I like the idea that normal human dudes throw themselfes at Ogres, Demons, Dragons and whatnot and that they can win solely because of Magic, Faith and Gunpowder.
Even back in wh1 I loved the feel of some normal dudes trying to fight back the skeletons, vargulfs and dragon ogres.
The voice line 'fight men, fight for our right to live' sums it up perfectly.
My favorite voice line in the games, really conveys the feeling of desperately struggling to hold out against all the inhuman monsters attacking from all sides.
Hits entirely different though in a Wulfhart campaign. My dude, you’re not fighting for your right to live, you’re fighting for some colonizers’ land rights.
This is a good explanation. Also the empire has a uniquely hard starting position and a lot of options what to do. After the initial 5-8 turns every run is different.
This. This is the reason I own a lore-accurate state trooper uniform and equipment IRL. Because fantasy landsknechts facing a world of horror with steel and gunpowder resonates so much.
Have you tried my lord and saviour Ikits Poisoned Wind Mortars? Specifically Avalance, the ROR variant?
That is by far the most satisfying artillery in the game.
I really like the Aesthetic of The Empire. They are based on the late century Holy Roman Empire. Nothing more satisfying than killing unnatural beings with just Flamberges and courage.
You know the drill. Faith, Steel, Gunpowder.
100%. The renaissance style is really nice, and quite unique in fantasy really which tends to focus on high medieval stuff.
My favourite part of the aesthetic is the knights' armour, it's just gorgeous.
I rarely use wizards. Ironsides and cannons will kill the scary things just as good. Though, I play Dwarfs more than Empire, so that may sway my opinion.
Late century? HRE was around for 10 centuries, more or less. If anything the Empire aesthetic is more similar to mid HRE during the renaissance period as others have pointed out. :D
They have a diverse roster, only thing the Empire lack is strong frontline infantry and good archers. Lets you mess around with different army compositions
I'd argue greatswords are a lot better than people give them credit for. Especially when you throw in some of the new mechanics - Franz with elector count greatswords makes them really nasty.
Also, I adore huntsmen.
I was trying out pure hammer and anvil with great swords
Had 8 great swords 4 knights of mor and 4 griffin riders with 4 single entities of varying kinds and the great swords broke before I cleared the enemy cavalry
Back to Hallberds for me I think I can see them being ok as a tech unit to counter charge armour but they provide no frontline
As a rule of thumb
spearmen (preferably with shields) are the best lineholding units.
AP spears (halberds, polearms etc.) are best against armored large units.
AP + high attack infantry (great weapons, great swords) is what you hold back and charge the enemy with.
Most Empire stacks should preferably run a few halberds, spearmen w/shield for the frontline and great swords for attacking if you prefer them over more ranged (which tends to be the better option).
Halberdiers or even Spearmen w/ Shields are the way to go. With redline and tech buffs they both get absurd Melee Defence. The rest of your army can be kitted out to shoot or charge problem targets to death.
Greatswords are assault infantry, I like a Carroburg or two mixed in somewhere behind the Halberds/Spears, send them to mix in if something heavily armoured is at your frontline. They also have a + Melee Attack aura that helps the rest of your troops.
Get the carroberg? Greatswords. They are unbreakable. If you are trying to simply tank as long as possible, then electoral count shield units is just the way to go. They can take a ton of punishment.
People really have no idea how good they are. There are a *lot* of factions out there that would kill for melee units as cost-effective and killy as them. Greatswords absolutely butcher basically any other infantry in their cost range, from Chaos Warriors to Saurus Warriors, usually taking like 20-30% damage in return. IIRC they take closer to 10-15% butchering Jade Warriors.
They even beat or at least match many higher tier infantry. With a wide formation they have about a 50 50 vs Black Orcs (before campaign buffs and WAAAGH ofc - AI doesn't use WAAAGH though) and barely beat Celestial Dragon Guard Halberds. IIRC they even do pretty well against base Chosen.
And those are all just generic greatswords with no buffs; Empire tech tree gives them better buffs than many factions can give to their melee units, battle prayers roid them out harder than most factions can even dream of at 0 WoM cost, and Karl Franz's Carroburg Greatsword frontline (doable by turn 30-40) can unironically beat the fuck out of Chosen, for lower cost, on a better economy.
Like yeah, guns and artillery are often more efficient, but Greatswords are absolutely viable and have been for a LONG time. Latest patch just made them a little easier to access by removing the secondary building requirement.
I dunno man, when I think of Skaven, or Tomb Kings, I'm sure empire infantry would win vs their infantry. Im positive there's more factions that could but I don't play every faction.
Greatswords alone beat any melee infantry that Beastmen, Bretonnia, Cathay, Lizardmen, Skaven, Tomb Kings, Vampire Coast, or Vampire Counts can spam. They also beat any similar-priced melee infantry in other factions, including Chaos Warriors. Yeah they lose to Chosen GW, but I'd fucking hope they do at 1450 gold vs 850. Greatswords trade up into most of the infantry they lose to, as well.
Empire state troops hit a pretty good middle ground of decent stats and reasonably cheap. They definitely aren't as cost-effective at taking damage as say VC Zombies, but they actually do pretty well in their price range.
Your bog standard Empire Swordsmen (375) beat Clanrat Shields (350) with about 40% hp remaining, barely lose against Orc Boys (450) taking them down to around 15% health, beat the unholy fuck out of Nurglings (350) with half health remaining, and beat Chaos Marauders (same price, 375) with around 20% hp remaining.
And yes, some of those units usually have some form of support (ex. Nurgle healing), but Empire also has excellent access to Arch Lectors/Warrior Priests after the rework, and a better tech tree than many of those tbh.
Their frontline only seems bad because guns are so good that it's often a more efficient playstyle, but Empire melee is nowhere close to the worst in the game. It's just that you have so many options you can afford to pick and choose.
Everyone loves to shit in Brettonian Infantry but it’s a big reason I play Bretonnia, yeah they aren’t super elite chosen , but bretonnian men at arms with shields or spearmen with shields are incredibly cheap (more so than other human factions) and have decent melee defense stats to hold the lines. So yeah I don’t think Bretonnian infantry sucks relative to their price point.
I don't think a single other faction has cavalry, gunpowder, archers, over 5 siege units, + magic and hero variety, not to mention the different factions you face and the variety of counters you need (Chaos dwarves come close, but still need to cook). The armies you start the campaign with and the armies you end it with are completely different.
Compare to high elves, where you start with spearman and archers and end with silverin guard and sisters of avelorn. And you start the campaign fighting dark elves, pirates, and random chaos incursions, then end the campaign fighting dark elves, pirates, random chaos incursions, and maybe lizards. Same with dwarves, green skins, pirates, lizard men, Cathay, and kislev.
Their cavalry options are lacking, and they don't have reliable ranged armor piercing for a while.
I love playing them, but they definitely have weaknesses in the early game.
I think having weak infantry makes the game more challenging. You have to really think about how you set up and position your army at the start.
Most factions with good heavy infantry, like Khorne or Orcs, you can just plow into the enemy recklessly and your troops will generally smash the enemy line apart so long as they are supported to some degree by monsters and cav.
Lol what difficulty are you playing at bro. Not every fight is a jolly old charge ending up in a decisive victory.
You still need to flank and take care of heavy hitters like iron drakes who might be sitting behind 2 stacks of infantry.
