My 2 week review of the Empire book after playing several games

[Commodus Leitdorf]

The fact I can "Live without them" is irrelevant. Empire troops are paying for rules they no longer have so their points should drop accordingly and they have not.

Again, the core section is a mess...the rest is fine.

[Snowflake]

@ Snowflake
Granted.
I should apologize I might have missed your point too just a little bit.
Of course when older books are redone they should get more appropriate points-costs. I just react on the notion that there exists these abyssmal differences in general power in 8th Ed. That's a ghost in my humble opinion.

I agree completely, I don't think there's a single army out there that is unbeatable by another army. The only guy I can play regularly fields the "OP" ogres against my "UP" Tomb Kings, and I don't feel like a single game has been lost due to differences in books. It can all be traced back to me, either mistakes in list building or mistakes in strategy.

[Urgat]

The fact I can "Live without them" is irrelevant. Empire troops are paying for rules they no longer have so their points should drop accordingly and they have not.

I'm of the opinion they benefited from rules they didn't pay for.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Detachment lost a bunch of meaningless crap. -1 for Stand and Shoot *dear god* ... Panic Check.. On your usual re-rollable 9 leadership? I think you can take it.

I know everyone uses the phrase but you ARE missing the salient points. Shooty detachments were at best taken in very moderate amounts. Now they hit less, have more to kill and are more expensive. They won't be taken, period. What good hatred is for them...meh. Not even light armour? A leather vest is too much to ask for what's supposed to be a professional soldier? Of course it doesn't do much good - but it would have been a nod to the fluff at the least.

Secondly, re-rollable leadership is completely irrelevant when you're singing the praise of HtL. It's either good enough to pass Ld tests or it isn't. If it is good enough, we do not need HtL and the according point hike. And there's more. The very first entry of the rules that transfer to detachments is one they will not even get, and then there's the whole steadfast debate. To call such rules writing the sign of a good book is nothing but ridiculous.

[Phazael]

Shooty detatchments largely stunk, anyhow. Their only real purpose was to either deter fast cavalry flank charges (like anyone cares about that anymore) or to maybe knock a model off a rank during stand and shoot, which has largely been unaffected. State troops were slightly underpriced _before_ all this extra synergy was added to the book. They should have used half points in a couple of places, though, and spearmen probably should have come down in price. Until we see some buff wagon based setups out there in play, its going to be hard to really make critical judgments about the book, however.

[Snowflake]

I know everyone uses the phrase but you ARE missing the salient points. Shooty detachments were at best taken in very moderate amounts. Now they hit less, have more to kill and are more expensive. They won't be taken, period. What good hatred is for them...meh. Not even light armour? A leather vest is too much to ask for what's supposed to be a professional soldier? Of course it doesn't do much good - but it would have been a nod to the fluff at the least.

Secondly, re-rollable leadership is completely irrelevant when you're singing the praise of HtL. It's either good enough to pass Ld tests or it isn't. If it is good enough, we do not need HtL and the according point hike. And there's more. The very first entry of the rules that transfer to detachments is one they will not even get, and then there's the whole steadfast debate. To call such rules writing the sign of a good book is nothing but ridiculous.

By this same logic Lizardmen shouldn't care about cold blooded. Contrary to internet wizdom, the BSB and general bubbles don't cover the whole table, and with an Empire army it's not difficult to have enough troops that you can't cover them all. HtL allows them to operate with a high degree of reliability outside the bubble, which gives you more tactical options.

[Jind_Singh]

" cannot quite follow your conclusions, Jind. If several armies are better than Empire at their specialty, then why does the old motto not apply anymore? Why is combat *the* phase in which they don't excel when they don't do so in the other phases, and how do "not excel" and "can really fight" go together? Remember that we depend on magic to do well in combat - that alone has "Jack of all trades" written all over it. And: We have smaller armies, so it's often a wash.

Lastly, why has shooting gone up a notch in power with less warmachines and more expensive Crossbows?!? Don't get me wrong, shooting is okay but I just don't see what makes it stand out compared to before."


Good points - I will try to see if I can come up with enough rambling to make it sound like I meant to say it this way!

Empire were known as the dull boys army - jack of all trades, they can do a bit of everything but nothing really stood out as great - they had magic, but wasn't great. They had shooting but wasn't great - they sucked at fighting.

Honestly for me this wasn't the case as I always thought the old book had a great magic phase (best defence and good dice storage), and their shooting was decent.

So why do I think that this isn't the case anymore?

Magic

Well magic is still strong - they have the same lores that they have had since 8th but their bound spells is amazing - I can, and do, play games with no level 4s and I've been fine - sure I can't stop spells at times (lots of times) but the extra dice I generate from channeling has kept me floating.

I may take back what I said about their magic as getting better because I just realized - Empire has the MOST FLEXIBLE magic phase with access to all lores vs limited lore selction from other books - they have some capabilites to channel extra dice thanks to priests, and they have selection to better bound items - but Night Goblins get mushrooms, Ogres get a dagger, Tomb Kings get extra dice from Caskets, Vampires can re-roll the winds of magic, so Empire is only army with none of those fine things - so they didn't get better but they are not horrible either - I think magic they ARE jack of all trades

Shooting

Here I standfast with my earlier stance - The Volley gun got better, the Engineers make our machines better, the rocket battery got better, and while the points did go up on the handgunners and crossbows they are a solid deal still. Empire can throw out a DEADLY shooting phase with FIVE cannons if they wanted to! (3 great cannons and 2 steam tanks)

Combat

They can do some messy stuff now the Empire - the biggest upgrade was War Alter area effect for ALL units (includes characters), warrior priests passing on their buffs to parent/detachments, and stubborn knights - not to mention the griffon lord!!!!

I have no issues taking on armies in close combat - especially if I have access to the lore of life - as I will be killing and regrowing my men all day long!

Here the Empire has stepped up their game.


Summary

Gotten better in two of the three phases, in both cases they are better than most armies.

[Sexiest_hero]

You mention magic. And empire get every single lore. That's so big.

[Souppilgrim]

I'm fine with the new army book, as an empire player. I think it has some bad internal balance as all of cruddace's books do, but overall I'll have fun with it. However I just don't get where this idea that it was buffed comes from. All of the warmachines are worse, with the possible exception of the steamtank (comes out about even, but I think the rules flow better), and the volley gun (after paying for an engineer and even then only gets about 4-5 kills). Our magic defense is worse, justifiably so perhaps, but it is worse. Our magic offense is about the same, but suffers from losing so many magic items, so you could say it is worse as well. Our state troops are going to be fewer in number, which really hurts bottom rung fighters like humans. You need lots of bodies for 8th edition horde/steadfast etc. Yeah the detachment rule means you can share some buffs, most of which will never happen and the good ones still are going to be affecting about 10 human attacks at most...on the detachment. If your detachment isn't charged first, you can get some flank attacks, flank attacks that wont matter if you are fighting a big steadfast mob, and won't help you much if you are fighting elites, because that gives them more targets. I'm not saying it's terrible, i'm just saying that even our core troops, when taking into account the point increase, aren't completely buffed from the last book.

On the upside, the new toys are all great. Demigryphs and wizzmobiles.

[vinush]

Ok, sexiest_hero, I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you on most of what you said.

I'll start with the helblaster. An average roll of the artillery dice three times should give around 20 shots. Rolling to hit with an engineer means you get around 10 hits thanks to his bs of 4, its str of 5 means wounding on 3s or 2s, so you roughly get between 7 and 9 wounds at -3 armour save, so mostly all will kill outright. I've seen mine without an engineer do far more damage than that.

The helstorm has been changed, and is now a lot more reliable and potentially dangerous to massed armies or closely packed units. The fact of the matter is that all of the templates only scatter between 1 and 6 inches instead of the old overshoot and full scatter it used to have.

Cannons went up in points but are otherwise unchanged, an lets be honest here, 100 points for a laser guided cannon was ridiculous! The removal of guessing ranges this edition meant they were too cheap before.

State troops admittedly increased in points, but detatchments got a hundred times better to the point where I actually consider taking them now when list building. I've not done that since 8th edition came out. The buffs they get from the parent unit are excellent. Granted they now cause panic, but I think it makes sense that a unit fleeing through another unit halfway across the board should cause panic.

As for the loss of magic items, many of them are available under different names in the brb lists. It was going to happen, let's be honest here, and it will happen to every other army when they get redone.

I think the biggest thing we need to remember instead of throwing all of our toys out of the pram is this: we now have an 8th edition army book for the 8th edition of the game. We've been spoiled by the fact that for the past year or so since 8th edition brb came out we've been using an entirely different set of rules for our army. Now that it's changed people aren't happy. Tough cookies! The book is here to stay. We can no longer bring the gun that was the 7th edition army book to the knife fight that is 8th edition.

THE \/ince

[Spiney Norman]

Congrats, you've found the phenomenom known as the internet troll.

