Building and Playing an Empire Army

Part 1

Alrighty then, I was deciding what second army I’d have for warhammer fantasy when I had a trade with a friend of mine. I gave him my Chaos 40k models in exchange for an Empire army including the army book. The things I got (more ore less – some of the empire figures came out in bits) were:

• 20+ spearmen with command
• 20+ halberdiers with command
• 10+ handgunners
• 10+ archers
• 10+ militiamen
• 3 mortars
• 1 cannon
• 10+ knights
• 1 empire army book

Since my Orcs and Goblins continually fought with the forces of Sigmar I guess it was natural that I get them as well. With my new army book in hand I began to read about the Empire and what its units can do ...

... After a couple of days reading I realized that the greatest asset the empire has, apart from the obvious black powder weapons, was its detachment rules – which, aside from the shooting part, gives a supporting regiment the ability to support charge with its parent, hitting the flank of the enemy if it can see it or counter charging an enemy unit when it charges it’s parent unit.

However the empire armies that I get a chance to see or fight is either an all cavalry army or a shooty army. These types of armies, though good, did not use the detachment rules to full effect.

I thus decided that I wanted to do a close combat oriented empire army on foot that would use the detachment rules on the offensive. I then created 1000pt empire army. Here’s what I came up with:

• Hero ( General ) in full plate armor with shield with Sword of Sigismund – will join unit of spearmen.
• Hero – with 4+ ward save and horse with barding and lance and shield: this would be joining the Empire knights.
• Wizard – Level 2 with 2 Dispel Scrolls – will join halberdiers
• 20 spearmen with full command
• 20 halberdiers with full command 10 militiamen detachment
• 7 empire knights with full command
• 1 mortar

Looking at this list the lack of any long range weapons ( apart from the mortar ) was worrying and I had failed to provide the spearmen unit with a detachment. I figured that the spearmen unit with the general can take care of its own while the halberdiers would mow down anything in help with the militia. Also I couldn’t resist taking a unit of Knights as they were rock hard (I did not have points to upgrade them to Inner Circle though).

All that waited was for me to play a game with them. I got my chance when a couple of friends wanted to do a three way fight using the rules for the Bretonnian abbey in a white dwarf. Thus I was facing both skaven and dwarf in this engagement.

First Battle Using Empire

The game was a take hold objective with a tower on the center acting as the objective. I had both foot regiments deployed diagonally facing the objective, as I was deployed in the corner left, with the empire knights facing the opposite edge on the left flank as it had to skirt an obstacle.

In the game my knights barreled there way through some skaven nightrunners and hit a unit of clansmen while my spearmen survived the choking gases of the censer bearers, breaking them in combat and overrunning to the plague rats.

My milita detachment turned into a human shield though as it protected the flank of the halberdiers from crossbow bolts and bolt throwers from the dwarven lines. The halberdiers eventually got hit and ran, rallying in the end but not playing any part in the battle.

The mortar did great, first thinning out the ranks of the Censer bearers and then shifting to hit the dwarven clansmen. This infuriated the dwarf commander and he spent a couple of turns trying to hit the machine with his cannon but failing.

Results

I must say that my plan to use detachments failed to materialize. The lack of firepower was worrying though I admit things are limited in a 1000 pt game. The mortar was ok though, with the dwarven lines moving slowly, I was able to hit more with the mortar and due to its large size inflict sufficient casualties.

I plan to dump the halberdiers regiment and put that as detachments to the spear unit. Then with the savings get a 10man strong handgunner unit. I'll probably drop the mage down to level 1 and have him carry two dispel scrolls and just make his role as anti-magic.

With the current map campaign for warhammer I am not sure when I can get a chance to use the army again but let’s see what happens.

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