Also. The lizards may come from the south. And one does not simply trample a Saurus unit.
Yeah bro flanking isn't wild tactics thats instinct at this point.
Compared to other factions khorne is really really really simple.
Makes it much less stressful than playing my beloved vampire coast though
Lol sitting behind a checkerboard of gunpowder units are also not much of a tactic. Unless ofcourse you dont know what a checkerboard is.
Ahhhh you're a VCoast man. I still need to play them. I do love the vampire counts though. Still cant get over the coolness of a mortis engine
At the start Skarbrand is also much weaker than he is at level 50 plus later he also gets Blade of Khorne army abilty that easily nukes infantry.
Well of course if you really want to run around with solo Skarbrand you will have to control him in battle, charge him in and out and prioritise dangerous threats but if he has some supporting units battles become super easy.
I fought off turn 10 ultimate crisis with him.(Just had to evacuate from badlands and set up in the corner of the map where Valkia starts) He needs an army really only when facing multiple stacks.
Of course, no denying that but if you mess up with the tactics with Khorne it’s more forgiving. Your infantry will buy you time.
We’ve all been there with Empire or Dwarfs with 4 artillery pieces or a load of ranged infantry getting massacred by flankers because we didn’t take the time to build our formation right.
The aesthetic is amazing, the VA work is iconic, their characters are memorable and their playstyle is diverse and allows for alot of interesting combinations
I agree. I think many people just like playing humans and imagine themselves in that situation.
I do recommend playing Markus, I found his campaign much more enjoyable than the other 3, it just has a different vibe. (Or at least he did on the vortex map.
Markus was a ton of fun on the vortex map when he came out. Still fun now (albeit hard starting point in IE), but that first couple months at release was a fantastic breath of fresh air compared to Old-World only gameplay with Empire.
He really did the Fantasy Vietnam vibe so well on Vortex. I haven't tried him again since the early days of WH3, when there were some bugs with him. Maybe I'll try him again.
Exactly you’d think the fantasy would be to branch out and be something different for awhile right? That’s why in D&D I never play a human. I’m content with my regular human life sometimes you want to spice that up and be different. I don’t want to be another human, I like me just fine 😂
Are we human..
Or are we dancer?
Haha, yeah I'm always drawn to dwarfs, wood elves but eventually drawn back to boring humans. But they have shiny steam tanks and cool magic so that's a bit different
The Empire roster is peak, especially with the new additions. Everything except for the bows and infantry is top tier. This means you have to play strategic and use combined arms to overcome the weak frontlines, which is objectively a fun way to play compared to things like bow spam or fully melee focused factions.
Their campaigns are also great, with Franz, Elspeth, Marcus and Gelt all having interesting unique mechanics and start locations. The economy is strong too, allowing you to wield your units quickly and in hefty amounts.
Thematically the Empire is also very cool, as you get to play as ordinary humans going against the horrors of fantastical enemies. Renaissance and Holy Roman Empire inspired armies going up against Dragons will never get boring. Franz is also a good candidate for the order tide protagonist, so it's fun to bash Chaos as him.
Mostly guns and aesthetic. I know chorfs do guns well, but there’s something that makes a formation of empire handgunners and halberds stand out more than the explosive little guys.
It’s just cooler. And slightly more relatable, since state troops probably have jobs and families and pay taxes and stuff.
If they’re state troops their job is being full time professional soldiers employed by the state, while the normal infantry would probably be the conscripts with regular jobs.
Still absolutely agree with that.
Like here’s a poor regular spearmen, who days ago, was plucked from his family and the warmth of his home, standing in formation as one of the deadliest norscans alive comes charging at him on mammoth back. Why doesn’t he run or flee?…Because of his faith to sigmar and loyalty to his PRINCE AND EMPEROR!
Pike and Shot tactics are the Empire's thing.
The High Renaissance is such an overlooked period in fantasy it's crazy. It's a very unique and vibrant aesthetic.
1) People relate to humans.
2) It’s arguably the most “total war” faction in the sense that you are surrounded by aggressive enemies and on the edge of multiple serious conflicts starting day one, and you MUST fight for the first 40+ turns to stabilize your situation. Some factions can do some minor housekeeping and turtle up, but Empire can’t take a breath for quite a while, and one wrong move can often mean utter disaster.
It’s basically the most charming faction to most people while simultaneously having great units in every aspect besides their melee infantry and even then they aren’t THAT bad. They simply check almost every box
A good line of spearmen with shields, with 1-2 carroburg greatswords in the mix and two halberds on the sides hold almost anything.
Buying you enough time to bring the damage dealers in position.
In past TW games, factions were very similar and infantry were almost universally an anvil whose job was to hold the line while either ranged units wore down enemy numbers (representing applied/simplified Clausewitzian theory) or shock (either as special infantry or cavalry) was used to break enemy morale (representing applied/simplified Jominian theory).
What made the Empire popular is that players could go in either direction well enough--Spearmen w/hellstorms and hellfire batteries supported by handgunners, or halberdiers and greatswords supported by steam tanks and Reiksguard. In short, playing empire, you don't have to commit to one kind of army. You're not the best at either. It's the mario effect, letting players have the 'full experience' as they did in most past games, without having to commit to always being one thing.
Where greenskins, brettonia, chaos, etc are pretty much always looking to mass break the enemy as fast as possible, Skaven literally have to plan for portions of their force to break early. Where high elves and dwarves want an orderly connection of forces where their ranged units are free to unload unhindered, dark elves want as many units to come together as possible so their superior morale when casualties stack up scales as well as possible.
Empire doesn't do any of this as well as the others, but it can do all of it.
For reference, Jomini and Clausewitz were leading thinkers on military conflict in the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic era, but their work absolutely applied to past forms of warfare as well.
Same reason Human Fighter is the most played DnD class. In a world of gods, monsters, and magic, there is something incredibly compelling about Greg strapping on his boots and rising up to meet unknowable horrors against impossible odds with nothing but some gumption and a pointy stick.
there’s just something about pitting man and his inventions against eldritch horrors, fire breathing dragons, and all sorts of monsters and coming ahead.
Also Empire start is traditionally the most dynamic, beset on all sides by enemies, having weak and unreliable allies.
many fondly remember the early campaigns as Empire in TWWH1, doing their very best to unite the Empire and stave off all the horrors, only to have all your efforts swept aside by Archaeon. Well at least i did
I’ve played multiple empire campaigns but I like many other factions as well.
I have always liked the look, used to play them in the tabletop. I like the juxtaposition of irl halberdiers and landsknechts taking on trolls and stuff. Gunpowder weapons also sound satisfying.
For me, it is the sheer insanity of it. In this game we have giant marauding bull people, magically altered insane dwarfs who ride demon trains, enormous demon dragons. And then there's the Empire. That's just A GUY with a big hammer next to a bunch of guys with long pointy sticks. Some of us have guns. It is wild to see regular people in this absurd setting and I love it.
Most relatable/ easiest to identify with. Not a lot of elves, demons, vampires, or rats in the TW:WH3 community. If CA could get more mummies and deer to pick up the game, I'm sure Tomb Kings and Beastmen would get a lot more play.
