Topic: Empire of Man feedback

[drweir4]

I am preparing a feedback email to games workshop on the Empire of Man army list. Who knows if it ever makes a difference but I’ve done it before for other games and in the last FAQ they indicated they are not averse to balance changes.

I don’t believe empire are unplayable, and I’m not interested in making them OP. I mostly play casually and have been enjoying my games but I play multiple factions and empire are unfortunately just one of the least interesting lists. It really feels like they wrote empire first as a sort of baseline and then did everything else and added a lot more flavour to the others.

There is an argument for waiting for the arcane journal lists and items to spice things up but I think they should adjust the baseline first and that then leaves some design space for the two arcane journal lists to be divergent and fun. Essentially if one of the arcana’s journal lists just “fixes” empire and becomes the new “normal” that leaves one fewer options for diversity for empire.

So I am keen to get any suggestions on the below, especially those borne out from experience in actual games. There are several units I haven’t tried yet as they seem pretty unusable so if you have and think they are great please challenge my suggestions below.

Thanks in advance.

1) Army composition.

If your general is a general of the empire great swords are 0-1 core, if your general is a grand master inner circle are 0-1 core.

Even if nothing else changed I think this would instantly transform Empire in terms of options and fun and is incredibly consistent with many other factions. I’d even settle for just the greatsword one as they are so iconic but so hard to include

2) “hold the line”.

Add that ignore panic also applies to detachments of the unit which contains the commander of the empire within 3”.

There is currently a slightly strange interaction in that detachments get immune to psychology from the parent but as hold the line is a separate ability it doesn’t apply. This makes detachments an even bigger liability and feels like it unnecessarily limits what should be one of the empires core tactics


3) warrior priest (all types)

Add Veteran

Warrior priests seem a bit sad atm especially because their prayers are so unreliable and they aren’t even cheap characters for the stats! Most of the time you are better off with just another lv4. They are iconic models and I think this would just give them a small and simple change to make them an interesting option

4) witch hunter

Add “this model can ignore targeting restrictions for lone characters”. Add "flaming attacks" and "magical attacks" to witch hunter. Change "suffer not" to be "the witch hunter and any unit they join gain hatred (characters) and magic resistance (-1)"

Similarly for their stats and equipment options these seem very underwhelming especially as (probably appropriately) you have to pick a specialism before knowing your opponent (ie at an event it would be fixed the same for all 5 games). With ws4 and bs4 it would still be very unreliable at sniping anyone even with killing blow but might become an interesting utility tool for at least making people think. Making the suffer not simpler and not match dependent also means they are more interesting.

5) state troops (and veteran)

Add shield to basic equipment. Change options to can swap shield for halberd or spear (free) or add halberd or shield for +1 point.

This one might feel pretty big but I think is a necessary change. Importantly it is a way to reduce the costs per guy by mostly 1 point but without enabling 4 point per model basic guys which feels wrong. Fundamentally both forms of the state troop are usuable and there are some interesting options but they are just over pointed compared to almost all equivalent basic troops AND on average have worse characters to match.

6) state missile troops

Change handgun option to free. Remove drilled option (it literally does nothing for them).

I don’t see any justification for handguns costing more than a crossbow. It’s very legitimately a balanced decision between the two at the same cost. I feel like they need something else to make them interesting but I can't quite land on what is appropriate

7) greatswords

Change drilled cost to +1 point

Great swords are iconic but aren’t amazing and I can’t see why drilled needs to be +2 points when it’s +1 or free for almost everything else.

8) hellstorm rocket battery

Change misfire rules to essentially 1st misfire = dud rocket, 2nd = dud rocket also and roll on misfire, 3rd misfire = explodes

Unless I’ve understood it wrong this thing seems abysmal. It’s actually quite weak and is almost guaranteed to break even with an engineer. This change essentially makes it in line with the hellblaster where you can have one misfire roll a turn without having to roll on the table

9) Pistolliers

Remove impetuous, Add reserve move

Impretuous just straight up ruins them. Almost anything else would be viable. I like the reserve move idea. Could also re-add Fusilade to be something like "no to hit penalty for using multiple shots"

[The Peacemaker]

4pts per model for hw/s state troops doesn't feel wrong at all in this game with the rules that Empire has.

Empire iconic infantry was always about the regiment system along with other army synergies. The fact they gave other armies access to Regiment system means there are now direct points comparisons costs between those books. Regiment rules doesn't do much in game so it's not worth much but they are pricing state troops as if it is worth something.

