dual wield and chance

Oh, I get it. So I was being dense. Yes, extending the DW penalty to main hands is worse the more attacks you have. I'm not really for it, but the concept is that you are actually getting in your own way when you try and fight in a way that you shouldn't.

I agree with the Fool. Its a multi-part problem. Armor isn't good enough and DW is too good. Weaken DW and improve armor is the best solution.

I've was becoming more convinced that a % cap to DW (perhaps along with some penalties) along with some armor fixes is the best thing. Guys that DW should be very dangerous. I do think if you favor implementing a cap some things should be exempt. That is where the problems start.

Obviously weapons that come as pairs should be exempt. Fighting claws, Brass knuckles, Pistols. Pistols in general. The Crack off with a shot and a swing seems appropriate. You can only do it in the 1st round and unless you have a skill or a brace of pistols (not cheap to do) you are waiting around to try that again. Anybody should be able to DW with these, and with no penalty. It does increase their value somewhat but they have their limits already.

Now for the real questions, and some problems I see with a % cap or even limiting DW to heroes. There are a few models out there that really should DW. Good example... Big Guys. More on that in a second.

Are their any types of fighters (other than most Hired Swords and Dramatis) that should be exempt from the penalty? OR are their any that fighters that cannot DW for any reason? Or not overcome the penalty? (assuming they become heroes) What about two Weapon wielding big guys? I guess the only two that gain experience are the Ostland Ogre and the Beastmen Minotaur. The Mino can actually take a shield... the Ogre can't however. I would think that perhaps the rule should read something like.

"due to their inherent aggressive nature and strength, warband members that are large targets suffer no penalty when using two weapons and may always use two one handed weapons if you equip themas such. Additionally, these members are not counted towards your maximum percentage of your warband that may use two weapons at the same time. Note that this rule does NOT apply to models that are counted as large targets because they are mounted"

That's a mouthful.

What do we do about 3 armed mutants or Skaven with tail fighting? Are those extra attacks penalized? Do they count towards your quota?Ahh we come up with all these great ideas but the devil is in the details isn't it?

Ok this is just a really quick maths related analysis of what happens with attacks on a character but...

With two equal henchmen with S3 T3 WS 3

1 A = 50% chance of not hitting
2 A = 25% chance of not hitting
3 A = 12.5% chance of not hitting
4 A = 6.25% chance of not hitting

This means that, duel wielding or not (by the looks of things) the Mordheim game mechanics are badly damaged as slight increases in WS or S or T are far less in effective then an increase in A.

So... what do you counter a character with high (or higher) A? Out of the two base models, increases in S by 1 (Halberds) or shields (+1 AR) still leave the advantage of two attacks (regardless of DW) far higher.

To balance the game (which in turn will balance DWing) It's the statistical chance of DEFENDING an attack that needs to be increased.

@ wyldhunt:

Let me know how things turn out! I'd love to get some fieldwork results

And yes, armour should be upped indeed! i was thinking a general +1 AS to all armour, but that would make shields too good and too cheap. I like the armour + shield bonus. maybe a helmet + body armour should add +1 as well?

Criticals i'd like to use the "standard" crit table, but keep AS negations in. so armour is not that overpowered.

@ nastyogre, you really strike oil there with possessed that have 3 arms, or 2 arms and a tail. and skaven with their tailfighting.

on a side note, do hired swords count towards your maximum number of members? if so then perhaps it should be indeed be limited to heroes & hired swords that can dual wield? I'd go for that.

A good mid-way between a hard statistical line and fluff. what you think wyld? This would even fix possessed and skaven with tailfighting AND hiredswords.

Might work?

Cheers all, we got a good thinktank here!!!