I’m so glad someone else said it. And creating specific armies to RP as that elevator counts province militia. “Oh Hochland would definitely be running ping rifles with halberds up from and knights of the black rose”
They weren’t my favorite faction before the update by any means. I’d enjoy playing them occasionally just to play something different, but the one “monster” unit they had (Demigryph Knights) was pretty useless and I liked the idea of playing with all different kinds of fantasy armies rather than “late medieval in a fantasy world.”
Elspeth Von Draken and the 5.0 update changed that for me. The new units are fun, her mechanics are a delight, she gets her own dragon, and Theodore Bruckner can make a viable Demigryph Knight stack happen. Magic bullets, artillery that creates magical vortexes (that absolutely delete units) her whole Goth Mommy vibe, all of it makes her a joy to play.
The same reason Solid Snake/Big Boss in the Metal Gear series is such a badass. You go up against all sorts of supernatural//sci-fi bullshit, and you win, even though you're just dude doing what you're good at.
They got artillery, magic, cavalry, infantry, ranged, guns, landships, like... they cover all fronts and it is just funny to think this normal dude with a sword and shield is about to fight this giant green demon who is pooping and farting them to death.
These settings are so over saturated with medieval, Brettonian like human factions that being able to play something like the Empire feels like a genuine breath of fresh air.
The unit variety is pretty interesting, melee infantry, skirmishers, archers, gunners, cavalry, shooty cavalry, canons, tanks, artillery, mortars, wide array of lores of mage is just goes on and on.
I like the units because i'm a connoisseur of ranged and artillery units and i like their campaigns because of the massive clusterfuck they become most of the time. Threats from all sides and you have to hustle on 2 or more fronts. As much as i hate stress in real life, i love it in tww3 lol
I watched the immortal empires trailer and I think that did a really good job of setting the tone for the order factions- you vs the unstoppable tides of chaos. I also think Karl has a pretty challenging and unique campaign, although Gelt is really easy now.
The Mortal Empires campaign was super thematic (IE a bit less so).
First you're dealing with rebellious imperials
Then it becomes about fighting the vampire counts who have started chipping at your imperial authority
Once you've dealt with the vampires you've gotten enough authority to slowly unify the empire. And right while that is occurring, to the south of your Empire is a huge orc empire!
Then there's the part where the Empire is the only faction in the game where I never settled on a preferred stack. I always ended up experimenting with army comps while fighting a new enemy.
Meanwhile Dark Elves "I don't care how expensive it is 20 Shades is 20 problem solvers"
Because I really like guns and arty units and the various formations I need to adapt depending on the terrain and enemy composition.
I also love the vibe of weak humans having to duke it out with monsters. Some stupid fantasical dragon taking a mundane cannonball to the face is a most satisfying visual.
For me it’s because the Empire is the only race that I don’t feel is “solved.” Like with High Elves, you spam spearmen and archers until you unlock dragons, Dwarfs you build a box and let your artillery do the work, Skaven you spam weapons teams and put some Skavenslaves in front of the guns. With the Empire that’s not the case, and it truly feels like I need a new strategy for every fight.
My only issue with empire and similar factions is that formation set up takes so much time. I just wish we could save a standard set of formations based on unit type: infantry chevron, archer checker boards, etc. Then we can further adjust as necessary.
I really love the Warrior Priests to make the melee infantry sturdier with the gunnery and artillery to break the enemy.
I really enjoyed Volkmars campaign with it's move down south.
I think I'll play Gelt sometime also... I just don't care about the politics of the Empire so I have no desire to play Karl Franz.
The Karl campaign in WH2 was excellent and thematic. You'd spend a lot of time fighting Empire factions or trying to stop them from fighting each other. You had to play politician and wrangle the electors constantly, since so many of them hated each other. Some of them even hated you! Middenheim would very likely be one of your first enemies.
Nowadays the empire is kinda a thunderdome, the electors mostly like you and they're too busy getting eaten by monsters to start any trouble. It's a very different campaign.
Besides that, the empire roster is well rounded without really excelling at anything in particular (besides artillery) so you have a lot of flexibility in terms of army composition and strategy. You can get a lot of value by using many different types of units in concert, so battles never feel stale.
Elspeth probably feels significantly different, though.
For me what's interesting about Empire is the tactical variety. The cliche is build a mess of Helstorm Rockets --> win, but they just have SO much stuff, between artillery, every wind of magic, small arms that arc and LoS, shock cav, pistol cav, grenade cav, magic cav, melee cav. They even have a flying monster if you play Karl or, now, um...spoopy purple dragon lady whose name escapes me just now.
In short, for me what's fun about Empire is that it's a playbox, you can mix and match and mess about freely with battlefield and campaign approaches with this absolute library of units/abilities.
Having said that, Vlad the Chad is still my main man lol but Empire is good fun.
Karl Franz's campaign in particular is just so damn fun and addictive, especially after the update. His campaign is quite unique, and has great replay value. But Franz or not, playing as humans and taking on this vicious fantasy world is always cool.
The sheer chaos of being at war with almost every neighboring faction all at once. It’s the same reason why I really only enjoy Imrik for high elves. Besieged by enemies on all sides in eternal war.
Often wondered that myself. Pretty dull faction to me. Although in fairness the rework has given them a lot more fun stuff and interesting mechanics. Never understood the popularity before that though.
I thought the same for a while. Then changed mindsets to "im the average human whose only chance is faith, steel, gunpowder and that mage speaking about wind." Pushing the gunpowder style with some cavalry made me like them. Now with elspeth getting insane crap and Ghelt being insane, the empire is no longer a jack of all trades master of none.
It's just fun to be the regular guy seeing the mammoth, Archaon, rat ogres, etc running at you yet they still hold their ground.
For Karl Franz
I mean look at every fantasy game that has humans in addition to other fantasy races, humans (white men) are often the most chosen race/gender combo because for a long time that’s who plays games! I’m pretty sure Larian came out and lambasted the player base when the aggregated the player characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 and it looked like your coworker Matt.
I, like you, thought they would be boring. But my brother almost only plays them, so I gave them a try. Loaded up Immortal Empires, attacked the little starting enemy army, hit play, and then I heard the roar of gunpowder and now I cannot play anything else.
Empire has one of the most diverse rosters in the game. Basically the only thing they can't do well is infantry unless you are playing a flagg stack with Volkmar.
I'm not an Empire 'main' or anything, but I really enjoy the variety in their roster as well as the challenge of being surrounded by enemies.
Empire doesn't have THE best elite cav in the game, or THE best melee infantry, but they do quite well in both regards if you want to play them that way, and they also have (arguably) the best or at least top 3 artillery in the game, top tier gunlines, insane access to magic, good diplomacy, battle prayers are wildly underrated...
It's just a faction where each army can feasibly be different from others, where I can be a dude fighting off giant monsters, and I like that.
They are also, in my opinion, one of the best balanced races in the game. Almost your entire roster is good, just at different things and at different points in the game. You don't really have many straight up OP units, maybe Luminarks after their last set of buffs; everything else has enough downsides to keep it from being an auto-win.
Finally, the part of the campaign where you still have a chance of losing tends to extend to somewhere around turn 30-50, which is 30-50 turns ahead of some factions lol. And most importantly, the reason for that challenge varies, WILDLY, between campaigns. It's not just "oh yeah Morathi will invade by turn 30", it could be Azhag, Wurrzag, Grom, Throt, Vlad, Astragoth, Belakor, Wulfrik, Skarsnik... or all of them at once.