----------------

Here are my thoughts on book:
First, it's so bad that it needs a total rework. It needs so many rules and points adjustments that it can't be fixed with an faq or errata.

Practically everything in the book needs roughly a 25% point drop except for Demigryphs.
And price the points for mounts appropriately. 16pts for barded warhorse regardless of character? This book wasn't done first, it was done last and rushed by someone who just didn't care/low integrity.

Hold the Line rule on commanders is what I think they wanted people to use in their regiment blocks to prevent panic, but characters are too expensive with bad armour/not enough wounds, and only 2 attacks! A glorified champion for 8-10x the points.

Magic items need an armour upgrade that gives +1 armour for like 10pts, and common so it can be taken on many characters. I wouldn't even restrict it to infantry only or anything like that considering other armies get good items like that. Then people might take weapons other than a shield.

Warrior priests need rework. Prayers are janky and inconsistent. War Alter sucks without better armour options. Why the heck doesn't it have a ward save?

Runefang needs AP 5 to be worth 100pts.

General type leading army grants:
General as Empire as grants 0-1 greatswords in core.
Grand Master grants 0-1 Inner Cirlce as Core.
Warrior Priest grants 0-1 Flagellants as Special.

And simplify thr flagellants ward save. 5+ ward vs non-magical, no conditions. Why the heck does strength 5 increase their ward save when it's about feeling no pain? If anything, lower strength attacks should grant a higher ward save.

[drweir4]

Yeah I mean I agree with almost all of that too. It could do with a ground up redo but that is unlikely so I want to try to nudge it in a more positive direction

Re the runefang I ignored it because without making other changes to characters it’s hard to know where it should end up. Clearly it’s unusable and to be worth 100 points would have to ve something like always hits on a 2+ and auto wounds and no saves of any type allowed and even then I probably wouldn’t take it (I think a lot of the empire weapons seem to suffer for having to consider a doppelgänger wizard)

[Tiberius]

I'm very curious what "editions" are going to be like for the Old World.  But without a doubt we need a massive rework.

I agree with all your points, I'm surprised neither of you mentioned Pistoliers.  Pistoliers and Warrior Priests are my two favorite things about the Empire, so the Old World has been a rough experience so far.  I take it as a personal insult that they lowered the Warrior Priests to Ld. 7, that should be their defining characteristic!

Pistoliers: remove impetuous, bring them back to 7 ld.  Make Pistols to be "move and shoot".  I'd be content then.  I'd really love to bring back "Fusilade", but I don't want to be too greedy.

Love the idea for a simple common helmet for a +1 for Empire Characters.  I use to take an on Foot Elector count with Armor of Meteoric Iron and a Holy Relic, and be able to take quick a bit a punishment.  If we could get the Holy Relic back, maybe limit it to on foot only, that would be awesome.

[PowerSeries]

Instead of trying to change pistols which will affect the rest of the armies, I would rather see Pistoliers gain Reserve Move, so they can move, shoot  pistols and move again.

Now this is unlikely, but if you really wanted to capture the Reiter's Cavalcade manouver, allow the reserve move to charge the enemy if they shot them and inflicted a wound.  That'd be a cool feature and make up for not having Fusilade.  This is a cool option that the Lion Rampent game allows and I would love to see it.

[madeinitaly1]

I approve your idea but as the peacemaker said is not about something you can change with faqs or errata, it's about to rewrite it entirely

[Sir Falo]

I think you dont need big changes to make The Empire a lot better. But if we are in to writing fan fiction here is mine.

Magic Items:
NEW Helmet that gives +1 Save on models on foot only for 10/15 pts.

Runefang: Always wounds on 2+, AP-5, 6 to hit gets multiple wounds 2

Book of Ashur: Remove the dubble roll shit, 75 pts.

Units:

Priests: I agree with Veteran on the warrior priests. Hammer of Sigmar should reroll both wounds and hit. Soulfire gives combat res

Witch hunter: Hatred vs everyone. So you can get those killing blows

Pistoleers: Have strength 4 Ap -1 in combat with furious charge. If I have to charge it should at least hurt.

Greatswords: Always veteran, 13 points per model, have T4. Heavy infantry. Not a bad unit now, just my wet dream.

Cannons: AP -5. Because fuck dragons

Mortar: Str 3. Because fuck night goblins

State troops, Horde, NEW "Attack column" Can stand 4 wide and still get rank bonus. Do not get into marching column with 4 wide. Makes them a better anvil, Quite close to how they worked in 6th. And Griffon banner gets up to +6, as Sigmar intended.

