Alternative Empire Units

January 4, 2008 by Blackhat · Filed Under Modeling & Scenery

I am currently building a nice little Empire Army, based loosely in the south of the Empire and in the Border Princes.A sort of roaming, for-hire force, sometime working for the various elector counts of Wissenland, Averland, Stirland, even into Reikland, or the halflings of the Moot, sometimes wandering off over the Black Mountains to extend the glorious realm and of course earn a bit of dosh. The models are painted red and white, so they could even wander off up to Talabheim… (but the reason is that I really wanted to paint gored and puffed clothing with those colours, and it fitted my idea for my knights - more later…).

Of course, the trouble with a themed army is that sometimes you can’t always fit things in properly. And of course there’s always something you want but just don’t like the idea of. For example, I love heavy cavalry. That’s why I play Bretonnians. The Empire has some nice heavy cavalry too… sort of. I don’t particularly like the models or the names. Oh yes the models are good enough, they just don’t fit what I want. And I think that their lances are stupid.

So, what to do? Well, the knights are sorted out easily enough. Bend the army list a bit. The background of the Empire has dozens of knightly orders running around all over the place, but only four have been developed (sort of like the 1000 [is that right?] Space Marine chapters - until recently only 4 had been developed). Why is this? Well, back before the army books, you simply selected up to four knightly orders and named them as you liked. You could only have one unit from any order (they all fought together). This meant that you could only ever have four units of knights in an Empire army, whereas Bretonnians had unlimited knightly orders, the main difference between the two armies.

So, the four knight units in the army list aren’t the only ones. All I need to do then is rename them so that they suit my army (and the models I will supplant the Citadel stuff with). When I first came up with the idea of an Empire army, it was definitely going to have at least (and probably only) one unit of knights - the Knights of the Crimson Eagle. My army would be based around it - the colour scheme (red on white) would come from the knights, the shield blazons (a crimson eagle, no less…) would come from the knights, and my general would come from them too. I have now decided that I will have a second unit, probably with double-handed weapons. Out of sheer curiosity (and a little bit of boredom) I decided to work out alternative knightly orders for each of the four standard ones from the army book. Why all four? Well…

I don’t particularly like the models for the Knights of the Blazing Sun or Knights Panther. They look even sillier than Bretonnian knights. And of course the Knights Panther are northern, from Middenheim. Can’t have that. My Knights of the Crimson Eagle replace the Knights of the Blazing Sun (both just happen to be crusading orders, by the way - in Araby my knights could, for a bit of a change, become the Knights of the Bloody Vulture… , and I will replace the Knights Panther with the Knights Leonine.

The Knights of the White Wolf I hadn’t liked until recently. What’s the point of double-handed weapons on a knight when you can have a perfectly good lance, I asked? Until now I never gave it much thought. It’s not too bad, as it turns out. Even though you strike last, you strike with a +2 S bonus EVERY turn, and still have a damned good armour save to survive the enemy’s attack with (3+, 2+ with the Standard of Shielding). So they become the Knights Headsmen, traditionally armed with double-handed axes (said by the commoners to have a warcry something on the lines of clip-clop-lop…). (just a bit of indecision here - I’m not really sure that Knights Headsmen sounds right. But it does sound a bit more appropriate than Knights of the Ox, which is the only other name I could come up with. Oh well…)

I do not like the Reiksguard Knights at all. The models aren’t bad, it’s just the concept of the Emperor’s personal guard turning up at anything less than a full chaos invasion which irritates me. So I never even considered them. However, if I should want another unit of knights with lances, I can always call on the Southguard Knights (or Sudguard, I haven’t decided yet…). On foot… well, I suppose I could call them Southguard Foot Knights, but I would like to come up with a different name so that they would seem to be a completely separate order. As this army is supposed to have a bit to do with guarding the southern borders against invasion, how about the Sentinel Footknights? Hmmm… Or maybe the order of the Knightwatch (yes, I think I cna get away with that one… . Yes, Knightwatch Foot sounds good.

Now, beyond the matter of knights lies the subject of lighter cavalry. The Empire has only Kislev Winged Lancers and Kislev Horse Archers for such a role, and they certainly don’t fit my theme (I don’t like Kislev stuff anyway, but that’s irrelevant here). Well, that’s easily fixed. The Kislev Winged Lancers become the Southern Light Lancers, and the Kislev Horse Archers become the Southern Horse Archers (both with suitable alternative models - any ideas?).

That’s all the adjusting I need to do. I can now fit a range of previously excluded units into my nice themed army. As long as I use the same stats, equipment and costs, who is going to argue about a name change? Certainly no-one worth playing… A last note - not that I want the mad, filthy buggers, but should it ever be necessary I could call, not on the flagellants, but on the Devoted of Sigmar (they still use flails, but aren’t so devout as to neglect bathing)…

Reproduced with permission from:
Jason Job © 2003