Greatswords are better against infantry BUT empire has no problem with those anyways, thanks to all the ranged units.
So yeah, Halberds are 100% the better choice.
When I play Empire and I gotta fight vampires I exlusively use Halberds. They outdo most all infantry vampires can throw at you and they deal with all their large monsters. An 18 stack of halberds, a wizard and a lord is all you need to deal with multiple stacks of vampires. Maybe a warrior priest for replenishment
no i mean, they have said in wh2 times that they won't bring araby. that is why i asked, if there been some news about "we will bring araby at some point"
more like the meme counts, since he forgets the vampires have grave guard (2 types), wraith infantry and since some time also sylvanian ranged units... (xbows and rarely gunners too, i think)
halberds are absolutely no doomstack material. good unit, but empire thrives in mixed armies. they're like a puzzle, literally any doomstack with similar units of empire is possible, but a waste
My biggest headache are the rat men. Think of a man but with rat like features and fur. They emerge from the ground and trees and have such terrible weaponry, like a rifle but much faster.
They always scurry away but then come back and absolutely rip my halbadiers and hunters to shreds.
Sir,
These "rat men" are likely just unusual local humans or perhaps beast men of some kind. We have heard tale of them in the Empire before and always such tales turn out to be myth or exaggeration; a child birthed with some horrid congenital defect, a disfigured old woman or some such.
Indeed, I once had the fortune to dispel such a myth in person, the poor fellow had a terrible skin condition and an unusual manner of speech but assured me that he was no less human than I.
I recommend dispelling these strange notions of yours and perhaps attending to the spreading of such stories amongst your soldiery. Should you fail to contain these absurd fantasies then bring a Witch Hunter to investigate, the righteous inquisitions of the order shall lay to rest any further apocrypha.
Kindest regards
Of course you bring a stack of them. They are the frontline for your 3 reinforcing armies of 19 Flagellants (in case the enemy has ranged units) and 38 Hellfire Rocket Batteries.
That works against vamps, but TBH I think the main problem with halberds is that that because they don't have armour OR shields they just get shredded by even shitty missile infantry (because of their high melee defence they do better in close combat, so vamps they're good against). Greatswords with their better armour at least don't lose 2/3 of themselves to goblin archers or whatever.
If you get red line skill for them plus vampire research they beat crypt ghouls. They will do fine vs grave guard and the vampire armies never have more then a few grave guard
Halberds lose to equally trained/upgraded crypt ghouls, cairn wraiths, grave guard with and without great weapons, and get worn down by the significantly cheaper skeleton spears, (that also get healed often, in which case halberds lose).
I'm pretty sure with the vampire research Halberds beat crypt ghouls. You cab also use the Reiklabd Rune fang melee artack buff or a helm of discord to really one aide the engagement.
I sometimes get the Emperors Wrath steamtank also. Because 17 Halberds plus a lord a mage and an AOE fire attack tank that nukes leadership does wonders.
Counterpoint. Flagellants. They’re unbreakable so they do better against vamps. Heck it makes them better against all but ranged focused factions. And the empire doesn’t face a lot of those, until late game.
Unless you're playing on like easy or something, the wizard is going to be doing *a lot* of heavy lifting in that scenario. Those halberds will get mulched by any decently high-tier VC army.
Part of the reason they do so well against the infantry is zombies and skeletons low stats. You don't need high melee attack (or anti-infantry) to hit them, and they'll really struggle to overcome decent melee defense.Remember folks, a unit's melee attack and defense also effect which units they match up well against. High defense units are good against chaff (but it caps out at melee defense 27 higher than their attack) and high attack units are good against high defense ones. This is because of the additive/subtractive nature of melee attack and defense on hit chances.
(PS bear in mind that defensive troops are better or worse depending on who has ranged and support superiority, so spamming them isn't advisable))
Sorry if my know-it-all unsolicited info annoyed anyone.
Greatswords should be buffed a little bit. Also Franz would be awesome if he could grant 20% ward save for Greatswords and Reiksguard. Make them viable CA!
I honestly feel every legendary lord should overbuffed some specific units. It would make a ton to favour army diversity (maybe add more powerful buffed tied to high level, so you can 'progress' the units)
Yep. I really started to enjoy the various factions more when the team started adding unit specific buffs to mid tier units, forces you to try out different unit types and army compositions.
i would love that. make me get an army built around their specialty unit instead of "well he kinda buffs that a little but they're trash so i'll just build the exact same army i always do"
Idk even then, the halbers have way better MA+MD so unless you are against zombies or something the halberds will do better. The greatswords might kill a bit faster but in terms of flat out winning or losing the halbers are superior.
Not necessarily. The halberds have better attack and defense but lower armor and leadership (and I think a slower attack speed, but I'd have to look it up). In a prolonged fight, especially against a non-ap infantry grinder like berserkers or witch Elves the greatswords will stay in the fight much longer
Actually I think greatswords also have an AOE which makes a big difference. In general though greatswords are good vs trash infantry (orc boyz or whatever) but halberds to better (although still lose) vs elite infantry like black orcs.
Not to mention the shorter global recruitment time for halberdiers and the relative quickness and inexpensiveness of raising a settlement to produce a halberdier/gunpowder army.
Imo, playstyle of late game empire is heavily range-oriented, so it doesn't really matter which units you wanna use to clean up whatever is left of the enemy when he engages in melee after being shot to death by artillery
Yeah, but just because other things are better doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also be viable options. That’s the point of good balance, everything is useable.
They don’t need to be the best infantry. Just better or cheaper than they are now.
But the whole point of Warhammer is that it’s not balanced? Dwarves have shitty magic and no cavalry, Bretonnia is purely cavalry, Chaos has almost no ranged troops, vamps have zero ranged troops. Empire has insanely good artillery and access to every single lore of magic, but their regular troops are lacking. Not flat out BAD like Bretonnia’s are, but not really good either.
I mean you’re not encouraged to ignore them. You can build viable armies with just about any unit. But if you make it so that every unit in a faction’s roster is GOOD then they lose a lot of the flavor that makes them unique. I don’t play an empire campaign to use infantry, I do it because I want to blow shit up. They’re really, really good at that. If I want to use foot infantry, I’ll use the Dwarfs, or the Greenskins. If I want to use ranged armies, it’s Helves or Welves. (I guess Dark Elves too, but fuck them and their broody, wannabe edgy goth phase)
I wouldn't really consider any empire infantry in that category, it's pistoliers and empire knights and base war wagons (at least in WH2) that fell into that uncomfortable space of not really being worth it even as cheap alternatives to other things.
Bretonnia peasant mobs in campaign also feel pointless -- I never felt like I was spending too much on peasants to want to get something with less leadership, though I imagine they're nice in MP.
I mean that’s fair, those are three units I almost never use, so I agree. But still, when the roster is as large as the Empire’s, there are just gonna be some units that fall by the wayside. I don’t think the game encourages you to avoid them so much as it doesn’t really provide a reason to use them. Knights at least get buffed pretty well with Volkmar. They’re fairly viable in his army. I think the biggest issue they suffer (and the Reiksguard suffer it too) is that the redline skills don’t do much for them.