Missile state troops: Drilled upgrade gives them only -1 when moving and shooting.

Detachments range from 3" to 6". Makes them way easier to use.

[drweir4]

That's a great point re pistoliers - I had forgotten them and should add something for them

The armour hat idea is a good one too and certainly feels like something they should add to the arcane journal

[drweir4]

Witch hunter: Hatred vs everyone. So you can get those killing blows

Missile state troops: Drilled upgrade gives them only -1 when moving and shooting.

The witch hunter idea is interesting but i think giving any unit they join straight hatred for 55 is too good. What if instead of the 4 different things they gave Hatred (characters) and MR(-1) to the unit and they personally had flaming and magic attacks. Which sort of rolls the 4 things together but actually makes them useable

I also really like the idea of an upgrade for a sort of "veteran" missile troop as drilled is completely useless on them

[Skyros]

Warrior priests need more leadership. Pistoliers need their march and shoot/reserve move/fusilade or something, and need to lose impetuous.

The core problem is our...well, core. Empire state troops are ludicrously overpriced, even compared strictly to other troops (like skeleton spearmen) that get detachments.

I think a skelly cohort is 5 points? Empire spearman is 7. The skeleton causes fear, is immune to psychology, has regeneration, is unbreakable, etc.

The bretonnian peasants (who are supposed to be the worst infantry in the game) comparison has been done to death.
Here are what I think are fair point values for empire state troops given that they have no special rules and bring nothing to the table other than close order.

Hand weapon and shield : 4 points.
Halberd : 5 points
Spear and shield : 5 points.

At that price point, you might even be able to make use of detachments in a significant way.

OR....in the arcane journal, give us a middenheim list that loses the detachments, but lowers their point values. I think this was how it worked in the old storm of chaos supplement.

[Clymer]

When GW has fixed rules and game balance in the past, they typically don’t make the unit changes that you often see people wishlisting on forums. They typically go deeper into specific rules than just update points or stats or add or subtract special rules. In other words, they like to do things their way.

Given that way of responding to feedback, I don’t think it’s super helpful to make suggestions. Rather, you’d probably be better off succinctly stating the problems, knowing that they’re likely to take an indirect and unpredictable approach to fixing it anyway.

Here’s some problems the Empire has:
- Detachments are too big of a liability to use. They give up too many points too easily, offer too many opportunities for opponents to charge into the line and set up flank charges on parent units, are easily wiped out and then cause panic, and are too difficult to actually use for a counter charge.
- It is too difficult to get a high armor save or other defenses on Griffon mounted characters.
- Empire does not have enough access to magical attacks and cannot realistically fight ethereal enemies.
- Steam tanks do not have enough damage output in combat.
- Buffing units with prayers and magic is too unreliable, and Empire infantry units in particular don’t function well without those buffs. Too many of the available buffs require wizards to be in a unit where they are much too vulnerable.
- Empire hero-level characters just suck across the board. Captains, priests, master mages, chapter masters, and witch hunters are all awful. The only worthwhile hero level choice is the BSB, and even he is usually only a good choice if mounted on a demigryph.
- The War Altar is poor both at offense and defense and is a weak support unit.
- In a 2000 point army, it’s impossible to optimize an infantry focused army with 2-3 main battle line infantry units.
- BS based shooting is bad across the board in The Old World. Empire seems to be one of the worst at it with low BS, lots of ponderous weapons, and units that simply can’t generate enough shots for their frontage.
- The Helstorm rocket battery is more of a liability for the Empire player than it is for their opponents.

Those are the problem statements I can think of. I can imagine a lot of ways to fix those. Cost and stat changes is just one of the ways they could do it, but not the only way.

[Tiberius]

When GW has fixed rules and game balance in the past, they typically don’t make the unit changes that you often see people wishlisting on forums. They typically go deeper into specific rules than just update points or stats or add or subtract special rules. In other words, they like to do things their way.

Given that way of responding to feedback, I don’t think it’s super helpful to make suggestions. Rather, you’d probably be better off succinctly stating the problems, knowing that they’re likely to take an indirect and unpredictable approach to fixing it anyway.

I see these wishlistings as group therapy sessions. “I’m not insane, these things really are terrible”. But it does make me value T9A. They did incorporate some of those wish lists things.

