dual wield and chance

ts061282 wrote:

Asp wrote:

I wrote mine like 8 months ago

The game was published 10 years ago.

Where is this supposed to go? Irrespective of whether you like Asp's take on completely re-writing the game rules for his own and his group's enjoyment or not, you do have to give him credit for doing so for a long time, having spent a great deal of time pondering and playing his rules. This is not the first discussion on the armour/dual-wield topic and there's truth in his reinventing the wheel comment.

I too was wondering whether it would be necessary to create yet another thread for Asp's take on dual-wielding. But I do think it is warranted. Asp is less whiney than me when it comes to throwing conventions and standards overboard and just re-write the rules from scratch to get the best result. While I am all for this in the context of another game, I don't think it is worth the effort for Mordheim. This thread here, so I was hoping, was trying to achieve the best possible result while staying true to the Warhammer model and Mordheim engine.

ts061282 wrote:

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?

This is difficult to generalize as it depends on how many games you play and what you define as "late game". Unless you start over every 5 to 10 games, then I do think armour becomes highly relevant late game. The thing is that light and heavy armour are crappy and never used early on, everybody goes dual-wield. Later, people can afford Gromril and with shields at 5+ even normal heavy armour becomes worth it. In the late game as I have experienced it, armour is a way to push Heroes even more. In Mordheim Heroes become extremely powerful and more games you play the bigger the difference in power level between Heroes and Henchmen. Late game armour (which is always given to your heroes first) only pushes Heroes even further and unless you give double-handed weapons (at best Gromril ones) to your henchmen, you will have a problem wounding those Heroes. Irrespective of whether it's 1+/2+/3+ it does make Heroes stronger later on.

The 1=auto fail is a nice rule to counter this while pushing the Strength modifer for armour to start at 5+ (which is against the Warhammer model) makes late game armour stronger as your lowely Henchmen have even less of a chance to hurt experienced Heroes.

So, yes, I do think late armour is an issue. The sad thing is that it is rarely used in the beginning but when used later in a campaign (at great costs) then it is very strong and can make Heroes nigh invincible to (at lest some) Henchmen. Especially because it is then combines with Resilient and Step Aside which, altogether, form a nigh indestructible defense wall. In the longer campaigns I have been playing I had to "build" Heroes especially for tin-opening.

ts061282 wrote:

Asp wrote:

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?

Yieks, me again? Well, I don't quite get Asp's reasoning either. Linear AS-negation makes you want each modifier you can get. I fail to see why oyu wouldn't take an Axe against good armour saves. I would.

(oh geese, now where up in 400 posts)
Somehow, still the weakness of armor in Mordheim goes in line with the fluff of the game – I quite like that your warriors are so frail at the beginning and from that evolve into mean fighting machines.
The main problem is that dual wield is easy to achieve so early on in a game – thus forcing people to use dual wield, since its so good, and your warband will suffer if everyone but you use it.
Now fluff-wise (and fluff can be a quite reasonable perimeter when trying to find good rules; they get a motivation and a nice boundary) its quite hard to dual wield – an example is Kendo (which I have trained for 6 years, now having a grade of 2 Dan) where EVERYONE starts of with the standard two-hands-one-sword-grip. Now those who start with Nito (Two swords, one normal and one short), are usually not allowed to begin their training until 3 or 4 Dan.
So fluff-wise the DW should be difficult for inexperienced warriors – either it should not be a viable for these, and come in later on i the game, or it should be brought on with a penalty.
Now a Dual Wield skill would prevent a lot of dual wielding, though it may make some heroes over-powered, it will definitely make the number of users fewer.
The -1S to offhand seems to me to be a good implement, making quite reasonable effect, a normal warrior having but the Strength of 2 on the offhand.
-1WS doesn't make much difference.
-1 to Hit seems good with fluff, and makes slight difference.