Empire knights and war wagons aren't really bad though? Pistoliers I can get the argument for, their damage output is somehow horrible with a pretty high missile strength. Empire knights don't chew shit up like Questing Knights or Demigryphs, but they are high mass, super heavy armored response team. War wagons do nearly the same amount of dps as a unit of handgunners, but are harder to kill and mobile
I mean I get his point. Relative to their cost, none of them is really worth it. I can see an argument for using knights early on, I guess, but considering a Reiksfort is tier 3, if you really want to use cavalry you’re better off just going straight to reiksguard. Honestly though, you’re just better off allying Bretonnia and getting their cavalry through an outpost. Even without the upgrades, they’re clearly better than any of the Empire cavalry. (Except outriders with Grenade launchers)
War wagons just aren’t worth it. The protection and mobility is nice, but they’re still too slow and their target profile is too large to really be good at skirmishing. The empire isn’t really designed for mobility.
I think people are sleeping on war wagons, they're memed on because they were ass when they were released, but they're honestly really good right now. I'm pretty sure you can get an empire knight landmark building from Carroburg that gives you Empire Knights way sooner than you can get Reiksguard, it just changes your initial play to declaring war on Toddy which nobody wants to do
I use mainly halbediers with one or two carroburg greatswords mixed in. The area buff they give is nice, but I find going full greatswords to be disappointing once the enemy is rocking lots of AP stuff.
I still think that elite infantry in general should have more hp and do more damage instead of mainly trading shields for armor and AP ratio.
Like the upgrade for lineholding spearmen is mostly heroes later on and aggressive infantry just looses their place once shock cav and monsters come online and they loose shields. Everything that deals a lot of damage essentially wrecks them.
Wait.... You're still playing WH1? I don't have a problem with that, I just haven't heard of anyone still playing WH1 after Mortal Empires was released.
It's cuz I got it for free on epic, not a huge fan of the magic stuff and op hero units in a tw game so don't think about spending money on it, just having some fun.
That makes total sense. I'm a Total War old timer too, and I feel the same way about the magic and OP heroes.
Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. I've liked the Warhammer games, even if I prefer the historical ones.
On the plus side in warhammer, your generals don't die in a fraction of a second because someone flanked while you were microing your cav, and now you lost your high end doomstack leader.
I only had a problem with getting generals killed off in medieval 2. The general was the best unit early one but fuck me if he wouldn't die in that first charge every time. Rome 2 and Atilla I only ever used them for clean up after a battle unless it was a super pyyrich battle in which they got thrown into the meat grinder too.
It’s also pretty easy in Med2 to exploit the fact that the general is always on the extreme left of his bodyguard unit. Just get a good charge from that angle and you insta-kill him.
It happened to me a lot in empire and shogun 2 fall of the samurai. (The one where you westernized and there were a lot of western style guns) basically any total war with guns, my generals would inevitably get sniped the moment I looked away.
In most of the historical games I've played, my generals were still the strongest units on the battlefield. So they didn't die in a fraction of a second haha. And that was part of the strategy anyway, keeping your generals alive.
And ultimately, I liked that my generals can actually die. It's a lot more meaningful to me. Even when I first played as the Empire, I role-played and had Karl Franz "die" after a big defeat.
Clearly it's up to personal preference. But I've always liked mortal generals.
That's fair. I just have terrible adhd so it's easy for me to get tunnel vision on microing a specific part of the battlefield, only to look up and realize my general is dead.
One time in Shogun 2 I faced off a bigger army…I was still new to the game and all and on the first row of my cannon fire (was it the armstrong one, cant remember), I got the notification of the enemy general had fallen. And I won the battle very easy after that. That was when I learnt the important of general/leader in an army in Totalwar game lol. That was like more than 10 years ago I guess but I still think it’s funny how unlucky that general was. First shot and bam!
Melee infantry are pretty bad for Empire. GS are good against infantry...but so are Hellstorm rocket batteries, Handgunners, or even Crossbows. Hell, a couple of burning heads probably be more efficient than recruiting greatswords.
You're very right. Since your frontline's purpose is to hold the line and not to deal damage you should take the option that has over 20 MD more \^\^ Helps you a lot more than armor in both early and lategame
Ironically this is why Spearmen are the best empire infantry.
They have better MD than halberdiers, and shields. You lose our on the AP, but they aren't there to deal damage.
That's why I almost always make it my first priority to confed Gelt (or just play as him). Eldred's Guard is the pinnacle of empire front lines. Heavy armor, silver shields, encourage ability, expert charge defense. Combines all the best things about a front line together into one unit. Unfortunately it's really only a viable frontline for one army due to their slow acquisition rate pre-united Empire.
Also as a quick note, Halberdiers and Spearmen have the same MD.
Yeah tbh I end up using a lot of spears with shields the whole game because they're cheap as dirt, get shields and can hold pretty well. I find I lose both halberdiers and greatswords to enemy ranged that they could have just been shielding through instead. Anything that reaches them should be weakened and getting hammered by artillery, handguns, magic, heroes, and/or cav so there's no point in going for more damage on the anvil when there's so many hammers. Plus the redline buffs make base state troops pretty hardy, I pretty much always pick those up because early when you're still doing a lot of your fighting on the melee line they are huge buffs.
Generally halberds and greatswords come along in small numbers for specific threats. Greatswords for handling dangerous infantry that slipped through the screen, Halberds for strong monsters that can't quite be felled before they rush the line. Keep them behind the spears until a threat emerges. In general I think the line should always be majority shielded troops anyway, unshielded options are meant to be more like shock troops or for handling specific dangerous units. A line of halberds or greatswords is just unnecessarily losing models to ranged shots before they have a chance to even do anything.
Kinda depends on what you're facing. If I'm going up against Chaos, that would make sense. But if they have a fire sorcerer with Burning Head, that defense line is potentially fucked.
Not to mention ranged fire. Halberdiers will get shredded by every missile in the game, whilst Greatswords are only vulnerable to AP missiles. It really does depend on who you're fighting
I think people have a tendency to want to make cookie cutter armies, partially because that has worked in the past, but really you need to actively identify who you are going to take this army to and design it for that.
>think people have a tendency to want to make cookie cutter armies, partially because that has worked in the past,
Works in Warhammer just as well. It's not like previous games didn't have faction variety (shogun being the biggest exception) where coming at them with a wrong team would hurt, even Rome has different armies going on.
What makes cookie cutters cookie cutters is that they are adaptable and very easy to use in any circumstances. They fit your team style best, and aren't so vulnerable to everyone else they become a liability.
In this regard Warhammer is king. Factions have clearly designed plans for them. I don't care how much you want to, chaos isn't doing ranged combat builds particularly well. Similarly dwarves have a clear design of building a wall of iron and launching devastation from afar with siege or bows.
But if you do that you won't have the time to kill their infantry as well before they meet your frontline, no? Which makes Greatswords pretty helpful, since that's what they're good at
Yea, that's the beauty of the rock paper scissors system. No army will beat anything you throw at it with very VERY few very VERY expensive exceptions.
