dual wield and chance

it's the correlation between outcomes to hit when looking for AT LEAST 1 hit with dice ranging from 1 dice to 5 dice.

It pretty much shows the biggest jump in probability is between 1 dice and 2 dice, after 2 dice its rather minimal. (in comparison)

- I like the idea of pricing all helmet variants the same. This effectively allows to buy helmets as usual and then allow the player to pick ONE from a number of special rules for the helmet (avoid stun, +1 AS, etc). That's a very simple solution and much better that introducion new items per se.

- Not repricing armour because of the Steve's intro in TC is not an argument for me. Nevertheless it is always better to not touch existing rules and numbers.

- 1=Failure. This is Warhammer rule and would be an auto-in in any revision of Mordheim. Times have changed. And it is certainly not true that having an armour save of 2+ against Stength 3 is the same as having an armour save of 2+ against Strength 5 as well - or a save of 4+ instead. If you get what I mean... horribly worded. Anyways, purchasing extra armour to ensure the AS survives against stronger attacks is defiantely worth it.

- The idea of use the SAME RULES for shields as in Warhammer is a huge plus of acceptance. Let's not waste that!

cianty wrote:

- The idea of use the SAME RULES for shields as in Warhammer is a huge plus of acceptance. Let's not waste that!

Which edition of Warhammer?

And why is a straight +1 AS to helmets way too good?
Or if we think it still is, we just have: Padded Helmet (stun save), Steel Helmet (+1AS) 10gc

ts061282 wrote:

Which edition of Warhammer?

Current?

ts061282 wrote:

And why is a straight +1 AS to helmets way too good?

I'm afraid it goes too far...

In the end it doesn't really matter what the numbers tell you anyway, but what people think/feel about it. A 5+ armour save can already save you all day long (had that with Step Aside) and as long as you have a "decent" armour save for your normal models, I think people will use armour. I consider a decent armour save to be around 4+/5+. It's why people use shields in my group.. A second weapon is a chance at taking the enemy out, a shield is a chance at surviving a little longer... Especially models with low WS and mayb Strength 3 vs a Toughness 4 enemy may like to use a shield to survive until back up arrives. I don't think you have to push them to get an easy 4+ armour save to do so.

Isn't any model that is outnumbered by 1:2 better off with a 5+ armour save than with an additonal attack? Imagine a vanilla human with mace + shield vs two humans with two maces each...

cianty wrote:

Isn't any model that is outnumbered by 1:2 better off with a 5+ armour save than with an additonal attack? Imagine a vanilla human with mace + shield vs two humans with two maces each...

stats are average to be wounded once, means 4*%tobewounded4+3*%tobewounded3+2*%tobewounded2+%tobewounde1, so 100% doesn't mean opponent can't miss, it means, on average, you _will_ be hit exactly once

Attacking second, he's wounded 66% (4 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3) of the time, 100% (4 * 1/2 * 1/2) w/o shield. Attacking first, he wounds 25% (1/2 * 1/2) of the time and takes two hits from the other one, 33% (2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3) of which wound, the other 75% of the time he takes the original 66%, giving 58.3% (2/3 * 3/4 + 1/3 * 1/4) chance to take a wound, 50% (2/3 * 1/2 + 1/3 * 1/2) chance of being wounded if he's dual wielding (includes case of splitting attacks and KOing both opponents, this is the average of being wounded once).

w/o calcs:
Attacking second, he's wounded 66% of the time, 100% w/o shield. Attacking first, he wounds 25% of the time and takes two hits from the other one, 33% of which wound, the other 75% of the time he takes the original 66%, giving 58.3% chance to take a wound, 50% chance of being wounded if he's dual wielding.

It's a 1/3 improvement if he's attacking second, 8.3% detriment if attacking first.

With -1 off-hand penalty:

Attacking second, he's wounded 55.5% (2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3 + 2 * 1/3 * 1/2 * 2/3) of the time, 83.3% (2 * 1/2 * 1/2 + 2 * 1/3 * 1/2) w/o shield. Attacking first, he wounds 25% (1/2 * 1/2) of the time and takes two hits from the other one, 27.7% (1/2 * 1/2 * 2/3 + 1/3 * 1/2 * 2/3) of which wound, the other 75% of the time he takes the original 55.5%, giving 48.6% (55.5 * 3/4 + 27.7 * 1/4) chance to take a wound, 41.6% (55.5 * 1/2 + 27.7 * 1/2) chance of being wounded if he's dual wielding.

w/o calcs:
Attacking second, he's wounded 55.5% of the time, 83.3% w/o shield. Attacking first, he wounds 25% of the time and takes two hits from the other one, 27.7% of which wound, the other 75% of the time he takes the original 55.5%, giving 48.6% chance to take a wound, 41.6% chance of being wounded if he's dual wielding.

