Devil's Den Challenge by StyrofoamKing

“Lookin’ for somefin’? You’ve come ta the right place, sure ‘nough. I ‘ave it all, weapons, tools o’ the trade, I know lots o’ professionals- No? Well, I was savin’ it for a special occasion, but ‘ow about THIS then….”

Hello, again! For those of you that were on the old SG forum, I've decided to reopen the old Devil's Den Challenge. For those of you who don't know, this is what it consists of:

BASIC RULES

1. Each week, a new challenge is concocted for warband creators. New equipment, new troops, new skills, the only limitation is imagination. The entries are judged on originality and balance.
2. Each person submits only ONE Official entry, but are allowed to submit any number of unofficial entries. They are allowed to switch which entry is their 'official entry' any time before judging. A judge is allowed to make unofficial entries to his own challenge.
3. The contest ends 7 days after it was posted, at midnight (Judge's timezone). He/she may extend it up to 6 days.
4. The winner of any given week becomes the new judge, and creates a challenge for the new week, and so on…

EXTENDED RULES
1. The judge picks a subject that gets creativily flowing... it doesn't have to be 'practical', or likely to show up in a common campaign (ex. a Hired Sword that costs 500gc to hire.) It is NOT to be used to revise or 'fix' existing rules, like light armor or dual-wielding.
2. It is extremely helpful if the judge picks a number two and number 3 favorite entry.
3. If a person wins a contest, they have one week to create a new contest. If they don't or cannot, the second place entry may create a new constest in his/her stead.
4. Likewise, if a person creates a contest, they are allowed to postpone the judging by 6 days. On the two week marker, if the real judge is still absent, the #2 judge from the previous week may elect himself to judge in the real judge's stead. He may not vote for his own entry.
5. A winner of any given week may defer next week's contest for any reason. If so, it goes to the Second Place entry. That player either accepts it, or passes it onto the #3 entry. Curtesy: In the past, if a person finds themselves two challenges in the span of 3 weeks, they have often deferred it to the next person. This is by NO means required, but helps let other people input their ideas.


FIRST CHALLENGE: ACTION!
Create rules for a new action or verb that can be done/performed by a member of your warband during a turn. Examples: Skiing, wrestling, digging.

~It may restricted to a specific setting or warband, or open to all.
~It may be an item, in which case, provide costs and availibitly. It may be a weapon, but keep it original.

EXAMPLE + UNOFFICIAL ENTRY
Sniffing: Any non-Undead animal with at least 1 friendly, unengaged non-animal model within 3" of it may attempt to sniff a Hidden model during the Shooting phase. The model rolls 3D6: any hidden model within that many inches of the animal is discovered. An animal may not sniff if it is engaged, knocked down, or stunned, nor may it sniff if it ran this turn.

Yay! DD returns! Umm, no emote for happy-tears.

Tom: Thank you for keeping the thread open on the site, even if it's moved to a different section. With one or two exceptions, most every Devil's Den so far has yielded one or two brand new rules or variations to use with the existing Mordheim game: new equipment, new scenarios, etc. Admittingly, it's more of a brainstorming session than a posting of finished products, but I sincerely hope that any ideas that come forth will not shame this wonderful forum.

Thanks for keeping this open in the shout section Tom, i think you'll like it and maybe even join in at some point


Weeeell here's my entry styro:



Ventriloquism: (Da Mob Only)

An unengaged orc hero with 6" of an enemy may instead of shooting, attempt to use the orkish version of ventriloquism - that being covering his mouth and squeeling in a highpitched voice (yes, even if it's dwarves or ogres) that some orks' mom has taken a bath or the like..
Roll a leadership test to see if you're convincing enough.

Effect:
On a successful roll, the orc henchmen closest to the ventriloquist will roll yet another dice: On a 1, the ork will use his entire next turn trying to come up with the best comeback for the enemy. On a 2-6, the ork with immediately attempt to charge the "insulting" model, moving 4" in the direct line towards him if charge is out of range.
On a failed roll, the orc henchmen closest to the ventriloquist will charge him, since it doesn't sound like a humie at all (insert other races as needed), and now it's just a direct verbal assault. Treat as animosity roll of 1-1 (disengaging after first round of h2h combat).

Tom, I think you scared everyone away from here.

I do agree, this website is much more dedicated to the hobby, yes. This is something I appreciate as I never felt Tom's was a 'substitute for SG' but rather a great website all on its own, for those who love Mordheim.

Though, to be fair, I don't feel these comps are a simple 'let's do this here only 'cause the SG site is down'. I've been to numerous other forums where there are things like this (make the best army list, design magic weapons, etc). All in good fun.

