Which warbands are worth playing?

I am gathering enough units for as many warbands as I can muster. With a recent trade, I will soon be able to field an Orc and Goblin warband (minus the shaman, as I need to convert a model).

I should also be soon on the way to field a Skaven warband as well.

This leaves me with some choices. I have some Marauder sprues, Chaos Warrior sprues, and other bits that I would like to know which HUMAN warbands would best be my next choice for converting/modeling.

I am leaning towards Norse Warband, Norse Explorers and Marauders of Chaos, yet I still think about a Witch Hunter's warband or possibly Ostlanders.

Which ones have a good setup and playability? Which ones are easiest to create/convert?

I never heard anything good about Witch Hunters and I don't like them myself (other than their style which sort of cool, albeit a bit too nazi). Many people consider Witch Hunters to be amongst the weakest human warband (and that says something). I'm not a fan of pretty much most human warbands and I haven't found the Ostlanders or Kislevites being "competetive" when facing Orcs, Beastmen or other "power races".

Despite all this I think a proper Reikland is almost a must because they are the amongst the best human warband and the mercenaries are simply the stereo-typical Mordheim warband. Brave (read stupid) adventurers facing death in hopes of fame and fortune. That's what Mordheim is all about.

I just read up on Chaos Marauders, and see that they can have some Chaos warhounds! I just based 10 of those suckers, and wouldn't mind using them in the warband. Although, for those that have played the Chaos Marauders, how level of a playing field are they strictly in the Mordheim City setting? Would they be overpowered? overmatched?

Reiklanders are great. I've only encountered the Norse once and I beat them with my reiklanders . That extra BS for marksmen and the doubled range of leadership is a real equalizer. I've had the most sucess in Mordheim playing Reiklanders. They, like all merc warbands, are oneof the most forgiving. By that I mean if a game goes really badly for you there is room to bounce back easily. Much more room than say an undead warband.

Witch hunters can be good. Just max heroes, pray for a good prayer , and resist the urge to take a lot of dogs at the beginning. Go hard with the flagellents and zealots, their ability to gain xp more than makes up for their expense. Oh and makes sure you take a few ranged weapons. A weird combo i found pretty deadly was to take a beast hunter right from the beginning of the campaign.

Brettonians are another good human warband. You have 6 starting heroes and swords only cost 5 at warband creation. I did very well in our last campign with a brettonian warband. The squires proved to be killers with the longbow, despite having BS2, one killed a wyvern with 2 wounds and another knocked an Ogre captain off an aqueduct then killed him on the ground with a knife.

My choices of warband have always depended on the setting and what I want to do there.

In Mordheim itself I started with Witch Hunters and they remain one of my favorites. I usually stack my deck and hire mostly flagellants to start to ensure the coveted LgT hero is a real monster.

I have also played Middenheimers (awesome), Marienburgers and Kislevites (Da Bears!) I feel any warband can be competitive although I always find Dwarfs to be annoyingly hard to kill.

In Lustria I have played the Tileans, but mostly I run Amazons. (Not a choice here I know.)

Overall I guess it depends on the style of play you like. I really enjoy running a human band in any setting with the caution that he who runs today lives to fight another day...

js

Von Kurst wrote:

Dwarfs to be annoyingly hard to kill.

Swivel gun, dunna-dunna-dunna, swivel gun. dunna-dunna-dunna, swivel gun! On that note, pirates are great fun to play (what warband wouldn't be with a 36" S5 missile weapon?). Also, Averlanders are lots of fun, their halfling scout henchmen really help out (depsite only having bows), and a mountain guard with a spear, shield and crossbow is a real menace.

For me, this question should be "which warbands are worth PAINTING"
I want to have all official Mordheim warbands, but at first I start with these which look good. Some warbands you can't convert as you like, some are really "convertable", orcs are the best - like orc pirates, orc hippies or something like this

Skavenblight wrote:

For me, this question should be "which warbands are worth PAINTING"

This is indeed a good point. In order to be able to pull through and paint a full warband you have to like them. I can only work on a warband if I really like their background, style, flavour, etc. This has a lot to do with personal taste, so for me it is important that I like the sample warbands I have seen or if I have some great ideas for paitning and/or converting the models. Playability is only secondary, especially since I will find out only after I have at least half-finished the warband anyways. If I can get some victories or at least fun games in with the WIP warband, then that is, however, a huge motivation though, of course.

Skavenblight wrote:

... orc hippies...

LOL. Indeed.