What do you think of my extensive rule changes?

Okay first post(beside the introduction one) and this is going to be a really big one. I had too much free time lately and thought about making mordheim a bit more interesting, so i made up some(hah!) rule changes. So any feedback is welcome.

Just so you know: We are playing a campaign right now with witch hunters, skaven, SoS and shadow warriors, i play the witch hunters and we use the current version of the living rulebook, only extra stuff we use are the shadow warriors rules. some stuff was taken from the offical mordheim forum, mostly the experimental rules regarding armor and two-weapon fighting.

i. Page 35, "Fighting with two weapons". Add the line "Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with his off-hand weapon. Weapons wielded with the tail count as off-hand too.“

This is designed to make combat with 2 weapons less common. Also makes for some interesting choices.

ii. Page 122, New Combat Skill "Maniac Warrior: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice normally incurs."

Johann The Knife, Bertha Bestraufung and Veskit should all be granted the "Maniac Warrior" skill.

This skill is for all those that simply love two-weapon fighting.

iii. Page 51, under Shield. Add the line. "In addition to this save, a warrior armed with a shield has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn) when in hand-to-hand combat. Mounted models or models with more than one weapon(i.e. due to an extra arm or tail fighting) have a basic save of 6+ (or may add +1 to their armour saves if other armour is worn) when in hand to hand combat.”

Page 51, under Buckler. Add the line "In addition to this, a warrior armed with a buckler and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 6+ (or may add +1 to his armour save if other armour is worn) when in hand-to-hand combat. Mounted models models or models with more than one weapon(i.e. due to an extra arm or tail fighting) do not gain an additional save when in hand to hand combat.”

Greatly enhances shields and bucklers. Especially with the new parry rule(see below). Almost no one in my group used shields, except against shooting and maybe with the leader.

Replace the existing cost, movement penalty, rarity and armour saves with the following:

iv. Page 50, under "Light Armour": Reduce the cost of light armour to 10gc.

v. Page 50, under "Heavy Armour": Reduce the cost of heavy armour to 20gc.

vi. Page 50, in the armour section, add "Full Plate Armour. Counts as Heavy Armour, but gives a 4+ armour save. Full Plate Armour is so encumbering that a warrior wearing it has a -1M penalty if not mounted, in addition to the normal penalty when combined with a shield. Add this into the trading chart at 50gc, rare 8, only available to humans.

vii. Page 51, under "Ithilmar Armour" replace the entire entry with "Counts as Heavy Armour, but gives no penalty to movement when combined with a shield." Reduce the cost of ithilmar armour to 50gc, rare 8.

viii. Page 51, under "Gromril Armour" replace the entire entry with "Counts as Heavy Armour, but gives a 4+ armour save. Additionally, gives no penalty to movement when combined with a shield." Reduce the cost of gromril armour to 100gc, rare 11.

This is taken from the mordheim forum. Should greatly improve the amount of armour seen on the table, without making it too strong.

ix. Page 47, under “Pistol” replace entry “Hand-to-Hand” with “Stand and Shoot: When a model bearing a pistol is being charged and not currently in hand-to-hand combat and hasn’t used it’s pistol in it’s own shooting face(unless it’s a brace) it may fire it’s pistol at the beginning of the enemy close combat phase, prior to any hand-to-hand combat. This shot follows the rules for ranged combat, with normal modifiers. If the charging model cuases fear, test normally, if the leadership test is failed the model needs a 6 to hit. If desired the Pistol can be used as a club in hand-to-hand combat.”
Add entry “Scattershot: The Pistol may be loaded with shrapnel, this gives +1 to hit and reduces strength by 1. Decide which ammunition you use before you measure for range.”

