The Empire of Man is the largest human nation in the Old World, though it is divided by internal strife and accosted by multiple enemies across it’s borders. Still, the Empire of Man stands strong, fielding mighty armies from its many city states to take the fight to it’s enemies. In Arcane Journal Empire of Man, up for pre order today, Warhammer The Old World players get access to new options, units and sub-lists in order to make varied and fun lists for your games.

In this full review, we’ll be checking out the contents of the Arcane Journal, seeing what is new and checking out the various sub lists that allow you to field your Empire army in different ways.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us an early review copy of the book to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Arcane Journal Empire of Man through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also reviewed all the previous Arcane Journals – Check out our recent Warriors of Chaos review if you rather commanding the forces of Chaos!

So without further ado, let’s jump into the new Arcane Journal!

Arcane Journal Empire of Man Review

Can you believe that Warhammer The Old World has been with us for almost a year now? In that time we’ve had Arcane Journals for Bretonnia, Tomb Kings, Orcs and Goblins, Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos. With Empire up for pre order today, and High Elves coming up next that only leaves the Wood Elves and Beastmen left to get their books until the first batch of armies is complete. There’s a big question as to what comes next, and I think there’s equal chance for some Legends armies to head back to the game along with the long whispered Kislev and Cathay. That’s something to dive into at another time however, as today we’re taking a look at the new Arcane Journal Empire of Man book.

Having an Empire army stored away in the loft that has moved between Warhammer Fantasy, to Age of Sigmar and now awaiting the Empire releases, I was excited to see what is new in the book and in particular to check out what was new for the sub-lists within the book.

If you’ve not picked up any of the Arcane Journals yet, then the best way to describe them is an expansion book for the army. If you play Empire you dont need the book to continue playing, but it does give you new units and lots of new ways of playing the game, which can only be good for the health of the game. One of the most eagerly anticipated parts of the Arcane Journals are the new Armies of Infamy – each book gets 2, and these change the army construction rules in order to let you field something a little different.

You also get a nice chunk of lore in the Arcane Journals. For Empire of Man we learn about the various city states and what they do, along with some narrative about Nuln facing the horrors of Beastmen ambushes which have been growing more common as of late.

This is supported by a really nice narrative scenario that represents a Nuln City-state army being ambushed by Beastmen. This has an ace deployment where the battlefield is split into 6 areas, with the players having their armies split into 3 of these sections each – with some clever picking by the attacker this means that the majority of the Empire army is surrounded and split up, with the Beastmen player able to surround them in order to take control of the Herdstone at the centre of the board. While a lot of people just play Matched Play games, this is one that you’ll want to play just for the chance to experience the stresses of the varient deployment seen here!

City-State of Nuln

Most people reading this will be interested in the two Armies of Infamy in the book, and the first is the City-State of Nuln. With my previous army heralding from Nuln (and having way too many war machines to ever use in a single game) I was hoping that the Nuln army of Infamy would do two things – 1) make war machines better and 2) let you take more of them.

This is the case in the Nuln list, but maybe not to the extent that people wanted. Great Cannons and Mortars are still limited to 0-3 per 1000 points, but in the rare slow you can now take twice as many Volley Guns and Rocket Batteries with you being able to take 2 per 1000 points rather than only 1 per 1000. Sadly there’s not an increase in Rare allowence, which means that you’re going to take a Steam Tank you’re still going to stuggle to get much more in Rare – but I love the ability to take more guns to get that Nuln vibe. War Wagons also join the special slot here and there’s no restrictions here, so you can go crazy with as many as you want.

Core restrictions also change a little with 1+ units of Nuln State Troops being needed. These are a block of Halberd armed State Troops (or veteran State Troops) supported by 1-2 units of Handgunners or Swordsmen. This is a little more restrictive, but the detachments each get a free champion, which saves on points a little. In core you also get a unit of Outriders per 1000 points, and can take Militia and Archers. It’s worth pointing out that you can’t just take Handgunners, you have to take them as a Nuln State Troops block, making things a little more limited. Personally, I like the look of big blocks of halberds supported by gunners and then all the cannons in the world, so this one does appeal to me.

You get a number of rules that make your warmachines better too – Engineers close to war machines are immune to psychology, and for you can set up your War Machines as entrenched at deployment which gives them the benefit of cover.

You can also make your war machines get the Vanguard and Veteran rules too for a small points cost.

Your blocks of hangunners also benefit from being able to fire in two ranks once per game too, which is pretty handy

I’ve seen some grumblings about this one, but I think it’s a nice fun way of doing a gunline army filled with more artillery than you would normally fit into a normal army and has some cool unique touches.