I’m hoping the tournament and organized play statistics will have some effect, and GW will at least see there is a problem.

And you are definitely right GW usually fixes things in ways you don’t expect, (sometimes making them worse). Though to their credit, it seems like the Old World is far better than 8th edition.  And with the quick FAQ at least they are kind of trying?

[Sir Falo]

Witch hunter: Hatred vs everyone. So you can get those killing blows

Missile state troops: Drilled upgrade gives them only -1 when moving and shooting.

The witch hunter idea is interesting but i think giving any unit they join straight hatred for 55 is too good. What if instead of the 4 different things they gave Hatred (characters) and MR(-1) to the unit and they personally had flaming and magic attacks. Which sort of rolls the 4 things together but actually makes them useable

I also really like the idea of an upgrade for a sort of "veteran" missile troop as drilled is completely useless on them

I only meant hatred on the witch hunter himself. Maybe keep that he gives rest of the unit hatred on only on one thing you chose?

[Warlord]

I like the idea of framing the problem, rather than the solution. That said, I will now do both.

PROBLEM - General choice doesn't influence army choices like many other books
FIX - General gives 0-1 Greatswords core, GM, gives 0-1 IC Knights core, AL gives 0-1 Flagellants core.

PROBLEM - GM and CM are sub-par choices.
FIX - Reduce their cost. Allow CM to also be a BSB

PROBLEM - Priests are not a useful choice in almost any circumstance
FIX - Increase Ld to 8 (they are demagogues afterall), fix the affects of prayers. Make Hammer of Sigmar reroll hits and wounds. Shield of Faith against everything, not just shooting. Make Soulfire like an Assailment spell. Give them heavy armour standard. Reduce cost to 55.

PROBLEM - Witch Hunter is too situational
FIX - Make Suffer Not be chosen before battle, like the same time rolling spells, not when writing the list. Give them a pistol included in their cost. Give them heavy armour standard. Witch Hunter has hatred himself.
WISHLIST - Give them specialised equipment, like holy water.

PROBLEM - Foot Characters are a terrible choice
FIX - Give us either the Holy Relic back, or a +1AS item so our characters have better armour options - see below the White Wolf Cloak idea

PROBLEM - State Troops are a sub-par choice compared to EVERY OTHER ARMY'S infanrty.
FIX - Reduce cost by 1 pt. Make Detachments not cause panic. Give Veterans Heavy armour too for the existing upgrade cost

PROBLEM - Empire Knights with Great Weapons are a TERRIBLE choice
FIX - Give them either a 'White Wolf cloak' which increases AS by 1, or give them back their Full Plate.

PROBLEM - Free Company aren't very good
FIX - Give them Motley crew rules, with pistols and great weapon options. And allow them to skirmish

PROBLEM - Missile troops are not great
FIX - Give them fire in two ranks, make handguns not cost an extra 1pt. Remove Drilled - its a silly choice for them.

PROBLEM - Greatswords are overcosted
FIX - Give them Veteran for free, and Drilled for 1 point. Make them Heavy Infantry.

PROBLEM - Pistoiers are a HORRIBLE choice
FIX - Give them reserve move. Give them 'Fire on the charge' rule. Works nicely with impetuous.

PROBLEM - Mortars are bad
FIX - Reduce cost. By a lot

PROBLEM - Rocket launchers are TERRIBLE
FIX - Fix them.

PROBLEM - War Altar isn't any good.
FIX - Give it a ward save, or him and AL riding it - maybe 5+. Allow Prayers to effect all units in command range.

PROBLEM - Steam Tank is terrible in combat
FIX - Allow it to do more impact hits in combat. Allow Turret to shoot at the unit it is in combat with. Reduce cost to 250pts.
WISHLIST - add variants

PROBLEM - Cannon isn't very effective
FIX - reduce cost to 110 points
Increase damage to 2 D3, AP4

PROBLEM - Helblaster blows up a lot
FIX - Don't force the player to roll all 3 dice. Give the choice like previous editions.



I'm not touching magic items for now.

[Zygmund]

PROBLEM - Helblaster blows up a lot
FIX - Don't force the player to roll all 3 dice. Give the choice like previous editions.

In which edition you could choose the number of salvos?

Love the fixes.

-Zyg

[Dazgrim]

These are all pretty sensible in my eyes.

[Dazgrim]

PROBLEM - Helblaster blows up a lot
FIX - Don't force the player to roll all 3 dice. Give the choice like previous editions.

