What warband to choose for sturdy fellows?

I'm looking for a warband which is a bit more sturdy, a small group of elite warband members, with access to some weapons.

Somehow elves and humans just die when I play them. The group I play with already has a dwarf and beastmen warband, so those are out of the question (at least the dwarf adventurers). Miners could be an alternative off course.

I've looked at black/chaos dwarfs, but they seem really weak. Yes, T4 and nice theme, but the "only 4 heroes on start", lack of dwarf war axe and crossbow makes me really doubt their effectiveness compared to the regular dwarfs.

What would you recommend? I can theme just about anything, so it should not be to hard finding/theming the warband.

Well, dwarves really are the obvious answer, the almost indestructible little fellows. You could create a band and write a good back story for them, so they are not a clone of the other band in feel...

Orcs are another possibility, and you can run a band without goblins if you want. The orcs have T4, the shaman has an effective spell list (although he suffers in the long run from not having access to Academic skills - still he can get up in someone's face and stomp the crap out of them, and tends to earn a fair amount of experience). The orcs also have access to bows and crossbows, so they can be fairly shooty. They also only start with four heroes, of course.

when are you going to pick a warband and stick to it for a while?

You got some good upgrades and a ghoul hero last friday + no DEAD dead guys, so why change again?

That said, if you really wanna change then maybe lizardmen would be a good choice (http://www.mordheimer.com/warbands/unofficial/lizardmen.htm)? Put the T4 saurus with 5+ scaly skin save up front to do the fighting and use the skinks to do some ranged damage. Also you can get this skill for your saurus hero's to make them even tougher:

Toughened Hide: Through years of battle the Saurus’ hide has become hardened and the Saurus will only be taken Out Of Action on a 6+.

And otherwise O&G are an obvious choice (or even black orcs).

I thought about lizzards, but given that all but one hero are skinks, with T2, I thought, nah.

By the way - Mithras has a point about giving up on a warband too soon...

mweaver wrote:

I thought about lizzards, but given that all but one hero are skinks, with T2, I thought, nah.

By the way - Mithras has a point about giving up on a warband too soon...

I'm not giving up on my undead (yet), but I want to try out as much warbands as I like. I have tried several but they all seem to lack the toughness to withstand a single battle. My undead just got "lucky" last friday, but otherwise did not do a very well job.

Ah well ... I'll just see....

Thnx for the advice guys. Will make a greenskin warband though ... just because they are awesome!

by the way: I have checked lizards, but like mweaver said, only 1 saurus is tough, the rest is just like a weak goblin with scales....

In most fights, you're gonna loose guys. Sometimes, they are going to wind up dead. It happens. But in a campaign, they can recover. The most important character is, of course, the captain. With the undead, the vampire is nasty right out the gate, with plenty of potential for becoming even nastier!

Black Orcs or just plain orcs.

Ded'killy an' Stompy. We'z can shoot dem beasties up proppa too before we smash der faces in, cuz dem gits dunno how ta use da shootaz!

Two thoughts came to mind that I have not seen anyone else mention. The first is the Maneaters from BTB, an all ogre warband. A second option might just be the Pit Fighters list from Town Cryer 14. I know the Pit Fighters are human, but they start with six heroes, one of which is a Dwarf Troll Slayer, and also have the option to take an Ogre Pit Fighter as a henchman. Indeed, your warband could conceivably have two Ogres and two Dwarf Slayers, backed up by five additional humans (your heroes) and 8 Pit Fighters (the hired sword in the LRB is a henchman option). I would fear being in hth with such a warband.

Nothing says sturdy like toughness 4 with 2 wounds and nothing does sturdy better than man eaters (albeit possessed may come in a close second). Just try and stay away from those pesky large models *yuck*.

The ogres are an interesting choice too, thnx for that.

I know I will be losing some guys, but somehow the only warband that does not get completly wiped in cc when I play them ... are the warbands I don't bring in CC anyway. I've had an all-shooty warband in previous campaigns but that seems to get pretty darn dull at some point.

It might be because I usually play for fun instead of pure victory (the way mordheim should be imho) but the fun is quickly gone when even a 15 point hound or squig tends to bring down half my warband. Until this moment I have played:
- Adventurers
- Humans (reiklanders / ostlanders etc.)
- Pirates
- Undead
- sisters of sigmar

And of all these warbands only the ostlanders got somewhere, simply because I avoided close combat like a madman and thus gaining survivor experience. I just feel that a warband which I can get in CC, having some fair shooty backup would be the best playing style for me. Greenskins are an excellent choice, as well as the dwarfs (nothing says sturdy and defense more than our vertically challenged fellows) but like I mentioned before, splendor already has a magnificant dwarf warband. A black dwarf warband with a counterposing story would be ever so cool, but the warband list is weak beyond imagination. No wonder they won't get picked more often.

First off, I want to see what the undead will do in the next campaign match.

By the way, is there an overview of all warbands available for the picking somewhere?

See the Watchtower in Mordheim Resources on this forum. Keep in mind that the existence of a list of warbands is not permission by the players in your group to use those warbands. Some are atrocious.

Finding a warband that fits your style of play is important. Other factors include the length of campaign and the rules you use or don't use.

In our current campaign the Undead are totally dominant. It is nearly impossible for any of the other warbands (4 pirates of various Sartosan varieties, Clan Pesilens, Orcs, Forest Goblins, Dark Elves or Sisters to survive a round of combat with the S6, T5 W3 vampire. We have been playing for 7 weeks of which the Undead player has missed 2 sessions but has never been defeated or lost more than a henchman or 2 per game. Of course it doesn't hurt that he rolled Returning a Favor after his first game and picked an ogre bodyguard...