1st Runner up

The big news is that I finished second in the Escalation League. As I'd hoped, the Empire got a lot more competitive once we got up in the 2k point range. I won the last few games I played and even the bonus Storm of Magic game at the end of the schedule.

So what did I learn about the army through all this? Let's take the list I ended with.

Templar Grand Master of the Knights of the White Wolf, General
Sword 0f Might, Talisman of Preservation, Crown of Command
Captain, BSB
Armor of Meteoric Iron, Dawnstone
Level 4 Wizard, Lore of Light
Rod of Power, Holy Relic
Warrior Priest (of Ulric!)
Dawn Armor, Iron Curse Icon

35 Halberdiers, std&mus
35 Halberdiers, std&mus
14 Knights of the White Wolf, std&mus

28 Greatswords, std&mus
5 Outriders, mus
5 Outriders, mus

2 Mortars
2 Cannons
1 Hellblaster Volley Gun

At first, I felt like the Knights were very lackluster until I added the Templar to the unit. Before, they seemed to die more than I expected them to, kill less than I expected them to, and break and run waaaay more often than I expected them to. With the Templar, they are Immune to Psychology, his Crown of Command makes them Stubborn, his few early attacks helps keep more of the Knights alive longer, and now they make a great tarpit/bunker/flanker.

Second, the Lore of Light compliments the Empire well. Timewarp and Speed of Light turns Greatswords and great weapon Knights into serious killing machines. I experimented with Life early on, but since I switched to Light I've had no reason to look elsewhere. It also fits the fluff of the army pretty well since I'm going for a 'Cult of Ulric' theme. In terms of gear, the Rod of Power is awesome and became a no-brainer. There were magic phases where between it and the Warrior Priest I has just as many dispell dice as my opponent had to cast.

The Warrior Priest was really good to have, and I think every Empire army should have at least one. I put mine in the Greatswords just to give them Hatred.

The Captain is, as far as I can tell, the only character type that can be your BSB. I would much rather have a Warrior Priest in that role for fluff reasons, but a BSB is just too useful to do without.

I found Halberdier buses to be preferable to seven wide frontage or hoard formation, but Greatswords were better seven wide since they are already Stubborn. The seven ranks worth of Halberdiers did a good job of holding steady for one or two turns against pretty much anything thanks to steadfast, but usually only won when they were up against smaller units they could wear down, less capable troops like Goblins or Zombies, or fighting in conjunction with Knights or Greatswords.

The Outriders were a late addition, but I found them vastly superior to the little detachments of Free Company I was initially trying to use as redirectors. Vanguard move, then park and shoot until your have to feign flight, rinse and repeat. Dark Riders were one of my favorite Dark Elf units in seventh edition, and Outriders have reminded my of what I liked about fast cavalry in the first place. A fast, shooty unit that is just threatening / annoying enough that you have to commit something in your army to getting rid of them or they will screw up all your plans.

Five artillery pieces is too many for a normal sized game. Mortars are great against ranked units and cannons are great against monsters, so I feel like you need one of each. The problem lies in monstrous infantry or heavily armored cavalry or infantry, like Knights or Choas Warriors. The cannon picks them off too slowly and the mortars don't have high enough strength to punch through enough of them. The rocket battery and volley gun are supposed to fill this gap, and of the two I opted to try the volley gun. The rocket battery seemed a little too random to me in terms of whether it would even hit or not. The volley gun, on the other hand, performed well in a point-defense sort of role. I would deploy it centrally in between two infantry blocks and shoot at the scariest thing coming across the table. It paid for itself easily against Ogres, Beastmen, and Brettonians. I never really felt like I missed having an Engineer, so I can't really see the point in dropping another character to include one. I'll probably drop either one or two pieces, probably a mortar since monsters are harder to deal with than rank-and-file or a mortal and cannon.

All in all, with Empire you really have to get used to, and be okay with, watching a lot of your guys die. This is a pretty significant morale and game enjoyment lesson to learn. After playing an elite army I had gotten used to hitting before my opponent and killing a lot of them before they got the chance to swing back. The Empire in many cases either attacks simultaneously or after the opponent and loses a lot more models. But, that's just how the army works and you can absolutely win games even when your opponent wracks up a higher raw body count. Once I really got that into my head, I began enjoying the games more.

