‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – The Empire Arcane Journal Isn’t The Fix We Needed
The Empire is getting a brand new Arcane Journal. While it’s got some fun stuff, it doesn’t fix one of the Warhammer: The Old World’s problem armies.
It’s been a few months see we got our last Arcane Journal with Warriors of Chaos. Now we’ve gotten the long-awaited Empire Journal. Empire as an army are one that’s suffered a bit in ToW. They are not a particularly strong army. While they can build some winning lists, they have relatively few good builds. A lot of the army is pretty trash, in particular they have some of the worst and most useless infantry in the game. So we were all hoping that the Journal would give them a needed boost. However, while it does make the army better and gives a few nice things, it’s not really the book we needed. But let’s dig in and take a look at what we got.
Knightly Orders
The two things that the Empire has right now that are decently good are knights and war machines. And this is a book that buffs both of those. The biggest buffs go to Knights. The Journal brings in the new Knightly Order System. At its core, it lets you upgrade one “Knight” Character and one “Knight” Unit (Knights, Inner Circle, and Demis) to be from one of five Knightly Orders. You get some buffs to the unit for a few extra points per model. Characters and Inner Circle Knights get slightly better buffs, so there is some incentive not just to double down on Demis. However, I think that is mostly what you will see: a Death Star unit getting slightly better.
The Buffs themselves are a mixed bag, and a few are pretty situational. I think the stand out is the White Wolves. This gives you a new weapon that is basically a mix between a lance and halberd but is two-handed, and the unit gains Furious Charge. An extra attack on the charge, effectively doubling the rider’s attacks, is pretty great. The rules granted by the Order do not apply to a mount, so that’s one loophole closed. While these rules are nice and fun, buffing the heavy cav wasn’t really what the armies needs.
Army of Infamy One – Knightly Order
Like all armies, Empire gets two Armies of Infamy in its book. As the name suggests, the Knightly Order army focuses on the knights. This is a 95% cavalry force that effectively lets you give up all magic, warmachines, and 90%s of infantry and ranged units to load up on calvary. In this army, all your knights can (and must) upgrade to the knightly order rules above (rather than just one unit). You must pick one order for the whole army. The order you pick also changes up your army lists a bit, such as Knights of Morr getting back the option to take Wizards but losing the various Warrior Priests.
While this list lets you build thematic lists, I just don’t think it’s very good. You can already build an all-mounted list with the basic Empire army without losing super important parts of your army. The Knightly Order rules are nice but not all that powerful and make your whole army a lot more expensive. Maybe I’m missing something here. But the restrictions are not worth what you get.
Army of Infamy Two – Nuln
The second Army of Infamy is the City-State of Nuln army. This is one that focuses on the Empire’s other strong point, warmachines. This one is another that just misses the mark for me. It lets your swap out being able to take LVL 4s, all the good close combat characters and units and forces you to take bad infantry, in exchange you get slightly more artillery and very slightly better artillery.
I think the biggest miss here is with the special rules. You get to give Engineers and units they join ItP if they are within 6 inches of a warmachine- fine but not amazing. The army can entrance warmachines which is also nice, but not game-changing, and make Outriders lose ponderous- but this still suck if they move. You can also upgrade 1 warmachines per 1000 pts to have vanguard and veteran, which, let’s be honest, is only useful to move up your Hellblaster to be in range on turn one- that’s really the only offensive buff you get for warmachines.
Then you have the rules to try and buff infantry. The Nuln State Troops rule seems really cool and flavorful rule at first. It limits you to taking units of state troops in a specific configuration- Halbreds with detachments of hand gunners or swordsmen. That’s cool and thematic. However, the only benefit of this very restrictive rule is that you can give your detachments champions. Like… who cares?
The final rule allows each detachment of hand gunners (you can only take them as detachments, so you must pay a tax for bad infantry) to fire in an extra rank once per game. God, the bookkeeping on this is horrible. Can you think of trying to keep track of like 10 identical units over a game and which one has fried in its measly 2nd rank? Just let them do it every turn; you’ve already made them take bad infantry to get hand gunners. This army just doesn’t give the buffs it needs.