In which edition you could choose the number of salvos?

Love the fixes.

-Zyg

4th, 5th, 6th and I'm fairly certain 7th.

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

Definitely not in  Ravening Hordes, and the 6th & 7th edition AB.

Edit: in the 4th edition AB you could. There was no 5th edition Empire AB.

[drweir4]

Some more great ideas

I like the problem statement approach - I'll adjust to have the problem statements and then options underneath

Who knows what GW will do, but certainly the first FAQ has at least given some hope that for the old world at least they might be more responsive with small changes than in the past

[Minsc]

I'd love to add my own opinion/wishlisting to this topic, but I'd need a day off work in order to write that entire piece... 

Empire are in a similar situation to what Leagues of Votann was earlier in 40k - they are so bad that they need a rewrite on multiple units and rules. Some mere pts-adjustments wont solve it.

GW fixed LoV by errataing their armyrule (made it three times as good essentially) and by *massively* cutting point-costs across the board.
Can a similar fix work for Empire? Probably.

[commandant]

I like the idea of framing the problem, rather than the solution. That said, I will now do both.

This is a good approach.   We should consider also what we are trying to achieve in this fixes.   I believe, and our experience with 9th Age may support or conflict with this, that Warhammer is primarily a Role Playing Game and should be considered in that light.   Therefore this is an important concern to me when I approach the list of problems.   Secondly I believe that we should be aiming for a win rate (across a good enough sample size and with players of equal ELO) of roughly 50%. We don't really have a lot of data to go on.   There is very little data which includes the ELO of the players (most likely the most important thing in determining the outcome of a game) and equally little data which is uncompted.   Likewise there is little enough data of what lists are being played.   Even the data which broke down the units by win rate isn't very used because it doesn't (at least to my reading) indicate what the overall composition of the armies using those units was.   This means that most of the discussion (including my own takes) are fueled by personal experience and internet experience.   Most people haven't extensively used many of the unit that are being discussed as sub-par and as such have no personal experience of them and are using the perceived wisdom.
Thirdly it should be our aim, I believe, to make as few changes as possible and for those changes to be as small as possible.

PROBLEM - General choice doesn't influence army choices like many other books
FIX - General gives 0-1 Greatswords core, GM, gives 0-1 IC Knights core, AL gives 0-1 Flagellants core.

I'm not 100% sure that we need the general choice to influence army choices like in other books but if we assume that we do then I think the General gives 0-1 Greatswords as core is too strong.   It is similar to the Black Orcs but I think that it should rather be: If your General is a General of the Empire you may upgrade 0-1 (extra) state troop to veteran state troops.

AL give 0-1 Flagellants as core is fine.   Maybe even AL makes Flagellants a special choice. (Though this seems more like an arcane journal army list suggestion)

The important difference here is that the AL is only L8 where as the General is L9.   This means that in order to get the benefit of the AL as General you need to sacrifice something, mainly the better leadership of the General.   This is both useful from a fluff perspective (a fiery demagogue leading an army of flagellants and whipped up commoners might well be a poorer General than a professionally trained General)

The GM one is also fine I think.

PROBLEM - GM and CM are sub-par choices.
FIX - Reduce their cost. Allow CM to also be a BSB

It is questionable if this problem is in fact a problem.   I question if the GM is a subpar choice.   That said I haven't, as I like infantry and have played many games, fielded a GM yet.   

It does seem reasonable to give the GM a horse included in his price.   Allowing the CM to carry the army standard seems reasonable as well.

PROBLEM - Priests are not a useful choice in almost any circumstance
FIX - Increase Ld to 8 (they are demagogues afterall), fix the affects of prayers. Make Hammer of Sigmar reroll hits and wounds. Shield of Faith against everything, not just shooting. Make Soulfire like an Assailment spell. Give them heavy armour standard. Reduce cost to 55.

This is just inaccurate.   Priests are a useful choice.   Almost all of these fixes are bad for the game (though good for the Empire) because of the fact that your opponent can not longer attempt to protect himself from prayers.   TOW has (thankfully) moved away from all the re-rolls all the time which make 40k basically unplayable.   However the priests' prayers are very strong.   
On the Sigmirite side: Re-rolling 1s to hit and to wound is powerful in a game that doesn't have that many re-rolls.   5+ ward against shooting is powerful in a game that contains Tomb Kings and elves and various other armies that are going to bring a lot of shooting to the table.   Yes soulfire is not good against rank and file infantry (though you can be sure to kill one of them) but it would be quiet good against demigriffon knights or characters or anything of that sort.   It is also quite good if the priest finds himself in a challenge.
On the Ulricain side +d3 charge move is obviously good. Your opponent re-rolling 6s is straight up amazing in any world that has killing blow and good in ever other world.   And giving you multi wounds (2) again isn't massively great against random rank and file infantry but is strong against things that have multi wounds.   I can imagine an orge army being very scared of this prayer.

