Weapons question.

Since Im building a Dwarf warband I got a question about weapons.

On my Thunderers can I take a crossbow and two hammers and use it all in the game?
So can I shoot and when I might get into hth can I use both hammers?

Or can I only use the crossbow and one hammer?

Thanx

A quick cut-and-paste from the rulebook (from the second page of the part of the rulebook for warbands)...

Quote :

Each warrior you recruit can be armed with up to two close combat weapons (in addition to his free dagger), up to two different missile weapons and any armour chosen from the appropriate list.

Your Thunderers definitely can have two hammers (in addition to the free dagger) and a crossbow. They can even have a pistol or some other missile weapon in addition to the crossbow and the hammers.

Thanx mate they will be swinging those hammers when someone dares to move in on them

Also I see your a Dwarf player can you maybe give me some tips with a Dwarf starting warband.
As you can see Im playing Orcs and doing pretty good with them but I want to try something else that plays different then the Orcs and Im getting a bit sick of animosity.

This is what I been thinking of to start with:

Noble
Dwarf Axe
Axe

Engineer
Crossbow
Hammers x2

Slayers x2
Axe x 2

Clansmen
Hammer x2

Thunderers x2
Corssbow
Hammer x2

Do you think this is a good warband to start with or do you got some other tips and tactics for me

Thanx

You're at that tough place where your starting list has 8 figures. You really want it to have 9 for route test reasons.

If you can squeeze an extra beardling into the mix you'd be set. In fact, you can do that by removing all the second hand weapons from your warriors and letting them fight with X / dagger. Alternatively, you can give up the crossbow on your Engineer.

Don't think of it as "losing good weapons." Think of it as "gaining extra attacks."

DRD1812 is right. Rather 9 figures than 8. Though in my experience, dwarfs are not easily routing both due to high T and LD.

I would chance the clansman and perhaps the engineers crossbow, for 2 beardlings.
IMO clansmen are not worth the price. I know the WS4 is nice, but it's not woth 15gc in a starting warband.

Also remember that a brace of pistols counts as 1 of your ranged weapon choices. So you could have a Crossbow, and a brace of pistols and not break the only 2 different ranged weapon rule.

Trying to get to 9 models is not a bad Idea, but you do spread yourself thin weapon wise. Dwarves are really good ranged fighters because they are slow, and you get the engineer bonus. You might want to make a shooty warband for the first couple of games, then use the money from those games to flush it out more.

Thanx for all the great advice guys.

I was thinking of bunkering in a bit in the beginning untill the money gets flowing in
Then buy some more CC fighters and give my heros better axes and stuff like that.

Then I would go for max number of heroes (for income). Perhaps only take one Slayer.
And all heroes only one close combat weapon to start with.

Then as many Thunderes with crossbows you can afford. A crossbow for the engineer would also be nice.

ALWAYS go for the max number of heroes, regardless of the warband. (Unless you are playing a one-off game).

I agree 100% with mweaver. It is especially important to get the maximum number of heroes for a dwarf warband. They can only start with 4 heroes and unit choices for Dwarf Treasure Hunters are expensive to replace so you need to maximise your cash flow from the start.

In our current campaign we have someone playing Black Dwarfs. He chose not to start with a Bull Centaur because that unit is expensive and therefore only started with three heroes. That warband really struggled early in the game because there was not enough money coming in to hire a Bull Centaur later on. Thankfully the Black Dwarf warband has access to cheap informer henchmen units which are weak-ish humans. This allowed him to survive on cheap units until he was able to purchase his Bull Centaur. Dwarf Treasure Hunters do not have this luxury though. He just played his 14th battle in the campaign and finally now one of his henchmen has been promoted (although he has lost he's leader so he still has only four heroes).

Don't forget, if you use crossbows, cross out the name 'Thunderer' and put in 'Quarreller'.

That'll do wonders for my sanity at least

Sorry mate I will make sure you keep your sanity next time I post a list

I got my models standing on my shelf waiting to get some paint wich I will do this and the next week so they are done when a new campaign starts off.
They look pretty good standing there

Oh yeah one more question what do you guys think of Gromril armour?