The New Units
The book also gives you a good number of new units to play with, but they are a mixed bag.
The Harbinger of Doom is a Flagellant Character that is total garbage. He’s pricy (for Empire) and gives the very slightest of buffs to Flagellants while not adding anything new or interesting. A miss.
Tuetogen Guard are slightly different Greatswords and likely a bit better. They still likely aren’t worth taking competitively. They are a cool model but also don’t do anything unique or new for the army.
Imperial Ogres do do something new. They give the Empire a monstrous infantry option. They are Ogres, so, like, not super amazing or anything, but kind of fun, and there might be some tricks with them. The Ogres can take guns, but you are likely better off with just state missile troops for shooting. Still a nice new option.
Road Wardens are a brand new unit that are basically Outriders with Crossbows. Think armed like this they are pretty bad. They have all the issues of Outriders with less damage output. You can swap their crossbows to pistols to make them basically better pistoleers for slightly more points. I think if you wanted to run pistoleers, this is just a better option, but I also don’t think it’s really any good. Maybe as a fast unit to try and hunt Warmachines.
The War Wagon
Finally, we have what I think is the real stand out of the new units. The War Wagon. This is a pretty beastly Heavy Chariot. This thing gets both impact hits and stomp attacks. Along with its six crew and two horses, it can put out 19 attacks per turn. That’s a decent showing. The crew gets an eclectic mix of weapons, giving them a few ranged shots and a few decent combat attacks. While most of its stuff isn’t great, up to seven ranged attacks and 19 combat attacks is a lot. It also has a 3+ save, so it’s not easy to kill.
You also have the option of running it as a mount for an Engineer. This gives it more attacks and wounds and the option of some magic items. I actually think this is a decent unit that will get some play. The Nuln army gets the most access to them, and I’m a little tempted to run like seven.
Named Characters
The book has two new named heroes. The first, Harald Gemunsen is trash. He is a Grand Master, of the Knights Panther in particular, with a pretty subpar load out. He does get a magic weapon with Killing Blow, which isn’t horrible, but there are better options you can take (it can re-roll wounds vs Beastmen, but that is far too situational). His one real special rule is that he can fight two challenges in a turn if he kills his first enemy. Yeah, sometimes this could be badass, but it’s very situational. Also, unless he gets off a KB, he’s not that great at killing characters, and he himself is only three wounds with a 3+ save and no ward. Most real combat lords will eat him up. Just not worth it.
The other Lord is Hans Von Lowenhacke. He’s actually good! He makes your mercenaries better. Hans also lets you get a +1 or -1 on the die to go first. With a small army (lots of warmachines), you could easily be getting a +2 to go first. While he is stuck on foot, other than that, he’s got a great loadout, with a ward save, immunity to killing blow, and a 2-wound weapon (with +2 S and AP). This guy kind of rocks and is a character you could build an army around.
Magic Items
The Journal also comes with additional magic items. There are some really decent options in here. One I like a lot is the is the Twice-Blessed Armor, which is full plate but also lets you cast Hammerhand as a bound spell. Letting a combat character get an extra 2d3 attacks is pretty nice! There is also a wand to let you cast a spell twice each turn, but your miscasts are really bad. Still, you could have 3 Fireballs coming off of one wizard! Overall, I think the magic items are a strong section and give you some real options that we might see.
It’s Just Not What I Want for The Army
So that’s the book. And as I said upfront, it just doesn’t really work for me. There are some cool ideas in it. There are a few gems. It does make the army, even if only a little, better. But it doesn’t really suddenly make it good. And it doesn’t fix the issue the army has. It mostly buffs cavalry, which some small buffs to artillery. However, any of the artillery buffs are locked behind the Nuln army, which removes the cavalry, so it’s not buffing both at once. It does not do anything to improve Empire Infantry or make you want to play them anymore. I think Empire’s winning strategy is mostly unchanged, focusing on a Grand Army with guns and some cav that may now see a few buffs. Maybe I’m missing something here, but overall, it’s a real disappointment for me.
Let us know what you think of the new book down in the comments!
