Balance of BtB Black Dwarfs

I am starting to run a new Mordheim campaign and deciding which warbands to allow. The offical, unoffical and the 1c warbands from the watchtower list are all pretty much a given. However on reading the Black Dwarfs I have some serious misgivings on thier balance in a campaign. Thhey seem to be based on the Dwarf Treasure Hunters so Im using that group for a lot of comparisons.

They have the same basic warband advantages: Hard to kill, hard head, armor, and mostly 4 toughness. Grudgebearers is rolled into the Hired Swords, and Incomparable Miners is replaced by a skill. They do not get Hatred orcs and goblins, or savings on Gromril. Stats are mostly comparable Sorcerer/Engineer (2 starting spells to replace the extra range? Yes one is determined but I'll get to that), Gaolors/Troll Slayers, Chaos Dwarves/Clansmen.

At first glance they have the same 3M hinderence as the regular dwarves, but no not really, the Black Dwarfs also get Infomers which move 4 (and are really cheap) and the Bull Centaur which moves a massive 8. They also have the option for the mechanical suit at M6. This eleminates the slow warband hinderance.

Warband size for the Black Dwarfs is 15 not 12 which is another hinderance removed.

So far the Black Dwarves have exchanged a longer range with faster movement, more cheap units and a larger warband size. I think I could live with that. Now however we get the part of the balance I really question, the Mancatcher/Engine of Chaos for which the Treasure Hunters have no equivelent. The combination I feel is fundamentaly broken in a campaign setting. Normally when an opposing warbands warrior is taken out of action (OOA), there a a little more than a 1 in 6 change it is removed from the warband roster (D66 roll of 11-15, 61 (with option to return), 65 (with options to return). However any warrior taken OOA by a mancatcher/engine is 100% removed. Over the long term that more than covers the cost of the items and seriously reduces the oppossing warbands.

To further add insult the Black Dwarves then get to keep all the equipment of the captured warrior (usaully that happens only on a 1 in 36 chance under Captured) adding valuable gold to the Black Dwarves treasury at the same time the other bands are bleeding it out replacing warriors. The Black Dwarves then get further benefits in XP or gold, like the Possessed do under captured or other who sell the warrior but the BD have a chance that all wariors get an XP bonus! and remember this is every warrior they remove with the combination not just a random 1 in 36. I dont think the option to "free" the captured from the wagon makes up for this, any decent DB player will keep the wagon well away from the enemy, voluntarily routing if needed to insure that the enemy warriors are removed from the roster. The wording seems to imply that warriors taken OOA are instantly transported to the wagon where ever it is on the board, at which point an opposing player would often have to cross the entire board to even attempt a rescue. Even worse is that second spell the sorcerer gets. By using it, and feeding captives to it to lower his target number the enemy warriors are permentantly removed before a resuce could even be mounted. And if the sorcerer is lucky he gets more XP for that. The rules dont even restrict the Bd to 1 engine, in infact imply they can have more than one Unless there is another engine,
no models may be captured until they return.

Overall the BD seems to remove the major hinderences of the similar Dwarf Treasure Hunters, then add a massive XP/gold gainer and the ability to remove large numbers of opposing warriors from the game entirely. Am I missing something that makes them more balanced?

I don't think the BtB warbands are balanced with the original Mordheim warbands. If you want Chaos Dwarves in Mordheim you could just make them use the Dwarf Treasure Hunter list but change the names to make them sound more naughty, etc.

hero wrote:

I don't think the BtB warbands are balanced with the original Mordheim warbands. If you want Chaos Dwarves in Mordheim you could just make them use the Dwarf Treasure Hunter list but change the names to make them sound more naughty, etc.

I'd have to disagree, they republished the Norse Explorers without changes other than those made in the FAQs. That seems to imply that they should be balanced with that warband, and by extension "Unoffical" warband.

As far as I know, BtB warbands are all balanced and have been tested against the original Mordheim warbands. I think cianty (developer) pointed this out a few times, too.

Eliazar wrote:

I think cianty (developer) pointed this out a few times, too.

Yes, he did.

