u/Otaman068

It has to be tier 3 by all the metrics I can think of. Making this building tier 5 was a bad decision centuries ago when it was made and it was simply never addressed, so we got what we got

There is always some nuance to it, but in Domination people largely agree that Undead Legions, Skaven, Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos, Norsca and Slaanesh are the top dogs, honestly by far comparatively to other factions. For Land Battles and Conquest I would guess the list is mostly the same (except Slaanesh is quite bad there)

I just checked High Elven tech tree and it is absolutely astonishing 5% for most of the infantry, can’t see anything stacking in there

Pretty much everyone gets 10% speed increase somewhere in the tech, so the difference ends up being the same

Celestial Dragon Crossbows are simply a better unit made and updated in WH3, this is really why. In defense of Shades melee stats, stalk, vanguard, speed and being more accurate are important things to consider, especially in MP

I don’t if I really want AI to learn how to completely counter pick my army composition after we fought one battle

This air cheese in particular though is very, very strong and I do not know how you can address that realistically. In multiplayer even against real human beings this strategy is very oppressive if done correctly, AI just has no chance whatsoever

On paper smth like Wrathmongers or E Bloodletters should explode them

They are not winning against Swordmasters or Phoenix Guard

Playing pure melee Empire is nice for diversity same way I do it with Grand Cathay and Kislev sometimes, but I explicitly mentioned combined arms in my message

Empire might be more numerous than their neighbors, but I have never seen anywhere mentioned that they have some crazy numbers. They have only 4 (5) big cities with 100 000 population best case scenario and everything else is just countryside, villages and forests that cover half of the Empire. Back at Sigmar's time and surely for long time after, I would safely assume those numbers were even less impressive

I also have really strong doubts about pre-plate armour knights and chariots doing any heavy lifting against something like Chaos Warriors, even if in general people tend to overestimate how strong are. They are consistently getting killed by everything everywhere and I would bet there is noticeably less Teutogen Guard than Chaos Warriors, maybe even Chosen in the world just because of how specific and unique that regiment is. So for gameplay balance reaching a little and saying "well these guys can throw hands" is completely fine, especially since it fixes many issues with the roster nowadays

People keep saying that Teutogen Guard are too tough for the Empire’s roster or that Empire is not supposed to have good elite infantry and I just cannot accept that argument neither on the lore or gameplay side

From lore perspective I have only one question: before Empire got gunpowder how do you think they were dealing with Chaos Warriors or Black Orcs?

From gameplay side of things as a person coming from MP I find it funny that people consider Chosen to be some staple of what the best elite infantry is supposed to be. They are universally considered to be underperforming, elite melee infantry in general in this game struggles a lot. Swordmasters are more or less okay and even then they would probably explode Teutogen Guard

If we are to go back to campaign, I don’t see any good reason to play with Empire Infantry in the late game. You have guns that you can buff to the skies, you have Demis and Warmachines, but some people want to play with frontlines for that combined arms fantasy. Otherwise it ends up being ranged spam because nowadays Empire forgot about steel and faith aspect completely and rely purely on gunpowder

If you are bothered about being able to field 19 of those in army, then you should be bothered about 19 landships just as much. Game needs a unit cap system, it is all getting too silly nowadays

The most simple thing you can do is spam Darkshards and then later on Shades, but beware that some overly aggressive and quick army compositions might be troublesome to deal with

You get often casualty heavy battles, but with army comp that you have and enemy has nothing except absolute stomp could be expected. If it was an ambush 3 times more so

Hope they will buff grail guardians

Same problem. I managed to win on Brutal couple of times in custom games (not with Challenging+ AI though) but the same story realm you mentioned feels impossible and the worst part is I am not sure what I am supposed to do differently.

Some people suggested playing on lower difficulties to learn, but I am not learning anything at this point. I just do things and sometimes I win, sometimes I don’t and to do well in this story realm I actually need some better understanding of the game and unfortunately, I have no idea where to get that because all advises that I keep looking for feel too abstract.

Habits from WH2, Dread Saurians are terrific nowadays. Their only weakness is their size so they eat all the arrows and bullets in the world

I usually have 2 lords following Malekitg at this stage of the campaign, leveled up a little bit from fighting Grombrindal. Them and Malekith together, especially if you bait her into Black Guard consistently do the job

Other option is ambush + AR of course, but it is boring

Depends who you are playing with really, but it is still one vortex spell to more or less make unit non existent as a universal approach

That armour and hp pool are not incredibly high and chances are you won’t meet this unit with so many stacked buffs because AI is not prioritizing that the way player would. But even then, ranged AP would still blow them up because no shields. Even concentrated enough fire from decent archers/crossbows will wither them down fairly quickly

For melee faction, greatsword infantry like Bloodletters and great weapon chads like Chosen with appropriate buffs should comfortably win them

I know what you mean, but it is still not useless. Stalk does this thing where AI often breaks their formation trying to follow visible units, which gives you easier time picking off enemy units in waves. It is a little bit cheesy and gamey overall, but with shade or any foot ranged units stack it ends up working like that.

But also there are passive advantages which is you don’t get shot as much by artillery or snipers and can position your units in a more advantageous situation before big fight.

Generally if you want to use them as this ambushing unit to flank you probably don’t do a whole stack of them and mostly have just 2-3. I am just not sure if it is ever useful if I am honest.

There is a name of power called Shadowdart, that combined with red lines and tech ends them up with around 200 range or something.

It is incredibly strong, but you are right that such composition tends to be very vulnerable to cav. You can stack up your army with Malevolent characters (they get a net each) to help out with that issue, but very cav heavy armies will still be your bane most of the time.

I guess slapping Hydras/Dragons or just same characters for interception missions would be a good way to deal with the problem as well, cold ones on the flanks is also something I have done and was happy overall.

The real question is do they really need a whole skill line for exactly two units if you could slap them somewhere else

Agree with Morathi and Hellebron, would put Nelosi where Conquest is, Malus as Kregg, Lokhir as Lucan, Rakarth as lady behind Lucan and guy on the left as the Dreadlord. If only I could draw!

Same but with Dark Elves is a dream

Ogres also struggle a little somehow. But both factions get progressively much stronger when it gets to more serious environments with money on the line, Slaanesh there is consistently banned with only Norsca competing for the same egregious spot power wise

Unfortunate, this is what helped me with the same issue. I will upvote your report when I get home and hope your issue gets resolved soon