500 pt Pirate Army

Hey folks! Lately, I discovered that my pirate warbands are slowly getting to a level where they can be used as a small army. As I was buying some miniatures for a new surprise project attye local GW, they told me that there are some 500pt battpes going on next week.

Thus, I thought I might join and see if playing Warhammer is fun (never done it before) and perhaps promote Mordheim a little. The difficult part is that I have never played Warhammer and thus have no idea whatsoever as to what to include in a 500pt Empire army. Any advice?

you'll need at least a solid core of state troops to form the bulk of your army. Humans are however worthless in a one-on-one fight so you need to give them the best possible chanches. take a BSB and a hero to bolster your unit's fighting capacities (warrior priests work very good for this purpose and a pirate priest should be a nice modelling challenge!) Also make use of the detachment system! you can't go without!
take some decent ranged support to soften up the enemy (don't take archers, they're crap)
A Hellblaster should be lethal in 500pt battles (just hope it doesn't blow up in turn 1) you could propably use a (set of) swivel gun(s) to represent it

as to which troop type to use: there are many different opinions which are best but most seem to agree on sworsmen and halberdiers. I for one swear on FC as detachment

pistoliers are propably the empire's most worthwhile troop choice, I just don't know if they'll still be worth it in 500pts battles though. you'll propably won't be able to take both pistoliers and a hellblaster. But if you take pistoliers you could drop out handguns/crossbows. In fact now that I think about it it's propably better to take pistoliers than handgunners/crosbows

And best take a scroll caddy, you don't want to lose your hellblaster or pistoliers to an unfortunate spell

http://warhammer-empire.com/theforum/index.php

Do you want to stick to your theme? Pistoliers being cavalry are a stretch.

Since you have pirates Empire Free Company was made for you. Not the best troops, possibly the worst, but 2 attacks (with their extra hand weapon) and you should have a bunch of them and they are cheap. Take at least 20.

Do you have a cannon lad? Not the best option in a small game but it will take care of any big nasty things that cheese gits might bring. Make one officer an Engineer to keep it from blowing up if you can afford it. The Hellblaster is nice but a bit pricey for small games.

Missile fire is deadly in small games, so get anyone who looks like he can shoot and call them handgunners or crossbowmen, handgunners being more in theme. 10+ of these.

Take a wizard. Take a captain for leadership. In the old days 500 point games were one character only, but the new rules are by percentages.

I got to play the War Bands (500pt.) version of War Hammer six or so years ago...I found it enjoyable enough that I modified the rules for solo games. Unfortunately rule changes & various G.W. machinations killed interest in the War Hammer for most of the Folks at my then not-so-local games store; War Machine/Hordes became The Fantasy Game.

@ von kurst: I don't think a cannon is worth it in 500pts, for only 10 points more you can have a hellblaster which performs very good against both infantry and big stuff (between 4 and 30 S5 shots can take out most stuff) If you take a cannon and your opponont only brought infantry with him than (if you can get a hit) your 100 point cannon will only be able to shoot between 3-5 infantry models per turn (depending on how many ranks they have)
If you take the HB than an engineer is definetly a must

Thanks for the advice so far! Pistoliers are a little difficult, as I would have to make them untill next week. However, I think I can afford a hellblaster. Already build an engineer/wizard model from a Goblin shaman and a pirate priest of Strohmfels will be build during the Easter weekend, so I should be good on that side, too.

Alright, I took a look at the army book and this is what I came up with trying to heed your advice:

Heroes:

Captain (50pt)
Wizard (65pt)
Engineer (65pt)

Troops

15 Swordsmen (Musician, Standard), 5 FC detachment (130pt)
10 Handguners (80pt)

Rare

Hellblaster Volley Gun (110pt)

Total: 500pt

However, I wonder how the Engineer can do any good for the volley gun - as far as I read it, you can only reroll any dice with him when he joins a cannon or mortar?

Well...you have three Heroes that are, with the exception of a hand weapon, unequipped. With games of 500 pts. or under one Hero is normally maximum. I'd take the Captain with Heavy Armor (4), a shield (2), & a pistol (6) = 62pts.. Give the Swordsmen Full Command for 25 pts.. Break the Handgunners up into two detachments with the Swordsmen as their parent unit. That leaves you with 93 pts. to add whatever you fancy to the War Band.

Master Engineer: Lt. Armor, Hochland Long Rifle 92

12 Hand Gunners with Marksman & Hochland Long Rifle 121
Detachment of 6 Spearmen or Mitilia 30

12 Hand Gunners with Marksman & Reapeater Hand Gun 116
Detachment 6 Spearmen or Militia 30

Hell Bllaster 110
Total: 499

Missile weapons due to the small uni sizes are devastating 2t 500 pts. The detachments are speed bumps to give additional time for your hand gunners to do their thing. Personally I'd go for either more handgunners or a Great Cannon rather than the Volley Gun...the grape shot is pretty destructive at close range;
10 Archers upgraded to Huntsmen with a Marksman 105
The Huntsman have the Scout rule & so they can set up anywhere after everyone else sets up; this should be used to hinder your opponents march moves.

indeed three heroes is propably to much, it would be better to chose between the engineer and the wizard

I see that you haven't downloaded the errata yet? You really should! it includes the amandaments to update the book to 8th. Engineers are much more usefull then

Deafnala's shooty army will propably be VERY effective but it won't score you any popularity points, than again you could get away with it by talking like a pirate, Yarrr!

I wouldn't use spearmen for detachments though, the spears will be useless in 6 man detachments.

Alright, including the tips I got from you and elsewhere, I updated my list as follows:

Captain (Light armour (he's a pirate, after all), pistol, sword of might) - 73pt

19 swordsmen, full comman - 149pt (will be joined by the captain)
2 detachments à 5 handgunners - 80 points

15 free company, musician and sergeant - 82 points

Hellblaster Volley gun - 110pt

I'm not yet sure if I should rather make the Free company or the handgunners detachment (or both), or have an FC detachment for both swordsmen and handgunners... too many options! Alternativley, I could as well have the handgunners a unit for themselves without detachment, a 10 FC detachmetn for the swordsmen and increase their size to 25. And after reading the errata on the engineer, I'd love to squeeze one in to increase the life of the volley gun, but can't seem to get this done. I DO want to keep the Volley Gun, though, as it's only 10pt more expensive than the cannon and seems to be a lot more fun

Eliazar wrote:

as it's only 10pt more expensive than the cannon and seems to be a lot more fun

haha that's true! I never go to war without one

IMHO it would be better to use the handgunners as a 10 man unit by themselves and take a 10 man FC detachment for the swords

you could use those 32 points on 6 more swords and thereby (hopefully) becoming steadfast againts most foes


anyways: good luck! and don't forget to post pictures of yer pirate army

Thanks! I'll try to speed paint some of the additional models tonight, but so far, it's nothing spectacular - only the same ol' pirates everybody knows already and an additional LOAD of mysterious black dudes