Now there is a lot of talk about balance, later on in a campaign, one is more keen to have tougher armour, larger number of warriors and stronger fighters. Perhaps this is where the dual wields slight advantage should become more aviable, not in the beginning of a campaign where it is to over-powered.
Perhaps my thoughts will help you in finding the best solution to what is obviously an infected problem.
– Popmouth

I believe, and I am stepping out on a limb, if you went to AP values like in 40K then Armor would be better but that won't happen in this game unless Warhammer Fantasy changed.

I need to write up a battle report of last night (because it was just that fun), but here are the basics in what we saw with DW and AS. Orcs (me) vs Pirates (my son) in Monster Hunt (young wyvern). Orcs had had 5 battles under their belts, Pirates had 7, and were rated above 160.

Orcs: all heroes with shields (Shaman has Warrior Wizard), three heroes with found (not purchased) Light Armor, experienced henchmen with shields, inexperienced henchmen clubs/daggers, Ogre (Returning a Favor) with DW swords.

Pirates: every single one DW either swords (heroes and gunners) or maces (all else) and daggers.

Now my Orcs have been insanely lucky, and the band shows it. We actually retired them for a few battles to give the others a chance to catch up.

The Pirates got the jump on warband setup and initiative, and due to layout of the table, got a full round of HtH on the wyvern before my lads showed up.

With a -2 Str by S3 henchmen, their offhand daggers could not touch the wyvern. I don't mind that finding one whit - at least spend the 3gc on a mace if you want to wound a young wyvern! However, the only pirate wound to the wyvern was from a blunderbuss shot, so the other weapons didn't do much either.

The only other attacks by the pirates were a Boatswain and Crew against my Ogre - not a single Pirate swing hit the first turn, and on the second turn, the two successful mace hits did not wound, and the successful dagger hit was parried.

Conversely, the shields did help my orcs stay alive. Now I did wish for offhand attacks when I completely missed both the wyvern and pirates for two solid rounds, but I did make enough AS rolls to keep some of my orcs upright. The majority I missed, but at least I did have some to roll (rather than shields being completely worthless), and I did make a few - the Light Armor helped as well. Also, our house critical results chart did play into this three times, and armor would likely have been bypassed these three times with the standard crit chart.

The pirates routed after losing 6 henchmen - damn that wyvern tail hurts! My orcs managed to stick around and kill the beast, though 2 henchmen and 2 heroes were Out of Action by the end.

Conclusion: -1 Str to offhand and -1 Str to daggers puts free daggers in a position I consider correct. I don't know yet what will happen once the DWers spend the gc to get out of offhand daggers and get Mighty Blow for their heroes. 5-7 battles doesn't really feel a full mid-game to me - when I get the battle report written and posted, I'll elaborate more on that statement.

@Asp: thanks - I don't always come across NT, but I find it helps when expressing disagreements while avoiding personality clashes . I don't know that we're exactly re-inventing the wheel here, as our goal seems slightly different than yours (cianty is correct that some of us are trying to stay close as close as possible to current rules while correcting disparity in effective options), although we're refertilizing a lot of old ground in digging up ideas to consider again. I did read through your rules before posting on this site, and then promptly forgot that the -1S on daggers idea was there, so I give full credit to you on that idea. However, I don't know that TheFool's -1S offhand was present before, and the two together provide a balance that one alone does not. I'm glad I was involved in this thread long enough for those two ideas to come together, and will continue (at least for a while) to see what else we come up with.

Statistically, as stated before, -1S offhand and -1S dagger still gives and edge to DW in many cases. The edge is slight in the beginning, and with daggers, decreases a lot over a few battles. Now to play this through to end-game and see what happens. Variables are 1) Strength advances, 2) Attack advances, 3) replacing daggers with better weapons, 4) increased armor use. cianty's comments about having to get can-openers is good to me - this seems to be one of the few roles for 2h weapons, and should be present.

