Hi!

Im going to play against my friend using my High Elves tomorrow, and I decided to take Empire.
Ive got the army finished already but because its a new theme, I thought Id post it here before I use it.

Im following the TVI strategy presented by Tim Walker and Randy Atchley in Empire.com (TVI), which means nothing less complicated than "The Village Idiot".


3.000 points

Elector Count (219)
Holy Relic, Bronze Schield, Ring of Volans, Full Plate, GW, horse/b

Wizard, lvl4 (305)
Staff of Power, 1x dispel, 1 power stone

Captain (114)
Pegasus, Full Plate, GW, S.

BSB (183)
Imperial Banner (the one for rerolling psychology checks), Full Plate

Wizard, lvl2 (145)
Ring of Fire, 1x dispel

--------
23 Swordsmen, comm, Griffon Standard (236) <--- Count
...- 10 Free Company (50)
...- 8 Archers (64)

24 Swordsmen, comm (193) <--- BSB
...- 10 Free Company (50)
...- 8 Archers (64)

12 Crossbowmen (96)
12 Crossbowmen (96)

5 Knights (115)
5 Knights (115)

--------
20 Greatswords, comm, Banner that grants immunity to panic (310)
...- 10 Free Company (50)
...- 8 Archers (64)

5 Pistoliers, marksman with pair of pistols (112)

2 Great Cannons (200)
1 Mortar (75)

--------
12 Flagellants, Prophet (144)


Total points: 3.000


Setup:

----------------Archers------------------------------Archers----------------------------Archers------
Flagellants--Greatswords--FC--Knights--FC--Count's Swordsmen--Knights--BSB's Swordsmen--FC--Pistoliers
----------------Crossbowmen---------------------------Crossbowmen-------------------

The idea is that the whole army advances slowly but continuously. With the archer screens and the departments the elves will have a hard time charging. The Knights, Pistoliers and Flagellants are additional flankers.
The right flank is rather safe when it comes to panic tests with the Count and the Imperial Banner, as is the left flank with the Flagellants and the Greatswords who are immune to panic.
I hope to reach the enemy lines with as many units as possible to gain advantage by the sheer number of my troops and finally squash him between my rows. :lol:

Any tips or suggestions? :)

1) Don't bother with the bound items and go puely defensive. You won't be getting much magic through anyway, so save points and caddy up. For the points of a lvl 4 wizard, you can by an additional unit of swordsmen.

2) Even moderate elven firepower will wipe out your detachments. It's what any decent player does vs Empire, so prepare for it.

3) Great eagles can seriously mess up ,your plan by preventing flanking manoeuvres. If they charge the detachment at the same moment a unit of say, dragon princes charges the parent unit, you're in for some trouble. In short: shoot the chickens ;) .

3) An eagle claw would still mess up your elector count.

Thx Malduin! :)


1) I was considering that with 8 PD (possibly more with the Staff of Power), 1 power stone and 2 bound spells I would have a rather decent magic phase against probably 5 or 6 DD.
You might be right though that the points are better spent elsewhere. While my army isnt small, there are still tons of things Id like to include (increase unit sizes, huntsmen, a hellblaster etc.). Ill definitely overthink this. Maybe you could help me make up my mind by offering more arguments in favor of replacing the wizards for other things?! :rolleyes:


2) With a few more points I could also increase the sizes of the detachments slightly, which would make them more durable. On the other hand they are well protected against panic (at least the two on the right flank) and the archers, as skirmishers hard to target themselves, can screen away the fighting detachments.
I just hope there are not too many hills for enemy archers...


3) Yeah, thats what the crossbowmen are for! :)


4) I got the tactic to put a mounted count in an infantry unit from Empire.com too. In fact, the idea is that I hope that he gets shot at as much as possible! If my opponent uses 4 RBT's, averagely 2 will hit. The first hit will be ignored by the bronzeshield. I have a 50% chance of saving the other. Even if I fail, the chances of dying are only 33%. And my opponent will have used 400 points of RBT's to cause a wound or two maybe, while all my units will remain undamaged. Had he shot all the RBT's at the unit, seven swordsmen would have been killed in average.
If he uses all his RBT's (assuming he even takes as many as four) in the second round too, the count may die. But apart from a bit of damage by a few arrows and magic missiles, all my troops, including the knights, pistoliers and the pegasus captain will reach the enemy in one piece.

I never tried this out before, so I dont want to praise the tactic too early. But I think it is interesting, so I definitely want to try it out!

1: Do not drop the L4, empire have great value wizards and in a 3000pts army a l4 is the absolute minimum they should have. By all means take an extra scroll or 2 but don't drop the l4. With access to life which is going on for the best law in the game and having 4 spells you'll be in heaven with him. Dropping him is the worst thing you could do.

2: Your units are too big IMO. Due to the general cackness of infantry 16 is the best size for combat infantry. If you do that you'll have enough points for a hell blaster and perhaps another unit of infantry.

3: You need more pistolliers, they're some of the best troops an empire army can have and you only have 5!! I'd add another unit at the minimum.

Three level 1 wizards with 2 scrolls each will cost you around 360 points. This will free up the lord slot for a combat character, which will draw more fire for your tactic. Even with an additional lord, you'll still have the points for either an additional pistolier unit, a hellblaster, or an additial unit of infantry, albeit smallish. If you decide to go mage hunting, you could easily take only two wizards with 4 scrolls between them, and save even more points. µ

If you're concerned about the hellblaster's role: screen with some archers and have it move forward with your army. If you want to fire it, the archers can move 8" out of the way (being skirmishers), and you can unleash hell upon some very unhappy enemies.

As an aside, high magic is very good defensively, so I doubt you'll be getting much through, because one of the bound items is one use only; and the high elf player will be hunting your mages as well; a lvl 4 is a nice chunck of victory points...

I know; I followed the link before giving comments ;). Still, I'm not convinced by it, but if you want to try it, by all means do so and let us know how it went :).

I played yesterday.... and won with a massacre!! :D

After thinking back and forth about the magic, I decided to leave the lvl4 wizard in afterall. It turned out to be a good decision. My opponent only had two lvl2 mages, so I dominated the magic phase.

His army was weird. With maxed out characters (one on a griffon) and two large silverhelm regiments, his army was remarkably small. He loaded up the table with terrain - forests and cliffs - so there was no room for my whole army to advance as a line, as I intended. Using his fast cavalry units, his shadow warrior units and his griffon, he tried to outmanoevre me and get into the flanks of my army. Though this was not totally preventable, the compactness of my army, the resilance against panic (Imperial Banner etc...) and the sheer amount of troops mad it very hard for him to get a tight grip at one of my flanks and press into it. Instead my units seemed to work together well - in one situation my opponent could charge five units with his griffon which he could easily have broken (departments etc) but had to end the movement phase without having charged, because no matter which unit he had charged, by fleeing it would have brought the griffon into a vulnerable position.

Unluckily my artillery did terrible, and my cannons failed to shoot the big bird that meanwhile had landed behind my rows and presented a threat to my main units. It was then that I could rely on the magic: a Wind of Death got rid of the griffon and shortly later the prince was killed too.


All in all, the army held together well (which one cant always claim of empire armies) and that was the decisive factor. Combined with some luck with magic at the right moment, the army was just too large and to compact for the small Elven shock-and-awe force to prevail.

By the way, putting the Count on a horse in an infantry unit didnt bring anything. My opponent reconed that he was defended well and decided to shoot at other things instead...