Critique these Houserules

So from what I've seen to allow more varied options and warband possibilities at least a few tweaks are needed, I know perfect balance is near impossible, but heres my attempt to a series of houserules.

Mainly I want to know 'would you be willing to play in this campaign', if it looks fair and doesn't advantage anyone to much over anyone else.

ALLOWED WARBANDS
Reikland Mercenaries
Marienburg Mercenaries
Middenheim Mercenaries
Cult of the Possessed
Witch Hunters
Sisters of Sigmar
Undead
Skaven
Dwarf Treasure Hunters
Orcs & Goblins
Ostland Mercenaries
Averland Mercenaries
Beastmen Raiders
Kislev Mercenaries
Carnival of Chaos

With the following possibilities...

Bretonnians (current list seems abit underpowered or overpriced?)

Pit Fighters (I like the concept, but not the rules so much, any alternative lists?)

Shadow Warriors (Yeah I know, but I kind of like the choice of an Elf faction and do like the idea of the Shadow Warriors, any "fixed lists" for them?)

Other suggested Warbands to include? avoid?

WEAPON CHANGES
Club - 5gc
Spear - 5gc

Sling - 5gc, Strength 2

Throwing Knives/Stars - 10gc

Handgun, Hochland Long Rifle - +1 to Injury rolls.

Armour Changes
Shield - A warrior armed with a shield and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn). Mounted models may not gain this benefit. Hand weapons are defined as hammers, staffs, maces, clubs, axes, swords, morning stars and spears. Variants such as rapiers or Dwarf axes are also included (taken right from the Duel Wield thread, credit there).

Light Armour - In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities (Again DW thread though slightly increased post battle save).

Heavy, Ithilmar, Gromril Armour - In addition the warrior gains a 4+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase.

Combat Tweaks
Fighting with two weapons. Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty. (Of coures from the duel wield thread, hope you don't mind me snagging and matching rules to my purpose).

Weeping Blades and Fighting Claws are also exempt.

A Skaven with Tail Fighting has no penalty if he has one extra weapon held in the tail (but does if he has on in both hands).

A Mutant with the mutation Extra Arm has no penalty for holding a second weapon, but does for holding three weapons at a time.

New Combat SKill - Ambidextrous: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon
in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice
normally incurs.

Johann The Knife, Bertha Bestraufung and Veskit
should all be granted the "Ambidextrous" skill.

Shooting
If a model is shooting downwards to a model,
measure the horizontal distance to find the range. If the model is
shooting upwards measure the diagonal distance to find the range.

Warband Tweaks

Witch Hunters (A small one that bugs me)

Zealots - 15gc (They have a point of LD over Youngbloods and Sister Novices, they aren't that great)
Warhounds - 20/25gc

Carnival of Chaos (Possible?)

Nurgle's Rot I hear causes strife, as seen in the thread named as such. Not sure what to do about it.

allowed warbands
big swings in power level there




weapons
sling counts as short bow
handgun, long rifle S5, concussion




dual-wielding
do not excempt pistol wielders



witch hunters
zealots 20gc
wardogs 20gc
witch hunters 4 starting xp




carnival of chaos
br0ken and badly designed

Heh, noted.

I'll add this one from Toemass (and group) because I thought it was a pretty good one.

If a model is shooting downwards to a model,
measure the horizontal distance to find the range. If the model is shooting upwards measure the diagonal distance to find the range.

do you know where they picked up that idea?

i implemented it in my group some months ago

http://www.indadvendt.dk/mordheim/rules.pdf

page 64

Asp wrote:

do you know where they picked up that idea?

i implemented it in my group some months ago

http://www.indadvendt.dk/mordheim/rules.pdf

page 64

Couldn't say, maybe they did, but its a good idea in my mind.

i dont know eigther, just curious

Mortimer wrote:

Bretonnians (current list seems abit underpowered or overpriced?)

Pit Fighters (I like the concept, but not the rules so much, any alternative lists?)

Shadow Warriors (Yeah I know, but I kind of like the choice of an Elf faction and do like the idea of the Shadow Warriors, any "fixed lists" for them?)

Other suggested Warbands to include? avoid?

