dual wield and chance

@Hysteria..you are correct about GW 'more dice the better"

Unfortunately, -1 WS offhand negatively impacts higher-WS models more often than lower-WS models, due to the breaks in the Hit chart. Not desirable.

-1 Hit offhand by itself doesn't help out AS, making more AS buffs necessary.

-1 Str offhand is a slightly stronger nerf, which seems almost in the right place when combined with a few other basic changes.

Pegging an offhand strike a roll of 6 places an offhand strike statistically well, but penalizes models without regard to WS.

I've now played six 1-1 games with the below rules, and I can say they feel very balanced:

1. Weap+shield gives +1 AS in HtH.
2. AS roll of 1 always fails.
3. Off-hand attacks suffer -1 Str.
4. Attacks with daggers suffer -1 Str (rather than granting +1 AS to opponent).

The nice thing about this is that the offhand penalties play into armor's strength, so that armor can always help against an offhand S3 attack vs T4 target, and that beginning shield-bearers always get their full AS against off-hand free daggers (due to no crit from offhand S3 dagger vs T3). This, along with DW's natural decrease in additional effectiveness with higher Attack characteristics, etc., etc., may be just enough to balance options some.

These rules changes are also simple to implement. I like them so much now that I'm advocating for our normal campaign start using them, and drop the previous, more-complicated rules changes we were playtesting.

It's true that with Mighty Blow, Manic Warrior may never be desired, but we'll leave it available, and judge whether anyone decides to pick it up. Some shield skills are also good to bring heroes along, however, I haven't mentioned them yet to my local group. (One thing at a time..)

Sing hallelujah,

Our gaming circle is happy with the same rules! We have been testing out shields giving +2 AS as the only variant, but other than that... are we all starting to agree?

So a normal human warrior with Mace and dagger has either two Strength 2 attacks or one Strength 3 attack plus a Strength 1 attack? That's tough..

The -1S to the daggers seems quite harsh, I agree...
Is it really necessary?

Regarding +2 AS from shield: effectively, since we're playing +1 AS from shield (as normal), with an additional +1 AS vs HtH from weap+shield, it appears we're both using +2 AS shield in HtH.

By the rules I'm using, a beginning human with Mace+Dagger would receive a Mace attack at S3 and a dagger attack at S1 (we're not penalizing main-hand for offhand attacks*). Tough? Well, we are trying to nerf especially DW with the free dagger to a point where shields are effective against them... It's not harsh at all to me - what's harsh is spending gc for ineffective options, like shields under the current official rules. Currently, an S3 offhand dagger has a 22% chance to hit/wound a T3 unarmored opponent - 6% of that percentage will ignore all armor, which is very harsh to me with a free weapon. Change this to -1 offhand hit, and the chance goes to 15% to hit/wound (4% of that percentage ignores all armor) - still too much. Giving a -1 Str offhand with a -1 Str dagger (rather than +1 opp AS) gives 8% to hit/wound, with 0% chance to ignore armor - that sounds possibly right, but if anything is amiss, it still rewards free daggers too much.

If you want to restore the critical wound chances for your offhand, spend the 3gc to get a mace - it's still less than the 5gc for a shield...

Again, this is about providing effective options. With a free dagger, you still get more than what you pay for, however, shields are no longer a gimp waste of gc. There are still options for making DW more effective (like spending 3gc on a mace and Mightly Blow), so these changes do not make DW gimp in turn.

*Yes, the change in dagger does penalize main-hand attacks with them. A S3 human with main-hand dagger against a T3 unarmored opponent has a 22% chance to hit/wound under the current official rules, which drops to 17% with my changes. However, the flat 6% of this percentage to ignore all armor remains, and 3gc easily removes this dagger penalty.

Popmouth wrote:

The -1S to the daggers seems quite harsh, I agree...
Is it really necessary?

I agree, I don't think this is really necessary. We've played using the other rules without the dagger penalty and it hasn't been a problem. You might see some people dual wielding daggers with a starting warband, but those will quickly get upgraded to better weapons. The dagger already has a low chance to hit though, and putting it down to Str 1 means essentially making it completely worthless. If you're going to do that, why not just remove the free starting dagger, as that seems more effective at what you are trying to accomplish?

Actually I like the -1 Strength to daggers more than the -1 Strength to off-hand attacks. Daggers are Mordheim specific weapon and replacing the +1 AS with -1 S seems good to me. The biggest problem is that you only spend +3 gc for an additional mace and then use two weapons. This would motivate people to ignore their dagger and buy another second (third) weapon. Forcing players to invest in a third weapon because they don't want to use their free dagger, that's when buying shields becomes an economical option.

