Being a superhuman warrior made out of the combined powers of Sigmar's wrath and Gw's marketing department is cool and all, but nothing beats a groups of lads fighting against creatures made of steroids and spite, armed only with a moustache, breastplate, halberd, and faith.
Especially if they are Marines. Their reputation of how they treat their equipment has been around since at least 1820s. When they asked to borrow some Hall rifles from the Army, the Army said that knew they wouldnt be returned in serviceable condition, so the Marines could buy them from the Army, not borrow.
"Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen. I will not lie: the chances of your survival are small. Some may even turn against your friends as living corpses. But you have my word, that I will use my arcane gifts to ensure your bodies are given unto Morr's garden. This is the greatest reward, more than even gold, for the fate of your soul is an eternal concern. Now come, follow me: Strike down the undead that rise against us, allow me to find this eldritch amulet! I ask not for my own selfish studies, but for the good of the Empire!" - Balthasar Gelt, Total War: Warhammer
"Wouldnta thought mi'lord was being selfish, wizards don't care 'bout gold usually and e's made 'a the stuff already so he's got enough a'fink. But the he just out *said* he wasn't being selfish 'fer some reason 'an I'm right confused now!" - Imperial Spearman, about to be killed and raised as a zombie
Forget Varks, The Empire fucks everyone in the end. Either you have the education of a 12th century peasant being controlled by the nobility or church OOOOR you are a pawn of the 4, sometimes both. Think ill stay in the happy go lucky star trek verse.
The chosen of Sigmar. The defenders of the Empire. Masters of pike and shot And the best soldiers Karl Franz has the honor of leading into battle. I absolutely love the State Troops of the Empire. So unique yet so unified under the right leader. My favorite mainline formation in all of Warhammer Fantasy. For Sigmar! For the Warhammer!
Imagine a man where all he needs is a brightly colored uniform, a wonderous mustache and a long stick with a sharp bit of steel on the end of it in order to be able to face off against Chaos warriors, Giant green Roid Mushrooms, Undead horrors the size of trolls etc. and when he gets tired of fighting fair is when the artillery gets involved.
@@nigredoooalgown6245 I was making a joke about the implication that wearing bright colors and using the pointy stick was what the soldier considered fair when fighting things like Orks
If you're only interested in modelling or playing with friends historical minis are a good substitute. Warlord games has a landsknecht range and wargames atlantic have a conquistador set that woul do well for an Empire army for example.
"Good evening, do you have any idea how fast you were going? I will write you a ticket for riding over the speed limit on this here Wissenland road" -State trooper
Pike and shot took over my favorite era of history after looking into why soldiers stood in line to shoot. My previous favorite era was the American Civil War and surrounding conflicts
The civil war is a perfect example of obsolete tactics meeting new technology. The mass volley fire, bayonet charge order of battle, was fine when dealing with smooth bore muskets. When you replace smooth bore muskets with rifles and advancement in ammunition capabilities, not to mention the beginning of mass issued breech loading metallic cartridge weapons. You end up with mass casualties, the same was seen during WWI when tactics had tens of thousands running head first into entrenched machine gun emplacements.
@@CollinKillian Much of this was seen even earlier with the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War where multiple industrialized armies met, and promptly brutalized each other on a scale hitherto unseen.
25:38 You'd think making a habit out of abusing the people responsible for protecting you would result in those same protectors asking the local lord to help them do their best Praetorian Guard imitation.
While it did occasionally happen historically and likely would happen in the empire, there is such a thing as a breaking point. That arch was kinda wrong about there being no oversight, the electors do typically do their jobs and beastmen or fimir deal with the rest by forcing the issue, and the empire doesn't really care to my knowledge who leads a regiment as long as they are capable means that's the sort of behaviour that gets a sudden noose around your neck or a surprise knife in your kidneys. If my study of history has taught me anything it's that people are quite willing to fight but won't put up with shit leadership or no pay. The amount of betrayals, rebellions or uprisings over just such things is hard to count.
Well just give the officers a cut of the fraud money on peace times to shut up the troops by combination of threats, bribes extra of pizza party and beer keg and blackmail. And when actial foes appear hope things go in your favour or shift the blame or run with the money.
Sound the drums of war, because their savages, savages barely even human. The state troop is the best sign of the Empire's power and style. Unlike reincarnating demigods, these men have reason to flee which makes their stand greater. For the Empire and for Sigmar.
