Dwarf Rangers and the Black Orc Overseer

I was reading the nemesis campaign warband rules just then, they seemed quite balanced and fun to play and make models for but these things bugged me:

1. The entry for dwarf longbeards in the dwarf rangers warband has initiative 3 (I3). Is that a mistake? Even the dwarf leader does not have initiative that high!

2. The black Orc Overseer seems like a brilliant idea for a hired sword. But if your leader dies he takes over the warband and you STILL have to pay his 20gc upkeep fee!! To put it into perspective 20gc is more than the 15gc upkeep fee for a troll!! Is this ruling correct? Has anyone ever house ruled this?

3. Can you change the orc overseers equipment if he becomes your leader? Does he gain a different xp table and start with 20 xp points? I take it that he literally just becomes a hero for the warband.

Still though, the rules are great and feature an interesting set of warbands to play with. I especially like the bandit warband!!

Wait a sec, the Black Orc Overseer rules I know of have a 40g upkeep fee. Which is crazy!

@feelingfine69...

1) I'm guessing that Initiative for Dwarf Longbeards is correct. They are very experienced in battle possibly more than the Dwarf Runesmith.

2) The Black Orc Overseer has an ongoing upkeep of 40gc as the leader but does not count towards the size of the warband when selling treasure. Yikes!

3) As the rules are written it is not possible to rearm the Black Orc Overseer.

The Black Orc Overseer is another one of those good ideas, not really playable offerings that litter the gaming landscape.

RationalLemming wrote:

2) The Black Orc Overseer has an ongoing upkeep of 40gc as the leader but does not count towards the size of the warband when selling treasure. Yikes!

That does not warrent the massive upkeep cost though (imo) oh well. Maybe a mordheim heavyweight like cianty can lend his wisdom on this one? I understand he was involved in the nemesis crown rules.

feelingfine69 wrote:

1. The entry for dwarf longbeards in the dwarf rangers warband has initiative 3 (I3). Is that a mistake? Even the dwarf leader does not have initiative that high!

I didn't write the rules for the Dwarf Rangers so I can't tell if this was a typo. However, if you compare the profile to the Long Beards profile from the Warhammer 5th Edition Dwarfs armybook (1996), then you will see that they have the same Initiative, but this Mordheim version has -1 Strength. Compared to the 6th Edition armybook (2000), the warband's version has +1 Initative and -1 Strength. Mordheim came out with the 5th edition being the current one and that is - in my opinion - what all profiles should be based on/balanced against, so the Initative seems correct. The -1 Strength is probably due to balance reasons.

feelingfine69 wrote:

2. The black Orc Overseer seems like a brilliant idea for a hired sword. But if your leader dies he takes over the warband and you STILL have to pay his 20gc upkeep fee!! To put it into perspective 20gc is more than the 15gc upkeep fee for a troll!! Is this ruling correct? Has anyone ever house ruled this?

Well, I can count the number of useful/playable Hired Swords on one hand and the Overseer doesn't make it into the list. Stu (Werekin) is working on an article about Hired Swords and some rules suggestions to give them a cool twist to make them more interesting and relevant to the game.

And yeah, it's 40gc, not 20gc. 20 wouldn't be that bad, would it? Why not agree on 20gc with your gaming group and see how it goes?

feelingfine69 wrote:

3. Can you change the orc overseers equipment if he becomes your leader? Does he gain a different xp table and start with 20 xp points? I take it that he literally just becomes a hero for the warband.

The rules don't say that you can equip him, so you can't. The only thing that changes is that he gets the Leader special rule and counts as the warband leader. He still is a Hired Sword with upkeep cost that doesn't count to the warband size.

No model ever changes to 20 xp or to a different equipment table when becoming a leader (or Hero) unless specifically stated (and I can't think of any such instance now). Experience points don't "jump up". The standard leaders only start with 20 xp to make up for their higher starting profile (which makes them weaker than the other Heroes of their warband in the long run). Also models usually stick to the equipment chart that is listed in their entry, even if they become Heroes or Leaders.

Thanks Cianty, the longbeard thing makes sense now. Extra I sounds good to me.

[quote="cianty"]

feelingfine69 wrote:

No model ever changes to 20 xp or to a different equipment table when becoming a leader (or Hero) unless specifically stated (and I can't think of any such instance now). Experience points don't "jump up". The standard leaders only start with 20 xp to make up for their higher starting profile (which makes them weaker than the other Heroes of their warband in the long run). Also models usually stick to the equipment chart that is listed in their entry, even if they become Heroes or Leaders.

I didnt mean he gets extra experience, i meant does his experience chart change from the henchmen one to the hero one but i mustn't have been thinking straight because thats what a LSGT would do lol

feelingfine69 wrote:

I didnt mean he gets extra experience, i meant does his experience chart change from the henchmen one to the hero one but i mustn't have been thinking straight because thats what a LSGT would do lol

Uh, sorry! Now I get it! Yeah, since it doesn't state that the Orc now uses a different XP table, he does not. As a HS at least he uses the Heroes' advance chart for determining skills and stat increases.