Besides, giving daggers and off-hand attacks the same disadvantage of -1 Strength is not only tough but totally lame and boring (and no, this forum is not an excuse for the latter). Why not -1 Str for daggers and -1 to hit for off-hand attacks?

When you guys are saying your happy with these rules and you played 6 games I'm just curious but what warbands are you playing with?

The 4 main warbands IMO that would benefit the most from dual wield nerf are Possessed, Undead, Beastmen, and Carnival of Chaos. Quite simply because they have less "dual wielders". None of those warbands are considered subpar in my gaming group. Undead have 0 dual wielding henchmen and get about just fine IMO.

rain9441 wrote:

When you guys are saying your happy with these rules and you played 6 games I'm just curious but what warbands are you playing with?

The 4 main warbands IMO that would benefit the most from dual wield nerf are Possessed, Undead, Beastmen, and Carnival of Chaos. Quite simply because they have less "dual wielders". None of those warbands are considered subpar in my gaming group. Undead have 0 dual wielding henchmen and get about just fine IMO.

I play Possessed. There are only 2 models in the Possessed Warband that can not dual wield (the 2 Possessed heroes). Before these changes, every single one of my models other than the 2 Possessed were dual wielding. Not anymore though.

Other warbands in our group that have played with these ruels: Skaven, Lizardmen, Dwarves, Shadow Warriors, Beastmen, Pit Fighters.

It's been around six game so far, between my son and myself.
Warbands used (from memory):

- Pirates (all DW, of course) vs Ostlanders (heros with shields, henchmen DW), both around 5 battles strong
- Beginning Skaven vs Dwarves
- Experienced, but damaged Witch Hunters vs beginning Skaven (the only game I've ever seen where an entire warband - Skaven - was completely wiped out)
I can't remember the other matchups right now, but involved warbands were Witch Hunters, Pirates, Ostlanders, and Orcs.

We're going to play another game tonight.

Why not -1 Str for daggers and -1 to hit for off-hand attacks? That waters down the offhand nerf so much that I see (and statiscal analysis shows) a need for additional buffs to AS (or nerfs to Strength's Armor Piercing effect). Part of the issue is most critical Wounds' bypassing of armor. A nerf to the Strength of an attack helps balance that. I'm really looking at heros vs beginning henchmen when I say this. Remember that a full 11% of Wound rolls which can crit will be crits which bypass armor - that's quite a lot. With -2S to offhand dagger, that hole is closed. With -1S to offhand and one or two Toughness bumps (+1T, and/or Resilient), that hole is closed as well, while still allowing the base wound chance through. Now a Dwarf or Orc with +1T and Resilient is going to be trouble, but that's what you got some henchmen 2H weapons for, or have some henchmen with +1 Str for, right?

Also, for heroes with access to Strength skills, Mighty Blow is almost always desirable, and brings the offhand attack Strength back up to where it was originally.

Time to play...

thinks are getting a little mixed.. i think we need to have a new list of changes


We are on the right track here but we just need to do is put all the variables in a post and see which ones are variations and which ones are mandatory. then we can proceed from there.

Under the "official" rules:

1. Dual wield is a problem because it is both cheaper and always more effective than the hand weapon and shield combination. We have largely agreed shields should be improved to a 5+ save in hth. We have largely agreed that a single modifier should be applied as an offhand penalty to further decrease the dual wield/shield disparity. -1 WS, -1 to hit, -1 St; reasonable people can make reasonable arguments that any one of these makes more sense than the others. Therefore "reasonable arguments" should be disregarded and the correct choice should be that which most consistently reduces the dw/shield disparity on a statistical basis: -1 St.

2. The problem with daggers is directly related to the problem with dual wielding, but does not end with the solutions above. The problem with daggers, primarily free daggers, is they are too good for their cost. +1 AS is not a significant detriment and this is reflected in daggers' broad use. If you don't abuse daggers then you shouldn't care about a nerf. I'm not convinced -1 st is all that severe. You are trading +1 AS (16% oppo saves wound) for -1 st (-16% you cause wound). Rather than whining about this, can anyone argue that the game is "better" with strong, free daggers as a gateway drug to cheap, overpowered dual wielding?

Alright, the game that my son and I just played really showed exacty what this balance is about. The Witch Hunters vs Clan Eshin rematch, doing The Great Library with 3 tomes (used 1d6+2 rather than 2d3+2).

All Skaven heroes Sword/Shield, all Verminkin henchmen Club/Dagger.

