Struggling as Empire in Grand Campaign battles.

[Bogdanov89]

In manual battles during the Grand Campaign i actually do really well as Greenskins, Vampires, Dwarves, Wood Elves...
I am familiar with how to use cavalry, flying units, magic, artillery, infantry and other types of units n heroes.

But when i play as the Empire my manual battles are usually very close to defeat and overall excruciatingly difficult to win.

I know Empire has:
- Great cavalry that must be used to flank and backstab the enemy, repeating the charges as needed
- Quite decent ranged attackers like Outriders and Handgunners (mustn't obstruct line of fire)
- Awesome artillery that also usually benefits from a clear line of fire.
- Useful technologies to research and powerful skills on lords to help units/armies
- Very diverse and powerful magic to buff/heal your own units or debuff/harm the enemy
- Probably the worst infantry in the game, with the fragile Sword/Spearmen, overpriced/underperforming Greatswords and a lack of high-tier shielded heavy armor unit like Ironbreakers or even Graveguards.

My main problem in battles as Empire is that my infantry wall/front-line either flees or dies WAY too quickly.
I always try to put my Infantry in a narrow choke-point so enemy infantry can not surround my infantry.
My awesome cavalry and artillery/ranged DPS does not get enough time to do its job before the Empire infantry line fails.
Empire magic is good and diverse but often even it is not enough to turn the tide.

The low tier swordsman/spearman(shields) lose morale easily and overall die rather quickly due to lower armor.
Flagellants are very brave but even with magic buffs they die really quickly to any higher tier front-line melee.
Halberdiers are very fragile, with only 30 armor and obviously lacking a shield they die very quickly to any melee infantry or ranged damage.
Even using only the expensive Greatswords is not enough, since they still quickly die to other high tier units like the Black Orcs or various Monsters or ranged damage units like armor-piercing archers/gunners.

I tried using all the various lores of magic that Empire has to help my infantry, but often even that is not enough to buy enough time for my Cavalry and Artillery/Ranged DPS to do its job.
As i said before i make sure my infantry is not surrounded by enemy infantry, so that they are only getting attacked from the front.

I make sure that my artillery/ranged DPS is in a safe and elevated position so they can free fire all the time.
And i make sure that my Cavalry is able to flank the enemy as soon as the enemy melee starts fighting my infantry wall.
Magic is of course used whenever appropriate to heal or buff my infantry or debuff enemy melee.

But even with all that positioning, strategy and high tier units my armies more-often-than-not lose to melee armies like Greenskins with a simplistic mass of high-tier melee units, or similarly high tier melee-focused armies from Chaos and Vampires.

Every battle i lost was because my front-line infantry wall got owned before my cavalry/ranged/arty could do enough to secure a win.
In comparison, when i play as Elves or Dwarves using similar tactics pretty much always wins against the AI because my Treekin/Dwarven infantry are able to hold the line long enough VS enemy melee armies so that my ranged DPS can kill them.

[Fallen851]

My experience has been that you really have to wear down the enemy before they hit your infantry line as the Empire. It works great for me, but I don't play vanilla I use a combat mod that makes battle last a bit longer and slow down the movement of units on the battlefield so ranged units have more time to deal damage.

Also Halberdiers are really meant to counter large enemies so they aren't a front line unit. I keep them on my flanks to counter cavalry or in my reserves and bring them up only when I have to engage enemy monsters.

[Darviathar]

The real problem is that charges by mounted knights simply aren't as devastating as they should be, but this isn't new to total war, and dates back to Medieval 2. I have a very tough time playing on VH difficulty (with a lot of mods) as Empire and Bretonnia, because their infantry simply cannot hold the line. You have to micromanage your knights non-stop, because if you leave them in melee for any length of time, they get chewed up too fast.

[Påsan]

Aight, here is what to do as Empire:

1: Front line of greatswords/flagrants. Those are your two sturdy options, greatswords got armor and flageants is unbreakable. Perhaps adding in some halbadiers if your enemy is fielding lots of large. The only real exception here is sigmars sons RoR who are very good as well.

2: Have a decent ranged component. I found basic crossbows to be the best since they can sit behind the enemy and fire at will, and most of the stuff you come up against are low armor anyway until you hit Chaos invasion, they get great buffs from both the lords skill tree and the tech tree. They are also great at killing skirmish cav which the AI (especially orks and norsca) spams a lot of. The RoR handgunner unit is also worth using, go after cav and monsters with it. Additionally the artillery worth using is the two RoR artilery pieces and canons. Canons are generally the all purpose killing machine of your army. Go after cav and monsters with them. The other artilery pieces are fun but not worth it imo.

3: The best lore of magic is lore of life. And the only spell worth using is overcasted earth blood to keep your dudes fighting.

4: Your cav is actually mediocre. And the only real strong cav you got is the demigryphs with halberds. Armor piercing and anti large are the two things you want in your cav.

5: Your heroes should be linebreakers. Karl Franz is nothing special in terms of mechanics in the game any more, but teched up with campaign items he can become a monster. Put ward saves on him as soon as you get them, invest in health and use him to go wrecking ball into the enemy lines supported by your lore of life healing and artilery. Volkmar the grim on his pimp wagon and boris todbringer if you ever get him is also good at this.

6: Late game is about steam tanks. Dont put the steam tank in the back, it should be in the front of your lines so that eneemies will clump up on it, and you can then shoot them with impunity.

[joeman_0]

I found a way to do well as empire in grand campaign with a cheap army. I can actually go toe to toe against a full of chaos with my mostly first tier units, and this allows me to get several stacks past turn 100. My favorite army composition is:

3 heroes including Gelt who is starting lord, a warrior priest, a captain
6 swordsman
2 halberds
4 handgunners
1 crossbow men
2 Reiksguard
1 great cannon
1 mortar

The key is to use handgunners for DPS. The rest merely plays a supporting role.
It is important to train level 9 swordsman with army captain and swords school. The rest of the army should be trained at least level 7. They all can be trained in the same province BTW. Level 9 swordsman cannot beat Chaos melee units, but they can survive long enough for your handgunners to kill them all.
When battle start, charge in your warrior priest and army captain. This allows guns to keep firing. Put the rest of the swordsman in skinny formation to intercept units going toward your guns. All army units should be in skinny formation except for handgunners in fat formation.
The halberd matches up with large units and Reiksgard temporarily intercepts units in your flanks but shouldn't in prolonged combat. if necessary, target your two outside guns toward the flanks.
The great cannon aim at missile horsemans and mortars aim at blobs. The crossbowman is mostly for shooting at the pesky chaos skirmish units and low armored units.

If Chaos has cannons, I use Gelt to take them out. After taking out Cannons, I fly him back to keep casting debuffs. Overcasting Final transformation is very good but his debuffs are even better.

[craziii]

#1 rule of any combat, I always try to take out fast moving units first. enemy calvary types. once that is down, I go to town on their range if they have range. handgunners is a must for armor units. once they are out of fast + range units, I go to town on their main blob. with single, strong monster type of units in warhammer, you will take casualties, but that is war

warhammer actually requires somewhat of a diff play style due to how different each race is. this is actually really, very good.

[Frunk]

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