I don't think Chaos Dwarfs compare too well to the Treasure Hunters... their economy differs a lot. The Informers are lousy close combat fighters but provide a great shooting option with the slings. This makes them totally different to Treasure Hunters with crossbows. The increased movement of the Informers is nice but if you let them run ahead leaving your 7 Chaos Dwarfs (4 CD, 1 Sorc, 2 Gaolers) behind, then they will most likely be slaughtered. They are nothing but humans (profile-wise) after all. The costly Engine can lead to some great narrative events and of course you do get something out of it! You pay a lot for it and sacrifice lots of fighting power by not hiring new warriors instead. I think these warbands play out very differently...

We'll see what Werekin has to say. His group has more experience with the warband.

Gentlemen, the only thing I really have to say here is that I don't care to comment on idle speculation.

The original poster has not played a single game with the warband which he/she is criticizing. His creation of a thread revolves around games of Mordheim played out in his/her head, which resembles the pointless speculative statements of another forum user named Ram Rock. It's like a dastardly parallel designed to drain our patience.

The title of this section in the discussion form is 'Gameplay'. Come back when you have adequate gameplay under your belt. Constructive feedback based on campaign play is always welcome and only serves to expand the scope of our hobby.

Regards,

Werekin.

While I do agree with you, Stu, I also do think that you could have worded this more polite.

Were - The experience or lack thereof of the op does not impact the validity of your own experience. Real play, luck and happenstance, can be just as often obfuscating as clarifying.

And even this empty comment is indeed a comment on idle speculation.

Werekin I am trying to get your experience in the games you have played hopefully showing how my reading of the rules are wrong, before I start a game, not after an abusive player has ruined the campaign for other people. I have a rules abusive player with over 10 years experience at mordheim and he has already expressed intrest in this warband. If I think the scenario above works so does he, and he has probably come up with something worse. As the referee I'd like to be prepared for it and to be able to give all the other relativly new players hints on how to overcome him if needed.

At no point did I discuss my game playing experience in any direction so your statments as to my experience are completly unfounded. Thats called an ad hominum attack and is usually used in debates when the other side cant come up with a substative rebuttal. Attack the other persons character expereince etc rather than the issue and misdirect the listeners. I would lie to think you have something substative. Why cant to show it to me and the rest of the forum rather than attacking my credentials? And for the record no I dont know what I am talking about thats why I came seeking your advice.

I dont see a forum titled pre-gameplay or development to better post this in if there is one please direct me to it. I searched for the topic in the forums several times hoping someone else had talked about it with more experience but didnt find it. So the only thing I was left with was this forum and trying to explain what I saw in as objective manner as possible. You will notice that I'm not saying its unequvically broken; I ended with a statement that perhaps I missed something and would like someone with more experience to show me what that is.

You dont have to comment on my speculation. Give me detailed accounts of how this warband played out in testing. Particulalry in a campaign setting not one off games. Did you have an abusive player playing this band? Was it a really nice guy you wouldnt take advantage of the rules if he could? How often did he capture and sacrifice? Were the prisoners realsed at times? How often? Did the dwarves get a lot of gold/XP from this or not? How did the other players react to losing warriors at a greater frequency that normal? Did it make a dent in their finances having to replace warriors more often, or did the dwarves fail to capture enough to matter? You did take notes on the playtesting didnt you?

I would like to see the contructive feedback based on the game play experience you have on this warband.

I saw the post by Ram Rock, read it and also saw the same attitude posted in response to him when a simple you "misread the rules heres how" would have sufficed. If I have misread something please tell me rather than attacking me. You are not helping the hobby with your attitude. You are currently driving me and most likely others away from participating in any mordheim community if this is the kind of response we get to questions.

hey smoore, i get where you are comming from and I think your post is totally valid

(and I dont even like first rock's way of "debating")

anyway, overpowered, non-core warbands can certainly ruin it for everyone

elves *caugh caugh* *points at signature*

Quote :

However any warrior taken OOA by a mancatcher/engine is 100% removed. Over the long term that more than covers the cost of the items and seriously reduces the oppossing warbands.

I agree that every player needs to agree with this up front if they want to play against it in a campaign.

I can understand why Werekin feels offended. In essence, questioning the validity of the warband is questioning his integrity--and worse, it's questioning the integrity of the Border Town Burning creators and play testers. It draws a parrallel between the years of cianty's work and the hard work of the rest of the BTB team to some "forum trash" pulled out of someone's backside and deposited on the interwebs.