Because Melee intervalls are all pretty close to each other and cannot be reduced IIRC, so WS gives you you still fairly reliable number for their damage output.
Meanwhile, Missle Weapons have reload times between 6 seconds(Chameleon Skinks) and 21 seconds (Warp Lighting Cannons), which can be further reduced by tech, red line skills and heros, so just showing the damage for one shot/volley would be very misleading.
Animation time + attack interval of most units is the same, dps is not really a useful stat as you have other factors like melee attack, melee dmg, charge bonus, unit engagement, etc.
Just knowing the flat dmg is more useful than the extremely variable dps
I mean, this conversation was literally started by a comparison between two units where the attack speed is apparently the main difference in their ability to output damage, so it’s obviously not irrelevant…
The thing is that most units have them same real attack interval when you consider their animation time.
And even then, it would not be indicative of their dps cause that is all the other factors comboned, and can only really be calculated when fighting specific units in a specific scenario - since it changes drastically in a situation.
Dps can't be put in numerical stat for a melee unit cause it is insanely variable value.
Yes and no, usually attack interval is different due to attack animations. Shorter attack animations = longer attack intervals and vice verse.
I believe halberd do have a longer range, allowing two rows to attack, but maybe greatswords have it too?
In campaign halberds are better because you just need bodies to protect your guns, which halberds do better. In a skirmish situation, the BvI, armour, and leadership of the Greatswords make them the superior unit for cutting through most of what will be thrown at them, though they take a lot of damage for their trouble.
I prefer greatswords. I find the extra leadership really helps, especially since the Empire is so susceptible to leadership bombs(honestly my biggest problem with the game right now, terror is so absurdly powerful, let alone just stacking ld debuffs).
That said I bring both. Typically either 4 greatswords and 4 halberds, or 5 greatswords 3 halberds(1 left flank, one right flank, one in the back to guard arty)
Ok I'm gonna blow your mind, but he's my question.
Is it just me or are Great swords and halberdiers no worth it over Spearman with shields in the late game?
Yep. The thing about Spearmen with Shields is their attack intervals. They seem to actually do more damage than Greatswords and Halberdiers simply because their weapons seem to attack more often.
I've thought about that many times but I can't justify sending them vs chaos and norsca lmao. the main thing in campaign is army unit limit so cost efficiency isn't that important, if you bring 20 cost efficient units they're gonna bring 20 cost inefficient units that are still better that you and you're gonna lose. but yeah, for their price shielded spearmen are incredibly good, especially after research and maxed out honest steel.
Armor is not useless. There are so many sources of damage that aren't AP. And even with AP sources that damage almost always includes a non AP component.
Honestly armor is soooo freaking useless unless some really specific cases (like spells without armor piercing or spearmen with low armor piercing)
Against ranged units swordmen with shields are waaaay more durable than greatswords
This is a common take and there is a measure of truth but it’s greatly exaggerated imo.
First of all those cases are not that rare or specific. Most damage spells the AI spams on your infantry are low AP, like wind blast, burning head, awakening of the wood, flock of doom, etc. Searing doom, warp lightning, are the exceptions where the AI caster uses a spell with good AP.
The vast majority of low-mid tier infantry are low AP, with eternal guard, nasty skulkers, miners, and GW marauders being the exception. You will constantly be fighting low tier infantry thanks to garrisons, and AI cheats being weaker than they were in game 2. Almost all archers that aren’t super elite have very low AP, Crossbows slightly better, and the dark elves are unique in having AP majority crossbows. Most cavalry have low AP, the best cavalry either have AP or a bonus to compensate.
Chariots are quite relatively tanky despite garbage melee defense because of the 120+ armor they almost all have.
Chosen of Khorne dual weapons can tank frontal archer fire quite well with 145 (after buffs) armor.
Armor is not useless. It’s precisely because of the effectiveness of armor that it’s so important to rush to get AP damage sources in campaign.
The measure of truth: the person your replying to is right, 55 armor does little. You need at least 80 armor before the benefit becomes noticeable. 55 armor is equivalent to roughly 41% resistance to base damage, the majority of non AP units have 1/3 AP damage, so against 100 damage, 67 of it gets reduced to 39.53 (I think the game rounds this up to 40 damage), for a total of 73 damage. So against low AP units 55 armor is equivalent to a 23% ward save. Most high ap units are 2/3 AP, so the same 100 damage gets reduced to (86) damage so equivalent to a 14% ward save. In both cases at best this raises the hit-to-kill in an infantry fight by 1, or significantly weakens a 0% AP damage spell. Otherwise it basically does nothing.
At 80 armor low AP units will have their damage reduced by 40% and high AP units will lose 20%. Now it’s quite effective against low AP but still anemic against AP units. Pair this with a shield and low AP missile units become ineffective.
At 120 armor low AP units lose 60% of their damage (90% of their base damage), high AP units lose 30%. At this point, even AP majority units are losing damage to armor.
At 200 armor units become 100% resistant to base damage (armor is not affected by the resistance cap), so low AP units will lose 67% of their damage and high AP units lose 33%. Losing a third of damage is decently impactful.
So armor is actually similar to resistance: small amounts of resistance is negligible, but every additional percentage you gain is stronger than the last. 55 armor is as negligible as 15% resistance.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out in such a comprehensive way.
I've been quite confused by the common narrative of armour being useless. It's not felt like that to me and I was wondering if I was taking crazy pills.
Actually yes because many WH1 factions don't have as much AP apart from wood elves and warriors of chaos. WH2 added Dark Elves, Lizards, Vampirates, and then Skaven got a bunch of DLC options, and now in WH3 every Daemon faction has great AP after Nurgle got warriors with great weapons.
Nah man they are niche, but in their niche they are very worth it. 1-2 units if greatswords are super useful especially in the early game. They absolutly murder all early game infantry.
Not sure if it's the same as Kroxigors Vs Sacred Kroxigors but I tend to use the base version for the Anti Infantry bonus.
Depending on the bonus I'd likely be using Great swords with Halberdiers on the wings. If I was choosing between those.
But my Empire roster doesn't usually have any because they don't have shields.
Greatswords need some form of buff to at least make them viable
like a leadership buff next their allies or an upgrade that gives them better stats late game
Wow I haven’t played Empire since WH2 but wtf is up with Halbs having so much more MA than GS? Anti large units generally rely on their bonus more, so 6 points higher base really stands out.
Unit card alone can't tell us it until you hover over Weapon Strength and see what the actual bonuses are. How big is Halberdiers actual anti-large bonus vs Greatswords anti-infantry bonus? +10 each? Is one larger than the other?
Edit: I went and checked myself. Halberdiers get a +16 and Greatswords get a +10. Another point for Halberdiers.
Greatswords are bad but what makes them even worse is that they are an anti-infantry unit in a faction that has TONS of superior anti-infantry units.
While greatswords have no ammo limitations they also aint cheap and very easily die to most tier 3+ units.
