Mixing Scenarios?

So, my friends and I have never really played anything other than the original Mordheim scenario. I've been looking a lot at the various scenarios and extra rules recently, though. How do people feel about mixing things from various scenarios? Like using Warbands from Khemri in the city of Mordheim, grabbing rules from a few different scenarios and using them all in a campaign, or stuff like that? We haven't done any campaigns with stories/maps yet, we just sit down and play game after game keeping our warbands.

So, thoughts on this? Blasphemy? Any weird rules considerations that we should figure out if we do this?

One piece of advice I'd give is playtest things thouroughly before adding it ot a campaign. We decided to we wanted to add Empire in Flames scenarios to our up coming campaign, the organizer asked me and my neighbour to test them.

We have had a real mixed bag, the first scenario we tried was "Bounty Hunting". We realized a few things. First our terrain is definately built for Mordheim and lacking a nice intact building for the outlaws to hide in gave us problems.

Next "Bounty Hunting" has a massive reward for the winner, minimum bounty is 66gcs and then there are 6 crossbows that either save a warband 150GC or can be sold for 75GC. And then we beleive there still is an exploration roll. Fairly easy for a winner to reap 200+GC

"Lost in the Bogs" seems to be a punishment scenario; space out the "lost warband" then let the opponent(s) choose thier side(s), THEN the opponnent(s) goes first, combine that with the fact that most of the terrain is non line-of-sight blocking but difficlut terrain and this is a BRUTAL scenario for a lost warband of even average size facing even a moderately shooty warband. It will not make my short list of scenarios I like to play...

"The Thing in the Woods" is an excellent scenario, great options to use the forests to cover an advance, gives the few warriors immune to all alone tests a real benefit, the Things are nicely statted to give 4-5 warriors of any given warband a good fight. The only problem with this scenario we ran into was the "lycanthropy" special rule, very confusing.

We have not had much experience with mounted rules so we have not tried the "Stagecoach Ambush" yet

I suppose adopting them to mordheim itself may work, so instead of the beat in the woods you have it in the city.

I can't remember offhand but i think the expansions stuff is slightly better then the origional (Cianty correct me beaus ei think it was you who said the levels of power for each setting?) so duming it down a little might help to stop huge boosts in money or dents in warbands.

The largely accepted power level of the settings is this:

Khemri < Mordheim < Empire in Flames < Lustria

It is widely accepted that Khemri is weaker than original Mordheim while Lustria is stronger. Often this is excused by saying these are different settings not intended for mixing with original warbands. But I think...

Anyways, usually warbands and scenarios should be "mixable" in whatever way players wish to. Mordheim, EiF and the Annual were all meant for the same setting and I don't think the "power gap" between Marienburgers and Dwarfs is any wider than that of Skaven and Lizardmen - to the contrary. So stop worrying and start having fun!

Seriously, nothing's wrong until you personally notice it is. So don't listen to the haters who may tell you this is too strong, that unplayable bla blah. Have a quick look at the rules, let common sense decide and start playing! Of course there are imbalances but they exist even amongst the original warbands. There are so many random factors in the game (income, injuries, fighting,...) that even a stronger warband doesn't automatically dominate a campaign.

I understand the desire to be prepared and avoid potential frustration but making your own experience is the most important thing.

Where does BTb fit in on that list actually if your being honest?

Assume as a creator you'd have a fair idea.

Of course I will be honest

We have always played with a mix of original warbands (Reiklanders, Orcs, etc) and BTB warbands. Simply because restricting ourselves (or others) to the BTB ones is plain boring. That's why the warbands chapter of BTB starts explicitly with motives for other warbands to play in that setting too. In my unworthy opinion all warbands, hired swords etc should be freely mixable, since that is what players will (want to) do. Overpowering your warbands and then claiming it is a "strong setting" is a horribly poor excuse for bad design. Period.

