Editing Warhammer Army Project/Empire (section)

==Building Your Army==
===Buying Your Army===

Most empire units can be proxied by using other companies models. Both Mantic and warlord games do models that have a similar look whilst being A LOT cheaper. 

Magnetize your artillery so you can swap between cannons and mortars and between Helblasters and Helstorms.  

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.

===Army Composition===
This is largely a matter of personal preference given the sheer variety of choice, 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. 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).

===Loadouts===

First off, you need to properly kit out a champion to handle challenges; most armies you'll face are likely to have a champion bigger and nastier than yours. In order to survive and thrive in challenges, a character will need three things:
* A good weapon. Good choices are the Runefang (15 points cheaper now), the Mace of Helsturm (sort of a Ghal Maraz-lite) and the Ogre Blade (+2 Strength). If you're looking for something more economical, the Sword of Anti-Heroes can be awesome if your opponents are still playing Herohammer. WYRMSLAYER SWORD or Venom Sword is now the cheapest economical pick
* Good Armor. The Armor of Meteoric Iron gives a 1+ armor save and a 6+ ward save. Fullplate Armour with an Enchanted shield and Dawnstone Give a 1+ rerollable while on foot. 
* Take the Talisman of Preservation, HOLY RELIC, The Crimson Amulet, or SHROUD OF MAGNUS to make a character harder to deal with, especially if you're taking a Templar Grand Master or something equally nasty.
*have some good Enchanted Item and arcane items that let you get another spell from a different lore and having a bound Light of Battle or Burning Head as always a good thing on a mobile hero.
* My suggestion on a grandmaster is: Ogre blade, Talisman of preservation, full plate armour, shield, barbed horse. This will give him a 1+ armour save 4++ ward and strength 6 on every round of combat for 223 points. 

Magic banners will help you out tremendously. The Griffon Banner is great if you can afford it. Although, the best banner for its points, however, is the Standard of Discipline.  It boosts the Leadership of the unit it's in at the cost of using your general's Inspiring Presence; however, this downside is negated completely (and then some) if you put a character in that unit. BANNER OF SIGISMUND is also a good choice for the discounted Stubborn.

Some character in your army has to take an enchanted shield, it's 10 damn points for +2 to armour! A no brainer choice.

===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 better.

Good choices are:

* '''Life:''' This Lore [[Zero Punctuation|could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire]]. If you want to win and be boring you'll do the same thing you've been doing in since vanilla 8th. Stick a level 4 in that horde of Halberdiers, sit on your Throne of Vines, be within 12 inches of your Steam Tank and whore the hell out of Earth Blood, Flesh to Stone and Regrowth until the game ends.

* '''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 fucking time, as you won't be getting as much mileage out of it compared to using it on Dwarfs or WoC; considering how nearly every unit in the book has at least light armor and all melee cav have fullplate this just got a whole lot better/ A horde of Halberdiers with +3 armor save, +1 to hit and armored piercing, YES PLEASE (calm down, that unit of Halberdiers would do better with T7 and 4+ regen from a life wizard). Metal also has better offense spells than life with Searing Doom ignoring armor and Gehenna's Golden Hounds being a sniping attack.

* '''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. Very good lore, especially considering the fact that it's statistically the easiest lore to cast.

* '''Death:''' Four words: Purple Sun of Xereus. It also has very good buffs and debuffs, though you've got to be close to an enemy for the latter (you have horses and Pegasus for that).

* '''Shadow:''' Has a lot of very good debuffs and grants additional mobility to self and another character. 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 a lot of times. Use a lvl4 and a lvl1 wizard for that double iceshard which gives -2 hit which goes a long way when charging high strength 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 as well 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 has to prioritize which spells to let through. Also, heaven spells have a good range so you can keep your wizard in the back protected by f.ex. archers. This lore is highly underrated. The 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.

If you want to just murder shit, though, there is always...

* '''Fire:''' Literally just spam fireballs and shit everywhere. Just spam the fuck out of level one fire wizards, and I can guarantee you, point for point, you'll do far more damage than a fully kitted out gunline of Handgunners and crossbowmen.