It's a 27.7% improvement if he's attacking second, 7% detriment if attacking first.

Maybe I'll include crits later. But it'll make armor generally worse. Yawn.

----

Current? Good.

Soon after posting the 2:1 comment I realized how relevant this point is as it brings me to this conclusion:

Having shield-wielding equally effective as dual-wielding leads to shield-wielding being better in general.


This is due to the fact that while an additional attack doesn't provide you any bonus when fighting multiple opponents, the shield save affects all opponents equally. So if both styles are equally good, why should I then use two hand-weapons at all considering that it allows a huge advantage when fighting numerous enemies at the same time? Especially since the armour style has more potential for development.

The advantage of fighting more enemies must be factored in when evaluating the worth of the two styles and it warrants leaving shield+weapon at lesser chances in the 1:1 comparison. I don't think this is bad at all. For warbands with many models such as Goblins or Skaven this means that dual-wielding is probably worth it and warbands like Mercenaries must consider if they fare better with shields of with additional weapons. Warbands with few models such as Witch Hunters or Ogres are often better off with shields. Better yet, if you go with both styles you can choose what you want when facing the enemy.

Correct me if I am wrong and missing something here.

I think the viability of shields depend a lot on the warrior wielding it and the opponent you are fighting.

Once, I was fighting one of Lanyssa's hard-as-nails dwarfs (T5, WS4 or something) with my youngbloods, so they did not cause a scratch on him. So, there's no need for an additional armour save and an additional attack might me handy to finish of the poor souls. On the other hand, if you're fighting some foes which have a greater potential to hurt you, it's more practical to invest in defence and forego some offence.

I find shooting them with my reiklander mad elongbows *looks smug for a second* stops all this type of talk being required. and for upclose a good old blunderbuss or 2 will keep those fiends at bay.

still. -1 weapon skill when duelweild it is the way *nods*

cianty wrote:

Having shield-wielding equally effective as dual-wielding leads to shield-wielding being better in general.

Look at my numbers, that's only true if you expect to receive two or more chargers. That would mean dwarves. Movement 5 or better would prefer DW for charging, and the majority of warbands, with movement 4, will want a mixture of armor and DW, and probably other weapons, to adjust to the tactical situation, planning intercepts and counter charges. Being outnumbered at all times is a weak strategy and planning on being both outnumbered and charged means you are probably kd or worse.

cianty wrote:

- I like the idea of pricing all helmet variants the same. This effectively allows to buy helmets as usual and then allow the player to pick ONE from a number of special rules for the helmet (avoid stun, +1 AS, etc). That's a very simple solution and much better that introducion new items per se.

- Not repricing armour because of the Steve's intro in TC is not an argument for me. Nevertheless it is always better to not touch existing rules and numbers.

So the question here is: which one to go for? Give a helmet option for +1AS (we can work out particulars if we decide to do this), or reprice existing armors as the old Option B and effectively bump up armor AS by 1 for the same previous price?

For helmets, it's an additional variant - no need to mess with any existing rules. But a straight +1AS (without restrictions) "feels" like too much for a helmet to grant. We'd need to work through possible restrictions until it "feels" right and effectively gives the minimum bonus we're working for.

For armor, it's already been proposed, and at least accepted enough to make its way into an old Specialist Games forum proposal. Was there a lot of opposition to this option because of the armor changes?

What's the vote among people here?

cianty wrote:

- 1=Failure. This is Warhammer rule and would be an auto-in in any revision of Mordheim. Times have changed. And it is certainly not true that having an armour save of 2+ against Stength 3 is the same as having an armour save of 2+ against Strength 5 as well - or a save of 4+ instead. If you get what I mean... horribly worded. Anyways, purchasing extra armour to ensure the AS survives against stronger attacks is defiantely worth it.

- The idea of use the SAME RULES for shields as in Warhammer is a huge plus of acceptance. Let's not waste that!

I'm completely in for both of these.

If we can settle on these items, then the only thing remaining is to verify whether this will be enough to counterbalance DW's effectiveness at least by the mid-campaign, when multiple attacks/wounds and money are starting to show up.

I'm working on the calcs now (ended up writing in VBScript) - got the hits section done, along with basic wounds and Armor Saves. Just got to include crits and results, then will be ready for some analyses.

Just a question, when you guys DW currently, do you roll 2 dice, 1 for each weapon? (E.g. One for a sword and one for a dagger?) [Painfully obvious question]

If this is the case...

Another option is upping the price of maces and axes?

