Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Empire

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. However, one thing you should be aware of is that the knights in the Battalion do not come with a Knights of the White Wolf sprue Yes they do but, unless you're running a fluffy Middenheim army, why are you taking Knights of The White Wolf anyway?

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.

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. I repeat however- try and do this in GW and you WILL be thrown out.

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: This Lore could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire. 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 roll for anal circumference. And every time you successfully cast, you heal a wound, which can be on any model within 12". Seriously, take this Lore, and take it for the highest-level wizard you have

.

• 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, 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.

Tactics

Fighting challenges: Most armies are going to challenge your heroes every chance they get, so make sure you either have a unit champion to feed to that Vampire/Chaos Lord or have your hero kitted out for fighting these combat monsters. There are some common stats to expect from these kind of heroes so plan for: WS/T/S/I of at least 4, most likely 5 or even higher, at least 4 attacks and probably re-rolls for something (most often to hit), in most cases you will be looking at a 2+ or 3+ save as well. On the other hand you can probably afford 2 heroes for every one of theirs. Most of the time all you can do is deny them kills and combat resolution so kitting your heroes to survive the stupid numbers of attacks likely to be inflicted on him is a good direction to take as normal troops would probably just get minced. Also remember that challenges aren't your only option for handling heroes. Your goal isn't just to kill them (although if you can it's generally good) it's simply to stop them fulfilling their role. With so many points tied up in a challenge lord, simply deploying well can give you a nice edge, making the opponent march down your cannon's throat if he wants to charge your general. Honour and valour are for Bretonians, the empire fights to win not to play a losing game of who's got the pimpest general.

Detachment use: If you're using detachments (and you probably should), you need to learn the detachment rules by heart so you always know what they can and can't do in a given situation.

The Good:

• Melee detachments can make a counter charge.
• Ranged detachments can make a Stand and Shoot action at no penalty if their parent unit is charged.
• Detachments get any special rules that their parent unit possesses, as well as any prayers from Warrior Priests. Moreover, the FAQ has ruled that detachments use the ranks of the parent unit for determining Steadfast, even if it isn't in combat.

The Bad:

• Detachments cannot take command models, so no Hochland Long Rifle in a detachment of Handgunners.
• Detachments lose their special abilities if they are more than 3" away from their parent unit.
• Detachments cause Panic now.
• Parent units do not get to react like detachments do, so a smart opponent will either just charge the detachment instead or tie it up with a chaff unit unless you can give him a good reason not to.

The Ugly:

• Detachments can take up a lot of valuable real estate during deployment, and can't be placed in reserve unless the parent unit is in reserve as well.

Take the high ground: In real life, placing artillery on the highest position available gives you an unparalleled vantage point over your enemy, and the same is true in Warhammer. Placing your artillery on a hill behind your troops means that you can fire over them without giving your target hard cover (this is less important for mortars and Helstorms, which fire indirectly). However, do NOT put your artillery in a building if your opponent has artillery of his own or high-Strength units he can bring to bear on it; every model in the building takes multiple wounds, which can wreak havoc on artillery.

Homing Rockets: Take a Helstorm Rocket Volley with a Great Engineer. The artillery die reroll can apparently be used on the Helstorm now, as well as the engineer's BS. Bulls-eyes with 4" scatter or less means you can do 21 hits on a unit per rocket, for a maximum of 63(!). Use the reroll wisely, though; you do increase the chances of a misfire. It's best to reroll misfires (duh) and 10s, 8s if you feel lucky. If you roll a 6, just hope for bulls-eyes for a 2" scatter (unless you get three rockets, in which case you might want to go for it).

Homing Fireball: A funny thing you can do is buy a Witch Hunter a Ruby Ring of Ruin and according to the most recent FAQ their Killing Blow ability applies to shooting spells as well. Hit someone with a Killing Blow Fireball.

Kill the Witch: Fill your Hero allotment with Witch Hunters. Walk forward every turn, shooting merrily. Kill all of your opponent's characters this way. Put a Warrior Priest in the same unit, and have him cast Hammer of Sigmar to give the Witch Hunters rerolls to wound in close combat, or Soulfire to make all ranged attacks Flaming. Combine with Enchanted Blades of Aiban/Flaming Sword of Rhuin for even more cheese.

Karl and Friends: Synergy unit, needs skilled use of artillery support and at full placement only can be done in 3000+ games. Karl Franz, Ludwig Schwarzhelm, Kurt Helborg, Luthor Huss and Valten in an unit of Reiksguard Knights with a Magic Banner (Steel Standard, War Banner). The unit has mobility, damage output, damage resistance and passes all Leadership tests with:

• Inspiring Presence
• Hold Your Ground!
• Hold the Line!
• Immune to Psychology
• Stubborn
• Magic Resistance (2)
• +2 Combat Resolution (+3 with War Banner)
• One turn Battle Prayer effects: Flaming Attacks, 5+ Ward in close combat or Reroll to Wound. Why one turn effects? To gain flexibility and avoid permanent Flaming Attacks that makes the unit useless against a 2+ fire ward.

Put a Level 4 Wizard Lord (Life, Light, Shadow) with Staff of Sorcery (See FAQ) in another unit for protection from spells like Dwellers Below or Purple Sun. The rest of the army is Steam Tanks, Great Cannons, Witch Hunters, Warrior Priests and Knights units of all types excluding Reiksguard; keep the Wizard Lord in dispel/buff/debuff mode, get a second Wizard (Beasts, Level 1) with a Dispel Scroll to buff your units. Combine this tactic with the previously listed tactics (Take the high ground, Kill the Witch, Homing Rockets, Homing Fireball, etc).

Pike and shot: This may be a bit obvious, but combing a parent block of spear men with two hand gunner detachments (aside form being historically accurate) can be devastating. no one wants to charge spear men, but the hand gunners are the bait to make them want to try. if some one trys to run the hand gunners off while avoiding the spear men, intercept them with small blocks of infantry to give your spear men time to get into position.