Empire (of Sonnstahl and the old Germanic type) has always bored
me senseless.
The vision in my mind of such an army should look (mass units of
halberd-wielding sweaty moustachioed men in leather
with support from heavily armoured knights and a smattering of the more
esoteric elements available to them) never appeared to translate onto the
table. In 8th it seemed to be all about wingless griffon riders,
Tanks, various buff wagons and an infantry unit because, well, we all have to
spend Core points
This has not changed much in my (limited) interaction with them in
9th Age.
Some concepts seemed cool (like the copying of Imperial Guard-esque
orders), but in practice it seemed to just make a very shooty army more shooty
(which I guess fits the Imperial Guard theme…).
My memories of my last game against Empire are simple enough – lots
of shooting (muskets, rocket batteries, high powered rifles, fast cav with
pistols), a tank, hard to kill characters and an infantry unit. Engineers
seemed be all action masters of war. The game had the age old fun quality of
“will I get to my opponent in sufficient numbers to matter, or should I hide
around these ‘ere hills?”. Except, of course, the rockets were stupidly good,
so sitting back wasn’t an option (side note – rockets in the age of muskets
were notoriously terrible weapons, not quite sure how they have managed to
become my scourge on the 9th Age battlefields…). Somehow the
mechanics also allowed dudes with muskets to be more effective at BS shooting
than elves. That smelt wrong.
So – what have they changed?
1. Detachments: We were looking for ways to help them
overcome the problem of their special rules being negated simply by an opponent
charging the detachment instead of the parent unit. We are leaning towards a
design that will help larger detachments stay alive so the parent unit can help
them out, as well as allowing the detachment to use some of the ranks of the
parent unit towards combat resolution.
Seriously – anything that makes detachments any more likely gets
nothing but a massive thumbs up from me! Details too vague to see if will
actually work of course…
2. Flagellants: We are looking to buff them to make
them a more viable choice. They are gaining an ability that will allow them to
always make their attacks, even if they are killed at a higher initiative.
Also, clerical characters will be able to join them.
This one surprised me, given the fuss out there about Slayers
getting to attack after they’ve died. Like that suitable characters can join.
3. Warmachines: Cannons and volley gun are moving
from rare to special. There may be some game-wide changes that limit abusive
gunlines, but we wanted EoS to be able to field some artillery along with other
good troop choices.
Urrgh
4. Orders: These are being slightly adjusted for
better internal and external balance. "Ready, Aim, Fire" was
potentially too strong, so it will no longer give the bonus to hit, but instead
will give 6” longer range.
Good
5. Altar/Shrines: The Arcane Shield upgrade is being
changed from Hard Target to Distracting to provide it better overall
protection, while theForeseeing upgrade will now include mounts (so griffons
and all-cavalry armies get better).
6. Knight Commander: The rules are being adjusted to
better support all-cavalry lists. He will allow for more upgraded knight units.
Nice – always a worry about Empire mounted armies being more
effective than Bretonnian ones with all the passive buffs they can get though
7.
Long Rifle is being nerfed a little bit to avoid abusive situations.
Good! This thing was stupid
8.
Altar of Battle is getting a new upgrade option for barding, so a prelate can
get a 2+ armour save.
9. The Marshal
with the Imperial Prince upgrade (i.e. with The Sonnstahl and also with full
points available for other magic items) is considered overpowered and is being
adjusted. However, the exact changes for this are not quite finalized.
Characters are yawnsome in this army – for me they should be
terrible.
10.
Militia and Heavy Infantry starting size/price adjusted to promote a wider
variety of competitive builds.
Variety always good.
11.
Steel Tank: Keeping in line with the reduction of warmachines and gunlines
across the game as a whole, the steam tank will see a decrease in its offensive
and shooting ability. Furthermore, the steam tank presented a conundrum in that
those equipped to deal with it could easily knock it down several wounds (or
destroy it) with little effort (aka those with alchemy) however those armies
with no common tools struggled to do any damage whatsoever, making the steam
tank too skewed of a match up. The solution was to tone down both the stats and
points of the steam tank so that it does not contain so many easy, or
alternatively, near impossible VP, for EoS match-ups to claim.
Sounds like a decent approach to make this walking epitome of the
rock-paper-scissors club more balanced.
In short – nothing too exciting come to this least exciting of
armies. Long rifles getting nerfed gets a big thumbs up, allowing more of a
fanatic feel is fine, attempting to balance the tank is always welcome.
Would have been surprised to have been massively overjoyed by any
of it, given that it is apparently roughly on the right spot of the power
curve, so no surprise I leave this particular party ambivalent.
Until next time
Raf
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