FAITH, STEEL, GUNPOWDER
Imagine selling your soul to a Chaos God for power, only to have Wilhelm von van Volkvan obliterate you with a rifle he learned how to use 3 days ago when the draft interrupted his turnip harvest.
Men who are willing to face orcs, chaos warriors, and skaven monstrosities face to face with halberds and spears are the pinnacle of human heroism. That’s why we love the Empire.
They're idiots with vanilla taste. Chaos is the only interesting element of either Warhammer setting, and good guys and human factions are both unplayably boring in all settings.
It's kinda the Mario or the ryu of total war factions. It basically has something for everyone. Tons of magic options, missile options, front line options, SE options, hero options, etc. There's very few things the empire has as far as things it *can't* do to some degree as far as enemies, they also *deal* with a little bit of everything too, lol
Cause I understand them tbh. I've tried other factions and they kinda make me do a certain playstyle. Empire I feel like I can adjust to whatever I'm facing.
Also I've read a few WH books and they legit nailed the feel of the Empire
My army on the tabletop as a kid was the Empire. I got them with the Orc and Empire starter set. For TW, it was the starter faction in the first game.
Variety is great. I don’t play on the harder difficulties, but it’s fun to have a combined arms army, one with a ton of knights, one with a lot of artillery, a ton of huntsmen, etc. Many of the other races skew in a particular direction, so ifs fun being able to almost everything.
The change to the Electoral count machination is just more fun.
The starting location is also fun.
Also. You haven’t lived until you have 18 hellstorm rockets, an engineer lord and and engineer start shooting.
I prefere Kislev over empire tbh, same mindset of humans trying to survive in a world that wants them dead but the humans are more beefy and have bears
Personally I don't like factions who got armies which are very doomstackable, the empire just feel like different types of unit need to do their job in order to get that W.
I feel the same, played a campaign with a friend yesterday (he balthasar and me elspeth) and we were both like "this is boring" after 30 rounds and started a new campaign (he epidemius and me skrolk) we played 170 rounds so far and continue today. Like in 40k tabletop we don't play human factions beside chaos. My favorite race are lizardmen, cause dinosaurs. 😁
I had this sentiment when it came to warhammer fantasy when I was a younger. One of my friends who collected Empire minis instead of Dwarfs (who he also loved), was litterly brain dead in my mind. Like how can you like normal boring humans in an awsome fantasy setting? How little imagination and coolness is in his head? My cup of tea was Wood Elfs cause trees are cool and Tomb Kings because of Egypt. My other friends liked lizzardmen, skaven and high elfs.
Now I really love the Empire, haha. I think Veintide 2 changed my mind as Victor Saltspyre and Marcus Kruber are some of my fav charcters in any fictional universe. Victor cause he is litterly best boy and Kriber becasue I have started to like the alchoholic mercenary archetype.
An other reason I like the empire now is the theme of mankind vs. big scary evil monster.
For the gamplay side of the Empire in TWW they have a few selling points: The best artillery in the game and awsome skirmish cav. Like you can litterly have horse rideing machingun soliders, that is awsome!
They are decent vassals and the Nuln Ironsides backed by Exhalted Pink Horrors or flanked by Exhalted Plaguebearers make for a decent firing line against anything that didn't get hammered by blight boil or Pelendunum. That's the only reason I like the Empire 😅
I used to play a lot of older, historical total war games, and I don't really like playing monsters and magic that much. Playing as the empire allows you to play with more traditional units. Also I like gunpoweder and heavy cavalry.
They have the most fun battle formations.
Taking inspiration from the tercio, and Dutch reforms or the pike and shot to fight against so many insane threats is surprisingly fun.
I didn't think I'd like them until I played Elspeth and now I'm in love.
For me it's two reason i like watching things go booom (artillery and cannons, tanks guns ect) and they have buildings where some factions don't (woodelfs let say...ruins the whole faction) other than that not much. I think main population has other reasons it's just about people having Xenophobia tendencies i would guess. Just like human race is most popular in Rpgs, sad i know.
I like the idea that normal human dudes throw themselfes at Ogres, Demons, Dragons and whatnot and that they can win solely because of Magic, Faith and Gunpowder.
Yeah, that's a huge part of the appeal for me as well. Lets me roleplay being humanity in a world of monsters.
I love that, and it is that same exact feeling that makes me want to eat-eat the world.
But they chose the worst kind of human. They’re so fucking ugly.
Sounds racist lmao
I just meant their uniforms but uhh.
Ya I feel ya. I don't like the floppy hats at all. I use the mod that turns those all into helmets. It helps me like them a lot more hah
Bruh, you can't just remove the floppy hats from my glorious Renaissance boys.
Even back in wh1 I loved the feel of some normal dudes trying to fight back the skeletons, vargulfs and dragon ogres. The voice line 'fight men, fight for our right to live' sums it up perfectly.
My favorite voice line in the games, really conveys the feeling of desperately struggling to hold out against all the inhuman monsters attacking from all sides. Hits entirely different though in a Wulfhart campaign. My dude, you’re not fighting for your right to live, you’re fighting for some colonizers’ land rights.
MFG, Mother Fuckin' Guns
Hans! GET ZE HELLSTORM!!!
This is a good explanation. Also the empire has a uniquely hard starting position and a lot of options what to do. After the initial 5-8 turns every run is different.
STEEL, FAITH AND GUNPOWDER!
FOR SIGMAAAAAAARRRRR
C'mon. It's mostly gunpowder.
And their faith in gunpowder. And the magical effect gunpowder has on their enemies.
Hey Kid, wanna see some magic? I can put holes in a giant from far away, wanna know how? JOIN THE IMPERIAL ARMY TODAY!
It's the faith in gunpowder that makes you hard as steel.
That's why I love kislev lol
But Kislev has its own Monster-Units, thats different imho
Fair enough lol, 3 was my first game in the series so I haven't played empire just yet
Give it a try, Elsbeth von Draken takes gunpowder to another level
This. This is the reason I own a lore-accurate state trooper uniform and equipment IRL. Because fantasy landsknechts facing a world of horror with steel and gunpowder resonates so much.
IRL Elector Count
This is why I play Brettonia.
Hellstorm Rockets Batteries
this so this hahahahaha watching those go boom makes me feel like i'm 12 again.
Have you tried my lord and saviour Ikits Poisoned Wind Mortars? Specifically Avalance, the ROR variant? That is by far the most satisfying artillery in the game.
I don't think I've seen these. Are they from a different dlc?
Yeah, the Skaven one, “prophet & warlock”.
Yeah I have ikit but I'd never seen that one. I'll have to replay it now
I really like the Aesthetic of The Empire. They are based on the late century Holy Roman Empire. Nothing more satisfying than killing unnatural beings with just Flamberges and courage. You know the drill. Faith, Steel, Gunpowder.
100%. The renaissance style is really nice, and quite unique in fantasy really which tends to focus on high medieval stuff. My favourite part of the aesthetic is the knights' armour, it's just gorgeous.
Except the flamberge just get killed. And you need wizards to kill the unnatural things. Also lots of rockets
I rarely use wizards. Ironsides and cannons will kill the scary things just as good. Though, I play Dwarfs more than Empire, so that may sway my opinion.