Bretonnians are definitely not that great as-is. I'm not sure if people have posted fixes for that warband, but I do know of others that are in the works and look pretty good. There's another one posted on this very forum, and StyrofoamKing and others are working on one over at the Specialist Games Forum as well.

For Pit Fighters, there is another that is generally similar, but without the "fighting styles" and it is listed in one of the earlier Town Cryer issues. I can't recall at the moment which issue but will try to check and post it later (if no one else beats me to it).

Personally, I hate Shadow Elves but that's on account of a) a couple of bad rules calls made on them and b) the nature of the players in my group that run them, who are power gamers. Maybe they can be balanced, I'm not really sure, and I don't know what the fixes for them (if any) are.

For other warbands, I recommend using the rest of the Empire In Flames warbands, since in my opinion they're all pretty balanced other than CoC (more on that later).

Mortimer wrote:

Armour Changes
Shield - A warrior armed with a shield and a hand-weapon has a basic save of 5+ (or may add +2 to his armour save if other armour is worn). Mounted models may not gain this benefit. Hand weapons are defined as hammers, staffs, maces, clubs, axes, swords, morning stars and spears. Variants such as rapiers or Dwarf axes are also included (taken right from the Duel Wield thread, credit there).

To simplify, I would say +1 armor save in melee to any warrior armed with a one-handed melee weapon and a shield. That way, you don't have to worry about going through and defining all the melee weapons. I would not bother giving an additional +1 on top of that for wearing even more armor though, I think that's pushing armor too much.

Mortimer wrote:

Light Armour - In addition the warrior gains a 5+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase. Treat a successful save exactly as if the warrior had received the "Full Recovery" result. He may not explore, trade nor take part in any other post-battle activities (Again DW thread though slightly increased post battle save).

Heavy, Ithilmar, Gromril Armour - In addition the warrior gains a 4+ save against Serious Injury during the post-battle phase.

I don't really think that armor should provide further protection against serious injuries, but perhaps instead its effect in-game should be increased. I would implement some combination (but not all) of the following:
+1 to armor saves for all body armor (i.e. 5+ for light, 4+ for Ithilmar/heavy, 3+ for gromril)
shift strength modifiers so that they begin at strength 5 instead of strength 4
reduce armor prices

Mortimer wrote:

Combat Tweaks
Fighting with two weapons. Due to the difficulty in fighting with more than one weapon, any warrior attempting to do so suffers a -1 penalty to hit with both weapons. A warrior using a pistol in hand-to-hand combat is exempt from this penalty. (Of coures from the duel wield thread, hope you don't mind me snagging and matching rules to my purpose).

Weeping Blades and Fighting Claws are also exempt.

A Skaven with Tail Fighting has no penalty if he has one extra weapon held in the tail (but does if he has on in both hands).

A Mutant with the mutation Extra Arm has no penalty for holding a second weapon, but does for holding three weapons at a time.

New Combat SKill - Ambidextrous: The Warrior is adept at fighting with a weapon
in each hand. He may ignore the -1 to hit penalty that such practice
normally incurs.

Johann The Knife, Bertha Bestraufung and Veskit
should all be granted the "Ambidextrous" skill.

The only thing I would change here is to say that a model that is dual-weilding must make half of his attacks with his off-hand weapon, and those attacks are made at -1 to hit, but not regular attacks. In most cases I don't think I'd take +1 attack with a penalty of -1 to hit, especially when the alternative is to take a shield with the increased armor effectiveness that you've proposed. Basically it would be foolish to dual-weild instead of taking a weapon and shield, and in my mind these should be roughly equal options.

I do think that the Ambidexterous skill is a good idea though, and I also like the exemptions that you made for various types of equipment.

Mortimer wrote:

Carnival of Chaos (Possible?)

Nurgle's Rot I hear causes strife, as seen in the thread named as such. Not sure what to do about it.

These guys are definitely usable, but you'll probably want to make some changes. First off would be Nurgle's Rot, as you mentioned. For simplicity's sake I would recommend cutting it out altogether, and allowing the Carnival Master to re-roll the spell result. There are also a couple of alternatives suggested in the thread though, if you want to take a look at those.

