Late game melee/ranged for empire?

[Darkwatch]

Which melee and ranged units should i use for empire? I can pretty much recruit everything and i can also afford them, however am still using swordsmen and crossbowmen. Recently fought the Chaos Army in Baltazar Gelt's Quest line. Was using 8 Crossbowmen, 5 swordsmen, 1 steam tank, 2 hellstrom rocket battery, 1 empire captain, and 1 warrior priest. Everything this has been going great those are make up for my armies. I have 8 armies and still making 20000 a turn.

[Darkwatch]

But the quest made me rethink because i barely came out of the fight without damaged. I managed to win and not lose any units (Praise Sigmar!) but it was nerve racking and i realized i may be doing something wrong with my armies.

[Darkwatch]

By the way what the ♥♥♥♥ Warrior Priest!? I look away for a second and hes already dying. And that's for every battle.

[wrought82]

i tend to avoid using heroes much because they need so much cuddling until they reach level 20, wish there was an option to buy extra levels.
empire i prefer some mix of helstorm battery/grenadiers and pikemen to make up bulk of army, halberdiers demigryph/greatswords re less cost effective but stronger alternatives to halberds. depending on difficulty crossbowmen and swordsmen seem a little weak late game depending how often you play vs equal number of armies/outnumbered

[Dan]

swap 5 swordsman to 5 greatsword, 8 bows to 4 gunners and 4 halberd or go same thing except 4 greatsword + 1 steam tank. worlds your oyster really

[THE_RaBiD_CanuK]

Get like 5 rocket batteries. Outriders and Grenadiers are some of your best units.

[Ysthrall]

You need to tailor things slightly.

Vs large unarmoured armies (skaven, greenskins, beastmen, early vampires) the crossbowmen are good. Fast rate of fire, cheap, good range. Vs armoured armies (chaos warriors, late vampires, dwarfs) you need to start swapping in some anti-armour handgunners, and some AP troops such as, yes, greatswords.

When and how much? well, that's the game :)

[BigJ]

Just spam steamtanks, not even chaos xan stop the steamtide!

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

You need hand gunners pal they are awesome

[Powercow]

Huntsmen are fantastic if you have the DLC. They fire just a tad faster than crossbowmen, but their anti-large bonus makes them an absolute powerhouse against large targets, even heavily-armored ones. Their ability to fire while moving is great too, since when a fight is done you can have your huntsmen chase down the enemy infantry and get some free shots in while they rout.

Handgunners are great too, though they take a lot of micromanagement and practice to get any real use out of.

Also just ditch the Swordsmen for Greatswords or Halberdiers (depending on what you're fighting) and you should be OK.

[Inardesco]

I always see people talk about gunners needing micro...I just dump them in a line and they do what they need to do.

[Darkwatch]

Originally posted by Powercow:

Huntsmen are fantastic if you have the DLC. They fire just a tad faster than crossbowmen, but their anti-large bonus makes them an absolute powerhouse against large targets, even heavily-armored ones. Their ability to fire while moving is great too, since when a fight is done you can have your huntsmen chase down the enemy infantry and get some free shots in while they rout.

Handgunners are great too, though they take a lot of micromanagement and practice to get any real use out of.

Also just ditch the Swordsmen for Greatswords or Halberdiers (depending on what you're fighting) and you should be OK.

So does Huntsmen actually have armor piercing? I thought they werent useful unless you had wulfhart.

[Asuzu]

Played a lot of Empire.
Welcome to endgame issues, when enemies start spamming their top tier units, e.g. Chaos Mammoths and you have nothing to put in front of them.
Empire cannot run monostacks (unless 19 Steamtanks, but come on..) and relies on combined arms.

After many many trials and errors, my endgame stack looks like

1) Lord
Karl or General. Hold the line, or nuke enemy lord, or backdoor their artillery - Gryphon is just too strong,

2) Warrior Priest
Terrible unit and dies like a fruit fly if you aren't careful where you send him, but army regen skill is too sweet, this is a must-have in Empire army so you don't spend 100 turns healing after every fight. Becomes tankier later on with some spells to buff your guys, eventually he is good enough to hold a flank or send with cavalry.

