The Big Boring Dual Wield Thread

If it is a flat cost, especially one as small as 15 gold, then I don't see it doing much more that slowing the aquisition of dual-wield for everyone except the most expendable henchmen. You will still have the same problem of dual-wielding being just better than all other options (assuming base rules).

Of curiosity, why are you worried about skaven dual-wielding at the start? It is not like everyone else can't dual-wield also.

Well, I think the main problem is that Dual wield Always seems the best option. The Skaven thing was simply an example of one of the many problems with DW. For 3g a model you get 2A on all your skaven right?

The idea of the cost is to prevent everyone throwing DW on all their models. I understand that some of the problems remain, and likely some few warriors will have an early upperhand, though I believe, later on in the campaign, DW loses some of it's positive aspects.

I see to main problems with DW, it is to freakin good, and to aviable. Perhaps one can find a rule to prevent both?
Of course, if I would be really radical, I would say that dual wield would only be allowed as a certain heroes skill, though this would make some of the melee-warbands suffer... And perhaps giving heroes a to good upperhand.

All other weapon options are balanced (well, not quite, but still) through cost, and DW gives you +1 for nothing. It's just wierd.

Ah, right. Well, to me the problem is not that DW is too good it is that the other options aren't good enough. People don't want to take them because the other options are comparatively sucky. I think if the other options were more interesting and more viable then people would take them instead of taking dual-wielding.

We are using most of the varients in my gaming circle currently and it seems to be having the desired effect. We have dual wielders, DHWs, Sword and shield, , axe and shield, club and shield, even a few halberds here and there.

The only thing lacking is noone takes flails, morning stars, or spears so perhaps a minor buff for those and we will be balanced.

Well, if the DW is to good, or if the options are to bad is quite the same thing. I mean, DW can only be "better" if it is in relation to something that are worse than DW – I see nerfing DW as an easier way to solve the problem, rather than pumping up the other alternatives.

What do you suggest, pumping up DHW to +3S? Flails auto-hit in the first round?

I mean, most weapons are quite lethal as it is... You say that the other options are to bad, but not how to fix it. You say it works within your group, what house rules do you use?

Turns out changing the weapons is not the only way to make them more attractive. Like I said earlier :

Lord 0 wrote:

For us the key was (somewhat counter-intuitively)
making armour cheaper. Once more armour was available people started
taking more shields and bucklers for the +1 in melee. With more armour
saves around more people take double-handed weapons. Heck, you even see
the occasional halberd on heroes.

Oh, yeah - we also took away
half the 'ignores armour saves' crit results too (we use the optional
tables).

The full list of house rules we use are:

• Armour is half-price except shields, helms, and toughened leathers.
  
• Armour suits grant a base-save against physical serious injury.
  
• We use the optional crit tables but all 'and ignores armour saves' sections are removed. Results that are *only* 'ignores armour saves remain.
  
• Shields and bucklers grant an additional +1 armour save in close combat.
  
• Gromril counts as heavy armour, Ithilmar counts as light armour.
  
• Dual Wielding incurs a -1 to hit penalty on all attacks.
  
• New Combat skill: Dual Wielder: Removes penalty for dual wielding
  

Cheaper armour means more armour. More armour means DHW and halberds are more attractive to punch through it. Weapon and Shield is now a viable option rather than only dual-wielding. 1 extra attack or +2 to your armour in melee? And for that hand weapon we are seeing more axes to punch through the armour instead of only swords or clubs.

We also use the "handguns and hunting rifles roll two dice for injury" and that, combined with the greater availability of armour, means we are also seeing more handguns instead of only crossbows.

I think in the next iteration I will toy with adding the Dual Wielding Master skill mentioned earlier and adding the rule for armour being destroyed when saving against serious injury, plus one or two strength skill ideas. May or may not try out the new spear rule mentioned earlier too. Might do away with the -1 for dual wielding. Not sure yet - needs more testing.

i generally like your mods lord 0 - simple a balanced

Quote :

Cheaper armour means more armour.

and more armour means slower play

Indeed it does, but not by very much because people take more DHWs, axes, halberds (even gromril axes from time to time) to punch through said armour often (at this stage) eliminating the roll entirely.

Certainly we haven't noticed the games being longer or less fun. Matter of taste, I suspect.

That being said, the current campain has only been going for a little while and the best armour anyone has is a few sets of ithilmar. Noone has any gromril yet, and only one artifact has been claimed (Boots and Rope) so it is early days yet. Nevertheless, I like the way things have started and they look promising. Testing will tell us if this trend will continue to the end of the campaign.

I agree with the slower play, one thing we do is using the critical hit always gives 2 W, armour save allowed. Isn't that rule in Corheim as well?

Are Hammers still 3gc?

