The Big Boring Dual Wield Thread

This thread is for laying out the current options TBMFites use and propose for dual-wielding, and discussing them. This will help everyone find the plethora of options in one thread. To begin with, I'll post some of the options from the old thread. If you have others, or wish to discuss the options presented, have at it!

First, we should list the options initially presented at the old Specialist Games forum, as captured by ts061282 from the Mordheim Yahoo Group:

Ian's Options referenced by Da Bank:

OPTION A. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mordheim/message/56537

i. Page 35, "Fighting with two weapons". Add the line "Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty."

ii. Page 122, New Combat Skill "Maniac Warrior: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice normally incurs." Johann The Knife, Bertha Bestraufung and Veskit should all be granted the "Maniac Warrior" skill.

iii. Page 51, under Shield. Add the line. "In addition to this save, a warrior armed with a shield and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn). Mounted models may not gain this benefit. Hand weapons are defined as hammers, staffs, maces, clubs, axes, swords, morning stars and spears. Variants such as rapiers or Dwarf axes are
also included.

Page 51, under Buckler. Add the line "In addition to this, a warrior armed with a buckler and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 6+ (or may add +1 to his armour save if other armour is worn).

iv. Page 50, under "Light Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 6+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

v. Page 50, under "Heavy Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

vi. Page 51, under "Ithilmar Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

vii. Page 51, under "Gromril Armour" add "In addition the warrior gains a 4+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities".

viii. MH Annual 2002, Page 16, under "Toughened Leathers", replace the entire Special Rules text with the line: " A warrior wearing toughened leathers gains a 6+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities. Toughened Leathers are classified as Armour and may be worn by Henchmen"

OPTION B. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mordheim/message/56539

i. Page 35, "Fighting with two weapons". Add the line "Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty."

ii. Page 122, New Combat Skill "Maniac Warrior: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice normally incurs."

iii. Replace the existing cost, movement penalty, rarity and armour saves with the following:
- Light Armour: 6+ save , no -1M with shield, common, (10GC)
- Medium Armour: 5+ save, no -1M with shield, common, (20GC)
- Full Armour: 4+ save, -1M with shield, rare 8, (50GC)
- Ithilmar: 4+, no -1M with shield, rare 11 (90GC)
- Gromril: 4+, no -1M with shield, rare 11, Special Rule: "Death Defying: A warrior that is wearing Gromril armour gains a 4+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result (150GC).
Medium, Full, Ithilmar & Gromril Armour are all types of Heavy Armour.

OPTION C. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mordheim/message/56538

i. Page 35, "Fighting with two weapons". Add the line "Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty."

ii. Page 122, New Combat Skill "Maniac Warrior: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice normally incurs.."

iii. Page 51, under Shield. Add the line. "In addition to this save, a warrior armed with a shield and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn). Mounted models may not gain this benefit. Hand weapons are defined as hammers, staffs, maces, clubs, axes, swords, morning stars and spears. Variants such as rapiers or Dwarf axes are also included.

Page 51, under Buckler. Add the line "In addition to this, a warrior armed with a buckler and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 6+ (or may add +1 to his armour save if other armour is worn).

iv. Page 32 & p.167. Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Master Strike!" remove the line "The attack ignores all armour saves"

Page 160. Optional Missile Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Master Shot"
remove the line "There is no armour save"

Page 161. Optional Bladed Weapon Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6
"Sliced!" remove the words "ignores armour saves"

Next, some options from the old DW thread (https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/rules-and-gameplay-f1/dual-wield-and-chance-t2022.htm?sid=31e5a50ae073106f4ff923471ad87802)

An option used by Da Bank himself:

Da Bank: ...henchmen may dual wield only when they gain an extra attack characteristic but may never have two attacks total. Meaning, once they go to Attacks of 2 they can have two weapons for a total of two attacks or carry one weapon and a shield and get two attacks with the one weapon.

The option my group uses:

1. Armor Save roll of 1 always fails.

2. A shield plus weapon combination grants the wielder +1 Armor Save in HtH combat.

3. Offhand weapon attacks suffer a -1 Strength.

4. Dagger attacks suffer a -1 Strength (rather than granting an opponent +1 Armor Save).

5. Add a skill called Manic Warrior to the Combat Skill list and also grant it as a special rule to select models (those whose fluff mention Dual Wielding). Manic Warrior removes the -1 Strength penalty from offhand weapon attacks.

