Topic: Empire Arcane Journal armies revealed

[lcmiracle]

If you can't be asked to deal with 3 types of melee weapons, why are you even here.

Streamline be damned

No. hate all the 'look up rule for x' crap that bloats playtime and books. A good example is the rules for Giants, which always annoyed me. Why are giants special? Surely the types of things they do, would be similar to what a Necrosphinx or could Hydra would do. I like a bit more consistency.

Also keep in mind, my version is actually each crewman  uses both weapon types. The 'every crewman is special' approach means probably 3 interesting attacks, and 3 useless attacks. And the shooting is not interesting either - HLR sucks, Repeater Handguns I have on my outriders, and I doubt the Blunderbuss will be a flame template anymore - guess its probably more of the grenade launching variety. If I want to use any of these upgrades, I would take them on my outrider champion or actual engineer model. Hint - I don't, because the extra time and cost for that stuff almost NEVER results in a better outcome.

NO! YOU CAN'T EVEN DEAL WITH THREE THEN YOU CAN'T EVER DEAL WITH ONE.

FUCK. STREAMLINING.

They better add more weapon options this time or they can get quartered.

[Damar]

Streamlined shooting and melee rules are ideal.
To me, rather than filling the War Wagon with engineers, I felt like soldiers, each with a handgun and a halberd was a simple way to do it.
6 S4 shots, 6 S4 attacks.

But I doubt they will go that simplistic.

There had better not be a move penalty for shooting on it.

There could of course be a chart of options which you select at the start of the round and wagon gets the abilities mentioned in it. Something like "rapid fire!" Or "Ramming Speed" which increase amount of shots, impact hits, etc. according to situation. Relatively simple but still varied enough.

Especially since this is marketed as expensive centerpiece model...

I faced war wagon few times back in the day and it simply was not good. It did not shoot that much and ultimately could not fight it's way out of a wet paper bag. So in my opionion making it a moving pillbox of handgunners with some melee potential would immediately be an improvement. (And yes, I know it was a supporting unit back in the day and not a solopwn-mobile)

[Sir Falo]

Streamlined shooting and melee rules are ideal.
To me, rather than filling the War Wagon with engineers, I felt like soldiers, each with a handgun and a halberd was a simple way to do it.
6 S4 shots, 6 S4 attacks.

But I doubt they will go that simplistic.

There had better not be a move penalty for shooting on it.

I agree. 6 Handgun shots and 6 Halberds attacks would work fine. Maybe you can take some kind of champion with something special.

[Perforated]

I am thinking that streamlining of the rules seems to be a thing and having three different melee attacks is a sure way to drag the time down a bit, especially if you can even put a character with the Wagon.

Reasonable compromise might be "Experimental weapons" and they all give +1S, AP-1 & Cleaving blow ability. That way you have sort of killing blows and ignore armor things baked in and you can just roll three dices to resolve the whole thing instead of "And the mancatcher goes for the hero" kind of stuff even if it might be cool.

I'm generally for streamlining, but this would not be any worse than any other unit with the Motley Crew USR. Given the model comes with all these zany weapons it would simply be boring if it was just boiled down to six dudes with handguns and halberds.

That said I do like your proposal, it reduces bloat while also maintaining character

At least one thing I would do if I were to design the rules for the War Wagon would be to give all the melee crew a handgun each. It really makes no sense to me why they don't have them lined up on the inside. And I agree with Warlord, it better not suffer from the penalty to hit for moving and shooting!

NO! YOU CAN'T EVEN DEAL WITH THREE THEN YOU CAN'T EVER DEAL WITH ONE.

FUCK. STREAMLINING.

You need to calm down my friend. You are entitled to your opinion, but don't be a dick about it.

[drweir4]

Streamlining or not I’m struggling to see what the war wagon will be for, or it needs to be very cheap

Maybe like 80 points for a t5 chariot with a 3 handguns and 3 halberds? That’s probably not worth it even

[Warlord]

Streamlining or not I’m struggling to see what the war wagon will be for, or it needs to be very cheap

Maybe like 80 points for a t5 chariot with a 3 handguns and 3 halberds? That’s probably not worth it even

Exactly. I have low confidence they know how to cost it appropriately. Likely each model will be costed as a missile troop marksman with special weapon, which will cost about 120pts, plus another 60 for the chariot.
I am guess it’s going to be 150-180 points. Which is way too much.

