Background

In my first entry in this series I explored the strengths and weaknesses of the Dwarves in all their defensive glory. This time around I'll be looking at the second faction of the game and the other main faction in the Order spectrum (Dwarves being one and High Elves being simply complimentary at this point). Flavor-wise, the Empire is a land of transition. While horse-backed knights and powerful wizards are common enough amongst the Empire, guns are certainly a crucial part of the Imperial war machine. Where the Dwarves worship their relatives, the Empire has a more traditionally-Western concept of religion. Through both religious powers and magic, their military might has a lot to choose from. Overall the Empire has a northern European feel focusing on Germanic names for people and places like Altdorf (the Imperial capital) and Reiksguard Swordsmen (one of the most recently-released cards). Enough of the history lesson, let's discuss the cards before they're moved out of attack range!

Heroes

The Empire has three heroes with very different uses to choose from: Thyrus Gorman, Johannes Broheim, and Gustav the Bear. Thyrus is a hero I could almost call an auto-include in any deck. At only three cost you get three power and three life. Of course he dies after three rounds unless you can find a way to heal him, but he's so useful and versatile while he's out. You can really put him into any section of your capital and get a good result, which happens to be a running theme for the Empire. Need to gain some quick income next turn? Play him into your battlefield. Hand low? Into your quest area he goes. Need to do some good old fashioned killing? The Battlefield is the place for him. Not only will he greatly increase the effects of whatever section he's in, he'll also make your opponent think twice about attacking that particular section. He's almost too good for his cheap price.

Johannes Broheim is a beast. It's my opinion that he's the most powerful unit in the game given his versatility (there's that word again!) and Counterstrike 2 ability. Because he can move each phase, you can move him from kingdom to quest to battlefield and gain the extra power towards income, card draw, and attack, respectively. His four life means he's going to stick around for a while, and that pesky Counterstrike mentioned above means you can throw him towards a weak section of your capital before your opponent attacks to strengthen your forces a great deal. All of this is done in one card, no combos, no extra costs, you just need to get him out there for six of your income.

Gustav is probably the least versatile of the bunch. Not as cheap as Thyrus but not as useful as Johannes, he adds a bit of punch to a faction that desperately needs it. Oddly a character with the surname "the Bear" shows off the finesse required to play the faction. I think the Empire can be the most difficult faction to be successful with out of the Core Set as many times their cards offer a little bit of offense or defense but shine when you look at their abilities. Gustav is good on his own, no doubt, especially against Chaos or a destruction deck using Skaven, but he's probably not going to win you any games like the other two heroes here could.

Grunts

There are a couple of things you need to know when going into picking your units for deck building and effectively using your units in play. The first is that Empire is a combination of prevention and quick reaction. The second would be that the Empire has some interesting and unique unit abilities. As much as Dwarves are the poster-boys for toughness, only the best in Counterstrike is available in the Empire. As noted above, Johannes Broheim, one of the Empire heroes has a nice Counterstrike 2, but you don't need to pay 6 to get some decent protection. The Reiksguard Knights are one of the best 3-cost units in the game.


As you can see, Counterstrike is quite handy. Essentially you have a chance to kill off your attackers before they get a chance to hit you. Just as a quick review: usually you deal damage at the same time when a battle happens. I've had a well-timed Reiksguard Knights in the right section of my capital really save the day. It should be obvious that these guys and their big brothers, the newly-released Reiksguard Swordsmen (who, for 2 more cost, you get an extra power and Counterstrike 4 instead of 2!) are best used on the defense. Considering you deal the damage to the opposing unit of your choice before the real battle even begins when you defend, it can really stop an opponent in his tracks. A card that fits into this category without really having Counterstrike would be Warrior Priests. Instead of Counterstrike, they redirect the first point of damage they take each turn to an opponent of your choice. A pretty nice addition to the theme.

The other part of the prevention/quick reaction general strategy of the Empire is the ability to move and react to whatever situation might arise. Again, Johannes Broheim shows off the strength of the mobility of the Empire. Again though, you don't need to pay your entire turn's income just to get some mobility out. Characters like the Pistoliers or Talabheim Detachment allow you to react to your opponent's actions without needing to play new units. In a game where your deck is one form of your life, these cards offer a lot of versatility and greater depth than most Invasion cards.