All Witch Hunter heroes with Sword/Shield, all Flagellant henchmen Flail.

Man the flails did their job - wonderful Wound chance; shields still didn't do squat - which is as it should be against Flagellant flails.

One S4 Verminkin offhand dagger wound would have gotten through to a T4 Witch Hunter hero with the official rules, however it did not roll a 6, so would not have caused a critical wound, so the chance for shield to block would have come into play. However, if it had caused a Critical Wound, it would have had a 2/3 chance to then completely ignore the shield. Free henchmen offhand dagger takes out a buffed Witch Hunter hero with no possibility of AS - where's the glory, or fun, in that?

One S3 Verminkin dagger offhand dagger wound was indeed completely useless, because it was against a T4 Flagellant with Resilient (S0 vs T4*: no Wound chance). You know, that sounds completely correct to me!

However, the Skaven shields never came into play. Witch Hunter crossbows and Flagellant flails saw to that. A Witch Hunter shield did get a 6+ AS chance vs a S4 Black Skaven sword, but didn't make it.

So, final verdict: while Shields received a buff, they still didn't help. The DW/dagger nerf only possibly affected one hit in the entire game (it may have still missed its Wound roll, and the other DW/dagger hit could have still been avoided due to AS). No offhand daggers wounded the entire game.

It would have been cheaper and still possibly been more effective to increase the amount of offhand daggers by both sides.

This is where I really draw my conclusions: while these changes do nerf DW (especially daggers) and buff shields, we can still show DW (even with daggers) to be more useful in many cases than shields.

And what about that poor DW Skaven against that buffed Flagellant? A shield likely still wouldn't have helped him, so why should a dagger?

*Is there a rule that the Strength of an attack cannot be reduced below S1? I'm not finding this anywhere.

wyldhunt wrote:

my conclusions: while these changes do nerf DW (especially daggers) and buff shields, we can still show DW (even with daggers) to be more useful in many cases than shields.

Yep. That's right folks. Perhaps the problem with these problems is that they are so extreme that any real solution is too extreme to be acceptable? How does everyone feel about -1 to hit, -1 st off-hand?

EDIT: Hey, why not just make the off-hand +1 attack first round of hth only?

Quote :

EDIT: Hey, why not just make the off-hand +1 attack first round of hth only?

Now HERE is a brilliant idea! Just like duelling pistols



but then you may not swap your offhand for a shield i think, else it would just stack

+1 attack first round of hth only: Its feasable. Give it a test run. My only beef with it is the concept of nerfing dual wield is to prevent the 1-round-hth phases. It may promote mobbing and shun charging multiple models.

Anyone want to do a test of the other discussed rules but in a scenario such as undead vs skaven?

you all know, many of the things that you are discussing was settled in my rules like half a year ago, right?

like -1 S on daggers

no need to invent the wheel twice. but of course you're very welcome and it would be a boon to my analytical skills if you ended up confirming the good sense of my rules

http://indadvendt.dk/mordheim/rules.pdf

Ha ha ha ha!

Asp wrote:

you all know, many of the things that you are discussing was settled in my rules like half a year ago, right?

like -1 S on daggers

I'll take that as another vote for -1 St on daggers. I'm not sure what else you mean by "many of the things". You're offhand penalty is -1 WS to the model and you could have just said that here. Would you care to make an argument for it?

right of course, one thing though:

wyldhunt i like your style of reasoning when writing and arguing. there are too few NTs involved in mordheim

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_temperament

i'll make another thread describing my setup

Asps take on DW/chance from the thread he started:

Asp wrote:

1
Add a plain -1 to hit penalty to all close combat attacks made while dual wielding.

2
all attacks made with a Strength double or more the target's Toughtness wound automatically AND add +1 to subsequent injury rolls.

3
shields give a 5+ armour save. models also armed with missile weapons only benefit from shield in close combat.

4
armour negation table:
S1-5: nil
S6-7: -1
S8-9: -2
S10: -3
(no model should ever have a better AS than 3+ to begin with)

these are the foundations. there are lots of auxiliary changes that i'd recommend but these are the most far-reaching

Ok- so with the exception of #2, all of these have been discussed in this thread previously (why a new thread?) I can't disagree with anything, but you haven't really made arguments why you've chosen these over other possibilities including your own -1 WS. What do you think about the fact that -1 to hit on all attacks unduly punishes multiple profile attacks? Why shouldn't ranged models benefit from shields? Why shouldn't models have below a 3+ as? I understand the st-as negation table starting at 5, but why make it nonlinear? Why is #2 necessary at all, what does it have to do with DWing?