Yes, Popmouth, that is how is it is Coreheim

One could always use a house-rule that dual-wielding is a Combat Skill. Players would then be forced to start thinking about other options. This is actually a really cool method of creating a great diversity of models. You can even decide which character choices make sense to start with dual-wielding. Warband leaders are good candidates.

Any thoughts?

problem with that is youre forcing people over on shields or DWH

There will never be a perfect solution without discussion and play testing. Unfortunately, having a negative view of every possibility is what ultimately put Mordheim on hiatus. When I used to play Mordheim a lot more than I currently do, my group never seemed to have all the problems that are provoking, "no, that won't work, neither," statements. In fact, we had gamers using many different strategies and armaments in our games. The reason is that we were passionate about the game and its potential. We also had a very active hobbyist base, as almost everyone on here does, and made our table one to be fully taken advantage of.

When no one can agree to disagree and look for solutions, a stalemate is produced. If that happens, there is no incentive or motivation by the developers to evolve the game. Your signature is support of this.

Remember that nothing is done perfectly the first go around. But, I do stand by my statement that Mordheim is much better than many give it credit.

This is probably a good time to review some of the original discussions combined into this thread, and their results:

1. Give -1 to hit on all the model's attacks when he DWs.
Pro: considered a decent penalty by many.
Con: penatly becomes worse the higher the model's base Attacks is - this is counterintuitive.

2. Give a penalty to the "offhand" attack - Strength, to hit, something.*
Pro: doesn't impact "main-hand" attacks.
Con: means players must make a difference between main-hand and offhand attacks. (Personally, I've never understood this reluctance, as differences must be made anyway when using different weapons...)

3. Don't allow DW until a model reaches A2.
Pro: exceedingly simple.
Con: ties DW to random characteristic advance.

4. Give a training cost to DW.
Pro: doesn't impact rules to use DW, just access to get.
Con: delays the use of DW and makes it rarer, however does not balance DW with other options.

5. Require a skill to use DW.
Pro: doesn't impact rules to use DW, just access to get.
Con: keeps all henchmen from using DW, and some feel that some henchmen should have acess to it (this can be fixed by adding the skill as a Special Rule to these henchmen); delays the use of DW and makes it rare, however does not balance DW with other options.

6. Make other options more viable (especially shield), possibly in combination with a DW nerf.*
Pro: attractive to some in that they feel a armor/shield needs a buff.
Con: some others feel that other areas should not be buffed.

The basic issue to move forward with a consensus is that many allow the cons to outweigh the pros in what we'll consider.

*#2 and #6 is what our group uses - my specific alterations have been given previously several times, and have definitely worked for us.

I think all of that list is educated, wyldhunt.

As to the con in item one, it is relevant as a starting penalty. And, since 1 extra attack generates to 100% more to start, and declines to 50%, 33%, 25%, etc....players may trend to picking up shields or other weapon configurations. Personally, barring special weapons like Dwarven Axes that give you 2 re-rollable parries when you get the right skills, I would likely trend toward higher wounding percentage weapons or auto strike first weapons with a shield as my attacks characteristic raises making the advantage of a second hand weapon decrease.

Honestly, I am not more attached to any one solution as I think they all have merit.

Wyldhunt, I would love if you elaborated the "con" with training costs, since everytime I propose the idea, no one comments it (which means, people think it sucks, but don't tell me why?). Why is it a con that it comes late in game? The only thing I might think of is that it could effect game length slightly... Though I haven't tested it to much yet.

wyldhunt wrote:

This is probably a good time to review some of the original discussions combined into this thread, and their results:
...
4. Give a training cost to DW.
Pro: doesn't impact rules to use DW, just access to get.
Con: delays the use of DW and makes it rarer, however does not balance DW with other options.

Popmouth wrote:

Wyldhunt, I would love if you elaborated the "con" with training costs, since everytime I propose the idea, no one comments it (which means, people think it sucks, but don't tell me why?). Why is it a con that it comes late in game? The only thing I might think of is that it could effect game length slightly... Though I haven't tested it to much yet.

I'm curious what other people think about Popmouth's idea too. Giving DW a cost does seem to balance it against the other options because generally DW is favoured because it is easy and cheap to spend 3gc or 5gc to *double* the number of attacks for most warriors. If DW costs an amount (even if it is a one-off fee) then it would seem to balance against other options because DW two hammers would cost 18gc instead of 3gc (assuming a training cost of 15gc) and is now in the same cost range as a double-handed weapon and shields suddenly become the 'cheap' option although they are also a defensive option rather than an offensive option.

@Popmouth - For me personally I shy away from your idea simply because it is so very different from anything else in the game. Correction... I guess that spending money for mutations is a similar concept. I do feel that it might be a good option though but I just haven't been able to bring myself to try it.

