Revised rules

https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img249/7581/templates.jpg

lower left corner
real size

yea no field defenses for undead

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necro can keep the speed skills if he wants, no problem. remember, he will get fewer spells if he takes them

and vampire should have speed, no question about it!

it is the reast of the heroes that should be limited/ challenged in this area.

Asp wrote:

hmm, but is infiltration good when not used to explot scenario objectives?

Oh, of course. Being able to place up to 6 guys outside of your deployment zone is often very handy, even if it is just a few inches forward so they can start in that building that was *just* outside their deployment zone.

Defiler: Attacks from the ghouls claws count as being made with Black Lotus.
Defiler: Attacks from the ghouls claws count as being +1 Str against models that cast prayers.
Defiler: Attacks from the ghouls claws count as being made with
Black Lotus. They are also +1 Str against models that cast prayers.
Ghouls and Roses: The ghoul lets loose a terrible, horrifying, screeching wail, chilling the soul of all those that hear it. All unengaged models within 6" of the ghoul must pass a leadership test or run 2d6" directly away from the ghoul in their next movement phase. Note that they do not count as broken - they just want to get away from the terrible howling.

Ghouls skill snatched from Necromunda to reflect that they are in fact eaters of flesh:
Lunch Break:
If a Ghoul takes the last wound off an opponent in close combat they do not roll for wounding. Instead, the victim is always stunned.

If all of a Ghoul's close combat opponents are stunned, then he will stop to feed and the models are considered to be taken out of action, but do not remove the victims as you usually would - just leave them at the Ghoul's feet as a reminder.

At the start of the Ghoul' next turn, roll a Leadership test on his own Leadership. If pass then he has finished his snack and returns to battle as normal.
If he fails then he carries on feeding. Leave the victim in place as a reminder until the Ghoul either stops feeding or is interrupted. After that, remove the victim as you would any other out of action model.

If a Ghouls is interrupted (eg, by being shot and injured or charged), then it will forget its feeding and defend itself as normal.

Models that are taken out of action by a Ghoul must roll twice on the Serious Injuries table and use the lower result.

We haven't had time to play any more; but we painted some models today, and discussed  the rules a bit, and put together some skill lists (we will probably add more later, and some might get changed or removed, but at least it's a start). The pdf's should now be updated.
Btw, thanks for the template; is that US Paper, or what format should it be in to get correct size, if printed?

some things to consider:

eagle eyes: possible exploit with pistols. duelling pistols range 16"
makes a lot of weapons equal because anything can get extra range

haggle: possible exploit. 2d6 is a lot of gold once you have two or three hagglers

unstoppable chage: nobody would ever take it in its present form. too poor

lightning reflexes: too good

As far as Eagle Eyes is concerned, we've always played that it adds 3" to the range of pistols and thrown weapons and 6" to the range of other weapons.

It's not as easily abused that way.

Asp wrote:

eagle eyes: possible exploit with pistols. duelling pistols range 16"
makes a lot of weapons equal because anything can get extra range

CygnusMaximus wrote:

As far as Eagle Eyes is concerned, we've always played that it adds 3" to the range of pistols and thrown weapons and 6" to the range of other weapons.

It's not as easily abused that way.

3" for pistols and 6" for other weapons is how we did it too (just with another wording), so no 16" duelling pistols; but I suppose that it can be quite potent anyway, especially for dwarves...

Asp wrote:

haggle: possible exploit. 2d6 is a lot of gold once you have two or three hagglers

Could be, it seemed quite good, but on the other hand, no one has ever wanted to pick that skill. So it was hard to tell whether to change it in any way, and if, then how... If you have seen it in play, how would you suggest one should modify it to avoid exploits?

Asp wrote:

unstoppable chage: nobody would ever take it in its present form. too poor

Yes, sorry: it was +1 WS AND +1 S, the Strength part just fell out somewhere along the way. Don't know if it would still be to weak, but it sounded pretty decent to me.

Asp wrote:

lightning reflexes: too good

You sure? Or...wait, I think I see what you mean now. What it meant to say was "always Strike First on the first round of close combat.", which I think makes it a rather weak skill; but, yes, if it would work on subsequent turns too, it would be extremely potent.

Will correct those mistakes right away, thanks for pointing them out so fast.

hehe, i handed in my MA and i am just waiting to have it back

Quote :

Could be, it seemed quite good, but on the other
hand, no one has ever wanted to pick that skill. So it was hard to tell
whether to change it in any way, and if, then how... If you have seen it
in play, how would you suggest one should modify it to avoid exploits?

thats the problem. eigther noone takes it and it sucks
or someone takes it 2 or 3 times and its an exploit

i personally dont like moneymaking skills. but new academic skills are a tough challenge

what you could do is make it even better (say a hard 10gc discount) AND say that only one hero can have it at a time

still i prefer a whole new academic skill if possible

Quote :

Yes, sorry: it was +1 WS AND +1 S, the Strength
part just fell out somewhere along the way. Don't know if it would still
be to weak, but it sounded pretty decent to me.

cool. might be a little too good if you use my overkill rule also. but if not it will be fine. you can even add that warrior cannot be intercepted
he is unstoppable after all

Quote :

What it meant to say was "always Strike First on
the first round of close combat.", which I think makes it a rather
weak skill;

err, no. you strike first regardless of initiative and you have the lenient to hit table from coreheim. really good skill, imo. but i concede that it looks bad on paper

Asp wrote:

hehe, i handed in my MA and i am just waiting to have it back

Congratulations!