Sidebar:

Found this entry in a Gamasutra article of particular relevance to our discussion here. (Note it is generally about video games.)

Gamasutra.com article wrote:

#7 The Player Does What's Efficient, Not What's Fun



Your goal is to make a game that is fun. But somewhat contrary
to intuition, having fun is NOT the goal of the player. The goal of the player
is to conquer whatever the game throws at them. Fun is the expected byproduct
of this endeavor. The player wants to have fun without having to seek it out.



The player will do what is most efficient and effective,
short of doing what they perceive as cheating. Consider a side-scrolling
brawler where the player has two attacks. The first attack causes the character
to leap into the air, dive down onto an enemy, grab him, spin him around, then
toss him into a group of other enemies, knocking them down. A developer could
put quite a lot of time into tweaking this maneuver, and have lots of fun
executing it during playtesting. The second attack is a simple punch.



But here's the problem – the simple punch deals five times
the damage. Why would the player bother using the former attack when the punch
is so effective? "Because it's so much fun!" the developer would
interject. Then why are you not forcing the player to use it?



We've all played a game like this. We're having lots of fun
using a bunch of really cool attacks, abilities, maneuvers, etc. Then we find
the infinite ammo rocket launcher that kills everything onscreen instantly, and
the game is suddenly less fun. But why? We could always choose to put the
weapon away. The problem is that manually handicapping ourselves within the
game's rule structure is not fun either.



When testing your game, play it to win. Don't play it to
have fun. It's your job to make sure that the two overlap.



There are exceptions to this, of course, where players will
just mess around with a game to have fun rather than to progress. But the
players who reach this point of exception are the people who are already hooked
into your game. It's the new players who need to be won over. Force them
to have fun, whether they like it or not!

ts061282 wrote:

Ok- so with the exception of #2, all of these have been discussed in this thread previously

sure but I wrote mine like 8 months ago

Quote :

What do you think about the fact that -1 to hit on all attacks unduly punishes multiple profile attacks?

i think it good that the game engine sets certain boundaries for how far you can carry a model in a given direction. just like i don't think you should be able to shoot three shots with RXB, i don't think that 5 attacks on a standard human should be especially viable

Quote :

Why shouldn't ranged models benefit from shields?

argued this elsewhere and well over 8 months ago, but briefly:

creates rock paper scissors, models with bows become vulnerable to bowfire, models with no missle fire can take shields etc.
eliminates the rules loop that every ranged model would be better off with a shield no matter what -> allows for more diverse moddeling

Quote :

Why shouldn't models have below a 3+ as?

just like no model should be immune to S3 attacks, 1+/2+ saves make it very hard to models without armour negation , but lets not go into too much detail about that

Quote :

I understand the st-as negation table starting at 5, but why make it nonlinear?

gives players an (added) incentive to push for as high S as possible. also, makes AS-negation less of a joke. for example, with linear as-negation you'd rarely take an axe on a senior model as AS-negation seems to come for free anyway. with my system, as is always between 3+ and 6+, but hard to negate (entirely) making everyone stand some chance and (hardly) no-one able to entirely ignore AS.

Quote :

Why is #2 necessary at all, what does it have to do with DWing?

DW is essentially a in a competiton with Single Wield+Shield or Two-handed weapons.

#2 adds to the benefit of going the two-handed route

Thanks Asp,

I'll comment lightly and let others make comments as well.

Asp wrote:

I wrote mine like 8 months ago

The game was published 10 years ago.

Asp wrote:

1+/2+ saves make it very hard to models without armour negation , but lets not go into too much detail about that

I agree with the first and disagree with the second; we should go into detail about that. Is late game armor an issue, Cianty?

Asp wrote:

Quote :

why make it nonlinear?

gives players an (added) incentive to push for as high S as possible. also, makes AS-negation less of a joke. for example, with linear as-negation you'd rarely take an axe on a senior model as AS-negation seems to come for free anyway. with my system, as is always between 3+ and 6+, but hard to negate (entirely) making everyone stand some chance and (hardly) no-one able to entirely ignore AS.

Well I'm not sure why that explains why it should be nonlinear. That is all satisfied by starting AS negation at St 6. It seems like 1+ saves is plenty of incentive to take an axe on a senior model without any changes at all. Can you explain how "AS-negation seems to come for free"? Cianty?

Asp wrote:

Quote :

Why is #2 necessary at all, what does it have to do with DWing?

DW is essentially a in a competiton with Single Wield+Shield or Two-handed weapons.

#2 adds to the benefit of going the two-handed route

I agree, it's an interesting addition.