An Empire 20 years in the making 2500

[RanaldLoec]

Fantasy Army: BoC

I decided to throw together 2500 points of my 18,000 point Empire collection. I'm going for a strong infantry force backed by a flanking sledge hammer of knights.



Grand Master, Runefang, Seed of Rebirth, Potion of Foolhardiness 255

Wizard Lord lvl4, power stone, talisman of endurance 250

505

Heros 445

Bsb, Fullplate armour, enchanted sheild, dawn stone 121

Warrior Priest, heavy armour, sheild, dragon helm 89

Luthor Huss 155

Wizard lvl1, dispel scroll 90

Core 722

45 Spearmen, Full command, light armour, sheilds 300

12 Archers 84

14 Knights, Full command, great weapons 338

Special 670

2 Great Cannons 240

35 Greatswords, Full command, standard of discipline 430

Rare 130

Celestial Hurricanum 130

The spearmen form the centre with the bsb and archer detachment as a baby sitter squad for the lvl4
The Greatswords with the warrior priest sit on the flank of the spearmen, the great cannons sit either side of the infantry.

The knights roll up the opposite flank to the Greatswords with the Grandmaster and Luthor (bust your backside) Huss with the Hurricanum.

I'm undecided on my lores I'm thinking for the level 4

1) life for replacing losses that the knights will incur, regen and boosted toughness and dwellers for marauder hordes and skaven slaves.

2) Beasts for a grand master under savage beast and wissens for my units and curse for a good hex.

3) Heavens for ice shard, and combat rerolls.

4) Metal for bonus to hit, 5+ scaly skin, and final transmutation.

I'm ruling out shadow, death, fire and light.

Lvl 1 will be fire, beasts or heavens for the signature spell.


Thoughts, ideas and critically analysis welcome.

[Valaraukar]

Looks like a very solid list, I think the beasts signature spell is fantastic so would go with that for the level 1, for the 4 I think Life, Metal and Shadow have the best number of really good spells to make the most of your rolls some of the others have a number of duds.

Only real weaknesses I can spot immediately are against horde armies you don't have any chaff to feed them nor any tools for really whittling their numbers down, perhaps a helstorm / blaster instead of one of your cannons or some detachments of 5 archers for road bumps.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Okay, Ranald, I hope you will forgive me if I take your suggestion at face value and am critical:

1. Where's the strong infantry force? I only see two units. 35 GS are quite good both as an anvil and a hammer, 45 Spears can take a beating and stick around, both can be boosted and buffed. And yet, it's still just two units. It might be personal preference but I used to run with around 5 combat units at this point level, one of them Knights or STank, so 3-4 infantry blocks in a mixed force.
2. What will you do if your knights find themselves opposite a Hydra or HPA? Yes, there's Soulfire but that won't be enough - and more importantly, there's next to no guarantee that you will get it through at that one critical time.
3. What will you do if your opponent has more drops and simply puts a bus opposite your knights? It seems that you cannot move your centre to help out at your leisure, as it will face the enemy centre. It also entails moving the GS up as well, and then who's protecting their flank (if your GS-Spears-Knights line starts at the 36" point)? If your line however is anchored, say, to the left board edge, your knights will either be on their own on the far right or smack in the middle and in danger of being flanked.
4. What happens if you meet a Metal mage? I'm not sure I have yet seen a single Empire list on the web without at least one unit of knights, so it might become more popular (and an L1 isn't that expensive). You're losing your hammer right there and then. Okay, **** happens, but it is less of an issue with some redundancy, and that brings me back to the scarcity of units. It's not even particular to your list but a common theme at the moment.

[Spiney Norman]

Aha, another one of these elector counts that has been made Grandmaster of a knightly order I must be one of the only people who disliked the fact that anyone and their grandmother can now borrow the priceless magical sword of an elector count.

It looks a little small, but very solid at the points level. I think you would get most out of the Lore of beasts on your L4, the lore is flat out brilliant, especially for the chance to boost your knights or GS to str 6. Metal is another good all-round lore as it has a good selection of high threat spells as well as a good solid buff and hex.

I'm not particularly fond of heavens, because the reroll spells limit you to only rerolling 1s (or 6s for the hex) they don't make a massive amount of difference considering their high casting cost, that said the damage spells are pretty impressive if you're not bothered about buffing your own troops.

Life is a strong lore, but I'm not sure it works best here, dwellers is ok, but against T4 its no more effective than final transmutation and life is too reliant on thrones to unlock its potential which reduces your selection of utility spells unless you have loremaster. Also it's important to note that the life signature only affects the wizards unit, so for it to be useful your wizard has to be on the front line.

With the level 1 you need to pick a lore with a strong signature because that's the only spell you can guarantee getting, if you're not going with a L4 beast wizard, I would definitely take the L1 with beasts as Wyssans is one of the best buffs this army will have to make use of. Alternatively heavens is a good L1 lore, especially if you are facing enemy artillery or lost of shooting, the leadership penalty is a very nice way to undermine enemy combat units as well.

I would go with one of the following

L4 beasts, L1 Heavens
L4 Metal, L1 beasts

[RanaldLoec]

Thanks for the feed back guys.

Lord Solar, yes metal is a worry but it is very much a lesser used lore in my area compared to life, shadow, death and light. In fact I'm the only person who actually runs it regular but at a higher points level.


Dwellers below, purple sun and mind razor would worry me more than any lore of metal spell and they more comman.

I was considering dropping Huss and a few archers to fit in 3 basic demigryphs for a third combat unit, but I want to try this list a good few times before I make any such changes.

Infantry buses aren't notoriously fast, I can always use my knights higher movement to manoeuvre and position, I won't always be able to avoid unfavorable fights but experience has taught me enough that I will deploy the knights last and not in an area were movement is restrictive.

I was playing with my warriors of chaos non stop for nearly a year and I've learnt to deal with being out numbered. Obviously my empire troops are of a lesser quality but I have greater numbers in my units as compensation.

I have considered the issue of unit numbers and that's why I will be testing the list out tomorrow vs a local skaven player who runs 5 60 strong unit, 2 wlc, 1 HPA and 2 plague claw catapults, a greyseer and heros.

Which will but a real test for this list as it contains everything that you've just questioned me about.

Norm, Vaulker thanks for the magic advise.