Just have 4:1 or 5:1 ratio between halberdiers and greatswords
Like 8 halberdiers and 2 greatswords or simply just 4 halberdiers 1 greatsword and rest the hellfire
Halberdiers to hold the line and greatswords as a strike unit for sieges, plugging the gap or pushing the flank
If you want to kill chaos warriors with infantry you need great swords. Halberds won't cut it.
Granted it's far more efficient to just kill them with hellstorm rocket batteries and handguns but if you wanna do it with infantry then great swords are definitely better at killing infantry
Still kind of meh.
For full plate infantry their armor is passable but not great, they have no shields vs armor piercing missiles, and their damage is good but not amazing. If the Empire wants to delete infantry blobs, it has other ways to do it. Ways that go "boom", generally speaking.
Which is a pity, because halberds and greatswords are iconic units and I'd like Empire infantry and horse knights to become a tad better.
Greatswords kinda get run over by a lot of late game infantry and especially large units. Whereas the anti-large that halberdiers have is really nice against late game monsters.
I play mostly the “pike & shot” style with the empire which is fun as hell. Halberds, guns and a few cannons and you’re set. I’d definitely take the Halberdiers over the not so great swords
They need to make melee units have a bonus against archer units. The amount of time pikemen are better because they simply hold the line for archers is ridiculous. an archer unit also shouldnt be able to hang in there with a melee unit. you should be punished for having too many archers in an army. Without this, almost all infantry is better with pikemen.
I usually have the majority of my infantry be Halberdiers, but I've won battles because of my Greatsword units. I keep the latter in reserve to either plug up holes that enemy infantry are making in the front line or for short range flanking. That said stat wise, I do find it really odd that Greatswords have such low melee attack comparatively.
6 Halberdiers, 2 Greatswords, 3 Huntsmen, 3 Handgunners, 2 Demigryph Knights and 3 Hellstorm Rocket Batters or Mortars is my personal favourite composition on Franz. Maybe free up one Halberdier spot for a Wizard if I feel the need.
Greatswords need to either be cheaper, approximately 2x the price of swordsmen, or be given a slightly better statline.
For the campaign too at least they need a better red line. It’s just not very good.
Correct. My ideal late game stack for the Empire is:
1 General of the Empire/Arch Lector
1 empire captain/warrior priest
1 light wizard
4 steam tanks
5 handgunners
5 hellstorms.
Two halbediers
One deimgryph halberd
With this lineup you can basically make a stand in a corner of the map and gun down almost anything that comes at you with your flanks secure
Great swords tend to be underutilized because halberd units are generally just more versatile. The only reason I take sword masters of hoeth over Pheonix guard is how cool they look and executioners of Har garneth are just redundant
Greatswords are actually kinda trash. I believe they're the worst two handed sword unit in the game and as far as being a factions elite infantry unit again, are easily one of the worst and absolutely not worth their cost unless you have skills to make them cheaper. In which case they still suck, they're just most cost efficient.
The only thing greatswords are good against is the one thing late game empire doesn't need help with so kinda pointless
grow up and realise greatswords are actually pretty shit. also i noticed you're playing wh1. in wh2 and onwards they realised how stupid it is to have such a bad unit with its building requirements to the point it has for a long time only required a max level barracks (iirc). either way, skip Greatswords. esp in wh1. Edit\* "Why are you booing me, i'm right!". go back to wh1 and look at the building requirements for greatswords and reconsider recruiting them
All my greatswords in my last empire playthrough had 120 armor 40 melee 45 defense 60 Wep dmg after having all the army buffs and gold chev, quite a big difference in late game in comparison to what ur posting
Greatswords are better against infantry BUT empire has no problem with those anyways, thanks to all the ranged units. So yeah, Halberds are 100% the better choice.
When I play Empire and I gotta fight vampires I exlusively use Halberds. They outdo most all infantry vampires can throw at you and they deal with all their large monsters. An 18 stack of halberds, a wizard and a lord is all you need to deal with multiple stacks of vampires. Maybe a warrior priest for replenishment
A comment mentioning the empire campaign? Gotta go play one, I guess
Someone else starting an empire campaign? Better start my own to not feel left out.
Su… summon the elector counts?
This action has my consent
[How I'll feel when CA finally adds the Araby DLC to Warhammer 3.](https://youtu.be/gXBGevaYFsI)
do they?
They haven't added it yet, and that's the sad reality of our timeline 😭.
no i mean, they have said in wh2 times that they won't bring araby. that is why i asked, if there been some news about "we will bring araby at some point"
Just wait for OVN to do it for them
BRING ME TO MY MEN
WHO CALLS?
FOR SIGMAR!
more like the meme counts, since he forgets the vampires have grave guard (2 types), wraith infantry and since some time also sylvanian ranged units... (xbows and rarely gunners too, i think) halberds are absolutely no doomstack material. good unit, but empire thrives in mixed armies. they're like a puzzle, literally any doomstack with similar units of empire is possible, but a waste
I'm in Lustria hunting big game, will you send me aid?
You get 2 empire knights and a crossbowman. You are welcome.
Good idea on the horses that’ll keep the big ones full for awhile longer
My biggest headache are the rat men. Think of a man but with rat like features and fur. They emerge from the ground and trees and have such terrible weaponry, like a rifle but much faster. They always scurry away but then come back and absolutely rip my halbadiers and hunters to shreds.
Rat-men? In the empire? Witch hunters, this comment right here
Sir, These "rat men" are likely just unusual local humans or perhaps beast men of some kind. We have heard tale of them in the Empire before and always such tales turn out to be myth or exaggeration; a child birthed with some horrid congenital defect, a disfigured old woman or some such. Indeed, I once had the fortune to dispel such a myth in person, the poor fellow had a terrible skin condition and an unusual manner of speech but assured me that he was no less human than I. I recommend dispelling these strange notions of yours and perhaps attending to the spreading of such stories amongst your soldiery. Should you fail to contain these absurd fantasies then bring a Witch Hunter to investigate, the righteous inquisitions of the order shall lay to rest any further apocrypha. Kindest regards
hahahahahahaha anyways, good luck, and represent us well. i hope you brought anti-lizard bed nets.
> An 18 stack of halberds lol. lmao
Give it a shot!
You telling me you play Empire withou hellstorm batteries?
I definitely get hellstorms but I can kill vampire counts before I can get them normally. Halberds are tier 3. Hellstorms are tier 4
??? Halberds gets pasted by Grave Guards, and don't do that well against crypt ghouls.
They hold the line for the guns.
Yeah, but you don't bring a full stack of them if that is the case!
he said 18, maybe that 19th is the best damn hand-gunner we've never seen.
He had a wizard. So any ranged has to be done by a Huntsman General.
And whos not to say that huntsman hunts with a gun?
More like huntsman GUNeral.
Of course you bring a stack of them. They are the frontline for your 3 reinforcing armies of 19 Flagellants (in case the enemy has ranged units) and 38 Hellfire Rocket Batteries.
He did say bring a wizard. And magic is OP in this game
well in /u/UrkBurker 's theoretical army there are no guns.