I think armor (except for shields) is appropriately effective. We do need to keep some sort of continuity with the parent game, which is WFB 5.
The 1H weapon +shield = +1 AV is current WFB but seems appropriate.
That sort of increase doesn't really need an adjustment to the cost of the shield, its a minor enough change. That's a benefit then. Decreasing armor cost does make it more common.We've done that in our campaigns for a couple of years and you don't see armor to start but heroes (especially leaders and prayer casters) start popping up with armor after only a few games unless people end up really cash strapped.

the only time Hired swords count towards your #'s is for rout checks. If you implemented a cap system on DW, I would not think that Hired sword should count. Could you fill out your warband with hired swords and have some advantage? Sure, if you wanted to pay that cost. Most of my warbands will take a Hired Swords or two. I've got on Reiklander band that has 3 and let me tell you that's pricey. (Elf ranger, Arabian Merchant, Tilean Marksman 45 GC total every game!)

@ the Fool. I don't have a problem with the game mechanics overall. Attacks is the strong characteristic in every GW game really. I don't think we can bring DW into perfect balance with other setups or attacks into balance with other stats. Nor should we try. Can we more balanced? Yes. It won't be perfect though.

I suppose Wounds is the rough counter to attacks. Of course henchmen can't have a wounds increase through experience. They can with attacks and DW. You can buy an attack with a weapon but you can't buy a wound. That's precisely the reason why I think Possessed Beastmen and Ghouls are such fantastic henchmen, 2W. I won't touch Darksouls or Bethren until I have all three of my beastmen and I won't touch zombies at all if I can help it. Dire Wolves have their own purpose and are ok by me.

Nastyogre wrote:

I think armor (except for shields) is appropriately effective. We do need to keep some sort of continuity with the parent game, which is WFB 5.

why should we? Why not treat mordheim as an independent game?

well then we might as well just throw it all out the window and make our own game. I'm not really up for that...

thats not what i meant

I mean, we have the rulebook, we have the rules reviews, we have gaming experience. why use whfb version 5 (which obviously is outdated) for balancing mordheim?

I agree with Paluke – the problem is that GW has not been bothered to meet the fans (we) wishes, a new revisited Mordheim, though improvements have been made to the major games. So to make our gaming experience better, we might need to improve it slightly.

TheFool wrote:

Ok this is just a really quick maths related analysis of what happens with attacks on a character but...

With two equal henchmen with S3 T3 WS 3

1 A = 50% chance of not hitting
2 A = 25% chance of not hitting
3 A = 12.5% chance of not hitting
4 A = 6.25% chance of not hitting

This means that, duel wielding or not (by the looks of things) the Mordheim game mechanics are badly damaged as slight increases in WS or S or T are far less in effective then an increase in A.

So... what do you counter a character with high (or higher) A? Out of the two base models, increases in S by 1 (Halberds) or shields (+1 AR) still leave the advantage of two attacks (regardless of DW) far higher.

To balance the game (which in turn will balance DWing) It's the statistical chance of DEFENDING an attack that needs to be increased.

How can you clarify what is most effective if you do not add the chances to wound and to injure? 4A which doesn't wound is quite useless...

Oh I don't have a problem getting away from WFB 5 per se. But some relation to or minor changes to the Mordheim rules or existing WFB rules to balance things is a good idea. I don't think radical changes are a good idea though. The further we get from existing rules the more things we have to consider and the more other imbalances are created. I do like the idea of keeping the changes we make as minimal and simple as possible. While more involved rules might be more balancing if they greatly increase the complexity of the game, we are doing ourselves a disservice.

Why are we having this discussion? Becasue we want to come to some kind of consensus among the player community on what changes might be a good idea. If we do this and GW sees what we have done perhaps, just perhaps they will use our consensus as the basis for changes to the game. I'm not gonna hold my breath but GW does occasionally listen to their customers. Though it is increasingly rare these days.

well said nastyogre!

A consensus might give the community a good balanced option to adopt. and make mordheim less scattered with everyone using different houserules and such or perhaps im dreaming

I keep falling back to this statistical break down of hits/wounds compared to Armour saves and have spent around 2 hours already on a crazy excel sheet that is showing me just how scary mass attacks can be.

Here are a few things I have figured out (and I am set on finding a balanced system EVEN IF it kills me)

Toughness, Weapon Skill and Wounds cannot be bought. (In a very general sense)

Attacks, Armour Saves and Strength can be bought.

