Editing Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire (section)

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
General overall Empire strategy: In Campaign, the crucial thing with the Empire is having the right army composition. Usually, you gotta have the lord and 1-3 heroes, 2-4 cavalry/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around a third of your army) MUST be hand-to-hand infantry units. Do NOT go overboard with artillery and missile units, always have, at the very least, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. Get this into your head: your melee infantry is your worst weakness, but it's also your backbone. Without them, all your shiny and deathly artillery will fail miserably. Your infantry is mediocre at best: low armor and hp make them die to a breeze, with bad strength they don't kill shit, and most of all, their low morale will make them run pretty soon. The combination of all these factors makes them very unreliable. More, more unreliable than you think when you begin the battle.

First of all, you need numbers: without that, you'll lose, 100% guaranteed. Even if you win a battle with only five swordsmen units and get cocky, in the next battle you'll find they're only at half strength (Empire infantry gets decimated in each battle, even victorious ones) and you'll get your ass handed to yourself. Get Halberdiers asap, their defensive nature makes them perfect for an Empire gunline (which most of the time your army will be). You also need to place them right (spears/halberdiers in the flanks to protect against cavalry, no weak points in the battle line, no exposed flanks), and you need to support the right heroes with "Hold the line" and priests with battle prayers evenly distributed in the line, cavalry in the flanks prepared to intervene when necessary, mages to buff the line/debuff the enemy. Without a reliable wall of steel in front of them, your missiles and artillery won't have enough time to do their thing, and if the enemy gets to them, not only will they stop firing, they will suffer great (perhaps irreparable) casualties, the nearby units will get demoralized, and you'll have to dedicate a lot of resources to contain the breach, weakening the rest of your line. Do NOT let your battle line get breached!

When you progress in the game, you won't have to rely so much on the h2h infantry battle line. Your griffon/horsey general/captain/priest, with all their buffs, can contain whole units by themselves, your mages can use their flying mounts to position their spells where they are truly devastating, your high-end artillery can work miracles, and demi-gryph knights can operate independently. And yet, do not delude yourself: without a good battle line, all will be for naught. Greatswords are good but not truly great (heh), do not think they are Ironbreakers or you'll pay for it. As always, even if I repeat myself, never leave home without around a third of your army being melee infantry!

About mages, remember, with Empire the name of the game is buff/debuffs. Your little guys truly need them, do not use missile and offensive magic unless you have a lot of magic reserves and will get a lot of advantage when doing it. Later in the game, when you have a good mage with lots of magic reserves, some vortexes, either moving or immobile, and things like Comet of Cassandora can be outright devastating when the massed enemy is being contained by your battle line and you cast them right in the middle of them. But even then, only do it AFTER you have buffed/debuffed the right units and have the battle more or less under control.

About pistoliers/outriders, they only shine when you have many of them, and can shoot a unit while it's occupated pursuing your other units. This is especially true with outriders, who can't move and shoot. Lonely units won't do much, but having said that, even if they only manage to get one enemy infantry unit away from the main battle when the action takes place, they have justified their cost.

About empire knights and all their variants, remember that even with all their armor they die fast in prolonged combat, or get whittled down by the enemy fire. Never let them get too far from your battle line, where their slowness (for cavalry) can make them get surrounded and destroyed by the enemy. Their primary use is to support your infantry, not to chase enemy missiles away (although they can and should do that sometimes, of course).

To sum it all up, never forget that, in this game, Empire is the closest thing to managing a real-life army: one moment of overconfidence and many lives will be lost!

===legendary lord, Immortal Empires guide===
'''Karl Franz:''' in Immortal Empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and Khazrak, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or Khazrak, they can leave vast portions of the Empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with Kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.
 
to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

'''Balthazar gelt:'''

'''Volkmar the grim:'''

'''Markus wulfheart:'''

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!

*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring Crossbowmen and Handgunners to soften the enemy up, and some Spearmen and Halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with Pistoliers; but Free Company Militia are to slow to keep away from the Beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like the Beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a Steam Tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.

*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.

*'''Daemons of Chaos''':

*'''Chaos Dwarfs''': Your best bet is to go very wide, with a lot of cheap spearmen for your frontline. Chaos Dwarf elite infantry is very expensive and they'll usually rely on a lot of "Labourer" chaff units to cover the field. Your spears will hold fine against them. You probably want to bring at least one Great Cannon or other artillery unit to keep the Dawi-Zharr. Magma Cannons are good at burning down artillery crews but your cannons get four shots to their one. For real killing power though you want to exploit your superior mobility. Bring Outriders, Knights, Demigryphs, and War Wagons. Almost all of them will do fine in melee against Wolf Raiders and can quickly reposition to try and avoid Chaos Dwarf gunlines. The best counter against you in this case is Bull centaurs but Bull Centaurs are slow for monstrous cavalry and can be easily kited by War Wagons. Leave your Handgunners at home; they're too stationary and will get blasted to pieces by the many horrifying artillery pieces the Chaos Dwarfs can roll out.

*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.

*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistoliers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.

*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarfs are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the Dwarfs. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate Dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange Dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.

*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.

*'''Grand Cathay''':

*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lumbering advance long enough for your missile troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, Greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.

*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.

*'''Khorne''':

*'''Kislev''':

*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, Fireleech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.

*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.

*'''Nurgle''':

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great Cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.

*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.

*'''Slaanesh''':

*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.

*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.

*'''Tzeentch''':

*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.

*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Hellstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match



[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}