For the Empire!

I have recently become filled with a sense of urgency with regard to my burgeoning fantasy collection, now that Games Workshop have said they will (at some point, barring Age of Sigmar being a massive flop) discontinue the old range. With this in mind, I am looking at completing the army I wanted when I embarked on fantasy. The problems I have had with list building are twofold - where to put lords/heroes and what to use as a Watchtower unit. I am hoping some more experienced Empire generals, or just those with more fantasy experience generally, will be able to give me a hand here.

2400 points of Empire goodness - items in red are still to buy.


LORDS

Arch Lector on War Altar of Sigmar, with great weapon, heavy armour, talisman of preservation, shield
My thinking is this will pair nicely with the Hurricanum, giving a nice big bubble o' hatred, priest spells and +1 to hit for all those halberdiers. Also, the symmetry of both chariots either side of a big block is pleasing to me.

Battle Wizard Lord, lore of beasts, dispel scroll, level four.
Cool model, and there's a reasonable amount of cavalry but not much, so anything that keeps them going for longer is welcome. Lore of life is also a definite possibility though.


HEROES

Captain of the Empire, with great weapon and full plate armour. BSB with magic standard - Razor Standard.
Goes in the halberdiers, popping out armour piercing on top of strength four should be fun!

Master Engineer with charmed shield.
Kind of a hangover from when I was dead set on having a Helblaster in the army, but seeing as I have the model (and really like it) he can keep a cannon ticking over.

CORE

40 Halberdiers, full command. One detachment of 20 handgunners (wizard lord goes here).
I already have thirty, buying another battalion box will give me the others and some spares. I am aware that putting the wizard in such a small unit might not be the best idea ever, but I want him somewhere slightly further back and central for casting on everything, and the handgunners will benefit from the Hold the Line! rule of the captain in the halberdiers.

12 Knights of the Inner Circle with lances and shields, full command and magic standard - Steel Standard (ignore penalties for barding, reroll 1s on the charge).
All aboard the Knight bus! I already have eight, four more will come from the second battalion box. I'm not expecting huge things from them, but they should be all right if they can get into the flanks of stuff I suppose.

SPECIAL

Great Cannon
Empire, duh.

Great Cannon
Double duh.

20 Greatswords, with full command.
The problem unit. I need a unit of infantry twenty strong for holding the watchtower in that scenario. Every infantry unit in the Empire army aside from them sucks in numbers that small, so I am hoping their stubbornness and armour along with magical buffing will keep them there for a decent length of time. Nice models too. Unfortunately I can't see a unit this small being super useful in other scenarios, but I am loathe to put a rubbish chaff unit in the watchtower just to hang them out to dry for the sake of fulfilling the deployment stipulations.

3 Demigryph Knights with spears and full command.
Pretty models, and too good not to take.

RARE

Celestial Hurricanum
From the beginning, this model was an auto include for me. Cool and useful. And we'll have no talk of it being "the flashy model for kids" thank you very much


So, there it is. I have the option to add in five Outriders which I already have and love, but I now realise I should have built them as Pistoliers really, at least for the way I intend to play them. I am quite keen on this list, but am not sold on the Greatswords, for the reasons previously mentioned plus their exorbitant cost financially . If people could suggest either different ways of using the things I already have or an alternative take on a Watchtower unit, that would be helpful. Not looking to rip the list apart completely as there are a lot of things in there I'm quite set on - still trying to find a way to fit the Helblaster back in, for example I have three more wizard models and a Warrior Priest too, who I'm quite pleased with the paintjob on, but the war altar seems like the better bet as it replaces both him and the hugely underwhelming combat power that is an Empire general or Grand Master in one fell swoop, and looks cool to boot.

Thoughts?

Yes! Fantasy!

I've also been thinking about giving some more love to my Vampire Counts, and about maybe starting a new Fantasy army (while I still can).

I've kind of put 40K on hold for a little bit, at least in terms of buying stuff, with the intention being to get everything I need. Expect my future failed painting vows to feature fantasy and Mordheim figures

I now realise that not only does the unit deployed in the watchtower have to be core, you also don't have to deploy one in there at all if you don't want to. Hmmm. Hello, Helblaster...