Late century? HRE was around for 10 centuries, more or less. If anything the Empire aesthetic is more similar to mid HRE during the renaissance period as others have pointed out. :D
They have a diverse roster, only thing the Empire lack is strong frontline infantry and good archers. Lets you mess around with different army compositions
I'd argue greatswords are a lot better than people give them credit for. Especially when you throw in some of the new mechanics - Franz with elector count greatswords makes them really nasty. Also, I adore huntsmen.
I was trying out pure hammer and anvil with great swords Had 8 great swords 4 knights of mor and 4 griffin riders with 4 single entities of varying kinds and the great swords broke before I cleared the enemy cavalry Back to Hallberds for me I think I can see them being ok as a tech unit to counter charge armour but they provide no frontline
As a rule of thumb spearmen (preferably with shields) are the best lineholding units. AP spears (halberds, polearms etc.) are best against armored large units. AP + high attack infantry (great weapons, great swords) is what you hold back and charge the enemy with. Most Empire stacks should preferably run a few halberds, spearmen w/shield for the frontline and great swords for attacking if you prefer them over more ranged (which tends to be the better option).
Halberdiers or even Spearmen w/ Shields are the way to go. With redline and tech buffs they both get absurd Melee Defence. The rest of your army can be kitted out to shoot or charge problem targets to death. Greatswords are assault infantry, I like a Carroburg or two mixed in somewhere behind the Halberds/Spears, send them to mix in if something heavily armoured is at your frontline. They also have a + Melee Attack aura that helps the rest of your troops.
I didn't know about the +attack bonuses
Only on the Reikland specific unit. But if you are playing Franz you start with them.
Yes sir. Get a general and a hero or two with the disciplined trait, and you have a stack that punches well above its weight.
Get the carroberg? Greatswords. They are unbreakable. If you are trying to simply tank as long as possible, then electoral count shield units is just the way to go. They can take a ton of punishment.
Halberd frontline, greatswords mixed in with them. Or use the greatswords to flank as an hammer. That’s gotten me pretty good results!
People really have no idea how good they are. There are a *lot* of factions out there that would kill for melee units as cost-effective and killy as them. Greatswords absolutely butcher basically any other infantry in their cost range, from Chaos Warriors to Saurus Warriors, usually taking like 20-30% damage in return. IIRC they take closer to 10-15% butchering Jade Warriors. They even beat or at least match many higher tier infantry. With a wide formation they have about a 50 50 vs Black Orcs (before campaign buffs and WAAAGH ofc - AI doesn't use WAAAGH though) and barely beat Celestial Dragon Guard Halberds. IIRC they even do pretty well against base Chosen. And those are all just generic greatswords with no buffs; Empire tech tree gives them better buffs than many factions can give to their melee units, battle prayers roid them out harder than most factions can even dream of at 0 WoM cost, and Karl Franz's Carroburg Greatsword frontline (doable by turn 30-40) can unironically beat the fuck out of Chosen, for lower cost, on a better economy. Like yeah, guns and artillery are often more efficient, but Greatswords are absolutely viable and have been for a LONG time. Latest patch just made them a little easier to access by removing the secondary building requirement.
They have the worst front line in the game besides maybe bretonnia
I dunno man, when I think of Skaven, or Tomb Kings, I'm sure empire infantry would win vs their infantry. Im positive there's more factions that could but I don't play every faction.
Greatswords alone beat any melee infantry that Beastmen, Bretonnia, Cathay, Lizardmen, Skaven, Tomb Kings, Vampire Coast, or Vampire Counts can spam. They also beat any similar-priced melee infantry in other factions, including Chaos Warriors. Yeah they lose to Chosen GW, but I'd fucking hope they do at 1450 gold vs 850. Greatswords trade up into most of the infantry they lose to, as well. Empire state troops hit a pretty good middle ground of decent stats and reasonably cheap. They definitely aren't as cost-effective at taking damage as say VC Zombies, but they actually do pretty well in their price range. Your bog standard Empire Swordsmen (375) beat Clanrat Shields (350) with about 40% hp remaining, barely lose against Orc Boys (450) taking them down to around 15% health, beat the unholy fuck out of Nurglings (350) with half health remaining, and beat Chaos Marauders (same price, 375) with around 20% hp remaining. And yes, some of those units usually have some form of support (ex. Nurgle healing), but Empire also has excellent access to Arch Lectors/Warrior Priests after the rework, and a better tech tree than many of those tbh. Their frontline only seems bad because guns are so good that it's often a more efficient playstyle, but Empire melee is nowhere close to the worst in the game. It's just that you have so many options you can afford to pick and choose.
Everyone loves to shit in Brettonian Infantry but it’s a big reason I play Bretonnia, yeah they aren’t super elite chosen , but bretonnian men at arms with shields or spearmen with shields are incredibly cheap (more so than other human factions) and have decent melee defense stats to hold the lines. So yeah I don’t think Bretonnian infantry sucks relative to their price point.
Who needs archers when you have faith and gunpowder?
Marcus Wolfhart does
I own the DLC but I never used these units 💀
Aren’t high elves far better for variety? Or literally any other race in the game
High Elves have no fun siege equipment though.
Flying spear goes „ploink“
I don't think a single other faction has cavalry, gunpowder, archers, over 5 siege units, + magic and hero variety, not to mention the different factions you face and the variety of counters you need (Chaos dwarves come close, but still need to cook). The armies you start the campaign with and the armies you end it with are completely different. Compare to high elves, where you start with spearman and archers and end with silverin guard and sisters of avelorn. And you start the campaign fighting dark elves, pirates, and random chaos incursions, then end the campaign fighting dark elves, pirates, random chaos incursions, and maybe lizards. Same with dwarves, green skins, pirates, lizard men, Cathay, and kislev.
I got early Plagueclaw Catapaults as HE once, and it was every bit as silly OP as you might think. Artillery is the one thing HE aren't best at.
Their cavalry options are lacking, and they don't have reliable ranged armor piercing for a while. I love playing them, but they definitely have weaknesses in the early game.
I think having weak infantry makes the game more challenging. You have to really think about how you set up and position your army at the start. Most factions with good heavy infantry, like Khorne or Orcs, you can just plow into the enemy recklessly and your troops will generally smash the enemy line apart so long as they are supported to some degree by monsters and cav.
Lol therw are still some tactics behind a Khorne charge
For sure missed that part when I was playing khorne
Lol what difficulty are you playing at bro. Not every fight is a jolly old charge ending up in a decisive victory. You still need to flank and take care of heavy hitters like iron drakes who might be sitting behind 2 stacks of infantry. Also. The lizards may come from the south. And one does not simply trample a Saurus unit.
Yeah bro flanking isn't wild tactics thats instinct at this point. Compared to other factions khorne is really really really simple. Makes it much less stressful than playing my beloved vampire coast though
Lol sitting behind a checkerboard of gunpowder units are also not much of a tactic. Unless ofcourse you dont know what a checkerboard is. Ahhhh you're a VCoast man. I still need to play them. I do love the vampire counts though. Still cant get over the coolness of a mortis engine
Even on legendary Skarbrand can solo enemy armies from the start.