As far as the game itself goes, I do find these comps were a good way of getting my juices flowing when it came to creating fun ideas, scenarios, modelling ideas, etc. And it was nice to see them in Brahm's LOD e-zine - so they couldn't have been all trash

Well, that's all I have to say on the matter... If anything I said upsets Tom or the mods, please delete this post and forget I said anything (I love this site to much to be black-listed from it).

Now, as for my entry...

Begging

Usuable by Goblin henchmen (of any greenskin warband) only.

Goblins are a pathetic bunch and will say and do anything to see another sunrise.

Every goblin henchman has this ability (which is lost if ever they get promoted via TLGT). Anytime a warrior is elligible to take a stunned goblin henchman out of action, that goblin gains a special 5+ ward save. On a roll of 5 or greater (that cannot be modified), the goblin begs and pleads that the warrior is so moved, touched, disgusted, or shamed, that he is forbidden from putting that goblin out of action for that turn.

As always, it seems that Orcs have the funnest rules to toy with.

But as you said, it doesn't seem like folks seem that interested in the thread. Le sigh. Oh well, no big. A big thanks to Ethlo and Pwny, for frequenting the Devil's Den. I toast your health!

In for a penny and all that: I'll enter sometime later (Tom: don't hit me! ).

I'm in, too. This'll be fun.

So it still exists...

I'm in...

Right then: Create a new Academic skill.

My contribution:

Falconer: Warrior may shoot at HIDDEN enemies within his LoS. They will remain hidden to everyone else.

edit: corrected, thanks

So shouldn't it read "Warrior may shoot at hidden enemies..."

He can already shoot at models within his LoS normally

Verb:

Drink (blood): Instead of his normal attacks, a vampire may drink the blood of a knocked down or stunned opponent (excluding undead and possessed) if he is not engaged in combat. Resolve attempt as per normal attack (no saves). If successful, the vampire gains one wound (with the possibility to exceed his maximum wounds by 1). The character whose blood the vampire drank requires a toughness test to recover during his recovery phase.

Academic skill:

Scrollbinding: The wizard may try to bind one of his spells to a scroll between 2 battles (i.e. instead of looking for a rare item). Roll the base difficulty of the spell (no bonus from tome of magic) to see if the spell was successfully bound. A scroll allows the wizard to succesfully cast a spell during a battle (same rules as normal spell, except no difficulty roll).

I love the scrollbinding! I was actually thinking of kinda the same - just giving the spell to non-magic heroes who would have one shot at the spell with regular difficulty

But maybe there should be a max of 1 scroll per spell? If not you can get a really nasty mage later in the game..

The way I see it, magic is quite underpowered as it stands. I don't think the skill would be too overpowering in a long campaign. The wizard first has to take this skill. Also, players would probably be inclined to try to bind the most difficult spells, resulting in a low success rate. There is also the natural tendency of "saving" the scroll for desperate times.

A difficulty 10 spell would result in one free to cast spell every 6 games or so. A difficulty 9 spell would result on average in one free spell every 3,6 games.

Oh, and by the way, I think I'd go for an average spell, perhaps a flight spell for my wizard, so I can use the scroll in an emergency, especially if I can save up scrolls, I think it is quite a good skill, but not overpowered.

Action: (two challenges at once??)
Flee!
Whenever a warrior is charged by another warrior he may elect to flee, roll an initative test, if failed he will stand still and the charging warrior will receive a +1 bonus on his to hit rolls, if successfull he immediately starts running in the opposite direction 2d6 inches. In the following turn he must pass a leadership test or keep running, just like if he failed an all alone test.
NOTE: the warrior will stop 1" away from any object, or an edge. (most warriors that run do so because they DON'T wan to die, and often an opponent is a lesser evil than a fall).

New academic skill:
Igniting Orator:
This warrior has an outstanding ability to ignite the inner flame of his allies, which will make them start seeing the wickedness of their opponents.
A warrior with this skill may choose to use it in any shooting phase, he will forfeit any missile attacks (or spellcasting) this turn, he also cannot use the skill if he is in close combat.
The warrior must pass a leadership test, if successfull, your entire warband will hate one nominated model within 6" until your next recovery phase.

heres my entry for the action one

Action: Bait!
A brave halfling cook will use his cooking prowess to quickly put together a meal mid-battle to lure over enemies, while his halfling bretheren can scamper about unchallenged.
A halfling cook can do this as long as he has a cooking pot(helmet). After spending a whole turn doing nothing, all enemies within 3d6" excluding undead have to make a leadership test, if failed they must charge the cook.