Move or Fire Alternative - Steady Aim

Hearing some complaints about Crossbows and Handguns (especially for those that can only access Crossbows and Handguns) I was considering this house rule to make them alittle more flexible.

Steady Aim: More than other ranged weapons this weapon requires a more careful aim to be effective, making it even more difficult to use while on the move. If a warrior moves and fires this weapon on the same turn they suffer a -2 to hit penalty rather than just -1.

Long Rifles I imagine need you to stay relatively still to use, and with their range and ability to pick targets I think its fine for them to stay with 'Move or Fire'.

Just a thought.

Looking back at the WHFB origins of the crossbow/handgun Move or Fire rule, I find that this was designed to reflect the longer reloading times for crossbows/handgun over bows rather than actual inability to move and fire with them.

It seems to me that the Nimble skill completely stomped on this design reasoning, though Hunter is in line with it.

From that, I would not use Steady Aim as a Move or Fire replacement. Instead, I would get rid of Move or Fire completely, replacing it with Reload, and adjust Prepare Shot and Nimble as below:

Reload (applies to all crossbows and all pistols, excepting Crossbow Pistols): after this weapon has fired, it takes a whole turn to reload. This reloading is accomplished regardless of the status and other actions of the firing model.

Prepare Shot (applies to all blackpowder weapons except pistols and blunderbusses): after this weapon has fired, it takes a whole turn to reload. This reloading may only be accomplished during a turn in which the model does not move.

Nimble: this model may accomplish reloading for Prepare Shot even while moving.

The wording of Hunter would be left alone, but would now be useful for crossbows as well.

The effect of all this? Models can now move and shoot with crossbows and blackpowder weapons just as they can with bows, but will shoot less often with them, reflecting longer reload times. Heroes can pick up a skill (or two for non-pistol blackpowder weapons) which will allow them the same rate of fire and manueverability as bows - however, bow-using heroes can still get Quick Shot for the best rate of fire.

I'd rather keep things as it is and just ad a +1 to injury rolls for the Handgun (or perhaps all Black Powder weapons?). This would be a nice and easy compensation for their handicap. This would mean that you knock down on a 1, stun on a 2-3 and puts the enemy OoA on a 4+.

Mr Wyldhunt is correct. The loading times of such items were significantly reduced.

On the history channel they were talking about the English Long Bow versus the xbow.

English Long Bow effective range 300 Yards/Meters.

Xbow: 60 Yards or Meters

ELB: 20-30 shots a minute

Xbow 10 shots a minute.

These are ranges as I don't recall it all but I am sure you can get the gist of it.

Yeah, it has always bugged me that the crossbow has range matched only by the longbow. It should probably be more akin to the range of the shortbow. It should punch hard, especially against armor, which is exactly what it was designed to do.

[b]Popmouth[/b] wrote:

I'd rather keep things as it is and just ad a +1 to injury rolls for the Handgun

Me too. That's a perfect solution for handguns.

Crossbows are fine as they are.

JAFisher44 wrote:

Yeah, it has always bugged me that the crossbow has range matched only by the longbow. It should probably be more akin to the range of the shortbow.

I don't think so. Weapon ranges tend to be hotly disputed, and attract a lot of nonsense (especially on the history channel). But really, a good-sized crossbow has a range at least as good as that of a longbow.

But from such a huge crossbow you can shot two time per minute, cause you need spining-wheel to tighten

Well, it's not as if there's any real sense in the relative fire rates of weapons in Mordheim. It's all pretty abstract.

Because it's a game.

I know Meerkat. I've only continued waht You've said about range of crossbow
Fun, a joy from the game, not arguing about realism. Yes, realism should be, but as a: "it's quite logical, that crossbow is stronger than bow" and never like: "well trained, quite tired, disrupted by fly, targeting medium sized barrel, lighted by the sun from the left.....has 46,4% chance to hit"

You're right!

I don't like those sorts of arguments, but I can't stay out of them either...