Makes Pistols more versatile and simplifies the use of them. My main beef with the pistols was that i could only use them once, and i primarily used them in close combat. Now it has a more, swashbuckling attitude. Maybe it's beefed up too much. Note: We play with the experimental rules for blackpowder weapons.

x. Page 48, under “Duelling pistol” Replace fluff with: “A duelling pistol is a work of art, and a gunsmith labours long and hard to produce a single example. They are often carried by Imperial nobles to solve disputes over love and honour, and many a noble has died at dawn in a duel over some grievance. Duelling pistols are prohibitively expensive weapons and common warriors rarely have them. Even if they do manage to steal or buy one, the ammunition is prohibitively expensive. Some of the wealthiest warriors in Mordheim carry duelling pistols as status symbols, commanding great respect, admiration and envy, so naturally the owner of such a fine weapon would never load it with something as crude as shrapnel.“
Replace entry “Hand-to-Hand” with “Stand and Shoot: When a model bearing a duelling pistol is being charged and not currently in hand-to-hand combat and hasn’t used it’s pistol in it’s own shooting face(unless it’s a brace) it may fire it’s pistol at the beginning of the enemy close combat phase, prior to any hand-to-hand combat. This shot follows the rules for ranged combat, with normal modifiers(like accuracy). If the charging model cuases fear, test normally, if the leadership test is failed the model needs a 6 to hit. Can not be used in close combat. ”

Well, same as with the pistol. The scattershot is removed because of accuracy.

xi. Page 49, under “Handgun”: Replace entry “Prepare shot” with “Bullseye: Rifles are incredibly deadly, therefore you may add +1 to all rolls on the injury chart.”
Add entry “Scattershot: The Handgun may be loaded with shrapnel, this gives +1 to hit and reduces strength by 1. Decide which ammunition you use before you measure for range.”

I really couldn't see any reason to use the handguns before, none of my group did. Now they are more versatile and deadly.

xii. Page 49, under “Hochland long rifle”: Replace fluff with: “Hochland is a province famed for its hunters, and the preferred weapon of its nobility when they go hunting is a long-ranged rifle. They are extremely rare and precious weapons, and only the most experienced weaponsmiths are capable of manufacturing them, thus they are way to precious to load them with shrapnel and risk damaging the barrel.“
Replace entry “Prepare shot” with “Bullseye: Rifles are incredibly deadly, therefore you may add +1 to all rolls on the injury chart.”
Add entry “Accuracy: A hochland long rifle is built for accuracy as a skilled marksman is able to hit a coin from a hundred paces. All shots from a long rifle have a +1 bonus to hit.”

Was way too expansive to begin with. The ability to shoot at a target of choice was nice, but usually it was denied by a lack of a line of sight since the juicy targets were at the back of a warband. Again it lacks the scattershot because of accuracy.

xvii. Pages 47-49 add this entry to all weapons in the “Blackpowder Weapons” section: “Gunpowder: All gunpowder weapons(a brace of pistol counts as two weapons for this purpose) cost 1 gold upkeep at the end of a game, unless they haven’t been used for the entire game. This reflects the fact that gunpowder and shots are more expensive than arrows and bolts, which can be used several times and are easier to manufacture. “

This rule was added so that blackpowder weapons are not too common in the games. While they are way more powerful now they are more pricey to maintain.

xiii. Page 83, under “Hunter”: Replace entire entry with “The warrior may shoot twice per turn with a handgun or hochland long rifle. Note that this skill cannot be combined with the Nimble skill.”

Not sure if it should be removed completly. Or maybe allow the "pick target"-rule from the long rifle.

xiv. Page 32 & p.167. Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Master Strike!" remove the line "The attack ignores all armour saves"

Page 160. Optional Missile Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Master Shot" remove the line "There is no armour save"

Page 161. Optional Bladed Weapon Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Sliced!" remove the words "ignores armour saves"

Again, the last three are from the mordheim forum.

xv. Page 92. Remove the Warplock pistol, it isn’t balanced and does not fit clan Eshin.

Nuff' said.

xvi. Page 36. A model armed with a sword or a buckler may reduce the enemies attacks by 1 down to a minimum of 1. A model with sword and buckler may reduce the enemies attacks by 2 down to a minimum of 1, if the enemy has only a single attack the attack is at -1 to hit. A model can only parry against the attacks of a single enemy at a time, if fighting multiple enemies at once choose which attacker the model parries at the beginning of the fight. Parries are always determined after any abilities, skills or equipment that might modify attacks, so a Possessed with a tentacle first reduces the enemy attack by 1, and then checks for parry.

This was the first rule change designed to make two-weapon fighting less prevalent. I'm thinking about retiring this rule, but the original parry rule is really slowing the game down.

