Starting with mordheim.. advice appreciated.

Hey all,

Introduction:
28 year old, living in Belgium. I've recently started playing wfb again (previously I played in 5th edition) and was looking for terrain tutorials/examples around the net. Stumbled upon this forum because I was looking for cathayan pieces... I pretty much hit the motherload with this forum. Now, the enthusiasm of the members here for Mordheim makes me eager to try it out myself It seems a perfect fit for me and the 2-3 regulars I play wfb with, since we're pressed for time lately but putting in a few mordheim games seems doable (I guess we'll have to see how that works out though), the others were thinking about warhammer skirmish first... but the rp-elements in mordheim make it much more attractive.

We have acces to a bunch of models from wfb suitable for different warbands, a few of us have the mordheim models integrated in their armies anyway. So we could field: dwarfs, mercenaries, human (norse-themed, empire, bretonnia, witch hunters, kislev, halflings), posessed, beastmen, elves and proxy a bunch more.

I'ld like to try a game out with the dwarf/empire player, he agreed if I came up with a basic list for his dwarfs, and I made a quick beastmen list for myself:

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HEROES

Chieftain, sword and mace 78gc

Shaman, 2 mace 51gc

Bestigor, 2 mace 51gc

Bestigor, 2 mace 51gc

Centigor, 2 mace 86gc


HENCHMEN

2 Gor, 2 mace 82gc

2 Ungor, mace and dagger 56gc

3 chaos hounds 45gc
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Does this seem "legal" according to the rules? I haven't read all of the book yet, and thought I would just make a basic list. Now I need to make a dwarf list, and I want both armies to be a fair match for each other, since I have not much of a clue on what's good or not. Should I get max heroes: 1 noble, 1 engineer, 2 slayers + the other dwarfs equipped with crossbows? Seems they can get a few shots off and still be able to dish it out in close combat with the slayers...

Is this a good idea to start off with? Or should I use a human warband instead? A bit lost in the possibilities here, but I'ld love to start on this... mainly due to this forum

Advice??? DON'T DO IT; IT'S ADDICTIVE!!! Well, sounds like you're already hooked, SO...WELCOME ABOARD!

May you have a LONG & HAPPY stay here at Our Tom's But INCREDIBLY COOL nonetheless Mordheim Forum. HAVE FUN, Amigo!

DeafNala wrote:

Advice??? DON'T DO IT; IT'S ADDICTIVE!!!

Too late indeed, and you can blame Tom and Cianty's terrain for that...

DeafNala wrote:

May you have a LONG & HAPPY stay here at Our Tom's But INCREDIBLY COOL nonetheless Mordheim Forum. HAVE FUN, Amigo!

Thanks!

Welcome! Mordheim's great if your strapped for time, because each game is relatively short - but the ampaign system allows you to have long drawn out games in small chunks.

Welcome to the (boring) forums!

The warband development aspects of Mordheim are surely what makes it so great. You may want to try to get your friend to design his own warband. Much of the gaming enjoyment in Mordheim happens off the table - it's the leveling up of heroes, seeing what injuries they have, equipping models with new items, etc. If he's just looking for shorter games of WHFB, that's not truly what Mordheim represents. If he has nothing invested in the warband, he's missing out on a lot of the game.

Your warband looks good. Since beastmen are all melee, there's not much variation at creation. Basically you choose whether you want the minotaur or not. Personally, i'd try to upgrade one of the ungors to a gor in order to get more chances at a henchmen promotion. The easiest way would be to drop the sword. If you're using default rules, your cheiftain wont give the additional armor save with a dagger since he's S4. In my opinion, the parry that the sword gives is a rather poor ability for 10 of your precious starting gold. You'll be hit on a 4+, so on average you have only a 17% chance to parry a single hit. Chances are even worse if you get hit more than once.

Another thing to consider is fielding one more model so that you rout after 4 models are lost instead of 3. If you really want to win the battle (the reward is good), this will help a lot as you have low LD, but sometimes you want to be able to rout sooner to minimize long term damage to your warband. Adding a 13th member could be done by changing an ungor to a hound and dropping a mace or two.

And yes, if you are starting a campaign, you always want to max heroes - they are your primary income.

Identity wrote:

Welcome to the (boring) forums!

The warband development aspects of Mordheim are surely what makes it so great. You may want to try to get your friend to design his own warband. Much of the gaming enjoyment in Mordheim happens off the table - it's the leveling up of heroes, seeing what injuries they have, equipping models with new items, etc. If he's just looking for shorter games of WHFB, that's not truly what Mordheim represents. If he has nothing invested in the warband, he's missing out on a lot of the game.

He always gives names and fluff to his general in wfb, ironically it's usually the odd lone canon crew who accomplishes the most memorable feats of battle, and his general dies an unglorious death . He plays wfroleplay with me too, so he's pretty much into it. We're not starting a campaign (yet) though, it's just a warband to test out the waters and clarify some rules. I suggested I make both and go over the rules with him since I wouldn't want to distract him from his wfrp campaign too much for now. I'm sure he'll want to make his own list and name every one of his little fella's later.

Identity wrote:

Your warband looks good. Since beastmen are all melee, there's not much variation at creation. Basically you choose whether you want the minotaur or not. Personally, i'd try to upgrade one of the ungors to a gor in order to get more chances at a henchmen promotion. The easiest way would be to drop the sword. If you're using default rules, your cheiftain wont give the additional armor save with a dagger since he's S4. In my opinion, the parry that the sword gives is a rather poor ability for 10 of your precious starting gold. You'll be hit on a 4+, so on average you have only a 17% chance to parry a single hit. Chances are even worse if you get hit more than once.

Another thing to consider is fielding one more model so that you rout after 4 models are lost instead of 3. If you really want to win the battle (the reward is good), this will help a lot as you have low LD, but sometimes you want to be able to rout sooner to minimize long term damage to your warband. Adding a 13th member could be done by changing an ungor to a hound and dropping a mace or two.

And yes, if you are starting a campaign, you always want to max heroes - they are your primary income.

Thanks for the advice, exactly the kind I was hoping for!

Hi Culain, welcome to our forum.

You were catch as most of us here, drooling over the precious pictures of beautifully painted models and scenery.

So brace yourself, because this is higly addictive!

As has been said, most of the fun of a Mordheim game happens before or after a battle.

Identity's advices are good, and you don't need to be in a campaing to use them.

One advice more. If you are playing "one off" games, I'll house rule each band can only have ONE hired sword maximum, as there are some unscrupulous players who seizes the "no-campaing" opportunity to hire lots of cheap powerful fighters, knowing that they don't have to pay upkeep or worry about finding wyrdstone.

Hope that helps.