After this experience, I can see myself playing Empire enough that it's actually worth doing some conversions and painting them.

So what's next?

There are a few things on the horizon for me, hobby-wise. I've been working on my Dark Elves for a couple of years now, and with the Quake City Rumble I finally feel like I can say I'm 'done' with my first army. Not 'done' as in 'done playing with them' or 'done painting them' or 'tired' of them, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment at having taken a fully painted and well performing army to a tournament. So at this point the only further things I'm planning to do with my Dark Elves are things I consider 'tweaks'. I've got some more Cold One Knights, and I want to bulk that unit up to 10 or 12. I've got some more Executioners and I want to bump that unit up to a good size and probably include a filler to help. I plan on continuing to use this army for fun and tournament play, and I'll probably make a fancier display board for them for next tournament season. I've got a couple more characters that I can paint and the new Black Dragon which I asked for as a birthday present. Those last two lead into the second thing on the horizon.

Storm of Magic was release this weekend. We had a release event all set up for today except for one small problem. GW didn't ship the books on time. I'm not sure if it was a global issue, or was specific to certain stores or regions, but we aren't getting it until Monday. So I guess I'll have to get a hold of it at some point this week and we'll reschedule our 'let's try out this new thing' event. Along with SoM are some new monster models, a few of which I've asked for as presents. I'm looking forward to painting those up and, from the sounds of it, a couple more spell casters. I've still got that GameZone Sorceress on Dark Pegasus that I've been looking for a reason to paint.

The third thing on the horizon is the one I've been thinking the most about this weekend. We've been talking at the store about doing another escalation league, and even better is that someone else is interested in running it. It seems like it would be cheating to walk in with fully painted Dark Elves, so I'm going to take this opportunity to spend some time with the Empire army I bought.

I had a fat gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so I purchased some additional stuff to give me some more list building options. Greatswords, State Troops, and...... Steam Tank! I couldn't resist, it just looked like it would be too much fun to paint. And with that my mind started working through how to go about painting them. After some reading and thinking, I've settled on not only a color scheme but a nice fluffy theme with some conversion opportunities that I'm already looking forward to.

For my Dark Elves I have a very loose 'Corsair' theme. Which basically means I put the big Corsair banners on as many units as possible. (Which reminds me.. I still have a couple of those to finish...) The colors, red and gold, were not typical Dark Elf colors. Most folks paint them something dark, like black, grey, purple, dark blue, etc. My Dark Elves are definitely more of a 'summer' looking army than the typical 'winter' look.

For the Empire I wanted something visually very different. Lots of the pictures of Empire armies are red and white, which was too close to my Dark Elves for me. So after some looking I settled on the blue and white of Middenheim. Middenheim has some nice fluff, being a fortress city on the top of a rocky mountain in the north of the Empire and home to the temple of Ulric, god of war, winter, and wolves. So I've decided to do a Middenheim 'Cult of Ulric' army. Lots of blue, gray, and white for colors, giving me a 'summer' army and a 'winter' army. (I guess then I'll have to figure out how to do Lizardmen and Vampire Counts as spring and fall.) Lots of conversion opportunities to add wolf bits here and there. I've already got some of the Knights of the White Wolf. No priests of Sigmar in this army, instead I'll be converting up some Warrior Priests of Ulric. Maybe even have a War Altar pulled by Dire Wolves instead of War Horses with a different statue on the back. I'm also trying to figure out how to make the mouths of the cannons look like wolves heads with open mouths. It should be fun.

So now I've got some bits hunting to do. The Space Wolves had a couple of bits that look useful. There are also just some plain wolves I could get to add to a unit here and there. The Warriors of Chaos cloaks are ok, but a little ragged looking. I'm also not sure about putting snow on their bases. Stone and gray gravel, definitely, but my concern with snow is that Empire models don't really look dressed for very cold weather and it might look odd to have them standing in snow.

Conversion thoughts and suggestions welcome.