4 Crossbowmen – swap these out with Handgunners when fighting Dwarves, Chaos, or Brettonia. With high replenishment, your army can keep going without rest. Warrior Priest (specialized for replenishment) – Decent melee fighters with skills to use in battle to protect your units. These are standard armies that are well-balanced between cost and effectiveness. You will most likely be able to field only one of these armies until you take a lot of territory. They can also spot cover for handgunners if units break away from your steam tank front line.Īs strong as this army is, it has a downside: It is very expensive. I usually keep these in the back to meet large unit attacks. They pretty much eliminate the need for horsemen and halberdiers. The handgunners can also be shifted to the flanks to fire on ranged cavalry who attempt to fire on the far wings of your army.ĭemigryph halberds solve three problems: Needing anti-large, needing cavalry to flank the enemy, and taking out artillery. As your front line are all singular entity units, there’s a lot of free space and you can shoot without worrying about friendly fire. The handgunners take up positions behind and fire directly into the enemy as they swarm your Tank/LL/WP line. Enemy units will swarm and surround these units. This army fights defensively using the Steam Tanks, LL, and Warrior Priest as the front contact line. Warrior Priest – spells, defensive combat stats, and replenishment skills like Heal Troops. It also costs the most so I don’t run more than one of this type. My main army is designed to fight just about any faction, and is heavily anti-armor with some anti-large. I divide up my armies into three types: Main army, sub-armies, low-budget armies. Cavalry are used to flank, take out enemy ranged infantry and artillery. My personal style when building armies is very defensive: Artillery, strong melee infantry, and ranged infantry to counter enemy ranged infantry. The important thing is to make sure you’re covering the important characteristics: You will want to transition to handgunners eventually due to their armor-piercing damage. From there, you want to concentrate on melee attack, melee defense, and armor.įor ranged infantry, crossbowmen work well, even into late game. Swordsmen and Spearmen (with Shields) fill this role nicely in the early and mid-game. Ideally, front-line infantry has shields in order to reduce the damage they receive from ranged attacks, which helps their longevity. Front-line composed of infantry (the anvil).
To perform “anvil and hammer” tactics, you’ll need:
Common questions about the Empire is: What makes for an effective army? What is the ideal Empire army composition? I’ll go over a few armies I used for my Legendary Empire campaign.