The Empire is currently a mixed bag when it comes to units that don't fit into the above two categories. This isn't to say that I don't like a lot of their units, but rather that it's difficult to develop a coherent strategy using only the cards available to the Empire on their own. I do like a bunch of their units such as the Huntsmen (a perfect unit to go questing with), The Greatswords (a great early-game big drop for four and gains power each time a unit - friendly or opposing - enters the same section as him), and Sigmar's Blessed (a revenge-style unit or another example or mobility depending on how you look at it - when it leaves play, it sends a unit in the same zone to their owner's hand). They're all tricky units that are tough to build a specific strategy around.


Support

You won't get a lot of cheap attachments when it comes to the Empire's support cards. Mostly you get more expensive locations that all do something pretty powerful and give you a lot of bang for your buck. Almost all of your support cards are going to end up in the Kingdom section of your capital. Several of them offer two power in addition to their ability, and because of this, they can be very good additions to the Kingdom to increase your income quickly. One thing I failed to mention above is that Empire lacks big power units when compared to the other factions. Your support cards like Knight Training and Shrine to Taal help buff your units for the long-run.


You're going to love the beginning of your turns if you can get two or more of your big support cards out. You gain a lot of benefits "after the start of your turn" that, even better, apply throughout the entire turn regardless of where the units that are gaining the benefits end up. Your mobility is boosted by the benefit of strong single-unit enhancing support cards that then allow the units to move and pull double or even triple duty throughout your turn. This all being said, the Empire's support cards are nice, but the faction really shines with its tactics.


Tactics

There's always a certain satisfaction had in having a hand full of tactics, spells, events, whatever you want to call them and having your opponent quake in fear about what event you may or may not have. Call it "Shrodinger's Wrath of God" if you will. This is one of the strengths of the Empire (only in this game we'd call it Schrodinger's Judgment of Verena). The great thing about the Empire's tactics is that they are almost all cheap including two nice zero-cost tactics. Like all things Empire, the one central theme you can pull from it is mobility. This mobility comes in a variety of flavors, each effective in their own way. For my money, their most powerful tactic would have to be Forced March.


Sure it has the limitation of only being playable on your turn, but the damage you can do is huge. It's one of those great cards you look at and go "wow, that would be really useful to do X to one of my units," to only look at it in the middle of the game and realize "oh, this would be even more evil if I did X to one of my opponent's units." I may sound like a broken record, but the versatility of Forced March for only 2-cost exemplifies the power of the Empire. Not only do you give yourself the ability to relocate a unit you control to a different section of your capital, but even better, you can ruin a timely-play on your opponent's part by moving a big chunky unit to a section your opponent doesn't even want him, usually a figure with lots of power icons into the quest zone, speeding up their card draw sure, but also decreasing their deck at a very quick rate.

Like I said above, there are other flavors of this tactic. Will of the Electors, which moves two target developments to a different section of a player's capital can help rearrange developments from one of your burning zones to a defensible zone of open your opponent up to a surprise two extra damage by moving two of their developments off an already-damaged zone. Sigmar's Intervention doesn't give you as much options as the above-mentioned cards, but it is useful and does throw your opponent for the loop. Empire is all about playing around with your opponent's notion of a strategic play so they become cautious and worried you might completely nullify their big attack with the play of a one or two cost tactic.

Evasive Maneuvers!

Pulling it all together, the Empire gives players options beyond any other faction with their numerous versatile cards that often pull duty more than once a turn or tactics that give you an edge and make you unpredictable. Where Dwarves build their walls and try to outlast their opponents, the Empire recruits agile units and outwits their opponents. They key early on is simply to last long enough to get some heavy support units into your kingdom to generate income and a cheap unit or two into your quest zone (the Huntsmen is top notch for this purpose) to generate card draw. Don't worry though, cause anything you put into these sections of your capital can easily be moved out later if need be. Don't be afraid to rely on your heroes since the Empire has some of the best. Of course a general concern is that your most powerful hero, Johannes Broheim, decreases in power with the more heroes you have in play since he won't be able to enter a zone with a hero already in it without killing one of them. Don't let that stop you from using your most maneuver abilities to disorient your opponent and constantly change the battlefield.

Check back soon for the third part in my Warhammer: Invasion Factions series with a shorter entry as I look at the High Elves and try to see what kind of future they might have as they grow into a full-fledged faction. Interested in Warhammer? Be sure to check out our new Subforum devoted 100% to the Warhammer: Invasion LCG.

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