Dwarf Exploration

The Dwarves have the Incomparable Miners Rule

Incomparable Miners: Dwarfs spend much of their lives underground searching for precious minerals, and they are the best in the world at this kind of work. In the city of Mordheim they apply similar skills to the search for wyrdstone. When checking for wyrdstone at the end of a game, add +1 to the number of pieces found for a Dwarf warband.

If all the Heros are taken Out Of Action you would roll no exploration dice.
The question is: Do you still get one shard due to the incomparable miners rule?

Interesting question. I think the hard facts answer would be "yes" while logic says "no".

I always interpreted it as you work out whatever wyrdstone was found then added one. In this case, they find none from exploring but dig some up near their camp. So I would say they still got that extra shard even if all heroes were OOA.

Having said that, it is one of reasons for hating the dwarf warband more than any others (even Shadow Warriors). If it turns out we've been doing it wrong all these years then I can rant slightly less about dwarves.

Interesting question no doubt.

I'll say No.

Only heroes can search, so if they don't do it, How can they find ANYTHING, not to mention wydstone?

The rules say "Add to the shards FOUND". In this case you found nothing, and actually didn't searched for anything.

But in the end, it's up to your group, but imo if they gain a shard even without heroes, it makes the dwarf band unfair to play against.

Hope that helps.

Personally, I'd make it a cap. For warbands under X rating, it's added on ALWAYS. If the rating is over X, it's only if you have a hero that can explore. (A good number might be 150 or 100.) This helps out the starting dwarf warband with 4 expensive heroes.