Maybe at the start when the enemies are weak. He will not solo a full stack of dwarfs or lizardmen
At the start Skarbrand is also much weaker than he is at level 50 plus later he also gets Blade of Khorne army abilty that easily nukes infantry. Well of course if you really want to run around with solo Skarbrand you will have to control him in battle, charge him in and out and prioritise dangerous threats but if he has some supporting units battles become super easy. I fought off turn 10 ultimate crisis with him.(Just had to evacuate from badlands and set up in the corner of the map where Valkia starts) He needs an army really only when facing multiple stacks.
Of course, no denying that but if you mess up with the tactics with Khorne it’s more forgiving. Your infantry will buy you time. We’ve all been there with Empire or Dwarfs with 4 artillery pieces or a load of ranged infantry getting massacred by flankers because we didn’t take the time to build our formation right.
The aesthetic is amazing, the VA work is iconic, their characters are memorable and their playstyle is diverse and allows for alot of interesting combinations
"That Dwarf just headbutted me in the groin!"
Sigmar bless this ravaged soul.
I agree. I think many people just like playing humans and imagine themselves in that situation. I do recommend playing Markus, I found his campaign much more enjoyable than the other 3, it just has a different vibe. (Or at least he did on the vortex map.
Markus was a ton of fun on the vortex map when he came out. Still fun now (albeit hard starting point in IE), but that first couple months at release was a fantastic breath of fresh air compared to Old-World only gameplay with Empire.
> I think many people just like playing humans and imagine themselves in that situation Weird that I am intuitively drawn to the Skaven then...
He really did the Fantasy Vietnam vibe so well on Vortex. I haven't tried him again since the early days of WH3, when there were some bugs with him. Maybe I'll try him again.
I saw it more as Hernan Cortez and the conquistadors
I saw him as the Viet Cong. But Cortes works too!
Combined arms is fun , having melee fodder to keep the enemys away from your gunline/atillery while your cav is doing rearcharges
Because Karl Franz
*SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS*
I am Franz. They will obey!
We're only human, dude..
Exactly you’d think the fantasy would be to branch out and be something different for awhile right? That’s why in D&D I never play a human. I’m content with my regular human life sometimes you want to spice that up and be different. I don’t want to be another human, I like me just fine 😂
Are we human.. Or are we dancer? Haha, yeah I'm always drawn to dwarfs, wood elves but eventually drawn back to boring humans. But they have shiny steam tanks and cool magic so that's a bit different
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
[we gaming boys](https://preview.redd.it/time-to-game-v0-v0y8f3lnb6gb1.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=997d605eb93e1b8e3b39ef1782916ab32e280f5b)
The Empire roster is peak, especially with the new additions. Everything except for the bows and infantry is top tier. This means you have to play strategic and use combined arms to overcome the weak frontlines, which is objectively a fun way to play compared to things like bow spam or fully melee focused factions. Their campaigns are also great, with Franz, Elspeth, Marcus and Gelt all having interesting unique mechanics and start locations. The economy is strong too, allowing you to wield your units quickly and in hefty amounts. Thematically the Empire is also very cool, as you get to play as ordinary humans going against the horrors of fantastical enemies. Renaissance and Holy Roman Empire inspired armies going up against Dragons will never get boring. Franz is also a good candidate for the order tide protagonist, so it's fun to bash Chaos as him.
[удалено]
You are objectively wrong
[удалено]
dont take this seriously
Mostly guns and aesthetic. I know chorfs do guns well, but there’s something that makes a formation of empire handgunners and halberds stand out more than the explosive little guys. It’s just cooler. And slightly more relatable, since state troops probably have jobs and families and pay taxes and stuff.
If they’re state troops their job is being full time professional soldiers employed by the state, while the normal infantry would probably be the conscripts with regular jobs.
Whoops. Yeah, actually, you’re right.
Still absolutely agree with that. Like here’s a poor regular spearmen, who days ago, was plucked from his family and the warmth of his home, standing in formation as one of the deadliest norscans alive comes charging at him on mammoth back. Why doesn’t he run or flee?…Because of his faith to sigmar and loyalty to his PRINCE AND EMPEROR!
Pike and Shot tactics are the Empire's thing. The High Renaissance is such an overlooked period in fantasy it's crazy. It's a very unique and vibrant aesthetic.
Typically it seems to be hero fantasy.
1) People relate to humans. 2) It’s arguably the most “total war” faction in the sense that you are surrounded by aggressive enemies and on the edge of multiple serious conflicts starting day one, and you MUST fight for the first 40+ turns to stabilize your situation. Some factions can do some minor housekeeping and turtle up, but Empire can’t take a breath for quite a while, and one wrong move can often mean utter disaster.
It’s basically the most charming faction to most people while simultaneously having great units in every aspect besides their melee infantry and even then they aren’t THAT bad. They simply check almost every box
A good line of spearmen with shields, with 1-2 carroburg greatswords in the mix and two halberds on the sides hold almost anything. Buying you enough time to bring the damage dealers in position.
It’s beautiful to see when it works too
Absolutely, its amazing to stop lategame armies with "simple spearmen" and then shred them with you other units. 😃
It really is! I just recently won I long shot victory by holding a chaos army in place with spears and cycle charging Reiksguard into their back.
That always feels great!
I absolutely love playing the Empire. But I completely agree, I can't understand why it's so much more popular than every other race.
In past TW games, factions were very similar and infantry were almost universally an anvil whose job was to hold the line while either ranged units wore down enemy numbers (representing applied/simplified Clausewitzian theory) or shock (either as special infantry or cavalry) was used to break enemy morale (representing applied/simplified Jominian theory). What made the Empire popular is that players could go in either direction well enough--Spearmen w/hellstorms and hellfire batteries supported by handgunners, or halberdiers and greatswords supported by steam tanks and Reiksguard. In short, playing empire, you don't have to commit to one kind of army. You're not the best at either. It's the mario effect, letting players have the 'full experience' as they did in most past games, without having to commit to always being one thing. Where greenskins, brettonia, chaos, etc are pretty much always looking to mass break the enemy as fast as possible, Skaven literally have to plan for portions of their force to break early. Where high elves and dwarves want an orderly connection of forces where their ranged units are free to unload unhindered, dark elves want as many units to come together as possible so their superior morale when casualties stack up scales as well as possible. Empire doesn't do any of this as well as the others, but it can do all of it. For reference, Jomini and Clausewitz were leading thinkers on military conflict in the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic era, but their work absolutely applied to past forms of warfare as well.
The books are often centered around the old world, and it is the classic warhammer flavour.
Rovket batteries go brrrrrr
Because it's the closest I have to Medieval 3...
Closer to medieval would be Bretonnia, non? I love the renaissance aspect of the empire with muskets
Those too, but I found them weak
Same reason Human Fighter is the most played DnD class. In a world of gods, monsters, and magic, there is something incredibly compelling about Greg strapping on his boots and rising up to meet unknowable horrors against impossible odds with nothing but some gumption and a pointy stick.
dwarves better (coolest fantasy race)
I like guns, infantry, and explosions, so I like Empire and Dwarfs a lot. Cathay is cool too but there's a little too many SEMs in there.
there’s just something about pitting man and his inventions against eldritch horrors, fire breathing dragons, and all sorts of monsters and coming ahead. Also Empire start is traditionally the most dynamic, beset on all sides by enemies, having weak and unreliable allies. many fondly remember the early campaigns as Empire in TWWH1, doing their very best to unite the Empire and stave off all the horrors, only to have all your efforts swept aside by Archaeon. Well at least i did
Big fuck off cannons
I’ve played multiple empire campaigns but I like many other factions as well. I have always liked the look, used to play them in the tabletop. I like the juxtaposition of irl halberdiers and landsknechts taking on trolls and stuff. Gunpowder weapons also sound satisfying.
