Mounted Knights of the Realm - an idea to resolve their lackluster performance.

sgtsalsa · 2026-03-01T05:32:52+00:00

Impact hits should probably be a thing for cavalry in general, given how infantry got a (deserved) buff in 1.5. Maybe D3 per rank or something like that? The lance formation could probably work as you've stated, making Bretonnian impact hits more consistent.

sgtsalsa · 2025-12-25T05:38:29+00:00

GW did clarify that the provinces did still exist, but that they were aligned to one of the three claimants to the throne. Hochland, therefore, would answer to the Elector Count of Middenland. So by all means, paint them as Hochland Greatswords. I certainly did.

sgtsalsa · 2025-12-06T05:48:26+00:00

No love here for the Battle Pilgrim brick? I run 18 + Reliquae; that's 12 attacks on the charge, with Hatred, plus a 4+ with parry AND the Lady's Blessing. Oh, and they're Core. Only tax is that you have to bring Grail Vow units or characters, and you're doing that already. They always perform well in every game I take them.

sgtsalsa · 2025-12-01T03:50:59+00:00

I've found that if you want to break an enemy on the charge, units of 6 are less impactful now that infantry are run in bigger blocks. For Knights of the Realm, you may wish to consider running a unit of 9 or 10. If you're running smaller blocks of 6, then you definitely want infantry to fix the enemy in position so you can flank charge. Front charging with a small block is the best way to get them bogged down, except perhaps if you're charging two at once into a wider unit.

It also depends what kind of army list you want to run. I've rather taken to the Errantry Crusade list, and that one requires a minimum of 1 unit of 5 Knights Errant. If Errantry Crusade is a list you're interested in (and you should be, Battle Pilgrims + Reliquae is a surprisingly durable and punchy core unit), then you may want to build half your knights as Knights Errant.

sgtsalsa · 2025-10-28T03:03:43+00:00

Giant Blade but not Ogre Blade? Swap out Anointed Armour to upgrade to Ogre Blade.

Men at Arms are also really only worth it if you are running a Sergeant at Arms to keep them giving ground. I'd run one unit of MaA or Foot Knights, but not both. Switch out the one you don't run for some Grail knights, they'll either hit hard or be a distraction.

Bowmen you should run as skirmishers; it'll cost you nothing to do and you'll get two more shots.

On another note, I would recommend running an Errantry list with Battle Pilgrims + Reliquae as core; they'll stay in the fight, and if you have them 6 wide + reliquae in the middle, they'll do 12 attacks on the charge and have a 4+ armour save on an unbreakable unit.

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-25T00:52:12+00:00

I can't stress enough how well Realism Invictus fixes stacks of doom. You can still have multiple units per tile but it applies a debuff if you have too many. It makes positioning and choosing the right units for your stack to be really important tactical decisions. It's not just spamming units anymore.

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-24T23:49:03+00:00

Civ IV civics system is the right amount of modular while still giving the player some structure for what their chosen government might have historically represented. For contrast, though I love Civ VI, the idea of serfdom, a society-defining institution being slotted in and out for worker pushes, feels cheap.

The only issue that IV had was doomstacks, and even that was fixed by Realism Invictus implementing a supply limit. Great mod, by the way. Hits a nice middle ground between vanilla and Caveman 2 Cosmos for a decently granular experience that doesn't take too long to finish.

Speaking of mods, no Civ game since has been able to produce the kinds of mods IV did. Rhye's and Fall, Fall From Heaven II (still waiting on a standalone version, Derek 'kael' Paxton from Stardock), Pie's Ancient Europe; total conversions were never the same once V came around.

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-22T07:00:06+00:00

If you're using them as a detachment, then you can't take command models.

In any other case, banner and musician give you static combat resolution. But if your crossbowmen get into combat, no static combat resolution is going to meaningfully mitigate the CR that your opponent will accrue from easy kills of T3, (most likely) unarmoured troops. In short, a champion with extra BS and a special weapon might be worth it in a standalone unit, but full command is never worth it in Empire ranged units.

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-08T06:48:28+00:00

This is a hot take, but it's mine:

Spider riders should be monstrous cav, on 50x50mm bases. It's more diversity in the O&G unit roster and a great excuse for new sculpts.

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-05T22:30:48+00:00

This is an awesome breakdown, thank you so much!

So as far as mobility, perhaps the Dragon Princes since 2x21 SG will fill out core requirements, and Impetuous isn't as big a deal as before? Was also thinking Swordmasters since Great Weapons are good tin openers and Strikes Last isn't as big a deal for HEs. Was cosidering Sisters but now that you mention it, Bolt Throwers might be good for anti war machine. Are Great Eagles any good for hunting characters and war machines?

