Question About Empire State Troops

[McCarronXLD]

So in game (and table top, I assume) we have: Spearmen, Spearmen with Shields, Swordsmen, Halberdiers, and Greatswords.

What sort of uses do all these units have as it seems like a lot of variety for nothing. In reality the time period Warhammer fantasy is analogous to relied on pikemen and gunners to form the brunt of the army, with cavalry on the side and cannons to rule the field. Knights were being quickly phased out and aside from pike and shot formations you might have some irregulars with swords (but no shields) to hack away at enemy formations when opposing pikes met. Now obviously this is a fantasy setting and the arrival of advanced blackpowder weaponry has (for some reason) not phased out older methods of warfare, especially since we have all sorts of other races with varying degrees of technology who are all extremely relevant with their martial strength. I'll cede that.

What I don't get is how, within one's own faction, you have redundant units. It is my understanding that in the lore The Empire has pike units much like Estalia and Tilea. They have gunners. Short spearmen are already rendered obsolete. Spearmen with shields are definitely rendered obsolete. Swordsmen with shields I'm not sure about. The real world reformations are based on the fact you're fighting Humans vs Humans, using the same sorts of military strategies and advancements. So it was pike and shot vs pike and shot. That isn't the case in this fantasy setting. Do the swordsmen fill any sort of purpose in this setting that isn't relevant in the real world equivilant? If it is for flanking then it would seem Greatswords do a better job of that, especially against some of the more physically imposing races of the world. Now Greatswords and Halberdiers would have been used to push the pikes in the real world. When two opposing pike formations met and the pikes created a "no man's land" as they jostled for advancement the greatswords OR halberds would hack at the pikes and opposing infantry as they got closer. They kind of had the same purpose, just different flavours by different countries. Seems like you don't need to have both.

So that's all fine for reality, but Warhammer isn't reality. Am I trying too hard to make sense of it all?

Doesn't help that we're told in the lore the Empire uses Pike infantry, but in the game and the tabletop they do not have Pike units which throws this all out the window. If that's the case then what unit should be the frontline, core unit and what purpose do the rest of the infantry have other than for player variety? I've seen mostly Halberds in state troop artwork and miniatures.

[Shadow88]

Well I can't answer all of it but Greatswords and Halberdiers work best against armoured units as they're Armour-Piercing. Greatswords are best for dealing with armoured infantry (like most dwarf units, Black Orcs, Grave Guard, etc) while Halberdiers are for armoured and Large units (so armoured cavalry and larger). Swordsmen and spearmen are more for unarmoured or lightly-armoured units - infantry and Large, respectively.

Generally-speaking; the better a unit is against armour, the slower they attack. So a unit of Swordsmen work better against a unit of goblins than Greatswords would (the Greatswords would win, but it would take them a while and means they couldn't engage any Black Orcs that might be backing up the goblins). Similarly; Spearmen are better against, say, Goblin Wolf Riders while Orc Boar Boy Big 'Uns or Orc Boar Chariots are better engaged with Halberdiers.

Beyond that, units with shields are more resistant to missile fire - the shields let them negate 30% of any incoming missiles.

I don't know how much all of that helps, I'm not the best strategist in the world but I figured this could at least get the rest of the discussion on the same page.

[Baron of Hyrule]

I believe the Empire did have pikes on tabletop but they were phased out a long time ago as models with pikes were hard to balance game-wise due to the pike's power (many historical games have similar issues) and it's hard to have the opposing bases touch eachother with a pike wall in the way.

Lore-wise the Empire does use pikes and their power is indeed formidable and is credited so.

The reason the Empire is so diverse is due to it being a dozen islands of civilization amongst a sea of madness. The forested lands that seperate the cities and villages are teeming with bandits, mutants, beastmen, orcs, goblins, chao cults, undead, Skaven and chaos tainted beasts. Pikes aren't much use against thick-skinned orcs and beastmen where halberdiers are more useful while goblins and Skaven are far quicker than humans so you need skilled swordsmen to keep up with them. The large variety of foes the Empire faces requires a large arsenal. That's not accounting for the threats from the sea either.

Another point of the cities being like islands is that the poorer provinces like Ostland and Nordland can't afford the technology of the more prosperous south. Nordland itself is stated to have excellent spearmen due to their cheap cost to produce, train and make ready for defense against sea raiders (or worse) that can appear at anytime. Provinces like Reikland, Middenheim and Averland are the most prosperous and thus have pike and shot armies. Stirland's the poorest countries and has to make due with bowmen and spears. (And once again, constant threat makes cheap and quick to use weapons a must. Sylvania's their next door neighbor afterall)

The halberds popularity is due to it's versatility and effectiveness against orcs and beastmen which increased their attacks on the Empire when Karl Franz took the lead. This is why he made it a law that all provinces will always a have a ready body of halberdier units at the ready.

Swordsmen are skilled combatants that are excellent for patrols in dangerous country, effectiveness in forested areas and use in large organized units in warfare. It's the same reason that, historically, Cortes' first forces into the Americas were composed of mostly rodeleros(sword and buckler) and crossbows with actual pikes and shot being very few in number. Their versatility in close-quarter ship fights, jungle and forest skirmishes and organized fighting made them very valuable.