@popmouth: is this wasn't Mordheim, I'd completely agree with assessing DW in comparison to real-world, and my own impression of how DW should be implemented would exactly match yours. However, we've gone over this part before, and the Warhammer world is only tangentially based on our real world. The Warhammer world does seem to hold up DW as a viable option even for beginners, and restricting it to heroes, and even further making it require a skill, does change a core WHFB rule and feel.

I do want to say to all: thanks for staying involved in this discussion! Believe it or not, it does help to see all the varying viewpoints...

@Wyldhunt...well said.

wyldhunt wrote:

The Warhammer world does seem to hold up DW as a viable option even for beginners, and restricting it to heroes, and even further making it require a skill, does change a core WHFB rule and feel.

This got me thinking... in Warhammer you have regiments, no experience. So when you give the soldiers of a regiment a second weapon to gain +1 attack, then it can safely be assumed that those soldiers are veterans and trained in fighting with two weapons. Mordheim delves further into these mechanics and could very well provide the framewok to explain how a warrior learns fighting with two weapons, ie. by learning the respective skill. This could be compared to riding... Warhammer units who come with mounts are assumed to be able to ride (or they have the Cavalry special rule). In Mordheim you can learn to ride by gaining that skill. Why not have the same for two weapons? Thinking about it this doesn't feel unmordheim at all.

@Cianty

A skill for DW for heroes makes sense as they gain skills what about the henchmen? In our gaming group henchmen can not dual wield unless they gain an Attack Charcteristic through experience. Thus keeping DW henchmen with no major positive or negative modifiers are involved.

Except we did have -1WS for dual wielding heroes who could get a combat skill that would take away the -1WS for DW (off hand).

Oh yeah, I forgot about Henchmen... yeah, the system is not entirely perfect... Allowing henchmen to dual-wield once they earn a second attack seems ... weird.. jumping from 1 to 3 Attacks. Maybe a model (regardless of Hero or Henchmen) may dual-wield after its first WS increase. That seems cool to me at first sight.

Or all starting models with a second weapon must pay an additional +5 gc? Just some weird ideas...

Actually the henchmen rule would need to be opposite of the Heroes.

Meaning when they gain two Attacks they only get two attacks and allow them do DW. 1 Attack equals 1 attack. Thus leaving up to someone who wants to convert to have the model with 2 Attacks for a henchmen to use one weapon or two.

We are currently using it and it is working. It makes heroes a little better in Mordheim.

cianty wrote:

This got me thinking... in Warhammer you have regiments, no experience. So when you give the soldiers of a regiment a second weapon to gain +1 attack, then it can safely be assumed that those soldiers are veterans and trained in fighting with two weapons. Mordheim delves further into these mechanics and could very well provide the framewok to explain how a warrior learns fighting with two weapons, ie. by learning the respective skill. This could be compared to riding... Warhammer units who come with mounts are assumed to be able to ride (or they have the Cavalry special rule). In Mordheim you can learn to ride by gaining that skill. Why not have the same for two weapons? Thinking about it this doesn't feel unmordheim at all.

Da Bank wrote:

Actually the henchmen rule would need to be opposite of the Heroes.

Meaning when they gain two Attacks they only get two attacks and allow them do DW. 1 Attack equals 1 attack. Thus leaving up to someone who wants to convert to have the model with 2 Attacks for a henchmen to use one weapon or two.

We are currently using it and it is working. It makes heroes a little better in Mordheim.

@Popmouth: Yay! Apparently, we needed to go over this ground once again after all!

I would greatly prefer this setup where warriors need to learn and reach DW than knowing it at the beginning. As stated before in various ways by others, it would also provide later-game options as armor becomes more common. This way, there won't be a migration from DW to armor, but instead a greater variety of options as warbands become more experienced - which is what I'd like anyways.

Now, as regards a skill for heroes - if we put it on any specific list, it might exclude certain heroes, where almost any henchman with two hands just needs an additional attack. I would also allow all warriors who can wield weapons (heroes and henchmen) to use DW when getting a second attack. This also allows DW henchmen who become heroes to keep the DW without having to learn another skill ("What? Now that I'm a hero, I've forgotten how to DW?"). If we're to preserve heroes learning DW better than henchmen, there should be a Combat Skill to allow that further progression.