No one enjoys seeing the work of their friends disrespected and diminished. And when the criticism is based in speculation rather than actual experience, I'd imagine myself being pretty offended too.

Many hours of play testing was done on BTB and the warbands within. The names of the folks involved with BTB are listed on the second page. These names are the seal of quality. If you don't trust that they put forth the effort needed to ensure the quality, playability and balance of the BTB warbands, don't use them. It's up to you.


That said, Werekin is obviously a passionate person. He wrote his feelings on the matter. They came out a little rough and pretty abrupt. Fair enough.


Can we go back to the thoughtful and insightful forum that the residents here all enjoy? Flinging insults is certain not the best way to go, lest Deafnala catch wind and place us all on his naughty list, ensuring lumps of coal in our stockings Christmas morn.

This thread has a surreal quality that I enjoy.

We have the expansion's original designers and play testers and experienced campaigners here but everyone is too offended by reasoned criticism to make a reasoned response? What does THAT say about the balance of BTB? Please don't be offended, but WTF people?

ts061282 wrote:

Please don't be offended, but WTF people?

I think that anyone can read a question the wrong way or write a question the wrong way and either way it can get miscounstrued.

Ultimately, I believe it's best to recognize when someone has been offended by what you have written and, when such offense is unintentional, attempt to resolve the offense. Likewise, when offended we should try to avoid offending back.

Personally, there is only one thing that can offend me: Don't you be talking smack about my mama!

I think that the vitriol unleashed on the OP was a little uncalled for. The OP admitted that he lacked experience with the band. Lacking experience, he had some concerns. He was looking for people who did have the experience to either confirm them, or set them aside. What he got, instead, was "Screw off and figure it out for yourself."

He probably does not want to spend months playtesting a warband before he can decide whether or not to include it in a campaign. Perfesser says that the names of the developers is the "seal of quality" on BtB. Does smoore even know the dev team? Who knows. I have some experience with them, and I would not blindly accept anything they happened to be associated with as ballanced by default. The fact that one of them flipped out at the slightest provocation wouldn't do anything to reassure me either.

Smoore's questions and concerns were valid. They deserve at least a civil response. Hell, even, "The mancatcher/engine seems powerful, but we found that it did not cause the warband to be too powerful." would have been fine, if not the optimal response.

To smoore:

I have no experience with the Black Dwarf warband, but, given Werekin's resoponse, it seems to me that you might have touched on a sore spot. As such, I would be careful allowing the warband to fall into the grasp of a powergamer without either looking over some hard playtesing data, or doing the work yourself. There is a lot of contention about the ballance of even the official warbands in this game. Certainly there is room to question the ballance of fan suppliments.

JAFisher44 wrote:

I have no experience with the Black Dwarf warband, but, given Werekin's resoponse, it seems to me that you might have touched on a sore spot. As such, I would be careful allowing the warband to fall into the grasp of a powergamer without either looking over some hard playtesing data, or doing the work yourself. There is a lot of contention about the ballance of even the official warbands in this game. Certainly there is room to question the ballance of fan suppliments.

QFT. Frankly it's highly suspect that the original designers even knew exactly how to balance the game given that stats and costs are based on Warhammer, a fundamentally different game with different rules and objectives, and the costs of equipment are based on fluffy "availability". We can probably all agree that "perfect" balance is forever fleeting and can disagree to the extent of the imbalances that must, therefore, exist. There is simply enough abject randomness throughout the game that what imbalance there is is thoroughly clouded (also part of why the game is so good.) I would not assume playtesting a warband against the original warbands makes it balanced, at least not without hard, detailed data collected from hundreds of games (NOT MEMORIES, NOT PERCEPTIONS). If you look at a modern competitive computer game, the designers collect data from thousands of games played by AIs and base balance on statistical analysis; this is unpractical with Mordheim, but a good ideal to aspire to.

Another point is that AI are going to be equal in skill, whereas, players playtesting are of varying levels of skill, throwing further confusion into playtest data.

Hey guys, cool down!
Every one is free to do as they like in mordheim games, there is no need to get upset about it .

