Army Composition Ideas for Balthasar Gelt and Volkmar the Grim?

[Corvus]

Been tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to plan my late game army compositions for these two legendary lords in a manner that takes maximum advantage of their unique skills.

For Gelt, I have at least some vague idea, though I'm not certain I'm happy with it.

1 Balthasar Gelt
1 Empire Captain
1 Warrior Priest
4 Greatswords
2 Eldred's Guard/Halberdiers
3 Gunderman's Surefires (Hochland Handgunners)
2 Reiksguard
2 Demigryph Knights
2 Borderman (Marienburg Outrider Grenadiers)
1 Steam Tank
1 Templehof Luminark.

Can't decide if Eldred's Guard is better than Halberdiers or not, Also, not sure how I feel not having more artillery.

Volkmar, I'm even less certain. Right now, my current composition that I'm running is the following:

1 Volkmar the Grim
1 Light Wizard
1 Witch Hunter
1 Sigmar’s Sons (RoR)
1 Tattersouls (RoR)
2 Flagellants
4 Halberdiers
3 Handgunners (RoR)
2 Knights of the Blazing Sun
2 Demigryph Halberd
1 Sunmaker (RoR)
1 Hammer of the Witches (RoR)

Also debating if Eldred's Guard would be better than Halberdiers here. Likewise uncertain if Sigmar's Sons are worth keeping, or if another Flagellant would be better.

Thoughts?

[Maximum997]

Full steam tanks +few demys with halberds(mayt be 1 ror) - best doomstack for empire.

[Fendelphi]

For Gelt, drop the captain and add an Amber Wizard(lore of beast). He can ride on a Griffon and can function very well as a battery for Gelt(Casting normal Flock of Doom actually grants you more winds of magic, plus you have access to situational Manticores, ie. more terror causing creatures if needed).

I would also go for a bit more arty. Personally, I would drop the Reiksguard and get the Sunmaker + 1 more steam tank(or a Great cannon). That way you can capitalize on his arty buffs and better penalize morale.


I dislike Volkmar because he is a bit gimmicky. He is good with Flagellants, but that is about it.

[Andrewbh2003]

flagelants suck past turn 50 so swap them out for greatswords

you do not want reiksguard past mid-game as they lack AP

all you really need is 1 demygriph "regular" to cycle charge the rear and then 2 halbeard demis as a backline sweaper

eldreads guard are worse than halbeards for 1 simple reason lack of AP halbeards have AP

what lore of magic you use depends on the match up really so thats entirely debatable

empire captains suck... unless used as a bodyguard

[Kaz]

Eldred's guard are pretty good and I use them a lot but it all depends on what your fighting. If your fighting chaos or vampire counts halberdiers are your best bet. When it comes to wood elfs Eldreds guard works wonders and they can hold there ground against greenskins pretty well also especially when fighting against lots of goblin archers

[Sn3z]

The first army composition is good, the cavalry ratio's are correct.(You can scale lower tier counterparts back to T3 and its not too heavy on your budget, you can swap the rieks for demi's anti infantry, so its good your leaving that open and not going four anti large), three handgunners and two outriders is too much collectively, the outriders are essentially making your composition more flexible whilst removing any weakness to back line, what I'm basically saying is you can move from hand-gunners into outriders, if you wanted to be more proactive. As for the infantry, I haven't used these new units at all but I do question is worth having a mixture of halberds/greatswords for any faction as a combined arms, I'm leaning more to its just best to use one or the other or at this stage(Its to do with also slot issue) far better to use greatswords, nearly every faction gets very aggressive in late game including dwarfs to a degree, halberds are kind of pointless since they ground into being defensive that does conflict with an aggressive play-style. The steam tank and luminark are essentially transition's from artillery but you need to think but how these are being used, Empire line in the late game has issues, if your not shooting better advanced infantry units like swordmasters then your line is going to suffer, whats the intention of the steam tank and luminark in this army composition?

The second is abit suspect, again the cavalry ratio's are good and also artillery(you also have two different artillery pieces which can adapt, but its up to you figure out is double rocket battery better, seems as your flanking power is tough. Flagellants are actually a unit you would use, if want to get artillery in an army before cavalry(I would never recommend that though because Empire needs their cavalry its priority to get or should be in campaign if your on higher difficulties), so I'm basically questioning the use of three flagellents in the late game, I know about the buffs but really are units worth it? They have no higher tier transition either which makes them dead end units... Sigmars sons are a swordsmen unit>? If so get rid of them for Greatsword. You can run lower tier units in a late game army's but you need to be playing to faction strengths in order for that to be viable otherwise your just handicapping yourself with units that won't be helping your composition versus other AI faction that are in advanced tiers.

[Corvus]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I've got a better idea of what to do to improve the army compositions. Volkmar will take a lot of work, so I'll table that for now. But at least I've got a better idea about what to do with Gelt's army.

Definitely going to scrap Eldred's Guard/Halberdiers, and just go for a line of Greatswords. Less certain if I want to drop Handgunners for regular Outriders though. Admittedly, it would be an easy way to free up one slot for an artillery piece. It just feels odd to completely eschew missile infantry altogether in favor of missile cavalry.

How do Outriders compare to Handgunners in terms of damage output?

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by Corvus917:

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I've got a better idea of what to do to improve the army compositions. Volkmar will take a lot of work, so I'll table that for now. But at least I've got a better idea about what to do with Gelt's army.

Definitely going to scrap Eldred's Guard/Halberdiers, and just go for a line of Greatswords. Less certain if I want to drop Handgunners for regular Outriders though. Admittedly, it would be an easy way to free up one slot for an artillery piece. It just feels odd to completely eschew missile infantry altogether in favor of missile cavalry.

How do Outriders compare to Handgunners in terms of damage output?

Its not soley to do with just damage output, but the handgunners are better, in theory all late game army's become aggressive(advanced tiers) so using less missile infantry would be a sound idea(this is reliant on the AI either being a very difficult matchup for Empire or it recruiting an army that's going to cause you a problem, so its a question of mitigation, making a flexible army composition which can adapt better to any match-up. You don't have get rid of all the handgunners, I keep at-least one unit in the late game, but you can draw a distinction between outriders(grenades/ handgunners/ war-wagons which I think are all competing for slots. Also a unit we didn't pickup on is the huntsmen they may warrant 1-2 slots in an army in the late game.(I haven't any motivation to play this game atm)

Back onto greatswords and halberdiers, I think it could depend on faction aswell, with HE/DE I think you can run just one type for definite, HE/DE can for the most part keep parts of their defensive play-style in T1-T2 but bridge the gap with flyers(HE) and a natural aggressive army from DE, which allows greatswords to be run more effectively, you would stick with halberds if your retaining T1-T2 defensive army composition or mustering an army composition with that intent.

Empire and Bretonnia are abit strange to me, Empire and Bretonnia have good cavalry they not threatened on the flanks so to me halberds seem weird to use in a late game situation, the infantry is middling at best which is also problematic. I think it really comes down to how much infantry your allocating as a front-line in the late game, if your using say 7 slots for infantry then perhaps mix matching is not so bad(thats a-lot of greatswords otherwise), it also keeps army upkeep costs down if but slightly which is another important factor to consider, but this should be taken very seriously when your army shifts from basic T1-T3 to advanced tiers T3+ (since these general units can be very costly on the upkeep).

+Edit I noticed you are running outrider grenades not the stock variant.