"Mages Wanted. Extremely Difficult battle, Little Pay. Spend your day in combat and unfathomable danger. If you return alive, you will receive honor and glory." - Tanya the evil would fit well with the empire :D
Alternate History Hub actually has a video on the pike and shot era called "The Most Underrated Era in History". He even mentions warhammer, specifically Britonia.
ive fallen asleep to this basically every night it’s been released. I love falling asleep to WHF lore, especially empire lore. Your old empire videos make me pass out so fast. They’ve allowed me to forget bad times for brief moments and let me sleep. I couldnt thank you enough for continuing these arch. Thank you
08:30 Well in the Warhammer world its either someone fights that orc or chaos warrior or it shows up at your door and you dont have the strength, training, or weapons to face it
Incredible video! I would love to see your next Empire video be on the Roadwardens, the Empire's state police / highway patrol. A bunch of interesting characters they can be, with definitely no corruption or abuses of power under the auspices of the Emperor's roadwardens.
Locally raised army. Loyal to the Elector Count... Funny how the "mad count" of Sylvania married his only daughter to some unknown nobleman with a not quite Arabyan accent, isn't it?
10:30 I thought "regiments" in Warhammer Fantasy were more akin to "companies" in real life. Units of a hundred or so men led by a Sergeant. It would make more sense then to add additional units when the "regiments" are combined into larger groupings led by a Captain. But I'm not sure GW ever published a detailed breakdown of how their armies were organised.
thank you so much I've been waiting for something like this for ages it's surprisingly hard to find details on the subjectsI would love if you talk about some of the more specialized roles those not get in the normal codexes
Don't forget the Sylvanian method of "raising" state regiments. That usually only requires sending a trusted individual to the local cemetary. Thanks for the video.
I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the pressing of civilians into uniform that took place a lot during the English civil war. I’d imagine it would happen in warhammer especially during war time
I can understand the "single purpose regiments" making sense when looked at as an administrative unit rather than a military unit. This way a regiment of swordsmen for an area all require the same gear and pay. So if an area/lord raises a regiment of swordsmen and a regiment of archers you have an established administration unit and as a military unit you just contact a local ruler/noble/mayor and say "time to march before they reach you too" or maybe "do what I'm paying you for" depending on the agreement.
Might we see you cover the time of the three emperors? Heard it mentioned from time to time, but no one seems to have covered it so far in any extensive way.
Omg, yes! The pike and shot era is an awesome era of history. You would think that it'd get more attention from gaming and storytelling industry. It's the real life blending of swords and firearms that fantasy settings love to dream up.
I always just assumed that the game term “regiment” and the actual *regiment* weren’t the same thing in canon. What with the detachment system and all. Probably the most “pick and shot” thing in the game was that regiment of renown that had pikes but the front rank were crossbow men in heavy armour. I’d actually be interested in an Arch video explaining how this stuff works, possibly using miniatures to demonstrate
So Arch i got a question about the Empire Knights I know the more "Standard" Pistolier and outriders but there is a unit in TW:W simply called "Empire Knights", and i cant find info about these generic empire knights outside the knightly orders such as the Reiksguard or the Blazing sun. it is some madeup for the game or something based on lore?
There's a ton of small orders for knights (you can make your own for tabletop). i always assumed they represented these orders in total war. The empire has access to calvary on the table, so it was given to them in the game.
Yes it's just a stand-in for your 'average' knightly order, especially since CA were too lazy to add most of the unique knightly orders to the game. Luckily modders did their job for them, and you can mod the knightly orders in, such as the knights panther, knights of the white wolf, knights of the raven, etc. etc.
People often wonder how mere humans in a fantasy setting can compete with things like orks and beastmen, but that's where realism would actually make the Empire's battle style more entertaining. Imagine an Empire unhindered by awful GW writing. Imagine an Empire with proper standing armies, combined arms tactics, and effective/creative usage of fantasy setting assets. A block of pikemen using proper tactics and discipline would honestly be a really, really hard counter to 8-foot berserker monsters. Sure, even an average ork is almost impossible to beat solo for most state troopers, but get 20 together with a tight packing of pike tips? That uber-warrior with decades of hard-earned muscle and martial prowess, something so hard to craft in the brutal wilds and battlefields of such a dangerous world, suddenly gets bled out by what could essentially amount to regular full-time joe schmoes with half-decent instruction. That's a pretty vicious advantage in the long term grand scheme of things. And let's talk about fantasy assets used with properly realistic human ingenuity for death dealing. Scouting, for instance. Pegasus riders, though perhaps more rare than Total War's depictions of hundreds of flying Bretonian knights would have us believe, would be inconceivably useful as intelligence gathering bird's-eye-view scouts and spies. Armies of the Holy Roman Empire would have