Also, before swordsmen got a later initiative nerf in 8th, their superior speed compared to their counterparts made an excellent example that sword and buckler troops were vital in renaissance formations as quick response units to plug up openings made by the enemy in the formation while the more cumbersome pike and halberd units brought their weapons to bare.

Hope that helps explain a few things.

[McCarronXLD]

Thank you for the insight I suppose that all makes sense at least from a gameplay point of view.

[Aenerion1]

K, quite a long and a bit diffused question, so I'll try to do my best.

1st you're making a couple of assumptions which you should let go. While the Empire is based roughly on the German Holy Empire and Bretonnia on Medieval France, it isn't exactly 1 on 1. Here is your first problem with real world analogies. Medieval France vs a later German Holy Empire, and they still have to be equal on the table top.
2nd one, is gunpowder isn't that reliable in Warhammer. While the Dwarfs excel at it, and the Empire has been doing quite good with it thanks to their friendship with the Dwarfs, gunpowder weapons are still way more expensive and artillery isn't that reliable and common. Let's not even talk about Elves who outright eschew any black powder.
3rdly, very important, there's magic in the Warhammer World, which makes real life analogies also harder to make. This is a world where magic is very real and generals and their troops have to account for that. The same goes for the monsters, the undead, etc, everything that makes it fantasy.

On the part of pikes; pikes only really came into the rulesset with the Dogs of War (Tilean/Southern armies). It made the southerners distinct and gave them something new. All the other armies were already balanced (sort of) against each other. The bonus pikes give to infantry, especially in blocks is pretty high, so they didn't give pikes to any other army. Pikes didn't really come by in lore like armybooks and such, but more in stories and books. Many writers take some artistical freedoms in their stories, which is why lore can be contradictionary.

So pikes were a new thing, and made by GW for southerners, because the older armies would get pretty OP with them. Due to historical anachronisms they've balanced stuff like knights vs handgunners.

As for what uses the different units have, in lore, it can be whatever the writer wants (hence, not that reliable), but for tt there are some great guides, and I'll point you to one. ----->>> (go to core units).

1 thing that was something special for the Empire, but didn't make it to TW was the detachment rule, used a lot by Empire tt players. Which basicly meant that a parent unit had 1 or 2 small flanking units. Spearmen and Swordsmen were often used in parent blocks, with greatswords/halbediers/free company/ranged units attached to it.

Hope this helps.

[McCarronXLD]

All of this is extremely helpful. Thank you lads!

[Baron of Hyrule]

No problem!

I'm just happy you ceded from going into "why isn't everyone using guns yet" territory.

[Aenerion1]

heh, quite some ppl awake this early to answer ><

[Baron of Hyrule]

Haha, I was surprised by that as well!

[Aenerion1]

I believe the Empire did have pikes on tabletop but they were phased out a long time ago...

...Lore-wise the Empire does use pikes and their power is indeed formidable and is credited so.

I can't remember pikes before DoW, and I've been playing quite some editions. But maybe before my time.
I've read a lot of GW books (armybooks and such) where I didn't found any pike mentions. I did never read a lot of other WFB books (Black Library), was more into 40k on that point (Ghaunt's Ghost & HH) so can't account for that.

[McCarronXLD]

I haven't played the TT or read any books I've just been going off the wiki where it mentioned Pikes.

[Baron of Hyrule]

@Aenerion, I can't really account for it myself. I just remember a mention of it from a TT discussion on the Empire forum. It could of easily been from the early installment weirdness like 1st or 2nd edition when the Empire was all the human factions(Grail knights were their elite cavalry as the Order of the Grail, for example) and Bretonnia was a corrupt Napoleonic regime.

@McCarron, that's fine, the Empire's pikes pop up here and there in the novels and background. Depends on the writer, story and what province they're in.

Like in the Empire rpg materials mentioning that the Middenheim pikemen were so eager to attack the chaos army that they broke formation and charged before orders were given. After that, non-Middenheim Empire generals were advised to treat Middenheim troops like chained wild dogs.

[daelin4]

If I'm reading OP right, it's just thinking too much into it. As a fantasy themed tabletop game, the design of units isn't meant to be practical, but to be cool (and as an extension, to sell the models).

In a realistic situation, any army will want to eliminate as many practical redundancies for efficiency...but this isn't reality.
But what you WILL find is that, in a game like WTW and in Total War games in general, unit rosters tend to have a few redundant units, which most savvy players will simply disband or avoid according to their playstyles and strategies. If you've got the money to recruit knight units in MTW2 for example, you're not going to be recruiting cheap militia men for simple reasons of statistical efficiency- you got money to manage an army of knights, so you won't ever bother with inferior units that are designed for cheaper access but inferior performance.
If you design units right however, then ideally all units will have a niche that most players simply cannot ignore. For the most part many units in Total War games work this way, especially if certain themes like gunpowder/ melee historic settings allow for greater diversity of unit themes. An example of "overly" efficienty unit roster is Shogun2, where cheap and easily accessible Ashigaru units with their larger size and lower upkeep can in many situations outclass units or even armies with samurai units, units clearly designed to be tougher but smaller and harder to access; the result was that in many cases you can steamroll the game with just the cheap units because you got them out super fast and blazed through your opponents to quickly establish a powerful strategic base...and then replace all of those units with the better ones.

