‘Warhammer: The Old World’- There Is A Lot Of Empire Coming!
Take a closer look at the cool Warhammer: The Old World things GW announced for the Empire.
We’ve known for a bit that The Empire would be the next faction coming out for Warhammer: The Old World. However other than that they were coming sometime next year we didn’t know much about the release. Well last week GW pulled back the veil a bit, and while we don’t know exactly when they are coming, we’ve got a much better idea of what is coming. As is expected as arguably THE core faction of The Old World, it’s a lot. Lets take a look at what we’ve got in the pipeline.
The Empire Arcane Journal
Of course we knew we were getting a new Arcane Journal for The Empire of Man. All the armies get one when it’s their time and they are always pretty great. Now Empire really need a good Arcane Journal. Sadly they are sitting as one of the worst of the core armies. This is made worse by the fact that they have very few viable builds for competitive play. Their infantry, a huge part of the army, is pretty worthless and their characters are lackluster. They have basically no special rules. So they really need some help.
I’m mildly hopeful for the the AJ. It’s sounds like it will have all the right things in it, including based on the WarCom article, new magic. In the preview they also mentioned also mentioned that the Empire would be getting some new units that have never been in the list before. From the models that are coming out it does seem like the Journal will add a bunch of units. Both the War Wagon and Imperial Ogres are coming and those are not in the army right now. Teutogen Guard are also coming back, but they could just be alternate Greatswords, or get their own rules, that’s unclear. However all of those units have been in past Empire lists before. So it’s still possible we are getting more as yet unknown units.
The Armies of Infamy
Per the norm we are also getting two Armies of Infamy. The first in a Nuln focused army. And this was one I predicted was likely to come but really wanted to be wrong about. Traditionally Nuln is a heavy gunline focused on artillery. I think gunlines are one of the least fun armies to play against and not a ton of fun to play, they tend to lead to very one-sided games. On the other hand the Nuln section of the book, Great Cannons, Hellbalsters and Steam Tanks is pretty much (aside from Demi Knights) what works for Empire, so this could be a strong list for them. I just don’t know if it will really do a lot new.
The other Army of Infamy is going to be focused on Knightly Orders, the rest of the good Empire stuff. This one could be very and might have some cool rules. However I will say that the game is already very cavalry heavy so… just play Brets? I do think it’s odd given all the Middenhiem/Ulrich stuff coming out that we are not getting a list focused on that, but oh well. These are two armies that are pretty easy to make better, unlike an infantry focused one.
Empire Plastics Galore!
Rules aside we are getting all the plastics you could want. Pretty much every old plastic kit is coming back in this release, as expected. The only real exceptions are the wizards and their big magic guns. However, the magic guns aren’t in this game and the wizards can still be bought as part of the Cities of Sigmar AoS line, so it’s not really a loss there. It’s nothing new, but it is exactly what you want.
An Odd Empire Battalion
The release is being led by a big battalion box. To be honest this is one I’m pretty on the fence about. You get a bunch of State Troops, a bunch of ranged troops and a steam tank. Now there is an argument that this gives you a good core to build around. You’ll like want a Steam Tank and its about all the infantry you’d every want, maybe slightly more. And if you want a infantry heavy force it’s pretty good. Certainly the Steam Tank and the ranged troops are units you’d likely get anyway. However it’s not really a box you’d ever buy two of. Right now you can’t take more than 1 Steam Tank at 2000 pts (maybe Nuln will change that) and you really wouldn’t want any more infantry that this. But maybe it’s Ok to not buy more than one copy of a big box like this.
On the other hand it just feels pretty… light. Every other battalion box with some pretty minor conversions (characters normally) can build at least a 1500 pt army. This box is reaching to get to around 700 pts with out characters, and would really be pushing it to get to 1500. It also saddles you with a lot of infantry you very well might not every play. Maybe the Arcane Journal will make it make more sense, but really I think I’d just buy a Steam Tank and skip the rest.
Tons of Other Cool Empire Models
I’m not going to go though all of them, but there are a ton more models coming out for the list and I’m very excited for a lot of them. Like the other armies, we aren’t getting a ton of new models (there are supposed to be a couple characters that we’ve only seen grainy shots of). What we are getting is a lot of old models, many that have been out of production for decades. There is the above mentioned War Wagon, and also the very cool Empire Ogres.
But we’ve also got a ton of cool command and character models. Some of these are pretty rare and obscure and it is so cool to see them coming back. I know my wallet is going to be hurting! Overall its a really cool release and I’m happy with what has been shown off so far. I’m also pretty sure given the hints they dropped that we have not seen everything yet, so Huzzah for Sigmar!
Let us know if you are excited for the Empire Release, down in the comments!
