Playing a Campaign with Experienced Warbands

I was thinking that it might be fun to play a campaign where everyone starts with somewhat experienced warriors already (moreso than what heroes normally begin with), to shift the power level up a bit rather than have everyone tough it out as weenies in the beginning of the campaign. I'm thinking of a Norsca themed setting, borrowing heavily from Border Town Burning, and I like the idea of battle-hardened groups of warriors heading up north to stop a choas threat rather than a bunch of newbie treasure-hunters. I've been trying to devise a decent method of doing this and wanted to see what you guys thought of the following altered warband start-up rules:

Quote :

When creating experienced warbands, warband creation is broken down into 5 phases.

Recruiting: The warband must be recruited with the initial 500 gold crowns available to them, at the prices listed in the warband listing. Each model in the warband must be equipped with at least one weapon other than his free dagger. After recruitment, the warband must determine their experience, injuries, and advancements.

Increased Experience: All models in the warband begin with double their normal starting xp. for example, a warband leader who normally starts the campaign with 20 xp will instead begin the game with 40, champions and the like who start with 8 xp start with 16.
Heroes that normally begin with no xp start with 6, while Henchmen and Henchmen Groups begin with 1D3+1 experience.

Injuries: Every hero in the warband must roll 1 time on the serious injury table for every additional advancement that he will recieve (i.e. a youngblood with 6 xp will get 3 rolls on the advancement table, and therefore must roll 3 times on the serious injury table). Any roll that results in a full recovery, death, capture, or retirement from the warband (i.e. a second "blinded in one eye") must be re-rolled. If "Bitter Enmity" is rolled, assume the roll was a 6 and randomly determine another warband type partaking in the campaign that the warrior now hates. If an injury is rolled that results in the warrior missing one game, deduct 1 experience point from his current total.

Advancements: Any advancements a model gains through this added xp are rolled for on the appropriate advancement chart (i.e. a leader with 40 xp gets to roll 4 times on the Heroes Advancement table).

The Marketplace: After determining experience, injuries, and advancements, the warband may spend a further 400 gold crowns on equipment. Rare items must be rolled for as normal, and each warband is allowed up to 10 rare item rolls. This is not considered recruitment money, and therefore Marienbergers and warbands with similar rules do not benefit from a 20% increase to this amount. Similarly, warbands that recieve discounted prices on items only when recruiting do not recieve such discounts on items purchased at this point.

Hired Swords may be added to the warband during the Marketplace phase. The warband must pay his recruiting fee, and may optionally pay his upkeep fee up to 5 times. The Hired Sword will gain 1 xp each time his upkeep is paid, and may roll for advancements as normal. Additional Henchmen may not be recruited during the Marketplace phase.

Well, does it look OK and relatively balanced? Are there any warbands in particular that are going to make a killing on a set-up like this, while others are going to get shafted? Let me know what you think.

EDIT: made a few amendments to the ordering of things, and how injuries are going to work. I only went with -1 xp per battle missed so that a Youngblood who rolled to miss 3 battles would still have some xp. Still mulling over how to handle the "naked warbands" issue and hired swords.

Marienburgers don't get quite the same kickstart as far as I can tell. Isn't the bonus gold their only real advantage over the other mercenaries?

Horatio, the way I understand what Myntokk has written is that the Mariengburgers would still get their initial extra gc during Recruitment - he's just making clear it doesn't extend to The Marketplace. Marienburgers would still get their +1 to rare item rolls.

Myntokk, the way you're doing this will definitely bring a different dynamic to the game. Very experienced captains, decently experienced champions/spellcasters, and younbloods/henchmen with just a little experience. Though you've done well at balancing the number of advances - 4 for the captains and 3 for the youngbloods. I like it.

The randomization of the number of hero injuries may greatly and randomly favor some warbands and gimp others at the start. I know the following is artificial, but purely for sake of a little more balance, I would rather see one Serious Injuries roll (using the restrictions you placed) per advance gained.

You've also seriously bumped up the gc available - I think everyone will start with a full warband in this setup, and then possibly some goodies. It looks like that's the place you want it to be, so it seems right as well.

Who (from Mordheim+) will this help differently than others?

Possessed: they can now afford more mutations for all four mutated heroes. Basically, I buy the heroes I want during Recruiting, and maybe some henchmen (but not likely), ignoring all equipment. During The Marketplace, I'll get the henchmen and equipment.

Beastmen, Orcs, Ostlanders, Skaven, etc.: you know I'll have my Large henchmen now...

Dwarves: well now, let's see about heroes with Gromril armor after all, and get the basic equipment during The Marketplace.

Basically, the expensive models/equipment that were really out of reach to starting warbands before are in reach now, and warbands that don't have access to equivalents (Mercenaries) may be at a disadvantage. If the amount for The Marketplace was 250gc or less, it would be much harder to justify such expenses at the start (except for Possessed in my opinion). I wonder whether a lowering of rare item difficulties would balance this, making some of the other expensive items more available for warbands which don't have them on their starting equipment list?