Jests aside, I really which members of this forum would stop comparing 8th edition books to 7th edition book. It's really starting to do my head in to put it bluntly. If you compare all the 8th ed books they all fit in nicely together power level wise, with Empire sitting nicely in the middle of the pack IMO. The new Empire book is perfectly fine, and even the mortar is decent against some armies. In fact I going to throw a curve ball out there, and say it's the best stone thrower in the game right now. (from 8th ed books off course) The large template means it's pretty hard to miss with, and the low strength is compensated for by the amount of models you'll hit.

Actually I would go so far as to say that the mortar is the worst stone thrower in the game, it is certainly the least flexible. The mortar is so-so against deep T3 hordes, but pretty crap against everything else. In order to get your best use out of the mortar you need to be shooting at a T3 horde with at least 7 ranks, and personally I've never seen a horde unit that big. Str 2 is crap, which isn't inherently terrible on a large template, but making it crap and putting the points up was a step too far IMHO.

Regular stone throwers are much more versatile, shooting at big monsters is perfectly viable with your str9 D6 wound shot, and their str 3 shot can constitute something of a threat to T4 models, which a str 2 mortar can't.

The best 8E stone thrower is probably the screaming skull catapult IMHO, being able to force a panic check and getting access to the lore of death is very nice IMHO.

Regarding the helblaster I won't be fielding one without an engineer, someone went through all the math hammer and came out with the engineer roughly doubling their effectiveness for about half the points of a second machine.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

By this same logic Lizardmen shouldn't care about cold blooded. Contrary to internet wizdom, the BSB and general bubbles don't cover the whole table, and with an Empire army it's not difficult to have enough troops that you can't cover them all. HtL allows them to operate with a high degree of reliability outside the bubble, which gives you more tactical options.

I totally see where you're coming from but the lists I see have very few units in them unless its all-cav. Perhaps it'll all even out and these are just New Model Armies - 'scuse the pun - but they feel tiny, and one of the reasons are the point increases. I guess it's okay to have if a unit goes outside the bubble but here I'd rather use Greatswords or CoC units, or just the STank if I can help it. Which I sometimes cannot I admit.

Summary

Gotten better in two of the three phases, in both cases they are better than most armies.

You do indeed make a lot of sense, Jind, but I still disagree on some points. I think magic and shooting are worse. Why? BS-based missile units don't get any benefits, so they stay the same with a point increase. Engineers could help our WM before, that's nothing that has happened just now. Remember that he can only help out one WM now, which isn't strictly better. HBVG going up and Mortar going down could be considered a wash. We're better off dealing with heavily armoured elites and worse off dealing with cheapo hordes.

Lastly, combat prowess only works in conjunction with magic. If magic got worse...you get my drift!

You mention magic. And empire get every single lore. That's so big.

What does that have to do with the new AB?

The helstorm has been changed, and is now a lot more reliable and potentially dangerous to massed armies or closely packed units. The fact of the matter is that all of the templates only scatter between 1 and 6 inches instead of the old overshoot and full scatter it used to have.

Why would they scatter any less? You do know that you only subtract the Engineer's BS when you get a hit, right?

No offense, we all make mistakes but this isn't the first time I've seen people base their opinion of a power boost upon shaky ground.

[ihavetoomuchminis]

Here's my 2 cents:

After some games with the new book, i've found that:

Negative:

It's really hard to make the list, and when you're deploying, you're constantly feeling cheated by your opponent....as you're thinking "hey, i told you it was a 2000 points game....you seem to have 200 or 300 points more than me". And i've played only against 8th edition books. And at lower points it gets worse. I've played some games where my army seemed to be half the points of my opponent's.

Detachments are good..... only if you have a WP in the main unit, and it manages to survive, and only if you are lucky enough to get a good winds of magic roll. Once the WP dies (and he is VERY EASY to kill), they're just overpriced crap. On the other side, a unit with the WP and 2 prayers on them is very good. That's what i would call "too dependant".

As others have said, i can see all the lists becoming the same, and more flavourful options never to be seen. Once you include the mandatory things to make your infantry units worth the points, you've run out of points. That's bad design.

Positive:

Prayers are not that easy to dispell, and it's easy to force your opponent to fall into a mistake. There are 2 very good prayers, and one situational prayer that becomes very good against some units. Casting the 3 of them in a row with 1 or 2 dice can be a nightmare for a lvl4 wizard, as dispelling with just 1 dice can be risky if he rolls a 1 or 2, and dispelling with 2 dices will leave him without dispell dices fast. If you put a wizard on top of that with some good spells and a power stone, it becomes even worse for your opponent. The hurricanum power dice helps too.