Most recent idea from https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/rules-and-gameplay-f1/dual-wield-resolution-t2709.htm:

Popmouth wrote:

So, I know you're quite fed up with the DW. debate – still I must share an idea. It might have been up in some version, I don't know. I haven't heard of it though so make the following changes to P.19 in the Mordheim rulebook:

Fighting with two weapons
Some maniac warriors carry two weapons, one in
each hand, so they can rain a flurry of blows on their
enemies. A warrior armed with two one-handed
weapons may make 1 extra Attack with the additional
weapon. This however requires some certain training.
Any Warrior (who can handle weapons) may be trained in
the skill of Dual Wielding for an additional cost of 10g.
This is either paid when recruiting the warrior
(be he henchmen or hero) or later on in the game, when needed.
Add the note "Dual Wield" in the skills and injuries table.
Note that the extra attack is added to the total of the
warrior’s attacks after other modifiers, such as frenzy,
have been applied. If he is armed with two different
weapons (sword and dagger, for example), he will
make a single attack with whichever weapon he
chooses, and all others with the remaining weapon.
Roll to hit and wound for each weapon separately.


The real problem with DW is that it's so cheap. So why not give it a price? I thought 10g would be fair, maybe 15g is better?
– Popmouth

At this point, I think I've hogged the thread enough - if you have (especially if your group actually uses) other DW options, please post them here. Armor options can be included, but let's keep the focus on DW balancing (or should we say viable options for hand equipment?), only including armor options which you feel help with that.

Would it be better if this thread simply acts as an index and links to other threads which then contain the discussion for pros and cons of the option presented in that other thread. That would hopefully keep this thread reasonably 'clean' of discussion making it more useful to be stickied as a reference. If this is a good approach then any other ideas not already mentioned by wyldhunt should be put into a new thread first and then a link added to this thread.

My group makes use of the following rules changes (among others):
Shields, Bucklers, and Daggers count as a close combat weapon choice.
Parry attempts need beat only the lowest successful hit roll (this is a recent change, and its effects haven't been well investigated yet).

Halberds have 'Strike First'.
Shields confer a 5+ armour save.
Bucklers confer a 6+ armour save (in addition to Parry).
Light Armour costs 15gc.
Heavy Armour costs 40gc.

We are not making use of any optional rules, and our allowed sources are extremely limited.

Dual-wielding remains quite heavily played (particularly among Dwarfs, due to their excellent Dwarf Axes), but light-armoured warriors with shields or heavy-armoured warriors with bucklers are seen, which is a nice change.

RationalLemming wrote:

Would it be better if this thread simply acts as an index and links to other threads which then contain the discussion for pros and cons of the option presented in that other thread. That would hopefully keep this thread reasonably 'clean' of discussion making it more useful to be stickied as a reference. If this is a good approach then any other ideas not already mentioned by wyldhunt should be put into a new thread first and then a link added to this thread.

No, stop the meta-thread-discussion ok. We want to discuss the TOPIC.

I'm still keen on your views for the idea regarding a cost for DW?


O, and thanks for fixing things Wyldhunt.

This IS the meta thread, Popmouth!
- cianty

In our group we use -1 to hit and -1S with the off hand attack and all other fixes in Option A regarding our off hand rule.
In addition we use -1 penalty to armour save from S5 (e.g. S5 -1, S6 -2 etc.) and we also use Optional critical hits from www.mordheimer.com whitch we find nicely ballanced and no so strong.

Popmouth wrote:

RationalLemming wrote:

Would it be better if this thread simply acts as an index and links to other threads which then contain the discussion for pros and cons of the option presented in that other thread. That would hopefully keep this thread reasonably 'clean' of discussion making it more useful to be stickied as a reference. If this is a good approach then any other ideas not already mentioned by wyldhunt should be put into a new thread first and then a link added to this thread.

No, stop the meta-thread-discussion ok. We want to discuss the TOPIC.

I'm still keen on your views for the idea regarding a cost for DW?


O, and thanks for fixing things Wyldhunt.

This IS the meta thread, Popmouth!
- cianty

My mistake... I hadn't read cianty's comments in your old DW thread where he said that discussion should probably be kept to a single thread to stop jumping around for context. Anyway... back to DW discussion goodness.

No problem. Sorry if I went a bit... tense

Still no one interested in giving a response to the cost for DW idea?

You already have my response:

wyldhunt wrote:

Along with a +1 HtH AS from 1h weap+shield combo, this would be workable, and I would accept it as an official change.

However, I so like the full armor/DW changes our group is using now, I wouldn't change to "10gc for DW training" unless it becomes official.

What happened to all the other DW discussers - ts061282, Paluke, TheFool, Bueller?

Good Question, I'd love to hear their point...

As for me, I prefer to solve the DW problem in the rule system, not just price.
I think it doesn't solve the real problem, that an extra attack i still too good compared to other options. It only postpone the problem to the time, when you earn enough money to buy it (and there is no reason not to do this, because it still pays off). And here it goes again. That's the way it seems to me.

