Looking for help/guide to start an Empire warband

[Alex]

Hello there,

I've recently bought this game and tried to start an Empire warband, but have had difficulty winning battles. I try to keep it to normal/hard missions, keep my warriors close together but every battle I return with heavy injuries on my leader or heroes, making them almost unusable. Am I doing something completely wrong? Is there a guide for a solid Empire warband somewhere?

I keep it to cloth armor and halbards on all my melee guys (Youngblood and champions for heroes, 4 warriors) and 2 skirmishers with hunting rifles.

[UR|Dialetheia]

Unless you intend to be playing multiplayer, ditch the Youngblood. Warclocks, on the other hand. are certainly worth it.

[Wendek]

I'd ditch the Warlock even more, he's only good for Lightning-spam (imho) and will eventually blow up because of it especially without purple staff. Youngblood with pistols is doing decently for me right now as ranged, but that's because I can't get a Hired Sword Marksman of relatively high level (to train him directly). I do intend to ditch him later.

And OP, if you don't want injuries drop the halberds. And drop the cloth as well. With 1h+shield you get a lot more defense, and with enough points in Weapon Skills your Warriors can actually parry decently in the end.
Your Captain (leader) basically needs a shield to make use of his innate skill that makes parry counter-attacks entirely free. Your parry chances are going to be much lower with a halberd.
Similarly for the Champion, his innate skill means that you want to attack as many times as possible in a round to increase his defense. Can't do that with a 2-handed weapons. Give him sheld + mace/axe instead.

Basically you can't be surprised at getting injured all the time if you don't actually protect your units. Mercenaries are a very durable warband, by now I almost never get injured anymore, and if I do it's because I did a huge mistake.

[UR|Dialetheia]

1. We can totally agree to disagree, but i just want to point out that Mastered versions of Curse of Rust and Armor of Lead do much more for your warband survival, damage output and action economy, than the, admittedly very powerful, Lightning Strike spam. -50% Dodge and -40% Damage Absorbtion is very good. I've made my Champion into 1h axe+shield wielding Daredevil specifically to exploit this synergy.

2. Halberds are quite good on henchmen, tho.

3. Also, speaking of injuries. Get into the habit of popping a Lucky Charm any time you get below 2/3 HP on important characters.

[Wendek]

1. Yeah ok he can definitely do more but I find him a real pain to level-up. Also, my Youngblood with Crippling Strike and Handshot admittedly does as much disabling without any risk of blowback. I also have Kidney Strike and Armor Break (and Jaw Strike on one, for the Sisters) on the henchies, obviously not mastered but it's still -10% armor absorption. Enough to down fully-armored Sisters.

2. Sure they can do it but I'd rather have them with 100% parry and Web of Steel (and Defensive Stance for when you can't parry, such as against a Possessed). I play my Mercs pretty darn defensively though, I'll admit. Having two attacks + potentially a third is pretty nice, especially since several of them now have Maces of Misfortune. They can reach decent crit by themselves, but it really shines when they debuff the Ogre's target. (Ogre who has mastered Fatality and is currently training mastered Adrenaline Rush to reach 6 attacks per turn)

3. Since you edited, I'll add get in the habit to also carry a Poultice on everyone. Open Wounds is extremely annoying and at some point the enemies will be able to crit quite reliably.

[UR|Dialetheia]

1. I just can't get over having a starting skll that's near completely useless against AI opponents. I mean, in MP, Youngblood has the potential to be built into a quite impressive hunter-killer-disabler against anything ranged or magic. AI just doesn't pay enough attention ot it's builds to warrant such a role in your warband. And straight up shooting is much better done by a Lad's Got Talent Marksman than a Youngblood. My opinion.

2. My logic is: after the third strike, two-handed weapons become worse than dual-wield, but are better than dual-wield for the first strike and around same for the second one. Since henchmen can't get the third attack with either of those, it's better to have 2h weapon on them for that mighty first strike. And speaking of defensiveness - have 1h+shield in one slot, have 2h in the second slot, switch depending on your needs. Charge in with a 2h, switch to sword-n-board if you intend to stick around. But all that refers to henchmen. Merc Heroes indeed provide a somewhat unique opportunity to be built defensively without sacrificing offensive capability(or, to elaborate, their defense can be built up to such levels so as to become offense :) )

[Wendek]

1. Well yes, I agree that LGT Marksmen are better. But right now the game only gives me rank 0 Marksmen and there's no way I'll be able to level one when almost everyone is rank 10 decked in purple gear. Even my last Warrior at rank 3 needs to be quite careful. (Also he's in Heavy Armor unlike the others who are in Light - I value Initiative and movement so I very rarely use Heavy, but I made an exception for him while he catches up, think I'll remove it when he gets 8). I'm certainly not saying that Youngblood is any good, more that he's still better than a Warlock. Speaking of starting skill, his starter spell is the weakest I've ever seen of the four factions - that's mostly why I can't be bothered ever leveling a Warlock.

2. Certainly a very sound logic. However mine is basically to tie up the enemy with the Warriors (though two of them very often end up killing even a Hero, it takes time but the enemy hits them so rarely...) and I just can't afford to let them ever get caught without their shield. Their default stance is Onslaught - much better than normal Ambush because it lets them parry the first attack. Since they have decent melee resist, they can relatively often ambush a Leader/Hero (like, say, a Sister Superior) and parry the first attack while the second misses, and sometimes also the third misses.
The fact that they're used as supports also explains why I give all of them a special attack - Kidney Strike, Jaw Strike or Armor Break. With 3OP + 2OP they can still attack twice and those debuffs really help bring down the more difficult targets. Another reason why I dislike two-handers on henchies, since you can't charge/special attack and still attack afterwards.

