Handguns.

Of course you can . The only weapons you cannot poison are Blackpowder weapons. It is in the Poisons section of the main rulebook near the start where all the Miscellaneous Equipment is detailed.

To me, shooting half as often at less range is a pretty significant disadvantage and the fact that you have to pay more money and (later) a rare roll to get it means that, in my circle anyway, pretty much no one bothers with it at all. Well, under base rules that is.

I'm going on record as being fine with handguns as is.
Focusing just on Mordheim the rules fit the stated fluff, that handguns are rare and not very effective.

The rules also mirror other rules systems within the GW family of games. LotHS uses similar rules (Slow reload) and eliminates Hunter and Pistolier. Warhammer has dropped the prepare shot rule but that fits more with the type of action (mass battle) that Warhammer is trying to simulate.

If you are simulating small unit combat with the level of technology then handguns are about right. The bow was better. The crossbow is too effective. It should be nerfed not handguns. (Drop Quickshot)

"The rules also mirror other rules systems within the GW family of games."

Actually, in Warhammer handguns can fire every turn...

Read two more sentences and realise that Von Kurst is aware of that and even get an explanation of why he thinks its better to keep them firing every other round in mordheim.


Thanks for the input Von Kurst! I will think about dropping Quickshot for Handguns.. maybe that''s the better modification than boosting handguns.. hummm..

We always assumed Quick Shot could only be used for bows, as it totally fuggs up the fluff rules of crossbows and handguns. You cant shoot fast if you still reloads slowly. That is, if I understood it correctly that some players use Quick Shot with handguns and crossbows.

Von Kurst wrote:

I'm going on record as being fine with handguns as is.
Focusing just on Mordheim the rules fit the stated fluff, that handguns are rare and not very effective.

Agreed. I don't mind Handguns as they are at all.

I just wonder if Quick Shot should just cancel-out Prepared Shot, so they can fire every turn with that skill, rather than twice one turn and none the next?

Quick Shot currently only applies to Bows and Crossbows in the Living Rulebook.

I was suggesting that instead of making Handguns more like crossbows, one drop crossbows from Quick Shot. That would make crossbows more in line with their historical counterpart.

Hunter is the skill that allows handguns to fire every turn.

Ah, of course!

Seriously though, the old wind-up crossbows did take a while to reload, and even if there are crossbows who takes faster time to reload, I seriously doubt it would be anything less than impossible to fire two consequtive shots. But thats just me, Im no marksman

"Read two more sentences and realise that Von Kurst is aware of that and
even get an explanation of why he thinks its better to keep them firing
every other round in mordheim."

Somehow I missed that. Apologies.

There are two many neat models with handguns not to make them a viable option, and handguns are quite expensive, so they shouldn't kudzu the other long-range missile weapons.

Crossbows are powerful, but cannot normally move and shoot without a skill that allows it, and cannot be easily enhanced more than they are. The short/regular/long bows all allow move-and-shoot without a skill, and for heroes can be significantly enhanced by hunting arrows (which you only have to search for/pay for once). So I am not convinced that crossbows need nerfing. Maybe it is just my style of play, but with me warbands like Reiklanders will have significantly more bows than crossbows - I prefer being mobile and shooty to having to fort up.

I think all of the missile weapons have strengths and weaknesses, and with the exception of hand guns I think GW did a very good job or balancing them out in various ways. If any one missile weapon is too powerful, it is dueling pistols - a blackpowder weapon. Ironically, the long-range equivalent of dueling pistols, the hand guns, are the one missile weapon that in most groups hardly anyone ever takes. Like von Kurst, I tend to be fairly conservative with house rules, but I think we will probably make some change to handguns so that they are a viable option. I am leaning toward adding Concussion (which for a ranged weapon is less effective than it is for a club) and maybe making them strength 5 at close range (or perhaps quarter range)

We decided to give STR 5 to Handguns ang Logrifles and add a mighty blow rule. If such gun rolls a 6 to hit the target will be auto knocked down (still roll to wound).

Also Longrifels get the accuracy rule of duell pistols. I think most times we will still prefer Bows/Crossbows, but at least when u got no money problems or get lucky find a handgun it might be an option.

We've been out sailing the Great Ocean for the last year since I discovered Styro's Sartosa. Handguns are everywhere out there because of warband choice (often pirates or orcs pretending to be pirates) and equipment lists for Styro's warbands.
In the current campaign all human warbands have several handguns (except Sisters).

I like it because it makes for some fun moments. Humans fire a volley. Skaven scurry forward while they reload. (Discover the second rank with blunderbuss and pistol! Ha!)

I'm fine with handguns as they are for now. I'm using them in my dwarf tresurehunters and with the engineer there's some extra range to them as well. Also a lot of usefull skills can make the handguns even better like the hunter skill (no move or fire).
We just started playing Border Town Burning campaign and my dwarfs managed to kill a necromancer with a first shot in the game and some possessed with no difficulty at all. Great weapons I'd say (or maybe I was just lucky with the dice rolls?).
For slow moving warbands (my dwarfs aren't slow, they just take their time needed to get there, eh!!!) these handguns are great!

"Great weapons I'd say (or maybe I was just lucky with the dice rolls?)."