paid a literal king's ransom just to have the power of one such scout. Flawless long-range intelligence on enemy movements and operations. You could fly one scout fifty miles and back in bare minimum a quarter of the time it would take a man on the fastest horse to cover the same distance, and with practically no threat to the rider on top of their perfect view of all threats and army sizes/movements/etc. (barring some kind of hunting anti-air-scouting type of unit like harpies). To a pike-and-shot army, being able to always make the right choice in response to the enemy's behavior would save an epic amount of resource expenditure and soldier fatigue. You never have to march 5000 men 25 miles in search of the enemy, only to have to march all the way back when you find they're too big for you, again. You'd already know, potentially a very long time in advance depending on how sturdy and fast those pegsus (pegasi?) are and how slow the enemy is to move around, and you'd have your men standing right where they most optimally need to be days or even weeks in advance. No more munching through weeks of rations for thousands of men just to try and sustain your military presence on the march long enough to figure out what the best approach is as the situation develops. No more weary men force marched to battle in plate armor to rush against a schedule or to cut off the enemy. No more turning up to fight what you thought was a small greenskin tribe that turns out to be a secretly blossoming WAAAGH. And to say NOTHING of the power that air presence could grant in battle!! Remember when planes were first weaponized in WWI? Some of those weapons, though crude, were absolutely devastating, but even that was against a modernized, industrialized foe with (semi?) modern tactics. But how about giant shoulder-to-shoulder blobs of medieval formations of barbarians? Precision medieval black powder bombing, anyone? Drop unseen and feather-quiet out of the sky, cut the cord on a modest little fuse-ignited five gallon barrel of black powder, and watch as 40 Norscan mauraders are blasted apart or crippled for life long before they've even had a chance to swing those big nasty chaos-enchanted axes anywhere near an imperial citizen. Which also means less halberdiers on the front line getting cleaved to salsa in melee combat, and more halberdiers to press the charge in that massed formation. How about getting 4chan levels of weaponized autism about it? That's how real life military technology works, people come up with new and innovative ways to use what they already have available to kill people even better. Get two pegasus(sy) outriders, strap a big ol' crate packed tight with iron rods between them, fly them over a massed enemy formation, pull the slide on the bottom of the crate, and recreate a renaissance period fantasy version of that one wickedly nasty weapon in WWI where biplanes drop hailstorms of dead-silent heavy rods that shower whole swaths of the battlefield below. Again, against a big glob of beastmen marching ponderously and clumsily below? Absolutely appalling, almost khornate kinds of carnage. And lean hard into the musketpunk! Think 2-bore black powder rifles, sluggish and ungodly with enough recoil to murder a minotaur, but just a couple sprinkled in the midst of those combined arms formations for taking elephant-killing potshots at the bigger brutes. Land ships would be perfect cargo caravan vehicles, like an arm-able steampunk fantasy semitruck. Industries could be reliably built around persistent and everpresent threats like beastmen, juicing the economy and getting experience for more soldiers as men become well-air-informed private armies for logging guilds dedicated to pushing back the forest humanity's foes emerge from. There's SO MUCH lore opportunity for making the Empire even more Warhammer-appropriate levels of ridiculous, but they just lean so hard into "and then another group of hapless lice-infested peasant morons with exclusively spears was effortlessly destroyed by BARBAROS THE CHAOS CHOSEN AND HIS UNSTOPPABLE WARBAND OF BLOOD-GULPING HELL CRUSHERS, ON SALE NOW FOR $199.99 (shipping not included)!!"
Hell, make more use of the Pegasus riders! Have them drop smoke bombs on important targets during sieges, allowing artillery within fortifications to make somewhat precision strikes where ordinance is most needed. Change things up and throw some blunderbuss-wielding men in amongst the pike formations similar to the swordsman's role in Spanish tercios. There's lots of stuff they could add to Old World Empire lore, if they just weren't so... GW. Imagine a grand Total War style strategy, but with actual pike and shot formations with combined arms instead of random blobs of exclusively one soldier type. Man, in a better timeline.
Actually the books explain it rather well. The decentralized and feudal nature of the empire fucks up any meaningful resistance against foreign foes since the infantry are under equipped by the nobles and the nobles are underdrilled and do so love to bicker.
I am wondering what a troop wounded or mentally broken if there is any plan for them. considering the empire 50/50 meat shield but they do have some standards.
Nothing says "Horsey troops go away" like you & 499 of your closest friends in a big block holding long pointy sticks &/or sticks with axe heads & really big swords.
Actually in parts of the world in Ancient warfare the best armourd troops would be kept in reserve. The Romans had a saying, about having to send in their Triarii(Romes heavy armor spears) as a metaphor for fighting till the bitter end. Even up till 19th century warfare the best trained and armed troops would be the generals guard.
The one wirh the pike stabs, the other one follows. If the one with the pike is eaten by greenskins, the one without a pike takes the pike and keeps stabbing...
