I think that they should make the Empire like the new Space Marines. They should have the ability to make there own state army as such. (For those who do not know you are now able to make your own space marines chapters.) It would make it so you can make smaller villages and stuff like that so your army can then be based around your fluff.

anybody agree?

sounds like a great idea, but then again, it could be quite broken...
but it sure would open up for some great fluff why your army can't field wizards :D

Considering the flexibility of the Empire list, this is fairly unnecessary.

Definatley not needed as you can design a list for to suit your style of play and it will still be very powerful.

Personally, I think it's a good idea. As with space marines you'd have to pick an disadvantage for every advantage, so it wouldn't be overpowered.

I might have to have a go at making some rules for this...

The Green Goblit :orc:

I wouldn't support this. The Warhammer army selection rules are far more flexible than the rather rigid force selection chart, and I'm pretty sure that Warhammer army books contain a significant amount of more choices than 40K codexes in most cases - Empire definitely included. If you want a village army, you're already able to take an army entirely of Free company, flagellants, characters on foot, huntsmen and crossbowmen with models to fit... the same for a witch hunter army, the same for a Nuln artillery army, the same for a Knightly army, etc ad nauseam.

I agree with Chili on this; it's not like any of the common 'themes' of an Empire army are restricted to special slots, or rares, so there's really no need to change around the army selection rules. If you want your army to match your fluff, make the choices that do so.

True, but there could be other "traits", to use the SM term. For example, the army could be themed around a town in the middle of a forest, so huntsmen are not 0-1 but you can't take inner circle knights (to represent the rarity of them coming through the forest).

No?

The Green Goblit :orc:

Then take a Middeheim list.

And if it really is a small town in the middle of nowhere, it wouldn't have a population large enough to support anything but a 500 pt army anyway.

Thanks Goblit for your support. I know that some of you think that there is no need for it, but it was just a little idea i had.

I suggested it because there are no rules for say wanting to take an army of carbourg or whatever the place is called. Greatswords are a 0-1, they would not be if you took that speacial thing. Or that you have alot of noble families, You may have up to 3 units of knights with inner cirlce. A drawback could be that some core troops are now speacial or there are none because they are in a posh area.

Lol. Keep your thoughts comming.

I don't think it's neccesary either, an empire army has more special, core and rara choiches than any other army, except O&G maybe.

Yeah, but it would include maybe some new units and things like that. I know what you mean though.

They are diverse at the moment in time, but i would not mind if they were more diverse, being able to include an army that properly fits with your fluff.

What if you don't want to? What if you want a decent amount of handgunners, or a Priest of Sigmar? What if you want an Elector Count? The town in the forest might not have an actual count, but it could represent a powerful warrior.

Okay, so it's a group of towns spread out around the forest who have come together to fight a common foe. I was just giving an example! :wacko:

The Green Goblit :orc:

Your 'isolated town in the middle of nowhere' wouldn't have access to the productions of the Engineers, and as such wouldn't have a large number of handguns, and a powerful warrior is represented by a Captain.

Really, there's no problem representing fluff as it is, and if the empire were to be changed, all other armies would need to be as well.

Maybe there's a retired engineer living there who still makes blackpowder weapons in his spare time just in case. Maybe the town's near Nuln...

IIRC, captains really aren't that good in game-terms.

They could do an ongoing series in WD, and every month do the same thing for each army. Anyway, there'd be a disadvantage for every advantage so they don't unbalance the lists.

The Green Goblit :orc:

Oh, please. Such bullsh*t fluff to justify taking handgunners and a bunch of whatever else you want. Pah. If we're going to design lists to every single powergamers whims we may as well give up now and let people take what they want.

A hundred cannon army is justified, because it's from the Artillery School, right?

:rolleyes:

Compared to an ordinary soldier (WS BS 3, S T 3) they are. Thing in terms of humans. Sure, they're not great compared to a vampire, but that's the point.

Let's just say you have more faith in your fellow gamers than I do.

-Benedictus the cynical

And he just happens to have the technology available in this small town to not only make the barrels and other bits, but to refine the blackpowder as well? Not likely.

Benedictus covered the other points.

Lol. You make me laugh. As an engineer he would know how to make the power, and barrels are easy to make. Then he can also teach people.

I have said my point many times and i cannot see what is wrong with it.

Then take an ordinary list! You only have one unit of Huntsmen, and take the rest as archers- you only send out a few scouts at any time, after all.

Also, it's fairly difficult to forge working handguns. It's easy enough to make a tube that shoots things, sure, but that's just as likely to explode as it is to work.

Moreover, what engineer in his right mind would be content to live in a small village the rest of his life? Most would want to continue inventing, right? Or teach other engineers. Or blow himself up working on something.

That is not the point. The engineer may be doing it because he likes to help people, or he has been sent to help them with there blackpowder work. I do not know why he would go there, the fact is that he is there.

That is the problem. Your hypothetical Engineer has no reason to be there - he is only there because in Goblit's example the player wanted to have some handgunners and warmachines in his village army. That's where this starts to fall apart.

If you want to build your village army, go ahead. Use a couple of blocks of free company backed up by Halberdiers using all manner of pitchforks and so forth to represent the halberds. Have a single, rusted old cannon and a hedge wizard represented by a wizard who always chooses lore of life and a charismatic young man who has rallied his people to defend against the beastmen represented by a low-equipment elector count. What else do you need?

This applies to pretty much any sensible fluff idea I can think of!

I think the best way to do it is to start with the fluff, then develop an army list after. If you make a list with only a vague idea, it's too tempting to say something like 'oh, I can explain these handguns somehow', then end up with a completely unfluffy list.

If you're using a village as your theme, only take things that make sense in a village. Don't try to explain oddities, don't take things that make the list more powerful, make your village and stick with it.

Not to say that you shouldn't customize your fluff, but don't try to stretch it as much as an isolated engineer, either.

I oppose to any idea that came from or inspired by 40K. Period! :D

But just to put my two cents, creativity and good strategy comes from how one deals with the situation/problem using what available knowledge and resources that person has. No need to add or take away anything. That's my challenge to those who feel the current lists are not good enough or find it lacking.

To give you an example on how it irks me when someone tries to create customized list: Bretonnians getting their own chariot-type units (like they need it), or Uber-nasty daemon from the Nth dimension of Hell or HE SEAGUARDS! (oh no wait, the Seaguards was a mistake by GW *sarcasm*... hehehe).

It is this customization habit that I decided to quit 40K entirely after some d*ckhead used a customized uber heavy SM chapter that just totally unbalanced the game and ruined the experience for me.

As for Empire, you can create pretty much anything even just using the standard list. Myself, I'm building a Nuln army using the standard list and I can still get more than enough firepower - and so people will not accuse me of being cheesy for using that list (though I see nothing wrong with it myself). As for some people wanting to create an all scout army, perhaps you're looking at the wrong army. You can make a better army of scouts or archers using Wood Elf list. Trying to create a wood elf out of Empire is just wrong. Same goes for those who feel Empire characters should get better in close-combat - that's Chaos' job. If Empire gets uber characters, then Chaos will be out of the job - not that I'm a fan of them.