Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

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

Why play The Empire?

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

Pros

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

Cons

• Master of None: The main downside of most Jack of all Trades factions. Everyone in the game outclasses you at something. Sure, your State Troops are crushing those Men-at-Arms, but you're cav just got ran over by Grail Knights. You're heavy cav chased of those Wild Riders, but now Waywatchers are putting out more value than your missiles could dream off. Yeah, your gunline and artillery are carving up the Chaos Warriors, but know that they are in melee you can kiss your frontline goodbye. You need to make up for your weaknesses when going up against certain factions.
• Poor Infantry: Unless you're going up against the worst of the worst in terms of infantry factions, you are probably not winning the frontline without support. Infantry is mainly there to buy time for your other elements, not win on their own.
• Difficult to Learn: most newer players pick Empire in multiplayer due to their relative ease of campaign in single player, only to learn the are hard as hell in Multiplayer. The Empire is a faction that requires time and finesse to play perfectly, and aren'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 a FLC lord, meaning if you are committed to not buying DLC, you're stuck with Franz and Gelt (not that they're bad choices, but more options are always good)

The campaign und unique mechanics (The Old World)

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

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

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

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