[Warlord]

NO! YOU CAN'T EVEN DEAL WITH THREE THEN YOU CAN'T EVER DEAL WITH ONE.

FUCK. STREAMLINING.

They better add more weapon options this time or they can get quartered.

[mod voice]
Calm down.
[/mod voice]

[Perforated]

Streamlining or not I’m struggling to see what the war wagon will be for, or it needs to be very cheap

Maybe like 80 points for a t5 chariot with a 3 handguns and 3 halberds? That’s probably not worth it even

I'm hoping they will take some inspiration from Warhammer: Total War. There are three variations, the vanilla one, one with a mortar and one with a Helblaster. I could see one with a cannon as well.

At 80 points I think it would be a steal. It is a heavy chariot after all, it takes some effort to kill and it can handle smaller units by itself.

Compartively, an orc boar chariot with three crew is 95 points (special). It's S5, T5, 4W with 4+ AS.

[OMoran]

Streamlining or not I’m struggling to see what the war wagon will be for, or it needs to be very cheap

Maybe like 80 points for a t5 chariot with a 3 handguns and 3 halberds? That’s probably not worth it even

I'm hoping they will take some inspiration from Warhammer: Total War. There are three variations, the vanilla one, one with a mortar and one with a Helblaster. I could see one with a cannon as well.

At 80 points I think it would be a steal. It is a heavy chariot after all, it takes some effort to kill and it can handle smaller units by itself.

Compartively, an orc boar chariot with three crew is 95 points (special). It's S5, T5, 4W with 4+ AS.

One with an Hellblaster?

Seriously?

A moving hellblaster would really be awesome. And it would mean the death of heavy cavalry. Might as well be S4 instead of S5, not much of a difference as long as it keeps penetration and armour bane.

[Perforated]

One with an Hellblaster?

Seriously?

A moving hellblaster would really be awesome. And it would mean the death of heavy cavalry. Might as well be S4 instead of S5, not much of a difference as long as it keeps penetration and armour bane.

An armoured, moving and fire Helblaster would indeed be awesome. But it would be pricey by pure necessity. In 6th edition there were WD rules to steam tank variants and one had a Helblaster that was a weaker version of the regular war machine.

If memory serves me right it was R 24" with S4 AP (effective -2 AS) at short range and S3 AP (effective -1 AS) at long range.

With modern rules I'd imagine it could be brought down to S4 AP(1), AB(1) (might even get rid of armour bane) and on account of it being mobile, cut the range to 18".

I think this is a pipe dream, but who knows?

A more realistic speculation would be that the War Wagon can serve as a mount for an engineer.

[Skyros]

Maybe an engineer in a war wagon could have a 12" or 18" range for helping war machines?

Since the war wagon is going in the (entirely optional) arcane journal, I hope it has all the crazy fun old experimental weapons back. It can be as complicated as it wants.

Empire BADLY needs more flavor, honestly.

It's one of my big gripes with the list. Yes, we have pigeon bombs, but overall, the book just feels so bland. Lack of any army rules will do that to you, I guess.

[Perforated]

Maybe an engineer in a war wagon could have a 12" or 18" range for helping war machines?

That would be a direct consequence of the rules for riders on large targets. Their command range is extended to 18" and that would apply to the engineers ability as well unless they explicitly deny that.

Since the war wagon is going in the (entirely optional) arcane journal, I hope it has all the crazy fun old experimental weapons back. It can be as complicated as it wants.

Empire BADLY needs more flavor, honestly.

Hopefully it is permissible in normal Grand Armies. But, I don't think it being optional is an excuse to make it an over-complicated mess for the sake of flavor. But I do hope they can strike a decent balance.

It's one of my big gripes with the list. Yes, we have pigeon bombs, but overall, the book just feels so bland. Lack of any army rules will do that to you, I guess.

I agree with this.

[commandant]

Empire BADLY needs more flavor, honestly.

It badly needs people to use its flavour but that is true of almost all tournament lists really.

[Skyros]

I dunno, my TK tournament lists feel like they have tons of TK flavor in them. Oodles and oodles of fun, flavorful, unique to TK(or at least undead) rules.