And this is where Scissor, Paper and Rock come into play... or more so.

Strength beats Armour, Armour beats (or sits equal to) Attacks, Attacks beat Strength.


Strength = halberds / 2 handed weapons etc

Armour = Shield + single weapon

Attacks = DWing warrior.



Now...

I have had a fair few fights in a medieval reenactment group and I know that a shield saves me a HELL OF ALOT more times than 1/6.

Even with this vague justification, Mordheim is still a world where no one uses shields. Giving an armour bonus for stacking a shield with normal armour is not only arbitrary but still means heroes MIGHT take a shield and also continues to keep significant armour values outside of the reach of henchmen resulting in DWing being the ONLY option.


My argument is.

A shield having +2 AR means, all ranged weapons bar bows and slings will drop the save to a max 6+ (marginal)

A shield having +2 AR will drop a DWing assailants wounding return to 50% (75%*4/6) [unless they use axes] which is the exact chance to hit and wound that the shield holding attacker gets back against the DWer.

A character using a Halberd or 2 handed weapon gains a far higher Wounding chance, yet is at the mercy of a returned/initial double attack from an assailing DWer. Yet, against a member with a shield, the armour save is all but negated ALONG WITH the chance of wounding still being greater.

I can't see a negative in giving shields a +2 armour value as armour saves are eaten away so quickly by black powder weapons and many a hero starting straight out with 4+ Strength weapons or characteristic.

And considering we are all talking about letting only Heroes DW, obviously the issue is not coming from Heroes DWing but rather from stopping every joe dick and harry henchmen from DWing.

Furthermore, it's such a small change to the entire mordheim rule system (changing a +1 to a +2) that is could just maybe be a good idea?



Keep it as simple as possible, but no simpler?

So, DW only for heroes. Increase Shield to 2+ to AV (in Hth only) Or do you mean and 2+ increase over that it has which gives a model with a shield a 4+ save?

I'll run with this. Let's play it out. Are their any henchman exceptions? Are there any heroes that can't? Are their classes of equipment that allow you to bypass this? Are there penalties for heroes DW or do we leave that alone?

I'm with you on this Let's get a tidy package put together and work out the details.

what means AV and AR? sorry for my noobness

I think we are using the same term. AV for me is armor value. That's the save that you get from the armor. I THINK da Fool means Armor Roll... which would be the same thing.

ah yes ok because mordheim refers to as AS

anyway we are on the same page

Quote :

Are their any henchman exceptions?

No (unless they get LGT, but then they count as hero)

Quote :

Are their any heroes that can't?

No

Quote :

Are their classes of equipment that allow you to bypass this?

No

Quote :

Are their penalties for heroes DW or do we leave that alone?

We leave it alone

Well, I still think that a henchmen armed with a pistol should get his shot and his Main hand attack. They can't DW every turn and have to wait to reload (they can't have skills that get rid of this) While they could have 2 pistols, they can't use both at the same time. Even if they had two they would have to have new combat start to use it.

I think we need to give a pass to the large henchmen, Ostland Ogres and Beastmen Minotaurs. They are pretty much made to DW (or take 2H and be really scary) I can't thik of any others that would suffer. The other big guys don't use weapons, gain experience or change their equipment. (The Kroxigor automatically uses a halberd)

a brace isn't exactly dualwielding in my opinion. so henchman are allowed to have that it's only the first turn of combat and they have to be loaded

those "henchman" are born with the dual wield option, so that should be ok.

wow more and more variables seep in

Ok we are definitely on the same page then. Heroes only. Pistols don't count. Large Henchmen not restricted. Other equipment not impacted due to only heroes using it anyway.
Shall we say that if there does happen to be a piece weapon that is naturally used as a pair than henchmen can use, they are not restricted? I can't think of any and I've looked at the likely suspects but I'm not omniscient. That would take care of things we might over look.

So, who wants to adopt this into their campaign and see what happens..

Whoops. We need to solidify what we want to do with armor.