Its about the comon man telling the many horrors of the warhammer world to stick up their asses , no manner of cool exagerated demon ork or wathever can surpass that
I think something else needs to be added on to how appealing the three meals a day and pay might be to your average empire peasant. The empire has certain areas of it that are industrialized or industrializing. Imagine all the horrors of laissez-faire industrialization and realize that the choices between that for no fulfillment and the promise of almost certainly losing fingers if not more important bits to the machine that you will likely be fired for "messing up".... Or you could join the army, possibly get a salaried role if you survive long enough, and this is a setting where the forces of evil do in fact exist and you get to go and fight them in the name of nationalism and God (of course they forget to mention how cataclysmically they dwarf you in power, but what's that in the name of God and money?)
Three square meals a day with pay and weapons is still an alluring prospect to modern young men despite the increase in wealth we as a world have experienced.
Its kimda funny the lack of combined arms for the state troops of the Empire sounds like lore trying to justify rules, meanwhile with the Imperial Guard no player would have a lore consistent army, every Guard player operates combined arms forces.
I would say that however, the big problem with the pike and shot era is the hilariously long sieges and the equally hilarious brutal treatment of the locals. I cannot see a whole lot of excitement talking about a siege where the procedures and defenders see who stars first while the procedures use local girls as sex slaves.
"a lot of young men feel remarkably lucky," I feel like that's basically what all militaries are fundamentally based on. A sober, rational assessment doesn't exactly encourage joining up.
Being a superhuman warrior made out of the combined powers of Sigmar's wrath and Gw's marketing department is cool and all, but nothing beats a groups of lads fighting against creatures made of steroids and spite, armed only with a moustache, breastplate, halberd, and faith.
you would be surprised what a man adequately armed with a moustache can accomplish.
I know, it makes them more relatable lets me get into it more. Them and the Imperial Guard really help me digest the rest of the setting.
Same reason I adore the imperial guard. The regular dude holding the line against the overwhelming odds is always epic!
FAITH! STEEL! AND GUNPOWDER!
Western civilisation is being dismantled IRL, smartarses.
Also, Landsknecht/ Renaissance era drip is peak drip. Plate armour and slashed clothing goes hard.
so long as you don't go modern papal guard colors which make you look like the flap scrubbers in an automated car wash.
Centurii-chan makes nice lanknechts comics
Indeed, Centurii is based
Best thing is slashed clothing worn over Full Plate Armour... Gives the false impression of being Light Infantry.🤣 L
Do not underestimate the ability of the enlistedman to f*ck up any piece of equipment he's been issued with.
Especially if they are Marines. Their reputation of how they treat their equipment has been around since at least 1820s. When they asked to borrow some Hall rifles from the Army, the Army said that knew they wouldnt be returned in serviceable condition, so the Marines could buy them from the Army, not borrow.
The rifle barrel bent in a vehicle/bay door gets me everytime 😂
Hand me my weapons, and SAY LESS!!!
The things I’ve seen done to a collapsible bed when a fusilier had trouble setting it… the bayonet was involved.
"FIGHT MEN! FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO LIVE!!!"
The Nation Calls!!!
*SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS*
"To paaaaaarty"
the empire endures
"Unberogens!"
"Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen. I will not lie: the chances of your survival are small. Some may even turn against your friends as living corpses. But you have my word, that I will use my arcane gifts to ensure your bodies are given unto Morr's garden. This is the greatest reward, more than even gold, for the fate of your soul is an eternal concern. Now come, follow me: Strike down the undead that rise against us, allow me to find this eldritch amulet! I ask not for my own selfish studies, but for the good of the Empire!"
- Balthasar Gelt, Total War: Warhammer
"Wouldnta thought mi'lord was being selfish, wizards don't care 'bout gold usually and e's made 'a the stuff already so he's got enough a'fink. But the he just out *said* he wasn't being selfish 'fer some reason 'an I'm right confused now!"
- Imperial Spearman, about to be killed and raised as a zombie
Forget Varks, The Empire fucks everyone in the end. Either you have the education of a 12th century peasant being controlled by the nobility or church OOOOR you are a pawn of the 4, sometimes both. Think ill stay in the happy go lucky star trek verse.
"I love the smell of Final Transmutation in the morning" - Chadthasar Geld (probably)
@@RadzioTheGreat”Nothing like pimping out your statue collection by turning a vampire into one.”
Chadthasar Gelt
(Most likely)
@@TKUltra971Found the commie...
When you're a province earns its Stateship you and your friends become *Stateship Troopers*
I am doing my part 😂
Come on you beasts! Do you wish to live eternal!?
The chosen of Sigmar. The defenders of the Empire. Masters of pike and shot And the best soldiers Karl Franz has the honor of leading into battle. I absolutely love the State Troops of the Empire. So unique yet so unified under the right leader. My favorite mainline formation in all of Warhammer Fantasy.
For Sigmar! For the Warhammer!
For the Emperor!!! It works in both settings 😊
Karl Franz is someone TRULY inspiring and AWESOME!