[commandant]

Does it?   What does a tomb kings army look like?  I would expect that regiments of skeleton warriors (or maybe skeleton archers possibly) would outnumber ever other type of regiment, (possibly even every other type of regiment combined). I'm not saying that isn't what your tournament army looks like of course.

[Skyros]

I bring two blocks of skeleton infantry and two (smaller) units of skeleton archers.
Then I bring a unit of chariots, a unit of necropolis knights, ushabti, a dragon, a necrosphinx, two scorpions, and a casket of souls. I have a wall of skeleton infantry in front doing their job, and then the hammer units on the flanks.

Granted this is NOT the most competitive form of a TK list (which is double dragon double necrosphinx). It's basically a 'one of everything' list that is just competitive enough to win roughly 60% of my games, which is totally fine for a tournament performance IMO.

I have never seen any empire list winning 60% of their games bringing two big blocks of state troops with detachments in any tournament I have been too.

But my contention is even the most broken mortuary cult lists for TK have more 'tomb kings' flavor than empire armies do.
The vast majority of this flavor is of course provided by special rules, something the empire army is tragically light on.

[Tiberius]

The empire lack of special flavor is appalling. Every other “Force of Fantasy” has a unique honor/virtue/spite/rune plus universal army special rules. The empire gets neither. Plus its lack luster magic items. I wonder if at one time in development “drilled” was only an Empire special rule (that would make lots of sense fluff wise, I don’t see Chaos knights drilling in their chaos waste parade grounds).  My theory is it was so interesting and fun they decided to expand it to more armies.

[Perforated]

It badly needs people to use its flavour but that is true of almost all tournament lists really.

You keep kicking this dead horse like it's going to change anything. The flavor we used to have is now widely available and watered down. There are no army special rules like those you see for literally every other army. Our basic troops lack beneficial universal special rules that it seems like other armies get handed out to them like candy.

[Damar]

I agree with this.

I did roll around with the idea of "Empire wargear" items which could be used to give minor bonuses for characters like a Guard Dog. Copied below for convenience.

Hunting dog: A loyal pet that stays at his masters side, warning about enemies and defending him with it's life. Dog is not placed on map and is assumed to occupy same position as the owning model and cannot be attacked separately. Dog strikes in melee with following profile WS4 S3 I4 A1 AP-1. Whenever the owner suffers a hit that causes a single wound, this upgrade can be eliminated instead. Additionally, enemy Scouts may not deploy within "15" of this model. Models on foot or cavalry only.

Anyways, if War Wagon would be 6 shots and 6 melee attacks (+horses) AND a ride for an Engineer with additional boomstick, would it really need anything else? I mean, it would be outright powerful unit on par with a monster if you will. Sure, it might only hit with S4 if we go with "experimental weapons" as assumed baseline but it would still munch through light infantry blocks.

As for weapon carrier, I guess Hellblaster is there so enemy has no hope of avoiding being on the receiving end and if Cannon, you could try to line up for the rare and sweet sweet flanking shot. Mortar of course, like in TW, would be useless since the gun already has enough range to hit anywhere.

[commandant]

I bring two blocks of skeleton infantry and two (smaller) units of skeleton archers.
Then I bring a unit of chariots, a unit of necropolis knights, ushabti, a dragon, a necrosphinx, two scorpions, and a casket of souls. I have a wall of skeleton infantry in front doing their job, and then the hammer units on the flanks.

Admittedly that is probably about as close to a TK army as a tournament army can get.   I think my tournament Empire army might do reasonably well against it.   Not sure.   I bring a block of greatswords, two detachments of veteran halberdiers, two units of knights, a unit of outriders and 2 cannons.    I can't really remember what the casket of souls does but I'd be reasonably happy if I came up against that in most tournaments.

I have never seen any empire list winning 60% of their games bringing two big blocks of state troops with detachments in any tournament I have been too.

True but that has more to do with the lack of dragons.   Like two blocks of state troops with detachments would likely do reasonably well against your skeletons warriors and skeleton archers.   Not sure about against your two dragons.   I wonder what the Empire's dragon is, a steam tank?

It badly needs people to use its flavour but that is true of almost all tournament lists really.

You keep kicking this dead horse like it's going to change anything. The flavor we used to have is now widely available and watered down. There are no army special rules like those you see for literally every other army. Our basic troops lack beneficial universal special rules that it seems like other armies get handed out to them like candy.