+++ This have been the rules we have used and tested so far. Next are rules we plan to incorporate in the next campaign to make it more balanced. +++

xviii. Page 94. Replace “Night Runners” with:
0-1 Rat Trainer
50 gold crowns to hire
A Rat Trainer is in charge of the giant rats that the skaven train to do their bidding. While a human might be fond of the animals he herds skaven only see them as a meatshield and expandable assets.
Use Profile and Weapons/Armour from Night Runners and ability “Pack Master: If a rat is more than 6” away from its trainer at the end of its recovery phase it has to take a leadership test or will run towards it’s trainer on the most direct path. If the trainer is already taken out of action, the giant rat is taken out of action.”
May choose from academic, speed and special skill lists and starts with 8 experience.

This, in combination with the giant rat rules makes for an interesting choice. Either you take this weak but expansive character or you can't take the giant rats, which are a bargain at 10 gc each and you miss out on a hero. This also reduces the skaven down to a maximum of 5 starting heros.

ixx. Page 92. Add item “Trainer’s Whip”: As much a symbol of office as a deadly weapon and a useful tool in the hands of a skilled A trainer’s whip counts as a dagger with the first strike rule. In addition a Rat Trainer armed with a whip also increases the range of his Pack Master ability by 6”. Cost 20 gold, common, Rat Trainer only.”

Not sure why we came up with this, but it's a neat tool.

xx. Page 95. Increase cost of Verminkin to 25 gc.

They have been too cheap to begin with and makes giant rats way more attractive.

xxi. Page 95. Under “Giant Rats” reduce cost to 10 gold crowns.
Replace entry “Pack size” with “Rat Pack: A warband may only buy giant rats if they also have a Rat Trainer. A single Rat Trainer may control a number of rats equal to his Ld, plus any rats from the skaven spell Children of the Horned Rat. The rats still count towards maximum warband size, but not for the purpose of rout tests.”

Makes giant rats cheap, easy to loose but more essential to a skaven player. Simply put: We like rats.

xxiii. Page 81. Under “Warhounds” add entry “Loyal Companion: Warhounds do not count towards income, rout tests and maximum warband size. You may never hire more warhounds than you have heroes in your warband.”

This beefs the witch hunters up considerably. Five additional models are an considerable increase in manpower, which before limited them too much. We also found that no one will use the doggies if the warband size is so limited, now they are a must have since they don't affect income.

Well, that's about it. Comments?

Wow, that takes time to read it all the way down.
But I'm really glad you posted this, as I have thought about some similar rule changes, especially for two hand weapons and armour.

-Two hand weapons:
My idea was that a model with two handweapons always gets a -1 modification, but only a modification for the off-hand is even better.
And the skill is also a great addition.

-The shield/buckler:
Again, I was thinking of something like that, but I thought about a better save vs. shooting.
But then again, this would depend from the shield.
While a large shield provides better protection against shooting, it is heavier and therfor more difficult to use in a melee.
But this would go to far I guess, so better stick to the rule you suggested.

But one thing I would change with the buckler:
Only swords should offer a ArmourSave bonus, as they are expansive(most people use clubs insteed) and this shows that a sword really is a more flexible weapon than a club or an axe.

-Armour at half price(or even less) is reasonable. The full plate is a question of taste I guess.

-The pistol:
I actually don't see a reason to change the rules, but the suggestions sound interesting.
Especially the scatter shot.

-The Bullseye rule is great, but still I would also stick to the Prepare Shot.

-The new parry rules:
Not sure if I understood this correctly: Do you still test for parry as explained in the rulebook or is this replaced by the new rule?

Again, great work, thanks for sharing this!

Wow!

I like a lot of those rules! I think that -1 for off hand weapons is GENIOUS!

Your re-working of the skaven, totally destroys my tactics, but is beautifully fair. I like it a lot.

Just to confirm, would the rat trainer be able to take the Assassin's leadership (if within 6") for the number of rats controlled? (Night runners have LD 4... so you can only have 4 rats in your warband?

If so, if you have 7 rats, and the leader dies, and he's back to controlling 4 rats, what happens to the 7th?

So you are basically limitting the number of Giant rats to 7, and making them ridiculously inexpensive.

Overall, very nice ideas.
Thanks,

Erkwin wrote:

-Two hand weapons:
My idea was that a model with two handweapons always gets a -1 modification, but only a modification for the off-hand is even better.
And the skill is also a great addition.