(btw - even with this, I still like daggers at -1 Str... It just fits better.)

Agh, and now the DWing other-hand of my brain kicks in regarding henchmen DW @Da Bank: is it worth much to give a henchman two different weapons effects compared to a weapon and shield if DW doesn't increase the henchman's number of attacks? My first impression, for example, is that I'd be inclined to leave my henchmen with mace/shield or sword/shield than sword/mace. There's no way even with official dagger that I'd go for mace/dagger over A2 mace. If a model shows DW, do you allow him to choose each turn or combat whether he's using the different effects or using both Attacks from one or the other, or do you force him to stick with one attack per weapon the entire scenario?

@Wyldhunt...some people like giving a henchmen a sword and a club, at least there is a chance to parry and a critical on a club can be quite deadly. I have seen go with two clubs and your chances of rolling a critical just increased.

I normally use different weapons on my Henchmen, Sword and Dagger, or Club and Dagger and etc.

I only purchase armor if I have extra money but I will buy the henchmen helmets.

I must be missing something - gray matter density may be increasing. Wouldn't an A2 model with club/shield still get two regular attacks, and therefore two chances at criticals? How would club/club be better?

Club, I believe, has a critical that is quite deadly. It takes you down regardless of the number of wounds you have.

Look below at #6 and you will see what I mean.

1-2 Hammered. The target is knocked off
balance. Your opponent may not fight this
turn if he hasn’t already fought.
3-4 Clubbed. The hit ignores armour saves and
saves from helmets.
5 Wild Sweep. Your opponent’s weapon is
knocked from his hand. If he is carrying two
weapons, roll to see which one he loses. He
must fight with whatever back-up weapon he
has in his equipment for the rest of this
combat (or fight unarmed if he has no other
weapons). Roll to wound and take armour
saves as normal.
6 Bludgeoned. The victim automatically goes
out of action if he fails his armour
save. Even if he has several wounds
remaining, he will be taken out of

action by this attack

That's why I like my Marksmen to be dual wielding clubs. But under your house rules a henchmen that gets a second profile attack makes two attacks wether dual wielding or not, right? The second weapon is just for alternate special rules, if I understand. So if all you want is club crits, why take two clubs over a club and a shield, you still make two attacks with a club, and still have the same chance to crit with a club (two attacks).

Da Bank wrote:

@Wyldhunt...some people like giving a henchmen a sword and a club, at least there is a chance to parry and a critical on a club can be quite deadly. I have seen go with two clubs and your chances of rolling a critical just increased.

I normally use different weapons on my Henchmen, Sword and Dagger, or Club and Dagger and etc.

I only purchase armor if I have extra money but I will buy the henchmen helmets.

Well this is the problem isn't it? that the DW is to aviable.
Also everyone should note that in WHFB DW is defenetly not aviable for everyone! Only certain troop types may dual wield, such as Orcs, Corsairs, Plague Monks – but not all, i.e. Clanrats, goblins, state troops.
So the argument of the connection to WHFB doesn't really sustain.

And sure, one might like to DW to clubs, for me, it just feels silly, to easy to gain, and a great flaw in the game. I mean, why should swinging two sticks be more deadly than a sword and a shield (if you're not a huge ogre or giant that is)?

For me, the -1S to off-hand is still the most appealing, or the DW as skill.
The major problems with DW-skill:
1. Heroes become to powerful.
Yes, this is true, still they NEED to pick a skill, so it will take slight time, also when not having to match 6 DW each game, maybe skills like Strongman seems at least as tempting to pick.
2. Ghoul, possessed and such. These will, in comparison to all who now can not dual wield become slightly stronger with there 2 profile attacks. However, if this is a problem or not only Play testing will tell. Also a +2AS in HtH for Shield might solve that a bit.
3. How does this skill effect (almost) pure HtH-warbands such as the Sisters of Sigmar and the possessed? Would they suffer two much from not being able to use DW since HtH is so important, and they can't compensate with ranged weapons?