No no, I'm on to kicking a new (if equally dead) horse.   My point is that an army's flavor doesn't come from its special rules in reality.

Like the list that Skyos posted, while likely close to a TK army or at least as close as a tournament army can get, is

2 dragons  (one weaker than the other)
1 monstrous infantry
1 chariots
1 heavy knights
2 ambushers

I assume there are some lords and heros as well.   

The casket is an interesting an flavorful thing but how many other tournament armies come with this.   

The problem from an imperial perspective is that we don't have dragons.   We have monstrous cav to match the monsterous infantry and heavy knights to match the heavy knights and ambushers (though I would argue his are better) to match the ambushers and (as I'm not 100% sure what the chariot do but they look like fast cav to me) fast cav to match the fast cav.   We even have infantry to match the infantry.

After all our basic troops have
Horde and Warband and 2 attacks and missile attacks, all at WS3 Str3 for 6 points.
admitted they also have
Impetuous and Levies and Open Order.   

That is 6 special rules on a single unit.   Admittedly that is free company.   

This is the crux of the point.   We are not short on special rules.
Inner circle knights get list: Close Order, Counter Charge, Drilled, First Charge, Inner Circle, Swiftstride, Veteran
flaggys get:  Close Order, Fanatical Zeal, Feel No Pain, Furious Charge, Immune to Psychology, Impetuous, Hatred (all enemies), Unbreakable
Pistoliers get: Counter Charge, Fast Cavalry, Fire & Flee, Impetuous, Open Order, Skirmishers, Swiftstride
Outriders get: Fast Cavalry, Fire & Flee, Open Order, Skirmishers, Swiftstride, Vanguard and repeater handguns.

The problem is that building an army with minimum core makes all armies look the same.

Flavour doesn't come from special rules, special rules come from flavour.

[retrojetpacks]

Ah it would have been so easy to have a page of Mordheim style province special rule options to pick from. It writes itself!

Reikland - characters and unit champs get +1 Ws, infantry gain drilled
Osterlund - characters and unit champs get +1 S, infantry gain warband
Westerlund - some sort of price discount? Maybe infantry increase armour save by 1 pip?
Talabecland- characters and unit champs get +1 Bs and infantry get move through cover.

Give each faction hatred for another and job done. Maybe a faction locked item.

Now if only there was some sort of empire only event I could playtest these rules at...

[Skyros]

My point is that an army's flavor doesn't come from its special rules in reality.

A huge amount of it comes from its special rules. But not all. Some comes from the continuity of lore and how well an army on the tabletop matches up to the lore - but even this generally requires some special rules.

Currently, the 'loreful' empire army is like absolute trash, both in terms of external balance, and internal balance to other empire army lists that fare, well, still badly, but at least only slightly badly, at tournaments : gunlines (boring!) and oops all cav/demigryphs/griffons (only slightly less boring)

This is NOT the empire army I want to run.
I want to run how the lore describes empire armies: as anchored by serried ranks of state troops using their discipline and training and tactical flexibility to hold the line while handgunners and mortars rain down fire from the heights, warrior priests in the ranks stiffening the troops, and pistoliers blazing away on the flanks, clearing out the enemy flankers.

Currently literally none of that works. It's all trash, except for possibly the handgunners. None of the rules of the units fit the way they are supposed to operate in the lore, and their points are too high for it to be a good army.

In a TK army, your bog standard undead skeletons come with a whole RAFT of special rules, unique to the army (or at least, undead) that let them do exactly what they are described as doing in the lore : being an immovable wall that anchors the enemy while your fearsome constructs and dragons and tomb kings smash into the enemy and obliterate them - and your hammer units ALSO come with huge rafts of special rules that let them do what they are supposed to do AND things are pointed appropriately so that the army is actually good.

Basically for an army to be flavorful, it need special rules - and those special rules have to align with existing lore. Additionally, the 'required army composition' needs to match what is in the lore, but this is literally probably like 5 or 10% of what makes an army flavorful and the empire doesn't even have that. (Back in the day, for example, you used to have to take one unit of halberdiers, and one unit of crossbowmen. I never found this burdensome, as I love both halberdiers and crossbowmen)

[Damar]

Ah it would have been so easy to have a page of Mordheim style province special rule options to pick from. It writes itself!