The payoff is that the prayers only work 58% of the time (or 72% if you have an AL).    This seems like a reasonable payoff to me.   If anything I would give priests' access to Full Plate Armour but other than that I don't see any need to change them.   

PROBLEM - Witch Hunter is too situational
FIX - Make Suffer Not be chosen before battle, like the same time rolling spells, not when writing the list. Give them a pistol included in their cost. Give them heavy armour standard. Witch Hunter has hatred himself.
WISHLIST - Give them specialised equipment, like holy water.

The idea that the Witch Hunter is situational is fine.    Something does not need to be changed just because it is situational. This feels like a change that is only directed at Tournament players.   It is not needed in the book but then I suppose it won't do that much harm.   I like the fact that the witch hunter's hatred is directed.   Universal hatred is such stupid idea that it should be purged from the book with as much fire as possible.
PROBLEM - Foot Characters are a terrible choice
FIX - Give us either the Holy Relic back, or a +1AS item so our characters have better armour options - see below the White Wolf Cloak idea

PROBLEM - State Troops are a sub-par choice compared to EVERY OTHER ARMY'S infanrty.
FIX - Reduce cost by 1 pt. Make Detachments not cause panic. Give Veterans Heavy armour too for the existing upgrade cost

This is just untrue.   I know it is the perceived wisdom of the internet but it does not seem to be the perceived wisdom of people who play with a lot of state troops (myself included).   State troops are not a subpar choice compared to EVERY OTHER ARMY'S infantry.   In fact (and I wrote a much longer thread on this comparing state troops to EVERY OTHER ARMY'S infantry) and discovered that they were mostly fine against mostly all of them.   
State Troops (if you give them halberds) are able to localise a lot of Str4 hits through the use of the detachment system.  Reducing them by 1 point would make them super overpowered.   Maybe the idea of giving them shields as part of the basic equipment could work but other than that they are fine.

PROBLEM - Empire Knights with Great Weapons are a TERRIBLE choice
FIX - Give them either a 'White Wolf cloak' which increases AS by 1, or give them back their Full Plate.

This is a problem caused by GW changing the FBIGO rules in their latest FAQ.   This has depowered everybody's Greatweapon knights compared to their lance armed companions.   Therefore there is no fix needed for the Empire Greatweapon Knights.   GW could fix this by simply stating that Lances can only be used when charging and not when counts-as-charging.   This would have the impact of putting Greatweapon knights back in their rightful place.   However given the general whining on about the fact that knights couldn't use their lances after a FBIGO I wouldn't hold my breath.
If your fix was implemented it would need something similar to happen in every other army that has Greatweapon armed knights.

PROBLEM - Free Company aren't very good
FIX - Give them Motley crew rules, with pistols and great weapon options. And allow them to skirmish

I haven't really used Free Company so I'm not sure.   Maybe an upgrade that allows them to skirmish at +1 point per model.   Maybe they can upgrade their thrown weapons to pistols for +1 point per model or something.   The motley crew rules would be good and flavourful.

PROBLEM - Missile troops are not great
FIX - Give them fire in two ranks, make handguns not cost an extra 1pt. Remove Drilled - its a silly choice for them.

Missile troops do seem to be not great.   I do agree that replacing the crossbow with the handgun for free would be nice but I don't think 10-20 points is that important.   Would you pay 10 points for a banner which gave you additional AP.   This seems likely.   Fire in 2 ranks would also be goo but then it would need to be given to all missile troops and I don't know if I want that.   Removing drilled isn't needed, after all it is a choice so you can do that yourself.   I wonder also if you get the ponderous debuff if you use drilled to redress your ranks.   I would argue that the answer is no, given that you can use drilled before charging.   Therefore maybe drilled missile troops wouldn't need to fire in 2 ranks because they can redress into one 1 rank.   However I think that missile troops just suffer from the fact that this is a close combat game mostly. 
I might consider lowering them  by a point.

PROBLEM - Greatswords are overcosted
FIX - Give them Veteran for free, and Drilled for 1 point. Make them Heavy Infantry.