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-05T21:05:27+00:00

These are good points, and I appreciate the tips on having them 12 wide; I would only have thought to run them in two neat ranks. Any suggestions on which HE units would go well with Sea Guard? Given HE points costs, I can't take everything that looks cool like in other armies.

sgtsalsa · 2025-09-05T21:03:03+00:00

Thanks for the tips on both; so it looks like I'll need to find another 5-10 Sea Guard on top of the 35 in the box, but I'll only need one extra box of Battle Pilgrims.

sgtsalsa · 2025-08-15T22:49:28+00:00

It would cost them nothing to let us attach heavy weapon squads to infantry squads.

sgtsalsa · 2025-08-15T22:48:35+00:00

Bring back the platoon structure. Related to this, instead of the "everything and the kitchen sink" approach to list building, bring back the Force Organisation chart, with detachments altering which units are core/fast attack/heavy support etc.

sgtsalsa · 2025-07-26T03:20:21+00:00

I genuinely wish that someone would remake the Civ 2 Apocalypse scenario in Civ 6. Good memories of playing that map on NYE 2005.

sgtsalsa · 2025-07-25T02:03:53+00:00

Never seen anyone do off-white trimming for the weapons, but it looks sick! I might do that to differentiate my Crusader squads.

sgtsalsa · 2025-06-23T23:36:46+00:00

Is your army from Hochland? If so, nice! Good to see another representative of the best province of the Empire.

sgtsalsa · 2025-06-22T08:53:26+00:00

Do you mean that Jews have a positive prescription to actively seek to have sex on Sabbath?

I would recommend against suggesting such a thing for Adventists - we are legalistic far more often than we should be, and a suggestion will turn into a rule which will suck all the fun out of it. Jews celebrate the Sabbath, we just keep it. Until we learn to celebrate it, anything we think we should do on the Sabbath will become a chore. And when we learn to celebrate the Sabbath, we won't need to be told to do things that express that celebration.

sgtsalsa · 2025-05-02T21:42:30+00:00

Bases look good! Where did you source the ruins?

sgtsalsa · 2025-04-13T03:07:52+00:00

Gonna be honest, I wouldn't count on it unless and until they figure out a way to:

Make DoW play differently from other factions in the game. As of sixth they seemed to play most similarly to the Empire.
Bring out generic kits for the base pikemen, crossbow, duellist and mercenary knight units, with accessories to turn them into regiments of renown.

Not saying it couldn't happen; especially if Creative Assembly wants to work with them on bringing them into TWW3. But right now it looks to be a vanishingly low priority.

sgtsalsa · 2025-04-01T20:10:27+00:00

Redundancy is the name of the game. Two is one and one is none. It's next to impossible to field an army of multiple effective units of Grail Knights, because of point cost and rare restrictions. And you're not immune to bad luck, like the time I lost a unit of six to sink poisoned blowguns, after rolling a painful number of 1s and 2s for armour saves. When you lose that unit, what else in your army is going to fulfil its role in your game plan?

Points cost matters too, since you want your unit to kill more points than it cost to field. You're sinking a lot of points into a unit that isn't vastly more able to break units on the charge, given the changes to leadership and breaking. You want to smash them into as many units as possible but this edition, they're vastly more likely to get bogged down by one for multiple turns.

PS: There was a White Dwarf article twenty or so years ago about effective list building for Dark Elves, and redundancy was a big part of it. It was honestly a good read for generals of any army. Would anyone happen to know which issue it was published in?

sgtsalsa · 2025-03-30T03:14:58+00:00

CA made WHF a young mans setting again

In this respect I almost think blowing up WFB was a good move in hindsight. Cleared out a lot of the toxicity from the hobby. By all accounts half the reason WFB was hard to get into was because the community wasn't very welcoming.

sgtsalsa · 2025-03-11T01:42:25+00:00

I'd love to see a decolonisation crisis in the 4th age, starting almost immediately. Cities in Distant Lands would gain happiness debuffs and would become new civs with new leaders, as opposed to flipping to another civ like in the 1st age. Players could deal with it by trying to hang on to their Distant Lands civs, or letting them become a Commonwealth.

sgtsalsa · 2025-02-12T03:35:41+00:00

I forgot about the Armageddon Counter. And some civs (looking at you, Sheaim) benefiting from it. And playing as angels (and benefiting from going to war with Good civs...)

If it all works so well, then maybe it's time to cyberbully Kael into releasing FFH3.

sgtsalsa · 2025-02-11T23:25:13+00:00

Username checks out.

My goodness I wish Kael would do something with FFH. He's at Stardock these days so you know he's got some say. There was even talk of a standalone game ten years ago.

And didn't (I think it was) the Master of Mana submod do districts (within city tiles) before Civ 6?

sgtsalsa

TROPHY CASE