[BTB] Marauders of Chaos Rules Clarifications

Got some more rules clarifications, this time for the Marauders of Chaos...

Different Marks of Chaos
This sounds pretty cut and dried, but I just want clarification anyway. So, within a warband, no two models can have different marks of chaos (with the exception of Undivided), so I couldn't (for example) have a leader with Arkhar and a Seer with Tchar? But I could have a leader with Arkhar and a Seer with Undivided?

Also, if the Seer were to become the Leader, the rules say that the Seer has to choose the mark of his associated patron -- does that mean that the Seer now has both the leader and the seer mark benefits? Or does he only have the leader benefits (in an overriding sense)?


Tribes
The rules state that "When starting a Marauders of Chaos warband you may decide which of the following three major Chaos tribes your warriors belongs to" -- does this mean that you HAVE to choose a tribe? Is it possible to not declare a tribe and therefore not have any pros or cons of the three choices? I'm inclined to think so because of the use of the word "may" as opposed to "must," but I'm not sure.

On that note, GW never released Norse, Kurgan, or Hung specific models did they? I only found a generic Chaos Marauder box. From their descriptions, the Kurgan and Norse sound like they differ mainly in skin and hair color, with possibly the Norse being a bit taller and less powerfully built. The Hung, of course, are totally different.

KorgakGrimtooth wrote:

Different Marks of Chaos
This sounds pretty cut and dried, but I just want clarification anyway. So, within a warband, no two models can have different marks of chaos (with the exception of Undivided), so I couldn't (for example) have a leader with Arkhar and a Seer with Tchar? But I could have a leader with Arkhar and a Seer with Undivided?

Exactly!

KorgakGrimtooth wrote:

Also, if the Seer were to become the Leader, the rules say that the Seer has to choose the mark of his associated patron -- does that mean that the Seer now has both the leader and the seer mark benefits?

Exactly!

KorgakGrimtooth wrote:

Or does he only have the leader benefits (in an overriding sense)?

Nope.

KorgakGrimtooth wrote:

Tribes
The rules state that "When starting a Marauders of Chaos warband you may decide which of the following three major Chaos tribes your warriors belongs to" -- does this mean that you HAVE to choose a tribe? Is it possible to not declare a tribe and therefore not have any pros or cons of the three choices? I'm inclined to think so because of the use of the word "may" as opposed to "must," but I'm not sure.

The tribes options were added later on so before that you could only play "generic" marauders. However, ever since their introduction it never occured to me that you might want to play none of the tribes. Obviously this is a rather common idea though, as I encountered a guy in a local wargaming club who I never met before and he didn't want to choose a specifc tribe as he preferred playing a tribe of his own. From a rules standpoint (meaning balancing) this is not a problem at all. So while the tribes options are not supposed to be ignored I wouldn't want to replace said "may" with a "must" because if people come up with this question and they do want to play none of the tibes then I want to encourage them to do it. If that's what makes them happy and their games more fun, then go for it!

KorgakGrimtooth wrote:

On that note, GW never released Norse, Kurgan, or Hung specific models did they?

While the Norse are not officially any specific tribe I think it's save to assume that they are supposed to resemble the Norse. I wouldn't bet my life on that though...

Cool, thanks! Yeah, I don't know if the pros for the tribe choices are sufficiently balanced with their cons with respect to the kind of warband I want to make.

Norse
+1 on searching for stuff is always nice, esp. if I want to find rarer things like Chaos Armor... but 13+ on the Eye of the Gods roll is painful given how the percentages scale on 2D6. I'd need to kill at least one model for a 2.7% chance, 2 for a 8.3% chance, and 3 for a 16.7% chance.

Kurgan
Unlimited Warhounds might be nice, but 5 is already a lot. Bows are definitely useful, can't argue there. And for similar reasons to the Norse 13+ Eye of the Gods roll, -1 on finding things is painful...

Hung
Max warband size of 12 is bad, unless I really wanted to invest in an all mounted unit.

The Norse penalty is also a benefit for when you lose a game though as it stops your expensive Chieftain from turning into a spawn so easily.

If you want him to gain a mark then make sure you fight lots of bad guys.

And you could always spend a skill on the tattoos to boost your Eye of the Gods roll.

but why are there Norse marauders and then Norse explorers why use Norse as Chaos maruders when the cities of gold ones get,bows and a werewolve??

I prefer the Marauder Norscans to the Norse Explorer types myself... hence why my own Marauders warband will be Norscan

personally i like the kurgan,bows and unlimited warhounds is a must