ANyways, back to Warhammer: redundant units are there because it is Warhammer; if they aren't in the game, it's not really warhammer, especially when they are basic, "iconic" units to the faction's theme. I'd even guess that if they weren't in the game, then Games Workshop will have an issue with it.

If you think about it, it's kinda like a Star Wars but without Stormtroopers. Sure in the movies they suck, and in many games like the Jedi Knight/ Outcast FPS games they are just your basic fodder, but if the game didn't have them, is it really Star Wars?

[McCarronXLD]

I was mostly wondering because I intend to heavily mod the game. Most of my Total War time for the past year has been spent with Rome 2's Divide et Impara so I've been spoiled with a focus on realism. So I planned on trimming down the unit rosters and adding a few things, most likely not to be in line with Games Workshop's visions or the table top. Want a bit more realism in my fantasy. Despite that I wanted insight on how the units currently function within the lore so I could keep that in mind while altering them.

[econ21]

I think only the spears without shields are redundant, from a gameplay point of view[1]. This is quite an improvement on Attila, where you had different tiers of (for Romans at least) essentially the same unit. In that game, the higher tier units make the lower ones so redundant, the game would not even let you recruit it anymore after researching the upgrade. (This was an issue for some non-Roman factions where upgrades changed the nature of the unit and were very pricey.)

I just finished my first Empire campaign and I was struck by how it transitioned from the early game, fighting unarmored marauding Norscans to the end game, fighting heavily armored Warriors of Chaos who had a lot of monstrous units. A sword and crossbow army was very efficient against the former, but hopelessly inefficient against the latter (they should be replaced by greatswords and handguns). I also found spears and halberds fairly pointless against Norscans but a mainstay against monster heavy Chaos.

To make the point, consider some stats for crossbows vs handguns (the figures are for Dwarves, but the point stands). A unit of crossbows might kill 106 unarmoured zombies whereas a unit of handguns kills 56. Add in the lower cost and greater indirect fire capability of the crossbows and you can see why crossbows are preferred for the unarmoured opponents. But against heavily armored grave guard with shields, the crossbows are close to ineffective - they kill only 8 while the handguns kill 23.

A related nice feature of the game is that money is fairly tight, so sometimes you'll be happy to take lower tier units (e.g. swords rather than Greatswords) for less demanding fronts in order to save money.

[1]EDIT: That's SP only. I read a MP guide that is all about demi-griff knights and spears without shields. I guess cost efficiency matters more in MP, so they are not redundant for that.

[Carl Jung was right]

I'm a real sucker for realism. I just can't settle for "it's fantasy and therefore, derp".

However we must understand that Warhammer Fantasy "realism" is different from Warhammer Reality realism. This is because the unfolding of military affairs clearly follows one important law, that it is driven by strategic, environmental or even overall political circumstances. This is the case in real life and in the fantastic world of Warhammer.

In real warfare, the external sociological conditions played a much greater role. All opponents are essentially physiologically identical, distinguished from one another by culture, religion and political faction, which tended to be the main motivating factor of their "fighting spirit" and method of waging war. However in WHFB, you have armies containing monstrous units, you have armies which are essentially monsters, you have armies which field chiefly shock infantry or fast moving hordes of cheap troops that aren't really weighed down by casualty counts they incur, and so on and so on. Therefore the tactical necessities that arise in such an environment are starkly different from what influenced military tactics in real life.

Now ask, what's the use of a pike against a unit such as a giant or a pack of trolls? Of course one can immediately reply that a sword isn't much better. However infantry wielding swords can space themselves out, maneuver around the enemy's back and generally move about to a better vantage position. They at least have somewhat of a fighting chance. A 3-5 meter pike is an unwieldy weapon that plays a battlefield role as part of a hedgehog style formation. On top of that many enemies that human factions face can simply smash the pike points aside, leaving their user without a weapon. A similar case applies to muskets - a screened gun line worked well against a (relatively) slow moving block of foot troops typical of Renaissance armies. When you face a land-carpet of skaven or orcs rapidly closing in on your position in a manner that was closer to WW1 or WW2 style human wave assaults, and tomorrow you face a completely different enemy with different army composition and tactics, anything short of barbed wire or machineguns can't stop them in terms of ranged fire. That's why you need to have powerful melee troops as well as other types of specialized soldiers complementing your shooter units. So in other words, the "pike and shot" paradigm evolved in a more homogeneous environment where conditions favored it. This isn't the case in the universe of Warhammer.

Despite this, there are remarkably some factions which feature pike and shot, such as Estalia, Tilea and Nuln. However the justification for fielding such units has to come from in-universe possibilities rather than necessarily from what held true of 16th century warfare.