Help with Empire Opponent

Discuss your tactics for the 7th Ed army book here, together with tactics for other races.

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Formerdwarfie
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu May 20, 2010 12:38 pm

Help with Empire Opponent

#1 Post by Formerdwarfie »

Ok basically I'm going against an Empire playing opponent in a 1000 point battle who has an army consisting of: -

Captain of the Empire with Hammer of Judgement, Pistol, Full Plate armour mounted on Warhorse with barding – 103
20 Swordsmen with Full Command – 145
Detachment of 5 Handgunners -40
Detachment of 6 Handgunners -48
20 Swordsmen with Full Command – 145
Detachment of 5 Handgunners -40
Detachment of 6 Handgunners -48
5 Knights -115
5 Knights -115
Great Cannon -100
Great Cannon-100
Total: 999

Now excluding the fact that I think that's a really cheezy army, what tactics would you advise me to you use to win. My current army list is: -

Noble with Sword of Might, Dragon Armour, Barded Elven steed, shield- 124 Points
10 Archers- 110 Points
12 Swordmasters- 180 points
8 White Lions- 120 points
5 Dragon Princes (with standard bearer)- 170 points
Lion Chariot of Chrace- 140 points
Repeater Bolt Thrower- 100 points
Great Eagle- 50 points

Total: 994 points

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Griffon Prince
Posts: 538
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:05 am

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#2 Post by Griffon Prince »

What else do you have for models? I think you could use a block of spearmen in there. You could also just grab another RBT and some more archers sit back, and outrange him. Target his cannons first, then go for the guns. I would try to castle up in a corner so his army will be bottlenecked.
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Formerdwarfie
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu May 20, 2010 12:38 pm

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#3 Post by Formerdwarfie »

Griffon Prince wrote:What else do you have for models? I think you could use a block of spearmen in there. You could also just grab another RBT and some more archers sit back, and outrange him. Target his cannons first, then go for the guns. I would try to castle up in a corner so his army will be bottlenecked.
I really don't have much in the way of models, and i don't want to turn it into a shoot out fest. That's boring and we want to play to have fun.

I'm trying to figure out how to beat his army with what i've got, while still playing an entertaining game
Act of God
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:45 am

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#4 Post by Act of God »

Use your great eagle to take out his war machines as quickly as you can, then have it rear charge any of the handgunner units to tie them up. Your swordmasters will make short work of his swordsmen, use your archer fire and rbt to destroy his handguns. You White Lions should be able to handle his nilla Knights, your lion chariot could go support either your White Lions or Swordmasters (I think the White Lions would probably be the better choice). The Dragon Princes should deal with his other unit of Knights, and after they too fall, all that's left is cleaning up the rest.
WarpPhoenix
Posts: 736
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:45 am

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#5 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Well when you think about it you can do pretty much everything he can do, only a littl bit better.

He has 20 swordsmen? Take 15 spearmen, you'll more than often win that combat. So take 2 units of 15 spearmen, FC and maybe give one a warbanner. So thats 320, take a Noble with sword of might and helm of fortune and maybe a talismen of loec if you really need to kill things, should add up to 159. Take a single unit of 5 dragon princes that can rival his knights and beat them in most cases. I dont think you'd need a banner with them, keep them cheap at 150 points.

So you've got his foot troops rivaled and his knights scared as well as a much better fighting hero. You probably shouldnt try to match the shooting as you'll probably lose if you do, so just try and kill it instead. So you can take an eagle, after that you want SOME shooting right? So a bolt thrower in there too. Right now you should be ay 779. I also say that you could use a Tiranoc chariot more than a liot chariot just to kill his cannons and gunners, so thats cheaper than the lion chariot. Now the last unit can be anything you want. You've got 136 points to spend in whatever you want, i would suggest a small unit of 7 swordmasters and maybe that standard on the dragon princes that was dropped earlier. But the last amount of points is upto you.

So now you're winning on all fronts apart from shooting, to which you will kill fast anyway, especially with both an eagle and an 18" charge chariot, go for the cannons first. You should just march into his face and force him to move against your plans, with a bigger movement you can always put him on the ropes and make him back off. Dont worry too much about the detatchments, to stop them from being use full all you need to do is firstly make him charge you so he doesnt get to shoot you with that unti of gunners, and if he wants to shoot you he wont get the assist to break the ranks. And also make sure (if you have those 7 swords) to always put the swordmasters in the way of the detatchment attempting to assit flank. That way you can win combats with your spears, put fear into him with swordmasters and use your Dragon Princes to just push anything back. And what your chariot is done killing its cannon you can use it again to blow apart a few detachments.
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Griffon Prince
Posts: 538
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:05 am

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#6 Post by Griffon Prince »

Formerdwarfie wrote:i don't want to turn it into a shoot out fest. That's boring and we want to play to have fun.
I gotta say, the list your opponent is bringing isn't really something I'd consider friendly. You're right, it is cheesey.