Asp wrote:

thats the problem. eigther noone takes it and it sucks or someone takes it 2 or 3 times and its an exploiti personally dont like moneymaking skills. but new academic skills are a tough challenge

what you could do is make it even better (say a hard 10gc discount) AND say that only one hero can have it at a time

still i prefer a whole new academic skill if possible

Mmm, restricting it to only one warrior might be a good idea. And, yes, Academic skills are hard...:-/

Asp wrote:

Quote :

Yes, sorry: it was +1 WS AND +1 S, the Strength
part just fell out somewhere along the way. Don't know if it would still
be to weak, but it sounded pretty decent to me.

cool. might be a little too good if you use my overkill rule also. but if not it will be fine.

Not quite, I grant +1 to injury rolls if your Strength is at least 4 points higher that your opponents Toughness (so it is harder to get the bonus against weak enemies, but on the other hand it is still possible to get it against sturdier opponents if you are just strong enough and armed with heavy weapons).
But I don't think that that will be a problem (though I guess some play testing will show).

Asp wrote:

err, no. you strike first regardless of initiative and you have the lenient to hit table from coreheim. really good skill, imo. but i concede that it looks bad on paper

Yes, perhaps it is good enough, as long as you have a decent Initiative...

Not such a bad thing, since it is supposed to be a *speed* skill after all .

Skill revision:
Won't Stay Down: In the recovery phase a model with this skill recovers directly from Stunned to Standing.

Just by-the-by, we find that in my circle vanilla Unstoppable Charge gets taken by human heroes once they hit 6 WS. Being WS7 in the round of the charge is quite potent against many meatshields and ranged specialists as they are often WS3.

I have added some hired swords to my revised rule set, and a chaos warband (Cult of the Shadowlord, a heavily modified Possessed warband), though they remain untested in play as for now. As always, any comments are welcome.
I have also added a special rule that lets Skavens ignore their first OOA, and Greenskins their first non-orc OOA, for the purpose of Routing; and I decided to test the revised Won't Stay Down suggested above.

I was thinking about warband ratings, last time we were playing; the concept is good, but it feels a bit blunt in its current form. Has any one tried to take into account the armament and equipment of the warband also, and not just size and experience? I think most people would agree that a warrior in gromril armour, elven cloak, shield and helmet with a hochland long rifle and gromril spear should be worth more than a warrior (of the same type, with the same # of xp) with just a dagger and a short bow. So, how could one implement this into the rating system? All ideas are welcome.

That's very true, actually I always wondered why items/gear/equipment wasn't being considered for the warband's rating...
I guess you could assign a value to each piece of equipment... and add that to the equation somehow...

One system we used once was 5 points per normal sized dude, 20 points per large target, 2 points per weapon, 1 point per box crossed off, 1 point per base armour value (so 1 point for a 6+ save, 2 for 5+, etc.). Not perfect, but it coped with most things reasonably well and, perhaps most importantly, was very easy to calculate and maintain.

In fact, it was quicker to maintain using this system than using the old one, especially once you got to mid-game. If you didn't get any levels and didn't get any more weapons then your warband rating stayed the same (as it should, I think) and you could go straight into the next game.

The system does not account for Equipment, but really, not every piece of equipment is worth 1 to the warband rating and we couldn't be arsed going through and saying this piece is worth 1, this is worth 3, this is worth 1, this is worth 2, etc.

I suppose you could just add a flat 1 point or something, but I suspect that would just discourage people from getting the interesting pieces of equipment. Anyway, the system detailed above works pretty nicely, but we decided to fix the Dual Wielding thing before tackling this issue so in our current round of testing we are just using the base one from the book.

To start:

Base is XP+5 as per the rules.

Single Weapon / No Buckler or Shield (BASE)
Hand Weapon/Shield or Hand Weapon/Buckler (BASE + 5 or 10 to take into account defensive capabilities)
2 x Hand Weapons (BASE + 20?)
Light Armour (+5)
Heavy Armour (+10)
Magic Armour ie Dwarf/Elf (+15)
Rare Equipment (+Rarity)

This is just to start discussion...and other ideas?

How much would you add for ranged weapons?

Lord 0 wrote:

How much would you add for ranged weapons?

