Yeah, the main point about reiksguard inner circle is the awe. Otherwise they aren't *that* special. They are purely inferior to the grail knight, but as said they are a bit cheaper than the grail knight. Grail knights are 120 gold per, with inner circle reiksguard being effectively a bit below 100. Grail knights of course have the nation-specific blesses with cool buffs attached too, and are sacred, so that definitely puts them far ahead if the bretonnia player has a decent bless in terms of overall power.
Empire's crossbows aren't that great just because they take a lot of work to mass. Armor is okay, but 99% of the time I'd rather have numbers than protection for crossbowmen. And the arbalest guys cost a bit more gold and use arbalests, which are kind of a double edged sword. The swordsmen are pretty much the most standout unit of the lot, but I would rather have, say, saurus infantry instead. Those guys are bruisers, and take pretty much no resources. They also beat f9s9 empire flagellants in equal numbers
But yeah, I did win an mp game backed by hordes of empire flagellants.
Empire's biggest problems are really in early game, after that things start getting a lot smoother for them. But basically you have knights, flagellants, and arbalests to defend yourself with early game. And can't rely at all on magic.