Imagine a man where all he needs is a brightly colored uniform, a wonderous mustache and a long stick with a sharp bit of steel on the end of it in order to be able to face off against Chaos warriors, Giant green Roid Mushrooms, Undead horrors the size of trolls etc.
and when he gets tired of fighting fair is when the artillery gets involved.
If you are fighting fair, you are doing it wrong!
@@nigredoooalgown6245 I was making a joke about the implication that wearing bright colors and using the pointy stick was what the soldier considered fair when fighting things like Orks
Fighting "fair" is for the French... Remember, it's not a war crime the first time..
@@nigredoooalgown6245The only fair fight is the one you lose!
theres alot of said mens
You think raising an Amy is expensive in the old world, try getting one made of plastic.
If you're only interested in modelling or playing with friends historical minis are a good substitute. Warlord games has a landsknecht range and wargames atlantic have a conquistador set that woul do well for an Empire army for example.
@@LitDthat's how I did my dogs of war themed "tilean" empire army 😅
The 30 years/English Civil War cavalry and dragoons make excellent outriders and pistoliers 🔥
FOR THE HELDENHAMMER!
"Good evening, do you have any idea how fast you were going? I will write you a ticket for riding over the speed limit on this here Wissenland road"
-State trooper
I’ll take drippy renaissance Germans over Sigmarines any day of the week!
chaos warriors are more humen then strom cast😂
Poo poo age of sigmar ultramarines 😅
Pike and shot took over my favorite era of history after looking into why soldiers stood in line to shoot. My previous favorite era was the American Civil War and surrounding conflicts
The civil war is a perfect example of obsolete tactics meeting new technology. The mass volley fire, bayonet charge order of battle, was fine when dealing with smooth bore muskets. When you replace smooth bore muskets with rifles and advancement in ammunition capabilities, not to mention the beginning of mass issued breech loading metallic cartridge weapons. You end up with mass casualties, the same was seen during WWI when tactics had tens of thousands running head first into entrenched machine gun emplacements.
@@CollinKillian Much of this was seen even earlier with the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War where multiple industrialized armies met, and promptly brutalized each other on a scale hitherto unseen.
25:38 You'd think making a habit out of abusing the people responsible for protecting you would result in those same protectors asking the local lord to help them do their best Praetorian Guard imitation.
While it did occasionally happen historically and likely would happen in the empire, there is such a thing as a breaking point. That arch was kinda wrong about there being no oversight, the electors do typically do their jobs and beastmen or fimir deal with the rest by forcing the issue, and the empire doesn't really care to my knowledge who leads a regiment as long as they are capable means that's the sort of behaviour that gets a sudden noose around your neck or a surprise knife in your kidneys. If my study of history has taught me anything it's that people are quite willing to fight but won't put up with shit leadership or no pay. The amount of betrayals, rebellions or uprisings over just such things is hard to count.
Well just give the officers a cut of the fraud money on peace times to shut up the troops by combination of threats, bribes extra of pizza party and beer keg and blackmail.
And when actial foes appear hope things go in your favour or shift the blame or run with the money.
Sound the drums of war, because their savages, savages barely even human. The state troop is the best sign of the Empire's power and style. Unlike reincarnating demigods, these men have reason to flee which makes their stand greater. For the Empire and for Sigmar.
"Mages Wanted. Extremely Difficult battle, Little Pay. Spend your day in combat and unfathomable danger. If you return alive, you will receive honor and glory." - Tanya the evil would fit well with the empire :D
Sound like a normal family gathering to me
Pay tends to be pretty high for empire wizards.
Summon the Elector Counts!
The original warhammer fantasy battles was pike and shot with fantasy creatures included... it had pike formation rules.. cannon etc..
Light police work, drills, guard duty mostly occasionally an ork tries to kill you but hey no jobs perfect lol
My cousin is up in Kislev fighting Chaos and what do I get? Guard duty 😂
@yetipotato8567 sucks don't it
‘Three hots and a cot’ can be one hell of a sell when times are hard.
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS EPISODE FOR YEARS!
Alternate History Hub actually has a video on the pike and shot era called "The Most Underrated Era in History". He even mentions warhammer, specifically Britonia.
I Will Marshall the Men!
Summon the elector counts!!!
“I have a Mustache! Style! A Zweihander! A pistol and fucking FAITH, come at me you chaos mfs!”
-average imperial Zweihander heavy infantry
Warhammer Fantasy lore is the best kind of lore
Finally, back to the fantasy branch!
ive fallen asleep to this basically every night it’s been released. I love falling asleep to WHF lore, especially empire lore. Your old empire videos make me pass out so fast. They’ve allowed me to forget bad times for brief moments and let me sleep. I couldnt thank you enough for continuing these arch. Thank you
Im genuinely pleased to hear you do some fantasy. I got hooked on your channel way back when you were doing them more often.
