Tactics or possibly strategy...

[Clockwork]

Any killer tactics you wish to share, GW games or otherwise, reinvent the wheel or give us a twist on your variation of the classics!

[Clockwork]

I'll start off with my general use of Empire. Well I haven't played since 6th Ed I don't think so my knowledge of current rules is a bit iffy, however I'm sure the same style of tactics will still apply

Now Empire are extremely adaptable, with their only real weakness being a lack of light troops (skirmishers) and fast melee horse(though pistoliers do fill this role with some skill). Having a solid infantry base is the key. If pitched against something with a lot of armour like Warriors of Chaos, other Empire, Brettonia etc. use halberdiers as your main infantry unit for the AP, otherwise spears and swords against hordes as the spears provide some nice damage from the rank bonus while the swords help with survivability.

With this infantry block, tide down as many of their core units as possible, and while it's not as effective as shooting a block of troops, take out their skirmishers/light cav with guns/crossbows. Then with the anvil now in place, swing round a unit of greatswords, knights or pistoliers. Each are effective at cutting a path through any enemy. Though effectiveness of pistoliers decreases dramatically against hordes. If possible, use a wizard to move the greatswords as on their own, they are slow as hell. Though this then usually means putting a squshy mage in the unit designed to stab stuff.

EDIT: Orc and Goblin tactics:

Run at them.

[Phoenixguard09]

Ah, I'd give tactics for several armies, but sadly most of my experience revolves around destroying massive armies with slightly smaller numbers of High Elves.

And a kickass dragon.

[Clockwork]

This thread isn't for any setup in particular, feel free to post any type of tactic that's worked for you

[Gen_Glory]

Step 1: Play as Skaven

Step 2: Use lots of slaves

Step 3: ...

Step 4: Success!

[Jubal]

A brief Dwarf tactica, will do CDs and DoW sometime soon:
As Dwarfs, I tend to play relatively balanced armies but quite gun-heavy, it's generally the only really effective way to win for them at low points values. You need some infantry blocks for the enemy to smash themselves on, but you also need a good shooting line to make sure you're dealing more punishment than the enemy can and force them to come to you. The Grudge Thrower and Organ Gun are the most important artillery pieces to have, as real troop-killers; Thunderers are vital as well, and remember that once tooled up with shields you have a surprisingly good infantry unit there as well. Light armour & shield, with the HW&S ward save, potentially a command group, and a better statline than most human or skaven infantry - it's a combination to be well aware of (as even Skrag the Slaughterer once found out to his cost against them).

Once you get enough points to get an Anvil of Doom and some good magic banners you have a lot more options as you can then really ramp up the speed of Dwarf infantry blocks to the stage where you're able to get into combat pretty efficiently. The danger then is guesstimating correctly and getting as well as just taking some charges. Ironbreakers are the key unit - miners generally aren't that useful, despite being beautifully fluffy; the gyrocopter is a better warmachine hunter, and most of the time when you pop up on the side of the board the enemy can just run past you and you'll never catch them up. Hammerers are OK but much more vulnerable to shooting, and their bonuses can be replicated fairly easily with a decent battle standard. Oh, and ALWAYS take standards and battle standards. You might think that Ld9 means a lot, but wait until your critical unit fails at the key round of a combat.

[Phoenixguard09]

Well, what can I say about my High Elves.... Now, you must realise that I refuse to play 8th and I haven't actually played a game for about half a year. I think the last game I played was as Albion against Bretonnia as well. Before that was Nippon against Dark Elves. So, well, just bear that in mind.

1. Never play a game where you can't afford a Prince on a Moon Dragon. My Prince Raethelas has gone down a few times (Usually I have an item which gives a ward save and a magic sword which ignores armour saves) but I have never lost Minaithir. Not once, despite several cannonballs.

2. You main force should be a large block of Sea Guard with a Spearelf unit on either flank, positioned in a roughly arrow-head formation. These units fight in three ranks thanks to Martial Prowess, and they always strike first. Against other line infantry, they kick ass. Best off putting the BSB in the Sea Guard unit.

3. Phoenix Guard are an icredible anvil. If your luck is better than mine, they might even kill some stuff. For some reason, I can't manage to, despite WS 6 (If I recall correctly) and halberds. A unit of 15 will hold against anything nasty. White Lions are also a good anvil, but you will need a large unit as they're armour is relatively light. Stubborn helps though, as does the Strength 6. A small unit of White Lions is actually good for monster hunting in my experience. You'd probably want 10, but I've used a small unit of 5 to take down a Treeman.

4. Dragon Princes are some of the best hitting power for value in the game. Never leave home without them. Oh, and don't forget they're immune to fire attacks. I've done that and practically lost the game because of it.