3) Wizard slot. pick any mage, you cannot go wrong. Shadow has good AOE, same as fire which can also buff your ranged. Can even skip wizard alltogether if you dislike magic and don't want to micro/babysit it every few seconds. In all honesty, I would rather just add a rocket battery instead of this. Magic is more important in multiplayer, in single it's just ridiculously expensive gimmick.

4) 6 Halberds. Get your lord red line buffs for these guys. In general any Empire lord should put heavily in red line buffs, because your armies are trash, and need every buff they can get.
Greatswords are nice on paper, but when they get charged into dust by enemy cavalry/monsters, you will really wish You had Halberds. Greatswords can work fine on Easy mode, not on VH/Legend, when enemy Skin Wolves delete a stack of GS in 1 charge.

5) 4 Handguns. This is your main DPS unit, with armor penetration. Put your Halberds with gaps between them and shoot through gaps with these guys. As long as the line holds, you will delete any enemies

6) 4 Hellstorm rocket battery (before Mortars). Empire artillery is insane, and you better use it. This outranges any arty in the game. You can engage a castle with 3 armies inside, delete 2 front towers and then literally sit there, showering enemy with rockets like ducks in a barrel until your batteries are dry. These are insane in sieges, racking hundreds and thousands of kills. In the field, you can wipe 1-2 strong enemy units clean before they even make it to you. Enough said, field the artillery, get red line buffs for it.
This also ensures you always outrange enemy archers/whatever. Fighting High Elves? Just delete their ranged with this. Same with Wood Elves. This is amazing unit.

You start with Crossbows, then Mortars, then this. There is no point to use arc-trajectory ranged units like Crossbows ever since you get Mortars and Hellstorms later on, they are doing exactly same thing - firing over your head.

7) 3 slots left (4 if you didn't bother with a mage). This can be used for cavalry or Steam tanks. Demigryph knights allow you hammer&anvil charges, also threatening enemy ranged nonstop.
You can also opt for a more defensive play, and take Steam tanks instead to reinforce your frontline. Let enemy swarm your steam tanks, reinforce sides with Halberds, and unleash hell with Handgunners + Hellstorm, its amazing tactic. It's either or, they don't really work together. So take 3 Steam tanks and add 1 more handgunner for ranged pwnage.

Regardless, as other factions become strong by lategame with awesome units, Empire becomes worse and worse because they don't have good endgame units besides artillery and war machines. Get ready for a lot of stress on VH/Legendary when Norsca comes with 20-Mammoth stacks.
Your research should rush infantry buffs all the way, starting with extra 10 armor to infantry, then buff your handguns, then cavalry/war machines. Any economy research is weak trash, but sure whatever.

Huntsmen are trash, they don't have armor piercing, and their anti-large bonus is weak. Handguns outdps them any time of day.
In general all new DLC units are trash. one of the reasons I was very disappointed with the DLC. Empire doesn't need more ranged options. They badly need a tier 3-4 unit to hold the frontline so existing ranged units can actually do something. Like a Reiksguard knights on foot or something.

[Darkwatch]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Played a lot of Empire.
Welcome to endgame issues, when enemies start spamming their top tier units, e.g. Chaos Mammoths and you have nothing to put in front of them.
Empire cannot run monostacks (unless 19 Steamtanks, but come on..) and relies on combined arms.

After many many trials and errors, my endgame stack looks like

1) Lord
Karl or General. Hold the line, or nuke enemy lord, or backdoor their artillery - Gryphon is just too strong,

2) Warrior Priest
Terrible unit and dies like a fruit fly if you aren't careful where you send him, but army regen skill is too sweet, this is a must-have in Empire army so you don't spend 100 turns healing after every fight. Becomes tankier later on with some spells to buff your guys, eventually he is good enough to hold a flank or send with cavalry.

3) Wizard slot. pick any mage, you cannot go wrong. Shadow has good AOE, same as fire which can also buff your ranged. Can even skip wizard alltogether if you dislike magic and don't want to micro/babysit it every few seconds. In all honesty, I would rather just add a rocket battery instead of this. Magic is more important in multiplayer, in single it's just ridiculously expensive gimmick.

4) 6 Halberds. Get your lord red line buffs for these guys. In general any Empire lord should put heavily in red line buffs, because your armies are trash, and need every buff they can get.