Wanted this video for a long time!
08:30 Well in the Warhammer world its either someone fights that orc or chaos warrior or it shows up at your door and you dont have the strength, training, or weapons to face it
There is a game set roughly in the pike & shot era. By Fire and Sword, backed it on kickstarter a while ago.
Old world got me back into warhammer again. Ive had 3 games so far
Incredible video! I would love to see your next Empire video be on the Roadwardens, the Empire's state police / highway patrol. A bunch of interesting characters they can be, with definitely no corruption or abuses of power under the auspices of the Emperor's roadwardens.
Locally raised army. Loyal to the Elector Count...
Funny how the "mad count" of Sylvania married his only daughter to some unknown nobleman with a not quite Arabyan accent, isn't it?
I don't see what you mean
@@yetipotato8567it's a lore reference and a joke.
Vlad was probably a better elector than most in the Empire’s history lmao
@@yetipotato8567 all it took for the strongest vampire ever to get that army was marry a tomboy.
So, you know, pros and cons.
@@alpharius2omegaboogaloo384 Isabella fixed him.
...Half way. There's no fixing all of what being Neferata's (ex)husband did to him.
10:30 I thought "regiments" in Warhammer Fantasy were more akin to "companies" in real life. Units of a hundred or so men led by a Sergeant. It would make more sense then to add additional units when the "regiments" are combined into larger groupings led by a Captain. But I'm not sure GW ever published a detailed breakdown of how their armies were organised.
3 square meals a day with pay is a sweat deal today. On the surface level its free food with pay.
Was cool when my friend was playing his empire army. His cannons were of Nuln, foots varied, . Looked cool on the battle field.
thank you so much I've been waiting for something like this for ages it's surprisingly hard to find details on the subjectsI would love if you talk about some of the more specialized roles those not get in the normal codexes
Good old Warhammer Fantasy, I know they're technically bringing it back as "The Old World" but I still miss it so.
Heck yeah all my state troops have the stache. Kaiser bill staches for all.
Don't forget the Sylvanian method of "raising" state regiments. That usually only requires sending a trusted individual to the local cemetary. Thanks for the video.
Been on more of a 40k mood lately, but I will always love some good old Warhammer Fantasy!
28:52 Snd that’s where the Total War Millennium mod comes in
Been learning about the setting so that I can run WFRP 4e. Super useful
And yet they all lost to one angry dwarf.
FOR THE EMPIRE, FOR THE HELDENHAMMER, FOR SIGMAR!
Been waiting several years for this episode. What a pleasant surprise!
I’m surprised you didn’t talk about the pressing of civilians into uniform that took place a lot during the English civil war. I’d imagine it would happen in warhammer especially during war time
Just found your channel. Love the enthusiasm.
Isnt Total War Shogun sort of pike&shot, or yari&tanegashima?
I can understand the "single purpose regiments" making sense when looked at as an administrative unit rather than a military unit. This way a regiment of swordsmen for an area all require the same gear and pay. So if an area/lord raises a regiment of swordsmen and a regiment of archers you have an established administration unit and as a military unit you just contact a local ruler/noble/mayor and say "time to march before they reach you too" or maybe "do what I'm paying you for" depending on the agreement.
Definitely agree arch! We need more pike and shot games!!! 30 years war total war damnit!
Once again a great video. Learned something, enjoyed listening, had a good time. Thank you Arch ❤
...the "pay" for troops that are not needed for other services is used to finance training sessions and "pay" them to attend.
SandRhoman History channel did a ton of videos about pike and shot era. I recommend it.
Always happy to have more fantasy lore
I’d love more content about the empire’s military setup. The Reiksguard especially.
Might we see you cover the time of the three emperors? Heard it mentioned from time to time, but no one seems to have covered it so far in any extensive way.
The statetroops and chaos warriors got me into warhammer fantasy, been like 17 years now
We need a video on The Soldier's Shilling.
The one all Halberdiers took
Deus Taal!
Me, the author of I Only Love My Greatest Enemy:
Yup, pike and shot is massively underused in fantasy.
Omg, yes! The pike and shot era is an awesome era of history. You would think that it'd get more attention from gaming and storytelling industry. It's the real life blending of swords and firearms that fantasy settings love to dream up.
Ulrik's wolves charge with us!
I always just assumed that the game term “regiment” and the actual *regiment* weren’t the same thing in canon. What with the detachment system and all.
Probably the most “pick and shot” thing in the game was that regiment of renown that had pikes but the front rank were crossbow men in heavy armour.
I’d actually be interested in an Arch video explaining how this stuff works, possibly using miniatures to demonstrate
Thanks for making this!