Furthermore, the spell Pestilence is disgustingly overpowered, but it's a quick fix. Other "area effect" spells have a much shorter range, and may well affect friend and foe alike. Pestilence covers an area about 16x that of Word of Pain! Just reign in the radius of effect to 4 or 6" and it's much more balanced.

I don't think that Weeping Blades should get an exemption. For all intents and purposes they are just two swords. Other than weeping poison they are no different than any other two swords. Perhaps allow players to use just one of them, possibly even allow them to buy just one.

No Border Town Burning warbands?

cianty wrote:

No Border Town Burning warbands?

Afraid only recently getting back into Mordheim I haven't been able to catch up on all the great new stuff produced

Though from my understanding the BTB warbands are more based on the lands of the east, but, I dunno, if people think they are well balanced and can mesh well with the above warbands I'd certainly consider them.

Lets see, Merchants, Marauders, Norse could be worked in fairly easy ... Restless Dead possibly. Not sure about Battle Monks, Maneaters or Chaos Dwarves, but if someone had their heart set on one I wouldn't rule them out.

Myntokk wrote:

Mortimer wrote:

Mortimer wrote:

Carnival of Chaos (Possible?)

Nurgle's Rot I hear causes strife, as seen in the thread named as such. Not sure what to do about it.

These guys are definitely usable, but you'll probably want to make some changes. First off would be Nurgle's Rot, as you mentioned. For simplicity's sake I would recommend cutting it out altogether, and allowing the Carnival Master to re-roll the spell result. There are also a couple of alternatives suggested in the thread though, if you want to take a look at those.

Furthermore, the spell Pestilence is disgustingly overpowered, but it's a quick fix. Other "area effect" spells have a much shorter range, and may well affect friend and foe alike. Pestilence covers an area about 16x that of Word of Pain! Just reign in the radius of effect to 4 or 6" and it's much more balanced.

What about allowing nurgle's rot deal an immediate permanent malus of -1T (maybe cumulative with other future nurgle's rot touches?) instead of all that it offers in the normal rules (i mean banning the risk of contagion among the other warband's members and the T test to temporarily block the infection)? I think that's pretty simple.

For pestilence i would reduce the range to 8ui. It's 2x the sigmar's purification aura range but without bonuses against some types of models (such as possesseds, mutants, demons, undeads, etc.) but with difficulty 10 rather than 9.

Skavens are overpowered too, hands down. And witch hunters are undoubtedly underpowered.
What about setting the maximum size for these warbands to 15? (+3 to witch hunters and -5 to skavens).

Slings have to be cheap in both price and power, like their original fluff seems to suggest, so i propose this simple rule:
Weak: Slings' hits have Strength 2 beyond half their range.

ObsidianLord wrote:

For pestilence i would reduce the range to 8ui. It's 2x the sigmar's purification aura range but without bonuses against some types of models (such as possesseds, mutants, demons, undeads, etc.) but with difficulty 10 rather than 9.

Well, 8" would be 2x the range, kind of, but the area of effect would be much more than 2x. An 8" radius of effect is closer to 4x the area of a 4" radius of effect. In either case, that's a HUGE area for a Mordheim spell, and I would be hard-pressed to let anyone have that kind of area effect regardless of spell difficulty. Given that Sigmar's Purification is difficulty 9 though, I suppose I would go with 6".

ObsidianLord wrote:

Slings have to be cheap in both price and power, like their original fluff seems to suggest, so i propose this simple rule:
Weak: Slings' hits have Strength 2 beyond half their range.

I don't see why slings need the double-shot ability, to be honest. So I like the idea I think someone mentioned earlier of making them the same as short bows (including being the same price).

For slings I'd say:

1) Up the cost to 5gc;
2) Remove double shooting (wtf, no way a sling shoots faster than a bow, ever!);
3) Keep 18" range. Yes, sounds weird, but a sling shoots longer than a short bow, unless it is a compound bow... and remember a short bow could still benefit from bow skills (quick shot);
4) Keep Strength 3. Arrows and lead bullets (made this way: <> ) don't differ much in penetration and concussion power, at least not as much as it's wotrh differentiating them in Mordheim, imo.

Cheers!!!