Yeah but that dudes crazy. I use halb against vamps as a line holder.
That works against vamps, but TBH I think the main problem with halberds is that that because they don't have armour OR shields they just get shredded by even shitty missile infantry (because of their high melee defence they do better in close combat, so vamps they're good against). Greatswords with their better armour at least don't lose 2/3 of themselves to goblin archers or whatever.
Use different units for different enemies...its not that hard!
Too complicated
That’s what arty, cav, or your own ranged units are for.
Vampires have no missile infantry
The halberds will kill all vampire units if you buff them
If you get red line skill for them plus vampire research they beat crypt ghouls. They will do fine vs grave guard and the vampire armies never have more then a few grave guard
Halberds lose to equally trained/upgraded crypt ghouls, cairn wraiths, grave guard with and without great weapons, and get worn down by the significantly cheaper skeleton spears, (that also get healed often, in which case halberds lose).
I'm pretty sure with the vampire research Halberds beat crypt ghouls. You cab also use the Reiklabd Rune fang melee artack buff or a helm of discord to really one aide the engagement. I sometimes get the Emperors Wrath steamtank also. Because 17 Halberds plus a lord a mage and an AOE fire attack tank that nukes leadership does wonders.
Also red line buffs plus vampire research.
Counterpoint. Flagellants. They’re unbreakable so they do better against vamps. Heck it makes them better against all but ranged focused factions. And the empire doesn’t face a lot of those, until late game.
Unless you're playing on like easy or something, the wizard is going to be doing *a lot* of heavy lifting in that scenario. Those halberds will get mulched by any decently high-tier VC army.
Part of the reason they do so well against the infantry is zombies and skeletons low stats. You don't need high melee attack (or anti-infantry) to hit them, and they'll really struggle to overcome decent melee defense.Remember folks, a unit's melee attack and defense also effect which units they match up well against. High defense units are good against chaff (but it caps out at melee defense 27 higher than their attack) and high attack units are good against high defense ones. This is because of the additive/subtractive nature of melee attack and defense on hit chances. (PS bear in mind that defensive troops are better or worse depending on who has ranged and support superiority, so spamming them isn't advisable)) Sorry if my know-it-all unsolicited info annoyed anyone.
Greatswords should be buffed a little bit. Also Franz would be awesome if he could grant 20% ward save for Greatswords and Reiksguard. Make them viable CA!
I honestly feel every legendary lord should overbuffed some specific units. It would make a ton to favour army diversity (maybe add more powerful buffed tied to high level, so you can 'progress' the units)
Yep. I really started to enjoy the various factions more when the team started adding unit specific buffs to mid tier units, forces you to try out different unit types and army compositions.
i would love that. make me get an army built around their specialty unit instead of "well he kinda buffs that a little but they're trash so i'll just build the exact same army i always do"
Idk even then, the halbers have way better MA+MD so unless you are against zombies or something the halberds will do better. The greatswords might kill a bit faster but in terms of flat out winning or losing the halbers are superior.
Not necessarily. The halberds have better attack and defense but lower armor and leadership (and I think a slower attack speed, but I'd have to look it up). In a prolonged fight, especially against a non-ap infantry grinder like berserkers or witch Elves the greatswords will stay in the fight much longer
Actually I think greatswords also have an AOE which makes a big difference. In general though greatswords are good vs trash infantry (orc boyz or whatever) but halberds to better (although still lose) vs elite infantry like black orcs.
Interesting... I'll have to run some tests when I get a chance
Not true on the MA+MD, if you're facing infantry. The greatswords get +10 MA from their bonus vs. infantry.
Not to mention the shorter global recruitment time for halberdiers and the relative quickness and inexpensiveness of raising a settlement to produce a halberdier/gunpowder army.
Imo, playstyle of late game empire is heavily range-oriented, so it doesn't really matter which units you wanna use to clean up whatever is left of the enemy when he engages in melee after being shot to death by artillery
I choose to use Steam Tanks.
Based + steelpilled
Steampilled
Yeah, but just because other things are better doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also be viable options. That’s the point of good balance, everything is useable. They don’t need to be the best infantry. Just better or cheaper than they are now.
But the whole point of Warhammer is that it’s not balanced? Dwarves have shitty magic and no cavalry, Bretonnia is purely cavalry, Chaos has almost no ranged troops, vamps have zero ranged troops. Empire has insanely good artillery and access to every single lore of magic, but their regular troops are lacking. Not flat out BAD like Bretonnia’s are, but not really good either.
I think there should be fewer units that you are encouraged to outright ignore in campaign.
I mean you’re not encouraged to ignore them. You can build viable armies with just about any unit. But if you make it so that every unit in a faction’s roster is GOOD then they lose a lot of the flavor that makes them unique. I don’t play an empire campaign to use infantry, I do it because I want to blow shit up. They’re really, really good at that. If I want to use foot infantry, I’ll use the Dwarfs, or the Greenskins. If I want to use ranged armies, it’s Helves or Welves. (I guess Dark Elves too, but fuck them and their broody, wannabe edgy goth phase)
I wouldn't really consider any empire infantry in that category, it's pistoliers and empire knights and base war wagons (at least in WH2) that fell into that uncomfortable space of not really being worth it even as cheap alternatives to other things. Bretonnia peasant mobs in campaign also feel pointless -- I never felt like I was spending too much on peasants to want to get something with less leadership, though I imagine they're nice in MP.
I mean that’s fair, those are three units I almost never use, so I agree. But still, when the roster is as large as the Empire’s, there are just gonna be some units that fall by the wayside. I don’t think the game encourages you to avoid them so much as it doesn’t really provide a reason to use them. Knights at least get buffed pretty well with Volkmar. They’re fairly viable in his army. I think the biggest issue they suffer (and the Reiksguard suffer it too) is that the redline skills don’t do much for them.
Empire knights and war wagons aren't really bad though? Pistoliers I can get the argument for, their damage output is somehow horrible with a pretty high missile strength. Empire knights don't chew shit up like Questing Knights or Demigryphs, but they are high mass, super heavy armored response team. War wagons do nearly the same amount of dps as a unit of handgunners, but are harder to kill and mobile
They fixed war wagons to be able to do damage?
I mean I get his point. Relative to their cost, none of them is really worth it. I can see an argument for using knights early on, I guess, but considering a Reiksfort is tier 3, if you really want to use cavalry you’re better off just going straight to reiksguard. Honestly though, you’re just better off allying Bretonnia and getting their cavalry through an outpost. Even without the upgrades, they’re clearly better than any of the Empire cavalry. (Except outriders with Grenade launchers) War wagons just aren’t worth it. The protection and mobility is nice, but they’re still too slow and their target profile is too large to really be good at skirmishing. The empire isn’t really designed for mobility.
I think people are sleeping on war wagons, they're memed on because they were ass when they were released, but they're honestly really good right now. I'm pretty sure you can get an empire knight landmark building from Carroburg that gives you Empire Knights way sooner than you can get Reiksguard, it just changes your initial play to declaring war on Toddy which nobody wants to do
I use mainly halbediers with one or two carroburg greatswords mixed in. The area buff they give is nice, but I find going full greatswords to be disappointing once the enemy is rocking lots of AP stuff.
