Exploration is Unfair

regarding what I said:

Quote :

successful shooting hits against a stunned model ignores armour and takes them ooa

i may be wrong (though i usually know all the vanilla rules by heart)

we just always played it that way. even before coreheim. where in the rules does it say that it only applies in close combat?

In the core rules, it actually doesn't mention shooting at knocked down or stunned models at all. It's mostly up to interpretation there.

I know I'm a little late jumping into this, but I think the rules are already pretty fair regarding shooting warbands. Long range weapons, as previously stated, are very limited with how much damage they can cause. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to keep them alive.

What I've noticed is that in the beginnings of a campaign a shooty warband tends to do really well, while the more combat oriented ones lag behind. But as everyone gains experience, the combat warbands get more and more powerful while the shooty warbands don't get much better unless they get a new skill for every advance. So, in the beginning the shooters get lots of money and other cool stuff from exploration, but unless they're frugal with their winnings they're going to be quite poor by the end of the campaign.

You may want to consider the skill of the players. Some people are just really good at keeping their heroes alive. It's hardly fair to punish people for that.

That's kind of a hoot and explains a bit of your take on the game. Imagine how different your games would be if you didn't have this little error. I'm so glad I decided to look at this thread.

Stunned and knocked down are introduced in the rules for shooting. When discussing knocked down models the rules state that a model in base contact with an enemy model may be taken out of action in the combat phase if successfully wounded. For Stunned models this information is not given until the rules for close combat when the model is considered OOA without a roll to hit or wound if in base contact with an enemy model, etc.

I have encountered many beginning players who make the assumption that a missile attack on a knocked down or stunned model will have a better chance of taking it OOA when in fact it doesn't. I'm sure this will be a coreheim rule soon though. lol.

Asp wrote:

successful shooting hits against a stunned model ignores armour and takes them ooa

Well Asp you and I don't see eye-to-eye with a lot of things but I believe that this is how my gaming group interpretted the rules also.

Von Kurst wrote:

I have encountered many beginning players who make the assumption that a missile attack on a knocked down or stunned model will have a better chance of taking it OOA when in fact it doesn't. I'm sure this will be a coreheim rule soon though. lol.

We have always played that the shot doesn't auto-hit and a shooter must roll to hit as normal (I assume this is what Asp meant by "successful shooting") but there is no need to wound a stunned model and therefore shooting a stunned model would ignores armour and takes the model OOA. This makes shooting worse than close combat when attacking a knocked down or stunned model because close combat auto-hits but shooting does not. Therefore I don't understand your comment, Von Kurst, unless I have actually misunderstood Asp's comment in the first place.

If shooting must wound stunned models then I'll have to let my gaming group know that we've been playing incorrectly all these years.

As for your suggestion for changing exploration, Asp, I don't really have anything constructive to say sorry.

Here's where all of this is clarified in the rules:

LRB, p. 21 wrote:

Warriors Stunned
A stunned warrior is at the mercy of his enemies. A stunned model is automatically taken out of action if an enemy can attack him in hand-to-hand combat.

Underlining added by me.

Additionally, these rules are only described in the section on hand-to-hand combat where the specific hand-to-hand effects of knocked down are also discussed, whereas the general effects of being stunned (model face-down, turn over to knocked down in subsequent recovery phase) are introduced earlier, in the section on shooting.

On the shooting on kd/stunned models, there is no bonus for the shooter. I have never seen a rule that said it was easier to hit and/or wound a model lying than one stading.

On the exploration suggestion, I like the simple rule with the either 5 or 3 d6. But it does not consider how many members one have. And also you could in theory win a scenario with only one model not taken OOA, and then get 5d6 (6 if it's the leader).
I dont have a better suggestion though.

Popmouth wrote:

Ezikiels fix sounded fun. How do you place the different objects?

we roll for the items prior to setup, so we distribute it either like normal terrain, or roll for the locations (D6, with table quarters affixed to it)

And the easy killing of KD/S models, this is due to the model crouching down and slitting throats, stabbing out eyeballs etc. not because the model is suddenly weaker then a standing version. Shooting therefore has no easy effect, as it cannot aim that well for the vital/exposed parts of the KD/S model.

Quote :

Imagine how different your games would be if you didn't have this little error

the LRB confirms that it is an error, though the printed rulebook leaves it up to interpretation, like so many onther things

its pretty poor design not to link such rules to the kd/ stunned state itself IMO. but thats vanilla for you

i dont think we will impletement this in coreheim. there should be a difference between shooting at a stunned model and shooting at a models that is on its feet

actually the bonus for shooting on a knocked down or stunned model is that you can ignore him!

which means you are not forced to shoot the closest one which means you can aim for the juicy ones in the back!

In close combat you HAVE to ignore kd/st models in favor of standing ones!

That is importent and there is no such safety when being shot at.

Asp wrote:

Quote :

Imagine how different your games would be if you didn't have this little error

the LRB confirms that it is an error, though the printed rulebook leaves it up to interpretation, like so many onther things

its pretty poor design not to link such rules to the kd/ stunned state itself IMO. but thats vanilla for you

i dont think we will impletement this in coreheim. there should be a difference between shooting at a stunned model and shooting at a models that is on its feet

Why should it be a difference? Is it not a great balance to not let the bonus apply to shooting. I don't see much why it should be easier (maybe the hit part since they would move less. Still this is not certain, you could give +1 to hit perhaps if shooting and KD or Stunned) to kill someone with an arrow just because it lies down. I mean, the arrow could it, yet still not be a deadly wound right?
In CC one, as the rules states are at the opponents "mercy"...
We always played that you get NO BONUS whatsoever in CC. I can't find anything that would justify such a rule...

The only bonus to shooting a knocked down/stunned warrior is that if you wound him he's out and you don't need to roll to see what happens. That always seemed obvious to me, my group resolved that one easily

Dmig wrote:

The only bonus to shooting a knocked down/stunned warrior is that if you wound him he's out and you don't need to roll to see what happens. That always seemed obvious to me, my group resolved that one easily

That's not the case though. Nowhere in the shooting rules does it say that wounding a knocked down or stunned model will take him OoA without an injury roll. Those rules are only stated in the hand-to-hand combat section, and even then the rules pretty clearly say that the auto-KO applies in hand-to-hand combat.

[This is all from the Living Rule Book, as I don't have my print copy on hand. Therefore they may be better clarified in the Living Rule Book than in the print copy.]

Shooting at any enemy always requires a "to hit" roll, a "to wound" roll, and an injury roll, regardless of whether they're standing or not.

Out of curiosity, how does the print copy of the rule book read on this? I can't remember if there's any difference...

well.. i stand corrected. I'm totally not bringing that up to anyone I play with

Its my experience that even veteran gaming groups usually misinterpret some of the rules they play by. Since joining this forum I have encountered several that we just got wrong.

I do think that the burden of proof should shift to the "interpretation" folks since the Living Rulebook's rules have been quoted and don't seem to leave room for such "interpretation." I understand that people have played that shooting at stunned models can automatically take them OOA, but this is not written in the rules (Living or original rule book) nor is it in the spirit of said rules. I also understand that your groups can House Rule this to be in line with how you have played in the past.

When my group encounters a rule that we have gotten wrong we usually discuss whether we are going to fix the problem or ignore it.

Dmig wrote:

well.. i stand corrected. I'm totally not bringing that up to anyone I play with

Hahaha, wait 'til one of them joins this forum and sees that you've known all along!

Kidding, of course, you guys should play the way you like it.

Myntokk wrote:

Here's where all of this is clarified in the rules:

LRB, p. 21 wrote:

Warriors Stunned
A stunned warrior is at the mercy of his enemies. A stunned model is automatically taken out of action if an enemy can attack him in hand-to-hand combat.

Underlining added by me.

Additionally, these rules are only described in the section on hand-to-hand combat where the specific hand-to-hand effects of knocked down are also discussed, whereas the general effects of being stunned (model face-down, turn over to knocked down in subsequent recovery phase) are introduced earlier, in the section on shooting.

