Balance O&G and Empire

[Dirach]

Hi.

I have posted my ideas on warseer.com but it is said that the response is bigger here. So here I go.

Here is my idea. I have started to collect warmaster, but as I don’t know any warmaster players, I collect two armies. To me Warmaster becomes a “fixed” board game, rather that the unpredictable environment warmaster was designed for.

I have chosen two armies. The Empire, as I’m a warhammer Empire collector, and I have a strong tie to them.  And Orcs and goblins, as I have a chaos and a vampire army to put against my Warhammer Empire army. So now I can field the Empire against three different armies in two different games, if I don’t find any opponents with an army.

As my armies will be rather fixed, I need two armies that are quite balanced. It doesn’t matter if the armies are good. They only need to be equal.

I also want to have most of the options available to me, so I want at least one of each unit with a few exceptions.

The Empire list is quite straight.

What I already have is in ()

Max out the Heroes. + griffon.
4 (3) Haleberdiers
4 (2) Crossbowmen
3 (2) Knights
1 (1) Pistoliers
1 (1) Cannons
1 Steam tank
1 Flagellants
1 Handgunners
3 Skirmishers
2 Helblasters.

This make a list worth just over 2000 points. I will leave out one helblaster or some skirmishing units when playing. Instead I could have just 2 knights and substitute the third unit with a cheaper unit. But I got the impression that the Empire will need that third Knight unit. All the other units are fixed because of my “atleast one unit” rule. I leave out the waraltar as it is expensive compared to the game effect. (I’m talking about money, not points).


Orcs and Goblins

4 orc heroes, one goblin hero, 2 Orc shamans, 2 goblin shamans + Wyvern.
5 (3) Goblins
4 (3) Orcs
2 (1) Boar riders
2 (2) Wolfriders
1 (1) Wolf chariots
1 (1) Black orcs
1 Giant
1 Trolls
1 Rock lobber.

I have not included the ogres as I don’t think they fit the army. Things I have done beyond the “One of each unit” rule is that I included one more Board riders, as I feel this is needed, and one unit of goblins to give all orc and black orc units support. Is this a vise desertion? Or should I substitute the goblins with cavalry such as wolf riders?. There is room for this if I settle for 15 points of magic items.

Balance?
Are these balanced? I see that the Empire have most shooting, so I guess they will get the initiative as the O&G will have to rush to get in close combat as soon as possible. They are helped with this by having one more cavalry unit than the Empire, but most of these units are weaker than the three units of knights. So I’m thinking that maybe the O&G cavalry is too weak? Should I substitute one of the Knight units? I have also tried to let the O&G outnumber the Empire, and they do so by two units.
 

[Haranin]

Print out some paper units and get a few practice games in. One thing you should notice quickly is that shooty is somewhat useful for disrupting enemy formations, but really doesn't kill anything.

Generally the path for victory for empire is to minimize the shooters, and get a balanced mix of halberds and knights. Halberds for fixing enemy formations in place, and knights for the killing via flank attacks.

If the enemy has no flyers, two units of cannons can be useful.

With the below lists, I would expect the orcs to win more often than not. They simply have vastly more close combat troops, and at best the empire is killing a stand or two a turn... considering the difficultly of concentrating shooting, unlikely to do that well. The Empire has an advantage in leadership...  but it will not go well for the empire once the orcs close.

This isn't WHFB. Shooty needs to get enough hits in to kill a stand or it does nothing. Other than High Elves, most shooting is nothing to take note of.

YMMV.

At 2k for empire; I field an army like this one:
9 Halberdiers
4 Xbows
1 flagellant
6 knights
2 cannon

General, 3 heros, 2 wizards and a Griffon

BP 11

I'd probably fiddle with the list a bit to get some dispell gear for the wizards.

The steam tank is complete junk in warmaster. By all means get one, its a nice model. But use it as an objective, if anything.