So of course the warband rules from BTB can be combined with whatever else you want to. As for the scenario this is true as well in general. I mean, what is even an overpowered scenario? The majority of the scenarios (and all warbands) were played before the entire campaign structure with objectives etc was created. Basically we were playing "normal" Mordheim at the beginning with only one new warband: the Marauders. Then I felt the need to have proper reason to use my Stage Coach from the Empire in Flames supplement so I made the Merchant Caravan. Then there had to be an all human nemesis for the marauders - battle monks. In the meantime we tried some new scenarios. We were mixing stuff all the time (and it is what I expect others to do too): pick what you like and adopt it for your games. Slowly the set of house rules evolved to a full setting but that took a long time.

In the end some of the scenarios were added specifically to support the new campaign strucutre so naturally it makes no sense to start a campaign and play the siege scenario first. There's a reason why some of the scenarios are meant to be unlocked throughout the campaign. Even if that is mostly only to represent an order of events - not to prevent the warbands from being eradicated. Of course I wouldn't try to slay the Chaos Dragon in my first battle. From the standard scenarios the Man Hunt scenario is probably noteworthy because some people will cry "unfair". Well, the idea is not to hunt the monsters (have a look at the scenario title) and instead avoid being even noticed by the monsters. If you play it right none of your models will get in contact with any of the monsters.

So that was a lot blah blah for a simple question. Of course BTB is meant to be on the same level as core Mordheim, EiF, Annual, etc. and I actually expect the same from anyone suggesting additional rules sets. Everything else is just a weak excuse for failing at creating balanced rules.

I recommend the Island Hopping Scenario from the Lustria setting. We just used ruined building in place of island. Loads of fun.

I've also found that as a general rule I don't enjoy games that have a third party involved, as much as I enjoy games that just pit two warbands against each other. Thats not to say there aren't scenarios I like that involve outside influences (monster hunt and the Gaol spring too mind). But I find it unsatisfying to win or lose due to the actions of anything that isn't one of the players.

But thats just my opinion. I full recommend trying island hopping.

Lol, I'm exactly the opposite of Wolfgang. I love scenarios with a non-player threat. Specifically Spawn Hunt, Harpies, monster hunt, and the Chaos Boars ones. This may partially be due to the fact that most of our games are 3 player FFAs (lost our 4th gamer recently), and that "outside influence" helps to balance things out.

Identity wrote:

Lol, I'm exactly the opposite of Wolfgang. I love scenarios with a non-player threat. Specifically Spawn Hunt, Harpies, monster hunt, and the Chaos Boars ones. This may partially be due to the fact that most of our games are 3 player FFAs (lost our 4th gamer recently), and that "outside influence" helps to balance things out.

I'm with you here. I LOVE the scenarios with extra monsters and stuff. It adds that extra element in that I think makes it just that much more fun. Of course, I still like scenarios that just pitt Warbands against each other.

I think another part of that is that my friend always plays skaven and it seems like it balances it out a little and I don't lose as bad.

Oh, for all of you who love scenarios with 3rd party involved, Ezekiel, JohnYoung and I invented a funny one... I'll see if I don't forget to type it up and post it in an extra thread.

By the way, I think they are fun, too, especially as you sometimes need to team up with your foe (in a way) to cope with the monsters while at the same time trying to kick his a***

If you like 3rd party scenarioes (or, as I call 'em, Creep Hunts), a few other good ones are the Zombie Scenarios (several versions floating around, including one on Brahm's site), Frenzied Mob (from Empire in Flames... considering it's about killing innocent peasants, it's more enjoyable by players with a persuasion towards evil warbands), and my own Press Gang (see the Sartosa thread for links).

If you're curious about other scenarios, your best bet is to try some of the one shot scenarios released by Specialist Games... I've played Gunpowder Plot and Merchant Square, for example, and they were both tons of fun. And, if you're picking scenarios from different settings, make sure that the scenario reflects the campaign it came from. Empire in Flames, Border Town, Lustria, & Nemesis Crown are mostly outdoors. Mordheim, Relics, & Sartosa have a lot of indoor, close-knit cities. (never played Khemri, so I don't know which.) You can switch it up in the same campaign, of course, but having a Stage Couch Ambush in the middle of town might play differently.