Knightly Order

The other Army of Infamy are the Knightly Orders – this allows you to put together a predominantly cavalry based army that belongs to one of 5 knightly orders – Every knight unit in your army can then be upgraded to get some additional bonuses (more on this later), with the army also getting a rule based on which Knightly order you picked:

Here’s a run down of the army bonues:

Knights Panther can take a unit of Knights of the White Wolf

Knights of the White Wolf can take Teutogen Guard as Special and a unit of Militia as Core (But cant take priests or witch hunters)

Kights of the Blazing Sun can take Mages and cannons (Your only way of getting war machines in this sub list) but cant include priests

Knights or Morr can take Wizard Lords or Mages, but cant take priests

Knights of the Fiery Heart can take Flagellants but cannot take priests.

As you can see, a lot of them have restrictions to what is in the army – and the base list for the Knightly Orders are greatly reduced too, so you’re going to have a very specialised force that leans in a particular direction.

The upgrades for each order are pretty good though – again, they have more restrictions and requirements but most of the bonuses are pretty good. Knights of Morr for example get Hatred (Undead) and a 6+ ward against non magical attacks, while Knights Panther get Hated (Chaos) and reroll 1’s when charging but have to take lances.

These upgrades do cost points per model, so can get quite expensive however.

While you have to dance around the restrictions, I still feel there’s some fun thematic lists you can put together with these.

New Units

As ever with the Arcane Journals we get a number of new characters and units introduced in the book.

We get a pair of new characters, the first of which is Harald Gemunsen the Grand master of the Knights Panther. He has a nice Killing Blow sword that rerolls wounds against Beastmen, but his coolest ability is being able to issue a second challenge in turn if he kills the target in the original challenge. This is really fun and opens up the possibility for him to take out both a sacrificial champion and a hero

Next up we have Hans Von Lowenhacke – he’s a Mercenary General who stops Mercs from being subject to the misbehaving rule, and also givses them the benefit of Inspiring presence. His wargear is pretty good too, making him immune to Killing Blow and having a 5+ ward to any wounds suffered

We get Harbingers of Doom as a new character choice – these are essentially hero Flagellants and can give units of Flagellants a 6+ ward, or a 5+ ward against units with fear or terror

Teutogen Guard are a foot mounted Knight unit armed with AP 2 hammers that are S+2 on the charge that reroll hits of 1 – these guys are pretty cool and can be taken as a special choice for each Priest of Ulric you have

Imperial Ogres are a new Dogs of War unit that have a range of weaponry including light cannons and pistols – easily represented using Ogre Kingdom bits, but the returning classic models are gorgeous

Empire Road Wardens are an interesting new Special Choice – they are essentially Outriders with crossbows that can be given ambush or scout

The big returning model however is the War Wagon – this is a 0-1 rare choice in a Grand Army, but as many as you like can be taken in Special for a Nuln army. These are basically a chariot platform with a crew armed with a range of different weapons – and this is where the power of the war wagon comes in, the versatility! You have lots of different abilities across the wargear making this a great jack of all trades – add in the fact it does impact hits and stomp attacks and you have a pretty good unit that is pretty cheap at 140 points. What’s more is the fact that you can mount an Engineer on one too, which also seems a fun choice. My only negative against this seems to be the fact that this is returning only as a Made to Order and won’t be part of the main range – so if you have any urge to do an Empire army at some point in the future I’d highly recommend getting your order in for it!

Arcane Journal Empire of Man Summary

So what do I think of the new Arcane Journal Empire of Man? I’m pretty happy with this one as a Nuln player – I wanted a way of being able to fit more artillery into an army and packing as many cannons and morters as my Death Korps of Krieg. I know that War Machines are maybe not the strongest in The Old World, but I do think you can put some fun lists together using this book. I don’t play from a top tier tournament point of view, so the most important thing to me is putting together a fun thematic list rather than something that will win against the “meta”.

Honestly, I don’t think that making these books the place to pick up the strongest list is the right move either – The Arcane Journals should all be about putting together an army that fills a nice niche within the game and lets you do something different with your faction. For Wood Elves for example I’m expecting something that let’s you take a fun list of just forest spirits – think proto Sylvaneth for example! While a lot of people look at these books from a point of view of getting together a list that can win all tournaments, we need to remember that the majority of people who play the game do so to just have some fun and roll some dice. You don’t need a level 4 wizard, and you don’t need a dragon – you just need to find players with the same mindset to sit down and have a fun game, and that’s the most important thing to have in The Old World

Arcane Journal Empire of Man is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 11th January

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with a free copy for review purposes

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther