dual wield and chance

wyldhunt wrote:

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

My Gobbos love this idea.

wyldhunt wrote:

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.

Adding/differentiating items can be an effective solution. I'm not versed on all of these, I'll check it out, but is there some design to these additions beyond just "mixing it up"?

wyldhunt wrote:

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.

Do you suggest abandoning the Maniac Warrior (DW w/o penalty) skill? Any strong adherents care to defend it?

Yes, there are design reasons behind each of these. Spear, Bill, and iron-shod Quarterstaff are to give some lower-cost 2h options. Wood Shield is to give an armor option at equivalent cost to a bought dagger, with a lesser effect/durability than a regular shield - the cost is also reflective of actual materials/expertise cost in producing such an item.

Specifics on weapons:

Spear: in the beginning, when Spear's First Strike meant that it would always Strike First, regardless of other models' abilities and charging status, a Spear was well worth the 10gc. However, even then, the 10gc could only be jusitifed in light of balancing the rules, not reflective of the "real" cost nor rarity of a Spear. Once that was watered down to where Spears' First Strike did not trump other sources of First Strike, and instead went in Initiative order, Spears become overpriced (except for high-Initiative models). Now that we have uncovered the real reason to expand options other than DW to beginning warbands, we have a justification to finally price Spears appropriately - and since we've now uncovered many official statements that pricing should not necessarily reflect balance, but rather rarity, there is no rules reason to keep Spear's price inflated.

Bill: less-costly and appropriately effective 2h weapons are completely missing from Mordheim. This class of weapons rectifies that omission. The weapon effects are consistent with larger weapons granting increased Strength, but this version's bonus is watered down to be one step less than Halberd. The idea of not modifying Armor Saves came from Resilient, and has the side benefit of helping armor retain its usefulness against the Bill class of weapons. I'd also have to look up my medievial history again, but I remember that most peasent implements were regarded as ineffective against armor, so this fits well.

Iron-shod Quarterstaff: the original staff never felt correct as a 1h weapon, and no-one would ever get it as a 2h weapon. This has been known for a long time, and I'm sure the writer of the Highwaymen warband had it in mind when adding the Iron-shod Quarterstaff to that list. Allowing these changes would provide more 2h options for other warbands, and correct the staff placement in the original rules.

Others have suggested that Manic Warrior is not really needed nor useful when using an offhand penalty of -1S, since Mightly Blow exists. Manic Warrior could easily be preserved for the die-hard DWers - I'm agnostic about that. However, as other have pointed out, Mighty Blow would always be taken where it could before Manic Warrior. Maybe Manic Warrior should be preserved on the Combat Skills list rather than moved to the Strength Skills list in order to keep some variety/difference between the two.

Well, if you're looking for a solution that doesn't restrict options, how about the idea I proposed a few pages back? It was very simple and effective: Melee attack roles against models armed with shields are at -1 to hit. It is actually very similar to Asp's proposal (Dual wield is -1 to hit). Very simple, very little rule changes, easy to remember. By making shields better you are in effect nerfing dual wield.

If it were to be in place, you'd not only have a realistic third option for your models (hand weapon and shield vs two hand weapons vs two-handed weapons), but there would be a strong incentive to have certain subsets of your warband carrying shields while others still dual wield or use a double handed weapon.

rain9441 wrote:

Well, if you're looking for a solution that doesn't restrict options, how about the idea I proposed a few pages back? It was very simple and effective: Melee attack roles against models armed with shields are at -1 to hit. It is actually very similar to Asp's proposal (Dual wield is -1 to hit). Very simple, very little rule changes, easy to remember. By making shields better you are in effect nerfing dual wield.

If it were to be in place, you'd not only have a realistic third option for your models (hand weapon and shield vs two hand weapons vs two-handed weapons), but there would be a strong incentive to have certain subsets of your warband carrying shields while others still dual wield or use a double handed weapon.

I'm really not a big fan of this model. It's bit of a strange change that a) is going to be kind of a pain to remember (hell, I can barely remember to reduce attacks by 1 when I have a possessed with tentacles) b) doesn't really fit with the core rules and c) doesn't really nerf dual wielding, just buffs shields. Dual wielding is still too powerful by itself.

rain9441 wrote:

Melee attack roles against models armed with shields are at -1 to hit.

This option has been considered for much longer than a few pages back - not in that exact form, but in many very similar forms. Unfortunately, by itself, this has been statiscally shown not to buff shields nor nerf DW to a point anywhere near balance between the two.

More specifically, even when giving shields a +1 AS and offhand attacks a -1 to hit, DW > shields every time. For this to be closer to balance, we also have to disallow offhand critical wounds and only allow offhand strikes when all main-hand attacks miss. All this is the more-complicated option my local group was playtesting, until this forum came up with the simpler and almost-balanced-enough option of:

1. AS rolls of 1 always fail (a core WHFB 7th ed rule)
2. Weap+shield grants +1 AS in HtH (a core WHFB 7th ed rule)
3. Offhand attacks suffer -1 Str (the one rules addition from this setup)
4. Dagger attacks suffer -1 Str (the one rules change from this setup, which is actually easier to remember/implement than the current dagger rule)

rain9441 wrote:

Melee attack roles against models armed with shields are at -1 to hit.

In the context of what other modifiers? This might be an effective solution if combined with shields 5+ and DW -1 St, making it not exactly simple and easy to remember.

rain9441 wrote:

By making shields better you are in effect nerfing dual wield.

Well, not quite. You're right to suggest that DW and shield are in competition for the second hand spot, but you are wrong to suggest that making shields better somehow nerfs DW. You can make shields better but if DW is still somewhat better then nothing really changes and DW is as good as it always was.

I'd like to reiterate two suggestions that havn't been discussed much: 1) Peg DW attack at 6+ to hit, or 2) DW 2nd attack in first round of HtH only. I think either of these would be effective and at the same time the Maniac Warrior skill would be more worthwhile.

EDIT: -2 to hit could be an alternative to pegging dw attack at 6+, but this has to be the target power level if shields are at 5+.

EDIT 2: Can someone post the highwaymen staff rules?

ts061282 wrote:

Peg DW attack at 6+ to hit

I remember some resistance to this (weren't you part of that?), as it makes no distinction between unskilled Youngbloods and skilled Vampires.

ts061282 wrote:

DW 2nd attack in first round of HtH only.

This could be a possibility, though I prefer the Strength mods right now. I feel that some others will have a more negative reaction - I'll let them speak up for themselves if so.

ts061282 wrote:

EDIT: -2 to hit could be an alternative to pegging dw attack at 6+, but this has to be the target power level if shields are at 5+.

That would take WS2 Youngbloods' offhand attacks to a 7+ against WS5 Dwarf Nobles. Unless you cap hit roll modifiers so that they can't make the target go as high as 7, or extend the rolls so that a target of 7 can be met (like our group does), I can't be in favor of that.

ts061282 wrote:

Can someone post the highwaymen staff rules?

Quarterstaff: 5 gc, Common
This is an iron-shod, heavy wood version. Strength: as user, Two-handed, Parry (once per round).

I was going to link to original website that had the Highwayman warband list, but I can no longer find it. All I have is a version of the text I copied from the original website. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain any credit information nor url. Google search for Mordheim "Highwayman warband" still returns a result from the old Specialist Games forum with a discussion on this warband, but of course that's all gone (and it's not in the Google cache). From memory, this was a warband developed for the Empire in Flames setting.

wyldhunt wrote:

ts061282 wrote:

EDIT: -2 to hit could be an alternative to pegging dw attack at 6+, but this has to be the target power level if shields are at 5+.

That would take WS2 Youngbloods' offhand attacks to a 7+ against WS5 Dwarf Nobles. Unless you cap hit roll modifiers so that they can't make the target go as high as 7, or extend the rolls so that a target of 7 can be met (like our group does), I can't be in favor of that.

Shouldn't a green as grass youngblood be ineffective against a dwarf noble with his off-hand? I'm trying to double penalize DW without introducing a second modifier. -1 to hit, -1 st.... the problem with DW 1st round hth only is that it is still better than shields... or at least it takes 5+ shields about five rounds to catch up in terms of wound chance. -1 st, 1st round only takes between two and three rounds to catch up, better, but now we're in double penalties again. I'd like rain's shield buff (-1 to hit), but I think the Maniac Warrior skill should remove the second half of the penalty to make it a viable skill. What about something like -1 st, 1st round only, Maniac warrior skill leaves -1 st penalty but makes the attack persistent?

ts061282 wrote:

wyldhunt wrote:

ts061282 wrote:

EDIT: -2 to hit could be an alternative to pegging dw attack at 6+, but this has to be the target power level if shields are at 5+.

That would take WS2 Youngbloods' offhand attacks to a 7+ against WS5 Dwarf Nobles. Unless you cap hit roll modifiers so that they can't make the target go as high as 7, or extend the rolls so that a target of 7 can be met (like our group does), I can't be in favor of that.

Shouldn't a green as grass youngblood be ineffective against a dwarf noble with his off-hand? I'm trying to double penalize DW without introducing a second modifier. -1 to hit, -1 st.... the problem with DW 1st round hth only is that it is still better than shields... or at least it takes 5+ shields about five rounds to catch up in terms of wound chance. -1 st, 1st round only takes between two and three rounds to catch up, better, but now we're in double penalties again. I'd like rain's shield buff (-1 to hit), but I think the Maniac Warrior skill should remove the second half of the penalty to make it a viable skill. What about something like -1 st, 1st round only, Maniac warrior skill leaves -1 st penalty but makes the attack persistent?

I think you're going a little too far. Let's look at -1S on offhand and 5+ saves... If a dwer is fighting a shield user, both with WS3, S3, T3 and A2 then the shield user has a 43% chance to injure the dwer while the dwer only has a 36% chance to injure the shield user.

I don't think the WS 2 vs WS 5 matchup making 7+ to hit on offhand will be an issue. Any model that is WS2 is not going to be dual wielding to be an offensive threat. At 15 credits a youngblood shouldn't really be taking out an experienced dwarf fighter. The offhand reduction reflects that. A similar argument can be made to WS 2 henchmen - Sister's novices for example. You don't buy novices because you want them to take down stuff, you take them so you don't lose your better fighters on initial charge turn -- speed bumps per say. By introducing a -2 to hit on offhand that will entice players to put shields on those trooper models. Currently you dual wield with sister novices simply because you know that even a 5+ to hit offhand can and sometimes will get a wound off (or better yet, a crit).

But what would you do about a brace of pistols then? It would serve little to no purpose to fire a brace of pistols in hand to hand if the second pistol is going to need 6's to hit. Pistols are the best way for mercenary warbands (and some others) to fire off str 4's early in the campaign, but you pay for it. Nobody will ever buy a brace to fire every turn. Maybe a brace of duelling pistols, but even then thats pretty expensive. They are balanced by only first round of hand to hand, expensive, and only 2 attacks at most regardless of attack profile.

Svenn wrote:

I think you're going a little too far. Let's look at -1S on offhand and 5+ saves... If a dwer is fighting a shield user, both with WS3, S3, T3 and A2 then the shield user has a 43% chance to injure the dwer while the dwer only has a 36% chance to injure the shield user.

Math please. Assuming you're correct, what you're really saying is weakening DW too much makes shields better in the context of multiple attacks. How is this effected by applying charging/charged dynamics? Should multiple profile attacks form the basis for balancing DW/shields? What about 1st round hth only? And if shields do supersede DW in some cases, is this really an issue?

rain9441 wrote:

But what would you do about a brace of pistols then?

Like weeping blades and fighting claws, pistols follow their own special rules for hand to hand combat. You can read that text in the ranged weapons section, they would still give +1 or 2 attacks w/o modifiers.

ts061282 wrote:

Svenn wrote:

I think you're going a little too far. Let's look at -1S on offhand and 5+ saves... If a dwer is fighting a shield user, both with WS3, S3, T3 and A2 then the shield user has a 43% chance to injure the dwer while the dwer only has a 36% chance to injure the shield user.

Math please. Assuming you're correct, what you're really saying is weakening DW too much makes shields better in the context of multiple attacks. How is this effected by applying charging/charged dynamics? Should multiple profile attacks form the basis for balancing DW/shields? What about 1st round hth only?

I'm using rain's formula from earlier in the thread which I've made into a simple spreadsheet here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiTHwqnK9kmGdGhMZmhia2l1a1hTeGotZ1ZheXRMdVE&hl=en

The single weapon gets 2 attacks at 4+ to hit and 4+ to wound, no armor save. The dual wielder gets 2 attacks at 4+ to hit and 4+ to wound with a 5+ armor save, and 1 attack at 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound with a 5+ armor save.

If the shield user didn't have a shield then the dual wielder would have a 53% chance of injuring.

ts061282 wrote:

Assuming you're correct, what you're really saying is weakening DW too much makes shields better in the context of multiple attacks. How is this effected by applying charging/charged dynamics? Should multiple profile attacks form the basis for balancing DW/shields? What about 1st round hth only? And if shields do supersede DW in some cases, is this really an issue?

Models with more attacks want more strength.
Models with more strength want more attacks.
Models with neither want either.
Models with both want neither.

