[Supplement] Border Town Burning - Full Supplement Out Now!!

Hi I have another question:

In the [BTB] Marauder of Chaos warband special equipment part there is the barbed whip for
15 gold crowns with an availability: Rare 9 and the one Hero only restriction.
Is the "one hero only" means only one here can search for it (because that's how rare it is) or only one hero allowed to use it ? (because traditions, customary law, the gods forbids it etc..)

It means that only one hero can be equipped with the item. Any number of heroes can search for the item (and potentially the warband could own more than one of the items but the excess would need to stay in the warband stash.

As I thought. Pity, because the whipcrack and can not be parried rules are neat. (Imho could be game breaker).

RationalLemming wrote:

...the blasted "Mordheim Rulebook (Updated)" / "PaulH" / "Knights Templar" rulebook. This compilation of rules contains a LOT of house rules (with nothing to show that they are house rules   ) and not all of the house rules are balanced.

@RationalLemming: Thanks for reminding folks of that.   We already have enough problems just because people read the same rules in different ways.
Yes, we used that ruleset as our starting point, and I was well aware of the risks. But because we were going to house-rule the crap out of it anyway, I just wanted a starting point with a lot of condensed rules. Often the original Mordheim rules also have imbalances that can be just as severe (but! that would be another and far more serious discussion each gaming group is a different snowflake).
We have since uploaded our version carefully marked as "NOT the original Mordheim ruleset!" and pointed to where people can get it. I kept track of that topic here at TBMF and made sure to include that disclaimer!

However, I could swear I saw the Medical Knowledge skill somewhere else... that's why I didn't realize it was a PaulH/KnightsTemplar rulebook thing.
The closest thing to it is that Skaven warband skill, but has to be obtained on a Hero-by-hero basis, so it doesn't really break the game.

That stupid Templar Knight/deds/Ultimate/Complete/Whateverthehellitis drives me bats. It pops up with nearly every new player in our group now. The GW rulebook is all over the web from my perspective, but even if I give them a link to the GW, they come back with "I found THIS!" all excited like a dog with a 2 week old dead rabbit. Sigh.

@Nuno M...

Von Kurst wrote:

That stupid Templar Knight/deds/Ultimate/Complete/Whateverthehellitis drives me bats.  It pops up with nearly every new player in our group now.  The GW rulebook is all over the web from my perspective, but even if I give them a link to the GW, they come back with "I found THIS!" all excited like a dog with a 2 week old dead rabbit.  Sigh.

Ur German too? Give them the Almanach ;-) working on an complete translation too. But it seems that I need 4-6 months till iam done (all the town cryer, fo magazins, etc is pretty much).

The Templar Knight one is a dissaster... never found the original source of medical knowledge. But iam not a fan, giving that Skill all warbands (it's similar to the Dwarf Skill).
At the moment we play the Campain with some minor changes (more Szenarios, less weather, Bloodpakt rules from Nuno), and it works.
But same Problem like you. It's much more work to keep all together and finding time to play,

I think it might have been due to LongIslandWargaming's Youtube channel, where they recommended it as an easy source of rules. I think lots of people (including me, guilty!) got into Mordheim recently because of their videos.

@VonKurst: I just hope people aren't coming to you with our version of the ruleset!    v1.19 or something like that, by now.
It's more intended for people who are getting into Mordheim fresh, or groups who want to adopt a wholesale house rule package in one fell swoop.
Not an easy sell for veterans, I assume, other than inspiration here and there for house rules of your own.

@Taugenichts: I like that there is a 'Medic' skill, but we nerfed it since then. We now allow it to re-roll the "units" die of the Serious Injury roll, instead of rolling the whole thing. So this gives a 1/6 chance to survive death, and roughly 50% or so to prevent nasty loss of limbs.
Folks say its worthless now. I very much disagree

Nuno M wrote:

@VonKurst: I just hope people aren't coming to you with our version of the ruleset!
v1.19 or something like that, by now.

Not so far, but I got my eye on you

Taugenichts wrote:

Ur German too?

Only by ancestry. My great-grandparents were born in Germany.