A question: would warbands be allowed to start with Hired Swords in order to get XP for them? I'd say not, otherwise you'll have to decide how much (or whether) their Upkeep costs during The Marketplace. Easier to just make them available starting with The Marketplace and not Recruitment.

Serious Injuries: I recommend that each roll of 'Miss a Game' knocks the Hero's starting experience down by 2. (Which means you'd roll for injury before you roll for advancement.)

It's a shame the old SG files aren't back... a while back, someone tried to start a Troll Country campaign. I lost nearly everything we worked on. I still have the 'General Winter' Scenario I made. It's not that great, but I can post it for you, if you want.

Also, you NEED to have a Norse Dwarf HS (just like the OLD days of WFB.) He'd be your basic Dwarf Ranger, but with Ld8 and would work for ANYONE. The norse clans have no scrupples!

Other possible things I can post/send you:
~ The abandonned 'Demon Warband' rules... not to play, but for crafting NPCs
~The Hero 'Personalities' chart... with more money and 'seasoned' heroes, sounds like a place to test them out.
~Marks of the Lesser Gods - A list I made of Marks/Mutations from Lesser Chaos Gods. None of the Gods I used are Canon, so it's hardly official, but just kinda fun for anyone who wants to get in the 'Undivided' Mood.

Thanks for the feedback, guys! There are plenty of very useful suggestions in there.

Horatio: Wyldhunt has the right idea, Marienburgers will still have 600 gc's to recruit their initial warband and the +1 bonus to rare item rolls. I just meant to clarify that they don't get any gold bonus during the Marketplace phase of warband creation, since that is representative of the shopping they would have done after battles rather that when they were setting out.

Wyldhunt: I think your comments are great, they're really going to help in refining this idea.

- Injuries: I had kind of thought that the random element would ultimately even itself out since each player would be rolling for multiple heroes, but it still leaves room for a real bad streak of rolls. While more realistic, the idea is that everyone starts of more or less on the same footing, so I like your idea of 1 injury roll per advancement roll with the same restrictions as before.
- Money: For some reason it hadn't even crossed my mind that you would be able to, essentially, hire a naked warband to maximize numbers and then buy all their equipment later. I'm torn between limiting the amount of gold everyone gets during the Marketplace phase and setting a minimum armament requirement at the Recruiting phase. While on the one hand less money is a deterrent to spend lavishly at first, I also want expensive equipment to be attainable without breaking the bank. Conversely, it seems a little too overbearing to say "everyone must have at least one weapon other than a dagger." Perhaps say Henchmen's equipment is fixed until after your first game, so you can't bank on the Marketplace phase to equip them?
- Hired Swords: I was also thinking no, although I suppose they could roll their advancements after the warband goes to market, and they get xp equal to the number of times you pay their upkeep cost as during the Marketplace phase.

Styro: I forgot to cover "miss a game" injuries! I like your idea, and it shouldn't be too disruptive to roll injuries first, and then advancements after.
A Norse dwarf sell-sword sounds like a lot of fun, I'll have to get crackin' on something like that.
Also, please do send me the winter scenario you have written, the more scenarios the better!

- Daemon warband, personalities, and marks of the lesser gods - where can I find these? I don't recall seeing or hearing about any of them. The Daemons I probably would have just based on the rituals of the chaos gods article, but personalities and lesser god marks sound very interesting...

Money: Easy-- Allot 400gc for buying warriors, and then 500gc for buying equipment (including Starting equipment... obviously, if it's not their list, it doesn't need a rarity roll.) Players may petition to have their warband be 500gc with 400gc of equipment if they want. Any money not spent is discarded. Marienburgers may add 100gc to either category.

Demon Warband: I started on this site, but was forced to quite when every said that Demon warbands are inherently broken, and even as a writing exercise, it would never come in handy. (THEY CALLED ME MAD, MAD!! MWAH HA HA HA)

Lesser Gods: Not surprising, I've never posted it anywhere.

Personalities: Oh, it was on the SG site. Never tested, but could be a lot of fun. Basically, each hero can purchase Advantages and Disadvantages, like 'Lucky -reroll 1 dice per game', or 'Acrophobic - -1 on climbing rolls'. Very few game breakers, and those cost more (it's mostly to establish character.) I'll repost it soon, as I always love adding more.

Maybe it would be even more fun to randomize the experience for the warband, say roll 2D6 for each hero and henchmen group; thus different warbands start at different levels – might be more fun, might be worse.

In case anyone's still watching, I think I handled the "naked warband" issue OK, take a look and let me know what you think of the rules as I have them now though.

Looks good. If you're still concerned at the 'naked warband', either put stricter limits on the money (ex. of the initial 500, 100 must be equipment), or add the rule that any money of the 500 not spent is discarded (which means that at least SOME equipment will round out the edges.) They look pretty good to me.