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The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: 2k list
« Last post by Footpatrol2 on May 14, 2024, 07:50:40 PM »Your break point is based on unit strength not point values.
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12
The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: Empire finally win a game vs top tier!
« Last post by Clymer on May 14, 2024, 07:21:37 PM »Congrats on the win! This list has a super strong movement phase and maximizing Drilled is going to be the new specialty of the empire for sure. We’re just insanely mobile now in a way I don’t think people have fully picked up on yet.
As for dealing with Dragons, I’ve faced an ethereal elf dragon a couple times and did not have any tools to dent it. But I’ve been able to tie it up with chaff (outriders and archers) and with stubborn knights and my own Griffon. I’ve even been able to beat it on combat resolution, but haven’t been able to make it flee for a run-down pursuit.
I haven’t tried it out yet, but Illusion also looks tempting to control dragons with the Crystal Column and with Miasmic Mirage to prevent it from marching and charging. Not to mention doppleganger with the dragon slaying sword could be vicious.
As for dealing with Dragons, I’ve faced an ethereal elf dragon a couple times and did not have any tools to dent it. But I’ve been able to tie it up with chaff (outriders and archers) and with stubborn knights and my own Griffon. I’ve even been able to beat it on combat resolution, but haven’t been able to make it flee for a run-down pursuit.
I haven’t tried it out yet, but Illusion also looks tempting to control dragons with the Crystal Column and with Miasmic Mirage to prevent it from marching and charging. Not to mention doppleganger with the dragon slaying sword could be vicious.
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The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: Empire players come in 3rd and 4th in a 16 man tournament
« Last post by drweir4 on May 14, 2024, 06:15:41 PM »This exactly is my experience in trying to find empire lists than can fight against the top tournament lists and players. There just isn’t much ranked infantry around and so if empire has some of the least cost effective it’s doubly less likely to be involved
Empire infantry has lots of options and isn’t necessarily bad it’s just incredibly cost inefficient for what you get when compared to other factions and so there is just no chance for it to work when compared to infantry in core which does get picked like night goblins, gors, black orcs or zombies etc
Empire infantry has lots of options and isn’t necessarily bad it’s just incredibly cost inefficient for what you get when compared to other factions and so there is just no chance for it to work when compared to infantry in core which does get picked like night goblins, gors, black orcs or zombies etc
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The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: 2k list
« Last post by The Peacemaker on May 14, 2024, 05:41:47 PM »Yes. Dropping 1 knight unit for hounds is an option if I feel I need more units.
But overall I don't think the eliteness is an issue unless enemy list is tailored to counter this.
Or the scenario is Break point.
I still don't understand peoples precieved issue with break point. Enemy has to eliminate 75% of your army strength.
So if all I have left is my 2 characters, I'm still above 25% strength. ...and those charachers can be on 1 wound too.
Am I reading the mission wrong or doing calculations wrong or something?
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The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: Empire players come in 3rd and 4th in a 16 man tournament
« Last post by Skyros on May 14, 2024, 05:15:54 PM »It's also partially that infantry isn't amazing at the highest levels of play, with some exceptions.
I looked through the top 4 places in two different tournaments on best coast pairings, and the 8 lists between them had two blocks of ranked up melee infantry. Not a great showing.
Now, one thing to keep in mind, is that some armies can flood the board with pretty good infantry that is quite threatening on the charge - orcs and beastmen. Both these armies are quite good IMO and their infantry competitive. I actually really enjoy playing them because they 'feel' like what warhammer 'should be', at least in my opinion.
But even though other armies might have individual units of infantry that are pretty beastly (like swordmasters) a single elite infantry unit on the battlefield, facing down an opponent full of flying monsters and skirmishing archers, is very unlikely to be able to accomplish much because it is slow and can't pick it's fights the way a monster that can fly 20 inches and get a free pivot at the end can do. You need enough infantry that your opponent can't just easily avoid it, but not so much you can't project power or do the other things you need to do.