So Arch i got a question about the Empire Knights
I know the more "Standard" Pistolier and outriders but there is a unit in TW:W simply called "Empire Knights", and i cant find info about these generic empire knights outside the knightly orders such as the Reiksguard or the Blazing sun.
it is some madeup for the game or something based on lore?
There's a ton of small orders for knights (you can make your own for tabletop). i always assumed they represented these orders in total war. The empire has access to calvary on the table, so it was given to them in the game.
Yes it's just a stand-in for your 'average' knightly order, especially since CA were too lazy to add most of the unique knightly orders to the game. Luckily modders did their job for them, and you can mod the knightly orders in, such as the knights panther, knights of the white wolf, knights of the raven, etc. etc.
People often wonder how mere humans in a fantasy setting can compete with things like orks and beastmen, but that's where realism would actually make the Empire's battle style more entertaining. Imagine an Empire unhindered by awful GW writing. Imagine an Empire with proper standing armies, combined arms tactics, and effective/creative usage of fantasy setting assets. A block of pikemen using proper tactics and discipline would honestly be a really, really hard counter to 8-foot berserker monsters. Sure, even an average ork is almost impossible to beat solo for most state troopers, but get 20 together with a tight packing of pike tips? That uber-warrior with decades of hard-earned muscle and martial prowess, something so hard to craft in the brutal wilds and battlefields of such a dangerous world, suddenly gets bled out by what could essentially amount to regular full-time joe schmoes with half-decent instruction.
That's a pretty vicious advantage in the long term grand scheme of things. And let's talk about fantasy assets used with properly realistic human ingenuity for death dealing.
Scouting, for instance. Pegasus riders, though perhaps more rare than Total War's depictions of hundreds of flying Bretonian knights would have us believe, would be inconceivably useful as intelligence gathering bird's-eye-view scouts and spies.
Armies of the Holy Roman Empire would have paid a literal king's ransom just to have the power of one such scout. Flawless long-range intelligence on enemy movements and operations. You could fly one scout fifty miles and back in bare minimum a quarter of the time it would take a man on the fastest horse to cover the same distance, and with practically no threat to the rider on top of their perfect view of all threats and army sizes/movements/etc. (barring some kind of hunting anti-air-scouting type of unit like harpies).
To a pike-and-shot army, being able to always make the right choice in response to the enemy's behavior would save an epic amount of resource expenditure and soldier fatigue. You never have to march 5000 men 25 miles in search of the enemy, only to have to march all the way back when you find they're too big for you, again. You'd already know, potentially a very long time in advance depending on how sturdy and fast those pegsus (pegasi?) are and how slow the enemy is to move around, and you'd have your men standing right where they most optimally need to be days or even weeks in advance.
No more munching through weeks of rations for thousands of men just to try and sustain your military presence on the march long enough to figure out what the best approach is as the situation develops. No more weary men force marched to battle in plate armor to rush against a schedule or to cut off the enemy. No more turning up to fight what you thought was a small greenskin tribe that turns out to be a secretly blossoming WAAAGH.
And to say NOTHING of the power that air presence could grant in battle!! Remember when planes were first weaponized in WWI? Some of those weapons, though crude, were absolutely devastating, but even that was against a modernized, industrialized foe with (semi?) modern tactics. But how about giant shoulder-to-shoulder blobs of medieval formations of barbarians? Precision medieval black powder bombing, anyone? Drop unseen and feather-quiet out of the sky, cut the cord on a modest little fuse-ignited five gallon barrel of black powder, and watch as 40 Norscan mauraders are blasted apart or crippled for life long before they've even had a chance to swing those big nasty chaos-enchanted axes anywhere near an imperial citizen. Which also means less halberdiers on the front line getting cleaved to salsa in melee combat, and more halberdiers to press the charge in that massed formation.
How about getting 4chan levels of weaponized autism about it? That's how real life military technology works, people come up with new and innovative ways to use what they already have available to kill people even better. Get two pegasus(sy) outriders, strap a big ol' crate packed tight with iron rods between them, fly them over a massed enemy formation, pull the slide on the bottom of the crate, and recreate a renaissance period fantasy version of that one wickedly nasty weapon in WWI where biplanes drop hailstorms of dead-silent heavy rods that shower whole swaths of the battlefield below. Again, against a big glob of beastmen marching ponderously and clumsily below? Absolutely appalling, almost khornate kinds of carnage.
And lean hard into the musketpunk! Think 2-bore black powder rifles, sluggish and ungodly with enough recoil to murder a minotaur, but just a couple sprinkled in the midst of those combined arms formations for taking elephant-killing potshots at the bigger brutes. Land ships would be perfect cargo caravan vehicles, like an arm-able steampunk fantasy semitruck. Industries could be reliably built around persistent and everpresent threats like beastmen, juicing the economy and getting experience for more soldiers as men become well-air-informed private armies for logging guilds dedicated to pushing back the forest humanity's foes emerge from.
