A Fair Shake

On Thursday I got a chance to try the Empire again against some High Elves in a 2k game.

Things of note:
In my first turn I miscasted with both my casters and turned my level 4 into a level 2 and level2 into a level 1.

In my third turn all of my war machines misfired.

At the end of the sixth turn I still had most of my army on the table and my opponent had.... 5 models I think.

As we were playing the watchtower scenario, my opponent was victorious since he had a single character still in the tower at the end of the game. On points I would have solidly beaten him.

I definitely felt the sting of facing an elite close combat army with average troops, and the need the use magic and shooting to level the playing field. Not that Dark Elves don't like a good amount of magic and shooting, but with them it's more like 'which of my strategic weapons would I like to throw at which enemy unit'. With Empire it felt more like 'I'd better cut all the enemy units in half with shooting before they get across the table and then buff my troops so they can go toe-to-toe with whichever of them make it, otherwise I'm toast.'

All in all, I think it was a fun game. It definitely provides a different perspective on how the overall game works, which is useful, and I think I'll play them from time to time. I'm still not sure whether or not I'd like to spend more money on other Empire models or how much time I would devote to painting them, but I did enjoy it enough to keep experimenting.

Reply hazy, ask again later.

On Sunday I took the Empire for a test drive.

Or rather, I attempted to take them for a test drive.

I had previously tried to get a game in with them on Thursday, but due to various reasons was too late to find an opponent.

Sunday I was not to be denied and succeeded in making it to the store on time and had an opponent.

Game commenced but ... something was just not there.... what was it .... hmmm

Oh right, it was any semblance of decent dice rolling on my part. That was it.

So, while I did get to put the new guys on the table it would be completely unfair for me to judge anything about how the Empire performs as an army or anything about my list or strategy.

I'll give you an example. I was playing against Lizardmen and was fortunate enough to get the first turn. This should have been especially good for me since I had a respectable amount of artillery and the opportunity to, say, blow the Stegadon off the table before it had moved would have made for a nice opening to the game. It was not to be, however, as I let loose with 2 Great Cannons, 2 Mortars, and a Rocket Battery backed by a Master Engineer, some Outriders and a unit of Handgunners and succeeded in killing .... wait for it ..... 2 Skinks.

We shall try again on Thursday.

Some experimenting

So today I'm going to try a little experiment. I'm going to play an army other than Dark Elves.

Yes yes, I know. Sacrilege!

I went ahead and picked up the Empire army my coworker was selling and am going to kick the tires on it in a 2500 point game this afternoon against... Lizardmen I think.

My first attempt at an Empire list looks a little something like this -

Lvl 4 Wizard - Lore of Light
Lvl 4 Wizard - Lore of Life
Captain on Warhorse BSB
Master Engineer

Swordsmen x 25
Handgunners x 20
Greatswords x 20

Outriders x 5
Knights with Lances x 10
Knights with Great Weapons x 10

Mortar x 2
Great Cannon x 2
Helstorm Rocket Battery

Lots of magic, lots of artillery. The magic will mostly be for buffing the Knights and Greatswords so that they can mop up once the shooting has softened enemy units.

I'm still not sure about having 2 level 4 Wizards, but since you can actually squeeze 2 Lord level human characters into a 2500 point list I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm sure if I did the math I'd find that 8 levels of magic is a bit too much under 8th edition, but I'm not familiar with either of the Lores I'm going to be using so I figured having more variety to choose from would be better than not the first time around.

Results to follow.