All armour is a touch on the expensive side unless you have a house rule like a shield and a single-handed weapon gives a warrior a 5+ save. Of course starting Dwarf Treasure Hunters warbands get Gromril Armour cheap (and without rarity) so I usually equip the Noble in my starting warbands with Gromril Armour when we are not playing with the shield house rule.

Sometimes I start a captain with it, sometimes I use the gold on an extra stunty. It is cheap, as Rational Lemming notes. But one of the benefits of gromril armor (can be combined with a shield w/o movement loss) is redundant with the dwarves' ability to wear heavy armor and use a shield without movement loss.

There is no better armor than more models between your leader and the enemy. I always suggest maxing-out your models before getting armor.

I agree with the above.
Armour is rarely worth its price. Is expensive, and is easily negated with blackpowder weapons.
Other stuff like Lucky Charms, Resilient skill and parry are much better defensive options. There's a dwarf skill where you can parry with re-roll if you have two dwarf axes. That is IMO very usefull.

if you house rule armors, they can become good.

We have increased the armorsave by 1 for each armor other than hardened leather and have the handweapon shield bonus.

This way a warrior with light armor and a shield has a 3+ armor save for 25 gold. This gives a decent protection, but we use it only for some heroes, because a additional warrior has attacks and helps you if your stunned oder knocked down. I thing armor and additional members equally good in our group, so we see often armor in warbands which haven't reached their maximun number. (But it leads to the excessive use of Gromril-2handed-weapons).

My best situation was a halfling scout against a special charakter with T5, S5, 4A and three heroes from me knocked down or stunned around him. Without the halfling they would be taken OOA, but he had to use all attacks against him and the heroes had time to recover. This is a protection no armor can give you.

Armor even house ruled I think is not as good as a Double Handed Weapon and the Strongman Skill.

Mordheim is more about offense than Defense. Sure you will have situations where Armor saved the day, but you will have more situations were having agressive first strikes win the day.

Controlling the charges, striking first with higher strengths than their toughness is way to win in Melee.

I am in favour of the armour on your leader. The gromril with a shield is a 3+ armour save, so even handguns are only going to take that down to a 5+ save and against most starting warbands you will be getting a 3+ save - 2+ in melee if you are using the shield house-rule. That is very handy early campaign indeed.

Remember that the meatshield armour disappears as soon as someone ranged gets a level higher than them and can then pick their target freely. That is what snipers are *for* after all - getting the high ground and then picking off the leadership.

PLayed my first two games with my Dwarfs and I lost both games but managed to get in a lot of money and only lose the scenerio and not the actual fight. Both Warbands I went up against had about 5 games under there belt but my Dwarfs gave them a hard time

Anyway Im still thinking about the amount of Thunderers that I should take, me and my mate are thinking of just getting all 5 of them and then fill the rest with Clansmen.
I also seen that shooting is good in the game in the beginning and for table control.
But close combat is the part of the game were you can win the battle so Im still in doubt how many of what kind of midels I should get in the longer run.

What is the amount of Thunderers that is good in a full 12 models strong Warband? (Im gonna buy a Halfling cookbook when I get there ofcourse for the extra Dwarf).

Also my warbad is now 9 models strong as suggested to be the best

I think that all 5 Thunderers is worth having. You will also have the 4 standard heroes giving you 3 or so extra spaces for Clansmen or Beardlings. That gives you 6 shooty dwarfs (Thunderers and Engineer) and 6 / 7 close combat dwarfs.

Thanx

I was thinking of going that route just wanted to make sure it is the best route to take
When Im done painting I will post them up here ofcourse

I agree - thunderers than clansmen. No beardlings.

Dwarfs are one of those warbands where, depending on what weapons you want to give them, you are better off making the Thunderers your melee specialists and your Clansmen your snipers.

For example, if you plan on giving the sniper a Hunting Rifle or long-bow (I am going to assume your dwarfs are too dwarfy to ever use and elf-bow, even against other elves) you are better off starting with a Clansman because when you give him Weapons Expert then he will be able to use all shooting weapons *and* be able to use bigger variety of close combat weapons too, including the dwarf axe.

Going the other way, it will let your Thunderer close-combat specialist have a crossbow and a pistol as a backup ranged weapon instead of just the pistol.