Thanks Myntokk

Man, I thought this forum had become really boring - hadn't received any emails about replies to posts in days, and all the thread zones claimed "no new" when I checked. Turns our the forum was just lying to me and there are several new threads and older threads with new responses. So, plenty to amuse myself with this morning.

Anyway, on topic:

I like the search rules as written. I don't think they benefit shooty warbands. They do benefit warbands that start with six heroes and penalize warbands that start with four, but they are supposed to because the number of heroes is set to help balance the warband. Change this rule, and you have created balance problems more than you have solved them.

I don't seen anything ambiguous in the original printed rulebook concerning shooting at knocked down or stunned models. On p. 29, in the Shooting section, it notes you can choose not to shoot them even if they are the closest model. Under hit modifiers for shooting, p. 31, no benefit is given for shooting at KD/S models. The basic rules for knocked down and stunned models are in the Shooting section because shooting comes before the Close Combat section. In the section on knocked down (p. 33) the rules note that "in combat [a knocked down model] cannot strike back and the enemy will have a good chance of putting him out of action (See the Warriors Knocked Down section of the Close Combat rules on page 37)." So the only reference to him being vulnerable because he is knocked down specifically refers you to the Close Combat section. In the section on stunned (still p. 33) there is no reference to a stunned model being vulnerable at all. On p. 37 in the Close Combat section the rules note the bonuses an attacker receives when fighting a knocked down or stunned model. ("A stunned model is automatically taken out of action if an enemy can attack him in hand-to-hand combat").


Comparing the original rulebook to the LRB, they seem word for word the same except the page reference in the Shooting section to KD models being vulnerable in hand-to-hand has been adjusted to match the LRB's pagination.

Ezekiel's approach sounds interesting. I may give it a try as a scenario variant, rather than a permanent rule change.

It makes sense: when you shoot at someone, you have a chance to either knock him over, stun him, or put him out of action. That chance remains the same whether he is already knocked down or stunned or not.

I must admit, we played it differently too, so I'll bring this up with my group.

As von Kurst said, it is easy to make a mistake with rules. We never made a mistake on this particular rule, but there are certainly others we played wrong initially.

Just to throw in my 2 cents...I gotta agree with Deaf's first post. Unfairness is what makes the game fun to me. More realistic for the story in my head...

mweaver wrote:

...

I like the search rules as written. I don't think they benefit shooty warbands. They do benefit warbands that start with six heroes and penalize warbands that start with four, but they are supposed to because the number of heroes is set to help balance the warband. Change this rule, and you have created balance problems more than you have solved them.
...

While I disagree with the idea that the current rules don't favor warbands with shooty heroes, I do feel that number of heroes should play a part in exploration.

So, to reflect this, I'll amend my suggestion to limit the number of total exploration dice to the number of heroes participating in the battle.

Ezekiel wrote:

we found the exploration somewhat meager ourselves, but what we changed was:
Roll the exploration dice prior to the game -> meaning, with all your heroes... take all the doubles/triples etc. and then ad markers to the battlefield to represent these things (we're currently making all the items, which is remarkably easy - save for the buildings, but we just nominate buildings as shop or archery etc.) you do not get money or special bonuses at this time!
Then start your game.
if you claim an item which can be carried/escorted (in the case of survivors) and live to take it along with you, it's yours. if you enter a building or such, you can claim items.

During the game, mark the models carrying items. if OoA, they can be claimed by other players. (therefore it's good to have markers to lay about.

If there is a winner, this player gets to search and claim the other items as well.

After the game, roll with the remaining heroes on the exploration table, and then you get your wyrdstone/treasure But not the double/triple awards!

this way, camping is discouraged, and it adds a bit of extra tactics to the game. -> rushing head on to meet the enemy and slay him is not always the most profitable way with this system, as items need to be claimed (that is after all what we're here for!)

Thats COOL! Why not roll for the amount of shards that are on the table, like wyrdstone hunt or just mark places where wyrdstone "could be found" and roll a certain number to find it. maybe a table or such.. might be an idea to work out

I like these ideas for occasional variations, but not as the standard - because they would tend to make all scenarios variations of the Wyrdstone hunt scenario.

true, mweaver.

But isnt THAT exactly the kinda thing ALL warbands do in mordheim?