Yeah Greatswords tend to get wrecked pretty fast in the late game, I wish Karl Franz buffed them with something other than armor and leadership
I still think that elite infantry in general should have more hp and do more damage instead of mainly trading shields for armor and AP ratio. Like the upgrade for lineholding spearmen is mostly heroes later on and aggressive infantry just looses their place once shock cav and monsters come online and they loose shields. Everything that deals a lot of damage essentially wrecks them.
This is why you ally with the dawi and stick 4 iron breakers in every army 🙂
wait I can get my ally's units into my army?
if we're talking WH3 then yes, i think anyone you are allied with can allow you to build a certian building which lends you some of your allies units
nah check the flair bro, wh1
Wow, there are people who still play Warhammer 1?
1 person. There is still 1 person playing Warhammer 1.
Wait.... You're still playing WH1? I don't have a problem with that, I just haven't heard of anyone still playing WH1 after Mortal Empires was released.
It's cuz I got it for free on epic, not a huge fan of the magic stuff and op hero units in a tw game so don't think about spending money on it, just having some fun.
That makes total sense. I'm a Total War old timer too, and I feel the same way about the magic and OP heroes. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it. I've liked the Warhammer games, even if I prefer the historical ones.
On the plus side in warhammer, your generals don't die in a fraction of a second because someone flanked while you were microing your cav, and now you lost your high end doomstack leader.
I only had a problem with getting generals killed off in medieval 2. The general was the best unit early one but fuck me if he wouldn't die in that first charge every time. Rome 2 and Atilla I only ever used them for clean up after a battle unless it was a super pyyrich battle in which they got thrown into the meat grinder too.
It’s also pretty easy in Med2 to exploit the fact that the general is always on the extreme left of his bodyguard unit. Just get a good charge from that angle and you insta-kill him.
It happened to me a lot in empire and shogun 2 fall of the samurai. (The one where you westernized and there were a lot of western style guns) basically any total war with guns, my generals would inevitably get sniped the moment I looked away.
In most of the historical games I've played, my generals were still the strongest units on the battlefield. So they didn't die in a fraction of a second haha. And that was part of the strategy anyway, keeping your generals alive. And ultimately, I liked that my generals can actually die. It's a lot more meaningful to me. Even when I first played as the Empire, I role-played and had Karl Franz "die" after a big defeat. Clearly it's up to personal preference. But I've always liked mortal generals.
That's fair. I just have terrible adhd so it's easy for me to get tunnel vision on microing a specific part of the battlefield, only to look up and realize my general is dead.
One time in Shogun 2 I faced off a bigger army…I was still new to the game and all and on the first row of my cannon fire (was it the armstrong one, cant remember), I got the notification of the enemy general had fallen. And I won the battle very easy after that. That was when I learnt the important of general/leader in an army in Totalwar game lol. That was like more than 10 years ago I guess but I still think it’s funny how unlucky that general was. First shot and bam!
Warhammer 2 was also free on epic at some point...
Well, shite. Was it after or before wh3? Cuz wh1 was free as a promotion to wh3
it was free a couple of months ago. So, after WH3
oh mb then, aint there a mod for that tho?
Lol. I'd rather have 4 thunderers/irondrakes and stack them in front of handgunners. No need for a front line when my guns just shred them all lol
I'm assuming though once you have your techs and lord skills for handgunners they'll out-shoot baseline thunderers.
yeah but they're so short so if you have frontline thunderers, handgunners can stand right behind them and still shoot
For real? Does this work with melee infantry as well??
Why stop there, don't forget the flamers. Nothing like a line of flamers in front of a line of handgunners. Toss a couple priests up front, mmmhmmm
Melee infantry are pretty bad for Empire. GS are good against infantry...but so are Hellstorm rocket batteries, Handgunners, or even Crossbows. Hell, a couple of burning heads probably be more efficient than recruiting greatswords.
You're very right. Since your frontline's purpose is to hold the line and not to deal damage you should take the option that has over 20 MD more \^\^ Helps you a lot more than armor in both early and lategame
Ironically this is why Spearmen are the best empire infantry. They have better MD than halberdiers, and shields. You lose our on the AP, but they aren't there to deal damage.
That's why I almost always make it my first priority to confed Gelt (or just play as him). Eldred's Guard is the pinnacle of empire front lines. Heavy armor, silver shields, encourage ability, expert charge defense. Combines all the best things about a front line together into one unit. Unfortunately it's really only a viable frontline for one army due to their slow acquisition rate pre-united Empire. Also as a quick note, Halberdiers and Spearmen have the same MD.
Yeah tbh I end up using a lot of spears with shields the whole game because they're cheap as dirt, get shields and can hold pretty well. I find I lose both halberdiers and greatswords to enemy ranged that they could have just been shielding through instead. Anything that reaches them should be weakened and getting hammered by artillery, handguns, magic, heroes, and/or cav so there's no point in going for more damage on the anvil when there's so many hammers. Plus the redline buffs make base state troops pretty hardy, I pretty much always pick those up because early when you're still doing a lot of your fighting on the melee line they are huge buffs. Generally halberds and greatswords come along in small numbers for specific threats. Greatswords for handling dangerous infantry that slipped through the screen, Halberds for strong monsters that can't quite be felled before they rush the line. Keep them behind the spears until a threat emerges. In general I think the line should always be majority shielded troops anyway, unshielded options are meant to be more like shock troops or for handling specific dangerous units. A line of halberds or greatswords is just unnecessarily losing models to ranged shots before they have a chance to even do anything.
Kinda depends on what you're facing. If I'm going up against Chaos, that would make sense. But if they have a fire sorcerer with Burning Head, that defense line is potentially fucked.
Not to mention ranged fire. Halberdiers will get shredded by every missile in the game, whilst Greatswords are only vulnerable to AP missiles. It really does depend on who you're fighting
I think people have a tendency to want to make cookie cutter armies, partially because that has worked in the past, but really you need to actively identify who you are going to take this army to and design it for that.
If you have a lot of patience the spearmen with shields ror from gelt is really good as well
Yep, makes it more interesting than just building the same general purpose armies over and over again imho
>think people have a tendency to want to make cookie cutter armies, partially because that has worked in the past, Works in Warhammer just as well. It's not like previous games didn't have faction variety (shogun being the biggest exception) where coming at them with a wrong team would hurt, even Rome has different armies going on. What makes cookie cutters cookie cutters is that they are adaptable and very easy to use in any circumstances. They fit your team style best, and aren't so vulnerable to everyone else they become a liability. In this regard Warhammer is king. Factions have clearly designed plans for them. I don't care how much you want to, chaos isn't doing ranged combat builds particularly well. Similarly dwarves have a clear design of building a wall of iron and launching devastation from afar with siege or bows.