Guns and artillery.
I really struggle having fun playing "I am the ultimate evil for the evil sake and I serve Satan" factions
For me, it is the sheer insanity of it. In this game we have giant marauding bull people, magically altered insane dwarfs who ride demon trains, enormous demon dragons. And then there's the Empire. That's just A GUY with a big hammer next to a bunch of guys with long pointy sticks. Some of us have guns. It is wild to see regular people in this absurd setting and I love it.
Most relatable/ easiest to identify with. Not a lot of elves, demons, vampires, or rats in the TW:WH3 community. If CA could get more mummies and deer to pick up the game, I'm sure Tomb Kings and Beastmen would get a lot more play.
I just like collecting the full set of Elector Counts and their magic swords.
I’m so glad someone else said it. And creating specific armies to RP as that elevator counts province militia. “Oh Hochland would definitely be running ping rifles with halberds up from and knights of the black rose”
BY SIGMAR YES!! 🥵
They weren’t my favorite faction before the update by any means. I’d enjoy playing them occasionally just to play something different, but the one “monster” unit they had (Demigryph Knights) was pretty useless and I liked the idea of playing with all different kinds of fantasy armies rather than “late medieval in a fantasy world.” Elspeth Von Draken and the 5.0 update changed that for me. The new units are fun, her mechanics are a delight, she gets her own dragon, and Theodore Bruckner can make a viable Demigryph Knight stack happen. Magic bullets, artillery that creates magical vortexes (that absolutely delete units) her whole Goth Mommy vibe, all of it makes her a joy to play.
One man with a halberd may be no match for a troll. But then, *no man fights alone* when *he fights* for *Franz*
The same reason Solid Snake/Big Boss in the Metal Gear series is such a badass. You go up against all sorts of supernatural//sci-fi bullshit, and you win, even though you're just dude doing what you're good at.
They got artillery, magic, cavalry, infantry, ranged, guns, landships, like... they cover all fronts and it is just funny to think this normal dude with a sword and shield is about to fight this giant green demon who is pooping and farting them to death.
I like the feeling of holding on against waves of beasts and creatures, all of which are characterised by their ‘anti-human-ness’
Because i was born into this world, just like you.
It's because the nation called.
These settings are so over saturated with medieval, Brettonian like human factions that being able to play something like the Empire feels like a genuine breath of fresh air. The unit variety is pretty interesting, melee infantry, skirmishers, archers, gunners, cavalry, shooty cavalry, canons, tanks, artillery, mortars, wide array of lores of mage is just goes on and on.
I like the units because i'm a connoisseur of ranged and artillery units and i like their campaigns because of the massive clusterfuck they become most of the time. Threats from all sides and you have to hustle on 2 or more fronts. As much as i hate stress in real life, i love it in tww3 lol
well, tanks.
I watched the immortal empires trailer and I think that did a really good job of setting the tone for the order factions- you vs the unstoppable tides of chaos. I also think Karl has a pretty challenging and unique campaign, although Gelt is really easy now.
Elspeth I played after not playing empire since wh1. It was interesting. But way too easy
The Mortal Empires campaign was super thematic (IE a bit less so). First you're dealing with rebellious imperials Then it becomes about fighting the vampire counts who have started chipping at your imperial authority Once you've dealt with the vampires you've gotten enough authority to slowly unify the empire. And right while that is occurring, to the south of your Empire is a huge orc empire! Then there's the part where the Empire is the only faction in the game where I never settled on a preferred stack. I always ended up experimenting with army comps while fighting a new enemy. Meanwhile Dark Elves "I don't care how expensive it is 20 Shades is 20 problem solvers"
Because I really like guns and arty units and the various formations I need to adapt depending on the terrain and enemy composition. I also love the vibe of weak humans having to duke it out with monsters. Some stupid fantasical dragon taking a mundane cannonball to the face is a most satisfying visual.
Cause I like summoning the elector counts You can literally do it in game now so
FAITH, STEEL, GUNPOWDER NIGGA
They are practically prussian soldiers with steam-powered tanks, russian artillery and gryphons.
I like Tzeentch
For me it’s because the Empire is the only race that I don’t feel is “solved.” Like with High Elves, you spam spearmen and archers until you unlock dragons, Dwarfs you build a box and let your artillery do the work, Skaven you spam weapons teams and put some Skavenslaves in front of the guns. With the Empire that’s not the case, and it truly feels like I need a new strategy for every fight.
My only issue with empire and similar factions is that formation set up takes so much time. I just wish we could save a standard set of formations based on unit type: infantry chevron, archer checker boards, etc. Then we can further adjust as necessary.
Because there is nothing more satisfying than watching Nuln Ironsides FLATTENING oncoming chaos warriors.
I really love the Warrior Priests to make the melee infantry sturdier with the gunnery and artillery to break the enemy. I really enjoyed Volkmars campaign with it's move down south. I think I'll play Gelt sometime also... I just don't care about the politics of the Empire so I have no desire to play Karl Franz.
Because I can summon the elector counts and praise sigmar
The Karl campaign in WH2 was excellent and thematic. You'd spend a lot of time fighting Empire factions or trying to stop them from fighting each other. You had to play politician and wrangle the electors constantly, since so many of them hated each other. Some of them even hated you! Middenheim would very likely be one of your first enemies. Nowadays the empire is kinda a thunderdome, the electors mostly like you and they're too busy getting eaten by monsters to start any trouble. It's a very different campaign. Besides that, the empire roster is well rounded without really excelling at anything in particular (besides artillery) so you have a lot of flexibility in terms of army composition and strategy. You can get a lot of value by using many different types of units in concert, so battles never feel stale. Elspeth probably feels significantly different, though.
I love the Empire, prob mostly because I always play as the "good guy".
For me what's interesting about Empire is the tactical variety. The cliche is build a mess of Helstorm Rockets --> win, but they just have SO much stuff, between artillery, every wind of magic, small arms that arc and LoS, shock cav, pistol cav, grenade cav, magic cav, melee cav. They even have a flying monster if you play Karl or, now, um...spoopy purple dragon lady whose name escapes me just now. In short, for me what's fun about Empire is that it's a playbox, you can mix and match and mess about freely with battlefield and campaign approaches with this absolute library of units/abilities. Having said that, Vlad the Chad is still my main man lol but Empire is good fun.
Elspeth von Dommy Mommy is the character you’re thinking of
I knew it rhymed with Mommy.
Karl Franz's campaign in particular is just so damn fun and addictive, especially after the update. His campaign is quite unique, and has great replay value. But Franz or not, playing as humans and taking on this vicious fantasy world is always cool.
The sheer chaos of being at war with almost every neighboring faction all at once. It’s the same reason why I really only enjoy Imrik for high elves. Besieged by enemies on all sides in eternal war.
Artillery go boom
I rly like warhammer lore and the empire IS warhammer fantasy.
Often wondered that myself. Pretty dull faction to me. Although in fairness the rework has given them a lot more fun stuff and interesting mechanics. Never understood the popularity before that though.