Just a quick note - I don't want to fix parry in this thread, but if you have a DWer, and if DW gives any type of hit roll penalty, I'm giving everyone in my warband a parry or two, if possible. Your first hit is not safe from parry, even if you roll 6. I like this result.

Alternately, as has been recently suggested again, only penalizing by -1 WS still hurts the higher WS models more than the lower WS models. The WS3 henchmen can DW against even up to WS4 without further penalty (WS2 vs WS4 is still 4+ to hit), but DW WS4 against single-wielding WS3 now have to roll 4+ as well. (If I know your captain is DWing, maybe I'll forego DW on some henchmen for that single reason.)

Alright, some more interesting results surfacing. With the official rules, at the point you can get to 3+ AS, when you have even WS, S4 vs T4, and A2, the bonus from DW to landing at least one single wound (11%) against an equivalent model is the same as the bonus from AS against two incoming wounds (11%), and less than the bonus from AS against three incoming wounds (16%).

In the official rules, this is fairly difficut to do, requiring either Gromril+shield or some mounted options. This means that until you can get one or the either then armor is not effective compared to DW - in most cases (a blocker against many is the definite exception to this, along with those who can get their Toughness at least two above incoming Strength).

Buffing shields alone (+1 HtH AS from weap+shield), we can get to this level with Hvy Armor+Shield and mounted. Since the Hvy Armor+shield carries a movement penalty (which is fairly important to avoid in Mordheim), this is still not general effective compared to DW (although if you're a Dwarf, this might be your favorite min-max level).

However, once you get that 2nd AS buff, whether from a helmet Protection or body Armor buff, that gets just common enough to get some variety going. Yes, there will still be places where DW is king, particularly starting out. But the middle game presents more options and more considerations.

Do you just absolutely have to have that extra possible wound to bring down the multi-wound model, or do you primary charge a lot of enemies at once with a decent chance of injuring most of them? DW

Do you have a model who's survivability you want to keep up, and use as a decent blocker? Armor

I have a feeling that DW will continue to be used as the default here, so I'm not opposed at all to a -1 offhand hit penalty for DW along with the Manic Warrior skill. This could help the starting situation a bit more, and give that last bit of balance in the later game.

It will be very, very difficult to mathematically analyze this any further, since in the middle game, we really get into needing multiple wounds to bring down some targets - and this is where DW can still help, but there will be plenty of room for armor's role.

So - as long as we can get consensus on the following, I personally think we have it!

1. AS roll of 1 always fails (a rule from newer WH, so should be no issue as long as we can convince others that this is why it should be included).

2. +1 HtH AS for weapon + shield [not while mounted] (a rule from newer WH).

3. Either use Option B's reworking of the body armor list, or at least include one additional helmet option.

4. Give a -1 hit penalty for an off-hand weapon (excepting off-hand attacks granted by Special Rules and Skills).

5. Add the Manic Warrior skill from the SG DW options to the Combat Skill list.

Would you all please take a look at Option B's reworking of the body armor list, compare it to the helmet's Protection ability ideas, and give opinions on which you think would be best between the two?

wyldhunt wrote:

1. AS roll of 1 always fails (a rule from newer WH, so should be no issue as long as we can convince others that this is why it should be included).

2. +1 HtH AS for weapon + shield [not while mounted] (a rule from newer WH).

3. Either use Option B's reworking of the body armor list, or at least include one additional helmet option.

4. Give a -1 hit penalty for an off-hand weapon (excepting off-hand attacks granted by Special Rules and Skills).

5. Add the Manic Warrior skill from the SG DW options to the Combat Skill list.

I think adding steel helmet +1 AS (10gc) is the simplest solution.

TheFool wrote:

Just a question, when you guys DW currently, do you roll 2 dice, 1 for each weapon? (E.g. One for a sword and one for a dagger?) [Painfully obvious question]

If this is the case...

Another option is upping the price of maces and axes?

Yes, adjusting the prices could be used to balance things. In fact, pricing things based on their fluffy "availability" rather than their in-game value is partly to blame for this mess to begin with. However, due to the fluffiness of the costs, there will be extreme resistance to changing things in this regard.

Coif: Ignore critical wounds. (15gc)

And by the way: +1 AS helmet is only a worse version of shifting St armor modifier to 5

ts061282 wrote:

Coif: Ignore critical wounds. (15gc)

Situationally very powerful (cost initially seems very appopriate for effect), and not needed for balancing DW. I'm not rejecting this on its own, but I'd like to leave it out of this DW-balancing-specific subject.

ts061282 wrote:

And by the way: +1 AS helmet is only a worse version of shifting St armor modifier to 5

Exactly - but it's not changing the "core rule" for Strength's armor-piercing, which Cianty labelled as a "non-starter." However, if we can word Cianty's original Protection ability rule in a way that's not confusing to remember in the middle of play, then we could still preserve the intent of that. I just haven't yet figured out a way to reword it so that it's very clear. As for "a worse version," it is worse for the helmet-wearer's lower-Strength enemies, so impacting Strength's armor-piercing is preferable for that reason. Clarity vs limiting power...