The hellblaster is very good, but it needs the engineer.

The stank is very good. The misfire chart is quite forgiving (unless you generate 5 steam points). I can see people fielding 2 of them in high points games.

The hurricanum is great, and not that easy to kill if you play well.

The bloodroar griffon is great when used against the right units. It's useless if used in the general/bsb range.

General feeling:

Enjoyable book, but not for beginners, as it's an uphill battle right from the start.

[vinush]

LSP, I was under the assumption it scattered D6" but I'm away from my book ATM, so I may be wrong. I was not implying you subtract the bs from the roll.

[The bearded one]

I scatters an artillery dice. How else would it roll misfires?

[vinush]

That was what I was wondering too. Lol.

[dalezzz]

The hellstorm fires d3 templates , people seem to be assuming its 3 (wich would be great) but its d3 ... wich = 1 with my dice

[Wesser]

The hellstorm fires d3 templates , people seem to be assuming its 3 (wich would be great) but its d3 ... wich = 1 with my dice

The main good thing about the Helstorm is that you dont have to give a damn about LOS since it'll scatter whatever you do.


But then...the same applies for the Pidgeoneer (might as well make him a separate army book choice).

My personal preference is to keep the Helstorm for when I'm facing goblins/skaven or when playing 3k+ where the scattering have better chances. In other cases I'm taking the Pidgeoneer.


With the cost increases to bs shooters and mortars my shooting phase is basically the gimmick phase now.....it's a bit too much for a strategy game especially since synergy in the shooting phase has been cut rather than enhanced.

[DaemonReign]

I know everyone uses the phrase but you ARE missing the salient points. Shooty detachments were at best taken in very moderate amounts. Now they hit less, have more to kill and are more expensive. They won't be taken, period. What good hatred is for them...meh. Not even light armour? A leather vest is too much to ask for what's supposed to be a professional soldier? Of course it doesn't do much good - but it would have been a nod to the fluff at the least.

Secondly, re-rollable leadership is completely irrelevant when you're singing the praise of HtL. It's either good enough to pass Ld tests or it isn't. If it is good enough, we do not need HtL and the according point hike. And there's more. The very first entry of the rules that transfer to detachments is one they will not even get, and then there's the whole steadfast debate. To call such rules writing the sign of a good book is nothing but ridiculous.

I totally agree that the bit about Detachments and Steadfast and Regimental's passing it over is a complete catastrophy in terms of rules-writing. It can't have been proof-read at all, that bit.

I think, on the whole, - however - that Empire as a whole is a tougher match-up.. Well at least for my Daemons. I haven't gotten such a good run for my money since 7th Ed - compared to my last game against Cruddace's book. And that could even be concidered a 'comped' version of Cruddace's book seeing as there were no Luminarks etcetera.

Anyway, I'm not gonn argue with you that GW needs to proof-read their stuff better, playtest their stuff more.. But I really, really believe that Detachments recieved a lot more than they lost with Cruddace's rendition of them.

I see what you mean about shooty detachments. OK fine, Detachments with Ranged Weapons obviously got worse. No argument there. So why not making them the Regimental in that case?

[Snowflake]

Actually I would go so far as to say that the mortar is the worst stone thrower in the game, it is certainly the least flexible. The mortar is so-so against deep T3 hordes, but pretty crap against everything else. In order to get your best use out of the mortar you need to be shooting at a T3 horde with at least 7 ranks, and personally I've never seen a horde unit that big. Str 2 is crap, which isn't inherently terrible on a large template, but making it crap and putting the points up was a step too far IMHO.

Regular stone throwers are much more versatile, shooting at big monsters is perfectly viable with your str9 D6 wound shot, and their str 3 shot can constitute something of a threat to T4 models, which a str 2 mortar can't.

The best 8E stone thrower is probably the screaming skull catapult IMHO, being able to force a panic check and getting access to the lore of death is very nice IMHO.

Regarding the helblaster I won't be fielding one without an engineer, someone went through all the math hammer and came out with the engineer roughly doubling their effectiveness for about half the points of a second machine.

This is wrong, and I've posted the math before on why it's wrong. The mortar kills far more than the stone thrower does, and the armor piercing is huge. Yes, if hordes aren't deep it cuts down the potential, but in a 5x10 horde you'll hit 35 models, wound 11.66 of them, and kill 9.7 (10) of the standard 5+ save models. Yeah, it's best against T3 units, which is what it's designed to fire against, but it also will kill slightly more T4 models than a stone thrower will due to armor piercing (or about the same if they're a smaller unit). Do the math.