Alternative Weapons Training Rules...

So here is something that has always bugged me about Mordheim. Over the years the devs and players have added dozens of cool alternative weapons for our intrepid adventurers/scoundrels to murder each other with, but I have very rarely (like once or twice in 10 years) ever seen there weird and wonderful weapons used...why is this you ponder? Simple...

"Weapons Training"

This dull little skill has been the death for using fun weapons since the game first launched and it annoys me very muchly -.-'

I don't know anybody who would take weapons training as a skill before any of the gratuitously more useful combat skills, like "step aside" "strike to injure" etc etc etc. Which means that all these entertaining rules for all these glorious weapons are sitting forlorn, forsaken!...crying paper tears of loneliness inside dusty tomes of lost dreams on age worn creaking shelves...

I say ENOUGH! And offer this humble rules addendum for your consideration to the "trading section" of the rulebook.
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Training:

If purchasing a weapon for a hero that does not have this weapon on its weapons list, the hero must first learn to use it. To use the weapon in a battle, the player must pay an additional cost equal to the weapon's standard trading value (including randomised results) and miss the following game. This represents the time and cost of hiring tutors, or buy training manuals, and the time required to familiarise themselves with the weapon.

Note that no matter how hard they try, some warriors simply have no affinity for a specific style of weapon. As a result a warrior can only train in the use of a new close combat weapon if they can take combat skills when gaining a new skill. Similarly they can only train in the use of a ranged weapon if they can gain shooting skills when gaining a new skill.
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I designer the rule to do two things...

1: Encourage the use of additional (non warband specific) weapons while incurring a reasonable cost.
2: Maintain the usefulness of the "Weapons Training" skill. Since the training is done only after a weapon is bought from the trading phase, it ensures that the "weapons training" skill is still useful (since, for example, a Merc warband cannot buy weeping blades, they cannot train to use them normally, they would still need to take the "weapons training" skill and find the weeping blades through kidnapping etc instead) thus restoring and original spirit of the skill.

So I say this my boring companions...RISE UP! Take up your rapiers! Your sword breakers! Your Pikes and Repeater Handguns! Claim your double barrelled pistols, your sunstaffs your throwing knifes! Throw your javelins from horseback and raise your lances to the sky to scream! "I SHALL KILL YOU ALL!...But not like some normal run of the mill henchman! Not using some boring as hell mace and sword combo! I shall murder you...WITH IMAGINATION! AND CRAZY WEAPONS!"

What say you all!?

I like it... a lot
may make a few tweaks myself, (training costs / whats required) but overall I think this is a good house rule.

Unfortunately, the skill would lose even more usefulness. May require a bit of a buff to make the skill seem like something worth taking.

Off to the drawing boards!

TheEnemyWithin wrote:

So here is something that has always bugged me about Mordheim. Over the years the devs and players have added dozens of cool alternative weapons for our intrepid adventurers/scoundrels to murder each other with, but I have very rarely (like once or twice in 10 years) ever seen there weird and wonderful weapons used...why is this you ponder? Simple...

"Weapons Training"I don't know anybody who would take weapons training as a skill before any of the gratuitously more useful combat skills, like "step aside" "strike to injure" etc etc etc.

When you make house-rules then one of the more common side-effects is that it throws off balance somewhere else and I have seen this side-effect in two other gaming groups that, I suspect, have made the same house-rule your group has.

In my group we are pretty strict in enforcing WYSIWYG (except for the first few games, of course) so it is pretty common for people to get this skill either ASAP or within the first two or three if they don't have the weapon just yet.

It is not uncommon at all to see Marienburgers (heroes) with throwing knives and hunting rifles, Skaven with elven bows or whips, orcs with dwarven axes, dwarfs with whips and crossbow pistols, etc.

That being said, if you are using the house-rule to avoid WYSIWYG then your patch to patch the patch looks like it will have the desired effect of getting the less-common weapons into play.

Of curiosity, which weapons are you hoping to see used more often?

I've been playing with house rules on this as well recently.

My solution was this:

If a warrior buys a weapon that he is not trained in he may use it immediately however he fights the next battle with -1 WS and -1 A (to a minimum of 1)
After the battle roll an Initiative test. If the character passes then he may use the weapon as normal from this point onwards. If he fails then the penalties continue to apply.

RInse and repeat as necessary...

The only issue that I have discovered is players remembering to apply these rules but they have worked well in the last half dozen games we've played.

It looks like an okay rule.

In the games I have played we never bothered with the skill in the first place, if you got your hands on a weapon you were free to use it. Simple and fun. Of course our games used to be pretty chaotic with dark elfs on cold ones using lances against halflings...

First of all I think it's unfair that Marienburg, Reikland and Witch Hunters (most of all) are not allowed to use their racial goodies (rapiers and braziers) from the beginning like rest of the warbands. I would just incorporate these weapons to respective army lists.

Quote :

If a warrior buys a weapon that he is not trained in he may use it immediately however he fights the next battle with -1 WS and -1 A (to a minimum of 1)
After the battle roll an Initiative test. If the character passes then he may use the weapon as normal from this point onwards. If he fails then the penalties continue to apply.