Are they?   I find my greatswords work really well.   It must be remembered that Greatswords also buff their detachments by giving them stubborn.   Giving them veteran for free would be nice and fluffy but I don't think there is any need to change them.   Likewise I don't really think we need to worry about them being Heavy Infantry.   I'm not sure that is an advantage for us in the sense that you still want to put a load of models on the table so having your ranks be 4 wide instead of 5 wide doesn't really help when you are deploying 6-7 wide anyway.

PROBLEM - Pistoiers are a HORRIBLE choice
FIX - Give them reserve move. Give them 'Fire on the charge' rule. Works nicely with impetuous.

What is the "Fire on the charge" rule?   Pistoliers are an interesting choice.   I don't know about horrible as I haven't used them that much but there are some battle reports on this site which indicate they are not bad in reasonably large numbers.   Their role is different now compared to 6th-8th and much closer to what the fluff suggests it should be.   I don't think that reserve move works well with Impetuous.   Reserve move requires a high level of discipline and pistoliers don't have that.   

PROBLEM - Mortars are bad
FIX - Reduce cost. By a lot

I haven't played with mortars.

PROBLEM - Rocket launchers are TERRIBLE
FIX - Fix them.

This is just wrong.   Rocket Launchers are amazing.   You have a limited understanding of what is going to happen when you fire one.   Remember this is the weapon that is modelled off of a weapon that was described by Sir Authur Wellesley as "him having no use for it because he was not trying to hit a city and it couldn't hit anything smaller".   The idea of firing off a load of rockets that may or may not land where you expect them to and may or may not do damage  when they land is a perfect example of the rules doing what the weapon is meant to do.   The current rules are the best rules for getting the feeling of what happens when you fire off a load of rockets that I have played wit. 

Also if you are playing elves or humans or anything that is T3 dropping 3 3 inch pie plates into one of their units can be much fun.   It is swingy like crazy but it is also meant to be swingy.

PROBLEM - War Altar isn't any good.
FIX - Give it a ward save, or him and AL riding it - maybe 5+. Allow Prayers to effect all units in command range.

I haven't played with the War Altar so I can't comment on it being good or not but allowing Prayers to effect all units in command range is a terrible idea because of how powerful the prayers are and because your opponent can't dispel them.

PROBLEM - Steam Tank is terrible in combat
FIX - Allow it to do more impact hits in combat. Allow Turret to shoot at the unit it is in combat with. Reduce cost to 250pts.
WISHLIST - add variants

It also doesn't die though.   T7 with 10 wounds is hard to chew through.   I think the steam tank is fine.

PROBLEM - Cannon isn't very effective
FIX - reduce cost to 110 points
Increase damage to 2 D3, AP4

The cannon is about as effective as it always way.   D3+1 gives you an average of 3.   D6 gives you an average of 3.5.   It is slightly less effective but it doen't need to go to 2D3 (the average of which would be 4).   Maybe give it back its ignore armour given that it is Str10 but the cannon is fine.

PROBLEM - Helblaster blows up a lot
FIX - Don't force the player to roll all 3 dice. Give the choice like previous editions.



I'm not touching magic items for now.

The Helblaster is meant to blow up a lot.   The Helblaster blowing up a lot is just the rules working as they are meant to.   It is a very unreliable piece of kit.   It might to great damage.   It might blow up.   It might do great damage and blow up.   The Helblaster rules are fine.

Here’s some problems the Empire has:
- Detachments are too big of a liability to use. They give up too many points too easily, offer too many opportunities for opponents to charge into the line and set up flank charges on parent units, are easily wiped out and then cause panic, and are too difficult to actually use for a counter charge.

I don't know how often you have used detachments but I use them quite a lot and I don't find this to be true.   In fact none of the things you have stated above have been true in any of my games so far.   Though admittedly they are are 1500-2000 points.   Still I'll keep using detachments and let you know when a player charges into the detachment.   

- It is too difficult to get a high armor save or other defenses on Griffon mounted characters.

GW might consider this a benefit though.   After all Griffons are quite strong and tough without the need to loads of armour as well.

- Empire does not have enough access to magical attacks and cannot realistically fight ethereal enemies.

Witch hunters give magical attacks, priests have magical attacks but in general we don't have that many magic attacks.   Maybe a banner would help.

- Steam tanks do not have enough damage output in combat.

This is mentioned above but Steam Tanks do their job of not dying and hold up your opponent really really.