Okay, it was a team game and my ally had already lost his army save a cannon, but my forces were holding well. The opposition was a classic Skaven Skryre horde and a Nurgle Warrior alliance. The Chaos forces had chewed through my friend's Empire, but they'd ground to a halt, their knights held up by my Phoenix Guard, the Dire Wolves and Marauder Horsemen had been shot down earlier and the infantry blocks way out of position.

Meanwhile the Skaven Slaves and Clanrats had hit my main line of spears and were being slowly beaten back. My Dragon Princes had not seen combat yet and I planned to see them hammer home into the enemy flank.

And then the bloke revealed his Warpfire Thrower and I screwed up my armour saves, consigning the Dragon Prince to ash and halting any chance I had of seeing off the Skaven before hitting the Chaos Warriors. Now if I had only remembered they're immune to flaming attacks, that might have been avoided.

But that's why I only play in games that let me have a dragon. Because we didn't win a single match that day, although admittedly the two players we were up against before that team played Wood Elves and cheated so bad that the dice came up with pips that spelled "LIARS!"

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Probably not that useful.

[Jubal]

Never had the dragon taken out? If we ever meet I shall take a proper Dwarf gunline against you to try and rectify this. Many Dwarf/Empire players are too reliant on the cannons for monster killing though; a heavily runed-up Grudge Thrower is vastly superior for the job, albeit a costlier machine. Cannon are overrated in general, though admittedly very good for sniping enemy war machines.

[Phoenixguard09]

Haha yeah, never had the dragon taken out. I try to make sure that my opponent has other things to worry about.

[Gen_Glory]

quick question

does anyone on here play the current rules (8th ed)? Or still plays the current rules on a fairly regular basis?

[Phoenixguard09]

For myself, I started with 6th, made the shift to 7th as all the changes were ones I was happy with and then was thoroughly disappointed with the added randomness of 8th.

So, not me DD.

EDIT* As an addon to what I was saying earlier to Jubal, I've had Raethelas himself go down a few times, and I put that down as injured in combat, but Minaithir himself has never gone down. He seems to have a charmed life.

That's not to say I haven't lost, but the last solo game I lost was against Daemons about three years ago now.

[Clockwork]

I ran out of money somewhere during 6th edition and stopped

Still love reading about it though

[Silver Wolf]

I don't play much.
In fact, I haven't played a single game in almost two years now.
College, living out of hometown and a lack of cash got in the way of my hobby.

However, before all of this happened, I used to play the Empire.
Can't really say that I'm a good player. I've played against lizardmen, dwarves, skaven and high elves.

I've joined the club just before the 8th edition showed up.
All of my games were played using ETC 8th edition rules and restrictions.

Had quite a few minor losses against dwarves and lizardmen.
I was never able to defeat those guys. Lizardmen are just too tough for Empire, and Dwarves are just better.
Everything the Empire can do, the Dwarves can do it better. Except moving. And that's why I don't like to play against them. Every time I played against a Dwarf player, he just stood corner and sniped down my cannons and army. And because of that I was forced to rush him, even as an Empire player. And once again, Empire is outclassed by Dwarves in melee combat. Basically, no matter what you do you'll lose.
And that's one of the reasons why I don't play my army static. I usually leave only one unit in the back, guarding the warmachines. And I use at least the half of my army in an aggressive manner, pushing towards the middle of the board from both flanks.
Most people consider me a noob because of that, but I actually do that to make the game a bit more enjoyable and fun for both sides.

Mixed results with skaven. Usually draws or minor losses. Once I massacred them in two rounds.

Victories against High elf tournament lists. A few normal victories and one wipeout (with only one 8-man unit of knights lost on my side).

And one game against O&G. One of the most fun games I've ever played. Six rounds of struggle and fighting on every inch of the map. Knights and greatswords in dual combat with lots of orcs and a horde of night goblins on one side, knights charging a unit of trolls who destroyed a small unit of state troops on the other, warboss charging behind Empire lines only to be shot down by a small unit of handgunners who were completely useless before that, goblin fanatics swirling around the board, canons and chukkas firing like crazy... And all of that in the same round. So much fun.

[Jubal]

I've actually at times struggled a lot as Dwarfs against pure Empire gunlines. It's handguns that can often do the damage; Empire ones may be less accurate, but they still ahve a good strength and range and are still armour piercing and are cheaper. Crossbows even more so at times. Empire can also make a good play to dominate the magic phase, 8th ed Dwarfs actually often find it harder than they used to to consistently shut down enemy magic.

The other thing you can do vs Dwarfs is use fast cavalry and scouts much more effectively to maximise the movement advantage you have, tie the war machines up in combat fast to then allow you to roll your greatswords and knights in - Dwarfs are tough in combat, but they will really struggle against some of the Empire units, particularly charges from knights, flagellants with lots of high strength attacks being pumped out, and even occasionally halberdiers with their higher initiative, decent strength, and cheapness. Avoid swordsmen and free companies against them, and basically anything with a S3 or lower attack - lances, halberds, flails and greatweapons are absolutely crucial.