That's very nice!!! I like it very much although I would make following changes:
Instead of -1 WS and -1A I would make it -1 to hit.
Another condition:warrioir is using THAT WEAPON ONLY for a battle duration. Of course when it's missle weaon he can use his cc weapons as normal and when cc weapon he may fire whatever he likes withut penalty.
Don't roll on I - make the test on WS or BS (depending what weapon he was using).

So, while in deep thought sitting on the throne.. I just realized one minor reprocussion to this rule.


Do this, and everyone (capable) will be running around with a blunderbuss.
anyone ever played Rockets Only in Quake? yah. thats how mordheim will feel.

while the rule makes sense for close combat weapons, for Shooting, it could be a severe problem

There are less blackpowder weapons than close combat weapons anyway and they all follow the same basic principle. Point and shoot. So retaining the weapons expert skill would be fine.

Luckily, no-one in my group thought of that...

yes, but no close combat weapons cause people to cry out OVERPOWERED CHANGE THE RULES, like the blunderbuss does.

especially if you have a Reiklanders warband. every single model could have one. and guaranteed power gamers would do that. and my groups full of power gamers

Zekk wrote:

Unfortunately, the skill would lose even more usefulness. May require a bit of a buff to make the skill seem like something worth taking.

Well not really IMO, since if you look at the skill in the context of the original book then its only use was allowing a warrior to equip weapons that were specific to other warbands (so allowing mercs to use weeping blades etc), with the above rules change it actually re-instates the skill's original purpose

Lord O wrote:

In my group we are pretty strict in enforcing WYSIWYG (except for the first few games, of course) so it is pretty common for people to get this skill either ASAP or within the first two or three if they don't have the weapon just yet.

...

Of curiosity, which weapons are you hoping to see used more often?

All gaming groups I have ever been involved with don't play WYSIWYG, since I have found that it can limit people's creativity in forming and developing unique warbands. I have also found that It also has a very negative effect on new Mordheim players, since they very rarely have all the information to make good decisions on what weapons/armours are good or will be most enjoyable, and nobody likes re-building/editing their warband models over and over again xD

TBH I am hoping to see ALL THE WEAPONS! xD IMO Mordheim is the most fun when people have properly unique characters running around with combinations of interesting skills and fun weapons (I like a kitchen sink mentality). It bores me to tears when I come up against a mid-high level warband consisting of...

Hero 1: w Mace, Sword, Crossbow (Quick Shot, Step aside)

Hero 2: w Mace, Sword, Crossbow (Quick Shot, Step aside)

Hero 3: w Mace, Sword, Crossbow (Quick Shot, Step aside)

Hero 4: w Mace, Sword, Crossbow (Quick Shot, Step aside)

Hero 5: w Mace, Sword, Crossbow (Quick Shot, Step aside)

That's not mordheim! That's a bloody warhammer fantasy regiment! Get some crazy stuff in there! ^^

Alex wrote:

In the games I have played we never bothered with the skill in the first place, if you got your hands on a weapon you were free to use it. Simple and fun. Of course our games used to be pretty chaotic with dark elfs on cold ones using lances against halflings...

This makes me happy! Personally I like applying a cost (either time or money) to the training, it gives more interesting post-battle experiences (which IMO is where allot fo the fun of Mordheim comes from) and lets me make lots of Rocky montage jokes. But anything to get unique weapons into the hands of interesting characters is fine by me.

Zekk wrote:

So, while in deep thought sitting on the throne.. I just realized one minor reprocussion to this rule.


Do this, and everyone (capable) will be running around with a blunderbuss.
anyone ever played Rockets Only in Quake? yah. thats how mordheim will feel.

while the rule makes sense for close combat weapons, for Shooting, it could be a severe problem

While it would be possible to equip all your heroes with a blunderbuss, it would be very time consuming and costly, first off you are having to make a successful rare 9 roll for each hero, then you are paying 60gc per character (cost of the weapon + training) and each hero is missing a game (so that is even more lost income + xp in the following game)...all for a 1 shot blunderbuss? Personally I think that if a player wanted to have a crazy blunderbuss wielding wave of heroes I would totally allow it, but they ain't going to be reaching that stage at any early stage in a campaign ^^

As a side note I feel sorry for anybody surrounded by power gamers in Mordheim, it can completely ruin the game, since it is so easy to make entirely boring but totally unbeatable warbands

TheEnemyWithin wrote:

Alex wrote:

In the games I have played we never bothered with the skill in the first place, if you got your hands on a weapon you were free to use it. Simple and fun. Of course our games used to be pretty chaotic with dark elfs on cold ones using lances against halflings...

This makes me happy! Personally I like applying a cost (either time or money) to the training, it gives more interesting post-battle experiences (which IMO is where allot fo the fun of Mordheim comes from) and lets me make lots of Rocky montage jokes. But anything to get unique weapons into the hands of interesting characters is fine by me.

Glad to hear it and I agree the reason we skipped the rule was basically that we often forgot it and we seldom rolled skills, and to be honest there are more fun skills so we didn't mind a little rule bending.

People often seems to be moaning about the blunderbuss. I like that it is a powerful weapon, but it has only one shot so with a bit of bad luck it can easily be wasted.

And yeah I agree with tEW that Mordheim is more fun without power gaming. But every group has its own way I guess