The Ultimate Rulebook is the worst! took so long to ween my players off it. Medical Knowledge is almost game breaking. well that and the wrong Hired Sword rules in there. they say that they roll on the Hero injury table and get the same amout of level up boxes as heroes. needless to say there was alot of crazy hired swords last campaign.

in regards to the Assassination Skill, i dont remember who carked it last campaign but the previous one, my Merchant Caravans leader was just about to cross the finish line on the journey home when the Silent Threat player offed him in desperation, the cart still rolled through but it was an exciting finish.

We're about to start a MIM campaign in a week, so i'll be posting photos and whatnot more often! already have a bunch of questions for werekin haha

Quote :

We're about to start a MIM campaign in a week, so i'll be posting photos and whatnot more often!

Good to hear.

A question for those of you that have ran a BTB campaign.
How hard is it to find the Chaos Artifacts during the campaign if you don't use the Merchant and Grave Robber HS?

We've played one campaign and finding the Chaos Artifacts was hard for us. We didn't have the Merchant although I think we did have one Grave Robber.

Lots of great discussion going on these days. Love that!

Of course, ultimately the way the objectives play out was tailored to our group's play style and what we thought was cool. Our perspective of this was this:

You play a campaign, try to achieve your objective and once you achieve it.. it's over? It shouldn't just be over. After playing a campaign for three months or so, the campaign should not end simply because the first player manages to put the last tick on their objective sheet. We chose to incorporate rules that (after the campaign is technically/basically/theoretically over) provide a sort of BANG for the last few games. That's why the Chaos leader e.g. doesn't just end the game as a demon prince per flavor text - no, let's give him the well-dervered buffs and play a final game against everyone. We wanted rules that create special moments, especially towards the end of the campaign. At a certain point we didn't believe it had to be balanced anymore but create memorable moments. Of course, this "finish phase" should not last too long as otherwise it will only be frustrating for the rest. Anyway, that was the philosophy behind the objectives and that's why they contain effects that appear to simply unfair when you look at them and think of them in the context of an overall balanced on-going campaign.

Of course, all this things come down to personal preference in the end. Also I agree that not all objectives work equally well for all eligible warbands. We allowed additional warbands for those objectives in order not to shut them out from the setting entirely. I would prefer to see many more objectives for more warbands - at best one or two for each war band specifically to fit their play-style. But coming up with good objectives takes an incredible amount of time, especially since we tried to weave them into the rest of the setting (from Random Happenings, Weather Rules, Exploration Charts and Scenarios).

Maybe players can list their changes to the objectives along with some reasoning why the changes were made? I love the idea of changing the assassination to a dedicated scenario, e.g. Obviously once could flesh out all these aspects and add another 100 pages worth of rules...

By the way, good to hear people are still playing BTB. After moving houses last week I really want to dig out my Battle Monks again.

cianty wrote:

But coming up with good objectives takes an incredible amount of time, especially since we tried to weave them into the rest of the setting (from Random Happenings, Weather Rules, Exploration Charts and Scenarios).

Bloody hell, it sure does  
Even optimizing/house-ruling the ones you guys gave us took ages and a lot of arguments ehehe. I can post our adjustments here (as soon as I get home ).

It's our pleasure, if the game had these campaign formats released sooner it could have garnered a lot more attention and kept being supported by GW. But then again... maybe that was for the best

I really like the Objectives format. It's so simple and customizable. You craft up a few "+X CP" Objectives for narrative goals you can do during the game, and you can go invent some sort of a storyline for the Achievements progression.
Did you guys take inspiration from the Paths from Relics of the Crusades, or was this a happy coincidence? Still, I prefer the Objectives giving CPs rather than an XP ladder.

Nuno M wrote:

Did you guys take inspiration from the Paths from Relics of the Crusades, or was this a happy coincidence? Still, I prefer the Objectives giving CPs rather than an XP ladder.

I learned about the Relics supplement after we had been using the objectives in our games. Actually I never had a thorough look at the Relics setting although it appears to be quite well-made. It's just not my type of setting.

