Topic: Stroll thinks about the empire.

[Fandir Nightshade]

I will run the archers to intercept or sacrifice the witch hunter or some other speed bump the same way the harpies got in my way.

We try and see. I see your plan has merit but I will try my own path into the woods. Most likely both will lead somewhere. First test will be Thursday I try to make pics and will make a battle report.

[strollinthewoods]

Wow, had not seen all the controversy concerning steadfast and detachments.

i want to go mage hunting with my stubborn regrowing +2 Toughness knights... 

[Fandir Nightshade]

Patience...patience you will.

 

Take pics and make battle reports...please!

[rothgar13]

I am very sorry rothgar 13,- there seem to be something terribly wrong with the start of the last post. I sat down and started it when I came home from work, and finished it later in the evening. When I saw how horribly bad the first part of the post is, it was to late, as I had already posted it. But you are spot on in pointing out that its almost on the brink of being unreadable. I hope you also feel it gets somewhat better
further down in the post.

I will take more care to avoid post like that one in the future, Im far from proud of it (think the problem is that I was so much interrupted and started and stopped sentences and trains of thoughts in my head each time it happened, and the train wreck of a post is the result)

Im hoping to get some gaming done this weekend, will come back to it.

No worries, mate. Just pointing out that you were getting a little stream-of-consciousness on us there.

Also looking forward to your reports. I'm intrigued by your approach to Empire, and I'm definitely going to see if you have any nice tricks that I can steal.

[strollinthewoods]

Im preparing for the first game with the new book. And have been fiddeling with my old steam tank project for quite some time today. Not quite happy with it so far, but its far better than what it looked like. Its my first ever sculpt that I made, and there has been some issues that has bothered me with it, and I have filed and shaved of most of them.

Cant wait to get my styrene sheets in the mail so I can start making the gun!

[Darknight]

Loving that "Steam Tank" - looks really good. I am planning something similar, although precisely how it will look is changing thanks to the Lumminark's army list entry option . . .

[strollinthewoods]

I had scheduled a game today vs an ogre kingdoms friend of mine, but he had to cancel in the last minute. Thankfully I managed to arrange another match on a Friday afternoon

But I did not feel I had the time needed to take pictures and stuff like I had planned. None the less, I have the day tomorrow "free" and will make some diagrams of the flow of the game, and its highlights.

ETC comp, 2400 pts.

My opponent fielded deamons of chaos - End result- One herald left on the battlefield, wondering what the FUCK happened to all his comrades?

Can I dig the empire? Oh yes I can, I can even boogie with it, but I`ll keep my hat on.

Its way to early to say if I need to re-arrange stuff in my list. But this game has given me quite a lot to think about. Its goods stuff.

The winner of the day, the steam tank.  With life support its hard hard hard to get rid of.  I felt I had to let a flickering fire spell go through in the first round, and of course it ended up beeing 6 str 7 hits, and taking 3 wounds of the steam tank in the first round. Without the life lore the thing would have gone down this game. But with it, there was never really a danger.

Ill get back with some toughts about the actual game tommorrow.  Here is the list I played though.

    * Battle Wizard Lord (165pts)
        Lore of Life, Magic Items, Wizard Level 3


    * General of the Empire (246pts)
        (Hold the Line! (AB-32))
        Full Plate Armour (9pts), Imperial Pegasus (45pts) (Fly (BRB-70), Stomp (BRB-76), Swiftstride (BRB-76)), Lance (7pts)
        * Magic Items (90pts)
            AB - The White Cloak of Ulric (50pts), BRB - Charmed Shield (5pts), BRB - Crown of Command (35pts)
    * Captain of the Empire (163pts)
        (Hold the Line! (AB-32))
        Battle Standard Bearer (25pts), Full Plate Armour (6pts), Great Weapon (6pts)
        * Magic Items (50pts)
            BRB - Dawnstone (25pts), BRB - Dragonhelm (10pts), BRB - The Other Trickster's Shard (15pts)
        * Warhorse (16pts)
            (Swiftstride (BRB-76))
            Barding (4pts)

* Master Engineer (65pts)
* Witch Hunter (55pts)     
* Witch Hunter (60pts)
     
+ Core + (600pts)
* Archers (70pts)
        (Regimental Unit (AB-30), Skirmishers (BRB-77))
        10x Archers (70pts)
 * Halberdiers (125pts)
        (Regimental Unit (AB-30))
        15x Halberdiers (90pts)
        * Archers (35pts)
            5x Archers (35pts) (Detachment (AB-30), Skirmishers (BRB-77))
 * Halberdiers (125pts)
        (Regimental Unit (AB-30))
        15x Halberdiers (90pts)
        * Archers (35pts)
            5x Archers (35pts) (Detachment (AB-30), Skirmishers (BRB-77))