Unless the extra +1 armor reduction made a difference, the necromancer and the possessed would also have been killed by the cheaper crossbow, since both are STR 4 weapons, and the crossbow actually has the better range (30, compared to the HG's 24).

mweaver wrote:

"Great weapons I'd say (or maybe I was just lucky with the dice rolls?)."

Unless the extra +1 armor reduction made a difference, the necromancer and the possessed would also have been killed by the cheaper crossbow, since both are STR 4 weapons, and the crossbow actually has the better range (30, compared to the HG's 24).

Extra +1, i thought it was +2?? Does a Crossbow counts as +1 due to his S=4 stat???

mweaver wrote:

... since both are STR 4 weapons, and the crossbow actually has the better range (30, compared to the HG's 24).

... and is cheaper, can fire every turn and doesn't need a rarity roll to find.


@seifer: a crossbow has a -1 armour modifier because of S4, yes.

REminenz wrote:

mweaver wrote:

... since both are STR 4 weapons, and the crossbow actually has the better range (30, compared to the HG's 24).

... and is cheaper, can fire every turn and doesn't need a rarity roll to find.


@seifer: a crossbow has a -1 armour modifier because of S4, yes.

Ok so .... their is no need to buy armour and blackpowder weapons anymore

We talked about it in our gaming group... and figured that the S=4 only counted for HtH and not for shooting.
Guess we figured wrong then

But this way armour is just no good... to expensive and way to many things that ignore armour....
So why spent money on it then... and if a crossbow (even a bow) is better then blackpowder weapons, why buy them anyway?

Well, the whole armour issue has been quite the topic here at Toms, and many have come to the conclussion that armour is quite worthless in the vanilla rules.

Von Kurst wrote:

Quick Shot currently only applies to Bows and Crossbows in the Living Rulebook.

I was suggesting that instead of making Handguns more like crossbows, one drop crossbows from Quick Shot. That would make crossbows more in line with their historical counterpart.

Hunter is the skill that allows handguns to fire every turn.

While I think dropping QuickShot on crossbows makes some sense as far as historical accuracy goes I don't think it really changes the equation as far as crossbows being much better than handguns. You simply now have a situation where if you spend a skill slot you can have a handgun that fires every turn like the crossbow does without a skill. It still has a shorter range and costs more money plus you need a rarity roll. And for all of this you get an additional -1 to an armor save.

The handgun is the one weapon in Mordheim that seems to have no concievable gameplay reason for it's existance. Unless you're are playing with the Kislevites and can get the +1 to hit with your Streltsi, it is simply counterproductive to take a handgun over a crossbow and even then it's not a clear choice.

This is true. So give Handgun 5S?

Popmouth wrote:

This is true. So give Handgun 5S?

But that doesn't address the main problem with handguns (and long rifles): the "Prepare shot" rule; as long as the crossbow may fire twice the number of shots, compared to the handgun, it will always be a better choice (and apart from making handguns really bad, the rule is unnecessarily slows down gameplay, as you must keep track of when each model last fired his gun). If you want to make handguns a viable alternative to crossbows, I suggest something along these lines:

Handgun (30 gc; Rare 8)
Strength: 4; 24", Move or fire, Armour piercing (-2), Concussion,
Blackpowder weapon

We are going to run a limited campaign later this month, and are modifying handguns (and HLRs, if any turn up) concussion and STR 5 at 1/4 range. I'll let you know how they work out in a few weeks.

Sorry to dredge this topic back up...

I'm now convinced that the problem does lie in crossbows being too good as suggested be a few above. The solution is to drop them from the quickshot skill and make a new strength skill called strong pull. This will allow a model who does not move to shoot twice if they pass a strength test.

This way each weapon would have a skill tied to it which increases fire rate, quickshot for bows, hunter for handguns, and strong pull for crossbows (which only works some of the time).
Coupled with either a +1 to injury added to handguns and i think i have found my favored solution.

My goal is to try to make bows, handguns and crossbows equally appealing to both heroes and henchmen.

Bows:
Heroes - move and fire, cheap, upgraded with hunting arrows, poison, and quickshot
Henchmen - move and fire, cheap

Crossbows:
Heroes - high strength, long range,upgraded with poison, strong pull, and nimble
Henchmen - high strength, long range

Handguns:
Heroes - high strength, armor piercing, +1 injuries, upgraded with superior blackpowder, hunter, and nimble
Henchmen - high strength, armor piercing, +1 injuries

And after all that handguns still have the wild card called the misfire rules. They can blow up or score an automatic strength 5 hit.

Crossbows are good, but I tend toward longbows - especially for henchmen - because I like my shooters mobile. As warbands become more experienced, crossbows do become more common for the heroes, but generally only when they have taken the skill that lets them move and shoot.

The reason I started this thread was that when I was looking through the Dwarf Treasure Hunter Warband list I realised it made no real sense to give Thunderer henchmen Handguns instead of Crossbows; it made me think about the usefulness of Handguns in general, especially when used by henchmen, and I didn't like the idea that it would be so completely unbalanced in favour of practically ANY other missile weapon.

Also since Thunderers get their name from their Handguns, shouldn't they have some kind of rule (although this wouldn't be needed if the weapon itself got 'patched') like Kislev Streltski, to make arming this particular henchmen group with Handguns something to be sought after rather than avoided?