To bring this thread back on topic:
While i have not played the black dwarfs - i did consider them but could not find suitable models, most GW ones are both ugly and hard to find- i had a good look on the list:

Spells:
While the leader gets two spells this is hardly a big advantage. As you
mentioned one is very special (the ritual) and the other is random. Magic is generally very weak in Mordheim because of its randomness and because many spells need special circumstances to be useful, if your sorcerer rolls a weak spell he becomes a liability for many games.

Informers:
While they have good stats and are cheap they can´t get the lad´s got talent – a serious drawback. The black dwarfs start with only four heroes, so you need that roll more than any other warband.

Mancatchers & the engine of chaos:
This one is difficult. The combination is strong but
also very expensive. If a black dwarf warband takes it early in a campaign they
will be seriously outnumbered and every competent opponent will wipe the floor with
them (numbers are the most important factor in mordheim). Later in a campaign it
is more of a threat, but you can always “feed” wardogs, rats etc. to the
mancatcher-wielders. Or make them priority targets for shooting .


And I doubt that you will see many mancatchers – as weapons they are expensive crap and only dwarfs can wield them.nCombine this
with the requirement that the future prisoner must be taken ooa by a model wielding one and the probability of that occurring becomes low.

I interpret the rules a little bit differently from you: Models taken ooa go into the engine only after a game, not instantly and I always understood the phrase “lost to the chaos dwarf warband” to mean that the equipment is simply gone (but it could mean both things, the wording could be clearer).

Overall i don´t think the black dwarfs are overpowered. But of course i have great confidence in the BTB team - i have played four of the book´s warbands in campaigns now and all are balanced (they vary in strength, but none are totally useless or as strong as skaven) - so i could be biased .

And if all else fails, simply modify the rules
to your liking - houserules are fun and most players i know use them.

JAFisher44 wrote:

Perfesser says that the names of the developers is the "seal of quality" on BtB. Does smoore even know the dev team?

I don't know them either. But I don't know Tuomas, yet I trust the "value" of his rules. Why would I trust Tuomas' and his teams play testing and not Werekin's?

Questioning the quality of the work, says either "I don't believe your testing was good" or "I don't believe you tested at all". You don't see how someone could be insulted by the implication? Especially when it's not backed by anything other than speculation?

I'm not making a value judgement on whether or not Werekin's response was 'good' or 'appropriate', I'm just saying that I can understand it.


Anyhow, on to the subject of balance... Mordheim isn't exactly balanced. Asp has made a very good attempt at balancing the rules and to do so, he pretty much had to recreate Mordheim--his rules appear to have a lot more balance, but trade away some flavour for it. If you want to use the Mordheim rules as they are, you have to accept that they aren't completely fair.

Even the warbands in the main rule book have issues (Skaven with loads of slings seem to put a pickle up the butts of lots of folks). Each gaming group really needs to decide for themselves what rules and warbands they want to use to create what they collectively believe is a fair, and more importantly fun, gaming environment. No gaming group should be so disfunctional as to not be able to agree on a set of rules/warbands, nor should they have so much difficult adjusting the rules mid-campaign based on the way the games are playing out.


Some rules, whether you consider them balanced or not, are a bit 'distasteful'. Nurgle's Rot is one of them. It's just another way of permanently removing a model, but many people change the rule so its less distasteful. The Mancatcher/Engine is like this too--it's a way to permanently remove a model (and a very expensive one at that). I think this is more psychological than anything... the model is dead, but not dead and the player feels powerless. We more easily accept a bad roll on the injury chart perhaps because we believe we can save our favorite hero right up until the bitter end.


So agree to change the Black Dwarfs warband rules, agree to use them as is or agree to ban them. Ultimately, it's really up to the group to decide what's fun. Overpowered, underpowered, balanced or not, fun should be the focus.

To answer perfesser's question no I dont know the development team, who they are, or recognize their names if I see them. Frankly I skip that page in every game I every play. I have found that list to be all but meaningless in most published works because too often it doesnt reflect well on who actually did the real contributions. For instance (the role players will know this one): Mark Reinhagen created a came called Vampire that really reshaped roleplaying, an excellect product. Later a book that in my opinion was the worst piece of junk ever published Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand came out. His name is on it but clearly its not the same quality I doubt he had anything to do with it. Its too easy to carry on the names of people who were once involved but are no longer on something like this. I prefer to read all the rules without reference to who wrote them, test them if possible and if not get real experience with them, and make decisions based on their quality, not who wrote them.