AoG and WarpPhoenix have given good advice. I'd try to boost the spearmen units WP is talking about to 20 strong as those handgunners can take them out rather quickly.It will be an uphill battle against that army.
When your collection expands and you can fill out more units, it will be a much easier battle. Best of luck to you.
Morathi and Tyrion sittin' in a tree...ewwwwwww
ilmrik II
Posts: 112
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2009 12:22 pm

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#7 Post by ilmrik II »

Odd I don't consider this army cheesy at all,
not easy to defeat but cheesy ? (perhaps apart from the 2 cannons but even that)
what do you guys find so bad about it ?
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Formerdwarfie
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu May 20, 2010 12:38 pm

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#8 Post by Formerdwarfie »

ilmrik II wrote:Odd I don't consider this army cheesy at all,
not easy to defeat but cheesy ? (perhaps apart from the 2 cannons but even that)
what do you guys find so bad about it ?
400 points on missiles/arty and the army's only tactic is to sit back and shoot; in essence it's a gunline.

Cheers for all the tactical advice, only problem is the models in my army list are the only models that i've got atm :(
WarpPhoenix
Posts: 736
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:45 am

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#9 Post by WarpPhoenix »

Yeah I thought you might say that, well all I can advise from what you have is to make sure you play to his weaknesses. if you stick with your list exactly I can give you a couple pointers on what to point at who and when to pull the trigger.

Your 10 archers should mainly try to take down the detatchment units one by one and just try to make them obsolete. The white lions should park themselves right infront of his knights and sit and wait for him to charge you, they can easily take them down (make sure to go 7 wide) and then go about their day, and with lion cloaks they can afford to sit around. As for the swordmasters you should probably just try and hit either the OTHER unit of knights or cover the rear of the white lions while they run at cavalry, most of his army will probably turn on the spot to help the poor unit, easpecially if you suddenly turn in a diagonal form to face him. After he does this simply run at his lines, you should win both combats with white lions and swordmasters and break through.

You know I would most definately use the dragon princes to kill those cannons, eagle for one, DPs for the other one. The lion chariot can very easily sit around just NEAR the swordmasters to stop any combats with them, or adversly you can fly into the side of any of his blocks, or even the front so you can move up some swords to deal with them if they're running away quickly. The reason I said to put DPs at the cannons is because your bolt thrower and chariot will be the first to go if you dont and both are worth a lot of points and are very valuable in stretegic value. So if you pump Dragon Princes directly at them you'll either provoke another units attention or make the cannon fire at you, which is fine because chances are he cant kill all of them in a turn, especially if you're positioned right so that only one or two of the handgun units can see you. That being said I believe the white lion chariot could hold up a unit of those swordsmen just fine for a turn to wait for either a DP flank charge or a sword assist. And if you're lucky you have the full capability to run all 20 of those swordsmen down in the first round if you get a 6 for your impact, and because of the mass strength 5 attacks after the impacts you can still stay there kinda reliably.

Also your bolt thrower should be targetting his detachments too, a different one to your archers. On the flip side you could turn this strategy on its head to work equally effectively, you can target all your shooting on his main units to stop their punch, but i dont think they have enough threat to warrent that much of a reaction.
Hey, does this cloth smell like chloroform?
Act of God
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:45 am

Re: Help with Empire Opponent

#10 Post by Act of God »

Formerdwarfie wrote:
ilmrik II wrote:Odd I don't consider this army cheesy at all,
not easy to defeat but cheesy ? (perhaps apart from the 2 cannons but even that)
what do you guys find so bad about it ?
400 points on missiles/arty and the army's only tactic is to sit back and shoot; in essence it's a gunline.

Cheers for all the tactical advice, only problem is the models in my army list are the only models that i've got atm :(
623 points spent on combat troops, it's not a gunline, it's a defensive army, but far from a gunline, if he were playing a gunline he'd have a far greater percentage of his points spent on shooting. As is, he's 60/40 in favour of cc, that said, it is not offensive cc units, it's defensive in nature, but that is not an unmanageable amount of shooting. The strategy I already suggested, using the OP's planned army will probably defeat the empire player (I play Empire, and I fight Empire fairly regularily). His cannons aren't even that effective against the OP's list, it may pop his chariot, but aside from that, it can only kill 1-2 models per shot assuming the HE player doesn't expose a flank to the cannons, and 22 handgun shots aren't a lot, besides, the OP is using archers which will make short work of those handgunners (about the only thing HE archers are good at killing really), even with only 10 shots per turn, the HE player just needs to deploy 30" away from the enemy handgunners to ensure that his archers can kill them long before they can kill him (if he gets to go 1st, he'll get 2 rounds of shooting before the handgunners can shoot back, that 2 rounds should cut the handgunners in half).
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