This is not my credit but from the official mordheim forum. Really made a difference in the games.

Erkwin wrote:

-The shield/buckler:
Again, I was thinking of something like that, but I thought about a better save vs. shooting.
But then again, this would depend from the shield.
While a large shield provides better protection against shooting, it is heavier and therfor more difficult to use in a melee.
But this would go to far I guess, so better stick to the rule you suggested.

There's a pavese floating around somewhere in the huge knot of additional rules for mordheim that's similar to what you think of.

Erkwin wrote:

But one thing I would change with the buckler:
Only swords should offer a ArmourSave bonus, as they are expansive(most people use clubs insteed) and this shows that a sword really is a more flexible weapon than a club or an axe.

Swords are way better with the new parry rule. More to that below. Almost everyone uses swords in my current campaign. But Spear + Shield is a nice combo too.

Erkwin wrote:

-Armour at half price(or even less) is reasonable. The full plate is a question of taste I guess.

Yup it is. Basically it's from the official mordheim forum again, with the added limit that only humans can wear it. We included it primarily so we could simply swap the armours the heros allready had instead of selling them because we introduced the new armour rules one game in the campaign.

Erkwin wrote:

-The pistol:
I actually don't see a reason to change the rules, but the suggestions sound interesting.
Especially the scatter shot.

There was some argument that the pistols were primarily used as melee weapons and that they should have first strike and whatnot. this is the compromise we settled on, everybody is happy. Scattershot was added because we felt that gunpowder weapons were not good enough to begin with, now they are more versatile. Originally you could use scattershot with all blackpowder weapons, but it was too good with the accuracy rule, so we invented the fluff reason to deny that combination.

Erkwin wrote:

-The Bullseye rule is great, but still I would also stick to the Prepare Shot.

The prepare shot was kicked out because it limited the weapon too much and didn't make sense since a gunpowder weapon reloads as fast as a crossbow. This is counterbalanced by the new maintenance cost of the guns. We also play some games in rainy weather, which prohibits gunpowder weapons, which really, really sucks with my witch hunters.

Erkwin wrote:

-The new parry rules:
Not sure if I understood this correctly: Do you still test for parry as explained in the rulebook or is this replaced by the new rule?

Completely replaced. Now there's no rolling dice involved for parry, but it's useless against an enemy with only one attack. Except when using buckler and sword.

Erkwin wrote:

Again, great work, thanks for sharing this!

Hey, pleasure. The rules are not final in any way, and only used in a small scale campaign, so i really could use some feedback. They certainly change the feel of mordheim quiet a bit.

Ashton wrote:

Wow!

I like a lot of those rules! I think that -1 for off hand weapons is GENIOUS!

Well, again, not my doing.

Ashton wrote:

Your re-working of the skaven, totally destroys my tactics, but is beautifully fair. I like it a lot.

We wanted to nerf skaven a bit, but didn't want to change profile and stuff. Now they are a bit weaker without too much limitation.

Ashton wrote:

Just to confirm, would the rat trainer be able to take the Assassin's leadership (if within 6") for the number of rats controlled? (Night runners have LD 4... so you can only have 4 rats in your warband?

If so, if you have 7 rats, and the leader dies, and he's back to controlling 4 rats, what happens to the 7th?

So you are basically limitting the number of Giant rats to 7, and making them ridiculously inexpensive.

Nope, leader ability does not affect the number of rats, since leader ability only kicks in for tests. What it does is reduce the price for rats, limit them to 4(in the beginning) + rat's from that spell and makes rats stick close to their trainer. if they are too far away(or the trainer stunned or knocked down) they need to test or flee towards the trainer(which provokes free attacks as does a failed all alone test if they are in close combat). If the trainer is taken out of action they have to test every turn for leadership or are taken out of action. This makes the loss in rats REALLY significant, thus justifying the reduced cost of the rats. Note that rats no longer affect your warband size for rout tests, so you can sacrifice as you like.

Ashton wrote:

Overall, very nice ideas.
Thanks,

Thank you.

Very Interesting...

My starting tactic with Skaven is to get 5 or 6 heros and as many G-Rats as Possible....

I think I'm going to chew it over for a bit...

My only thought right now, is to increase the number of Rats to LD+2 (?) or something.

I still need to do some chewing, but right now I think in the long run it's good changes