For instance:

Expert Swordsmen hero with str 4, mighty blow, and 3 attacks. The extra attack doesn't mean all that much. Strength is nice, dual swords is nice, but either way hes going to blow stuff up.

vs

Hero with str 5, mighty blow, and 1 attack. The extra attack from dual wield is a huge difference.

IMO dual wield is irrelevent with 3 or more profile attacks. A WS 7 str 6 vamp with 4 attacks is going to grind anything into the ground very quickly, dual wielding or not.

I'd say consider 1 or 2 profile attacks, nothing more.

Hero Advance Odds (based on #s at http://vedronspotionshop.blogspot.com/2009/02/2d6-odds.html):

New Skill: 44.5%
Weapon/Ballistic Skill: 16.7%
Strength, Attack, Initiative, Leadership: 6.95% (each)
Wound, Toughness: 5.56% (each)

---------------------------------------

I've been basing my balancing decisions on starting warbands, but perhaps this is time to get into the nitty gritty of the end game. Shields are already preferred on monster heroes with many attacks, yes? So let's start with defining what hero that is. If you were to use the individual battle rules at the end of the book, what would a end game hero be worth? 250-300gc? 500gc? What do we think? Part of the problem is you can max your attacks (4) for ~90gc (25+35+35), which is unlikely to occur in a real game. Thoughts and considerations?

Quote :

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.

---

other than that, while I do want to contribute, i think the discussion is getting hard to survey but it does look like there are alot of good ideas floating about here. - i'll rejoin once the current issues settle down and a digest-thread is started.

ts061282 wrote:

I've been basing my balancing decisions on starting warbands, but perhaps this is time to get into the nitty gritty of the end game. Shields are already preferred on monster heroes with many attacks, yes? So let's start with defining what hero that is.

The end game? Double hander and strongman (or halberd) for max strength. Not uncommon to see lots and lots of str 6 vs toughness 5 etc flying around at that point. Shields wouldn't do anything. Even a 3+ save is next to useless (Gromril+shield). Skaven will be throwing 30 attacks per hero at str 5 (Exhaddurated, but you get the idea).

ATM Shields are never preferred over an alternative, even in end game. Even with 5+ save in hand to hand.

Quote :

The end game? Double hander and strongman (or halberd) for max strength. Not uncommon to see lots and lots of str 6 vs toughness 5 etc flying around at that point. Shields wouldn't do anything. Even a 3+ save is next to useless (Gromril+shield). Skaven will be throwing 30 attacks per hero at str 5 (Exhaddurated, but you get the idea).

see, with my non-linear AS-negation S6 vs. a model with shield and nothing else would still give a 6+ save

ts061282 wrote:

Hero Advance Odds (based on #s at http://vedronspotionshop.blogspot.com/2009/02/2d6-odds.html):

New Skill: 44.5%
Weapon/Ballistic Skill: 16.7%
Strength, Attack, Initiative, Leadership: 6.95% (each)
Wound, Toughness: 5.56% (each)

Classic roster's max advances for heroes range from 13 (Captain) to 17 (Champion) to 21 (Youngblood). If we represent these advances as decimal numbers:

Captain
WS 5.08 BS 5.08 S 3.9 T 3.72 W 1.72 I 4.9 A 1.9 Ld 8.9 Skills 5.78

Champion
WS 5.41 BS 4.41 S 4.18 T 3.95 W 1.95 I 4.18 A 2.18 Ld 8.18 Skills 7.56

Youngblood
WS 3.75 BS 3.75 S 4.46 T 4.17 W 2.17 I 4.46 A 2.46 Ld 7.46 Skills 9.35

These are our average end game heroes. (Note WS/BS can be min/maxed, I just divided the advances evenly betweeen the two.) It's pretty safe to assume 2-3 profile attacks. Suggesting DW/shield must be balanced for more than this will take a convincing argument.

Well, tonight's Ostlanders vs Pirates saw the first OOA's caused by the DW rules we're using now. My Ostlanders had a free hired sword (Ogre of course), already brought down to last wound, when an offhand by a S3 pirate Cabin Boy rolled a 6 to wound. The Ogre's Light Armor failed its save, and the Ogre was stunned. Then the second Cabin Boy in that HtH combat took the Ogre right out.

Later in the combat, an S4 pirate Gunner's offhand dagger rolled a 6 on its wound, scoring a Critical Wound against one of my unarmored Jaeger henchmen, and sent the Jaeger right OOA (actually not due to the crit, as the Injury roll itself was a 6, however you can see how easy it is to restore offhand's ability to critical, even with just a dagger).

