ogryn:''' The first revealed randomly encountered boss of this game. Just a big rotting mutated Ogryn that wants to eat you and stuff you inside its shitty rotten intestine. Pretty much the Rat Ogre/Tank equivalent.

* '''[[Chaos Spawn|THAT KARKING THING]]:''' Revealed in the World Intro Trailer. It made its return in this game with some techno gadgets on its body and probably had the same animation as the one from [[vermintide 2]] as well.

* '''Enforcer:''' Armed with a shotgun (or a plasma gun), two handed maul (or a two handed power sword), and energy shield and will call in poxwalkers and traitor guard for support. Serves as the boss of assassinate missions. Psykers can chain stun him with their head burster ability when his shield is down, so having one on your team for these missions is ideal. [[Awesome|Has an absolutely fucking baller boss soundtrack]].

==Bosses==

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]