The basic idea for objectives and CPs was to give warbands as a whole the same system that characters have with accumulating a sort of XP and "level ups". It felt like a natural way to implement the overall goal of introducing objectives to warbands.

I have a question about giving mark of Onogal (Nurgle):

If the Caravan Master from the Carnival of Chaos take a Mark which one can be chosen?
Leader mark give him Eye of the gods special rule and hopefully later +1T and poison immunity.
Seer mark give him a poison immunity.
Construing to me the leader mark seems more of a valid choice.

Also Possessed magister should choose the seer mark  instead of the leader mark if going for Tzeench?

Any thoughts?

Hm.. I'm a bit lost actually. The Marks of the Dark Gods are for the Marauders of Chaos. They don't apply to Carnival of Chaos, Possessed or other Chaotic warbands (who have their own "versions" already with Nurgle and mutations). So in what situation does the question come up?

Border Town Burning: Advanced Rules Beastman and the Dark gods
page 183.

"If you prefer then the marks of the Dark Gods can be applied to the spell-casters of the following heretical warbands: The Possessed, Carnival of Chaos (Mark of Onogal only) and Dark Elves (Mark of Shornaal only)"

"If you choose to use the marks of the Dark Gods for your Chaos warband, you may also wish to use the Eyes of the Dark Gods special rule. Add +15 gold crowns to the warband leader’s hiring cost and apply the Eyes of the Dark Gods rule as described in the Marauders of Chaos list."

Oh yes, of course! Gosh, it's been so long...

Here's how the Marks are supposed to work:
- Starting Seers choose a "Seer Mark" when they are hired - not a Leader Mark.
- The Leader gets a Mark through the Eye of the Gods rule.
- A Seer who becomes Leader can get another Mark in addition to his original Seer Mark (they have to match though).

The optional rules you quote state two options:

1) Use the Marks for non-Marauder warbands as well. This means that those spell-casters would start with a Seer Mark. So a Caravan Master would get immunity to poison and Touch of Onogal from the start.

2) Furthermore, you may choose to spend +15gc to "gain" the Eye of the Gods special rule, which will grant the warband leader the Leader's Mark of the Gods - or turn them into Spawns of Chaos. So an Onogal Carnival's Caravan Master could get the +1 T effect this way (in addition to the Seer's Mark he started with). Note that the Eye of the Gods rule is a special rule for the warband - not for a single model.

Similarly, the Possessed Magister starts with a Seer's Mark per rule 1) and can get the Leader's Mark later on if you choose to use rule 2) and pay the 15gc.

Thanks for the answers.
Is the player allowed to by the mark(s) after the first battle or in later or it is necessary when the warband starts? (or maybe treat it as a mutation or skill which can be bought)

The starting mark must be chosen when the model is hired (either when you create your initial war band or when you hire an additional spell-caster - after the first died).

For the "Eye of the Gods" rule you must decide at the very beginning when you start playing the warband in a campaign whether you want to be subject to the rule (+15gc) or not at all. It is a permanent rule that affects the leader's price so you cannot simply choose to benefit from it once you can afford it.

I have a question about the Ogre Man Eaters, Master of Arms skill.
it says they are able to weild Difficult to Use weapons in one hand, but as far as i know there is only two weapons that are Difficult to Use, the Morning Star and the Scythe? and the Scythe is also two handed. was the rule intended just to be used with the Morning star?
sorry if this has been answered before!

I can't say anything about this. You best PM werekin directly about this.

DicLombardi wrote:

I have a question about the Ogre Man Eaters, Master of Arms skill.
it says they are able to weild Difficult to Use weapons in one hand, but as far as i know there is only two weapons that are Difficult to Use, the Morning Star and the Scythe? and the Scythe is also two handed. was the rule intended just to be used with the Morning star?
sorry if this has been answered before!

From Bordertown burning?

this one:

"master of arms
The Ogre learns how to use his size. He may now wield a Difficult to Use weapon and a hand weapon at the same time, but not two Difficult to Use weapons."

Basically it means they can use a Morning Star and another one-handed melee weapon....