[Dirach]

The "Practice" play is no option. As I play with "regular" players that also collects games, I guess I will not play the game very often. So when I do, I want it to be with painted armies.

I should really play more Memoir 44, C&C Ancient, HeroScape, War of the Ring, Warhammer: Invation and a dozen abstracts.

I see that most use fewer heroes than the max limit. I see that this can be a place to do some adjustmens, if the balance isn't right.

I see that the O&G have more close combat units, but will not the Empire gun line be able to disrupt the O&G line so the close combat units can focus on only a part of the O&G line?

[Stomm]

Max out the Heroes. + griffon.

Really bad idea, you're taking far too many heroes. Unless you're going really infantry-heavy (as in 9+units of halberdiers), the most you'll need is two at 2k. You do however need to max out on wizards, this is true for all armies and at all size games. Its also true of 'trick' units, such as cannons, flagellants and so on. Either take as many as you can, or take none. In the case of flagellants, never take none as they are the only useful infantry unit in the Empire army. Oddly enough it reminds me of the 2nd/3rd ed. Warhammer Empire army, where again flagellants were just about the only infantry unit worth taking in any numbers...

4 (3) Haleberdiers
4 (2) Crossbowmen

Yup, keep to the minimums, you may want to take some more halberdiers to bulk up the break point a bit.

3 (2) Knights
1 (1) Pistoliers

Well I never bother with Pistolers, but they do have their uses. Certainly take more knights that this, I tend to take 6-7, a big enough block to split in two and therefore ensure that you've got something left to hit the enemy with if one of the brigades gets caught in the flank, etc...

1 (1) Cannons

Max or none. Artillery can be somewhat of a liability as much as a hinderance for your opponent. It also means that you have something that you need to defend, so it can nail your battle-line a bit, not necissarily a good thing.

1 Steam tank

In its current form, even the revised form, the Steam Tank just isn't worth it's points and is all too easy to take out with a single spell, lucky cannon shot and so on. Basically its an easy VP target for your enemy. Conversely you can use it as a magic and artillery magnet, but it will only last a turn or two doing this...


Basially nice model, but hardly ever worth taking...

1 Flagellants

Always take as many as you can, so double your number of units...

1 Handgunners

not worth taking except in exceptional circumstances IMHO, that being a siege game, or where you really do just want to spend the whole game sitting in a forest doing nothing...

3 Skirmishers

Well having some skirmishers is always good for using up spare points, but they are only really useful in adding some more mass to your flagellant units, which is about as fluff-accurate as taking a squadron of Land Speeders. Otherwise they merely make useless speedbumps take longer to kill, and gives your opponent 25 more VP's for every one lost...

2 Helblasters.

I just use these as point-defence weapons for my artillery. But when my artilllery bites the dust from enemy flyers, etc... It's usually just another 50 Vp's to your enemy. If you can get them close to the enemy lines, well then that is very nasty indeed... But very hard to do without getting jumped on first. One way that I might eventually use them is to combine them with some Pistollers, for some truly awesome close-range firepower...

[Lex]

Contrary to some peoples point of view, Empire is an army that works best as a Combined Forces army, but it takes the hands of a canny general to pull that off, for easyplay mode pretend they are Bretonians and stock up on the hard hitting cavalry   

There have been some articles on running O&G in Warmaster magazine and Specialst Games Journal by Ullgityer. They are well worth a once over if you play greenskins.

[Guthwine]

I also dislike knight heavy empire armies. I kinda feel that it doesnt represent the imperial army that well.

Here is an empirelist that came up with some time ago:

General/ 2 Heroes (1griffon)/ 2 Wizards
4 Halberdiers
4 Crossbowmen
2 Flagellants
2 Cannons
2 Hellblaster
3 Pistolliers
4 Knights

=>1975 - BP11 (+a sword of might for the griffon hero)
Also if you want to use the steamtank you can switch it out with the 4th knight unit.

