How to defeat Empire ?

[Lord Drakon]

I could not find that much about Empire, while in the battle reports it seems Empire is one of the more tough opponents we can face. After Skaven and Lizardmen the following question ; how to defeat Empire ?

[Phierlihy]

Empire is hard to categorize because they are the only race with more viable builds than we have. Magic heavy, gunline, all mounted, all infanty, horde army, a mixed army; you never know what to expect. So instead focus on their weaknesses.

Empire troops, aside from Demigryph Knights, are pretty bad. They die to a stiff breeze and rely on combining their units to try and overwhelm their enemies. So if you can take them on a single unit at a time, you'll be in much better shape.

Empire is considered a "low leadership" army. So once their General has been dealt with, they become susceptible to panic. Combined with their average initiative values, they hold a strong fear of the Lore of Death.

Their cannons are low to the ground so have a hard time seeing the spot they need to shoot. Take advantage of it and force his troops to move in front of it so he can't shoot. Also if he can shoot, that means you can charge it with a character on a Dark Pegasus and easy-to-kill cannons cause panic checks. Cannons are a poor choice against Dark Elves.

Assassins are extremely good at killing Empire characters (unless they are mounted on a pope mobile).

Empire has difficulty tackling anything with good armor. Our knights are far superior to theirs.

Since their troops lose to ours, concentrate on the supporting elements. And RBTs are quite effective against them. RBTs are also effective at clearing out any chaff units the Empire might bring. They solve a lot of problems versus the Empire so are a great tool to bring.

Those are my immediate thoughts but perhaps others can give you more in depth ideas. Good luck!

[Calisson]

- Empire agile units are similar to ours: pegasus hero, fast cav, skirmisher bowmen. Except they are worse in melee and die as soon as you can charge them or with magic missile.
- Empire shooting is almost exclusively move or shoot. They ave excellent warmachines: cannons to kill our monsters, and volley gun to kill anything which comes at 24". Here, the answer is target saturation and 2nd turn charge.
- Empire infantry should not be a problem, ours beats them easily. Just kill their characters in priority.

- Empire have some good, armoured units: Semigriffs and STank, not forgetting knights. This is not easy to fight, you will need some buffs to your infantry, with magic.
- Empire have cheap sorcerrers. Know which spell to block and let the other ones go through.

[Thraundil]

Adding to what have been said before: empire wizards commonly stack the lore of light with a battle altar. This means their magic phase becomes scary. Two banishments, often ticking in at high enough strength to outright kill our heroes, and severely deplete our units. The lore of light also comes with two augments which makes the empire fight on even foot with us: speed of light and timewarp. If you are ever faced with a tough close combat phase where he threatens to cast both, focus on dispelling timewarp as it gives his troops ASF. Speed of light gives them I10 so we lose our rerolls, but at least we still get to strike first.

Watch out for demigryph knights. They are the strongest fighters in the empire arsenal, and will not yield to many things.

[Searinox Nagharha]

Also, the dreaded Steam Tank! you have 2 options when it comes to one.
1) throw every Bolt, Dart, Spell, Shoe or Rock you have in your army at it till you get a few wounds off (the lower its health the higher the chance it misfires)
or
2) Ignore it all together

thats how i deal with it atleast

[Ajattaro]

Also, the dreaded Steam Tank! you have 2 options when it comes to one.
1) throw every Bolt, Dart, Spell, Shoe or Rock you have in your army at it till you get a few wounds off (the lower its health the higher the chance it misfires)
or
2) Ignore it all together

thats how i deal with it atleast

You can move your units 1" away from it to its flank. Then it has only option to move forwards, since it can charge your unit even with random movement. Thats why shades and DR are golden. Usually tanks are deployed to the flanks. I have no other good way of dealing with them because they take too much effort and yield no points. There other threats to be dealt with too.

Damage the tank and f*** with its movement, that is the key. Dont expect to destroy it, unless you have DL with Giant Blade.

[Searinox Nagharha]

Well my Empire opponent just drops his STank drop dead in the center of the table as first deployment then looks at me like "Your move" xD

[Ajattaro]

Well my Empire opponent just drops his STank drop dead in the center of the table as first deployment then looks at me like "Your move" xD

Wtf, then all sorts of RBT fore, metal magic and whatnot can reach it?.. Stank drops effectiveness quite fast if you get to damage it fast and properly

[Calisson]

List everything which ignores armour or has a very, very high penetration.
That's needed against Empire tin cans. Should help against Dawis and WoC, too.

[Searinox Nagharha]

True, it does. but i could basicly play Bretts with the amount of times I go first
this then generaly means that I lose a few RBTs to cannonfire.
And i dont field Metal tho witg the current Meta i have been thinking about it

[Lord Drakon]

Does RBT fire not wound on 4's with no armour saves allowed and multiple wounds ?

So Darkshards, RBT, Hydra = empire troops
Cold One Knights, Manticore BSB = enemy knights
Dark Riders, Shades = enemy warmachines
Doombolt = Demigryphs
RBT = everything, especially steam tanks and chaff

Forcing panic, terror and break tests also likely to hurt his army because of leadership.

Is it unbreakable or stubborn or can it be broken with combat resolution of Shrine of Slaughter on the charge ?

[direweasel]

Does RBT fire not wound on 4's with no armour saves allowed and multiple wounds ?

It depends on whether you single fire or rapid fire. If you fire rapid fire, then it is S4 and armor piercing (ie -2 total armor save). If you single fire, it's S6, no armor, multiple wounds.

[Searinox Nagharha]

RBT is S6, the Scrouner fires S7. But if you can sneak in 2 succesful RBT shots you should do fine.
And its Unbreakable. So if this thing charges any block it just slowly grinds them to red paste unless you increase your own survival or reduce his

[direweasel]

Er, sorry, right, going from memory. I'll edit my post.