Perfect summarize there nastyogre!

i'm going to integrate these rules in my pocket mordheim rules set, and hopefully once it's done i can playtest



hmm yes we need to solidify on armor. I do like the "set bonus" idea mentioned in this thread that if you buy multiple armour pieces, you get a bonus armour save.

Or we could give the helmet a 6+ as. and for every other armour piece you wear you gain +1 to armour save.

would get some more BPW's in the game, more 2handers, and more axes. AND increases cost and effectiveness of armour.

For consensus purposes, I can definitely go with restricting dual-wield to heros, hired swords and Large henchmen. If over a couple of years we still see the marjority of these with dual-wield, then I would start advocating for more.

I'm not too opposed to granting an additional +1 to Shields' AS (total +2). Anyone remember the Pavise? I swear I saw it in a Town Cryer or such, but can't lay my hands on it now. That gave a +2 AS, at a penalty of -1 Move - ouch!

I'm not really in favor of a shield at 5gc giving a better bonus than Light Armor at 20gc, even though in reality (gotta watch that reality, we know) large enough shields do an excellent job of deflecting blows. Let me give in on my armor cost opposition. We have three classes of regular armor: Toughened Leathers, Light Armor, and Heavy Armor. If we consider Light Armor like Studded/Banded/basic Ringmail, and Heavy Armor like Doublemail/Plate.

So, if we go with:
Toughened Leathers, +1 AS (stackable, sellable), 5gc
Shield, +2 AS, 5gc
Light Armor, +2 AS, 12gc
Heavy Armor, +3 AS, 30gc (-1 Move with Shield)
Ithilmar Armor, +3 AS, 60gc [note: going with 30% cost reduction here]
Gromril Armor, +4 AS, 100gc [note: going with 30% cost reduction here]

Balance-wise, we can justify the difference in Shield and Light Armor cost due to the Shield taken up a hand.

For 10gc, I can give my henchmen 50% protection from S3 attacks. Not shabby at all. Is it too much to give for too little cost?

At the upper end, I can get my heroes max S3 protection (5/6) for 35gc with a -1 Move - the cost of a Handgun. Of course, the Handgun can take the AS down to +2 and my non-dwarf hero is gimped in movement, which we know to be a serious handicap in many situations.

This definitely bears consideration, as it does not depend upon shield+ stacking rules, nor upon close-combat-only bonuses, making the rules simpler.

Now, in our former campaign a few years ago, one person loudly complained that making armor better keeps Mercenary henchmen, some Skaven (esp. Giant Rats), and Zombies at minimal effectiveness. I don't care squat about nerfing Skaven, and a heavily-armored model should have very good protection against basic animals. Balancing Undead is a whole different animal (yes, Zombies are cannon fodder and that's it). The Mercenary henchmen is a point to consider, but they can have heavy hitters to get through the armor. So I don't agree with our old complainer. However, testing is the key. Since the complainer is no longer with our group, maybe, just maybe, we can see about this. I've already made the other suggestions, so we'll go through them first, but I'll point the other players to this thread and get their feedback.

Again, good stuff here!

We have done most of the above. Though Ithilmar and Gromil were unchanged. We wanted to keep these things exceedingly rare.
I though toughened leathers were UNstackable and UNsaleable? Or is that a proposed change? I've never had a big problem with them, though I frankly never use them.
We do see more armor, but everybody knows that bodies (meaning wounds) give more attacks and soak damage better than any armor. So it takes a while to see much armor.
People are pretty leery of getting slowed down by Heavy Armor and a shield. Very rich and large warbands will get it for leaders and such. One of the favorite things is to put heavy armor on guys with 2H to help them be able to deliver that big hit. Though this doesn't happen till late in campaigns.

The changes are:
1. Allow Toughened Leathers to AS stack and be sellable
2. Add +1 AS to shields
3. Add +1 AS to all body armors (except Toughened Leathers)
4. Reduce cost of Light and Heavy armor by 40%
5. Reduce cost of Ithilmar and Gromril armor by 30% (I misunderstood - I though you had lowered them by 40%, so we can throw these reductions out)

With Light Armor being a +2 AS, and Shields going to a +2 AS, there is a place for Toughened Leathers without the wierd "unstackable" rule (which I consider a kludge from the original rules).

