Popmouth's House Rules

So these are the House rules that our Gaming Group most likely will use – at least for now:

Dual Wield – Costs 15g to learn how to DW, anyone who can bare melee-weapons may train in DW. If a model without the skills carries two weapons, he must choose which he is striking with before he rolls.
Shield – shield gives an aditional +1 save in close combat., Buckler gives 6+.
Heavy Armour – No movement penelty when combined with shield.
Hand gun – Gives in addition +1 to injury roll.
Climbing – may be done in the mid of a run/walk (still no running while climbing).
Spears – always strikes first.
Club/mace – cost 8g
Critical hit – no chart, always double wounds, armour saves allowed
Double handed weapon – strikes first when charging

ehm no

nonononononononononono

spear + shield is now the best option (ASF - in all rounds? and does not loose this ability if armed with a bow as in COREHEIM? you've just made elves even better)

double handed weapon and flail are now virtually identical

handgun still sucks


have a look a the COREHEIM equipment setup, its better and tested through as well

its not that COREHEIM cant be improved, its just that is certainly better that what is suggested above

I have to clarify the spear. It is just in the first round, and i'm considering not letting spear use this advantage.
O and we don't have much elves around, so that's no problem.

Your point on DHW is good though.

Well, at least it doesn't suck so much for us not to take it.

Well, the Corheim lists are matched to the Corheim system, not playing Corheim it seems rather silly applying them.

So, spears always strike first on the first round of melee? I always liked that rule (the original rule) better than the revised version.

The modification to handguns might be sufficient to make them worth taking.

actually you can apply most of the stuff without adopting the system itself

alternatively, consider Lord 0's handgun: roll two dice for injury and pick highest

better than yours

Perhaps some of the rules do.

I might consider Lord 0's though It feels more natural to just use a +1 to injury... It is slightly simpler, and is used with other items as well.

If I may interfere, rolling two dice does not slow down play and rolling two dice is vastly superior to a flat +1.

Handguns are S5 in our group, and still not amongst the top tier choices. That's saying something about the margin for improvement.

"alternatively, consider Lord 0's handgun: roll two dice for injury and pick highest...better than yours"

Better in the sense that it makes the handgun more powerful than Popmouth's modification, not necessarily in the sense that it is a better solution. Some "fixes" to the rules I have seen people suggest result in the fix breaking the problem in the other direction. +1 to injury I think might make handguns a viable option; rolling two dice for injury would, I suspect, make them the weapon of choice for everyone.

Of course, I haven't done the math so I could be off here. Let me go grab a pencil (and the pizza I am about to burn if I don't pull it out of the oven...).

OK, did the math (ate the pizza):

Let's see if I can line this up nicely... (nope, gotta re-do it)


Knock Down: +1 to roll = 16.6%; roll 2 dice = 11.1%
Stun: +1 to roll = 33.3% ; roll 2 dice = 33.3%
Out of Action: +1 to roll = 50.0%; roll 2 dice = 55.5%

So, there is a significant shift from knocked down to out of action. My inclination would be to try the more conservative fix first, and see how much that balances things.

To be honest, making them Str 5 weapons seems the more natural fix... interesting that shotguncoffee's experience is that the Str increase did not make them more popular.

S5, AP2 and Concussion IMO

What we currently have for DHW and strike order:
- Attacks with a double-handed weapon will not gain First Strike due to the wielder charging (striking normally instead).
- Attackes with a double-handed weapon will Strike Last is the wielder is not charging.

We changed spear cost to 5gc and gave it First Strike at +1 wielder's Initiative in the first round of combat.

We went even more conservative with Handguns: S5 up to half range. I'm fine with blackpowder weapons being very rare in Mordheim's time range, but they do need something beyond Crossbows. Btw - we also took Quick Shot away from Crossbows along with some other missile weapon refinements.

The Critical Wound mod above really increases the usefulness of armor with saves better than 4+, and Beastmen/Orc heroes will simply love it. We're already using a greatly simplified Critical Wound system, but not this extreme - I'll have to consider this, but I'm not sure that an Armor Save should be allowed against both wounds. (We allow an armor save to block the added wound, but still allow one wound through.)

I would rather prefer dual wielding to be a viable alternative (among several) than just banning it with a hefty fee, anyway: here's my two cent...
Dual Wield – Costs 15g to learn how to DW, anyone who can bare melee-weapons may train in DW. If a model without the skills carries two weapons, he must choose which he is striking with before he rolls. A -1 penalty to hit on all hand-to-hand attacks
Shield – shield gives an aditional +1 save in close combat., Buckler gives 6+.
Heavy Armour – No movement penelty when combined with shield. Also, lower the prices for armour (I have Light at 10 gc and Heavy at 20 gc, but since your critical hits favour armourclad warriors quite strongly you might want them a bit more expensive).
Hand gun – Gives in addition +1 to injury roll. Remove "Prepare shot", it makes the game quicker and hand guns more viable.
Climbing – may be done in the mid of a run/walk (still no running while climbing). (or, you could have vertical surfaces count as difficult terrain but allow running)
Spears – always strikes first, on the first round of hand-to-hand combat. Also gives a +1 bonus to Initiative (makes it somewhat better for low-I warriors, but not quite as good as the pre-revision vanilla rule).
Club/mace – cost 8g (sounds good)
Critical hit – no chart, always double wounds, armour saves allowed (quick and simple, will probably help make armour a more viable choice)
Double handed weapon – strikes first when charging (could work, I prefer to let Strike First and Strike Last cancel each other out)

We haven't done anything to weaken dual-weapon use, but did give the shields the extra +1 in melee. It is a little too early to tell (no campaign recently), but in the handful of games we have played it looks like that alone is enough that shields are making an appearance.

