Mortal Empires - Empire vs Vamps

[Dojaeni]

Any advice with dealing with vampire counts early game. I have an army of KF, 6 Halberds, 6 Swordsmen, 6 crossbowmen, mage and reiksguard. Problem is the vampire counts can negate my range advantae with those bloody flying varghiests? and fell bat spam while my army just seems to fall to his 3 lords and various fear/terror creaturs.

How do you guys normally deal with them, or even when. I dont remember them being this hard in TW:W1

[harleyquinrazer]

Where's your artillery? Where's your heavy cavalry? Need more guns since crossbowmen are easy prey to flying monsters, at least the handgunners or outriders will shoot down one or two Vargheists before they can swoop in.

[Kaelus Von Sestiaf]

Flying units need to be countered with concentrated volleys of firearm shots. Since they're flying you'll have a clear shot and will pretty much decimate them. Will work wonders against vargheists in particular.
Can't give much more help than that since i haven't played empire

[Ubaldios]

u need a couple of flagellants to hold the line. Some demigriphs with halberds would melt anything attacking your ranged. Also some heavy cav like reiksguard or knights of the blazing sun combined with great swords will destroy graveguard. To be honest you probably don't need a ton of ranged fighting vamps, they just charge straight into melee then your missiles are useless apart from killing their monsters and you can probably do that with 3 - 4 units of freecompany and they won't die to bats and stuff as easy

[harleyquinrazer]

Originally posted by Setheus:

u need a couple of flagellants to hold the line. Some demigriphs with halberds would melt anything attacking your ranged. Also some heavy cav like reiksguard or knights of the blazing sun combined with great swords will destroy graveguard. To be honest you probably don't need a ton of ranged fighting vamps, they just charge straight into melee then your missiles are useless apart from killing their monsters and you can probably do that with 3 - 4 units of freecompany and they won't die to bats and stuff as easy

He said early game. Empire Knights and maybe Reiksguard are available, definitely not blazing sun or demigryphs.

Free company aren't good at shooting and do worse than swordsmen in melee.

[Myrmidon]

Perhaps a borderline chickenshit tactic but if you deliberately siege them, once you've taken out a single tower you're essentially free to just rain artillery, bolts, shot and magic on them with impunity.

[Ubaldios]

Oh well early game if they have varghiests and you still have a bottom tier army you are going too slow on the campaign. There's a bit of a gap between empire and VC at the start of the campaign and by the time you meet them you should be starting to get some better troops. Also free company shoot monsters fine and they are a damn sight better in melee than a traditional missle unit, they are honestly fine against VC because you get hardly any time to shoot their inf anyway because they go straight into combat and have no rear line troops. Its just the monsters that need shooting. A few units of reiksguard should be able to deal with their inf

[TVMAN]

Where's your mortars and handgunners? By the time you and the vampire counts make contact, you should have at least both. Also, yeah, bring cavalry. Reiksgard are easy to get in the early game.

[harleyquinrazer]

Originally posted by Setheus:

Oh well early game if they have varghiests and you still have a bottom tier army you are going too slow on the campaign. There's a bit of a gap between empire and VC at the start of the campaign and by the time you meet them you should be starting to get some better troops. Also free company shoot monsters fine and they are a damn sight better in melee than a traditional missle unit, they are honestly fine against VC because you get hardly any time to shoot their inf anyway because they go straight into combat and have no rear line troops. Its just the monsters that need shooting. A few units of reiksguard should be able to deal with their inf

Von Carstein starts with Vargheists, so speed has nothing to do with it. I find the pistol shots from free company worthless since letting the Vargheists stand still and take shots still doesn't do much to them compared to handgunners.

As mentioned above, there's a grace period between Vampires and Empire coming to blows and by that time handgunners and mortar at a minimum should be available. Reiksguard are preferable, but Empire Knights will do fine since they have enough armour to hold out.

[Ubaldios]

I duno if its that efficient to shoot vargiests whilst they're in the air with anything but handguns do work best for that I guess. I was thinking more for taking out vargulfs and crypt horrors. The vargeists are annoying but a unit of spears or cav in the back line will deal with them without having to shoot them out the air

[harleyquinrazer]

Originally posted by Setheus:

I duno if its that efficient to shoot vargiests whilst they're in the air with anything but handguns do work best for that I guess. I was thinking more for taking out vargulfs and crypt horrors. The vargeists are annoying but a unit of spears or cav in the back line will deal with them without having to shoot them out the air

He's got enough spearmen to counter-attack Vargheists when they land. OP's main problem is zero artillery and heavy cavalry which he sorely needs. Crypt Horrors can be held in place by spearmen and then shot to pieces (by guns).

Artillery to thin the ranks of the undead as they approach. Heavy Cavalry to smash the undead infantry line before the human lines run from fear.

[Dojaeni]

OK sounds like i went too soon as i rushed a full stack to get ther turn 10-12. think i will focus on crooked moon as they have already taken out the dwarves. by then should be abble to field halberds greatswords and handgunners with 2 or 3 mortars. probably too much arty, but i just love arty. and then use the tier 1 army as a meat shield

[Swirler]

Originally posted by harleyquinrazer:

Originally posted by Setheus:

I duno if its that efficient to shoot vargiests whilst they're in the air with anything but handguns do work best for that I guess. I was thinking more for taking out vargulfs and crypt horrors. The vargeists are annoying but a unit of spears or cav in the back line will deal with them without having to shoot them out the air

He's got enough spearmen to counter-attack Vargheists when they land. OP's main problem is zero artillery and heavy cavalry which he sorely needs. Crypt Horrors can be held in place by spearmen and then shot to pieces (by guns).

Artillery to thin the ranks of the undead as they approach. Heavy Cavalry to smash the undead infantry line before the human lines run from fear.

This is pretty much exactly what's needed.

The empire absolutely need some cavalry to hammer and anvil their opponents to death otherwise they just get grinded down in infantry melees with their relatively weaker infantry.

That said I have a lot of praise for outriders and pistoliers when you can unlock them, they're incredibly useful for kiting strong targets that need some time to be whittled down.

And Vargheists are really bad news for your cavalry, keep them away from your cav if you can help it. Spearmen are a little better for dealing with them but they'll still take some losses.

[-Singularity-]

Originally posted by Setheus:

u need a couple of flagellants to hold the line. Some demigriphs with halberds would melt anything attacking your ranged. Also some heavy cav like reiksguard or knights of the blazing sun combined with great swords will destroy graveguard. To be honest you probably don't need a ton of ranged fighting vamps, they just charge straight into melee then your missiles are useless apart from killing their monsters and you can probably do that with 3 - 4 units of freecompany and they won't die to bats and stuff as easy

Missles are far from useless against engaged troops.

Freecompany suck hardcore.

[Ysthrall]

Vampire Counts like to co-ordinate their troops, and time their attacks with the infantry along with everything else, including the fliers and wolves.

Use your speed to focus on their elements individually. Pistoliers can draw vargheists in, and crossbowmen can shoot them up quite well, even if they get in melee (because they're monstrous infantry).

But focus on them till they're dead. Let a couple get away, and they'll be back soon at better health...

For that matter, of you can draw them in, Karl Franz on horseback likely has the mobility to do a lot of damage and then dash off elsewhere.

[Sn3z]

You really only need cavalry versus Vampires infact its wiser to get cavalry into your army before artillery.

Pistoliers wreck Vargheists only have two in your army though, get empire knights. Flagellants are required if your putting artillery into your army before cavalry otherwise just skip flagellants.

A composition I would recommend;

lord
4 spears
4 swordsmen
3-4 crossbow
3 free company
2 pistoliers
2 Empire knights