Reikland - characters and unit champs get +1 Ws, infantry gain drilled
Osterlund - characters and unit champs get +1 S, infantry gain warband
Westerlund - some sort of price discount? Maybe infantry increase armour save by 1 pip?
Talabecland- characters and unit champs get +1 Bs and infantry get move through cover.

Give each faction hatred for another and job done. Maybe a faction locked item.

Now if only there was some sort of empire only event I could playtest these rules at...

And Osterlund wins by wide margin because S4 and LD10...

Personally I do think Regional rule" with some benefits and some disadvantages which you could use (but not forced) to build your army would be very nice and probably somewhat easy to implement (Two pages should suffice). Not necessarily "Superpwn" category but some minor flavor. Challenge of course would be to balance them out so one is clearly better than others.

For example, lets take Stirland according to fluff.

Shadow of Sylvania: Soldiers of Stirland know well the horrors that lurk in the dark forests and in the neighbouring lands of Sylvania. All State Troops (inc. Veterans), General/Captain of the Empire, Witch Hunters & Warrior Priests of the army gain +1 LD.

Superstitious lot: Citizens of Stirland are conservative and known for their religious intolerance. Your army MUST include at least one Witch Hunter and may only include one Master Mage/Wizard Lord per 1000pt. Any unit of State Troops (inc. Veteran) or Free Company may pay 10pt for "Folk wards" upgrade.

Folk Wards: Troopers carry with them various folk remedies & amulets to ward themselves against evil spirits and foul magic. Entire unit gains Magic Resistance (1)

[lcmiracle]

Sure sure, an army can also have flavor when their universal special rules can work in concert with other units from the same list
The Empire also does not have this.
Bisect the GW staffs!

[Jörgen Andreasson]

My point is that an army's flavor doesn't come from its special rules in reality.

A huge amount of it comes from its special rules. But not all. Some comes from the continuity of lore and how well an army on the tabletop matches up to the lore - but even this generally requires some special rules.

Currently, the 'loreful' empire army is like absolute trash, both in terms of external balance, and internal balance to other empire army lists that fare, well, still badly, but at least only slightly badly, at tournaments : gunlines (boring!) and oops all cav/demigryphs/griffons (only slightly less boring)

This is NOT the empire army I want to run.
I want to run how the lore describes empire armies: as anchored by serried ranks of state troops using their discipline and training and tactical flexibility to hold the line while handgunners and mortars rain down fire from the heights, warrior priests in the ranks stiffening the troops, and pistoliers blazing away on the flanks, clearing out the enemy flankers.

Currently literally none of that works. It's all trash, except for possibly the handgunners. None of the rules of the units fit the way they are supposed to operate in the lore, and their points are too high for it to be a good army.

In a TK army, your bog standard undead skeletons come with a whole RAFT of special rules, unique to the army (or at least, undead) that let them do exactly what they are described as doing in the lore : being an immovable wall that anchors the enemy while your fearsome constructs and dragons and tomb kings smash into the enemy and obliterate them - and your hammer units ALSO come with huge rafts of special rules that let them do what they are supposed to do AND things are pointed appropriately so that the army is actually good.

Basically for an army to be flavorful, it need special rules - and those special rules have to align with existing lore. Additionally, the 'required army composition' needs to match what is in the lore, but this is literally probably like 5 or 10% of what makes an army flavorful and the empire doesn't even have that. (Back in the day, for example, you used to have to take one unit of halberdiers, and one unit of crossbowmen. I never found this burdensome, as I love both halberdiers and crossbowmen)

In my opinion the whole tournament thing is just a bad way to judge internal game balance. It is all about interesting scenarios that will balance the game and make different units good and bad in different situations, this include Empire infantry as well. Tournamen rules, scenario design and use of points will always tilt the balance of games one way or the other due to meta gaming.

There are some core rules issues for sure that I hope they "fix" in the next version of the game. But there is a precarious balance between the interaction of heroes, regular troops, elites to make it all work and be balanced. House rules work fine outside tournament to fix most things.

The issue with tournaments is how you win games and why, things like points denial are just attrocious so you need to design your scenarios you play with to deny that playstyle. If you do most of the balance issues between unts dissapear. Not all but most...