Pistol range penalty?

Hello,

Do pistols suffer from the 'long range' penalty to hit? I had assumed that they did, but someone told me there was a FAQ somewhere that said otherwise.

Thanks!

Yes, they do. It's a not so uncommon house rule that they do not suffer from long range.

Ah, thank you!

Pistols are somewhat rubbish then.

Yeah. Basically, they are only getting cool when you got some skills (Eagle Eyes, Pistolier), and for an S4 attack in the first round of HtH combat.

Yes, I've found it a bit of a problem having a pistol on my 2BS youngblood

I'd say generally speaking you're much better off going after dueling pistols than regular pistols, and then learn the standard pistolier, eagle eyes, and trickshot.

If you happen to be a dwarf warband, then you'll have pistols with a 19" range ignoring cover penalties at +1 to hit!

Sadly, witch hunters cannot have dueling pistols.

meerkat wrote:

Sadly, witch hunters cannot have dueling pistols.

There's a skill for that, too!

We houseruled against the negative modifier for long range on pistols.

Also, if you use the Blackpowder rules, make sure you pay attention to the 'reduced prices' too. (My group didn't, and wondered why a hangun that misfired was worth so much more than a crossbow that didn't.) If you apply the discount, you save a few gcs on the pistols, making them a tad more worth your money.

I don't think I fancy using the optional blackpowder rules!

Myntokk wrote:

meerkat wrote:

Sadly, witch hunters cannot have dueling pistols.

There's a skill for that, too!

That's true... a bit of a waste of a skill choice though, perhaps. There's always the crossbow pistol.

reduced prices? tell me about this?! I am not familiar with this list...

and being highly dependant on such weaponry (lack of skills and stats, means funky weaponry! - I'm greatly interested

Ezekiel wrote:

reduced prices? tell me about this?! I am not familiar with this list...

and being highly dependant on such weaponry (lack of skills and stats, means funky weaponry! - I'm greatly interested

its true, in the rulebook says that you must reduce the priece of that weapons in 20% aprox when using that rules, but if you have the mordheim army builder you have an option when you apply that rule and the prieces are reduced automatically

xarly22 wrote:

its true, in the rulebook says that you must reduce the priece of that weapons in 20% aprox when using that rules...

Not must, but "might want to," at least according to the Mordheim Living Rulebook.

Rather than adjusting the cost, we adjusted the base Misfires rule to be:
"If a shooter rolls a one on any shot with a blackpowder weapon, it may misfire: make a characteristic tests against the shooter's BS (-1 to this roll if a Dwarf Engineer is in the model's warband). If this test is failed, the blackpowder weapon has misfired!"

We just couldn't see removing the long-range penalty, considering the inherent longer-range inaccuracy of early pistols.

To me, pistols (even the double-barreled pistols my Ostlanders once tried) are rubbish - there are a few instances we're they're useful, but these are so particularly "situational" that other options are almost always better. A brace of duelling pistols with appropriate skills (Eagle Eyes, Pistolier) end up being nice, however, especially for a Druzhina Captain's Inheritance.

Hmmm, maybe pistols should benefit from the 4th Ed WHFB "Stand and Shoot" rules - gotta consider and talk to my local group about this; we've been wondering how to put those rules back into Mordheim...

wyldhunt wrote:

Hmmm, maybe pistols should benefit from the 4th Ed WHFB "Stand and Shoot" rules - gotta consider and talk to my local group about this; we've been wondering how to put those rules back into Mordheim...

Once thing that confuses me is the difference between the crossbow pistol rules, and the pistol rules. Why do they 'shoot into combat' in entirely different ways?

Myntokk wrote:

I'd say generally speaking you're much better off going after dueling pistols than regular pistols, and then learn the standard pistolier, eagle eyes, and trickshot.

If you happen to be a dwarf warband, then you'll have pistols with a 19" range ignoring cover penalties at +1 to hit!

Dwarves cannot take dueling pistols with out the weapon master skill. Only the regular pistol is on the list. That would be a max range of 15" for dwarves.

Of course, if you have house ruled that the dwarves can use them. The you can indeed get 19" without the extra skill.

Nastyogre wrote:

Myntokk wrote:

I'd say generally speaking you're much better off going after dueling pistols than regular pistols, and then learn the standard pistolier, eagle eyes, and trickshot.

If you happen to be a dwarf warband, then you'll have pistols with a 19" range ignoring cover penalties at +1 to hit!

Dwarves cannot take dueling pistols with out the weapon master skill. Only the regular pistol is on the list. That would be a max range of 15" for dwarves.

Of course, if you have house ruled that the dwarves can use them. The you can indeed get 19" without the extra skill.

Oh yeah I know, I just like to designate a hero that's going to become the warband's pistolier and teach him the skill.

The pistols aren't bad if you play with some extra rules (don't remember which set they're from) for double barreled weapons - which is basicly a regular pistol, but each hit inflicts 2 wounds... That and pistolier is suddently a possibility of 4 s4 hits in the first round of combat (or shooting a nearby enemy)

I find pistols useful as most people do as that S4 attack in HtH. The threat of shooting is there and if you make it known than several models have pistols (especially dueling pistols) people will often be wary of their shooting capacity. Despite the fact that actually hitting something with a pistol is rather hard. You will often move and shoot as well as be at long range. Even for a BS4 model you are looking at a 5+ to hit.
Granted, get a model with a dueling pistol and eagle eyes and you have a nasty little hand cannon. Pistolier makes it even meaner.
Even without dwarf engineers or Gunnery School of Nuln instructors you pull 16" range S4 move and shoot weapons, with a +1 to hit. Yikes! Oh crap you have two dueling pistols with pistolier? Um, I think I'm gonna hang back and send out some henchmen to keep in front of me...

When you get one of those nasty pistol types I actually try and get some superior black powder. Not for every game usage, it's too expensive and rare. But I stash it to trot out against Orc, Dwarf, Undead and Beastmen warbands. Too many T4 and 5 models in those to simply rely upon the standard strength of black powder.