Im not even suggesting that the BtB playtesting was bad I have no idea who was involved or what they did but I have seen horrible things get past playtesters many times. Things that multiple gaming groups I delt with instantly recognized and changed the rules for (Again my strong area: Live Action Vampire, Arms of the Abyss and Potence). And I've seen the same publishers not fix those rules in later editions supposedly after more playtesting. Its like the playtesters often have blinders on. So I am very distrustful.

Thank you to everyone who actually gave me an opinion of the rules. Id really like to hear real world long term experience with them however and apparently only one person has that and wont he wont talk about it. Without that input I cant allow the Dwarves in my campaign (and possibly the rest of BtB as a side effect, I'll have to talk it over with the players). I just cant take the chance on "Its fair and playtested, I say so" with no further info ruining the experience of several new players.

I totally understand why Werekin's response upset you. It's not what I expected him to do when I asked him to answer your question.

However, I also understand his attitude. And this has nothing to do with touching a weak spot about the rules, feeling disrespected or anything - come on, people. Don't go for the cheapest explanation. I can't count the times that I have tried to explain why I don't think the Merchant Caravan is underpowered plus the times I tried to explain why it is not overpowered. People's impression of warband lists vary a lot. The point is that the way things work together in a campaign are not easy to see at first sight (for none of us) and that's why every warband list is always tweaked, sometimes heavily, throughout the course of a campaign.

While I am flattered by your comments, perfessor, I do think it is more than warranted to question the quality of fan material found on the web. Sadly you even need to question some of the official rules as well. I surely think it is totally valid to ask experienced gamers about their experience with a certain list. If everything is well, then they can easily and quickly dispel all doubts and the group can happily allow the warband in their campaign.

Man-catchers are super expensive at 25 gold crowns and their 'Capture' rule only applies if the warband has an Engine of Chaos (195 gc!!). This is not a cheap combo. You have to invest lots of resources into doing this. Imagine what the opposing warbands can do with these 200+ gc. They forego a lot of fighting power when purchasing the engine and catchers, which they will most likely miss in the following matchups (even in the time they are saving for it). Honestly, I don't think I would buy an engine at all. Maybe in the midst of a campaign if I could somehow afford it, but that would be because of the fun of the slave system and not because it is such an efficient combo. Seriously, going with an engine and mancatchers is not the easy and short way to victory. It is the resources- and time-consuming way, as well as the most entertaining for both sides if they enjoy the narrative aspect of Mordheim.

And very probably no one in the gaming group would have played them anyway- since the models for the chaos dwarfs are out of production they are very hard to get ...and the engine has to be scratchbuilt as there is no model for it .
Basically only very dedicated and talented modellers/scratchbuilders have a chance to play them...and there are nor that many of them.

Horatius wrote:

Basically only very dedicated and talented modellers/scratchbuilders have a chance to play them...and there are nor that many of them.

That IS a good point indeed. Actually rewarding players for their efforts is not bad at all - to me. But as I already said, I don't think the effort is worth it if you're only out to win and not to have a good time.

cianty wrote:

But as I already said, I don't think the effort is worth it if you're only out to win and not to have a good time.

You shouldn't play with this kind of people anyway, so just agree that you'll have to tweak it during the campaign should the aforementioned issues indeed arrive...

Eliazar wrote:

cianty wrote:

But as I already said, I don't think the effort is worth it if you're only out to win and not to have a good time.

You shouldn't play with this kind of people anyway, so just agree that you'll have to tweak it during the campaign should the aforementioned issues indeed arrive...

My philosophy exactly.

While the just don't play with them option seems straightforward and simple. Its not a choice for people who play at a public venue where every one is welcome.
And being a power gamer is not being a cheater. Cheaters are easy to confront and deal with. A power gamer is using the rules.
Smoore's problem player reminds me of several men I've met over the last 8 years. They didn't cheat and any cries of cheesy or you shouldn't be able to do that were met with 'its in the rules right here'.
From my experience that type of gamer will have the best equipment combination or skills as quickly as possible. If he starts with it, it will generally work for him and attempts to kill it will fail as he will roll full recovery or anything but a 1 or 2.