A person bringing infantry in their list has a lot more list balancing to do than someone who brings...this list for example.
Tomb Kings of Khemri - 2K - [2000pts]
# Main Force [2000pts]
## Characters [884pts]
High Priest [435pts]: Hand Weapon, Necromancy, Wizard Level 4, Necrolith Bone Dragon, Breath of Dessication, Full Plate Armour, Wicked Claws, Lore Familiar, Warding Splint, Burning Blade
Tomb King [449pts]: Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Necrolith Bone Dragon, Breath of Dessication, Full Plate Armour, Wicked Claws, General, Armour of the Ages, Potion of Speed, Talisman Of Protection
## Core [501pts]
Skeleton Archers [75pts]:
• 10x Skeleton Archer [6pts]: Hand Weapon, Warbow, Light Armour
• 1x Master of Arrows [5pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [5pts]
• 1x Musician [5pts]
Skeleton Chariots [426pts]:
• 8x Skeleton Chariot [43pts]: 2x Skeletal Steed, Hand Weapon, Skeleton Crew, Cavalry Spear, Hand Weapon, Warbow
• 1x Master Charioteer [26pts]: Death Mask of Kharnutt
• 1x Standard Bearer [56pts]: Icon of the Sacred Eye
## Special [225pts]
3x Tomb Scorpion [75pts]: Heavy Armour, Decapitating Claws, Envenomed Sting, Ambushers
## Rare [390pts]
2x Necrosphinx [195pts]: Heavy Armour, Cleaving Blades, Decapitating Strike
I looked through the top 4 places in two different tournaments on best coast pairings, and the 8 lists between them had two blocks of ranked up melee infantry. Not a great showing.
Now, one thing to keep in mind, is that some armies can flood the board with pretty good infantry that is quite threatening on the charge - orcs and beastmen. Both these armies are quite good IMO and their infantry competitive. I actually really enjoy playing them because they 'feel' like what warhammer 'should be', at least in my opinion.
But even though other armies might have individual units of infantry that are pretty beastly (like swordmasters) a single elite infantry unit on the battlefield, facing down an opponent full of flying monsters and skirmishing archers, is very unlikely to be able to accomplish much because it is slow and can't pick it's fights the way a monster that can fly 20 inches and get a free pivot at the end can do. You need enough infantry that your opponent can't just easily avoid it, but not so much you can't project power or do the other things you need to do.
A person bringing infantry in their list has a lot more list balancing to do than someone who brings...this list for example.
Tomb Kings of Khemri - 2K - [2000pts]
# Main Force [2000pts]
## Characters [884pts]
High Priest [435pts]: Hand Weapon, Necromancy, Wizard Level 4, Necrolith Bone Dragon, Breath of Dessication, Full Plate Armour, Wicked Claws, Lore Familiar, Warding Splint, Burning Blade
Tomb King [449pts]: Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Necrolith Bone Dragon, Breath of Dessication, Full Plate Armour, Wicked Claws, General, Armour of the Ages, Potion of Speed, Talisman Of Protection
## Core [501pts]
Skeleton Archers [75pts]:
• 10x Skeleton Archer [6pts]: Hand Weapon, Warbow, Light Armour
• 1x Master of Arrows [5pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [5pts]
• 1x Musician [5pts]
Skeleton Chariots [426pts]:
• 8x Skeleton Chariot [43pts]: 2x Skeletal Steed, Hand Weapon, Skeleton Crew, Cavalry Spear, Hand Weapon, Warbow
• 1x Master Charioteer [26pts]: Death Mask of Kharnutt
• 1x Standard Bearer [56pts]: Icon of the Sacred Eye
## Special [225pts]
3x Tomb Scorpion [75pts]: Heavy Armour, Decapitating Claws, Envenomed Sting, Ambushers
## Rare [390pts]
2x Necrosphinx [195pts]: Heavy Armour, Cleaving Blades, Decapitating Strike
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The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: Empire players come in 3rd and 4th in a 16 man tournament
« Last post by Footpatrol2 on May 14, 2024, 04:38:56 PM »I think also what happens " is what type of opponent are you facing". Not everyone is running internet "best" lists nor should they. There are some checks and balances built into the game. If someone brings a hard counter to your list your likely to lose. If you bring a hard counter your likely to win. The sample size at tournaments is usually really small like 3 games or at most 5 games. Some players may get lucky and get to play more against armies they counter. Some may not.
