Total War: WARHAMMER III Empire Generic Lords Guide
An overview on the Generic Lords available for the Empire in Total War: WARHAMMER III
Game Guide by Arne on Jan 17, 2025
The Empire is a bastion of humanity and a bulwark against chaos. It brings rows of state troops armed with a variety of weapons to the battlefield. Overall, the Empire excels in firepower and ranged action. Despite this, it is fairly balanced and enjoys a selection of somewhat good units.
A lynchpin in the Empire's selection of Lords is their unique role, which most of these lords can't really be fulfilled by other units in their roster. With the DLCs, the Empire currently has access to five legendary lords, all of whom are great at what they do. There is also a unique lord and four generic lords to pick from.
Generic Lords
The Generic Lords of the Empire are very basic and budget-friendly versions of their Legendary counterparts. You will undoubtedly use them a lot since you'll always need more armies in a campaign. In multiplayer, however, they are almost preferred over the Legendary Lords as it is far easier to extract value from them, and they are cheaper. This also helps when they are taken out early, leaving you in a less bad position than if you had a Legendary Lord.
General of the Empire
These are going to be your basic bread-and-butter lords. They are a Walmart version of Karl Franz, giving you a decent melee fighter with ample room for specialization. While he is still overshadowed by the Legendary Lords and the likes of the Arch Lector and Master Engineer, he still has his uses.
They are pretty strong and tanky, with a 55% chance of blocking missile damage due to their shield. He is also a decent duelist, effective at taking down the HP of most enemies. However, he still struggles against good armor-piercing units and lords.
He becomes a lot more useful once he unlocks his griffin mount. The mount gives him almost 2000 more hp and other buffs, including giving him fear and terror. The fact that he is flying now also gives him more utility, as he is able to chase flying enemy lords, such as spellcasters, or harass the enemy backline.
He excels at another thing, which is keeping a cavalry-focused army. Not only does he give out many campaign buffs, but he also gives some buffs to the cavalry down his skill tree, making full cavalry armies viable.
As with Franz, the Generals are unable to heal themselves, so they usually need a Jade Wizard with them, especially in multiplayer battles. In the campaign, he has the three usual sections of skill tree progression. One for his martial prowess, one for battlefield support, and one for campaign support. Overall, he enjoys the martial boosts and campaign support more than anything.
Unlocking the headhunter skill with him, as well as getting him the Drill Instructor skill along with any other ancillaries that buff training speed and recruitment rank, make him a decent recruiter of units. However, that task can also be performed in a superior manner by Karl Franz.
Arch Lector
Arch Lectors are beefed-up versions of the Warrior Priest or dumbed-down versions of Volkmar the Grim. They are the superior choice as the baseline frontline Empire lords. Much like the General, he can be specialized to fulfill a number of roles, although he best serves as a support unit.
Grand Shield of Faith, Grand Soulfire, and Grand Hammer of Sigmar all help buff troops around him for a short duration, with Grand Soulfire, in particular, also damaging enemy units in a burst.
These battle prayers are bound to him, meaning they require no winds of magic. He can be on foot, standing together with your frontline and buffing them, in which case you can either use him in conjunction with Greatswords or Spearmen with some Warrior Priests to effectively have a very strong frontline.
He can also be mounted on Barded Warhorse, giving him extra melee defense and hitpoints and letting him lead squadrons of Demigrpyh Knights, Reiksguard, or Blazing Sun Knights to snipe high-value targets.
Overall, the Arch Lector is very tanky and defensive, and his armies should make up for his defensiveness by either having Helstorm Rocket Batteries or other missile and artillery units that can dish out damage. He can also lead a pretty strong frontline when paired with the Empire Captain and a wizard since they all just buff the state troops by a big margin.
The Huntsman General
They are the generic lord counterpart to Markus Wulfhart, and pretty much everything in regard to him also applies to the Huntsman General. Therefore, this section will remain fairly short. They are ranged lords that deal lots of damage over time; however, they are very squishy and slow, with no mount options, making them easy pickings for enemy cavalry and flying monsters.
They deal lots of ant-large damage, making them ideal for taking down monstrous foes, cavalry, or enemy lords on mounts. They are particularly good against enemies with regeneration or weakness to fire due to a specific combination.
See, you let the enemy lord or big unit come close, wherein you use the Oil Flask on them, giving them +50% weakness to flaming attacks and slowing them down by 48%. Quickly afterward, use Hail of Fire on your allies, more specifically, your archers, handgunners, and huntsmen. This gives him increased reload skill and gives them flaming attacks.
These two, in conjunction, effectively make them into Sisters of Avelorn and let them demolish most units. That being said, most usual restrictions apply where you need a good deal of infantry and line-holders to keep the enemy at bay while the Huntsman General does his thing.
Master Engineer
The new master engineer for humans is a DLC unit and is currently arguably the best lord for the Empire. There is almost nothing holding the Master Engineer back, and he is the best at what he does. He serves as both a support and martial combatant.
The Master Engineer mainly specializes in buffing your missile units and artillery. This comes in the form of skills that boost the reload speed, ammunition, accuracy, damage, and range of your war machines and missile units. These turn deadly units such as the Landship, Steam Tank, and Nuln Ironsides into devastating units that destroy everything in their path.
The Master Engineer also has a bunch of steed options that make him from decent to great. The mechanical steed and warhorse are great, offering him increased mobility, but at level 20, he gains the ability to ride atop a steam tank, making him a very strong unit overall.
Not only do you get a steamtank, but you also get his weapon skills and abilities, which are still available to you. Despite his weak melee skills, he can still hold his ground in melee and often does so very effectively. He will probably also survive against mid-tier enemy units. Naturally, this changes once he gets access to his steam tank, which can punt around most enemy units without much issue.
His active abilities are all great, and overall, he is one of the best generic lords in the game. When not on a steamtank, he can also get out of a tough situation with his pigeon bombs, which are good against single units that have a lot of models.
His army composition should also be based around missile units and war machines, mostly gunpowder ones. With the Master Engineer, you can also run a very effective Steam Tank Doomstack. That being said, he has no ability to heal units, nor are his melee capabilities that good if he is swarmed.
This means you need a decent frontline as well as a Jade Wizard to make the most out of him. Regardless of his mount, he should stay near the backline, mostly so that he could buff your missile units and artillery.
Also, check our Total War: WARHAMMER III - Omens of Destruction Review and other guides on Total War: Warhammer III below:
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