- Buffing units with prayers and magic is too unreliable, and Empire infantry units in particular don’t function well without those buffs. Too many of the available buffs require wizards to be in a unit where they are much too vulnerable.

The buffing with magic is a system wide difficulty as it applies to all armies.   Buffing with prayers though is quiet reliable.   58% is a reasonably reliable success rate for something.   If anything it is too high.

- Empire hero-level characters just suck across the board. Captains, priests, master mages, chapter masters, and witch hunters are all awful. The only worthwhile hero level choice is the BSB, and even he is usually only a good choice if mounted on a demigryph.

I donno about this.   Empire hero level characters are also really cheap.   Priests (and I'm starting to come around to master mages) are good spell casters.   Captains are quite good and quite tanky as they can easily have a 3+ AS on foot.   

- In a 2000 point army, it’s impossible to optimize an infantry focused army with 2-3 main battle line infantry units.

No it isn't.   It is perfectly possible to cover the entire board in infantry.   3 blocks of 25 halberdiers with 2 10 model halberdier detachments each is going to cost 855 points and cover 6 feet of table edge.   It is certainly possible to support these three main battle units with the 1145 points left.

- BS based shooting is bad across the board in The Old World. Empire seems to be one of the worst at it with low BS, lots of ponderous weapons, and units that simply can’t generate enough shots for their frontage.

BS shooting is bad across the board (though the tomb kings seems to have it okay and apparently in another tread it improves a lot when firing at wizards on peggies  )

- The Helstorm rocket battery is more of a liability for the Empire player than it is for their opponents.

As it should be.

[drweir4]

I like the idea of framing the problem, rather than the solution. That said, I will now do both.

This is a good approach.   We should consider also what we are trying to achieve in this fixes.   I believe, and our experience with 9th Age may support or conflict with this, that Warhammer is primarily a Role Playing Game and should be considered in that light.   Therefore this is an important concern to me when I approach the list of problems.   Secondly I believe that we should be aiming for a win rate (across a good enough sample size and with players of equal ELO) of roughly 50%. We don't really have a lot of data to go on.   There is very little data which includes the ELO of the players (most likely the most important thing in determining the outcome of a game) and equally little data which is uncompted.   Likewise there is little enough data of what lists are being played.   Even the data which broke down the units by win rate isn't very used because it doesn't (at least to my reading) indicate what the overall composition of the armies using those units was.   This means that most of the discussion (including my own takes) are fueled by personal experience and internet experience.   Most people haven't extensively used many of the unit that are being discussed as sub-par and as such have no personal experience of them and are using the perceived wisdom.
Thirdly it should be our aim, I believe, to make as few changes as possible and for those changes to be as small as possible.

PROBLEM - General choice doesn't influence army choices like many other books
FIX - General gives 0-1 Greatswords core, GM, gives 0-1 IC Knights core, AL gives 0-1 Flagellants core.

I think this is very sensible and I really appreciate the different perspectives being shared. As mentioned at the top we are most interested in real game experiences here. I also very much don't want this to be about tournaments or making empire OP, just trying to make some units more interesting / viable to see them on the table. I don't think we are going to see a whole re-write and so small changes via FAQ are probably the most likely outcome at this stage

In terms of real data I strongly agree that most of the internet noise is just that. Its only last week that the first even remotely reliable "data" on the old world came out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCM1B9Ud9Uw

They at least have a consistent and careful methodology but its still very heavily caveated.

[Skyros]

Witch hunter: Hatred vs everyone. So you can get those killing blows

Missile state troops: Drilled upgrade gives them only -1 when moving and shooting.

The witch hunter idea is interesting but i think giving any unit they join straight hatred for 55 is too good.

The necrotect is 55 points.
He gives hatred and an extra attack to any unit he joins.

[Minsc]

Witch hunter: Hatred vs everyone. So you can get those killing blows

Missile state troops: Drilled upgrade gives them only -1 when moving and shooting.

The witch hunter idea is interesting but i think giving any unit they join straight hatred for 55 is too good.

The necrotect is 55 points.
He gives hatred and an extra attack to any unit he joins.

He does need to pass a Ld7 check (albeit with re-roll if the BSB is nearby) though, but still. Yeah, it's def. not "too good" since it's already in the game.

[commandant]

A leadership 7 test is a 58% chance of success. There is a massive difference between a 58% chance of success that needs to be rerolled every turn and a 100% chance of success that doesn't.