There's SO MUCH lore opportunity for making the Empire even more Warhammer-appropriate levels of ridiculous, but they just lean so hard into "and then another group of hapless lice-infested peasant morons with exclusively spears was effortlessly destroyed by BARBAROS THE CHAOS CHOSEN AND HIS UNSTOPPABLE WARBAND OF BLOOD-GULPING HELL CRUSHERS, ON SALE NOW FOR $199.99 (shipping not included)!!"
Hell, make more use of the Pegasus riders! Have them drop smoke bombs on important targets during sieges, allowing artillery within fortifications to make somewhat precision strikes where ordinance is most needed.
Change things up and throw some blunderbuss-wielding men in amongst the pike formations similar to the swordsman's role in Spanish tercios.
There's lots of stuff they could add to Old World Empire lore, if they just weren't so... GW.
Imagine a grand Total War style strategy, but with actual pike and shot formations with combined arms instead of random blobs of exclusively one soldier type.
Man, in a better timeline.
Actually the books explain it rather well. The decentralized and feudal nature of the empire fucks up any meaningful resistance against foreign foes since the infantry are under equipped by the nobles and the nobles are underdrilled and do so love to bicker.
Arch: Please do videos for the known regiments of the Empire, just like you've done them for the Imperium! Thanks!!
Great work!!!!
Need me some more fantasy arch, 1 a month doesnt tickle the tism enough
I am wondering what a troop wounded or mentally broken if there is any plan for them. considering the empire 50/50 meat shield but they do have some standards.
Is the Empire of Karl Franz pre or post Treaty of Westphalia??
Nothing says "Horsey troops go away" like you & 499 of your closest friends in a big block holding long pointy sticks &/or sticks with axe heads & really big swords.
Nice to see some Fantasy, I never stopped playing, Age of Shitmar be damned.
Actually in parts of the world in Ancient warfare the best armourd troops would be kept in reserve. The Romans had a saying, about having to send in their Triarii(Romes heavy armor spears) as a metaphor for fighting till the bitter end. Even up till 19th century warfare the best trained and armed troops would be the generals guard.
The one wirh the pike stabs, the other one follows. If the one with the pike is eaten by greenskins, the one without a pike takes the pike and keeps stabbing...
Absolutely amazing.
I am working on a setting which Pike and shot be partially relevant. Though obviously it has it's fair share of wizards and fantasy knights still.
the guardmen of fantasy the state troops hold the line
they may be normal men but with faith steel and gunpowder they push back the horrors
Its about the comon man telling the many horrors of the warhammer world to stick up their asses , no manner of cool exagerated demon ork or wathever can surpass that
I was not notified about this video by youtube yesterday...
You should make videos on Pike and Shot history. I would watch it
Please do more Fantasy videos. Maybe revisit your at this point ancient video about Karl Franz
I think something else needs to be added on to how appealing the three meals a day and pay might be to your average empire peasant. The empire has certain areas of it that are industrialized or industrializing. Imagine all the horrors of laissez-faire industrialization and realize that the choices between that for no fulfillment and the promise of almost certainly losing fingers if not more important bits to the machine that you will likely be fired for "messing up".... Or you could join the army, possibly get a salaried role if you survive long enough, and this is a setting where the forces of evil do in fact exist and you get to go and fight them in the name of nationalism and God (of course they forget to mention how cataclysmically they dwarf you in power, but what's that in the name of God and money?)
Logistics video in disguise ^^
Summon the Elector Count state troops!
Ahh my beloved Stirland.
Don't worry lads mud and muck counts as armor.
Three square meals a day with pay and weapons is still an alluring prospect to modern young men despite the increase in wealth we as a world have experienced.
great stuff arch
Perfect army: Lord, Rieksguard Handgunners (mod) x11, steam tanks x4, mortar teams x4
Arch. Pls bring back the background music from your older lore videos. Like 7 years ago
Hey didn’t get an answer last week, are you still going to do the sabot crusade still?
Its kimda funny the lack of combined arms for the state troops of the Empire sounds like lore trying to justify rules, meanwhile with the Imperial Guard no player would have a lore consistent army, every Guard player operates combined arms forces.
Finally some fantasy good shit
Are they be trained in the empire state building?
I would say that however, the big problem with the pike and shot era is the hilariously long sieges and the equally hilarious brutal treatment of the locals. I cannot see a whole lot of excitement talking about a siege where the procedures and defenders see who stars first while the procedures use local girls as sex slaves.
There's a war game called pike and shot
"a lot of young men feel remarkably lucky,"
I feel like that's basically what all militaries are fundamentally based on. A sober, rational assessment doesn't exactly encourage joining up.
YES more warhammer fantasy lore 😃😃😃 And what happened to the Hung episode?