5) 4 Handguns. This is your main DPS unit, with armor penetration. Put your Halberds with gaps between them and shoot through gaps with these guys. As long as the line holds, you will delete any enemies

6) 4 Hellstorm rocket battery (before Mortars). Empire artillery is insane, and you better use it. This outranges any arty in the game. You can engage a castle with 3 armies inside, delete 2 front towers and then literally sit there, showering enemy with rockets like ducks in a barrel until your batteries are dry. These are insane in sieges, racking hundreds and thousands of kills. In the field, you can wipe 1-2 strong enemy units clean before they even make it to you. Enough said, field the artillery, get red line buffs for it.
This also ensures you always outrange enemy archers/whatever. Fighting High Elves? Just delete their ranged with this. Same with Wood Elves. This is amazing unit.

You start with Crossbows, then Mortars, then this. There is no point to use arc-trajectory ranged units like Crossbows ever since you get Mortars and Hellstorms later on, they are doing exactly same thing - firing over your head.

7) 3 slots left (4 if you didn't bother with a mage). This can be used for cavalry or Steam tanks. Demigryph knights allow you hammer&anvil charges, also threatening enemy ranged nonstop.
You can also opt for a more defensive play, and take Steam tanks instead to reinforce your frontline. Let enemy swarm your steam tanks, reinforce sides with Halberds, and unleash hell with Handgunners + Hellstorm, its amazing tactic. It's either or, they don't really work together. So take 3 Steam tanks and add 1 more handgunner for ranged pwnage.

Regardless, as other factions become strong by lategame with awesome units, Empire becomes worse and worse because they don't have good endgame units besides artillery and war machines. Get ready for a lot of stress on VH/Legendary when Norsca comes with 20-Mammoth stacks.
Your research should rush infantry buffs all the way, starting with extra 10 armor to infantry, then buff your handguns, then cavalry/war machines. Any economy research is weak trash, but sure whatever.

Huntsmen are trash, they don't have armor piercing, and their anti-large bonus is weak. Handguns outdps them any time of day.
In general all new DLC units are trash. one of the reasons I was very disappointed with the DLC. Empire doesn't need more ranged options. They badly need a tier 3-4 unit to hold the frontline so existing ranged units can actually do something. Like a Reiksguard knights on foot or something.

Thanks for the awesome tip man! Another question, besides the Hellstorm, how would you deal with Wood Elves. Their ranged archers completely wipes my army in sieges if they got full stack defending it.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by Darkwatch:

Thanks for the awesome tip man! Another question, besides the Hellstorm, how would you deal with Wood Elves. Their ranged archers completely wipes my army in sieges if they got full stack defending it.

Np man, I am long time Empire single fan, happy to share.
The answer is quite easy - don't fight Brets or Wood Elves until you get Hellstorms. You have things to do anyway.
Early game focus on your territory, war with Merienburg (must-have province for cash), the annoying orcs in the mountains and so on. You can delete vampires in the mountains, it's just 1 castle, you can delete Skarsnik and kill the dwarves to secure the southern mountain range, and so on. Can also rush down one of the empire counts. You got things to do.

Now look at all this land to your west. It's all yours, the Bret peasants are just keeping it warm for you. As soon as you get Hellstorms into your armies, send 2 Lords to take over entire Bretonnia. It's literally a slaughter, you can take a castle per turn, raining rockets on them inside their own castles where cavalry doesn't matter.

Wood Elves are annoying as hell and snowball fast when they come out of the woods, so I usually combine 2-3 armies and rush them down inside their own forest. You put 12-18 Halberds to hold the line as long as you can, while your 8-12 Hellstorms are purifying their ranged. It's a glorious sight to behold.

I tried it all - classic armies, full ranged memes, greatswords rush, hammer and anvils, all the cavalry types, full steam tanks memes, full demigryph army memes, cannon shenanigans, all of it. In the end, the most VIP units in my experience are Halberds + Handguns + Hellstorms. it does promote sedentary defensive play, but when VH/Legend enemies outnumber you like crazy and field full stacks of monsters and everything, you have no choice but to turtle, really.

[wrought82]

at what turn does AI field full stacks of tier 5 units? ive never seen more than a handful in 1 army other than chaos invasion?