Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Empire (section)

==Building Your Army==
===Buying Your Army===
If you're building a well-rounded army that has something of everything, 2-3 Battalion boxes should form the core of your army; then add Special/Rare units to your personal taste.

Magnetize your artillery so you can swap between cannons and mortars and between Helblasters and Helstorms. This can be pretty difficult with cannons/mortars but is by no means impossible, just use small magnets and go carefully. 

The General and Wizard boxes both give you two characters for the price of one and are a converter's dream come true.

The Celestial Hurricaneum/Luminark of Hysh box comes with a wizard model (Lore of Heavens or Light) which is not compatible with the Wizard box models.

The Karl Franz on Deathwing box comes with an alternative Lore of Beasts Wizard and a General model as riders. With some fiddling you can fit them on an ordinary warhorse instead of a gryphon.

PS: Most empire units can be proxied (not in GW) by using other companies models. Both Mantic and warlord games do models that have a similar look whilst being A LOT cheaper, and there are some fantastic 3D printed options out there. I repeat however- try and do this in GW and you WILL be thrown out.

===Building your army post ET/AOS===
Deep breath... and [[Rage|scream]]. The Empire didn't do so great with the transition to AOS. A fair bit of the army is still sold by GW, but a lot of things that were at the core of an Empire army got the axe. Cannons? Gone. Knights? Discontinued. Warrior Priests? Turned into a Space marine. Still, [[Bretonnia|could]] [[Tomb Kings|be worse]]. GW still sells the Griffon kit, a (singular) general/captain kit (and not the good one), Battle Wizards, state troops (except Archers), Greatswords, Outriders/Pistoliers, Demigryphs, Flagellants and everything that was a Rare choice (Steam tank, fuck yeah).

So the big thing is figuring out where to get the models to plug that cavalry and artillery hole in your army. The most reliable and affordable option in most cases is to find 3rd party sites that can sell you the goods your looking for. Perry Miniatures sells a box of "Mounted Men at Arms 1450-1500" that are a pretty good fit for Empire Knights, and the Sundered Studios webstore has a bunch of kits of pseudo Empire and Holy Roman Empire stuff such as their own Holy Roman Empire mounted knights, some pretty good artillery (Cannon, Mortar and Hellblaster volley gun) as well as a War Wagon if you want to relive the glory days of 5th edition (the site can be a pain to get around but it's all there I swear). Warlord games also sells a bunch of Landsknecht infantry with a variety of weapons so you can use them for as an alternative to GW's State Troopers if you want to save money.

Most named characters are gone (except for Franz who is still sold with the Griffon kit) so if you'll be scrounging for them on ebay or recaster sites if you want them, and you'll likely need to convert or 3rd party your own General and BSB now since the kit that sold them as a duo is gone. The old Witch hunter model is gone, but GW decided to make two special characters for AOS that are both witch hunters who fit entirely with the old fantasy aesthetic and they've got some good modelling option to boot. Sadly nothing out there seems to be a Warrior Priest replacement so you'll need to find a recaster who sells them as well.

Oh, and obviously you'll need to get your hands on some square bases, but if you're getting your goods second hand on eBay you'll soon have more bases than you'll ever use. Buying big lots from people selling off piles of shame or half-built armies on eBay is often completely worth the hassle of stripping minis. If you're smart about it and don't get caught up in a bid war, it can result in retail price or less for discontinued minis, and they tend to include bigass handfuls of squares of every size. One day you're desperately searching for a square to put your converted captain on, the next you're planning a whole unit filler project just to use all of the bizarre base sizes you now own for some reason.
===Army Composition===
This is largely a matter of personal preference, but keep two things in mind:
*'''Size matters.''' Most of your army is going to be Strength 3, Toughness 3, so melee units need to be big in order to have staying power. One unit of 30 State Troops is a lot harder to break than two units of 15.
*'''Don't go overboard on Lords & Heroes.''' The days of Herohammer are dead and gone, probably forever (Not anymore thanks to end times). Another block of infantry/cavalry/whatever is a lot more useful than a superfluous character that only makes for easy kill points. Only take characters if you have a specific role for them to fill in your army. Generally speaking, you shouldn't have more than two or three characters unless your army is magic- and/or anti-magic-heavy (i.e. you've got a bunch of wizards and/or Warrior Priests running around).

===Magic===
The Empire is one of the few armies to get access to all eight Lores of Magic. Almost all are of at least solid use because pretty much all buffs and hexes are valuable to army that's mostly made up of mediocre infantry and all damage spells are welcome too even if you'll never blast the opponent off the table. Still some lores are definitely play better.

Good choices are:

* '''Life:'''  Throne of Vines lets you ignore all miscasts from Life wizards on a 2+ (this includes a miscast from casting ToV itself, so go for broke) and beefs up the rest of your spells, Regrowth brings back dead models, Flesh to Stone and Shield of Thorns are welcome buffs, and The Dwellers Below makes all models in a targeted unit make a Strength test or be killed entirely, And every time you successfully cast, you heal a wound, which can be on any model within 12".

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* '''Metal:''' A good choice, but only comes into its own against enemies with high armor values (Warriors of Chaos, Bretonnians, other Empire armies, and so on). Casting Plague of Rust on Skinks or Clanrats is a waste of time, and the lore attribute means that direct damage and magic missiles are less powerful the less armor their targets have. On the other hand, all damage spells ignore armor saves, and the augments it offers are fine in their own right.


* '''Light:''' Gives you a lot of very nice buffs (Speed of Light is a godsend should your opponent get into your artillery) and debuffs (particularly Net of Amyntok). A particularly nasty combo (if you can get it off) is Speed of Light and Birona's Timewarp, which together will make your Greatswords/knights with greatweapons hit like Frenzied High Elf Swordmasters. A very good lore, especially considering the fact that it's statistically the easiest lore to cast.


* '''Death:''' Four words: Purple Sun of Xereus. Also has very good buffs and debuffs, though you've got to be pretty close to an enemy for the latter.


* '''Shadow:''' Has a lot of very good debuffs and can make one guy a flier, but you really want this Lore for Okkam's Mindrazor, which replaces a unit's Strength score with its Leadership when rolling to wound, which means that the unit you cast it on will essentially have at least 7 Strength(!) in close combat. Cast it on your Knights, Greatswords or Flagellants and swing for the bleachers. This is statistically the hardest lore to cast, so make sure to give it to a level 4 Wizard Lord.


* '''Heaven:'''One of the best lores for an all cavalry Empire Army. Harmonic let you reroll 1s for to hit, to wound and armour saves which is really useful when you will find yourself with 2+ to wound and 2+ as alot of times. Use a lvl4 and a lvl1 wizard for that double iceshard which gives -2 hit which goes along way when charging high strenght units and -2 to ld which is really useful when charging steadfast units. Thunderbolt and Chain lightning is decent for taking out MSU armies and Comet can help you against corner armies aswell as controlling the movement of MSU armies. All the spells are cast at a decent cost which allows you to attempt several spells compared to life, which gives your opponent a dilemma when he have to prioritize which spells to let through. Also, heaven spells have good range so you can keep your wizard in the back protected by f.ex. archers. This lore is highly underrated. Downside is that it requires some practice to use.  



If you take direct damage spells (especially magic missiles) with the notion of blasting your enemy to kingdom come, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Buffs and debuffs are where it's at, and you'll notice that what all of the Lores recommended above have in common are good buffs, good debuffs and one Spell of Horde Buggery.

That being said, Empire armies do have access to... 

* '''Fire:''' Fireballs, buffs, flame storms and more can allow you to seriously hurt enemy lines and even wipe them out entirely with luck or support from a gun line