---

Also on really mean AS. I have sometimes fought long tedious duals with two opponents missing each other round after round – now I find this quite enjoyable, however, with increased AS and less DW these situations might occur more often, causing far to long matches. The problem with DW is still that two many uses it, but is it worth losing for the cost of far more longer games? I think the (general) quickness of the games is quite the charm of Mordheim. WHFB of +2000p can go on for hours and hours – Mordheim you do sometimes 2 games within the hour.

As you see, there is a lot of aspects to bare in mind.
– popmouth

Aggregated ideas for basing dw on experience:

1. Experience Threshold: Once a hero or henchmen has had X experience, they may dual wield (example: X = 5). So Captains can dual wield from the start, henchmen and youngbloods must wait.
2. Advances Threshold: Once a hero or henchmen has had X advances, they may dual wield (example: X = 2). So everyone must wait to dual wield.
EDIT: Or, heroes w/ starting experience still count starting advances and so may start w/ dw
3. Add to Advance Rolls: Insert DW into the advance rolls tables. Example: Henchmen advance 8, "+1 Attack", becomes "Choose either +1 Attack or the group gains the ability to Dual Wield". This could go with WS/BS too, or whatever.
4. Chosen skill for heroes only.

I kind of like the combination of DW-Skill and Paragraph 3. of your above statements.

Da Bank wrote:

Also on really mean AS. I have sometimes fought long tedious duals with two opponents missing each other round after round – now I find this quite enjoyable, however, with increased AS and less DW these situations might occur more often, causing far to long matches.

A little on that. I actually dislike quick decisive combat as you can lose 4 or more heroes or possibly more than half your warband in one round before you can even route. I've seen entire warbands decimated (every single model out of action, not stunned or knocked down) in one round as well. That is really not at all a fun scenario to be in, especially if you never had the opportunity to route.

Where did I write that at? I don't recall it.

rain9441 wrote:

It has always been the case in mordheim that if
you have 3 or more attacks you shouldn't dual wield. Halberds, flails,
or double handers are usually the best you can get.

There's a difference between not getting the best you can get and actually being penalized...

rain9441 wrote:

If you're going to nerf dual wield, you really should only consider the possibilities when a model has either 1 or 2 attacks.

...so I don't think this follows. Example: My vampire with expert swordsman.

PS. The above posted quote was Popmouth, not Da Bank.

ts061282 wrote:

3. Add to Advance Rolls: Insert DW into the advance rolls tables. Example: Henchmen advance 8, "+1 Attack", becomes "Choose either +1 Attack or the group gains the ability to Dual Wield". This could go with WS/BS too, or whatever.

Of the experience options, this is the most congruous with current Mordheim rules/feel. I do still think the way that heroes and henchmen learn DW should be "equivalent," unless we make a "Heroes" skill list, that all heroes can access in addition to their regular skill lists. If we do go with a Heroes skill list, and place DW on it, I'd rather place the DW skill for henchmen as a choice on their Attack advance.

Analyzing the options for equivalency between heroes and henchmen:

A. Placing DW with an Attack advance definitely feels correct, but would possibly require a change of the hero subchart, to 1-2 Strength, 3-4 Attack, and 5-6 DW. That waters down the availability of increased Strength to heroes, and makes DW not a choice, but a roll result. We could just say that DW can be chosen instead of an Attack advance, as ts061282 has it. Of course, I'd always choose the Attack advance first, until it reached maximum, so I'm less for this option than B, below.

B. Placing DW with a BS/WS advance does give both heroes and henchmen the greatest chance to learn it, but favors henchmen over heroes in the chance of learning it. However, it completely preserves choice in learning DW, which is important to me. It also helps avoid having to "waste" an advance on henchman who cannot wield missile weapons, but can DW, like Beastmen.

