Two swords parry house rules

With so many models clearly carrying two swords, it's a shame there's no benefit to doing so in the game (especially with the cost). My group plays with representative models as much as possible, so we have used the following rules for a second sword.

Option A: A second sword allows an additional, separate attack to be parried each turn. IE, you cannot use the second parry on an attack you already failed to parry.
Option B: A parry succeeds if it matches or exceeds the attack roll.

Just curios if anyone else uses something similar.

With both extra parry and extra attack two swords suddenly seems quite superior both offensive and defensive – those great weapon guys can hardly stand a chance right?

So your proposition is: If a warrior have two sword, he have an extra attack AND an extra parry.

I think it is very strong for the cost of 20gc. In my mind, if you wear two swords, the second sword is use as a bucler for parrying and allow you to reroll your parrying dice.

Your warrior are not so quick to parry two attack in the same round.
But it is also my idea ....

Vall'

you should purchase a swordsman if you want to wield two swords, they get one re-roll if they miss with a sword. so having 2 swords means a potential re-roll for both of em

Still the problem is that dual wield is to good, not to and not to bad

Popmouth wrote:

With both extra parry and extra attack two swords suddenly seems quite superior both offensive and defensive – those great weapon guys can hardly stand a chance right?

You can parry a separate attack, so if you miss one parry against a DHW, you do not get a second chance to parry the same attack. The second parry would potentially benefit you when you are fighting: dual wield, multiple profile attacks or multiple models. Two axes or clubs are still superior offensively due to their special rules. As it is, sword and axe/club is better offensively and equal defensively (better all-around) for less cost.

Points to Paluke for finding the one existing reason to wield two swords.

2 parries in normally limited to the Dwarf Special Skill (Master of Blades) so I'd be inclined to avoid duplicating this ability just by buying common equipment.

Simplest House Rule is to allow a pair of swords to parry and reroll like a sword and buckler. It gives you an extra attack over the buckler approach for an extra 5gc. It's quite reasonable really.

An alternative approach would be to add Master of Blades to the Combat Skills chart rather than it being Dwarf only.

As a Dwarf player that seems unfair, I have to use a skill to be able to parry twice, and that skill also allows me to parry equal to or above. Another thing I see wrong here is that you are allowing a parry on a seperate attack, so if your opponent hits with a 6 and a 4 you are disregarding the rule that you have to parry the highest die, so you are allowing a parry on 4 if you can't parry the 6? You are making swords way too good here.

How about another special rule for swords:

Riposte: If a model wielding two swords makes a successful parry, he makes an automatic St 2 hit against his opponent.

Our group uses the Optional Critical hits which make carrying 2 bladed weapons really effective and carrying 2 swords with the Swordmaster skill makes them lethal.

We also played with the extra parry house rule for a couple of years, but we have broken ourselves of the habit since we started to play with the Sartosa campaign setting. Styrofoamking and company have a Pirate Skill that allows a warrior an extra parry or re-rolled parry when wielding 2 swords. Interestingly I don't think anyone has taken the skill in the 5 months we've been playing, but we know its there if we need it!

Von Kurst wrote:

Our group uses the Optional Critical hits which make carrying 2 bladed weapons really effective and carrying 2 swords with the Swordmaster skill makes them lethal.

Ok, but without the skill, a model is better with a sword and an axe than two swords. You get an extra -1 AS and it's half the cost. You shouldn't need the swordmaster skill to make carrying two swords make sense.

Make sense how? Why? Is there anything at all about the game you like? I blissfully armed my lads with 2 swords for years before I tried the Optional Critical hit chart or used the house rule parry because it looked cool on the model. Have some fun, dude.

Hells yes it looks cool. It's just that sword + axe is better for less money. So now I've got to decide whether I want to be continuously bothered by the slight disadvantage or bothered by not looking cool. WTF!

Yeah swords don't innately have any offensive combat bonus with the standard rules you're better off off-handing a mace or axe, which is also cheaper.

Unless you get the Swordsman skill of course! You can think about it like so: dual wielding swords is more difficult because swords are longer weapons so you only gain a significant benefit if you're properly trained.

Slightly off topic but wielding 2 swords tends to be easier because the weights and balances tend to be equal or close to. Length isn't as relevant until you get to the bastard sword kind of swords where the weight starts to reach the border of one-handed use. A pair of those would get very tiring.

I've tried using a sword and military pick or hammer and it's quite tough due to the very different distribution of weight. A pair of swords was far easier.

Just make it so that 2 swords gains the same benefit as Sword + Buckler.

You may re-roll your parry.

...and what give buckler 6+ AS since shield now has 5+?

I wonder, which is better: +1 to the parry roll, or reroll the parry altogether?
I think that to preserve the value of the buckler and its combat bump, that the 2nd sword should augment the parry rule slightly differently, and it should be worse than the buckler.
To that end I wonder if a simple +1 to the parry roll for a 2nd sword would work. But I am unsure if that would be in fact better than rerolling the parry.

+1 is better because it allows you to parry attacks that would otherwise be unparryable i.e. those that rolled a 6 to hit. Attacks that were twice the strength or more would still be unparryable, so DHW are still unparryable to a lot of models.

In my circle about the only people that use swords are those that can't wear armour and don't have access to Dwarven Axes. Occasionally swords will be equipped on heroes as a backup weapon instead of sold; henchmen are never equipped with swords as they are too expensive (Swordsmen are an occasional exception).

This is the next problem we will be looking at, but for now we are still trialling the rules brought up in the dual-wielding thread.

adding a plus one to the parry dice is one option- having swordfought for the majority of my life (ten of 18 years) i can tell you that
when someone swings a sword at you, you generally don't get two chances to stop it. it's sort of a time-thing.

but i can certainly see how the re-roll is a good rule. if it's what they do for bucklers, it seems like it would be the option for Florentine fighting as well.

i think if you just ad one to the parry roll (max six, so as not to piss off the dwarves) it balances fairly well.

instead of needing to match a 4, you could match a three.

on the subject of allowing a counter-attack, from a roleplay perspective, it makes perfect sense, but it would allow a mercenary to drop 3 dice in one turn so long as he had two swords, and attack regardless of whether or not he's wounded later in that opponent's part of close combat initiative (IE, by another charging model.) :/

This question actually came up in my group this weekend, because of a different reason though.

The way this came up for our group was because of a house rule we have that makes off hand weapons -1 to hit.

A skaven player with fighting claws was debating that they shouldn't get -1 for their additional attack, because they are skilled in the use of the claws. (as it says in the description)

The oposing player was trying to point out that they get to re-roll failed parries because of the claws in addition to the +1 I for climbing. They made the point that they didn't get to re-roll parry if they had two swords.

The skaven player said yes, but my claws also cost 15g more than two swords, AND I can't use anything else the entire game!

So, in summary. We allowed the claws to continue with no -1 to hit for the offhand / additional weapon. And stated that if a player wanted to get a Skill in duel wielding (Available to any Hero) then they could remove the -1 to hit, and get a re-roll for parry.

You could always allow the pair of swords to grant either an attack or the buckler ability. Make the player decide at the start of each round before any dice are rolled.