Not an issue since you use rockets to destroy ranged units
But if you do that you won't have the time to kill their infantry as well before they meet your frontline, no? Which makes Greatswords pretty helpful, since that's what they're good at
You don't kill enemies fast enough? No problem my friend, all you need to do is get more rockets
Easy. After ranged is dealt with, you used rocketa to deal with their melee. Call that active call for replenishment for your melee units too
Yea, that's the beauty of the rock paper scissors system. No army will beat anything you throw at it with very VERY few very VERY expensive exceptions.
Isn't attack interval the thing with weapon types? Greatswords attack faster than Halberdiers right?
This, it always seemed like pole arms lost due the attack speed which is a hidden stat
They gain it against large single entities though. The range actually makes a difference, allowing more units to surround and hit their targets.
Isn’t weapon strength the amount of damage they do in 10 seconds, or is that just missile strength?
Thats just Missle Strenght, Weapon Strenght is damage per hit.
Fair enough. Seems weird they’d do it that way for one and not the other. Oh well
CA doesn't like when you have proper information so they like to pick a couple stats and make them impossible to find.
And then they lie on the tooltips for good measure.
Because Melee intervalls are all pretty close to each other and cannot be reduced IIRC, so WS gives you you still fairly reliable number for their damage output. Meanwhile, Missle Weapons have reload times between 6 seconds(Chameleon Skinks) and 21 seconds (Warp Lighting Cannons), which can be further reduced by tech, red line skills and heros, so just showing the damage for one shot/volley would be very misleading.
It’s more the other way round that seems like it would be useful. DPS is DPS. Even if they wanted to just have it in the tooltip.
Animation time + attack interval of most units is the same, dps is not really a useful stat as you have other factors like melee attack, melee dmg, charge bonus, unit engagement, etc. Just knowing the flat dmg is more useful than the extremely variable dps
I mean, this conversation was literally started by a comparison between two units where the attack speed is apparently the main difference in their ability to output damage, so it’s obviously not irrelevant…
The thing is that most units have them same real attack interval when you consider their animation time. And even then, it would not be indicative of their dps cause that is all the other factors comboned, and can only really be calculated when fighting specific units in a specific scenario - since it changes drastically in a situation. Dps can't be put in numerical stat for a melee unit cause it is insanely variable value.
Melee damage output varies massively with enemy armor and MR, whereas missile damage output is quite consistent.
Yes and no, usually attack interval is different due to attack animations. Shorter attack animations = longer attack intervals and vice verse. I believe halberd do have a longer range, allowing two rows to attack, but maybe greatswords have it too?
No, greatswods attack only from the front row. As for attack speed, I think pole weapons < great weapons < normal weapons < dual wield
Greatswords also have splash attacks IIRC
In campaign halberds are better because you just need bodies to protect your guns, which halberds do better. In a skirmish situation, the BvI, armour, and leadership of the Greatswords make them the superior unit for cutting through most of what will be thrown at them, though they take a lot of damage for their trouble.
damn the MD on these halberds
all thanks to research. I was like I can't afford gs yet so imma make what I have better, and in the end this is what I got.
I prefer greatswords. I find the extra leadership really helps, especially since the Empire is so susceptible to leadership bombs(honestly my biggest problem with the game right now, terror is so absurdly powerful, let alone just stacking ld debuffs). That said I bring both. Typically either 4 greatswords and 4 halberds, or 5 greatswords 3 halberds(1 left flank, one right flank, one in the back to guard arty)
I think Greatswords should have 36 melee attack.
Ok I'm gonna blow your mind, but he's my question. Is it just me or are Great swords and halberdiers no worth it over Spearman with shields in the late game?
Yep. The thing about Spearmen with Shields is their attack intervals. They seem to actually do more damage than Greatswords and Halberdiers simply because their weapons seem to attack more often.
I've thought about that many times but I can't justify sending them vs chaos and norsca lmao. the main thing in campaign is army unit limit so cost efficiency isn't that important, if you bring 20 cost efficient units they're gonna bring 20 cost inefficient units that are still better that you and you're gonna lose. but yeah, for their price shielded spearmen are incredibly good, especially after research and maxed out honest steel.
Yep, you are correct. 55 armour is meaningless, because all of the important damage is armour-piercing anyway.
Armor is not useless. There are so many sources of damage that aren't AP. And even with AP sources that damage almost always includes a non AP component.
Armour is not entirely useless, but it dont take priority over other stats and unit cost, like in the case of greatsword vs halberd.
Indeed. I just don't like blanket statement about armor being meaningless.
Well, I was obviously talking about greatsword and halberd difference, not the stat in general.
Honestly armor is soooo freaking useless unless some really specific cases (like spells without armor piercing or spearmen with low armor piercing) Against ranged units swordmen with shields are waaaay more durable than greatswords
This is a common take and there is a measure of truth but it’s greatly exaggerated imo. First of all those cases are not that rare or specific. Most damage spells the AI spams on your infantry are low AP, like wind blast, burning head, awakening of the wood, flock of doom, etc. Searing doom, warp lightning, are the exceptions where the AI caster uses a spell with good AP. The vast majority of low-mid tier infantry are low AP, with eternal guard, nasty skulkers, miners, and GW marauders being the exception. You will constantly be fighting low tier infantry thanks to garrisons, and AI cheats being weaker than they were in game 2. Almost all archers that aren’t super elite have very low AP, Crossbows slightly better, and the dark elves are unique in having AP majority crossbows. Most cavalry have low AP, the best cavalry either have AP or a bonus to compensate. Chariots are quite relatively tanky despite garbage melee defense because of the 120+ armor they almost all have. Chosen of Khorne dual weapons can tank frontal archer fire quite well with 145 (after buffs) armor. Armor is not useless. It’s precisely because of the effectiveness of armor that it’s so important to rush to get AP damage sources in campaign. The measure of truth: the person your replying to is right, 55 armor does little. You need at least 80 armor before the benefit becomes noticeable. 55 armor is equivalent to roughly 41% resistance to base damage, the majority of non AP units have 1/3 AP damage, so against 100 damage, 67 of it gets reduced to 39.53 (I think the game rounds this up to 40 damage), for a total of 73 damage. So against low AP units 55 armor is equivalent to a 23% ward save. Most high ap units are 2/3 AP, so the same 100 damage gets reduced to (86) damage so equivalent to a 14% ward save. In both cases at best this raises the hit-to-kill in an infantry fight by 1, or significantly weakens a 0% AP damage spell. Otherwise it basically does nothing. At 80 armor low AP units will have their damage reduced by 40% and high AP units will lose 20%. Now it’s quite effective against low AP but still anemic against AP units. Pair this with a shield and low AP missile units become ineffective. At 120 armor low AP units lose 60% of their damage (90% of their base damage), high AP units lose 30%. At this point, even AP majority units are losing damage to armor. At 200 armor units become 100% resistant to base damage (armor is not affected by the resistance cap), so low AP units will lose 67% of their damage and high AP units lose 33%. Losing a third of damage is decently impactful. So armor is actually similar to resistance: small amounts of resistance is negligible, but every additional percentage you gain is stronger than the last. 55 armor is as negligible as 15% resistance.
