Warhammer-Empire.com

Ive been thinking about this too. Great to see ideas on how to make things work.
For those that have tried it, is there a way to just focus on smaller components at a time.

My favourite is engineer w. Blunderbuss, ruby ring + helblaster - quite a lot of dakka for a small portion of your army pts

Has anyone tried 20 crossbowmen + witchunter?
General and BSB on foot, no magic items proving the 9+ rerollable leadership
What would they support? Infantry?
What about a 'choppy' block of 24 halberdiers, and a 'sticky' block of 30 spearmen

So I been doing all of that.

Engineer with pigeon bombs is actually decent BECAUSE you don't need LOS with pigeons and no BS modifiers, so he can go where needed in the backline  likely behind a block and still contribute while supporting warmachines as well. Engineer+helblasters deletes things at close range.

I take crossbowmen 20 strong vs elves. I took it once with a witchunter for range magical attacks. It was ok ish. 20 crossbowmen don't crumble to chaff which is nice and in a pinch can act as a combat block late game.

I usually go min characters so basically naked bsb except with full plate and same with general. Usually on foot with halberds.

Ya I also take a mix of halberds 8x3 and spearmen 6x5 as well.

That really is so good. Well done!

Artoban!

Don't be a stranger.

There are some things tho.
State troops can just soak the damage on go upp and beat the shit out of the night goblins. And with the cost of fanatics, Night goblins are the same price as State troops. With a character on Demigryph or Horse for first charge you break them in about a turn.

The War altar wreak night goblins. Terror and first charge is the doom for infantry. It can soak fanatics quite well.

Does First Charge negate their bonus leadership for horde?

Ok, so i've been looking at other army books and figured I'd take a stab at fixing Empire. I've been holding off because I don't like doing Gamesworkshops job for them, but I enjoy game design so it's hard for me to resist.
The goal of this isn't to rewrite the entire book, but rather to find the easiest way to get some balance.

1) Army Roster gets a 20% discount. Except Demigryphs.
So basically you create your unit will whatever upgrades, then you multiply tye total by 0.80 and this will give the final point value for the unit.
This method is much easier than trying to balance individual point values. Steam tank might be a little bit cheap but I think it's fine considering 2+/5+/5++ dragons exist - and Empire doesn't get a Dragon.

2) New magic Item:
Magical Armour: character adds +1 to their armour.
20pts. Common*.
As many of us have discussed, our characters with very bad combat stats need something to compete. +1 armour fits the theme of Empire. Remember that the 20pts is subject to the final 20% reduction for the character that takes it. So it's really like 16pts.

3) Witch Hunter picks his special ability when he gets deployed on the table.
Pretty self explanatory reason for this. If ya don't know why then please read any article with a title that says "beginners guide to being a game designer".

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I think these 2 changes alone will bump Empire middle tier.

Here are some optional other optional rules that require at least a bit of Testing.

If General of the Empire is army general then 0-1 unit of Greatswords can be taken as Core.
If GrandMaster is army general then 0-1 units of Inner Circle knights can be taken as core.
If Arch Lector is army General then 0-1 units of Flagellants can be taken in Special.

Now if this is too strong, then there might have to be a requirement of 1+ unit of state troops must be taken for the army. It's a small tax but fitting. If ya want themed army like all knightly or flagellants, then that would be covered in supplemental army books where they can have cool special bonuses for their knightly order and God.

Arch Lector and Warrior Priest get +1 Leadership.
Now the points reduction and magic armour might prove sufficient a buff for the warrior priest. But I feel that Empire characters are supposed to lead. The +1 leadership boost helps gets the prayers off but still with a decent chance of failing. Remember that you can only cast 1 prayer a turn and the prayers are quite weak due to being situational.

Regiments and detachments get +1 combat res for each respective regiment/detachment within range.
This is experimental because the points reduction for the army might be enough to actually take advantage of the basic regiment/detachment rules.
I'm against adding other rules like shieldwall or horde because other armies already have that for their very similar infantry. I want something unique for Empire and to me that is having units in range giving bonus's. I know people might like detachments not causing panic but remember that with characters being cheap and with acces to extra armour, they can be placed in unit and gove immune to panic.

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Tips for using these changes:
The points changes are intended for armybook balance and assumes equal player skill.
The other changes are intended for variety, options, and fun.

So if you are playing against an opponent who is low skill, then I suggest giving yourself a handicap in points and give yourself a challenge. But you can still use the other rules to still have fun since they are far from OP.