It's still really too early on the data points to be taken very seriously. I think empire is one of those factions that CAN build to counter a list but will fail against other lists in doing so... Kinda as it should be.
It's still really too early on the data points to be taken very seriously. I think empire is one of those factions that CAN build to counter a list but will fail against other lists in doing so... Kinda as it should be.
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The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: Empire players come in 3rd and 4th in a 16 man tournament
« Last post by Clymer on May 14, 2024, 03:24:59 PM »Neither one had a single block of melee state troops. (or a single detachment).
Challenge accepted!
I'm not going to argue that State Troops and Greatswords are our best army choices, I never have. But I will argue that there are some seriously shitty infantry lists out there... honestly most of them. Mordian Glory's is a good example: he thinks his infantry can win combat without real support.
The number 7 Empire list at this event is also a bad infantry list, but notice he's still in the top half, with what looks like 1 win, 1 draw, 1 loss. But for this build he has a lot of weak detachments, a unit of 9 knights which is pretty inefficient, and I'm not sure what anyone would hope to accomplish with a unit of 16 spearmen. Maybe he thought that 17 S3 attacks was good enough? In other words, this is not a great list and his infantry set up is only part of the problem.
Meanwhile, we have seen some effective state troop builds. I would not call them "traditional", but this is a new game, so one expects we'd use infantry differently. There's the flying, drilled halberdiers, there's medium sized units with the griffon standard, and there's infantry units supported by characters on demingryphs.
I'll put my money where my mouth is too and play some more infantry focused games... I haven't been able to get a lot of 2000 point games in because I've been spending most of my available game time in an escalation league that has just gotten up to 1500 points this week, but after this month I should be able to focus more on 2000 point games and will report back on what my infantry does.
18
The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Empire finally win a game vs top tier!
« Last post by drweir4 on May 14, 2024, 03:06:33 PM »I finally got a solid win with the empire against a very good opponent with a top tier list
He had the high elf skycutter spam which is a super savage list with 6 skycutters and then some cav and archers etc to fill it out
I had less drops and won the roll to go first and basically went all out up the field to put pressure on. He maybe made one or two mistakes on placing the skycutters which allowed me to get charges off turn 2 but the drilled knights in marching column had moved up so far it wasn't an issue.
The artillery was basically useless but it did force him to commit stuff to that flank which massively helped the main fight
Key learnings from the list were that the knight core I think is better than the state troop core, and is certainly more fun to use. The 2nd grand master on the pegasus with the dragon sword was useless and I think even if there were monsters to hunt he would have still not been worth the points, so I need to adjust that. The battlemage was amazing, and the small 2 man units of demigryphs were also amazing. Not having a champion is actually really useful so that you cant be challenged out by monster characters
I think empire still has a big problem vs dragons, and I'm not really sure what the good solution is there, but I'm certainly going to test more versions of this list as I think its got the best chance so far for empire of being genuinely competitive and reliable vs the top tier lists which so far in the stats if you dig into the detail Empire always fail against hard
The Empire of Man - wtf - [1996pts]
# Main Force [1996pts]
## Characters [926pts]
Captain of the Empire [101pts]: Hand Weapon, Lance, Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Battle Standard Bearer, Charmed Shield
Engineers [45pts]:
• 1x Empire Engineer [45pts]: Hand Weapon
Grand Master [280pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Full Plate Armour, General, Sword of Justice, The White Cloak
Grand Master [268pts]: Hand Weapon, Pegasus, Hand Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Charmed Shield, Dragon Slaying Sword, Potion of Speed, Paymaster's Coin
Wizard Lord [232pts]: Hand Weapon, Wizard Level 4, Battle Magic, Empire Warhorse, Hand Weapon, Lore Familiar, Ruby Ring of Ruin
## Core [503pts]
Empire Knights [179pts]: Drilled
• 7x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [6pts]
Empire Knights [122pts]:
• 5x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
Empire Knights [202pts]: Drilled
• 8x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [6pts]
## Special [567pts]
2x Demigryph Knights [126pts]:
• 2x Demigryph Knight [63pts]: Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Hand Weapon, Shield, Full Plate Armour, Lance
Great Cannon [125pts]: Great Cannon, Gun Crew, Hand Weapon
2x Mortars [95pts]:
• 1x Mortar [95pts]: Gun Crew, Hand Weapon, Mortar
He had the high elf skycutter spam which is a super savage list with 6 skycutters and then some cav and archers etc to fill it out
I had less drops and won the roll to go first and basically went all out up the field to put pressure on. He maybe made one or two mistakes on placing the skycutters which allowed me to get charges off turn 2 but the drilled knights in marching column had moved up so far it wasn't an issue.