[UR|Dialetheia]

1. I think Blinding Light is very much underappreciated. Yeah, it's difficult to use because it's friendly fire capable, but with all the penalties it applies to the enemy it is, at the very least, better that Wither. -10% to hit basically translates to +10% Melee Defense for, well, your whole warband, -10% dodge synergize nicely with Armor of Lead and -10% spellcasting chance is nice for occasions when AI enemy casters somehow manage to learn a good spell.

2. Regarding leveling from the ground up. Put your 10lvl warband in reserves, hire an all new one, use it to level up your future master marksman. Consult the "Re-roll like a boss" guide to learn of all the benefits of "low level high rank" warbands.

3. Nice strategy there. Seems we're well underway to making a sound guide to Mercenary Warbands while arguing :)

[Wendek]

1. I'd argue the -30% Dodge and -6% critical resists from Wither are better at least if you want to bring down a big target, not to mention the damage being lower. Not a fan of AoEs in this game tbh except the ones like Gaze of the Horned rat that are so insanely strong. (and don't hit allies)

2. Boooring though. I'd rather train replacements alongside the high-level ones so I can keep doing Brutal/Deadly missions with good loot. I don't really need much wyrdstone, but I still don't have every formula i'd like and I won't find those with rank 0 units. Plus the guide will be obsolete in less than 5 days.

3. To be honest I do intend to write a full-length guide at some point since I enjoy writing those for games where I spend quite some time, but I'll wait until next week at earliest. Reason being that I'll create a brand new Mercenaries Warband for it, and I'll wait for the patch to hit first so I can restart with the new looting mechanics. (which punishes 4-man spam)

[Alex]

Okay euhm.... could you guys give some early-game tips for an empire warband? :)

[UR|Dialetheia]

1. Your Captain is destined to be the best tank/interceptor evar. While the choice of heavy vs light armor is up to you - there is no concievable reason to not build him around using a shield. Shield Specialist should, therefore, be the first skill you pick up on him. Then give him the best shield you can find and, depending on synergies you have planned, either an axe, spear or a sword.

2. Hire as much henchmen as your warband rank can afford you. That is to mean - ignore your first two heroes that become available. Because, again, Youngblood(your first hero choice) is... let's say, wildly suboptimal, and Warlock(your second hero choice) can be exceedingly bothersome to level up from the ground up and is basically a liability until you can get his good spells - wait until a Level 3 or above Warlock becomes available as a Hired Sword.

3. With henchmen, initially, you want either 3 Warriors or 2 Warriors and a Marksman. Other distributions are prone to cockups - low level Marksmen are not all that good at dishing out damage, and are in need of nigh constant protection - they become extremely dangerous when leveled up though. Later on, you can have 3 Marksmen and 2 Warriors.

4. That initial Marksmen won't, hopefully, stay a henchman for long. Groom him to become a Hero via Lad's Got Talent - so 9 Intelligence.

5. Equip your Warriors with either double Maces(decent Initiative, and To-Hit boost they so need) or Halberds(any other two-handed weapon will do, but Halberds don't provide the enemy with increased Dodge chance)

6. Low-level Marksmen should go for Bows( + To-Hit chance), later on it's up to you and their build.

7. Later on, i'd say that two Champions are better than one Ogre, but that is subject to heavy debate.

8. Don't overextend, keep in formation, don't let enemies get to your Marksmen, gang up on enemies, but leave them a venue to flee should they fail the All Alone check - to get those free attacks against them.

9. When your Warriors reach Level 3, it might be better to swtich to 1h-weapon and shield for survivability(and having 2 attacks a turn). You may still keep a two-hander in the alternate slot for when the situation warrants it.

10. While, initially, it may be prudent to use two-handed weapons on your Heroes, for the damage, as you level-up, there is not one Human Mercenary melee Hero that benefits from having a two-handed weapon - Captains and Champions are better with shields, Ogres and Youngbloods even - are better with dual-wield.

[holy-death]

Cloth armor might be the source of your problem. If everybody is wearing cloth, then you get a lot of damage when enemies hit your units, meaning they can drop down really quick and this further makes your skirmishers far less viable.

My advice would be to convert some of your two-handed units into heavily armored shield users (maybe even all frontline units, if your dodge is low) to make them soak damage (they still can mitigate attacks through parry AND will be hit for less thanks to armor).

Use the remaining two-handers as your secondary attack units. It's the best to use them when enemy is distracted hitting your armored and shielded guys. I would even advise to get light armor on two-handers, because I don't think that +10 dodge is worth gambling.

This should help you stay in combat for longer, allowing your skirmishers to deal more damage from afar, but do keep in mind that if you want to use ranged units you do have to use terrain a bit more and limit the amount of enemies who can engage you.

You get the most out of them when you can hold the solid front AND as long as you manage to limit the number of enemies that can engage your units at any given time. If you have a single guy holding down a corridor and two archers to back him up you'll deal more damage to him and prevent any force enemies to look for another way in. Basically you can (and have) to control the battlefield. Mercenaries are not Sisters of Sigmar to engage in full frontal assault, especially when you field archers on your side.