I would say the rating adjustment would be Strength x Number of Shots. So short bow = 3 and sling = 6, for example.

A repeater crossbow would be 6 points, but I think a sling would be 4.5 points (you only get the second shot at half your range). So a short bow, long bow, and elf bow are all 3 points, and a crossbow is 4 points. Would it become 8 points if you have Quickshot?

Pistols, handguns, and hunting rifles would be 2 points? Going up to 4 if you have Pistoleer or Hunter?

Throwing knives would be 3, 4, 9, or 12 points for most people, depending on skills and strength?

hell, it would take like 1.5h to just calculate the warband rating...

Popmouth wrote:

hell, it would take like 1.5h to just calculate the warband rating...

Yes, I agree that the system should be kept fairly quick and simple; preferably it should take no more than 2-3 minutes to calculate, at a maximum. I would also prefer if experience continued to outweigh equipment, even though I would like the later to make some difference. Here are two ideas, with some pro's and con's, that would account for equipment when determining warband rating:

Each weapon (though not the starting dagger), piece of armour or other equipment gives +1 to the warriors rating.
+ This gives a small bonus to people with a two-handed weapon, which is OK since they seem to be the least frequent choice of armament for most models.
+ It would make some of the cheaper pieces of equipment a bit less of a obvious choice for every hero (such as rope & hook, etc.).
+ It will give a higher rating to models with backup weapons, which is nice since they have higher adaptability.
+ It is extremely quick and simple.
- It makes no difference between a hochland long rifle and a short bow, or between a gromril armour and a light armour.

Each warrior gains an equipment bonus to his rating, depending on the total base value of all of his armament and equipment; 10 gc: +1, 25 gc: +2, 50 gc: +3, 75 gc: +4, 100 gc: +5, 150 gc: +6, and 200+ gc: +7.
+ This would make a difference between a hochland long rifle and a short bow, or between a gromril armour and a light armour.
+ It would still somewhat, although indirect, take into account backup weapons on a model, as the value of his equipment would go up if he were to have multiple sets of weapons with him.
- You would have to write down the cost of every piece of equipment on your roster, and it would still take some time to calculate the rating.

Still interrested in other solutions...

let it go

use the vanilla system

(not often that you hear me say that)

Asp wrote:

let it go

use the vanilla system

(not often that you hear me say that)

Since I like most of your rules and ideas about the game (and have stolen quite a few of them), I'm very interrested to hear why you would say that...

well you could make a better ratings system

but all the attempts that i have ever seen have seen added complexity and added calculation time

ratings are not supposed to be a 100% accurate measure of two warbands' relative strengths. the point is that when two warbands are seriously mismatches, the ratings will do *something* to help the underdog.

the point *isnt* to achieve absolute fairness

but that said, your suggestion is close to the ideal ratings system. the problem is though, the ideal ratings system takes too long to calculate

there are many things that even a better ratings system does not account for, like the fact that experience is better on the lower levels where it yields more advances, that +1 A is vastly better than +1 I and so on.

the vanilla system gets close enough without complicating things too much

and even there, some players have trouble calculating ratings according to vanilla (you need to multiply experience of henchmen groups and so on)

Now that all warbands in the campaign have had time to play some matches against each other, we have evaluated the rules a bit, and we concluded that they seem to work rather well. We decided to do some minor adjustments, such as changing Zealots to WS 3, and giving flails and double-handed weapons Armour piercing (-1), but we didn't find much that we thought would benefit from further changes.

We did however decide to revise our scenario list a bit: Occupy was the firs to go, as that scenario always turned into an ordinary skirmish (the objectives were simply impossible to accomplish, before the opponent had already routed), and Wyrdstone hunt got scraped as we introduced Random events into our campaign (since now, all scenarios will have counters in them, that could possible grant extra wyrdstones, making this scenario somewhat redundant). We also made some changes to Dragon hunt (making the dragon weaker in close combat, but slightly better in ranged combat, and changing the victory condition to require warriors inside the lair, not simply within 6" of it) and The middle bridge (turning it into a modified breakthrough). All in all we concluded that we wanted scenarios that forced the players to take action and actually do stuff, and that it is boring when every scenario is just another skirmish in a not-so-clever disguise.

We also decided to introduce Random events into our games. Every battle we place four counters on the battlefield, and if a model ends his movement within 1" of a counter, you roll to determine what it is (2: an artefact, 3-5: miscellaneous equipment, 6-7: a monster, 8-9: some terrain feature, 10-12: wyrdstone). We have only used these Random events in one battle yet, put it looks like a fun addition (though we will try to introduce more items, monsters and events as soon as time permits). We have also decided to set up a goal for the campaign (the warbands are trying to find and gather the 13 great chunks of wyrdstone that hit Mordheim), and have tied this goal to the random events (giving further incitement to explore the counters).

Why do the Zealots get +1 Ws? Ws isnt that great to begin with.