VC vs Empire - Priorities

[Lord Roke]

I've got a game versus the Empire tonight. He's a good player and I want to pay him back for the crushing defeat he handed my Tau at a tournament in March.

I've fought Empire only once before, but that was a long time ago when I was an Orc player and I was a newbie to WHFB.

I don't know what he'll bring to the table, nor the point total of the game (either 1000 or 2000, I told him to surprise me). I'm not for tailoring lists, and I intend to use my balanced list based on what I have with me.

What I can say for sure is, having seen his models, he'll most likely have 1 - 2 Warrior Priests, a Hellblaster Volley Gun, a mortar and Pistoliers. Apart from that I don't really know. I know my strength lie in fear and swelling my ranks, plus I hope to dominate the magic phase, in both casting and dispelling.

Can anyone offer me some helpful pointers on what are my biggest threats and what are minor, please and thank you?

~Roke

 

[Grish]

Empire artillery is pretty good. I'd look to Fellbats or flying vampire to take it out. A terror causing vampire can ruin his artillery line if he keeps it close together. Empire leadership isn't very good.

Hellblaster volley gun can unload a lot of damage. 3 artillery dice worth of armour piercing hits if I remember correctly. It also has 3 chances to misfire a turn, so usually it blows up after a couple of uses.

Don't underestimate flaggellents; they tear through undead in the first round of combat. They have Frenzy, and generally have reroll misses and 66% of the time reroll wounds. They also have flails so are strong in the first round of combat. That's a lot of damage they can put out, and they're also unbreakable (so you have to kill them all). After the first round they're just regular human stats I believe so you can take them out.

Beware of the Archlector on a War Altar as he usually will have an item that will switch his stats for yours (Van Horsts Speculum I believe its called). So don't charge your general at him, or you'll have his stats and he'll have yours potentially.

Other than that, use fear to your advantage. Empire LD is pretty bad (7s) so fear/terror can do some good damage.

 

[Rammstein]

As Grish has said the black powder can be a pain but easily spooked off.

The 30+ Unit of Swordsmen with a Griffon standard is pretty nasty as well as it generates a lot of static CR. If your opponent knows how to use his detachments this unit can be a pain.

The alternative to this unit is a large block of Inner Circle Knights with a Templar Grand Master leading them. If he's good he'll have him equipped with the Laurels of Victory. This unit will be a big hitter with the potential to rack up some serious CR. it will be stubborn and Immune to Psychology as well just to put the icing on the cake.

 

[Reincus]

Ethereal critters do pretty well against empire on average. They don't have many troops that can deal with them. They also don't have many troops that can deal with terrain, so ethereals and black knights can exploit flanks or just run through the forest to get behind his lines.

Their war machines are decent but we have lots of tools for killing them.

Empire doesn't really have a lot of killing power in close combat, they win through CR and good detachment use. Assuming he simply doesn't out play you in the movement phase, if you can out-raise his killing, you win.

 

[chris_havoc]

Beware the stank. Old steamie is not fun. Only reason I managed to take it out was because I had two varghulfs charge it and once some damage had been done freaking everything charged it. Resilient is a good word to describe the steam tank. If he plays any character on a pegasus charge it with fell bats he'll most likely flee and there's a good chance you'll catch up to him. If you do play a varghulf it's biggest threat is the Hellblaster Volley Cannon. When I first played Empire it dealt 3 wounds to both my varghulfs. The Empire player in our group puts a cheap mage in a group of 20 greatswords and issues challenges to anything that charges because the mage has Van Horstein's Speculum and lore of shadows so watch out for any low level mage with lore of shadows because it will most likely flying charge your lone general and end up killing it. Fear is awesome against Empire they really struggle with leadership. Also a flank charge on a unit of knights even with a single varghulf can be devastating.