Since I feel the sling should be the "dagger of missile weapons", we give +1 armour save for hits from slings and have toyed with reducing them to S2 - I think if you apply both of these to slings, you can keep them cheap without them being too overpowered.

And while they might not differ much in power, for game balance reasons I think S2 would be very appropriate.

Quote :

I don't see why slings need the double-shot ability

yes, very contrite

Asp wrote:

Quote :

I don't see why slings need the double-shot ability

yes, very contrite

Indeed. I cannot imagine placing stones in a sling, wildly whirling them in the air and then shooting them off is twice as fast as pulling an arrow and shooting it off with a bow. Maybe someone thought Skaven needed a little boost? (lol)

cianty wrote:

Asp wrote:

Quote :

I don't see why slings need the double-shot ability

yes, very contrite

Indeed. I cannot imagine placing stones in a sling, wildly whirling them in the air and then shooting them off is twice as fast as pulling an arrow and shooting it off with a bow. Maybe someone thought Skaven needed a little boost? (lol)

What if you put TWO stones in the sling at the same time? Harder to hit, twice as many shots!

CygnusMaximus wrote:

What if you put TWO stones in the sling at the same time? Harder to hit, twice as many shots!

Ha ha! You nearly got me there... BUT you can shoot the two stones at different targets... show me how you do that with one swing.

cianty wrote:

Ha ha! You nearly got me there... BUT you can shoot the two stones at different targets... show me how you do that with one swing.

Errrmm.. Lots and lots of practice?

Maybe require a lucky charm to allow the model to fire at different targets.

Or some Bugman's XXXX....

Here's an interesting article regarding slings: http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/sling/index.html. I've seen repeatedly from many different sources that it has been verified bows can shoot as quickly as slings. That's one reason we're seriously considering removing Fire Twice from slings, then allowing the Quick Shot skill to be used with them.

Mordheim does allow Hunting Arrows. You could do similarly with slings: 2gc for the basic slings/stones, which strike at S3 and allow opponents a +1 Armor Save. For 5gc you can get Sling Bullets, which would be just S3.

Or, you could add a special rule "Difficult to Aim: all shots with a sling suffer a -1 to hit." This would reflect the increased training (even over a bow) needed to accurately use a sling.

Mortimer wrote:

Pit Fighters (I like the concept, but not the rules so much, any alternative lists?)

The early Pit Fighter list that I mentioned in my first post is in Town Cryer issue 14, and is basically the same except without the "fighting styles"

Ok ... so my thoughts on slings from your suggestions

2gc, Strength 2, 18" range, no double shot.

Looking at the Skaven/Witch Hunter Balance concerns I'm considering using some of Wyldhunts suggestions.

"Skaven (Clan Eshin): maximum warband size 15. Giant Rats (0-5 models) do not count towards the maximum size of the warband.

Witch Hunters: Warhounds (0-3) do not count towards the maximum size of the warband."

And a very quick tinkering of the Shadow Warriors and Bretonnian warbands.

SHADOW WARRIORS

HEROES

1 Shadow Master
90 Gold Coins (He was cheaper than a Dwarf Noble, with mostly superior stats, same with most of the Shadow Warriors)

Exp: 25

0-2 Shadow Walkers
55 Gold Coins (Limit downsized from 3 to 2).

Exp: 15 (Same as Big'Un)

0-1 Shadow Weaver
65 Gold Coins

Exp: 15

HENCHMEN

Shadow Warriors
45 Gold Coins (Again, they are a faster, agile dwarf basically, a little over a Clansmen would be my say).

0-5 Shadow Warrior Novices
30 Gold Coins (Slightly better than a human Warrior, and a limit not to abuse them to much).

So mostly costs at the moment, perhaps some equipment restrictions?

BRETONNIANS

HEROES

1 Questing Knight
80 Gold Coins.

0-2 Knights Errant
35 Gold Coins (Given there stats, Heroship and Knights Virtue are not worth 25 gold).

0-3 Squires
15 Gold Coins

HENCHMEN - Unchanged

Perhaps expand them to 15 members maximum?

The other thought on Bretonnians was

Warhorse - 60gc
Horse - 30gc

Because easier access to horses just seems appropriate to me, no?