A totally different approach that just came into my mind.
A new armor special rule which all shields and bucklers have:

Shield Bash. Shields and Bucklers grant +1A in hand-to-hand combat just like dual wielding. This attack grants the target +1AS (and is resolved at -1S?)

The modifiers of -1S and +1AS are not final yet and one should consider updating Spears, Flails, etc if they are less competitive now.
And a big question would be if shields should then grant the usually house ruled +1AS to its wearer..


What do you guys think?
I kinda like this solution so far.. but it definitely needs some playtesting and some oppinions from fellow TBMB members
The usual mordheimer imo wants to kill and earn exp. That often keeps players from using defensive items (lucky charm excluded ) The shield bash rule would allow the players to go for mass attacks numbers while retaining the option to go for an offensive or defensive additional attack..
What i dont like about the shield bash idea is that having 2 attacks would be de facto standard now.. Maybe use the -1S modifier too in order to keep flails etc still attractive..

REminenz -
I think making that a skill would be quite neat, though I'm not sure I like having it be a rule that applies to all shields and bucklers. The reason for that is that it gives shields and bucklers the best of both worlds - you get +1 A AND the AS from a shield. I tend to prefer keeping the choice between improved AS or an extra attack (with a penalty).

I do think that "Shield Bash" will be making its way into the combat skills list of my house rules, if that is okay with you.

The concerns I would have with adding a cost to dual-wielding is the complexity: How much is it worth? Isn't that value dependent on the particular warrior? Should a fighter with higher WS pay more for DW than one with lower WS? It adds more value, right? And what about strength?


I think I'm more in line with Wyldhunt's solution.

I prefer to penalize the off-hand attack -- -1 to hit, except for daggers (which have no bonus properties and give a +1 to the enemy's AS) pistols (only one shot per fight) and fighting claws (pricey and limited to heroes) -- and make armor and shields more attractive (40% cheaper). And of course add a new combat skill that can eliminate the off-hand penalty.

wyldhunt wrote:

This is probably a good time to review some of the original discussions combined into this thread, and their results:
...

The reason I tend to prefer #1 to #2 is that not many henchmen have multiple attacks to begin with and they can only ever get +1. When you add an "Ambidextrous" skill to the mix, it makes it so your high attack heroes can negate the dual-wield penalty. It's also interesting to force the player to decide whether or not to attack with both weapons or just one (though both are usually better statistically).
For those of you who like having a "buy-the-training" option, you could do both - have it be a combat skill but add the rule that "a character may purchase this skill at the time of hire only for a cost of X gc." This could represent those warriors that are naturally ambidextrous.

MeanBone wrote:

The concerns I would have with adding a cost to dual-wielding is the complexity: How much is it worth? Isn't that value dependent on the particular warrior? Should a fighter with higher WS pay more for DW than one with lower WS? It adds more value, right? And what about strength?


I think I'm more in line with Wyldhunt's solution.

I prefer to penalize the off-hand attack -- -1 to hit, except for daggers (which have no bonus properties and give a +1 to the enemy's AS) pistols (only one shot per fight) and fighting claws (pricey and limited to heroes) -- and make armor and shields more attractive (40% cheaper). And of course add a new combat skill that can eliminate the off-hand penalty.

Well I used the rules for individual games in the end of the scenario section. The rules for adding one attack there is 25GC. Now that's an attack that doesn't use a "hand slot", so I thought the cost for DW should be slightly less, also considering you need to buy two weapons. So somewhere between 15-20GC seems reasonable.
I don't think it depends on the models independent skills, since these have been accounted for already with different costs.
And I don't seem that the "complexity of the cost" is an argument enough to dismiss the idea; I mean, that is something that you can solve.

I guess it might be the slight controversy in the suggestion that's nagging. I'm still waiting for a really good argument why this idea isn't preferable (I bet there is some, there always is )

Quote :

it would still leave DW as the most powerful choice, necessitating that
players have twice as many models as they will upgrade to DW once they
get the money

Sure it is the most powerful choice, if just comparing what it does. Now however, it has a cost, and therefore it is a matter of priorities. Not only does a cost affect what weapons you choose, but also how many warriors you can afford.
Later on in game, one might think that everyone would purchase DW, and I don't see it as a case. If you also pump up the shield to +1 in CC and heroes start popping up with higher T and AS it suddenly isn't the most obvious choice to give everyone DW. You might want some flails or DHW in there. Also, if a hencman group is DW and loses one man and you wan't to replace it the cost is quite heavy, between 50–75 GC.
I think that, even though it is a good choice the cost does provide a nerf to it.

Also, in addition to the points added by Popmouth... later in the campaign there will be more warriors with a higher base Attack and DW decreases in effectiveness as the base Attack value increases. Therefore I disagree that DW will remain the only choice for every warrior once people save up the money. Of course play testing is needed and that is what Popmouth is planning to do.