He had me at “Hello, I’m Karl and my weapon is known as Ghal Maraz.”
This is a quick summary of experience of running Karl Franz with my Empire list at Brawler Bash this past weekend and the four practice games that I had prior to the event. Usually when I read most tournament battle reports, they tend to function as therapeutic recalls for the writers at they systematically go game-by-game detailing each turn. There is certainly nothing wrong with such a format, but for my own sake, I tend to find my analysis is better when I personally try to be more thematic, focusing on a single aspect, and in this case, the use of Karl Franz.
I played nine games at the 3,000 point level (no comp, no grand armies, expectation of hard armies). I won seven and lost two. In the Brawler Bash tournament (70 man tournament), I won four out of five and based on scores I took 3rd Best General and top Empire player (out of nine). Overall, it was actually a little more successful than I hoped simply because I knew there were some bad match-ups for my list.
My army:
Characters:
Karl Franz on foot with Ghal Maraz.
Wizard Lord (death)- with 5+ ward, dispel scroll, VH speculum.
Warrior priest with h. armor, charmed shield, luck stone, and crown of command.
BSB with 2+ rerollable save and shrieking blade (causes fear).
Core:
54 Halberdiers with standard, musicians and 2 detachments of 20 halbrediers.
5 knights with standard.
10 archers with standard.
Special:
3 Demigryphs with standard.
4 Demigryphs with standard (flaming banner)
4 Demigryphs with standard (gleaming pendant)
Rare:
2 Steam tanks.
1 Hurricanum
Gameplay Strategy- People design armies for a variety of reasons. For me, I typically think of a strategy that I want to employ and try to pick an army that best achieves that objective. My goal was to field an army that could replicate Hannibal’s double-envelopment strategy where a bunch of mid-grade infantry can tie-up the center, while cavalry of both wings collapse the flanks. I thought Karl, a bunch of halberdiers, and demi-gryphs could achieve that aim. In essence, it did.
I think where I disagree with many Empire players, is that I believe that the Empire has only two stellar units for the cost, a few good units, and a bunch of subpar units. The demigryphs and the steam tank are the best units per cost. The halberdiers represent the best infantry choice, but even they are too expensive at six points and ought to be moved back to five. Monstrous infantry and cavalry have changed the current meta immensely over the past year, rendering 2/3 of all infantry options over-priced. Most infantry simply die too easily to the high strength and volume of attacks from monstrous inf/cav while failing to inflict much damage due to regen, high armor saves, and above average toughness. For instance, in my other 8th edition experiences, my forty man dwarf hordes are routinely slaughtered by troll hordes, ogres buses, and all monstrous cavalry. The halberdiers are worse per point than the 10 point dwarf with great weapon and die much faster. Reviewing the Warhammer-Empire forums confirmed much of my thoughts, that for most individuals, their infantry was typically the most common section of their list to collapse during a battle. Karl Franz fixes much of the problem for the halberdiers and turns them into Hannibal’s elite North African infantry that could defeat even Roman Triarii.
Karl Franz makes it near impossible for the typical 3-5 monstrous cavalry, 8 monstrous infantry, or 1-2 monsters, to pose a threat to my infantry. Ghal Maraz auto-wounds, no armor saves, and does D3 wounds per wound. With the hurricanum in support I needed 2s to hit, thereby allowing Karl Franz average 8 wounds per round against multi-wound targets. Also, with his 4+ ward save and MR 2, he is relatively impervious to death sniping and greatly aids the other characters such as allowing my death mage to spirit leech on ld 10 and prevents the center of the line from running off the board due to an early panic. Once again to reiterate, Karl Franz, backed by 26 str. 4 hatred infused halberdiers hitting on 3+ becomes much scarier for most opponents. Against opponents without a death star or high levels of magic, I could aggressively advance my center line in an attempt to pin the majority, while steam tanks and demigryphs could take on the flanks.
For me, the mental alternative to Karl Franz is a standard arch lector on foot and using the spare points to purchase cannons. I don’t like this option for the Empire. The cannons typically get 1-2 rounds to fire before they are eaten by chaff units, but Karl Franz became walking cannon that can damage the same targets, while rectifying the halberdiers weaknesses against monstrous troops and proclivity towards panic.
The weakness of the list as I predicted before the tournament was death stars and high levels of magic. Death stars with multiple characters and especially character killing assassins could kill Karl and the other characters getting over 1,000 points from my main halberdier block and characters. Likewise, double slann, dark elves, or high elves with lots of magic would wreck my list. Withering plus dwellers, or mind-razor on spearmen and saurus would wreck the unit and unlikely I wouldn’t be able to stop it.
The odd aspect of the tournament is that my predictions generally came true. Against MMU lists without a death star or magic domination, I won the games. Either Karl intimidated my opponents into deploying more into the flanks than desired or he managed to pin and push critical sections of the opposing line.
My major loss was game three of Brawler Bash to a Black Knight death star. When I saw his list I knew he would make a line straight for Karl Franz. I did my best recognizing his strategy. I put both detachments and steam tanks in front of Karl Franz, but that did not slow him down. Assisted by a pair of terrorgeists and death magic he killed my steam tanks and 2 units of 20 halberdiers are not much of a road block to a 1500+ point unit. Thinking back to the game, my best option should have been to turn my unit around and make him kill all my halberdiers before he could get to Karl and the other characters. Would it be silly and absurd for Karl Franz to turn his back and hide- yes, but perhaps necessary when encountering such situations. Unless I get lucky sniping on critical characters through purple sun or steam tank cannon shots, I don’t think I can halt such a list.
Similarly, I played against an Ogre death star in game five and a magic heavy WoC in game three which I think if that both games were to be replayed multiple times it would probably result primarily in ties. In game five my opponent made a couple of mistakes compounded with some bad luck. He deployed the death star too far away from Karl’s unit and he had another unit attack a detachment that blocked the death star’s route to Karl for two turns. Finally, I did beat the death star in combat one round where he failed two stubborn leadership nine checks, which was a lucky break for me.
As a summary, Karl performed well despite dying in three of the nine games. He was worth it even at 370 points. The question that I am struggling with is whether to bring any infantry if I am not bringing Mr. Franz.
Generally speaking, every smart opponent is going to attempt to kill the warrior priest and whoever carries the crown of command. Or, with a block of monstrous inf/cav, they can simply spend 3-4 combat rounds just killing all the models in the unit as is normally the case with my dwarfs. The Empire infantry is at an unusual intersection, as they are not one of the truly great infantry units (savage orc big unz, white lions, etc), or even good value infantry (chaos warriors, saurus, DE spearmen) and they are not cheap hordes like goblin or skaven as 100 halberdiers still costs 600 points, which is 25% of most people’s armies, so I am starting to find myself in the camp of thinking that all Empire cavalry for core maybe more viable without Karl’s hammer and play Bretonnia ‘Light’ with Empire despite the susceptibility to heavy artillery lists or anti-cav lists such as O&G.