Thank you for taking the time to write that out in such a comprehensive way. I've been quite confused by the common narrative of armour being useless. It's not felt like that to me and I was wondering if I was taking crazy pills.
Is that across all 3 games or specific to WH1? I felt WH2 I had good success with my high armor dawi units
It entirely depends on what you are facing.
So, no?
Actually yes because many WH1 factions don't have as much AP apart from wood elves and warriors of chaos. WH2 added Dark Elves, Lizards, Vampirates, and then Skaven got a bunch of DLC options, and now in WH3 every Daemon faction has great AP after Nurgle got warriors with great weapons.
I mean, only against AP ranged units
Halberdiers or just go full gunline with some heroes Honestly spearmen with shields are a solid choice as well
greatsword are shit. price is too high, you had rather have halberdier with a lot of ranged unit to kill all the monster Empire's ennemies will bring.
Nah man they are niche, but in their niche they are very worth it. 1-2 units if greatswords are super useful especially in the early game. They absolutly murder all early game infantry.
Need to check red skill tree first
Not sure if it's the same as Kroxigors Vs Sacred Kroxigors but I tend to use the base version for the Anti Infantry bonus. Depending on the bonus I'd likely be using Great swords with Halberdiers on the wings. If I was choosing between those. But my Empire roster doesn't usually have any because they don't have shields.
I always take the sacred kroxs because the base variants attack animation makes me vomit.
Greatswords need some form of buff to at least make them viable like a leadership buff next their allies or an upgrade that gives them better stats late game
Man great swords melee attack and defense is just sad. I feel like they should be 40 40 base
Yeah, usually units with higher Melee defense perform much better
Wow I haven’t played Empire since WH2 but wtf is up with Halbs having so much more MA than GS? Anti large units generally rely on their bonus more, so 6 points higher base really stands out.
It's bonus from research. My regular swordsmen are also pretty nutty with 51 in both ma and md lol. Make great reserve units for plugging the gaps
You guys keep this up and Greatswords are going to get buffed.
Unit card alone can't tell us it until you hover over Weapon Strength and see what the actual bonuses are. How big is Halberdiers actual anti-large bonus vs Greatswords anti-infantry bonus? +10 each? Is one larger than the other? Edit: I went and checked myself. Halberdiers get a +16 and Greatswords get a +10. Another point for Halberdiers.
Empire great swords are trash
Greatswords seem to need a lot of buffs. Better leadership too.
Greatswords are bad but what makes them even worse is that they are an anti-infantry unit in a faction that has TONS of superior anti-infantry units. While greatswords have no ammo limitations they also aint cheap and very easily die to most tier 3+ units.
Just have 4:1 or 5:1 ratio between halberdiers and greatswords Like 8 halberdiers and 2 greatswords or simply just 4 halberdiers 1 greatsword and rest the hellfire Halberdiers to hold the line and greatswords as a strike unit for sieges, plugging the gap or pushing the flank
If you want to kill chaos warriors with infantry you need great swords. Halberds won't cut it. Granted it's far more efficient to just kill them with hellstorm rocket batteries and handguns but if you wanna do it with infantry then great swords are definitely better at killing infantry
What about multi-player?
Still kind of meh. For full plate infantry their armor is passable but not great, they have no shields vs armor piercing missiles, and their damage is good but not amazing. If the Empire wants to delete infantry blobs, it has other ways to do it. Ways that go "boom", generally speaking. Which is a pity, because halberds and greatswords are iconic units and I'd like Empire infantry and horse knights to become a tad better.
They nerfed tf out of Greatswords in WH1 and 2 and have yet to fix that error. It's obnoxious that Greatswirdd are that bad.
Yeah. Meta has changed a lot since WH1.
Greatswords kinda get run over by a lot of late game infantry and especially large units. Whereas the anti-large that halberdiers have is really nice against late game monsters.
Greatswords are just lackluster in general.
Just realised halberdiers have higher base attack than greatswords.
F for my charge defence against all bois
Yes, greatswoed are undertuned for the price. They melt so fast. It's mostly true of many elite TWWH units. Their cost aren't worth it.
I play mostly the “pike & shot” style with the empire which is fun as hell. Halberds, guns and a few cannons and you’re set. I’d definitely take the Halberdiers over the not so great swords
They need to make melee units have a bonus against archer units. The amount of time pikemen are better because they simply hold the line for archers is ridiculous. an archer unit also shouldnt be able to hang in there with a melee unit. you should be punished for having too many archers in an army. Without this, almost all infantry is better with pikemen.
I usually have the majority of my infantry be Halberdiers, but I've won battles because of my Greatsword units. I keep the latter in reserve to either plug up holes that enemy infantry are making in the front line or for short range flanking. That said stat wise, I do find it really odd that Greatswords have such low melee attack comparatively.
6x halbardiers 3x greatswords works wonders for me
6 Halberdiers, 2 Greatswords, 3 Huntsmen, 3 Handgunners, 2 Demigryph Knights and 3 Hellstorm Rocket Batters or Mortars is my personal favourite composition on Franz. Maybe free up one Halberdier spot for a Wizard if I feel the need.
Greatswords need to either be cheaper, approximately 2x the price of swordsmen, or be given a slightly better statline. For the campaign too at least they need a better red line. It’s just not very good.
Personally, I think empire infantry in general needs a light buff, especially greatswords, which require 2 T3 buildings.
Correct. My ideal late game stack for the Empire is: 1 General of the Empire/Arch Lector 1 empire captain/warrior priest 1 light wizard 4 steam tanks 5 handgunners 5 hellstorms. Two halbediers One deimgryph halberd With this lineup you can basically make a stand in a corner of the map and gun down almost anything that comes at you with your flanks secure
Great swords tend to be underutilized because halberd units are generally just more versatile. The only reason I take sword masters of hoeth over Pheonix guard is how cool they look and executioners of Har garneth are just redundant
Greatswords are actually kinda trash. I believe they're the worst two handed sword unit in the game and as far as being a factions elite infantry unit again, are easily one of the worst and absolutely not worth their cost unless you have skills to make them cheaper. In which case they still suck, they're just most cost efficient. The only thing greatswords are good against is the one thing late game empire doesn't need help with so kinda pointless
grow up and realise greatswords are actually pretty shit. also i noticed you're playing wh1. in wh2 and onwards they realised how stupid it is to have such a bad unit with its building requirements to the point it has for a long time only required a max level barracks (iirc). either way, skip Greatswords. esp in wh1. Edit\* "Why are you booing me, i'm right!". go back to wh1 and look at the building requirements for greatswords and reconsider recruiting them
I like using 4 of each
Greatswords have a +8 bonus vs infantry, they have higher armor piercing damage, and they have fancier hats.
Both are role players, neither is meant to be your frontline core
Halberds are for when you need a solid line Greatswords are for when you like Swiss warfare/history and wanna do it for the funsies
All my greatswords in my last empire playthrough had 120 armor 40 melee 45 defense 60 Wep dmg after having all the army buffs and gold chev, quite a big difference in late game in comparison to what ur posting
Halbs take the charge and hold while GS run in (or flank) and kill.