A few other dagger attacks did miss their wound chances due to offhand/dagger changes. Two shield blocks (both by the same Blood Brother) came through because of the shield change - all other armor saves missed.

This is with two warbands rated in the low 200s. So at this point of a campaign, the rolls from one scenario showed a 50/50 balance between offhand daggers and armor when using the offhand/dagger Strength penalties with the shield/weap AS buff.

Regarding balancing DW/shield for the endgame: when balancing rules, two situations should be taken into account:

1. The mean (not median) average situation. This is the target for the "normal" result you want to see.

2. The extreme situations. This is the target for the extreme limit you want to see. Leaving this second item out has torpedoed several games in the past, and has been a criticism against Mordheim as well.

Hey all,

I haven't shown enough attention on these boards over the last few weeks (work called a bit too loudly)

Which rules are we now looking at? (I tried piecing it together from past posts but I'm still a bit unsure)

wyldhunt wrote:

Regarding balancing DW/shield for the endgame: when balancing rules, two situations should be taken into account:

1. The mean (not median) average situation. This is the target for the "normal" result you want to see.

2. The extreme situations. This is the target for the extreme limit you want to see. Leaving this second item out has torpedoed several games in the past, and has been a criticism against Mordheim as well.

So the extremes would be racial maximums, which are four except for Ogre, Possessed and Ghouls, which are five but may never wield shields so are irrelevant. I would think focusing on balancing for 1-2 attacks is crucial; 3-4 attacks should be looked at but not a guiding situation. I'd like some second opinions about the end game equipment selections as well. Halberds/DHW for everyone? 5+ shields worthless?

The Fool- I think we're still at 5+ shields, -1 St penalty for off-hand attacks... Wyld is making the case for switching the dagger special rule from +1 as to -1 St, which I and others support, this has been instantiated by Asp in his own compiled house rules for some time; Wyld has also suggested expanding equipment selection to make weaker early weapons available to compete with DW... Wyld and myself have observed that even with the changes, DW is still better than shield for single profile attack warriors and so the discussion currently revolves around deciding where to balance the two as models gain attacks throughout a campaign

Hey, excellent debate so far, I think this is really going somewhere relevant... hope I could participate more in the near future... just a quick note for you to consider:


Dagger, 2gc (1^st is always free)
Daggers and knives are extremely common, and men are allowed to carry them in enclaves where weapons are otherwise forbidden. Many a warrior in Mordheim has died with a dagger in his back.
Note: All warriors without Natural weapons are equipped with a free dagger upon hiring.
Range: Close Combat; Strength: As user; Special Rule: +1 Enemy AS; -1 Injuries
SPECIAL RULE
+1 Enemy AS: An enemy wounded by this weapon gains a +1 bonus to his AS, and a 6+ AS if he normally has none.
-1 Injuries: All wounds inflicted with this weapon suffer a -1 on the following roll for Injuries.

Also, I think lowering the S of an off-hand attack is quite weird and honestly didn't get the reasoning behind it in the river of posts this topic has reached (which is a good thing, imo!).
I liked that proposal of gaining an additional attack only if any of the "profile" attack misses or is parried, coupled with a skill that effectively grants an additional attack with off-hands.
Just my opinion, mostly agreeing with cianty's reasoning about DW WHFB troops not being that common. Translating it in Mordheim I think it's easy to assume not all are good enough with 2 sticks, but one can learn, much like one can learn to ride a horse...

Cheers!!!


P.S.: sorry for weird colours, messed it up and couldn't fix, had to write in a rush...

Strength penalties empower armor by the chance that they take a St 4 armor negating hit to a St 3 or lower hit, therefore we have favored St penalties. Further, with these penalties, an off-hand dagger cannot crit when the combatants are equal St and T (since it would be -2 St, need a 6 to wound, it cannot crit).

I think we have generally decided that a simple penalty is easier to game with than the whole off-hand if you miss situation, which isn't found elsewhere in Mordheim/Warhammer (to my knowledge.)

End game consider heroes with good stat ups and of course the standard array of h2h skills (mighty blow, step aside, resiliant).

Don't neglect "extreme" henchmen though. Late game henchmen are at best +1 WS/T, +1 STR, and +1 A. I'd venture to guess nobody ever gets that combo, but pick any 2 (+1 str and +1 attack) for the extreme. Since henchmen can't really ever get 3 attacks and be equipped, the halberd approach isn't really all that realistic.