@Tzapquiel – Well, it is not a ban, only a cost, such as the cost of the +2S of a DHW has been included in the game. We are currently using the -1A on both, and I think it works quite fine. Still it is weird that as soon as I throw a club at my archers they can dual wield, even with the penalty.

If you remove prepare shot its like a crossbow with less range and an extra -1 armour save. Quite flavor less for my taste. Even though the simplicity is appealing. Also the prepare shot gives it an interesting tactical element.

I like the prices for fluff, and would rather pump up the value of the Armour than lower the cost...


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@the handgun discussion – I don't think that the popularity is the main issue, and I wouldn't want the gun to be the most common missile weapon, I think the +1 to injury, or perhaps a S5, gives it enough flavor to be worth taking on one or two of your marksmen, or a hero perhaps... I agree that it should be slightly rarer.

@Popmouth... I agree with your comments in regards to Handguns and Armour.

I succumbed to Von Kurst's arguments and did not remove Prepare Shot from Handguns but instead made it S5.

Our Shield and Buckler rules are the same although I also gave body armour (except Toughened Leathers) a save against Serious Injury to "pump up the value of the Armour" as you so nicely put it.

How does the save against serious injury work?

Popmouth wrote:

How does the save against serious injury work?

If you go OOA, you roll a D6 against your Post Battle Save: if you make the save, you don't roll for serious injuries.

Tzapquiel wrote:

Popmouth wrote:

How does the save against serious injury work?

If you go OOA, you roll a D6 against your Post Battle Save: if you make the save, you don't roll for serious injuries.

The Post Battle Save is equal to the Armour Save for each type of armour so Light Armour gives a 6+ Post Battle Save, Heavy Armour gives a 5+ Post Battle Save, etc. I like this rule because it does not slow down the battles by increasing the effectiveness of the armour within the battle but it does give additional benefit to armour to justify the high cost. Some people spice it up by making the house rule more complex (e.g. saying that the armour is destroyed if a 6 is rolled but the warrior "Survives Against the Odds" (and therefore gets +1 experience)) but I'm not sold on this yet.

PS. This house rule comes from the suggestions for the experiemental armour rules on the old SG forums.
Option A
Option B
Option C (I couldn't be bothered finding the original thread but you can find the rules for option C here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mordheim/message/60625)

Popmouth: Of curiosity, what do you see happening in your gaming circle that you are trying to alter or fix with these house-rules? Are you using any unstated house rules for Ithilmar? Heavy armour seems to be identical only cheaper.

Just to clarify, the roll-two-dice-for-injury for handguns isn't my idea - I forget where I read it, but it was definitely not my idea. Would be nice if it was though .

We are only about midway through testing the handgun, and so far it has not at all dislodged the crossbow as the ranged weapon of choice, although it does show up from time to time. Still noone gives handguns to henchmen ever except for one new guy, but at least now a few heroes take handguns instead of no one at all ever, even if they are free. Generally a max of 1 in a warband, but one hero has two of them.

Its double roll for injury is frightning, but the fact you can't use quickshot, its significantly shorter range, its rarity, and - possibly most important of all - its cost seem to mean it is chosen much less often than the crossbow.

@Lord0 – I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The Heavy Armour isn't cheaper and I guess that the main issue is balancing some things out – not totaly, just so that for example DW isn't the most obvious choice.

Well, I think it shouldn't be chosen as often as a crossbow, though it is nice with one or two to flavor the game.

@Popmouth... I think that Lord 0 was referring to the fact that your house rules seem to make Heavy Armour the same as Ithilmar Armour as they both grant a 5+ AS and do not have any movement penalties when used with a Shield.

Ah, that is true, I forgot that, well maybe we could leave the Heavy Armour as it is, or perhaps give ithilmar armour another rule, how about +1'' to charge? Or perhaps a ward save of 6+ in addition.

In my group we class Ithilmar as a kind of light armour rather than heavy. That may or may not help do what you want.

What I was asking in the first part of the question was what are you trying to change or fix? I am guessing you don't like the amount your group is using Dual Wielding, but are they also using too many clubs? Are you not seeing enough climbing in your games? Not enough spears? etc. What are the objectives?

If I know what you are aiming for it is easier for me to tell if I think your rules are on target or off-target or perhaps have an unintended side-effect .

Well, we're not trying to house rule each other out in our group. We thought basically that Dual Wield was far to superior, so our aim is basically to not make other things more attractive, rather just worth taking. If one is keen to win DW is the most reasonable option if played by the vanilla rules. Now, we don't power game that much, still but we really wanted other options to at least be kind of good.
Now we also, as pointed out earlier saw a problem with the DW was that it was so aviable; stick a club at anyone and they can DW – neither game-wise, nor fluff-wise we saw this as something appealing.
So I think that was the main reason for our house rules...

Well, DW will certainly be discouraged from henchmen with the fee. I think, though, making the cheapest weapon the Axe will discourage people taking the shield as an offhand.

If the cheapest weapon you can buy for a meat-shield is the axe then the proliferation of axes is going to make lower levels of armour less attractive for everyone, particularly Toughened leathers, light armour, bucklers, and shields with no other armour.