Do you think other armors really need to be improved? (I missed it above, silly me) Shield + Light at 4+ seems more than adequate to me. 3+ AS for all of 17gc is really too good. Leather armor isn't that protective. If part of our point is to show GW what mordheim SHOULD look like, we can't alter that. Light armor is a 6+ and has been well, pretty much forever. Heavy 5+. Now, if you want to add in Full Plate armor at say 60GC this has a connection to WFB and is more likely to be accepted by players.

My ideas

1. Add +1 AS to shields (in HtH)
2. Reduce cost of Light and Heavy armor by 40%
3. Add Full Plate Armor at 60GC 4+AS w/o shield 2+ With shield and 1Hhand weapon. (In HtH) 3+ with Shield vs shooting.

This doesn't bring "sword and board" to parity with DW but we've limited DW. It's also closer to what we see existing rules are like. More acceptance, from this sort of thing I think.

What do you think of adding the "save against serious injury" idea. Its adding something pretty new but it was kicked around on the old specialist games forums before they shut down.

what i meant was, that if a guy wears a shield, he has a 6+ armour save, but if he also wears a light armour at 6+ save, he won't get a 5+ save but a 4+ (+1 for wearing multiple armour pieces.) adding a helmet with a 6+ as would make it a 3+ AS. if you change the Light armour for heavy armour you can get a 2+ as. (considering you have to pay 50+5+10 =65 gold. you could easily buy 2 henchman @ 25gc and decent weaponry like one with an Axe and one with halberd )

and a 1 on armoursave always fails.

The balancing question comes down to this - for overall AS:

1. Do we agree to a +1 AS due to a combo in HtH?
2. Do we agree to an additional +1 AS to shield only?
3. Do we agree to an additional +1 AS to body armor only?
4. Do we restrict the total proposed AS increase to +1 or +2?

Let's say we go with total increase of +2, spread out between a combo and body armor. To keep with WHFB fluff, let's get rid of Toughened Leathers, and use Light/Heavy/Full Plate (with the reduced costs). And oh yes, an AS roll of 1 should always fail!

This gives:
Shield, 5gc, 6+ AS (+1 AS in HtH when combined with any body armor)
Light Armor, 12gc, 6+ AS
Heavy Armor, 30gc, 5+ AS*
Full Plate, 60gc, 4+ AS* (rarity?)
Ithilmar Armor, 90gc, 5+ AS**
Gromril Armor, 150, 4+ AS**

*What should Move penalty be for Heavy vs Full plate? Heavy+Shield = -1 Move, and Full Plate (w/ or w/o Shield) = -1 Move?

**Even with the addition of Full Plate, my initial opinion is to leave Ithilmar's and Gromril's AS alone for this chart. Let their move penalty negation be their magic.

Benefits from the above:
1. Keeps better with fluff around body armors.
2. Gets rid of annoying Toughened Leathers kludge rules.
3. Allows a max +1 AS over what was previously available (outside of Gromril) vs missiles.
4. Allows a max +2 AS over what was previously available (outside of Gromril) vs HtH.

Concerns:
1. If AS 5+ wasn't worth 25gc before, will AS 4+ (HtH) be worth 17gc?
2. If AS 4+ wasn't worth 55gc with -1 Move before, will AS 2+ (HtH) be worth 65gc with -1 Move?
3. Is a 2+ save too much for henchmen to get around in HtH?
4. Will these mods be enough to tempt heroes to give up that additional dual-wield attack? This comes down to - have a better chance to kill the henchmen, or be better protected against the weaker-strength henchmen?

I can't really be for another +1 AS with a helmet+armor combo. I like the helmet rule being it's own special thing - and it's already the first protective item I always get for my warriors.

I like the Serious Injuries save for Armor - we used it in a previous campaign with success, where the cost was worth it for a chance to save a special hero's life. However, I don't like it combined with other hero-save mechanics, such as the action deck in "The Warpstone Belongs to Us," nor Fate Point proposals I've seen.