I am strongly in favour of a small additional special rule for helmet's as suggested before, instead of repricing armour entirely. The latter requires lots of thought and calculations and will confuse other players when not suggested at least semi-officially. A small helmet fix on the other hand is easy to implement.

How about this new wording for the protection rule:

"For the purpose of armour save modifiers, deduct -1 Strength from all hits against the warrior in close combat."


Based on the wording of the Resilient skill. I like it.

That's it for the wording! Using Resilient-style wording should also help it be accepted more widely.

So we have three in favor of the additional helmet variant - Cianty, ts061282, and myself. Paluke, TheFool, Da Bank, everyone else - what do you think?

If we're for the helmet variant using the armor save modifier, then I don't think we need to restrict it further by tying it in with using other armor. Best to keep the Protection special rule as simple as possible. By making players choose between the Avoid Stun and Protection rule, it will also provide variety - the Avoid Stun rule is will always be pretty useful.

The last thing to do is decide on a modelling style for the new helmet. Since we can keep it down to two helmet styles, my fluff preference would be for the new helmet to be modelled by full helms, whether open-faced or visored (these helmets should cover the entire back and sides of the skull, and cover the forehead at least) - I think we can still call them Steel Helmets, as ts061282 proposed. Coifs, padded/leather helmets, and skull caps would be considered the "normal" helmets.

I wouldn't go so far as to tie the special rules with certain looks. All you need is a fluffy describtion... the original helmet fluff already mentions tons of different looks for helmets. This can be easily extended by adding a sentence like "Because of the various styles of helmets, there are different effects a helmet can have. When purchasing a helmet, note down which style of helmet the warrior wears. <followed by list of availabel special rules>".

That is not perfectly worded, but I think it gets the idea across.

I love you guys,

Quote :

"For the purpose of armour save modifiers, deduct -1 Strength from all hits against the warrior in close combat."

So this would leave...

1. AS roll of 1 always fails

2. +1 HtH AS for weapon + shield [not while mounted]

3. Give a -1 hit penalty for an off-hand weapon (excepting off-hand attacks granted by Special Rules and Skills).

4. Add the Manic Warrior skill from the SG DW options to the Combat Skill list.

5? One new type of helmet that offers 'Protection'? Is this what we are thinking?

Warriors carrying two hand weapons and a shield:

Where exactly are the rules for equipment carrying? How often per turn can a warrior change equipment?

cianty wrote:

"For the purpose of armour save modifiers, deduct -1 Strength from all hits against the warrior in close combat."


Based on the wording of the Resilient skill. I like it.

Wouldn't it be simpler as: "+1 AS if the warriors normal armor save would be reduced for any reason."

I like a straight +1 AS because it is most simple, is in line with WFRP, and anything weaker doesn't seem quite believable for a helmet. The way you have worded it doesn't effect axes or other special rules.

ts061282 wrote:

I like a straight +1 AS because it is most simple, is in line with WFRP, and anything weaker doesn't seem quite believable for a helmet. The way you have worded it doesn't effect axes or other special rules.

My intent at least was to only restrict the Strength armor-piercing, not axes or other special rules. A flat-out +1 AS from helmet seems too much for me - I can see a shield doing this, but a helmet granting as much AS as a suit of Light Armor? If we use +1 AS, then I'd want to tie it to helmet+body armor rather than helmet alone. However, I prefer to only reduce the Strength armor-piercing, for two reasons:

1. This is the original intent of offering this option, which is to balance Mordheim's prolific ability to increase Strength's armor-piercing (which to-date doesn't have a matching balance to reduce the same). Doing this allows the balancing mechanism to be targeted at high strength without additionally penalizing lower-strength models.

2. Axes are underused anyway, so let them get through helmets when used by S3 or less with no further penalty.

wyldhunt wrote:

2. Axes are underused anyway, so let them get through helmets when used by S3 or less with no further penalty.

That "further penalty" costs twice as much as the axe. St 4 armor negation is only one piece of the armor negation pie. That doesn't make it a very powerful tool for 10gc and it is unlikely to effect the metagame regarding DW. Given this, there doesn't seem to be much point in adding it at all. And anyway, why should halberd, morningstar, flail and DHW be worse than DW axes?