Its definitely a more static approach but imho it fits an imperial army. I cant really give you an equivalent orc army list as i have faced them only once and never played them myself.

[Dirach]

Thanks for the replies.

I have got some advice on how to do to make my armies more effective, and what units to leave out. I will point out that this is not my goal. I want to use at least one of each unit, as I think this is more in the spirit of the armies, and it will make a more varied and interesting game for me. It doesn’t matter if the armies are bad, compared to competitive play, as long as there is a balance in the armies.

But as I guess no one have done these armies with this in mind, I guess it is hard to see if they are balanced on the screen. I guess I’ll have to adjust the armies when I start playing. 

[azrael71]

I have got to agree with you Dirach.
I much more enjoy a thematic, fun game than one where the army has been picked or tweaked to be ultra-competitive.

But that is just me 
Each to their own.

Nothing looks better on the field than a massive wm empire army.
So what if your Steam Tank gets wiped in the second turn as long as it did a bit of damage to the enemy or even just was an amusing addition to the army then so be it.

But everyone plays this game differently and you will always get opinions rather than unbiased answers

[Stomm]

I like cinematicly themed games as well, but that's no reason not to ensure that the game is balanced and every unit isn't under or over-priced and has a place in a competativly chosen army list. In fact, I'd like to see, and will probably eventually get around to writing some province-themed Empire amry lists. I see no reason why a Nuln list for example can't have cannons as min/max 1/2, and handgunners at 2/- for example. Indeed you can theme most of the provinces simply by mucking about with min/max levels...

[spiritusXmachina]

I find it's a nice project you try to do here and plz report your experiences.

I know empire quite well as I play them myself, I had some games against O&G, have an unpainted O&G army.
So granted that you don't want to max out the armies but try to have balanced armies which make fun to play against each other. I try to give my 2 cents.

It might be interesting to work out the differences of the two armies which basically are both quite flexible. The main problem an empire army faces against O&G is the good combat abilities of the Orcs. Empire infantry will usually have a hard time when facing them as they have one attack more. So it will be imo necessary for the empire to have cavalry to make a stand there (my advice would be 3 Pistoliers and 3 knights). O&G have the problem that their cavalry is less effective and they don't have a cmd 9 general so will maybe be a bit less mobile.

So why not create a "more defensive" orc army? Two rock lobbers (as I think Stomm is right there that one arti does'nt help a lot) with a lot of orc infantry and some cavalry shock troops behind (try to put your brigades together beforehand and give every brigade their commander). They should have a good breakpoint and don't forget the giants as they're quite dangerous (for cavalry too). Then put up a more offensive empire army with no cannons or helblasters (or only one of each if you want to have all units in your army) and a worse breakpoint (too many skirmishers as you have them in your list have that effect anyway...)
Of course you should have a lot of wizards as both sides have good magic (Orcs are even better there imo).

This match should not be too competitive ....

Greetings,
Gerald

[David Wasilewski]

I am in the process of painting up an Empire army and (after buying characters) I intend to spend about 50% of my points on infantry and warmachines and 50% on cavalry. This will hopefully give me a "hammer" (the cavalry) and "anvil" (the inf/warmachines) force which will fight defensively but have a strong counter punch. The infantry will give a good break point to the army too.

Just my 2 penneth!

Dave

[Dirach]

Thank you spiritusXmachina. This is just the kind of advice I'm after.

I like the idea of two rock lobbers when I'm visualize the O&G army. I’m doing so by removing one of the goblin units.

I was uncertain about the skirmishers, as in my project they would mess up a bit by adding special rules to basic units, and off course there seen to be some tactical issues about them. I remove them to add another unit of pistoliers. In my view pistoliers are so rare that one unit would be just right, but in this chase the balance must come first.

I'll decide about the third pistoliers after some games. But it will take a while before I can produce a report as I only have 5 units painted, And that took me half a year.