    * Knightly Orders (110pts)
       
    * Knightly Orders Inner Circle (170pts)

    * Demigryph Knights (174pts)
    * Demigryph Knights (174pts) 
    * Flagellants (192pts)
    * Reiksguard Knights (135pts)
       
+ Rare + (370pts)
    * Helblaster Volley Gun (120pts)
    * Steam Tank (250pts)
        (Large Target (BRB-72), Random Movement (variable) (BRB-74), Steam Points (AB-51), Steel Behemoth (AB-51), Terror (BRB-78), Unbreakable (BRB-78))

[Freman Bloodglaive]

It's great you beat down the Daemons but you might want to remove the points costs from your post.

[strollinthewoods]

yeah. Wonder if there is a clean view option in battlescribe, the idea that I can just copy paste the list is good, but using more time to clean it up so its readable takes longer than just writing the thing from scratch.-- and viola would you know, looks like there is. It just had to actually make an effort an search a bit.

[strollinthewoods]

Ive done some changes to the list lately.

And one thing Im going to try out is Heavens instead of the light lore. I have a feeling the steam tank just might do well on its own. Depends hugely on the match up of course. And against opponents with cannons and such, the life bloom surely will be missed.

I might return to life, after trying out heavens for a while though. Heavens packs a good mix of combat buffs, debuffs, and the rest is just pure damage spells. And do note how utterly sick the 6th spell actually is.. chain lightning. On a 3+ it goes to a new target

Core:
15 halberdiers
15 halberdiers
8 knightly orders gw
7 inncer circle kngiths with flaming banner
10 spearmen
Special
3 demigryphs
3 demigryphs
18 greatswords with +1 ld banner
6 reiksguard
Rare
Celestial hurricanum
Steam tank

Heroes
Battle wizard- lore of heavens
General of the empire- pegasuss, cloak of ulric, charmed shield
Captain bsb dawnstone, dragonhelm
Warrior Priest ench shield, luckstone

[strollinthewoods]

The thing I want to try out with the change of lore, is how insanly good can it actually get when you cast the reroll 1s to hit, and to wound, when you hit on 2s and wound on 2s.

To get that I need troops with higher ws to begin with, and add the hurricanum, and then add the heavens buffs on top of that.

In many cases it will be hit on 3+ and wound on 3+, and re.roll the 1s, meaning only 2s actually fail to do anything.

The iceschard spell gives -1 to hit on the opponent, so that also benefit you more if they already need 4+ to hit you, combared to 3+

Curse of the mindnight wind, makes the opponent re-roll all 6s when rolling to hit, to wound and armour saves.
--- so in short you have 3 really kick ass good buff/debuff spells going on here.  And notice, you can be hitting your opponent on 2s, and he can be hitting you on 5+, and be forced to re-roll any 6 that might come up.

That spell cast on anything stuck with the steam tank will pretty much make it near indestructible.

The rest of the deck, consists of pretty much str 6 from the heavens spells, in different guises. Most notably is the chain lightning, its pretty much the foot of gork, d6 str 6 hits and goes on to next unit within 6" on a 3  and no, bad stuff can happen???!!!  Darn thats pretty much imba right there if you ask me.

Comet of casandora ?   The thing is unstoppable once summoned.. vs static armies, its sure going to hurt like crazy.  And against warmachine clusters--.. oh yes, I shall look to the heavens for salvation!  If you boost this spell, you bring down the comet with 2+ markers already, and it adds 2 for each turn its delayed... that is for those who does not know the spell,   2d6+2 hits on all units within 2d6, at str 4+2=6.
next turn it would be, 2d6+4 at str 8--- would hate to be a dwarf player against that.

The last spell is uranons thunderbolt, a str 6 d6 with 24 range at 10+
And the lore attribute is that all flyers take extra d6 str 4 if hit by any spells at all.
And even the Wind blast spell has its merits--- you can push enemy units back d3+1or d6+2 with boosted..

Cant wait to try this one out.
Have you empire players been having this much fun all along?  I find the empire book to be just a box of chocolates thats a pleasure to open each and every time.  Having accsess to all 8 lores of magic is just pure awsomeness, and can have huuuge impact on the playstyle. This is something neither my dark elf and orcs and goblins have ever been able to, and I am enjoying the possibilities it opens up.