In my group we play that off hand attacks are -1 to hit. (User must specify which weapon is off hand)
Shields / bucklers get an additional +1 sv vs Missle attacks
Save modifiers for strength start at 5 instead of 4

Critical hits must be 'confirmed' meaning that you have to make a WS test on a D6 (same way you would Initative test) in order to get a successful crit.

And we use the crit tables on Mordheimer.


Our logic. Crits were way to powerful, armor was useless and a large number of warbands have toons that start with 4 strength making armor useless right out of the box.

Having to 'confirm' our criticals make it much harder for the average henchman (WS 3 ) to get crits vs a hero who typically will have higher weapon skills. Heros are more skilled after all. And as henchmen only can get one advance in WS then the best they will have is a 4-6 chance. We have found this to be VERY well balanced and MUCH more exciting when a crit does happen.

Aldhick wrote:

As for me, I prefer to solve the DW problem in the rule system, not just price.
I think it doesn't solve the real problem, that an extra attack i still too good compared to other options. It only postpone the problem to the time, when you earn enough money to buy it (and there is no reason not to do this, because it still pays off). And here it goes again. That's the way it seems to me.

Well, the problem in early game is that it's still really cheap with DW. This means that even if you just through a club on who ever, and even though you have the -1 to hit, or -1S you still have a good chance getting in an extra hit. Now if it costs 10g or even 15g, sure one would afford it after a while, but then advancements – new stats, and skills – would compensate for this. The main problem is that DW is so overpowered at no cost.

wyldhunt wrote:

You already have my response:

wyldhunt wrote:

Along with a +1 HtH AS from 1h weap+shield combo, this would be workable, and I would accept it as an official change.

However, I so like the full armor/DW changes our group is using now, I wouldn't change to "10gc for DW training" unless it becomes official.

What happened to all the other DW discussers - ts061282, Paluke, TheFool, Bueller?

The conclusion reached in the other thread was that weakening DW with modifiers (-1 to hit/-1 st, etc.) exacerbates another imbalance in the latter campaign environment when +attack advances accumulate and +St weapons take priority. For that reason, weakening DW with modifiers isn't a viable solution. That leaves cost as the only possible solution. Along that avenue there are many possible paths, many of them enumerated in the other thread.

Example cost solution (minimal approach):
Dagger - may only be DW'd with another dagger
Dagger -> 3 gc
Club/Hammer -> 5 gc

There're so many different ways to slice this that I doubt any consensus will be achieved. DW, Armor and +Attack advances are all separate but related problems IMHO, addressing only one or part is futile.

This is a complex problem, I don't have time to solve it for free. That, and even if we did solve it, the solution may well be rejected out of hand. Come Christmas I may publish a technical analysis proving that the problem is unsolvable within the confines of what has been described as "acceptable" changes. Even if I do, it won't include a "perfect" solution. GW can hire me for that.

Well, perfection in a game like Mordheim might be slightly to utopical to aim for. Now, some slight changes at least evens out things a bit, and I think a cost for DW is an easy, and rather fair way to deal with it. Now, if the price should be 10g or 15g, or perhaps 20g that's another issue. With this I mean of course that you pay a single fee for the extra training that dual wield should demand, this is paid when recruiting or later on in the game, for each henchmen and hero that you would have using DW. Now a club in the second hand would cost say 13g instead of the 5 that was proposed in the post before.

I am trying to fully understand this topic, and I'm sorry if this is a dumb questions (please remove it Mods if it is), but say in a turn a model is armed with 2 weapons and a shield... When attacking can it use its two weapons, then when being attacked can it use its shield, or does it have to select the 2 items that it is going to use for that round of combat?

If it can only use 2 (say a shield and a sword, leaving the club at his side) does that mean he may only use those two until he is out of combat (i.e. taking the time to put his shield on his back and grabbing his club)?

Again, sorry if this is a dumb question, but if he may indeed switch freely between these items, then that does seem quite unbalanced...

No stupid question! Don't worry!

You can not change weapons during combat. See FAQ:

Quote :

Q: Can weapons be swapped during a combat?
A: No, with the exceptions of pistols and lances which may be exchanged for a different weapon after their first turn special attack.

cianty wrote:

No stupid question! Don't worry!

You can not change weapons during combat. See FAQ:

Quote :

Q: Can weapons be swapped during a combat?
A: No, with the exceptions of pistols and lances which may be exchanged for a different weapon after their first turn special attack.

Thanks Cianty!!!

Just to clear it out even further – does it mean that you CANNOT change weapons between turns, only between different combats?

Is there anywhere in the rulebook or errata, or FAQ that states that a shield or a buckler is carried in the hand? i.e. you have to have it in your hand to wield it?

BurnTehWitch wrote:

Is there anywhere in the rulebook or errata, or FAQ that states that a shield or a buckler is carried in the hand? i.e. you have to have it in your hand to wield it?

This is one of those things that go without saying. Seriously.