I like placing DW as a choice with BS/WS advances best. Next question, is this, and +1 HtH AS for shield/weap combo, enough to "balance" DW with shield?

This will delay the introduction of DW, and limit it to those models who achieve the appropriate roll. So even if DW is still a decided advantage, now it falls under the rules for other advantages. DW is worse than an extra Attack, in the fact that the model must forego a shield in his off-hand, but can have advantages when using paired weapons, and when different weapon effects are desired.

Yes, this does "balance" DW with shield: shield is only available to models with it on their starting list, and costs gc. DW requires a full advance to achieve, and so it should be better than shield.

There are certain models which should likely start with DW, like Troll Slayers and all Pirates. Basically, any model which does not have a shield on its starting equipment list, and has only expensive or no missile weapons on its starting equipment list, should be a candidate to start with DW. However, I would not give Flagellants DW to start with - it's inconsistent with their starting equipment list.

Personally, I don't like the idea of earning DW or limiting it to part of a warband or anything. It doesn't fix the core problem that DW is very powerful in general. If you simply limit it/the entry to it in some way the only thing you are doing is saying "Okay, here's the best thing, try and build up to it." It's still overpowered, there's just less of it available.

He he, I know. I definately wouldn't use it, either. It doesn't provide any options for starting warbands and makes initial warband set up super boring. Everbody single-wielding and only those who can choose it may use shields in addition instead of instead of a second weapon. Nothing good about that all.

You might have a point...

cianty wrote:

He he, I know. I definately wouldn't use it, either. It doesn't provide any options for starting warbands and makes initial warband set up super boring. Everbody single-wielding and only those who can choose it may use shields in addition instead of instead of a second weapon. Nothing good about that all.

There it is. The core point. Restriction of options makes the initial setup boring. That's the core reason we've been trying to open up options, so that shields/armor are an effective (and for some, cost-attainable) option. This could be extended to 2h weapons as well. Single-wield or DW is only one step away from just as boring, and I know I'm tired of the effective initial setup being a standard, bland 1h+dagger.

What's really more expensive - an iron-bladed dagger, or a wooden shield?

What's really more expensive - an iron-bladed sword, or a spear, pike, or bill?

What did the peasants in real medieval levies tend to be equipped with? And why are these items either not present, or represented in such a costly manner, in Mordheim?

The 2h hafted weapons which don't require special make should be less expensive than swords. There should be a 2h staff which allows parry.

There should be two classes of shields - one more basic (wood, round), and one more costly and durable (metal heater).

I know these aren't in the parent game, but in the spirit of differentiation between 1h weapons which Mordheim has done in extending WHFB, why can't we do this?

Why not do similar to what ts061282 suggested a while ago, which is to allow warriors a choice between free dagger and free lesser-quality shield?

I know, I know - Mordheim isn't reality. But there is still a tangential relationship to reality in the Warhammer world, and we can use reailty for inspiration of improvements to the game.

Here are some specific suggestions:
1. Spear should become 5gc.

2. Bill (or give it another more-generic farm-implement name) should be added at 5gc. 2h weapon; gives +1 Str (which does not affect Armor Save modifiers).

3. Wood Shield should be added at 2gc. Gives a 6+ Armor Save. Armor Save does not improve when combined with 1h weapon. If an opponent scores a Critical Wound against the wielder of a Wood Shield, the shield is immediately destroyed.

4. Allow the iron-shod staff (possibly renamed just to "staff") from the Highwaymen warband to more warbands.

5. Rename the official "staff" to "cudgel," or remove the name completely and let club represent it, since the official "staff" is 1h, not 2h.

Sure, allow DW to start with to keep that option: but at -1 Strength offhand, and still make daggers -1 Str (rather than +1 opp. AS). Allow the Mighty Blow skill to improve DW to a more "respectable" level, and let DWers buy a better weapon than dagger as another avenue to improve it.

There we go. Options - lot's of them. This should open up warband formation to some variations and remove the DW-über-alles we see now.