The artillery was basically useless but it did force him to commit stuff to that flank which massively helped the main fight
Key learnings from the list were that the knight core I think is better than the state troop core, and is certainly more fun to use. The 2nd grand master on the pegasus with the dragon sword was useless and I think even if there were monsters to hunt he would have still not been worth the points, so I need to adjust that. The battlemage was amazing, and the small 2 man units of demigryphs were also amazing. Not having a champion is actually really useful so that you cant be challenged out by monster characters
I think empire still has a big problem vs dragons, and I'm not really sure what the good solution is there, but I'm certainly going to test more versions of this list as I think its got the best chance so far for empire of being genuinely competitive and reliable vs the top tier lists which so far in the stats if you dig into the detail Empire always fail against hard
The Empire of Man - wtf - [1996pts]
# Main Force [1996pts]
## Characters [926pts]
Captain of the Empire [101pts]: Hand Weapon, Lance, Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Battle Standard Bearer, Charmed Shield
Engineers [45pts]:
• 1x Empire Engineer [45pts]: Hand Weapon
Grand Master [280pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Full Plate Armour, General, Sword of Justice, The White Cloak
Grand Master [268pts]: Hand Weapon, Pegasus, Hand Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Charmed Shield, Dragon Slaying Sword, Potion of Speed, Paymaster's Coin
Wizard Lord [232pts]: Hand Weapon, Wizard Level 4, Battle Magic, Empire Warhorse, Hand Weapon, Lore Familiar, Ruby Ring of Ruin
## Core [503pts]
Empire Knights [179pts]: Drilled
• 7x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [6pts]
Empire Knights [122pts]:
• 5x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
Empire Knights [202pts]: Drilled
• 8x Empire Knight [22pts]: Barded Warhorse, Barding, Hand Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 1x Preceptor [6pts]
• 1x Musician [6pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [6pts]
## Special [567pts]
2x Demigryph Knights [126pts]:
• 2x Demigryph Knight [63pts]: Demigryph, Barding, Hand Weapon, Wicked Claws, Hand Weapon, Shield, Full Plate Armour, Lance
Great Cannon [125pts]: Great Cannon, Gun Crew, Hand Weapon
2x Mortars [95pts]:
• 1x Mortar [95pts]: Gun Crew, Hand Weapon, Mortar
19
The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: Heros in detachments
« Last post by commandant on May 14, 2024, 12:57:07 PM »I also was not fond of 8th. The +1 to hit buff was stupid cheap as well if I remember correctly.
The thing is that 8th had balancing spells that wiped out half your unit. There was certainly a take a toughness test to not die spell. I was just not that fond of that balance
The thing is that 8th had balancing spells that wiped out half your unit. There was certainly a take a toughness test to not die spell. I was just not that fond of that balance
20
The Old World Cometh Again !!! / Re: All the magical nonsense
« Last post by commandant on May 14, 2024, 12:54:31 PM »True. Its more for casting at the extreme range.