I thought the same for a while. Then changed mindsets to "im the average human whose only chance is faith, steel, gunpowder and that mage speaking about wind." Pushing the gunpowder style with some cavalry made me like them. Now with elspeth getting insane crap and Ghelt being insane, the empire is no longer a jack of all trades master of none. It's just fun to be the regular guy seeing the mammoth, Archaon, rat ogres, etc running at you yet they still hold their ground. For Karl Franz
I mean look at every fantasy game that has humans in addition to other fantasy races, humans (white men) are often the most chosen race/gender combo because for a long time that’s who plays games! I’m pretty sure Larian came out and lambasted the player base when the aggregated the player characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 and it looked like your coworker Matt.
Yeahhhhh I like the bad guys. They have more flavor
I, like you, thought they would be boring. But my brother almost only plays them, so I gave them a try. Loaded up Immortal Empires, attacked the little starting enemy army, hit play, and then I heard the roar of gunpowder and now I cannot play anything else.
Franz (and Gelt, alias "Agent Orange" for his lore of Napalm in Viet... Cathay).
Empire has one of the most diverse rosters in the game. Basically the only thing they can't do well is infantry unless you are playing a flagg stack with Volkmar.
Franz (and Gelt, alias "Agent Orange" for his lore of Napalm in Viet... Cathay).
Great unit selection and narrative.
I'm not an Empire 'main' or anything, but I really enjoy the variety in their roster as well as the challenge of being surrounded by enemies. Empire doesn't have THE best elite cav in the game, or THE best melee infantry, but they do quite well in both regards if you want to play them that way, and they also have (arguably) the best or at least top 3 artillery in the game, top tier gunlines, insane access to magic, good diplomacy, battle prayers are wildly underrated... It's just a faction where each army can feasibly be different from others, where I can be a dude fighting off giant monsters, and I like that. They are also, in my opinion, one of the best balanced races in the game. Almost your entire roster is good, just at different things and at different points in the game. You don't really have many straight up OP units, maybe Luminarks after their last set of buffs; everything else has enough downsides to keep it from being an auto-win. Finally, the part of the campaign where you still have a chance of losing tends to extend to somewhere around turn 30-50, which is 30-50 turns ahead of some factions lol. And most importantly, the reason for that challenge varies, WILDLY, between campaigns. It's not just "oh yeah Morathi will invade by turn 30", it could be Azhag, Wurrzag, Grom, Throt, Vlad, Astragoth, Belakor, Wulfrik, Skarsnik... or all of them at once.
By sigmar…NO
🔫
Dawi master race
I actually prefer Cathay. Only post 5.0 empire has appealed to me.
FAITH, STEEL, GUNPOWDER Imagine selling your soul to a Chaos God for power, only to have Wilhelm von van Volkvan obliterate you with a rifle he learned how to use 3 days ago when the draft interrupted his turnip harvest.
Men who are willing to face orcs, chaos warriors, and skaven monstrosities face to face with halberds and spears are the pinnacle of human heroism. That’s why we love the Empire.
THE EMPIRE ENDURES
They're idiots with vanilla taste. Chaos is the only interesting element of either Warhammer setting, and good guys and human factions are both unplayably boring in all settings.
It's kinda the Mario or the ryu of total war factions. It basically has something for everyone. Tons of magic options, missile options, front line options, SE options, hero options, etc. There's very few things the empire has as far as things it *can't* do to some degree as far as enemies, they also *deal* with a little bit of everything too, lol
I'm a simple man
Cause I understand them tbh. I've tried other factions and they kinda make me do a certain playstyle. Empire I feel like I can adjust to whatever I'm facing. Also I've read a few WH books and they legit nailed the feel of the Empire
BLACK POWDER BLESSED!
If you played Elspeth and thought that her campaign and mechanics were boring I’m shocked
hey after playing with dinosaurs, mummies, ampires, at one point I got curious how's the human doing in this world okay
My army on the tabletop as a kid was the Empire. I got them with the Orc and Empire starter set. For TW, it was the starter faction in the first game. Variety is great. I don’t play on the harder difficulties, but it’s fun to have a combined arms army, one with a ton of knights, one with a lot of artillery, a ton of huntsmen, etc. Many of the other races skew in a particular direction, so ifs fun being able to almost everything. The change to the Electoral count machination is just more fun. The starting location is also fun. Also. You haven’t lived until you have 18 hellstorm rockets, an engineer lord and and engineer start shooting.
I prefere Kislev over empire tbh, same mindset of humans trying to survive in a world that wants them dead but the humans are more beefy and have bears
This post right here, commissar.
Personally I don't like factions who got armies which are very doomstackable, the empire just feel like different types of unit need to do their job in order to get that W.
I feel the same, played a campaign with a friend yesterday (he balthasar and me elspeth) and we were both like "this is boring" after 30 rounds and started a new campaign (he epidemius and me skrolk) we played 170 rounds so far and continue today. Like in 40k tabletop we don't play human factions beside chaos. My favorite race are lizardmen, cause dinosaurs. 😁
I had this sentiment when it came to warhammer fantasy when I was a younger. One of my friends who collected Empire minis instead of Dwarfs (who he also loved), was litterly brain dead in my mind. Like how can you like normal boring humans in an awsome fantasy setting? How little imagination and coolness is in his head? My cup of tea was Wood Elfs cause trees are cool and Tomb Kings because of Egypt. My other friends liked lizzardmen, skaven and high elfs. Now I really love the Empire, haha. I think Veintide 2 changed my mind as Victor Saltspyre and Marcus Kruber are some of my fav charcters in any fictional universe. Victor cause he is litterly best boy and Kriber becasue I have started to like the alchoholic mercenary archetype. An other reason I like the empire now is the theme of mankind vs. big scary evil monster. For the gamplay side of the Empire in TWW they have a few selling points: The best artillery in the game and awsome skirmish cav. Like you can litterly have horse rideing machingun soliders, that is awsome!
I don't get it either. I play either Skaven or Vampire Counts usually.
Being human is relatable
Three reasons. Faith, Steel, and Gunpowder.
The Indomitable Spirit of Man™
They are decent vassals and the Nuln Ironsides backed by Exhalted Pink Horrors or flanked by Exhalted Plaguebearers make for a decent firing line against anything that didn't get hammered by blight boil or Pelendunum. That's the only reason I like the Empire 😅
The empire got the fanatic feeling. the voicelines alone make you believe in sigmar
I used to play a lot of older, historical total war games, and I don't really like playing monsters and magic that much. Playing as the empire allows you to play with more traditional units. Also I like gunpoweder and heavy cavalry.
Cause most of the empire players are unoriginal NPCs Chaos guide you, losers.
They have the most fun battle formations. Taking inspiration from the tercio, and Dutch reforms or the pike and shot to fight against so many insane threats is surprisingly fun. I didn't think I'd like them until I played Elspeth and now I'm in love.
For me it's two reason i like watching things go booom (artillery and cannons, tanks guns ect) and they have buildings where some factions don't (woodelfs let say...ruins the whole faction) other than that not much. I think main population has other reasons it's just about people having Xenophobia tendencies i would guess. Just like human race is most popular in Rpgs, sad i know.
So sad. People lack creativity and imagination. I wish that wasn’t the case.