Took a look at the gathering of greatswords thread, to see if I found any inspiration, and that I did.  I very much liked the look of these guys:


They remind me of the elves at helms deep in the lotr movie.  I wont copy the idea, but, I will say this is the picture that got me inspired, and spawned the idea I now have. (I will come back to them, when Ive made some tests)

[rothgar13]

...Are your games usually under ETC comp restrictions? That would be a big impediment for me - it really limits the amount of data I can get out of your games and observations, because the restrictions really make it a very different games, to the point that I refer to it as "ETCHammer", because the gameplay is just so wildly divergent from Warhammer as written.

[polybus11]

I noticed how quickly the flagellants got dropped from your list.  I know how it is to want to try new things all the time, but the things that underwhelm generally get sidelined quickly.

[strollinthewoods]

polybus, yes they are out for a the time beeing.

But its not that the flagellants in themselves are the one thats not performing. It got more to do with my inability to find a good solution to providing fast chaff for myself.  Without it, there is just very hard for me to ensure that I am on the charging end of things, and there lies some part of the problem.

But there is more   I am used to using my own chaff with good range to charge and clear away other chaff units.  Now I have huge problems if I want a reliable way to remove fast flying chaff with my list, and removing the flagellants is a pre-emptive move because I know it will be a huge problem against good opponents that exploits the frenzy, and drags the flaggies backwards or sideways with such chaff.

I was hoping I could deal with the chaff with a hellblaster, and quite a bit of archers, and 2 witch hunters to boost the archers to be able to deal with most chaff.- But I dont see it working as reliably as Id like, -.-- the problem is the flying thing, and skirmish .. archers dont do jack shit against that.
So if I cant deal with chaff, I will remove the things they can actually truly hurt, and thats the hellblaster, and the flaggelants.

But it irritates me that for now that's the solution-  I could try and fix the problem, with outriders, and keeping the hellblaster, then I could also keep the flagelants, but I must try and do with what models I actually have, instead of buying more I don't have.. I think its called money.. thats what they want in return when you get those models-

[strollinthewoods]

rothgar-  some of the games I play will be against etc comp, but most will not. Personally I don't like the etc way of comping, and the strange "bubble" that etc games takes place in.  The way etc games are played in the team vs team setting is not a good premise for a comp on normal 1vs1 games the way I see it.

[Darknight]

Many people seem to have a degree of success with using a Pegasus Captain as chaff-hunting - it is mobile and can pack a punch. If you gave him some good protection, it might work.

[rothgar13]

rothgar-  some of the games I play will be against etc comp, but most will not. Personally I don't like the etc way of comping, and the strange "bubble" that etc games takes place in.  The way etc games are played in the team vs team setting is not a good premise for a comp on normal 1vs1 games the way I see it.

I agree so much with this, and thanks for letting me know.

I'd also like to second Darknight's suggestion of the Captasus. If you're feeling particularly gutsy, you can even kit him out with a cheap magic weapon, the Talisman of Preservation, and make him the BSB, so that your Leadership bubble is mobile and can pop Ethereal units.

[strollinthewoods]

Trying to incorporate the pegasuss heroes back into the list.

Im not used to actually caring if my mage gets blown to pieces, as they have been lvl 1 mages in the past, and blowing up usually meant they already had earned their points back.

Im giving him the earthing rod, to be able to re-roll results of 2-4.  The rest i can take my chances with, but that one i don`t fancy very much.
And I do like to make sure important spells go through, so I'm prepared to roll on the table quite a lot.

The mage will go in the spearmen unit 1" behind one of the other units- halberdiers, or greatswords most likely.  Making it hard for chaff to get to him. 

The list:

Battle wizard: Heavens lore
earthing rod
Captain bsb  fullplate, gw, shield, dawnstone, dragonhelm, pegasuss with both upgrades
Captain fullplate, lance, charmed shield, luckstone, pegasuss with both upgrades
Warrior Priest GENERAL  Enchanted shield, opal amulet, sword of might, heavy armour, warhorse w barding

2x15 halberdiers
8 knightly orders gw
7 Inner circle flaming banner
10 spearmen

2x3 demi gryphs
18 greatswords
6 reiksguard, standard of discipline

hurricanum
steam tank

Total 2399 pts.

The Warrior priest will join the reiksguard in the center of my lines, and be my only means of getting a ld 9 in this list.

There is quite a number of ways you can go about using the standard of discipline to get that ld 9 in this list. Both in terms of what unit to give the banner, and what hero to nominate as your general.

Ic, reiks, greaswords, and demis all can be carriers.  I do think that the reiks, and greatswords with their stubborn is the safest bet, and that the reiks looks like the best bet, when your hero is mounted.

I am very much looking forward to play test this one. And I'm most interested in seeing how heavens works as a lore of choice.

[rothgar13]

The lack of shooting makes me a bit uncomfortable. Have you considered carving out the points to replace those Spearmen with Crossbowmen?